VICIOUS MEN: THE COMPLETE VICIOUS CITY COLLECTION

by Renard, Loki

  He flicks the controller in his hand. There’s a buzz as the toy springs to life, humming away inside my sex.

  “You better not do that during the ceremony,” I gasp, my hand going down between my thighs.

  “No promises,” he says, drawing me up with the dastardly thing still rumbling away in my sex. “Now get dressed, and be a good girl.”

  * * *

  It has been several weeks since the Russian incident. Since then, as far as I can tell, they’ve been chased off, run back to the motherland or wherever it is they came from. This wedding is a triumph in so many ways, a reclaiming of what we lost in the fear and pain they inflicted on us.

  The CIA seems to agree that I am much better off with Vicious than anyone else and he has agreed to share me with them when necessary, an outcome which is about as satisfactory as it can be.

  Today I’m forgetting about the chip in my guts, and the Russians who want to carve it out of me. Today is a day for joy, for wearing nice clothes, and thinking nice things for the people I care most about in the world.

  Slick and Blaze are getting married in one of the venues Vicious owns. It’s a grand old ballroom, elegant and stately. Even though I’ve just walked down the aisle on Vicious’ arm to get to the altar, I still can’t believe she is getting married. She swore she’d die before she let herself be legally owned by a man, she used to say. Now she’s getting ready to marry a CIA agent. It’s so bizarre I can barely believe it’s real.

  The last couple of weeks have changed everything. Blaze doesn’t zip in and out of Vicious’ place anymore. She doesn’t go anywhere without Slick, and he tends to her in the most gentlemanly, caring way I’ve ever seen.

  The entire incident has transformed her. She’s not as hard as she used to be. She even dresses differently, wears her hair in a less shocking fashion. Privately, I wonder if her injuries were severe enough to change her personality, but I prefer to think she’s been changed by love, and not cranial blunt force trauma.

  Vicious stands on one side of the aisle. I stand on the other. We are best man and maid of honor respectively. Neither title fits us even remotely, I think to myself, smiling privately with amusement.

  It must touch my lips, because he gives me a little smirk and his hand goes to his pocket. Oh god. Oh… mmmm. Vibrations begin to roll through my pussy. He has it on low, but even low is enough to be wildly inappropriate. Goddamn.

  I bite my lower lip and beg silently with my eyes for him to turn it off. He gives a little shake of his head and intensifies the charge. I’m mortified that someone might notice what’s happening to me, my pussy throbbing and humming. Our eyes are locked across the aisle as Vicious turns this sacred occasion into a tawdry, dirty experience in which I am kept on the brink of illicit orgasm.

  The worst part of it is, Slick is standing not two feet from me. He, as usual, is composed and elegant. He is a very handsome man, I have to admit. Not Vicious hot, but definitely hot. It’s more than appearance that got him here today, though. It’s his dedication to Blaze. I know she’ll be in good hands with him, and I’m so happy for them both.

  God. Please don’t let me cum before the wedding even begins. My thighs are trembling. I shift where I stand, trying not to roll my hips. I desperately want to grind my clit against something, so I lower my hands with the bouquet and press them against my crotch. It doesn’t help. If anything, it makes matters worse.

  I feel my heart rate increasing, the pleasure rising. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to stop myself. I don’t know…

  The wedding march begins to play and the doors at the far end open. Vicious turns the vibrator inside me off just as Blaze steps through

  “Holy shit.”

  She is beautiful, so much so I literally do not recognize her. Blaze has always had a tomboyish style. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in a full skirt, let alone a dress. The lace and pearl embroidered wedding gown she is wearing is stunning. She and Slick chose it together, I heard. We haven’t seen each other much in the last few weeks. They have become a closed system orbiting only around one another.

  She’s radiant as she comes down the aisle, her fingers clasping a bouquet of white lilies. The smile on her face is broad. She looks beautiful, and I feel tears gathering in my eyes as I watch the friend I thought I had lost forever come back to life in a whole new way.

  If I watch her go forward from this point as a ‘normal’ person, I think I can take that. It’s so good to see her alive and well, and lit with a happiness which transforms her usually sullen features into radiant ones.

  The ceremony begins. I can’t stop staring at my friend and her husband to be. I’m so happy for her, and for him. For a long time, I thought this outcome was impossible for people like us, but they are proving that it isn’t.

  Slick looks at her with pure adoration in his eyes. His love is clear, and the way she smiles at him is strange for me to see, but seems genuine as well. She’s found happiness, and as surreal as it is, I am so happy for her. She deserves this.

  “Do you, Bessie…”

  I try not to snort as the officiant uses Blaze’s legal name.

  “Take Eric…”

  Eric. I mouth the word over at Vicious, who gives the smallest shrug.

  “Yep,” Blaze interrupts him, making a winding motion with her finger. “Come on, this isn’t even the legal part. Let’s sign the book and do some shots.”

  Slick gives her a look which is surprisingly affectionate given she’s acting like a prize brat in the middle of her own wedding, but I’m glad to see it. I thought the Blaze I knew was gone under all that puffy white fabric. It’s nice to see her true, impulsive personality shine through at a completely inappropriate time.

  “I do, he does. He asked me, so he better,” she scowls at Slick. “We’re holding people up from having cake here, maestro.”

  The officiant splutters a little, then asks Slick if he does, which, no surprise, he does, and then the score is called, the wedding is declared, the marriage is sealed with a kiss and Mr and Mrs Bravslavsky, which is apparently who Slick and Blaze are now in the eyes of the law, parade themselves back down the aisle to what is at least a passable veneer of approval from friends, if by ‘friends’ you mean ‘criminal associates and CIA agents’. I don’t see any family, for either of them, actually.

  Vicious and I join arms and follow them down the aisle. The entire party ends up in an adjoining room, where it seems to me Vicious must have strong armed every caterer in the city, because it is overflowing with food and wine. A band strikes up a hard rock tune as Slick and Blaze enter. Hell yeah. This is going to be a night none of us ever forget.

  17

  Vicious

  This party is so necessary. We have been under siege for a very long time. We still are, in many respects. This room and the environs beyond are crawling with my men and CIA, but we can pretend, for a few hours, that we’re in control. The girls are having a good time. Blaze is radiant and Kitty, well, the last I saw Kitty she was stealing the second dance from Slick, spinning Blaze on the dance floor amid a circle of agents and less reputable guests.

  “You know you’re really married, right?” I tease Slick as he strolls over to me, a club soda in his hand. He’s not drinking. Doesn’t want to lose control. Neither am I. As much as we need to relax, neither one of us is truly letting our guard down.

  “I sure as hell hope so,” he smiles. “Don’t want that one getting away. And I don’t want anyone ever laying a finger on her ever again.”

  “Well, I hope marriage is everything you want it to be.”

  Our conversation makes no reference to the fact we almost killed one another with our bare hands not that long ago. That’s water under the bridge now. We have more in common than we think. Dealing with Blaze’s ex made us even as far as Slick was concerned, and getting Kitty back was all I wanted. We’re good.

  “And you? When are you going to make Kitty an honorable woman?”

  “Never,”
I smile. “I’m not the marrying kind, Slick.”

  “But is she?” He cocks his head to the side. “You can’t be a criminal playboy forever.”

  I laugh and toast him. Just as we drink, Blaze comes over and wraps her arm around his waist.

  “Hey, you, where’s Kitty?” Slick smiles the question down at her.

  Blaze shrugs. “I thought she was with Vicious.” She looks at me. “You haven’t seen her?”

  A sick feeling establishes itself in my stomach. I see it echoed on Slick and Blaze’s faces as all three of us look around, failing to see her anywhere.

  The party ends abruptly as a search is initiated, a search my gut tells me will only end one way. As I suspected, after everybody is accounted for, Kitty is missing.

  Just. Gone.

  Taken under my nose, in the middle of a crowded room. I have no idea how they did it, but I know they did.

  “All we found was this,” the MC brings me a small envelope. It looks like a wedding gift card, but it is addressed to me. There’s a small packaged attached, wrapped in love heart paper.

  I open the envelope and see a short message scrawled in heavy capitals.

  “Sorry, Comrade. The chip is mine.”

  The package opens to reveal the toy I put inside Kitty before we came here. Not quite as brutal as the traditional severed digit, but just as chilling. He’s fucking touched her. God knows what he’s done to her, is doing to her. She’s in the hands of a psychotic murderer and she may already be suffering a worse fate than I can bear to imagine.

  I crumple the note in my hand. Fucking Petrov. I’ll kill him.

  18

  Kitty

  The lady in the bathroom brushed up against me and I felt a little prick in my ass. A second later, there was nothing but darkness.

  That was all it took.

  Now the bathroom and the music and the sounds of fun are gone. The world is cold.

  Moss tickles my nose. I find myself utterly naked, lying in what appears to be a very large forest. The air is cold, and the skin of my body is goosebumped all over. I know better than to call out for help. I lie tense and still, keeping my senses as keen as possible until a heavy boot lands against my side.

  “Get up.”

  I roll away from the pain and get to my feet, exposing my body to these cruel creatures who have me. The first time they took me, they wanted to gut me. This time, they seem to have something else in mind.

  When I look at my captor, I find that it is none other than Mr Insurance again. He’s a small man with thin hair and Lenin spectacles behind which lurk eyes of pure cruelty.

  “The chip,” I say. “That’s what you want. Why am I still alive?”

  “We were going to cut it from you,” he says. “But that was when we intended to be kind. I don’t intend to be kind any longer. Now I intend to enjoy you.”

  I don’t want to know how he intends to enjoy me, but I guess I am going to find out.

  He makes an expansive gesture to the woods around us. “I am a sporting man. So I will give you a chance to escape. In these woods, there are many dangers. Me, of course, but wolf packs, the occasional bear. If you can survive thirty days, I will spare your life.”

  Thirty days naked and alone in the Russian woods, being hunted by a mad man. It’s impossible and he knows it. He intends to torture me, to punish me for the humiliation they went through when they were caught trying to take the chip the first time.

  I should say something, but I can’t. I’m terrified. I don’t think I’m in the United States anymore. I think he’s taken me back to Russia, which means he’s been patient in planning this. He has a score to settle, and it will be my flesh he settles it with.

  “Don’t look so afraid,” he laughs. “You’re an animal like any other. You will make good prey, I think.”

  “Please…”

  “Oh god, don’t beg me,” he sighs. “I thought the woman Vicious took as his mate would have some spirit and backbone. If you start crying, I’ll cut you open here and now and take the chip.”

  I shut up. Asking for mercy from a psychopath is pointless. I’m not a person to him. I am entertainment. So my best chance of survival is to be entertaining.

  “Well,” I say, standing straighter, trying to ignore the vulnerability of my nudity. “Then at least make it sporting. Clothes, food, a weapon.”

  He looks at me and laughs.

  “A naked woman in a cold forest is no worthy hunt,” I shrug. “I thought you wanted a real challenge.”

  He looks over his shoulder. “Get her something to wear. And give her a small bore hand gun. Four bullets. No more. And a couple of those old provision packs.”

  Not bad actually, I’m almost grateful, until I remember I have absolutely nothing to thank him for.

  “I’ll give you a head start of six hours,” he says. “That’s more than I’ve given anyone else, and more than you deserve.”

  “Thanks, you’re super cool.”

  He laughs again, his eyes glinting with madness and cruelty. “I see what Vicious enjoys about you. Now go!”

  He fires the gun at my feet, kicking up dirt and rock and sending my pulse racing. I start running, knowing that my luck could run out at any moment.

  I’ve never run like this before, and I wish I hadn’t spent so long cooped up in Vicious’ apartment. I’m not fit enough to out-run a madman. I’m hardly fit enough to jog around a few blocks. On top of that, I’m adapted to survive in a city. I’m not used to the wilderness. I don’t know anything about it. Do I head uphill or downhill? Instinct tells me I want as many ridges between me and those who will chase me as possible, and I’ll want to step on ground which doesn’t leave footprints, a riverbed or something.

  Here and there, I can see wires and things in the trees. My foot slips on a branch and I almost fall into a pit lined with sharpened stakes pointed upward. That’s when I realize - this isn’t a forest. This is acres of torture waiting for me to succumb.

  Stumbling and panting, I spot a small cave. It’s tempting to dive inside, but fuck that. It’s too obvious. I’m betting this psycho has traps all over the place, and I bet most of them are disguised to look like safety. Sure enough, when I look at it a little closer, I see a small wire running by the entrance. If I’d hit it, a goddamn mace would have swung down from the tree opposite.

  “Sick fucker,” I curse under my breath, coming to what feels like a premature halt.

  I have to stop. I have to think. Distance isn’t going to be what keeps me safe for an entire month. I’m going to have to do something that most prey won’t do. I have to fight.

  19

  Vicious

  “We lost a girl at a function with fifty CIA agents. That has to be some kind of record,” I growl bitterly.

  “We’ll get her back,” Slick assures me.

  “Sure we will. Pieces of her, anyway.”

  We are already on her trail. Once we discovered her missing, the full resources of the agency and my private army swung into action.

  Best we know, she was taken out the bathroom window during a thirty second window without cover, put into a car, and swept directly onto a private flight and taken to Russia. We followed within an hour of her abduction, but we won’t know if it was fast enough until we find her.

  The flight to Russia is almost twenty hours. That’s a long time to sit impotent while a mad Russian has the only woman you ever loved in his grip.

  I am almost insane with anger and worry by the time we touch down in Vladivostok. Sleet obscures the windows, but I know outside this private plane, there is a buzz of activity. Multiple agencies are in play, from the CIA to Interpol, to my own dear little organization. We’re all focused on one aim: get Kitty.

  The others would be probably be happy to pull the chip out of her intestines and carry on their way, but they will not succeed. This is the last straw as far a I am concerned. I have never, in my entire existence, been this angry, or this determined.

  “
You ready?” Slick slaps me on the shoulder. He’s here out of guilt, wants to make everything up to me. We both know this is his fucking fault. I had Petrov’s respect until he double crossed me. None of this would have happened if Slick hadn’t decided to turn Kitty over to the agency.

  Petrov grew bolder after the attack in Pennsylvania. He sensed the schism between us and he took advantage of it. That is why I will not take my anger out on Slick, or on the agency. It is all focused on one man, one evil I should never have allowed to leave my presence that night we met in New York.

  “I’m ready!” Blaze pipes up.

  “You really didn’t need to come. This isn’t much of a honeymoon,” I say, ensuring my weapons are ready.

  “Fuck that,” Blaze says, eloquently. “We’re going to get Kitty back.”

  Blaze definitely should not be here. She’s still in her wedding dress, for god’s sakes. But she’s Slick’s problem. I’m focused on Kitty and Kitty alone. She is all that matters to me.

  “Would you get her changed? I cannot sneak up on Petrov with a damn bride on my crew,” I snipe at him. I am not in a good mood. I am not patient or kind at the best of times, and this is far from the best of times. I would tear this entire vodka-soaked country apart to get to Kitty.

  The plane door opens. A Russian official steps on. They have been apprised of our arrival and may or may not lend assistance. I don’t trust them, and I don’t care what they do. I intend to give every agency the slip and go get Kitty on my own.

  Slick speaks fluent Russian. I leave him to handle the official and while they are engaged in their discussions, I step off the plane, make my way down the stairs and walk several hundred feet away through heavy sleet before stepping into a helicopter which I booked to meet me without telling Slick or anyone else. I have been to Petrov’s home in the past. I know his hunting grounds.