by Raven Dark
I huffed through the gag, pleasure and pain shooting through every nerve in my ass, an intoxicating mixture that left me unsure if I wanted him to stop, or if I wanted more.
One hand gripping my hair and yanking back just enough, the other still clasping one of my hands at the small of my back, Kane slid slowly in and out of me, making circles with his hips so that he hit every damn nerve.
“Didn’t I promise I’d take your ass next time?” He ended on a growl, pushing my legs further apart, biting my ear almost too hard.
A half angry, half needy groan left me. Even the scrape of the brick against my thighs and breasts, chafing through my clothes, acted as a stimulant, reminding me of my situation. I’d pushed him too far, so here I was, getting it good as promised, all my control, my rights, my dignity stripped away while he took what he wanted. That at any moment someone could look the right way and see us only made me hotter. I couldn’t figure out if I hated what he did or if I loved it, but this was the single hottest thing I’d ever had done to me.
“You like this, don’t you, girl?” He thrust hard, hips slapping mine. Pain and pleasure blinded me. “You like being treated like trash.”
“Mmf!” I made the sound a curse, livid with hate.
“Yeah. You love it. We’ll have to do this again sometime.”
I bucked wildly, unsure if I was trying to come or get him off me. I swear, if the bastard didn’t let me come this time, I’d tear his head off.
Something about my fighting him must have made his control snap, because Kane grunted and his pace turned crazed. He hammered in and out of me, pain and pleasure ramping up until I spiraled toward the edge of the wildest orgasm I’d ever had.
For a minute, I thought he’d rip my climax away again, but his mouth was at my ear, and the hand in my hair let go, two fingers slipping over the hardened bud of my clit.
“That’s it. Come for me, angel. Let me know how much you love it.”
As soon as I realized what he’d done, I wanted to take the orgasm back, but it was too late. I spiraled over the edge, bucking and screaming through my gag, my helpless cries ripping through the alley. Kane chuckled and then hammered into me a handful of times. He grunted and sighed as he pulled out. Behind me, I heard him doing up his pants, but with my knees so weak, I could only stand there against the wall gasping, ass bared. He undid my hands.
“Put yourself back together. Wouldn’t want anyone at work knowing what happened to you here, would we?”
I whipped around, spitting out the gag, which turned out to be a designer napkin of some sort. He made no move to collect it from the ground where it landed. Yanking up my pants, I glared at him as he waited by the limo, arms crossed. Eyes alight with triumph.
“You’re demented,” I snapped. “You belong in a rubber room!”
“Wouldn’t be the first time a woman told me that.” He grinned, and that smile made me madder.
Shaking my head, I yanked my shirt back into place and stomped to the limo. He ducked in and I followed. The door shut, and I wondered where David had been, how the hell he’d just faded into the background while Kane used me like his slave, suddenly becoming the dutiful servant the moment he was needed again.
“I can’t believe you did that, Davros. Do you have no sense of boundaries?”
“How hard did you think you could push me before I pushed back, Anika?” He opened a compartment in the door, pulled tissues from a fancy gold box there, and turned my chin to him. “Come here.”
“Just get off, I don’t need you to—”
He grabbed my chin when I tried to twist away and wrenched it up, wiping what I assumed was grit from the brick wall from my cheek. Secretly, something warm found its way into my heart for his taking care of me. After what he’d done? That didn’t make any sense. I dropped my hands to my sides and let him brush off the front of my shirt, my pants.
A sigh left him then, and his eyes softened. “What’s the matter with you, hmm?”
“What?”
“What am I going to do with you? Every chance you get, you bring out the claws. Why? Do you like when I treat you like that, like—”
“A slave?” I offered almost cheerily.
“Like a hole.”
Did I? I didn’t, did I?
Not trusting myself to answer, I looked at my watch. “I have to be at work in twenty.”
Kane nodded, but I realized we were already on the road, headed for the hospital.
When we pulled into the lot, Kane turned my face up to him gently, his touch at odds with the cool command in his eyes.
“I have to go.” For some reason I couldn’t put any force behind my words.
“You never answered me, girl.”
“Huh?”
“Pardon.”
I raised a brow, but didn’t have the will to fight him, so I rolled my eyes. “Pardon, Sir?”
“Do you like being punished?”
When I didn’t answer, he slowly traced my lips with his fingers, searching my face, as if he thought he could find the answers there. “Answer me.”
I lowered my eyes. “I don’t know. No.” It hit me what I’d said and I shook my head more firmly. “No, of course not.” But it was too late, I looked up to catch the surprise in his eyes. Just like that, the semblance of tenderness in him vanished and a casual mask slipped into place.
“Right. I’ll have to keep that in mind.” He adjusted his belt and shifted in the seat, eyes dancing.
“Kane. I don’t—”
“There’s lots more ways I can think to make you feel worthless. Push me again, and you’ll see.” He touched my chin as if this were all a fun game, kissed my lips with a mocking softness, and then nodded to the door of the car. “See you after work.”
I growled my anger. “You just dragged me into an alley and fucked me like a cheap whore, and that’s it. Off to work?”
“What do you want?”
I could see the implications in his eyes. He didn’t cuddle, he didn’t hand hold, and more over, every time he tried to be nice after something like this, I pushed him away. Damn it. What did I want? I wasn’t even sure.
“Why are you being such an ass, Kane?”
“You signed your body over to me for six months. Were you expecting Prince Charming?”
Fuck. No, but he didn’t have to be so cold after that. I’d taken his punishment. Where was even the little bit of play and warmth he usually showed me after? He was being almost… I didn’t know what to call it.
“I guess not.” I shoved across the seat and grabbed for the door, but David had already opened it. When had he gotten out? My face heated looking at him, but his expression was a virtual mask of indifference. Gratitude for him pricked at me. He knew exactly how not to make a scene, how to maintain my dignity, where Kane apparently had cast it aside completely.
“Good bye. Sir.” I slathered as much mocking as I could on the word Sir, and before he could respond, I stalked away without another word.
I could have sworn I heard him chuckling.
Over the next three hours, in and out of meetings with my investors, I barely heard a word anyone said. Not matter how hard I tried to focus, my thoughts drifted to Anika, and the mistakes I knew I’d made that morning.
It was a tricky thing. I didn’t want to break her, but her feistiness had to be handled with care. Deep down, I understood why she’d fought with me in the elevator at the hospital, but I was also aware of how risky her actions had been. Had she shoved me like that in public, where it could get back to my father or the Gavinis, our ruse would be over. Neither would believe I owned her the way I was supposed to, and they’d never accept that I wasn’t with her to protect her.
“Mr. Davros?”
Bob Olander, one of the investors seated at the table, leaned toward the head where I sat. “You with us?”
I shook myself. Damn it, no woman had ever been this distracting. My whole life had been about making money. That, and the need for as much variety as possible whe
n it came to pussy. Now, the idea of touching anyone else was repulsive. I wanted every act, every word to be for Anika, and only her, and I’d have given up everything in my bank accounts to have another taste of her.
“Sorry, go ahead, Bob.”
Bob droned on about something to do with one of our construction companies, and I nodded in the right places, offering guidance with the trained skill of a man who’d learned how to pretend to hear. That skill allowed me to focus the rest of my mind on my sweet redheaded firecracker of a woman.
The truth was, only half my reason for reasserting my ownership so roughly with her was to tame some of the dangerous fire in her. While I liked her fierce attitude, her temper constantly clashed with the control and order my life revolved around, and punishment was the only way I knew how to retake that control.
Really, she hadn’t deserved what I’d done to her right then. Not with what I’d done to set her off. I’d deliberately made things awkward and embarrassed her in front of her father, knowing it pissed both of them off. I’d wanted to shake things up, whatever was between us, because everything had gotten too personal. After all, what was more personal than meeting a girl’s daddy after he’d been shot? Especially for a man like me. A man like me, who didn’t do family, or hospital visits, or the whole caring thing.
That I’d wanted to hold her after I’d fucked her ass in that alley, to explain to her why she was being punished, pissed me off, and I balled my fists on my thighs under the table. A man did not explain things, or apologize. Those things were the acts of a weakling, a tender heart, something my father had drilled out of me long ago. Kindness came with consequences. Painful ones. With loss, and grief, and carnage.
In my world, people didn’t just suffer for being too nice. They died.
A twisted mixture of sympathy for her and anger with the way things had to be burned my blood and I chased away the need to make her understand, to show her the scars left on my heart.
I was a monster, she was right. I was a bad man, and the worse I was, the safer we both were.
The meeting concluded and the investors shook my hand, clapping me on the back. The perfect, controlled businessman. The benevolent king at the head of his table, who, even when he had a reputation for destroying people’s livelihoods, still had a code of sorts. Fuck, they had no idea, did they?
“Mr. Davros, a word?”
“Bob.” I suppressed an irritated yawn. How did a man’s voice make me want to sleep so much? “Make it quick, I have to be in another meeting in a few minutes.”
He waited until the last suit left and shut the door, then came back to his seat.
“It’s about Gavini.” He spoke at barely a whisper.
“Why the hell are you whispering, Bob? This room is soundproofed.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” He licked his lips, and I resisted the urge to tell him to quit being paranoid, as usual. “Listen, did Gavini get that shipment yet, for the Cosman estates?”
“Yeah, he got it an hour ago. Why?”
“Word on the street is, there was something in it other than lumber.”
A chill stabbed at me and I stood up slowly. “What?”
“Rats,” Bob hissed. “His men opened the container at the shipyard, and it was filled with rats.”
“Bull shit.” I stalked to the screens that lined one wall of the room and switched them on. “I had those containers checked by my men twice before I sent them off, and they were fine.”
I flicked the screens on and brought up the footage from the shipyard my father owned, rolling the video back until someone opened the container where the camera was. Pressed play. The doors opened, and out spilled exactly what Bob said. Rats, thousands of them.
“What the….” I watched as men shouted and jumped back, feet shuffling to get away from the critters that scurried over their shoes and up legs. “Fuck.”
It might have been comical to watch if the situation were different. If thousands of dollars in lumber hadn’t been lost, and if a kingpin whose power rivaled my father’s own wasn’t now out of said lumber, and no doubt now looking to see heads roll.
Blood flooding my head, I raked a hand through my hair. Then, as a thought dawned on me, I froze. A slow smile spread across my face.
“Mr. Davros?”
I drew a slow breath. Maybe, if we were lucky, this didn’t have to be a total disaster. I sent Bob out and locked the door. Then I took out my phone and called Anika.
“Anika. Lunch.”
I looked around at Fran, who stood next to the triage counter where I was logging in the last bit a patient’s information into the hospital computer. Too distracted to notice her clipped tone, I shook my head.
“Can’t. I have some things to do, sorry.” I did. I planned on spending the day looking up anything I could find on Gavini. Anything to get my dad out of this mess. “Tomorrow, okay?”
“No.” She pulled at my elbow, aiming me for the lunch room. “We need to talk. You need to tell me what’s going on with you, and you’re not getting out of it this time.’
I sighed, hiding my anxiety behind annoyance. It had to happen sooner or later, but what was I supposed to say, when I couldn’t tell her anything without risk? The only thing I could do was buy time. “Fine, but let me go to my locker first. My lunch is in there.”
She followed me to the lockers and I took my time dialing the combo for mine. How the hell was I supposed to explain?
Leaning on her own locker beside mine, Fran crossed her slender arms. The hospital lights made her slicked, shiny black hair look lacquered. She was always so perfect, so gorgeous, with her smooth Latino skin, her big eyes, so dark as to be almost black. I didn’t understand why Kane wanted me instead of someone like her, cat like and graceful.
“So? Out with it. What’s been going on with you?”
I drew a breath, then another, opening my locker. Opened my mouth, fully prepared with another excuse that would stave off questions. The words died on my lips and I froze, staring at the inside of the locker. My lunch was gone. In it’s place were two objects.
A shiny leather bridal, and a long, braided horse’s tail. Both, exactly like those I’d joked about Kane making me wear while we were in the limo.
Without thinking, I slammed the door to the locker, and fished out my phone. My hands were shaking as I turned it on and dialed his number, only half noticing the four missed calls from him.
“Fran, we’ll have to do lunch tomorrow. I have someone I have to talk to right now.”
* * * * *
Fifteen minutes later, I’d put the horse’s bridal and tail in a paper bag so no one would see what I carried, and headed out of the hospital to meet Kane. After what he’d done to me in that alley, he’d reminded me, in no uncertain terms, who it was I was dealing with. A manipulative, ruthless near-mobster who took what he wanted and enjoyed twisting people up. I could only assume his sending me the bridal and tail was some sick, twisted way he meant to assert his ownership over me.
I stalked to the car, and as he watched me from the open back window, it gave me a certain quiet satisfaction to see the worry seep into him. Alarm darkened his eyes. As soon as I got in and David shut the door, he took my arm, a surprisingly gentle grip.
“Anika? What’s wrong?”
Yanking away from his touch, I pulled out the items in the bag and held the bridal and tail up in my fist. “What the hell is this?”
Kane’s dark brows knitted together and he eyed what I held up, looking at baffled as me. Slowly, he took them. His eyes met mine, confused. “What is this?”
“You tell me. No one else heard me make that joke about pony play, Davros.” Except David, but I knew he wouldn’t do this. “How did you get into my locker? Did you leave them there, or did you have one of your thugs do it?”
“Anika, I didn’t leave them for you.”
Anger with his manipulation reached an explosive level. “Then who did! We were alone!”
“I don’
t know, I—” He cut off sharply, and his eyes widened. “Fuck. Me.”
The alarm radiating from him sent a chill through me. “Kane what is—”
He snapped a hand up, a harsh command for silence.
Not understanding, I glared. “Just you—”
He spun, putting a finger to his mouth slowly. Somehow, I could feel he wasn’t just being commanding. Before I could ask, he slapped the button on the partition between the front and back seats, then leaned over and whispered something to David. David jerked the wheel and the car squealed down a side street, then into an empty lot.
Without even being sure why, my heart thudded in my throat. Something was wrong, but what?
As soon as he stopped the limo, David got out and opened Kane’s door. Finger to his lips again, Kane quickly helped me out of the limo and then led me a few steps away.
“What is—” I cut off, seeing David crawl around in the back, then look under the body of the car. “Kane, what is going on?”
“I think I know who left the bridal and tail.”
“What? Who?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed and his hands held my arms. Pure protection pounded off him. “It was Dominic. Dominic did this.”
I stared, blood leaving my face. I already knew what was happening, even before Kane said it.
“He heard everything we said, Anika. We’ve been bugged.”
7
I couldn’t breathe. As soon as I’d realized the same thing Kane had told me, that Dominic Gavini had bugged us, my blood started pounding in my head and I couldn’t get a handle on my breathing.
Gavini had been after my dad and I for as long as I’d been alive, thanks to my father’s debts. Much as I hated Kane’s deal, his contract now kept the mobster from doing anything to us, so long as he thought Kane agreed to kill my dad. Or, I thought it had.
Kane squeezed my arms, massaging them. “Anika, it’ll be all right. I promise, nothing’s going to happen to you.”
It hit me he was barely whispering. To avoid being heard on whatever listening device Gavini had in the car?