Deeper

by Jennifer Michael

  Nothing about this situation screams normal, healthy relationship.

  He rises from his chair, and the woman cowers back.

  More gently, he cradles her face. “You are a very beautiful girl, and I love it when you look like this. I am the one who messed up your pretty little face. The tears you unleash are for me. The bruising and swelling on your cheek were caused by my hand. I love seeing how I made a mess of something beautiful. You know that though, don’t you? You’re aware of how much I like to dirty up my favorite toy.”

  They slightly shift positions and grant me a better view of them both. He removes his belt and carefully places it around the girl’s neck. He tugs, and she closes her eyes. Fire grows within him as her face turns blue.

  “Open your eyes, bitch!” he bellows loud enough that I can hear his words instead of having to read his lips.

  I glance to the neighbors’ house, but the windows stay dark.

  Her eyes bulge open, and tears leak out.

  “You’ll be punished tonight for not pulling your weight today, but first, I want a little warm-up. Take out my cock, slut.”

  He tugs more fiercely on the belt before giving her some slack. She unzips his perfectly pressed dress slacks and pulls out his dick. She holds it with both hands positioned inches from her lips.

  They pause like this until he speaks, “You don’t deserve to taste me, bitch. You are a disgusting slut who can’t even get pathetic men who need to pay for sex to sleep with you. Why should I want you when you can’t even do your job? Beg me for my cock. Show me that you’ll do better.”

  The girl transforms, as if she’s playing a role. She goes from scared and weak to desperate and needy. She begs like he asked, panting and moaning. She calls out to him and pleads for him to let her pleasure him. He stands above her and gloats.

  It goes on for long enough to make my stomach churn, but then the situation suddenly shifts. He pulls her hair back, and her lips part in anticipation. He shoves himself in her open mouth and fucks her face. She shifts throughout the kitchen from his powerful thrusts until her back is against a counter, and he fucks her brutally. More mascara runs down her face, and he doesn’t even give her a second to breathe. He takes forcefully and without any concern.

  Her words earlier didn’t break through the walls to the outside, but her cries now certainly do. She weeps while he gets off. Her head hits the cabinet behind her when he pumps into the back of her throat. Spit drools down her face, and she gags more often than not. The entire uncomfortable scene plays out before me until he abruptly pulls out and comes on her face. She breathes heavily below him, not reaching to wipe away his cum.

  “Go upstairs and wait for me. Undress, but don’t clean up, and shackle yourself in. I’ll be up when I’m ready.”

  The girl crawls from the room and heads toward a flight of stairs. Number Three tucks himself back into his pants and ventures out into the living room, turning on the television. I wasn’t going to act tonight, but things change. Something obviously isn’t right with his relationship with that woman. He ordered her to go restrain herself. If that’s true, she won’t be an issue if I take care of him tonight. Something tells me she wouldn’t turn in his killer even if she saw his face, though.

  I double-check my backpack for supplies, pull a ski mask over my face, and then quietly venture around the house, looking for a way in. I get lucky when I find a sliding door to a bedroom left unlocked, and I enter, drawing my gun. The room is dark, but I know from creeping around the outside that the living room is just outside this room. On sure feet, I move to stand right behind the man, who is still oblivious to my presence.

  “On the ground! Facedown on the ground! Now!”

  Number Three springs up instead of going down. The jumpy motherfucker has about three seconds before I get trigger-happy.

  “What are you doing in my house?” He indignantly ignores my demand.

  Smug fuck. There are more than a few places I can aim that wouldn’t immediately kill him.

  “I said, get on the fucking ground. What part of that don’t you understand?”

  I cock the gun, and he follows directions. When he’s facedown, I grab two pairs of cuffs from my bag and approach him from behind. I lock his wrists together and then his ankles.

  “How do you like being restrained?”

  “She did this? You’re here for that whore?”

  “Nope. You must have pissed someone else off, but I saw what just happened in the kitchen. Are all the women you sleep with held against their will?”

  “She isn’t held against her will! We have a contract. She was a poor nobody before she met me! Now, she lives in million-dollar homes and has the best in life.”

  “We’ll see if her story is the same.” I leave him on the floor and venture through the house.

  There are four doors upstairs, but only one is open, so that’s the one I walk through. The woman is there, restrained to a cross that seems to be bolted to the wall. Her face is still covered in his dried cum. Her chin rises as I enter the room that looks as if it was stolen from the Fifty Shades of Grey movie set. She startles at my appearance.

  “Explain your relationship with Sebastian Rutherford now.”

  “Um, eh, well…”

  “Honestly, tell me the truth. I’m not here to hurt you.”

  She watches me as if weighing her options, of which she has few. I wait, leaning a shoulder casually against the wall.

  “He found me at a strip club. He became a regular client of mine. After a few weeks, he asked me to meet him at a fancy restaurant. He had a dress sent over to my place and a team of people to get me ready for him. I was excited. I thought he liked me.” She looks around the room and shakes her head. “He came to me with an offer…a contract. He wanted to hire me to be his girlfriend when he needed one. He said he was going to pay me to attend work events with him. His offer was one I couldn’t refuse. I couldn’t stomach working at that club. I hated it.”

  “And you ended up here willingly?”

  “He lied. I never went to fancy events. Not once. No one has ever even seen me in public with him. I soon learned that I had signed my life away to him. I’ve been with him for two years now. I obey his every command. I rarely leave one of his homes unless he’s sending me to escort. I am his—until he says I’m not anymore.”

  “Why don’t you leave?”

  “I can’t. He makes sure of it. I lost all free will the second I signed on that dotted line.”

  Does she realize no court would uphold a contract like that?

  Unless he keeps her locked to this cross, she could have walked away at any moment. I shake my head, unable to really understand the mentality of a woman like her. She’s so unlike Rylan; Rylan would have saved herself.

  “That ends tonight. You’ll be free tomorrow. You have to make me a deal, though.”

  “Anything.” The woman breathes, as her whole body seems to tremble at the thought of being free.

  “I need you to stay in here tonight. When they find you tomorrow, Sebastian will be out of your life, and you won’t have anything to worry about. All you have to do is remember that you have no idea what happened. There was never another man in this house. Can you do that?”

  “What man? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Good.”

  I turn to leave Sebastian’s playroom but then stop and turn back to the woman. “Let the world know who Sebastian really was, though.”

  She wears a cautious expression but nods.

  Sebastian is struggling to get free when I make it back downstairs, which makes me smile.

  “The girl’s story doesn’t quite match yours,” I admit while pulling him up by the arms and throwing him onto the couch. “She doesn’t seem too grateful for your hospitality.” I pull the mask from my face and toss it to the floor.

  He sneers but doesn’t reply.

  “I’m really curious about this mess I’ve been hired to clean up. The
news tells me you all are friends. What is your connecting factor? What did the five of you do to piss someone off enough to want you all butchered?”

  “I don’t know who hired you.”

  “But you know why, don’t you?”

  No response from him.

  “It doesn’t really matter. You probably deserve this. How many women have you hurt like that one up there? You think you can take whatever you want, don’t you?”

  I leave him on the couch to go search the kitchen. There is a knife block on the counter, so I grab a large carving knife, and then I snag a roll of paper towels before returning to Sebastian.

  “I’ve been hired to torture you and make you bleed and beg for mercy before I finally kill you. Cortland broke before I killed him out in the woods, and I wonder how quickly you’ll break. Let’s find out, shall we?”

  I roll a wad of paper towels into a ball, and Number Three begins to scream. The noise is musical, and I enjoy it for a moment as I get the tape from my bag. I shove the towels into his mouth and then wrap the tape once, twice, three times around his head. The guy has balls enough to keep screaming, but I just smirk, amused that he thinks any amount of noise will get him out of this.

  “I’ve always wondered about bleeding a person out. How long would it take before they passed out, and how long would it be before their heart stopped beating? Tonight seems like a good time to experiment.”

  I hold the knife against his skin, and power runs through my veins. A sick part inside me comes alive. My gloved hands tremble with anticipation. I can’t wait to color the white couch beneath him with his own blood. I laugh as he stills when I press the knife deeper into the skin of his arm, and a tiny bead of blood bubbles up.

  “Let’s get started then, shall we?”

  I cut open his shirt and then drag the knife in little biting skips around his skin. He tries to keep still, so I don’t go deeper, but he can’t help but to cower back in pain.

  “We’ll take this nice and slow. I want to enjoy every minute of the blood slowly dripping from your body.”

  My enjoyment of Sebastian’s muffled scream is cut short when a flicker of movement catches my eyes.

  “Wait here. I have a surprise for you.”

  Like he has a choice.

  I don’t have anything for him, but someone has a curveball for me. I walk slowly from the room. I’m very careful not to alarm my audience that I’m aware of their presence. I take off out a side door and begin to sprint toward the window that looks into the living room.

  Someone was there. I caught a glimpse of their eyes through the window. My body count for tonight just doubled—two instead of one. My heavy footsteps give me away, and whoever was standing there takes off. I’m faster, and I catch up without a problem. Launching from the ground, I tackle the person running from me. The tiny frame beneath me is unexpected. My legs cage her in as my hands abruptly flip her over to face me. I stare down at wild blonde hair, expressive hazel eyes, and sexy pink lips.

  Rylan Pierce is pinned beneath me, breathing heavy and looking flushed.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” My nostrils flare, and I imagine having to kill the woman I left in a hotel bed earlier this morning, her blood staining my hands.

  “I was at the club. That doorman I gave the fifty to when you were chained up was fired by the way. You don’t think that was because of me, do you? There must have been some other reason. Right?”

  “Rylan, what are you doing here?”

  I need fucking answers, not ramblings. The club’s staff is not important at the moment. I want to know what the fuck she is doing here and why the fuck she was watching me through the window. Most of all, I want to know why she doesn’t look terrified right now.

  “When I left Utopia, I saw you not far down the road. You took off after that man who hit the girl, and I followed you here.”

  The wind picks up, and a scent catches my nose, one that puzzles me.

  Pink and red swirl together and mix until I’m dizzy.

  I grab her hand between my fingers. She fights against me. I’m stronger.

  My dick rages against the inseam of my pants as I bring her fingers to my mouth and suck. My eyes close, enjoying the sweetness off her fingers. We lie on the grass in Number Three’s backyard, and I discover a dirty little secret from Rylan. I open my eyes and look down at her. A secret she doesn’t look ashamed of. One she doesn’t try to hide from me.

  “You were watching me.” It’s a fact, not a question.

  “Yes.”

  “You liked what you saw.” Another fact.

  “Yes.”

  “These.” I gently bite down on the tips of her fingers. “This hand was down the front of your jeans while you watched me. You were going to get off on what I was doing.”

  “God, yes!” The confession comes out like a moan, and she wiggles beneath me.

  I push up from the ground and stand above her. “Get up.”

  For the first time ever, she follows orders without any sass and pulls herself to her feet.

  “Go inside.”

  Again, she doesn’t protest or try to stop me. She just turns and leads me back into the house through the door I ran out of moments ago.

  “Wait!” I call out as she continues through the bedroom. “He will die. That man in there is going to die tonight. You’re okay with that?”

  She bites her lip hard. But I see no hesitation or resistance in her eyes. She wants him to die. She wants to watch me kill Number Three. It’s clear as day. She kicks her shoes off, strips her jeans, and walks toward me. She takes my hand in hers and touches it to the outside of her panties.

  She’s soaking wet.

  I lose my mind.

  Roughly, I push her back, and my lips hit hers. Our tongues whip against one another’s in harsh movements. My hand pushes against her ribs. Her fingers scrape across my skin. Our dark souls attach to one another’s through this kiss. I pull back and thrive off the excitement in her smile. Wickedness lifts the corners of her lips.

  “Okay, let’s go.” I follow Rylan out to the living room.

  She takes a seat on the sofa across the room from Sebastian, and I stand between them. His eyebrows furrow with confusion. Rylan is here. Her eyes follow my every move.

  I’ve been getting off on the torture during these last few kills, but this is on a completely different level. My adrenaline spikes to an all-time high with her beside me, eager to get off on my sadistic doings.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, Sebastian.”

  His eyes linger on Rylan.

  “Don’t look at her. Look at me!”

  His worried irises bounce between me and the woman behind me.

  “I’m disappointed you don’t listen better, Sebastian. I’m going to have to prove to you how serious I am about my demands. You won’t disobey again.” I grab a knife from my bag and walk toward him.

  With my fingers holding his ear, all it takes is a smooth flick of my wrist for it to fall to the couch cushion next to him. Blood sprays my shirt and runs down the side of his head, but his reaction is delayed. A heartbeat and then two pass before he screams bloody murder through his gag. Rylan lets out a throaty moan.

  “Don’t you fucking look at her. You don’t deserve to see one ounce of her pleasure.” I move to his other side, swiping again.

  The ear on the opposite side falls between us and bounces to the floor. He cries out and stomps his feet. A passionate gasp belts out behind me. Blood splatters the pristine white couch.

  Red.

  Pink.

  “Baby, come here.”

  Rylan rises from the couch and hurries to me. She eagerly licks her lips.

  I point the knife back at Sebastian. “Keep your sight down. Do not look at her, or I will take your eyes next.”

  Rylan’s eyes are fixated on my gloved hands, which are now covered in blood, and I pull her shirt above her head. The dark red, almost black, stains her skin as I touch her with my dirty
hands, and she spasms under my touch.

  “How in the hell is this possible? Why do you like this sick side of me?” My curiosity grows.

  “I more than like it. Don’t stop; keep going.”

  I place Rylan exactly as I want her—perched on the arm of the same couch as Sebastian. My fingers rub along her clit before I return to Number Three. She shivers and moans.

  Sebastian cries, and tears fall down his face as freely as the blood pours down his neck. The realization of what he is facing has certainly taken over his body. I wonder if his pain is at its highest level or if his body has started to protect him from what’s to come. I slash his skin and get my answer. His screams aren’t the same animalistic cries they were the first time I cut him. That doesn’t stop me, though.

  I cut, and Rylan enjoys.

  I mark his skin, and she touches her fingers to her pussy.

  He weeps, and Rylan moans.

  The torture continues until I’ve lost track of time, and Sebastian passes out. He isn’t dead, but he’s close.

  Between each new slice, Rylan kissed me. I touched her skin, leaving streaks of crimson in my wake. She’s worked up, and my cock pulses because of the twisted things between us, our mutual lust. Together, we get off on his pain. We thrive on the ending of his life. We encourage one another to hold nothing back.

  “Fuck me, Callen. Fuck me while he bleeds out. I want you inside me when he dies.”

  A possessive groan rips out from inside me, and I drop the knife to the floor. His blood smears against her cheek, and I can’t even wait to get my clothes off. I tear her panties from her skin as I unzip my pants. I sit down on the couch, pulling Rylan closer and sit her on top of me.

  My pants are only halfway down when she positions her entrance against my dick and lowers onto me. We fuck on the bloodstained couch with Sebastian dying beside us. She pushes against my chest while she moves up and down on my cock. Her head falls back as my fingers brush against her clit. My mouth searches hers out, and we get lost in one another. In what we just shared—the taking of a life. My lips control hers. Her hips dominate our movement. Number Three’s slowing heart rate charges this moment in time.

  “Oh, yes, Callen.”