by Ashley Black
Nineteen
I could kill Aaron for forcing me to do this.
Three days after the motel, Aaron had some how ‘convinced’ me to do a book signing.
Three days after Brett and I had arrived in a ‘safe house’ that I had affectionately called a ‘hobbit den,’ as most of it being buried into the side of a cliff. Deep in the belly of a tree filled, enchanted gully.
Beautiful.
Right near a babbling, bubbling and gurgling little brook.
The little facility was state of the art, and well protected. Military folk flanked the perimeter.
Still, when I was wearing the raven necklace, nothing could keep Thornton Darko away.
And this knowledge terrified me.
Clarissa, my sister in magic, and I were hooking up soon. It couldn’t be soon enough for a much needed gab fest on this subject.
Aaron. Well, that bitch, true to exploitative form, had been damned busy with the publishing house while I had been seduced into the dark demented world of ‘thrill’ by that dirty wizard, Thornton Darko.
I hoped Thorn got fucked up by the Warlock who gifted the wrong spell on the raven necklace.
I hoped Thorn got fucked up by the betrayal of his minions.
I hoped Thorn got fucked up by this truly creepy leader of the cult and his rather odd son.
But I digress.
My new book TEASE ME had been published.
It was a ridiculous success. It was the only book that had attracted the elusive mention of ‘movie deal’, and questions were being thrown around as to whether Thornton Darko could act. The producer was hell bent insistent he be the lead.
An Angelina Jolie look alike lady, was being considered to play my female lead. I had ordered any lady taking this part had to be at least late twenties, preferably thirties. I was sick of the youth worship bull shit in that stinky pimp house of Hollywood.
I felt pressure to finish VANQUISH ME, it was taking me longer because I was scared of how this one ended.
Terrified.
A sick, cold dread washed through me at that final heart smashing scene.
“Are you and that gorgeous artist man of yours still planning on marrying?”
A lady’s excited voice interrupted my rude zone out.
“Next week, in fact. I can’t wait. I thought I lost him. I am not letting that beautiful man go,” I answered, forcing a smile.
She smiled fondly at me, squeezed my shoulder and then left me be as she unfurled some posters.
I blinked a little dazedly, trying to rouse myself to full awareness. We were setting up for the signing, I had shifted the location of it. It was located where I felt the most amount of TEASING got done.
A strip club.
This venue had after obligatory initial clearing of throats, raised brows, and disapproving severe looks, been celebrated as fucking GENIUS by the publishing house.
I had a male and female stripper ready to grind those poles.
Posters of the sexy book cover, and me, and him the man, who had inspired it, Thornton Darko were everywhere.
Black candelabra’s were lit and cast the place in warm, almost cheerful light.
I found myself staring at the full size cut out of Thorn. Dressed in Cellrager garb, head to toe back, his mask, and those dark flaring green eyes. They appeared so lifelike not flattened or deadened by the cardboard sheen.
Readers began to trickle in, or my fans as Aaron insistied I call them.
It still felt so odd to call them that.
Fans.
Come on now?
There was a buzz of excitement.
I was filled with dark adrenalin and apprehension.
He was going to show here.
I knew it.
I should go.
Bubbly was duly cracked open, rich, overly expensive canapés served.
I posed for photo after photo.
I got into short interesting snatches of conversation with the fans of the writings.
I had forgotten how much I loved this.
I was starting to have fun.
Beaming happily, a tall shadow fell over me. I looked up as my grin slid from my lips.
Him.
Thornton Darko.
Standing there in a long bad ass trench coat with spikes dusting the huge shoulders of it.
He gripped a burned and battered copy of TEASE ME in his monstrous hand.
He flashed me a smile, showing perfect white pointed teeth. His dark green eyes narrowing on me and pinning my heart in its cage. “I can’t wait for your next book. Do tell me Elena, I need to know, it is only fair don’t you think? Seeing as I star in it. How does it end?”
Twenty
“Fuck off Thorn,” I said in a low, vicious voice.
He leaned in and gripped my wrist hard. “Hey now, I only asked a question. Don’t lose your shit. I will be over there,” he rolled his huge right shoulder. “Sitting in one of those gaudy gold chairs in the corner of the room awaiting your answer, Enchantress.”
“The book is called VANQUISH ME fucktard, how do you think it ends?”
I regretted this the instant I said it.
The look on the man’s face.
He cut me up.
Leaving messy ribbons of me, everywhere.
“You vile, filthy, talentless, little Witch! I will eat your face,” he hissed against my lips.
Because that make perfect sense.
I tried to pull away as he gripped the back of my head. He smashed that devastating hot mouth against my locked lips, forced his tongue in and stroked it once over mine. He ended the assault of his mouth on mine just as suddenly as he had begun it. Rising to his full height, his long white fingers hovered at his lips for a moment as he stared me down. Seriously, I felt his gaze flatten and trample me before he spun on his heel and retreated in a dark cloud of intoxicating mayhem to said ‘gaudy’ gold chair.
It looked like a throne.
Thorn sat upon it.
Women followed him.
He was heart breaking in his beauty. God Damn him.
He looked like some demonic King. Ruler of the underworld. He exuded power and royalty.
“Is that Thornton Darko?” Someone freaked. “Elena can you go sit on his lap? I would love a shot of you two!”
I blushed, shook my head and rose unsteadily from my seat. “I need a drink,” I managed weakly and stumbled off the little book signing stage and toward someone, anyone with the alcohol.
“I already got a shot when he kissed her. That was hot. I think he should do that again.”
A voice trailed after me.
I think not.
Aaron’s candy musk infused cologne hit me before the man’s wail of terror did.
He stood in the middle of the venue, hands on hips, staring in horror at Thorn and his bevvy of adoring fans. “What the fuck is he doing here?”
“Aaron,” I waved him over, as I called Brett. He had some tests to do in the military clinic. They were monitoring side effects of the skin treatment. He wasn’t far away, but fair to say, I needed my soldier man and his back up, and, I needed it here now.
How had Thorn slipped past security outside?
Powerful warlock much?
“Calling Brett,” I whispered. “To get this back under control.”
Aaron’s grey eyes lit up as a smile broke out across his round face. “You don’t have to babe. The man has already shown.” He pointed.
I whirled around and stared at the two of them. The ladies had fallen away to leave them be.
It looked like some kind of fucked up standoff.
Thorn was wearing thick military boots and towered over my Brett, even without them, he would in any case. The man was perfectly monstrous.
My soldier was dressed in dark blue jeans that gripped his muscled lean legs, and a simple white shirt that hugged his pecs. Brett had always been in good shape.
Now, it appeared, he was in insane, amazing shape.
&nbs
p; But he was no match for Thornton Darko.
“Can I have a word with you Mr. Darko,” I heard my man ask calmly.
“Only one? You were very wordy last time we met, Mr. Argosy.”
Thorn sounded amused.
Brett patiently motioned to a curtained area, where all the naughty stuff happened in the Strip Club. “Through here please.” He said it in a, ‘don’t even try to fuck with me tone’.
Thorn nodded deferentially, and followed Brett into the curtained area.
Aaron got the music turned up, and the male dancer to perform, as an attempt to redirect focus and attention.
I, however, remained focused on that curtain.
And boom!
There was a frightful crash, and I saw Thorn’s black boots now jutted out from beneath the curtain.
What the actual fuck?
Aaron was at my side in an instant.
I then watched them disappear slowly, pulled into the room beyond the dirty veil.
Brett! What had he done to fall a big man like this?
My answer was gifted in a text a few breathless moments later, just as I dared to come closer.
I tranquilized his ass. We use this shit on elephants for fucks sake. We need to get out. Slip out the back. NOW. I’ll be ready with the car.
“Go, go, go!” Aaron pushed me. “Get out of here. Go with Brett. I’ll take care of this and wrap it up. You did great Elena. Do better and live woman. Get out! I’ll get the police onto his ass.”
I didn’t need any further encouragement, I pulled down my black mini dress that had begun to creep up my thighs, and tottered out of there in my sky high spiked black heels as fast as I possibly could. I exited through a concealed, door at the back of the room. Scrambling awkwardly down the metal stairs into the side alley. I spied a gleaming black military jeep. We had a loan one, so I recognized it at once.
Brett flashed the lights at me.
I happily ran toward him. I flung open the door and a black gloved hand shot around my neck.
“No,” I whimpered, flipping my head back and forth, trying to snap the death grip on my throat.
Fuck this man so very much.
Thorn’s smile was razor blade sharp as he lifted me from my high heels. Tore me from the ground. The motion was so sudden and violent. Dazed, I tried to lash out at him. Fling one of my limbs. Make contact. Anything.
“Come now Elena, why all this fuss? My mouth and your face have a date, you will recall.”
Twenty One
He roughly cuffed my wrists, and pushed me through an opening in the black leather seats. He pressed his huge physicality against one side of me, pinning my hips and ass. I flopped, and fell forward helpless, forehead smacking the back seat in defeat.
I was angry crying.
I was mad as hell.
I screamed when he ripped up my dress, and pulled down my panties.
I heard him take a deep sniff of them and sigh in demented satisfaction.
“What are you doing?” I asked in horror as his huge warm hand rose up to grip my naked ass, and the car surged forward.
The window hissed down.
“Elena!” Brett’s terrified voice poured in and my heart broke for him. For us.
As the car sped away, I saw that my black lacy panties were now clutched in Brett’s fist that he was shaking.
Brett was running. He was running pretty damned fast.
Thorn only laughed.
He kept a firm grip of my ass. “I don’t think he liked me throwing your underwear in his face,” he observed dryly.
“You fucking think?” I exploded. “Stop this shit Thorn. Now. Stop the car. Let me go.”
“Not until I have explained,” he said gruffly. “You must listen to me Elena.”
Hot tears were scalding my face. “Fuck you.”
“Please,” his voice cracked. “This is a set up. The man I’m shit scared of. The cult leader. He is doing all this. He disapproves of my feelings for you. He has availed himself of other means to keep us apart. One of those is to frame me and to get me tied up in knots in mortal laws. He turned my closest bodyguard against me, Ryan, the one who now spins hurtful fabrications about my involvement in that explosion that could have taken not just Brett, but you Elena. You from me. He Lied. Said I did things I didn’t.”
I was silent. I wasn’t sure that to say to all of that. I had so many questions. I was a little scared of the answers. The man was terrifying me. This was a crazy, risky thing for him to do, abduct me from a book signing like this. Would he be getting air time with me otherwise? I doubted it, after everything he had done, even still, all this, seemed a bit much!
Encouraged by my silence, he rushed on, “so the man lies. He fabricates things. Things like me trying to kill Brett. I have killed. I don’t deny this. But Brett? He isn’t worth my energy. Now this cult leader has Brett working hard to pin the death of Andrea on me. My people tell me his military fuck sticks are planting my DNA on her remains they pulled from the swamp as we speak.”
What. No. Brett wouldn’t do that? Would he?
No.
He uttered Vicious lies!
I frowned, thinking on the confession video I had seen in the little motel room.
Ryan had confessed to Brett.
Brett had been asking the questions.
Why?
How had they even come into contact?
Questions I had failed to ask.
“I didn’t poison my family and the town folk either,” Thorn’s voice shook with rage. “As your fiancé accused me of.”
There was nothing to say.
I was stunned.
I didn’t know what, or who to believe.
His hand rubbed up and down my ass.
“Stop touching me,” I snapped. “Just stop. I am marrying the man I love next week. I don’t want you touching me ever again. Hear me? Ass clown.”
He roared.
It was ridiculously, ear splittingly loud.
He yanked the wheel, cut off the road, and I was thrown roughly up and down as we appeared to be plunging head first down a steep embankment.
Thorn was killing me.
A moment later he was pulling me from the car, hefting me over the spiky shoulder of his coat and carrying me, his huge form bouncing along the thick tangled yellow grass.
What was this place?
It looked like a forever field of yellow.
Roses …. every where.
And Ivy, tangled weeds, deadened trees, but roses were the only thing that bloomed bright in this desolate place.
I saw a red blanket, a picnic hamper set up, before a calm stretch of water.
What in the hell was going on here?
A date?
Now.
Was he insane?
He carefully settled me onto the blanket, pulling me into his lap. Both hands rubbing fiercely at the back of my skull. He forced me roughly to his mouth.
I bit down hard on that flirty lower lip of his, just as the cold press of the ring in his chin blazed against my flesh.
His, blood in my mouth.
He did not care that I had bit him, and kept kissing me. That wide sexy mouth devouring mine in a thrilling nauseating blast of firepower. The power of this man! I felt it. So sinister and darkly electrifying. Throbbing beneath me.
Oh. My face flamed.
His prick was pressed urgently between my legs, pulsing violently. Becoming even more violent still as it verily beat against my skin.
I resisted with everything I had inside of me, not to roll my hips and rub up along the damned thing.
It kept widening, and growing beneath me.
I think I could become addicted to the sensation of feeling his awakening beneath me.
I felt his trousers bunch and strain around the beating, pulsing, offensive thing.
I held myself completely still.
Thorn continued to rake his fingers over the back of my skull.
All of this was a distr
action from what that mouth was doing to me.
How dare he lay his lying, no good lips upon me!
I moaned and brought my handcuffed hands up and slammed them hard into his chest.
It was enough to break contact.
Thorn’s mouth looked a little swollen. His dark green eyes flashed mischievously. His high cheek bones were now a pretty shade of rose red. The color stood out against the flawless ivory of his skin.
“I think we should do that again,” he said flicking his hips. His ridiculous arousal stuffed cock jutted impatiently against me.
I looked down at myself in disgust, seeing my naked lips parting as the thing grew between them. The sensation of the soft material of the trousers shivering over the inner wet slicked parts of me now felt like the most exquisite erotic whisper, and my entrance quivered and clenched around a dream of Thorn cock.
I wriggled up off him.
Wrong. This was wrong! I had to get out of here immediately!
Amazingly, he let me go.
Frustrated, I couldn’t pull my black mini dress down, I ran away from him.
Correction, I tried to run away from him.
I heard a strange hissing in the air, a whirring sound, a crack, and then I cried out in surprise when something cracked me in a spiteful lash across the butt.
Ouch! What the actual fuck?
I peeked over my shoulder and saw Thorn standing there calmly with a black leather bad ass looking lasso, he flicked it outwards again. Too late, I felt it curl around my ankles and pull tight. I fell unceremoniously face down to the long yellow grass.
Fuck.
He pulled me backwards, on my stomach, ass stuck in the air and stinging in humiliation.
I had never been so incensed.
What was I to him?
A cruel game?
Let’s go hunt the stupid scared Enchantress.
My ankles were wet now with blood.
He rolled me over onto my back, and pulled me gently into a seated position. He lifted me for a moment, and gently pulling my mini dress back down to restore some half assed shadow of dignity. “Not that I want to cover that gorgeous ass of yours, ever. However, you may find it more comfortable if your butt doesn’t look look like its trying to eat your dress.”
I was still trembling from the shock, pain and strange elation I felt from the experience of Thornton whipping and lassoing me like I was some kind of wild animal or perverse form of entertainment for Warlocks.
