by S. R. Jones
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Epilogue
Head On
A Strength and Love novel
By S.R. Jones
**Warning: This book contains some dark themes and adult content. Trigger warning for violence, and discussion of sexual violence and content warning for non-consensual play.**
Copyright 2017 Skye Jones writing as S.R. Jones
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced or used without the written permission of the publisher.
All events depicted are fictional and any resemblance to places and persons is coincidental.
This work of fiction is intended for adults age 18 and over.
Editing by Ansley Blackstock
Cover Design by DW Art and Design
Interior Layout by Rachel Medhurst
This book is dedicated to my bestie, Sian for her help and support. And her amazing eagle eyes when reading for me. You rock munchkin!
I want to thank my amazing readers, and reader group in particular for their support.
To my beta readers, you are simply awesome!
Kathi Soniat and Cherri-Anne Boitson you ladies are the best!!!
Finally, thanks to you, dear reader, for taking a chance on me. I hope you enjoy.
Skye x
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Epilogue
Chapter One
Ethan
The woman under me screams, a proper bloodcurdling scream, and rakes her nails down my back. I curse and grab her hands, holding them down, hard, on the bed covers.
“Please no, don’t do this. No. I don’t want this.” She thrashes her head side to side, and it’s all a bit theatrical.
I smirk at her and lean in to bite her neck. Grabbing both her slim wrists in one of my big hands, I place the other around her throat and apply a small amount of pressure, but it works. Her eyes go wide and she stops making a fuss.
“No. No. No.” She’s murmuring the words now, blinking her eyes at me as if batting away tears, but there’s no water there. It’s all a game and I’m going to play my role to the hilt.
“I’m going to fuck you, hard, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” I growl in her ear.
“My husband will kill me.” Her mouth twitches at those words, a little smile she quickly bites back.
“Well then, better keep your mouth shut and he won’t find out.”
I move her legs apart, and then I push my way inside her. I’d already put a condom on before I entered her bedroom.
“I’m begging you,” she gasps.
“Should have locked your door. That chain is paltry, anyone can snap it. Maybe this will teach you a lesson to use your keys.”
She’s back to scratching up my back, and it’s going to be a total mess. Fucking fake nails. I’ll need to disinfect my back at this rate. I decide to tell her.
“I’m going to have to bleach my back or something, you keep this up.”
“Serves you right for being a raping bastard. I don’t want this. You’re taking me against my will.”
She’s going a bit over the top now with the theatrics, and I have to fight not to roll my eyes, or to lose my erection. I’m getting bored, so decide to get it over and done with. I know what she wants. I put my hand over her mouth, and whisper in her ear.
“Shut the fuck up or I’ll really hurt you. You’re mine now, you have no fucking say in any of this, you hear me? None. And I don’t care what your pathetic husband thinks of it. He can come find me if he wants because I’m not scared of him. I saw you and I wanted you too much to fight it anymore. You’re fucking gorgeous and he doesn’t know what he’s got right in front of him.”
I crack myself up. I try not to laugh, and I’m searching my brain for what else I can say when she convulses around me, gripping my cock in a vice as she comes. I fake my own orgasm, turn around and pull the condom off and shove it into a small plastic bag. I tie it and then place that into the black backpack I wore on my way here.
I look back at the woman in front of me. Her eyes are glassy, her mouth slack. I kiss her on the cheek. Never the lips.
“Thanks, Ethan.” She smiles at me, and then throws the covers off and walks out of the room, naked and proud.
She comes back a few moments later with a wad of bills in her hand. “There’s a bit extra in there. For fitting me in at such short notice. It’s been a bitch of a week.”
“Why is that?” I’m genuinely interested. Selina, my client, is a senior research scientist and some of the stuff she works on is important shit.
“Ah, I can’t tell you, or I’d have to kill you.” She cracks the joke with a wry smile on her face, and I think her husband is a dick to neglect her like he does.
No sex in six years. But he won’t let her see anyone else, and the one time she brought it up, she says he went apeshit. They’ve got a kid, and Selina doesn’t want to leave him while the kid’s still in high school, and she thinks affairs are too messy or something. I can’t remember what she said. The upshot is, she uses me when the husband is working away and the kids having a sleepover. It just so happens that I’m happy to cater to her deepest and darkest fantasies, too. And I must be pretty good at it, because now I have a regular roster of clients, and a fair few of them share her proclivities.
It freaked me out when she first requested this…speciality. Consensual non-consent, to give its fancy name. It has never been a fantasy of mine, but I’m paid to do what the client wants, not what I want. We have safe words, and everything is agreed beforehand in a series of emails. Plus, they must pay half up-front. I need to cover my back. Right now, I need to fucking disinfect my back. I wince as I move.
I’ve gone from being a killer for the government, to offering sex for hire. But whereas the rough sex stuff is all play, and her kink, the killer shit was for real. I wonder, not for the first time, what Selina would think if she knew the hands that were on her throat this evening have choked the life out of someone for real. Would it scare her off, or turn her on more?
“Try to go easy on my back next time,” I chide. “I’m going to look like a fucking red and white zebra if anyone sees me with my shirt off.”
She laughs and waves me away. And we’re done. Selina is a good client, but she doesn’t want anything but the sex. Suits me fine. Some clients like to be wined and dined and that’s fine too, but I’m not a great one for making conversation
, so I find those appointments the hardest.
“Bye sweetheart.” I kiss her cheek again. “Don’t forget to take that fake security chain off before Bill comes home.”
“I won’t. See you soon, Ethan.”
I leave and get into my car. A nice, new Audi S5, sporty as fuck. Not gunning the engine, because that would make me a wanker at this time of night, I pull away from the pavement and out onto the empty road. The drive home takes me thirty minutes, and by the time I park up, my back is driving me mad. Slamming the door, I crunch over the gravel to my farmhouse.
Total fucking bolthole from the world.
Ever since getting out of the armed forces, I’ve been a part-time recluse.
Barking from behind the door makes me smile. I turn my keys in the lock and step into the kitchen. Two wagging tails greet me, along with two smiling canine faces.
My girls are glad daddy’s home. I give them both a hug, and Cindy slobbers all over me. She’s a big Rottie and absolutely gorgeous. Lucy is a rescue whippet and quieter, but affectionate in her own way. She had a bad start in life, and I think she still has nightmares about it. On that score, we understand one another.
The dogs follow me out of the kitchen as I head into the hallway and up the stairs to the bathroom. I pull my shirt off and turn to look at my back in the bathroom mirror. Fucking hell, I look like a tiger has been at me. I slide open the medicine cabinet and fumble about in it, looking for the spray antiseptic. I bought the spray-on shit to deal with the scratches Selina always gives me. Can’t reach my own back to put lotion on. Whenever I pick up some woman to fuck for pleasure, which is rare these days, I always check she doesn’t wear those fake nails. They do my head in.
Tired and bad tempered, I jog back down the stairs and grab a tumbler from the kitchen cupboard. I pour two healthy fingers of brandy into it, and take a sip as I open the door to let the dogs out. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me these days. I like my job. It’s no hardship fucking women for money. Most of the time I get a happy ending too, and the odd nights I don’t, like tonight, I fake it anyway. They don’t know, and they’re not paying me for my pleasure. So, work’s fine. I love my car and house. I’m happy with my own company, and when I’m not I have friends I can meet up with for a pint. So why the pissed off mood? It’s almost as if I’m bored of life.
I miss the adrenalin high of combat, but that’s nothing new, and it’s why I work out like a demon most days. Otherwise, I doubt I’d be a fit member of society.
Lucy chases Cindy around the garden three times, before Cindy gets bored and ambles back to me. At some point, I ought to do something about the overgrown grass, but again, I’ve been putting it off.
“Hey, Luce, come on.” I sip more brandy as she wanders over, stopping to sniff at the border on her way. It’s packed with flowers and in full bloom now in late spring. The old lady who lived here before I bought it planted them. Thankfully, they don’t need much care or they’d be dead by now.
I bring both the dogs inside, and lock up. They have baskets in the kitchen but tonight they’ll follow me upstairs and kip on the bed with me. They only stay down here if I have company. They know if there are guests, they stay in the kitchen. It’s rare these days, I have any company of the female persuasion though, unless it’s my sister, Ann, and niece, Katie.
Brushing my teeth, I look at my reflection and think I look as jaded as I feel. And still I don’t know what’s wrong. Maybe, I am bored? I fill my days working out, working on the house, and reading. My nights fucking for money and sometimes for fun. Every now and again, I go out for a drink. It’s easy, it’s safe…it’s boring.
I thought I’d be relieved to leave active service after the shit I saw. I never thought I’d miss it. But I miss it to fuck, and the only time I feel real is when I’m with my friends from the specials, hitting a punchbag, or walking the dogs. The rest of the time, I move through life in a fog. Cut off, and locked down. I rinse and spit, and scowl at myself in the mirror. I should think myself lucky. Too many guys came back all kinds of fucked up. Limbs missing. PTSD. Me? A few nightmares, and some sleepless nights is as bad as it has got.
“Be grateful, shithead,” I tell myself, before clicking the light off and turning away.
Sliding between the sheets, I grab the iPad from the bedside table and move Cindy up with my feet. She always wants to be right up next to me, but 95 pounds of Rottie snuggling in makes me too hot.
I’m reading a weird as fuck thriller at the moment. One of those psychological things, where no one says what they mean, and I’m losing patience with it. My mail dings and I open it to see a new message from an unknown account. I double tap and it pops up with the full message.
“Hey there. I got your deets from Selina. I’m Isla, a twenty-five-year-old paralegal. This is a screen shot of my Facebook profile.”
I check the picture and the age – always make sure they’re legal. Seriously, a sixteen-year-old tried to hire me once, and no way. I pause at the picture, and for once my gaze lingers on the woman there. She’s beautiful. Not in the put-together, wealthy way of most of my clients, but in her own quiet way. Her long blonde hair is down around her shoulders, and she’s laughing at the person taking the picture. She’s wearing little to no make-up. She’s pretty, more than pretty. My dick twitches. I think I’ll enjoy this job.
I return to reading the rest of her email.
“I’ve never done this before, but I don’t date because I don’t want to settle down or get into anything serious right now. I’m missing certain things. Wow, this is hard to talk about, even by email. Selina told me to get in touch after we had a bit of a drunken chat one night. She says you cater to certain scenarios. I’d like to request a night with you, but are you willing to do rough? I like it rough? Really rough.”
I smile. Yeah, I’m willing to do rough.
Chapter Two
Isla
“Don’t forget your toothbrush this time, Dad,” I yell from the bathroom. “You know they don’t always have them in those vending machines, and last time you were staying in a rough part of town. I don’t want to think of you traipsing all over New York.”
He comes into my room with his wash bag in hand and pulls his toothbrush out, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. “Got it, sweetpea.” His smile falters and he frowns. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay while I’m gone? I hate leaving you alone.”
I force a smile on my face. Normally Gran comes to stay, but she’s sick with the flu, and at her age she needs her rest when unwell. It’s stupid to be nervous, after all I’m twenty-one years old, not exactly a child anymore. I’ve been wanting to start being more adventurous, so this is a good beginning, right? “Of course, I’ll be fine. I’ve got Sadie.” I nod to our beloved Labrador snoozing on the bed next to me.
None of my friends can come and stay, either, not that I’m surprised. I only have a few, and we’re not that close. I’m too different from most people to find it easy to get on with them. My best friends are part of an online support group I’m a member of, but none of them live remotely close.
“I love you, pumpkin.” My dad comes and kisses my forehead and I smile up at him. A genuine one this time. He’s my hero. When mum died he took care of me, and worked full-time, too. When I got sick, Gran moved in for a few months, but Dad still did the majority of the caring. I don’t like to think about that period though, not now I’m better.
I love my dad so much that I don’t know how any guy will ever measure up. It’s one of the reasons I don’t date.
A twenty-one-year-old virgin. How sad is that? I’m almost as rare as a unicorn. Not that I’m some naive idiot. I’ve watched porn. And I’ve got a trusty vibrator, and a g-spot stimulator. So, I suppose that technically I’m not a virgin. Not if you count silicone.
“I’ve left you two hundred pounds in the bowl on the bookshelf,” Dad says. “And my spare bankcard is in the kitchen drawer, and you know the pin.” I hate him having t
o leave me money as if I’m a kid. But I lost my job at the bookstore, and I’m still looking for something new. I have a few thousand in savings, and dad doesn’t want it to all go so he’s helping until something comes up. Even though I keep telling him he doesn’t need to.
“I’ll call when I get there. And if you get into trouble, you can always ring Dave.”
As if! Dave is my dad’s business partner and he makes me shudder. There’s something icky about him, and the way he stares at me. He used to look after me sometimes, but not for years, thank God. Dad’s normally a good judge of character, but I think he dropped the ball with Dodgy Dave.
“Right. I’m off. You take care, and don’t forget to give Sadie her pills every morning.”
I nod and smile brightly, but my insides are churning as Dad turns and walks out of the door. Five minutes later, I hear him lugging his suitcase down the stairs, and then the front door opens and shuts and the key turns in the lock. Alone. All alone.
I look at Sadie. “I suppose if I were a normal twenty-one-year-old, I’d be tearing the house up with parties and getting into trouble.” She doesn’t answer me, of course, but simply stares with her big brown eyes.
I think she’s telling me she loves me anyway. Weird or not, I’m sure my dog talks to me in her own way.
*****
I flip open my Kindle and begin to read my book. It’s dark outside and I’m missing dad already. It’s my second night alone and my nerves aren’t as bad as they were the previous evening. After about ten minutes my eyes begin to close. I’m still somewhat unnerved being in this big house alone, but I’m also bushed. And my tiredness over-rules my lingering anxiety. I put my Kindle down and snuggle deep under the covers. Normally I’d turn all the lights off, but tonight I leave the hallway light on, and the orange glow helps soothe me. It doesn’t help that I’ve been reading a horror story. Stupid choice. I smile and wiggle around getting comfy as my breathing evens out and I let sleep take me.
