Mine Page 13

  “You ask to see the real me. Then you joke. This isn’t the real you, either,” I said.

  “You think you know the real me?” he asked. His voice was a low growl, but I was too upset to care about the danger.

  “That’s exactly it, Rien. I don’t know the real you. I don’t know you at all. I want to.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  I nodded. I wanted to leave, and if I understood him, maybe I could convince him to let me go. Right now, I had no idea what was in his mind. More than that, I felt an irresistible need to understand why he did what he did. Why he had taken me, and touched me. Why he gave me pleasure, when all he gave to others was pain. Why he kept me here instead of killing me. If I understood him, I thought, I would have the upper hand.

  He stood up and took the book from my hands. I waited silently as he walked to the bookshelf and replaced the book in the empty slot. With a click and a whir, the bookcase turned shut. Rien and I were alone in the library. The walls seemed to be closer than before. They loomed over us both. He came back and sat down on the couch, leaning toward me as though we were conspirators. I saw a glimmer of tears in his eyes again, just a flash, but then he blinked and the tears disappeared. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple jerking sharply. Then he cleared his throat and spoke.

  “Let me tell you about myself.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Rien

  I studied Sara’s face. Her eyes were a brilliant green, sunk into pale hollows. She needed to go outside. She was like a flower who needed the sunshine, and would rot inside without it. I couldn’t keep her here. And yet, I couldn’t let her go without condemning us both. My heart was torn.

  “You talk about suffering,” I said. “But physical suffering is not the hardest kind to bear.”

  She turned up her face to me uncertainly. She didn’t understand. Of course not. All she had had to bear was physical suffering. The cold of a nighttime without shelter. The ache of a stomach without food. The pain of a hand clamping down on her throat. My hand.

  “I loved a girl once,” I said.

  “Who was she?”

  “A young girl from another embassy. We were great friends. Her name was Michaela.”

  I breathed in. The room seemed stuffier than before, now that I’d closed the door. The air was thicker, like cotton.

  “My family, though, didn’t want us to be friends. They knew that our friendship was leading to love. And my mother especially couldn’t stand to see me loving anything.”

  Sara frowned. Was I wrong to want to stop there? I couldn’t. Not with her. Sara, of all the girls I’d ever met, was able to see past the surface evil. Maybe to actually see me. I couldn’t hold back.

  “My mother was evil. More evil than I turned out, maybe. Both of my parents hated to see me happy unless it was a happiness that they had given me. And they gave me everything. Everything I ever wanted. They gave me everything, but they took her away.”

  I closed my eyes, my breath shuddering through my body. I saw her face in my mind, her dark brown curls. The ache that always accompanied her memory ran through me like a blade. Breathe, Rien.

  “Why?”

  I clenched my jaw.

  “Because she wasn’t good enough for our family. They forbid me to play with her. They said her family was traitorous, that they were against what our country stood for. They were Communists, you see. And then one day my father came home and found us hiding in the attic, reading together. I couldn’t disgrace our family name by loving someone from such a low family. From such a disgraceful family.”

  Sara’s eyebrows knotted together on her forehead. Compassion filled her eyes. Was it true compassion? Nobody could have such compassion for a killer, and yet she looked at me without any trace of falseness.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  Could I trust her? I didn’t know. There was something in her that made me want to. I had never told anyone this story before. I stood up and faced the bookshelf. When I spoke, my voice was even and calm.

  “There was a raid on their embassy. It was to find an alleged traitor. They… they burned the building down. Her whole family was inside.”

  The brown curls, burning. Flames crawling through my memories. I closed my eyes.

  “They didn’t even burn it down themselves, you understand? They paid men to do it. Because they didn’t want to get the filth on themselves. They wanted a perfect family, a perfect son who would do whatever they told him to do. But their hands were bloody, no matter what. They were evil, truly evil. When I kill those men on my table, I think of that kind of evil and I know what I’m doing is right.”

  I looked back at Sara. Tears ran down her cheeks. Alligator tears? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I felt numb as I continued. She couldn’t understand, but now that I was talking, I couldn’t stop.

  “So I ran away. I came here. And I kill people who want to escape from their evil pasts. For me, there is no escape. In my dreams, I see her burning.”

  I wet my lips.

  “In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning,” I quoted. “My suffering didn’t have a meaning before I took this job. But I take that suffering and I give it to others. It’s the only trade that makes sense. It keeps me sane. And my life here is perfect. Or it was, before you.”

  “Me?”

  I turned back to Sara. Her face, already pale, was paler now. Her tears still stained her cheeks.

  “I’m falling apart because of you,” I said.

  She stood shakily from the couch and came to me. I reached out and cupped her cheek in my hand.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. She looked scared, so scared. Not as scared as I felt. My whole life that I had built up, all of the steadiness of my existence, was threatened because I couldn’t kill her. I didn’t know if what I felt was real. But I couldn’t let myself be as evil as my family had been.

  “Tell me what you want me to do,” she whispered.

  I touched her skin, brushing her beautiful dark locks away from her eyes and wiping the tears from her cheeks. Such depth in those eyes. I had taken her apart, but I couldn’t put her back together. I broke everything I touched. It was all broken, all of it.

  “I need to forget,” I said. “I need you to want me.”

  “Rien…”

  “Pretend to want me,” I said. “You’re good at that, aren’t you?” I leaned forward and kissed her. Softly at first, then more deeply. Her full lips trembled against mine, and I pulled her body towards me. I wanted her. More than that, I wanted her desire. Even if it was fake. I didn’t deserve more than that. I would take all that she offered, and more. She gasped as I kissed her, my mouth moving to her neck.

  “Rien—”

  “Pretend to love me. Can you do that, Sara?” I breathed against her neck, inhaling her scent, burying myself in her hair. My hands moved over her tense muscles, and where they went I felt her body melting towards me.

  “Yes,” she whispered. I kissed her again, her body leaning into mine. The salvation of man is through love and in love. This wasn’t love. It wasn’t real. But it was all I had, and even the shadow of love might be enough to keep the demons away.

  Sara

  Rien held me in his arms.

  “Yes,” I said. Pretend. Yes. I could pretend. My life had been a long pretense, a lesson in acting. This was just one more role.

  And when he pulled me into his embrace, his lips crashing against mine, the aching desire that leapt up in my body was only pretend. That’s what I told myself. I kissed him back, and the desperate need in his kiss spread the ache until every part of me wanted him against me.

  His hands moved down my body, and my heart pounded as he kissed me again and again, his lips drawing new need from mine with every touch.

  His hand brushed over my lower back, kneading my muscles as his lips took mine, sucking, licking. His hand moved down past the buttoned shirt and cupped my ass.

  “Oh!” I cri
ed out when his hand squeezed me there. My body clenched, and I felt the ache between my thighs give way to wetness. “Rien, please—”

  He spun me, shoving me against the bookshelf. My breath left my body in one whoosh with the impact, and then he was kissing me again, kissing me so hard that it took all the rest of my breath from me. His body pressed against mine, pushing me hard against the shelves. He had me in his arms, pulling me up on tiptoe, and when he finally let go I gasped for air.

  “I want you so badly,” he whispered. I felt him against me, his thick erection straining through his pants. I imagined him filling me the way he had in the night, and my breath caught in my throat.

  He’d taken me, and I’d liked it. And then he’d acted like it was nothing. Was this nothing, too? I couldn’t believe it, not with the burning look of desire I saw in his eyes. When he’d taken me before, it had been completely dark. But maybe he was good at acting, better than I was. He’d asked me to pretend, and I would. Even if the pretense was only a thin veil that didn’t mask what I really wanted. Wasn’t that how the best actors did it, after all?

  I shook myself free of my thoughts. I wanted nothing. This was only an act.

  I reached up and pulled Rien in for another kiss. The hunger in his kisses shocked me and made the ache inside me grow. Then he grabbed my shirt with both hands and yanked. Buttons flew across the room as the fabric ripped apart. My body was exposed. His hands gripped my breasts so hard that tears sprung to my eyes. I moaned against his lips as he kissed me, his hands kneading my body.

  His kisses moved down my neck to my shoulder. He bit down and I cried out. Immediately he relaxed his jaw, letting his teeth graze my collarbone. The edge of his teeth sent shivers through my bones.

  “I need this,” he mumbled against my skin. “Sara, forgive me. Forgive me.”

  My hands ran through his hair as he bent down to take my breast into his mouth. He sucked hard and I yelped, losing control of my muscles as the thrill ran through my body. If his hands hadn’t been pressing me against the shelves, I would’ve fallen. He sucked my nipple, his teeth nipping the skin to make me cry out. I could tell he liked to hear me whimper, and I didn’t try to hide my noises as he suckled me and teased my nipples with his tongue.

  His mouth moved down, kissing the bare skin of my stomach. I jerked, but my hips only hit the shelves and he held me back so I could not move. My fingers gripped his hair. His tongue ran circles around the lower part of my stomach, pausing at the hipbone.

  Was he? No. He wasn’t. He couldn’t.

  “Rien—”

  He tore my panties down with one hand, holding me up while I shifted my weight to let him take them off. I was dizzy with need. The ache inside of me was screaming for release, and I wanted him. God forgive me, I wanted him inside of me so badly. I could lie to anyone else, tell them that he had forced me, but in that moment I knew nothing but a primal need for him to satisfy me.

  “Take me,” I moaned. “I want you inside me, Rien.”

  “Not yet,” he murmured. His face was pressed to my hip, his lips trailing down, down, and then—

  “OH!” I cried out loud as he licked me once, hard, his tongue stoking the fire inside of me to unbelievable heights. My muscles turned to rags, and I screamed as he buried his face between my thighs. His tongue licked me in long, slow strokes, so slow that they tore my nerves to pieces and left me shaking with desire. I needed more, more, but every time I came close he only eased off and left me wanting.

  “Rien, please. Oh God, Rien. Don’t stop.” I was babbling, my hands grabbing his hair and pulling his head back towards me. He pressed kisses all along the outside of my folds. I was burning, burning. I would die if he did not touch me again.

  “Tell me you want me, Sara.”

  “I want you. Please.”

  “Tell me you love me.”

  “I—I—”

  My voice choked. I could not say the words and I did not know why. His command had closed down something inside of me.

  His mouth sealed over me, and I screamed as he sucked my swollen clit, licked it hard and sent me soaring for a split second before he pulled away.

  “Rien!”

  “Tell me!” His voice was a growl, an order, full of a terrible need that sent a darkness into my heart.

  “I— love you.”

  I forced the words out. Once they were in the air, I felt as though I’d done something wrong. Before, I might have been pretending, but this felt worse, somehow. I’d lost something between us, something I didn’t understand.

  His mouth was on me again. It sent all of my thoughts into a whirlwind of varying brightness. The walls of the room spun around me as his tongue circled my aching, tender clit. My body began to rock forward against his mouth. He flicked me with his tongue, and I gasped, my hips jerking forward involuntarily. His arms wrapped around my thighs, holding me back against the shelves.

  “Oh yes, Rien,” I cried out. His mouth sealed again around my swollen clit, his tongue probing me greedily. The shudder began to rise inside of me, and I tangled my fingers in his hair, pulling him harder against me. My heart pounded in my ears.

  “Yes! Yes! YES!”

  I screamed as the orgasm tore through my nerves. I held onto his shoulders for dear life, knowing I would collapse to the floor if he did not hold me up. Fireworks exploded from my core and the room turned a blinding white as wave after wave of my climax crashed through my body. And still his tongue was working circles around me, pulling every scrap of pleasure from my body as I came, screaming, screaming as though it was pain and not pleasure that shot through my whole being. I gushed, the orgasm sending me over the edge and into an abyss that I doubted I could ever escape from.

  I shuddered once, then again, my hips bucking against his mouth, as the pleasure rolled through me. The room still swayed, or was that my body? I trembled, and my fingers slowly relaxed. Rien’s tongue stroked me slowly, his breath cool against my hot slick skin. Softly, softly, he pressed a kiss against me, sending one more shudder through me.

  He stood up, and I could feel his hardness against my thigh as he held me up.

  “Rien,” I whispered, my voice hoarse. He kissed me on the forehead, brushing back my hair.

  Then he grabbed me with both hands and threw me against the back of the couch. I stumbled and fell. My hands dug into the cushions. He grabbed my shoulder and shoved his leg against my inner thigh, pushing me forward even more. Bending me over the couch. He leaned close to me, his breath in my ear, and what he said made me shiver with as much fright as desire.

  “You’re mine now.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Rien

  I couldn’t stop. Her taste was on my tongue. I pulled her away from the bookshelves and spun her back toward the couch.

  She was mine. Mine. I couldn’t control the savage lust inside of me. I bent her over the couch. Her soft cries, her needy noises, the sound of her breath catching as I forced her over the cushions–they drove me to a need that I’d never experienced before.

  Mine.

  I had to have her. My hands moved along her creamy skin. Her perfect hips pressed against the couch. My hand wrapped around her neck and kneaded the muscles there. I savored her small gasps as I worked my way between her legs, my fingers ripping at the button of my fly. My cock was throbbing in my hand as I took it out.

  “Ohh!” she cried out as I pressed the tip to her soaking wet slit. I couldn’t wait. No. I kicked her legs apart and she opened to take me.

  Pink, perfect. I ran my hands over her asscheeks, my thumbs brushing the edges of her slick folds. She moaned and my cock pulsed at the sound. I paused at her entrance, letting the tip of my cock trace a delicious circle around her.

  “Please,” she cried. “Please.”

  I spanked her hard and she gasped, jerking backwards against me. My legs had her pinned and she couldn’t move. I spanked her again and my handprint rose red like a blush on her pale ass. Her rippling curves were t
oo much. I was trying to keep myself from coming right then and there.

  Pretend, I said to her. She was quite the actress. As I thrust forward, her body closed in around my shaft, clenching tight around me. God, I could feel her muscles working my cock from tip to base. I bit my lip, raising my hand to spank her again. At the slap, I could feel her body tense around me, then loosen. Again. Tense, then loose. Again.

  My balls tightened as I rocked back, then forward, working my aching cock deep into her. I couldn’t last long, I knew. Eating her sweetness had gotten me so hot that I thought a single thrust would have been enough to tip me over the edge. Now, though, I couldn’t stop until I was done with her completely. I wanted her to be mine. I didn’t want it to end, and I fought the pressure that built up in my balls and my throbbing shaft.

  I fucked her hard, angling into her so that I could penetrate her completely. Again and again I rocked forward, her thighs banging against the couch with every thrust.

  Her cries grew louder and louder as I fucked her harder. Sweat ran down my neck and slicked my hands on her skin. Delicious friction. Tender, tight flesh. And a woman whose curves I could not stop squeezing, spanking, caressing. I held her hips tightly as I slammed into her over and over again from the back, pumping hard. The tense pressure in me built as I jackhammered my swollen thickness deep into her.

  Her cries grew faster and higher-pitched, and then she was climaxing again, the tops of her knees hitting the back of the couch. I buried myself inside her. My balls ached for release.

  She screamed. Her fingers scrabbled against the couch cushions as she pushed herself back onto me to impale herself onto my cock. Her climax vibrated against me, and it took me over the top. With one hard thrust I released inside of her. Stars exploded as her body clenched my shaft, milking every drop from my cock and sending me into shudders against her body. I jerked once, twice, then settled against her body with my hands on her back.