Affliction Read online

  Affliction

  Jenika Snow

  Contents

  Copyright

  Affliction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  Newsletter

  Excerpt: A Beautiful Prison

  Excerpt: HIS

  A Real Man Series

  About the Author

  AFFLICTION

  By Jenika Snow

  www.JenikaSnow.com

  [email protected]

  Copyright © April 2017 by Jenika Snow

  First E-book Publication: April 2017

  Photographer: Wander Aguiar :: Photography

  Cover Model: Jonny James

  Model image provided by: Wander Book Club

  Cover created by: Popkitty

  Editors: Kasi Alexander / Lea Ann Schafer

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: The unauthorized reproduction, transmission, or distribution of any part of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  This literary work is fiction. Any name, places, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or establishments is solely coincidental.

  Please respect the author and do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials that would violate the author’s rights.

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

  Chapter 1

  The sweat running down the valley between my breasts was reminiscent of 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 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 made me this way, that having an absentee mother, a drunk for a father, and a penchant for getting slapped on occasion by said parents had shaped the woman I now was.

  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 good 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. “What’s your name?”

  I thought about lying, pretending I was someone else. Instead I said, “Sofia.”

  The truth.

  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. I was the one who had control, and that control made me feel free, alive.

  “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 f
eel 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.

  Pushing my way through the throng of bodies, the air stale, humid, the heat suffocating, I said a silent prayer that the line to use the bathroom wasn’t up the ass. But there were still a few girls ahead of me.

  I leaned on the wall, resting my head back against it, and stared up. I noticed the video camera aimed right at me. There were several in this hallway, two in the back, one pointing at me, and another aimed at the dance floor.

  I had no doubt there were a dozen more at other locations. Although this place was wild on most nights, it also had a reputation for being safe—well, as safe as a nightclub could be. It had just been renovated by the new owner over the last year, a man I’d heard rumors about, and one I never wanted to meet.

  Dark and dangerous. Violent and psychotic. He’s not a person you want to meet in a dark alley. He’d just as soon slit your throat for looking at him the wrong way.

  Rumors, of course, but it was those words, whispered by everyone and anyone, that told me there had to be a little bit of truth behind them.

  I feel sorry for anyone who pisses off Cameron Ashton, because he’ll solve that problem with a shovel and a six-foot-deep hole.

  Pushing off the wall when it was my turn inside, I used the facility, went over to the sink to wash my hands, and stared at myself in the mirror. The girl who stared back looked sad, and not in an emotional way. My reflection showed a hot mess.

  My eyeliner was starting to smear under my eyes, pieces of my dark hair stuck to my temples, and the lipstick I had on, once red and vibrant, now looked dead and colorless.

  I finished in the restroom, pushed my way through the crowd, and finally opened the door that led outside. The cool night air washed over me, and I involuntarily closed my eyes, moaning softly. It felt good out here, the crush of bodies and heat a distant memory the longer I stood here.

  The alcohol that had once numbed me, clouding my head with the nothingness, started to clear. Maybe I hadn’t been as drunk as I’d thought. Being behind those doors was like another world. The lights, music, the people trying to get off any way they could, brought you down low to a depraved, sticky and disgusting level. It’s what I loved.

  I needed to get home now, had work in the morning, had to get back to my shitty life. I fished my cell out of the minuscule handbag I carried with me, dialed the cab service I had memorized, and told them the address.

  Coming here for the last year should have had them knowing me by name. As I waited for them to arrive, ten long fucking minutes, I moved away from the front doors and leaned against the wall off to the side.

  I glanced up, the streetlight close by bright but not quite reaching me fully. Looking to my left, I noticed another security camera, this one pointed at the front doors. Never let it be said this place didn’t have their shit together.

  The sound of a lighter going off to my right had me glancing over. I saw the flare of the flame, smelled the scent of the cigarette as its owner inhaled and then exhaled.

  “Hey, girl.”

  I exhaled. God, of course the guy from inside, the one with the small dick and the need for me to go home with him, would be out here. I didn’t bother replying, didn’t want to engage. Instead I turned my head in the other direction and glanced at a few people across the parking lot smoking. I felt the lightest touch on my arm.

  The hell?

  I glanced to my right, and before I knew what was happening, that light touch from the asshole turned into him pulling me farther into the shadowy side street.

  Chapter 2

  “Hey,” I shouted, but he clapped his hand over my mouth. Panic welled in me so violently I couldn’t think straight. My heart started hammering against my ribs when he pushed me farther into the shadowy abyss.

  He had me pinned to the side of the wall, the brick scraping along my back. There’d be marks on my flesh, but that was the least of my worries. His forearm on my throat cut off my oxygen. I clawed at his arm, my nails digging at his skin. He hissed and put more pressure on my neck.

  My head started to grow fuzzy, my body going numb. I was far beyond panicking, the survival instinct rising up violently.

  “You stupid fucking cunt,” he said close to my face, his breath smelling stale, the aroma of the cigarette he’d been smoking making me sick to my stomach. I would have thrown up, but the struggle to breathe everything us being cut off.

  The sound of a belt buckle being undone, of a zipper being pulled down, brought reality crashing down on me. I wouldn’t be able to get out of this, not without a hell of a lot more damage than just the scrapes on my back. The sound of people coming in and out of the club was so close, yet so far away.

  “You should have taken me up on my offer to come back to my place. I would have been gentle with you.”

  Lies.

  “But now you’ll get fucked in this dirty alley like the whore you are.”

  I felt his erection against my belly. I tried to say something, to yell out, do anything that would make me more than a victim waiting to get attacked.

  The flash of headlights pulling into the alley had my attacker stilling and glancing to the side. He kept his forearm on my throat but tucked himself back into his pants. He moved closer to me so I had no doubt that whoever was in that car couldn’t see his arm pressing into me, cutting off my oxygen.

  It was clear he didn’t care or was too drunk to have a problem with someone seeing us in this position. But I supposed it might look like two people about to get it on…both consenting, even though I wanted to knee this fucker in the balls.

  “Make one sound and I’ll find out where you live, come in through your window, and really do some damage.”

  No way in hell I’d take his threat seriously, even if he meant one word. This would be my only chance to get help. Because even if I did nothing, he’d still destroy me.

  The car was a good ten feet away, and the headlights were shining right on us, the vehicle just idling now. It seemed like forever before the sound of a door opening and closing came, louder than the rush of conversation from the club goers just around the corner. I heard feet hitting pavement in an easy, relaxed pace; then the sight of a large body—very large—came into view. I could only assume it was a man, given the size. He stayed behind the lights, the shadows wrapping around his tall frame.

  He stared at us for long seconds, and for some reason all I could do was stare right back. My reality came into view and I started to struggle. I caught the asshole holding me off guard and managed to push him back enough that his forearm was no longer pressed painfully into my throat.

  I sucked in oxygen, sweet, life-sustaining oxygen. My throat burned, and a flush stole over me, the pain of being able to breathe again claiming me.

  “You fucking bitch,” the asshole next to me hissed.

  And then there was the sound of another door opening and closing, of a gun being cocked. The shadowy man tipped his head to the side, the air around him seeming charged, electric. It was the slightest move, but it caused whoever had just gotten out of the car to start walking toward us.

  “The fuck?” the asshole pinned against me said in a hushed voice, his eyes squinted, the headlights blinding us. I feared the wors
t, thinking maybe I’d misjudged whoever had shown up as being able to help. Maybe they were worse than the fucker who’d attacked me.

  And then the guy was pulled away from me, the sweet relief of his body no longer on mine urging me to run. But I was frozen in place, the dark shapes still covered in the shadows, the headlights still blinding me, making it impossible to see anything clearly. I rubbed my throat, the burn almost unbearable. And then a body was thrown against the side of the building, and I realized it was my attacker.

  I stood there shocked, unable to move, as I watched a man approach. His body was illuminated by the intense yellow glow of his headlights. But his face was still concealed. An air of danger came from this man like a punch to my gut. I sucked in more oxygen, this time not having anything to do with the fact it was difficult to breathe.

  I stared at the man currently holding the attacker asshole up against the brick wall by his neck. Whoever the man was, he was big, supporting another human as if it was nothing at all. I covered my chest, despite the fact that I was dressed. It was like my secrets were exposed.

  When I glanced at the man who’d tilted his head, who’d sent his guard dog to do his bidding I knew he was watching me. I might not be able to see his face, but I felt his eyes on me like fingers touching me, stroking me, holding me down.

  And then my heart seized in my chest as I watched him lift his arm, the gun I’d heard being cocked most likely the one he held. He was right next to the body pinned to the wall. The guy was struggling to breathe, clawing at the grip the man had on his throat.

  Just like me. A taste of his own medicine.

  He kept moving closer to the man pinned to the wall, but I knew he watched me, knew he was calculating all of this. I thought I’d be able to see him when he moved away from the headlights, once they weren’t blocking the front of him. But when he was standing next to his partner or guard dog or whatever the hell the guy was to him, I still couldn’t make out his face.