Charity deeply regretted that she’d forgotten her camcorder in the midst of an ugly break-up—because it still had their homemade porn in it and the bastard pawned it.
 
And then the pawn shop sold it before she got the chance to retrieve it.
 
She didn’t give a damn about the camera, but she had to have that damned memory card back!
The dilemma is, how to convince John, the new owner, to cough it up without letting him know the porn featuring her exists?  Assuming, of course, that he hasn’t already found it—because, if he has it could be a major bargaining chip and lead to a really Wicked Proposition.
 
 
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Wicked Proposition
By
Kimberly Zant
Chapter One
Charity gaped at her ex in shocked disbelief, trying to wrap her mind around what he’d just told her.  The walls of the apartment hallway where she stood seemed to close in around her.  She abruptly felt hot and then cold and dizzy.  For several unnerving moments she thought she was going to pass out and measure her length on the filthy floor.  
Or maybe vomit.  “You did what?”
Mark, sporting a two day old beard and naked from the waist up, shrugged off-handedly, propped his left arm on the doorframe and leaned into it, giving her that thorough ‘trademark’ body scan with his laser blue gaze that seemed to see everything and appreciate everything he saw.
How, she wondered vaguely, had she ever thought that was sexy?
“I pawned it,” he repeated in the slow, gravelly drawl she’d once thought uber sexy.
Charity blinked at him as he said it, still struggling to jumpstart her brain.  It was no use.  Shock had created chaos and her mind was a whirlwind of bits and pieces of memories that she couldn’t make any sense of.  “You pawned the camcorder?  My camcorder?”
Mark’s expression turned sullen and ugly.  “What’s the big deal?  You left it.  I needed a little cash.  I pawned it.”
Charity glanced at the view she had of Mark’s apartment from the open door, but she really didn’t take in the clutter of trash, dirty clothing, and dishes with uneaten food.  Her gaze moved to the couch … where she and Mark had filmed their very own porn.
Using the camcorder he’d just pawned.
Don’t fall apart!  Don’t get ugly!  Be nice.  Sugar always works better!
It damned sure wasn’t safe to ask him if the freaking porn movie they’d made was still in the damned thing!  He hadn’t posted it online and she thought that might mean that it had slipped his mind.
Like it had hers in the heat of the moment when they’d both been slinging some really ugly ‘truths’ at one another just before she’d stormed out and left.
He’d been pretty stoned at the time, after all.
He was generally pretty stoned—or ‘lit/buzzed’–or both.
She managed a faint smile even though she mostly just felt like throwing up.  It was her damned camera!  It irked her to have to beg for mercy from the bastard when the damned thief had known it was hers and sold it anyway.  “Well,” she said after frantically searching her mind for a solution to her problem, “I guess you don’t really want it yourself or you wouldn’t have pawned it?  I don’t suppose I could talk you in to letting me have the ticket?  I had a project in mind ….”
Mark stared at her a long moment and then grinned evilly.  “I don’t know what I did with the ticket, but I’m sure it’s too late to get it anyway.  They would’ve put it up for sale by now.”
Charity felt the blood rush from her head.  She had no idea what she said after that or if she said anything at all.  She had no clear idea of how she got downstairs.  It wasn’t until she was halfway across the parking lot and a car horn blared, nearly making her leap out of her skin, that she came out of her shocked stupor.
“Hey!  Watch it, you stupid bitch!” the driver, a woman, bellowed at her.
The bitch that had nearly run her down, scared the living shit out of her by blaring the horn right beside her, and then called her a stupid bitch was gone before Charity emerged sufficiently from her fright to feel the beginnings of resentment and anger.
She’d completely disappeared before Charity had time to think of a suitable comeback.
“Bitch,” she muttered under her breath as she stalked to her car and got in.
Unfortunately, she was still too upset to think rationally.  
What now?  What could she do?  Was there anything that could be done?
Or was it time to accept the thing she couldn’t change?
She almost did throw up that time.
Dropping her head to the steering wheel, she closed her eyes and struggled to focus on nothing until she could calm herself sufficiently to think.
Images kept flickering to life in her mind—some real, some fantasy—like cutting the bastard’s dick off and choking him with it.
She swallowed with an effort.
She’d always hated people that blamed everyone else but themselves for the situations they’d put themselves in.  It just added insult to injury for people to refuse to be accountable for their actions.
Sure, it wasn’t entirely her fault.  He’d talked her in to it to start with.