Merciless Love: A Dark Romance

by Nicole Snow

  There were too many bodyguards, sensors and cameras galore.

  If I got within a mile of that fucking place uninvited, I'd end up with a sniper's bullet in my brain. And having my head shot to shit was sweet and merciful compared to what they'd do to Ty if Borzia caught a tiny whiff I planned to betray him.

  No, my guns were worthless here. The bastard caught me by the balls a long time ago, and now all he was doing was twisting them tighter and tighter, one jerk away from tearing them clean off my body.

  “Evan?”

  I looked up when I heard her voice. She was leaning out the entrance leading into the house. I wondered how long she'd been watching me with my weapons in the darkness. The guns scared her, and so did everything about what I'd become.

  “Evan, it's time.” She held out the little outfit.

  I walked over, took it, and stuffed it underneath my arm. I nodded, waved at her to go back inside. Her job here was done. The rest of the work was mine, the beginning of a long project to make the girl something she was never meant to be.

  Izzy was long gone by the time I locked the safe and started toward the door. Inside, I paused, and let the skimpy thing spread itself out.

  Fuck! I couldn't deny it, the woman had an eye for sexy. She'd picked out the perfect outfit for our trainee, and the thin nightie I gripped in my fingers was the very definition of sexy and innocent.

  It was a lot like the dress she was in when I rescued her, except this was a whole lot thinner. No fucking religious freaks would've been caught dead dressing their daughters in this number. Even in the darkness, it was thin enough to be see through. I was bound to get an eyeful, no matter how it was plastered on her naked body.

  So will Borzia. The thought made me want to put my fists through the wall, and it wasn't just because this was all pure evil.

  No, I knew that feeling, plain as day. I was jealous – jealous!

  I didn't want anybody but me stripping her down, dressing her, and I sure as fuck didn't want her making him hard from hundreds of miles away. Just seeing her young flesh filling this out was bound to make any red blooded man seethe with need.

  I clenched my jaw until it hurt and balled up the lingerie. The hell with it. I took a deep breath, ignoring the raging hard-on in my trousers, the damning reminder I was just as much a monster in all this as the man who owned me. The blood rushed up, poisoning my brain with its fire.

  Took all my focus to make myself walk. When I finally got to Cassie's door, I stopped.

  My head was killing me. Each step closer deepened the headache overtaking my skull. I reached into my pockets and felt for the phone. With any luck, the bastard was going to get less than pristine images, and I didn't give a shit.

  She can't see it coming. You've got to be quick, savage, merciless...

  She's not your fucking girlfriend! She's his slave and your bargaining chip. Act like it.

  I shook my hand to stop it from trembling before I gripped the door knob to her room. It turned, and I popped the door, peering through the darkness. A second later, I was in, and it clicked shut behind me.

  “Cassie? Where the hell are you?”

  My fingers ran over the soft lumps on the bed where I expected to find her sleeping. Too soft.

  Fuck! Something wasn't right.

  V: Naked (Cassie)

  I waited in the little bathroom, clutching the heavy toilet seat tight to my chest. It was hard to keep my breath in check, holding it to my body so he wouldn't hear.

  Evan walked right past me. His eyes scared me.

  I only saw a tiny flash of light in them before the door clicked shut behind him. Pain was mixed with determination in his pupils, spilling out into the worried creases on his strong face. It was enough to tell me something monstrous was planned.

  Jesus, my instincts weren't wrong. This was it.

  Was he going to drag me off to the other man he mentioned tonight? Or was he going to show me what being a slave really meant, a harsher captivity worse than sweeping floors and folding shirts?

  No. I won't let him.

  I gripped my little weapon tighter. It had taken a long time to pry it off its bolts with my bare hands. The heavy seat was warm against my palms, mirroring my fear, my horror at the predator storming into my space.

  He was out there in the darkness, standing over my bed. Before he came, I piled up the pillows beneath my blankets, making him think I was there for him.

  “Cassie?” He reached down and ran his hand over the softness. “Where the hell are you?”

  It's now or never. Get up! Go!

  “I don't have time for fucking games. Show yourself right now!” He spoke louder into the darkness, his voice growing ragged with my deception sinking in.

  I wasn't concerned about being quiet anymore. I ran forward, toilet seat over my head, ready to smash it on his skull and put him out cold. It was my one and only chance to get away from him.

  Evan turned. I came to a dead stop just a foot away.

  I froze. I literally fucking froze when I saw the anger, the desperation, and the violent fire in his face. His whole appearance was a paradox, one my brain refused to process.

  I couldn't believe a man who looked so intense, so handsome, wanted to do me harm. And not just any harm, but the worst a girl could imagine. He meant to enslave me to a stranger I didn't even know. I was his property to be traded. Nothing more.

  The freakish disconnect between his looks and his intentions turned my blood to ice. So did the terrible desperation on his face, as if somebody were holding a gun to his head, making him do these awful things.

  “Cassie! Stop!” My name left his lips like a bullet this time. “Put that fucking thing down. You can't hurt me.”

  No. No! I can't let him get to me. I can't spare him any mercy when he isn't giving me a shred!

  Instinct hit like lightning. The spell broke, and I lunged forward, screaming as I hurled the toilet seat at his skull.

  I was fast, but he was faster. My swing missed. The weight swung my body like a ragdoll, almost sent me crashing to the floor, before I picked myself up again.

  The second I stopped and gawked at him cost me dearly. He rammed himself into my body like a freight train, and I was knocked back across the bed, struggling to get in one last blow before he pinned me down, before it was too late...

  “Bitch! You're trying to kill me?” His voice was strained, as if he couldn't believe it, even though I moved like a hissing, deadly tigress beneath him. “Never thought you had it in you.”

  I swung the toilet seat just as he spread his palm over my face, pushing my head deep into the mattress. He covered my eyes.

  Blinded. Crazed. Fucked.

  The seat flew out of my hands and I heard the deafening crash on the floor, porcelain splintering into a hundred shards. For a second, his hand tightened its grip, and then relaxed.

  In one swift motion, he clutched at my shoulders, and gave me a hard shake. “Goddamn it, Cassie! What the fuck were you thinking?”

  It was my turn to gawk in disbelief. How could this monster look so hurt by what I'd done? Did he really think I wouldn't try to protect myself, try like hell to fight him and escape all this?

  I wasn't done.

  I kicked and screamed. Or rather, I tried to, thrashing and bellowing like a mad woman as he held me down.

  “Stop, damn you! It's over for you, Cassie. It's all fucking over...”

  Over?

  The tantrum died and I slumped beneath him. Every inch of my skin burned. It wasn't from holding in tears – I was too sick and screwed to worry about that. No, the fire was all focused where his fingers pressed into my flesh.

  When I rolled beneath his hands, I felt how my nipples had become hard pebbles beneath my dress. And the wet, insistent pulse between my legs?

  Pure hell. My own body turned on me, surrendering to the sick attraction that foamed inside me ever since I laid eyes on this man. At some base animal level, I wanted this monster, and that
was the worst torment of all.

  “I told you to stop fucking struggling. You know this wasn't gonna go easy under any circumstances, right?” His voice came out in a harsh, angry whisper.

  One finger ran up my arm, over the crook in my neck, across my cheek. I should've jerked my head, should've tried to bite the bastard. But the heat imprisoned me, obliterated any desire to hurt him, to make him stop his brute conquest.

  “You fucked up.” His words were loud, a harsh indictment. “I would've tried to make this easy. Now, you don't fucking deserve it. We're gonna do things my way, the hard way, and I'm done giving a shit if you cooperate or not.”

  His hands moved. In one jerk, he ripped my dress at the shoulders. The shearing fabric screamed against my skin, a voice for the horror I couldn't begin to communicate as it flew off my body.

  He undressed me rough, angry, jerking my body against the bed every so often when he sensed I was about to fight. Wave after wave of magma pulsed through me. Hate for him, hate for myself, hate for the traitorous lust burning like a fever at my core...

  No! Sin consumed me. My body craved it, rebelling against my mind, my heart.

  “Gonna flip you over, babe. The bra and panties are coming off, and the fucking thing you made me dump on the floor is going on. You try to punch, claw, bite, or scream and I will throw your ass across my knee and beat it raw. Don't test me again. Ever.”

  His words shocked me into silence. In one motion, he had me on my belly, pinned underneath him. This position was closer and more intimate than anything before. A torturous hold with instruments of sweat and burning flesh.

  He pressed one hand to my back. I couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't even breathe as he kept me in place and reached underneath the bed. Something silky flapped against my thigh as he came back, moving his control hand up toward my shoulders.

  Evan grasped my bra strap and kept on pulling, until the whole thing snapped in his hands. His other hand jerked off the cups, and then he went lower, balling up the waistband above my butt.

  No! Not the last thing keeping me from him. He'll see everything, he'll know how screwed up and sick with desire I am, how much my stupid body loves having his hands where they shouldn't be...

  I thrashed against him. Evan growled, and pinned me with ease. He pushed his knee deeper between my legs, sandwiching it between my thighs, and then lifted away when I stopped resisting. My panties moved with his fist, skating down my thighs, down my anklets, straight off as they hooked around my feet.

  The will to fight died then and there.

  I slumped against the bed, burying my tears and shame and raging heat face first in the mattress. Jesus, I hadn't even wondered what he was going to do yet.

  Was this it? Was stripping me down an exercise in obedience? Or was he a sicker bastard than I thought, a man who'd have his way with me before he turned me over to the new, unknown master?

  His hands slipped through my sweaty mess of hair and pulled. Menacing pain lifted my head along with his strength, and he craned his neck down, pushing his lips to my ear.

  “Get the fuck up. I need to get you dressed and photographed. Be a good girl this once, Cassie, and we can forget about your stupid ass trying to break my fucking head open.” He wasn't asking.

  I bit my lip and went along with it, if only because I was too shocked to think about doing anything else. This was all happening so fast, dizzy as a dream. And each time he touched my naked flesh, the fire roared within me, more insistent, hungrier for his monstrous delight.

  As soon as I raised my head, the thin thing he held went over my neck. He quickly tugged it down, slipping my arms through the straps. The hem he tugged across my buttocks, and I sensed a little hesitation in the pull.

  “There. Good girl. Hold still,” he whispered hoarsely. He grasped me more gently this time, coaxing me until I rolled over.

  His eyes were big, bright, and painfully intense.

  The heat boiling in my blood spilled out. It was all around us, my energy mingling with his. I wondered if the terrible need rolling off him had to do with his big secret, the real reason for doing this. Or was it because he wanted this, because he was enjoying it?

  His hand shook slightly as he gripped my naked thigh underneath the dress. I whimpered, unable to hold it in.

  “Spread your legs, babe. This'll all be over quick if you help me out...”

  He reached into his pocket and jerked out a small phone. At some point during the struggle to dress me, he'd switched on the lamp on my nightstand. The pale light bathed us, but it wasn't the least bit soothing.

  The faint glow was sick. It had been infected with the hurt and ache coiling up my belly, the raw need to understand, and to accept I wanted him. We locked eyes as I shifted my thighs apart.

  New fire bathed my cheeks.

  Sultry. Thick. Unbearable.

  I was exposing myself to a madman I wasn't sure if I lusted after or wanted to kill. I hadn't been able to figure it out since he captured me, and this latest dance we were doing just deepened the confusion like a noose around my neck.

  He raised the device. It made a little clicking noise like an old-timey camera shutter, and then beeped. I laid back, pinching my eyes shut so hard blood rushed in my temples.

  Just let him do this. Let him get this over with.

  He can see your body, but he can't see through you. He can't find out how crazy this makes you if you don't let it slip.

  More clicks. More beeps. I still felt his heat even when he wasn't touching me, when he was just guiding the phone up my belly and over my nipples, serving me up as a feast for the monster I hadn't met.

  Then he laid one hand on my breast, covering the globe, squeezing around my nipple. I nearly hit the ceiling. My whole mind fell apart, drowned in the thick wetness pooling between my legs. So, so hot, but I wanted to be hotter!

  “Cassie. You're shaking.” He spoke slow and soft, the way a rider talks to a frightened horse. “Open your eyes. Look at me, babe.”

  This was one command I wished I'd fought. As soon as I did, the tears came, a deluge I'd somehow held back through the whole terrible thing between us.

  “Get up. Turn around and sit with your back to the camera. It's almost done.”

  The pressure on my breast relaxed. It was more therapeutic than sexual, but the affect was all the same. It was hard to listen to him and move with the flames licking me from the inside out, fires kindled and fed by his evil touch.

  Whatever. I was just glad to have his hand off my breast when I finally shifted into the position he wanted. His hand moved behind me, slow and steady. Evan focused most of his camerawork on my ass.

  I stopped crying. Suddenly, I was feeling exhaustion – heat exhaustion, maybe. I collapsed against him, trying not to fall into a full on panic or faint, taking my breaths one at a time.

  Slow. Steady. You've got to keep control.

  He caught me, standing right over me when I opened my eyes. I was upside down, staring at him, trying to decipher the storm in his eyes.

  Looking didn't help.

  It only deepened the mysterious surge in my head, and that frustration fed the thing I wanted to ignore, raw lust plucking every nerve. His hands moved slow, trying to comfort me, or else just sample the flesh he was preparing for market. I couldn't tell.

  “We're all done, Cassie. See? It's not so damned bad when you listen, is it?”

  He expected me to nod or squeak a reply. Well, I sure as hell wasn't giving him the satisfaction. I clenched my teeth, praying he'd go away, anything to leave me to regroup in this latest bizarre torment.

  But it wasn't so easy, and I wasn't that lucky.

  His right hand sank lower down my back, riding the plush curve in my side, all the way down my hip. He grazed my thigh and curved in, dangerously close to the openness in the slutty dress he'd decked me in.

  Crap, crap, crap.

  Rough calloused fingers caught virgin flesh. He was on my bare thigh, snaking his finge
rs through the wetness, dangerously close to the swollen heat that made me squirm.

  No more hiding. I was really and truly screwed.

  Evan sucked in a low, deep breath, tracing the thicker cream up my inner thigh. I'd leaked all over myself while he held me down, spilling corruption all over my skin.

  “Holy fucking shit...hotter and wetter than a whore in port. Fuck!” He said the last word like a gunshot.

  This was lust, real corruption in wet fire, thick as honey. Not the lies about sex and desire I'd been fed in the congregation. If sex was a sin, then the Prophet himself wouldn't have had an adoring gaggle of wives clinging to him everywhere.

  No, this wetness, this desire was a sin against myself.

  My nipples ached to be squeezed, but it was nothing compared to the heat down below, the fire so close to where his fingers were moving.

  “Don't move. Just hold still and feel this. I need to feel you, babe. Gotta know I'm not just losing my mind...”

  Two strong fingers brushed my slick folds. Our lungs pumped simultaneously, and we sighed together, drunk with new need, new desire. If he didn't do something to dash the fire, I was going to explode.

  Shame still filled my voice and pulled at my lips.

  “Evan, please,” I moaned. “You said we were done. You said –“

  “That's sir to you from now on in this room. I don't give a shit if you use my name, actually, but the other bastard will. The sooner you start treating me like your new master, the better.” He rubbed, pressing through my slickness more insistently, enjoying the excitement in my hips. “Fuck, babe. Even more responsive than I thought. This is good news for both of us.”

  I wanted to ask why. I also wanted to beg and plead to keep me from the other man, to offer myself to him.

  But saying anything was impossible with his hand there, moving faster and fiercer, teasing horny flesh that had been denied for far too long.

  Shocks ripped through my body. He parted me, collected my wetness, slathered its heat over my clit.

  Did I ever think my first time with a man doing anything would be like this?