Mesmer Read online

  Mesmer

  Cari Silverwood

  Jennifer Bene

  Contents

  1. Hannah

  2. Tomik

  3. Hannah

  4. Tomik

  5. Tomik

  6. Hannah

  7. Tomik

  8. Hannah

  9. Tomik

  10. Hannah

  11. Tomik

  12. Hannah

  13. Hannah

  14. Hannah

  15. Tomik

  16. Hannah

  17. Tomik

  18. Hannah

  19. Tomik

  20. Hannah

  21. Hannah

  22. Tomik

  23. Hannah

  24. Tomik

  25. Hannah

  26. Tomik

  27. Tomik

  28. Tomik

  Epilogue

  About Cari Silverwood

  About Jennifer Bene

  Also by Cari Silverwood

  Also by Jennifer Bene

  Text copyright © 2019 Cari Silverwood and Jennifer Bene

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN (e-book): 978-1-946722-49-2

  ISBN (paperback): 978-1-946722-50-8

  Cover design by Laura Hidalgo at Spellbinding Design. https://www.spellbindingdesign.com/.

  Created with Vellum

  About this Book

  "She wasn't an angel, but she was his angel."

  Tomik took Hannah like he had a hundred women before her, like any other collectable that his mesmer abilities let him control utterly and completely. He wanted to dress her in wings, make her crawl to him, do things to her body that were worse than sinful... they were nightmarishly obscene.

  But Hannah isn't like any other collectable.

  She's the girl he ran away from, tried to protect... until she called him back.

  Now there's no stopping the darkness inside him, the cravings that demand he keep her all to himself — but that's against the rules and his mesmer brothers are dangerous. Unpredictable. And how can he keep her safe when all he wants to do is make her scream?

  Before love will come pain, blood, and the near destruction of her soul, and his.

  1

  Hannah

  I opened my eyes and found someone impossible—an imposing man in black jeans and a pale shirt squatted on his heels a few yards away.

  Tomik? How could it be him?

  Instead of soft mattress, beneath my palms and the red sheets was the hardness of floor. I rubbed the blur from my vision then levered myself up on my hands.

  A strange magnetic pull beckoned, echoing the last time I saw him.

  The day he’d cracked my world open years before.

  Here, now, he squatted like a troll spawned under a dirty bridge, a man with the darkest blue tattoos running over his arms and half-bare chest. His shirt was crookedly buttoned in a way that suggested laziness. His short, sandy hair had several shaved furrows that rode from the front to, I presumed, the back of his head.

  A badass, nasty man. How could this be Tomik?

  Dust gathered on the floor as if the rest had been scraped clean by feet, not swept by brooms or vacuumed.

  Paint peeled from the palest mauve walls. Damp showed on the ceiling.

  Behind him a holstered gun lay on the floor beside a large bed with tussled linen. The holster looked as though it’d fallen there and been forgotten. A dust ball gusted across it when a breeze blew from the window at my back.

  How did I know the layout here when I couldn’t remember arriving? It was a question to make a priority, but I brushed it aside in favor of watching him watching me.

  And still he watched me, silently.

  He looked as if he could stroll through the world and not give one fuck for anything.

  An apocalypse would not touch him.

  How could this be Tomik, the boy who cared too much?

  Yet it was him. Certainty thunked down inside me. He felt the same. He’d had tears trailing over his cheeks the day he’d returned a suicidal goldfish to the tank and let it slide gently into the water. What had he been then? Eight? I’d never been good at recalling ages.

  I pushed myself higher and wriggled into a sitting position, tucking my legs under me and my dress over my thighs.

  “Tomik, is that you?” A stupid question. Heat simmered across my cheeks.

  That call, that subtle come-to-me whisper that wasn’t quite audible. All the way down the street from him, I’d felt it. Once upon a time, then gone. Yet, it was here.

  Nervous, I wound escaping strands of my hair behind my ear, after which they promptly fell over my face again.

  “Yes. It’s me.” The words were bone dry and wrung of emotion, the smile fleeting. His mouth settled into a straight line.

  I went to rise, to walk nearer, just curious, but he held his palm out flat toward me and said, “Stay.”

  Already up on one knee, I rocked to a halt.

  “What did you just do?” More words bubbled up, a distraction from wondering why I’d stopped dead. “You look different.”

  I frowned. Bigger, way bulkier. Far... sexier. Some men, just by being close, made that tingle rise between my legs. Even my lips felt the brush of arousal along with my far-too-easily disturbed nipples. Tomik had that distilled essence of man—if there was such a thing. Pheromones, of course.

  I inhaled, exhaled. Be calm. Fuck this insanity.

  “Those tattoos...”

  He shrugged, eyes hard, like I was an object that bothered him by existing. “Does it matter? How do you feel, Hannah?”

  “Feel?” I stared at the long sleeves of my dress, a dress I’d never bought. How did I come to wear this? The translucent cloth whispered over my nipples when I shifted, making them peek through holes in the decorative lace.

  I felt exceedingly exposed and naughty, especially with Tomik sitting there, all male and large—a temptation of flesh, bone, and muscle.

  We’d kissed once, and I wanted more. I could taste his tongue in my mouth, thrusting in.

  I blinked, shook my head. Dumb imagination. For a second the room squeezed in to become a tunnel that held only him, me, and the air between us.

  Unsettled, I swallowed. This was not normal.

  “How do I feel...” I glanced around the room, and asked softly, “Where am I?”

  “Hotel Acambo.” His words were trotted out.

  The name meant nothing, but I should know. How did I come to be with him?

  I put fingertips to face, found my nose, my mouth, then pinched my neck. It hurt as it should. Not a dream.

  When had I met this new Tomik?

  When had I? There was nothing. No memories. It was as if I’d been magicked here.

  My nearest memory of Tomik was the boy I’d known, the one I’d seen that day at the end of sophomore year. That same day my friend Susan turned into a mute girl. She’d not spoken again that I knew of. Her parents had sent her somewhere for therapy and she’d never returned.

  My heart had ached forever after he disappeared, reminding me like a splinter that’d burrowed through ribs and inside, screwing down, refusing to budge.

  Forever was a long time, and it fucking hurt.

  It’d been after school... and he’d been absent
from class. I’d spotted him watching from down the street. I could feel him watching, as if he stood at the center of a gravitational well, dragging at my feet. By the time I reached where he’d been, he’d vanished.

  That had been a bad day all over. Tomik and I had been sixteen.

  He was the boy I’d played with on the swings and thrown stones with into the duck pond, the first boy I’d kissed. The boy I’d fought dragons with while announcing absurdities that only made sense in a D&D game. But he wasn’t the same boy.

  He was Tomik, but he was different… and I was different too. I’d done things, not tattoos, but… things.

  There had been college after high school, on a scholarship, and I studied something. Anthropology? Or drama? No, it had been journalism. And I remembered a play and being up on stage. Shakespeare, maybe? Yet, no matter how I searched, how deeply I looked inward, ignoring the tattooed hunk of masculinity a few yards away, I found nothing that made sense. In my mind there seemed a lack, a hole, a pit of nothingness where my memories of then should be.

  “I went to college,” I muttered, only half-seeing the floor. “I did. I know I did. Where did it go?”

  “Stop thinking whatever you’re fucking thinking.” Tomik scraped both palms down his face, then stared at me through the gaps. He dropped his hands to his thighs with a smack of skin on denim and clicked his fingers. “I give up. Come here, bitch.”

  The room shook with the reverberation of his hard-as-stone words.

  Bitch? How dare he.

  I climbed to my feet and walked to him.

  In my thoughts, where dead memories hid, something stirred at the edge of that pit of nothingness.

  2

  Tomik

  Am I a hero or a villain? I think I know. I’ve killed a handful of girls, by proxy, but I figure it’s the killing that’s important.

  Maybe I should’ve nailed my dick to the floor—that was the only thing that might’ve stopped this from happening. I rose and met her as she approached on dainty feet. She was taller than when we were sixteen, but so was I, by far.

  The flimsy dress was a good choice if I wanted to remind myself of how gorgeously fertile she looked. I’d had her put it on that morning, but away from my grasp and sight. That had been wise, this was not.

  The cloth hugged the swell of her breasts and clung to her hips like a lover, the hem kissing her thighs and whispering of what lay beneath.

  Guess I’d set myself up to fail, though losing control could be good, could be a fucking delight. The most vulgar obscenities came from just going for it. How wide can she spread? How many can this girl-thing take? What if we dangle her like that and do this to her? Collectables were dolls with holes and one could bend them, stretch them, dirty them up with blood, sweat, come, and they never protested much.

  I liked the whimpers too though. I could make Hannah whimper, scream, babble at me to not hurt her. My dick pulsed. Guess it knows what I need.

  “Stop,” I murmured when she was at arm’s length, where I could hear her breathing, drag the scent of her into my nostrils, see the rise and fall of her chest. My mouth could be on her, sucking at those tits with the roughness of wet material under tongue and teeth.

  Those were mine now, all of her was mine.

  I placed my hands on her shoulders, not bothering to meet her eyes. Always nice to look down on a girl, to feel that thrill of physical domination, no matter how easy it was to take them. Yet, again came that tease of guilt.

  Girlfriend and friend, not collectable? Once upon a time. Not anymore.

  I allowed my wayward hands to slide beneath her breasts, to raise them, lifting them to my sight and letting me feel their weight. Through the material her dark areolas signaled where to lick, to suck, to pinch, maybe where to stick needles. My cock rose hard against my zipper.

  “Guilt, fuck. Who needs guilt?” Curious, I looked into her eyes. Fair hair, blue eyes, pretty, and she used to be smart and funny. Now she was cute collectable candy dangling before me. My mouth twisted. “What am I going to do with you? You’re broken, Hannah... Fuck you. Why’d you come begging?”

  Broken like me.

  “You can talk. I want you to talk to me. But first...” Stepping back, I pointed, swiveling my finger in a circle. “Take that off. Let it slip down you. Let me see you, slowly.”

  “Tomik?” Liquid confusion drifted in her gaze. I watched her shake her head and get nowhere.

  “Yeah?”

  “I... I— What are you doing to me?”

  “Nothing. I already did too much.”

  I’d blotted away too much memory, and now she was barely functioning.

  “Strip.”

  Her hands rose from her sides.

  All those years ago, young and horny, kissing, squirming against each other after that school play, wanting to do it, and me with an erection to rival the Eiffel Tower. I’d been to Paris since, seen how big and hard that was... yet before I collected her I’d never seen her minus all clothing. Nude. I loved that word, same as I loved the look of females when they stripped for me. Some of them were bewildered at why they were obeying, others became lost in zombie-robot-girl mode faster and never surfaced much at all to think.

  I preferred the aware but bewildered ones—they left a distinct taste of struggle on my tongue. Fucking them made me come like crazy for I was a wolf devouring the sweetest prey.

  This one here was prey too. If I didn’t use her name, could I pretend she was no one special? I figured I could get to like knowing it was Hannah I was destroying.

  At the urging of her fingers, her dress slid to just below her shoulders. She wriggled, and it slid further, catching on her breasts where they swelled to the outermost limits. Her erect nipples had snagged the cloth. I smiled, let my tongue curl out and prod at my mouth.

  “Go on. Talk some more.”

  I had to keep reminding myself she was a collectable. Ever since this freaky mind-power infection had overridden my tender young naïve self—if it was an infection—ever since then I’d been ruthless.

  Fucking ruthless.

  If there was a food pyramid of predators of the human race, mesmers stood on the peak. We gave quarter to no one, or to no females to be truly accurate. Sure, I had regrets sometimes. Logically I could look at my behavior and tsk at myself. I should not have done this or that. I felt bad but went ahead and did it anyway, then I felt good.

  People call that positive reinforcement.

  I couldn’t let a girl from my past throw me. I should take her, use her, discard her, and move on.

  My tongue slid over my teeth, such sharp-edged instruments. They left good marks.

  I stepped around her, touching her ass, gliding my hand, watching that luscious shudder of desire slip into her. When I traced the line where her dress barely covered her swollen nipples, her eyelids lowered, fluttered, her breath caught. Succulent thing.

  This was too easy. I wanted to taste her struggles.

  Hannah’s struggles.

  I shut my eyes. Anonymous girls were plentiful. If I forgot her name, it would be like she was anyone else. Truthfully, I wanted her. I wanted it all. I wanted to suck her dry and know exactly who I did it to.

  Hannah Jones.

  She shivered, looking down at my fingers. I flicked and her dress slipped again, only to halt at hip level.

  “Fuck, my girl. You have grown.” I smirked. Her nipples were a perfect dusky pink and so ripe.

  I gave in to compulsion. I bowed my head, gripped one breast, mouthed her and sucked hard, bringing her desire to my tongue and lips, making her whine. She clutched at me until I growled like a dog. Her hands flopped to her sides, and I sucked more, devouring, taking a huge mouthful of her flesh, mounting pleasure on top of pleasure, pulling at her as if to milk blood from her, hearing her panting deepen and her whimpers sharpen. My little angel had a voice.

  The dress fell to the floor.

  Lower down, I planted my hand over her mound and squeezed her there, d
ug my fingers in like a rake, locking her sex to me.

  Squirming and crying out, twisting her hips into my hand, humping, it didn’t take long before she was begging incoherently. I slipped two fingers into her, then three. Grinning around my mouthful, I hoisted her a few inches into the air with my cunt hold and made her come.

  Hannah jerked but at the last second of her unravelling climax, I bit down, hard.

  Her squeal almost tore her breast from my mouth. With the fingers in her cunt, as well as the ones wrapped around her tit, I stopped her from toppling over.

  Nice but not enough.

  Jaded, yeah, that was me.

  Day after day, my mesmer brothers did shameful things, but I could do with a new challenge—and Hannah could be fine-tuned like a toy with dials. Slippery dials all covered in my come and her blood.

  Like she was now, slightly brainless, I could nail her to a wall, fuck her, and let her go. She’d never tell. She’d probably end up in a ward staring at the ceiling—unable to orgasm without a mesmer’s touch, her mind blown to smithereens.

  No. I wanted to fuck her while she fully, in a very sane way, knew it was me. Intact Hannah. My angel Hannah. I needed her fixed enough to make this fun.

  Long ago, that last day I’d seen her, I’d been fresh to the call of the mesmer and all of its dark temptations. A vision had seeded itself in me, spawned by our D&D games, of her dressed as an angel, strung from the ceiling, spread-eagled, bloody, and jerking to the strikes of a whip I wielded. It’d horrified me as well as tempted me, and I’d run... but now it could be fun.