Wicked Ways (Dark Hearts Book 1) (9 page)

She was a touchstone for me and so a creature of incredible worth. As I contemplated her, I felt the skin around my eyes crinkle.

I had to let her go so that I could gather her up again, at some future time. Annoying and sad, but true.

Zorie fidgeted, then she crossed her arms over her breasts and peeked over the edge for that dropped bra.

“Leave it.” Leisurely, I caressed her body with my gaze. Her nipples were gorgeously pink.

“I should go.”

“No. Not yet.”

After my revelation, I couldn’t bear to let her go so soon.

Coming inside her might leave indelible signs, but...

I created a wisp of lust within her thoughts and left it there to swell and multiply then I beckoned with my finger. Her eyes dilated.

“Zorie.”

“Yes, Mister Black?” There were tear tracks on her face from when I’d made her come, over and over.

God, the obedient slave half of her fucked with my head too.

“On your hands and knees.” Even with the length of this sofa, lowering herself to her hands brought her to within a foot of my thigh. I unzipped my fly and took out my cock. I might’ve asked her to put her mouth on me but instead I dragged her the rest of the distance by her hair and pushed her mouth halfway down my cock. Her gulp as she took me in was mind rending.

“Damn!” I hissed.

That she hummed an inquiry and peered up at me only made it worse.

Eyes narrowed, balls already tight, and wondering if I would come after a few deep thrusts inside her mouth, I simply left her there. When her little tongue stirred underneath my shaft and explored me, I almost told her to stop.

The pleasure was excruciating but it was worth it. I could hold myself back.

With one hand on her chin and the other in her hair, I kept her in place and let my cock twitch contentedly in her mouth.

“Just stay there awhile.” I stroked her, sensing the slowing of her mind when she realized I was doing nothing more than this. “I’ll let you go, soon.”

Soon as I’d imbedded this sight in my memory – my cock going into her mouth.

I didn’t like having to wait for Reuben to tire of her, but the alternative was letting others discover my existence.

When I finally had her to myself, maybe I could teach her how to defy mesmers. That could be dangerous for me, but I wanted her to do things that would put her in incredible danger too. Tit for tat.

I had money and I regularly used it for quasi-legal activities, but employing anyone to kill for me? No. I needed someone who couldn’t run to the police or implicate me.

In time I’d find out how this would evolve. I’d take that unsafe road because I aimed to rid this world of some men more despicable than I was, and also because I could keep her as a prize. She’d be a lovely addition to my collection.

My cock throbbed. I wouldn’t come. Still...I forced her down a smidgeon more. The slide of her wet lips and tongue felt incredible.

Zorie

If anything could ever be surreal, it would be being made to be still while a man watched me quietly, with his cock going into my mouth. Though he had coerced me. I could tell. I was growing ever more sensitive to the use of
will
.

But I’d enjoyed it.

I’d liked what Mister Black had done to me, and not just in that forced, artificial way.

Damn.

If I’d not felt a whore before entering the Hilton, now I did, walking out across that broad open foyer with my panties still wet and my sandals making that obvious
clock clock
noise. The taste of his cock was in my mouth. My bottom burned from the bites. My pussy hurt from being stretched beyond normal limits.

Mister Black.

Maybe I was a whore at heart.

Nothing was more truth inducing than being shown the darkest secrets you didn’t even know you had.

At least now I could see where I was in the scheme of things. Reuben would tire of me eventually. I wouldn’t be able to speak of it, but I would be free.

Thank god.

That Mister Black had made me doubt myself? Not good. Not exactly bad either. Was I truly that wicked? He could have been manipulating me. In fact... I halted for a second. Anything he’d said could’ve been a lie.

I was fairly sure he’d been truthful about the mesmers. There was no reason to lie, that I could think of. The other, my desires, when I’d admitted them, it’d seemed true.

The gun was still in my handbag. After the abuse I’d suffered, I was disappointed in myself for not being brave enough to use it, yet he was not the one I needed to use it on.

Instead, my perceptions had flipped. I and Mister Black had a connection.

The implication – he wanted to one day teach me to kill men like him.

That could be a lie too.

Damn.

****

I clutched my phone to my chest, looking out through the rain and dust-speckled windscreen of my car. Where to go? I should be a screaming mess and yet I couldn’t even call the police. The psychology of this defeated me. Somehow a layer of happiness existed that let me float above the terror that should be inside. I’d been abused, humiliated, made to take part in depraved sex acts, and I was, mostly, happy.

Happy but pissed off. Frightened of my predicament but unable to show it. As if they’d slipped some numbing drug into my blood. The logic was there but not most of the fear I should be feeling. When Reuben had me, the fear had risen closer to the surface.

Going home seemed daunting. Home was where Reuben would find me if he needed me. Or – I looked at my phone then dropped it into my handbag – or he might simply text me and say
come
. I would obey him too. I knew that.

Distressing.

I needed to do things that made the real world feel real before seeing my house.

Mister Black had dismissed me with a kiss on my cheek and said he wouldn’t see me again for a long time. I’d been weirdly disappointed as well as scared that he would ever want to ever see me again. If
he
came to my home, how would I feel?

Unsettled, I found a café and ate lunch then drove to the university. My office in the Faculty of Science building was a little haven of mundanity. I didn’t need to be here to organize my course but it made me normalize. The place where I went for coffee, my car park, the few staff here in the semester break, all these sank in, rebuilding what I needed – my self.

Except now and then, in the middle of the mundane, jagged memories popped into my head.

Being fucked in a cage. Thrown in a dumpster.

Shoving away that nastiness, breathing slowly, and moving on became a habit.

I checked my work emails and found a million, or to be precise, two hundred and three unread.

One from Cherie Wolfe popped up last and I smiled my first real smile for weeks. The girl had a rich family and could’ve lived a cushy life married to someone from her social circle but she was determined to do more than that with her life. After she gained a bachelor of science, she had ideas of narrowing down into medical research. It was possible with her current marks, just not likely.

I had to give her points for trying though. Through a common interest in swimming I’d gotten to know the girl outside the course. No apples on the desk, just an interest in the world as more than her private playing ground, and it’d made me notice her as a caring human being.

Cherie wanted to get started on studying early. Easy. I sent her a few links in my reply.

Now to get up to scratch on this new rule on assessment the faculty had decided on.

Two hours later I stretched and stood, my chair squeaking as it ran back on its wheels. I adjusted a small pile of paperwork. That never went away, even with the e-learning that propped up a lot of education nowadays.

Time to go home.

Lucky I didn’t have a cat. It would’ve starved to death while I was with Reuben. If only I’d not gone on that tour. The
if onlys
had gone around and around in my head before. Too late. It had happened. Take stock. Be glad I was alive.

Keep thinking.

Could I maybe practice resistance? Mister Black had given me that possibility. How, though? What would Reuben do if I succeeded? My nipples tightened as cold shivered in. He might do anything.

The drive home was routine, just Sydney traffic doing its worst to make me crazy, but I’d already been to crazy town these past few weeks. The garage door slid down after I pressed the remote’s button. My heart did what it always did, pumped blood. I was me. But I was no longer normal, no matter what routine stuff in which I immersed myself. Could I really function like this? Knowing he’d call me back anytime he wanted?

I had to.

Being away for a few days meant my mail box might be overflowing with letters and junk mail. I walked though my living room and out the front door to check. It was stuffed full and I retrieved it all, sorting it roughly as I stood there.

The petunias had wilted while I was away. At least the cosmos were happy. In the breeze, the white and pinky-purple flowers bobbed on their tall stalks. I gathered the mail catalogues and crap and turned to go back in. Some kids were playing further down the street, running around screaming.

“Hello.”

I shrieked, just a little, and dropped the junk mail.

Grimm Heller was here. In my front yard. Well, sort of. He stood on the footpath under the weeping willow and must have been concealed by the trunk until he stepped out.

Pretending he was inconsequential, I kneeled to gather the paper. “What are you doing here again?”

“Truth? I figured you needed a friend and I came past just in case you were home. I’m not staying here, in your yard. Too many strange things are happening.”

Yes, him, just happening to be here when I came home. Or was I being super-suspicious? No wonder. The men around me were making me that way.

Grimm was normal, nice, remember?

“Meet me down near that park down the road. Past that little lake.”

What?

Then he walked away. Stunned, I stared at the bright yellow catalogue for electrical goods in my hand. Why? Why was he bothering?

Why should I meet him?

Because, idiot, he wants to help.

Everyone was telling me what to do.

If I took the gun, I’d be fine.
Fine.
Ugh, that word I’d had to say so many times.

No. No fucking gun.

Guess I’d decided I would meet him.

Zorie

The park reminded me of that other time with Reuben. The whole peaceful communing with nature thing had always worked for me. It’d be awful if I lost that. I stood under the spreading fig that overhung the car parking area and took a moment to let the stillness wash over me.

I’d dressed in shorts, exercise top, and gym shoes again, so I could pretend I was jogging. The second time in one day. At least I was getting fit. Now all I had to do was pretend I didn’t know Heller? Why did he think secrecy was good? Come to think of it, would Reuben care?

Mister Black had thought other men would bother Reuben.

Though Grimm wasn’t my lover. He must think I was being blackmailed. It was logical, if he thought me an innocent sort. Which, I had been.

I wasn’t now and not ever again. I shook my head, dismissing that whimper from my past.

Moving on.

In a twisted way, blackmail was right. This wasn’t happening of my own volition.

There he was, over on the grass beside the lake. Ducks were cruising past. The jogging path was behind him and on the other side of that, beneath the shade of trees, was a seat.

He wanted to help. I took a deep breath and started running. He wanted this to look like an accidental meeting. As if someone watched? Unlikely, but okay, play the game by his rules. From past experience this was going to be pure frustration. Speaking to him about what had happened to me would be impossible.

I jogged up to him, slowly, and heard him say to the air,
when you come back around,
sit on the seat.
Feeling very secret agent, I did as he suggested, went around the circular path then slid onto the cool gray metal of the seat. Grimm had half turned and was throwing bread at the ducks, making plonk noises in the water. Masterful planning.

“This is all a bit silly, don’t you think?”

“I’m thinking ahead. You don’t want me here? I’ll go, forever.”

Panting lightly, I slumped back against the slats of the seat then wiped sweat from my face with one hand. The sun was out and glinting on the water and across the top of Grimm’s hair. The ducks were doing duck gymnastics and wing flurries to get at the bread. And Grimm was the most persistent man, ever.

“What are you doing?”

He eyed me, warily. “I’m going then?”

I swallowed, thought about saying more about everything and blanked out.

“I can’t say...anything.”

Grimm went to rise, hand on the grass, those big male legs gathering under him, biceps tattoo rippling in the sun. Automatically, I did a swift appraisal.

He wasn’t stirring me quite like he had before but that was only natural after everything that’d happened. Jeans and a plain brown T-shirt, cinched-back blond hair, and he rocked it. And he was leaving.

“Wait. Please.”

“Sure.” He waited, threw more bread. “Listening. Look. Like I said. If you need help. I can do it.”

“This is...” I waggled my hand, then half-covered one eye while I tried to think. “Beyond you. You’re a librarian.”

I’d said
that
easily. Could I sort of circle the subject, hint at things? But then what? Could he shoot Reuben for me? Go to jail?
Hah. No.
I didn’t want him arrested, or beaten up, or killed, if he failed. Like I might be too, if I ever confronted Reuben with the gun.

And I’d deny any wrongdoings by Reuben and his men to the cops, if they asked me directly. Doomed. I’d be Reuben’s fucktoy until he cast my aside.

“Shit,” I muttered.

“Violence was all around me when I was growing up, Zorie. My brother...did bad stuff, had some of it happen to him. If you’re in a hole, I know people who know people.”

Mouth agape, I thought that through. Grimm knew bad people? And he’d been a bouncer, which led to nightclubs. Depending on where, that could mean he’d been around crime. Or so I gathered. What was he talking about? Drug dealers? Biker gangs? Prostitution?

Maybe he meant he knew the ice-cream-van man? I was out of my depth here too.

A willy wagtail, eye cocked, long-feathered tail twitching, hopped across the grass chasing worms. The ducks quacked.

The day was too damn bright for this.

Did everyone around me have a sordid past?

I curled forward and buried my head in my hands. “Even if you
could
do something about...whatever. I...can’t talk.”

“Whatever?” He muttered something else and yanked up a stalk of grass, then twirled it, idly. “I think I’ve established there’s something. You’re here. You want me here. But I need you to talk. At least you aren’t saying,
I’m fine
.”

“True.” I lowered my hands to peer over them at Grimm. Yes. I wasn’t saying that. I’d edged closer to the real topic than ever before.

Skirt the topic. How?

“Graffiti. Haiku.”

He stared at me directly now, maybe thinking I’d lost it. So much for secrecy and pretending they weren’t talking to each other.

“One question. One, Grimm.” I took my keys from my shorts pocket and began to scratch at the paint on the seat then said quietly, “I’ve never vandalized before.”

After a few seconds he looked out over the small lake again. “Lost me. I don’t understand. Is this a strategy to defeat your lack of talking?”

Too direct. My tongue tangled.

Go around.

“The sky is blue. Yes.”

“What the fuck?” Grimm muttered. “So that’s a yes.”

A statement, that. He was catching on. Lucky I had a librarian and so he’d hopefully read some strange books.

“We need a dead letter drop. Invisible ink. A code book.”

“Not... Uh.” I wanted to tell him it wasn’t just the need for secrecy stopping me. Resistance was growing in my head. I massaged my temples. “No. Fuck.”

All the mind wrestling I was doing. I was stuck. The world squeezed in whenever I tried to elaborate.

“Graffiti, hey? I hear conflict, stress, in what you’re saying. How you’re saying it. I’m probably nuts. But, hypnotism? Has someone made you unable to talk?”

The man was a goddamned genius.

I stared, feeling bug-eyed, and wondered if I was going blue. With all the messing about I was doing in my head, I wasn’t breathing.

Answer him!

I gasped then drew a long, zig-zaggy scratch with the key on the seat.
Breathe.
Looking down through the gaps at the ground and some migrating ants let oxygen return to my blood.

“Prove me right. Graffiti?” He’d torn up another grass stalk and was playing sword fights or something with them while pointedly not looking my way. “One question. I’ll be back tomorrow, here, same time. I’m on holidays until university starts. I’ll make it simple. Tell me this. Yes or no. Do you want me to help you?”

Then he rose to his feet, dusted off the back of his jeans, and he strode away, just in time to avoid us confusing an old man on a walker coming along the path.

I nodded to the man and waited for him to stomp on past, before placing the key’s tip on the paint.

At first I was frozen. Then I remembered Mister Black’s lesson. I remembered how to side step. How to push against the compulsion.

Took me half an hour of stopping and starting, but I carved out a big
Y
.

If he didn’t return to read that, I’d given myself a headache for no bloody reason.

When I opened my car, and slid into the seat, I realized I’d brought the gun after all. It was underneath the magazine on the passenger seat. Totally illegal to carry one about like that.

That wasn’t what bothered me. When had I decided to bring it? This side-stepping in my mind might be causing side effects. Or was there another reason?

What if none of this was happening, and I was simply going mad? I snorted. I wrapped my arms around the steering wheel, and lowered my head until it touched the leather.

I contemplated the twig pieces, dirt, and grass in the foot well. The floor in here needed vacuuming.

“Well. After all the horrible stuff, I’m due for something nice, like going insane.”

Killing a person was said to be hard to do. Reuben though? I had a world of hate and disgust stored up in the sewer part of my mind. If I didn’t have Reuben’s eyes on me, watching me, I might do it. Except that would be murder. Imagining was easy.

I’d killed before but that had been accidental. Accidental at first, anyway. He’d asked for it. Deserved it. It’d been night time. Seeing him dead afterward had wrecked me – the police walking around, lights strobing across the scene, with me shivering and clutching the blanket someone had given me.

I pulled an ugly face. If Reuben didn’t simply make me put down the gun, if I made myself do it, what were my chances he’d stand still? He’d know. Mister Black had seen when I meant to do things.

When I failed, he’d beat me, or worse. Reuben wasn’t a man to stop at mediocre. He’d do worse. Much, much worse. My imagination stuttered; my hands tightened on the wheel.

Ugly, ugly thoughts. Me, bludgeoned and dying, blood spreading.

Maybe he wouldn’t go that far. Maybe.

Fear would stop me from shooting him.

If I couldn’t do it, could Grimm, my librarian who knew bad people? He wanted to help.

Oh, that was such a sucky idea – turning him into a murderer.

Wait... I let my thoughts play with each other.

Was that why he didn’t want anyone knowing we’d talked? If Reuben died, would the police ever connect A to B? Librarian to lecturer? We’d only had one café date.

“Shit! No!” I banged my hands on the wheel. “What am I thinking?”

I started the car and drove off, trying hard not to think about anything bad for a while. Failing, but trying.