I held it up and tried not to flinch when he took my wrist.
“This is yours now. Wear it every day.” He slipped a silver bracelet on my wrist and fastened it – something tiny, with petite wings, dangled from the chain, catching the sunlight streaming from the one tiny and barred window high up on the far wall. “If I see you without my angel, I punish you. If I ever take it off you, it will be because you’ve been very bad. Okay?”
I nodded.
“Say yes, thank me, and kiss my hand.” He put the back of his hand near my mouth.
Even in this there was menace. His eyes narrowed as I leaned forward.
As if I wouldn’t. I kissed his fist. “Thank you, sir.” You utter pukeworthy bastard. Your mother was a fucking pig and so are you. I put on a fake smile.
“Good.” He patted my head. “You’re a lucky, lucky woman. Someone has taken a liking to you. You’re going to be part of a show that should last a few weeks. As long as you perform.”
Perform? My fear spiked up a notch. “What does that mean?” His hand drew back as if to slap me and I hurried to add, “Sir?”
He chuckled. “You will see. Tonight, perhaps, is your first time.”
My throat closed. I held my breath and rested my laced fingers in my lap.
“Be good, remember? Hmm?” He ran his fingers down to my cheek. “You have to be an angel for me. We mustn’t disappoint the customers, must we? Not like the last girl.”
Slowly, I shook my head. The bracelet on my wrist was cold, as if it had recently come from a fridge. A tiny red spot on a link speared my attention. Oh fuck. My reply was soft. “No, sir.”
I prayed he didn’t have the final say in this – in assessing whatever I was to do. Someone liked me. I shut my eyes. Liked. Maybe they just wanted me to dance or do a striptease?
Panic was there in my mind, coiled up, ready to explode. I screwed it down tight. I mustn’t. I mustn’t.
This wasn’t going to be a dance.
Late that afternoon they came for me.
Their standard procedure, I discovered, was to have my wrists cuffed together before me and a heavy bag over my head – strapped around my neck over the top of the steel collar. The only light and air came from some neat round holes down near my mouth. When I breathed, the bag sucked in. I’d had asthma as a child. It’d left me with a fear of being unable to breathe. A little desperate, but trying not to draw attention, I plucked at the fastening strap.
If they tightened it, I might choke. The potential for pain, for death, for nastiness, was so ripe in the air here that I might suffocate from that alone.
Someone breathed, from an inch beside my ear. I froze. They were watching me.
“That’s so you can’t see. Leave it alone, my angel.”
Him.
I lowered my cuffed hands, shut my eyes, and tensed. Even my pussy clenched in. I had no underwear on. Also standard operating procedure with these men, like the bag, like the ever-present danger.
“Walk,” he added.
They drew me onward down some maze of corridors until we entered a room. I could tell from the openness, the echoes. My attempt to see through the holes at my mouth revealed the concrete block on which they’d displayed me when I arrived here.
He’d done nothing to me that time. Only scared me. This time...
From somewhere in front of me, he spoke. I raised my head.
“Jazmine, we have a rich client who wants to see things done to you. I don’t have all the details, but I think they want to see you hurt, in stages. You might think this is bad, but it’s not. Do you want to know why?”
Fuck, no, I don’t, you asshole. I curled my toes in, feeling the hardness of the concrete.
He poked my breast with his stick. “Nod, girl.”
I nodded.
“Most of the clients love the sex with the girls, along with the power games. They like having a slave who will do whatever they ask. The ones who like to watch shows can be a little different. In this one, I sense, maybe anger? You must give them screams and crying. Give them a big show. Yes?”
A show? Was he crazy? Tiredness sifted into my flesh, weighed down my limbs.
“Are you wondering why, Miss Jazmine? It’s because I think, at the end of this, you will not be happy.” He clicked his fingers. “You must make it last.”
Was he saying they meant to kill me...after? At the end? Fuck this. My heart knocked hard and fast. But, he’d clicked his fingers. His harsh sigh and the whoosh of a stick being drawn back made me drop to my knees.
Make it last? If I made myself not scream, would that get it over with quicker? Or slower? Which did I want? That was the question. Such an evil, evil question. Was that why he’d told me? To make me agonize over impossible decisions? I was sure he didn’t do it out of goodness.
Did I have the courage to not scream if I was hurt badly?
Images slipped into my head of me bleeding, writhing, of my hands cut off. God. I shuddered and swallowed acrid bile.
“Stay kneeling. Put your palms on the floor.”
I did so.
What were they going to do?
Last time, I’d been in here, I’d shaken. I was wondering why I wasn’t shaking, feeling separated from myself, eerily unemotional, when it began. My arms shook, then my legs until, like a cartoon character, even my teeth chattered.
After fiddling with my wrist cuffs, he picked me up with his arm slid between my legs and supporting my weight. My palms stayed on the floor while he turned me like I was the dial of a clock, set on the wrong time.
The pressure of his forearm there, on my most intimate place, was casually invasive. I’d been demoted to the level of a piece of furniture.
He put me down. With his palms, he pushed my thighs a little farther apart.
“There. Now we can see you properly.” His stick he laid across the back of my neck, pressing me down. “Stay there unless someone tells you to get up. If you’re wondering why the concrete, it’s so we can hose it off afterward. Sometimes the girls get a little...messy. Your friend will be here soon. You might want to relax. He’s a big man.”
I heard his footsteps then the close of the door. Subtle tugs confirmed he’d locked my cuffs to some anchor point on the floor.
Kneeling there on the hard floor made my knees ache. I shifted my weight from one knee to the other, afraid to budge more than a few inches from where he’d left me.
The door creaked open, clicked shut, and there were more footsteps – shuffling ones and firm ones, then the mutter of low voices.
I was all too aware of my vulnerability and of how the dress had ridden up my back when Gregor had moved me. Whoever was at the door behind me could see everything. I shuffled my legs together and concentrated on sucking air through the mouth holes. It was dark in here, but not as dark or terrible as whoever was out there, or what might be about to happen to me.
I don’t want to hurt. Please, let it be fast.
A speaker squealed as someone turned it on. “Testing, testing. Okay, you can hear me?”
Someone in the room answered yes.
“Good.” This time, despite the overriding buzz of the speaker, I recognized the voice. That was Him again. Who was in the room with me? “Pieter. Our client says one rule only today. Make it last. You can do what you want to this woman, as long as you fuck her, but no permanent damage. This is our little trial run to see if you are...suitable. Make it entertaining.”
The words spun through, like dry leaves tossed by a silent wind. I could hear them repeating, the vowels, the consonants, the assembled sounds, but not understand. Those words couldn’t be about me. They just couldn’t.
Couldn’t. Couldn’t. Uh-uh.
Pieter though? Him? He was the only man who’d shown any kindness toward me since my abduction. The last time I’d seen him had been after my recapture and he was being beaten. He was alive and they were going to make him...fuck me.
Why? Was he in on this? Had he always been? Had it been a lie? Not that
I hadn’t lied to him. But I’d needed to. Maybe he’d found out.
The pressure in me built. In my attempt to not make a noise, one sound escaped my throat. I bit back the terrified half-swallow, half-squeak. I wanted to be little, to be so small they wouldn’t see me. I wanted to hide in this bag and never, ever, be seen by them.
Behind me, metal clinked.
“No. No, no,” I whispered, clawing into the floor with my nails. “Go away.”
They didn’t. Of course.
Chapter 4
The speaker fell silent.
They’d fed me and let me shower under guard, given me pants and a shirt. I stood there, still dog-tired from the combo of beatings and drugs, but also furious and blind. The sack idea was a sound one. Unless you were some superhero who could sense the drop of a hair from ten yards away with your eyes closed, being blind made the strongest man into a victim.
Now, they were setting me free for the worst of reasons. The fuckers. I flexed my muscles covertly, clenched and unclenched my fists, getting ready for when the last restraint fell away. Kicking somebody’s head in was always on the menu, if they gave me an opening. If they made a mistake. If you waited long enough, everyone made mistakes.
I couldn’t see the room with the canvas sack on my head but I could smell it. Beneath the scent of cleaning fluids was a thick aroma of sex, blood, sweat and, yes, fear. Whatever had been done in here, the consequences had leached into the walls.
You could smell fear. In my days in South Africa, I’d had my fill of being scared shitless while enforcing the law, while shooting soldiers in the bush when I could barely see a few yards ahead of me and they were shooting back. I’d smelled the stench of fear and adrenalin from a crowd as they hacked to death a man in front of me. Fear and me were drinking buddies from way back.
As they unstrapped and uncuffed my arms, leaving only the chain-linked manacles on my ankles, I ran through what Gregor, the manager of this house had said.
“Remember. Your job is to make love. To make her suffer, a little. If she makes no interesting noises, hmm, we will take you off the job. For her sake, do it right.”
Damn, that creep deserved to die. For calling it love, for starters. What they wanted from me made me want to vomit.
The strap around my neck was unbuckled and the sack removed. I squinted, adjusting to the bright fluorescent lights ten feet above.
“I am watching you from behind bulletproof glass. Do not make us shoot you, Pieter. Do not harm the young man who has freed you.”
I did a circle on the spot and I watched the man back away toward the door then lean against it. He wasn’t armed and he was the only person in here – apart from me and the woman kneeling, facedown, in the middle of the room. If I attacked him, I was certain I wouldn’t get out of this room alive. They wouldn’t be stupid enough to give me someone they weren’t willing to sacrifice. Poor bastard.
I grinned at him wickedly, to let him know that on a bad day, I might use him to decorate the walls with red.
The woman.
I inhaled, let it out. Kak. They hadn’t said her name, at least, I didn’t think they had...but I knew who this was, even with her head covered – Jazmine. The waves of ebony hair cascading over her shoulders were unmistakable. She was unmistakable.
The blatant display of her cunt shocked me. I should have expected such things, here. To my dismay, my cock stirred though I knew it was pure physical reaction. It didn’t make me a bad man, just human.
In Australia, I’d helped her escape because she’d impressed me in many small ways – her courage, her selflessness toward the other women. She’d said she had a baby waiting for her and that had tugged at my better self too. But I couldn’t hide from myself that her looks had influenced me also. If she’d been on a beach, or asleep in my bed, I’d have happily watched her for hours.
I hesitated.
“Go to her. Do your job.” The chuckle that followed came through clearly on the speaker.
I took that first step to her. What the hell was I going to do?
I’d done so many horrific things in my life that the Devil would have a hard time listing them all. But this act was on a whole new sordid scale of its own.
The manacles clinked as I walked. I could hear my breathing then hers and a faint tapping that I belatedly recognized as I stood over her. Her teeth were chattering.
Maybe all those men I’d seen die, who knew it was coming, had also had chattering teeth. Maybe the one with the burning tire around his neck and with the mob using their machetes and bricks on his body had shaken this much? Even if I’d been close enough, I’d never have heard him over the screaming.
I looked down at her.
The men I’d killed close-up were the worst. I couldn’t forget them...their faces exploding, the teeth, blood, and bits of bone flying.
At least a man could fight back.
How could a man do this to a woman?
“Pieter! You’re boring us. Fail and I have five men who will be happy to play with her.”
“Jou fokken holnaaier poes,” I cursed Gregor in Afrikaans, under my breath. The man gave swear words a bad name.
She was terrified.
Why had they chosen me? I’d been going to be killed but tortured first. Someone had arrived and chosen me to do this for some reason I couldn’t recall, though I think I’d heard them explain. It would be worse for her if I said no. They’d kill me outright. I’d go to my death with a clear conscience with respect to this at least. Even if I couldn’t wash away the rest of my dirty past.
That was my easy path, the cowardly one.
But I looked at her and shrank. I couldn’t do this.
Never give up. Never give in.
If I died, I’d leave her alone, at the mercy of Gregor and his client. To be gang raped by however many men he decided would do the job. To be hurt also – he’d wanted me to do that too.
The speaker buzzed as if they were about to say more. Decide. I dropped to one knee beside her and roughly undid the neck strap of her bag to show them I meant business, that I was doing as they’d asked.
“What are you doing, Pieter?” said Gregor.
“I’m taking off the fucking bag! You want me to get it up when she looks like a rag doll?” I looked over at the dark-tinted window. With the lights on high, I couldn’t see who was behind it. “I need my women to look like they’re human. Besides, blow jobs from sacks aren’t my kink.”
His laughter echoed a little. “You are brave if you wish a blow job from her, today. Keep going.”
I was an evil man, but I wasn’t this evil. I couldn’t rape her without trying to comfort her. I slipped the bag off and watched the rest of her hair spill over her back. If I was quiet, maybe they’d not pick up my words.
“Hey.” I smoothed my palm up her back to her nape, sadly admiring the flow of light as her hair shifted under my touch. She was exquisite, like a butterfly trapped in a jar about to be chloroformed and pinned down with needles.
Was it to be me, or them?
Some days you had to be bad to be good.
I pretended to gather her hair into my fist. In truth, I held her hair loosely, but I dragged her head back.
Pretty eyes, gray-green, and her face shone with the tracks of tears. “I’m so sorry this is happening.”
I bent down closer until our faces were inches apart. I brushed her forehead with a light kiss. I wasn’t a gentle man, normally, but I could fake it.
“You have to be brave. I’m Pieter. You know me. I’m going to do what they ask me to because if I don’t, they’ll get other men to do it. Understand, me, bokkie?”
I waited for her reaction, prayed I could get through to her that I didn’t want to hurt her, that I was still on her side.
“Yes.” Her answer was so soft. More tears slipped down her cheeks. “Thank you.”
My heart broke more than a little then.
How I needed to kill somebody.
I shook her hea
d with my fist. “I have to pretend to be hard on you. Trust me. I’m going to...” Not fuck, don’t say that to her you domkop. “To make love to you. No matter what I say or do, remember, I care.”
That was the best I could do, the most delay I could risk. Dying now would be a mistake that she would regret, not me. I’d be gone from this earth.
I pushed her face into the floor, stopping a fraction short of her hitting it with her forehead.
“Keep your fokken head down!” I stepped back as I unzipped my pants then nudge-kicked her thighs apart. “Open those legs.”
She yelped as my toe dug a little too deep into the back of one thigh.
Every movement was calculated to look violent but stop short of hurting her too much. Yet I couldn’t fake it totally or they’d know.
Thank god I had an erection, or close to it. Disgust vied with the necessity of this act. I had to do it. I grabbed my cock and massaged up and down, never more aware of needing to perform in my life than now.
Forget them. Forget they were watching.
Impossible. No, doable. Look at her. I concentrated on her, on the soft curves of her body. The swell of her breasts. Luckily my cock wasn’t governed by my rage. I soon had a hard-on good enough to at least enter her.
Fok. They wanted pain. I stared at her there, on hands and knees, tense as hell, sobbing with each breath, and with her wrists chained to the floor. I steeled myself to hurt her. They probably expected me to grab one of the whips off the wall. My ex had liked pain and I’d given it to her when she asked for it and not just because I was a kindly husband. I can do this.
Every time I went to make myself go to the wall, I froze up. I shook my head.
I pushed her dress to her waist and smacked her butt a few times, enough to leave red hand prints and make her squeak. Then I stopped and said fuck them in my head.
I simply could not hit her more than this.
“Be good, bokkie. I’m doing it.”
“Okay.” The quaver in her word said I still scared her. Nothing would make this fine.
I knelt between her legs, centered the head of my cock on her slit, and guided it in. I sucked in air, mesmerized by the heat of her and the wet glide. Fuck. In that riveting moment of penetration, I let my gaze traverse her body and my hands caress the sweet swell of her hips. I was going to enjoy this, I knew it. I couldn’t come and not enjoy it. My cock pulsed inside her.
Seize me From Darkness (Pierced Hearts Book 4) Page 2
