Prohibited (Tulsa City Sinners #1)

8. Evie

Chapter eight

Evie

Evie sagged against her bonds, still breathing heavily. The leather tightened uncomfortably, but her legs were like liquid and not at all cooperating with her efforts to stand up straight.

Pain radiated from her bare backside, hot and grating. Looking over her shoulder, she could make out a smear of swollen red on either side of her ass with just a few distinct fingerprint marks leaking out of the mass.

She moaned at the sight of it, still not understanding the feeling that was stirring up inside of her. She put her head against her arm and closed her eyes. A strangely euphoric feeling had settled over her. It started up when he started to strike her and stayed with her through the deep loops of pain he coiled around her over and over again.

The violence of his hand smashing into her. Just the thought made her shudder and it wasn’t entirely out of fear. She had never been struck so hard. Not ever. No one had ever used the full force of their body against hers in that way.

Fury and humiliation had totally overcome her when he’d torn her skirt off and exposed her. Terror that he was going to force himself on her. Instead, he’d started to beat her. And god, it had enraged her. His presumption to beat her like a dog or a child. But pleasure had come nosing in, as out of place as a clown at a funeral, and had eased back the pain and given her the reins to ride it, to milk it while he struck her again and again. A strange, horrifying thought that such a thing could happen. Perhaps because it was him.

In the middle of it, she’d had to bite down on her tongue to keep from begging him to enter her.

Was she insane?

And when he was done, he’d pressed himself against her, pressed his face into her hair and inhaled the scent of her, stoking the desire that burned through her hotter than hellfire. The hot, rock hard press of his cock against her bare ass. She didn’t know that she wanted that closeness, his body encircling hers in a moment of stillness and strange tenderness born of the violence between them. Had he felt it, too, the air crackling?

Ryan.

Ryan.

After all this time, here he was. Like a dream manifesting. An angel returned to gather her into his heavenly arms. A memory that lingered like a pleasant dream. Remote, but never forgotten. The golden specter who had haunted all of her romances, radiating in the background, drowning out all of them, except for Etian.

Oh, she couldn’t think about Etian.

She was with Ryan now. Ryan’s prisoner. But to what end?

Ryan beating her. Ryan manhandling her. Ryan trapping her here in this cell like an animal in a cage.

A lump stopped up her throat and stole the breath from her lungs. She bit down on her lip to keep it from trembling while she leaned her face into her arms, wishing with all her might that she could free herself. Now that the fog was fading, she was becoming acutely aware of being exposed from the waist down. Humiliating. Try as she might to free herself, all she did was make her hands go even more numb.

Memories from the night before flickered through her mind, patched and unclear.

Something woke her. She’d gotten out of bed. For what? The washroom, yes. And when she’d returned to her bedroom the door was open. Heart stopping terror, she was certain it had been closed. And then hands came out of the darkness. Chlorophyll choking her into the darkness of sleep.

Then she woke here, inside a cell. More terror. Disbelief. How could such a thing happen to her? And where was she? Who had done this? A riot of unanswered questions that spun fear around her mind tighter and tighter, like a tangled string .

Then she’d laid there, quiet and still as the dead when she heard footsteps at the door. The door unlatching. Waiting for her chance to escape.

Only to discover that it was Ryan. Ryan.

Her first love. She could still close her eyes and remembered their spiced, hot kisses. The way he’d held her with his big, warm hands and melted all of her inhibitions away with the sure, delicious way that he kissed her. The way they’d pawed at each other until she couldn’t take it anymore and she’d begged him to make love to her in the potting shed. Her first. And god, hadn’t he done it. Making love to her first with his lips, worshipful and gluttonous. And then slipping his big cock into her cunt, splitting her open with an ache that didn’t at all detract from the pleasure it also wrought. How hungry all of her had been for him.

And then they’d gotten caught.

She never saw him again. She kept all of the letters he sent and hid them away, tempted over and over again to respond. But the way her father had raged at her, spitting mad and reassuring her that he would have Ryan killed if he ever so much heard his name again, she didn’t dare.

To see him again. Even under these circumstances. To feel the weight of his body. To feel the violence of his touch. It turned her inside out with pleasure and anguish.

She shuddered thinking about the strike of his hand against her flesh and felt the back of her eyes sting.

Was this revenge after all of this time? A disturbing thought, but not one that made any sense at all. She’d put up a good fight, exhausting as it was, and he’d still handled her like he would a doll, stretching her to his will. It was certain that he could have done worse. Anything he wanted, really. And yet he hadn’t. In fact, he’d fled from her. The look on his face when she’d looked over her shoulder at him. A strange expression. Astonishment. A revelation. And, certainly, shame. As if none of this was part of his plan.

So what, exactly, was the plan?

She shook her head and then tilted it back to look up at her hands, gone prickly and mostly numb from her bonds. In the very midst of wishing he’d come back at the very least to release her, the door to the room opened. A deep thump in her chest pushed her up onto her feet and she wondered immediately if she should have regretted her wish.

Her face flushed deeply as the footsteps drew nearer, though she couldn’t crane her head far enough to see around the rock wall that blocked the view of the door.

She flinched as a man came into view.

But it wasn’t the man who left her tied up like a sow.

“You!” she said, shock momentarily removing the shreds of her modesty.

“Good morning, Mrs. Colter,” he said in that clear, silvery voice of his.

Alexander Laurent, the proprietor of the Red Crystal. She had shared a cocktail with him in his establishment when she’d first arrived back in Tulsa, but had become unofficially a persona non grata after she started running around with Walter.

He was beautiful in a delicate but ferocious way. A man chiseled from ice. Though he’d been the soul of courtesy to her, the look in his eye had always breathed frost over her skin. There was something that glinted there, frigid and ruthless, that did not belong in the eyes of any human being. He was the same height as her, shorter than most men, but his presence could have filled up the grandest room in the world.

“Why am I here?” The words snapped out of her, one syllable at a time, hot with fury. Evie tugged insistently at her bonds, but held his gaze. Anger was familiar. An old friend. A tool. She clung to it, wielding it to buoy her in these dark, unknown waters.

“My morning has been quite pleasant, thank you for asking,” he said. He unbuttoned the top button of his suit jacket. “Yours, I’m afraid, doesn’t appear to be going in the same way.” He undid the second button and slowly began to shrug the jacket off. Those icicle eyes being level with hers was somehow more unnerving than if she had to tilt her head back to look up at him.

“You can’t be serious,” she said. She drew her elbows into herself, drew herself up onto her toes in some effort to cover herself, but it was useless. While his graceful fingers worked to roll his sleeves up, one at a time, she watched them, trying not to shiver all the while. Ryan had stayed his hand, hadn’t plundered her most vulnerable treasure. But did Alex have the same reservations? Something told her that the man had few reservations about anything at all.

“I’m quite serious,” Alex said. He drew a key from his pocket and slowly inserted it into the lock. The sound of metal scraping against metal reverberated through her and fattened the fear growing thick and gravid inside of her.

“Do not come any closer!” Evie yanked at her hands, at the leather holding her there. Panic fluttering inside of her. And despair, knowing that there was nothing she could do to enforce her demand. Humiliation at being almost naked, helpless. Furious.

He closed the cell door behind him and locked it again. Dropped the key neatly into his pocket along with any hope she had that matters might improve for her. He came to stand behind her, at least a yard away. Evie looked over her shoulder at him, though it hurt her neck to keep craning to look behind her with her arms tied up as they were.

The look on his face caught the breath in her throat.

A scorching blaze snapped from his cobalt eyes, drawing his features and parting his lips. Astonishment mingled with this thing that moved through him–some combination of hunger, desire, rapture. His pink tongue slipped along his lower lip as he stared at the marks on her backside. Evie shuddered and wanted to look away. The expression on his face frightened her. Frightened her because it spoke volumes about what he was capable of .

She didn’t dare take her eyes away from him, though. The animal part of her brain that moved her to survive, to run screaming from the seductive fingers reaching to her from that pit of darkness, howled loudly in her mind.

“Ryan did this?” he said, softly. More to himself than to her. A brilliant sort of mirth came over him. And pleasure so intense she thought he might come floating off of the floor. “He’s been a busy boy.”

Ryan. The name stuck between her ribs like a hatchet. Her Ryan.

No, not her Ryan. He wouldn’t do something like this.

Alex came forward slowly, almost reverently.

“Stop! Stay where you are!” She drew herself as far against the grate as she could, but she was deluding herself. There was nowhere else for her to go. No place for her to hide. No way for her to defend herself. She knew it. And he knew it.

He stopped right behind her.

“And these?” Fingers ghosted over various places on her shoulder blades, her arms, her thighs, touching lightly, one at a time. For a moment, she couldn’t think of what he was talking about, certain that the other man had struck her only on the backside.

But then she remembered. The violence of Linus’s grip, his carelessness with her body as he dragged her up the stairs, down the hallway. Laurent was referring to the bruises. The burn marks from the rug.

Evie scoffed, cringing away from him. “My husband’s idea of taking charge. ”

“Did you enjoy it?” He was so close to her now, eyes level with hers. She could feel the warm kiss of his breath on her face. The smell of him stirring something low in her belly, sending a thrill of horror through her. She could practically feel the heat radiating out from his eyes. Could certainly feel the heat of his body brushing her naked skin.

Gooseflesh came up over her body as he continued to touch her where her husband had harmed her. Her nipples tightened, turning to sharp points.

“No,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him.

A shuddering breath came out of him, as if her answer improved matters. It made her recoil slightly. She’d been expecting him to act disappointed.

“Good,” he said at last. “You won’t enjoy this either.”

A swift click jerked something low in her belly. She stood rigid, willing the ache in her shoulders to go away while she waited for something, she didn’t know what. Slowly, something glossy and pointed, sharp, came into her vision. A blade. His ivory fingers wrapped around the handle.

The line of his body came into contact with hers.

She made a small sound in her throat. Eyes riveted on the knife hovering in front of her face. His other hand came around her throat and he held her to him. Flesh scalding. He would brand her throat with the shape of his hand if he didn’t release her. His cock, hard as a diamond, pressed between them .

“I wouldn’t move if I were you,” he said, voice soft as falling snow. He placed the flat of the blade against her flesh and slipped it along her cheek with expert precision. It brought another wave of gooseflesh. Tightened her nipples and pushed them out, like the buds of roses preparing to bloom. The heat already ignited between her legs by Ryan roared to life, a rogue fire that she did not have the means to extinguish. Hot, honeyed nectar gathered there, moistening that dark tangle of hair, moistening her thighs, making her spine curve ever so slightly, while he moved the frigid metal over her jaw and down the side of her throat.

Dear God, what was wrong with her?

Panic breathed fire into her chest. Begged her to lash out at him, throw him off of her. Do anything to get this man and his blade like a frozen serpent away from her.

But sense prevailed. She did as he told her and didn’t move a muscle except to watch the knife move like her life depended on it.

“Has anyone ever cut you?” Such a beautiful voice to speak such evil words.

“No.” Her voice shook, though she desperately wanted it not to.

“What do you imagine it would be like?” he breathed into her ear. “If I cut you?”

“Painful,” she said in a voice as evanescent as smoke.

“Yes,” he said, voice thick with desire. “I imagine so.” The knife glided over her collarbone and down her chest. Then, he released her and the knife disappeared, causing a stab of fear to go through her. She felt a tug and the sound of something pulling and then releasing. The sound over and over again. With dawning horror, she realized her corset was getting looser and looser. The bastard was cutting it off of her.

“Stop,” she said, but didn’t dare move, lest he let the knife slip.

All she got in reply was a quiet laugh that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. He went on cutting the lacing until the thing fell away from her.

“That’s better,” he said.

All she had now was a camisole that stopped several inches under her bust, and the drawers and garter that were still trapped around her thighs, which she pressed together until her legs ached. But she might as well have been totally naked. Trembling started in her shoulders and radiated out through her body. Her mind was like a bird trapped in a cage, beating its wings against her skull screaming to be let out.

Unthinkable that she should survive the bombs, the snipers, the ambushes, the influenza, only to end up in this strange place with this strange man holding a knife at her back.

Was it the end? The idea made her shake harder. But the fierce part of her, the part of her that insisted on survival, burned brighter. No, this was not the end.

The cold blade of the knife skimmed across her inflamed backside, causing her to jolt .

Another laugh. Then the knife touched the other side of her backside and glided across her hip.

“You know,” he said. “As advantageous as it is to leave you bound up like this, I can’t see your face. And if I can’t see your face while I cut into you, well… where’s the fun in that?”

It was not even possible to accept what he was saying. Cut into her? He would not cut into her.

“Why are you doing this?” She tried to make her voice clear, steady. He was a predator the way Walter Stanley was. Giving him any more tastes of her fear would only enhance his desire to increase it.

A click behind her.

Then muted sounds, fabric rubbing against fabric. Then a sound that made her blood freeze–a revolver being pulled from a holster. She knew that sound because Walter always carried a gun in a leather shoulder holster. Every night she spent with him, he pulled the thing out and placed it on his bedside table before he stripped off the holster so he could get undressed.

A cold, hard touch at her lower back confirmed this as a fact. She held her breath, not daring to move.

“I’m going to untie you, and if you so much as move a muscle I’m going to pull this trigger,” he said in a flat, cold voice that was deadly serious. “I’d rather watch you die slowly, but if we just so happen to hasten the process then so be it.”

A crazed notion seized her–that she should let him unload the gun into her back. From what she was already gathering, being shot to death was the least evil of the other options available. Try as she might, though, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. And instead, she stood perfectly still while he kept the muzzle pressed into her flesh. His chest pressed against her shoulder while he reached over her head, working with agile fingers to undo her bonds. The smell of him enveloped her, a warm, woody scent that caused a hot throb between her legs. A fact that filled her with confusion and horror, and made her press her legs together with renewed effort.

Then her hands were free, drawing a small sound of relief from her lips. Another laugh from the insane man at her back. Her hands had started to go a little numb, being raised over her head, and the blood rushing back into them made them sting. Still, the pressure off of her shoulders felt luxurious. Alex didn’t waste any time flipping her around to face him with rough hands. He slammed her back against the bars, holding her there with his whole body. Though they were the same height, the strength in his body was terrifying. Beneath his linen clothing, his muscles were hard. It was like being crushed by a stone. Her hands were between them, pressing the air out of her lungs, the leather of Ryan’s belt still wrapped around them.

It was disconcerting now to be face to face with him, his jeweled eyes raking across her features, taking in every inch of her expression with a keen, cool interest that made her shiver. He pressed his forearm into her throat, cutting her air off for a moment. He held it there, while he holstered his gun. In a burst of desperation, she thrashed against him, but it was fruitless. Instead of anger, a smile of amusement crept over his face.

He took his arm away from her throat at last and she gasped for air while he made quick work of tightening the belt around her wrists. Then he grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her to the ground, twisting out of the way as she fell. The brutality of it was shocking. The impact with the floor knocked the air out of her lungs. She started trying to move backwards, away from him, but he was on her before she could even get a leg up to kick him. He straddled her hips and sat on her, rendering her legs useless. Though she tried bucking to move him off of her, he just hardened his thigh muscles and smiled at her.

“I do enjoy that you’re making this interesting,” he said. Then his hand went into his pocket and drew out his knife again. The sound of a flick as the blade emerged again caused her breath to catch.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said, her voice shaking. She lifted her head off of the ground. “Please don’t do this.”

“I don’t have to, you’re quite right,” he agreed readily. The blade came closer and closer to her face until he caressed her cheek with it again. She made every effort to stay perfectly still while he gazed down at her almost lovingly. “But I want to.”

Then, he wrapped his hand around her throat and forced her head back down onto the ground, cutting off her air supply again. He watched her face with the same cool interest, still holding his knife against her cheek. And when black spots started to appear before her eyes and she felt certain that she was going to faint and never wake again, he finally loosened his hand just enough that she could rake in a breath.

She gulped down a huge lung full of air and then screamed at the top of her lungs, “RYAN! Ryan, please!”

Alex laughed, a genuine laugh like she’d told an amusing joke. “You think Ryan is going to help you?”

To that, she could think of no reply. She just lay there, looking up at him, feeling the heat of his thighs radiating into her body. With that look on his face he could be doing anything–playing cards, having coffee. Anything but holding down a bound and mostly naked woman with a knife to her face. It made her blood freeze.

He leaned forward so that their faces were close, holding her in place with his hand around her throat.

“Make no mistake, Mrs. Colter–he wants you dead as much as I do,” he whispered. “But by all means, keep screaming.” His eyes darkened and his eyelids grew just a little heavier. “I do so enjoy it.”

Though she wanted to do exactly that, she sucked in her breath and held it, refusing to give him something that he wanted.

The knife glided down to her throat, his eyes with it. It traveled over her collarbone down her chest until it skimmed the swell of her breast. It drew a flinch from her that she couldn’t suppress, which made him smile. Then, he gripped the neckline of her brassiere and forced the knife under it and angled it up, slashing down the length of it until parted in his hands, exposing her breasts. A cry tried to rise from her throat, but she trapped it there and bit down on it until her jaw ached.

Eyes burning, he caressed her nipples with the cold flat of his blade, each of them, until they were standing at sharp points. Hunger heated his face.

“What should I take first? It would be a shame to ruin these perfect breasts.” With his free hand, he ghosted his palm over one of them and then closed his hand around it, kneading it softly.

Evie gritted her teeth and closed her eyes, trying with all her might to suppress the urge to shudder that rose through her.

Without warning, he gripped her breast so hard that it took her breath away. He watched her face closely while he crushed it. Worse than the violation of being touched by him in this way and the pain he was trying to cause her was the fact that it felt good. The horror of it caused her body to become rigid, caused her to close her eyes and try to block it out.

And then suddenly the pressure of his cool hand was gone. And still, she didn’t trust herself to breathe. And though, with all her might, she wanted to keep her eyes closed, she couldn’t help but snap them open when she felt the blade of his knife whispering around her nipples.

“So hard to decide,” he said softly. “Perhaps I start with your ears.” With his free hand he stroked her hair back, out of her face, and swept it away from the side of her head. He looked at her ear closely, tilting his head, considering.

Dear God. He wouldn’t. Would he?

“But they’re particularly pretty ears,” he continued, serious in his deliberation. “It would be a shame to ruin them just yet. Mm, perhaps just one.” He bent forward again, locking his eyes on hers. He wrapped his fingers around her chin, forcing her to maintain eye contact with him. “One for the pigs and one for you.”

“Please,” she said and then regretted it. Not an ounce of empathy in his eyes. Only slow, cold, burning hunger.

“Don’t stay too attached to them, Dolly,” he whispered. “There’s so much more to part you from before I’m through with you. It’s a genuine shame, like throwing paint on a Titian. But we all have to do what we have to do, don’t we?”

His voice was low, vicious without being forceful. The very sound of it crawled across her skin and drew goosebumps.

“I think first we’ll start with a taste,” he said, cool and steady. “Just enough to work us up to ruining the rest of it. I’ve heard it's easier to paint on a ruined canvas than a flawless one.”

Then the knife traveled back down to her decolletage. And without any warning, a horrible burning sting spread across her chest, just above her left breast, like fire. Gasping, she lifted her head to see what he’d done to her. Rivulets of crimson were rushing over her flesh, over her breast and down her side. It took every ounce of her self-control to keep from screaming.

“Good. Good.” There was something sensual about the way he said the word. “Blood becomes you, Mrs. Colter.”

One of his fingers skimmed along her breasts, gathering the blood as if it were a honey from a jar. And though she wanted to look away, their eyes locked as he slipped his finger in his mouth, sucking her blood slowly off of his flesh. He pressed his hand to her throat again, trapping her back on the floor while his head dipped out of her lines of sight.

Then a hot, wet tongue skimmed along the curve of her breast. Teeth and then lips fastening around her nipple.

God, he was licking her blood off of her body.

Everything inside of her screamed. Revulsion and fury rolled through her, the idea of this man taking pieces of her that should have belonged to no one but herself. And above all, rage that he was drawing pleasure from her with his mouth.

She bit down on her lip to keep from saying anything and tightened her body, holding her breath in to keep from making a sound.

Slowly, he raised his head again. His pupils were huge and his beautiful lips were stained red with her blood, a fact that sickened and fascinated her. The look on his face was as disconcerting as it was beautiful, pleasure infused with satisfaction. In any other situation, she would be moaning at the sight of such a man looking at her with that expression on his face .

She wanted to kill him.

“Perfect,” he whispered, licking his lips and rolling them together like he was tasting a rich, deep wine. Then he straightened again and slackened his hold on her throat. The knife was in front of her face again, causing her heart to smash against her ribcage and her lips to part. “Now–”

The door to the room opened and Evie started. For a brief few moments, she had forgotten everything outside of this man and his knife.

Footsteps came toward them. A slow, off-balance rhythm. Not Ryan’s footsteps. There were more? The look on Alex’s face changed from pleasure to irritation.

She flinched at the prospect of what could possibly come next. First a beating, then a madman with a knife cutting into her face. What else?

A golden red head of hair came into view. Below it, a good and handsome face. The sort of face any woman would want her husband to have. Guileless and pleasant. A splash of freckles over his face and his arms. It gave him a charming, boyish look, though he was a man already into his 30s. Broad through the shoulders, and taller than Alex, though not as tall or as broad as Ryan. Well-muscled forearms beneath the rolled up sleeves of his work shirt. A cane held firmly in his left hand.

Evie’s eyes widened slightly as they roved over the cage of leather and metal trapping his left leg. Perhaps a war injury. Perhaps something else .

She raised her eyes to his face and found his green eyes snapping anger. But they weren’t trained on her. They were on the man coiled around her like a pretty snake.

“Alex,” said the man. He had a beautiful, clear tenor voice. The sort of voice that guaranteed a sweet song. “What in the hell are you doing?”