Free Wicked Ways (Dark Hearts Book 1) by Cari Silverwood

and I dropped my gaze to his hands instead.
    This was wrong but I was trapped yet again.
    My unnaturally heavy handbag weighed down my hand. It threatened to slip to the floor.
    Concentrate on... The shape of his large fingers. The dark weave of the cloth of his pants.
    Carefully, I laid the innocent handbag on the floor next to the pillow.
    I should be panicking, except he wasn’t, yet, like Reuben. Mister Black gave off a curious sense of solidness, as if he knew the world would wait for him no matter how long he took to accomplish any task.
    He took a square glass from the coffee table before him and sipped the amber liquid. Ice cubes clinked.
    He had an accent that gave some of his words an odd flip at the end, but it was a mixture and maybe retrained, therefore difficult to pin down. Spanish? Greek? European definitely.
    “Early in the day for drinking. Ten o’clock. But I find I ignore society’s conventions more as I grow older. Zorie... May I call you that?”
    Being asked things was unnerving after so many days being an it . “Yes.”
    “I know Reuben has been fucking you.”
    Funny how that word sounded so coarse, as if I wished this Mister Black didn’t know.
    “Tell me.” He leaned forward. “I’m wondering how he treats his women...”
    His gaze lowered and I could almost tell when he assessed my figure, my breasts, and further down. This man was perhaps only doing what any man might do but with these men, it was an invasive act. I had to force myself not to shift on my knees.
    “I think...he treats them badly. You also?”
    I stared at the coffee table.
    “Answer,” he snapped.
    Fuck. I’d jerked. “Yes. He does.”
    I could say this to him. It was almost a relief to know I could tell him.
    “What has he done to you?”
    He wanted this in detail?
    “Tell me.”
    I blurted, “Does he know about you?”
    Silence, while I counted blood beats. Thump thump.
    “You ask me? You aren’t the same as other women.”
    Wasn’t I?
    “Other taken women don’t ask questions.”
    Making myself stand out seemed dangerous. I pressed my lips together.
    “Tell me what he did to you.” That had been enunciated so slowly that I knew it would be trouble if I didn’t reply.
    “Uh.” I shut my eyes while the command ate at me. My willpower was being nibbled at, chewed up, spat out, shredded away to...
    Nothing .
    “He fucked me in front of others. Made them do it to me too, while I was tied up.” Wetness trailed down my cheeks from my eyes. “They left cum all over me. Left me in a dumpster. I don’t really know how many watched them do it. Maybe none. Maybe a lot. I heard clapping afterward.”
    “He has a fetish for degradation then. Not as bad as some. Perhaps not as bad as I was, once upon a time.”
    Not as bad as he was?
    The monotone delivery of his statement made it chilling. My nipples tightened – as if my body liked that he made a joke about his badness. My reaction scared me. I was falling ever-faster down some steep slope of depravity.
    “I wanted an excuse to have him killed and was thinking of getting you to do it. I don’t think that is a good reason.”
    What? Had I heard right?
    “You should be free of Reuben, eventually, Zorie. We tire of our acquired. I know I do. That’s probably a mercy.”
    He tapped his drink.
    “You won’t be able to speak of any of this to him or to anyone.”
    A word slipped out. “Maybe.”
    I hadn’t been able to resist. For so, so long I’d wanted to do awful, homicidal things to Reuben, whenever my mind was able to imagine, and this man had said he might want to kill him.
    What if I’d lied and said Reuben had done worse to me?
    “You think you could speak about it? Really?”
    Those words knifed in.
    I’d said too much.
    “Even to have that desire is unusual. Are you dangerous to me, Zorie?”
    To him? I gulped. “No.”
    “What do you want to do to Reuben?”
    I clenched my jaw. Again a little nudge made words spill. “Kill him.”
    His