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I feel the first prick of tears in my eyes. Mason doesn't say a word, just keeps fucking me as viciously as ever. His cock throbs inside me, his length making me open up wider and take all of his cock even though it almost never fits. I bite my lip, harder this time, but even that doesn't help.

The first tear slides down my cheek and Mason growls at the sight of it. His hands tighten their grip on my throat. He's holding onto me as he fucks me now, and it feels really fucking incredible. Like I'm the only thing tying us together. Like he needs to hold me down if he wants to keep fucking me like some kind of savage.

That's what we both are.

Lying on the Italian marble, messy with clay all over us. We're fucking savages, and I laugh as more tears fall and the realization dawns on me.

"I love you," I whisper to him, just as my vision goes black.

I like the darkness. It feels so soft, so warm, so inviting. It feels like a cashmere blanket, enveloping me in a space so safe, so sacred, nobody could hurt me in it. It's like being in Mason's arms, falling asleep to the soundtrack of his beating hard. It's an addicting feeling, and I have no idea why I always resist.

Maybe it's because I am dependent on it. Maybe because it gets me off so much I see fireworks in the darkness, and some too-far-gone part of me knows I just came all over my master's cock.

I open my eyes slowly, carefully, my lashes fluttering and seeing him still above me, pounding harder than ever. His hands are gentle, but I feel the prints of his fingers on my throat, and I know he's bruised me so beautifully.

"You look so peaceful," he grunts, fucking me deeper.

His cock is in my womb.

I know that after tonight, I'm going to be pregnant again, even though our youngest isn't even a year old yet.

"You look so fucking beautiful passed out," he tells me, and I moan when I feel my pussy coming.

I can't even help it. He just gets these reactions out of me so very easily, as if he'd just pressed a button to make me come. And I love every second of it.

"That's right, cara mia," he groans. "Come on my cock, let me watch you soak it."

I fight to keep my eyes open, but if I do, the tears keep flowing. But for once, I don't care about playing games with Mason. All that matters is that I get to come all over him, that he comes inside me. And just at that moment, when he thrusts so very deep one last time, I feel him fuck his cum inside me. It's like planting a promise inside my womb, letting me know I'll be carrying a child for the next nine months because he decided that was the way it had to be.

"Such a good fucking girl," he growls as he finishes, and my own body keeps spasming right along with his as he pulls his cock outside. I still feel him inside me, and my pussy clenches tightly, holding onto the gift he left in me. "You're perfect, Cara. Will I ever have enough of you?"

I smear a smudge of clay on his cheek and he laughs out loud at me.

"Still just a little girl," he tells me affectionately as I get up on my elbows and kiss him with as much love as I had for him the day I decided to stay in Italy.

"Your little girl," I remind him, and his tongue dips into my mouth, playing another vicious game with me.

This time, I let him win willingly.

AFFLICTION

JENIKA SNOW

SYNOPSIS

It wasn’t until Cameron that I knew what real darkness was…or that I’d crave it so much.

I’ve let the world weigh down on me, pull me under until nothing makes sense anymore. Maybe that’s how I let myself get into this mess. Maybe that’s how I’m in my current situation with a man I knew could save me from a fate worse than death. Even if being with Cameron, giving him every part of me, the only part that’s worth anything—my body—might very well ruin me, I have to survive.

Drug lord. Crime boss. Murderer. I should fear him, be horrified by what he wants from me, by who he is. But instead I find myself wanting to please him, wanting to give myself over completely.

Because I know that gives me control over him.

Cameron Ashton reigns over the gritty underworld, the danger and violence of depravity, from his throne. A pistol is his sword, and apathy is his second-in-command. I know he’s dangerous, know he’ll break me and not think twice. But he’s my only chance, the only way I’ll survive.

And I didn’t know how true that was until he owned me.

He’s possessive and controlling. The darkness in him runs stronger, deeper than it ever has in me. Maybe we’re not so different. Maybe giving up my control to Cameron, giving him my very soul, makes me the powerful one.

Maybe, in the end, I’ll be the one who owns him.

Warning: This is a filthy, dark romance. There may be subject matter and triggers that are sensitive to some readers. This is a romance, albeit a twisted one. If you’re looking for a story that gives you the warm and fuzzies, this is not the book for you.

CHAPTER ONE

THE SWEAT RUNNING down the valley between my breasts was like fingers moving along me. I was hot, my body flushed, my heart racing. Everything in me felt alive, ready to tear through my skin like another entity wanting to escape.

I was drunk, and I felt incredible.

The bodies pressed tightly against me, moving sexually, suggestively, made me feel even better. It made me feel alive. I moved with them, swaying to the music, inhaling the scent of sex and alcohol that seemed to surround me. I was sure a lot of people would be fucking tonight. No doubt it would be dirty, their inhibitions having been left at the club as they took home a random person. It would be the kind of sex that drunk people had, sloppy, carefree.

I wasn’t a good girl.

I didn’t even feel like the girl they called Sofia.

I didn’t follow the rules. And my life was less than memorable. I lived like today was my last, because for all I knew it would be. It could be.

I came to this club when I couldn’t stand the box that was my life, the one that was sealed tight, no airholes, no light getting through the crack. I got wasted, danced until my body was covered with sweat, my muscles sore, and some poor, hard-up frat guy got off in his jeans by grinding against my leg. I was a wreck in many ways, and I had no doubt that people assumed I was slutty by the way I dressed, by the way I moved on the dance floor.

But how I dressed and acted didn’t make up who I was: a virgin who was lost, who had no one, nothing. I was an inexperienced woman who came here and danced because I wanted a little bit of release…the only kind I ever got. How I felt here was like being consumed by the water, of being helpless but weightless, of being sucked down to the very bottom where no light was permitted.

I wasn’t light. I was darkness wrapped up in a five-foot-five frame, with dark hair, a wild streak, and no one to stop me.

Maybe I was a contradiction to myself, a lost girl who didn’t know what she wanted in life. But it’s who I was, how I got through each day.

I embraced it, knowing that maybe my upbringing, that having an absentee mother, a drunk for a father, and a penchant for getting slapped on occasion by said parents made me this way.

I wasn’t broken, but I was damaged.

Or maybe it had nothing to do with my parents or what I didn’t have growing up: love. Maybe I was just born this way.

Either way I didn’t try and stop it. I didn’t try and change.

“You look g

ood out here dancing, girl.” The feeling of a guy behind me, of his hands on my hips, his hard cock digging into my lower back, had dual sensations moving through me. “You feel good,” he said again, his voice thick, aroused, slurred from the no doubt many drinks he’d consumed.

I wanted him to get off, because knowing I had that kind of control, that kind of power, fueled me. But on the other hand I felt disgust, mainly for myself. I felt and smelled his hot, liquor-laced breath along my neck. I shivered, and the way he groaned made me assume he thought it meant I was into this.

I wasn’t, but I didn’t stop from grinding on him.

I lifted my hands, closed my eyes, and just thought about something else. I wasn’t here, wasn’t trying to get this guy to come in his pants. I was far away, so distant that nothing could touch me.

“Come home with me. Hell, let’s go back to my car.”

I shook my head. He needed to shut up.

“Come on, girl.” He ground his dick against me again. He felt small, even though he was hard.

“No. Either shut up and dance with me, or go find someone willing to go home with you.” I didn’t even know if he heard me over the rush of the music, but if he said one more word, I’d just go get a drink.

He tightened his hold on my hips, digging his small dick into my back. “I bet you’re wet for me right now, aren’t you?” His breath was hot, humid. It was acidic and I gagged.

I was bone-dry, not even the teasing of arousal playing over me. I never felt anything when I danced with these guys. It was what made me feel free, made me feel powerful in an otherwise unstable world. I might not have any kind of control with my personal life, with my finances, with anything that could ground me, but at this club, where the drinks flowed, the sex was potent, and my power was immense…I was the one in charge.

I’d been called a dick tease, a bitch, whore, a cunt…any and all of the above. None of that mattered. They were verbal bullets, and in this club I wore my bulletproof vest.

I pushed away from the guy and made my way to the bar. He was either cursing me out or had hopefully moved on to someone more receptive to what he was actually after. But when I got to the bar, the people crammed together, shouting, lifting their hands to get one of the three bartenders to come their way. I decided tonight was done. I’d hit the bathroom, then call a cab.