Dark Rapture_A Disturbing Psychological Thriller Read online

  Dark Rapture

  Logan D. Fox

  Copyright © 2017 L. D. Fox

  Second Edition, License Notes

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This work of fiction is intended for mature audiences only. All sexually active characters portrayed in this e-book are eighteen years of age or older. Please do not buy/read this e-book if strong sexual situations, multiple partners, violence, drugs, domestic discipline, and explicit language offend you.

  Contents

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  Preface

  I. Fool’s Gold

  II. Blank Check

  III. Blood Money

  Thank You

  Hush Money

  Upcoming Release | Swan Dive

  Read more by L. D. Fox

  About the Author

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  Preface

  One of the most difficult aspects a writer has to deal with is whether or not to censor themselves as they write. For those of you who joined up for my mailing list, I went into detail about why I began writing erotica, and the primary reason was for censorship. Or, more accurately, lack thereof.

  When writing the final scenes in this novel, I often considered whether I should censor the darkness this story brought out in me. Whether I should try and subdue my characters and their own dark urges. I suppose I could have suppressed some of the grittiness. The violence. The desperation. But that wouldn’t have been the true ending. I would have sold out… again.

  I decided instead to write the story that had to be written.

  Be warned; there are no unicorns and rainbows in this book. There is happiness, of course, but it comes at a price – like so many things in life.

  If you’re prepared to pay that price, then read on.

  But if not…

  I

  Fool’s Gold

  “Hunting is not a sport. In a sport, both sides should know they are in the game.”

  Paul Rodriguez

  Prologue

  A Special Hell

  Branches and leaves snapped around the twilight-cloaked figure as it raced along an overgrown footpath. The trail led a haphazard route through the thinning forest.

  A path to freedom. An escape route.

  Light glanced off the yellow dress clinging to the woman’s shoulders. Her hair, greasy and bedraggled, flew out behind her as she dodged a tree trunk.

  She’d been on her feet for more than an hour. She was barefoot; her soles were bloodied and torn, her legs numb and aching. It was deep autumn in this part of the country. The chill of approaching night seeped through her flesh and settled into the marrow of her bones.

  This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.

  She’d been so careful with her plans. Every step had been calculated, plotted. She wouldn’t have done it if she hadn’t thought it would work. Else, she could have stayed there, in that special hell, and let them keep doing those abominable things to her. Things she could never erase from her mind. Things she kept seeing night after night, things now branded into her dreams.

  A root snagged her foot.

  She tumbled to the carpet of dead leaves and crawling things, scrambling up an instant later. Her head swung around by instinct and she caught sight of the shape racing after her.

  She knew him so well that just a silhouette sufficed as identification. A scream throttled her breath. She pushed forward, her legs shrieking at her to stop, that they were about to collapse.

  How long had he been tracking her?

  He’d killed the others, the ones they’d sent away. She knew this because he’d told her. He’d told her while he was washing her hair in the bath and lathering soap on her skin.

  And he hadn’t been remorseful. It didn’t matter who knew: he could cover it up. It didn’t matter who he told: he could claim they were crazy from the drugs and were suffering delusions.

  And then he would kill her.

  So she ran, and kept running.

  Now he was behind her, snapping twigs underfoot, calling her name with a voice that didn’t sound winded, only frustrated.

  He always managed to twist things on their fucking head.

  The only thing he was concerned about was how far he would have to carry her back in his arms.

  She hated those strong arms. She hated his eyes. She hated the smell of him and the feel of his hands on her.

  So she ran.

  So she would keep running until she couldn’t run anymore.

  There had to be people out here, somewhere. A road. A house. Some-fucking-thing.

  Was he getting closer? Was that sound his crashing feet or hers?

  Her breath was fire, igniting her lungs, scorching her throat. Her body rattled with every lurching step, her teeth chattering together. Sweat popped out on her skin, cooling instantly. But it couldn’t keep that inferno inside her tempered. She felt ready to explode from the heat and pain and fear building inside her, stretching her mind like a balloon.

  The trees disappeared. Her feet pounded onto something hard and even.

  Tar.

  A road.

  She lurched to a halt, head turning from left to right as she stared down the empty road. It curved behind a wall of trees on both sides. She was on a bend, a mountainous wall of trees ahead and to either side.

  A sob tore through her. She stumbled further into the road, head swinging from side to side.

  Please, God. Please, please, please. Just one fucking car. Please—

  A crash of underbrush behind her. She spun around, facing her predator. Light slowly leaked out of the world as the man straightened his shoulders and let out a huff. His hands curled into fists.

  He turned his head, eyes narrowing.

  She turned too, her eyes flashing wide.

  A car.

  It hurtled toward her: a black SUV, tinted windows, anonymous silhouette of a driver.

  She flung her arms up, despite her body’s intense protest, and hobbled toward the car. They had to have seen her. But they weren’t stopping. They weren’t even slowing.

  “Stop! Stop!” Her voice cracked, and she coughed.

  The car sped past her, its velocity yanking at her dress and making it flutter violently against her legs. She twisted back to face it and swallowed a scream.

  He was right behind her.

  Her legs tangled around each other. She managed a last scream as the man drew back his fist, skin stretching tight over his knuckles and his tattoos standing proudly over the back of his hand.

  In the distance, she heard the car slam on brakes. Raised voices.

  Her head snapped to the side as a tattooed fist connected with her cheek. The world swept past her, bouncing when she hit the tarmac.

  Night swallowed her: numbing her to the feel of those hands sliding under her, lifting her, carrying her back to that special hell.

  Her own, special hell.

/>   1

  Stormborn in Stilettos

  The man was in his same seat again, watching her with that same half-smile painted on his wide mouth. Pearl saw him the moment she stepped onto the runway, the clack of each stiletto heel thrumming up her thighs and ass as she strutted. Her lungs contracted at the sight of that familiar stranger.

  The bass line of a sultry hip-hop track busted from the massive speakers stacked to either side of the strip club’s intimate runway. Here in the Red Room, the VIP section of The Doll House, the runway was only a few feet in length, and its mandatory pole speared the center of a circular dais less than ten feet across. Which meant Pearl’s assets were within easy pawing distance.

  Another feature of the Red Room: pawing her assets was not only allowed, but encouraged.

  The man, dressed in a suit that she could only assume was an Armani or something similarly lavish from the play of light on the gorgeous fabric, had never attempted to touch her. Surprisingly. Most of the guys who came to the Red Room were only here for the limited action their sizeable entrance fees allowed: being able to manhandle her ass when it came within reach.

  Pearl fell into her dance with only a second’s hesitation, after finally forcing oxygen back into her lungs. She thrust out her hips in time with the pumping rhythm clamoring through the narrow room. The sound system almost drowned out her audience’s enthusiastic whistles.

  You could take an animal out of the wild…

  Forcing her eyes away from sexy Mr. Armani — the kind of sexy where you put a crick in your neck if he walked past you on the street — took considerable effort, but Pearl managed. Her boss was running a ‘Game of Thrones’ theme this week, so she’d been dressed in a skanky imitation of the Mother of Dragon’s outfit: complete with thigh-high stiletto boots in pale faux-kid. Her hair — naturally red and just covering her earlobes — had been stuffed under a fake mop of ash-blond tresses.

  She looked ridiculous, of course… but hot enough to fog up a car’s windscreen in summer.

  Pearl swung around, turning her back to the crowd as she let the music take full control of her body. She’d loved dancing ever since she’d chomped ecstasy at a rave club back in high school… back when they’d still been called raves.

  God, that felt like centuries ago.

  Her leg swept out, hooking the pole behind her as she bent over backwards. She grabbed the slick metal with both hands, getting an upside-down view of Mr. Armani as she did — was that smile a little deeper now? — and released one of her hands so she could twirl around the pole with sinuous grace.

  She loved her job. Well, the dancing bit, anyway.

  Yes, she was a stripper.

  And in a few minutes, she’d have to take off her clothes. But, for now, this small crowd was captivated by her rhythm. She held them spellbound with every roll of her hips and buck of her shoulders. The pole became a strong and reliable dance partner, someone who would always support her, regardless of what ludicrous positions she chose to contort her body into.

  She spun around, her back pressed to the pole’s cool metal, and slid down. A fresh-faced couple sat next to Mr. Armani, the girl watching her with large, doe-like eyes. They weren’t unusual at the club, just less frequent than the individual men that made up most of her trade. The two held hands, the guy glancing between Pearl and his girlfriend as if trying to figure out if she would agree to a three-way in some stage of their relationship.

  Not going to happen, buddy. The girl was obviously uncomfortable. Her eyes were skittish on Pearl, glancing away from her breasts and crotch the instant they neared.

  Uncomfortable… or maybe just shy?

  Pearl sank lower still, aware of Mr. Armani’s unwavering stare on her body, and spread her legs in a quick tease that synchronized with the start of the track’s chorus.

  The girl blushed deeply but didn’t look away.

  Hey, maybe doe-eyes was just shy. Lucky dude.

  Mr. Armani shifted on his seat and took a long sip from his tumbler before setting it back on its napkin. Pearl despised the way her stomach fluttered.

  So he was good looking; she’d seen her share of men, handsome and not.

  So what if he was rich? This club wasn’t exclusive, but it was pricier than most of the ones she’d stripped at before.

  So what if he’d been back every night this week to watch her dance? Maybe he just liked the way she moved.

  Pearl arched her back, letting her body straighten as she pushed back against the pole. It thrilled over her moist skin — the costume was hot and annoying, the lights glaring down on her even more so.

  The track reached a familiar cadence.

  Time to take it off.

  Pearl braced herself. This part had never been hard, but it had never been as easy as the dancing.

  At least, judging from the previous six nights, Mr. Armani wouldn’t be in his seat when she turned around buck-naked.

  Pearl teased the clasp of her sequin-laced ‘Stormborn the Stripper’ corset. Appreciative murmurs fluttered out from the crowd. The top came off after a furtive struggle, and she swung it blindly out behind her, looping it around the pole and using it as leverage to go into another languid back bend.

  Upside-down Mr. Armani was still there. He smiled at her.

  Pearl straightened a little faster than she’d anticipated, wobbling for a moment on her suicidal stilettos. If they hadn’t been boots, she’d have sprained her ankle. She forced her spine straight, tried to persuade her heart to stop hammering, and attempted with every fiber of her being not to cover her breasts.

  The boss was watching — he’d told her so many times that she was the club’s best dancer — and if he saw her trying to recover… it wouldn’t end well.

  Pearl let the shimmering top fall to the stage and sashayed up the runway. The glittering curtains beckoned her, promising to swallow her and keep her secret from Mr. Armani’s penetrating eyes… but this was her job. She couldn’t walk out.

  Pushing back her shoulders, Pearl spun back to the crowd.

  There was a yelled “Yeah baby!” and a “Take it off!” — there always were. She cast a few of the louder mouthed patrons a sultry simper and met her stalwart lover right where she’d left him: impaled to the middle of her tiny dance floor. Hooking her leg around it, she bent back and swung around the pole, letting her eyes close against the sensation of cool air caressing her nipples.

  With a snap of her muscles, Pearl straightened her spine and hugged the pole, both hands above her head, drawing them down its length. It was a gigantic penis, and she was—

  She broke off the thought. It always made her want to laugh. One of her earliest dance teachers — a wizened stripper with a spine suppler than a leather strap — had always told her to treat the pole like a phallic symbol of lust. She’d strongly suspected Ruby of being a druid. She could so easily see that nimble lady dressed in a flowing white robe, boning some old guy on an altar. In Stonehenge. During a lunar eclipse.

  Pearl smiled at the thought and then forced her face back into its vapid dance-mask: sexy, dumb, and hot as oil on a griddle.

  Her nipples tightened at the touch of the cool metal along her breastbone. She knew the men behind her were craning to see her breasts, but she also knew she was only one track into a three-track set. They’d have to be patient.

  In this position, her ass was within inches of the perimeter of the dance floor. She felt a tentative touch brush the easily accessible waistband of her costume: her first grubby note.

  God, how she loved that dirty, dirty money.

  Pearl turned, fully expecting the girl’s furious blush before she laid eyes on the sop. Yup. As scarlet as a Christmas decoration. Pearl gave her a full-lipped smile. She would call her… Bambi. With those large brown eyes and deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression, the name suited her perfectly.

  Bambi’s blush deepened as Pearl slid with her back down the pole and spread her legs for the girl in a not-very-subtle thanks for the
bill she’d slipped behind her costume’s waistband.

  The girl looked ready to melt.

  Pearl gave her another sultry smile and twisted, coming up from her stance butt first.

  Bambi probably wouldn’t be giving her any more money; they would have to call the fire department if she didn’t stop blushing.

  The music slid into a new track. Pearl took another swing on the pole, switching it up a notch by using just her legs to keep herself attached to her lover. She caught a blurred view of Mr. Armani with each revolution; was he actually going to watch her entire performance tonight?

  Her stomach went tight at the thought.

  Dammit! Why the hell was this guy throwing her off her game?

  Pearl lowered herself to the floor and crawled to the far side of the stage, giving some of the guys there a little attention. They rewarded her with more dirty money, and she thanked them by twerking her ass in their faces.

  It dumbfounded her how much men liked that maneuver.

  It was astonishing how difficult it was to learn.

  Pearl returned to her pole and began to toy with the laces along the side of her costume’s skirt. She transferred the grubby notes decorating her with pale green ruffles to the tops of her boots in preparation of the skirt coming off.

  The Red Room was starting to live up to its name; her skin was growing slick with sweat. She already knew her hair was soaked at the nape of her neck: thank God for the atrocious Mother of Dragon’s wig she wore.