by Cerys du Lys
Everyone laughed as I moved the cue ball to the left, positioning it exactly where it needed to be. It was almost touching the side of the table. This was just another game, and Crash was my mark. No matter how sleep-deprived or hungry I was, I could do this.
I have to do this.
The noise dropped away and I sank down, eyeing the distance. I chalked my cue and the web of my thumb. Then the cue pulsed in my hand. Once. Twice. Three times.
The cue ball shot like a bullet and hit the second ball smack in the center, which in turn hit the eight ball. The other balls scattered away and the eight ball landed with a small thunk into the corner pocket.
I won.
The noise turned on, and I jumped as someone thumped my back. The bikers stared at me slack-jawed, their cigarettes almost falling from their lips.
“Wait a minute. Shut the fuck up! How the fuck did she win?”
“She made the eight on the break,” Spike said, all of the resentment gone from his face.
The irate President looked at Cain, who shrugged. “I had no idea she could do that.”
When Crash turned around to glare at me, Cain smiled and nodded at me. Spike leaned against the pool table and lit a cigarette. He caught me staring at him and smiled, deep dimples creasing his face. He had a handsome face and his mouth twisted into a mischievous grin. What threw me was the warmth radiating from his eyes. They were incredibly friendly and open, like he had nothing to hide. He looked at me a little bit longer than the others. I could see him as a ladies’ man. My cheeks flushed when he winked at me.
He isn’t like the rest of them.
“I can work for the club,” I told Crash. “I used to hustle for Ace.”
The grizzled, hard man waved that away. “You fucked him over.”
“Only because he was beating the shit out of me every day.”
He gave me a harsh laugh and dug his cigarette into the bar counter. “So?”
My hand shook with the pool cue and I imagined myself beating him with it. Fucking see how you like it.
The tall, blonde man stepped between us. “Crash, I’ll claim her as my old lady. I’ll be responsible for her. She’ll toe the line, or she’ll have her head cut off.”
My whole body shivered as Cain looked at me from across the room and smiled. He would enjoy it, too. I don’t want to be your old lady. But it was either that or death.
Crash gave him a shrewd grin. “You planned all this, didn’t you?”
He lifted his shoulder. “When I want something, I take it.”
The words rolled strangely out of his mouth. They almost sounded like a threat, but the rest of the club looked relaxed as if Cain said nothing out of the ordinary. I stiffened as my new master made a beeline for me and grabbed my arm in a vice grip.
“Fine,” Crash barked. “But if this bitch takes one step out of line, both of you will be held responsible.”
The prospect, Spike, kept glancing at me. His eyes burned into the back of my skull as Cain swept me out of the club, past the dumbstruck club whores and the bikers.
Cain’s pale face was completely blank when I finally looked at him. He looked whiter than usual, and I wondered if a part of him still felt fear.
Why did he do that for me?
I breathed in the night air with a shuddering sigh of relief. It was strange. The moment my filthy, broken heels passed over the threshold, the sweet air of freedom hit me and my nausea suddenly appeared with a violent reckoning. I pulled away from Cain, my stomach clenching horribly.
“What are you—”?
I almost got my head blown open.
Halfway between sobbing, green bile rose with a vengeance in my throat and burned my lips as I hunched on the dirt and spat it out. Adrenaline still coursed my veins like a speedball, jacking up my heart rate. Pissing, stinking fear held back until my brain sensed that I was safe. Now that I was fine, it slammed into me. I hugged my knees and cried, Cain’s jacket flapping in the cooling summer breeze.
His fingers lightly stroked the top of my head and I was overcome with a bizarre urge to grab his leg and hold on to him. Sadistic bastard or no, he saved my ass.
“Come,” Cain said in what he probably thought was a gentle voice. It was the same voice he used all the time, only lower.
Bryan’s gone.
It hit me all of a sudden. My blouse was dark red and crusted with my husband’s remains. I didn’t love him, but he loved me and he would have treated me well. He was the last person on Earth who I could say that about.
I’m alone.
Cain was going to use me—chew me up and spit me out before he ate all the meat off my bones, but at least he wanted me alive—for now. At least he was someone to hold onto. So I did. I took his hand and followed him to his bike.
* * *
The surprisingly clean apartment calmed my nerves a little. It was so different from the McMansion I left in Los Angeles, but similarly Spartan. There was nothing on the walls or countertops. No decoration whatsoever. It was completely devoid of personality. Expressionless.
Cain shut the door and locked it, removing his jacket and hanging it on the wall.
I’m his old lady. Another wave of dizziness struck me. He owns me.
His gray eyes sought mine and his head gestured towards the bathroom. “You can get cleaned up. Then you can eat something.”
I clutched my filthy blouse to my chest. “But—what about clothes?”
“I got some for you already,” he said as he walked to the bathroom. “C’mon.”
I’m going to pass out. I tried to imagine him in a mall shopping for women’s clothes and a small laugh escaped me.
Cain narrowed his eyes. “What?”
I blanched and shook my head, remembering that he offered to decapitate me unless I toed the line. What the hell is wrong with me?
Inside the sparkling bathroom was a giant tub and shower. The blonde man sat on the toilet seat and leaned over to turn the knobs on the bathtub.
“Let’s go,” he snapped when he saw me standing there.
He was going to watch. Either he didn’t trust me or he was a voyeur. I tried to turn away from him as I stripped the clothes from my body. They fell to my feet like shattered ice sculptures. I tried to enter the tub from the place farthest from him, but his hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. My feet slipped on the ceramic tiles as he yanked me towards him and I fell on his lap.
His coarse jeans rubbed against my thighs and heat bloomed across my chest. My face was a foot away from his, which was fixed with an impatient, angry expression. His blonde eyebrows knitted down and his eyes were devoid of lust.
“You’re my old lady, now. You need to get used to taking off your clothes in front of me. As long as you obey, we won’t have any problems.”
I’m not a fucking dog.
I nodded slightly as I kept my anger to myself, and he let go of my wrist. My legs trembled as I got off him and gingerly stepped over the edge of the bathtub. The hot water immediately eased the tension knotting my muscles and I sank in the water with a grateful sigh. God, it felt good. I grabbed the loofah sitting on the edge and soaped it up with the Irish Spring soap, cleaning every inch of my body.
Cain didn’t even glance at me. He looked like a portrait of The Thinker with his head on his hand. His hand played with something in his pocket.
“What’s that?”
A long glass tube filled with red liquid dangled from his fingers. “I don’t know. They call it, Red.”
“What’s it for?”
He shrugged as if the same question plagued him. Then his face turned towards me and grinned. “Want to try it?”
My nerves still jangled from the cocaine. The last thing I needed was a new drug addiction. “Would you let me go?”
His laughter rang in the tiled room, making me shiver. He gave me a look that I recognized from all those men I hustled over the years—the condescending look that said I was worthless. Get back in the kitchen, whore.
The question punched me in the face.
Everything is dead, destroyed, gone to shit. I’ve nothing.
Hating him, I stared into the murky bathwater and tried to soak up some of its heat. I sank backwards until my eyes were submerged. His body was distorted under the water—blurs of beige, white, and yellow. Bubbles popped out of my mouth.
I stayed there too long. His hand shot in the water and pinched my shoulder. The water cascaded down my face as I sat up. He leaned over the tub, studying me.
“You’re an old lady of a Vice-President of the most powerful MC in Victoria. That’s not nothing.”
According to you, I should be grateful? Bullshit.
“Maybe I don’t want any of that.”
He smirked. “If I believed that, I would have let him kill you.”
He may be a sadistic bastard, but he saved my life. I reached down and pulled the drain. The water spiraled down noisily and I shivered as the water exposed me. Standing up, I reached for the towels Cain handed me, patting down my body before wrapping it around my hair. His eyes bounced around as I dried myself. Now that I stepped out of the tub, wet and clean, he sat a little straighter and watched me like he was starving.
He wanted me. And maybe I wanted him, too.
My heart hammered as I hung my towel on the hook. Then I closed the space between us. His eyes looked feverish. I sat across his legs, my body hot from the bath, and hooked my hands around his neck. Having a completely naked woman on a man’s lap would excite most men, but Cain looked sedated. In control. He was always in control.
I wanted him to lose control because I wanted to see if he was really human. My breasts flattened against his chest and my lips grazed his ears. Every man I was ever with loved when I did that. His long exhale billowed in my ear and suddenly his hands grasped my hips and squeezed. I gasped as pleasure shot into my abdomen as if he suddenly fingered me. It was a tease of pleasure, a feeling of being filled without anything actually there.
“Why are you doing this?”
Because I’m lonely. Because I want to. Because you’re all I have. Even if I didn’t want you. I inhaled him. The whiskey and smoke clinging to his shirt combined to remind me of home, and those times I felt most alive. He saved my life because he saw some worth in me. I pulled back from his neck, my hair falling like a shield as I kissed his open mouth. I needed this. I wanted this.
He seemed surprised with my eagerness. His lips moved almost as if he asked a question, but I devoured it. My fingers twined in his hair, becoming more and more entangled, and then I bit his lip hard and he chuckled into my mouth, kissing me back while his hands squeezed me.
Cain pulled away and held me away from him, his face flushed. I was pleased to see that he looked unnerved.
“What game are you playing?”
“I’m not playing you,” I stammered.
“You’re not broken. So why are you—”
“Do I need to be broken to want you? Or do you like fucking dead-eyed whores?”
“It’s not like that,” he said in a sharp voice.
My voice softened. “You could have let me die, but you didn’t. Thank you.”
He swallowed and for once his eyes lost the ruthlessness that hardened every other feature. He looked utterly lost and I felt something for him. When I kissed him again, his lips were almost soft.
“I didn’t do it out of kindness, Julia. I am not a good man.”
I know.
The hard look returned when I smiled at him. “I just want to help you.”
I was sure that Cain had probably never dealt with something like this before. No woman had ever willingly followed his orders. Fear was a strange emotion on Cain’s face. He was used to torturing people until their souls broke. Until they lost all sense of self and only lived to please their master.
“I’m not sure that I’m into this.”
I smiled and reached down to grab his hard cock. “I’m pretty sure that you are.”
His eyes blazed. He grabbed the red tube that sat on the bathroom counter. “I want you to take this.”
My breath caught in my throat. It was a drug I never tried, a drug that could very well kill me.
“What’s wrong?” he asked with mock concern. “I thought you said you wanted to help me?”
“I’ll do it, if that’s what you want,” I said in a small voice.
“It is.”
I winced at the chill emanating from his voice. He unscrewed the tube, watching me carefully, and removed the dropper. “Open your pretty eyes and don’t move.”
My body trembled as his thumb opened my eye. The dropper hovered over me and my eyelids wanted to shut. Coolness spread over my eyeball as the red liquid momentarily blurred my vision. I blinked. He did the other eye and set the drug aside, waiting, watching me. I looked at him and shrugged, feeling nothing, but then Cain’s lips moved and I saw him spell out with extraordinary slowness. “What…do…you…feel?”
I stood up from his lap and the motion felt like it took at least five seconds. “Whoa.”
A surge of energy soared through my veins, more powerful than anything I ever experienced.
I can do anything. Anything. I could kill him right now, if I wanted to.
He smirked at me, or I saw a shadow of a smirk on his face, so I lashed out with my right fist and struck his irritating fucking face.
His face furious, he lunged for my arms but I saw the movement easily and stepped aside. He was laughably slow, but the bathroom was too small to move quickly. Then he pinned me against the wall, my arms on either side of my head.
“Yeah, that’s it. Fight back,” he hissed in my ear.
I aimed a knee towards his balls, but he dodged me, swearing colorfully. Screaming, I launched my head forward. He could barely keep me constrained. It was as though fury was driving me. I wanted to kill him. He dragged me out of the bathroom and into his bedroom as I twisted madly in his grasp. The knife on his nightstand gleamed brightly. I dove for it but he yanked me back.
“That’s it, baby,” he whispered. “Try to fucking kill me.”
His cock rubbed against my bare ass. I don’t know how the fuck he did it, but he managed to restrain me while he ripped off his jeans. The anger and madness ebbed, leaving emptiness in its wake. I felt myself returning back. The frenzied energy disappeared but every movement was still delayed. I felt slightly sick as I watched Cain move from side to side. Fucking bastard. He flipped me around and shoved my back down so that my torso laid on the bed. Gripping both of my wrists with one hand, he used the other to grope my ass. He slipped down my thigh and curled around to dip a finger into my pussy.
“Fuck, you’re wet,” he said in a harsh whisper.
“Cain, you can let my hands go.” I stroked the hand holding me with a finger and his grip loosened. He probably waited for me to turn around and my hands twitched inside them, as if they waited for the opportunity.
I moaned as his cock slowly spread me open and I doubled over as he thrust hard. His hands let me go, but there was no way I could escape him. I gripped the bed as he held my hips, rutting me deep. The drug made my skin extremely sensitive.
I felt the hairs on his legs against mine, tickling me as he pulled back and thrust back in. My pussy clenched around his cock as it stabbed my depths, drawing a painful moan from my throat. He slammed into me as his hands gripping my waist, yanked me back against him, our flesh smacking against each other. His hand ripped down on my flesh, burning me like a second smack.
Jesus Christ.
Unsatisfied with that, he withdrew from me and turned me around so that I could see every inch of his ivory colored skin. It was stained with dozens of tattoos, but his arousal made his chest flush red. I backed onto the bed as Cain climbed over me. His eyebrows knitted down and his eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. My hands glided over his shoulders as my legs wrapped around his waist. His torso moved forward and he entered me swif
tly, his normally expressionless face contorted. Fuck, he felt good. His hands slid up my waist and grabbed my tits, squeezing them as he plowed into me.
Every inch of him was determined to dig deep. He pulsed in and out, always slamming forward with a merciless thrust. It struck me deep inside, vibrating to my clit, which burned with desire. I tightened my fingers around his neck, wanting him closer. He grabbed my hands and pinned them above my head. I struggled to get out from him and noticed that his pace quickened and his breathing became more ragged. He likes it.
I threw my whole body into resisting him, hoping that he would soften if I did what he wanted. I screamed. I arched my back and twisted my body, even trying to shove him off with my legs. He lifted my hands over my head and smiled widely; almost gleefully happy with the power he had over me. I was completely at his mercy. Subject to his every whim. I was fucking wet.
My protests grew feeble because every thrust of his hips made me moan. The fact that I was helpless under him excited me. His cock drove deep into me, his face burrowed in my neck as his weight kept me completely pinned. Lifting his head, he looked angry again, and gathered both hands in one fierce grip as the other played with my tits. The bedroom echoed with my gasps and his deep, male grunts. His hand curved over my tits and stopped over my throat. And held me lightly.
The pressure increased. It was uncomfortable to have his hand wrapped around my throat, but I could still breathe easily. I was riding high, so close to an orgasm. Cain thrust above me, his powerful body out of reach. He pinched his fingers into my skin, slowly closing my throat of air. I couldn’t move my hands. It was like breathing through a straw. I choked. I couldn’t form words.
His face transformed. Ecstasy melted all over his face as he choked me, his cock stabbing me like a knife, rocking pleasure through my body. Panic descended over me as black spots appeared at the edge of my vision, but I was weak. Suddenly, he released his thumb and I grabbed a lungful of air. No sooner had he replaced his thumb, robbing me of air. He bent over me, still holding my throat as his cock jabbed my g-spot. The air from my throat disappeared again and I almost felt high. Then a wave of pleasure crashed over me and I felt like I was spinning. My muscles clenched over his pulsing cock and he uttered a yell that sounded almost painful, but I was still fading away.
