Bought (Unchained Vice Book 3)

by Nicolette Hugo

  Fear…pain…pleasure.

  He placed a knee on the mattress and leaned down until his mouth hovered right above her aching sex.

  He was going to torture her with the softest and gentlest of pleasure.

  God, she smelt so ripe and sweet.

  Her pussy was engorged and drenched in unspilled passion.

  She dripped with honey.

  It ran down her skin, creating a stain on the bed.

  Her knees jerked as she tried to move away from the encroaching flames. Her toes yanked and she hissed.

  There was no escape.

  But the real threat had never been the fire.

  He lowered his mouth onto her sex, a tender kiss among the harshness, his lips and tongue a soothing balm on overstimulated nerves.

  An aching kindness.

  Heat on heat, he savored the intimacy of her torment as she whimpered.

  He could get lost in the feast.

  A few hot drops of wax fell onto his back as she writhed and jerked. He felt it through his shirt. He liked the bite, liked the reminder of what she was enduring.

  Liked the sound of her whimpers turning into throaty moans as he lapped at her abused entrance.

  Cruelly dipping his tongue inside her, he teased all those tortured nerves.

  She was sinking in the painful ecstasy, drowning in sighs and moans and soft little mewls.

  She entreated him with fervent whispers as if he was her god.

  He lingered on building her ecstasy.

  He wanted her pleasure to bloom, ripen and slowly uncurl until it almost swallowed her.

  In a moment of conscience, it pained him that he was going to pull her back from that. He felt it physically, as if he’d been split in two.

  Half of him wanted to give her the pleasure she’d earned.

  Half of him wanted to feed off her despair.

  Then the moment passed.

  It always did.

  He took his time with gentle fingers and an even gentler mouth. Let her drift in her sea of longing.

  Her body forgot to tense as her pussy began to twitch and pulse. Her low, drawn-out groan communicated hunger so visceral, it matched his own.

  Careful to not push her over, he began to withdraw.

  He knew she sensed it as he started to move. Sensed that he was cheating her again. He could tell as her hips rocked despite the pull on her toes. A body trying to find fulfillment in its emptiness.

  She sobbed. Collapsing in resignation.

  Whoever said you couldn’t break somebody with pleasure hadn’t really been trying.

  He took a step back from the bed. Still tasting her on his lips, he watched as slow tears roll down her cheeks. The emotional hit made his cock ache with a sweetness he couldn’t express.

  This was how he wanted her.

  All her walls torn down. Completely vulnerable.

  As naked in her honesty as he was about to be brutal in his.

  Foreplay was over.

  He undid his buckle and pulled the belt through the loops. It slithered over his hips as he yanked it free. He grasped it just below the buckle, doubling it over into a flexible loop.

  It was time for her to truly surrender

  With a flick of his wrist, the belt whipped close to her toes. Slicing the air with such violence, it snuffed out the flames.

  She flinched as the wind rushed past her.

  “It’s time to hurt you, Scarlet.”

  She sniffed and nodded. Her body seemed to sink with relief that something different was coming. Any sensation to cut through the sexual frenzy humming under her skin.

  She didn’t understand that what was coming was not a kindness.

  The edging had been the kindness.

  He’d flooded endorphins into her system, even if he’d denied her release. A little something for the pain.

  That had been the kindness.

  The last one.

  “What’s your safeword?”

  She swallowed as if her mouth was suddenly dry. It was a simple question but it held so much power.

  “Red.”

  The tremor in her voice was barely audible, but he knew her sounds. Intimately.

  He closed his eyes and inhaled. The leather had grown warm in his hand, melding with him.

  As he opened his eyes again, it occurred to him she didn’t know how dark she needed to go. He was witnessing her last moment of innocence.

  A person never wore their skin quite the same way after they’d gone to that place. Not after they’d shed it and become savage.

  He’d been fucking her like a client, but they’d changed. He was about to show her the truth of their nature.

  There was nothing more real than that.

  “Look at me.” The words were deliberately soft, coaxing her to turn her head as if she would hear him better by watching his lips. He rubbed his hand over the bulge in his pants, still guiding her attention. “You’re going to cry for me. Scream for me. Maybe even beg. But none of that is going to make me stop.” He paused. “All those things…they just make me harder.”

  Her chest hitched and he felt it, felt it curl around his balls, but it was the sound, that sharp little inhalation that tore along his veins.

  “Like right now. This is what your fear is doing to me.” He squeezed his cock, displaying its prominent outline. “The only word that stops this is red. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, but he could tell from her expression that she was retreating to that place in her head where the line between pleasure and pain blurred, where destruction and ecstasy felt the same.

  Where it was safe.

  But this was no longer just about her.

  He was going to drag her back to him, to the fear and the pain. Back to where he fed.

  He shook his head, slowly so she would understand.

  “No.” His voice slid from tender to darker tones. “You need to say it.”

  “The only word that stops this is red.” The tremor was more pronounced.

  “Do you know what makes the feet so vulnerable?”

  She shook her head.

  “Nerve endings throughout your body run down to your soles. Do you know what that means?”

  “It’s going to hurt?” Her voice was so small and fragile. The most precious thing he could imagine.

  He nodded. “Yes, it’s going to hurt, but not just your feet. It’s going to run along those nerves and hurt everywhere. I’m going to touch your feet and you’re going to feel the pain in your head.”

  Her eyes were wide with fear and he could already see the shine of tears.

  “Now, pet.” He tenderly tucked some hair behind her ear. “Tell me what you want.”

  She swallowed.

  “I want you to hurt me. Please.”

  There, right there.

  In that moment, he could tell himself he loved her. Even though he could never truly have her. For now, nothing else existed; they had their own private universe.

  She wanted them both to be naked. Well, he was going to show her.

  Himself.

  Herself.

  Masochist.

  She could reject it.

  Or embrace it.

  Either choice would set one of them free.

  The crack of the belt as it struck the soles of her feet ricocheted in the quiet like a gunshot.

  ***

  Fire exploded in her body. Hot needles of pain.

  He’d hurt her before, but not like this.

  There was no sex in this.

  The belt rained down on her feet. Spent candles jarred loose one by one and fell to the bed. Why had she been silly enough to let them scare her?

  This was fear.

  This was hell.

  She screamed out, and thank God, there was blessed relief in the release.

  But it was just another mindfuck. A temporary reprieve. A hiccup of the brain. The pain always came roaring back.

  She tried to breathe, but it stole her air.


  She didn’t know how many lashes were falling.

  Couldn’t count.

  Couldn’t think.

  Ten? One hundred?

  She couldn’t separate the blows.

  Her pain was endless.

  Unbearable.

  “Mercy.” She didn’t recognize the raw rasp of her voice. Wasn’t sure she’d been the one who’d spoken. “Mercy!” she choked out the word.

  The acid rain stopped. Her body burned.

  She was being consumed by a mouth of fire.

  “You’re welcome.”

  The devil’s whisper warm in her ear.

  “Mercy.” She gasped for air, tasting her salty tears at the corner of her lips.

  “Do you know what that sounds like to me?”

  She hiccupped on a sob and shook her head. She didn’t want to fail. For some reason, it seemed scary to fail.

  “In Farsi, mersi is thank you. Almost like the French.”

  The devil’s words confused her. The pain in her body kept shattering her thoughts.

  He dragged the edge of the belt across the insteps of her feet as if it was a bow, scraping it across the nerves, making the pain scream.

  “Mercy.” She tried again.

  Tried to get away, struggled to break free, but he held one of her ankles tight.

  “That’s not red, pet.”

  He gave her feet a tap and a shot of agony spiked up her body.

  She was back to screaming.

  She was back to coming undone.

  It felt like dying.

  But there was something dark coming to life.

  Something crawling deep out of her soul. Something that scared her more than the devil.

  No.

  No!

  She couldn’t want this. Couldn’t comprehend wanting this.

  Needing this.

  Then simply call red.

  Her savage purred.

  Eighteen

  Scarlet lay on the bed listening to the bathwater pour. Tears and sweat matted her hair to her cheeks. She’d only just got back her breath. The ringing in her ears from the vicious strokes of the belt was receding. The arches of her feet still hummed.

  She didn’t think he’d even hit that hard, the force at odds with the effect of the blow.

  Pain. Deep and dark.

  He’d been right.

  In the end, she’d begged. Begged and cried, each plea for mercy met only with you’re welcome. He’d answered with thick lust as he’d fed on her destruction.

  But that wasn’t the humiliating part. The humiliating part was she hadn’t stopped him.

  When he’d finished, when he’d pulled her back from the edge of madness, Jerricho had reached between her legs where she was still wet.

  So very wet.

  He’d toyed with her stickiness.

  Not to turn her on, but to make a point, to let her listen to the wet sucking sound as his fingers played and painted her in her own juices, branding her with the evidence she couldn’t deny.

  She’d loved it even as she hated it.

  Her brain repelled the idea before it could sink in and mean something, brutally shoving the thought away as the confusion of it hurt.

  “Time to bathe.” That voice. It was under her skin.

  She tilted her head and looked backward. Her world was upside down, but seeing him grounded her.

  Who was the monster?

  She hadn’t called red.

  “Hurt.” She didn’t want to think about full sentences right now. Talking ached.

  “I know, pet.” He was so gentle now.

  Her fallen angel held Heaven and Hell.

  “Come bathe. Let me take care of you. Wash the stickiness off you.”

  Sex and sweat, she was drenched in it.

  She huffed a breathless laugh. Walk?

  When she moved, it was as if she was ancient, her body stiff and sore and slow. She poured herself off the bed into a puddle on the floor.

  The sustained dark notes of the bastinado still vibrated along her nerves. The hot spikes of pain now dull and stinging.

  The stinging was … she could no longer tell if the pain was bad.

  The bruise of it felt good.

  Jerricho stood patiently in the doorway of the bathroom. So near and yet the space between them had never seemed bigger. It was insurmountable to cross the floor to him.

  It was significant.

  “Come, pet,” he called, and it tugged at her as if his voice was her leash. “Come.”

  On hands and knees, she started to crawl.

  Moving was easier than thinking.

  Halfway across, she finally dared to look up. He was watching her crawl. The heat in his eyes hit her as if it was a physical wave, singeing the air from her lungs as it rolled over her. Even the burn in her feet felt cool in its wake.

  He looked at her like a man who owned her.

  He’d shown himself, but he’d revealed her in the process.

  Mersi.

  She hadn’t called red.

  She’d told him she would walk through fire for Killian.

  Now she’d crawl for Jerricho.

  He’d laid bare her truth.

  She reached his feet; he’d taken off his socks and shoes. She moved to kiss them, to connect with him, but Jerricho reached down and picked her up in his arms.

  She sank into him.

  All the confusion of the scene fell away.

  This was her place.

  She grabbed his shirt, clinging to him. His solid strength seeped into her body. With sure, steady movements he carried her to the bath.

  He stooped down to lower her into the water and she clung tighter.

  “No. No.” Rising panic was clear in her voice. The thought of losing contact squeezed her heart with unfounded terror.

  “Shh. I have to put you in the bath to wash you.”

  “No. Don’t let me go … just, don’t let me go.”

  Jerricho tucked her back against his chest and placed a soft kiss on the top of her head. She basked in his smell. The faded masculine scent of his aftershave was buried in his clothes.

  She seesawed as weight shifted. Still dressed, he climbed into the bath with her. Warm water lapped against her as he sank down, somehow still holding her.

  Cradled on his lap, she sighed contentedly as he scooped water with a small white bowl and began to drizzle it over her.

  “How do you feel?” Not just words, his body rumbled under her. The hardness of his cock pushed up into her. All this time, he had been fully aroused.

  She felt wonderful.

  All that was left of the stinging pain was a sweet, deep ache.

  The rush of enduring.

  And an itch.

  A hungry itch.

  She reached for Jerricho’s soapy hand. Eyes closed, she rested her head back against his shoulder as she moved his slippery fingers to stroke between her folds.

  He let her use him, let her ride his hand. His free arm came around her chest and cupped her breast, deft fingers finding and rolling her nipple as he squeezed.

  This poison was sweet.

  She rolled her hips as he rolled his fingers.

  The broad brush of his thumb rubbed her tender clit. She jerked at the exquisitely intense rush, nerves still alive from his earlier edging.

  With two hands, she guided and pushed his fingers deep inside her, grinding her pubis on his wrist as she groaned.

  He took control.

  Fingers thrust and fucked. Glorious, wicked, thick fingers ravished her swollen flesh and teased her hungry nerves.

  Quickly building the pressure to that soaring high.

  If he stopped now, she would hate him.

  If he stopped now …

  Her orgasm blindsided her with its sudden ferocity.

  An exploding brilliance disrupted her brain.

  She was only vaguely aware of the running taps, the sound of falling water.

  She was flying and falling all at once
.

  Barely noticing as his fingers dug into her calf and pulled.

  A lightning bolt of sensation struck as hot water crashed down, burning the bridge of her foot.

  Pain … pleasure.

  She couldn’t tell.

  The second orgasm shuddered through her body as stinging pins of cold water rained onto the burn.

  His fingers fucked her through the sensations.

  More. More. More.

  The wordless chant stuck on her lips.

  Hot water again. Searing. Painfully intense after the cold.

  Her body stiffened, arching of his lap as she lifted above the water.

  A scream of ecstasy torn from her lips.

  Nineteen

  Scarlet sat in the back of the car on the way from the fundraiser feeling tired and fragile. More vulnerable than the day before when she’d been tied to the bed; more tender than her feet because that was only physical.

  More lost because of what she’d found.

  Real.

  So she’d spent the day hiding in business—breakfast with her agent to review and sign contracts, shopping for the costume, meeting up with Marcus to finalize song choices, and getting ready for the gala dinner that night.

  She was avoiding how she felt, avoiding Jerricho.

  For the first time since meeting him in the hotel room, Jerricho felt forbidden.

  The past two days with him had torn down all her defenses.

  And then there was the pain.

  Pain that was so much more than rough.

  She was scared of it. She craved it.

  Just like she craved Jerricho.

  She was messed up, so messed up.

  She looked across the seat at her husband. Killian sat next to her, tense and silent. The back of the car was more cavernous for his distance.

  He’d come home from Queensland distracted. His dinner conversation was so monosyllabic at the fundraiser she’d spent the evening talking to the people around them.

  She hated that he’d gone away for two days just when she thought things might be changing. The memory of him and Jerricho at the dinner table was still vivid. The hope it meant something was still fresh.

  She wanted to talk. She wanted to close the gap and touch him. She wanted a sign from him, just a sign … for him to reach out his hand and save her from drowning.

  She cleared her throat. “The food was good.” Inane instead of brave, Killian’s foreboding mood pushed them back to small talk.