Sassy Moms say: READ ROMANCE: REVIEW & GIVEAWAY: Seize Me From Darkness (Pierced Hearts #4) by Cari Silverwood

Seize me From Darkness (Pierced Hearts #4)

STANDALONE NOVEL

by Cari Silverwood

This book is part of a dark erotic fiction series and may disturb some readers.

In this dirty, bloody world we live in, the answers to prayers aren't always pretty angels. Retaken by human traffickers, Jazmine's one hope is ex-cop, ex-mercenary, Pieter, a man with a glower that stops lesser men in their tracks. She prays he can save her. But this savior is far from perfect and his flaws may prove as devastating to Jazmine as the torture of her captors. The fire of dominance never dies. *can be read as a standalone novel

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Chapter 1

“Head down, cunt up, until I say you can look at me.” The growled command and smack on the back of my head by a rough hand was enough to make me snap my gaze to the gritty concrete. My bare knees hurt. My torn and stained dress concealed almost nothing. Tears slipped down my sticky face and shivers wracked me despite the tropical heat.

Out there, beyond, were men. I could see their shoes and the legs of their jeans, hear their soft laughter.

I was helpless, alone, shaking.

I knew where I was. On the way here, curled on the floor of the small plane, men had spoken. Even with the bag on my head and the drone of the engine, I knew my destination.

In Australia, I’d been desperate to escape but the concrete I knelt on was in Papua New Guinea. I hadn’t a clue as to where I could go. Had no friends. I didn’t even have Pieter, the strange guard with the Good Samaritan tendencies. He was probably dead. I squeezed shut my eyes, as if that would make my memory of him go away. I’d messed up, like half my life, by getting him involved.

My hopes of escape had become nothing. I was nothing. I was so lost.

My heart hurt from beating too fast for too long – fight or flight response, but I could do neither. Being scared for days on end was exhausting.

Run. Run. Run. The single word popped up unexpectedly. It would go round and round in a loop in my thoughts until I slept or something distracted me. I couldn’t not think it, even if its meaning had evaporated as soon as they bundled me like an express package onto the plane.

We must have crossed the sea to the north of Australia. I’d lived with the fact that if the plane had gone down in the ocean, I’d have been unable to do more than sink with it.

“They tell me you tried to get away. No more of that. You try and you get punished. Badly. I know who you are, little miss posh bitch. Jazmine. Hey? My name, you don’t need. If you have to talk to me, you call me Sir. Nod, so I know you have ears.”

Fear had slowed my thoughts to a sluggish drag. In the few seconds it took me to figure out what to do, he hit me. A single swish and whack sent a stripe of fire across my ass. I gasped but didn’t speak. My nods were jerky, swishing my hair, as I prayed he’d not hit me again.

“Good. You behave and we’ll get along. For your sins, you’re being sold to the meanest bastard on our books. Three days, give or take a day, and he’ll be here to claim you.” His stick tapped the backs of my thighs. “What a pretty cunt. Hmmm?”

I squeezed my legs in closer.

The man nudged my chin with his stick. “Up.”

I raised my head to find him squatting a few feet in front of me. Jeans, neat blue short-sleeved shirt, heavily muscled thighs and arms. Shaven scalp. A man who could do what he liked with me.

Like some sort of macabre decoration theme, the walls of the room were hung with instruments of torture – pincers, floggers, ugly leather masks, whips, and handcuffs. I couldn’t fathom the use of some of the devices. This surreal place could have been just another made-up location for a magazine shoot. If only. I didn’t fool myself for long.

There was a long, dark-glassed window and on the other side, were the vague shapes of richly upholstered chairs as if, perhaps, there was sometimes a classier audience than the three hulking men now propping up the walls with their shoulders.

At my whimper, one of them grinned and licked the remains of his lunch from his fingers.

If I had a chance, if I could and did run, would they shoot me?

They’d just catch me and beat me, again. My bruises throbbed. I was too chicken to volunteer for that, even if death seemed to beckon.

This man’s dark gaze swept from my bodice, where my breasts spilled, to my face. He spoke softly while staring into my eyes.

“You’re pretty. The ladies with black hair make me think they’re wild women. Quick to anger. Feral. Yes?” With the tip of the stick, he stirred the loose hair that fell over my ear – picking it up and letting it slide away. “Even if you are wild, I doubt you’ll be that way long. He wears out slaves fast. To be fair, he doesn’t ask for training or a perfectly intact woman. Obey me and I won’t need to hurt you before he does.”

His smile was a miniscule upward tilt of his lips, as if he couldn’t be bothered doing a proper smile. He poked his stick at the chains wrapping my wrists, traced the line of my arm to my neck, then skipped to my face and let the tip rest near my eye.

“Nod.”

I swallowed in my dry throat then nodded. The stick slid closer to my eye. Cold, I was so horribly cold.

Erin's Review

If you like dark, Seize Me From Darkness is the book for you. It certainly isn't for the faint of heart and will have you on edge quite a few times. Jazmine and Pieter's story isn't your fluffy hearts kind of romance. It's dark, gritty, at times bloody and the ultimate game of who saves who. Through the most horrific of circumstances two people find each other at the depths of their despair and build each other up to become their true selves. There were times I wanted to strangle Jazmine for not running and I wanted to punch Pieter, but that's what any good story will do. Draw out your emotions. It puts a different take on the whole captive/captor troupe and I liked that. I wont' reveal any of the plot because I truly feel that you, the reader, should experience every story with fresh eyes. I will say, this is a solid 4.5 star read for me and I'm anxious to get reading the other books in the series. This IS a stand alone, so don't be alarmed if you are a Cari Silverwood virgin. You couldn't have picked a better book to pop your cherry. Love the story, Love Jazmine and Pieter and can't wait to see what Cari has in store for us.

Cari Silverwood is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of BDSM stories and dark erotic fiction.

She writes the way the world should be - dangerous and sexy with bullets piercing the darkness and lovers wrenched close by ropes. When you need escape, when you need that rough lover to bring you to your knees, here you will find stories to singe your fingers. The taste of adventure, the tang of BDSM, the burn of fantasy run wild. Brace yourselves, if you dare to read.

And...in this real world, she has a lovely family in Australia, with the prerequisite teenager who dwells in the dark bedroom catacombs...a husband who raises eyebrows when he catches glimpses of what she writes, and a menagerie of other animals barking, meowing, and swimming about the place.

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