Indulgence (14 page)

He straddled me, pinning my hips underneath him and his cock
pressed hot and hard into my stomach. He drew in deep breaths as he watched the
fear begin to take over my senses, overwhelming reason. I bucked underneath
him, trying to break free, but it only seemed to excite him even more.

“That’s it,” he murmured. “Struggle, Mercy. Fight me.”

He leaned over, grasping my wrists, covering my body with
his.

“Do you want to die?” he asked, trailing his lips across my
cheek.

“No,” I moaned, my body fighting against my better judgment.
I was aroused. I was fucking aroused like a sick fuck.

“Why not? You were so willing to break into another man’s
house and point a gun at his head.”

“I wanted revenge.”

“You didn’t have the stomach for it, Alison.”

I jerked against him, but he just tightened his grip,
thrusting his cock against my clit.

“Don’t call me that,” I moaned. Fuck, I was aching. My wrist
and ankles burned, my throat felt raw, but most of all, I ached right between
the legs. The kind of ache that could only be sated with sex. Sated by X
fucking it out of me with his cock.

“Why not?” he asked, his voice calm and empty. “It’s your
name.”

“Alison is
dead
,” I spat defiantly.

“Dead?”

I glared up at X, trying to dispel the fear inside me.
“D.E.A.D.
Dead
.”

He stared down at me, his lips mere inches from mine, and
regarded my expression. There was a tense silence as I awaited my fate,
teetering on the edge of something dangerous. How was he going to do it? How
long would he draw it out before he ended me?

“Why did you do it?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“
Choke
.”

Choke? He must mean the moment I stood above the man who’d
murdered my entire family and couldn’t pull the trigger. That was my ultimate
failure and having X know it was like pouring salt into an open wound. He knew
I was weak and that was something he could manipulate. I
hated
that he
knew.

I stared up at him defiantly, pursing my lips. I’d
never
tell.

“Do you fancy yourself to be a killer, Alison?”

I bucked underneath him, the rope burning into my wrists. “
Don’t
call me that!
”

“You couldn’t pull the trigger.”

“My name is Mercy!”

“Do you want to be like me…
Mercy
?” He ran his lips
along my jaw before licking at the shell of my ear. “Do you want to know what
it’s like to have blood running through your fingers? Do you want to know what
it takes?”

Despite myself, a sob escaped my lips and X began to laugh.

“You have to give up your soul, Mercy,” he murmured, his
breath hot against my face. “You have to give up
everything that makes you
good.
Can you do that?”

“I don’t believe you,” I choked out. “I’ve seen-”

X jerked away. “You’ve seen
nothing
,” he roared.

He curled his fingers around my throat and dug his thumbs
into my trachea, cutting my air supply in half. I drew in ragged breaths,
desperately trying to stay afloat.

“You have some beautiful bruises on your neck,” he rasped,
staring blankly into my eyes. “I tried this once before. Let’s see how you like
it awake.”

Understanding slammed into me like a ton of bricks. He’d
tried to strangle me to death while I was out cold. He’d tried…but something
had stopped him.

I felt his cock press against my clit and put two and two
together. This was getting him off. If I was going to get out of this, I had to
fight fire with fire.

We'd had a connection while we fucked. I’d felt it every
single time he’d touched me with his cock. I’d felt it every single time he’d
come inside me. His mask had slipped and it was time to take it off completely
and see the man underneath.

I had to break him before he broke me.

X

Why was I stalling?

I never played with my victims.

My victims were never quite as alluring as Mercy Reid. My
grasp around her neck slackened and she gasped desperately for air. Did I want
to save her? Stupid fucking cunt.

“You can’t feel,” she said. “I knew it.”

“You know
nothing
,” I snarled, circling my hands
around her pretty little neck again, setting my thumbs against the bruise I’d
put there the night before. It would be black tomorrow. Black like the place my
soul was supposed to be.

“What did they do to you, X?” she whispered hoarsely.

“They made me into a monster,” I replied. I was broken. I’d
snapped the moment I tried to strangle her to death on the floor of her
apartment. I was coming apart.

My cock twitched and I realized I was doing it again.
Getting cheap thrills out of torturing her. A new line to cross, a new
compulsion, a new satisfaction. Evolution. My grip slackened.

“What’s made can be undone,” she wheezed.

“It’s too late.”

Reaching down between our bodies, I slipped a finger between
her legs, my cock stiffening as I felt how aroused she was despite her
predicament.

“You want it.” Fuck, I was so hard I needed to come and it
needed to happen soon.

“Of course I want it,” she gasped. “I just don't want to die
before I get my revenge.”

Remembering the other day when those Necromancers had tried
it on with her, I suddenly understood her reaction. I’d thought it’d been fear
at being harmed, and it was to a degree, but it was much more than that. She’d
thought she’d been found out. She’d thought they were there to take her to
Sykes for retribution.

“Did you know who you were working for?” I snarled, digging
my fingers into her pussy.

She cried out in a mixture of pain and pleasure, thrusting
her tits up into my chest.

“
Answer me
.”

“No,” she cried, her voice wavering. “I didn’t know.”

“Did you know they were looking for you?”

She stared up at me, defiance etched on her pretty features.
“You know everything,” she said, tears falling from her eyes. “What are you
getting out of this? A hard on?”

Tearing my gaze from hers, I leaned down and bit her nipple,
my teeth sinking into her skin. I bit into her flesh until I could taste blood
as her pale skin broke under the pressure. She cried out in pain from someplace
far away, but I was too busy tasting a new pleasure I hadn’t discovered before.

Sexual satisfaction through pain.
Punishment
.

I’d always separated the two, kept work far away from
pleasure, but there was something about this woman that broke all the barriers
I’d been conditioned to adhere to. She was awakening the monster. Not X, the
hitman, he was bad enough. No, she was awakening X, the
devil
.

Licking her broken skin, my cock throbbed against her thigh.
Fuck, my balls were so tight, I just wanted to pound into her and mark her with
more than my teeth. I wanted to tear her skin open so I could see what was
underneath.

“X,” she cried out beneath me, struggling against the ropes
that held her in place.

Ignoring her pleas, I pulled away, surveying my handiwork. I
trailed my fingertips over the bite mark, smearing droplets of blood that had
sprung to the surface. It was mesmerizing. I was more depraved than I ever
realized.

“X,” she said again. “This isn’t you. This is what they made
you into.”

My gaze snapped up to meet hers. How did she know? How could
she know?

“What did you say?” I barked, rage simmering to the surface.

Her eyes widened, giving away the fact that she’d said it in
desperation. She didn’t know shit, but now she knew more than anyone had ever
known outside of Weiss and Greggor.
They’d made me this way
.

I pulled away, separating our bodies and she tensed, her
gaze glued to mine. What could I do to punish her…what was she doing to me… I
was unraveling and being put back together and it wasn’t into a pretty picture.

Kneeling, I grasped her hips and pulled her pussy up against
my groin. Her wrists strained against the ropes and she gasped, the only
indicator that it was hurting. She was strong, defiant, and all it did was piss
me off even more. I wanted her pain and she would give it to me. I would
take
it
.

I positioned the head of my cock against her opening and
thrust hard, burying myself into her warmth. She was so close to death, so
close to me taking her life and handing her picture over to Sykes, but she was
still aroused. Her body was still aching for mine and I wondered who was more
fucked up. Her, for wanting her killer-to-be to fuck her...or me, the sick
asshole who wanted to taste her blood.

Mercy cried out at the sudden spike of pleasure as my cock
drove home, her eyes squeezed shut and lips parted. I reached over her body and
trailed my fingers over her mouth, pressing my forefinger into the wet warmth.
She clamped down and sucked, digging her teeth into my skin with as much force
as she could.

Pain splintered through my nerve endings and I moaned,
flexing into her pussy. Did she mean to hurt me? It didn't anger me in the
slightest. The pain only made my balls strain even harder. I grabbed her face
with my other hand, forcing her mouth open and covered her body with mine. I
plunged my tongue into her mouth, holding her jaw tight as her tongue came to
meet mine, entwining…dancing…
fucking
.

Her hips rolled against my groin and she squeezed her pussy
around my cock, taunting. I knew her game. She was trying to break me using the
one thing that I had been struggling with for weeks.

Mercy fucking Reid knew more than she let on.

Mercy fucking Reid was well on her way to becoming a master
manipulator with her perfect fucking cunt.

Tearing my lips from hers, I pulled my cock out right to the
tip and slammed into her with all the force I could muster. She gasped, pulling
violently against the ropes that bound her to the bed, her face contorted in a
mixture of every emotion in-between pain and pleasure. Emotions I’d become a
master at faking. I didn’t know what they were anymore; they’d been bled from
me until I was numb.

I needed release and escape from this thing she’d planted
underneath my skin. I needed to fuck it away.

I pounded my cock into her again and again, grunting as I
felt my orgasm swell in my balls. I fucked her harder than I’d ever remembered
fucking anyone. I slid in and out of her greedy little pussy as she writhed
underneath me, pulling against her restraints, fighting and taking pleasure all
at the same time. She moaned, trying to latch her lips onto my skin, but I held
her head to the side, denying her the connection she was desperately trying to
get from me.

I knew her game. She wasn’t going to win.

I came suddenly, my pleasure pouring into her and I kept
pounding. She cried out, my name on her lips in a primal wail as she came on my
cock. Fuck, her scent, her sounds, the way she screamed my name…the name
they
gave me… Something snapped. Something broke inside me with a violent snap that
splintered through my mind and body.

The last of my cum left my cock and I stilled, sweat beading
over my skin, chest heaving. Mercy’s eyes cracked open, her exhausted
expression speaking to something deep inside me, something I’d forgotten. Her
gaze found mine and held...and for a sickening moment, I forgot who I was.

Jerking back, I pulled out of her and climbed off the bed,
desperate to get away.

“X,” she sighed.

I fisted my hands into my hair, part of me wanting to go
back to her, the other wanting to open the closet and take out the most depraved
tool of my trade and use it on the woman who was destroying me.

I stumbled back, colliding with the doorframe as Mercy
stared up at me, her eyes wild with the afterglow of hard fucking and something
close to fear.

“Come back to me,” she murmured.

Pain, love, loss, rage...emotions so strong they threatened
to overwhelm everything I ever knew. I smacked my fists against my head, pacing
back and forth, the sickly scent of Mercy's perfume sticking to my skin. How
could I shut it off? It was too much...too much...

Roaring as pain sliced through my heart, I punched the wall,
another sensation searing through my flesh and bones. Blood welled to the
surface, oozing through broken skin.

I didn't want to feel.

It was tearing me apart, ripping my mind to shreds.

“Turn it off,” I roared to nobody and everybody.

“Come back to me,” Mercy said again, this time her voice was
louder, more confident.

Come back to her? I was never hers to begin with. She was a
mark
.

Striding across the room, I launched myself onto her with a
single intent.

This was her fault. She broke me. She had to go.

She had to fucking
die
.

Mercy

X's hand shot up and grasped my jaw, forcing my gaze to fix
on his. He looked manic, like he was riding life right on the edge. Was I afraid
of him? Not nearly as much as I should be.

“Are you afraid of me?” he asked, voicing my thoughts.
“Don't lie to me, Mercy. I can see your true feelings in your eyes.”

Trying to wrench my face away, I said, “I'm beginning to
be.”

“Good girl.”

X was having a breakdown. His control was totally shot to
hell. One wrong move and I’d be deader than dead.

“Are you ready to die?” he whispered into my ear. “I have to
deliver your head to Sykes.” He squeezed harder, stars beginning to prickle my
vision. “I can kill you now, show you mercy, or I can saw your head clean off
while you scream. How would you like it?”

I drew in ragged breaths through my constricted throat. “I’d
much rather leave it to later.”