By Way of Pain: Assassins (Criminal Delights Book 12)

by J. M. Dabney

  “The more you fight me, the more I'll make you hurt. Am I understood?”

  “Y-Yes, sir.”

  “Now, you are not to touch yourself without my permission. You are only allowed to touch your cock if it's to take a piss. From this moment on, I own it and every orgasm you have.”

  I could see the war raging in his eyes. His will to survive overshadowing his rage. It was there. The anger that said he'd attempt to hurt me the moment his hands were free. As easily as he gave into my orders, I had a feeling that maybe he wouldn't break as fast as I'd first anticipated.

  With my left hand still secure around his cock, I reached into my pocket with my right to remove the cool metal. I only released his penis long enough to use the key to remove the lock and open the thickest ring. He didn't speak, simply stood there as I slipped his flaccid length into the device. I closed it trapping his cock and balls. I shivered at the whisper of the click as I secured the tiny lock. When I stepped back, I crossed my arms over my chest to admire the chastity device. His chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath. His head tipped all the way back to hide his expression from me.

  “Look at me, boy.”

  I advanced on him, gripped the metal and jerked. His watery gaze met mine, but there was also defiance there.

  “Boy, what did I tell you last night? What was rule number one?”

  “I was to follow all orders, or I would earn punishment.”

  “Exactly.” I spun him away from me. I ignored my whip for now. I spanked him with no mercy, his screams mixed with the sound of his flesh and metal hitting the beam. I didn't soothe or pause; I spanked until my handprint was red and swollen on his hairy ass cheeks.

  “Do you like that, boy? Sir showing you the error of your ways?” I asked as I spread his cheeks and pushed my thumb to his tight, wrinkled hole. The muscles resisted the intrusion, and I shallowly worked him. I held his cheeks open as he tried to clench and spin away from my touch.

  “No.”

  I turned him back around. His cock was soft inside the cage. His chest abraded from the beam. He even had scratches where the rough surface had broken the skin.

  “Good. Your pain is all I want. Your pleasure is unimportant.”

  I left him there as I moved upstairs, washed my gloved hands, and then grabbed the small air mattress I'd prepared earlier. I ignored his presence as I finished getting his space ready. I gave him no more than he needed. The books were left over from a time I attempted to analyze my lack of sexual attraction and the depth of my emotional detachment.

  I released him and drove him to his hands and knees. “Crawl.”

  He did as ordered, but I noticed his movements faltered, and I smacked his abused ass. The pain caused him to collapse, and with his wrists secured, he was unable to protect himself.

  “I said crawl.”

  He moved quicker. An odd sensation prickled at my nape. It was that feeling I had when I was being watched. Although, that wasn't the case. There were sensors all over my property, and my system would've alerted me at the first step onto my land.

  He surged forward into the small space and huddled against the wall.

  “There's a spigot for water. There's a toilet.” I pointed to a darkened corner where a tiny alcove was hidden. The bowl was cracked, and besides a single flush when I first moved in, I assumed it worked.

  “Why are you doing this? I want to go home. Please, just, I won't tell anyone. I don't even know who you are.”

  Each word fell off his tongue with increasing desperation. They cracked with fear and frustration, if I felt anything, I might have had a moment of remorse. His tears and pleas didn't move me.

  My brows drew tightly together behind the mask. What did I see him as except an object? The means for a fleeting break from routine. My cock remained soft and unmoved. Whatever I'd experienced at his pain was a muted thrill.

  “This is your home now. When I am done with you, I will dispose of you as I see fit. If I'm feeling merciful, your death will be quick. Don't make me hurt you more than necessary. I will definitely enjoy it more than you. Eat and prepare…your first lesson begins after lunch. Do not wander any farther than the bottom step. Disobey, and you'll find yourself chained to the wall again.”

  I bent and picked up my whip, hung it from a hook in the doorway.

  His gaze fixed on the coiled length of leather. As the light of the lantern faded, his eyes grew wide and frightened. I studied that expression until all was dark and I backed up, I turned and strode toward the overhead light. I turned it off and removed the bulb, my fingertips burned, yet I was as calm as always.

  I longed to feel. To experience what others did. Maybe I wasn't human, but a demon as my parents accused me of being as I descended further into the nothingness. I didn't miss what I'd never felt. That's where my obsession had bloomed from. The fact that I didn't understand what it meant to be human.

  As the bolt slid into place, my phone chimed from my office. It was the one I only used for my employer. He rarely used my services so close together, and even though I wanted to play with my new toy, I required something to soothe the beast who demanded I take a life. I'd do away with Harrison soon enough, but for now, I'd keep him. But for how long?

  Chapter Six

  Harrison

  After my captor left me in the dark, I'd desperately searched for the lantern. My hands shook as I tried to figure out how it worked and didn't relax until I figured out that I needed to wind it up. Once the small room was filled with light, my panic eased. I knelt in the dirt and ate all the food on the tray.

  I loved food. I liked to savor it and enjoy each bite, but my stomach was so empty it hurt. Was it only a day since my life was normal? Had I cursed myself contemplating how no one would even care if I disappeared? No one would even notice until I didn't show up to work tomorrow. Cowen barely tolerated my presence. He'd probably be relieved when my desk remained empty. I stumbled backward onto the mattress. I flinched at the pain that reminded me of the spanking. No one had ever put their hands on me. I couldn't help crying when he'd spread my cheeks and forced his thumb into my hole.

  There was nothing sexual about what he'd done. His temperament hadn't changed. Even the sharp tone of his voice hadn't carried an ounce of sentiment. There was nothing there. And I wondered again why he wanted to keep me.

  My gaze moved down my body over the hair covered rolls of my belly to the connected steel rings that encased my dick, and the thickest circle irritated the sensitive skin behind my sac. The tiny lock seemed fragile enough to break but as I pulled and twisted it, pain radiated outward from my groin. I was like an animal trapped. Restrained and forgotten, my captor held my life in his hands.

  He'd made it quite clear that he'd kill me when I was no longer useful to him. I didn't want to die. There were so many things I wanted to accomplish. I didn't want to lose my virginity in this cellar to some insane stranger who only wanted my pain.

  I crawled forward to get some water, it sputtered as I turned the metal tap, and I drank until my belly hurt. The shackles around my ankles made it impossible for me to walk safely and I didn't want to chance breaking the lantern if I fell.

  I couldn't survive down here without something to push the shadows to a safe distance. I was long past the age of childish fears, but this was the only one I hadn't been able to shake. It seemed to take forever to find the toilet. I found the edge of dirty, cracked porcelain and realized there wasn't a seat. I struggled to my feet, the chain between the shackles only stretched shoulder width, and it took forever for me to figure out how to empty my bladder with my cock trapped.

  I emptied my overly full bladder and sighed in relief. I was no less scared because he’d reluctantly given me lights and an under-inflated mattress, but I didn’t care. Grown men scared of the dark, my fear humiliated me, but I couldn’t get over it. My captor was at least attempting to keep me alive, but I didn’t know for how long. What if he did all this to lull me into a false sense of securi
ty, and when I was comfortable, he’d snatch it all away.

  I didn’t know or understand what to do because he hadn’t explained anything. All he’d done was imprison my cock in a cage with a lock. He wouldn’t allow me clothes, but he’d given me a blanket to conceal myself. I tried hard to figure out what to do. But what happens if I’m able to escape? I couldn’t see outside, and I could be anywhere in the city, and what if I’d slept longer? I could be in another country for all I knew.

  On my way back to the tiny, dimly lit space, I stopped to wash my hands and face. A shiver moved down my body at the chill in the air. The air mattress compressed under my weight and I wrapped the blankets tightly around me. I remembered the food on the tray, classic breakfast, eggs, bacon, and toast, but all I could think about was had my captor poisoned it. Did he want to make me sick? Torture me more than he had already.

  Would I have already started feeling sick? All the ways the man could hurt me came quickly to my mind. He'd warned of a first lesson after lunch, and my gaze went reluctantly to the whip the man had on a hook screwed into the right side of the doorway. Time passed with no sense of realness as I couldn't tell what it was like outside. No windows to show me the sun. I wanted to cry but didn't see how that was helpful. My captor had stroked the tears from my cheeks, brought his hand to his mouth, and almost seemed to savor the taste of them.

  The stranger only wanted my pain, and I didn't see as if I had a choice. No one would look for me. Hadn't I thought about this before, my disappearance wouldn't cause a stir at all.

  Locks disengaging echoed in the dimness and I hadn't realized the lantern had died down. I backed into the corner, prepared to fight, but knew it wouldn't do any good.

  The light shining upward cast my captor in frightening light, highlighting the unnatural planes of the mask the man wore. There was something familiar about the small glimpse of skin. I tried to place it, but the fear made my brain fuzzy.

  “Are you ready for your first lesson?”

  “Why…why are you doing this?”

  “I already answered that question, boy, and I won't repeat myself,” the man answered as he lifted his hand to pull down the whip.

  A deadly calm seemed to come over my captor as the leather slithered through the man's slim, elegant hands that were encased in tight black leather. “Remove the blanket, stand and return to the support in the center of the room.”

  Every inch of my body shook as I did as he asked. The chill in the air had goosebumps rising and caused the hair to stand up on my arms. When I straightened, I used my hands to cover my crotch. Each step I took fought against my instinct to survive. He said he'd do away with me, and if he felt merciful, he'd make my death quick. As much as that should have terrified me, it brought me a sense of comfort that once he was done with me, he wouldn't make me suffer.

  I yelped and covered my eyes as the single, naked bulb burned bright.

  “Face the support and grab the hook. Do not remove your hands from it at any time or you will earn an extra lash.”

  My captor's voice turned deeper, almost what I assumed a lover would sound like.

  “What are you going to do with me?”

  “I'm going to teach you, boy, that pain is pleasure. When I'm done, you will beg for each lash you receive in punishment.”

  I arched my back as he drew the hilt of the whip down the indent of my spine and then I felt his breath fan my ear. “You have to embrace pain to truly appreciate pleasure. For some of us, they are one and the same.”

  That he believed what he was saying was scarier than the inevitability of my death.

  My captor pressed his clothed form fully to my back. The man was lean, but I felt the power in those muscles, and I cried out as strong fingers winched my head back. I closed my eyes at the burning sting on my scalp. The rough support abraded my skin—only the cage on my cock protected the tender skin. My big, hairy body was too on display, and I didn't want him to look at me.

  Suddenly the heat and presence of him was gone, and the chilliness of the damp basement washed over me. I didn't dare turn around. I didn't want to see what was about to happen. I knew that was stupid. He was going to whip me and seeing would allow me to brace myself for the pain.

  “Breathe, boy. I own every inch of you, and that includes your pain.”

  As soon as the last syllable slipped from his tongue, I felt the fire of the first kiss of the whip. Strangely, I flinched more at the crack of the leather than I did the first strike. I moved to wrap my arms around the support, hugging it tight and pressing my sweaty brow to the splintered surface. Each strike of the whip made me writhe and beg. I wanted the pain to stop. I felt the first trickles of blood down my back. It was a tickling sensation as it flowed over my ass—the backs of my thighs.

  It wasn't as much as I'd assumed, as if just the tip of the whip grazed my back. The agony reached the point that a sort of numbness took over. The nerves had deadened under the exposure of overwhelming suffering. My vision was dimming at the edges, and my heart beat too fast, I cried out with each new lick of leather. I was posed on my tiptoes, and my thighs shook, I was on the edge of collapse.

  I was granted a reprieve, and I screamed as his soft shirt felt like sandpaper on my abused back. “Good boy, you did better than I expected.” His voice sounded almost…caring, and that was so unlike the mental picture I'd formed of him. I gritted my teeth as he drew his palm from my shoulder to hip. I was oversensitive and shoved myself harder into the beam.

  “Easy, boy, you did so good. I've never seen someone so beautiful in the throes of their pain.”

  He was pressed close to my ass, and I felt no hardness behind the zipper of his slacks. It wasn't the first time I didn't notice a sexual response and my confusion grew. If he wasn't going to use my body, why was he keeping me there? Did the only thing he require of me was to hurt?

  I gasped sharply as a single fingertip traced what felt like a split in the skin of my back and then he was gone. At his desertion, I collapsed to my knees in the dirt, and my adrenaline started to ebb away. Cold and pain became an intense maelstrom of sensation, my suffering was soul deep, and I became lost in it. It was as if I existed outside of my body—I was there but on the peripheral.

  The pitiful whimper I pushed past my lips at the first touch of a tepid rag to my back brought me out of my thoughts. He whispered to me as he cleaned what I assumed were long, raw lines. I sat there in the dirt of the floor with my knees hugged to my chest. He continued to tend to my wounds, and then I sighed in relief as he smoothed a cream along the damage and left numbing relief in the wake of his oddly gentle touch.

  I frowned as my confusion grew exponentially due to the contradictions my captor displayed. Cruel, yet caring, was that his plan? To keep me off-kilter so I wouldn’t find my center—contemplate escape. The odd planes of his masked face stroked along my upper back, and I jerked at the softest kiss. His tenderness brought tears to my eyes. I felt as if I was losing myself. Could I succumb so soon and easily to a man who treated me as nothing more than a captive...a thing to hurt? Yet, the caring at the end of my punishment scared me more than my impending death. I could accept that he’d murder me, but what I couldn’t was that he treated me with a gentleness that I’d craved for years. I couldn’t protect against the depravity that was coming in the mask of caring; had I already given in? Was I already lost?

  Chapter Seven

  Cowen

  I secured the house that morning when I left. Days had passed since I’d locked him in my basement. I knew the lack of light made it impossible to keep track of his time with me. Each lesson I gave him became sweeter as he took each lash with the most beautiful whimpers of pain and thanked me for each. Each second which passed made me want to keep him that much more. However, I knew I’d have to tie up the loose end that he represented. He was a weakness I couldn’t afford.

  Compartmentalizing my two lives had always been as simple as shutting off the part of my mind that didn't fit the si
tuation. I looked at my life as a person with two personalities living separately from one another. Assassin me killing and/or torturing without remorse. Ending a life caused me no more contemplation than what I'd wear. Human me, my role I played to become a part of society, a thing barely remembered. Except for my success as a lawyer, nothing else about me would cause scrutiny.

  I was a simple, plain man who carried himself with an aloofness. I always believed that if you played a role long enough, you could trick your brain into accepting it as fact. I could lie effortlessly.

  I went through the motions of court, lunch meeting, and new client consultation at three, no one would look at me and think that I had my office assistant imprisoned in the cellar of my cabin.

  Harrison had still slept when I'd left that morning. I placed food and a thermos of coffee on the shelf of his tiny closet. Why I'd stood there for moments I didn't have time to waste, only to watch him sleep, confused me nine hours later. There was something beautiful in the way he'd suffered under the lash of my whip. I'd used it on others in the past—ones I'd paid to endure my punishment. Masochist were easy enough to find, and they didn't require my body's response. They didn’t require the kiss I’d placed to his upper back after I’d cleaned and tended his wounds. I questioned that single act far longer than necessary. A week later, I still wondered why.

  The lust existed deep within myself as I'd observed the way he writhed, the beautiful whimpers of his pleas for me to cease. As always, my cock hadn't responded to the beauty in front of me. While celibacy was a choice, it wasn't altogether consensual.

  My newest experiment was pornography. None of the many genres had done more for me than annoyed me with the exaggerated moans and vulgarity of sex talk. A scripted encounter without emotion. I found it lacked the elements I needed for study.