She takes a step forward. A soft moan of denial. “You watched me.”
Her little bedroom with its faded quilt. The place she peeled off her cheap waitress uniform. The bed she slept in. “Sometimes at night, I’d hear you breathe faster. See your hand moving under the covers. It’s so beautiful, the way you love yourself.”
Her eyes are wide. Expression solemn. “I’m not leaving here, am I?”
“Not alive.” Maybe she’d be breathing. Maybe she wouldn’t.
Her mind would be cracked beyond repair.
It’s inevitable that she would run, like a hand shrinking back from fire. She sprints for the door, her hand on the knob before I catch her slender body in my arms. It’s a thrill to toss her onto the ground, to climb on top of her back. I do love when they run. That’s the animal side of me. Sometimes I’m feral too.
The difference is I have a bigger goal. A better one.
I stroke her cheek with the backs of my fingers. “Lovely peach. So sweet.”
She fights me, thrashing on the ground. Beating the concrete with her fists. “You’re disgusting.”
“Yes,” I breathe. “You see it now. It’s hard wearing suits. Wearing authority and power. The way people look at me—reverence. Fear. Not you.”
It only takes a moment to open my pants, to push up the thin fabric of her skirt. To pull aside her panties. My cock notches against her puckered hole, and she freezes. “Wait,” she says. “Wait, wait, wait.”
“That’s right,” I whisper. “Beg.”
Hands clench into fists. All that courage. “Don’t do it. Not like this.”
“On the floor. Held down like an animal. Looking at the face of the man you’ll grow to love.” I may taste her first, but she’s a gift. A gesture of paternal love. The sweetest fruit for the very best son.
Damon looks so much like me. Younger, of course. Kinder.
My face will haunt her nightmares. She’ll be terrified of him. That’s my gift to him—her fear.
I plunge into her, ripping a scream from her throat. Her back muscles spasm around my cock, stretching and fighting the intrusion. My cock aches from entering her dry. What bliss. I press my face against the top of her head and breathe deep. She still smells like grease and stale coffee from the diner. Perfect.
From the side, I can see her face scrunched in pain. Tears leak down her cheeks.
“Watch,” I say, nudging deeper with my cock. Did she think this was as hard as I could fuck her? I’m showing tenderness now. She glances back at me, still subsumed with the physical pain.
I reach to my back pocket and pull out my phone. It only takes a few clicks. The feed pulls up on the screen. There’s her father, blowing the ten thousand dollars on useless bets.
Her sob fills my ears, a sweeter music than grunts and groans ever could be.
“You’ll save that little cunt for someone special,” I whisper into her ear. “Someone you love as much as me. I won’t fuck you there.”
“I hate you,” she whispers, voice thick. In a thick hock, she spits. It lands on the phone screen, glistening and foamy. “I hate you, I hate you.”
What she doesn’t realize is that it hurts me at first. No lube. No saliva. But as I saw in and out of her, she lubricates with blood. That makes it the best place to fuck a woman. Or a man. A test of character.
Nature’s gift to the powerful creatures.
Damon doesn’t see that. He still likes to fuck a slick, swollen cunt. He likes to make a woman spasm around his cock—in pleasure instead of pain. That makes him weak, no matter how many legs he breaks. What kind of father would I be if I didn’t fix that?
Honestly, she’s a mess.
I pull out and grasp my cock, pink and dark from her blood. One stroke, two. I aim toward the gaping hole, bright red and pulsing blood. I pump my cock until milky semen spurts across her pretty ass.
It’s almost emotional, looking at her wound in the place I became a man.
I stand and fix my clothes, picking up the phone from where I dropped it. Exposure. I snap a picture of her. A few, because I want to make sure the lighting is just right. I’ve spent enough time preparing the piece, I should make the most of it.
Then I grasp her by the hair and drag her down a hallway. Third room on the right.
The Recreation room. A pool built for someone who wanted the crazy to exercise. Maybe even have fun. A metal grate lid added to keep people from falling in. It has a different purpose now.
Her feet scrabble for purchase on the broken tiles. She can’t fight the pull. Such beautiful blond strands. They look delicate framing her flushed face, but they aren’t. They’re strong. Like her. A wonderful leash with which to pull her into hell.
The hole gapes in the center of the room, black and dank.
She swings wildly in a punch that lands on my side. A very nice attempt, but not enough. I push her into the pit. The sound of her fall echoes against the walls. Six feet. Far enough to break something. She slips as she tries to stand, the concrete sides slick with mildew.
“Don’t worry,” I murmur. “This will help you, too.”
What if he doesn’t come? Then he would be more heartless than I am, and wouldn’t that be sweet? A truly proud moment as a father. I think he’ll come. He’ll hate her. She’ll fear him.
I turn the faucet on the wall, and water pours from a small steel pipe into the pit. She screams when she realizes what will happen. It will take a long time, but eventually, the pit will be full of water. The metal grate I slide over the top will keep her inside.
As it rises, she’ll have to kick to stay afloat. Ultimately, she’ll cling to the metal grate, her fingers through the holes, desperately sucking in air through the top. And then her arms will tire. Her mind will dull. The heroic Damon Scott will come for her, possibly. He might even come in time.
How long will she survive down there?
What will be left of her mind if she does?
“Please, no,” she begs. She’s really lovely like this, desperate and clawing.
I almost wish that I could keep her. Almost. “Don’t panic,” I say, chiding. “You’ll only lose your head.”
Tears stream down her cheeks. “Don’t do this to me. I’ll do anything, anything.”
“You’ll do everything, lovely peach.”
“I’ll make the money back. Work in the clubs. For sex. Anything. Don’t do this to me. Please.”
Desperation is an aphrodisiac. I knew that, which was partly why I had to fuck her first. It doesn’t stop my cock from growing hard again. “Do you know, when I first got here, they still did lobotomies. How barbaric is that?”
“This is barbaric,” she half cries, half screams. “Let me out. Oh my God, let me out of here.”
The water is already at her knees. “They did many cruel things, but not this. This was beautiful. I fought it first. That’s the weakness inside us. It’s a gift to make you stronger.”
She backs up in the water, back against the corner, eyes wide with horror.
“Oh, I almost forgot.” I pull up the picture on my phone and start a text to Damon. He doesn’t have this number. It’s one of many burner phones. Anonymous. Untraceable.
On impulse, I add a heart emoji. It makes me smile. He probably doesn’t know I know how to use those. His old man. I may be a little traditional, but I can learn. I hit Send.
Only a second passes before he calls back.
I shove the phone into my pocket. We don’t need to speak. He’s my son. Our connection goes deeper than words. He’ll know from the picture where she is. After all, this is where I made Damon stronger. The world is a cruel, dark place. I wanted him to be ready for it.
It feels a little melancholy to leave her there, the sweet fruit and the familiar barrel. God, even the smell of antiseptic lingers in the air decades later. I breathe in the scent for comfort.
Strange to realize I want the girl for myself. How I could torment her. In one of my mansions, using every room, every piece of ominous equ
ipment. No clothes. Little food. Those beautiful, large brown eyes, full of fury. She’s almost too good for him.
I pause with my hand on the doorknob, looking back down the hallway. Faintly, the water babbles, a peaceful sound like a brook. I’m watering her like a fucking plant. Making her grow.
And isn’t that why farmers work so hard? To pass down the land to their sons?
It doesn’t matter if I want to keep her. I can still feel the tight muscles of her asshole tearing around my cock. Still feel her hair in my fist. I want to consume her a hundred times. And then again.
My sacrifice doesn’t matter.
She serves a bigger purpose—a family legacy.
Thank you for reading Orchard!
Jonathan Scott is a character in the Endgame series, which begins with The Pawn and continues in The Knight. I hope you’ll try this dark + sexy virgin auction series!
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“Skye Warren’s THE PAWN is a triumph of intrigue, angst, and sensual drama. I was clenching everything. Gabriel and Avery sucked me in from the first few paragraphs and never let go.” – New York Times bestselling author Annabel Joseph
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"Gabriel Miller is the perfect alpha, leaving you reeling as his dominance, power, and unexpected tenderness creates the ideal mixture. Five glowing stars." - New York Times bestselling author Aleatha Romig
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Check out Skye’s website at www.skyewarren.com
Turn the page for the next dark tale in this collection, courtesy of heart-stopper author Callie Hart…
RITE AND RITUAL
BY CALLIE HART
Blood and cum: my bodily fluids combine together easily in the bottom of the glass tumbler, the liquid a dark crimson mixture when I’m done. The jerking off part was less fun than fucking, I’ll admit, but pressing the blade into my flesh and gathering the blood? That part was organic. The way the sharpened steel cut? The way my body bled? My dick stirs, growing hard again just thinking about it. I can’t think about that now, though. I have to concentrate. This ritual is important, a ritual the men of our family participate in but once in their lifetimes. I refuse to fuck it up.
Genevieve Kendrick sits on the edge of the bed, watching me. She’s nervous, I can tell, and that only adds to the thrill. She’s here of her own volition. She can leave any time she wants, but she won’t. We’ve been going back and forth, playing a cat and mouse game for so long, but she knows the truth just as well as I do: she ran, but she wanted to be caught. She hid, but she wanted to be found. She refused me, but she was always going to surrender herself.
Her long black hair twists in curls over her bare shoulders, almost reaching her hips. Her lips are swollen and red, her skin pale and flawless in the cool, glowing light of the city that floods in through the wide, stain glass windows. The Bastien house is one of the oldest, grandest buildings in the French Quarter of New Orleans. For the past two hundred and fifty-eight years, people have walked by the imposing entrance, choked with Spanish Moss and ivy, and wondered at the architecture—the warm pink stone of the high walls that seems to glow when the sunlight hits it at the right time of day, and the chipped and flaking paint around the expansive windows on each of the three stories. They’ve thought to themselves, “Such a beautiful building. Such a remarkable place. How luck the people inside must be, to live in a home like that.” If only they knew the reality of it. If only they knew that all who abide inside these four walls are fucking cursed.
The house is the only possible location for tonight’s activities, though. No one asks questions when you arrive under the cover of darkness here. No one raises an eyebrow when your guests are screaming out to God at the top of their lungs at three in the morning. Genevieve shifts on the bed, trying to look relaxed, but she’s not fooling anybody, least of all me.
“What are you going to do with that?” she asks, eyeing the small glass flask in my hands. She doesn’t look scared, per se. Maybe just…curious. Wary and curious. I like the look on her.
“Nothing you won’t enjoy,” I reply. “Stand up.”
Her hands clench into loose fists for a second. She gets to her feet, her long, cream colored silk dress swaying like liquid light around her body, hugging her slender frame and swelling over her curves in the most delicious way. She looks like she could be consumed. Drunk or eaten perhaps, a delicacy only a few men in this world could ever possibly afford. I don’t need to pay for luxuries like Genevieve, though. Women like her fall at my feet like I’m some kind of god. All it takes is a rough word, a few carefully chosen commands, the promise of a switch against their bare skin, and they are mine.
She knows about the body in the trunk of my car. She was sitting in the back seat when I met with Farriagamo. She saw him pull a knife on me, and she saw what I did with it when I took it off him. She watched him die, and she watched me drag his limp body from the side of the road and toss it like trash into the trunk of the car. And still…here she sits. Here, she waits for me to make her mine in every sense of the word. This is what it means to be alpha. To have someone completely under your control, no matter how wicked or evil your actions might be.
“Take this.” I hold the knife out to Genevieve. The silver of the blade is still covered in the blood and semen I was just mixing together. She stares at it, fixated on the fiercely sharp tip of the weapon where a bead of blood hangs, threatening to fall.
She has three seconds. Three seconds to take the thing before there will be consequences. I think maybe she sees me make this decision, maybe the expression on my face changes, because she jolts into action, crossing the room and taking the knife from me with shaking hands.
“Now what?” she asks.
“Now you lick it clean.”
Her eyes grow wide, but she’s a smart woman. She knows better than to say anything. To react beyond the quickening of her breath and the dilation of her pupils. Lifting the knife to her mouth, the tip of her tongue darts out between her lips, cautiously, as if she’s preparing herself for what comes next, hesitating. I restart the clock.
Three seconds.
One…
Two…
Her tongue runs up the length of the knife. She closes her eyes, a muffled moan catching in the back of her throat as she tastes me.
“That’s it. Good girl. Lick it clean.” My cock is growing harder by the second. I’m gonna be palming myself soon, stroking the length of my dick, and I’m going to enjoy Genevieve watching me, but for now I’m too wrapped up in her obedience. It’s fucking amazing to see her comply without protest like this. The crimson blood on the pale pink of her tongue is driving me insane. When she’s finished, she hands me back the knife.
“Open your mouth,” I tell her. “Stick out your tongue. Show me.” She shows me her tongue. With her head tipped back, her lips pouty and flecked with blood, I want to rip that fucking dress from her body and slam myself inside of her already. I’m a pleasure delayer, though. I like to torture myself a little bit. Make myself wait. “Go back to the bed. Sit on your hands.”
Once she’s done as I’ve asked her, I walk over to the door and open it. Jerome stands there, back ramrod straight, hands clasped behind his back, waiting patiently just as I knew he would be. His facial features are impassive as he bows his head slightly, taking a step forward. “He’s arrived, sir, as have your brothers. You would like me to escort them to the reception room?”
Excitement shuttles up and down my body, catching me off guard. I’m looking forward to this. I’ve known all my life that I would have to do this at some point, and the very idea of it was nothing short of inconvenient. I suppose I never really considered the woman I’d be claiming before, though. Now that the moment has arrived and it’s Genevieve sitting on the edge of my bed, waiting anxiously like a trapped exotic bird, the situation is
far from inconvenient. It’s anything but.
“No. Bring them up here. No sense in wasting time.”
Jerome bows his head even further, averting his eyes. “Of course.” He moves off down the hallway quickly, hands still clasped behind his back. Back inside my room, Genevieve’s eyelids flutter when I turn to her. She does her best to sit still but I can tell she’s getting antsy. “What now?” she asks.
“Now, you wait patiently. Can you do that?”
“If that’s what you want, then yes.”
Holy fuck. The fire in her eyes rages; I can see how hard she has to fight to keep her temper under control. It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing. Genevieve is a rare kind of woman. She doesn’t lean on anyone for help. She never holds her hand out to be steadied. It would kill her to be beholden to anyone. I think that’s part of why this whole thing is so fucking perfect. It’s her sacrifice, everything she’s giving up to hand herself over to me. It must be the hardest thing she’s ever had to do, and she’s performing wonderfully.
“It is what I want,” I say. Men don’t play poker with me. I perfected the ability to hide my emotions years ago. The gamblers of New Orleans can never tell if I’m bluffing. No tics. No tells. I give nothing away. Right now, though, I’m finding it hard to keep the pleasure from my face. I wonder if my fiery little Genevieve can see how excited she’s making me. I catch a glimpse of myself in the vast mirror mounted on the wall beside the bed, and I note the slight curve to my mouth. The faint glimmer of amusement in my eyes. It’s subtle. To someone who doesn’t know me very well, I’m sure I still look sinister. Perhaps a little…evil? I’ve never been a fan of that word. I don’t believe in inherent good, or inherent bad. I believe in people trying to hide their vices and putting on a good show, so others will think them perfect. I believe that some of us choose to embrace the darkness a little too tightly, but at the end of the day there are always snatches of light to be found if a person were to look hard enough. Even within me, believe it or not.
MY SWEET VILLAINTINE Page 2