Save Me in the End

by Rea Winters

  Sir Vengeance was a tool that Rosie had come to use, but Xara, the woman behind the weapon, had been waiting for Rosie her whole life. Now that she had her, she wasn't giving her up. Damn the rules.

  Xara kissed the center of the small girl’s palm, drawing her forward so that when Xara raised her head, their lips grazed and an electric heat surged through them. The assassin fixed her lips to Rosie’s, who opened her mouth to deepen their kiss as the need for each other’s touch grew to a hunger. Rosie’s arms encircled Xara’s neck as she lied on her back, pulling Xara between her open legs.

  Their tongues latched and unlatched, roaming the insides of each other’s mouths as Xara rolled her hips into Rosie’s center, trapping the heiress’ quiet pants between their lips as her own pulsing arousal brushed the sweet spot between the girl’s thighs. She slipped her expert fingers past the waistband of Rosie’s panties, turning the girl’s gasps to moans as she massaged the tender flesh between her slick folds.

  In a flurry of seconds, they sat up, shed their clothes and let them float to the floor. Xara guided Rosie onto her back, kissing her the whole way down as she settled back between her thighs. When the heiress trembled, Xara felt her tense just so and stopped. She raised her head and searched Rosie’s eyes, which seemed to be fighting to meet hers.

  “You okay?”

  Rosie nodded.

  Xara caressed her face from cheek to chin, allowing them both to catch their breath some more.

  “You sure?”

  Rosie smiled gently, her gaze finally locking on the woman before her. After an affirming nod, she slid her hand down from Xara’s shoulder to her breast and met her lips in a slow sweet kiss, raising her hips until her pelvis brushed her lover’s hot throbbing center. Xara shivered and moved deeper into her in slow teasing thrusts, her head falling to Rosie’s shoulder as the smaller woman rolled her hips to match the euphoric rhythm. An intense grip of Xara’s neck and Rosie’s desperate pants in her ear were all the indication the former needed to now pick up the pace. The assassin spread Rosie’s legs a few inches wider with a firm grasp of inner thigh as her grinding became taut and quick.

  “Don’t let me go,” Rosie pled in a raspy pant, gripping Xara’s glistening back as a sweet fire engulfed their bodies. In answer to her plea, Xara claimed her tongue in a deep kiss, unravelling her at the seams. She cried out as she came, summoning a deep guttural groan from the depths of Xara’s core as she followed.

  They lied there shuddering and gasping into each other’s mouths. Their bodies remaining entwined, they lapped at one another in long hungry kisses, restoring their energy.

  They were only just beginning.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  The Hayden Mansion

  Perry Pryce bounded up the stone steps of her home with a phone pressed to her ear. She walked past the suitcases at the door, past the servants cleaning the house and up to her bedroom to change into something slightly more comfortable.

  “Yes, Madam. I look forward to seeing you and your lovely wife there. The rehearsal dinner is this Sunday, your assistant should have the details. No, we won’t be gone long. Meetings with the Board will resume next Monday at the earliest. Truth be told, our Roselyn is still a bit on the fragile side. She’s excited for the wedding, but I don’t think she’d be up for a long trip away from home just yet. Ah, well, thank you, you’re too kind. I do my best. She is my world, after all. Yes, yes, once the members have made their final decisions, you will be the first to know. Ah, yes, I look forward to it. Hey, I’ll bring the cigars this time. Okay, Madam. Talk soon.”

  After the click, Perry threw her phone on the bed and chuckled. “Jackass.”

  She went to Rosie’s room down the hall, prepared to rush her out the door, only to find the space empty and the bed untouched.

  “What the…” She stepped out into the hall and whistled for the maid’s attention. “Where’s Rose?”

  “Her driver took her out for the evening.”

  “Took her out? Who said she could go anywhere?” Perry smacked her lips and shouted over the banister. “Nani!”

  “Yes, aobe?” The old servant stepped into view downstairs.

  “Get me Rose’s driver. Now.”

  14.

  The night’s rain slowed to a trickle. Rosie stood at the window across from the bed, idly tugging at the pointed collar of the dress shirt draped over her body as she leaned against the edge of the window frame, watching the drizzle peck the smudged glass. She looked over her shoulder at her slumbering knight and the warmth which filled that hollow place inside the core of her began to burn.

  She knew the saying, but could she truly commit to the belief that it was better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all? Having suffered them her whole life, she’d grown tired of losses. They began with pieces of her own heart over the course of several surgeries before she was ten years old until the whole organ could be salvaged no more and had to be replaced. Next would be the mother whose life ended at a traffic stop on her way to the hospital just weeks after her last surgery. Then there was the father who cared at a blinding distance because to look at his daughter, a reflection of the woman he loved and lost, would break his heart all over again.

  And the last to be lost, or perhaps surrendered, was the small kindling of hope she once fostered, a hope of being free of all the pain these losses rooted inside her. That tender flame extinguished the day she was bound to a woman whose sense of security and personal worthiness depended on locking her inside that pain, on keeping her afraid. Afraid of Perry. Afraid to live. Afraid to fight for independence because she wouldn’t know what to do with it anyway.

  That had been the final straw. How she was able decide it was time to give up on this life. How she was able to plan it and smile in utter relief at the vision of it. There had been nothing about her life worth holding on to, not even a single memory worth reliving that wasn’t a sore reminder of what she didn’t and could no longer have.

  Until now.

  It was the oddest thing, this slow blooming of a new resolve from deep within. If she never saw Xara again after walking out of that dark metal door, this night needed to be remembered. It had to be kept alive inside her, allowed to turn into a hope that she might feel this way again someday – to flourish into a belief that such a thing was even possible.

  The thought of never having another night with Xara still made her heart ache, but it was a sweet, addictive pain she didn't want to let go. One she was happy to live with.

  "I can feel you watching me,” Xara said with a lazy smile, her eyes remaining closed.

  "Cannot.”

  "Busted.”

  The Adonis of a woman climbed out of bed, slipped on her black sweatpants sans everything else and came around the bed. Rosie put her back against the wall, nibbling her bottom lip in giddy anticipation as she approached. Raising herself up on the tips of her toes as Xara cupped her jaw and lowered her head, Rosie met her in a deep kiss. Their soaring hearts thumped as one to the wild rhythm of their sweeping tongues.

  Paused for breath, they rested their foreheads on one another and stared from their lips to their eyes. They felt drunk on their private liberation, entranced and unencumbered like never before. And like most intoxication – no matter it’s deliverance – the young couple succumbed to the same pop of unexplainable amusement, scoffing and snorting into a fit of light laughter as their eyes closed and they continued to hold each other.

  They sat together on the window bench, Xara with her back to the wall and Rosie with her back against the former’s broad chest, secured between her legs and held firmly in her arms.

  “I’ve never made love before,” Rosie shyly confessed. “Before now, sex was just something done to me. I am—I was this tool through which Perry vented her frustration. I’ve never been touched really. Just held still, held down. I would feel cold and numb after, every time. That’s where my mind had gone earlier…”

  Xara held her tighter, gave h
er a kiss on top of the head and rested her chin there. “Was it okay?”

  “Yes. More than. I didn’t want to stop. With you, I was…alive. I only felt hot and tingly all over and I didn’t want that to end.” Her head lowered as she grinned in embarrassed amusement. “I must sound like a child to you.”

  Xara hid her grin against Rosie’s neck, then trailed soft kisses down to her shoulder. “No, you don’t.” The confession made her happy, vanquishing the last of the assassin’s quiet doubts that giving in to their feelings was the right choice. Trailed kisses came up from her shoulder to behind her ear, turning Rosie breathless.

  “I can make you feel that way again…and again…and again…” Xara’s husky whisper coursed through Rosie like smoke and honey as the assassin undid the few buttons keeping the collar shirt together, sliding the material down to the heiress’ waist and off her thighs. The gentle touch of callous fingers roamed past her navel, eliciting a long and slow gasp from Rosie's open mouth. The smaller woman’s thighs quivering as they slightly parted, she gripped Xara’s forearm and laid back further against her chest, allowing breasts to press against her back as she rolled her hips into the larger woman’s palm.

  Xara eased two fingers inside her, rubbing and rotating ever upward, biting down on her own sharp moans as Rosie gyrated between her legs.

  As her strokes gained speed, she squeezed Rosie’s bare breast and suckled hungrily on her neck. At her peak, the heiress threw her head back against the assassin’s shoulder and cried out, her hips jutting in a series of short hard waves. Catching her breath, she turned her head to capture her lover’s lips as she shuddered in her firm embrace.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  “Stop,” Perry ordered. Double checking the phone tracker, she glared at the crummy little building across the street, then blackened the phone screen. “This is the place?”

  Julian swallowed, trying to bury his guilt for betraying Miss Roselyn. “I suppose, aobe. I’ve never seen her go in, but she’s been around this neighborhood for the past few weeks. Visiting an old friend, who has been teaching her photography, she said. I thought it was good for her, having a hobby and all—”

  Perry scoffed, her glare never breaking from the window. “Who told you your opinion mattered?”

  The driver quieted.

  Just when Perry was about to leave the car, a woman stalked out of the little building. A tall, dark, and handsome woman dressed like a ‘50s-era rebel. A woman Perry didn’t recognize. She fumed, but waited for the stranger to disappear around the corner on her motorcycle before exiting the car. Marching up to the entrance of the building, she glared up at the lone stretch of window.

  No one humiliated Perry Pryce. No one.

  15.

  While Rosie was still in the shower, Xara changed into a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt, then rubbed a towel along her damp dark locks.

  “Cheeseburger, no tomatoes, right?” she called.

  “Yeah, and don’t forget dessert!”

  “Oh right,” she said under her breath, realizing Rosie hadn’t brought any. Grabbing her bathrobe from a drawer, she went back into the tight bathroom and leaned against the metal sink. Gaze lingering on the water swimming down her lover’s curves, the assassin bit her lip to keep the summoned heat at bay. “You still owe me a pie, you know,” she teased with a smirk.

  Rosie ended her shower and stepped out, coming to stand just inches in front of her woman. Her eyes sparkled with amusement as she broke into a grin. “Why? Haven’t had enough?”

  “Not even close.” Xara wrapped her robe around Rosie’s shoulders and tugged her closer, bending just so to meet her lips in a series of sweet and slow kisses.

  “I won’t be long. Clothes are on the bed.”

  “Okay.”

  After one more kiss, they let each other go.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Xara’s boxers and t-shirt draped to the middle of Rosie’s thighs. To soothe the churn of actual hunger in her belly, she went into the fridge for something to nibble on until Xara returned and came across a box of Vietnamese fruit. Chom choms.

  Her grin faded as her heart dropped into her stomach. She opened the box on the kitchen table and noticed a vial of blue fluid in a separate compartment. This was the fruit she had requested, which meant the blue fluid was her demise.

  Before, imagining her death would bring her some comfort – put her at ease. She couldn’t say the same was true now. And that was a new comfort, one she was excited to hold on to.

  Rosie pushed the vial away, washed her hands, and smiled at the fruit. Her mind was made up. When Xara returned, she would tell her that she changed her mind on the whole job. Revenge didn’t feel worth the better things she’d be giving up to have it. She was better off taking the money in her purse and hopping on a plane to somewhere. Anywhere. And once Perry found her, she would rather keep running than surrender her life to the brute.

  Though she knew it was foolish to get her hopes up, she wondered if one day Xara would be able to join her. If not, even if they never met again, she was grateful for the experience of knowing her, declaring to herself that their time together will always be in her heart so long as it was still beating.

  With a kitchen knife, she peeled and chopped the fruit into small sections on a little plate just the way her mother used to when she was little. But before she could eat the first piece, there was a knock from outside.

  “Xara?” She called out on her way to the door. “Is it locked?”

  The door opened and she froze, her amused smile fading under wide-eyed distress.

  “Darling,” Perry greeted with a thin veil of pleasantness over her icy anger. She waltzed in like she owned the place, knowing the little princess would flinch out of her way. She roamed through the open bedroom, her shark-like gaze scanning the messy sheets and discarded clothes. Rosie quickly slid back to the kitchen table and grabbed the blue vial, hiding it in a fist at her side.

  “Don’t try to run, princess,” Perry warned. “You’ll just get yourself hurt.” She emerged to the middle of the loft with Rosie’s panties dangling on her finger.

  “Perry…I’d like us to stay calm and talk about this, please.”

  “Oh, I think I’m getting a very good idea of what you like already. You must know by now that I, too, like things a particular way. Like say, the safe in my office. I always turn the dial to a certain number after closing it. It happened to be a little off when I got home, so I checked the camera hidden in my desk to see what happened. Any other day, I might’ve thought a maid simply brushed against it unknowingly or maybe she just got a little curious, decided to mess with it. No big deal. But when my fiancé suddenly leaves in the middle of the day without a word to anyone, I can’t help thinking the worst.” Perry dropped the underwear, slid her hands into her pockets and clicked her teeth disapprovingly. “It broke my heart watching you stoop so low. How can you steal from me, Rose? I give you everything, don’t I?”

  Rosie swallowed in vain to combat the dryness in her throat. This was her chance to placate, to beg for mercy and surrender in compliance. But she couldn’t. The words she knew by heart wouldn’t form on her tongue because she didn’t want them to. Instead she pulled her purse down in front of her and reached inside, discreetly tucking away the vial as she grabbed the envelope of cash.

  “You can have your money back. You can have everything. Except me. I won’t marry you. I can’t. So, j-just take this and go.”

  Perry unleashed an empty laugh and strolled around the table until they were standing face to face. She adjusted her tie, watching the princess stumble back on shaky legs and take hold of a kitchen knife with disturbing calm.

  “This isn’t you, Rose. Are you really daring me to prove it?”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Xara halted. She could see from the bottom of the stairs that the door to the loft was wide open. Reaching behind her back for a gun that wasn’t there, she cursed, dropped the food, and quickly climbed the stairs.
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  Though she wanted to rush in and shout for Rosie, she bit her tongue and let her training take over, grabbing the emergency weapon from the corner of the short hallway. With a tight grip on a crowbar, she entered the loft quietly, keeping her back to the wall.

  There was no sound. But plenty of signs of a struggle. The barrage of broken lights, cameras, and canvases all over the apartment sank Xara’s heart. She tore through the loft in search of Rosie, hoping against hope that she was hidden somewhere. Once she accepted that only the heiress’ clothes and phone had been left behind, she turned on the encrypted tablet perched on a desk against the wall divider and swiped through holographic panels of footage from the hidden cameras installed in front of the building.

  A black town car had been parked across the street from her building and not even a minute after she left, out stepped Perry Pryce from the backseat. She’d tugged on her coat and strolled inside, only to come out looking disheveled ten minutes later with Rosie in tow – dragging her by a fistful of her hair. The town car had pulled up to their side of the street, Perry threw Rosie and her purse in the backseat, and they drove off. That was thirty minutes ago.

  Flames of rage overcame Xara in thrashing waves. With a grunt, she pushed away from the desk, marched into the kitchen and knocked out a wooden panel in the wall with one punch, exposing the hidden arsenal of guns and blades. She hadn’t noticed the open fruit until the third clip was loaded.

  “No, no, no…” she muttered in a whisper and rushed over to the box. “Shit!"

  She took out her phone and dialed her only contact, who picked up on the first ring.