Animal: A Prisoned Spinoff Standalone Read online

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Did You Enjoy Animal?

  Marni's Midnighters

  About the Author

  Newsletter

  Also By Marni Mann

  Copyright © 2017 by Marni Mann

  All rights reserved.

  Visit my website at: www.MarniSMann.com

  Cover Designer: Letitia Hasser, R.B.A Designs

  Editor and Interior Designer: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book 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-13: 978-1543286137

  I can still feel your hand in mine, the way you would squeeze my fingers and never let me go.

  I miss it. I miss you, Nana. So, so much.

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Did You Enjoy Animal?

  Marni's Midnighters

  About the Author

  Newsletter

  Also By Marni Mann

  Tyler

  Two Years Ago

  Whenever I’d thought about the way I was going to die, I never believed I would be lucky enough for it to happen in my sleep or to have a heart attack and pass away within minutes. Whatever eventually took me, it would happen slowly. It would cause as much pain as possible. It wouldn’t be from natural causes.

  Why?

  When you committed horrendous crimes, those acts would catch up to you.

  And they had.

  I’d done so many unspeakable things to hundreds of innocent people.

  As a result, my death was as gory and as gruesome as I’d imagined.

  There was a knife. Blood. Swearing and screaming.

  There was so much fucking pain.

  I was alone when I took my last breath.

  No one should be alone when they died.

  But I was.

  And the cause was self-inflicted. I’d slashed across my wrists, right along my veins.

  I’d rather die my way than theirs.

  The truth was, I’d had no other option. If I didn’t kill myself, they would have butchered me. Then, Jae would have spent the rest of his life looking for my murderer. I didn’t want that. I wanted to save him. I wanted him to move on from me and fall in love again.

  He had a chance to escape all of this.

  I didn’t.

  It wasn’t just the blade that had hurt when I dragged it across my skin. The love I had for Jae hurt, too.

  When we had fallen, we’d fallen hard. Fast. Deeply. Passionately.

  It was a kind of love I hadn’t ever felt before. A kind I hadn’t known existed.

  Just this morning, I had told him that I loved him. Those were the last words he would ever hear me say.

  He would be able to keep those words inside his heart. He just wouldn’t be able to keep me.

  Because, now, I lay in a pool of blood.

  This was the end.

  The end of Tyler Richens.

  I wouldn’t have an obituary in the newspaper, but I knew what it would have said if I had one.

  Tyler Richens, age twenty-two, died unexpectedly on January 14.

  From St. George, Kansas, Tyler moved to San Diego, California, to attend college at the University of San Diego. She studied business with a concentration in international affairs.

  She’s survived by Rick and Nancy Richens and four loving brothers.

  The rest of the paragraph would have been filler—accomplishments from high school, a description of a job I hadn’t really had, that I’d traveled for leisure even though it was all work-related.

  All lies.

  My family couldn’t know about my real life. That was part of the deal I’d made.

  But I’d broken part of that deal when I started dating Jae. He didn’t know how deep I was involved, how serious my job really was. He knew our relationship put my life in danger; he just didn’t know that it risked his, too.

  It was all worth it.

  Every second I had spent with him was worth it.

  And he was worth dying for.

  His last vision of me would be of my cold, bloody body on the floor of his bathroom—already long gone even though he didn’t want to believe it.

  It wasn’t what I really wanted.

  But it had to be this way. He had to see me. Feel me. He had to know and not question a thing.

  God, he was holding me so hard.

  He must think a grip as tight as the one he was using would bring me back. He yelled, like the words could pump air through my lungs and resuscitate me. He shook me, like it would cause my eyes to open.

  I wished love could fix all the things I had done.

  It wasn’t that easy.

  Now, there was no turning back.

  And there was no more wishing.

  Wishes died when my breathing slowed.

  But the wants lived.

  Before he could read my note and carry my body out of the bathroom, I just wanted to run my fingers through his long, thick dark hair. I wanted to brush my cheek against his face. I wanted to tell him I loved him again.

  As he wept into my neck, I couldn’t do any of those things.

  Would he forgive me for killing myself? For ruining what we’d had?

  I hoped so.

  I hoped that, wherever I went after this, I would be able to watch over him. Protect him. While he moved on, I’d cling to what we’d once had.

  Here, silently, I said good-bye.

  He couldn’t feel my words, but they echoed from within my body.

  Words of love, words of hope.

  Words that begged for his forgiveness.

  Our relationship was never supposed to ha
ppen.

  But it’d ended up changing me. What I’d wanted back then was so different from what I’d wanted just yesterday.

  It had caused this—the end.

  Now, all I had was time.

  Time to take you back to the beginning. To show you where it all had gone wrong.

  But, to understand now, you would have to hear about then.

  This wasn’t just my story.

  This was our story.

  Beard

  I drove my hands into the whore’s hair and held the back of her head, so I could shoot my load of cum into her throat. Her eyes fucking glimmered when the last stream emptied onto her tongue. As her lips left my crown, she swirled that shit around in her mouth before swallowing it. Greedy bitch. She wanted every drop of it to herself instead of sharing it with the whore who knelt next to her.

  The two girls had been taking turns deep-throating me. Then, the chick on the left had done some swivel shit with her tongue, and that was all it had taken for me to get off—some tongue-twisting and a wet, full mouth that sucked as hard as it bobbed.

  I’d thought she’d gag when I hit that dangly thing in the back of her mouth. But she hadn’t. She’d fucking liked it. She’d fucking moaned and batted her damn lashes, like I had given her everything she’d ever wanted.

  I knew by now how much the girl on the left liked to give head. This was the fourth night in a row she had sucked my cock. The girl on the right was new. But Lefty had wrapped her lips around my tip every evening since I’d been in Miami. The first two nights, she’d put a condom in her mouth and sucked me over the rubber. Last night, she’d left the condom off and told me to warn her when I was close. I’d blown my load onto her cheek, between a chunk of blond hair and a smear of red lipstick. Tonight, she had taken it right in her mouth. I wondered what the hell tomorrow would bring.

  “Kiss me,” Righty said to Lefty, licking her lips. “I want to taste him.”

  Lefty slowly turned toward her, sticking out her tongue, and Righty surrounded it with her lips. She even managed to lick off the small white glob from the corner of Lefty’s mouth. The whole time they made out, their glossy fat lips rubbed against each other like those mini hot dogs shoved into a tight can. And their eyes stayed on me while they did it.

  Talented bitches.

  “It’s my turn,” Righty said, stopping the kiss, her hands reaching for me.

  I gazed down at her. “For what?”

  “To be fed your cum.”

  I grabbed her nipple and pinched it.

  “Ow.” She bucked, her lips parting, a string of spit dripping from the bottom one. “Easy, baby. I can’t take it so hard. I’m on the rag.”

  I laughed as I tucked my dick back into my jeans and zipped up the fly. “For you,” I said to Lefty, dropping two hundred on the table for the mouth-beating I’d given her. “And one for your friend.” I left a third bill on the glass.

  “Will I see you tomorrow?” Lefty asked.

  I felt my phone vibrate from my pocket and pulled it out.

  Shank: Airport. 9 tomorrow morning.

  I grazed my fingers across Lefty’s chin. “Afraid not, sweetheart.” I walked out of the room, letting the door shut behind me, and found a seat on the side of the lounge.

  This was Miami’s most popular strip club. The dancers were so high-maintenance, fucking jewels were pasted on their cunts. I wasn’t into high-maintenance. I wasn’t so much into strip clubs either, but I needed something to do now that I was back in the States. It had been a long time since I was here. I wasn’t adjusted yet. Wasn’t used to all the sunlight and food trucks.

  And the smiling.

  There wasn’t much smiling where I lived in Venezuela or at the prison I worked at. There were only concrete and metal bars.

  And screaming.

  That was all I ever heard…and I fucking loved it.

  Then, there was the crying and promises. Everyone made promises when they were locked in a cell.

  It was my job to handle the inmates—their movements within the prison, their feedings, their punishments. Prison guard, captor, torturer—I had many titles. They all meant the same thing; I lived in the dark.

  And here, in Miami, everything was way too light. Like the bright yellow thong some chick was wearing on the center stage. There wasn’t any screaming around me. Not even pants of pain from Lefty when my tip had pounded the back of her throat. Just that shallow cry from Righty when I had grabbed her nipple. But, shit, that sound was nothing. That wasn’t even a whimper compared to what I normally heard.

  I missed the screams.

  I needed them.

  “Has the waitress come by yet?”

  I turned my head, checking out the woman who just sat next to me. She wasn’t dressed like the other girls who walked around this club. She wore black leather pants and the same colored tank. By the movement of her tits, I could tell she wasn’t wearing a bra.

  “Haven’t seen one,” I said.

  “Shit. I need something strong.” She looked at my lips as though she wanted to sink her teeth into them. “And stiff.”

  “I can fill that need.”

  She glanced at the stage and smiled. A blonde was walking toward us, wiggling the knot of her string top, her tits falling out of the small triangles.

  “I’m not interested in anything you have,” she replied.

  “What are you interested in?”

  She gazed from the stage to me. “Her.”

  I eyed up the blonde again. Her tits were bigger than I’d thought, more than just a handful, nipples larger than the tip of my tongue. She had a real thick ass on her, too. My dick hardened at the thought of that tight hole milking me.

  “Like what you see?” the girl next to me asked.

  “She’s not bad.”

  “She’s my girlfriend.” She was looking at my lips again. “So, like I said, I’m not interested in anything you have.”

  It was almost a relief to hear. It was also a sick-ass fucking challenge. I’d been with plenty of bisexual chicks but never a lesbian. I could picture the blonde stripper bobbing on the end of my dick like Lefty had done earlier and the brunette next to me eating the blonde’s cunt. I wondered what some cock would do to the brunette. Would she enjoy it, or would she try to find something in the room to shove up my ass?

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Why? Having second thoughts?”

  “Not a chance. But, if you’re going to be staring at my girlfriend’s tits, it seems only fair that I know your name.”

  “It’s Beard.”

  She stared at the untamed mess that hung from my chin. “That’s your real name?”

  Beard had been my name for enough years. It had started when Inmate #326, Kyle Lang, came into my prison. She was the only captive who had ever left my jail alive. Before her, everyone had called me Bush. I liked Beard better.

  “It’s what I want you to call me,” I said.

  “Okay.” She shrugged. “Then, tell me what you do, Beard.”

  “Lots of things.” I eyed her nipples, noticing how they seemed to have gotten harder. “Why don’t you tell me about you?”

  “I’m Layla.” She stuck her hand out for me to shake.

  I gripped it hard, like I would a man’s. I had a feeling she was the type who wouldn’t want it light.

  “What is it that you do, Layla?”

  “You could call me a financial advisor.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  The blonde was now lying on the stage, her ass in the air, her legs spread so that we could see the inside of her cheeks. Layla’s stare didn’t move from me.

  “Advise me then.”

  Her eyes scanned my wrist, all the way up my arm, across my chest, and down to my feet. “You don’t appear like the kind of person who has what I’m looking for in a client. I’m more interested in the rich and elite.”

  “And, because of the way I’m dressed, you’re assuming I’m not?” I didn’t wai
t for her response; it would be a bunch of bullshit anyway. All black clothes and a beard told her nothing about me. “Why don’t you keep talking, and I’ll be the one to decide if you’re worth my money? Give me the specifics.”

  “I help the rich invest their money.”

  “Legally?”

  She moved to the side of her chair—the side closest to me—and crossed her legs. “I know this city. I know the people who live in it. I know the available opportunities. Opportunities for all different kinds, depending on what you need. You’re asking for specifics, but unfortunately, I don’t know you, and I don’t know if I can trust you.”

  “You don’t need to know me. My money will speak for itself.”

  “How much are we talking?”

  “You’re moving too fast, Layla.” I ran my hand over the edge of my beard. “I need to smell you. Taste you. Feel you between my teeth before we talk about numbers.”

  Her expression told me she knew exactly what I was asking, and it had nothing to do with her cunt.

  “I’m going out of town for a little while. Give me your number, and I’ll call you the next time I’m home. Maybe, by then, you’ll have something to show me.”

  She held out her hand, and I dropped my phone on top of it. I watched her type her number before she gave it back to me.

  “Give me a few days’ notice to put some things together,” she said.

  I nodded and stuck a twenty between her girlfriend’s ass cheeks before I walked out.

  Beard

  When I stepped inside the concrete hallway, the door slammed behind me, the sound of the steel ricocheting off the walls. I took a deep breath, filling my nose with the scent of death. That was the only smell inside here. I’d grown so used to it, I’d missed it while I was back in the States.

  But, now that I was home in Venezuela, I’d get my fill.

  And I’d add to it.

  I checked the four deadbolts, making sure they were latched in place, and I headed toward the cell block. Whenever I returned to the prison, that was always my first stop. I listened to each of the inmates, searching for the noise I wanted to hear the most.

  Once I found it, I leaned against the outside of the prisoner’s cell and whispered, “Scream for me.”

  He was already doing plenty of it. I just wanted to hear more.

  He didn’t respond, so I repeated it in Spanish, “Grítame.”