Torment Read online

  “How much does he still have left to pay?”

  “One hundred and sixty four thousand dollars.”

  Never had silence been so loud. How could Robert have been so foolish? I barely knew Nicholas Vidal and yet I was already aware he was dangerous and to be avoided at all cost.

  How were we going to pay back over a hundred and sixty grand? Robert had already surrendered our savings. If we owned a house we could have sold it, but Robert and I rented because house prices in Palo Alto were astronomically high. We both owned cars, but even if we sold them at the highest price we could fetch, the amount still wouldn’t put a dent in the money owed.

  You could sell your business.

  “I—I own a business, Mr. Vidal.” My voice wavered out of desperation and sorrow. It broke my heart to sacrifice my hard work for my husband’s mistake. “My business is worth something. I—I can sell it and clear my husband’s debt. Please, I can pay you back.”

  He didn’t respond right away. An inscrutable expression on his handsome face, he studied me in silence. I wanted to say more, beg harder for him to have mercy on Robert. But if what I’d offered wasn’t enough, pleading with him wouldn’t work.

  “It’s a shame your husband isn’t as devoted to you as you are to him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He drew closer, invading my personal space. “You don’t need to sell your business to pay off your husband’s debt because he’s already offered an alternative.”

  “What’s the alternative?”

  He raised his hand to my face again and smoothed his thumb across my cheek. I trembled, a dormant tingling sensation coming alive in the pit of my stomach. Shock immobilized me as I read the truth in his hungry gaze even before he spoke.

  “You.”

  Six

  —

  “You’re joking.”

  Men like Nicholas Vidal might tease and taunt, but they didn’t joke. He was serious. However, what he said was so insane my brain refused to accept it.

  “I am not.”

  My fury took over at Nicholas’ confirmation. I stepped away from Nicholas and moved closer to Robert. My body vibrated with outrage I struggled to contain. I wanted to expel that energy on Robert. Hurt him physically as much as he hurt me emotionally with his betrayal. The treachery cut twice as deep that he considered me easily dispensable.

  “How could you?” I scowled at him. “How could you offer me up as if I’m some piece of property you own?”

  He cowered from my advance, his features pale with shame.

  “I’m sorry, Grace. I wasn’t thinking straight. I’m sorry—”

  “Fuck your sorry!” Tears pricked at my eyes but I blinked them away. “You had no right, you bastard. It’s my body. You had no fucking right to offer me to cover your debt!”

  I’d never sworn at my husband. I’d always been respectful to him. But that was when I considered him worthy of respect. A man who decided to whore out his wife without her consent just to save his own ass was worse than dogshit.

  And a man who accepted the offer to bed another man’s wife deserved nothing more than contempt.

  I whirled to face Nicholas Vidal. “Regardless of what my husband promised you, I’m not for sale.”

  “I understand your anger and accept your right to renege on your husband’s promise.” Then he smiled. “However, I’m still owed thousands of dollars. If it can’t be repaid with cash and you won’t repay it with your body, then it will be repaid in blood. I will take your husband’s life.”

  His promise hung in the silence. As much as my rage ran hot because of Robert’s selfish act, I still didn’t want him to die. He was my husband. I cared about him.

  Do I care enough to sacrifice my body to a stranger for him?

  To let this evil man take me … fuck me?

  Would it be so horrible to have sex with him?

  Horrified and disgusted at the thought, I boxed it up and buried it deep, pretending it never existed in the first place.

  “Why should I be the one to … why don’t you fuck him then?” I glared at Robert. “Since you think it’s so easy to offer me up on a platter, why don’t you have sex with him?”

  Robert’s eyes widened. Clearly he’d never even considered that possibility. Now that it was on the table, he found it distasteful. How ironic.

  “I don’t want your husband.” Nicholas’ dark gaze held mine. “I want you.”

  I hated the way my stomach flipped when he said that. Tingling heat pulsed between my legs. My body was in turmoil, cycling through conflicted emotions of fear and excitement.

  “You’re being unfair, Mr. Vidal,” I said. “You say you understand, yet you’re doing the same thing my husband did to me: robbing me of choice.”

  “In that case, we’ll let fate choose.” He turned and circled his desk. Opening a drawer, he withdrew a boxed deck of cards and returned to me. “Your husband and I will play three quick rounds of a poker game. If he wins, he keeps his life but loses a hand as a reminder of what happens to thieves. But if I win …” Then his voice lowered, a triumphant smile on his face. “I will fuck you while your husband watches.”

  My body had grown tired of the surprises tonight. The nightmare just kept getting worse. Bad enough Robert had become my pimp. Worse still that he might be forced to watch the result of his selfish act.

  “Vidal. Come on. That’s extreme!” Robert piped up, his features panicked. But Nicholas ignored him, his gaze trained on me.

  “Do you accept these terms, Mrs. Kennedy?”

  “Just call me Grace.” I no longer wanted to be referred as Mrs. Kennedy. Not right now. It implied unity with and trust for a man who no longer deserved it.

  Robert clasped his fingers together. “Grace. Please. Please. Think about this!”

  If Robert won, he lost a hand.

  If Nicholas won, I lost my dignity.

  The lesser of the two evils was in my favour.

  “There’s nothing left to think about.” I sneered at my husband then turned to Nicholas. “Yes, I accept those terms.”

  Nicholas nodded once then instructed the men in suits to cut the zip ties from our hands. I flexed my wrists, relieved I’d regained use of my hands.

  “Have a seat.” Nicholas indicated behind me. I turned. Four beige armchairs surrounding a small, circular table I hadn’t noticed before occupied a corner of the room. Once all three of us were seated, Nicholas handed me the card deck.

  “Do you know how to play Texas Hold ’em?”

  My fingers gripped the deck. “Yes.”

  “Good. We’ll play a variation of that. No bets. Deal all the cards face up. Best hand wins the round.”

  Across from me, Robert shifted in his seat and bounced a leg nervously. “We could play Blackjack, instead? Better odds …”

  Nicholas ignored him and nodded at me. “Shuffle the cards.”

  Slowly, I shuffled the deck. I loved playing cards with my mother during her clearer days, when she wasn’t strung out on her latest heroin fix. She’d be smoking a cigarette and we’d play innocent games like Go Fish.

  But there was nothing innocent about this game. The results, win or loss, would change my and Robert’s life forever.

  I dealt Robert and Nick their hands face up. For the first round, Robert’s two pair of jacks and sevens beat Nicholas’ high card of ace and king.

  My heart lifted and the win bolstered Robert’s spirits too because his lackluster, fearful mood shifted to tentative confidence. He’d forgotten victory had bitter consequences for him.

  As I dealt the second hand, he sat up straighter. Then he sagged when in the second round, Nicholas’ three nines beat his useless bottom pair of twos.

  “Last round.” Nicholas smiled. He didn’t seem concerned at all, whereas a sheen of sweat glistened on Robert’s forehead, and my hands shook as I shuffled the cards longer than I should. Nicholas’ gaze sharpened on me, flickering between the deck in my hand and my face.

/>   “Deal the cards, Grace.”

  This was the game that would decide what would happen to me and Robert. Whether Robert lost his hand, or I lost my body and my dignity to the beast.

  My heart racing, I dealt the cards for the final round. My thoughts were too frazzled so I focused on reciting the card names in my head as I distributed them.

  One, one.

  Two, two.

  Burn, flop, flop, flop.

  Burn, turn.

  Burn, river.

  “Straight!” Robert announced with a grin, tapping between the nine of spades and ten of hearts in his hole cards, and the jack, queen, and king of clubs in the community cards. Then his smile vanished because he must have finally remembered his ‘win’ wasn’t one he should celebrate since it meant losing his hand.

  Nick’s features remained inscrutable even as he indicated his and the community cards.

  Six, eight, jack, queen, king of clubs.

  “Flush.”

  My breath trapped in my throat.

  Nicholas had won the game.

  And he’d won my body.

  Smiling, the handsome devil in a suit rose to his feet.

  “Andrew, Cairo, please escort our guests to my bedroom.”

  Seven

  —

  The burly men in suits led me and Robert out of Nicholas Vidal’s office.

  No. Frogmarched us out of the room.

  Robert squirmed and pleaded at first, but a punch in his stomach immediately subdued him. I felt sorry for him, and some residual anger rose in me to protest the violence but I didn’t bother. Nothing I said or did would stop them from hurting us.

  Furthermore, we were in this mess because of Robert so he had to bear the consequences. He should be glad they only punched him. He almost lost a hand instead.

  They took us up a flight of stairs, then down a short hallway. When they stopped in front of a closed door, I felt like a prisoner who’d been sentenced to death and now faced the executioner’s room.

  They opened the door and pushed us into a clean and beautifully decorated bedroom. The huge bed covered in burgundy sheets was the most prominent feature in the room, and was the only thing I focused on as the men tied Robert to a chair.

  Nicholas entered the room just as the men moved away from Robert.

  “Vidal … don’t do this … please … I’ll pay you back!”

  “Say another word going forward and I will cut your tongue out and make you swallow it.”

  The coldness in Nicholas’ voice and the way he regarded Robert suggested he was serious with the threat. Robert must have realized this too because his mouth hung open for a short moment before he snapped it shut.

  “You can leave now,” Nicholas said to the two men in suits. They nodded silently and left, shutting the door behind them. Nicholas moved to the bed and took a seat on the edge. He regarded me with an expectant look, his hazel eyes dark with hunger. “Come here, Grace.”

  I didn’t move right away. My heart pounded loud in my ears. I glanced at Robert, tied to the chair. This was really happening. This evil man intended to use my body while my husband watched.

  Run.

  My hands tightened into fists at my sides, my body trembling with the need to follow that quiet voice’s order. But I suspected the moment I turned to flee, Nicholas would catch me.

  So I moved closer to Nicholas, but just a little out of his reach. I licked my lips, my mind reeling with suggestions of how best to extricate myself from this dire position.

  I spoke into the quiet. “Mr. Vidal, please reconsider my earlier offer.”

  “I will not. I gave you my terms and you accepted them.” Then he leaned forward, smirking. “You so desperately want to avoid fucking me, but it’s because you know you’ll like it.”

  I scowled. “You’re confident.”

  “I am.” Then he smiled. “Now I’d like you to undress.”

  Once again, I hesitated. But what was the point? Nothing was going to save me now. Stalling wasn’t going to help. This was an awful situation, but it could be worse. When I was younger and my mother wasn’t lucid enough, and her boyfriend of the week was around … it was worse.

  So I could do this. I could shut my brain off and let this wicked man have me. Do with me as he pleased. I’d done it before, I could do it again.

  Angrily, I lifted my shirt over my head and I toed off my flats. I removed my tights. My hands shook as I reached around my back and undid my bra clips. My hands stalled for a moment when I looked to the side where my husband sat, silently watching everything with a baleful look on his face.

  I looked away from him, shame sweeping through me. Then I reminded myself I wasn’t the one who should be ashamed here. Robert agreed to this and Nicholas Vidal wanted it too.

  So I peeled my bra away from my body. All that was left were my panties. I didn’t linger on the thought of the last part of me being revealed to a stranger. I yanked them down my hips and cast them into the sad lump of my clothing on Nicholas Vidal’s bedroom floor.

  Then I stood there absolutely naked before the devil as he regarded me with a greedy, possessive look on his face. It was startling and I wanted to hide. Not even my own husband had ever looked at me that way. I had blond hair and bluish-grey eyes. I was of average height and I worked out to keep in shape. I’d been told I was beautiful but I’d never considered myself remarkable enough to stir men into fits of lust.

  “You’re a handsome man,” I told Nicholas. “And judging from your home, I assume you are wealthy. You can have any woman you want, Mr. Vidal. Why me?”

  Without warning, he reached for me, pulling me forward between his legs. His hands were warm, but on me, they lit my skin on fire. I cried out softly and tried to pull away but his hold around my waist tightened.

  He looked up at me. “I said the same thing to your husband the day he first offered you. I refused him and said I’m not without need for a woman. But I grew curious. I wanted to understand why your husband would be so confident I would accept you instead of thousands of dollars.” He slid his hands along my waist, his gaze reverent as he drank my body in. I shivered from his touch, hating him for it, hating myself for enjoying it. “So I came to your shop to see what you looked like, and the moment I laid eyes on you, Grace …” His fingers tightened and his voice lowered into a growl. “I knew you were mine.”

  My stomach quivered from his possessive tone, a dark part of me wanting to sink into him and accept his ownership of me. But I refused to give in to someone like him. Someone with no mercy and who thought whatever he wanted he should have, damn the consequences to anyone else who refuted him on the matter.

  I sneered down at him. “I am not and never will be yours.”

  He smiled and didn’t respond to that. Instead, he reached up and caressed my breasts, pulling a startled gasp from me.

  He rubbed my nipples with his thumb, his gaze fixed on my face as he dragged a finger down to between my legs. I bit my lips together, struggling not to respond to his touch. Yet my body betrayed me when I subconsciously lifted my hips to meet his touch between my legs.

  His fingers skimmed my inner thighs before gliding along my pussy lips. For a second, a ridiculous insecurity took hold. In Robert’s absence, when I’d believed he was away on work, I hadn’t kept up on shaving. So there was a light dusting of pubic hair there. Robert had always insisted I was clean shaven for him and now some disturbing part of me worried Nicholas wanted the same.

  What the fuck, Grace. What do you care?

  Right. I shouldn’t. I didn’t. And neither did Nicholas, it seemed. He found my clit and circled it and an arrow of treacherous arousal arced through me. My lips parted on a soft hitch in my breath. Nicholas smiled as my face burned with shame.

  Then he stood, rising up like a dark mountain to tower over me.

  “Undress me.”

  Hands shaking, I reached for his tie first. I couldn’t meet his gaze as I pulled it loose. There were so many chanc
es for me to fight this. I could tighten his tie instead of loosening it. Choke the breath from him. Or I could knee him in the groin. Or I could act. Cry and plead and beg him not to do this. Call him a rapist.

  I suspected he wouldn’t want to take me if I did that. As much as he would take whatever he wanted, when he wanted it, most of all he wanted me willing.

  And even though I knew all of this, I continued to do as he bid me. As I unbuttoned his shirt, I accepted the shameful truth that as much as I’d begged him to reconsider, I was curious. I was curious to experience being his lover.

  This is wrong.

  You don’t want this.

  It’s against your will.

  It’s blackmail.

  I yanked his shirt free from his pants and continued unbuttoning it.

  He chuckled. “It seems your wife is quite eager to fuck me after all, Mr. Kennedy.”

  My hands stalled on the last button. I darted a furious look up at him but he was clearly unapologetic. Then I looked at Robert, who regarded us silently with outrage visible in the tightness of his lips and the deep scowl on his face.

  I’d never felt so conflicted. On one hand, I hated that Robert had to bear witness to this, but on the other, a sick twisted sense of vindictiveness swept through me.

  He made his bed, now he had to watch as Nicholas fucked me in it.

  When I peeled away his shirt, I revealed his broad, toned body. I tried not to let my gaze linger or entertain the thought that I was attracted to him. This was nothing more than a business transaction.

  His pants slid down his legs when I undid them, leaving him in just his boxers. He was already hard, the large bulge formidable.

  It was unfair to draw comparisons between my husband and this man but it was hard not to. I met Robert when I was twenty-two and we dated for a couple of years until we got married. He was the only man I’d known for nearly ten years.

  Robert had a good body. He worked out and ate well. But this man … god. He was perfect.

  I reached for his underwear and pulled them down, unveiling his thick, hard flesh. The rounded head already glistened with precum. I hated that my fingers itched to touch him.