There is my proof. Sarai has the blood of a killer; there’s no mistaking it anymore. I know I didn’t make her that way. Life did that, not me. But I know I’m the one who ultimately pulled the shroud from her eyes to make her see it.
“It’s only a matter of time before a hit is ordered on him too,” I say.
I take off my jacket and tie, draping them over the back of a chair.
“We should’ve done it when we had the chance,” she says.
Breaking apart the buttons of my dress shirt, I glance over at her sitting there, staring off at the wall, and I wonder in what way she’s imagining she’s killing Hamburg. It’s bloody. It’s vengeful. I’m sure of it.
I lay my shirt over the chair with my jacket and walk toward her, stepping out of my shoes on the way.
“If we did it tonight,” I say, sitting down on the end of the bed beside her, “we wouldn’t have made it out of there alive. It wasn’t part of the mission. Every mission must be planned precisely. Stray from any part of it and you triple your chances of exposing yourself or getting yourself killed.”
We sit in stillness, both looking out ahead, both married to our thoughts. I wonder if hers are about me. I can’t help but for mine to be about her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Sarai
I never want Victor to leave me. I couldn’t bear the thought of it before, but now…now things are so much different. Our souls have become intimate, whether he wants to admit it to himself or not. We are one in the same and I don’t want to imagine being on my own without him. Ever.
“Sarai, I’m sorry for what I did.”
I look over. I know what he means, but I’m not sure yet what to say in return.
“I hope you believe me when I say I got nothing out of it. It was merely for show. I hope you understand that.”
I do believe him. I know I couldn’t look a normal person in the eye and tell them what happened without them thinking I’ve lost my mind, or that I’ve succumbed to Stockholm syndrome. But Victor could’ve had his way with me many times over. He could’ve raped me. He could’ve given in to me the few times I’ve shown an attraction to him. But he never did and he always pushed me away. Up until a few nights ago when I slipped into his bed. He didn’t push me away then, but I know deep down that he was more attuned to the rage I was feeling in that moment than even I was.
Without looking at him, I ask in a quiet voice, “If he hadn’t of put in the access code to the room sooner…would you have fucked me?”
I notice him glance over but I don’t meet his eyes.
“No,” he answers in a quiet voice to match mine. He sighs. “Sarai, I couldn’t force him to open the room. He might’ve punched in a panic code and alerted the guards in the house, or—”
I look at him finally, locking my eyes with his. “But would you have wanted to?”
He becomes quiet. I watch the struggle shift in his face.
“Not there,” he says. “Not like that.”
I lift my dress over my head and drop it on the floor.
“Will you now?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer, but I’ve learned by now that the only way to get what I want from him is not to relent.
I get up from the bed and move to stand in-between his legs. Both of his hands move up my thighs slowly and he tucks his fingers behind the elastic of my panties. His lips touch my belly, the tip of his tongue grazing the skin between my ribs so softly it raises chills all over my body. I run my fingers through his hair as he slides my panties over my hips and down my legs.
Then I straddle his lap.
I kiss him softly and whisper once more, “Will you, Victor Faust? If that is your name.” I nudge the side of his face with my chin.
“Only under one condition,” he whispers hotly onto my mouth.
“What condition?”
He kisses my lips slowly.
“That I’m the one in control this time.”
I part my mouth near his, teasing him with a kiss that I want him to take from me, my fingertips gently enclosed around his jaw. He gazes into my eyes for a moment, reading my thoughts. And then both of his arms wrap possessively around my body, crushing me against him. His kiss is ravenous, his strong fingers digging into the skin of my back and I can feel the hardness of his cock so distinctly through the fabric of his pants that it makes me tremble. My lips part and my whole body shudders just feeling him there, wanting him inside of me more than I think I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.
He spears one hand within the back of my hair, forcing my head back and exposing my neck to him. He kisses my throat upward in a perfectly straight line until he finds my mouth again and takes my bottom lip into his teeth.
I feel two of his fingers slip into me below.
I gasp, my head still forced backward in his grasp, and I thrust my hips gently against his fingers.
“I want you inside of me,” I say breathily.
I can’t fucking take it anymore.
With my lips on his, our warm tongues tangled, I fumble the button on his pants and then slide the zipper down.
He flips me over onto the bed, crawling on top of me and never breaks the kiss while stripping off his pants with one hand. And when I feel the warmth of his naked body, I wrap my legs around him, crushing him with my thighs, pushing myself toward him so I can feel the swell of his cock against my wetness. His mouth searches my neck and my chest until his teeth find my nipples and he bites them just hard enough to make me whimper.
“This goes against everything that I am, Sarai,” he says and then kisses me.
“No, it doesn’t,” I whisper and kiss him back. “It’s you becoming more of who you really are.”
And then he slides his cock inside of me slowly. I can barely keep my eyes open anymore. My legs tremble and my body shudders with tiny tremors that explode and infiltrate my insides. I gasp and shove my hips forward to force him deeper.
I never imagined that sex could feel like this, that the way my body is reacting to him could ever feel like this.
He raises his body from mine, still on his knees between my legs and he grabs my thighs tight in his hands, pulling me toward him. He fucks me slowly at first, so slowly that it drives me mad. With each thrust he pushes deeper until my thighs are trembling and I can’t hold them steady around his body anymore. The back of my head arches against the pillow and I moan and gasp and dig my fingers into the flesh of his hips. He starts to fuck me harder and I grip the pillow above my head before pressing my hands against the headboard, forcing myself against him, feeling his cock swell inside of me.
He collapses over me again and I feel the wetness of his mouth on my breast. My throat. My lips. His chest heaves with rapid breath and I can feel his heart beating against mine. He begins to pace himself and while he fucks me slowly, his kiss deep and hot and hungry, he reaches one hand down between my legs and moves his fingers in a steady, persistent motion on my clit. I wind my fingers in his hair, gripping it so tight, moaning into his mouth, tasting his tongue.
So attuned with each other, we come together. He pulls out to finish, but doesn’t stop moving his fingers until my shuddering body finally eases and my trembling legs dissolve into mush on both sides of him.
He rests his sweating head across my breasts and I brush my fingers through his hair. We stay like this for the much of the night, in stillness and in thought.
And all I can think about is how I never want to leave this room with him.
~~~
I lay tangled in the sheets with Victor. The curtains on the window are fully opened and I gaze across the room at the bluish-black sky faintly illuminated by the city lights beneath it. Victor fell asleep sometime after he made love to me. Made love? I’m not sure I understand the true meaning of that phrase. I don’t think that this thing between us is love, or even lust. It’s something else, something powerful and unmistakable that neither of us have been able to ignore. But it doesn’t have a face. Or a name.
Maybe he didn’t make love to me, but he didn’t fuck me either.
It was definitely something else.
I hear his heart beating calmly against my cheek. I feel his breath emit lightly against the top of my hair. His body is so warm, almost hot, as I lie wrapped within his arms. His natural scent, it’s faint but comforting and draws me closer to him like a bee to nectar.
“Where do I go from here?” I whisper my private thoughts aloud and then bury myself further beside him when I don’t have an answer.
“We’ll figure it out,” Victor says and his arm gently squeezes around me.
I had no idea he was awake. I raise my head from his chest and lay down against his arm so that I can see his face.
“You’re not going to leave?”
It’s a long-shot, but I’m hopeful.
A second of quiet passes between us and his bare chest rises and falls with a deep and steady breath.
“Sarai, you know that I can’t take you with me,” he says and my heart sinks. “It’s just not realistic. My life is in the Order. It always has been. It wouldn’t be like waking up one day and deciding I hate my job and want to find something better. If I were to leave my Order—because that is precisely what I would have to do—the next hit that would be arranged would be on me. And on you.”
I want to cry, but I don’t.
I lay my head back on his chest, too disheartened to look at him anymore. I stare out across the spacious room, my fingers arched on his upper chest muscle.
“I think the only thing I can do is to let you live your life—”
“But—”
He squeezes me again.
“Let you live your life,” he goes on, “but I’ll visit you from time to time. Make sure you’re doing OK, that you’re safe and you have everything you need.”
I’m not satisfied with that, but I know too that it’s all I’m going to get out of him. And it’s better than nothing. He’s right and I can’t deny it. I want to be with him always, in whatever way he’ll allow himself to have me, but I can’t expect him to risk either of our lives to make that happen.
I have to let him go…
“That is if you want me to visit,” he says.
I detect a shift in the moment to something more lighthearted. It strikes me as odd coming from him. I raise up from his arm and prop my upper body on the weight of one arm, looking down at him.
He’s smiling. Not just his eyes, but his lips, too. He’s so beautiful to me. So dangerously beautiful.
I go with the moment and shove my free hand playfully against his side, laughing lightly under my breath.
“Of course I want you to,” I say.
Then he takes my wrist and carefully pulls me down on his chest. He runs his fingertips down one side of my face and then the other, all the while peering into my eyes, though beyond them. I wonder what he’s looking for in their depths. Whatever it is, I hope he never finds it so that we can stay like this forever.
He places both of his hands on the sides of my face and draws my lips to his.
“What have you done to me?” he says.
“I was going to ask you the same question.”
I nibble his bottom lip. He presses his cock against me gently.
“It seems we’ve created a bit of a problem,” he says and pushes against me a little harder.
I do the same. I gasp lightly, my skin breaking out in shivers and heat.
He kisses me, but then pulls his mouth away an inch from mine, teasing me. I lean over farther, pressing my breasts against his chest, wanting the taste of his mouth but he only gives me a little. He thrusts his hips again, holding his cock against me, his firm hands gripping my ass. He’s so fucking hard. I want it. My mouth parts halfway and my breath shudders through my lips.
“Do you want me to fuck you?” he whispers. “Is that what you want?”
I gasp at his words on my ear. I can’t answer. I can’t think straight.
“Do you, Sarai?” he adds, the heat of his breath dancing on my parted lips.
I force my hips against him, trying to position myself on his cock in a way that I can push it inside of me without either of our hands having to do it.
“Yes…,” I gasp. “Fuck me like you would’ve fucked Izabel.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes….”
I can’t breathe.
“Say it again…Izabel.”
My eyes open heavily as I look down at him. I pant lightly through my lips. He touches them with his.
Before I can respond, he lifts up from the bed into a sitting position, keeping me on his lap. The tip of his tongue moves along my collarbone. Both of my breasts are crushed in his hands.
“Say it, Izabel,” he demands and flicks his tongue against one nipple. “Tell me you want me to fuck you.”
“I want you to fuck me.”
He twists the back of my hair in his hand and stands up from the bed with my legs straddled around his sculpted hips.
He carries me to the table by the window and forces me on top of it on my belly. My arms come out ahead of me knocking his cell phone and his gun onto the floor, my hands gripping onto the rounded edge of the table. His fingers dig into my hips as he jerks my body backward toward him. He squeezes my ass. Hard. I inhale sharply when I feel his hands between my legs, spreading me apart for him. The heat of his hard body encompasses me when he leans over across my back, dragging the tip of his tongue across the back of my neck. I feel his cock right there waiting for me and I try to force myself backward against him, but his hand braces the back of my neck, forcing my cheek against the tabletop.
“Please, Victor,” I say breathily, every part of me opening up to him.
I gasp and moan loudly when he shoves his cock inside of me, my teeth clamping down on his index finger as his hand presses gently against the side of my face.
No, I never imagined that sex could be like this….
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
We oversleep the next morning and are awoken by the housekeeper knocking on the door outside the room. I guess he wasn’t just putting on a show at the Hamburg mansion when he said he always misses an early flight if he doesn’t get enough sleep the night before. Or, maybe it was just my fault. I guess I have thrown him completely out of his normal routines.
Victor gets out of the bed and I can’t help but admire his naked form before he gets dressed quickly. He opens the door to tell the housekeeper that we’ll be leaving late and not to come back for at least an hour. I don’t want to go anywhere. After last night, I just want—
“You get ready to go,” he says walking back into the room with me. “I’m going to take you to stay with a lady I know in San Diego. You’ll be safe there until I can get the rest sorted out, get you set up in a place of your own. But right now, I have to make a call to Niklas to let him know about last night. And I’m fairly certain I’ll be making a trip to Germany soon to meet with my employer.”
I just want to talk about last night, or do last night over again right now.
“That doesn’t sound good,” I say as I get out of the bed. I got a bad feeling when he said the part about meeting his employer.
He steps into his shoes and drops his duffle bags on the foot of the bed.
“No, it’s usually not,” he says, rummaging through the bag. “These last two missions have created a lot of questions about me and my ability to carry them out as ordered. I’ll have to report to him face to face to give him a more thorough explanation of what went on and why things happened the way they did.”
“What are you going to tell him about me? Do you think he’ll know I’m still alive?”
He finds a small handful of bullets and starts loading his 9MM.
“I’ll figure that out on the way.”
That too, gives me a bad feeling.
“OK, so who’s this lady in San Diego?” I look at him now with a wary eye. “She’s not someone you—”
“No,” he says, hidi
ng the gun in the back of his pants. “She has nothing to do with my Order and doesn’t know anything about what I do. She’s just a friend. Met her and her husband on a mission five years ago. It’s a long story, but no, it’s nothing like that.”
“What about her husband?”
He looks up at me once.
“He’s not there anymore,” he says.
“Why not? Did he die? Are they elderly?”
I can’t help but ask all these questions; I want to know as much as I can about the place he’s going to take me.
Victor pauses and then says, “Yes, he’s dead. He was my target.”
“Oh….”
I don’t feel so confident anymore about going there.
“You’ll be fine,” Victor says, noticing the worry on my face. “She doesn’t know that it was me.”
He walks over to me, placing his hands on my shoulders. “I’m going to go downstairs to the front desk and get the room squared away and call Niklas.” He leans in and kisses my forehead. “Take your time. I’ll be back in a few and then we’ll leave.”
I nod, looking into his eyes. “OK.”
Victor leaves the room and I grab a more casual dress this time and a clean pair of panties and head for the shower.
Victor
Niklas is angry with me. I can hear it in his voice though he’s trying hard not to be too obvious, which in itself is out of character for him.
“You said you’d contact me as soon as the mission was over,” Niklas says into the phone. “If it was carried out last night as planned then why are you only now calling me half a day later?”