Bought (Unchained Vice Book 3) (14 page)

Careful to not push her over, he began to withdraw.

He knew she sensed it as he started to move. Sensed that he was cheating her again. He could tell as her hips rocked despite the pull on her toes. A body trying to find fulfillment in its emptiness.

She sobbed. Collapsing in resignation.

Whoever said you couldn’t break somebody with pleasure hadn’t really been trying.

He took a step back from the bed. Still tasting her on his lips, he watched as slow tears roll down her cheeks. The emotional hit made his cock ache with a sweetness he couldn’t express.

This was how he wanted her.

All her walls torn down. Completely vulnerable.

As naked in her honesty as he was about to be brutal in his.

Foreplay was over.

He undid his buckle and pulled the belt through the loops. It slithered over his hips as he yanked it free. He grasped it just below the buckle, doubling it over into a flexible loop.

It was time for her to truly surrender

With a flick of his wrist, the belt whipped close to her toes. Slicing the air with such violence, it snuffed out the flames.

She flinched as the wind rushed past her.

“It’s time to hurt you, Scarlet.”

She sniffed and nodded. Her body seemed to sink with relief that something different was coming. Any sensation to cut through the sexual frenzy humming under her skin.

She didn’t understand that what was coming was not a kindness.

The edging had been the kindness.

He’d flooded endorphins into her system, even if he’d denied her release. A little something for the pain.

That
had been the kindness.

The last one.

“What’s your safeword?”

She swallowed as if her mouth was suddenly dry. It was a simple question but it held so much power.

“Red.”

The tremor in her voice was barely audible, but he knew her sounds. Intimately.

He closed his eyes and inhaled. The leather had grown warm in his hand, melding with him.

As he opened his eyes again, it occurred to him she didn’t know how dark she needed to go. He was witnessing her last moment of innocence.

A person never wore their skin quite the same way after they’d gone to that place. Not after they’d shed it and become savage.

He’d been fucking her like a client, but they’d changed. He was about to show her the truth of their nature.

There was nothing more real than that.

“Look at me.” The words were deliberately soft, coaxing her to turn her head as if she would hear him better by watching his lips. He rubbed his hand over the bulge in his pants, still guiding her attention. “You’re going to cry for me. Scream for me. Maybe even beg. But none of that is going to make me stop.” He paused. “All those things…they just make me harder.”

Her chest hitched and he felt it, felt it curl around his balls, but it was the sound, that sharp little inhalation that tore along his veins.

“Like right now. This is what your fear is doing to me.” He squeezed his cock, displaying its prominent outline. “The only word that stops this is red. Do you understand?”

She nodded, but he could tell from her expression that she was retreating to that place in her head where the line between pleasure and pain blurred, where destruction and ecstasy felt the same.

Where it was safe.

But this was no longer just about her.

He was going to drag her back to him, to the fear and the pain. Back to where he fed.

He shook his head, slowly so she would understand.

“No.” His voice slid from tender to darker tones. “You need to say it.”

“The only word that stops this is red.” The tremor was more pronounced.

“Do you know what makes the feet so vulnerable?”

She shook her head.

“Nerve endings throughout your body run down to your soles. Do you know what that means?”

“It’s going to hurt?” Her voice was so small and fragile. The most precious thing he could imagine.

He nodded. “Yes, it’s going to hurt, but not just your feet. It’s going to run along those nerves and hurt everywhere. I’m going to touch your feet and you’re going to feel the pain in your head.”

Her eyes were wide with fear and he could already see the shine of tears.

“Now, pet.” He tenderly tucked some hair behind her ear. “Tell me what you want.”

She swallowed.

“I want you to hurt me. Please.”

There, right there.

In that moment, he could tell himself he loved her. Even though he could never truly have her. For now, nothing else existed; they had their own private universe.

She wanted them both to be naked. Well, he was going to show her.

Himself.

Herself.

Masochist.

She could reject it.

Or embrace it.

Either choice would set one of them free.

The crack of the belt as it struck the soles of her feet ricocheted in the quiet like a gunshot.

***

Fire exploded in her body. Hot needles of pain.

He’d hurt her before, but not like this.

There was no sex in this.

The belt rained down on her feet. Spent candles jarred loose one by one and fell to the bed. Why had she been silly enough to let them scare her?

This was fear.

This was hell.

She screamed out, and thank God, there was blessed relief in the release.

But it was just another mindfuck. A temporary reprieve. A hiccup of the brain. The pain always came roaring back.

She tried to breathe, but it stole her air.

She didn’t know how many lashes were falling.

Couldn’t count.

Couldn’t think.

Ten? One hundred?

She couldn’t separate the blows.

Her pain was endless.

Unbearable.

“Mercy.” She didn’t recognize the raw rasp of her voice. Wasn’t sure she’d been the one who’d spoken. “Mercy!” she choked out the word.

The acid rain stopped. Her body burned.

She was being consumed by a mouth of fire.

“You’re welcome.”

The devil’s whisper warm in her ear.

“Mercy.” She gasped for air, tasting her salty tears at the corner of her lips.

“Do you know what that sounds like to me?”

She hiccupped on a sob and shook her head. She didn’t want to fail. For some reason, it seemed scary to fail.

“In Farsi, mersi is thank you. Almost like the French.”

The devil’s words confused her. The pain in her body kept shattering her thoughts.

He dragged the edge of the belt across the insteps of her feet as if it was a bow, scraping it across the nerves, making the pain scream.

“Mercy.” She tried again.

Tried to get away, struggled to break free, but he held one of her ankles tight.

“That’s not red, pet.”

He gave her feet a tap and a shot of agony spiked up her body.

She was back to screaming.

She was back to coming undone.

It felt like dying.

But there was something dark coming to life.

Something crawling deep out of her soul. Something that scared her more than the devil.

No.

No!

She couldn’t want this. Couldn’t comprehend wanting this.

Needing this.

Then simply call red.

Her savage purred.

Scarlet lay on the bed listening to the bathwater pour. Tears and sweat matted her hair to her cheeks. She’d only just got back her breath. The ringing in her ears from the vicious strokes of the belt was receding. The arches of her feet still hummed.

She didn’t think he’d even hit that hard, the force at odds with the effect of the blow.

Pain. Deep and dark.

He’d been right.

In the end, she’d begged. Begged and cried, each plea for mercy met only with
you’re welcome
. He’d answered with thick lust as he’d fed on her destruction.

But that wasn’t the humiliating part. The humiliating part was she hadn’t stopped him.

When he’d finished, when he’d pulled her back from the edge of madness, Jerricho had reached between her legs where she was still wet.

So very wet.

He’d toyed with her stickiness.

Not to turn her on, but to make a point, to let her listen to the wet sucking sound as his fingers played and painted her in her own juices, branding her with the evidence she couldn’t deny.

She’d loved it even as she hated it.

Her brain repelled the idea before it could sink in and mean something, brutally shoving the thought away as the confusion of it hurt.

“Time to bathe.” That voice. It was under her skin.

She tilted her head and looked backward. Her world was upside down, but seeing him grounded her.

Who was the monster?

She hadn’t called red.

“Hurt.” She didn’t want to think about full sentences right now. Talking ached.

“I know, pet.” He was so gentle now.

Her fallen angel held Heaven and Hell.

“Come bathe. Let me take care of you. Wash the stickiness off you.”

Sex and sweat, she was drenched in it.

She huffed a breathless laugh.
Walk?

When she moved, it was as if she was ancient, her body stiff and sore and slow. She poured herself off the bed into a puddle on the floor.

The sustained dark notes of the bastinado still vibrated along her nerves. The hot spikes of pain now dull and stinging.

The stinging was … she could no longer tell if the pain was bad.

The bruise of it felt good.

Jerricho stood patiently in the doorway of the bathroom. So near and yet the space between them had never seemed bigger. It was insurmountable to cross the floor to him.

It was significant.

“Come, pet,” he called, and it tugged at her as if his voice was her leash. “Come.”

On hands and knees, she started to crawl.

Moving was easier than thinking.

Halfway across, she finally dared to look up. He was watching her crawl. The heat in his eyes hit her as if it was a physical wave, singeing the air from her lungs as it rolled over her. Even the burn in her feet felt cool in its wake.

He looked at her like a man who owned her.

He’d shown himself, but he’d revealed her in the process.

Mersi.

She hadn’t called red.

She’d told him she would walk through fire for Killian.

Now she’d crawl for Jerricho.

He’d laid bare her truth.

She reached his feet; he’d taken off his socks and shoes. She moved to kiss them, to connect with him, but Jerricho reached down and picked her up in his arms.

She sank into him.

All the confusion of the scene fell away.

This was her place.

She grabbed his shirt, clinging to him. His solid strength seeped into her body. With sure, steady movements he carried her to the bath.

He stooped down to lower her into the water and she clung tighter.

“No. No.” Rising panic was clear in her voice. The thought of losing contact squeezed her heart with unfounded terror.

“Shh. I have to put you in the bath to wash you.”

“No. Don’t let me go … just, don’t let me go.”

Jerricho tucked her back against his chest and placed a soft kiss on the top of her head. She basked in his smell. The faded masculine scent of his aftershave was buried in his clothes.

She seesawed as weight shifted. Still dressed, he climbed into the bath with her. Warm water lapped against her as he sank down, somehow still holding her.

Cradled on his lap, she sighed contentedly as he scooped water with a small white bowl and began to drizzle it over her.

“How do you feel?” Not just words, his body rumbled under her. The hardness of his cock pushed up into her. All this time, he had been fully aroused.

She felt wonderful.

All that was left of the stinging pain was a sweet, deep ache.

The rush of enduring.

And an itch.

A hungry itch.

She reached for Jerricho’s soapy hand. Eyes closed, she rested her head back against his shoulder as she moved his slippery fingers to stroke between her folds.

He let her use him, let her ride his hand. His free arm came around her chest and cupped her breast, deft fingers finding and rolling her nipple as he squeezed.

This poison was sweet.

She rolled her hips as he rolled his fingers.

The broad brush of his thumb rubbed her tender clit. She jerked at the exquisitely intense rush, nerves still alive from his earlier edging.

With two hands, she guided and pushed his fingers deep inside her, grinding her pubis on his wrist as she groaned.

He took control.

Fingers thrust and fucked. Glorious, wicked, thick fingers ravished her swollen flesh and teased her hungry nerves.

Quickly building the pressure to that soaring high.

If he stopped now, she would hate him.

If he stopped now …

Her orgasm blindsided her with its sudden ferocity.

An exploding brilliance disrupted her brain.

She was only vaguely aware of the running taps, the sound of falling water.

She was flying and falling all at once.

Barely noticing as his fingers dug into her calf and pulled.

A lightning bolt of sensation struck as hot water crashed down, burning the bridge of her foot.

Pain … pleasure.

She couldn’t tell.

The second orgasm shuddered through her body as stinging pins of cold water rained onto the burn.

His fingers fucked her through the sensations.

More. More. More.

The wordless chant stuck on her lips.

Hot water again. Searing. Painfully intense after the cold.

Her body stiffened, arching of his lap as she lifted above the water.

A scream of ecstasy torn from her lips.

Scarlet sat in the back of the car on the way from the fundraiser feeling tired and fragile. More vulnerable than the day before when she’d been tied to the bed; more tender than her feet because that was only physical.

More lost because of what she’d found.

Real.

So she’d spent the day hiding in business—breakfast with her agent to review and sign contracts, shopping for the costume, meeting up with Marcus to finalize song choices, and getting ready for the gala dinner that night.

She was avoiding how she felt, avoiding Jerricho.

For the first time since meeting him in the hotel room, Jerricho felt forbidden.

The past two days with him had torn down all her defenses.

And then there was the pain.

Pain that was so much more than rough.

She was scared of it. She craved it.

Just like she craved Jerricho.

She was messed up, so messed up.

She looked across the seat at her husband. Killian sat next to her, tense and silent. The back of the car was more cavernous for his distance.

He’d come home from Queensland distracted. His dinner conversation was so monosyllabic at the fundraiser she’d spent the evening talking to the people around them.

She hated that he’d gone away for two days just when she thought things might be changing. The memory of him and Jerricho at the dinner table was still vivid. The hope it meant something was still fresh.

She wanted to talk. She wanted to close the gap and touch him. She wanted a sign from him, just a sign … for him to reach out his hand and save her from drowning.

She cleared her throat. “The food was good.” Inane instead of brave, Killian’s foreboding mood pushed them back to small talk.

“Really? You hardly ate.”

How would he know? He’d hardly looked at her.

She swallowed the defensive retort. “How was the trip?” This was the first time they’d been alone today.

“The trip was boring enough not to talk about.”

She turned to look out the window, biting the inside of her cheek as her nails dug into her curled fists.

Breathe.

Lungs and eyes burning, she needed air to help breathe through the rejection.

She opened the window an inch. The cool wind rushed in. Enough to ease the tightness in her chest. Enough to whip her hair as if caught in a storm.

Enough for her silent scream to be swallowed by the roaring white noise of it.

She was too brittle for this tonight, too ready to break. She had gotten her wish; Jerricho had made her feel. He’d scraped her raw. The world seemed sharp, every nuance painfully accentuated.

Tonight, Killian felt toxic. Suddenly she didn’t want to be with him.

The car turned into their driveway and rolled to a stop outside the house.

“Are you going down to the boathouse?” Killian asked as he opened the car door on her side. After the dismissive coldness of the evening, the chivalrous gesture grated. A lie of attention.

“No. Not tonight.” Tonight was not a good night for her to be with any of the men.

Everything was still too fresh, and she was fragile.

“I’m going to bed.” Her voice cracked. The thing with Killian was that nothing slipped by unnoticed, even when it seemed as if he wasn’t paying attention, especially when it seemed as if he wasn’t. She held her breath, praying he didn’t snag her unraveling.

With quick strides, they were at the front door. Almost inside. Her control slipping …

“Is that so?” He breathed down her neck.

“Disappointed?” She whirled on him. “Upset you’re going to miss your little personal peep show?”

Killian held his hands up in surrender, eyes narrowing, but his pupils were blown with interest.

Dammit.

She’d come at him like a dog in a corner, like a lover bleeding guilt.

Careless and stupid.

Yanking the door open, she almost fell into the house. Heart thumping, legs wanting to run, she strode toward the stairs and the sanctuary of her room. She could feel him circling, closing in behind her—the predator had smelled blood.

“What did he do, Scar?”

“Nothing.” Her steps quickened. “I’m tired, Killian. I’m going to bed.” She’d made it to the stairs. In her flat shoes, she took more than one step at a time.

She knew he was right there, even though he didn’t make a noise; his heat blasted up against her back.

“What did Black do?” The low growl crawled on her neck.

Finally, she reached her bedroom, and her relief was palpable.

Her hand readied to turn the handle of the bedroom door as Killian’s hands shot out on either side of her. He braced against it, caught and caged her between wood and stone. “What. Did. He. Do?”

So close. A noise of frustration escaped her lips.

She couldn’t talk about it. Not when he’d been so distant from her tonight. Not when she felt so messed up. Not in anger.

Closing her eyes and gathering strength, she turned the handle and swung the door wide open. Striding across the room to the bathroom, she kicked off her shoes.

She needed to feel the carpet. Needed to feel the ground.

Needed the reminder of the bastinado.

The solace of Jerricho.

Killian’s arm stopped her.

Grabbing her around the waist, he yanked her back into his chest.

“What’s with the flats, Scar? You never wear flats when we go out. You’re a high heels girl.” His voice was low and dangerous as he purred into her ear.

No longer distracted, she had all his attention.

“Nothing.” She pushed at his arm. “I’m just tired.” She twisted her head to sneer at him. “It’s exhausting, all the fucking.”

“Oh yeah?”

It bounced off him; she was the only one who hurt.

“I just want to be left alone.” She gave up and sank into him.

Instead of letting her go, he picked her up, draped her over his shoulder like a rag doll and walked to the bed.

“Dammit, Killian.” She thumped against his back. “Put me down.”

He let go, unceremoniously dropping her on the mattress.

She lashed out with her foot to kick him. With his fast reflexes, he caught and held her ankle. She struggled and momentarily got free, then tried to kick him again, but this time he caught her foot with a tight grip as his thumb pressed up into the arch of her foot and hit the tender flesh.

She cried out, an agonized whimper.

“Sweet Jesus.”

She froze at his words.

He looked at her foot again and then dropped it as if he’d been bitten.

“What the fuck did he do, Scar?” But she knew he’d figured it out, the shoes, her reaction—it had nothing to do with his misplaced finger.

“Nothing I didn’t want.” Her rabbit heart thumped in her chest.

“You want this?”

“Yes.”

And him.

She wanted Jerricho.

There was no more denying.

***

Killian stepped back from the bed reeling.

Christ, he’d been in the room with them and he hadn’t noticed. This was no longer about feeling good.

Bastinado was not a gesture; it was a fucking declaration … on both sides.

He’d had that same sick feeling the day he’d opened the ransom package. The world was slipping out of his hands.

Eli had phoned the night before to tell him the trail on Romeo had gone cold. And now this … Scar falling in deep with another man.

Did she even realize?

When was she going to tell him?
Was
she going to tell him?

“This is what you wanted. You hired him, Killian, not me.”

So fucking wrong. This was not what he wanted.

He laughed, forced and pained.

“You sound so guilty, Scar.”

He’d felt something different about her all evening, but he’d never guessed. He’d put it down to his own mood.

Blindsided.

They were always the killer blows. The ones you never saw coming, which always felled you to your knees.

“I can’t …” He moved back and started pacing next to the bed. “Not like this.”

They couldn’t end like this.

“Not what? Killian, you’re scaring me.” Thick, silent tears ran down her cheeks.

He looked around, lost … searching. He grabbed her bag and whisked out her phone.

“What are you doing?” She didn’t stop him. He didn’t answer.

His thumb swiped across the screen, looking for Black’s number.

He was going to kill the bastard.

“What are you going to do, Killian?” She sounded scared.

His eyes flicked up to meet her gaze, his look hard. There was no moving him.

The phone rang, the call connected.

“No. It’s not Scarlet.” He didn’t like the relief in the Black’s tone when the man thought it had been his wife. “We’re going to the boxing tomorrow night. Just you and me.”

He spoke into the phone as he watched her. She’d gone so still, he could barely see her breathing.

“You misunderstood, Black. I wasn’t asking.” His smile felt feral.

He wasn’t listening to Black’s response. No was not an option. He stood there just watching her. Watching her face crumble. The voice on the other end drowned out by the rush of blood in his ears.

“Be ready at seven. A car will pick you up.” He hung up and dropped the phone on the bed next to her.

Silence hung between them as he considered their situation. He clenched his jaw and ground his teeth.

“What are you going to do?” She sounded hoarse. Scared.

“Just talk.”

She was shaking her head sadly, slowly, as if she didn’t believe him, couldn’t believe him.

“What are you going to say?” Fresh tears were brimming over.

“That’s between Black and me.”

“He’s different from Daniel.”

He laughed bitterly. “You don’t say.”

A cloak of cold distance started to slide over him. He needed to fight it, needed to stay connected. This was the point of no return. He knew that, even if his compass was broken.

“Please, Killian, don’t hurt him … please.”

Her teeth were actually chattering. It made him think of his mother on the floor as she watched his father. Gut churning, he felt suddenly ill.

He kept his expression the same.

“He gives me something … I need him.”

She loved him. Did she even know?

“He’s good for me. Please don’t hurt him. Just don’t hurt him. Promise me.”

She was begging. He’d reduced her to begging.

The cold in his blood was no longer for her, the loathing turned inward as it started to cannibalize him.