Forbidden Sensations: A Dark Romance Read online

  The second guard drew his weapon, the business end aimed at me, his other hand placed on the cuffs on his belt.

  “He said drop it. Drop it!” He barked the words out, before something shifted in his eyes, as though an idea was coming in. “Ahora! Dejalo caer, ahora!” he said after a slight pause.

  “Oh, fuck off,” I said. I didn't even speak Spanish.

  I flung the award at the window, wanting it to go through the window, but of course all it did was bounce off the glass. God damn it why does nothing ever work, I screamed to myself, and ran for the door.

  Security guard one grabbed me by the waist and wrestled me to the floor. He rolled me over on my stomach, straddling me, and pulled my arms behind my back.

  My hair was tangled in my mouth, and I started spitting it out, as the cold manacle snapped around my wrist.

  “You call the police?” I heard Maddox ask.

  “Did you want us to?” the second guard replied.

  What sort of stupid ass question was that? Somebody breaks into the boss man's office with a gun, and nobody dials 911? What a bunch of idiots.

  The first guard pulled me to my feet, pinning my elbows behind me, and slapped on the other cuff on.

  Maddox shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “Not yet.”

  He stepped over to me, still holding my gun, and put the muzzle against my name tag, smoothing it back and forth, back and forth.

  “Your name really isn't Maria, is it?” he asked, drawing the end of the gun to the flesh of my neckline. It was almost as cold as the handcuffs.

  I wanted to spit on him. But my mouth had gone dry.

  “You look so familiar, though. Have we met?” He undid the top button of my uniform, the gun pointed toward the ceiling as he did so.

  Slowly, deliberately, he separated all my buttons. Then licked his tongue across his lips when he exposed my bra.

  My chest was heaving. I couldn't catch my breath. And… this wasn't supposed to happen. None of this was supposed to happen. Maddox was supposed to be dead, my sister would be vindicated, and I should be in the back of a squad car.

  I choked back a sob. Not for my situation, but for Rebecca. I failed her. I failed me. I swallowed the lump in my throat. I wouldn't close my eyes, though. I wasn't going to play the scared, helpless female. No way, no how.

  The second guard smiled broadly as he watched Maddox watching me. The first one pulled my arms even closer together, pushing my chest forward so that my breasts pressed against my bra, threatening to burst free. As for Maddox… Maddox grinned.

  “They're hard,” he said, and chuckled. His eyes looked hungrily at my nipples, poking out like rocks from beneath my brassiere. “You're not going to tell me where we know each other from, are you?”

  I didn't say anything.

  I didn't move.

  I wasn't going to fight.

  These kind of rapey shit heads liked a fight. Loved the struggle. No way in hell was I going to give them the satisfaction.

  “That's okay,” Maddox said, and went to his desk.

  He reached into the top drawer, and pulled out a pair of scissors. He snipped the air with them, then returned to me, and winked.

  If it hadn’t dawned on me before, now I absolutely knew why they weren't calling the police.

  Maddox opened the shears, and slid the blade very carefully, just beneath my bra and between my breasts. I couldn't breathe hard now, I just couldn't. If I did, I would probably end up cutting my own stupid self open on his scissors.

  “Thing is, 'Maria', I do know you. I know I know you. I just can't place your face. But, here’s the thing, I’m not really the best at faces. You know what I never forget, though?” Maddox paused, as though waiting for me to answer. I pressed my lips tight together, rebellious in my silence. “I never forget a pair of tits,” he finally said, a shit-eating grin stretched across his afce.

  Both security guards chortled. A couple of young hyenas watching the pack leader torture his prey.

  The shears closed on the lacy little bow in the middle of my bra. One snip, and I'd be exposed to him, his goonies, and god knew what would happen next.

  Maddox leered at me. “You fucked with the wrong guy,” he said.

  He removed the scissors.

  The two hyenas exchanged a glance – like kids getting coal in their holiday stockings. One of them opened his mouth to protest, but -

  “Shut up, Robin. You're in no position to say shit.”

  Maddox threw the scissors on the couch, and handed my gun to the first security guy. His badge said Peter, and Peter could not have been more disappointed if he'd woken up and found out his dick had shrunken to the size of a walnut. If it wasn't that size already.

  “Take her in back,” Maddox said to the guard still holding me. This guard's palms had gone wet. Slick, and greasy. He readjusted his plump fingers around my arms.

  “Then what?” he asked of his fearless leader.

  Maddox looked at this guy as if he'd never laid eyes on anything more stupid. As though they'd been through this before, a million times.

  “And if I find out that you've screwed with her at all, either of you? Well,” he chuckled and adjusted his lapels. “Since the two of you assholes are one click away from the unemployment line, anyway, let's just say you can't afford another mistake.”

  “But, boss, we–”

  “The funny thing is, I can just picture you guys sitting at your desks, the monitors in front of you showing this bitch wandering around the hallways.”

  Bitch? Fuck you, shit head.

  “What the hell were you doing? Playing Suduko? Words with Friends? Answer me!”

  Peter and Robin exchanged another look.

  “Candy Crush,” Robin said, and adjusted his moist grip against my elbow.

  Maddox shook his head, pulled out his phone, and scrolled. “Is that what I'm paying you for?”

  He held up his phone, the surveillance video showing me creeping around behind my housekeeping cart, glancing left and right. Left again. It was obvious I was up to something. I may as well have been wearing a big sign around my neck; I'm Here To Kill Maddox Petersen. Have A Nice Day.

  “I knew she was here before you two. But, congratulations on finding my office, guys. Before, you know, I got shot.” He stuffed his phone in his pocket, spun on his heel, and went to the front door. He opened it, paused, and looked back at me.

  “I'm afraid I have a date, honey,” he said. “But I'll see you tonight, okay?” Maddox pointed to Peter, then Robin. Then... he left.

  “C'mon, Senorita,” Robin said, and pushed me in front of him.

  We followed Peter past the bathroom, where my oh-so-clever housekeeping cart still stood. A monument to my foiled plan.

  How could I have fucked up this badly? How could I ever have thought I would get away with killing the bastard? Or rather, get the chance to kill the bastard.

  We came to a closed door. Peter took out his key ring, and filed through them.

  Robin leaned in close to my ear. His pudgy face smelled of sweat and French fries. “You're muy bonitaaaah,” he said, extending the last part of the word, his greasy breath feeling as though it was coating my neck.

  I swallowed and kept my eyes focused on the door.

  For a moment I pictured what must be behind it. A gray room comprised of cinder blocks. A bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling, swinging above a metal chair. Or one of those steel tables the morticians use. Bars on a shoe-box sized window.

  I couldn't have been more wrong. Again. Me and wrong. Partners in life.

  Maddox's office den was a five-star hotel suite. King size bed, giant flat screen above the electric fireplace, a dazzling display of silk roses on a table that overlooked the view of the city far, far below.

  “You like it?” Peter said, twirling his key ring around his finger, looking at nothing but my cleavage. It was proudly displayed, seeing as my shirt was still thoroughly unbuttoned. His brow suddenly furrowed in concern. �
��Uh-oh,” he said, and put his finger in the gap of my bra and wiggled it around. “They're not hard anymore.”

  “Maybe she only gets wet for Petersen,” Robin chortled.

  “You want to find out?” Peter asked him, still wiggling his finger between my breasts.

  Oh, God, no, I pleaded to myself. Like I didn't know this was coming. I bit the inside of my cheek, and this time, I did shut my eyes. It was like everyone always told me. Everyone except Rebecca. I couldn't do anything right.

  “We'd get in trouble, bro. You and I know better than anyone that Maddox has cameras fucking everywhere.”

  Peter pursed his lips together, and nodded. “Yeah,” he sighed, and pulled out a device from his pocket. It looked like a garage door opener. “Unless I do this,” he said, and pushed a button on the side.

  I heard something like an electronic switch, somewhere in the ceiling, and saw the lens on the above-bed camera close its eye.

  Maddox's bed was a massive four poster, five feet above the ground, and custom built for naughty games. There were rings on each of the four corners, and one placed in the middle of the headboard. This is where I'd be spending the night. It was a pretty jailcell than the one I was expecting, for sure. That didn’t mean it was the one I would have chosen.

  I felt bile, raw and ripe, rise up my throat. A part of me seriously hoped I would choke on it until there was no breath left in me.

  When Peter put one of his keys in my cuff, and I felt the manacle fall away, that's when my fight came back.

  I was not going to be trapped like a bug ready for the fucking. The term 'sex slave' flew through my mind, and I pried myself away from Robin's sweaty grip, stumbled away from him, and ran like hell for the door.

  It slammed in my face.

  “C'mon, buttercup,” Robin said. “Don't make this any harder on yourself than it has to be.”

  Peter laughed, most likely in regards to the word 'hard'. Oh, these two were pieces of work, that was for sure. What a couple of goony tools like these fart heads were doing under the employment of the prestigious Petersen & Stiller was anyone's guess.

  Me, I didn't have time for guessing. Peter was already coming for me, and Robin was unlocking the manacles on the bed frame. He was on all fours on the mattress, his butt crack ripe for the world to see, and there was a trail of perspiration beading on the small of his back. Let me clarify. Beading on the hairs on the small of his back.

  I dodged to the left, just out of Peter's grasp, when I saw my escape. Well, not escape, exactly, but at least a temporary reprieve. A bathroom. I scrambled across the floor like a rabid animal, dove for the door, and… almost made it. Just almost.

  Peter caught me by the dangling cuff. He wrenched me away from the door, and held me in a terrible bear hug, my back to his chest.

  I bicycled my legs in the air, twisting and turning like a wildcat in a trapper's net. It was a strange sort of dance he did with me as he maneuvered us to the bed.

  “Y' want to get her shoes?” Peter questioned with no urgency whatsoever, as if he were asking if Robin liked cream in his goddamn coffee.

  Robin sat at the edge of the mattress, and grabbed my ankle. I kicked with the other leg, sending my foot into the side of his face. This only served to pissed him off.

  Robin was a huge man, fifty pounds to the wrong side of healthy, and he glared at me with beady little eyes that left no doubt that the fun and games were over. He snatched the leg that had hit him, yanked off the sensible rubber soled shoe, then did the same with the other. My pants were next.

  Still, I fought. Arching my back and whipping my head around, looking for something to bite. The human bite has about two hundred and seventy five pounds of force, on average. It needs to actually bite something, however, to be effective.

  My pants were pulled away from me as Peter removed my shirt, keeping his fingers a cautious distance from my mouth. He took my bra away, next. Unhooking it and tossing it aside, he suddenly cupped my breasts from behind and squeezed. Twice.

  “Honk, honk,” he said.

  I went to strike him, to maybe gouge out his eyes like you're supposed to do when a shark attacks, but I no longer had control of my arm. Robin had locked the cuff into the awaiting manacle, and was getting to work with the other.

  This was a very, very large bed, though, and I was a small woman. The tendons in my arms stretched taught as they locked me into the restraints. A crucifixion pose.

  “Don't think he's had one this short,” Peter observed, chewing the bottom of his lip.

  His words penetrated every part of me. How many women has Maddox taken against their will? How many has he tied to this very damn bed? I wasn’t foolish enough think they’d all come here with the same nose for revenge I had.

  “See? That's why he won't be mad. Had to make sure she fits, y'know?” Robin remarked, rubbing his cheek, then added, “I don't think her feet'll reach, Pete,” he pointed to the gaping manacles at the end of the bed.

  Peter nodded, still chewing his lip, deep in thought.

  Deep in fucking thought, I realized. He's deep in fucking thought. No wonder he looks so dazed. Probably his first time.

  “Got an idea,” he said at last. Then smiled at me. “Don't go anywhere, buttercup.”

  He patted my leg, then got up and went to a chest of drawers, opened one, and started rummaging around.

  Robin put his hand against my cheek, and squished my lips together. “I think maybe you should apologize, Maria. For hitting me.”

  “I think you should go fuck yourself,” I hissed.

  He grinned, then began to lower his head toward mine. His lips parted. Big, sweaty, bulbous lips. Behind which was a foul stench of grease. Stale cigarettes.

  Knowing it was futile to begin with, I flung my legs toward the ceiling, thinking that perhaps years of gymnastics would still enable me to do some sort of superhuman curl, and I could clonk the bastard with a kneecap.

  “Oop. Not so fast, you two,” Peter said, having returned with two long, silken scarves. He threw one to Robin. “He usually saves these for special company, buttercup. But, I think you qualify.”

  And there they had me. As quick as a sneeze, they had me bound by my ankles in the silk, which they then looped through the iron rings.

  My legs parted as they pulled the scarves like sailors with a main sail. Spreading me open. Farther and farther. And farther.

  Peter tied off his silk, and stroked my leg. He tip-toed his fingertips across my inner thigh, then drummed them lightly in the divot of my muscle just below my underpants.

  “We should turn it back on, Pete,” Robin suggested, pointing to the camera. “He'll think we're up to something.”

  “Aren't we?” Peter replied, then chuckled. “Yeah, yeah. You're right. Be good, buttercup,” he said, getting off the bed. “You have lots of time to think about what you've done, young lady. So, enjoy.”

  Robin pushed his bulk off the mattress, but not before giving my nipple a quick and very painful pinch. The bastard thought he was winning. And maybe against me, he was. But life had already taken so many shits on his sorry ass that he would never win at it.

  “Payback,” he winked. “It's a hell of a… bitch.” He chuckled like he’d made the joke of the century. As much as that grated on my nerves, I didn’t spare him so much as a roll of my eyes.

  Peter pushed the button on his mysterious little device, and I heard the same electronic click as before. The lens on the camera opened in what seemed like slow motion. It was watching me again, focused on how prone and spread eagled I was, settled atop a billionaire's mattress, in his beautiful office bedroom suite.

  The door closed, and a small nightlight came on beside the table with the silk roses. Their fake, white petals cast in a gentle, amber light was something out of a fairytale. Pretty in all the right ways while meaning all the wrong things.

  I pulled against my bonds, but that did nothing more than tighten the restraints and further exhaust my already spent
muscles. Realization dawned on me that I wasn't getting out of here anytime soon. If at all.

  I stared up at the camera. “You suck, Petersen. Seriously. Fuck you,” I told it.

  The camera moved up and down. Up and down, as if it were nodding in agreement.

  Chapter Two

  MADDOX

  I had a lot of enemies. A lot of them. You don't get to be a man of my status by playing nicey-nice with corporate dung holes and idiots.

  There is one, simple rule of nature and business, and that is; survival of the fittest. I don't care if you’re Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk -the two biggest philanthropic hypocrites this side of the fortune five hundred. They lived by this same rules I did. They burned bridges and stepped on the heads of those less capable all in the name of climbing their way up the ladder. And you know why? Because there is no such thing as down.

  They will try to tell you different by donating exorbitant amounts of money to charities. They will make claims that their work is in the best interest of mankind and the planet. They will make it seem like their money makes the world a better place.

  In the end, though, in the end it’s all a big stinkin’ pile of bullshit.

  You know who was awesome? Steve Jobs. He was a fucking ape-shit crazy bastard, a ruthless mercenary looking out for nobody but himself, and now no one in the civilized world can live without one of his little devices in their pockets.

  He was able to turn millions of people into addicts with one fell swoop of his genius and damn the consequences all the way to hell.

  I don't have heroes, but Steve comes close. Taking his lead, I molded myself into a ruthless son of a bitch who commanded respect, got the job done, then moved on to the next, bigger, better job.

  Conquest after conquest.

  Crushing one enemy after the other.

  I named myself the largest fish in the pond. And if the pond got too small, I had no qualms about moving on to an ocean.

  Petersen & Stiller was my sea, I was the captain, and our vessel had the reputation as the most merciless machine on the corporate waters. We ate little tugboat start-ups, small businesses, and promising entrepreneurs for breakfast. Don't get me started on lunch and dinner. So, yes, a great deal of people didn't like me. And I’d be a liar if I said all those people didn’t have a reason.