Seize me From Darkness (Pierced Hearts Book 4) (40 page)

He smiled and let the little vision slip away.

It wasn’t often he let himself to dwell on the possibilities. Not while at work. His employees would be aghast, but not at his fantasies, at his realities.

“Got
ya sweetheart.” Randy removed the last hook then cuddled her to him.

Moghul snorted and glanced down at the message on his
BlackBerry. Military-grade encryption but it never hurt to be careful. Someone reading over his shoulder could be as disastrous as it being sent in plain text.

The woman in Moresby
is not a friend of Jazmine Foulkes. She’s Gavoche’s daughter, Wren. She’s trying to figure out her father’s death. Dangerous if she links you and the House.

“Fuck
,” he said softly.

The spotlights in here were overcoming the
aircon. He wiped his forehead with the back of his arm then stared up at the ceiling for a while.

The House, he’d written off. The place was being closed
down anyway and the only liabilities, his men there, had been killed. The systems in place meant no one could link him directly. Vetrov was a name he kept in quarantine from his other businesses.

What were the odds she’d connect him to the House? Low, as in very.

He should have her killed. It was final. It was sensible. People were loose ends because of their nosiness and Wren had met him, even if she knew nothing of her father’s fetishes. Once all the immediate family was gone, no one was likely to see anything except an old man’s kinkiness exposed in a tawdry fashion by his death in Papua New Guinea.

H
e grimaced. What a waste. The last time he’d seen her, the girl had blossomed into a beauty.

T
he hooks called to him. Someone needed to try them out properly.

He rarely, ever, took things
this far on his home turf.

Yet
a woman caught on those hooks, for him, just for him... Definite possibilities there. It would be karma in a way, considering Andrew’s proclivities.

*****

Wren played with the napkin next to her plate. The late afternoon sun came in low, glinting off the tableware and making the place so glary it was difficult to see the man weaving between the other empty chairs and tables. For a little roadside pitstop eatery up in the New Guinea mountains, the décor was...cute. Her napkin had Bart Simpson on it and none of the chairs matched. And the waitress had vanished.

She glanced at her hulking bodyguard and he nodded reassuringly. Not a single black hair was out of place. James Bond and Hugh probably exchanged texts and anti-villain plans, but her father always employed the best. Hugh had insouciance down to an art. Nothing fazed him, except maybe the tropical heat. He had a thing for being properly dressed in at least long pants and buttoned shirt. Today was a day for sweating.

Even in her pink tank top and denim knee-length pants she was feeling the heat. More sweat dribbled down her spine.
If they stayed any longer, she’d melt and stick to the timber. Wren took up the napkin and used it for a fan as the new arrival reached the table. Surfer shorts and T-shirt. Good. She hated being the under dressed one. Student life at university had been like diving into her ideal environment. No one ever dressed up except at parties or functions.

A flight of parrots
shot past a few yards away, squawking alarmingly.

“Hello.”
He put his hand on the back of the chair beside her. “Wren Gavoche?”

The British
accent sounded wonderful and never failed to give her an instant rapport with the speaker. It was just...cute, even when attached to an alarmingly large man. Despite her instinct that looking more pointedly might give him the wrong impression, cause really he was not within light years of being inscribed in her little book of possible bf’s, she looked...and looked.

S
he let her gaze cruise over the swell of his biceps with the mysterious tatt peeking from under the sleeve, took in the breadth of his chest, his scent, the solid
don’t fuck with me
way he stood, those huge hands, and those palest ever blue eyes.

Ooops
. Caught staring.
His minimal yet knowing smile seemed to rivet her to her seat.

“Hi.” She
pasted on an innocent grin. “You’re Richard? No last name?”

That was
so odd but she had Hugh. Safety in numbers, and concealed firearms.

“
No.” He removed his baseball cap, revealing a perky light blond mohawk, pulled out the chair, and sat.

Then he waited.

“You contacted me, Richard. You said you had information.” About what she had no clue but this search for what was behind her father’s death, at a place designed to turn women into sex slaves, had so far gotten her one step past the starting post. “Do you know anything about my father’s death? About this woman Jazmine Foulkes? I think she escaped.”

The chair squeaked as he reclined. His focus was entirely on her, as if the menacing Hugh wasn’t sitting beside her. “Perhaps. I don’t know her whereabouts but I can help you find the man who set your father up to die.”

“Oh.” She tensed. This was what she’d been looking for. A breakthrough. “Who?”

He gestured at Hugh. “Get your watchdog to move away and I’ll say more.”

Damn. Was this safe? Hugh shook his head, grimly. But she dived in. Nowhere was where she’d gotten so far.

“Hugh, please?” She raised her eyebrows.

“Ma’am...” But he took in her expression then nodded.

Once he’d risen and seated himself at a distant table, one with the wall behind him, she
nodded at Richard. Clever Hugh though. Always seeking out the safest places. Could he read lips?

Richard
, or whoever he was – she wasn’t believing his name for an instant, leaned his forearms on the table. His nearest hand ended up resting inches from her left hand. Her breaths turned ragged. Just that proximity had made warmth suffuse between her legs. This man attracted her, no matter that he was clearly out of bounds. Fantasy territory – like lusting for the tatted-up, muscle-bound biker stalking through the pub on a Saturday night.

With her friends, she’d ogle after this type of man then turn aside and giggle about what he’d be like in bed.

“Well?” She pulled her hand away a fraction but the electricity of his presence drew her still.

“
The man you want is called Vetrov.” Ugh, and even his voice seemed to stroke between her legs. Testosterone concentrate.

She swallowed and made herself listen.

“He organizes human trafficking. I know where to find him.”

To business. She’d get the person who
had done this and to hell with her life until she did. No brother, no mother, no father – only she remained. Most days she wanted to weep despite the millions Dad had left her. Her vet science degree could wait. This money, what better thing to do with it than destroy the man who’d killed her father?

“Give me his name, where he lives, and I’ll pay you very well. Once I know for sure he’s the right man, one hundred thousand is yours.”

For the first time he truly studied her. When his eyes lowered, her breasts tingled, her nipples tightening until they were aching and hard. They’d be showing through her skimpy shirt.
Focus. Business.

His mouth twitched and he lifted his hand and trapped hers. What the hell?

“Remove your hand.” She tugged but he held on tight. The creak of the chair warned her that Hugh had noticed. She shook her head at him and he subsided into his chair.

“
First hear my terms. Two hundred thousand. You’re going to need me with you to help fine tune the location of Vetrov.”

She frowned and was still considering when he spoke again.

“Also I want you.”

Time shivered. “What ?” She
’d heard wrong.

“You.” His smile was hard, uncompromising
, and so lethal every hair on her body stood on end. “I want you in my bed. Once. After that, you won’t want to leave. No you. No deal.”

H
e didn’t wink or move in any way, just waited while examining her face, and that floored her. Arrogant bastard.

Was this blackmail?
Yet he intrigued her. She shook her head, jarring herself out of the state of shock. “Ummm.”

One eyebrow rose. “Dare to take a chance for once, Wren. Life is better with surprises.”

One night. Why was she even thinking it was possible?

She blinked, running through crazy thought after
crazy thought. What would it be like to have sex with such an overtly dangerous man? All her lovers in the past had been students. Young
safe
men who’d never done more than go to university, parties, maybe the beach.

Insane
to say yes.

She opened her mouth and was caught by how he stared at her lips. His
large hand squeezed down harder until where his thumb pressed hurt. The pain brought another level of scariness to this. Now she was aroused and afraid in equal proportions.

The words seemed to blurt out without her
mind having much say. “Once, only. And it’s one hundred thousand if you want me as part of the deal.”
Let’s see what the smart ass thinks of that.

“Done.” He
drew her hand to his mouth, kissed her knuckles like a gentleman then he singled out her forefinger and sucked on it.

She could feel the movement of his tongue.

In one second, her finger became hot and wet and his.

Tremors ran through her pussy.
Breathing halted. Her eyes must be so very wide. The man had turned her on so much with that simple action, as if it were a button to her sexuality.

Holy fuck.

His murmur rumbled past her last defenses. “Keep looking at me like that and I’ll bend you over this table now, pull down your underwear...”

...and fuck you.
She could hear those unsaid words in her mind.

He released her hand. Wren snatched it away.

What had she just agreed to?”

Cari
Silverwood is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling writer of kinky darkness or sometimes of dark kinkiness, depending on her moods and the amount of time she's spent staring into the night. She has an ornery nature as well as a lethal curiosity that makes her want to upend plots and see what falls out when you shake them.

When others are writing bad men doing bad things, you may find her writing good men who accidentally on purpose fall into the abyss and come out with their morals twisted in knots.

This might be because she comes from the land down under, Australia, or it could be her excessive consumption of wine.

Freaking out readers is her first love and
her second love is freaking out the people living in her books. Her favorite hobby is convincing people she has a basement...though she really doesn’t. Promise. If it existed it would be a terrifying place where you would find all the dangerous things that you never knew you craved.

To escape you'd need to get the key you can see through the grate in your cell door. A key that’s hanging from the ceiling by string. The light above is flickering on...off...and you can hear feet dragging along the corridor floor. Your door is locked.

Anyone know how to get blood stains out of concrete?

My website, if you're curious about my other evil pursuits:
http://www.carisilverwood.net/

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Pierced Hearts Series

(Dark erotic fiction)

Take me, Break me

Bind and Keep me

Make me Yours Evermore

Seize me From Darkness

Preyfinders Series

Precious Sacrifice

(Published in the anthology, Kept. Also released as a solo book)

Intimidator

Squirm Files Series

Squirm – virgin captive of the billionaire biker tentacle monster

Strum – virgin captive of the billionaire demon rock star monster

The Badass Brats Series

The Dom with a Safeword

The Dom on the Naughty List

The Dom with the Perfect Brats