The Sins that Ruin (Obsidian Knights Secret Society #3)

14. Scarlett

FOURTEEN

I can’t move, my entire being is a complete jumble of sensations, of needs, of emotions. And…

That bastard.

He left me.

Bound up like a sacrifice.

He is erotic torture personified.

The plug in my ass only makes the emptiness of my pussy bigger and deeper. If I could move, I’d find him and kick his ass. If I could speak, I’d scream the whole damn place down.

And I try. I do. But it’s just muffled sounds. Frustrated whimpers.

Malone, a man I hate, a man I want, a man I don’t trust except to maybe protect my family, left me like this.

Dangling right over the edge of orgasmic bliss. Tied up in frustrations.

It’s beyond cruel.

Fucking sadist.

Tears burn my eyes as my clit throbs against the knots of rope. I try to shift on the bed, to bring myself off the side of the mattress, but he’s tied me so tight I can’t move.

Where is he?

Who does this? Who the fuck strips a woman, edges her to orgasm, and puts a butt plug inside of her, only to tie her up and abandon her?

What if he never comes back?

A hysterical laugh bubbles up in my chest. Of course, he’ll be back. This is a power play, nothing more. And if I could just rub my thighs together, move on the bed to work the plug, maybe I could get off myself, and then…

I stop.

Everything in me goes completely, violently still. Just the hard thud of my heart and the rasp of my breath in the air.

And then, beyond that…

Voices.

A dark beat of fear that’s tangled with something wild and thrilling passes through me. The voices swell and fade, and I can’t stop my mind turning to two sets of hands on me, two men gazing at me, wanting me.

I’m helpless, whatever happens isn’t up to me, it’s up to them, and if I enjoy it then?—

Oh fuck. What’s happening to me? Why am I even thinking this? My clit throbs as the lewd fantasy loops through my tormented mind. I ache with the fullness and emptiness, both pulling at my senses until?—

“Red.” His voice stops the spiral up to the orgasm in its tracks, makes it tremble and shudder. That sensual voice holds the keys to all of my locks, and it can give or take pleasure.

“What are you doing, Red?”

His dark tones wash over me, lap at my skin, and I shiver. I could come just from hearing his voice, I could sink down into its depths and give over to every micro nuance swirling in it.

“You can’t break free.” His breath is warm as it bathes my skin from my throat to my nipple and down to my clit. “No matter how hard you try.”

And then he stops speaking. But he hasn’t left the room, he’s still here. He’s invaded the air, my cells, and even though he doesn’t make a sound, I can pinpoint the moment he finally does walk out on me.

Again.

Motherfucker.

I strain my ears to listen, but I’m too lost in myself, in the sensations coursing through my body, the rub of the ropes, the pull that never quite gives me relief when I manage to shift my hips, and when he finally returns—the air turns vibrant, electric—and I almost come.

“Here.”

He unbuckles the gag, but then before I can say another word, he puts on an open-mouthed one and my mouth is stretched wide, so I scream when cool liquid dribbles over me.

The smoke and bite of scotch fills the air. Waves of pure deliciousness ripple through me as his hot mouth assaults my skin. His devious tongue works the area just above my belly button, and the feathery strokes of his tongue set off a tsunami of orgasmic bliss.

“Don’t come.”

“I aaa heee iii,” I say, just meaningless, nonsensical sounds instead of the words ‘I can’t help it.’ And he laughs. The prick laughs.

My mind shatters when his fingers push into me, his tongue continuing to work its magic, and he somehow shifts the knot so it presses against that sensitive nub, and now I’m fighting against that thing I want and crave, the full release, not shivers or tiny tremors.

I want the entire building to collapse under the force of the orgasmic earthquake his mouth and hands are creating.

He works his fingers in me until I’m shaking as much as I can, my body giving in to small spasms.

Finally, he stops, but I know his special brand of torture isn’t over.

He loves edging. So brutal. So vicious. So fucking incredible.

“You taste fucking delicious, Scarlett, like forbidden honey. So sweet. So dangerous.”

He pulls away from me, one hand grazing the side of my face. I can’t see him, I can only feel him, and fuck, it’s erotic—the slow slide of his fingers, the way he leaves sparks of need in his wake, like the touch of his fingers leaves a glowing trail on my sensitized skin.

“I shouldn’t want you,” he murmurs, sliding fingers into my mouth. “You’re too proper, too innocent in the wrong ways. It’s almost… willful, like you don’t want to see what your father and uncle really are, what they do.”

He drops his hand so it strokes over my nipples. A cool brush of air against my skin follows when his hand moves away, and then something cold slips over my breast.

I scream as pain bites deep, red-hot, and then a numbing ache as my nipple’s trapped, being squeezed. Then the next one is captured the same way.

The knot on my clit moves and that same bite sears into me, and I can’t stop myself. I come, convulsing as much as the ropes allow.

It’s pain. Bliss. Everything’s upside down and inside out, and I’m so naked I think I’m just blood and bone and secret, filthy desires.

“But that’s how they raised you. You go through life thinking everything is bright and shiny because in your world, it is. You engage with others who are just like you, completely ignorant to troubles that others experience, free from pain or hardship. Life’s just handed you everything.”

I want to scream it isn’t true, even though it is, in a way. I’ve been handed things, I accept… I… The response keeps slipping because he keeps touching me, his hand working between my thighs, rising up over my slit, and now, closing around my throat.

He squeezes and blocks my air. I choke on a shocked gasp. My body goes into overdrive, and the swell of desire bursts up through the surface and I start to convulse again, the pleasure tinged with pain, and made sharper, better for it.

Then he lets me go and suddenly he’s there, on top of me, and the tip of his cock rests on my lips. He thrusts in.

I can’t close my mouth, all I can do is slide my tongue on his thick shaft as it invades, all the way down to the back of my throat.

He pulls back, then slams back in, over and over. I choke, desperate to pull in air. But I want more. I try to suck but I can’t. He hammers into my mouth, and the lack of breath makes me drool and sputter.

He thrusts over and over again until he pulls out. One by one, he removes the gag and clamps, and I scream out at the painful relief that floods my entire body and sets off a huge orgasm.

“Coming?” Malone mutters.

He pushes into me, thrusting hard, my orgasm spiraling so high. Tingles erupt in every cell, exploding every nerve ending until the euphoria swallows me whole.

“Fuck, you’re so tight.” He slams into me, over and over, jamming his fingers in my mouth until he comes hard in me, and the orgasm hits me all over again.

I wilt against the mattress like a rag doll when he collapses on top of me. The wild beat of his heart thrums against my chest for a few sweet moments before he rolls off me.

I immediately feel cold when his skin is no longer flush against mine.

He leaves me blindfolded as the shower runs, and every second he’s not with me feels like hours. When he comes back, he unties me slowly, reverently and he leads me, still blindfolded, to the bathroom. Hot needles of water on my bare skin set off a barrage of aftershocks through me.

Malone washes me while my head and heart spin out of control at what just happened to me and between us. When he’s done, he dries me off and sits me, naked, on the bed. “Do not touch that blindfold.”

He leaves and the room’s cold and empty without him there. The words from before he fucked me reverberate between my ears.

I’m still sitting there when he returns, my jumble of thoughts still a tangled mess.

Malone eases the blindfold off my eyes and tosses the wet silky material to the floor, a soft cloth in one hand as he dries my face.

“Who was here?” I ask.

Those green eyes slice down into my soul. My pulse hammers against my throat at the heat in his gaze. There’s something so unexpected about this beautiful man that I want to uncover it, touch the thing I see in his stare, the thing he tries to hide.

The thing that makes me want to understand him, no matter how much I say I don’t like him.

He’s a complex mess of a man, layered. Cold ice and scorching flames.

Secrets.

There are secrets there.

His eyes narrow and the curtain is drawn shut. “A colleague, someone with some information.”

“Who are you?”

“You know who and what I am,” he says, standing up from the bed before walking to the closet.

I stand on shaky legs, intending to go after him, but my knees buckle before I can take a step. Suddenly, he’s there, catching me before I fall.

“Who—?”

“Christ, Scarlett, I’m the fucking man who saw the opportunity your family presented me with and I took it. I’m the man using you for my own fun.”

“You don’t need me to fit into the life you say you want.”

“Money doesn’t buy you that access,” he says, sitting me back down and returning to the closet. “Connections do. Connections like you.” He returns with some black clothes he hands to me, and I realize with a shock he’s in black, too. Head to toe. And he looks…

Beyond dangerous.

Utterly thrilling.

Beautiful.

I hug the clothes he gave me against my bare flesh. “You don’t need me.”

“Trust me, I do. And when I’m done?—”

“When my family’s safe.”

“—I’ll let you go.” He glances at me. “Get dressed.”

I sigh and pull on the clothes—panties, bra, shirt, and yoga pants. My body is so sensitive, and I’m almost positive that’s why he gave me lingerie and less constricting items. The soft lace is sandpaper against my nipples and clit.

Every movement reminds me of what he did to me, what I didn’t realize I craved so deeply. “Where are we going?”

“Out. To Brooklyn. As I said, I got a lead.”

I frown. “Why am I coming?”

“Because I said so. Put your hair back.”

A strange feeling slips down through me as I pull my hair into a ponytail. But I don’t say anything else because he doesn’t trust me, and let’s face it, I don’t trust him either. Earlier I didn’t question his silent command to join him at Dad’s. It was a total hoax, but he made it feel so real, real enough to convince my family that it might actually be.

It’s not. No matter how real the sex is, how real the pleasure I get from it.

So why would he take me with him? I’m sure it’d be easier to leave me locked up here, unless… unless he wants me to see exactly how deadly he is or the power he wields, power he can use to help or hurt my family.

Why am I thinking he might hurt us?

I give him a sharp look as he holds open the back door of a town car. And I slide into the back seat, trying not to breathe in his intoxicating scent, trying not to lose myself in that heady web he weaves just by being near me. But it’s hard because the back of the car is small, and even if we were sitting in a stretch limo, there wouldn’t be enough room to escape the other softer and deadlier power of him. So in here…

I’ve got no chance against this man. At all.

“Malone, I don’t understand you.”

He gives me a look as he pulls his phone out. His head stays down, focused on the screen as he types something. “I’m not a mystery. We’ve got chemistry, Scarlett. That’s it. I’m not a project or a puzzle, I’m a man who plays in the dirt. You open doors by virtue of your willful innocence. That’s something that can never be bought.”

“Except through the right relationship.”

He smiles, sticking his phone into his pocket. “Except through that. Why would someone like you mess with someone like me unless there’s something worthwhile about our connection? Look at you. You’re trying to make me fit when I don’t.”

I want to fight him on that, but he’s got a point. And I know it’s why my father and uncle keep the more sordid end of their business buried deep.

“I’m not willful,” I say. The expression on his face refutes that, and reluctantly, my lips curl upward. “At least I’m not willfully ignorant.”

“You don’t question things,” he says softly.

“I question you.”

“I meant your fucking family.”

Nodding, I suck in a deep breath. “I don’t dig in because their business isn’t mine.”

“They’re still your family.”

Why he’s being so fucking stubborn and obtuse on this is anyone’s guess, but I’m not letting this go. I won’t cower to him. I’m not afraid of this man and he needs to understand that. “I’m not my father. I’m not my uncle. And more importantly, I’m not the shipping company.”

His smile taunts. “You work for them.”

My fingers curl into tight fists and the final veil of pleasure flies away. “I do the most basic administrative work when I’m not doing my regular job. The public shit. I don’t have access to what’s beneath that, the private stuff.”

“But,” he says, “you do have some access, don’t you?”

I narrow my eyes, trying to work out the meaning behind his words.

“Why does it matter? That’s what you’re thinking, right?” He leans in close, his eyes firing into me like the hottest lasers. “If you want me to be able to protect you and your cousin… I need information. I need to know what they really do, the shit you claim you don’t know.”

“I don’t.”

“Then you’ll help me find out.”

The words play in my head as we pull to a stop. The area is ominous and dark, streetlamps burned out. I have no idea which bridge we crossed leaving the city, so I couldn’t even hazard a guess as to where we are right now.

Wherever we are definitely isn’t a trendy part of town. It’s warehouses and old boats and a dock, from what I can make out through the window.

Behind us are apartment buildings and dilapidated houses surrounded by high iron fences that give the area an isolated, abandoned feel.

He hands me a black tote bag, one of those relaxed bags that could be for the beach or casual evenings or work. I don’t even open it because he’s exceptionally good at nonverbal communication, and right now, his expression is a big flashing neon sign that screams “don’t even think about it.”

We get out of the car and it rolls away from the curb, the driver taking it slow, lights off. I tilt my head back and look up at Malone, the shadows casting a darkness over his features. A shiver shimmies down my spine when he threads a hand through my ponytail. He wraps his arms around me and dips his head. His lips feather against mine.

I sigh, melting into him despite all the warning signs begging me not to fall deeper under his spell.

“You keep in my line of sight, and you do what I say, got that, Red?”

I nod, and we take a few slow steps toward the dock, sticking close to the deep shadows of the warehouses as our cover.

He pushes open a door to the third one in and we step inside. The air is stale and dank, and a chill grabs hold of my heart and squeezes.

Something brushes against me. I bite down on a scream right as a hand clamps over my mouth. I’m spun around, whoever it is hauling me in farther by tugging on the handle of the bag. I stumble forward on the concrete floor with a yelp, skidding to a stop as I stare down the barrel of a gun pointed right at me.