ISAK & Red: An enemies-to-lovers Dark Romance Page 3

  The Petalwork Rainforest Resort.

  That was this place.

  A bigger, more urgent question occurred to me. Why was I awake and aware?

  I searched for and found more memories:

  Of being trapped when I arrived to kill him.

  Of sex with his friends and being fucked on a table covered in glass splinters.

  Of being cut and bleeding.

  He had stapled my lacerations without anesthesia. I shuddered, recalling the ker-thunk of the device and the pain.

  There had been a drowning of women. The wash of the waves had brushed their hands against my legs.

  He’d told me that was my fault.

  Belated tears crawled down my cheeks, and I swiped them away.

  Something had let me waken now, and perhaps that meant he was less powerful?

  There had been more recent events. They came to me like a list of ingredients in a recipe: sex in an alleyway, a beating of Isak, abducted to a house, where I had been bent over a sofa by two men.

  They’d taken me so roughly I should be sore – which only proved that must have happened days ago.

  A man called Ted.

  Yes. Such a plain name.

  I swiveled in the cane-backed chair, crossing one leg over the other to twist myself enough, daring to see if he truly was where I thought he was. Isak, my boogie man.

  For once, someone had hurt him. He couldn’t control men as he could women, then I realized he had left his coterie of followers in another country – those men would have done anything for him, because he’d supplied them with women and, indirectly, with power.

  Which made the here and now unique. Isak was weaker.

  I untangled my legs and stood. The sliding doors leading inward were rolled back, opening up the front of this resort house. There were twenty of these small houses. Information I could not remember being given to me arrived in my head. I let my gaze flit to the sides of the deck and beyond, looking outward, searching. The other elevated houses were camouflaged and only visible as lines of timber, reflections on glass, or leaf-scattered plains of roofing tiles. This was five-star accommodation in…

  Where were we? This was not the USA or Brazil or anywhere near there. Out of all my fractured memories, none were of traveling by plane or ship to another country, and that was scarier than anything else. How much of me was missing?

  A green-and-red parrot screeched and glided by, barely flapping.

  A different bird chose then to cackle maniacally – a sound that was unique to one country. It had to be a kookaburra. I’m in Australia.

  How the fuck?

  Somehow, Isak had brought us to the country of kangaroos, raucous bird life, big spiders, and apparently, criminals who knew how to take him down a peg.

  I approached the opening and wrapped my hand over the edge of the glass door.

  My heart raced, again. Was I a mouse? Or had I acquired an arrythmia on top of whatever STDs I might have been infected with due to being handed around like a box of tissues?

  A fucktoy. He had often called me that. I grimaced then swept aside the bangs that fell over my eyes.

  There he was. Isak.

  This most evil man lay on his back on one of the paired dark-blue sofas, staring at the ceiling. He hadn’t seen me. His body dominated the length of the sofa, from one armrest to the next. His hands were tucked under his head, elbows crooked and flopped out to either side, as if he slept. His dark T-shirt had rucked up, and a dusting of sandy hair showed over his stomach. His navel made him seem strangely innocent.

  How could this beast have ever been born as a baby?

  Whatever else he’d been doing, Isak was still a fit man. Muscles shifted, enticingly, as he breathed.

  Enticingly? It was true.

  My response to this specimen of abomination was unnerving. Below, from between my legs, heat spread, flooding outward. My body automatically readied itself… for sex. My nipples tightened. I could feel how they pressed at the thin material of the dress.

  I shut my eyes.

  Forget him, forget the feel of his hands running over my skin, the clench of his fingers in my hair and around my neck, the smell of him as he fucks himself into me. The wet, slapping sounds of our bodies meeting.

  As easily forget the feel of air in my lungs. He was in my very pores, injected into me in as lust, blood, and come. I’d had so much of him in me and on me, our genetics had probably merged.

  I wanted to throw up.

  If he took control of me again, as thoroughly as I had been controlled until today – subsumed by his persona – I might never surface as myself again.

  My courage rebooted, and I raised my head, ready to snarl like a cornered bitch.

  I took a step.

  I had been important, once upon a time? I frowned. I’d been a CIA analyst. I’d made myself learn the techniques of a sniper, for no other reason than that it would help me to make him dead. That had not been a weekend attempt – I’d trained for years.

  Yet I had failed, and my failure had brought me to the verge of destruction. I cranked my mind back through the more recent blurred days, the nearly soundless days that ran together like sticky syrup. Smell, sound, taste, touch, all my senses had been made lesser. Even the pain had been lessened.

  Though I vaguely recalled screaming for hours.

  Isak had my volume control.

  Why was I not dead?

  The last exquisitely clear memory in my timeline was of crawling into the suitcase, of being strapped in, and then—

  My breath rasped. My hand shook when I raised it, and my eyes stung. Why had he not killed me as he had threatened to?

  I took another step and found the timber floor cool under my sole. I placed my other foot beside it. Should I say something? To him? My throat constricted.

  No.

  Not yet.

  Not fucking yet. Not until I buried a knife in his chest? If only I could.

  Think. If he was in a coma, maybe I could leave? How long had he been like this? This was surely why I was awake – because he was not.

  A foil sheet of oblong pills lay on a glass-topped coffee table. Three pills were left. Was he drugged?

  Cautiously, I took another step.

  A Porsche was parked downstairs.

  I crept closer until I could look down at him and run my gaze from those naked toes – feet were always ugly – up his long legs to the bottom of his black gym shorts. I twitched my gaze past the swell of the cloth above the join of his legs, past the waistband with the knotted cord and that starkly bared navel, past the twists of hair. The T-shirt was thin, like my dress, and clung to his chest. I paused at that and the masculinity of his neck, breath caught, mind caught. Begrudgingly, I found his face.

  I almost made it, almost said goodbye, I’m gone, I’m fucking walking out of here, when his eyelids rose.

  They opened. The shutters to his not-soul. The heralds to my Hell.

  “Greetings, Red.” He saw my gasp, my step backward, and my fear.

  I was gutted, breath stilled.

  “I have a task for you.”

  “What?” I whispered that, as if by being quiet I could deny he had spoken words.

  Then I swallowed as unobtrusively as I could – not that there was much point in concealing my reactions from him, because of course… he knew.

  How many days had he lain like this while I was oblivious?

  Days and days, maybe.

  “I decided to take the drug Wolfe gave me.”

  Oh. That? I glanced at the pills. Was he being truthful? Once, just once, I had tried to sneak that into his drink. The punishment had been harsh and evil, as his punishments tended to be. It was the reason he had drowned the girls and made me wade out to touch them.

  So evil. I shuddered.

  “Really?” I gulped down my misgivings. Was this good or bad?

  “I have been titrating the dose, figuring out what to take and when.” He hadn’t bothered to shift or
sit up. Could he even move?

  At that thought, he sat up – pushing and pulling himself upright by using his hands on the sofa’s edge and back. He swiveled into a position facing me then smiled. It was such a full-on I see you smile with the lines of his mouth a precision engraving. He might have been a sculpture.

  I flinched.

  Had I turned into a pussy?

  Probably. I should not blame myself. This man, this mesmer, had wrecked me, torn me apart. I could never be who I once was.

  “What do you want?”

  “You.” He smiled then un-smiled, so quickly this time I barely caught it. “I feel something is missing, inside me.”

  “Fuck me.” I stared, gaping, then I actually snorted in amusement. “You’re not serious?” A stupid bravery kept me talking. “What you’re missing is a heart, a soul, or even a shred of fucking goodness or humanity. Hell would reject you.”

  Isak slowly rubbed across his mouth with his fingers then beckoned me. “That was unwise. Come. Sit.”

  He patted his knee.

  I turned and ran.

  I felt the tug of his command and his presence as I sprinted down the internal stairs, but as I burst out the front door, it was gone. It was as if some strand of connection between us had snapped.

  CHAPTER 4

  ISAK

  How? How had she managed that?

  Of course, the Keppra had made me a little less aware, less perky, even when it came to her, my talisman. My Red.

  I flung myself off the couch and sprinted after her, spiraling down the stairs. I leaped off and skidded on a rug. As the steel-and-glass front door swung shut behind me, I was already haring in the direction she must have gone, judging by the crunch of leaves and sway of the undergrowth.

  The beach was that way. Why that way? Where did she think she was going? Of course the Porsche was not her answer because the keys were in the bedroom. I’d have trapped her if she’d gone there.

  Having her cornered, pinned down on the bed, I would’ve done bad things to her, which made me think of what to do when I caught her. She must be hoping the beach would be full of swimmers or sunbathers, which it might be, but that would not stop me.

  She knew that too.

  A novel feeling descended, an exhilaration. Her escape and her ability to try to evade me grabbed me by the balls, and I couldn’t manipulate her as I used to, or not at this distance. I hadn’t had this sort of thrill for years – an unwilling victim, struggling under me, wet because she wanted it even when she didn’t.

  I had been taking the easy route with Red and had muted her. That did make it easier to use her. It was why I’d done it. My reaction, now, was confusing.

  I pounded along the sandy track with my bare feet hurting when I trod on sticks, but her feet would also suffer. I doubted she could outrun me, since Red hadn’t exactly been gyming for years. Neither had I, however mesmers had advantages in the fitness and healing departments.

  Once I was close enough… I would have her.

  I kept running, and felt that familiar awareness of a susceptible, collectable female draw closer… nearer, until I gathered that tenuous thread of her to myself, and wound it in. I reeled in my catch, made her slow down, and she would not realize what I was doing.

  Closer… I could see the sand fly from her running feet as I made a corner.

  Closer… I could hear her panting, feel her exhaustion – the air tearing into her lungs, the blur in her vision as she lacked oxygen.

  Lucky that I hadn’t been taking her jogging. As if.

  Then, I could see her.

  With every stride, her dress flipped onto the backs of her thighs or her ass, so that I glimpsed her panties. I drank in the perfect flow and bulge of her muscles, the pump of her arms, the scent of her. I could feel her apprehension, and I regretted not ordering her to go commando. Minus panties I could have watched her cunt get closer.

  Those legs striding, thrusting, her little toes clenching at sand, those alone were enough to make me salivate. I would bite those – bite up the back of her legs, and at her toes – even with the sand on them, when I strung her up to a tree, swinging enough to make it hurt.

  Not for killing – for I would never destroy my toy – just so I could fuck her and make her squeal.

  No rope, asshole. I increased my pace. Damn. Improvise.

  No one else was walking on this track. We’d passed zero tourists. Even if they were here, she could not have called for help.

  Finally I commanded her to stop even as I shouted the word, “Stop!”

  Red braked, bucking forward, her hand plunging into the sand as she stumbled and almost face planted.

  I jogged to a halt, dragging in air, smiling for a second before I wrenched my mouth straight. Got my prey. Hell to the fuck, yeah. That pursuit had been some kind of wonderful.

  Chasing her had put new blood in my veins.

  “Got you,” I murmured while she pushed herself upright from her hands and knees position. “Dust off that sand. Off your legs.” I nodded and she obeyed, still gasping from the run, as was I.

  Where to take her? I needed to punish her for this. Now, not later.

  Punishment had previously been close to pointless. I could crush her will, effortlessly. This had a logic to it, a reason, and that made my dick harder.

  It would be sunset soon. Couples might be wandering this way with guides and flashlights, hoping to see the ocean as the sun went down. Hoping not to get eaten by a stray croc.

  I listened for gatecrashers on our tête-à-tête, half-watching the strained fear on her face while I scanned the surroundings.

  Then I pointed off-track. “Walk ahead of me.”

  After one last pained glance, she obeyed. Ten meters in, I had her stop.

  “Panties off. Give them to me.”

  Eyes shut, she bent over and stripped them from her ankles. They trailed in the sand as she gave them to me.

  I shook off the sand. I could have left it there but was feeling less sadistic than my usual. “Mouth.”

  She opened it, but I paused to look. I couldn’t resist the allure of what stood before me, a female I’d had and given to others in every possible combination. Yet this tainted and degraded woman drew me.

  Why?

  Because. Because sometimes the incomprehensible possesses us. I did not know why. This connection between Red and me simply existed. Nothing I could do would break it – nothing short of killing her.

  For days I’d been feeling my way through the correct dosage of Keppra. After only a short time under its influence, I recognized this as a crux point. Wolfe was right.

  The drug did work a miracle on mesmers.

  And whatever dosage I had taken, at this very point in time, it had me where I wanted to be.

  As pure mesmer, the world was dull and simple. Seen through the eyes of my monster, the nuances and excitement of living was crushed. I had taken Red and used her like a toilet roll to assuage desires, then thrown her away until I wanted her again.

  A human man was more than lust. Should be more.

  Yet the sadism called me. The blushing reds striping her ass. The minute trickles of blood. The straining of her mouth and her whimpers as I whipped her then made her come in almost the same second.

  “Red,” I whispered.

  The curves of her breasts were criminally covered.

  I dithered between stripping her here or doing it later.

  “Arms before you. Wrists together.”

  Having crammed my fist into her hair, I leaned in.

  “You ran from me. Do you deserve punishment?” The thrill of this was making me so hard I was hurting, and I reached down to adjust my dick, giving it a squeeze before I caught both her wrists.

  “Answer me.”

  “Yes.” Such a quiet, squeaky reply.

  “Why’d you run?” With my nose buried in her hair, I inhaled.

  Before this, before the drug, she could not defy me.

  She tried
to shake my fist loose. Defiance? Defiance, I decided, was wonderful.

  I smiled into her hair and bit her ear, listening to the abrupt hiss and shake in her breathing.

  “Don’t do that. Answer. Unless you want to try fucking yourself on a tree branch.” Not that I would ask that of her, but it was an interesting threat.

  And an even more interesting image.

  I wouldn’t. But still.

  “I thought, maybe, you were weaker.”

  “From the drug?”

  She nodded. “I saw it on the table.”

  I twisted my hand in her hair, felt her wince, then released it and wormed the panties between her lips. I wedged them deep, pressing back the corners of her mouth. Then I spun her and knotted the cloth at the back of her head.

  “Let’s get this dress off you, then maybe I can string you up with it before I fuck you.”

  Slowly, I stepped away, never taking my eyes from her, from this shaking, fearful woman as I did so.

  A vice crunched onto my chest and held on.

  Is this it, I asked myself as she drew her dress over her head and offered it to me.

  Naked, eyes wide, legs shaking. The crunch of leaves underfoot punctuated the looming night. Darkness was falling. Animals might be out foraging.

  Is this what I want?

  I was the cause of more fear in her than any wild animal.

  Was this it? My life’s aim?

  Crap.

  Loudly, I sucked on the inside of my mouth.

  Was keeping her shaking so enticing?

  I knew it was the Keppra that altered my view, the same as it was the mesmer infection and not me that had created this version of me that stood in my skin and tugged at me even now.

  Don’t. This way lies death.

  Did it, though?

  Crux point. Pivotal point. Go this way or go that way.

  Is this what I wanted?

  I didn’t like the fear I saw in Red. Or the amount of fear to be precise. I liked fear, just not this stark intensity.

  I did not like the me that had made this happen.

  Stopping myself, though, was entirely different.

  I eyed her, naked, unwilling but also willing – she would do anything for me. I could smell her arousal and imagined a string of it, dripping between her thighs as I teased her.