Big Sky (10 page)

Luke pulled his gloves off and gripped her chin, forcing her eyes to his. “No, Ronnie. She
asked
for the brand. She knew what it meant, what it signified.”

“That she was no better than cattle for you to use or slaughter at your whim?”

The slap across her cheek knocked the wind out of her.

“You’re a monster,” she said, holding a hand to the warm, red mark he’d no doubt just left on her. “I don’t believe anything you have to say.”

“You had that coming. I’m tired of the way you twist things.”

Veronica scrambled back a few feet. He sat in silence for several minutes. Finally he looked over at her. The disgust in his eyes made her recoil worse than the slap had.

“That brand means something to me, to my family. Anything with that brand on it is mine until the day it dies. She wanted to be mine. I know the way you think. You have to understand that, no matter how much you deny it.”

“I’ll never be yours,” she said, her voice laced with contempt.

“You
are
mine.”

“No.”

“We’ll see.” He stood and scooped her up, going back to the barn with her kicking and screaming in his arms. Her mind blanked, not allowing her to think about what his intentions surely were.

Two other cows were in a pen, waiting their turn. Robert stood in the middle of the barn. His eyes widened when Luke threw Veronica to the ground.

“I’m going to need you to hold her down.”

She looked up at the other man, pleading in her eyes. Now he’d seen how crazy Luke was, somebody had to help her. “Please, don’t let him do this,” she whimpered.

“You appeal to me, not him, Princess. I’m the one who owns you. Do you see the big
G
on the branding iron?”

Robert raised one of the brands out of the heater, and she nearly went mad from panic seeing how bright red the iron was, then he laid it back down in the burner.

She turned to Luke from her sprawled position in the dirt. “P-please, Sir. You can’t do this to me.”

“Can’t? Don’t tell me what I
can’t
do with my property. That won’t play in your favor.”

“I’m sorry.” The tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Are you mine, Ronnie?”

“Y-yes, Sir,” she said, hoping verbal surrender alone would end the frenzy that had started in him again. If he did this to her and she survived it, she’d show the mark to Will and make him feel guilty forever for walking away and leaving her alone with Luke in the kitchen. He could have taken her out of here. Between the mean streets of New York and this, she finally knew which fate was preferable: not this one. Luke was the door with the tiger behind it.

He grabbed the dress and ripped, pulling the fabric apart, leaving her in her underwear. She wasn’t even wearing a bra—the ones in the drawer were so tight she’d finally given up on them. But she was too upset by what was about to happen to her to be concerned with the ranch hand seeing her half naked.

“NO! Please, please. You don’t have to do this.”

“I mark what’s mine. Robert hold her.”

The ranch hand studied her for a minute. “I’m not sure about this, boss.”

Veronica made another attempt to plead her case. “You said Trish asked for the brand. Maybe that’s true, but I’m
begging
you not to do this. Please, I won’t defy you again. I belong to you, please. I’ll never say I don’t again.” She was babbling, repeating herself, unable to stop the endless litany of pleading. Words that had seemed so hard to say a few days ago spilled from her mouth in a desperate bid for safety and protection.

“I also didn’t kidnap her. Face it, sweetheart, there is a lot about our situation that is different.”

“She’s not Trish,” Robert said.

“I know she’s not Trish! Why does everyone keep saying that? But she may as well be.”

Her face heated when he slid two fingers underneath her panties. “She’s so wet right now. Do you want to check for yourself? She was born for this.”

Veronica chanced a look back at Robert. The expression on his face had changed from pity and uncertainty to pure, animal lust. He was lost to her as an ally now. Apparently her body betraying her with arousal, no matter what
she
wanted, was enough to count as consent in his book.

“At the deepest core of her being, all she wants is to be owned and dominated. She wants to come, bucking like a wild horse. You didn’t see her last night. She’s not Trish, but she looks the same and she’s wired the same. She should be marked the same. I need this.”

Veronica changed tactics. “I’ll never forgive you. I’ll hate you if you do this.”

“No. You won’t. You’ll feel like you belong to me, and it will be that much easier to surrender to the things I’ll make you do.”

She wished now that she’d masturbated for him the previous night like he’d asked. If she had, things might not have escalated to this point. All she’d had to do was obey—appease him a little. It didn’t matter if it was right or wrong. The only thing that mattered was surviving his special kind of crazy until she could get away. A job at a strip joint was sounding better and better, but who would hire her with a cattle brand on her hip?

Robert sat in the dirt beside her and put her head on his lap. He trailed fingers through her hair in an attempt to comfort her while she cried. “Just try to be still. It’ll be over in a few seconds.”

How could he go along with this?

“Are you going to be still or are you going to try to fight, because I can’t guarantee it won’t hurt if you thrash around. And you’ll mess up the design.”

Inside, her heart was trying to escape its cage. He was really going to permanently mark her like one of his cows. She couldn’t believe she was lying in her underwear in the dirt, being held by some ranch hand, waiting for a branding iron to strike her skin.

“Are you hearing me, Ronnie?”

“Y-yes, Sir.” She turned to look at him again, the resignation starting to fall over her. “Do you promise I can handle it?” She wasn’t sure it mattered what he said, but she was so terrified she’d take any comfort she could get.

“If your concern is pain, don’t worry. Trust me for one minute. If you don’t trust me not to harm you, trust that I’ve been doing this long enough to know how to do it. Remember what I said. Brands that hurt are either too cool or too hot. I know what the right temperature range is. Trust me.”

How could she trust him? After everything he’d put her through already, extending an ounce of trust to this man was stupid, but what choice did she have?

A moment later, the hot iron struck her skin. She tensed, expecting horrible pain, but it was shockingly minimal. He held the iron to her skin for a few seconds then pulled it away. She turned to find a look of satisfaction in his eyes at having marked her.

Relief and endorphins flooded her as he picked her up and carried her back toward the house. Once they reached the grass, he laid her down and applied an ointment to the brand, then he covered her with her ripped dress.

“W-what are you doing?”

“I’m letting you ride out the endorphin rush out here. And I’m going back to work. Don’t forget dinner by six thirty.”

Veronica’s head fell back on the grass as she looked up at the sky that went on forever. She felt like a cloud, detached from her body, floating up there in the big bright blue. Her breath came in and out in slow, measured sounds that lulled her like the hypnotic waves on the beach. Her college drug experimentation had been limited, but this was almost like being high. It was definitely an altered state. She couldn’t remember ever being this relaxed before as the breeze brushed over her face. The leaves on a nearby apple tree became the most fascinating things she’d ever seen.

A small group of butterflies fluttered around in her line of sight, and she couldn’t be sure if they were even real. When they fluttered off, she felt she’d become one with the tree, the grass she lay on, and the fluffy clouds. She felt open like the sky.

Chapter Five

When Veronica woke, it was to a burning sensation, but it wasn’t the brand. It was the sun she’d fallen asleep in. She looked up to find herself lying in Luke’s shadow.

“I didn’t hear the dinner bell.”

She scrambled to get up but felt dizzy from the heat. He caught her before she fell.

“I’m sorry, Sir. Don’t be mad. I didn’t mean to...” Why was she apologizing to him? Because she was scared. He’d literally scarred her for life while she’d begged him not to.

“It’s all right. You’ve never had an endorphin rush like that before, have you?”

She shook her head.

“Then I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

She winced as he scooped her up and carried her back to the house. Her hip was sore from where the brand had struck her. “It hurts.”

“It’ll be sore for quite a while.”

“You said it wouldn’t hurt.” She was thankful he’d covered her with her dress or a lot more of her would be sunburned.

“I meant it wouldn’t hurt in the way you thought it would. You were expecting searing, agonizing pain, like a small surface burn only a lot worse, but brands don’t work that way. It’s not torture, even though it looks like it to outsiders. Not if you do it right.”

When they reached the house, he sat her at the kitchen table and poured her a tall glass of water. “Drink. You’re dehydrated.”

She drank the water down while he inspected her. He pulled the dress she’d been clutching away to leave her in her panties, covered in dirt. Her arms, shoulders, and face had gotten burned in the sun. The rest had been protected by the dress.

“I’ll be right back.”

He hadn’t yelled at her or done anything bad because she hadn’t made dinner. He returned a few minutes later with a spritz bottle that looked like it had water in it.

“Close your eyes tight and lean your head back.”

She was too drained to argue or ask questions, but she wasn’t prepared when the strong scent of vinegar hit the air. He sprayed her face, arms, and shoulders until she felt like a salad. Then he patted her face with a paper towel to stop it from dripping.

“It’ll help your sunburn,” he said. “You can open your eyes now. Would you like to see your brand?” He said it conversationally as if she’d gone to a trendy body modification shop and selected the design herself. In reality, it was an ugly reminder that he could do whatever he wanted with her, and she didn’t have the means to stop him.

She didn’t know if she ever wanted to see it, but she said “Yes, Sir” to keep him happy.

Luke took her hand and led her upstairs. “I want you to take a cool shower and get cleaned up while I make us something to eat. It’ll have to be grilled cheese and tomato soup tonight. What I had planned for you to make is too involved for this late.”

“T-that’s okay.” She was just glad he wasn’t punishing her for falling asleep in the backyard.

When they reached her bedroom, he stood her in front of the full-length mirror, turning her to the proper angle to see the brand. She thought she might pass out again when she saw it. It was dark red against her pale skin.

“It looks scary when it’s new. When it heals it’ll look something like what you saw on the video, okay? Just leave it alone.” He brushed the hair out of her face with his fingers as if he were soothing her. She couldn’t be sure if he saw Trish when he watched her reflection in the mirror.

Veronica looked again at the brand. If before she’d had even the smallest hope she’d ever be allowed to leave the ranch, that hope was gone, now. With an identifying mark like this, his crimes were painted across her skin, dark and angry—almost bragging: I did this. She stared at the G with the steer horns coming out of it that marked her as Luke’s property.

She didn’t know what to feel. She knew what she was supposed to feel: rage, violation. Instead she felt blank except for the throb between her legs. It started whenever he walked into a room now, whenever he came near her. Part of her would cringe away, tense, afraid he’d touch her, but another part needed him to. When she looked at Luke again, he was staring at his mark, an unapologetic smile curving his lips.

“This is wrong. I didn’t ask for any of this. You do know the difference, right?”

“I saved you,” he said simply, still convinced anything he did to her was okay because she was going to end up on the streets anyway. “Run along and get in the shower. I’ll bring you something to wear.”

She drifted to the upstairs bathroom in a fog. Maybe she was in shock. Or maybe it was the low-level constant buzz of arousal she’d felt from the moment she’d entered his presence—something she’d ignored as best she could until Luke had pointed it out so many times. Her face burned—more from embarrassment than the sunburn—over Luke so casually sliding his fingers inside her panties in full view of the ranch hand. She’d been too afraid at the time of what he was about to do to her, but now in the house, she didn’t think she’d be able to look at the guy at breakfast tomorrow.

A few minutes later, Luke came in with a white cotton nightgownin his hand. The gown had thin straps and was a thin enough material thatit would leave little to the imagination.