Welcome back for another #WIPITUP Wednesday blog hop post from my upcoming book ‘Taken by the Enemy’! This week’s post is from much farther into the book where Emmie should know better than to cross the line with Lucian, but she takes it a step too far anyway. Enjoy!

—

He stood up, facing off with her and she hated that to meet his eyes she had to look up at him. “Don’t do this,” he whispered, but her rage overflowed from that hollow place inside her, filling her to the brim.

“Shut up, Lucian.” Emmie turned to walk away from him, and the collective gasp from a few people around her should have been warning enough that she’d gone too far, but it was made clear when he yanked her back by her hair.

“You do not get to speak to me that way.” Lucian pulled her back against him, his fist twisting in her hair until the pain made her eyes water. “I warned you,” he hissed into her ear, and she remembered his threats from a few days before.

“No, no, Lucian -”

“Quiet. You’ve lost the right to speak. You’ll earn it back once you’ve been punished.” His voice was like iron as he pulled her with him through the gathering of people to a nearby tree. “Someone bring me some rope!”

“Lucian! Don’t do this, don’t -”

He shoved her forward against the tree and pressed himself against her back. “Be glad I’m not stripping you naked for this.” Lucian spoke low, and she could hear the anger in his voice. Someone must have brought him rope because he grabbed one of her arms and a rough loop slid over her wrist. “Move and it will be worse, I promise.”

When he stepped away from her, her first thought was to run, but he was already wrapping the rope around the tree, and then he had her other wrist in his grip and the rope was being pulled tight. Emmie couldn’t see what he’d done, but when he appeared next to her she couldn’t move back. “I’m sorry -”

“No. You’re not.” Lucian’s voice was hard as he reached between her and the tree to unbutton her pants, jerking them down along with her underwear despite her efforts to close her thighs. “But you might be after this.”

—

Eek! I think Emmie might have made him angry, what do you think? I do hope you’ll keep coming back for more snippets of this book and my others I’ll be working on soon, because NEWS! ”Taken by the Enemy’ is officially done and is off to the publisher! I hope to be able to make more official announcements about that partnership soon, but until then check out these other hot snippets on the blog hop below.