Page 228 of House of Cards

The knife moves over her skin like a bow over violin strings.

Another line of red blooms. Parallel to the first, but higher up, closer to her bent knee. There’s a tiny runnel of blood already trickling down her skin from the first cut, headed for her hip.

Soon, there’ll be two.

Zoey watches me with muddy green eyes that pierce too deep into the darkness where I hide. This isn’t the first time she’s seen the monster I’ve kept caged since before I knew it had a name…but she only ever got a glimpse before.

But it doesn’t matter, because Zoey will never face this monster again.

She’ll be gone tomorrow.

No one would stay around after this.

But tonight, she belongs to me.

Tonight, she’s mine.

“Does it hurt?” My voice is deep, and rough.

She nods dully, but there’s no fear in her eyes. Just a morbid fascination.

“Yes.”

“Sure you don’t want me to stop?”

She shakes her head, just as slowly, frowning at her own reaction.

“No.”

I don’t believe her.Won’tbelieve her.

No one wants this. Why would she tolerate me marking her in this way, drawing precious blood, exposing this sickness inside me?

I never trusted anyone enough to show them this darkness. I’ve only ever played out this fantasy in my head. Yes, I’ve drawn blood in the past. Sometimes the participants were willing, but most of the time they weren’t.

But never like this.

Until now.

And it terrifies me.

But the doubt, the fear, the vitriol—it dissolves the moment the knife touches Zoey’s skin.

I scrape the tip along the outside of her thigh, hard enough to leave an angry red line, too soft to penetrate the skin.

Zoey hisses, her back arching off the plastic. The sound goes straight to my cock, and I have to grit my teeth against a feral wave of lust.

“I should let you leave,” I mumble, even as I press the flat of the blade against her trembling stomach.

“I’m staying,” she whispers, and I hate how much I need to hear those words.

A third cut.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

A fourth.

---