by Zoe Blake
Mirage’s cheeks heated at the illicit memory. How he’d fucked her from behind, both of them lost in a primal dance of lust and loathing.
Still she would get a little of her own back.
A smug light came into her eyes. “Yes, but the man I hired won’t.”
She shouldn’t have told him. Should have kept her mouth shut, but something about this man made her want to push his buttons . To court danger. It was an adrenaline rush watching the anger spark in his eyes, his jaw tighten, his fists clench. She loved knowing she had done that, had broken the famous icy reserve of Paine Darwin. All her careful control snapped when she was in his presence. She became reckless, foolish, glorying in the dangerous thrill of poking a ferocious beast with a stick.
Paine grabbed her around the throat. His large fist squeezed. “You put a fucking hit out on me?”
Mirage closed her eyes and focused on breathing through her nose.
“Answer me, dammit. Who? When?”
She opened her eyes and stared defiantly back at him.
The bed dipped as he rested one knee on it. Keeping his grip on her throat, he leaned down to whisper, “I think it is past time you learned why they call me Paine.”
Her eyes widened when she saw the knife in his hand.
Mirage stilled.
You make your choices. Life will choose your consequences.
She could feel the tip of the knife move down the exposed column of her throat. There was a gentle tug on the neckline of her T-shirt then the sound of fabric rending. He had cut her T-shirt open. Worse, she was completely bare underneath. A bra hindered movement when she was working.
Paine finished slicing off her shirt then lifted the chain which held the pink diamond with his blade. Cocking one knowing eyebrow at her, he flicked his wrist and broke the chain, catching the falling diamond in his fist and pocketing it.
Mirage held her breath when she then felt the tip of the knife circle one erect nipple.
“You have the most gorgeous breasts. Did you know that, Mira? In both of our brief encounters, I didn’t have the time to truly appreciate your curves. I plan to rectify that now.” His voice was dark and low.
He placed the edge of the knife between her breasts and moved it downward.
Dismayed, Mirage looked down. She could see a faint pink line against her pale skin but no blood. Yet.
Using two fingers, he tugged on the waistband of her yoga pants. Pulling them away from her stomach, he gave her another wink as if this was all just some game before slicing into the thin fabric with his knife. Down one leg, then the other. She was naked before his prying eyes.
“I hate you,” she hissed as tears filled her eyes.
He ran a knuckle down her cheek. “That is a shame, kitten, because you fascinate me.” He leaned in close to breathe against her open mouth, “And I don’t think you hate me nearly as much as you say you do.”
Mirage turned her head away, trying again to pull on the binds securing her wrists. She could hear him take off his shirt and kick off his shoes. She stubbornly kept her head averted.
She only turned her gaze back to him when she heard him unbuckle his belt.
Her inner thighs clenched tight. Her whole body trembled.
Jesus Christ, what the fuck was wrong with her? This was depraved, wrong.
Had her life become so fucked up? So twisted? So on the dark side that something like this turned her on? Had she slipped so far from normal that only the adrenaline rush that came from pain and the fear of death could make her pulse race? The truth burned like a brand. It had been true in Istanbul. It had been true when she’d broken into his home and it was true now. To her utter damnation, he fascinated her too. She kept her life and emotions ruthlessly in control. Was patient, careful, organized.
When she was with him, nothing was in her control. He dominated everything. Her thoughts. Her body. Everything. She felt as if she were constantly spinning, the world tilting and whirling by. Like a true thief, he didn’t ask…he just took what he wanted. There was something undeniably arousing about a man like that.
Dev had made her feel important. Always asking her opinion on heists, encouraging her to challenge herself and take jobs she thought were too difficult. Offering to fence the jewels so she could focus on the next job.
The hard truth was Paine made her feel like…like…all that was decent, kind and secure, all that made people civilized, all that kept the baser impulses in check, had been stripped away. Leaving only what was raw, primal and true. It was an experience she had begun to crave. A high like no other. The extremes of all conflicting emotions colliding in a starburst of light. Pain, pleasure, hate…love. It explained why she only needed to be around him to react to his powerful presence. They did not have to go through the polite niceties of casual dates of dinners and movies, or long conversations on the phone getting to know one another.
This was more elemental. Base. Animalistic.
Still she fought.
Mirage didn’t like this feeling of spinning out of control. Didn’t want his dominance. He and it frightened her.
She watched in horrified fascination as he looped his thick leather belt in half and slapped it against one large palm.
“Time for your punishment, babygirl.”
Chapter 5
He must be out of his goddamned fucking mind, thought Paine.
This woman was poison. A cocked gun at his head. A noose around his throat.
She not only was going to get him killed, she had put out the fucking hit to make it happen! Yet all he could think about was bending her to his will. She was so defiant, so stubborn, so fucking smart and beautiful. She both fascinated and excited him. Never in his life had he met a woman who challenged him like Mirage.
He wanted, no needed, to hear her beg.
With his free hand, he flipped her onto her stomach.
Her tawny hair hung in waves over her shoulders and partially down her back. He loved the slope of her back, how it dipped low then crested over the generous curve of her ass.
Raising his arm high, he brought the heavy belt down on that beautiful ass like a lash.
Her scream was muffled by the pillow.
Her pale, creamy skin burst into a bright cherry pink line straight across both cheeks. His cock lengthened at the sight. He raised his arm again, this time striking her across the tops of her thighs.
“Stop! Stop!”
It was not enough. He lashed her again, then again with his belt. Her ass glowed a beautiful crimson red. Unable to resist, he cupped her left bottom cheek, needing to feel the heat radiating off her skin, knowing it was glowing from his punishment, his mark.
Her legs kicked the bed as her fingers clenched on the headboard.
“Oh God! It hurts!”
Bringing the belt down one last time across her cheeks, he watched as they bounced and jiggled from the strike. Turning white for just a moment before bursting into a deep flush.
Unable to stand it any longer, he tore at the fastening of his jeans.
Freeing his cock, he kicked the pants aside and knelt on the bed. He positioned himself between her legs. Placing his hands on her hips, he raised her up onto her knees. Running two fingers over her cunt, he could feel her slick heat. She could cry and scream all she wanted.
She may hate him, but she still wanted him.
Fisting his thick shaft, his voice was harsh with need. “Beg me to fuck you. I want to hear you say it again.”
Memories of her deep-throated moans when he’d forced her to come as he spanked her ass while his cock was buried deep in her cunt still haunted his dreams. It had become an obsession.
“Go to hell.”
He slapped her already reddened ass. Her head raised up and back as she moaned from either pain or pleasure; he couldn’t tell and didn’t care.
“Beg me to fuck your cunt.”
“No,” she rasped defiantly.
Paine shook his head. His beautifully stubborn littl
e kitten always had to learn the hard way, he supposed. “Have it your way.”
Placing the head of his cock between her legs, he shifted his hips, rubbing her pussy, teasing her.
When the tip was wet from her dew, he brushed it against her asshole. The tiny pink puckered skin protecting her forbidden entrance clenched and stiffened.
“No! No! No! Don’t you dare fuck me in the ass, Paine.”
He pushed on her entrance with the head of his cock, watching the pale pink skin whiten from the pressure as it glistened from her own arousal.
Her hips bucked, trying to dislodge him. He spanked her ass again.
The momentary pain stilled her.
He thrust harder, needing to push past her resisting band of muscle. Thrusting forward with his hips while pulling back on her own, the head of his shaft pushed inside.
Mirage gave out a howl of pain.
“No! It hurts! Take it out! Take it out!”
He drove his hips forward, forcing her body to accept several inches of his thick shaft up her ass.
“Where is my cock, Mira? Where is it?” he shouted.
“It’s in my ass,” she cried.
He pulled back before thrusting forward again, deeper…harder.
“Ow! Ow! Oh, God!”
She had taken about five inches. She still had another five to accept. Paine felt a rush of primal possession as he leaned into her body, forcing her to submit to his greater strength. Bending her to his will. Hearing her moan with pleasure-tinged pain. Compelling her to beg, to accept his dominance.
“Why is my cock in your ass?” he growled, scraping the sharp edge of his teeth along the soft slope of her shoulder.
“I don’t know,” she whined.
“Because you were a bad girl.”
He could feel her body tighten and clutch at his cock. She was so goddamn tight.
“Say it,” he ground out. “Say you were a bad girl.”
“Bite me,” she spit out through gritted teeth.
The edge of his teeth along her shoulder blades answered her taunt.
“I wouldn’t keep me waiting if I were you, baby. I can always make this more painful. Now say it.”
There was a long pause.
He pushed in to the hilt. Her ass had taken the full ten inches. He could see her body strain to accept him. A bright sheen of sweat glimmered on her lower back. She yelled in agony the moment his balls hit the underside of her ass.
Finally, she obeyed. “I was a bad girl. I was a bad girl. Please, stop.”
Shifting his right hand from her hip, he reached between her legs. Finding her sensitive nub, he flicked it with two fingers before rubbing it in small circles, slowly building the pressure.
Mirage moaned.
He leaned down and bit her shoulder, as a stallion would his mare while mating. Licking the spot he’d marked, tasting her skin, he demanded, “Say you want this. Say you like the pain.”
‘Please!” she moaned. The deep-throated kind that only came from pleasure.
“Admit it,” he growled. “You like when I force you. You like the feel of my cock filling your ass. You like submitting to me. Need it.”
Her back arched as her hips pushed back the moment his two fingers thrust inside her wet pussy.
Moving his left hand, he grabbed her hair, ruthlessly pulling her head back by the cascading tresses.
“Say it,” he ordered.
“I like the pain,” she cried.
“Beg me to fuck you harder. Beg me to make it hurt,” he rasped against her neck.
“Please, Paine. Make it hurt! Fuck me!”
At her admission, the sound of his name on her lips, his balls tightened as a surge of pleasurable pressure hit his cock. Fisting her hair, he leaned back and began to savagely slam his cock into her body.
Mirage screamed. Angry red marks appeared around the binds on her wrists as her knuckles whitened from her straining grip on the headboard.
His mind went blank. Every sense was focused on the feel of her leather-warmed skin as it brushed against his hips. How her body firmly gripped his cock. The silken feel of her hair in his palm. The sound of her harsh breathing as she moaned.
His cock so tightly filled her back passage he could feel the ripples of her own orgasm as it crested over her. Mirage cried out before falling limp. He thrust again. This time he wanted to mark her both inside and out. Refusing to pull out, when he came, it was deep inside her ass.
He held a glass of red wine to her lips. Mirage took a grateful sip, uncaring as the ruby liquid dribbled down her chin and onto her naked breast.
Paine leaned over and laved at her skin, taking her nipple between his lips as he sucked the wine droplet up.
Mirage gasped at the intimacy of the act. Anyone would have thought they were newlyweds tucked away in a quaint cottage for their honeymoon. But they weren’t newlyweds. Scenes like that were for normal people. Paine and she would never be normal. There was a twinge of guilt as she remembered how close she had come to normal once. How desperately she had reached out for that kind of life, but now it was all gone.
Taking a sip himself, he put the glass aside and tilted up her chin. Still tied to the bed, she was sitting with her legs tucked up to the side. Her wrists raised before her, almost as if in prayer.
“No more games, Mira. Tell me.”
She looked into his ice blue eyes. The utter ridiculousness of her situation hit her. She was tied up naked in Paine’s bed. He’d just fucked her ass. Her ass. And she’d begged him to do it harder. All while wanting this man dead for killing the man she’d supposedly loved who she now realized didn’t come close to rocking her to her core as Paine had just done.
Mirage tilted her head forward. Her shoulders started to shake.
“Baby?” asked Paine as he tried to push her soft hair out of the way so he could see her face.
Mirage could hear the concern in his voice and her shoulders shook harder.
He finally realized she was laughing.
“I’d love to join in on the joke, Mira.”
She sucked in a choking breath. “You’re making me crazy, you know that? I don’t know my own mind anymore. I hate you! I really do.” There was no mirth to her laughter. It was almost maniacal, unhinged.
“I think the bullet fired into my pillow established that,” he drawled.
Mirage sobered.
Composing herself, she said, “You killed Dev.”
She watched him as he took in her words. A look of utter disbelief crossed his stern features. “That’s what this is about? That piece of shit, Doug?”
Mirage shook her head. “No. Not Doug. Dev. You killed Dev.”
“I know who I killed, Mira. His name was Doug.”
Her brow wrinkled. Wait, she had always assumed Dev was short for Devon. How could she be in love with a man and not know his real name? Of course, she had never told him her real name either.
“So you don’t deny it?”
“Why would I? The guy was an asshole. He more than deserved what he got.”
“I loved him.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Don’t say that! You don’t know. You don’t know anything about me!” she yelled.
“I know you are a beautiful, vivacious, stubborn, feisty woman who makes a man want to strangle you and kiss you at the same time. I know you feel things deeply and completely. I know you try so hard to keep a tight rein on every aspect of your life that when something forces you to let go, it is like watching the birth of a star. You are all light and color and energy when you come, baby. Someone like that couldn’t possibly truly be in love with a shallow, lying piece of shit like Devious Doug. He used you. Everyone knew. Even The Syndicate. All those handpicked jobs. How he pushed you into dangerous situations for more and more money. It was all a lie, baby. He was using you. Only telling you what you wanted to hear.”
Tears coursed down her cheeks at his words. The truth of it. She realized now she had so des
perately just wanted to experience something normal like falling in love. Something common and domestic and boring. She had wanted to be in love with a boyfriend. She had wanted it so badly, that fantasy of normal, that she had overlooked all the flags and warnings. How she was getting less and less money for the items he fenced. The unexplained absences. When that dream of normalcy was taken away, she’d reverted back to her dark, underworld training. Revenge was her only thought. Her only focus. In her grief, she had turned Dev’s memory into some idealized version of him. Magnified her love for him to the point of obsession to avenge his death by going after his killer. Still, she needed to know. Closure was an illusion, but perhaps she could get some answers.
“Why? Why did you kill him?”
Paine shrugged his shoulders. “The Syndicate ordered it.”
Mirage watched him intently. There was something he wasn’t telling her. “What is it? Tell me.”
Before telling her, Paine grabbed the crumpled blanket from the bed and placed it over her shoulders.
It was a kind, caring gesture, and Mirage resented the hell out of it.
He was shattering her world, but worse…he was pitying her for it. She didn’t want anyone’s pity, least of all his. Especially not for being a fool. Falling for the lies of some asshole because he called her pretty and said he wanted to be her boyfriend? How stupid could she be?
“Tell me,” she repeated.
“He was getting involved in the sex traffic trade. That is one line even The Syndicate will not cross. It threatened their interests. So they ordered him killed.”
“Why you? Why did it have to be you? I mean I know…your name…and reputation but you’re mainly a thief for them not an assassin.”
His jaw tightened and his lips thinned. “I’ve answered enough questions. Tell me about the hit.”
Mirage cringed. “I thought you were going to kill me after…after…I didn’t…I’m still not sure you—”
“Tell me about the hit, Mira.”
“The contract was accepted five hours ago,” she whispered.
“Who?”
“Pearly.”
Ted “Pearly” Gates was one of the best in the business. He was clean, efficient and more importantly…fast. Once he accepted a contract, it was usually only twenty-four hours before it was completed.