“Is it true?” I growl, staring her in the eye.
I need this to be a lie. It has to be. If it is, then I’ll know. I’ll see the truth reflected back at me and I’ll know.
She’s fully aware of what I’m asking her, but she feigns ignorance anyway. “Which part?”
“The baby.”
She stares right back at me. Her eyes don’t waver from mine, and I feel the hope shrivel in my chest.
“The baby is gone,” she says, in the same detached tone she’d used when she’d told me about her miscarriage. “The doctors said it was stress. I wasn’t equipped to deal with everything I went through.”
I press my chest into hers, and she gasps. I know I’m making it hard for her to breathe, but in this moment, irrational as it might be, I want her to suffer.
I can see a watery veil form over her eyes. She shakes her head. “It’s hard to hear, isn’t it?” she asks. “Imagine what it was like to live through. He was such a tiny little thing… an alien creature that felt like mine but didn’t at the same time.”
If she thinks this tactic is going to give her some breathing space, she’s delusional.
I tighten my grip on her wrists until she cries out. “Making me hurt won’t bring back your son,” she snaps.
“Then we’ll make another one.”
Her eyes go wide, eyebrows arching with disbelief at first, and then hatred. “Of course,” she says. “Of course. Because a child is nothing more than a conduit for your legacy, your power. The child itself doesn’t matter at all, does it? It’s not a baby to you. Just like I’m not a person to you. We’re one and the same: weapons.”
I don’t give her the satisfaction of my reaction. Instead, I pull her hands together, forcing them to connect over her head. Then I pin her wrists down with one hand and use the other to inch down her hard new body.
I’d be lying if I didn’t say I enjoy the way she feels. The way she trembles despite herself.
“You’ve had your fun, haven’t you?” she asks when my hand pauses at her collarbone.
“Not even close. Why—have you?” I ask. “Just say the word, and I’ll stop.”
Her lips press firmly together.
“What was that?” I taunt her with my words as my hand slides over the smooth skin between her breasts. “Did you say something or do you want me to continue?”
“I want you to rot in hell,” she spits.
I brush my fingers over her chest, rub my thumb over the hard point of her nipple. “Your body is saying something very different. I think these could cut glass.”
“Fuck you,” she hisses. “I’m cold.”
“Cold?” I repeat. “Let me guess: your pussy also gets wet when you’re cold.”
Her legs tighten instantly, and I smile.
“You can change your clothes and your personality, Willow. But the one thing you’ll never be able to change is your desire for me.”
Her eyes blaze. She wants to deny it, but she’s scared I’ll call out the lie. “Fuck you,” she says for the dozenth time since we crossed paths again.
I pinch her nipple between my fingers. “Your wish is my command.”
She shivers and says nothing.
With my eyes trained on hers, I unzip her pants and push apart the unforgiving material. “Hmm, not painted on…”
“I heard you took down two Mikhailov buildings,” she says.
I smile as I peel the fabric down around her hips. “I did.”
Her body is rigid with tension and her breathing is coming in hard. “Was it just a power move? Or revenge?”
I snort. “That wasn’t my revenge. It was a promise of what’s to come.”
“So it’ll never end.”
“It’ll end,” I say confidently. “It’ll end when that motherfucker is dead.”
She trembles as my fingers play at the waistband of her panties. They’re black and entirely too sensible, yet somehow she manages to make them sexy.
Or maybe it’s just that my cock is charged and ready for her. I’ve been coming into my hand for eleven fucking months.
No more.
“Which motherfucker?” Willow asks pointedly. “The motherfucker who strapped the bomb to my chest? Or the motherfucker who gave the command? A man who, apparently, is my grandfather.”
“You weren’t ready for the truth,” I tell her, my fingers inching closer and closer to her pussy.
“Bullshit. I wasn’t worth the truth in your eyes,” she says. “I was just a weapon to you. Not a woman or a wife, but a key. I was just the tool you needed to get your revenge.”
I smile. “You are a woman to me, Willow. Want me to prove it?”
Before she can answer or react, I twist two fingers inside her.
She lets her head fall back against the wall. Her lips part in a protracted sigh. I know desire when I see it. More importantly, when I feel it like I’m feeling it now. Dripping onto my fingers, pulsing around my knuckles.
I lean in and catch her bottom lip with my teeth as I piston my fingers in and out of her.
“There’s no point denying it now, Willow.” I pull my fingers out of her and back away. She stays plastered to the wall while I slide them into my mouth and lick her sweetness off of me. “I can taste how much you want me.”
She blinks at me, mesmerized for a second before she remembers to scowl. “Fuck you."
Then she launches herself at me. But instead of a fist, it’s her lips that collide with mine. Her hands rip at the buttons on my shirt.
It’s a mess of limbs and heavy breathing while she fiddles with my buttons and I rip her skin-tight gray sweater off her.
She just manages to slide my belt off before I push her against the wall again. She gasps in surprise as I strip her jeans down to her ankles.
But when I do the same with her black panties, she sets to work unclasping her bra and shimmying out of all of it.
The moment she’s naked, I step back and admire my work.
She’s fucking glorious. There are two defined lines running down her torso, starting just below her peaked breasts and ending just above where I know she's wet for me. I lick my lips.
"There's still time to claim the moral high ground. You can tell me to stop," I say, knowing she won't.
She parts her legs slowly and lets a hand dance down between her thighs. If I were a younger, less experienced man, I would have erupted right here and now. As it is, I’m barely holding it in.
“It’s just sex,” she murmurs, echoing something I said to her a lifetime ago. “Don’t mistake it for anything else.”
“She trained the emotion out of you, did she?”
"Don't look so sad," Willow purrs. "Come fuck me, and you'll see my training wasn't all bad."
I approach her like the animal I am. This thing between us is wild and untamed.
I grab her ass with both hands and suck her nipple into my mouth. She gasps and cries out as if she’s in pain. I ignore that and continue tasting her, familiarizing myself with this new version of her.
She smells foreign to me, a mixture of leather and spice. It's a new perfume that doesn’t suit her. Something dark and controlled.