It hadn’t even occurred to me that the images were likely shared. “Thank you” seemed too insignificant for his offer. It felt as if he was giving me a chance to wipe the slate clean. At least the digital slate. How I wished my mind and body could be so easily fixed. Memories began to push their way forward, seeping into my consciousness. Moving robotically across the room, I came to stand before the polished, granite bar.
“Say it, or I’ll press the button again.”
Stubborn or strong, the two words bled together, and I wasn’t sure which one I was anymore. I’d have thought strong, but this man who insisted on defiling my body, who took pleasure in hearing my screams, called me stubborn. Perhaps I was, after all. One little word would stop all of this, and still, I couldn’t get the words to form to give him what he wished for. My head was being held down, my cheek pressed against the granite, my feet kicked apart. I was naked, but I hadn’t worn a shred of clothing since I was brought here all those weeks ago. The collar around my neck was tight, and I was on the verge of hyperventilating. It wasn’t obscuring my airway, though, it hadn’t been placed on me for that reason. No, the thick leather had another purpose.
“Say it!”
“Fuck you,” I grunted.
He laughed loudly. Chains held me in place while he positioned something smooth and cold at my opening.
“Then enjoy the ride, Beauty. I hear it’s electrifying!”
My body was ripped apart as the object was thrust into my pussy. The collar around my neck activated, and a sharp burning sensation pierced either side of my neck. My body shook from shock. Literal shock. The collar, normally designed for training animals, pulsed with electricity. Short, sharp bursts. Not enough to kill, but enough to render me speechless. So ironic, considering he wanted to hear me speak one word: Viršininkas which meant master. One word that could end it all. When the collar was finally deactivated, the man thrusting the object relentlessly into my body leaned forward, stilling as his lips came to rest beside my ear.
“Last chance, Beauty. Call me Viršininkas, or I’ll have them turn up the current and fuck what’s left of your burning, limp body.”
Staggering, I collapsed against the bar as the memory slipped away as quickly as it had come to me. If I had anything left inside my stomach, I would have lost it right there and then. A large hand cupped my cheek, causing me to recoil. Hart didn’t pull away, though, and he refused to let me retreat, stepping into my body. Heat reached out to me, thawing the ice in my veins as Hart continued to overwhelm me. My small fists beat against his chest, demanding space he wasn’t willing to give. Slowly, sanity returned, my need to fight floating away. It gave my mind the room to notice that even though Hart was crowding me, he wasn’t restraining me, the only part of my body he was touching were my cheeks.
“Don’t fight the memories,” he murmured. “They will tear you apart from the inside out if you don’t let them out.”
“I want them gone,” I confessed through a tight throat. My trembling hands rose, and my fingers wrapped around Hart’s wrists. We’d been here before, in this position. Hart guiding me from the horror and showing me a way to use it. My hold on him felt like an anchor, and I gripped his flesh a little tighter.
“If you bury them, they’ll only rot and fester.”
“I want him to rot and fester.”
Loathing prodded at my temper, reminding me that he was hanging in the dungeon, mine to torment and control. Leaning into Hart, I found myself pressing my cheek against his chest. After a moment, Hart’s hand went to the back of my head and held me there, and it felt as if he were holding me together. Under that wall of strength, I could hear his heartbeat, his blood and life soothing me and my monster.
Hart nodded. “And he will.”
“You promise?”
Hart’s hand untangled from my hair and his little finger appeared in front of my face. It made me melt into the warmth of his body just a little bit more. Wrapping my finger around his, no words were exchanged, but another vow was made.
“He put a collar on me, an electric collar,” I confessed with a growl.
“Then how about,” Hart began, pulling away from my body just enough to put a slither of space between us, “we go finish this.”
Then, he kissed me.
11
HART
Unable to fight the magnetism of this wild creature, I pressed a kiss to her full bottom lip, fighting the temptation to take more. Her sweetness was just too strong an allure, the darkness in those big, doe eyes too enticing. With soft, tentative sips, I explored her lips, and after a few moments, she responded, kissing me back. At this I was fairly sure she was a novice, her movements were uncertain, though she seemed to be quite willing to follow my lead. Tilting my head to one side, I pushed a little harder, taking the kiss deeper as my tongue reached out to taste her. And she still returned the affection. Fucking gorgeous. Her taste, the feel of her lips, her little tongue darting out to meet mine. Lust surged forward, and my cock demanded entrance to her body. Ignoring those baser needs, I pulled away, leaving a chaste kiss to her bottom lip.
Somehow, I managed to give her something I thought long since destroyed. I gave her gentle, taking the sharp, tang of fear from her and replacing it with warm need. Pulling further away, I watched her heavy-lidded gaze rise to meet mine.
“Shall we?” I suggested, waving toward the doorway, feeling a little dizzy with lust but needing to regain control of the situation before I fucked her against the closest wall.
A trembling hand rose to her lips, the finger pressing reverently against the flesh. Wonder, awe, and a little confusion touched her features.
“Shall we what?” she whispered.
“I was going to suggest we visit Algimas, but I guess your temper has been kissed into submission.”
“I don’t like that word, submission.”
I nodded in agreement. I’d never liked it either. My own experience with the word had been degrading and excruciating.
“You’re not going to fuck me?”
Her question was unexpected. Did she want me to fuck her? Not at all. I think she expected it, though. Did I want to fuck her? More than breathing. She wasn’t ready, and she didn’t want it, even though her peaked nipples and wistful eyes suggested otherwise.
“Beauty, when I fuck you, it will be because you’ve begged me. I’ve told you, I’m not a man to take something by force.” A complex mixture of relief and disappointment hung in her slumped shoulders, her worried frown becoming somewhat of a pout. “Do you want me to fuck you, hmmm?”
Her lips parted to speak, but she paused, obviously thinking over my question carefully. In the short time I’d known this stunning woman, she’d been candidly honest with her feelings and thoughts.
“I think a part of me does, but I shouldn’t.”
Her answer didn’t surprise me. Her heart, body, and mind were at war with each other. There was a part of herself that she saw as a victim who should spurn all sexual contact. Then there was that long-buried part of herself that was all woman, and she wanted the control, desire, and sexuality that came with that. Following my own abuse, I was at war with my lust and desire for a long time. One humid, summers night in a hovel of a bar in Paso del Toro, I overheard a prostitute discussing her own rape with another woman. Her words sparked something inside me. Sexuality is normal, I’m not letting some el cabrón take that away from me. It reminded me for all the fucked up crazy in my head, the desire and lust I felt was probably the most normal thing. Then I fucked my way through half of Mexico in an attempt to gain back what I’d lost. Beauty was attracted to me, and I her. She was damaged, and tragically so, in a way I could understand. For her, I needed to do things a little differently. I couldn’t just plow ahead, I refused to simply fuck and conquer. This was different. She was different.
“There is no right or wrong, Beauty. There is just us, and it comes with no expectations or demands. One day, you’ll be ready for me to fuck you, you
will beg for it. You will hunger for my tongue on you, on your pussy. You will drag my hands to your flesh, and you will scream with pleasure as I pound into your wet cunt. You will like it, very much I expect.”
Beauty’s pupils were so large they almost eclipsed the blue that surrounded them, her lips parted, and cheeks were tinged with color. It was simply adorable that she could blush after everything she had been through.
“That’s very presumptuous of you,” she murmured, her eyes rolling.
Grinning at her boldness, I stepped away from the all too tempting vixen.
“Are you hungry? I’m hungry.”
“What about the girl?” She was quick to ask when I began to tug her towards the door.
I’d used the password Algimas gave me, and it worked. Then I’d sent a quick text message to Raul, one of the men on my team who was a tech genius. He would quietly enter the premises and dig through the layers that would protect the information on the girl. The password would give me access to the computer, but the files and information would be buried deep. There was no doubt in my mind that we would find her, and after Raul had finished digging through the hard drive, I’d then order him to find every fucking picture of Beauty that Algimas had uploaded to the web and make them disappear.
“I have someone working on it. We’ll find her, I promise you that.” Giving her a wink, I held up my pinky, and she curled hers around mine.
“You’re racking up quite a pinky debt,” she pointed out. One day she would realize she didn’t need a pinky promise from me. My word was a vow in itself. I never offered something I couldn’t deliver.
I led her out of the study, and her bare feet padded softly on the thick, wool carpet. She needed clothes. Pulling my phone from my back pocket, I sent off a quick message to someone who could arrange that. I couldn’t be dragging her around Lithuania in nothing but a shirt, however tempting she was dressed in so little.
We grabbed another bite to eat from the kitchen, sandwiches, another basic meal I couldn’t fuck up. When I asked Beauty if she could cook, she told me she didn’t have a clue how. Considering she was only fifteen when Algis had stolen her, it was unlikely. True understanding of her predicament rendered me silent for the longest time, and we ate quietly with only the sound of birds singing in the back garden. I assumed she hadn’t finished school, but I had a suspicion she would be quite bright. It made me wonder more about Lucy and her past.
“Do you speak any other languages?” I wondered out loud.
Chewing thoughtfully, Beauty’s eyes grew distant as she tried to remember.
“Hola señor.”
“You speak Spanish? Eso es perfecto, yo vivo en México, será útil."
The look on her face was blank. “You don’t understand me?”
Shaking her head, she took a drink. “Not a word, but it sounds familiar. I like the sound of it, and I think I remember a few words. Maybe Lucy knew Spanish. How old are you?”
“How old do you think I am?”
She shrugged and considered the question, her gaze wandering over my face and body as I leaned against the kitchen counter.
“Twenty-five?”
“Close enough,” I said with a grin. She’d nailed it, first guess. “And you?”
“Eighteen . . . I think. I might be nineteen, but it’s been a long time since Vir—” she bit the end of what she was going to say off with a curse. “Algis . . . It’s been a long time since Algis gave me any clue to what the date is. Lucy was born on the first of June, 2000.”
“Millenia baby,” I murmured. “You’ll be nineteen in another month.”
Beauty sank into her thoughts, no doubt bad memories fighting for some time at the forefront of her mind. The corner of her eye twitched, and her whole body flinched as she battled to force them away.
“Do you have siblings?” she asked, the tension around her eyes disappearing. Shaking my head, I gave her a firm no. Thankfully, my mother hadn’t left any more children with her perverted husband. Just me. “Tell me about your mom, the English lit professor.”
Memories stormed my mind. A petite woman, older, being forty-two when I was born. She always wore her dark hair the same, in a short bob. Her eyes were a dark brown, and her cheeks were full. She wore glasses that sat poised on the end of her nose when she read. Over time, my memories had gone from large visual moments to brief flickers of remembrance. Although I could remember exactly how she looked, and things she did, the memories themselves had dulled.
“She was smart and loved to read.”
“Hart Crane,” Beauty whispered.
Nodding, I took a sip from the water beside my plate. Remembering the words my mother recited with a soft look in her eyes, I gave Beauty a sliver of not only Hart Crane, but also a piece of myself. With hushed tones and wistful longing, my mother would spill words of lament, starving love, and hope. The way she would light up like a star when she recalled Hart’s romanticized, profound words always left me in awe. As a child, I recalled wanting that same kind of love for someone. As an adult, the only thing that came close was the cathartic release I found in blood and death. It wasn’t the same adoration my mother possessed, though. Where her love was innocent and saved for the pensive art in words, mine was malicious and nothing more than a selfish reward found in the tortured screams of a dying soul. Recalling my mother’s genuine fondness for this particular poem, I recited such sentiments as missing the pleasure of a lover’s touch, and the laughter upon their lips. It wasn’t a feeling I’d ever experienced, having never even entertained the idea of a relationship beyond fucking. And yet, as I watched the enthralled look in Beauty’s eyes as I recited Hart Crane’s poem, Exile, I found myself wondering what it might be like to possess something as wild and exquisite as her.
Her eyes widened, and she leaned forward, utterly captivated by the words that were filled with such raw passion it could make a stone pulse with life, or so my mother had said. When I finished, a soft puff of air escaped her lips, as if maybe she’d been holding her breath.
“That’s beautiful.”
I knew she meant it, there was honest emotion in her eyes. I’d never been particularly fond of poetry, but Crane had his moments, and that particular piece was close to my heart.
“That was one of her favorites.”
“What about your father? What was he like?”
My warm heart was quick to ice over.
“My father was man enough to stick his dick in a shy, somewhat anti-social woman while his own wife slept in their marital bed with three children under the same roof. But he wasn’t man enough to own up to his infidelity and do right by my mother and her unborn child.”
Beauty’s own happiness leeched away and her lips pressed together.
“Bastard,” she spat out. “Did you kill him?”
A bark of laughter escaped my lips, and I shook my head. “I’ll admit, I thought about it, but by the time I thought to look him up, I discovered he was divorced, had lost his job as an engineering professor because of an affair with a student, and was suffering from erectile dysfunction. I think it’s fair to say life fucked him over enough.”
Beauty chewed on her bottom lip in thought.
“Tell me about this boss of yours,” she asked, all serious and professional, arms crossed in front of her, body angled forward. Her candor amused me, and while I might have normally lacked patience with all the questions, I found myself preening a little over her interest in me.
“Charlie Decena is the leader of the Los Zetas.”
Her gaze dropped to my chest, and the blood red ‘Z’ that sat boldly there. Reaching forward with one dainty finger, she traced the letter.
“Is that was this stands for? Los Zetas?”
“It is,” I replied, enjoying the fact she’d reached out to touch me without hesitation.
“Who are the Los Zetas?” she went on, dropping her hand.
“A criminal organization.”
“Like a gang?”
&nbs
p; Chuckling, I nodded. “Who is one of the most feared gangs in the world.”
By just a fraction, her shoulders tensed. “Does this gang steal women?”
Not willing to sink too deeply into the goings on of the Los Zetas, I tried to answer as honestly as possible without giving too much away.
“Charlie does not condone the stealing of children.”
Had I not been the man I was, her sharp glower might have skewered me where I stood.
“But women are okay?”
“He does what he can, but his organization isn’t about puppies and kittens, Beauty. The Los Zetas are one of the world’s largest criminal bodies. If you were to tap into the darkest, most depraved thoughts in your mind, I can assure you the Los Zetas have been there, done that, and bettered it, and Charlie is the king of that darkness. For what it’s worth, he has good in his heart, something his father was sorely lacking. If it weren’t for Charlie, I’d be dead.” Her face remained impassive. This was the first time I couldn’t figure out what she was thinking. Her usually expressive eyes blinked and remained on me, but were empty. “Personally, I don’t have the stomach for the trafficking of any person, and Charlie is aware, therefore, he’s more selective about the jobs he sends me on.”
Ordinarily, I couldn’t care less what a person thought of me. In fact, the worse those thoughts, the better. Blood didn’t just coat my hands, it drenched them. My death count was high, I’d tortured, maimed, beaten, and abused many people, but never someone who didn’t deserve it, and never a child or woman. What this untamed angel thought of me was important, and I wasn’t stupid enough to wonder why. I knew. The moment I’d laid eyes on her, I’d cared about her. The moment she hissed at me not to pity her, my heart cracked open. The moment she threw a fist at her captor, I grew hard. And when her eyes filled with blood lust at the sight of my slicing open Matis, she fucking owned me. While I hadn’t completely pacified her rage that whispered so closely to the surface, she did lose some of the tension from her body.
“Who’s Gina?”
Beauty: Part 1: Blaire's World (Beauty's Duet #1) Page 8
