Page 111 of The King of Hearts

The hand on my thigh shifts, and I glance down at it. Long, tanned fingers curl around my flesh halfway up my thigh, the pinky slipping beneath the hem of my shorts. His touch is warm, and there’s a slight roughness.

I look over to the man sitting beside me, taking in the view of his profile. He hasn’t shaved today, so there’s a light shadow of scruff on his cheeks and chin that looks way too sexy. His hair, like most of the time, looks finger-combed, and it makes me wonder if he even owns a brush. His eyes are covered in a pair of aviator sunglasses that have reflective lenses. The hand that’s not on my thigh is wrapped around the steering wheel in a loose grip. He’s wearing a hunter-green Henley with the sleeves pushed up his forearms.

My eyes travel down his muscular torso to the black tactical cargo pants. He fills those pants out very well. Snug, but not too much, in the butt and crotch, and a little loose along the legs. My feelings for my new husband may be a chaotic mess, but my appreciation for his form is rock solid. You’d have to be dead not to recognize the man’s sex appeal.

I woke up this morning on my stomach with Ryker lying on my back. One of my legs was cocked to the side and my pussy was filled with him. From the way he was breathing heavily as he fucked me, he had been going at it for a while before I woke up. How I slept through the beginning, I can’t begin to understand. It just goes to show how truly exhausted I was from yesterday’s activities.

“Keep eye fucking me like that, and your mouth’ll be stuffed full of my cock.”

I jerk my head away so it’s facing the windshield. I have no doubt he’d follow through on that threat. Ryker has zero boundaries when it comes to me. Not that blowing him as he drove was that big a deal in comparison to the other stuff he’s done to me or had me do, and honestly, the thought of doing itsends a shot of desire rushing between my legs, but I don’t want him to see how much it turns me on.

His hand rides farther up my leg, as if taunting me. Never in my life has a single person affected me in the way Ryker does. With only a look, he can have me panting and nearly begging. And the crux of the matter is, he damn well knows it.

I fold my hands in my lap and say nothing to his threat. Looking away from him is answer enough.

I have an inkling of where he’s taking me, but I refuse to ask to verify. He probably wouldn’t tell me anyway. He derives too much pleasure from keeping me in the dark.

My suspicion is confirmed when we pull to a stop in front of the old cabin. Had anyone else brought me here to The Cove, I’d probably be having a mini panic attack. Except for Marcelo, he knows of this place and what it means to me. And of course, since Marcelo knows, it goes to say that Ryker does as well. But something tells me that even if Marcelo kept my secret, Ryker would still know. He’s proven that no part of my life is private. At least, not to him.

Shutting the car off, he reaches behind my seat and grabs a burlap sack before he gets out and walks around the front to my side. I take his free hand when he offers it, and he helps me from the car. My feet are still sore from the heels I wore yesterday, so I’m wearing soft flats today. He doesn’t let go of my hand as we walk across the thick layer of leaves to the front porch.

“What are we doing here?”

“Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”

My maturity level prevents me from flipping him off, but I still have the thought.

The door creaks when he pushes it open. He allows me to enter first, and the familiar scents of mold, mildew, and mothballs tickle my nose. He leads me to the kitchen, right where I keep my jars tucked away in a cabinet. I hold my breath,and my heart rate accelerates when he reaches for the cabinet beside the one where the hearts are. I know he knows my secret, but it still leaves me anxious when he pulls the door open.

He doesn’t even look at me or the line of jars in the cabinet once the contents are revealed. He simply lifts the burlap sack and tips it upside down. Joseph’s heart and stumpy dick dumps out onto the counter, the heart rolling several inches and bumping against the backsplash.

“Do it, Vicious,” Ryker’s harsh voice demands. “Add them to your collection.”

I look at the hearts floating in jars of formaldehyde. There are five in total: Patrick Arlington, Jacob Barrington, Terry Swanson, Jeremiah Williams, and the one with no name. I got Terry and Jeremiah’s hearts on the same day in the same box. Ryker claims the pair had been following me the last time I went to the city. That was the night before my devil became Ryker West.

I move my eyes from the hearts and look at the other line of jars in the cabinet on the left. These don’t hold hearts. What’s floating inside the clear liquid is much more personal.

Severed dicks, ranging in sizes and flesh tones.

The first dick I removed was six years ago and belonged to the man who kept me locked in his basement for a week, and tormented me for just as long. Dad, Bishop, and Cassio were there as I cut through the tissue, muscles, and ligaments of Henry Richards’ dick. It was bloody and uncoordinated, and I gagged a few times, but the experience was liberating. My family offers revenge for victims, and I was given the same choice. Torture was my revenge of choice. Henry never touched me during the time he kept me in his basement, but it was only because he didn’t deem me ready for that yet. He said he had to prepare me to become his wife. My ‘training’ had only begun when my family found me.

I know The Raven Group’s methods help people because they helped me. I was content in the knowledge that Henry Richards was dead and couldn’t hurt anyone else. I made sure of that when I ran the same knife I used to cut off his dick across his throat. I never looked away when he gurgled as the blood left his body, and I didn’t stop looking until his heart stopped pumping blood through his veins.

Dad and my brothers never knew I kept Henry’s dick as a souvenir. I slipped it into my pocket while they weren’t looking. Two days after I killed him, I bought a big mason jar and a gallon-size jug of formaldehyde from a drugstore. Then I went to The Cove, jarred-it-up, and stored it in this cabinet. I didn’t know it at the time that I was starting a collection.

It became that a few years later, after the first note appeared. A note thatRykersent me, not some other deranged man.

‘Til death do us part.’

The note was simple, but it packed a punch. It scared the shit out of me, and for a week, I regressed back to those first few days after I was rescued and before I killed Henry. The nightmares came back; ones so intense I woke the house at night with my screams. I refused to leave the house for a week, afraid that Henry would find me. Subconsciously, I knew that wasn’t possible. He died by my hands. I was there when my brothers incinerated his remains. But no matter how impossible it was, I was terrified.

And then one day, something snapped in my head.

Back in the present, I look at Ryker. He stands beside the counter, one hand resting on the surface, his fingers inches away from Joseph’s dick, the other hand shoved inside the pocket of his cargo pants. The lighting in the cabin is crap, but I still see the sparkle of depraved interest in his eyes.

In some aspects, he’s like Henry. He has an unhealthy obsession with me. He forced me to marry him. He tied me tohim by getting me pregnant, which Henry harped on happening once we were “married.” I know deep in my bones, had I ignored Ryker’s blackmail, he would have taken me anyway.

The one thing that sets them apart, though, is that Ryker would never hurt me. Not in a way that’s permanent. Not in a way that leaves mental scars that never truly heal. His pain is the type that ultimately leads to pleasure. It’s the kind that I crave and welcome.

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