VICIOUS MEN: THE COMPLETE VICIOUS CITY COLLECTION

by Renard, Loki

“There is one way to avoid meeting his fate, Kitty. You work for me and you become untouchable.”

  I’m barely listening to him. Someone is dead. He wanted me to see a body. There is obviously a threat, whether it comes from him, or someone else. I have to take this seriously. I have to pretend to accept his offer. At least until I can work out what is really going on. If there is someone else trying to hurt me, maybe he can help. If this is his twisted way of pulling me into his web, then maybe I’ll have a better chance of getting out of his grip if I at least play along.

  “Alright.”

  “What was that, Kitty?”

  “I said alright. I’ll work for you.”

  He glances in the rear view mirror, and I’m sure I can see triumph in his eyes.

  “We’ll see.”

  My jaw drops. “What do you mean, we’ll see? You just spent the last hour trying to convince me!”

  “I offered you an opportunity. It remains to be seen if you are up to it.”

  “You…” I can’t believe this.

  “Now that you understand, you’ll have your chance to earn your place with me.”

  He fucking played me like a fiddle.

  “And if I’m not up to it?”

  Those green eyes turn toward me again. “Then you’re on your own.”

  That’s probably supposed to scare me, but I’ve been on my own for a long time. Right now, I’d like nothing more than to be alone. I need to put some feelers out and find out if Rollo really is dead. I need to talk to Blaze. She’d give me good advice, or at least, advice.

  “I’m going to put you in an apartment,” he says. “It’s nicer than your old one, and much more secure. I will have your things moved at a later date.”

  “So this has all been about, what, mindfucking me? Making me think I was captive, then giving me a choice, then telling me you might help me…” God he’s an asshole. The dramatics surrounding this whole situation are just ridiculous. “You know what you should do? Take me to a morgue and try and scare me straight down there. Or to a shooting range and tell me the bullets are all for me…”

  “Enough!” He snaps the word harshly and I fall silent. “I don’t enjoy or want your attitude,” he says firmly. “I’ve done what I’ve done because your profile suggested you needed to be shown, not told.”

  My profile? That’s cop talk. But Vicious is no cop. He’s a manipulative fucking dick. I keep that thought to myself as we roll up to a midtown apartment block. It’s four stories high, solid brick construction. Old. Probably used to be a single family home until a developer bought it and turned it into multiple apartments.

  I get out of the car, still in shock. I’m keeping it together, but this day hit a ten on the weird scale the moment Vicious took me, and it only got worse from there.

  The interior of the building is modern. Vicious leads me into an elevator and punches the number three. The elevator rises for about ten seconds, then the doors slide open directly into an apartment far fancier than anything I thought I’d ever live in.

  It has exposed brick work and beams. Floor to ceiling windows. An open plan kitchen. It looks like something out of a real estate reality tv show and I hate it. My apartment is small and closed in. When I go into it, I feel protected by the walls and the heavy doors. Here I feel exposed.

  “So this is basically the least secure place you could find? Elevator opens into it? Enough window space to let even the most amateur of snipers get a shot?” I turn to Vicious, shaking my head. “I’m not staying here.”

  Vicious reaches out, grabs me by the front of my shirt and yanks me hard up against his body. When he speaks, there’s nothing civilized left in him.

  “Listen, you spoiled little shit,” he snarls. “This is nicer than you deserve, and better than you’ve earned. I’m just about tired of arguing with you. You’re going to stay here. You’re going to do as you’re told, and you’re going to fucking like it. Understand?”

  I freeze. I stare at him, but nothing comes out of my mouth. He is huge. He could crush me. He could kill me and nobody would ever find out or care. That’s the truth of the situation, no matter how much I cover it up by being petulant about the whole thing.

  After a few seconds, his jaw unclenches and his expression softens. “You’re going to get into serious trouble with me if you don’t get your attitude in check. Now, be a good girl and say thank you for the apartment.”

  “Th.. thank you for the apartment,” I stammer.

  Vicious

  She’s beautiful right now. Her fear makes her flush with what could be desire, and her eyes are wide and expressive as hell. She’s regretting what she said. This girl is all mouth. She’s never learned not to run it, but I’ll teach her that and so much more. By the time I’m done with her, she’s going to be obedient.

  “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” I murmur the words down at her. “Just a little gratitude.”

  Her eyes flash. We both know she’s my captive. I don’t have to tie her up. I don’t have to lay a finger on her. She’s fucking mine. She can sense it, even though she doesn’t understand all the events that have led her to this point.

  I haven’t lied to her. She is in danger. Rollo made a big mistake recently and today it cost him his life, along with ten of his known associates. Kitty is a ways down the list, but they’ll be coming for her to get information about drop off points, contacts, all the little bits and pieces of information a good courier collects in her line of work.

  That intel is going to be mine.

  I release my grip and let her stumble back. The couch catches her behind the knees and she plops down, still staring at me. God, the things I could do to this girl. Tear off those tacky clothes for starters and examine every inch of her body. Wash the makeup off her face and make her look at me as she truly is. I know why she wears that crap, but it’s beneath her. She has a hell of a lot of natural beauty hiding behind all that foundation and blush.

  “So, uh. What now?” She asks the question nervously.

  “What now, Kitty,” I say. “Is you start talking. I want to know where you’ve been lately. I want to know who you’ve been delivering to.”

  “Oh. Hm.” She presses her lips together and shakes her head. “No. Can’t tell you that.”

  A second ago I felt her trembling in my grasp. Now she tells me no? I am finding her ability to be terribly afraid and yet resist that fear entirely charming in all the wrong ways.

  “This is part of the deal,” I tell her. “I take you on. I keep you safe. And in return, you tell me what you know.”

  Her lips thin even more. “I’m not going to do that, Vicious.”

  She uses my street moniker like it’s my name. I’ve never met anyone who did that before. It’s oddly charming, and, in an off-beat way, quite respectful. She’s given me so much attitude, far more than I’d usually tolerate, but there are moments like this when her respect shines through, even in her defiance. Interesting. Usually people smile and simper and tell me precisely what I want to hear while they have hatred in their eyes. My little kitty is the exact opposite.

  “Oh, but you are. The question is, how much is it going to have to hurt before you do?”

  I expect to see the fear return, but she shakes her head again. “That’s my whole reason for being. My job depends on me being able to keep my mouth shut. If you want me to work for you, you have to know I’m not going to tell someone your business if they put me in their mom wagon and show me an ambulance.”

  She just called my car a mom wagon.

  Damn brat.

  “Do I need to get rough with you, little girl?”

  I extend my arm and begin unbuttoning the cuff of my shirt before rolling it up. This was always going to get physical, I just wasn’t precisely sure how. Now I know.

  Kitty

  Oh. God.

  He has tattoos running all the way up his forearm, which is brutishly muscled in the way that men who use their bodies for doing things are. Sinewy, you m
ight call it. He is so fucking hot. I know he’s dangerous. I know he’s going to hurt me. Hell, I know he wants to hurt me. He’s counting on it. It’s in his eyes, that green intensity, that devilish charm.

  So why do I keep taunting him? And why do we have such an easy dynamic already — tense, sure, aggressive, no doubt— but we were strangers not long ago and now we’re locked in a battle of wills like a couple who just moved in together and can’t decide on bar soap or shower gel. There’s a familiarity to him that I know is going to get me in more trouble than I need to be in - because I don’t know him. I need to stop feeling like I do.

  “You don’t need to get rough with me,” I lie, my voice husky as he works at the other sleeve, preparing himself for I don’t know what.

  “Are you sure? Because you keep asking for it, Kitty. You’re begging for it.”

  He crosses over to where I’m sitting, prowling like an animal.

  I start to crawl back over the couch, shimmying with every step he takes until I run out of couch and then I end up back on my feet, backing toward the far wall, which is just a window.

  “Stop moving.”

  Two words pin my feet in place. I stand still as he closes the distance between us and takes hold of me again. There’s a rush when he does. A sensation of excitement and fear mixed together.

  “I want you to tell me everywhere you’ve been in the last week. Every job. Every package. Every drop off.”

  I shake my head wordlessly. That’s not going to happen. If he respects what I do at all, he will understand that. This is probably a test. And I don’t intend to fail it.

  “I’m not going to tell you anything. You know I can’t.”

  “Loyalty is an excellent trait, and discretion is even more admirable, but you’re mine now, and you will have no secrets from me. What job did you do yesterday?” He asks the question softly, his big hands running up and down my arms in a stroking motion. It’s soothing, but I know better than to trust it, or him.

  “I’m going to enjoy making you talk,” he says in a gentle voice.

  His hands curl around my wrists and draw them up over my head. His hips come forward and urge me backward toward a support pillar. My back finds the brick. My wrists are pushed against the hard surface, one of his hands pinning them in place as the other roams down my side over my hip and settles at the top of my thigh.

  Those eyes sear into mine.

  “Are you trying to seduce me?”

  Click.

  No sooner is the question out of my mouth than I find myself trapped. I didn’t notice the shackle on the pillar, but I feel the metal close around my wrists. He stands back and folds his arms over his chest.

  “I’m not trying to seduce you, Kitty. We’re a long way from that.”

  “Vicious, this…” I tug at the shackle. It doesn’t move. “This isn’t fair.”

  “Fair?” He laughs. “There’s no such thing as fair. You know that. You get out of those when you tell me what you did yesterday.”

  “Well. I woke up. I had breakfast…”

  “Without the redundant parts, please.”

  “How am I supposed to know what’s redundant and what isn’t?”

  His brows draw down over those incredible eyes, eyes which are fast becoming my entire world. “You know what I want.”

  I do know what he wants. And I’m not going to give it to him.

  Vicious shakes his head and walks away.

  These shackles are not comfortable. They’re not so high I can’t bring my elbows down a bit, taking the pressure off my shoulders, but they’re still not good. This, like all things, is a demonstration. It’s nothing to worry about. I’ll worry when things stop being demonstrations and start being real.

  He walks back into the room.

  “What the fuck?!” The exclamation escapes my mouth as things get really fucking real, really fucking quick.

  Vicious has returned with a goddamn bullwhip curled in his hand. He stands back several dozen feet unfurling the thing with a CRACK which makes me jolt in my shackles.

  “This is why I like open plan spaces,” he says. “So much more room for activities.”

  His arm swings back and the whip follows, the thick leather plait arcing through the air until the tongue of it snaps just a few inches away from my chest. I snug back against the pillar as far as I can go and shake my head. “This is crazy. What are you going to do? Whip the information out of me?”

  He walks toward me, the handle of the whip in his hand as he reaches out and takes hold of the neckline of my shirt. Looking me dead in the eye, he yanks at it hard enough to tear the fabric right down the middle. My bra is exposed, my bare belly and the tops of my breasts now vulnerable not just to his whip, but to his gaze.

  “Very nice, Kitty,” he smiles. “Keep resisting, and I’ll get to see every part of you.”

  “Fuck you,” I growl.

  His hand slides up to my face and taps the left side of my cheek firmly. “Enough,” he purrs. “I want to know what you’ve been up to, Kitty, and you’re going to tell me.”

  He walks back, marks his distance again. My eyes are locked on the arm holding the whip, the way his forearm ripples when…

  CRACK!

  The tip of the whip snaps just under my nose.

  “Pay attention, Kitty.”

  I feel a blush creeping over my face. He knows the effect he has on me. The bra I’m wearing doesn’t help. It’s black lace, not my usual attire, but today was supposed to be my day off. My nipples are erect, pressing against the soft fabric.

  “Yesterday. What work did you do?”

  I bite my lower lip. If I tell him, I’m betraying myself, my entire code. If I don’t…

  CRACK!

  The tip of the whip zips against the underside of my left breast. It’s a sharp sensation, just the very end of it licking across the satiny fabric of the lower cup. I gasp as my body reacts, the signals from my breast running through my flesh, finding the core of me, making my face blush furiously.

  “You’re adorable,” he drawls in that English accent. “But you have to obey me. Your loyalty belongs to me from this point forward. I own you now, Kitty.”

  Again there is that sense of familiarity. It feels like I know him, but I don’t really. It’s just his reputation I know. He is living up to every bit of it right now.

  “You won’t,” I say. “You’ll do what men do. Get what you want and be done with me.”

  “We’re not talking business anymore, are we?” He’s perceptive.

  The lash snakes out again, finds my right breast. A little higher than the one that landed on the left. A little closer to the nipple. I draw in a hissing breath and bite my lower lip to stop myself from crying out, not in agony, but in pleasure. He knows how to handle that whip. I can tell I am on the receiving end of a master’s touch.

  “This is all very Fifty Shades, but I’m still not interested. Professionally, or otherwise.”

  My dry response belies the fact that my body is lit with sexual fire. He’s dangerously close to discovering my most closely held, fiercely guarded secret. I like pain. Everything that hurts makes it better. If he cracks that whip again, if he makes me hurt, I win.

  He lets out a laugh. It’s charming and it too does things to me. There’s a part of me that wants to give in. It’s growing all the time. He hasn’t exactly given me a choice, and maybe that’s why I need to resist. Or maybe it’s because I really do know what men like him are like. All this intense attention is because he wants something. This with the shackles and the apartment and the whip, for all I know it’s utterly calculated. Maybe he did his research. Maybe somehow he knows…

  CRACK

  This time the whip lands with more intensity, back on the left breast, the tip of it curls around under my nipple, drawing me to my toes as I let out another hissing breath.

  “Eyes on me,” he growls.

  I look at him. Really look at him. He’s impossibly handsome, and entirely fo
cused on me. Right now, it feels like it is just the two of us in this world. The fucked up thing is, this might be the most romantic thing that’s ever happened to me.

  “It’s not going to work.”

  “I think it is.” he says. “I think it’s already working.”

  I take a shuddering breath. He is mindfucking me. I have to resist his pull. I have to keep myself separate and safe. I have to…

  CRACK

  The same stroke blazes across my left breast. I crunch, my knees drawing up as a powerful bolt of sensation zips right down to my crotch. He thinks he’s humiliating me. Hurting me. And he is. But he’s also going to make me cum if this keeps up.

  “Fucking asshole,” I growl.

  “Yes. And worse.”

  The whip lands again. And again.

  CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.

  I gasp. I hiss. And then, I moan.

  Vicious

  This was not the plan. I’m losing control almost as much as she is. I meant for this to frighten her. I meant to scare her into compliance. I thought one crack of the whip would be enough to turn her into a sobbing, begging mess, but she’s absorbed everything I’ve given her, and from the way her hips are moving, I can tell she’d take more. Maybe everything I have to give. The whip is tasting her, making her dance for me. Her nipples are two hard little nubs under her bra. She moves with an elegance I didn’t think she had in her, her head falling back, her red lips parting to give voice to the most exquisite sounds I have heard come from a woman. There is yearning, desperate need in her voice.

  I am rock hard.

  This is dangerous.

  I want to fuck her. But I can’t. Not yet.

  It takes all the self control I have to coil the whip back up and leave both her and me in a state of unfulfilled desire.

  She’s red and panting. She’s so close to orgasm it’s beautiful.

  Maybe I can use that.

  I drop the whip and walk over to her, kick her feet apart. She looks at me with those sparkling eyes, her cheeks still so flushed. She looks like she’s been fucked already, and I’ve barely touched her. I can only imagine how she would react if I were to cut these leggings off her and push myself inside her.