Faith (A Dark Romance Novel)

by Towers, Terry

  “I’m okay, Sir.”

  “Good. Then I suspect I won’t be having any more problems with you?”

  She shook her head. “As long as you promise not to hurt my family, Master.”

  “You hold the fate of your family, not me.” My eyes left hers and dropped to the towel wrapped around her. “Remove the towel and give it to me.”

  Fear and indecision flashed in her eyes.

  “Don’t keep me waiting – you won’t like the repercussions. I’m not a patient man, Emily. When I tell you to do something, you do not question. You do not think. You do. Are we clear?”

  She nodded and slowly rose to her feet. For a moment I thought she was about to burst into tears, but she didn’t. Closing her eyes, she took in a deep breath then slowly released it. She opened her eyes as she tore the towel from her body.

  I kept my face free of emotion, but the truth was her naked body was stunning and just the sight of her caused my heart rate to quicken. I’d suspected she had a nice figure, but under those frumpy clothes was a beauty with perfect curves. She’d fetch a fine amount of money once she was trained, I was sure of that. Especially if what I planned for her was achieved. My eyes took their time travelling up her trembling body; once they reached her face I almost took pity to see her eyes were downcast and her face had turned crimson from embarrassment. It would take some time to get her over her insecurities and modesty, but she’d come around – they all did.

  “Turn around.” I motioned with my index finger for her to turn.

  Without speaking, she slowly turned, no doubt grateful she didn’t have to face me any longer.

  Her ass was nice and round, her ivory skin flawless. A perfect canvas for my whip. I could envision the scars from my whip across her back – claiming her as mine and only mine. A permanent reminder of her Master. But if I were to do that she’d lose value. Young, unmarked virgins were what buyers wanted and what I aimed to produce for them. Sadly, it meant having to suppress my dark urges on the ones I wanted the most – on the ones that would give me the greatest satisfaction.

  Crossing my arms over my chest, I clucked my tongue off the roof of my mouth in consideration. Maybe I could make an exception – just this one time? I’d lose maybe ten or twenty grand if I took her for myself – not that big a deal considering the satisfaction it would bring. I planned on auctioning her in a month or two, but I could always postpone that for an additional month or so. I had money, lots of it; that was hardly an issue. Truth was, if I wanted to spend the rest of my life just living off my savings I could – and comfortably. But there was a dark beast within me that craved the pain and the tears and the begging for mercy. I could hold off the beast for quite some time, but ultimately the beast needed to be fed.

  Feeling her eyes burning into me, I lifted my head and scowled at her. “Did I tell you that you could turn back around, slave?”

  She cringed at the term slave – just as she had earlier. “Do you have a problem with me calling you slave, slave?”

  Her gaze met mine. I could see in her eyes that she wanted to tell me to rot in hell, to hurt me, kill me even, but she didn’t say a word, merely shook her head.

  I advanced on her a couple of steps. She refused to step away. “Speak up and answer properly when I ask you a question.”

  “No, Master.” Her tone dripped with contempt. Her anger was amusing, but I maintained a stern expression. The last thing I wanted her to do was get into the habit of being disrespectful; I already had all that religious shit to wipe from her head. That being said, the irony wasn’t lost on me that it was the religious bullshit that had made me pick her – the challenge of turning a virtuous woman into a wanton whore.

  “Check your tone, slave.” I took several steps toward her and this time she retreated as many steps until she was sandwiched between my body and the bed.

  “I apologize, Sir.” The smell of strawberry shampoo and soap drifted to my nose, sweet and enticing.

  “Get on the bed and lie back.”

  She hesitated for a split second before crawling onto the bed and doing as instructed, keeping her legs held tight together, like one little stiff board. I had no doubt she was going to really hate what I was going to get her to do next. Maybe I’d even get to see the beauty of her tears.

  “Good. Now I want you to display yourself to me.”

  She lifted her head and eyed me, but the redness was beginning to colour her cheeks again. “Sir?”

  Damn, she was so green.

  I grabbed her knees and, despite her resistance, forced her to bend her knees and spread her legs. “I want to see your pussy, Emily. Don’t play stupid. You may be a virgin, but I know you’re hardly a stupid girl.”

  “No. I can’t…” Tears sprang up in her eyes and she pulled away from me and out of my grasp. “Please don’t do this. I can’t… Master, please.” Tears were running freely down her cheeks and she released a sob. “My father.”

  “Your father will never see you again. And as long as you do as you’re told, he and the rest of your family will remain safe. Don’t make me follow through with my threat, Emily.”

  She crawled to the back corner of the bed and drew her legs up to her chest, curling into a tight ball. “How do I know you won’t hurt them anyhow?”

  “You have my word.”

  She snorted as she glared at me. The bitch actually snorted her disbelief and contempt.

  Fine. If it was the hard way she wanted, then so be it. The hard way was always much more fun anyhow.

  I lunged at her. She screamed and attempted to flee, but it was a futile effort. It took less than a minute of struggling with her to position myself between her legs, covering her body with mine. She was gasping for breath under me, her tiny frame no doubt being crushed under mine. I guessed my two-hundred and twenty pounds outweighed her by eighty pounds or more. Grabbing her wrist with one hand, I snapped on a cuff that was attached to the bed. The second cuff went around her other wrist less than a minute later.

  She bucked and wiggled under me despite her hands being cuffed, which only managed to turn me on; my cock almost instantly turned rock solid. Normally I’m pretty good at keeping my cool in these situations – this was hardly my first slave; I’d trained so many I’d stopped counting – but I have an addiction to violence and pussy. A sick, twisted addiction. The more she screamed and the harder she fought, the more I wanted to slam into her and have her cunt bleed around my cock as it was breached for the first time.

  Mine and only mine.

  Her heel came into contact with my lower back, right over my kidney – hard. I groaned, but it didn’t stop me. It only pulled my focus from my throbbing dick to the task at hand – training her. Pulling a pair of handcuffs from my back pocket, I grabbed her left ankle and slapped them on, repeating the process with the second.

  Sitting up, I took a deep breath in and released it. Looking down at her, I could see the ten-minute battle had exhausted her. She lay limp and chained, beautiful tears flowing down her cheeks. If only I had sympathy for tears, but I didn’t. Tears didn’t add any value for me; all they did was feed the beast within me.

  With a sigh, I pulled a length of thin rope from my other pocket. I looped the rope around the chain connecting her ankles. It took a lot more effort since she decided to start fighting me again, but I managed to pull her legs up to her chest, loop the rope around the post of the headboard and then knot it so she was doubled over on her back, her pink core fully exposed to me.

  “Happy now?” I asked with an angry huff. “Let this be a lesson – I always get what I want in the end. Doing things the way I asked the first time would have been a lot less degrading for you.” Standing, I walked over to my chair across the room and flopped down into it.

  She didn’t answer, but the tears came faster and the sobs louder until I began to fear she’d pass out. She didn’t. Eventually the sobs lessened and the tears stopped. Her body was doubled up uncomfortably in a position that made her l
ook like a human pretzel. Despite wanting to approach her, I decided to give her some time to think and fully grasp the direness of her situation.

  Chapter 4

  Tanner

  I could hear the buzzing of my mobile phone as I walked down the hallway toward my office. Before Lance burned the compound to the ground, which had in turn made me a freelancer without anyone to answer to, I would have been rushing to answer the phone. But not now. Now the only person I had to answer to was myself – and I liked it that way.

  Entering my office, I snatched up the phone and swiped the screen, answering the call.

  Tanner: Yeah?

  Flynn: ’Bout time you answered. I was about to hang up.

  I groaned inwardly. Flynn McCarty was the man who was working hard at putting back together the pieces of The Organization. Over six months ago when Lance Winters – son of the man called “The Boss,” who was head of the USA branch – had decided to assassinate ninety percent of the heads of The Organization during a roundtable meeting, he’d thrown the group into disarray. But Flynn was attempting to recruit new talent to rebuild – and succeeding. The arms-dealing sector of the business was already up and running.

  But Flynn needed a new head of the United States arm, which dealt mainly in acquiring new girls and training them for shipment abroad. While human trafficking amounted to only a fraction of The Organization’s income – arms dealing and drug running accounting for the majority – human trafficking was still a viable and important arm. With all three sectors covered, The Organization amounted to a sort of one-stop shop for debauchery.

  Tanner: What can I do for you, Flynn?

  Flynn: Take over the U.S. arm. Work for us again.

  Tanner: There isn’t an “us” anymore, Flynn. Have you forgotten Lance took care of that?

  Flynn: Hardly. There’s still plenty of us and we are rebuilding quickly. Granted, it’ll take a few years to get back to the point where we were, but we’ll get there. And we need you as much as you need us.

  I had to choke down laughter. They may need me, but I sure as hell didn’t need them. Not in the least.

  Tanner: With all due respect, I’m fine just as I am. I’m done with the red tape that comes with The Organization. I’m a freelancer now, and I must say I like it. I’d done taking orders.

  Flynn: We have power, Tanner. We have connections. For instance, we know that you are currently residing in a five-bedroom house on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon. I imagine you keep your girls in basement rooms. You have no real security, and what happens if the law begins to sniff around? We can protect you. We can send you the money to rebuild a complex like the one The Boss ran, and it would be all yours. You at the reins, son. No one to answer to. All you need to do is prepare the girls and have them ready when we need them. You get money and security, and we get well-trained American women – everyone wins. You’re the best and we can trust you. We know that, and I won’t lie, we need that.

  I’d heard it all before. Numerous times. I still had no interest.

  Tanner: I’ve decided to fly straight.

  Flynn: Tanner. Please. Don’t lie to me. We know you have two women currently. The newest one picked up last night from a little town an hour away from you. Rather close to home with that one, if you ask me, but who am I to judge?

  Motherfuckers are watching me.

  My blood began to boil and my free hand clenched into a tight fist. I wasn’t surprised, but pissed nonetheless. We’re a family here, my boy, The Boss had said to me many, many years ago, and family watches over each other. Now that you’re one of us, you’ll never be alone. He hadn’t been kidding. Problem was, I wanted to be alone.

  Tanner: So you’re having me watched?

  Silence.

  Tanner: Flynn?

  Flynn: Lance Winters is still out there. It’s for your own protection.

  That was another instance where I could have laughed out loud but forced myself to refrain.

  Tanner: If Lance Winters wanted me dead, I’d be dead. The man murdered his own father, along with men he’s known and worked with for years. He’s a master marksman and knows just about everything there is to know about guns and explosives. So like I said, if he wanted me dead, I’d be dead. My guess is that he’s holed up somewhere, playing the happy couple with his little slave, using a fake identity. I suspect we’ll never see him again.

  Flynn: We’re hardly scared of a traitor like Lance Winters.

  I shrugged.

  Track him down. Get your men killed. Suit yourself. Not like I care either way. Good luck with that.

  As long as they kept that shit off my doorstep, I didn’t get a flying rat’s ass what they did. Personally I had no beef with Lance Winters – my connection with him had been severed when the compound was destroyed.

  Tanner: Well, all I can say is good luck. And thanks for the offer, but I have to respectfully decline.

  Flynn: Listen, I’m flying to New York for business in a couple of weeks. I plan on attending your auction for the girl you currently have trained. We can have a face to face chat then.

  Fuck! The problem with trafficking women is that many of the people I need to use to get them out of the country are connected to the very organization I’m trying to rid myself of. Sadly, to continue what I’m doing and not land behind bars, I have to at least keep a civil relationship with them.

  Tanner: Can’t wait.

  ~*~*~*~

  Emily

  How I managed to fall to sleep with my body contorted in the way Tanner had me was beyond me, but somehow I managed. However, it was Tanner’s voice that pulled me from my nap. “Wakey wakey, beautiful.”

  “I – What?” I peered up between my legs to see him staring down at me as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  “Next time I have to do this to you in order to get what I want, I will take a picture and then mail that picture to your father and everyone else in your father’s church. Is that what you want?”

  My red and swollen eyes widened in horror at the thought of my parents seeing such a picture. That would be bad enough, but for everyone in the church to see it… I fought not to burst into tears again, though I wasn’t sure if I had any tears left to cry, to be honest. “No, Master.”

  “Any questions?”

  I attempted to shift my position and a sharp pain raced up my leg and I winced. “No, but my legs hurt, Master.”

  “And if I release you, will you do as I ask?”

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in, slowly releasing it. I nodded. “Yes, Sir.”

  “Good. Now we’re getting somewhere.” Leaning over me, Tanner untied my cuffed legs. As I began to lower my legs flat to the mattress, another sharp pain raced up and down them and I cried out.

  “What’s the problem?” His eyes scanned the length of my naked body and caused another flush to colour my cheeks.

  “My legs, Master. They’re cramped. It hurts.”

  “No doubt. You’ve been like that for eight hours.”

  “Holy Eight hours!”

  To my surprise his head fell back and a roar of laughter erupted from him while I stared up at him in shock. When he stopped laughing a smile remained, and for a split second he reminded me of the man I’d met at the bar. Correction, the man I’d thought I met at the bar.

  My embarrassment over being naked was momentarily forgotten as I looked up him, bemused. “What’s so funny?” He eyed me and I quickly added, “Sir.”

  “The way you said ‘holy’ – it caught me off guard. It was amusing. It’s been an aggravating afternoon; your comment was a nice relief.” Pulling a set of keys from his jeans pocket, he leaned over me and undid the cuffs holding my hands to the bedposts and then unlocked my ankles, freeing me completely.

  “I’m glad to be of help, Master.”

  He chuckled again, his eyes locking with mine. “Turn onto your stomach.”

  Panic knotted within me. “Why, Master?”

  His smile
faded and I didn’t hesitate, but immediately flipped onto my stomach. Closing my eyes, I waited for whatever torture he had planned. When his hands grasped my calf I yelped and attempted to squirm away, but his grip was ironclad, and placing his free hand on my lower back secured me onto the mattress.

  “I’m going to help if you’ll stop fighting me.” His voice took on an edge that made me immediately stop squirming against him. I had to remind myself that I had to pick my fights, and this one wasn’t worth fighting.

  “I’m sorry, Master.” The words were becoming easier to say, but still took a swing at my pride each time I said them.

  He removed his hand from my lower back and began massaging my left calf. I won’t lie, it felt good to have the tightness of the muscles loosened by his seemingly expert hands.

  “Why are you doing this for me?”

  His hands switched to my right calf and began the process there. “Would you rather I didn’t?”

  “You said you were busy all afternoon… Does that mean I’ve been gone for a day, Master?” I should have checked in with my parents well before now if I had. They must be sick with worry. They’d expected me to go to Bonnie’s the previous night, but I would have checked in with them well before now.

  “Just about. Yup.” His hands moved up on my leg to the knee. I’ll admit I felt somewhat ashamed to be enjoying the feel of his hands on me, relieving the pain; I almost forgot the fact that he was the reason I was in pain to begin with.

  “What about my parents, Sir?”

  “What about them?”

  “They’ll be worried.”

  “Not my problem.” He switched to the other knee. “If you’d like a little advice, I would suggest you spend less time worrying about others and worry about yourself instead.”

  “Can I call them, just once? Please, Sir?”

  “This isn’t a ransom deal, baby. So no, you can’t. Besides, the quicker they get used to the idea you’re never coming back, the better.”

  “But if they know—”

  “Know what, exactly? That you’ve been kidnapped and that in a couple of months you’ll be sold to be someone’s sex slave and shipped abroad? Do you think that’ll make them feel better?”