Dancing with the Devil

by Marie James

  My shoulder is next, ramming into the cage like a battering ram over and over with as much leverage as I can manage in the tight space. By the time I give up, I’m bruised, exhausted, and wondering why I even care what happens to me. The sobs come without warning, and I pray to a god I no longer believe in to make my death quick and painless, even though it’s more than what I deserve.

  Memories of Seth’s cute little face carry me into unconsciousness.

  Chapter 26

  TJ

  I’m barely out of the damn shower when a fist hits my bedroom door. I knew this was coming. I just figured I’d have a little more time. The guys never go into the basement unless they have business to attend to, and those issues that would bring them below the clubhouse are usually discussed in church or at least brought to me since I’m the enforcer of the damn club.

  “What’s your problem?” I snap when I pull my door open to find my brother standing there. If this were a cartoon, smoke would be billowing from his ears while a whistle blew in the background.

  “Explain yourself.” His voice is a little too loud and bordering on too disrespectful for me to ignore. President or not, I’ll take his ass to the ground just like I used to when we were kids. I don’t imagine anger and a show of force are going to help me in this situation, but I’ve never been one to back down.

  “It isn’t a big fucking deal,” I assure him, barely containing my rage.

  My fingers tingle with the absence of my knife, but with how angry Lynch is right now, I don’t imagine pulling it just for my comfort is going to come across the right way. Stopping myself from using it would be another issue.

  Briar’s door snaps open, but my brother doesn’t even divert his attention. He’s safe in this clubhouse, and he damn well knows it. He doesn’t give a shit if he has an audience for whatever it is he needs to say. The more people who hear about it now just means less people he’ll have to tell later.

  “Not a big deal?” he snaps as his eyes narrow on my naked chest. “Are you fucking kidding me? Since when is having a girl locked in a cage in the basement not a big fucking deal?”

  Realizing there won’t be a problem, Briar backs out of the hallway and closes his door. I hate that Lynch didn’t see him. In nothing but sweats, I know for a fact he was just banging our little sister. If Lynch had seen him, maybe he’d be able to focus his anger elsewhere. Giving his blessing or not, being approached by a half-naked Briar while our sister is in his room might have tipped the scales in my favor.

  Ignoring my big brother, I go back into my room and get dressed. He stands, fuming, in the doorway as I drop my towel and shove my damp body into clothes.

  “Who is she?”

  “Is it the girl that got beat up here a month ago?” I look up from lacing my boots to see Hornet standing a foot or so behind Lynch.

  The question doesn’t faze Lynch, so either they’ve already had this conversation, or he deduced the same thing.

  “Who is she to you?” Lynch clarifies when I glare at Hornet like he’s betrayed me. “You’ll fucking talk to me.”

  He shoves his arm across the hallway when I try to walk past him.

  “Lynch,” I warn, but he doesn’t budge. “She’s the girl that was in the room when Briar and I went to take care of Molly’s business in Andover.”

  “What?” Hornet and Lynch snap their eyes at me. We all know the implication of this information.

  “She witnessed you kill three men?” Concern laces my brother’s voice. “Do we have heat coming?”

  “No,” I shake my head and push past his arm.

  They follow me down the hallway, but don’t say another word as I lean against the bar and hold a finger up. Mac slides a beer across to me and then grabs one for the other two.

  “She didn’t recognize me.” I tilt my beer back for a long pull before I lower it and tell them the truth. “I’ve been spending time with her. She was at the bar when we got back from the cartel run. She was here the night Hornet found that guy beating the hell out of her.”

  “The bar was invite only,” Lynch says. He wasn’t in town that night, but he knows how we run things around here. He wouldn’t let his girl go out in an uncontrolled environment when he was so far away.

  “I invited her.”

  Lynch’s beer slams down on the bar top. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”

  I shrug, unable to fully deny it. “I think I may have.”

  “Oh shit.” Lynch frowns first before a slow smile spreads across his face.

  “What?”

  “You’ve fallen for her.”

  “Have fucking not,” I hiss without missing a beat. “She’s just determined to get herself killed.”

  Lynch angles his head, and Hornet takes the hint. Mac disappears just as fast.

  “I haven’t,” I repeat. “She’s fucking broken.”

  Lynch just watches me. He tried this shit when I was younger, staring me down hoping the atmosphere around us got so uncomfortable that I would spill my guts just to relieve the tension. It didn’t work on me then and it sure as hell isn’t going to work now.

  “Just because you and Briar fell down in some love hole doesn’t mean all of us are going to.”

  He grins around the lip of his beer bottle.

  “Will you need help getting rid of her body then?” Every muscle in my body stiffens. “I don’t really approve of killing females, but if she found out who you are, I guess there’s no other way around it. I can get Ronan to help you. Nothing seems to bother that fucker.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” I grunt.

  “So you can dispose of her on your own?” Lynch shakes his head, the devious glint in his eyes not matching his brutal words. “You’ll need help.”

  “No one touches her but me.” My words come out on a growl, and the fucker beside me has the damn audacity to chuckle at my response before he stands up.

  Leaning in close to my ear, his humor is suddenly gone.

  “Better than anyone else, you should know that I won’t tolerate a snitch or someone bringing heat down on my club.”

  He isn’t lying or exaggerating. He killed our father to protect the Ravens Ruin MC and was willing to kill Zoe when he thought she’d betrayed him. Kaci’s death wouldn’t even make him bat an eye, and I’m pretty sure if I became a complication, he’d take my life too.

  “Just keep it in mind,” Lynch says after downing the last of his beer. The echo of him slapping it back down on the bar follows him out of the room.

  Regret swims in my gut. I never should’ve brought her here, but one way to keep her from betraying us is to never let her leave. My smile stays on my face until the sun sets and I make my way to the basement door.

  “Let me out,” she hisses the second I turn on the overhead light.

  “No.”

  “This isn’t right.” I don’t say anything. “You can’t just keep me down here.”

  She sounds more scared than I expected her to. I’d anticipated anger and irritation, but the fear in her voice is a shock. It only proves how broken she is. I’ve spent hour after hour with her, and she still doesn’t trust me.

  “TJ!” she yells when I merely stand a few feet away and stare down at her.

  “Promise me you’ll stop going to those fucking parties.”

  “No.”

  I don’t know where she’s drawing her courage from now, but she should know this isn’t something I will negotiate on.

  “You’re not getting out of that fucking cage until you agree to stop trying to get yourself killed.”

  “I’m not going to lie to you.”

  My lip twitches with her honesty even though that truth is the last damn thing I want to hear.

  “You are so fucking stubborn,” I growl. “Why can’t you just stop getting yourself hurt?”

  “Why can’t you just walk away and leave me to my own damn life? I didn’t ask to be saved.” She frowns and looks away.

  I don’t know if s
he’s referring to years ago when Cerberus pulled her out of Hell in Venezuela, or when Briar and I caught her in that frat house with four men looming over her.

  “You’re not just hurting yourself.” I feel like I’m arguing with a toddler over the negative health benefits of sticking a fucking fork in the electrical socket. Just like a three-year-old, she can’t see the dangers in what she’s doing because the thrill is all she’s focusing on.

  She huffs, her head turning until her empty green eyes look back up at me. “No one gives a shit about me.”

  “That’s not true.” My mouth is suddenly dry, but I do my best to keep my posture stiff and unassuming. I can’t confess my feelings to her when I don’t understand them myself.

  She somehow understands the battle I’m fighting inside as evident by the sudden glint of deviousness in her eyes.

  “I don’t give a shit about a single person on this earth, myself included.” Her tongue snakes out and licks at her lower lip as her eyes narrow in challenge. She’s purposely exploiting the emotion she can read but I’m unable to express, and her words cut me deep.

  Does she want me to hurt her? Is she trying to prove that no one will tolerate the nastiness coming from her beautiful mouth?

  “Let me go.” She sounds almost feral, but isn’t a cage where wild animals belong?

  “I can’t do that.” Her eyes dart to my hand when I pull my knife out. The snap of the blade locking into place when I flip it open echoes around the room.

  “Wh-what are you doing?”

  “Why are you afraid? Wouldn’t this be easier than slowly dying or being brutalized over and over at those damn parties?”

  Heat and arousal wash over her as her eyes stay trained on the shiny blade. God she’s fucking perfect, but her being turned on right now isn’t what either one of us need. It only feeds exactly what she’s after.

  “I hate you,” she seethes, no doubt a means to propel me into action. She wants me to hurt her. She wants me to get her off. She needs both, but that isn’t on the calendar of events right now.

  “Do you have any idea what it does to me each and every time you show up at one of those parties?” I take a step closer. “Any clue how it makes me feel?”

  I take one more step. Standing right in front of her, I shrug out of my t-shirt. I didn’t bother to put my cut on since Lynch was up my ass.

  “It feels like this.”

  Without hesitation, I slash my knife across my stomach.

  The pain is fucking orgasmic, but it’s her wide eyes and mouth hanging open that makes me almost come in my jeans.

  Chapter 27

  Kaci

  “No!” I reach for him as blood blooms on his skin, but the grid of the cage isn’t large enough for me to get my entire hand through. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m a psychopath. Why do you care?” His knife draws across his skin again, and both wounds seep blood down his abdomen.

  “Stop!” Tears are burning my eyes. “You yawned too!”

  Confusion marks his brow just as he’s lifting his knife to cut himself again. “What?”

  “A few weeks back at my apartment. I yawned and you yawned too. Psychopaths don’t yawn empathetically.”

  I’m sobbing when he cuts himself again.

  “You really need to stop getting your info from binge-watching Netflix.”

  “Please stop,” I manage through my tears.

  “Why?” TJ dips the tip of his knife into the blood on his stomach and draws on his skin with it. “This is what it feels like on the inside when you put yourself in danger. You hate me. I just thought you should know what you do to me.”

  “Don’t!” I yell again when he runs the knife twice more over his stomach. The blood is too thick, making the number of wounds hard to distinguish.

  “I don’t like bleeding on the inside, Kaci. So I’ll bleed on the outside for you.”

  He’s right. He has to be a fucking psycho, but that doesn’t stop the tears from falling or my gut from clinching with the way he’s looking at me right now. He’s begging me with his eyes, telling me I’m the only one who can stop the pain.

  “TJ!” His knife stills midway through another cut. “Hurt me. Hurt me instead.”

  His head shakes as a tear forms in the corner of his right eye. “I need this. It’s the only thing that keeps me whole on the inside.”

  It isn’t until I really look at him and let his words sink in that I see the hundreds of razor thin marks all down his arms and across his pecs. They seem to glow under the single light hanging from the ceiling. I have no idea how I missed them before.

  “And I need what I do,” I confess. I reach for him again, fingers pushing through the grid as far as the cage will allow. “Please. No more.”

  “You stop, I’ll stop,” he barters once again.

  “You’re asking too much of me.”

  “Promise me.” He holds his hand up to silence me before I can refuse him once again. “Promise that I’ll be the only one to hurt you.”

  A dark thrill runs through my blood, excited by the idea, but I don’t answer him immediately.

  “And what about you?”

  “Just the idea of your hand on my knife drawing my blood makes my dick hard.”

  Instinctively, my eyes drop to the bulge at the front of his jeans.

  “So we—” I swallow, attempting to dislodge the lump in my throat. “So we only hurt each other?”

  Is that what I need? Or is that just handing my power over to him? Would I even be able to give him what he needs? I’ve never been big on sadism. My desires tilt to the other side of the spectrum.

  “I won’t drug you and fuck you.”

  “I won’t stop telling you no,” I counter and love the way his eyes narrow. “Sometimes I may need more than just what you have to offer.”

  I told him I wouldn’t lie, and this is my whole truth. One man may not be enough to give me what I need.

  “I won’t fucking share you.” His ice-blue eyes are mere slits as he looks down at me. “But I’ll find a way to give you what you need.”

  As if we’ve somehow sealed the deal with no paperwork, his knife clatters to the floor as he reaches for the combination lock keeping me trapped. In the next minute, I’m pulled from the cage and TJ is ripping at my clothes. My tits spring free from my tank top, but he doesn’t let his hands pause until I’m standing in front of him completely naked. I don’t bother trying to cover myself, but it does take a lot of strength to keep from reaching out to him.

  “I can smell your pussy from here,” he hisses in my ear as he crashes his body against mine.

  I don’t shrink away this time. I don’t let shame swim in my gut for being turned on at the sight of his blood transferring to my stomach and breasts.

  “Look,” he urges just as his fingers tangle in my hair and he forces my head down. His other hand, covered in blood from his wounds, trails down my stomach. “Absolute perfection.”

  Harsh breaths loudly escape his lips as we both watch his fingers slide down my slit and disappear.

  “Oh fuck,” I moan as he pulls back his hand and my arousal, along with traces of his blood, coat his fingers.

  “I’m not going to be gentle,” he warns as I reach for his belt buckle.

  “Please don’t be.”

  Anticipation swims through my veins as he takes a step back. My hands, trembling with need, fall to my sides as I watch him strip. His eyes focus on my body and the blood left behind on my skin as he methodically strips every scrap of clothing away. Not only are we physically bare to each other, I feel as if we’ve crossed some invisible line that will at least feed our devious hunger for pain and humiliation.

  “You need to tell me if it’s too much,” he says as he drops his jeans to the floor. His bright blue eyes are nearly black, the irises having been taken over by feral, dilated pupils.

  I shake my head no. “I need you to be rough with me.”

  A hiss slips through my li
ps when he tangles his fingers in my already matted hair. My head jerks forward until our noses are touching and our breaths are mingling. “You’ll tell me if it’s too much.”

  My head nods, and it’s not really a lie because what he does to me will never be too much. I only worry that, like last time in my apartment, he won’t be enough.

  “Do you want me to start by fucking your mouth or tongue fucking your pussy?”

  “Fuck my mouth.”

  Without warning, he slaps my right breast. “Wrong answer.”

  “Eat my pussy,” I whimper.

  He hits my right breast again in the very same spot. I’d be amazed by his accuracy when he hasn’t pulled his eyes from mine, but my flesh stings too much.

  “Also a wrong answer.”

  “Jesus,” I nearly scream when he lands two hits to my other breast.

  “Repeat. After. Me.” My breasts burn, and my pussy slickens when he punctuates each word with stinging slaps. “Whatever. You. Want. TJ.”

  “Please,” I beg, and not for him to give me what I want, but because he’s inching toward my limit and he damn well knows it.

  Being drugged and unable to hand myself over to someone is different from actually speaking the words.

  “Say it,” he urges as his talented fingers twist my already burning nipple.

  “Whatever you want,” I tell him so quickly it sounds like a single moan.

  “You missed a word.”

  I’m going to die. The pleasurable pain, something I thought I’d never actually have is going to kill me. I can’t fucking wait.

  “Whatever you want, TJ,” I hiss.

  “Mmm.” His gratification rumbles from his lips. “I love the sound of my name coming out of this pretty mouth.”

  My blood boils, breath hitching at the realization that I now have a means to manipulate him.

  “I don’t want either,” he hisses.

  He spins me around, shoving my face against the wall as rough hands pull my hips, forcing my ass out. He slams inside of me without warning, and I kind of hate how wet I am for him. He’s thick, filling me impossibly full, but the slide is too easy. It’s decadent enough that my toes curl against the concrete floor.