Claiming the Runaway by Emma Bray

Chapter Six

Hadley

I’m so deliriously happy.Damon held me all night after he took me for the first time. Yes, there was a pinch of pain when he’d shredded my innocence, but after that, there had been nothing but pleasure.

Such intense pleasure…

I’d wondered if he was going to take me again, but he didn’t. When I’d looked up at him expectantly this morning, he’d groaned and told me to stop looking at him like that, that as much as he wanted to sink into me again my body needed to rest.

I feel the twinge of soreness between my thighs and suppose he’s right. He’s just as large down there as he is everywhere else, and I am sore.

Deliciously sore. I welcome the soreness because it reminds me of how thoroughly he’d claimed me, how he’d possessively called me his.

I want to be his. I need to be his.

He’d just held me, stroking his hands all down my hair and back and arms, petting me like I was a favored pet. And I’d loved every minute of it. I love being held by him. I love how big he is around me. It makes me feel safe.

When he drops me off at work, he gives me a smoldering kiss that makes my knees so weak they wobble when I stand to walk into the restaurant. He grins at me crookedly like he knows exactly what he does to me before reminding me that he’s right night door if I need anything.

My shift has barely begun and I already can’t wait for it to be over with so we can go home and I can be in his arms again.

Thankfully, my work at the diner always goes by quickly. I stay busy waiting tables, and the constant shuffle back and forth makes time fly.

Everything’s going great until I walk out of the kitchen and over to my section and stop dead in my tracks when I see who’s sitting in a booth by himself.

It’s my stepfather.

My heart rate ticks up, and my palms feel sweaty. I feel that fight or flight instinct rising within me, and just as I’m contemplating running, I see that there’s no use because his eyes are trained right on me.

“Hadley,” the way he says my name makes my skin crawl.

I take a deep breath and try to tell myself that I’m safe here. We’re in public, and he wouldn’t try anything in public with so many people around.

I square my shoulders and take the next couple of steps over to his table. “What can I get for you?” I ask him, pulling out my pad and pen, treating him just like he’s any other customer.

As much as the thought of serving him anything grates on my nerves, I can’t make a scene and risk losing this job. Not when everything is finally going so good for me and my life is looking up. I won’t let him take this away from me.

How did he even get here, though? He’d never taken my mom or me out to eat here. I’d never even known the place existed until Damon had told me about it.

Of course, I shouldn’t be so shocked that Randal knew about places we didn’t. There’s no telling what kind of secret life he’d led outside the house. My mom stayed home high all the time, and I’d rather suck lemons that go anywhere with Randal, so if he went out, of course he went out alone.

Just my luck, though, that he ends up in the one restaurant I happen to work at.

He tsks under his breath as he looks at me, and then his eyes sweep up and down my frame, openly appraising me in my work uniform. I’m completely covered in the black slacks and white button-up top, my hair swept back from my face in a ponytail, but the way he’s looking at me makes me feel like I have nothing on.

“What you can do is come back home,” he tells me frankly. “Your mother has been worried sick about you.”

I doubt that Mom has even been lucid enough to know I’m gone, much less to worry about me.

I don’t say that, though. Instead, I shake my head at Randal. “No, I have a new life now. I’m happy where I’m at.”

Randal’s jaw hardens as he looks up at me. “You’ll bring your ass back home where you belong, or I’ll drag you there by that goddamned ponytail.”

I take an instinctive step back from him. “I’m eighteen now. You can’t make me go anywhere with you if I don’t want to,” I say more bravely than I feel.

His hand snatches out to grab my wrist so fast I don’t have time to move back until he’s already got me held fast in his hard grip.

I can’t help the strangled cry that leaves my lips at the painful pressure. It’s like he’s trying to break my wrist, but the next thing I know a huge form is towering behind me.

“I think you’d better get your hands off her right now,” Damon’s voice is a predatory growl, and I feel my heart leap within me. He’s here. Everything will be okay now. Damon won’t let anything happen to me.

Randal narrows his eyes up at Damon, but he instantly releases my wrist. I pull it back to me and rub it with my hand, a motion that doesn’t go unnoticed by Damon. Fire flashes in his eyes as he looks back at Randal again.

“I’m going to give you until the count of three to get out here, or I swear to God I’ll break your worthless jaw.”

“Who the fuck do you think—“ Randal begins, but then Tony, the owner of the restaurant comes over. I look up and realize that every eye in the restaurant is on us.

“I’m not even giving you until the count of three. Get out,” his head jerks toward the door, telling Randal exactly where to go.

Randal looks between the two men before his eyes flit back to me accusingly. He would act like this is all my fault. That’s just the type of asshole he is. Randal is the king of gaslighting. Nothing is ever his fault in his book.

He mutters something under his breath that I can’t make out, but he heads for the door.

“Don’t ever come back here,” Tony calls after him. “No one manhandles my staff here.”

Randal doesn’t say anything as he exits, the little bell to the restaurant ringing in the dead silence as everyone watches.

My face heats at the stir we’ve caused, but then Tony splays his hands and grins, and everyone in the restaurant applauds like he’s a hero before they get back to their meals.

Damon puts his hand on the small of my back and leads me to the back office area where we’re joined by Tony a second later.

“You know that guy?” Tony asks me.

I nod before confessing. “Yeah, he’s my stepdad.”

Tony shoots a knowing glance over my head at Damon that lets me know Damon must have told him about Randal. While that might should anger me, it doesn’t. Instead, I’m grateful that I don’t have to explain it all again.

“Well, he won’t be coming around here anymore,” Tony assures me. “You want to take the rest of the day off?”

“What?” I ask in surprise before continuing. “No. No way. I’m fine. Really. I promise.”

“Hadley,” Damon begins, but I interrupt him.

“Damon, I’m fine. I won’t let him get to me. I can finish my shift.”

Damon’s eyes flicker with something that I think is pride, and Tony looks pleasantly surprised as well.

Tony nods at me. “Okay, then, if you’re sure you’re okay.”

“I am,” I reiterate. I’m not going to let Randal make me look like I’m a weakling. I might have run from him once, but I’m safe here. I’m not going to let him run me out of my job—even if the manager did offer to let me have the rest of the day off.

“At least go ahead and take your break,” Tony tells me.

“Okay,” I concede to that.

Tony walks away and leaves me and Damon standing together.

Damon reaches out his hand and strokes it down my hair before cupping my cheek. “You sure you’re okay, sweetheart?” His eyes look down at me with concern.

I take a deep breath and nod. “Yeah, I can’t say it wasn’t disconcerting seeing him again, but you guys handled it.” I smile up at him, but his jaw hardens as he thinks back on it.

“I should have snapped his neck,” he grinds out.

I place my hand on his cheek now, and he covers it with his own hand. “Nobody touches you,” he tells me, an almost feral light in his eyes.

“Nobody but you,” I confirm to him, sensing that’s what he needs to hear, and then his lips crash down on mine desperately.

He kisses me feverishly, leaving no doubt in my mind that this isn’t just any kiss. This kiss is a claiming. He’s possessively staking his claim on me, marking me with his lips, and that causes my knees to weaken.

He feels me slumping, and his arms go around me to pull me against him and hold me up.

I’m pressed flush against him, and I feel his hardness pressing against my stomach.

I boldly reach between us to grasp it, and he hisses in a breath.

“Goddamn, Hadley, are you trying to get fucked?”

My core clenches at his crass words. “Yes,” I breath against his lips.

He groans and pulls back from me slightly, his brow furrowed. “Aren’t you still sore, sweetheart?”

“I don’t care,” I tell him, throwing my arms around his neck and burrowing close to him again.

“Fuck,” he groans into my hair, “I can’t say no to you, baby doll.”

He hoists me up, and my legs wrap around his waist. I feel his hardness pressing between my thighs, and I instinctively begin to gyrate against him, seeking that delicious friction that I know leads to intense pleasure.

He carries me into a room that must be Tony’s private office and locks the door before thrusting my back up against it.

“Where are we?” I ask him. As badly as I want him, I don’t want to get fired for letting my boyfriend fuck me in the manager’s office.

“Tony’s private office,” he breaths in between kissing my neck. “Don’t worry. Tony won’t mind even if he finds out.” He grins up at me wickedly as he undoes the buttons on my blouse, pushing one of the cups of my bra down and sucking a nipple into his mouth.

And then I stop caring one way or the other.

I arch against him, offering him my breasts, and he pays the same attention to the other one before he sets me down long enough to unbutton my pants and pull them off me. He doesn’t bother with pulling my panties off. Instead he unzips his jeans, frees his cock, and then hoists me back up against the wall.

“Fuck, baby. I gotta get inside that sweet little pussy right now,” he tells me before he roughly pulls my panties to the side and enters me in one swift thrust.

He captures my cry with his mouth, his tongue plunging in and out of my mouth to mirror the way he pistons his cock in and out of me.

“Fuck, am I hurting you, baby? I should slow down,” It’s like he’s talking both to me and himself, trying to convince himself he needs to be gentler with me, but his body is out of control and doesn’t want to listen.

“No,” I moan against him. “Don’t stop, please don’t stop. Harder,” I tell him. Though there’s a twinge of pain, there’s pleasure too, and all I can think about is more. More of this. More of him. I feel that little ball curling tighter and tighter in my belly, and when he drags himself in and out, he keeps hitting that spot that sends tingles of pleasure all throughout my body.

“Motherfucker,” Damon groans against my neck, increasing the speed of his thrusts. The door is banging, and I don’t see how anyone couldn’t know what’s going on behind this door if anyone comes back here.

“Fuck, baby, I need you to come,” Damon’s voice is gravelly and desperate, and I can feel him swelling impossibly larger inside me. “Need to feel that little pussy fall open around me when I nut in you,” he growls into my ear as he reaches between us and presses his thumb down on my clit.

His dirty talk and that one touch are enough to set me off. I bite my lip, drawing blood as I try to contain the shrill cry that tears throughout my entire being as I come hard. The sound that escapes my lips is strangled and harsh, something between the mix of a moan and a whimper, and I feel my muscles contract around him.

“Fuck, yeah, baby. Oh, here I come, honey, and it’s all for you.” Damon manages to croak in my ear before I feel the hard jets of his spend spraying deep within me, triggering another orgasm.

He buries his head in the crook of my neck to muffle the sound of his groans as he continues to ejaculate deep inside me while my pussy pulses all around him, milking every drop from his swollen member.

He holds me there for what seems like forever. Every muscle in my body is lax when he finally pulls out of me and then makes sure I can stand before he disappears into Tony’s private bathroom and comes out with some wet paper towels.

I lean against the door in a daze as he gently cleans me up before he redresses me like I’m a favorite doll, pulling my pants back up me and then buttoning my shirt back up.

He leans in and presses his lips possessively against mine. “Mine,” he whispers before he pulls back and removes the hair tie from my hair, running his fingers through my hair to straighten out where it became mussed and was falling out from where he’d roughly taken me against the door.

I finally get my wits about me enough to stand up straight, run my fingers through my hair, and gather it back up into a ponytail.

“I think break time is over,” I say.

Damon chuckles before pressing his lips against my forehead. “Best damn break I ever had, sweetheart.”

Me too, I think. God, me too.