Wicked Ways (Dark Hearts Book 1)

by Cari Silverwood

  Fake gun? Of course, this was why he’d said that. Using a real gun was illegal and they wouldn’t all be his puppets.

  I couldn’t help yelping as Madoc towed me by my hair to the lounge. He attached the chain and ran it from my collar to the nearest timber leg, then made me sit on him.

  “Keep your legs open.” He grated that out then slapped my inside thighs to make me obey. Then he wrapped his hand around both my pigtails. “Now, do it. Let me hear you moan as you fuck yourself silly.”

  My breathing was crazily torn by then. Scared wasn’t a big enough word.

  “Fuck yourself.” Reuben folded his arms. His word and will was all it took.

  With my eyes watering and the sky above wobbling, I pulled up the dress and put the muzzle of the gun to my entrance. Though the gun felt huge, I worked it inside an inch before the pain from the metal stretching my tissues made me whine and stop.

  Reuben tsked. “Keep going. More.”

  Their eyes were on me, their ravenous eyes.

  At last Reuben relented. The flood of lust, I knew it was his doing, but I half shut my eyes and humped the gun while shoving it into myself, then in some more. This time the small pains only made my eyes roll up. I moaned as Madoc had requested, because I couldn’t stop myself, in between making strange little grunts.

  It was big, it was metal, and the gun’s barrel fitted, just. If I twisted it and turned it at the difficult spots, I made myself wetter, lubricating the ride. I hit full depth when the trigger guard bumped my lips, and started fucking myself thoroughly, in then out, then in again, while exquisite sensations blossomed.

  I’d come soon. The fucking alone would do it. The metal was grinding on somewhere nice and Reuben was mere feet away. That always worked for me. His presence.

  When I hit bottom, I forced the gun in another half inch and writhed on it, making weird noises as I stifled my need for release.

  “No coming,” Reuben snapped.

  “Not yet.” Madoc wrapped his forearm around beneath my breasts so my tits bulged under the pressure of leather and arm. Then he wrapped his hand over my face and dragged my head back at an angle into his shoulder. The cheap baby doll material rasped over my erect nipples.

  “Fuck that’s awesome. Seeing that going up there. He’s never had one of you do this before.” Madoc chuckled. “Shove it all the way in again then pull the trigger.”

  That penetrated my maelstrom thoughts.

  “Do it,” Madoc commanded.

  The safety was on. My heart knocked at my chest, like it hadn’t heard the facts.

  “You’re a crazy bastard, Madoc.” Reuben had arrived. He squatted and put his hand over my gun-holding one. I knew him from his scent even though Madoc blinded me with his fingers pressed on my eyes.

  The safety was on, wasn’t it? I hadn’t bumped it?

  “Let me check the safety.” Reuben’s fingers caressed mine where I reverse-gripped the butt. “Fuck me, it’s on.” His fingers moved and I thought I heard a click. “Now it’s off.”

  Fear slithered in with icy tentacles. He wouldn’t... I strained to move away, to let go of the gun. Nothing happened, except I’d bowed up my abdomen, imbedding the gun barrel more firmly.

  “No. No.” My whisper was croaky and so quiet no one could have heard.

  “You want more?” Reuben smothered my smaller hand in his and squeezed the gun in farther. I was going to split open. The pain made my whimper in staccato breaths. “Much better.”

  He was fucking with my head. The safety would be on. Must be.

  Just messing with me.

  “Do it,” he added. “Come for me. Fuck yourself, pull that trigger, and come.”

  Madoc’s palm covered my mouth and nose.

  “Please,” I begged past his hand, dragging in paltry amounts of air, but Reuben only planted his hand over my mouth on top of Madoc’s.

  Now I couldn’t breathe...

  “Do it.”

  ...couldn’t breathe at all.

  The spasms of my pussy forced the gun out an inch. I readjusted my grip.

  Lost, frightened, yet aroused.

  Reuben’s touch on my face and the sound of his mean-as-fuck voice had brought me to the teetering brink of climax. I arched up onto the gun. I tasted the skin of one of the men’s hands. He wouldn’t kill me. As I shunted the gun to maximum depth, my mouth opened, and I pulled the trigger with my thumb.

  The hammer snapped down.

  It’d fired, but I was alive.

  “Come.”

  I exploded into orgasm.

  Alive.

  My walls spasmed painfully around the captive barrel. My thighs tightened as I bucked on the metal, holding the gun in there, rammed in, because I needed it so much, needed it impaling me. A violent depraved fuck yet, in the worst of ways, a fuck I wanted.

  I was making myself his toy, like never before, with everyone watching my abasement.

  My ecstatic noises were mostly silenced by the men’s hands on my face.

  They let me go. They took their hands away.

  Chest heaving, I slid sideways, until stopped by Madoc’s arm.

  The gun fired. It fired. He’d removed the bullets. When? Muddled, I couldn’t figure it.

  Lying there in his lap, recovering, with my eyes still shut, I expected them to flip me over and fuck me next, or to get the other men to do so.

  Instead, Reuben only laughed.

  “You can stay there with that in you until I say you can take it out. None of you touch her,” he added when he rose to his feet. “Look, but don’t touch.”

  They left me then, sitting on the floor but chained to the lounge, with the gun inside me. I could feel my wetness under my ass, cooling the tiles.

  “What an obedient little bitch she is.” The woman sounded amused.

  I prayed nothing inside me would tear, when he let me pull it out.

  At least he hadn’t beaten me. I wrapped my arm around the leg of the lounge and sniffled. I’d been so sure Reuben would do that if he caught me. I’d gotten off easy.

  Every so often, the gun slipped out a little, being pushed by my pussy’s natural rhythms. If I left it alone, it’d fall out. Before that could happen, Reuben returned and made me open my legs so he could inspect me.

  “If that comes out, I’ll do what I wasn’t going to and let them all have you. Keep it in there until I say.”

  After one shaky inhale, I reached down, and pushed the gun back inside. I wrapped my thighs over it, to be sure.

  “Good. In a week, we can get married. Two weeks since you signed the declaration of intent to marry.”

  “What? I never –”

  “You did. Last time I had you. Forgotten? Luckily I have a good memory. I’m going to keep you until the day you die. You’re so good at doing what you’re told to. Aren’t you?”

  I nodded. I was.

  Then he slapped my ass and walked away to party some more.

  That was when I noticed the pile of gleaming bullets in the cognac glass left standing on the tiles.

  Chapter 21

  Zorie

  For the rest of the day, to my relief, I was left alone, apart from the stares and laughter.

  Afterward, I was told to go to one of the empty bedrooms on the second floor, alone. Disobeying was unthinkable by then. Exhausted and sunburned, I went there. I showered in the little en-suite bathroom, and I dressed in the only clothes I had – the little barely there dress. Then I lay down, and found myself shivering as if in shock.

  No one had taken photos, had they? If any of this got out I’d be sacked. University lecturers were expected to behave with decorum.

  A tree branch filled with yellow-white, fluffy blossoms distracted me. Tap-tapping in a subtle breeze against the window glass. It was cool in here. The sheets were fresh. The walls were decorated with discreet erotic scenes in red and black. My eyelids drifted lower.

  Decorum. Shoving a gun up my vagina and orgasming before a crowd was not that. />
  Rocked by the sound of the trees outside, I sank into sleep.

  Reuben kept me there for days, never seeing me at all. Only Madoc came in with food. It was a blessing. Being ignored let me gather my thoughts and reason.

  If he married me, I couldn’t stop him, could I? No.

  Damn that.

  Were Grimm or Mister Black aware of where I was being kept? If so, what were they doing?

  Mister B would be doing nothing. He’d said as much.

  Grimm though? He’d not break in here to free me. The man wasn’t on the wrong side of the law, or not yet. He’d seemed almost willing to do bad things to get me free of Reuben. He also wanted to keep his involvement secret.

  The flashbacks of what had happened on the rooftop came at the oddest times. The usual cushioning of my emotions seemed less than before. I...felt the bad things I’d done and they shriveled my soul, more and more each day.

  How could I have?

  I was made to. It wasn’t me. My heart ached, constantly. I was made to. Whenever the memories of what I’d done returned, I curled up in a ball, with my hands clutching my head, until it went away. I’d betrayed myself.

  I was allowed my mobile phone, once a day, to answer calls, and even to speak to others. The temptation to contact Grimm was always there but, with Madoc hovering, I couldn’t begin to try. Not that I was certain I could do it anyway. Reuben had broken me, more than a little, that day on the rooftop.

  I should practice resisting.

  I should.

  There was nothing to do except think, and stare at the wall, or out the window.

  On the third day I gave in to the demon inside me that had been daily upping the ante on the screams of do something.

  I would try, again, but no more guns. Next time he might leave the bullets in. I might’ve killed myself, and who on that rooftop would’ve blamed anyone but me?

  Without writing materials, I could only practice writing with water on the window sill. After several aborted attempts, I began. I managed to write what might be a whole opus on the evilness of Reuben. It evaporated and blurred and swam into puddles as I wrote with my wet finger.

  When I was done, I couldn’t even convince myself that it meant anything. Writing in water? My brain knew it was dumb as hell. Blood would show more. I wasn’t ready for that, cutting myself just to get ink.

  On the fourth day, Dirke came to me with a small white dress – a flirtatious, backless one with a tiny, chiffon, satin, and lace skirt that would just brush my knees.

  “Your wedding dress.” He dropped it on the bed. “Put it on and be ready in ten minutes.”

  This was to be a real wedding? I stared at the cute little frothy dress.

  They drove to a small nearby park with a fountain and a line of monstrous trees that dwarfed the picnic tables. Breathless and feeling as if I stood at the edge of some cliff with a nameless drop to infinity just one step from my toes, I waited.

  Reuben took my hand and smiled at all the right times, said all the right words when the marriage celebrant wanted him to. I had to be prompted.

  “To have and to hold...”

  “For better or for worse...”

  “I do,” came from a throat that wasn’t mine, and yet I said it. The words were black confetti flung on the wind.

  The ring fitted my finger, perfectly. Love was engraved on the band in swirly writing. I signed the document shown to me, right where Reuben put his finger.

  Reuben kissed me and there were photos done by a professional photographer who had us stand this way and that before shaking our hands and wandering off to his vehicle.

  It was over. I looked at the children playing nearby and at the celebrant as he walked away, leaving me with him.

  Reuben tightened his hold on my entwined fingers until it hurt.

  “Come, sweet bride, we have a lifetime to live together.”

  Fuck you was all that ran around in my head, all the way back. The smallest of small rebellions but I kept it going. It was all I had.

  Once back at the house, I signed more papers, sure they held some dreadful information but unable to read them.

  At midnight, two days later, Reuben had me brought to him. He would set me free in the streets, naked except for my underwear and with my car keys in hand.

  “It’s a half mile away through the streets.” Madoc showed me on a map.

  Already, I could tell. I could see through this. Reuben would never do this. Not simply free. The man would want his piece of flesh, of blood.

  I asked a question, not to beg, no. I wanted to delay whatever was coming.

  “Why? You married me.”

  “For your money, dear slut. Only that. You’re too unpredictable for me and I’m tired of you. One last thing before you go. Kneel.”

  I kneeled on the hallway rug and blinked up at him and the grinning Madoc and Dirke. They stood behind Reuben and seemed sure of what would come next. Dirke made a mock gun with finger and thumb, pointed it at me and pretended to shoot. Bang, he mouthed.

  By then I was sweating despite the air-conditioned house.

  “Listen carefully, Zorie.” Reuben bent and took my chin in his hand. “You’re very, very sad. You want to die. Hear me?”

  A knife sliced through my heart at his words.

  My ears sang but I nodded.

  “Then go do it. Think sad thoughts. You’re worth nothing. Your life is hopeless. Go away and tomorrow or the next day, kill yourself somewhere public. Okay?”

  I nodded again.

  “Go.”

  Then I stood and I walked out the front door into the black night. My legs wobbled but...my heart still beat.

  I shut my eyes, standing on the cold grass of his front yard in white bra and panties. Crickets greeted me. The keys tinkled in my hand.

  Don’t do this, said my inner demon. Fucking don’t. He lies. He lies. You know he does.

  He did. Yet I knew disobeying was impossible.

  Walking all the way to my car, I’d be lucky not to get assaulted and raped.

  Chapter 22

  “The moon is dark, and the gods dance in the night.” - H. P Lovecraft

  Zorie

  The walk had torn up my bare feet a little. In this affluent neighborhood, the lawns were spongy grass, but the roads I’d crossed had been sprinkled with gravel. On one crossing, I’d stepped on fragments of glass. Picking the pieces out had woken me from the hazy state Reuben had created. Perhaps staying in shadows had helped me avoid trouble but it was more likely that the people here were all snug in bed, or watching their TVs, or out at parties drinking ice-cold Chardonnay, rather than cruising the streets looking for stray, half-naked chicks.

  They’d left my Mazda under a streetlight in the car parking area of a small shopping center.

  Though the shops were shut, the light shone on me as I sprinted and hopped the last fifty yards.

  I unlocked the car and slid inside, relieved, sore, and with Reuben’s death wish soaking my mind.

  “Ohmigod.”

  Exhausted, I lay across the two seats and the middle parking brake, accepting being poked in the ribs in return for the relief of knowing I was alive and intact.

  But for how long? There’d been absolute certainty in how Reuben had handled this, as if he knew I would just go kill myself....

  I stared across the edge of the seat cover into the darkness of the foot-well. A pale something lay there. A dress I’d once worn at his house.

  A thought blossomed. His last wife. He’d inherited a fortune from her.

  “Oh fuck,” I whispered.

  He’d made his last wife do this.

  He’d not been caught. It would be unprovable, though people, or even the police, might think it suspicious if I too suicided. Would it matter to me? Fuck no. I’d be dead.

  I turned over to look out through my dusty windscreen at the night sky and at the faint stars showing beyond the streetlight. Bugs circled in the halo of light.

  An
d yet, I was still thinking straight. When I’d been kneeling before Reuben his words had been like the pronunciation of doom. With distance from him, the effect had lessened. I’d beat this. I would.

  The dress. Thinking they’d left it there so I could cover myself, I picked it up, only to discover the gun hidden under its folds.

  Of course. His words had jumbled in my head but I’d never forget the meaning.

  Kill yourself. In public. One or two days’ time.

  He’d be so amused if I used this gun. From the stickiness on the metal, they not cleaned it.

  The car started smoothly though I winced when I pressed the brake pedal. After I’d driven for a few minutes, the sting and the slight slipperiness of the pedal made me think the cut was bleeding again. Just my luck to have an accident on the way home. So I drove carefully.

  After all, he didn’t want me dead, yet.

  At a traffic light stop, I gripped the wheel and shook my head madly like some puppet on crack. My hair whipped around my head. When had I last had it cut? Would I need to anyway? In a few days, I’d not be –

  I took some deep breaths while swearing at the wheel.

  Fuck that shit. You bastard, Reuben.

  “Bastard, bastard, bastard.” I’d beat this.

  Someone beeped me, to remind me the light had changed, and I accelerated.

  There was no sleep to be had that night. I walked from room to room instead, adjusting ornaments and paintings, leaving smudges of blood until I remembered where I kept plasters. I sat only to jerk awake to full awareness with something odd cradled on my lap. A vase of flowers, once. A stuffed bear my mother had given me, another time. And another time, it was the gun.

  The need to do something violent ate at me, until I found myself staring at the tines of the fork while I ate lunch.

  Stabbed to death by my own fork. What a novel way to commit seppuku. Wide-eyed, I blinked at the fork while chewing, before swallowing the piece of vegetable gyoza I’d bought at the little Japanese restaurant. An expensive lunch but money seemed a bit pointless at this moment in time.

  When lucid, I knew this was all his doing. When not, the depression, the need to end it all, built until it was a dam cresting the top of its wall. Soon, it would burst. I saw myself tumbling under the roaring waves, falling through water, only down there it was silent, swirls and bubbles and debris floating past, while I gaped for breath. Until at last, I too was silent.