Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 36965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 185(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 185(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
Ezra’s words do nothing to move me because, to him, I’m a possession, something he can shelve and take down as he wishes.
“I just want my freedom,” I whisper.
Chapter 14
Dariyus
(Two Years Ago)
Some people don’t believe in purgatory, but I do. I was born into, raised, and forged from it. My entire life has been a vast void of uncertainty. I easily recognize someone who suffers my fate when they’re in the same space as me, and at this moment, Briar is living the same hell. She’s a twin flame or quadruple flame if you like.
I discern how she matches the fire within the three of us. Malachi, Ezra, and I work well together. We have from the first moment we met.
We each had broken fragments, but when our tattered, bruised pasts and fragile mental capacities were pieced together, we fit perfectly. We fueled each other and provided what was needed to survive for another day.
But even though we fit, we also fed into our dysfunction.
Now, we use invisible duct tape, patching holes to remain functional. But it’s a temporary fix because each of our puzzle pieces has become frayed and no longer clicks together perfectly.
As I watch two people I love fuck a girl who intrigues me, I wonder if she’s the piece that will soothe our frayed edges and make everything finally click.
I rub the rope between my fingers, letting the rough texture soothe me. I’ve always been fascinated with the power of rope, its varied uses, and what it represents. It can bind and tether. It can bring wild, unimaginable pleasure. And it can end a life.
I’ve used rope in all of its capacities. As a young boy in Rasht, no older than five, following my two older sisters and their friends as they dragged a skipping rope down the streets with the humid rain cascading down on us.
As a teen, I threw it down a well to save a school friend who was shoved to his death by a Basij officer because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Playing with the ends of my Zoroastrian grandfather’s Kushti, which he wore around his waist to remind himself of his ancestors and his faith.
Binding and elevating my two best friends while we experienced carnal bliss.
And the moment I saw my father’s head placed in a noose as the rope tightened and snapped his neck because the Sepah accused him of being a traitor when all he wanted was freedom.
I’ll use rope on our pretty little guest, too, but not now. Patience is easy for me. It’s how I’ve survived. I know when to ponder the outcomes of a scenario and when to step in and take charge as a willing voyeur in the scene unfolding before me.
I’m the strategist of our merry band of misfits. Ezra is the leader. His purpose is to make moves that will strengthen us. Malachi is the impulsive one. He doesn’t glimpse past his emotions and the situation in front of him.
Both men have lived in impulsive worlds and made rash decisions without thinking of the lasting repercussions. Raised to be kingmakers or ruthless rulers.
I don’t make any sudden or rash moves. Allowing Malachi and Ezra to have fun using her the way they see fit, to toy with her as if they are starving. Feral animals discovering their first taste of flesh in ages. I don’t enjoy the way they talk to her or manhandle her. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I view aggression toward women. But she seems to enjoy the depravity they show her. I also enjoy watching the scene as they reveal it before me.
Usually, I allow them to walk their paths and explore, examine, and enjoy their vises and virtues. But as I hear Briar say that all she wants is her freedom, something in me aches.
I take out all my darkest fantasies on my male lovers. It’s an odd sensation to be tempted by the darkness but yearn to walk in the light. That was why I snapped when I walked in and witnessed how Malachi handled her.
Truth be told, Briar seems to be holding her own with them, pushing and pulling both with no concerns or issues. But when I heard Malachi talking about fucking her in the club, I saw red. I’ve got no issues with public sex. I’m a voyeur and an exhibitionist. But that club is full of insane men with unstable tastes, and I want Briar nowhere near those people, especially since it’s those individuals she’s trying to escape.
“You should taste her, D,” Malachi says, turning toward me, his face glistening.
I’ll feast on her until her legs shake and her body’s spent, but one of us has to be gentle, and it has to be me. Briar is strong, sexy, and independent, but she also needs care, compassion, and tenderness.