Dark Castle by Shanna Handel

6

Santo

My blackJagis parked beside the Ferrari. I must have been going about a hundred trying to find her. The breath I’d been holding rushed from my chest the moment I spotted the blue car. I’ll have to have someone come get it when we’re finished here. There’s no way she’s driving home.

A fire burns in me, an anger I’ve not known before. I’m usually the cool one of my brothers, my blood running like ice. It takes a lot to rile me up.

Willow Rosa just did.

“Leaving the castle? Going in the woods when you know the Bianchis and Meralos are out for blood?” I don’t mention the man she’s meeting. No need for her to know how livid it makes me to think of her with another man.

It’s beside the point.

What I’m really pissed about is that she broke our rules. Rules that were put in place to keep her safe. Rules are rules and she swore she’d obey them, promised me and Aldo she’d never step foot outside the castle wall without a guard.

I wrap my hand tighter around hers. “You lied.”

“How so?” She gives a little sniff, caught somewhere between fear and indignance.

Indignance that I’ll spank right out of her. “You made a promise not to leave.”

“Oh. That.” Her fingers wrap around mine. An ounce of empathy creeps into my chest from the small gesture. I push it away. She’s going to learn her lesson and I’m going to teach it to her. Her voice is small. “It’s just that, there was no other way.”

Cue the heartstrings. I break them in two. I pull her in the direction of where she parked my car, its bright blue paint shining through the branches. “Nice job trying to hide the car by the way, I could spot it a mile down the road. Why’d you take it, anyway, if you’ve snuck off countless times on foot?”

“I really don’t know. I just wanted to do something a little…different…I guess?” She gives a little shrug.

The castle’s being watched. Someone could have followed her, found her here, alone in the woods. God knows what they could have done to her. A sick feeling wrenches my gut at the thought and the need to punish her grows stronger.

My gaze burns into hers. “I need you to understand that this can’t happen again.”

“Okay.” Her eyes look up at me, wide and trusting and filled with regret.

But it’s not enough. Her regret is not enough. I want her pain. I want her, the next time she thinks to do something so foolish and puts herself in danger, to pause and remember this moment and reconsider.

I want her ass on fire.

I grab her arm, pulling her body against the car she stole. “Oh! No!” She struggles against me, but she’s no match for me as I bend her at the waist, pushing her down over the hood of the car. Her cheek presses into the cool metal. Her punishment will be more memorable this way. And when she sees this shade of blue, she’ll always think of me.

She looks so beautiful, lying here over my car, completely under my control. She looks like she belongs to me just as much as this car does. But she doesn’t. I swallow the thought down. She’s not mine. I’m only teaching her a lesson.

I press my hand against her lower back, keeping her in place as I bring my hand down over her dusty rose-covered bottom. She cries out as my hand makes contact with her ass. Soon, her curves will match her dress in color.

“Tell me, will you be so quick to lie next time?” I spank her again, enjoying the way my palm comes in contact with her bouncy ass.

“No! I won’t. But who do you think you are to do this to me?” Her hips wriggle against the hood of my car. Her little shimmy has my cock twitching in my trousers.

I want to see what’s under that skirt. I grab the hem of her dress. “Someone who’s keeping your ass out of harm’s way.”

“My ass is certainly in harm’s way now!” she shrieks. I pull up her dress, inching it over the backs of her bare thighs. She glances over her shoulder, her eyes frantic. “What are you doing?”

“Just looking.” The tip of my tongue runs over my bottom lip as I reveal her lovely body. Her ass is just perfect, round and firm, white lace panties encasing her never-been-touched curves. At least, I’d thought they’d never been touched. I think of the man she meets in the woods, bringing my hand down harder than I mean to.

It should have been me…

“Ow! Put my dress back down this instant. If my sister hears about this—”

I run the tips of my fingers over her pinkening flesh. “She’ll what? Do you really want anyone to know about this? How I put you over the hood of my car and spanked you like the naughty little girl that you are?” My fingers creep higher, hooking around the elastic waistband of her panties. “How I pulled your panties down?”

I know she’s wet underneath them.

“Pull down my…” Her voice trails off as she stares up at me in horror. “What? You wouldn’t dare!”

I tug them down.

Her ass is bared to me, rosy from my hand but not yet rosy enough. I tuck the panties just below her curves, leaving them there, straining against the tops of her thighs.

I can’t help myself. I’m here to punish, but I want to touch. I stroke my palm over her beautiful curves. She gives a shaky sigh of surrender. She wants to be touched.

She wants me to touch her.

I can’t. Aldo will agree with me punishing her. He would not, however, be happy with me pleasuring her while I do it. I focus on the task at hand. Reminding Willow Rosa of her promise to our family.

“You will not leave the castle walls again.” I spank her bare right cheek, hard. When I lift my hand there’s an angry red handprint on her skin. I spank her again, in the same spot, making a whine rise from the back of her throat. I repeat the punishment on her left cheek. More angry red handprints.

“I won’t! I promise!” There are tears in her voice. But I don’t stop. All thoughts of her beautiful body are gone from my mind. All I can think of is her in these woods, alone, and the danger she put herself in.

“Willow, do it again and it won’t be my hand. It’ll be my belt.” I pepper her ass with a volley of spanks.

“I promise. I won’t do it—again,” she chokes through her tears.

“Good.” I snap her panties back into place, smoothing her skirts down. I help her up from the hood.

She stands before me and she looks so pitiful, her hair all mussed up around her face, her brown eyes shining with fresh, unshed tears. There’s a red splotch on her face where her cheek rested on the car hood.

She stands there a moment. The silence between us grows. Her big eyes lock on mine. “Hold me.”

“What?” Her whispered words catch me by surprise. My voice goes gruff. “Hold…you?”

“Yes.” She nods through her tears. Her face is flushed, her hands wringing as she stares at me expectantly. “I just need to be held.”

I can’t tear my eyes from her face. I now know why I cancelled the date this morning. Why I lurk about in Sophia’s baking kitchen too much when I don’t even eat bread.

Why I can’t think of any girl but this one.

“Come here.” Everything in me screams to throw her in the car and get back to the castle as fast as possible, but I don’t. I reach out and I take her in my arms. I hold her tight against my chest. I stroke her silky hair, resting my chin on the top of her head, and I hold her.

She gives a sigh of contentment as she melts against me. God, she fits so perfectly in my arms. Does she have to be such a perfect fit? And what’s that soft, sweet scent rising toward me? Strawberries?

I nuzzle my nose into her hair. It’s strawberry shampoo and, just…her. Willow. A pure, clean scent that makes my heart lose a beat in my chest.

She pulls away, her nose crinkling as she smiles through her tears. “Were you…smelling me?”

“No.”

I wasn’t. Not really. I was inhaling her, drinking in her essence. I wrap a hand around the back of her head, pulling her against my chest.

I hold her there until her tears stop. Until she looks up at me with that look in her eyes that I know so well. She wants me to kiss her.

I can’t.

I slide my hand along her cheek, cupping her face against my palm. And I run the pad of my thumb over her full, rosebud lips. “Let’s get you back.”

Her lids flutter over her eyes as she looks away, her face heated.

I take her hand and open her door. I help her into the car. She sits in the black leather seat, avoiding my gaze.

I grab the seat belt, pulling it across her chest. I latch the metal buckle with a click. “Hey.”

She glances up at me.

I lean down, brushing my lips against her cheek.

A smile creeps across her face.

It’s not much. It’s all I can give her. A smile.

The rest I’ll leave for her lover in the woods.