Dark Descent into Desire Read online

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  EPILOGUE

  ALSO BY J. J. SOREL

  FREE SAMPLE -TAKE MY HEART

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  DARK

  DESCENT

  INTO

  DESIRE

  J. J. Sorel

  Copyright © March 2020 J. J. Sorel

  Dear Reader, due to a high steam level, this book is for ADULTS ONLY. All the characters are consenting adults.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews or articles. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events and incidents are pure product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or an actual event is purely coincidental and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or content therein.

  Cover MOI/Wolfsparrowcovers.com

  Line Edit by Sarah Carleton from Red Adept Editing.

  “Obsession is passion and where there’s passion there’s potency.”

  Blake Sinclair

  1

  * * *

  BLAKE

  I TURNED MY ATTENTION away from the window and noticed James, with his signature bouncy strut, heading toward me.

  We made for an odd pairing, but then, people connected to those who offered something they lacked. In James’s case, he was easygoing and extroverted, which was the opposite of me.

  He flopped down onto the leather armchair by my side. “Sorry I’m late. A big night.” His eyebrows lifted, and a playful glint explained clearly what he’d been up to.

  “Let me guess. A flat-chested blonde teetering on spindly heels that ended up around your ears in some seedy restroom?”

  James laughed. “You’re as dry as that Scotch swishing in your glass. Speaking of which…” He turned toward the waiter and lifted his chin.

  We met regularly at our club—a club for gentlemen, in the old sense of the word, and not one of those sleazy joints where men lurked about watching scantily clad girls hanging upside down on poles or gyrating over some desperado’s hungry crotch.

  I’d been frequenting that members-only club since leaving Cambridge, which was where I’d met James. Coming from a peerage that went back to the Tudors, he’d invited me onto the club’s books.

  Being exclusive, the club fitted me like a glove by protecting me from the glare of cameras and gossip. When a Times article catapulted me into the limelight, journalists dying to ask me about my bedroom habits had hounded me. Apparently, according to the magazines, I was one of London’s most eligible bachelors.

  Eligible for what? A happy life?

  Our club offered a private environment to enjoy a quiet drink. Generally, I’d meet with James and share a few Scotches while listening to stories of a wild night he’d had cavorting with one or two attractive girls.

  I lived a short walk away from the club in a two-story mansion James referred to as my Mary Poppins house.

  After draining half his glass, James sighed. “Ah… that’s better. Nothing like the first drink of the day to get the heart pumping.”

  I smiled. “So, what have you been up to?”

  “I have discovered this new little club.” His eyebrow arched.

  “Let me guess. Dark, sticky, and tacky?”

  He laughed at my sardonic tone. “All of that, but with class.”

  “Okay… so the eighteen-year-olds come from money?”

  He sniffed. “Wealth alone doesn’t always deliver class. Look at you. You epitomize sophistication.”

  I sat up. “I’m filthy rich, James.”

  “But its new wealth, isn’t it?”

  James was right. My beginnings were anything but classy. I liked to think of myself as a man of taste who’d cultivated an interest for the finer things. Why be rich otherwise?

  “Do continue,” I said, steering James back to his story.

  “A friend dragged me to this new little hidden gem in Soho.”

  “Trendy, I suppose,” I said.

  He shook his head. “Nothing like the typical club scene at all.”

  “Oh… a sex club?”

  “Of sorts.” He sat back. “Let’s put it this way. There was not one limp dick in the house.”

  “Mm… that sounds really sordid. Go on.”

  “It’s a club where girls sell their virginity.”

  “That’s gaining popularity. I received an invite to a viewing from an agency. I don’t even know how they got my name.”

  He held his chin. “Mm… let me guess. That little something called Forbes top one hundred. And that sweet article about you being the man to hump.”

  “Huh.” I sniffed. “That fucking Times article. I’d prefer to keep my wealth private.” I jiggled the ice in my glass.

  “You’re a girl magnet, Blake. Tall, dark, and handsome. If I weren’t into girls, even I’d screw you.”

  I chuckled at his ridiculous suggestion. We were both hot-blooded heterosexual men. Period.

  The waiter arrived and lowered our drinks onto the table between us. I nodded with gratitude.

  “Now, back to girls selling their virginity,” said James. “Have you ever slept with a virgin?”

  “I don’t sleep with young girls.” I lowered my brow. “And I don’t sleep with women in general. I only fuck them.”

  He lifted his hands in defense. “Hey… steady. They’re not that young.” Sitting back, James shook the ice in his glass. “What about that happily-ever-after scenario? Don’t you want one of those?”

  “I don’t believe in those. I’ve yet to witness a happy marriage. It’s a life sentence where two individuals trap each other out of fear of loneliness only they end up lonely anyway.”

  He grimaced. “You make it sound so fucking grim. Don’t you think it’s nice, the idea of a baby bouncing on one’s knee
and a hot little wife baking a cake in a skimpy maid’s outfit?”

  I laughed. “How inappropriate and nineteenth century.”

  “What? The skimpy maid’s outfit?” he asked.

  “No. The cake baking.”

  He laughed. “Well, I couldn’t bake anything to save myself.”

  “Then you’d better pray that we don’t descend into a dystopian nightmare and lose our cooks.”

  “It’s hot the idea of coming home to a sexy wife baking a cake.”

  I shrugged. “Why not? I just don’t believe in the concept of happy families and that a happy life requires a happy wife.” I sipped my Scotch pensively. What I hadn’t told James was how my life had begun. No one knew about that. All that existed was a short-on-detail Disney version I’d rolled out just for the record. “Tell me all about your night. This subject of marriage is making me drink faster.”

  James laughed at my dryness. “That’s what you do.” He pointed. “You get off on my little adventures. A form of voyeurism.”

  I grinned. “Oh, I’m a voyeur, all right. I’ll own up to that quite freely.”

  James laughed. “Aren’t we all?”

  I summoned memories of Rebecca, the voluptuous maid from Raven Abbey, bent over the kitchen table, the cook’s big dick ramming hard into her, and her squeals of delight. Or maybe it was pain. I could never tell, but she kept allowing him in, so to speak. At the age of thirteen, I would sneak a peek through a crack in the door. That was the beginning to my dark descent.

  “Tell me about this club.” I stretched out my legs.

  “It’s hidden down an alleyway. One can’t get in without two things.”

  “Those being…?”

  “An invite and proof of wealth … oh—three things. They need a blood test.”

  “A blood test?” I asked.

  “That’s if you want to fuck without a condom.”

  “You fuck them there?”

  “Pretty much.” James looked at me. “Oh, come on, Blake. Don’t go all righteous on me. It’s sex. And these girls are willing and, you know…”

  “Desperate? They’re poor, and they need money, right?”

  He sipped his drink. “At least it’s only once, given that virginity can only be sold once.”

  “Did you end up buying one?” I cringed at how that sounded. The thought of a young innocent commodifying her virginity was morally difficult to grapple with. But James was a friend, and apart from his predilection for eighteen-year-old virgins, his heart was in the right place. I also had to remind myself that it was consensual and they weren’t underage.

  “Not yet.”

  “What does that mean exactly?”

  “The one I like is asking for one hundred thousand pounds. I’m used to picking up girls at clubs for as little as a weekend of wining and dining and a night or two at a luxury hotel. Even a week on the Riviera for those special girls”—he raised an eyebrow— “doesn’t cost that much.”

  “But, James, you’re rich.”

  “One hundred thousand, though? For one night?” He held out his hands.

  “Depends on how much you want it.”

  “To be honest, I haven’t been able to get her out of my mind. She’s beautiful.” He drew a curvy line in the air.

  “She’s voluptuous?”

  “No, she’s nearly flat chested. But she’s got a cute round ass, and her little pink…”

  I interjected, “You saw her pussy?”

  “They parade each girl.”

  “And they pose with their legs apart?”

  He nodded, biting his lip. “Didn’t I tell you it was sordid?”

  “But you didn’t buy a girl?”

  “I paid a thousand to get in. Everyone does. That goes to the girls that don’t get a buyer, apparently.”

  “Oh, well, I guess that’s kind of fair.” My eyebrows gathered tightly as I contemplated the intimate details. My dick jerked a little, which added a streak of guilt to my fascination. My innate decency hated the idea of women forced to subject themselves to such debauchery.

  “Are you in?” asked James.

  I turned my head sharply to look at him. “In? By that, you mean, do I want to visit this den of iniquity?”

  James laughed loudly. “You sound like my grandfather.”

  I smiled. “It sounds a little depraved… but I suppose I could do with a little eye fucking.”

  “Ah… that’s more like it. And who knows? You might find the girl of your dreams.”

  I thought about that. I hadn’t fucked in a while. It always left me a little cold afterward. Not that I didn’t feel desire. My dick never remained inert for long. For me, sex was never about love. I didn’t believe such an exulted state existed. How could I? I’d never experienced it.

  “Once you’ve tasted virgin pussy, it’s hard not to want to go back for more,” James said, snapping me out of my thoughts.

  I sat forward. “Tell me… why are virgins so coveted?”

  “Tightness, my friend. A sweet, perfect exotic flower that only blooms once.” He paused to reflect. “You know, there’s something profoundly powerful knowing you’re her first.”

  I nodded slowly, intrigued and, I had to admit, a little hot under the collar.

  2

  * * *

  PENELOPE

  THE CRACKS AROUND THE door frame of the only home I’d ever known had widened since my last visit a few days earlier. That forty-year-old flat was crumbling and forgotten, just like those who lived in that council estate, which was a kind of parallel universe where drowsy souls drifted about a foggy urban wilderness.

  The stale stench of cigarettes nauseated me as always, and no matter how much I aired the place out, that acrid smell clung stubbornly to the walls.

  I turned on the lamp and found my mother asleep on the couch. Paraphernalia scattered about on the coffee table gave her ugly habit away. She hadn’t even tried to hide it. It used to be in the bathroom, where she’d leave a spoon or a belt lying about, but she no longer cared. One thing I’d learned about heroin addiction—that prick of a needle didn’t just dull pain but one’s conscience too.

  Her arm drooped by her side, a red bruise in the crook of it as evidence.

  Resting my finger on her neck, I felt for a pulse. An aching gap followed. As always, my heart froze despite the fact that I’d seen her parked somewhere between life and death for as long as I could remember.

  One never got used to this kind of thing. As a twenty-three-year-old, I felt helpless and eaten by grief.

  She stirred, and the breath that was stuck in my throat finally escaped.

  “Who’s that?” she asked. If a zombie could talk, it would sound like my mother on junk—slurry and vague.

  “It’s me. Penny.” Fury pumped through me. “Fuck! Not again. You promised.”

  I’d lost count of how many times she’d promised to kick that filthy habit, which she’d had all my life even though she swore she’d been clean while I grew in her belly. I’d never know if that was true. My mother had made an art form of lying.

  All I had to go by were my high marks at school and my unwavering focus. Maybe she’d told the truth for once. Either that, or I was lucky for possessing a curious mind, a good eye for drawing, and the tenacity to become someone other than Penny from the estate.

  “Is Frank here?” I asked, referring to her on-off boyfriend, who’d kept us going over the five years that he’d been around.

  I should have been grateful, but he hung out with the bad crowd— a crowd I couldn’t avoid, given that I lived in one of London’s oldest, scummiest estates. It was a breeding ground for drug traffickers, and was frequented by men in expensive suits, lowlifes in saggy joggers, and girls who sold everything they had to offer for drugs.

  My mother’s droopy eyelids lifted ever so slightly, enough for me to read that he’d been there and that she’d filled her veins with her “forgetting potion,” as she called it.

  As I considered my mo
ther’s brutal history, a profound pang of sadness diluted my angry frustration at finding her like that again.

  “You spent the money, didn’t you?” I headed to the fridge, which was empty except for a half carton of milk and a six-pack of beer.

  “How are you darling?” she asked. “I haven’t seen you in days.”

  “I’ve been at Shelly’s. You know I use his studio.”

  “Oh, your friend the homosexual. I don’t like you hanging out with those weirdos.”

  “Huh?” I put my fists on my hips. “And I suppose your drug-addicted mates are less weird?” I picked up the syringe carefully. “At least Shelly doesn’t take drugs.”

  “Don’t talk so loudly,” she slurred. Ravaged by drugs, my mother’s beauty had faded. Her red hair, a tangled mess, hadn’t seen a brush for days.

  “Go to bed, then. Here.” I bent down to give her my shoulder. For someone who didn’t eat much, her body was heavy.

  “I’m sorry, kitten. My darling Penny. I’m sorry.”

  The only one advantage of living in such a tiny flat was that I didn’t have to carry her far. I took her weight and, in twenty or so little shuffles, made it to her disheveled bed.

  I helped her down onto it and covered her with a blanket.

  “I suppose you haven’t had anything to eat for a while?” I asked.

  “I’m not hungry, lovey. Let me sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  I let out a deep, frustrated breath and left her alone.

  I went to the kitchen and opened the cupboard door, which fell off its hinges and onto my foot. I cried out in pain. It wasn’t the first time. That flat was a crumbling mess, much like my mother and my life. If it wasn’t for Sheldon, I would have either starved or had to sell my body or something radical like that. There were no jobs to speak of except in aged care, and I was too worn-out caring for my mom.

  Sheldon was a friend from art college, where we both studied fine arts. I’d received a scholarship, which covered my fees, while art supplies gobbled up my tiny student allowance. I painted at his studio, and on weekends, I stayed at his Soho apartment. Like the brother I’d never had, Sheldon was kind and supportive.

  A knock came to the door. Opening it, I discovered Lilly, my best friend, full of bubbly energy. We’d grown up together on the estate and were neighbors. She lived alone with her brother, Brent. After their parents died in a car accident when Lilly was ten, Brent, who was five years older, had taken on the parental role.