Page 9 of Tricked By Jack

A black rose.

It’s not fresh—not alive at all. The flower is desiccated, preserved in its death. The once-supple stem has hardened into a brittle twist of organic material, the spathe curled inward like a protective cloak around the spadix.

The bloom’s elegant curve remains intact, but the tissue has transformed—no longer velvet-soft but papery, fragile, like ancient parchment that might disintegrate at a touch.

What catches my eye are the speckles—dark red, almost rust-colored—marring the black petals like scattered blood. I reach for the rose, pausing only as a slight tremor runs down my fingers.

The flower feels wrong in my hand. It’s too light, too hollow, a brittle relic rather than anything once alive. A petal breaks off at the touch, crumbling to dust against my skin.

As I set it down, something shifts beneath the tissue paper—a small rectangle of black and orange cardstock I hadn’t noticed before. I lift it free and turn it over.

For every bride, a bloom must die,

Petal-black and blooded dry.

The vow begins before the ring,

You’re his now, let the silence sing.

The final line pulses beneath my skin like a bruise I want to press harder. I read it again. And again. My fingers leave smudges of black dust on the counter, marks that feel like proof I’ve already let this vow under my skin.

What the actual hell is this? Oh, no. Please don’t let this be Caleb’s way of proposing.

The Trickster

Smirking, I make my way back to Eve’s door the moment I hear it close. When I realized she was hanging around, waiting for me to be gone, I had to walk all the way down and open the front door.

My cock’s still hard, straining painfully against the metal teeth of my jeans zipper, the pressure making the pierced shaft throb with each heartbeat. Fuck me. The dress she wore left very little to my fucking imagination.

Tight across her breasts and short enough I saw the swell of her ass when she turned. No bra or panties—I would’ve seen the lines.

Eve Mortis opened the door to a masked man in the dead of night without a second thought. All while her attire screamed desperation, as if she were inviting chaos to consume her whole.

The hallway is dead silent, all the doors shut, and the lights off. Perfect. My hand slides down, fingers curling around the rigid outline beneath denim. A sharp breath escapes through clenched teeth.

With a savage groan, I rip my zipper down just enough to free myself, the relief instant and agonizing. Each metal stud along my shaft scrapes my palm as I grip hard enough to hurt.

My jaw clenches until my teeth nearly crack, imagining her gagging, eyes watering as I roughly feed her every rung of my Jacob’s Ladder, leaving her throat bruised and ruined for days.

I slam into my fist, each brutal thrust making my vision blur at the edges. I imagine her delicate fingers struggling to close around my girth, her eyes widening in fear when she realizes what I’ll force her to take.

The force of my next thrust sends my knuckles crashing against her door, the hollow thud echoing down the empty hallway. I freeze, heart hammering violently in my chest.

Shit, did she hear me?

My breathing sounds entirely too loud through the mask as I wait to see if she’ll come back out here. I wait for ten, twenty, fifty seconds. Each passing second makes me impossibly harder. Pre-cum leaks from my cock, and I can’t say I hate the idea of Eve opening the door, catching me jerking off.

Nothing happens.

Fuck, the anticipation rips through me like electricity, my balls drawing up painfully tight against the base of my cock. One last savage stroke and my entire body convulses—vision whiting out, knees nearly buckling as I erupt, every muscle seizing in violent release.

I bite down on a groan as I come, thick ropes spilling over her door. I press the head of my cock to the wood, dragging it down until it smears. Then I dip two fingers into my cum and write one word.

Soon.

Chapter 4

The Trickster