Pam Godwin - Deliver

Should have jumped with Mom that day instead of staying behind to roller-blade. Should have skated away from his car when he stopped to ask directions. Should have screamed instead of getting in when he aimed the gun. A wave of revulsion surged through her. “Your first capture was just a stupid girl.”

“A stupid girl who incorporated the client’s requirements. Tight seventeen-year-old ass, perky tits, all that innocence bouncing up and down on skates.” He hummed. “I have no regrets.”

Regret would have gone a long way in their relationship.

He shifted closer and reached for her thigh. She jerked out of the path of his hand and pressed against the door.

Black fields smeared by. If the cold glass against her cheek was the only barrier between her and those fields, she would be sprinting through them as fast as possible away from this car.

He reached again, a full-body lean, veering the car onto the edge of the shoulder. The car righted as his hand made contact, shoved between her legs, and cupped her.

That hand had been her undoing so many times. She was stolen innocence, following the rules of monsters. Somewhere along the way, she’d become one.

The faster he rubbed, the harder he pressed against the denim seam protecting her bundle of nerves, the looser her hips became. It was his words, however, that had the power to own her and destroy her, from the inside out.

“I want to spend the rest of my life looking at you, touching you. Christ, I have to touch you to make sure I’m not imagining you.”

She ground against his fingers, hating herself. Her hips shifted up and down, pelvis rolling out, thighs opening, responding in defiance of her own volition.

His voice lowered to a murmur. “Why is fucking you the only way I can reach you, Liv? I want more. More than this.”

She released a moan, a sound practiced to seduce. But she couldn’t stop her heartfelt yearning from bleeding into the edges of her voice. She covered it by dragging it out into a longer, more robotic groan.

He yanked his hand away. “Save your fucking fakeasms for the new bitch boy.”

A shaky breath tingled past her lips. She hadn’t been faking, not completely, and that was more revolting than the act itself. “Maybe I won’t fake with this boy.”

The sudden stiffness of his posture betrayed the calmness in his tone. “The client was very specific about who will be fucking his property.”

Of the twelve requirements in the contract, the buyer’s first demand took an audacious detour around the usual kinkativity.

Requirement One. Slave has never experienced sexual intimacy with a woman. Slave is heterosexual but hates women. He desires only his Master.

There wasn’t a buyer who didn’t make her shudder, but this one was so openly sexist, he notched a new level of loathing, and she hadn’t even met him yet. “His first requirement is so fucked up. I don’t like it.”

“He’s probably some scorned man and wants a slave to sympathize with his misery. He’s not any different than the other kinky, fat-wallet pig fuckers you’ve contracted for.”

“Maybe. But this one’s a whole new breed of creepiness.”

Their previous contracts were straightforward, listing desired physical attributes and demanding the usual kneel-grovel-suck-my-cock training. The cost for that training was ludicrous, and she never saw a penny of it. But everyone had a price. Hers was more valuable than money.

“The job’s the same.” His voice snapped through the car. “The slave you deliver will be exactly as he ordered.”

Or she would lose the only two reasons she buckled on a parachute when she jumped. She nodded.

He wiggled his toothpick. “Though it definitely would’ve been easier if the contract had allowed us to nab a homo.”

Jesus, the world was already a predatory asshole, and here they were discriminating who it should feed on next. The client wanted a twenty-something, straight, virgin male with all the usual attractive, athletic qualities. The fishing pool for such a demand was spectacularly small. Boys who grew up without families didn’t retain their virginity. “I don’t like taking this boy from his parents.” It fucked up her delicately woven strategy, the only secret she managed to keep from Van.

“So,” he said, smirking, “because your previous captures didn’t have families who missed them, that makes them less human?”

Absence of loved ones was her own personal requirement when she went through the selection process, but that did not make them less at all.

His laugh greased the air. “The irony of your ethics is perverse.”

The irony of her life was perverse.

He relaxed into a sigh, his head dropping back against the seat. “We make an invincible team, Liv. Just do your thing until the mere presence of your pussy makes him vomit.”

With the previous captives, Van held the reins, driving the level and direction of the training. But the first requirement in this contract was sticky. To condition the slave to hate women, they’d agreed that she would be the brute force.

Her stomach wobbled. “Think you can stay out of the way while I handle this one?”

“Yep. Just call me in when your devout jock-bag is ready to suck my cock.”

Requirement Two. Slave will service Master sexually with exceptional skill, and his body will be prepared to make it easy for Master.

She and Van would play a depraved game designed to turn a straight, virgin boy into the embodiment of the client’s twelve requirements. Virgin boys were beyond her expertise. Joshua Carter—with his pious upbringing and family support—was a tangle in their operation, one that could endanger her arrangement. The unmistakable shiver of panic lurched through her.

He eased off the gas. “I think we’re here.”

Up ahead, a smudge of trees breached the flat horizon of rural Texas. She checked the signal on her phone. “We’re in the dead zone. This is it.”

He parked on the shoulder where the trees crept closest to the road and turned on the hazard lights. She stepped onto the gravel, the stir of dust settling around her sneakers. When she raised the hood of their car, he removed a fuse from the engine compartment and tucked it in his pocket. Then they waited.

Wheat fields reached around the woodland and stretched beyond the mantle of night. The lonely cry of a mockingbird pierced the dark hush.

The nearest resident lived two miles down. She knew them through the lens of her binoculars. Daniel and Emily Carter couldn’t leave their nightly chores to attend their son’s football game. She knew they expected him home soon.

A distant rumble drew her attention down the desolate road. Given the ease at which sound traveled over the vacant fields, she should see his headlights in about two or three minutes.

Van’s big body blocked her view, pressing in, violating her comfort zone. She raised her chin and searched the depths of his hood. Shadowed and vacant, his expression mirrored her presence of mind.

The back of his hand made a slow trace of her scar, brushing her hair from its path. When he reached her lips, he coiled several strands around his finger.

She grabbed his wrist, and the tendons in her grip turned to steel, immovable. She closed her eyes and braced.

He yanked, sparking a burn where the follicles gave way.

At the sound of his retreating footsteps, she opened her eyes and watched his broad back move toward the trees. “Someday, we’re going to talk about those fetishes of yours.”

Without acknowledgment, he continued in a slow, dispassionate stride until the shadows between the trees swallowed his silhouette.

The purr of the approaching vehicle grew louder, followed by the spit of gravel and bobbing headlights. She leaned against the fender and hummed to the tune of her bludgeoning heart.

The truck slowed and stopped. Liv held up a hand, greeting the darkened interior and the boy who lingered within. Her mark.

When the door remained closed, she worried her lip. Were her assumptions about him wrong?

With each unanswered second, her nerves mounted. What if he had a passenger? She’d been so sure about this part of the plan.

Relief came with the creak of his door. It had been just her anxiety making it feel longer.

He hopped out, the interior light illuminating the empty cab. “Hey there. You need help?”

His voice reverberated through her chest for the first time. It exceeded all her imaginings, a deep underlying elixir, the perfect embodiment of his powerful, masculine frame.

“Hi.” She wiped imaginary grease on her jeans and gestured at the engine. “Started clanking on I-35. I pulled off, got turned around.” She spread out her arms to indicate the expanse of nothingness around them and quickened her rambling with a display of panic. “I’m lost, dang car crapped out, and I can’t get a signal on my phone.”

A chuckle vibrated in his chest, and there was something unnervingly soothing about it. “You definitely got turned around. You’re miles from the interstate. Want me to take a look?” He pointed at the engine and cocked his head, his luminescent eyes dancing in the headlights.

Several feet separated them, the closest they’d ever been in proximity. At almost a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier, he commanded the space he stood in, as well as hers. He could overpower her with sheer strength, which was why she had to lead him to chains by his own accord.

She regarded the ground and tapped the toe of her sneaker on the tire. “It’s the alternator. Last time this happened, the mechanic told me I needed a new one. It’s expensive, you know?” She peered at him through her lashes. “I’ll have to tow it.”