A dark-haired man appeared, gun high, sweeping the room. He saw me and my mouth twitched.
Bye, asshole.
I was outside the railing, balancing, ready to...
What?
Fall and die? Four stories down, unless I accurately judged the swing to land on the balcony below.
To die... Not yet. Please.
He walked into my room. Though briefly eclipsed by the man with the wavy, black hair, I knew him.
Isak.
Blond hair cinched at the back. Tall. Broader of shoulder, heavier of build, than I recalled. The shirt he wore was red – burgundy red. Good for masking blood.
His thought or mine?
My lips parted, skin peeling from skin.
His collar was precisely folded.
His pants, sinfully dark, were rich of color and cut.
He’d dwarf the sun with his brilliance, let alone the fluorescents of my room.
His thoughts locked, snicker-snack, onto mine and froze me; my fingers clutched the wrought-iron, mock arrowheads.
Who the fuck decorated a railing with arrowheads?
Go! A whisper, a suggestion.
Fingers uncurled. My fingers.
Mine.
Horrified, I was unsure who was making my hands do what they did. Would he make me suicide? I watched them as they unlocked from the metal, felt my weight shift, and I fell, outward into space, pivoting on my feet where they rested on the edge of the concrete of the balcony.
My last link with the solid world.
I fell.
Strong hands caught my wrists and I jarred to a halt, gasping. Those hands hauled me inward, winching me to their owner. The circle of man flesh about my wrists was potent and promising.
“Hello.”
My stomach kissed the railings and I dared raise my head, dared meet the stark blue eyes of my possessor.
“Tell me, Red. Were you planning to shoot me?” That Scandinavian accent. In any other man, at any other time, I’d find it desirable.
Red? My mouth slackened, my tongue thought of lying. But, I couldn’t lie in the face of this man, never had been able to during the days with him in Cuba.
Those days. Three. Fucking. Days.
“I was. Yes. Asshole.” I cranked out a smile. I could defy him, though it took effort.
Maybe his power had waned.
One could hope.
“Climb over the railing and come inside, little robot girl.”
No. Don’t.
My thought switch flipped from no to yes, and I remembered that exact feeling from the first time, and was dismayed at how this replayed.
Yes. Oh yes.
Exactly like an obedient robot, I climbed over. I stood before him when he sat in a chair placed in the center of my room. On my rug. His weight pressed the chair legs into the softness.
If I didn’t look at him, maybe he’d go away.
The hard outline of the rifle lay to the side, hinting at my recent deadly intentions.
I could smell his thoughts, feel them in me, purring. Lucky he couldn’t read all mine.
And I quivered – fear, the unknown, my stupidity in coming here, though what else could I have done?
What...
Else...
As if I’d ever have stayed away and done nothing.
Some situations have that flash of comprehension where you see what should’ve been in your face from the start.
I should’ve known how weak my situation would be.
Should’ve seen he would find me. I knew his powers.
This was how it would always have been. It was inevitable.
Swallow your doubts. The battle hasn’t ended. I needed to figure out how to skew this my way.
“What am I going to do with you?”
The rumbling growl underpinning his voice hardened my nipples and awakened between my legs for the first time in three years.
“What...am I...” His finger touched my midriff over the silken negligee, precisely where my navel dwelled, and dug in. “Going to do.” He pushed. I swayed. “With you.”
That finger. The pressure.
Not a question.
My cunt liquefied with heat.
Shameful.
I strived to still my trembling legs.
With his forefinger, he beckoned me closer, until I had to spread my legs to navigate him, until I was poised over his lap where his cock bulged his pants. My negligee had ridden up my legs until it barely covered my black panties.
He laid a leisurely hand on my inner thigh then drifted his palm up and inward until he cupped between my legs. His palm pressed, his thumb made soft rhythmic indentations on my mons. I hung, caught in a moment of no time, mouth open, unable to stop him, unwilling to, and there was the puzzle.
There was why I had to kill this man – he made me crave what I should not want.
“You’re different, Red,” he drawled as he played with me. “How different is what I’m going to find out. Tell me, how many times have I fucked you?”
Loaded question. Fucking loaded question.
My mouth twisted and I swallowed several times, as if dust or his probing fingers were stuck in my throat. “Never,” I croaked.
“You might get lucky this time,” he murmured as he slipped a finger beneath the edge of my panties, and squeezed it slowly along my slit then back again, almost to my clit. Slip, slide. Not inside me, and barely parting my cunt lips...yet, an orgasm built.
Desperately, I shored up defenses, stiffening and muttering inane curses.
“Don’t come,” he added, gaze steady as iron.
As if. As if I would.
But, god help me, I did want to. Unwelcome, as it was, I lusted for that cataclysm of sensation.
Don’t come, don’t come, and so...I couldn’t.
Couldn’t, after he teased me for ages. That finger, playing me.
Don’t come.
He stroked until my legs shook and I had to clutch at his shoulders. My eyes leaked tears; my vision blurred; my abdomen cramped with need.
I wanted to. God I wanted to. Three years without coming and he stopped me.
“Beg.” Isak smiled, a
