Travis grasped her by the shoulders. “What happened? Tell me you didn’t consider for even a moment taking that bastard back again,” he said huskily, notes of both demand and desperation in his voice.
“I’m not. I wouldn’t. It’s just…” Her voice trailed off, Ally feeling at a loss as to how to explain. Tears started to form again, the droplets trickling down her cheeks in frustration and pain.
Travis swept her up in his arms and sat on the couch, keeping her on his lap. “Tell me.” His voice was low and persuasive, his arms comforting.
Ally snapped like a broken tree branch dangling in the wind that had finally given way to the pressure and had fallen to the ground. She told Travis everything between broken sobs, purging herself of the emotions that had been plaguing her for so long. After she told him about her unwanted encounter with Rick, she explained how her mother had been while she was growing up and how inadequate she’d always felt.
“Why can’t I stop hearing her voice in my head? She’s been dead for years,” Ally finished, frustrated with herself.
“Maybe because you chose the ass**le as the next voice in your head. Did you think he was all you deserved, Ally? A man who would work you to death, treat you like shit, and manipulate the hell out of you?” Travis asked, every muscle in his body tense. “I know how f**king hard it is to not believe everything you’re told and taught growing up. But believe me when I say that you don’t deserve what you’ve gotten.”
Ally looked up at Travis, his jaw clenched and his eyes wild with anger. “How did you do it, Travis? How did you live through what you had handed to you in your life and not be affected by it?” He’d grown up with a madman, and some of the experiences he’d shared with her made her shudder.
He tucked a lock of hair gently behind her ear as he answered, “I didn’t. It affected me. But I had Mia and Kade. We all knew what was happening wasn’t normal. And I grew up while I was in college. I had to. My father wasn’t able to run the company anymore. The minute I finished school, I had him ousted for incompetency and took his place. Harrison was starting to flounder, and there were too many people counting on us to provide a living for them. The company wasn’t going to withstand his insane behavior and erratic decision-making much longer.”
“Did it make you feel vindicated? Were you free?” she asked quietly.
“It didn’t hurt,” Travis admitted. “I didn’t do it for revenge. I did it to save the company my grandfather busted his ass to build. But I won’t say part of me wasn’t satisfied that I was finally able to strip my father of the power he’d had over all of us for our entire life.”
“When did you stop being afraid of him?” Ally queried curiously.
“As soon as I got big enough to kick his ass,” Travis replied, his hand absently stroking her hair. “He was the monster who had terrified every one of us for years. I finally realized when I finished high school that I didn’t have to be afraid of him anymore. When Kade and I left for college, I warned him if he ever laid a hand on Mia or my mother again, I’d kill him.”
“Did you kick his ass?” she asked hesitantly.
Travis shrugged. “I didn’t have to. By then, he was nothing but a shell with an insane mind. But he never touched Mia after that. Or my mother…until he actually killed her.”
“Would you have done it if you’d needed to?”
“Yes,” Travis answered immediately. “I would have done anything to keep him from hurting the rest of my family.”
Ally reached out her hand and stroked his cheek, letting her fingers wander into his hair. “You were so incredibly brave. I know everything you went through had to be painful, yet you survived intact.”
Travis barked out an unamused laugh. “Maybe not intact, but yes, I survived.”
“I’m sorry I had another meltdown on you.” Ally felt a little silly now. After all that Travis had gone through in his lifetime, her history was mild in comparison.
“Don’t,” Travis said huskily, his arm tightening around her waist. “Don’t minimize your emotions or push them under your skin. Stop being so damn hard on yourself. It’s not your fault, Ally.”
Ally took a deep breath, her gaze clashing with Travis’s. “I need to get my shit together.”
Travis rose, taking her with him. “You need to start listening to new voices. And add your own, too.”
“I’ll try,” Ally told him adamantly, determined to break out of her old habits.
“You look beautiful, Ally.” He took a step back. “Now take off your dress.”
Ally’s eyes shot to Travis’s face, his intense, unrelenting stare making her take a step back. “What?” She knew she couldn’t have heard him correctly.
“Take. Off. The. Dress. Either take it off willingly or I’ll do it for you, and it probably won’t be wearable anymore after I do,” he growled.
“W-why?” She had heard him correctly, and her entire body flooded with heat.
“Because you’re going to start to hear a new voice, and that voice is going to be mine while I make you come.” Travis folded his arms in front of him and waited.
Chapter 10
Ally balked as she looked at Travis waiting arrogantly, expectantly. “I’m not taking off my dress. And you’re not going to rip it. It probably cost a fortune.” She crossed her arms in front of her, the two of them having a stare-down.
“You will,” Travis remarked ominously as he slowly unbuttoned his suit jacket and shrugged it off his shoulders. “I didn’t come here tonight to f**k you, Ally. But I’m going to because I can’t wait any longer.” His fingers went to the knot in his tie, and he nimbly unfastened it and slid it from around his neck. “And I don’t think you want to wait any longer either.” He started unbuttoning his pristine shirt. “I’ve waited four goddamn years, and there wasn’t a single one of those days that my c**k wasn’t hard for you, that I didn’t want to sink into you and make you mine.” He unbuttoned the small fastenings at his cuffs and let the shirt slide off his shoulders, landing in a heap at his feet along with his jacket and tie. “Tonight you’re mine. Completely. Unequivocally. You won’t be hearing any other voice except mine telling you how damn beautiful you are, how much I want you. And you won’t be feeling anything except pleasure.”