Chapter Fourteen #6
He flinched. “We’ve talked for long enough.
I’m surprised someone hasn’t come yet, and we’re running out of time.
I’m going to have to do something I’m not proud of.
Something that will erase everything else that’s happened in this room.
” Loosening his fingers, he nipped at my bottom lip.
“I’m going to have to be what they expect. And you’re going to have to take it.”
His nip switched to a mocking kiss, his dark taste exploding in my mouth.
The sharpness of his teeth sent whips of awareness through my blood.
Tearing his mouth from mine as if he hadn’t meant to kiss me, he groaned, “Moan for me. Obey me. Do what I tell you. Suck what I give you. Spread when I command you. Do that and I promise you, I will get you out of here. I’ll get all the jewels out.”
I had questions. Far, far too many questions but his face turned black—partly for show for the cameras and partly because he housed a black soul.
His eyes flashed silver. “We might not have a chance to speak again. So just...trust me, alright? Promise me you won’t fight. Whatever I have to do to you, for the love of everything holy...don’t fight.”
The knowledge that he would have to do things that would bring pain and humiliation made my sense of justice slither and rebel.
Somehow, I’d been chosen as the girl who would help free Peter and the other jewels.
He’d chosen me.
This enigma called Henri Ward.
Through a strange twist of fate, I’d been given this task.
If I could end the jewels’ suffering by playing along, then...
I would do whatever it damn well took. I would crawl.
I would beg. I would suck, spread, and submit myself entirely to him because he was the only one who could stop this nightmare.
I’d do it because he was a good guy.
And if I believed in my father’s karmic wisdom, I might even go as far as to say we’d known each other before. In another life. Another journey. Maybe we were always destined to hurt each other for the greater good. Perhaps we’d endured this sort of test over and over again.
“I-I won’t fight,” I breathed.
His gaze locked on mine, smouldering with smoke and secrets. “No matter what I have to do?”
“What do you think you’ll have to do?”
“Hurt you.” His whisper went flat. “Fuck you. Demean you. Punish you.” His forehead crashed on mine. “I need to be seen as one of them.”
“To stay undercover,” I whispered, stating a fact, not a question.
He tensed and looked away. “Yes.”
He admitted it.
He’s a cop.
My shoulders slouched with unmeasurable relief, but then I tensed again.
The thought of him electrifying me? Of being inside me?
It was easy to say I wouldn’t fight when there was no one around and he wasn’t hurting me, but how would I cope out there?
With so many men leering? With so much greed and filth swirling in the air?
How long would I last in the pantomime when panic rose and preservation commanded I retaliate?
I didn’t know.
I couldn’t predict my reactions.
But...this wasn’t just about me.
Peter, Kirk, Rebecca, and all the other slaves I’d yet to meet had been here years. They’d endured for years. They’d survived for years.
They’d had no one, and now...they had Henri.
I asked a final question.
A question I didn’t really want an answer to. “You’re telling the truth...that you’ll enjoy it?”
He jerked on the spot. Flicking another look at the cameras, his entire demeanour bristled, but then, in a blaze of twisted honesty, he pressed his lips to my ear.
“Yes.” He swallowed hard. “I wish I could tell you I’m repulsed at the thought of hurting you, but...
I’ve been honest from the start, and I’ll stay honest for as long as I can.
The things I will feel when I’m hurting you will haunt me for the rest of my life.
I will enjoy it, I will want more, I will fight myself every second of every damn day, and...
I also know whatever I end up doing to you, I’ll pay for a thousand-fold.
Don’t think I won’t get my comeuppance, Ily. I will. Believe me.”
“Because of karma?”
“Something like that.” He sighed. “As long as you don’t fight me, we can get through this. Together.”
Together.
Such a comforting and condemning word.
“Just...promise me someone is coming.”
His jaw clenched; he looked away.
But then, he nodded. “Someone is coming.”
“In that case, do whatever you need to do. Do whatever it takes to save the jewels.”
His mouth suddenly crashed on mine.
His body crushed me against the spines of so many tragic, romantic stories.
The kiss was violent. Vicious. Stealing my breath and kicking my heart with connection.
As quickly as he’d kissed me, he fisted my hair, marched me to the centre of the library, then kicked my feet out from beneath me.
I cried out as I landed heavily on my knees.
My palms smarted as he shoved me forward.
And my ears rang as he stomped back to the towering shelving, selected a leather-bound volume thick enough to be used as a doorstop, then marched back toward me.