She wasn’t that wet. But if I tried, I’d make her like it too.
I did little rough shunting moves inside her, probing for the right spot. I moved into her to make her open her legs more then I sneaked my hand beneath and searched for her clit.
“I’m going to make you come too. Just...” I thrust in. “Squeal some more. For them.”
“I’ll try.”
Try what? To come, or to squeal? Still dry. Fear maybe. Of course. Of course it was that.
“Forget anything but us. You’re a beautiful woman, Jazmine. Pretend this is a date night. We’ve been to the movies and –” I gave up. I was no actor. I kept thrusting and working at her clit, her nipples, feeling for the reaction if I hit her g spot. Nothing. What did I expect? To my cock, this was just a fuck like any other fuck, but to her it was terror central. I might have to use spit for lubrication or it’d start hurting both of us.
Determined to make her happy, I altered position, then the strength of my thrusts. They wanted me to make this last, well, it was lasting.
“Jazmine. Relax.”
“I can’t,” she blubbered.
I kept trying and got nowhere with her.
Overcome by the awesome feel of being sheathed high inside her cunt, I powered in, fucking her harder for a few seconds, and her breathing...stopped. Was that good? Bad?
“You like that?” I moved over her, one arm to the floor in support, the other wrapped around her breasts, hugging her to me. No answer. Was she still holding her breath? An inch from her ear, I asked again. “Jazmine?”
“Umm.”
Damn, the scent of this woman, having her under me, being in her. I groaned and couldn’t resist. I licked around her ear once then I bit her hard at the back, over her nape, and followed up with another firm, locking bite on her neck while I speared into her, smacking in hard, rocking her body back and forth. My teeth were anchored in her flesh. My cock had her at the other end.
Possession was an aphrodisiac that beat anything.
Her pussy walls clenched in and she groaned, her lower back bowed in a clear sign of a female inviting the man in, and her juices welled around my cock. My balls grew wet as I slapped into her.
Was it the firm hold I had on her? The pain of the bite? The altered angle? Did it matter?
“That’s it.” I did some little jabbing shoves with my cock, smiling as I heard the wet sounds of her pussy. “Take me. Fucking take me. You like it now, don’t you? Say it.”
Her yes was gasped out loud and clear.
“I’m in you deep. Fok, you feel amazing.”
Her choked whimpers, the writhe of her hips, and the incredible tight suction of her pussy on my cock, drove me to haul her back by her hair.
I gave up on conversation and fucked her thoroughly.
At the end of it, she quivered under me, still moaning a little. They’d come to separate us soon. As I caught my breath, I stroked where I’d bitten.
“It’s done. You’re fine, ja?”
“Yes.” She tucked her head under my hand then added quietly. “Thank you.”
I frowned. A thank you seemed odd.
My next words seemed a little patronizing and yet also right. “You were such a brave, good girl. I’m sorry I couldn’t make you come.”
For a few moments, I had made her mine. We’d been outside this place, in our own passionate world. I toyed with a curl of her hair, winding it around her ear.
Her reply was even quieter than before, like she only wanted the floor to hear. “It was...good. I think I did come, a little...and I never come...with a man.”
I drew back, staring. “What?”
“It was good.” She smiled shakily, a small but definite smile.
Were we both crazy? Pride flared and I almost smiled too. Then nausea kicked in. The contrast between us here on the floor, and what was out there, watching us, tore at me.
The speaker crackled to life. “Pieter. You did a terrible mess of that. You made her happy! I think we must sack you.”
Crap. My heart stuttered. I shut my eyes for a second then searched for her hands and squeezed them. “I’m so sorry.”
Her nails dug into my fingers.
“Wait. Wait. The client speaks and tells me it was okay. Next time you will do better.”
The bastard. I couldn’t stop looking into her eyes.
I came to a sudden, yet flawless conclusion, as startling as a man finding the moon in his backyard. The danger we were in had burned away all the stupid nonsense that normally clouded men’s decisions. I wanted her. Truly wanted her.
Given a clear conscience and a day without this insanity in which we were trapped, I’d have dragged her away by the hair and screwed her until she never wanted to leave my arms. Well, I guess I’d have talked to her as well. Small detail.
But I didn’t have that day.
When they demanded I stand still to be restrained again, I let the man come over and do it, though I glowered at him – my arms were again bound behind my back at elbow and wrist.
I believed what Gregor had said. Stupid of me.
After more men entered and held me to the wall, they made me watch while Gregor strung her up from the ceiling and caned her to the count of seven. The thrum of the cane in the air and the thwack as it hit her ass and back, the red and blue marks...damn him to hell. Killing him shot to number one on my list of things to do.
“That was for not making her yell.” He waggled the cane at me as his men let down her limp body. “See what you did to her? Tsk. Tsk.”
Her screams still echoed inside my head.
Chapter 5
What he’d done to my back...I couldn’t look. When they brought me to my room, I couldn’t look in the mirror. Not that I could stand anyway. I’d been mostly carried back. The pain from those few strikes with the cane had shocked me, and that someone could so callously strike me. I’d been lucky before. Scrim had concentrated on Zoe.
I’d never been hit like that. Did a human mean nothing to Gregor?
I lay on my stomach for hours, feeling the mixture of bite and throb. Every time I shut my eyes, the pain drew me back into the world of the awake. After inching my dress up my back and shakily feeling for the welts, I wept quiet tears. Then I lay there, just listening to the night. I had no light, only a faint, second-hand moonlight that came in the square window near the ceiling. The jungle sounds soothed me for some odd reason. The flap of wing. The cry of bird or bat. The distant crash of a branch falling from a tree.
It was life. Proof there was an existence without torture. I fastened onto that idea like a leech. I wasn’t losing hope that I could have some of that again. I wanted freedom. I wanted normal, gray dull reality, not this insanity.
I wanted fucking boredom so hard that I wrenched my pillow into a ball as if by crushing it I could be like Dorothy clicking her shoes.
Take me back. Now.
But it didn’t happen. I was stuck here. I could’ve put myself in one of my exposé articles and had it featured by every news service in the country.
Human traffickers enslave, rape, and torture freelance female journalist. Read all about the depravities she was subjected to.
I bit the pillow until my jaw ached and I rocked into it. I want to go home.
He hadn’t been told to use a condom. I couldn’t bear to deal with the implications of that. Not now.
Flashes of what had been done to me carved through my thoughts uninvited. Little vignettes of rape and hurt played over and over. Me, screeching while he whacked that stick on me, my feet not touching the floor, my toes scrabbling for a grip as I swung. The rope above creaking. The new scenes were added to the ones I’d already perfected where I tried to turn back time so that none of this ever happened.
If only I’d not gone out for a drink that night. If only I’d turned left for a taxi instead of going right down the alley to the car park and aiming to drive myself home. If only the assholes hadn’t decided to add me to their list of wome
n to sell to other, richer assholes.
If only one of those rich assholes hadn’t decided I’d make a nice victim for his sadistic pleasures.
The weight of the sheet was stinging the skin on my bottom. I inched it off me, wincing when it tore loose in a few spots. I must have bled. Nothing I could do about it. I covered my head with my poor ravaged pillow. Slowly the deeper darkness let me fall into sleep.
At the tap of footsteps, I jerked awake. Pain blazed across my back and I yelped.
Someone sat on the edge of the bed, bowing it down, and a large hand was laid across my spine.
“Oh dear. What bruises you have. My, my. I’m so sorry it came to this but your Mr. Pieter did not do as he was told to.”
Gregor. I gulped. My head was still under the pillow. I felt like a turtle hiding from a crocodile.
“Come out, come out.” He chuckled and pulled the pillow from my grasp. “There you are! I have something for you. Ointment. It will be good for your wounds. Stay very still.”
I barely glanced at him before staring at the wall beyond the headboard. I heard a jar being unscrewed and he shifted on the bed, rocking the mattress.
As he touched a finger to my back, the cold of the ointment and the burn of pain made me wince and try to fly up off the bed. His hand anchored me in place.
“Stay. I said to stay. You don’t want me to spank you now, do you?”
I gritted my teeth, wishing I could do something bad to this man. Eyes closed, I made myself be still as he traced every welt with his fingers, rubbing in the cream with agonizing thoroughness.
If I had a gun under my hand, would I have the guts to shoot him? He so scared me that I knew I might not dare to try. If I failed, he’d do terrible things to me.
“Why are you shaking? Does it hurt that much? Such pretty, pretty bruises. If only you could see them like I do.”
I shuddered. Light as the walk of a spider, Gregor’s fingers trailed over my ass, venturing close to the divide, then he took a pinch of skin directly over one of the worst spots.
I hissed and tried to claw my way up the bed. Without releasing my skin, he fastened me down with his palm planted on the small of my back.
“It hurts. Let go. Please.” I whispered my plea. “Please.”
“No, no, no.” He waited until I was staying in place, though gasping and crushing the pillow with my hands. “Now. What did you forget to add to the end of your sentences? Hmm?”
Oh fuck.
“You didn’t say ‘sir’. Yes? I was very lenient, considering your condition. But now I have to punish you. Be good or I will do it twice.”
Punish? Not more of the stick?
But he shifted to the end of the bed and dragged me by my legs until I was over his knee with my dress gathered above my waist. I buried my head. I was whining as the first blow struck, crying out by the fourth. If he’d taken a hammer to me, it might have hurt less.
“There now. All done.”
I panted, determined not to make more noises. He probably enjoyed them.
The door opened. From the sounds, several people came in.
I turned my head away, embarrassed as well as sore. Tears streamed down my face and I wiped them away with my wrist.
“It’s your friend, Pieter! Hop off my lap now, dear girl, and say hello to your present.”
Present?
God, I hated how cheerful, how condescending, this man acted. Like a demon babysitter risen up from the depths of Hell.
He’d said Pieter. I struggled off Gregor’s lap then pulled down my dress. Sitting on the bed only made me flinch. I stood and pretended nothing had happened. That I hadn’t been spanked and presenting my naked butt to these men when they came through the door.
How many of them had seen what had happened in the other room? Did it matter? They were dirt. Despise them. These men are all pieces of crap. I’m better than them all. I tried my best to look them in the eyes but I couldn’t.
Two guards and Pieter with his head covered.
My muscles tensed.
In front of me was the man I’d been raped by last night. Even if he’d been made to do it...it bothered me. Why had they brought him to me?
They had him wrapped up in chains and leather and handcuffs. Gray shirt. Gray pants. His arm muscles bulged around the straps like he might explode them any minute.
He was big. I’d forgotten how big. He’d been behind me, last night, in the room.
My mind skittered away from even thinking the words for what he’d done.
They were releasing him, all but his handcuffs, and backing out the door.
“You can have him for three hours today. Your client, Miss Jazmine, has asked us to let you two interact.” Gregor shook his finger at us both. “Do not have sex. That is a rule.” As he spoke he went to Pieter and took the bag off his head. Then he went to the door. “I’m leaving you now. Back up to the door hatch so we can take off the cuffs, Pieter. Each time you leave this room, you will do the same procedure. Understand me?”
They were leaving us together. Alone. And it sounded as if they meant to do this regularly.
The door was closed and locked.
I studied Pieter as he did what he’d been told to do and backed up to have the cuffs removed through the hatch.
No sex. Thank god for that. I didn’t know this man, at all. How many times had we spoken alone back in Australia before he’d helped me escape? Four times? I’d never been sure of his reasons for helping me.
If any man could be said to be lion-like, it was Pieter. His head was as substantial as his muscles and his untidy and ragged mop of shoulder-length black hair could’ve been mistaken for a small runaway pet. The gray streaks might mean age, or that he’d suffered extreme stress. Older than me, anyway.
The one fact he’d told me that seemed to tee up – he’d soldiered in South Africa. But on which side of the law?
Trusting him was the last thing I should do. Everyone had hidden agendas – lawyers, neighbors, boyfriends, everyone. He was simply a better risk than being Gregor’s toy.
He looked at me from under his brows while massaging his wrists then he surveyed the room. All without moving from where he stood near the door.
My heart decided to go on high alert and pound away. Beads of sweat popped up on my forehead. Today was going to be hot, but this wasn’t the heat. Pieter made me nervous. I shifted on my feet, shrugged. How did I greet a man who’d done what he’d done to me?
I cleared my throat. “I’d offer you tea and scones but...”
“You okay?”
To the point. Was I? Hell no. Stupidly, tears stung my eyes. I blinked them away, stared at my fascinating floor. “I’m, yeah, okay.”
“You’re not. Dumb question. Come. If you can stand me. Come.” He beckoned me to him.
What? I was baffled.
He looked down. Shook his head. “I know you must be going in circles. Things like this mess with your mind. This is my territory. I’ve seen enough in my life to make this a walk in the park. But you...” He looked at me again from under those thick, gorgeous eyebrows that I was crazy to be admiring. “You need a fokken hug.”
“Uh. No.” I tried to back away and my knees hit the bed.
“No?” His gaze was so searching he probably knew the color of my panties. Wait. I had none on.
I couldn’t sit. I wasn’t going to lie down with him here. My legs started to tremble and I put a hand out to the headboard and missed. Shit.
His sigh was loud enough to make me frown.
“What?” I had to get him out of my face. “Do you think you could lie on the floor, because I... I don’t have a chair.” And I needed to lie down fast before I fell over.
“What did he do to you? Just now? Did he do something?”
I felt the heat as my face reddened then cold rushed in and prickled down my body. I swayed. “He, umm, hit me, yes.” I hurried on. If I fainted, I’d never forgive myself. It seemed ridiculous to be embarrassed bef
ore Pieter, but I couldn’t help it. “It was nothing.”
Go fucking lie down.
That assessing stare of his was going to wear out the room atmosphere.
“You poepol,” he muttered and he walked toward me.
“What does that mean? What are you doing?”
“Means idiot.” Then he opened his arms and slowly, while watching me, as if to see if I was going to punch him or something, he half-closed his arms around me, stopping just short of touching.
I froze. The scent of this man so near...he smelled good. Warm. Intense. It signaled humanity to me.
I should not trust him. He’d been with them, worked for them. I hadn’t even liked touching my assorted boyfriends, some days. Touching wound me up like a spring.
My eyes, traitorous things, watered and I felt more tears well and trickle down my cheeks. I sniffed. Fuck him.
“Come. You need this, bokkie.”
“Bokkie?” I wiped at the tears. Another stupid foreign word.
“Little doe,” he whispered. “It’s an endearment in Afrikaans. “Please. You’ll make me happy too. I need a hug.”
“Little doe?” I giggled. “You need a hug?”
I frown-cried. More fucking tears.
I hung my head and wiped my palms up my face, speaking past my fingers. “This is all so stupid.”
I shouldn’t. It’d give him the wrong idea, that I liked touching.
But I took a small, shuffling step and I fell into his embrace. Without saying another word, he delicately closed his arms on me, as if I might break. I slipped my own around his broad back and I sobbed for ages, wetting his shirt. He rubbed between my shoulders. High enough, I realized, to miss where Gregor had hurt me. He remembered. And he was right. I needed this. Needed someone to hug.
If he was faking all this caring shit, he was doing it so bloody well.
Chapter 6
Seize me From Darkness (Pierced Hearts Book 4) Page 3