Dark Desires by Candace Wondrak

Chapter Ten – Jaxon

Will caught me in the hall. I’d found myself gravitating toward Juliet’s room, even though I’d heard she was with Doc. Strange, I thought, since I was pretty sure she was only with Doc so Will could get some sleep, since he was her guard most of the day.

I couldn’t get that girl out of my mind. How the hell could I, after we’d…

Best not finish that thought with Will so close. The man would know what I was thinking, somehow, and he’d take offense to it because he was just as obsessed with her. Not saying I was obsessed, but… but I really did like her, and I felt so shitty to have been the one who’d brought her here.

And then with how I’d pushed her away, over and over…

“There you are,” Will spoke, a sly smile forming on his face. The expression did not suit him. He looked creepier than the Cheshire Cat, and instantly I was on guard. “Markus wants to see you, and before you ask, I don’t know what for. I haven’t told him about your… activities with Juliet, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

My eyes narrowed into a glare. I could not overstate how much I didn’t believe a word he said, but that’s what I got for trusting Will. He might be part of this family, but he was only here because the family kept him alive and relatively sane. From what I heard, if he’d been left to his own devices out there, he’d be dead.

“And why don’t I believe you?” I took a step towards him, squaring my shoulders, ready to fight him if I had to. And I would. For Juliet, I would. Will wasn’t untouchable, not like Markus. I could take him.

I think.

“Believe whatever you want,” Will muttered, the smile falling away quickly when he saw it did nothing to ease the tension racing through me. “But I wouldn’t keep him waiting. You know how Markus gets.”

Yes, we all knew how Markus could be. Anyone who lived in this house did.

Though I was dying inside to say more to him, I huffed and turned away, saying nothing. I did not rush to get to Markus’s office. No, I took my time, for a sense of dread started to fill me, my gut churning in the worst way. To say I was anxious would be the year’s biggest understatement.

What did Markus want, and why did Will look so happy about it? If Will told Markus, I was dead.

Of course, I knew I should’ve kept up the distance between Juliet and me, but damn it all to hell, it was hard. No—not just hard, more like impossible. To keep her at arm’s length, to not want to hold her and reassure her that everything would be all right, was downright impossible.

When I stood before Markus’s door, I knocked and said, “It’s Jaxon.”

Markus’s voice answered me immediately, “Come in.”

I pushed inside, finding Markus behind his desk, as he usually was. The dark-eyed man didn’t even glance up at me. He was busy writing something down in a file, intent on anything but me.

“Will said you wanted to see me,” I spoke, unable to take the silence of his office. It always felt heavier than silence elsewhere, perhaps because here, there were no rules. When you were in Markus’s office, he was god, and you were nothing but an ant under his boot.

And the crazy thing was, I used to be fine with that. I never wanted to be anything more, not until I laid eyes on that girl, not until Juliet Osborne got under my skin and refused to leave. Not until I knew what she felt like under me, holding onto me like I was her lifeline. How could I be okay with the way things were when they kept me from her, when Markus claimed she belonged to him and no one else?

“Yes,” Markus said, still not looking up. “There’s a car out front. Get in it. I’ll be out in a minute.”

That was all I got from him, all he would say, so I kept whatever reply was waiting on my tongue and turned to leave his office. I exited the house through the grand front door, finding Markus was right. A sleek black Ferrari idled, waiting to get out of here.

Leaving the grounds with Markus… that couldn’t be good.

Markus, just to show he was the one in control, as always, made me wait longer than a minute. It was close to ten by the time he strolled out of the house, adjusting his cuffs beneath his suit. The sun shined down on his head, his black hair having an almost bluish tint. He headed around the car and got in, not even tossing me a glance as he did so.

Ignoring me, of course, and I would bet anything he’d continue to ignore me until we got to our destination, wherever it was. I really had no idea where we could be going, but when it came to Markus, you were definitely kept on your toes.

I’d gotten used to it, growing up here.

Markus said nothing as he drove, and as the scenery around us changed, I realized we were leaving Midpark. The sinking feeling in my gut only sunk more. Unless you were someone out in the field, retrieving marks or doing some assassinating yourself, leaving Midpark was never a good sign.

A solid thirty minutes passed before Markus spoke, “I suspect you know what this is about.”

I could play dumb, or I could admit my feelings for Juliet. Clearly, hiding things from Markus was impossible, and Will… that motherfucker would get what was coming to him. I’d make sure of that. I doubted this didn’t involve Will.

In the end, I kept quiet. I would not regret doing what I did with Juliet. She wanted me, and I wanted her. What the fuck was so wrong about that? Why should any of us tiptoe around Markus and his orders when it came to what we felt? It wasn’t like Markus himself cared for her. That man didn’t give a shit about anything except keeping the family going.

“Whether you admit it or not doesn’t matter. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and though I’ve given you time to adjust your feelings, you still harbor them toward Juliet.” Markus made a sharp turn, took it too fast, but the Ferrari handled it like a dream. “We’re going to do something about that.”

I let out a loud sigh, unable to keep it in. My unhappiness could not be more evident. “Why does it matter, Markus? Why can’t you just let it be?” He glared at me, but I kept going, “Why does it matter so much to you that I might like her? Do you think I’m going to try to help her escape? I’m not that stupid. I know you’d find us—”

“Whether or not you’re stupid is up for debate, I think,” Markus growled out, his mouth curling into a frown. A typical Markus expression. “But no matter. It’s not just you this is about. She evidently cares for you as well. I might not be able to change how you feel, but I can certainly change how Juliet feels. You’re going to help me do it.”

My jaw ground. “And how am I going to do that?”

“Patience,” Markus spoke. “You’ll see.”

After another thirty minutes of driving, we ended up at a motel. A run-down one that maybe had twenty units, clearly outside of Midpark city limits. It was exactly the kind of motel you saw in horror movies, the kind where a chainsaw-wielding maniac hid behind corners to catch you. Definitely not a place where a Ferrari should be parked, but Markus didn’t seem to care.

He turned the car off and got out. Even though it was the last thing I wanted to do, I got out with him. The more time passed, the bigger the sinking feeling in my gut grew. Nothing good ever took place in a motel like this. Might not have much experience with motels such as this, but come on. It was common sense.

This was going to be bad.

“Come,” Markus said, checking his watch. “She should be here by now.”

She? Who… I didn’t get the chance to ask him what he was talking about, and I followed Markus across the gravel parking lot to the room labeled with a rusted number fifteen. We were practically a world away from Midpark now.

Markus did not hesitate as he pushed into the room, and I swallowed as I went in after him, finding a woman sitting on the bed, smoking. The air inside reeked of ash and tobacco. Not my favorite scent at all. The moment we walked in, the woman got to her feet, puffing out a huge cloud of smoke.

A pretty enough woman, with long blonde hair almost reminiscent of Juliet’s. If I had to guess, I’d say she was near my age, maybe a year or two older. She wore low-rise shorts, her legs clad in fishnets. A tight shirt covered her torso, her chest practically spilling out. Her face wore thick makeup, which only served to play up her high cheekbones and her vivid green eyes.

“I thought you weren’t going to show,” she purred out, her voice smoother than I thought it would be, considering she was a smoker. “I’ll admit, I thought about not showing myself. You got the money?”

Markus reached into his suit, pulling out a clean stack of bills. The woman’s eyes lit up the moment she saw it.

A nagging suspicion in my head told me I knew why Markus had brought me here, along with hiring the woman in front of us. A hooker, a prostitute, whatever you wanted to call her. I wanted to turn and walk right out that door, but I didn’t, because what would I do? Where would I go? In the end, Juliet would still be in Markus’s clutch.

It was my fault, for falling for her. For allowing myself to feel anything. A job. Juliet was only supposed to be a job for me, nothing more. Fuck, I’d been stupid for thinking everything would be fine.

The woman had an ashtray on the small nightstand, and she went to put out her cigarette. She wore heels, and she walked in them perfectly, as if she’d had years of practice. “Now, which one of you is going to be my John? Or am I taking both?” She didn’t sound eager for that, not hopeful in any respect. Just asking who’d she fuck.

And, even before Markus answered her, I knew who it would be.

Me.

Markus put the money away, then slapped me on my back, as if we were good buddies and this was some kind of sick favor to me. “Jax here has the honor. He might need some coaxing, though.” He stepped away from me, folding his arms over his chest as he went to lean against the wall, inches away from the door, the only escape route beside the window.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

I tossed Markus a glare as the woman sauntered up to me. I hoped he understood my glare and what it said, what it meant, but I also knew my anger meant nothing to him. “And if I walk out the door?” I muttered.

“Then I guess you’ll have to make it in the world out there, without the money or the name, and you’ll leave everything at the house in my care,” he said. “Although, I imagine, if you leave, I might get a little angry, and who knows who I might take it out on next.” He didn’t say it, but I knew who he referred to.

Juliet.

“Do this, prove to me you haven’t gone soft,” Markus stated, his expression twisted into a sneer. “Do this and all is forgiven, where Juliet is concerned.”

“Juliet?” The woman looked between us. “You got a girl or something?” That was spoken to me. “Look, I know you might think I don’t have morals, but I really try not to fuck men who—”

“He is unattached,” Markus once again answered for me, and I ground my jaw.

The woman looked at me. “You sure? We don’t have to do this, although I would like some reimbursement for my time—”

My eyes closed. I couldn’t even look at the woman. Markus was such a fucking asshole, and that put it lightly. To make me do this, to force me to fuck someone else, it was ridiculous and I hated it. I hated it and I hated him for having the power to force my hand.

Or, you know, my dick.

I didn’t want to. This was the last thing I ever wanted to do. The only girl that was on my mind was, unsurprisingly, Juliet, but Markus knew that. He knew it, and he wanted to hurt us both, I think. Me for daring to touch his prize, and her for wanting someone other than him. Yeah, it made sense in a sick, fucked-up way.

And I was so caught up in Juliet, loyal to the family that had raised me and given me a chance to live, to make something of myself, I couldn’t stand the idea of walking away. If I walked away, I became no one. Not a Scott. Just a man with no name, no money, no friends out in the world… and I’d leave Juliet to Markus.

He’d win if I walked away, but he’d also win if I did this. Honestly, I didn’t know which one was worse, which would hurt Juliet less. I supposed, at least, if I did this and stayed, I could watch over her from a distance, make sure Markus never went too far. She would hate me, not want to look at me again if she found out about this—which she surely would since this was all because of Markus—but maybe that was a good thing.

I should’ve known I could never have someone like Juliet. Angels and demons did not mix, and when they did, one or the other was destroyed.

Though I wasn’t looking at anyone in particular, I spoke to Markus, “Is there a certain position you want us to fuck in, or will any way do?” If I had to do this, I’d rather not stare down at her face. I’d rather do whatever I could to pretend she was someone else.

Was it better to gain a slice of heaven and lose it before you realized you had it, or never know what it felt like? I wished I knew the answer, but I did know one thing: everything would change after this. Everything. There would be no going back.

“I’ll let you decide,” Markus muttered. To the woman, he added, “I think he might need some help getting into the mood.”

The woman wasn’t stupid. To her credit, she knew something else was going on, but in her profession, she didn’t get paid to ask questions. Instead, she moved before me, running a hand down along my chest, slow and seductive… but not the hand I wanted to touch me. As her hand dipped low on my stomach, she sunk to her knees.

I couldn’t look at her. I fucking couldn’t. In fact, I pretended I was someone else, somewhere else, as I felt her fingers start to undo the button and zipper to my pants. My mind was so far gone, the last thing my dick wanted to do was get hard.

But I had to. If I didn’t at least trick my body to be in the mood, this would never end. Markus would make us stay here until the job was done, until he saw, without a doubt, that I’d fucked this woman to the point of coming inside her. I’d bet he’d check her before we left, make sure my cum stained her thighs.

Fuck. This wasn’t right. This was not right at all. My body screamed out silently, and the moment I felt her hands yank down my pants and boxers, I stifled a grimace.

Any other guy would be happy to fuck the woman currently on her knees before me. Any guy would love to stick their dick in a cunt they knew they’d never have to see again. No consequences. But I wasn’t that guy. I was never a playboy or a tool that slept with as many girls as I could. No, I’d even skipped college to work at the house, in the basement, wherever Markus needed me.

How fucking stupid had I been? If I had gone to Hillcrest, much like Bennet had been forced to, I might not be in this situation at all. I might not have had time to let Juliet get under my skin. Things might not be as complicated as they were now.

Goddamn it. No matter how much I thought about it, nothing would change. I had to do this. I had to get this show on the road, get it done, for the sooner it got done, the sooner I could leave this shitty motel room and never look back. I’d have guilt to wrestle with, but it’s not something I had a choice in.

I closed my eyes again, focusing on the sensations in my lower half. Not on the woman, but how it felt. Her hands stroked my length a few times, nails running over my balls. She was in no hurry to part those lips and take me into her mouth, and that made me all the more antsy.

I wasn’t here to enjoy myself. This wasn’t a fucking treat. This was a punishment. A strange one, a fucked-up one, but a punishment all the same.

My chest let out an aggravated groan, and I reached for the back of her head, fingers winding in her blonde hair. Her hands dropped, and she instantly knew what I was going for. Though I didn’t look down, I felt the tip of my cock press against her lips, felt her part them and run her tongue around it.

It might’ve felt good, if I wasn’t already drowning in my own misery at the circumstance.

With my hand fisted in her hair, the woman started to bob along my cock, sucking slowly, at first. She was good, but nothing and no one could be good enough to make me forget the fact that Markus stood a few feet away, watching, or that Juliet was back at the house, unaware this was going on.

She would hate me. She would regret ever wanting to be with me.

I’d warned her. From the very beginning I’d warned her. I’d told her not to get close to me, not to like me. I’d practically begged Juliet to squash any feelings rising up for me, but she hadn’t. She’d refused, and look at where we were now. Where I was, what I was currently doing, at the behest of Markus.

Markus could fuck himself.

But, sadly, that wasn’t what would happen right now.

“Get up,” I spoke, my voice huskier than I wanted it to be. “Take off your clothes and get on the bed.”

The woman’s mouth popped off my cock, and I let the back of her head go, eyes averted as she stood, kicked off her heels, and started to work at her own clothes. I did the same, leaving everything on a pile on the floor.

As I crawled onto the bed with the woman, I thought bleakly, I’m sorry, Juliet. You deserve so much better than me. And that much was true. I didn’t think anyone in the house would argue, and if they did, they were fucking lying.

The woman was going to lay down near the pillows, but I grabbed her and turned her around, positioned her right where I wanted her: facing Markus, on her hands and knees, doggy-style on the mattress.

Markus wanted a fucking show, I’d give him one. I’d hate myself during and after, but I’d give him a damned show. It’s what he would need to see, after all.

The woman still wore her fishnets, but a hole sat in them for easy access to her pussy. I supposed a lot of guys liked that, but at this point, I didn’t give a shit. My dick was hard out of spite, out of hate, not for lust for the woman before me, or for her beauty. My eyes did not rake down her naked body, along her spine. I didn’t try to get a good view of her tits or how gravity pulled them down. I simply moved behind her, spread her ass cheeks, and grabbed my cock, positioning myself at the entrance of her cunt.

I could complain and rage about what I was about to do, but to do it any longer only meant the whole encounter would last. Here, every minute counted. Every fucking second I was here was a second I could be somewhere else, and I’d much rather be anywhere else.

My eyes met Markus’s stare, and I bared my teeth at him, like an animal. Like I wanted to bite into him and tear him apart—which, I supposed, in that moment, I did. I couldn’t, but the thought was nice.

As I pushed into her pussy, feeling her warmth and wetness envelop me, I imagined cutting into Markus’s skin with a knife. As I rammed her with my shaft, pushing every inch of my cock into her, I pictured the blood that would run down him. I thought about torturing Markus for what he was making me do as I did it.

Yeah, fucked up, but like I kept trying to convince Juliet: no one was good here. Not in that house. Not in Midpark. Not me, even though she clearly wanted me to be.

I wanted to fucking kill Markus, and you know what? I’d have a whole lot of fun doing it.

There was a certain rush that came over you when you were killing. It was hard to explain, especially to those of the saner variety. But growing up as I did, learning what I did, you tended to view things differently. Some viewed killing as the worst crime there was, while we simply looked at it like a job that must be done.

Kind of like this fucking session.

I got that rush right now, as I fucked her, but not because I felt a tight cunt around my cock. I got the rush because I pictured gouging out those pitch-black eyes of Markus’s and feeding them to him, gutting him so all of his insides spilled out on the tiled floor in the basement of the house, all while his body was restrained by thick leather straps even he could not escape from.

Oh, yes. I’d like to kill him very, very much.

My hands gripped her sides hard as I pummeled her pussy. I wasn’t gentle about it, was far from the tender lover I’d been when I was with Juliet. This wasn’t the woman’s first time, nor would it be her last. She could take it. She could take whatever I gave her and walk out of here with a smile on her face and a new wad of cash while I hated myself for it.

Eventually I had to close my eyes. My heart beat fast. Thinking of killing Markus while fucking had certainly helped get things going, but the awful reality of things started to crawl back into my head. It took work to push them out, to focus on the feeling of the body in front of me, on the grunts the woman let out after every particularly rough thrust from me. If I could separate myself from reality, I would. I would do it in a heartbeat.

I breathed hard, sweat forming on my chest. The dingy bed below us shook, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say the damned thing was already broken—that, or breaking in the process. The wooden headboard banged on the wall behind me, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. I had to keep going, push myself to come, and as soon as I did, I could pull out of her, get dressed, and leave.

Any fucking time now, dick.

It took me far too long to feel the familiar rise of pressure in my gut, far too many slaps of my balls, too many thrusts, too many pumps of my dick. Too much touching the woman, holding onto her. Too much of it all before I felt an orgasm beginning to form inside me.

I slammed into the woman’s pussy one final time, my cock twitching with the release of cum. Though I tried to stifle it, a moan left me, uncontrollable in its surfacing. The orgasm wracked my body with hot pleasure, my muscles tensing and tightening all over, my fingers digging even harder into her sides.

By the time I pulled out of her, I was more than ready to get the fuck out of there, so that’s what I did. I hopped off the bed, ignored the fact that my dick was wet with another woman’s slickness, and started to put my clothes on.

Markus paid the woman, who didn’t seem to mind that she was naked, her body on full display for us both. Neither of us looked at her, though. Markus only looked at her face when he paid her, and I couldn’t look at her at all.

I left the motel room without saying a word to either of them, got in the car and sat there for a few moments, waiting for Markus to be done. It felt like an eternity, but in reality, it was only a few moments before the man in a suit came out. My jaw ground as he got in beside me.

When Markus started the car, I muttered under my breath, “You’re a fucking dick.”

Though I didn’t look at him, I knew the corners of his mouth turned upward in a smirk. But the man said nothing as we pulled away from the motel and the prostitute inside the room.

In the end, Markus would get what he wanted, and that was total domination over Juliet. Her body, her thoughts, her very fucking soul. Whatever the reason she was here, it wasn’t just for a job. If it was, Markus wouldn’t give a shit that I liked her.

No, if anything, making me fuck that hooker only further served to prove that point. Juliet was here so Markus could have her. I hoped, prayed she would be strong enough to resist him and all the darkness dwelling within.

God help her if she didn’t.