by Eva K. More
“You like that, little bird?” The pace of his thrusting increased. “Tell me!” Gabriel roared.
“Yes.” She breathed, and when his other hand touched her clit, she wailed and rolled her eyes in pleasure. “I love it.”
“Don’t close your eyes. Look at me.”
She could hear his harsh pants beneath the mask. Her own eyes clouded with desire, drank in the details of his sparkling grey orbs. He held her captive, with his body, with his eyes, with his fire.
She moaned, helplessly writhing beneath him, despite his tight hold. “Oh, God!”
“No, Gabriel.” he groaned deeply.
The way he was working her body, playing her like a guitar, possessing her every sense had her spiraling up another climax pretty fast now. She kept looking into his eyes, reveling at the strength he used to thrust and hold her, and her spirit soared high.
Her moaning increased, and she came so hard that she suddenly didn’t hear a sound anymore, only numb silence. Her lower muscles contracted around his shaft, and with a guttural groan, she felt him give in to the feeling of her spasms and erupting in a hot, hard orgasm.
A few seconds passed, and still panting heavily, he lifted his upper body from her compliant one and observed her with a hooded gaze. The first few seconds of post-orgasmic haze vanished much too quickly when Gabriel’s brain started functioning again.
Not able to look into his sharp gaze, Kat let her eyes travel to the floor.
In a manner of trying to lighten the suddenly solemn mood, she lifted one corner of her mouth wryly. “I hope this Maryan person doesn’t care too much about his plates.”
The look he shot her was so scathing that her insides were starting to burn. If there had been a wrong thing for her to say, she had apparently found the worst because, instead of him grinning at the mess on the floor, he was seething.
“Fuck!” he roared and hit his fist against the kitchen island.
Kat flinched at his sudden aggression and gripped the edge of the counter to maneuver her shaking body into a more comfortable sitting position as he stepped back from between her legs.
“I’m sorry.” She murmured and looked down.
Her softly spoken words had him halting mid dressing his pants. “What are you sorry for?” Gabriel asked her sharply, but his voice had lost its cutting edge.
“For tempting you?” She answered - but it sounded more like a question – as she raised her eyes and connected their gazes.
Gabriel then proceeded to close his pants but remained looking at her. Kat noticed how his eyes took in her messy hair, rosy skin, and smooth tights. The bitter laugh that came after wasn’t very reassuring. “You’d tempt a saint, little bird. And I’m as far from the holy grail as can be.”
“Then why are you angry?” Kat asked. It had felt wonderful, obviously for him as well, so why did he regret it?
Sighing, Gabriel rubbed a hand on his bare chest. “I should be the one apologizing.” His gaze zeroed in on her legs.
Suddenly feeling shy, she blushed as he kept looking at the apex between her legs, watching their mixed fluids drip down her thighs.
“Well, you didn’t pull out,” she said, biting her lower lip.
“Yeah, for that.” He growled, and she flinched. “And for taking advantage of you.”
Apparently, he noticed the goosebumps forming on her arms and her futile attempts at trying to keep her modesty while sitting on that counter, so he threw his shirt at her, and she followed the intention of the gesture when she put the shirt on.
“You didn’t take advantage of me, Gabriel. I wanted it. I initiated it.”
Gabriel just shook his head as he made his way across the kitchen. Then he took two paper towels and returned to her. “Take this to clean up.”
Hiding her discomfort and her reddened cheeks by not looking up, she did as he said, but the towels were barely enough for her to clean the sticky mess. Paralyzed, she watched him take the soiled tissues from her hands and throw them into the trash without even batting an eyelash.
“You don’t know what you want,” he finally said.
“Excuse me?” Before her foot could reach the floor, Gabriel pushed her back into the seat.
“Stop. You’re barefoot, and there’re shards everywhere.”
Kat could care less about his concern for her when he had made such an appalling statement. “What do you mean with the ‘you don’t know what you want?’ crap,” she said, offended by his implication. “I’m not a kid anymore. I make my own decisions, and I’m responsible for them. I know exactly what I want.”
When she attempted to get down again, Gabriel surprised her by sweeping her into his arms and walking in the direction of their rooms. She felt the warm skin of his broad shoulders beneath her fingers and could even faintly make out his heartbeat beneath her ear.
“You’ve been cooped up with me for weeks. It’s your mind playing tricks on you. Stockholm syndrome, I think it’s called. You don’t really want me.”
“Oh my-” Kat began struggling in his arms, but his hands turned to steel. “Let me down, you stupid man! I can’t believe you just said that to me. You think I’ve become crazy? Well, I must have if I thought that we had become friends.”
Her flailing legs became too much for him, and he set her down. The moment her feet touched the ground, she wrestled her arms free and started hitting him on the chest.
“Jesus, Kat!” He groaned in exasperation when he finally managed to get a grip on her. “You are mad. You can’t deny that you would never have had any interest in me if you had seen me in your regular life.”
“Well, no,” Kat stood rigid, relaxing her arms in his hands. “The mask would have scared me.” She glared pointedly at it. When he narrowed his eyes, she interjected. “But– despite the missing half of your face, I’m still very attracted to you. And I’ve got to know you in the past weeks. And I like you.”
His gaze visibly darkened. “You’ve got no idea who I am.” She shivered when he kept glaring at her. But he didn’t release her. Instead, somehow, he pulled her closer until she could feel his chest expand with every slow breath. “And we are not friends,” he added.
Boldly, she met his gaze with a steely one of her own. “No. We are lovers.”
As if losing himself out of a trance, he shook his head lightly and then leaned down, so his forehead touched hers. There was something in his eyes she hadn’t seen before, a soft emotion, something light to the ever-present darkness surrounding him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, but then he straightened himself and let her go, pushing her to her left.
“Go take a shower,” he said in a low, gravelly voice. “I can’t deal with you right now.”
How had he managed to maneuver them to the bathroom? How had she not noticed it?
“Is there ever a time you can deal with me?” She asked as she gritted her teeth and held his gaze, defiant.
“Kat.”
“No! You don’t get to sigh and push me away again. You’ve had sex with me twice. And you enjoyed it. But then, afterward, you make me feel like it was the worst mistake ever. Darn it; you don’t get to make me feel so worthless!” Kat’s voice wobbled a bit at the end of her tirade, but her eyes remained dry.
However, Gabriel’s heart wasn’t made out of stone as he so often wanted her to know, and he grasped her arms softly. “You are not worthless. You are so much more than me; I feel like I taint you every time I touch you.”
It was an admission, spoken with utmost sincerity, and it broke her heart slightly.
She could see in Gabriel’s eyes, even if only for a second, how little he thought of himself. How could a man, who seemed to have bathed in self-assuredness, be so self-loathing at the same time? Or did that only concern his relations with her?
“I’m not an innocent victim, at least not in this situation here between us,” Kat said, and her arms moved up to clasp behind his neck. She reveled in his embrace and enjoyed the way he looked at her
warily. “And you are not the devil you want me to think you are.”
“How can you say that after everything?” She heard the dry humor in his voice, saw it in his eyes. But she also noted the faint interest, the barely visible hope.
“You mean saving me-”
“Manhandling you-”
“Protecting me-”
“Being a killer-”
“That-” That one had her closing her mouth. She couldn’t make this one better, but she kept on looking at him with warmth. “That’s part of your job. Frankly, yeah, that job is awful. But you are not; the man hiding behind this is not a monster. It’s ironic, don’t you think?” Her fingers skimmed the front of his mask and moved back, touching the latches securing it. “That a man who is known as Beast, something dark - a creature of the mafia - has the name of an archangel and is so inherently good that he saved the life of a stranger that was at the wrong place in the wrong time.”
Kat held her breath then as she kept her fingers on the latches, and he stood still. Her forefinger moved, drawing a latch, and the anticipation made her stomach quiver. But then, with lightning-fast speed, his hands gripped hers, forcing her away.
And the wall between them was up again.
“That man doesn’t exist,” Gabriel said.
To me, Kat thought bitterly.
He did exist, but Gabriel subdued him every time he showed himself to her. He didn’t want to be nice to her; he didn’t want her liking him.
at didn’t hear Gabriel leave the house, nor did she see him the following day. Maybe it was for the best if he didn’t come back for a while. The distance and solitude gave her the time she needed to clear her head.
How could she have been so callous, not only having sex with him once but twice without any sort of protection? She certainly didn’t want to be pregnant, but it had been so… unbelievably incredible.
Just thinking about it made her heart hammer wildly. Why did Gabriel allure her so?
She felt obsessed with him, her thoughts circling around his deep voice and cold eyes. And why did he not want her knowing how much he cared for her? She knew that she hadn’t imagined his caring in the past few weeks.
Kat was startled out of her troubling thoughts by a foreign sound. She concentrated, trying to define what it was, and after listening closely, she concluded that the phone was ringing. Gabriel had obviously heeded her comment about calling, so she ran eagerly to the living room area.
Taking the receiver into her hand, she felt a flutter in her stomach and a tremor in her voice, “Hello?” It felt strange using that phone, using any other form of communication for that matter other than face to face talking.
With a sense of dread, she focused on the silent line. “Hello, Ga- Beast?”
More silence.
“Hello?” she repeated.
There was barely audible breathing on the other end of the line, and after waiting for a moment, she pushed the receiver back in its cradle. It couldn’t have been Gabriel because he would have said something. But who could it be? Gabriel had told her that nobody else had that number.
The wind outside was blowing, howling between the blinds, the wooden floor creaking, and this time, being alone at the cabin felt constricted. She had trouble falling asleep, and when she finally did, it was with sort of a bad premonition.
***
The door opening awakened her, and quickly donning Gabriel’s sweater, she rushed to the front door and turned on the light in the big room. The sight that greeted her wasn’t his big, bulky frame, but a slender woman.
“Here you are, darling,” she heard the woman say.
Kat took a step back as fear was taking control of her body.
“Remember me; I’m Lina.” She said as she remained casually standing inside the open doorway.
Kat knew precisely who that was, and reading her wary expression correctly, Lina smiled reassuringly.
“Don’t be afraid. Beast sent me.”
He had? Kat remembered Gabriel trusting that woman enough to keep an eye on her, and also, Lina was the one who told him where to find her with the Anton incident, so obviously, she wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t told her about the cabin.
“Come on, girl, hurry,” Lina advised with a tight grin. “Beast wants to get you quickly.”
“Okay.” Kat nodded and rushed to put on jeans. Whatever the haste, she was worried for him because something must have happened. Why else would he had sent this woman to look for her instead of him?
She followed Lina out of the cabin, and the woman ushered her into the backseat of a vehicle - one smaller than Gabriel’s BMW – and then jumped into the seat next to her right when the car lurched forward.
“I found her.”
She didn’t register that Lina was addressing the driver of the car at first, much too preoccupied with the sudden turn of events, and with no lights illuminating the road, Kat had a hard time adjusting her eyes. But eventually, she recognized the person driving. There was the tuft of short, greasy-looking hair, the thin throat that merged onto narrow shoulders clad in a suit that looked cheap on the man’s frame. It was Ivo.
Uttering a startled cry, she leaped to the side and tried opening the door. It didn’t matter that the car was moving; she needed to leave it immediately.
Ivo laughed harshly, looking at her through the rearview mirror. “It’s locked, you stupid bitch.”
Kat’s breath hitched.
“Now, now.” Lina gripped her arms in a surprisingly stealthy grip. “Calm down. We won’t hurt you.”
“Yet,” Ivo added with a sneer.
Kat tried freeing herself from Lina’s grasp, but there was a warning glint in the other woman’s eyes, and she stilled her movements. The woman was much stronger than she appeared to be.
“What are you going to do with me?” Kat tried to keep her voice even. If she panicked now, she would never survive that trip.
Could it be that Gabriel had sent them to get her? They hadn’t exactly parted on friendly ways, so maybe he thought she wasn’t worth saving anymore. Perhaps he felt she needed a reminder that he really was a monster, a beast, right?
No, it can’t be, she concluded after battling with her panicking mind, which was now imagining different scenarios where they came for her because Gabriel was dead in some part of the streets.
The vehicle moved up the interstate, and Kat felt the instant loss of leaving the quietness and serenity of the woods behind.
“We are going to have some fun.” Ivo leered at her through the rearview mirror, and Kat shuddered.
“Don’t be afraid, darling,” Lina cooed and caressed her leg soothingly with her hand.
Kat felt repulsed by the touch and pressed herself tightly against the door, but Lina just scooted closer, pushing Kat’s long straight hair behind her ears, purring with a satisfied smile.
Not wanting to look at her, Kat tried to keep her chin up and back straight because even though the odor of her fear might have filled the car, she didn’t want the both of them to feast on her panic. It was a lot better to give them the impression that she was somewhat in control of the situation, and maintaining a certain amount of level-headedness might even help her.
“Where is Ga- Beast?” she demanded.
Ivo sneered and gripped the wheel tighter. “That motherfucker! That lying, cheating bastard. He made me really angry, and he’s angered a good friend of mine, too.” He turned his head for a second, leering at her with his reptile-like face. “A friend you actually know. He was very sad because your last time together was cut short by that brute.”
Kat shuddered. “You are disgusting,” she spat.
Ivo laughed maniacally. “You will get to know how much more disgusting I can be, you little bitch.”
“Where are you taking me?” She kept her voice steady, but an involuntary tremor shook her body.
“You’ll see. Someplace Beast will follow you, for sure.”
He was alive. A small hope began to f
orm in her chest. Hope and relief because Gabriel was still alive.
“Why would he do that?”
“Obviously you are important to him, and it should be fairly easy to get him to me. And he needs to be punished. Caused me a lot of trouble that motherfucker.”
Lina caressed her thigh softly and played with her long blonde locks again. “What is it that you have? Beast has never taken any real interest in the girls. I guess you are really pretty.” Her raspy voice grated on Kat’s nerves like sandpaper.
She winced when Lina pulled on her hair and pushed her face closer. For a moment, she was afraid the other woman might kiss her when she felt the stale breath on her lips.
“But for Beast to betray his boss, even twice, you must have something else,” Lina mumbled.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Kat whispered, the angle of her head was awkwardly constricting her throat.
“You’re just some bitch,” Ivo answered. “But I’m going to enjoy finding out whether your pussy’s made out of gold in front of that bastard. And then I will kill him.”
As Lina let go of her hair, Kat closed her eyes for a moment. Where the hell was Gabriel?
“How… how did you find me?” She needed to deviate from the topic to a less alarming subject.
“You are asking an awful lot of questions for a hostage,” Ivo sneered.
Kat licked her dry lips. “I’m curious. You are not that smart.”
Lina hissed, and Ivo shot her a scathing look. “I’m going to indulge you and ignore that slight you bitch, so that you know what an idiot that man really is. As it is, I am the smart one.” A menacing grin followed his taunting, his hollow cheeks making him resemble a snake. “I had him looking for you, but he came back without any clues, and he behaved differently, not treating me with the respect I deserve. That’s why I decided to grace his home with a visit. Naturally, that fucker wasn’t there, but I found an interesting piece of paper with a number on it. I kept it while having a man waiting for him, trailing him. We could finally put the tracker on his car a few days ago, and when I received the address of his unusually long stays, I called the number to confirm my suspicions. Or just to fuck with you.” He shot her a quick look through the mirror, grinning. “I didn’t recognize your voice at first, but Lina has a wonderful memory.”