Page 14 of House of Cards (The Devil’s Den #2)

Zoey

The more I try to calm myself down, the angrier I get.

I’m in the backseat of a Rolls Royce, sitting on a leather seat that’s so soft, it feels like I’m cradled in cream-colored cashmere, even through my red-spanked ass. But no matter how soft the seat, steel bars disguised as tinted windows still cage me in.

I’ve slipped into a nightmare world filled with thugs and gangsters, and part of me is sickened by the predator beside me, the other part is crushing on him so hard it wants to write ZOEY + SMITH repeatedly in the margins of its fucking economics text book.

I tried bolting when he brought me down to the car. He caught me so easily it was almost worse than the sting of his palm when he gave me a hard slap for the attempt. Then he snapped his fingers at the back seat like I was a child.

It worked. I climbed in. Fuming and humiliated.

Like a good girl…and this time he didn’t even praise me for obeying.

Since then, it’s like I stopped existing. Should’ve made me feel better, but I just feel alienated and so terribly, terribly lost. I have no idea what’s about to happen, and my imagination is having a field day filling in the blanks.

“We going to The Den now?”

“Yes.” Smith’s calm response only amps up my indignation.

“Where you’re going to let some rando creep fuck me?”

“Quiet, kitten. Daddy’s working,” he murmurs, not taking his eyes off his phone. The light from his cellphone reflects off his glasses, but not well enough that I can read any of the texts.

I stare at him with resting bitch face, but it’s pointless if he won’t look at me, so I turn back to the window. But instead of providing a distraction, the tinted glass reflects the interior, forcing me to stare at my own miserable reflection.

I close my eyes and pretend that I’m on a romantic date with my Significant Other, that I’m wearing a designer gown and not this skimp red robe, that I’m going au naturel —no makeup, no straight ironed hair—because my sugar daddy loves me just the way I am.

“What’s the money for?”

My eyes fly open, and a blush warms my cheeks when I see Smith staring at me. I tug at the hem of the robe, wishing it could at least cover my knobby knees, and consider his question.

“It’s for none of your fucking business.”

“It’s exactly my fucking business,” he says, tilting his head to the side.

Guess it doesn’t even matter anymore, but in this fucked-up relationship between captor and captive, information is the only good card in my shitty hand. I might as well use his curiosity to my advantage.

I lean my head back and roll it to face him. “I’m hiring a hitman. You’ve been added to the list.”

You’d swear my ass wasn’t still aching from that brutal spanking in his hotel room. His palm cracked like a gunshot, each strike bruising. By the fourth, my skin screamed for mercy, but I refused to let him know it hurt.

Pain has nothing to do with it. It was downright fucking humiliating being bent over and punished like that. Even now, thinking back to it, a fresh wave of anger sears through me.

How fucking dare he?

He can be glad all I did was stick him with a fork.

Smith scoffs. “He’ll have to get in line.”

I flinch when I hear my earlier thoughts echoed back to me.

I keep silent, hoping he’ll drop this particular line of questioning.

Even if there’s some remote chance I could trust Smith, if Buzzcut didn’t want me going to the police, he sure as shit won’t approve of me airing my dirty laundry in front of Mr. Chuckles.

But Smith is relentless.

“I’m waiting, kitten.”

I stare straight ahead. “I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

He sighs. Not impatiently, but like he feels sorry for me for not understanding the gravity of my situation.

“People who need money as badly as you do either have a habit, or a problem. You don’t look like a junkie to me.” He leans in over the cream-colored seats, voice dropping lower. “Who’s got their boot on your neck?”

There’s something in his eyes, and it’s not just idle curiosity. I’d mistake it for concern, but I’m not that stupid. Psychopaths can’t feel empathy, they can only imitate it.

“I’m just your pussy-for-hire. Stop pretending that you care,” I snap, furious that my body is switching on in all the wrong ways.

How can just thinking about him laying his hands on me make my clit tingle? Could be the way his cock was digging into me the whole time. I swear, he uses that thing like a fucking weapon.

This guy is such a head trip.

Ridiculously smart and obviously well educated. Tall. Devastatingly handsome, but in an approachable way. Deceptively approachable.

Clark Kent’s smile. Lex Luthor’s mind.

I should be plotting ways to escape this psycho, not memorizing the way his hands felt on my skin. Not trying to figure out how to piss him off just enough so he’ll lay his hands on me again without killing me.

“Of course I care. It speaks to motivation,” he says dryly.

“You a lawyer now?”

“Please,” he says, layering disgust over the word. “I’m an accountant.”

I let out an eighty-percent-dark-chocolate laugh. I can’t fucking help it. I mean…an accountant who spanks women into submission?

But my mirth cuts off the moment Smith’s eyes darken.

“Forget it.” I slide my hands over the silky fabric covering my thighs. I should shut the hell up, but now that he’s finally talking to me, I want to get as much info out of him as possible. Even if that means being polite.

“If at all possible, m’lord, could you kindly tell me what to expect when we get to the club?”

“I’ll make you a deal, kitten.” Smith gives me an unpleasant smile as he fingers his fork wound through his shirt. “Tell me what you need the money for, and I’ll explain in detail what my client will require from you.”

Need ed . Past tense, sucker.

I should feel relieved knowing the sword hanging above my head dropped…and I wasn’t even under it. But I’m struggling to process anything right now.

“Deal?” Smith prompts.

“Fuck it. Who doesn’t love surprises?” I say, waving my hand to appear unfazed.

Only one side of his mouth stays quirked up, a very sinister look on someone as stupidly handsome as him. “The people I surprise, usually.”

“You don’t scare me, m’lord, and neither do your ‘clients.’” I put the last in air quotes.

Smith’s gaze drops to my lap and then slowly climbs its way back up my body, pausing briefly on my mouth. Every shred of courage in my chest evaporates.

“Let me know if you still feel the same when one of them is splitting open your ass while another gags you with his cock and uses your tears for lube.”

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

My ass cheeks clench in self-defense, but at the same time a hard pulse shoots through my clit.

I hate his dirty mouth.

I hate him .

But if he puts his hands on me one more time, I don’t know if I’ll fight to get away...or fight to make him stay.

He scans my face, lets out a sardonic huff like he thinks he’s successfully terrified me, and goes back to doing whatever he’s busy with on his phone.

“One more thing, Zoey.”

How is it worse when he uses my name instead of calling me kitten?

“What?”

He remains silent until I add a grumpy, “M’lord?”

“Don’t think you’ll be able to slip away without me noticing. I have eyes all over this place.”

I snort. “Never even crossed my mind.”

Smith reaches over and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his hand pausing for a moment before he skates the back of his knuckles down the side of my neck.

The dark look in his equally dark eyes sends panicked goosebumps chasing over my skin.

And heat crawling up my thighs.

“That’s my good girl.”

Those four simple words hit me like bullets. Warmth bleeds into my chest and spreads up my neck until my cheeks are suddenly as hot as the handprints he left on my ass.

What the fuck is this? My body feels tight, hot, too fragile. Like if I lost control for even a second, I’d start crying. Or worse, crawl into his lap like some pathetic bitch in heat.

My brain recognizes this for the blatant manipulation that it is, but my body falls for it anyway.

Smith scans my eyes, my lips, my throat. As if he’s figuring out where to cut first.

The emotions warring on my face only seem to make him more interested. So I clench my jaw and look away, depriving the sadistic fuck of his quick dopamine rush.

He can threaten me as much as he wants, I don’t give a fuck anymore.

Ricky’s gone, and the only thing that still held any meaning in my life has been burned to the ground. My mind goes back to the grainy photograph from the newspaper article. The blackened walls, that lurid neon graffiti viscerally fresh and new against the devastation.

I turn to look out the blackened window, but all I can see is the misery in my own eyes.

Smith has already taken my freedom. My dignity.

All that’s left is my life.

Knowing him as well as I do, he’ll take that too. Maybe not with a bullet or a knife, but slowly—bit by bit.

Until all that’s left is a shitty, broken toy he’ll toss in the trash.