by Esme Devlin
I hunted the bedroom for a bag and started to fill it up with rubbish. I couldn’t deal with living in shit. Paper plates and cups littered every surface, condom wrappers, and baby wipes. I physically wretched when I bent down to look under the bed.
Just then I heard the door unlock and James walked in, a mug in one hand and a paper plate resting on his forearm.
“I have breakfast for you, but you’re not getting a single crumb until you get that off you.”
I stood up to face him. “I need clothes.”
“I’ll get you clothes when I decide you deserve them.”
His face said he was deadly serious, and my body hurt too much to fight him. I undid each of the buttons and slid the shirt off me, letting it fall to the floor.
“In the bin.” He motioned with his head.
I bent down and did as he asked, standing to face him in only my bra and shorts.
“The rest of it needs to go too.”
I didn’t want to be naked in front of this man. I hadn’t cared in the slightest with Davie. I was putting on an act, pretending I was some smoking hot lap dancer. With James, every second in his presence was making it harder to pretend. I was conscious of everything.
“Please, don’t.”
“Did that sound like a question to you? Did you think you had a choice there?” He moved over to the chest of drawers and put the mug and the plate down on the space I had just cleared. He was watching me carefully with his dark eyes. He wasn’t right. He was beautiful but menacing at the same time. What had he said, I had made a deal with the devil? He hadn’t seemed like the devil earlier on that night. In fact, he had seemed like the good one.
He moved towards me and I took a step back, my arms going around my back to where my bra clasped together. I unhooked one half and his lips curled up in a smile. “There’s my good girl.”
Fuck it. I unclipped the thing fully and let it slide down my arms and drop to the floor.
“Bin that, too.”
My mouth opened to argue; it was a nice fucking bra. I saw the look in his eyes and I saved my breath. He was looking at me like I was prey. I bent down to put it in the bin and by the time I stood up again; he was in front of me. His fingers circled my hips, and I shivered involuntarily at his touch. It was sending signals straight to my core, and sore or not I could do nothing to fight the irrational feeling of wanting to feel him inside me again.
He pushed the shorts down my legs and I stepped out. He was at eye level with my most private parts and there was no mistaking the dark red tinge to the inside of my thighs.
“You’re sore?”
“A little.” I shrugged.
He swallowed. “You need a bath. Eat your toast. I’ll run you one. Then I’ll make it better.”
He stood up and walked out of the door, leaving me standing naked and utterly fucking confused.
Chapter 8
JAMES
Her tits swayed in the hot soapy water as I rubbed a cloth over her bruised and battered skin. She was shy, her face blushing as my eyes moved over her perfect little body. She would get used to it, eventually. Clothes were not something that would feature heavily in her life, at least for the foreseeable future.
When she was clean, I pulled the plug and took her hand to help her stand. With the added height of the bathtub, she was almost at eye-level with me. She had that look again, like she wasn’t really there.
I held out the towel in my arms, and she stepped into it. I picked her up easily and carried her back to the bedroom. She’d tried her best to make it more habitable, but it was beyond saving as far as I was concerned. I wondered how soon I could realistically move her to my house. I would have to be sure she wouldn’t bolt the second I left her alone. Who knew how long that would take?
I lay her down in the middle of the bed and smiled in amusement as she adjusted the towel to cover herself. “Feeling better?”
“A little.”
“You’ll learn to love it, Megan.”
“What?”
“That feeling. The next day when you can barely walk, and your neck, your tits, your ass, your pussy burns and you know I was the one who did that. You’ll learn I’m the only one who can give you that.”
“I’m not a pain-slut.” She argued.
“You know that?”
“Yes.” Her voice didn’t sound all that convincing. She paused too long.
I lay down beside her on the bed. She turned over to face me, watching me with curiosity written across her face. My fingers traced circles on her neck; still wet and slightly soapy.
“I could take the pain away so fucking easily. You just need to ask me.”
“I can’t.”
“Why? Because you’re too proud? Because you’re too strong? Tell me, who is here to judge you?”
She didn’t answer; she just closed her eyes tightly and parted her lips. That was all the asking she had to do. My mouth locked on to hers and I got lost in her world. I ripped the towel open and lay across her naked body, my hands running over her, only stopping to pull gently on her nipples. She moaned under her breath, and I caught it in my mouth, growling back at her. Fuck her pride, fuck her strength, fuck everything. She was mine, and I wanted her entire world to revolve around us — the only two people who mattered now.
I moved down her body and gripped her thighs with my hands, spreading them as wide as they’d go. She tried to sit up in protest, but I gave her a look that told her to lie the fuck down. I buried a single kiss on her clit and her head buried in between the pillows. I took a slow taste of her sweet pussy and watched her squirm, her little fingers twisting up to grasp onto the pillows next to her head. She was sweet, so fucking sweet, one taste and I knew it was over for me. I was addicted to her and her perfect fucking pussy.
I was gone, licking and sucking and swirling my tongue around her until my name was the only thing I could make out on her lips. When my tongue entered her, she shuddered hard and lifted her hips to get it in further. I could do this for hours, watch as her body reacted to every move I made as if she was entirely under my control— like a mindless animal completely fucking consumed in what I was doing to her. She was desperate now. My thumb rubbed at her clit while my tongue fucked her hole and she came apart for me, her legs slamming shut around my head and her whole fucking body lifting off the bed. I pulled away and watched her as she panted, her eyes closed and her bare chest heaving below me.
I lay down beside her and wrapped her in my arms but she wouldn’t settle; she was still in a frenzy. Her leg wrapped around my hip and she brushed down the length of my cock, which was solid under my jeans.
“You need more, baby?”
She nodded, her eyes closed and her lips parted in anticipation. I turned her over, so she lay face down on the pillows and unzipped my jeans before I followed her, parting her legs with my own.
She was still soaking wet, making the head of my cock slick as I rubbed it up and down her lips. I pushed inside her, more manageable this time, and she gasped as she adjusted to the width. Her legs tried to clamp shut around me, to put some space between us, but I wanted every inch of me inside her. I wanted to fucking own her.
“Hey... Baby. Don’t fight it.” I whispered in her ear and pushed her hair away from her face. She relaxed a little, and I fucked her. Slowly, gently. Carefully. Planting little kisses on her cheek while she sighed with each move I made.
It wasn’t long at all until she changed before my eyes. Her legs parted, and she was scrambling on the bed to meet each thrust with her own. Her abandon was making my cock even harder, if that was possible, and I felt the urge to hurt her. She needed this — she was practically fucking begging for it. My hand twisted in her hair and I pulled her head back, making her back arch in unnatural ways. “Please... Oh god please..” She cried.
“Beg for it.” My breath was in her ear. I pushed her face back into the pillows and my mouth clamped down on her shoulder. My hand reached under her, rubbing her swollen l
ittle clit until she shuddered and screamed into the bed. The other hand clasped around her full tits, squeezing and kneading them against her body.
My mouth didn’t give her a moment, biting and nipping at her soft skin while she struggled and screamed and begged me to fuck her harder. Then she held her breath and her pussy clenched around my cock, practically milking it with the force of her orgasm. It tipped me right over the fucking edge. My balls emptied just outside of her, and I collapsed down as she gasped for air and held onto my hand as if she was holding onto life itself.
I didn’t want to do this, but it had to be done. She would fucking hate me, I was sure, but she’d learn that things didn’t always go her own way. Life was unfair, and it shit on all of us.
I had always been like this, since as long as I could remember. Never quite knowing the boundary between right and fucked up. That’s a lie. I knew, deep down. I just never really cared.
I didn’t feel things like ordinary people did. I didn’t care. I found it hard to care about anything other than myself. Remorse? Pity? Regrets? Not a fraction of that inside me. They didn’t compute. Those were things for people who considered their own morality. I’d long ago decided I was better off without doing that. Davie had taken a typical angry as fuck teenager and turned him into a ruthless killer. He ordered me to drive complete strangers into the middle of the woods and put a bullet through their heads; I wouldn’t even ask for a name or what they had done. I had questioned none of it…
Until now.
Until her.
The mind is such a remarkable thing. It’s the most powerful weapon each of us has. Davie taught me that when I was fourteen. Go to the kitchen, pour a glass of water, and taste it. It’s just water. The same shit water it was all the days before. Now go to the kitchen and pour another glass of water. Only this time, imagine with certainty that the glass of water is fucking liquid gold, the elixir of life, and that it tastes better than anything you’ve ever tasted before or will ever taste again. I gulped that water down, convincing myself that I was a man dying of thirst in the desert, and something inside me clicked. He taught me how to use a gun so I never missed, how to snap a neck with ruthless precision, how to drive a car like it was an extension of my body. But he taught me the most important lesson that day… He taught me how to switch reality on and off whenever I needed to, how to change the perception of reality using only my mind.
It was the key to surviving the fucked up things I did daily. It was the only thing that allowed me to sleep at night.
I suspected someone or something taught Megan that lesson, too. What had happened to her? Maybe she had worked it out herself, I didn’t know, but I recognized that trait in her the moment we locked eyes. I had realized her straddling Davie — as if she loved every second — was her way of survival. That was the moment it all changed, and I began to question if I could still follow Davie’s orders as blindly as I always had.
I came into the room and she was in bed, her limbs twisted around the covers. She looked up at me when the door clicked shut, but the pretty expression on her face changed instantly when she clocked the needle in my hand.
“What are you doing?” She pulled herself up and backed further towards the headboard. “James?”
I didn’t have time to fight her. The clock was ticking and there was still so much to do. I stood over the bed and she covered every inch of her skin with the bedsheets. I pulled them back, one-handed, and she screamed as the needle came down to her neck. She should have held still, but it wasn’t long before the fight seeped away from her body and her breath turned peaceful.
I went to get the dress I had prepared for her. Nothing fancy, just a white dress that flared out at her hips like a ballet costume. Except it was no longer white, and I had damaged it beyond repair. It was perfect for what Davie intended though.
I slipped her body inside the dress and turned her over to pull up the zip. The white contrasted beautifully with the harsh purple welts that decorated her skin. She looked like a fallen angel, beaten and destroyed, and that was precisely Davie’s intention. They needed to fear for her life, for her body and for her mind.
When she was ready, I picked her up easily in my arms and headed to the car. The sun was already setting, nobody on this street would ask questions anyway, but I was thankful for the dusk.
I piled her onto the back seats and wrapped a blanket around her. The leather would be cold against her bare flesh. She was in no position to give a fuck, but it made me feel better.
Davie joined us at the club, and the car shifted as the bastard got in the back with Megan. He arranged her, so her head lay right on top of his cock and I gripped on to that steering wheel until my knuckles were white.
“Have you put her to work yet?”
“No. I thought I’d break her in a few times myself first.” I chuckled.
“That’s my boy.”
I watched in the rear-view mirror as Davie turned to look out the window and stroked her hair.
“She has a spark about her; I liked that. I must drop by sometime and pay her a visit.”
Not a fucking chance. I laughed, because he couldn’t know what I intended to do with her. He’d take her from me just because he could. He was like a father to me, but that wouldn’t matter a fuck.
“Where are we meeting Kyle and Paul?”
“Constitution Street.”
I nodded, taking a left at the next set of lights. “They have guns?”
“Aye.”
“They know the plan?”
“No. No one knows the plan except you and me. Rats everywhere these days.” He snorted.
“Not for much longer.”
If Davie pulled this off, everything would change. Davie would have the upper hand, and every single member of the Campbell family, including his new Mrs. and his sister Megan, would be ruined.
Chapter 9
MEGAN
I woke up back in the same bed with a dizzy head and not a single clue what time it was. I had clothes on, that was different. I got up in the dark and fumbled around for the light switch. I had a dress on now, and it was practically falling off me it was so tattered. It looked like someone had washed it in a bog; not an inch of it the same color.
What the fuck had happened to me? I remembered James.. I remembered the needle.. then it all went black and faded away to nothing. Son of a bitch.
I paced the room like a caged tiger waiting for him to return. I had offered myself to him. Why did he feel the need to drug me so he could do God only knows what with me? By the time the door clicked, and he arrived, I was positively seething.
“What the fuck was that?” I lunged myself at him before he had the chance to close the door behind him. I was lucky in that I’d caught him completely off guard, but he pulled me down with him and we both tumbled out of the room onto the landing.
I was like a demon possessed; I don’t know why, but I felt fucking betrayed. We had an agreement. We had a deal.
He lay under me and looked at the ceiling while I pounded my fists on his chest, my legs sprawled over him, my mouth wailing curses and spitting venom at his fucking handsome face.
When I finally stopped for breath he looked at me with longing in his eyes, but there was malice in his voice when he said: “Are you done?”
I nodded. “Why? Why would you do that?”
“Because.”
“You’re fucking impossible.”
“You need to trust me.”
“Why the fuck would I do that?” I stared at him. He was mad. Fucking insane.
He sat up to meet my face and pressed a kiss on my forehead. “Because I’m the only one you’ve got now, Princess.”
I wanted to ask him what did he mean? I felt like I was missing something, and not just the last however many hours he’d stolen from me with that needle.
“Don’t do that again.” I warned him.
“I won’t.” He promised. I didn’t believe him.
He sat up a
nd carried me with him to the bedroom. He was looking at me like he was starving, and I was a three-course meal. I suspected what was coming next before he even removed his top, but I wanted it. I needed it. I was angry, so fucking angry and he was the only one here. Maybe he was right; perhaps he was the only one I had. Either way, I wanted to hurt him... and even more... I wanted him to hurt me.
He put me down in front of him and before I had the chance to do anything, his hands were tearing the remnants of my tatty dress from my body.
I stared him in the eye while I stood naked before him.
“Your body’s telling me you think I’m an arsehole.. but your eyes are screaming fuck me.” He chuckled.
“And are you going to oblige?”
“I’ll oblige, but not yet. First, I will teach you a lesson in how to behave. My little girl will learn to be flawless. Then you can have whatever the fuck you want.”
“Whatever I want?”
“If it involves my cock, yes,” he answered smoothly.
“You’re so full of shit.”
“Bend over.”
I wanted to listen to him, but I was scared of what he would do. I thought I was brave. I had promised myself that whatever he handed out, I would take. But with him I always felt like a deer stuck in the headlights, vulnerable and utterly fucking helpless.
I turned around and placed my hands flat on the bed. He left me there for what seemed like an eternity. I wanted to look behind me, to see what he was doing but that would have made it seem all too real. Instead, I focused on the bedsheets and tried not to think about his eyes on me.
There was a little speck of black fluff just to the left of my vision and I stared at it.
