A Harmless Little Game (Harmless #1)
By: Meli Raine
I can’t believe you let that happen isn’t exactly the sentence most people want to hear while they’re soaking in the bathtub after having three men drug you and hold you down and enter nearly every orifice on your body.
They couldn’t fit their cocks in my ears. Otherwise, my body was one big game of insert the peg into the hole.
I can’t believe you let that happen.
Daddy shakes Drew’s hand and I start to gag. The retching feeling is stuck in my throat. I don’t make a sound. They ignore me, heads huddled together, eyes on the ground as they murmur and whisper, conferring and transferring information.
I am just a fleshbag. A possession. A piece on a chess board that Daddy moves where he wishes for optimal game play.
And Daddy always plays to win.
I walk into the kitchen and reach for a glass in the cupboard, but instead find breakfast cereal bowls.
Everything has changed.
Four cabinets later and I locate the glasses, new green-tinted tumblers. All the appliances are new, sleek stainless steel nestled in between countertops made of polished pearl marble. Not granite. Marble. I’ll bet Daddy had it flown in from Italy or Slovenia or some obscure country where he helped open a new trade agreement.
Being head of the Foreign Relations committee meant every personal decision carried a political attachment to it.
Even choosing not to prosecute the men who raped his daughter.
The past and the present are blending together in whip-quick succession as I stand in front of the water dispenser, impatiently waiting for my glass to fill. My head is pounding and blood rushes through me like waterfalls are in my ears. My hair is plastered to the back of my neck and every word I can’t hear between Daddy and Drew makes me want to scream.
I know they are talking about me. Figuring out the best way to handle me. Well, Drew’s done his job. Goods have been delivered. Lindsay is under control.
And having me contained is Daddy’s biggest wish. You can’t do damage control on someone who isn’t corralled.
I laugh through my nose at the thought, then feel the prickly sensation. The one that happens right before white dots fill my vision.
Oh, no.
Chapter 6
My knees always fill with a kind of numb tingle right before it happens, like they’re balloons being pumped full of novocaine. My hand slips and the full glass tips over in slow motion. I see the water pour out over the lip, splashing on the ground as I fall.
A part of me braces for the pain of bones against the cold tile of the kitchen floor.
And then warm, powerful arms catch me. I’m braced for an impact that never happens. An arm slides behind my knees, the other under my arms and I’m in the air, Drew’s masculine scent surrounding me like a protective mist. He’s marching with determination, cradling me carefully. My eyes are closed. I know all of this only through my other senses.
Lavender. I smell it, and the scent of beeswax, plus something else unique. As I’m gently laid down on smooth, cool cotton blankets I open my eyes and realize I’m in my old bedroom.
Unlike the rest of the house, it is exactly the same. Exactly. Not a single item has been moved in four years.
I exhale without realizing I’ve been holding my breath. Relief pounds through me like a pulse. If Mom and Dad changed my room, I would probably have a nervous breakdown.
“Jesus, Lindsay, don’t do that again,” Drew rasps in my ear as he sets me down. The brush of hot breath against my earlobe makes me shiver. All the heat in my body pools between my legs. And then it begins to throb, like a beacon begging for Drew to find his way home.
For four years I have suppressed every sexual feeling inside me. My therapists told me that was unhealthy, but I didn’t care. Don’t care. Never, ever cared and never will.
My body is betraying me, though, as it comes alive from Drew’s touch.
“Don’t do what? Faint? So sorry to disappoint you, Drew. I’ll work harder to control involuntary responses to overwhelming situations next time, and all just for you.” Sarcasm fills my voice, the sound dripping with contempt. I have to marshal the negativity. If I don’t, the sound of my own craving will fill the room and Drew will hear it.
Know it.
And reject it.
He flinches, but doesn’t back down. “I meant,” he says, eyes made of steel, “that you have to be more careful.”
“Worried about my safety, suddenly? What a refreshing change.”
This time he goes silent, nose flaring with anger, mouth tightening.
Daddy walks in and looks at me with an expression of concern tinged with something more calculating than just a father’s worry.
“Maybe you’re not ready to come home, Lindsay.” Daddy and Drew exchange a look. “Maybe this is too soon,” he adds. Drew’s face remains blank.
No.
Hell, no.
A switch in my brain flips, pushed by the sheer force of my will to go from A to B. Click. I give him my best fake-genuine smile, tempered slightly with the pretend feeling of being overwhelmed by fainting.