Midnight Hunter

by Brianna Hale

  I feel the bed sink as he approaches me and he lays out beside me. His hand runs up the length of my body, from hip to shoulder. Turning my chin toward him he kisses me once more, and gathers me into his arms. The heat coming off his body is almost scorching and despite myself I press myself into his warmth as his tongue slides against mine. The skin across his shoulders and back is very soft, far softer than I thought a man could be. He’s hard and muscled beneath that skin and my hands follow the ridges and planes of his body, mapping him beneath my fingers. His hands are doing the same to me except his touch feels more calculated than exploratory, and makes me gasp against his mouth.

  When he moves to take off my nightgown I allow him to tug it over my head. I watch his face, lip caught between my teeth and wondering what he’s thinking. Though there’s little light I can see the softness in his eyes, the small smile at the corner of his mouth as his gaze runs over me. He’s beautiful in the half-light, all warm, smooth skin and long limbs, and in admiring him I forget to be shy about my own body.

  Then he pulls me close once more and our legs tangle together. I’m hungry for him now, my hands smoothing up his chest, reveling in the breadth of him, the hardness of him. His fingers find the slick folds between my thighs, dip into me just a little, and then move to the hard nub at the top of my slit and start to rub it in firm circles. I almost come apart in his arms, arching against him, sounds coming from my throat that I didn’t know I could make. His mouth hovers inches from mine and he watches me as I respond helplessly to his touch.

  I rake my nails along his shoulders as the sensation builds—and then he takes his hand away. With a dismayed cry, I watch him reposition me beneath him and take the length of himself into one hand. There’s an unfocused look in his dark eyes as he gazes down at me, and I feel something silky yet hard slide down along my slippery sex, searching for entrance. He’s got me trapped beneath him, though, his body pressing heavily on mine. He pushes deeper, sinking into me, and it hurts. With a final push he’s all the way to the hilt, the dark hair above his pubic bone pressing against my own. I feel stretched, overfull. He keeps still, not moving beyond kissing my face softly.

  “That was the worst of it, Liebling. I promise.”

  I’m gripping his shoulders, both to hold him close to me and to prevent him from moving. Liar. The worst is yet to come now that we’ve crossed this line. “I don’t believe you.”

  He licks his thumb and sits up a little so he can reach down between us, and he starts to work at my clit again. The sensations pick up almost where he left off, and as the pleasure grows, the pain inside me eases. I keep my eyes open and my expression reproachful, wanting him to know what I think of him for hurting me even as the pace of my breathing picks up. My hands slide down his arms, clasping his strong wrists, needing to hold onto him.

  A smile tugs the corner of his mouth as he watches my face, as if he knows that I’m trying not to show how good he’s making me feel. “Tell me you like it.”

  My eyes narrow at him. “Fick dich, Reinhardt.” Fuck you. I never swear, but if ever somebody needed to be sworn at it’s him right now, pinning me to the bed with his cock and his heavy body, making me hate him even more because he knows I do want him.

  He smiles wider. “You’ve never said my name before.” He pulls his hips back a few inches and then surges forward. I cry out and grip him tighter, and the pain is back, mixed with pleasure. But he’s right. The worst is over. He thrusts again, and again, his thumb still working on me, pleasure sparking through my body.

  “I think you mean fick mich, don’t you?” he says. “Fuck me, please, Reinhardt, because I like your hands on me, and your tongue inside me, and even though it hurts I like your cock inside me.” His low, inexorable voice seems to be talking me closer to orgasm. “Don’t you, Evony. Don’t you.”

  My voice is almost a sob. “Yes. Yes, all right.”

  His hand catches me around my throat and turns my head toward him. “Look at me when you say that.”

  I look up at him through my haze and his eyes are sharp, calculating. I’m the one who’s falling apart. “Yes, Reinhardt,” I manage, before my head tips back and my body clenches with my climax. As the sensations pound through me I hear his soft laugh, feel his hand tighten ever so slightly on my throat, the way a predator’s jaws tighten on its prey.

  When I come back down again I watch him, eyes narrowed, hating him again. Hating that it feels good. Hating how good he looks, muscles moving in the semi-darkness, his lower lip full and soft. I put my hand up to touch his mouth and he kisses my palm. It’s so tender a gesture, but anger boils through me and I pull back my hand and slap him hard across the face.

  For a second he looks shocked by my audacity. There are things I would never dare do or say to Oberstleutnant Volker that I find I can do and say to Reinhardt. Grabbing my wrists he pins them either side of my head, moving harder and deeper now. He looks oddly proud of me. Yes, he likes this very much, and unable to look away, unable to cover my face, he sees the truth laid bare in my eyes. He knows I want him.

  He pulls out of me suddenly and takes himself in his hand, making a low, harsh sound at the back of his throat. Something hot spurts against my inner thigh and then he’s still. He breathes hard once, twice, his head bowed.

  Then he looks up at me. “Are you all right? I didn’t want to draw it out.”

  But I can’t say anything. I feel raw and confused, uncertain now how sleeping with him was meant to give me the upper hand.

  “It will be better for you next time.” He eases himself off me and tries to draw me into his arms.

  Next time. I curl into a ball and roll away from him, tugging the tangled sheets over my body. Suddenly I can’t bear for him to see me like this. I’ve given up everything to this hateful man and there’s no escape. He’ll take what he wants again and again, until—until what? What does he want from me? To screw me until he’s bored? This isn’t how I imagined my life would be. He should have chosen Lenore, or someone like her. She would have wanted this.

  “Liebling? Would you like to come to my bed?” He puts an uncertain hand on my shoulder but I shrug him off angrily.

  “Go away.”

  I feel him watching me for several minutes and then he gets up with a sigh and collects his clothes. A moment later I hear the door close behind him.

  With a soft groan I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling. I stare for a long time, searching for ways to escape, to end this. But nothing comes. No solution offers itself.

  What have you done?

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  The morning casts its cold, gray light on the evidence of Reinhardt’s visit to my bedroom. My sheets are smeared with blood and his semen. It’s a ghastly, embarrassing sight that I can’t leave for Frau Fischer to discover, so as soon as I’m washed and dressed I pull all the linen off the bed, making sure the most visible stains are buried deep in the bundle before I open my door.

  I head for the laundry, noticing a slight ache low in my belly and a vague feeling of self-loathing clinging to my skin, but other than that I feel no different. Even the self-loathing is not unfamiliar these days.

  I’m as silent as I can possibly be but luck is not on my side. Frau Fischer comes bustling out of the lounge and exclaims loudly, “Let me take those for you, my dear. I was going to change them today, anyway. You must tell me if you require clean sheets more regularly.”

  At the other end of the hall I can see Reinhardt standing in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee, dressed in his uniform. When he hears the word sheets he smirks down at his newspaper.

  I go red and keep a tight hold of the linen, stammering that I want to wash them myself, it’s no bother, but she’s a determined woman and wrestles them out of my arms. Please, please just think that the blood is my period, and don’t notice the other stains, I beg silently.

  Reinhardt is still smiling to himself when I enter the kitchen and he greets me with a conspiratorial look. “Guten Morgen

, Evony. Did you sleep well?”

  Volker, I tell myself. Think of him as Volker, not Reinhardt. But I have the feeling that after last night it’s going to be difficult to think of him in that distant way again.

  I don’t like his cozy attitude, as if we share a cherished secret. “Frau Fischer has asked me to tell her if I require clean sheets more regularly, but that’s not really for to me say, is it?”

  He catches my unsaid meaning. Are you going to be making these visits nightly? Putting the paper down, he walks slowly around the table and looms over me. I have to tilt my head back to look him in the eye.

  “I don’t appreciate your tone, Evony. Kindly moderate it.”

  I swallow. All right, so it seems I can get away with saying fick dich and slapping him across the face while he’s in my bed, but a little sarcasm over breakfast is going too far. Lowering my eyes I mutter, “Yes, Herr Oberstleutnant.” I turn away to pour some myself coffee but he pulls me back. His lips are very close to mine.

  “I prefer it if you call me Reinhardt in this house.”

  I don’t want to call him Reinhardt out loud unless it’s accompanied by fick dich. He already rules my body and is getting inside my head. Calling him Reinhardt as well is too much.

  I’m saved from answering by Frau Fischer entering the kitchen. Her gaze drops to Reinhardt’s—Volker’s—hand on my arm and she frowns in disapproval. I’m stubbornly mute, so he either has to make a scene in front of her or let go.

  He lets go. I sit at the table and Frau Fischer fusses about me, putting rolls, marmalade, ham and boiled eggs on the table. I notice she’s still frowning, and shooting looks at Reinhardt. I remember what she said about it not being proper me living with him even though—as she presumes—he’s my fiancé, and I realize she’s seen what was on the sheets and has guessed what it means. She makes sure I have plenty of the cheese I like and ignores his empty coffee cup, so it seems I’m above reproach. It was my bed, not his. He came to me.

  All the while Reinhardt stands behind my chair, reading his newspaper and breathing down my neck.

  I can’t concentrate at the office, images from last night flashing through my mind. The things he said. The things I said. They way he felt beneath my fingers, smooth and delicious and vital. It will be better for you next time.

  No pain at all, only the good parts.

  Lenore watches me seal and address an empty envelope and asks what’s got into me.

  “Nothing. Just—”

  And then I hear it. Whistling.

  There’s a stack of files on my desk and I grab them and walk quickly, muttering something to Lenore about needing to get this done. As I duck into the filing room I see Peter at the far end of the corridor, talking and laughing with another secretary. He’ll be heading this way any moment. I yank open a cabinet draw and begin flicking through files with unseeing eyes.

  I hear the squeaky wheels of his mail cart and my pulse goes through the roof. Then he’s passing the door and I call in a soft voice, “Peter.”

  His face doesn’t change and he pushes the cart into the room. “Yes, there’s mail for you today. Here you go.”

  As I take the proffered bundle of letters I look into his green eyes and say, “I’ll do it. I’ll spy on Volker.”

  Peter smiles, and it’s such a warm, genuine smile that all my doubts fall away. “Thank you, Evony. Welcome to the group.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Volker

  It’s not even me you want.

  I push back from my desk and stare out the window at the streets of East Berlin. I know what they in the West say about this city. That it’s a gray, unlovely prison. That the people have no hope, no pleasure. My spies across the border bring me their chatter and jokes at our expense and they make me laugh, though not for the reason they intended. How smug they are, when West Berlin is adorned not with hope and happiness, as they like to believe, but with billboards.

  My eyes stray toward the Brandenburg Gate and the hard line of the Wall just beyond. How different the gate was in my youth, the centerpiece of this great city and adorned all around with Baroque buildings. When I returned from the prisoner of war camp that gate stood out amid so much rubble. The last beautiful thing in a destroyed city. And Dresden…I have never returned to Dresden to see the jewel-box city of my childhood in ruins. I will never return.

  When I look behind me there is only death and rubble and horror, so why do I turn and look today? Better to think no further back than last night, to Evony, to the feel of her beneath me, to the anger and desire burning in her eyes like twin stars. I must be mad to have chosen a woman like her, who turns my thoughts back to long-ago times. Perhaps I should never have told her about Johanna but I need Evony to understand: she is mine, and there are no lengths to which I won’t go to hurt those who hurt her, to keep her safe, from my people as well as hers. On these cold, unfriendly streets I found a flower, and I plucked it. I will have this one pleasure, this girl whose final surrender was that of a queen in battle.

  But her warmth in my arms was short-lived. She turned away from me, and I know that while the battle is won the war is far from over.

  My wristwatch reads sixteen forty-five and I stand up and get my coat and cap. Enough for today. I want to get her alone again. I want to discover if she’ll slap me before or after I kiss her, or if she’s done with pretending and has admitted to herself that she wants me as much as I want her. I can feel her on the brink of acquiescing. Not resigning herself, as she has too much fight to resign herself to any fate. But how sweet it will be when I pull her close and she tilts her mouth up to mine without hesitation. With desire for me, unfettered. I can taste how sweet it will be, and I will have that sweetness.

  I open my office door and she looks up from her typewriter at me, her eyes bright and wary but with the faintest pink blush spreading over her cheeks.

  It’s not even me that you want.

  I nod toward the elevator, letting her know my intention to leave and she collects her things. Her skirt rides up her thighs as she leans down to a bottom drawer for her handbag and I see the soft gleam of silk on her legs. I remember how her legs felt tight about my hips, her nails digging into my shoulders, and a thud of heat goes through me.

  Not want you? Oh, Liebling, you couldn’t be more wrong.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Evony

  Find out what Volker’s doing in the West. He’s caught too many of our people since the Wall went up and he’ll continue to be a threat unless we stop him, permanently. Get him imprisoned and we’ll get you out.

  I stare at the page of my book with unseeing eyes and go over and over what Peter told me this morning. He’s not asking much, is he? Just for me to topple the most ruthless man in East Berlin on behalf of a group I know nothing about. I wonder what the other members have to do to earn their passage. Almost with fondness I remember the dirty, cramped nights I spent digging the tunnel with Ana.

  See if you can find anything incriminating in his apartment. Find out if he has any contact with Westerners. Volker’s arrogant enough to believe he can get away with treason, murder, anything.

  I glance up at Reinhardt sitting on the sofa opposite, his long legs crossed and the firelight burnishing his handsome face. How sleekly cheerful he’s been today, and how irritating his mood has been. I keep reminding myself that I’m supposed to be letting him think he’s won, that he’s beaten me, but my instincts are to be difficult. When we returned to the apartment and he helped me out of my coat, he crooked a finger under my chin. I looked up at him in stony silence, but he just smiled.

  “I’d kiss you but I think you’d sink your teeth into my lip.” Then he playfully tweaked my nose.

  Peter said he needed twenty-four hours to organize things for me and then I’m to start following Volker at night. From dusk tomorrow there’ll be a Trabant parked two blocks away that I will use to follow him wherever he goes at night. But what if Reinhardt’s business in the West is perfectly legitimate as far as the Stasi’s concerned, and what if there’s nothing incriminating in the apartment? I could be risking my neck spying on the most dangerous man in East Berlin for nothing. There’s also the issue of getting out of the apartment and down to that car without his men seeing me, which is surely an impossible task. But I wasn’t thinking about that this morning when I told Peter I wanted in, I was only thinking that it couldn’t be for nothing that I’d given myself to Reinhardt. Given myself to him and enjoyed it, heaven help me.

  All this back and forth is making me tense and I find myself glaring at Reinhardt as he reads, because all this is his fault. His, and some long-ago lost love. What has she even got to do with me? I’m not Jewish, there’s no war on. It all happened twenty years ago.

  Throwing my book to one side I say, “Do I look like her? Is that it?”

  Reinhardt glances up, surprised. Then his eyes drop back to his papers as he realizes who I mean by her. “Not particularly.”

  I should hold my tongue and focus on the problem of spying on him, but I feel reckless. My fate is in the hands of Reinhardt and this unknown group but I wont be silenced. “I just feel like I should know more about her seeing as I’m her replacement. Should I style my hair a certain way? Wear a certain color?”

  Eyes on his papers, he mutters, “It was a very long time ago. I hardly remember.”

  Liar. A man like Reinhardt would remember every detail. “Were you cruel to her like you are to me? Did she look at you like she hated you, like I do? Is that what you enjoy so much?”

  He makes a note on a report with his fountain pen, smiling. “Oh, but you didn’t hate me last night, did you? You quite enjoyed my attentions.” Looking up, he says, “If you would like to talk, we can talk. I find I am in a very good mood this evening.”

  -->