Diamonds in the Rough (Diamonds are Forever Trilogy 2)

With her dark hair spread over my pillow and her naked limbs stretched under the sheet, she’s too beautiful to be human. I wish I’d left her uncovered to better appreciate the view, but her body temperature will eventually drop from exhaustion, and I didn’t want her to be cold.

Watching her wrestle with her arousal, I take the tupper dish Francine had given me yesterday from the windowsill and place it in front of the laptop on my desk. I flick the lid off with a finger. The inhabitant immediately raises its tail. It’s a buthus occitanus, a black scorpion. Francine found it in the kitchen. They’re hardy little buggers to kill, so she threw a plastic container over the invader and slid the lid underneath to catch it inside. It tries to climb out of its prison, but the container is too deep.

A moan pulls my gaze to the screen. Head thrown back, Zoe orgasms so hard I can see her body convulse under the sheet. I smile. She’s gorgeous when she comes. I’m looking forward to witnessing every one of her climaxes. I wonder how many times she’ll come.

The scorpion turns inside the container. Leaning forward, I study it. Their venom isn’t deadly. There are plenty of the small species around here. They favor the rocky landscape. Every year, we find at least a dozen in the garden.

I’m not a huge cigar fan like my father, but I light one now and suck on the end until the tip glows red. I’m a punishment behind, tonight excluded. I never made up for the night I fucked Zoe like a whore in the hotel.

Taking a big drag on the cigar, I roll the smoke around in my mouth before exhaling it into the container. It makes the scorpion furious. They don’t like smoke. It swings its claws in the air, snapping its pinches together. I inhale and blow on it again, aggravating the little creature. Smoke is a danger. Its instinctive reaction is to escape that danger and to protect itself by attacking whatever threatens its life. When it’s in full-blown survival mode, I stick my finger in the container.

It behaves exactly like it should. It hollows its back and zaps me with the sharp tip of its tail.

Motherfucking Jesus.

It hurts like a bitch. The burn is like nothing I’ve felt before. It creeps through my finger and up my arm, setting fire to my veins. It’s different to the flames that cooked my skin. That burn came from the outside and melted inward with pain. This one starts on the inside, burning outward until it feels like my nails may peel back from my skin.

“Good job, buddy,” I say as I sink back into my chair with grunts of agony.

I don’t cut off my blood circulation to prevent the poison from spreading. I eat it up eagerly, letting my body’s natural functioning carry it farther. My heart pumps faster. My blood flows stronger. The poison burns in my shoulder and down my chest. Sweat breaks out over my body.

Zoe comes.

Perfect. Beautiful.

I take a last drag of the cigar before putting the tip out on my finger, right on the sting.

Fuck, that hurts.

It sizzles and burns, killing one pain with another, but the affected parts of my body continue to hum as the venom works through my system, and Zoe starts crying from frustration.

The only way I can handle her tears is if I hurt myself worse than I’m hurting her. This isn’t hurt for Zoe per se—I didn’t lie about not physically hurting her—but sexual suffering can sometimes be worse. Her agony is riveting. It stokes my fire, making a different kind of poison burn in my blood. I want her lips around me. I want to fuck her mouth and come down her throat while agony rips through me, while three kinds of fire are wracking my body.

I unzip and take my cock in my hand. I’m so hard I’m aching. Going to my flower now won’t serve tonight’s lesson. She’s got to live this one out alone. I stroke a couple of times, making the burn in my arm brighter. Closing my fist, I squeeze hard and rip my hand up and down. I let the cocktail of pain fuel me, mixing rough pleasure with agonizing suffering and twisted stalking on a laptop screen until my balls draw up and violent release erupts.

I catch my seed in my injured hand. It irritates the cigar burn. Using the en-suite toilet, I clean up. I’m still hurting. It’s difficult to breathe. The poison must’ve spread to my chest. It’ll fizzle out there, the crippling effect slowly diminishing. By the time eight hours are over, my pain will be gone.

Taking the container, I unlock the patio door and go out into the garden. A good distance away from the house and the path to the beach, I tip the container over. The scorpion scurries for freedom. It covers a good distance before hiding under a rock. I straighten and let my gaze linger on the house, on the window of the room where my flower is a prisoner spread in a spider’s web made of ropes and lust. There’s no more freedom for her now. There’s no escaping my poison.