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

hammers, Mister Black’s were scripture written on the wind.
    Was he trying to make me feel good? Because he had. That awful tightness had lifted from my chest.
    This man was nice. Too nice.
    The air in the room became sparse. My breasts rose and fell so rapidly it demoralized me. Concealing my arousal was impossible, but in this moment, I wished I could’ve hidden it more than anything in the world. I knew what men like Mister Black liked to do.
    He walked a half circle around me. I heard the distinctive scrape then slide and musical tinkle of a belt buckle being slipped through the loops of pants – a herald as ominous as the slither of a snake. My dress slid away from me as he picked it up and tossed it onto the chair. My handbag, he knocked it with his foot then pushed it aside. The leather flap uncurled and opened, revealing the dark insides of my bag and a hint of gun metal.
    I bowed my head, looked away, and swallowed my misgivings.
    “What was that?” Swiftly, he arrived beside me, on one knee.
    A tinny sound keened in my ears.
    “What do you fear?”
    Nothing, nothing, nothing. But my eyes were disobedient and slowly turned to focus on the bag that held the gun.
    “This?” His hand, like some independent creature, searched in the bag and came out with my gun. He showed it to me, letting me see every part while that fear plucked at my throat. “You brought a gun with you? Look at me, Zorie.”
    I met his eyes then played with my lips with my tongue, nervous as hell but not ready to leave this earth. Not yet. Not yet. I had bad men to kill.
    “Yes.” I was going to die, after all. Reuben would’ve fed me to dogs for this, I was sure, after making them fuck me. “Yes. I did,” I whispered.
    Not being able to lie was such a curse.
    “I see.” He straightened and placed the gun on the sofa beside my dress. If I lunged, I could get it. “Thinking about grabbing it?”
    Fuck. I nodded, blinking crazily as I tried not to speak.
    “And could you use it on me?”
    Ahhh. Bastard for exposing this. I needed something secret at my core. Some rebelliousness, some magic. My thighs suffered as I bunched my hands into fists, scraping my nails along my upper legs. “No! Fuck. I couldn’t.” I sobbed, swiped at my eyes. “I hate you.”
    “Don’t hurt yourself.”
    I nodded, and hated that I’d done that too.
    “I think you hate Reuben and your need to obey. Not me.” Mister Black placed his hand on my head and patted me gently. “The lust we create is addictive. Anything entangled with that lust becomes a priority for you. The compulsion to obey grows. It will become a part of you, forever. That need to obey can mean not telling anyone about the arrangement you have with us. No matter how badly you’re treated, as long as the lust has you, you stay loyal.”
    Did this power they had create bad men, or were they born that way?
    “Most accept it. I don’t know if you ever will. You’re an odd one, Zorie.”
    He thought there was a way around this though, that he could teach me to kill men like him. That was stunning.
    The end of his freed belt swayed and bumped against his pants.
    “Bend over more, with your head low and your hands at your back.”
    Shit. I tried again, tried and tried to resist, and failed.
    Trembling, I did as he asked until my face was a foot from the rug and my hands clasped behind me. I felt the toe of his shoe press on my skin, just above my panties, and nudge my fingers. Bent over as I was, the split of my ass would be showing above the elastic. His shoe scraped lightly downward, dragging my panties with it. Lower, lower still, until he shuffled my panties all the way down and they only clung to me at the front where the cloth was caught by my body.
    “Nice,” he murmured.
    I felt on display, in a way Reuben had never managed. My slit moistened. This was like the moment before Godzilla stomped on a city.
    When would he stomp on me?
    When, would he...
    The buckle end of his belt