This Darkest Man Read online

  But before I knew it, he was pulling the car up beside an intercom. He hadn’t been a member before, only an invited guest, and he apparently wasn’t a member now as he gave what was called an invitation code to get in. The doors of the garage rolled open and he slowly drove in. The rest of the cars put his to shame. They were high end and screamed wealth and ostentation. As if he could read my mind, he turned to me and squeezed my thigh.

  “This’ll be us one day, Matilda. I’ll be playing with the big boys soon.”

  I didn’t see how, he was only an accountant, but I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t wait for him to open the door for me; instead I slung my legs out and pulled my coat tightly around me as my heart started to beat faster. Just like that other time, we walked toward the lift. There was nothing here to indicate that we were about to enter a high-end sex club. Even when we stepped off the lift onto the floor, an attractive young woman who sat behind a mahogany desk greeted us. She could have been working at any office or hotel.

  “May I have your code, sir?”

  Josh rattled off the numbers with a sense of arrogance. I assumed that whichever member who had permitted him to come was someone important, because the woman raised an eyebrow before saying, “He’s here tonight. Shall I tell him that you’ve arrived?”

  “Thank you,” Josh continued with his arrogant tone, and I gave the woman a smile to try to make up for his abrasiveness.

  “Please go on through.”

  I followed Josh through the double doors that led down a corridor. It was the simple looking door at the very end that led us down the rabbit hole and into another world. Servers dressed as Roman slave girls and gladiators carried glasses of champagne on silver trays, never blinking an eye at what went on before them.

  Some wore tuxedos; some wore nothing, or extravagant costumes. Everything was allowed…I remembered how I had nearly fainted the first time that I had come here. Debauchery was active in every corner on velvet love seats. People of every size, ethnicity and gender were engaged in sensual activity that it was hard to look away from.

  “Well?” Josh asked me. I gave him no indication of my nerves, I knew that he wanted me to act shocked and try to hide behind him as I had the first time. I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.

  “I need a drink.” I took a glass from a passing server before taking a seat at a small table like this was any cocktail lounge.

  Josh joined me, sipping on his own champagne. “They have shows here.” He indicated where velvet curtains must have hidden a stage. “I’ve never seen one but I hear that they’re wild.”

  “Do you come here a lot?” I asked.

  He smiled. “I’m not a member. I was lucky to get that invite that time I took you, and I had to do a lot of chasing around to get in tonight.”

  I sipped my champagne, not looking at him. I wondered if he expected me to thank him. My eyes caught a woman being kissed on the mouth by a handsome, half-naked man, while another young man who looked like his twin sucked on her neck. The woman wasn’t beautiful, but I could tell that she was wealthy by her hair and her jewelry. This was a place where the rich ruled, and the rest of us were here for their entertainment. Much like I had been Clay’s, or Daniel’s, entertainment.

  I felt a hand stroking my thigh, and looked down to see Josh’s hand creeping up underneath my skirt, slowly pushing it up. “Do you know how sexy you look, Matilda? You’re the hottest girl in the room right now…”

  Before I had a chance to push his hand away, we were interrupted by one of the Roman slave girls. “Excuse me, your presence is requested in the VIP room.”

  Josh removed his hand and smirked before adjusting his tie. “Come along,” Matilda,” he ordered like I was a dog as he got to his feet.

  “Sorry, Sir.” The Roman slave girl stopped him. “Only the lady’s presence is required. You’ll need to remain in the public area.”

  Anger flashed through Josh’s eyes, but he managed to control himself. “She would prefer me to remain with her.”

  “Sorry, Sir. The VIP area is special invite only. There are no exceptions.” The girl was firm, and Josh glared at her before one of the well-muscled gladiators came up beside her.

  “I’ll escort you, ma’am,” he said to me, taking my arm gently but with a firmness that made me wonder if I could pull away if I wanted to. But I wanted to be away from Josh, so I didn’t try. I heard Josh arguing behind me as I was escorted to the lift, which was open and waiting. The doors closed, but not before I saw Josh turning red with anger, and I took a breath, glad that the anger was not directed toward me.

  The lift whisked us up and when the doors opened, the gladiator beckoned me forward, before closing the lift doors behind me. I looked around me. I was alone in the entranceway, and two large double doors stood before me. I took a deep breath, and then threw back the rest of my champagne. I left the empty glass on a side table and walked forward.

  As if I were being watched, the doors swung open before me and I walked through. My eyes widened as I saw a woman down on her knees with a dog collar around her neck. She was being brought to orgasm by another woman. Another man had his cock sucked by an older gentleman who was dressed in a tuxedo, and so it went on, everywhere that I looked. The area was dark and ornate, black carpet led to a balcony and I stepped over to the railings. It looked down on the club below and my eyes searched for Josh but I couldn’t find him.

  “Madam.” A young man offered champagne and I took one thankfully, knowing that I would have to drink a lot more to calm my nerves. He gave a nod before turning away. What did I do now? I leaned against the railing and sipped at my champagne, hoping that no one could see me shaking. I let my eyes roam around the room, uncomfortable that I was actually getting turned on by all that was around me. My eyes caught a woman who was whipping a naked girl across her buttocks, it made me wonder if I could ever look that domineering and…cruel.

  “Madam, he’s ready for you.” I dropped my glass in surprise and the crystal shattered. My hand went to my mouth in horror, but no one thought anything of it. Seemingly out of nowhere, a server appeared and began to sweep up the mess.

  “S-sorry,” I told her.

  She looked slightly shocked that I had even spoken to her, and then just got on with the job.

  “Madam?” the young man repeated, gently touching my arm. “This way.”

  I followed, wanting to be away from the mess that I’d caused, and only just processing that I was about to see Clay. I guessed it was Clay, who else would it be?

  He led me down a corridor, which was covered in the same ink black carpet. The walls were also painted black, but they had a metallic sheen to them. Decorating the walls were black and white photographs of men and women in various states of undress and erotic play, and I blushed looking at them. For some reason I found them more offensive than the real life people I had just witnessed. The young man stopped at the end, and knocked on the door.

  “Enter,” came the order.

  He opened the door and then stepped aside, motioning with his hands for me to go ahead. Swallowing, I stepped through.

  Chapter Ten

  I jumped as the door closed behind me, twisting to look at it and taking a step back.

  “Relax, Mattie.”

  I paused, and then turned slowly to face him. He sat behind a desk, dressed in a tuxedo and his hair was cut short just like in the magazine photograph. He leaned back in his chair, with his hands behind his head. He looked absolutely relaxed and calm, nothing about me disturbed him. I wished that I could say the same.

  I clasped my hands in front of me to stop from fidgeting nervously. I had expected rage to rise within me, but instead I felt anxious. The only anger I felt was at myself, for letting that feeling of lust return. I tried to push it down, as I narrowed my gaze to stare at him.

  That only served to make him laugh. “Mattie,” he cooed. “You look like a nervous school girl. What shall I do to make you relax? Quote the “Fall of the House
of Usher, perhaps?” he mocked. “Or should I use another method?”

  Then, right then, the rage returned. “Who are you?” There was not even the hint of a stutter in my voice.

  His lips quirked up into a smile. “Don’t you read the business pages?”

  I gave a small humorless laugh. “Forgive me. I should have asked what are you? What kind of person goes sneaking around, lying and stealing and pretending to be someone else?”

  The smile remained on his face but I could read nothing else that was there. “All you say is true. They don’t call me the Snake for no reason.”

  I shook my head at him. “What kind of high powered businessman takes a week off to go to the middle of nowhere and pretend to be someone else. You already had every legal right to take my land. It wasn’t necessary to go to such lengths.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t get to take vacation time very often. I decided to spend it with you. Although, I must say, I didn’t expect it to be so pleasant.”

  “You’re a special kind of fucked up, you know that?”

  He laughed softly. “Swearing now, Mattie? Normally, you only do that when my mouth is on your—”

  “Shut up,” I seethed. “I want to forget that all those awful things ever happened.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Awful? You didn’t seem to think so at the time. All I remember is you begging for more…”

  “I want my ring back.” It was time to get to the point. “You’ve taken everything else from me. I want it back.” My hands were bundled into fists at my side, and I welcomed the pain from my nails digging in viciously to my skin.

  He slowly removed his hands from behind his head and straightened his back, his face was serious now. “It was never yours to begin with, Matilda.”

  “That’s crap and you know it. I was the only heir. It belonged to me and—”

  “It was stolen.”

  I frowned. “What? How could you possibly know that?”

  “I don’t have to explain myself to you, Mattie.”

  Ouch. Those words hurt more than I liked to admit. For a moment, I didn’t know what else to say, but I wouldn’t give up yet. “I-I just want to know. Why are you acting like this? Why are you being so mean? What did I do to deserve this kind of treatment?” My voice sounded raw and desperate, exposing everything that was inside me.

  “You need to calm down, Mattie,” he said quietly.

  I sucked in breaths, trying to stop the rapid beating of my heart, which felt like it was going to thump its way out of my body. “It’s true what they say about you, isn’t it? That you’re a snake, a sadist. You enjoy causing pain.” I was trembling now, and I wrapped my arms around myself to try and stop my body but it seemed to have a mind of its own, just like my mouth. The worse thing was how he was looking at me. There was no emotion there; it was like I was some creature that had slightly caught his interest. I could almost feel him dissecting me with his eyes.

  I nearly jumped when he stood and moved from behind his desk. All I could do was stare at him in wide-eyed horror as he approached me. He gripped my upper arm. “Nice dress.” Then he pulled me to the curtains and pulled a rope to open them. They revealed a wall of glass looking down on the club below. He stood behind me, holding both of my arms in his grip. “You see that stage there?” How could I not? A blindfolded woman was on her knees licking at a man’s penis while the woman behind her entered her with a strap-on. I wanted to look away, but found I couldn’t. “If you do something for me on that stage in front of everyone, then I’ll give you something that you want.”

  I could feel his heart beating behind me, and I was surprised to find that he had one. I twisted my neck to look at him. “Like what?” Not that I was contemplating it, of course, but I had a desire to know how his apparently twisted, cruel mind worked.

  “You choose,” he said casually. “You can either have the ring back, or an answer to one of your questions.” He moved a hand from my arm and stroked my hair in a way that made me feel even more like a pet. “All you have to do is get up on that stage and cum,” he whispered.

  I shoved him away. “You’re sick.”

  “What I am is horny, Mattie. The thought of you naked on that stage really turns me one. You may not know it, but you have an exquisite body.” He grinned, showing white teeth and I couldn’t tell if he was mocking me or not. “I could just eat you up. Maybe I’ll smother your pussy in cream, dip your breasts in chocolate, place a strawberry in your mouth and then I’ll have you served up on a platter for everyone to have a taste…”

  I twisted my face in disgust. “I’m going.” I spun on my heel and headed for the door.

  “I’ll have my driver meet you outside. Your little puppy dog had to leave. You were the only reason he was ever invited anyway,” he called.

  I stopped and turned back to him. “Why? Why invite Josh?”

  He was still grinning. “I told you what you had to do if you wanted me to answer your questions.”

  “God, I just want to wash you off of me.” I shook my head at him and strode for the door.

  I was met at the lift by one of the gladiators who pushed the button for me. “The driver will be waiting for you, ma’am.”

  “Thank you,” I managed to whisper, and once the doors closed, I collapsed against the mirrored walls. I felt like fainting. How could my wonderful Clay turn out to be someone so…disgusting? Yet he turned you on, Matilda, voices sneered in my mind. I shook my head, trying to shake them away. I was met at the bottom by a driver in a dark car with tinted windows. I should have thought twice about getting in, but my mind was in too much of a confused daze. I didn’t tell the driver where I lived, but it didn’t matter because he already knew. When I exited the car, I felt like I had finally returned to reality. My legs still felt like jelly as I made my way up to my apartment, and my head was spinning like I had just been on a wild ride.

  Chapter Eleven

  All the others in the office giggled with excitement as the flowers arrived. The delivery guy was pointed toward my corner of the floor, and I watched nearly in horror as he came straight for me.

  “Matilda Larsen?”

  I nodded as my heart sunk.

  “Sign here.”

  I scrawled my signature. They must have been from Josh, he had tried to call me last night but I had turned off my phone in avoidance. The delivery guy placed the flowers on my desk before leaving. They were a large bouquet of red roses; the petals were the darkest red that I had ever seen and they reminded me of blood and garnets.

  “That’s so romantic!” squealed the girl at the desk next to me who had never seen fit to speak to me before. “Who are they from?”

  “Just an annoying ex,” I muttered, reluctantly opening the card, expecting Josh’s bold scrawl. But instead, in neat print, it said: Which is it? The question or the ring? and beneath it was a cell phone number.

  I peered at the stems of the roses, expecting thorns, but there were none. “Here,” I said to the girl. “You can have them. Tell everyone they were delivered to me by accident.” I passed them to her over the half wall that we shared, and she gave me a puzzled look but took them anyway. I left the card on my desk and strode off to the bathroom. I felt a sheen of sweat on my skin, and when I looked in the mirror, I saw a pale girl who looked sick.

  How could I let him have this effect on me? And what was I upset about the most? The ring, the questions I had, or, and it shamed me to admit it, never having his hands on me again? This was beyond pathetic, even for me. How could my body possible want someone whom I loathed so badly? He was a bad person. A horrible, cruel, bad man. For some reason, he just made me want to act like a wanton slut.

  I nearly groaned at that realization, and remembered how my aunt used to call my mother names like that. I didn’t want to be like my mother, but I also didn’t want to be a prim and proper old maid who never had any fun.

  “What would be the harm?” I asked the girl in the mirror. “No one would know you. E
veryone in that club would have done far worse. Take a risk.”

  Someone entered then, and I promptly shut up and returned to my workstation. I couldn’t concentrate, of course, my mind continuing to play ‘what if?’ The day wore on, and eventually, I took a card and wrote on it.

  Why?

  That was it. With shaking hands I called a courier to come and collect it as I slipped it into an envelope and wrote the address of Hellman’s head office. There was no reply back, and I hurried home, desperate to get to the safety of my apartment.

  I wasn’t home long when a parcel was delivered to my door. The writing on the card was familiar, and I ripped it open.

  Be ready at 10. Wear this and nothing else.

  I pulled the ribbon from the accompanying box and slipped off the lid, hooking the fabric with one finger and warily pulling it free from the tissue paper. I sat there for a long while, holding the items as my mind raced. Did I want to do this? Could I do this? In public? Risking humiliation?

  But other thoughts intruded as if a little devil were sitting on my shoulder and whispering in my ear. Do it, Matilda. How could this be worse than any other humiliation that you’ve ever suffered?

  I found myself undressing, discarding each item of my boring corporate wardrobe and letting it fall to the ground. And then I stood completely nude in front of the full-length mirror. This girl was pale and innocent. She was…boring. She had never done anything interesting in her whole life.

  My eyes moved to the scarlet garments that lay in a pile. They nearly had more life than I did with their vivid color dominating the room and making everything else, myself included, pale in comparison. I took a breath, and reached for them.

  The minutes ticked by and the hour of ten drew closer. I stood dressed in scarlet and was almost unrecognizable. The bra and panties were scarlet lace, with matching stockings and garters. Over the top of these, I fastened the cape. It was a rich scarlet velvet that skimmed just below my bottom and had a large hood. I tried to adjust it so it sat over my shoulders, but it wasn’t designed for that and kept slipping to my back so I was uncovered. The shoes matched as well; they were dangerously high stilettos but they weren’t uncomfortable. They seemed perfectly molded to my feet and I managed to take a few steps without falling flat on my face. I pulled the hood up over my head; it was large and hung over my face in such a way that left my features in shadow. That was better. You couldn’t tell that it was me like that.