by Nikki Chase
It’s more useful to look for escape routes and weapons. As much as I try to fool myself otherwise, I know I’m not a normal girl. Even if I look harmless, my dad has taught me skills to survive in case something like this were to happen.
“Of course. Why?” I ask. It’s probably not a good idea to let my kidnapper know about my weapons, no matter how hot he is.
“You remember when my parents died?” Damon answers my question with a question of his own.
Damon was seventeen or eighteen at the time. His mom died first—suicide. Then, his dad died a few months later due to an accident on the job.
Of course working for my dad is dangerous, but I’ve always thought he would’ve been more careful had he known he had a wife waiting for him at home.
“Yeah.” I hesitate before asking, “Do you blame my dad for that?”
“It was his fault.”
I want to tell Damon his dad should’ve known the risks of working for Enzo Guerriero—out of familial loyalty, perhaps. But I bite my tongue.
I get the feeling it would be as ignorant as asking him why his dad didn’t just buy a Porsche like mine did.
“You know what he did, princess?” Damon asks, his voice calm with a wild undercurrent of rage. “Do you know what an evil motherfucker your dad can be?”
I remain silent.
“Of course you don’t.” Damon shakes his head. “Of course you don’t. Why would he tell his own precious daughter what a disgusting monster he really is?”
“Tell me, then,” I say quietly.
I thought this was about business. Damon mentioned something about Dad owing him, and I assumed he was talking about money.
I’ve been raised to look the other way when it comes to “men’s business,” which in my family stands in for all the criminal activities my dad’s involved in.
So it comes naturally to me, paying little attention to a debt my dad owes Damon. My dad will simply pay Damon what he wants and that’ll be the end of it, as far as I’m concerned. It’s my dad’s business, which means it’s none of my business.
But if this is about Damon’s family . . . then it’s a completely different story. Work is work. But family is everything.
I don’t like the idea that my dad could be responsible for the deaths of Damon’s parents and it’s not just because those people were his family.
I’m not an idiot. I know my dad has his enemies’ blood on his hands. But Damon’s parents, who were loyal to him? Why would he betray their trust like that? It goes against everything he has taught me.
“Damon, please tell me,” I ask again.
“It started when my dad . . .” Damon shuts his eyes and lets out a deep sigh. When he opens them again, even in the dark, I see his pain flash for a split second.
Whatever he’s about to say, it’s the truth. I know it in my heart.
“My dad, he wanted to quit,” Damon says. He looks around like he’s seeing everything happen again in this dark bedroom. “He wanted to stop working for Enzo. Enzo said, ’Sure.’ But he wasn’t actually going to let that happen.
“My dad was an asset—a dangerous one. He had gotten in too deep. He knew too much information, and if he wanted to, he could sell that information to the cops—or worse, one of Enzo’s enemies.”
My chest clenches as I listen. Obviously, this is not one of Damon’s stories that would end well. I sense the pain in his voice, and it shames me that my dad is the cause of that pain.
“Enzo wanted to keep my dad working for him. So what he did was . . . Behind my dad’s back, he gave my mom drugs. Got her hooked on something only Enzo could provide.” Damon turns to lie on his back. As he stares at the ceiling, he continues, “He knew my dad couldn’t have quit and still afford my mom’s habit. So my dad kept working. Forgot about quitting because we barely had enough to get by. My mom kept finding his stash of cash and using it to buy more shit.”
A chill runs down my spine as I realize my dad’s fully capable of doing something like that. Sure, he may not have pulled the trigger and killed Damon’s parents. But he put them in an impossibly desperate situation.
My dad’s lessons come back to me. All those times he told me the importance of being in control, of creating leverage.
“My mom wasn’t high twenty-four/seven,” Damon says. “She’d have these little moments of clarity when she’d realize how far gone she was and how she was dragging her family down with her.” Damon takes another deep breath. “But I guess she felt too weak to fight her addiction, and she chose to take her own life instead.”
I swallow. What can I say? Are there any words I can offer him to give him some measure of solace, considering who I am?
“You know the rest of the story. My dad, in his grief, got careless during a job and an accident happened,” Damon says. “He was already planning to quit again. Didn’t want me to follow his footsteps. He was just trying to repay his debts to Enzo.”
“Do you think . . .?” I let my voice hang in the air even though the question is banging against my skull, demanding to be spoken. I can’t quite bring myself to say it.
“Yes,” Damon confirms my suspicion. “I know for sure Enzo deliberately gave him a dangerous assignment. He didn’t want my dad to quit, and he had lost his leverage. So there was only one way out.”
Leverage.
There’s that word.
One of my dad’s favorite words.
Most kids grow up listening to lectures about honesty, dignity, hard work, or maybe religion. But my dad is all about control.
I don’t doubt Damon’s story. Not one bit.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly.
Damon frowns. “You didn’t do anything.”
“No, but I . . . He’s my father.”
Damon remains on his back but he turns his head to look at me. His hair tumbles forward and falls on his forehead. “You didn’t do anything,” he repeats
“Maybe he wouldn’t have been so ambitious if it weren’t for his family. He works hard, and I get to enjoy it.” I sound ridiculous even to myself. Logically, I know I was never involved in my dad’s business dealings—he made sure of that.
Yet, I’m finding it hard to breathe. Guilt wraps around my chest and tightens its grip as I learn the truth.
“Princess, it wasn’t your fault.” Damon reaches out and tucks my hair behind my ear. “I’m the one who should apologize. I shouldn’t have gotten you involved.”
I look into Damon’s eyes. Does that mean he’s going to let me go?
“I have no choice,” Damon says. “This is the only way I can make sure I don’t end up like my parents.”
“I’m your leverage,” I blurt out. That’s all I am. A thing to bargain with.
“Yes.” Damon strokes my cheek with his thumb.
Elena
What do you want from my dad, Damon?”
I may not normally concern myself with business. But this time, I’m dragged into business, and I can’t ignore it anymore.
I want to know how much I’m worth.
Damon distractedly runs his hand down to my neck, my upper arm, and my waist. He flips the covers as his gaze follows his hand, settling on the dip of my waist.
“Damon,” I call to him. “What do you want from my dad?”
He flicks his gaze back to my face. “Freedom. Like my dad. But I won’t do it the way he did. I already know Enzo would rather kill me than let me go.”
“Would you do it to him too? Would you kill him?” I ask.
Damon falls silent. In the darkness, I can hear our breathing and the rustling of my dress as Damon strokes my waist.
“Damon, are you going to kill my father?” I ask again. I have to know the answer. Yes, he can be a dick but he’s still my father, and I need to know if he’ll be there when—or if—I go home.
“I won’t lie, the thought has crossed my mind. It would be fair. An eye for an eye.” He pauses. “But I haven’t decided.”
Lightly, I touch Da
mon’s hand on my waist with my fingers. “Is there anything I can do to help you make that decision?”
Damon stares at me like he’s just heard the last thing he expected from me.
I push his hand down my body under the covers, letting him feel the flare of my hip.
Damon doesn’t say a word. But his hand tells me everything I need to know as it slides up and down my waist, my hip, my thigh.
I swallow. Am I really about to trade my virginity for my dad’s life?
I mean, it’s a fair trade, of course. Not every girl’s virginity is worth a life.
At the same time, when I thought about my first time . . . it was never a transactional thing in my mind.
But I’m with Damon. So I’m getting something I wanted. And nobody gets everything they want, right?
I bite my lip as Damon’s fingers play with the hem of my skirt, lifting it further and further up as he strokes my bare thigh.
When I chose this dress, I wanted something exactly like this to happen. I wanted it to be easy for Damon to touch me.
And now things are happening exactly the way I expected them to. Yet, at the same time, this whole thing came out of nowhere.
“You think I’m going to let Enzo get away with murder just to get my dick wet?” Damon asks, even as he starts to grab my thigh and inch closer to me. Anger and lust gleam in his eyes.
I force myself to look him in the eye. “Not just to get your dick wet. But I’ll bet you’d enjoy telling him that you took my virginity, and I liked it.”
Damon freezes. I thought his stare couldn’t have gotten any more intense, but it just has. “You’re a virgin?”
I nod.
Damon chuckles. “Come on. The way you were acting when I fingered you on the couch . . .”
“I may be a virgin, but I have fingers too.” I put my hand on Damon’s neck to emphasize my point and stroke his skin. “And this is 2018. Sex is all around us. Remember when you caught me reading a dirty novel on my Kindle?”
Damon observes my face like I’m a lock he’s trying to pick. His jaw tightens. “No man has ever touched you before?”
“You were the first man to have put anything inside me.”
Damon flips the covers off me and spreads my legs apart with his strong hand. Cool air kisses my skin for a brief moment before Damon gets on top of me, warming me up with his body.
“And this is the first time I have someone on top of me,” I say.
This feels . . . foreign. Vulnerable. At the same time, placing my hand on his muscular upper arm feels like the most natural thing in the world. Like this is what we’re meant to be doing.
Is this just what it’d normally feel like to have the weight of a man on top of me? Or do I just feel small and weak because Damon holds all the power here?
“Have you ever touched a cock before, princess?” Damon asks, his face mere inches from mine, his breath heavy.
“Just that one time on the couch.” This probably doesn’t count as dirty talk but Damon seems to like what he’s hearing.
“I remember that,” Damon says with a smirk as he looks down on me. “You liked it, princess. I could tell.”
I glance away. We’re supposed to be negotiating, but my body is burning up with expectation. All the nerve endings on my skin come alive.
Even after everything Damon has done to me, after everything he has told me, I still want him. And he knows it. The thought fills me with shame.
“It’s okay, princess. Do you know what you’re doing to me?” Damon presses himself against my heat, letting me feel the bulge in the front of his jeans. Even through the cotton of my black panties, I can tell how hard he is.
He also feels impossibly big. But perhaps it’s normal for a virgin like me to underestimate the size of a dick in real life?
I want to reach down and touch him, find out just how big he really is. Does it really look like the ones I’ve seen in porn?
Despite my curiosity, I can’t bring myself to do that. As it is, I’m already way too self-conscious about the way I react to what Damon is doing to me.
He lifts the hem of my dress up until the light fabric bunches around my waist. He rests his palm on my mound, his fingers rubbing my lower lips over my panties as he kisses me on my sensitive neck.
To my embarrassment, the flame in my belly burns hotter, and I can’t stop it. My heart beats faster. My breathing grows heavier. I grip Damon’s arm harder.
“Give in to it, princess,” Damon whispers in my ear. “You know you want to.”
I bite my bottom lip as I stifle the obscene noises building up inside me. In my mind, I know I should let him know how much I like this—it’d stroke his ego, and he’d be able to brag about it during his negotiations.
Still, even though I know that . . . everything feels strange to me. In a good way. But strange nonetheless. And I find it hard to relax.
“Let yourself go, princess,” Damon coaxes, as if he can hear the thoughts in my head. “Just enjoy this.”
He slips his hand into my panties and finds my soaked petals with his fingers, making my core tighten with need. Then, he bites down on my neck, hard.
My lips part before I can stop myself, and a moan escapes.
“Good girl,” Damon says as he slips his hand underneath my dress and pulls down the zipper in the back of my dress.
He pulls my dress off my shoulders and drags his lips down my throat, the hollow between my collar bones, and the valley between my breasts.
“I like that you’ve already taken your bra off,” he says. I can hear the smile in his voice as he pulls my panties down my legs until they’re wrapped around my ankle, leaving me with nothing but the red dress gathered around my waist.
I wrap my arms around him and put my hands on his back, my fingers caressing his skin through his shirt as his fingers slide back and forth over my slick petals.
“Are you going to take your clothes off too?” I ask.
Damon cocks a lopsided smile as he stares at me. “If you want to, you can take off my shirt.”
I hesitate. But when I pull his shirt up his back and I feel his skin right underneath the pads of my fingers, it feels right.
It doesn’t matter why I’m doing this. In this moment, this is exactly where I want to be, and this is exactly what I want to do—that’s all that matters.
The ropes of muscles underneath Damon’s golden skin ripple as he lifts up his hands to let me pull my shirt off him. I look down to see well-defined six-pack abs—clearly the result of discipline and hard work.
The dim light coming in through the only window in the room only makes the lines and ridges of his body appear more dramatic as it highlights some parts and casts the rest of him in shadows.
“Like what you see, princess?” he asks with a cocky smirk on his gorgeous face.
As he looks down at my body and rests his hand on my breast, I wonder if he can see my pussy glistening in the faint light. His thumb grazes my nipple lightly, making me gasp in surprise—it doesn’t usually feel anywhere near that good when I play with myself.
“I like what I see too.” He chuckles.
Damon’s head dips between my breasts as he kisses my cleavage and up the swell of my breasts. His fingers move closer and closer to my clit.
When he takes a nipple into his mouth, enveloping it in warmth, he presses the pad of his thumb against the hood of my clit. sending jolts of pleasure straight to my core.
“Damon,” I moan as I put my hand on his bare back and stroke his skin.
“That’s right, princess. Say my name.” He teases my nipple with his tongue, licking mercilessly as he flicks my clit.
“Oh, Damon,” I gasp.
“Louder,” he says as he rubs more insistently on my clit, traps my hardened nipple between his teeth, and bites down.
“Damon,” I cry out. The sharp sting of pain goes straight to my hot center, where it turns into a pleasant, throbbing need.
The more he hurts me, t
he more I want him, I realize.
“Such a good girl,” he says in a hoarse, hungry voice.
And the more he wants to use me, the more I want to submit to him.
Oh, God. I’m in trouble.
But as I hear the sound of Damon unzipping his jeans, again, I forget about everything else.
Am I really about to see him naked? This is something I’ve fantasized about for years and now that it’s finally happening for real, it feels surreal.
As Damon kicks his pants off, he presses one digit into my pussy, and then another. I look down to see his thick, hard cock pointing right at me. I can’t see it clearly in the dark, but that only makes it appear more intimidating.
“The first man to have fingered you, huh?” Damon asks.
He rubs the front wall of my pussy and I find myself trembling with need. Heat boils in my core and spreads through my whole body.
Even though I want to keep staring at his cock, memorizing its every details, I can’t help but arch my back. Damon’s the one in control of my body now.
Damon takes my hand and places it on something hot. It’s hard, with a velvety surface. It jumps under my fingers, and I can feel it throbbing too. It’s his cock.
I can’t believe how thick it is. If I wrap my fingers around it, my thumb can’t even touch my middle finger. How is this monster cock going to fit inside my virgin pussy?
“Do you like it, princess?” Damon asks, his breathing heavy.
“It’s . . . It’s too big.”
Damon chuckles as he continues to thrust his fingers in me. “Don’t worry, princess. You’re ready for me.”
Pressing his large hand on my chest, he forces me to lie back, flat on the bed. He wraps his fist around his cock. As his hand shuttles up and down the shaft, his cock seems to swell even bigger.
I gasp when Damon presses the head of his cock against my slit, my heart hammering so hard my body must be shaking.
“Just relax, princess,” Damon says in a low, soothing voice, his thumb on my clit helping me forget about the pain that’s about to come. “I’m not going to lie, this will hurt. But then it will start to feel good.”
