Staking Her Claim...: Book 1 in the Patricks' Brothers series (10 page)

The Fitzsimmons didn’t beat me or break any of my bones like other families I’d lived with had. They didn’t need to because they’d torn apart and broken any innocence I had left inside well before their acts of cruelty deteriorated to include conventional methods such as the physical beatings I was used to. No, this couple didn’t need to make me mind them by using fists or feet when they’d already managed to do something none of the other foster parents I’d lived with ever could.

Phillipe and Raquel Fitzsimmons destroyed obliterated, annihilated a large piece of my soul. A piece I didn’t believe I’d ever reclaim.

From day one onwards things didn’t go from bad to worse like was the usual way of things. Things didn’t start off well to begin with and only ended up getting exponentially worse.

The second full night I spent in my new home my bedroom door opened silently, and Raquel entered dressed in what I can only describe as something out of one of the Victoria’s Secret catalogs I’d looked at occasionally. Phillipe wasn’t far behind, his camera hanging limply around his neck by the strap, his hands clenching open and closed at his sides.

Any thoughts I’d had that he would tell her to get out, to leave me be was quashed when he demanded I put my fingers inside her and bring her to climax. All while he stood close to the edge of my twin bed stroking himself until he eventually came all over his wife’s stomach.

I’d like to tell you that was the end of my humiliation that night, but it wasn’t. Him having a camera, taking photos during their visits became commonplace, but it freaked me the fuck out at the time.

I can still remember the sting of hot tears burning my eyes as he snapped image after image of me cleaning off the come off his spent cock. To make my suffering worse, he did this while his wife wrapped her petite, ice cold hand around my own flaccid cock as she tried desperately to make me hard for her. Something that was entirely useless.

According to Raquel, I was defective because every other man she’d jerked off got hard for her, so it had to be me with the problem. I knew she was full of shit because I was fully functional below the belt. I’d had wet dreams before and felt the stirrings of interest when I saw a beautiful woman in person or in magazines. I didn’t dare tell her that, though.

When they finally left my room after what could have been an hour or ten for all I knew, I wept silently into my pillow until the sun broke the horizon. I felt dirty, used, damaged. I was angry, furious really, but I didn’t have an outlet for all that rage other than taking it out on myself. I scrubbed my skin in the shower that was in the bathroom attached to my bedroom until I was red raw. My skin was screaming at me to stop, but I couldn’t. It felt like bugs were crawling over and beneath my skin, slithering close to the surface but never close enough for me to eradicate them.

By the time the water ran cold, I had dried and dressed, it was time for breakfast, something I didn’t want to go downstairs for. Actually, I considered skipping every meal from here on out, starving to death if it meant I wouldn’t have to see either of those sick freaks ever again, but that didn’t end up being necessary. They weren’t home when I made it to the kitchen, and I quickly realized they’d make themselves scarce for a day or two after they visited me at night.

The night before wasn’t the last night they made me commit heinous, disgusting, acts that only got worse the I got older. Weeks turned into months, and eventually years all consisting of variations on the same theme. I existed solely to pleasure them without a thought for how it was affecting my deteriorating state of mind.

What made the whole thing worse was when Thomas came to live with us. I could have endured if I knew for sure no one else would ever have to be a party to their cruelty, but that wasn’t to be.

After learning they were visiting Thomas too, part of me wanted to call out to them and beg them to visit my room instead. I might not have known the kid well yet, but he didn’t deserve the scars they’d inflict on his soul. Fuck, no one did. But what disgusted me past the point of reason, was that I
tried
harder to please them so they could play out their sick, twisted fantasies with me instead of the boy across the hall.

It wasn’t that I wanted to be abused, far from it. What I want was to save a piece of Thomas’s soul. A piece that still had a chance to make it out of this place relatively unscathed. If I stopped a few visits, one even, maybe then he’d have a night’s sleep that wasn’t plagued with nightmares and horrors he couldn’t fend off.

Years later, when we were both in a place we could talk about some of what happened while we lived with the Fitzsimmons, Thomas gave me a gift I’d only been able to hope for. He told me he’d known all along what I’d done for him, how I sacrificed myself for so that he would be left in peace for just one night. Thomas hugged me as he thanked me for suffering for him.

He promised me that he’d be there if I ever needed anything, and that wasn’t only because I’d taken his share of the abuse. It was because he was my brother and always would be. It was then that I regained a sliver of peace. His gratitude soothed a long since inflicted hurt that I didn’t think would ever be healed.

That aside, it wasn’t the only thing we discussed. And if you’d told me I’d ever share the depravity I’d gone through with another human being, even one that had gone through similar I’d have called you a liar, but that’s what we did.

Thomas relived his experiences in excruciating detail, and I unburdened myself of my humiliation too.

I told Thomas about the six years I spent with the Fitzsimmons, and how that was the sum total of my experience when it came to knowing how to pleasure a woman. Men too. I told him how disgusted I was that the sum total of all my sexual experiences for close to a decade involved one or the other of the sick perverts we’d lived with.

He listened to me recount the number of times I’d had to lick Raquel’s pussy while I fingered her husband’s ass as he jerked off on my face. Something he thankfully hadn’t been subjected to. He didn’t judge me when I promised I’d never use another dildo, vibrator, or anal plug on a woman for as long as I lived.

But the worst memories were conjured from, Phillipe’s brutality. I’d been forced to give him more blow jobs, swallowing as he finished down my throat than I’d ever had to orally pleasure his wife. He made me fuck his ass with numerous implements, the worst bring a lifelike dildo he’s cast from a mold of my own cock. He’d even colored the fucking thing to resemble the exact tint of my flesh.

The most awful times I’d spent with them I could recall were the times he bound and gagged me making Raquel lay across my lap as he dominated her, fucking her ass ruthlessly. In saying that, the humiliation didn’t end there.

They documented ever visit with photos they liked to pull out to torture me when I thought I was safe. I could be sitting doing my homework when images of Raquel riding me like a horse as her husband fucked my mouth would be thrown in front of me as if to remind me what was soon to come.

Their abuse; the mental, emotional, and physical knew no bounds. Their degeneracy was endless. And there seemed to be no limits to the fucked up scenarios they created in which I was destined to be their personal fuck toy.

I prayed for death more times than I’d like to admit, but to me, it felt like that was the only way I’d finally be free. You have to understand, no one is strong enough to withstand that level of abuse for that long without considering the alternatives, no matter how unthinkable they might be. And I have to say, those thoughts only became more frequent after I met Alysia and her brothers.

Every day, every minute I spent with them at their house made me sick. I didn’t feel like I deserved to be there. Someone as filthy, dirty, and tainted as I didn't deserve to sit at their dinner table. They definitely didn’t deserve to share something civilized as a meal between friends.

Emotions warred within, and while I might have felt like a fraud, a boy on the verge of becoming a man who was pretending to be something he wasn’t, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of hope when I spent time with Alysia.

Her simplistic way of looking at life, her light, her beauty, her innocence was something I wanted to bathe in. I wanted to surround myself with her sweet, caring nature and let it heal me. Moreover, I wanted her to know me and accept me anyway. But I knew deep down I couldn’t allow that, because what would happen if she looked at me the same way as
they
did? Not only would I lose my new best friend, but I’d lose the girl I was sure I was in love with too.

Now do you see why I pushed Alysia away? Can you understand I did it for her sake? I sacrificed, accepting the pain it caused me not to spend time with her so that she had a chance at a good, clean life. If you can’t appreciate that, I don’t know what else I can do to make you understand how hard a decision that was to make. In fact, I’m absolutely sure there’s nothing more I can say. You’ll just have to trust that I had her best interests at heart and leave it at that.

My past aside, everything has changed now. I’ve been given a chance I didn’t think I’d get. A gift so to speak. I’ve been given a second chance with the only woman I’ve ever loved, and I won’t be throwing it away this time.

If I have to relive every minute of pain and degradation I suffered at the hands of those monster, I will. I’ll tell her ever sordid detail if she needs to hear it if she gives me another chance to become the kind of man she deserves. I’ll bust my ass to prove I’m worthy of her to her brothers, her best friend, her Mom, and anyone else who matters to her. But no matter what, when I get her in my arms this time, I won’t be letting go. Ever.

“Are you listening to me, Cupcake?” Brookes asks, snapping me out of my daydream. Shit, I really have to stop doing that. Fading in and out during important conversations, or what I assume are necessary conversations.

“Clearly not, big brother. I would’ve thought that was pretty obvious when you had to ask.”

“Don’t be a smartass, Aly. I need you to focus for more than two seconds so I know you’re up to speed on the job I was gonna assign you,” he huffs grumpily.

Not that I’m not grateful he’s finally seen the error in his ways after assigning me to a desk for the past month, but I can’t help but wonder what’s brought about his sudden change of heart. I mean until yesterday he wouldn’t hear of me going back out into the field until she was assured I’d gained back full mobility in my shoulder, and a doctor’s clearance to boot.

Narrowing my eyes at him, I ask,

“What’s the catch? I know you well enough to know this isn’t as straightforward as you’re claiming it is, so what gives?”

Chuckling low in his throat, Brookes crosses his muscular arms across his chest and stares at me from his seat behind his massive desk. Seriously, his desk deserves a mention because not only is it ginormous, but it is also the epitome of what you imagine when you envisage a lord and ruler on high’s desk. Mind you, that what my brothers and I call him behind his back when we know he’s not listening, so I suppose it fits.

The mahogany monolith takes up a quarter of office and isn’t overshadowed by any of the other oversized, masculine furniture he’s cluttered the space with. Something I wouldn’t have thought possible if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes, but there you have it.

“No catch, Aly. You’ll be working alone just how you like it, and I promise I won’t have one of the boys tail you. They’re too busy for that shit anyway. We’ve barely got enough people to cover the caseload as it is without assigning you your own personal bodyguard. Not that I wouldn’t if I had the slightest inkling you were in danger, but right now we’re up to our asses in clients so you’re in luck.”

Hmm, I muse ruefully. It’s nice to know he can’t possibly spare anyone to personally piss me off, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t pick up on his unspoken intonation that he does, genuinely believe I need babysitting.

Making a note to kick his ass later, I ask,

“So what have you got for me, Bossman?”

Rolling his eyes, Brookes grabs the file off the top of the stack sitting to his left and opens it, flicking through the pages quickly until he finds the one he’s looking for.

“Maxwell Clark. Twenty-six years old. He was a dot-com millionaire by the age of twenty-one, turned billionaire by the age of twenty-five.”

“Jesus,” I hiss under my breath.

Shaking his head, Brookes says,

“Yeah, I know, fucking crazy. Anyway, you know how these entrepreneurs are, Aly. Paranoid, security freaks who are little boys crying for their Mom’s in the corner at the first hint of trouble, and this one’s no different. Apparently he thinks someone’s stalking him. He has the feeling he’s been followed to and from work, from his penthouse to his local gym, to the market, shit like that for the last couple of months. He even went to the lengths to hire some hack bodyguard three weeks ago, and is paranoid enough to think his stalker has gotten to his muscle, paying him off to report his whereabouts because the feeling’s only intensified since.”

“Seriously,” I seethe. “You’re sticking me with the closet crazy, or in his case not so closet crazy?”

“Shut it, Cupcake,” Brookes barks back, equally fiercely. “I’m not sticking you with shit. You wanted to be put on an active case, and this is what we’ve got unassigned. It’s your choice, though. You take this or you ride a desk,” he offers testily.

Quickly weighing the pros and cons, I decide that the crazy is most definitely better than getting stuck in the same building as six of my seven overprotective brothers, meddling best friend, and one too sexy for his own good man, Rob.

“Okay, you’re on, but I expect you to let me handle this case how I see fit with no interference from you or the rest of them.” Knowing that my condition will be the test as to whether my big brother is on the up and up, I wait patiently for his answer. I don’t have to wait long thankfully.

With a heavy sigh, Brookes agrees, adding,

“I don’t have to tell you that you need to handle this guy with care though do I, Cupcake? Because a client like this can make or break a firm like ours. We might be well respected in our circles, but we’re nowhere near big enough to absorb as hit the likes this guy could inflict if we don’t keep him happy.”

Slightly offended by his inference that I’m not professional enough to handle high profile clients, I go to speak, but Brookes interrupts before I get the chance by throwing up a large, calloused hand, palm up.

“I’m not saying you’d do anything to piss the guy off on purpose but I know his type and so do you. I also know you well enough to know that you aren’t the most patient or sensitive person on the planet as it relates to idiots like this.”

And he’s not wrong. One thing I can’t tolerate is stupidity. In any form, it comes. Paranoia, overreactions, time wasters, shitty women drivers, small, yappy dogs that resemble slippers, and baristas who ask if I want my coffee hot or cold are all akin to stupidity in my book. I mean, who the hell wants cold coffee? Not me that’s for sure. It could be a hundred and ten degrees out and I’d still want my venti, no fat, vanilla latte as hot as you can make it.

“Right,” I say, rolling my eyes. “So what’s this guy after? Another bodyguard to watch his first bodyguard, a consult on his security system, camera installation, what?”

At my question, the air in the room goes wired. Brookes won’t look me in the eye as the door behind me opens and someone else joins us.

“No, what this asshole wants is a service I told your brother we do not fucking provide. And, if I have anything to say about it, we never will. Especially as it pertains to you,” Rob spits acidly.

Glaring at him, Brookes replies,

“I don’t believe you were invited, Brother, so why don’t you get back to whatever it was you were doing before you walked in.”

Risking a glance over my shoulder, I see Rob’s frame strung tight. His ripped chest bulging against the soft fabric of his T-shirt, and his biceps straining the confines of the sleeves. The fitted denim of his jeans hugs his muscular thighs and does nothing to hide the noticeable bulge in the vicinity of his crotch. All-in-all his appearance make my long dormant lady bit quiver in anticipation of what lie beneath. Stupid, traitorous vagina, I muse.

Turning back to Brookes, I enquire,

“What the hell is he talking about?”

Not letting my oldest brother get a word in edgewise, Rob answers without pause.

“When this douchebag with more money than sense called asking for a woman licensed to carry concealed, and well-versed in self-defense to play his pretend girlfriend and gather intel for a month or so who do you think your asshole brother offered up Sweetness?”

“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” I gape.

“No fucking joke, Aly. Brookes here told the douchebag he has the perfect person for the job and he’d send her straight over.” Cocking his head, he asks, “Kind of like sending a lamb to slaughter right, Brookes. The fucking lamb doesn’t even know it’s coming until it’s too late.”

“It’s not like that and you damn well know it,” he growls.

“I do? Cause if you’re asking me if I think this is the most stupid, highly ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard, I’d agree with you. What I won’t agree with is the fact that you thought this shit was acceptable under any circumstances. But seeing as you are hell bent on following through with this, why don’t explain to both of us how this is gonna go down.”

“I’d like to hear that too since I’m the one you’ve volunteered for this super, awesome job, big brother,” I prod, injecting just the right amount of sarcasm into my tone that it can’t be ignored.

Raking his hands through his hair, Brookes look torn as to whether he’ll come completely clean or only give us the bare bones of the case. With a glare filled with distaste, he makes the right decision, coming clean without any more retribution promised by me.

“Look, when this guy called and explained his situation my first reaction was to refer him to one of the guys we use for overflow. Initially, I didn’t think his case was worthy of his attention, but something he said just before I was about to hang up struck a nerve so I agreed to meet with him before I made up my mind.”

“And which nerve would that have been,” I prompt impatiently.

“I’m getting there, Aly. Give me a fucking second would you?” Rubbing the heels of his hands against his eyes, Brookes looks up, his eyes meeting mine and what I see in their depths scares me. Something has rattled my big brothers cage. And that takes a lot of effort because he isn’t unnerved easily.

Softening my tone, I ask,

“What’s going on, Brookes? The truth.”

Pausing, but only for a second he goes on, and what he says has me biting back a string of curses that would have my Mom washing my mouth out with soap for a week.

“He told me that the stalking had escalated in the past few days to him now receiving death threats, but that wasn’t what had me agreeing to take his case. He told me that someone else was mentioned in these letters. An ex-girlfriend. According to him, it was a short romance that ended six or so months ago, but evidently the woman made enough of an impression that whoever’s set his sights on him has taken an interest in her too.”

Who the hell could this Maxwell guy have dated that would have, Brookes so tightly wound? And then it hits me.

“You’re not trying to tell me this guy dated, Harper are you? Because I’d know if she dated some hipster, dot-com billionaire, Brookes.” Not answering but sliding the file across the long expanse of the table instead, Brookes sits back in his chair staring at the vaulted ceiling, waiting for me to read it.

Flicking through the pages, efficiently determining the critical pieces of information, and discarding what’s inconsequential, I flip the file closed, yelling,

“Goddamn-fucking-sonofabitch. That hussy has some questions that need answering when we’re done here, but before I rip her a new one I need you to know I’ll take the job, big brother. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for that woman, and putting myself in harm’s way to save her stupid ass is no exception.”

“Like fucking hell you will. Over my dead body, Aly,” Rob rasps, standing closer to me than he was before I made my intentions clear.

Spinning to face him, I jab one of my purple painted nails into his muscular chest.

“You don’t get to dictate shit to me, Rob. This has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with making sure Harper is kept safe.”

“Nothing to do with me?” He questions, fury turning his neck red. “Are you fucking kidding me right now? Everything that has anything to do with you possibly getting your sexy little ass hurt has something to do with me and you know it. You might not want to acknowledge it, but we’ve got unfinished business you and I. So we get the chance to clear that shit up and get on the same page, you’ve gotta admit you being alive is kinda fucking important, Sweetness.”

“You and I don’t have any unresolved issue regardless of what you think, Rob.”

“Bullshit,” he growls defensively. “Like I said, you might not want to admit it, but you know full well you and I have a conversation coming that you can’t avoid forever. You’ve spent the last month hiding from me and that shit’s not gonna fly for much longer, my patience has all but run out, Aly.”

Slapping his palms down on the hard surface of the oak conference table, Brookes pushes violently out of his chair and bellows,

“Shut up just. Just shut the fuck up would you? Now is not the time for you two to get into it when we’ve obviously got more important things to discuss. Honestly, I don’t give a fuck what you do on your own time, but here you’ll both act like the professional you’re employed to be or you can get the fuck out.”

Taken aback by the vehemence in his voice, I nod as does Rob.