Present Tense (Out of the Fire #3) - Candace Blevins Page 0,104
and those orders included instructions to put as few marks on them as possible, it would mean I’d need to get into the head of those men — without vampire tricks.”
She was seated in a huge cream-colored upholstered chair, with sides that came up nearly as tall as the back, and a gigantic matching footstool in front of her. Her bare feet were on the stool, and she wore sexy, lacy, silky red lingerie that highlighted every fucking curve and was the same color as her fingernails and toenails, but he ignored what that did to his dick and kept talking when she looked up from her phone.
“Needles between toes,” he said, his gaze meeting hers to make sure she saw inside him while he told her these things. “And into the various bundles of nerves around the body where they’ll cause debilitating pain. Hours and hours bound to a chair in a white room full of white light with the eyes taped open, or braced open with metal pieces designed to do just that. If they haven’t broken after thirty hours, we add the baby shark song, played softly and then loudly, up and down enough to keep it new and irritating. No food, and barely enough water to keep systems from shutting down.”
“Okay. Information is power. Information can keep people you care about alive.”
He shook his head. She wasn’t going to excuse him for this. “Sometimes, it’s about talking to them, bringing up subjects and watching their reactions, until you know their deepest fears. And then, you torture them with their deepest fears.”
She crossed her arms and glared at him. “Go ahead. Spill what you need to. I won’t think less of you.”
He’d worked on a man this time, but he’d done it to women before. He used the example of a woman because he wanted to bring it home more. He wanted Kelsey to feel it, to make sure she understood what he was capable of. Why hadn’t she gone into his head to look when he’d offered?
“Thirty-six hours into the white room, white light, eyeballs taped open longer than they’re allowed to close. While they’re taped open, cockroaches are put on her. Feet first. Legs. Arms. Face. Genitals — and those lips pulled apart so one can be placed directly on her clit. One held over her eyes, so the feet scratch the white part. The threat issued that her tongue can be held out of her mouth with pliers, and a bet placed as to how many cockroaches might fit on her tongue at once. Still, she doesn’t break — not until the cockroach is actually on her tongue, little feet scratching at it, trying to move off, but it can’t.”
She never once lost eye contact. Never looked away. “If I’d gone into your head, I’d have seen your thoughts, but I don’t have to do that to know you didn’t enjoy doing this. It was a job, and it was necessary to keep our side safe, and make sure their side doesn’t have plans to hurt innocent people. I know you enjoy caning me, and I have a feeling you’re going to enjoy hurting me during sex in completely different ways. More.” She stood and walked to him. “You hated doing it to her, but you’re good at your job, so you did it. Don’t even try to compare that to what we have between us, Eunice. You won’t hate getting to know me so you’ll know how to pleasure me and hurt me in all the best ways. It isn’t the same. Don’t cheapen it by trying to make it so.”
“Etta assures us you aren’t likely to need a spotter, but she wants someone to be at least ten feet away before you drink lust from one of us directly,” Fabio said from behind them.
Kelsey’s gaze moved so she looked at Fabio, and it felt as if a weight had been removed from Eunice’s chest.
“She’s right on both counts,” Kelsey told Fabio. “I drank from enough humans and shapeshifters directly that I know I’ll stop before I take too much. Still, I’ll feel better with someone watching, at least for a little while longer.”
“I’m usually good letting Eunice run things when we share, but today, I think I’d like to, at least to start.”
Eunice turned to Fabio, met his gaze, and nodded. “Yeah. That works for me. To start, anyway.”
Because Eunice been about to order her to stand and bend over the back