Dark Rapture_A Disturbing Psychological Thriller Page 11

  His eyes seemed brighter without the glasses, his face more delicate.

  “Well?” he asked in a voice edged with frost. “I did mention how busy I am, didn’t I? More than once, I recall.”

  “You… want me to give you a lap dance?”

  Caden let out a sigh and blinked at her a few times.

  “Uh…” Pearl shifted her weight, hugging herself. “I need music.” This came out with a small laugh. “Dim lighting. Some kind of atmosphere. I can’t just—” she waved at his lap “—hop on.”

  “Ambiance…” Caden mused. “Understandable.”

  He slid a cellphone out of his pocket and began tapping the screen.

  “Which song?”

  “Anything by Missy Elliot or Marilyn Manson.”

  This received a quirked brow and a lopsided smile.

  “Interesting. I am not familiar with your Miss Elliot, but of Mr. Manson, I approve.”

  Pearl wanted to laugh. But she knew it would be one of those hysterical, hyena laughs that would have her institutionalized in a heartbeat.

  “Manson then,” Pearl agreed in a strangled voice.

  “Hmmm…” Caden’s thumb moved industriously over the phone’s screen. “I’m rather fond of his ‘Tainted Love’ cover. Would that do?”

  Blue eyes lifted, fixing on her. Pearl nodded.

  “Excellent.” Caden touched something on his phone.

  The room’s lighting dimmed. It might even have changed hue, perhaps becoming warmer. Sound blared out of hidden speakers across the room at a volume that made Pearl jerk in fright.

  “Loud enough?” Caden yelled.

  Pearl gave him a hurried thumbs up and closed her eyes.

  She stood for a few seconds, letting the sounds of synthesizers and a rhythm machine wash over her.

  Then, as it always did, the music grabbed her up and began dancing with her.

  Pearl jerked her hips in time with the music’s swinging, hypnotic beat. As the lewd, rasping lyrics began, Pearl slammed her foot down between Caden’s legs, an inch from the mound in his pants.

  He jerked at the unexpected move, and Pearl allowed herself a smile. Well, maybe there was some blood running through this marble statue of a man. Somewhere under layers and layers of bureaucratic bullshit.

  And she would make it boil.

  She knew it was a short song: she’d danced this a few times at the club. But she’d never done a lap dance to the twisted, demented lyrics before — as tainted by the singer’s lascivious voice as the title suggested.

  Pearl swooned forward, spreading her legs open. The skirt of her dress retained her modesty, but Caden’s eyes stared at her pelvis as if he had X-ray eyes… or wished he did.

  She slid the shoulder off her dress, drawing Caden’s gaze. The other slipped off seconds later as she began describing a wide, slow circle with her hips.

  Her dress slid to her waist, baring her breasts to the warm air of Caden’s bedroom. Behind her, the heat of the fire licked at her exposed skin, bringing prickles of sweat to the surface.

  She left the dress gathered around her hips as her hands glided over Caden’s shoulder, using his stiffly-held form to jerk herself closer to him. He was all skin and bones under her hands, with a few strips of sinewy muscles for her fingers to dig into.

  He inhaled sharply — loud enough for her to hear the sound over the blaring song — when she jiggled her breasts in his face, inches from his slightly parted lips.

  Another slow undulation brought her breasts, stomach, pelvis, thighs closer to him before she spun around and let her leg sink to the ground.

  The dress pooled around her feet.

  The song’s tempo accelerated. Pearl swung her hips, her arms reaching behind her for Caden’s thighs. He brought them closer for her as she sank down on top of him.

  That mound in his pants was rock hard.

  Pearl shimmied up his body, giving him a full, uninterrupted view of her ass as she undulated it front of him. Then she sank down again, grinding into his lap in time with Manson’s husky voice. She reached up, grabbing the back of Caden’s neck as she arched her back.

  He lifted his hands but dropped them without touching her.

  That kind of club, hey?

  Pearl smiled again and bucked her hips into his groin. Caden groaned loudly.

  The lacy yellow panties — courtesy of the Fox Pit — were starting to cling to her.

  This was new.

  Pearl closed her eyes again and began toying with the elastic band of the panties. Her hips rocked from side to side at the same teasing pace as before. Caden’s hands crept forward, and she thrust back into his groin again.

  Long, cool fingers slid over the top of her thighs, digging hard into her flesh as she ground against his dick.

  Pearl maneuvered her fingers behind her, sliding them between her and Caden. Her fingers deftly unbuttoned his pants; as much as she was enjoying being chafed by his buttons, she’d prefer to have something left of her feminine bits by the time the dance was finished.

  Caden caught her wrist but didn’t pull her away as she parted the two halves of the rough fabric.

  Heat cascaded over her sex, awakening a torrid inferno deep inside her. The music, the fire, the smell of Caden’s citrus cologne — it all mingled into a smorgasbord of exotic temptation she couldn’t resist.

  Pearl sank over Caden’s stiff shaft, still trapped as it was in his silky boxers. She rubbed her sex over its length, her breath catching in her throat at the sensation.

  Caden’s fingers traveled up her waist, catching a breast in each hand and squeezing roughly at them. Pearl gasped and tossed back her head, twirling her hips over his dick. It throbbed in response, as if trying to escape the confines of his underwear.

  She was soaked.

  Pearl’s cheeks blistered with heat. Sweat trickled down her back, disappearing when she arched against Caden’s body again. A tattooed hand trailed up and gripped her throat. She rested her head on Caden’s shoulder as she kept up the slow grind on his nether regions.

  He shuddered under her, his grip around her neck tightening until sparks of fear raced across her skin at the thought that he might forget that she needed oxygen to live.

  His breath touched the side of her neck. Seconds later, a mouth touched her skin.

  Pearl bucked, groaning deeply as she forced his shaft to make contact with the damp fabric over her clit.

  Caden growled in response, abandoning her breast and instead tugging at her hipbone. Responding to his insistent fingers, Pearl began riding him, her clit gliding over his cock as it throbbed beneath her.

  The breath on her neck turned into a pant.

  She struggled for breath herself, her sex aching with a wanton need for penetration; the denial was almost too much to bear.

  “Faster,” Caden whispered into her ear.

  His voice made her break out in goose bumps. The music became frenzied. The fire popped, and a surge of heat rushed over Pearl.

  She wanted to grab his dick out and shove it inside her. Wanted to feel its entirety filling her. But somehow he’d trapped her hands at his side. When had that happened?

  There was no recourse: she had to keep undulating her spine, dragging her damp underwear over his silky erection in an effort to end her perverse suffering.

  Caden’s breathing was intense, hot, sporadic on the side of her neck.

  The end of the song tore toward her. Again, the fire popped.

  Executive-Assistant Caden bit the side of her neck.

  Pearl cried out in shock, surprise, and ecstasy as she came.

  Caden bucked under her, slamming his still-bound cock into her sex. He shuddered, groaning into her ear as he orgasmed under her while she still clung to the precipice of reality and fought to not get dragged under by the waves of bliss rolling over her.

  The song trailed away, whispered words of promise lingering in the air as the fire crackled a few feet from Pearl’s quivering body.

&nb
sp; She slumped onto Caden, her breath tearing through her. His own breathing was labored, and he touched his mouth to her neck in a feather-light kiss before running his hand down the length of her body, pausing only once to squeeze roughly at a breast.

  When she trusted her legs, Pearl pushed herself up and tottered forward to collect her dress.

  Slipping it over her head, she turned to Caden.

  He watched her with unreadable eyes and parted lips. Then he buttoned his jeans and rose to his feet, towering over her by more than a foot. She hadn’t realized he was so tall until now.

  “Excellent, Miss Buchanan. Excellent.”

  And then he tugged his phone from his pocket and tapped against the screen a few times, his eyes not returning to hers. He lifted the phone to his ear, caught firelight in his eyes as he stared sightlessly at the fireplace, and said, “Is Opal ready?”

  Pearl took a step back, nausea welling up inside her. She still ached from her orgasm, her legs trembling and her skin too sensitive to be pleasant.

  She turned and hurried from the room, heat burning in her eyes with the promise of tears to extinguish their fire.

  The door opened on an insistent tug at its handle, and she banged her shoulder on the frame as she ran through. The hallway outside blurred. Pearl threw herself forward, willing her tears to stay until she could curl up into a ball in a dark, secret hole and let them out.

  Footsteps came up the stairs as she cannoned down them. She had enough presence of mind to flatten herself against the wall as she passed Seth, the block of a man leading a wary-eyed Opal up the stairs.

  Through her blurred vision, Seth’s face looked carved of stone; his eyes black marbles with no soul behind them. An automaton.

  A ragged gasp escaped Pearl’s lips as she fought back her sobs, but then she had passed them and her feet were pounding down the stairs, leading her deeper inside the malevolent, organic tract of the Fox Pit.

  Into its stomach, where it would digest her.

  She stumbled through the fox den and into her room. Found her way to the bed through a deluge of tears. Burrowed deep inside the coolness of the blankets. And smelled the muskiness of her own wretched arousal as darkness consumed her.

  8

  Caging the Stray

  Pearl woke to the smell of strong coffee and the sound of giggling. She arched her back and extended her limbs in a delicious stretch that ended abruptly when she remembered whose silken sheets she lay on.

  She came upright in an instant, duvet clutched to her chest. She’d wriggled out of the diaphanous dress she’d worn to Caden’s room sometime during the night. Only her panties were still on. Grimacing, Pearl slid her feet out of the bed and stared through the partition to Gia’s side of the room.

  Nothing. Either the girl was fast asleep or she’d already risen.

  Pearl slipped into the creased dress, giving another grimace when she caught a hint of Caden’s cologne, and went to the cupboard to retrieve clean clothes.

  For a moment, she stared at the row of lemon-colored dresses, her skin prickling. Then she opened the other door, her eyebrows lifting at the sight of pale yellow sweatpants and jumpers. That was better.

  She grabbed a set of sweats and pushed open the room’s door.

  The giggling stopped.

  Pearl stuck her head out. Opal, Ivy, and Gia were in the living room, clustered together on a single sofa. To their side sat Seth, wearing a gray t-shirt that strained against his bulk. The girls each had a bright, yellow mug in hand, matching their identical mustard jumpers. Gia was trying her best to shove an entire croissant into her mouth.

  “Coffee?” Seth asked in his rumble of a voice.

  Pearl clutched her fresh clothes closer and gave a small nod. “Sure. I’ll be right out.”

  He pushed up from the sofa, not acknowledging her statement. When she glanced back, three pairs of eyes were fixed on her. Pearl ducked her head and slipped into the bathroom.

  She paused for a second to stare.

  Morgan hadn’t been joking when she’d said it was more of a shower room than a bathroom. The opposite wall seemed to consist of one gigantic shower with three individual showerheads. To the right, three toilet stalls. Across from them, a row of basins. In the middle — with more than enough room to move around it without falling in — was a massive, sunken tub.

  The entire room was laid out in gold-veined marble. The taps were bright yellow, mimicking gold, and even the mirror had a golden tinge. It made her think of Owen’s apartment at the Plaza Hotel: a room made to exude money. She was mildly disappointed when the toilet water was just normal water, and not tinged pink or blue and smelling of peonies or something.

  She washed off the feel of Caden’s hands and lingering traces of her visit with him as quickly as possible. Then she spent long moments under as-hot-as-she-could-bear water before toweling off and getting dressed.

  Seth waited outside the door with a cup of coffee in his hands.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled, taking it from him.

  Her eyes didn’t feel quite as puffy as earlier, but her brain still buzzed with half-formed thoughts and quickly suppressed memories of last night.

  “Bring it with you,” Seth said and strode through the now empty living room.

  Had he told the other girls to leave? What did they do whenever they weren’t being molested by a member of the Fox Pit or their highly secretive, filthy rich guests?

  Seth led her up the curved staircase and through the villa’s main hallway.

  Once they’d passed the den, Seth opened a set of glass doors and led them onto a patio.

  The view was as expansive as the patio. Out there, a distant town was hedged by distant mountains. They were on a tall slope of land, a few smaller hillocks jutting out around the villa like a mother’s protective embrace. The air was crisp but not too cold and a sweeping roof supported by arching clay columns kept most of the early-morning sunlight from the patio. Whoever had designed the Fox Pit had preferred organic, natural substances over anything modern: more clay, stone, and wood abounded here than Pearl had ever seen.

  Seth drew out a padded wooden chair from the eighteen-eater outdoor table. Pearl sank onto it, struggling to take her eyes from the view.

  He sat opposite her, her gaze following him as he made his way around the table. There was a food station to the right, built into the patio’s arching walls: a four-foot long grill, kitchen cabinets, a floor-level fridge.

  Would Seth come out here some evenings, light up the grill, and throw some dogs on the fire? Or some burgers? Would he chug back a few beers while he and Caden talked sports?

  Somehow, it was unimaginable.

  “What’s the kinkiest you’ve ever had it?” Seth asked.

  Pearl swung to face him, eyes wide. She clutched her coffee cup closer, savoring its warmth and familiarity. The brew was rich and aromatic.

  “Uh… well…” she tried to ignore the heat rushing up her neck.

  Seth seemed undeterred by her shyness. “Pearl?”

  She pursed her lips. “Honest to God, I don’t know what else you could possibly want to know. Didn’t that form tell you enough about me?”

  “Not what I’m asking.” Seth’s eyes were the color of black glass. “I need to know what you thought of as the kinkiest sex you’ve ever had.”

  She took a breath, held it in her belly, and stared past Seth at the view. What town was that? Would he tell her if she asked? Probably not.

  “I was blindfolded once. That was quite… interesting.” She squirmed. Telling a complete stranger about the intimate details of her sex life should feel more normal at this stage, right? So why didn’t it?

  Seth pressed his palms to the table and leaned back, sucking in a short, sharp breath through his nose.

  “That’s it? You’re a fucking stripper—”

  Words exploded from her. “I’ve never had sex for money.” Pearl pressed her lips closed for a second before taking a long swallow of coffee. �
��Until now, of course.”

  Seth shook his head and folded his arms across his chest. It made his biceps pop out and strain against his shirt. She’d seen a handful of tattoos on his chest when he’d been in bed with Ivy, but nothing approaching Caden’s excessive amount of ink.

  “Why the fuck Owen sent you, I don’t know,” Seth murmured with another shake of his head. Then, louder, “There’re some basic principles you need to wrap your head around. It’ll be a lot to take in at once, but I suggest you try. It’ll make this—” a flick of his hand “—a lot easier.”

  Pearl nodded. Her intestines had begun coiling in her stomach. She gripped her hands in her lap, trying to loosen her shoulders as Seth spoke. Somehow, his deadpan face and monotonous voice helped. It felt like the first day at a new job. Which, obviously, it was. ‘Here’s the fridge, you’d better label your stuff, or else Fred’ll eat it. Here’s your table. Please don’t keep food in your drawers, we don’t want rats. Make sure to let Beth at switchboard know when you go out for lunch—’

  Seth’s voice cut through her reverie.

  “You get a day every week off to do whatever you want. But I’m warning you now: you’ll still get calls from Tanner or Jarred or Caden when they’re here, and you’ll have to see to them. Because: contract.”

  He paused, arms tightening as he studied her. Shrugging both shoulders, he lifted his eyebrows at her.

  “Okay,” Pearl said.

  He nodded and went on. “The guests are called wolves, dragons, or hares. They wear masks during their scenes. It protects their identities, and that way you know what they’re kinks are and how you’ll service them.”

  Seth stretched out a hand and tapped his fingertips against the tabletop.

  “Wolves are Doms. They expect you to be one-hundred percent submissive. Whatever they ask, you do — no questions, no arguments. A lot of our wolves are also into bondage.”

  He paused, and Pearl nodded again. Her mouth had gone dry, but she forced herself to swallow. Seth tapped the table again and drew his fingers in a line over its surface.

  “Hares are all about power exchange. You probably won’t service a hare — you’re too new — but in case you are, you would be expected to be the Domme. You have full control and authority over the scene and the hare is the sub.”