by JA Huss
“That’s my middle school.” She points to one of the pictures. “And my high school.”
“I found them much, much later. I have your yearbook pictures from that time, but that’s it.”
“And me at graduation two years ago.”
“Found on the web. I wasn’t there. The day at the airport, that was the first time I ever saw you. Everything came after that meeting.”
“So this is what you’ve been doing all these months?”
“Yeah,” I say flatly.
“Cataloging my life. Building a timeline.”
I can see where this is going, but she has every right to be pissed.
“I don’t want to hunt people for a living, Jax.”
“I understand,” I say, pushing her away a little so I can see her face. “I do. But hunting with a badge and hunting with a gun are two very different things. And I’m not asking you to decide today, all right? I just want you to think about it. Make it an option. We could use your help, Sasha. We really could. With you we could bring the Company down once and for all.”
“But there’s Company people in the FBI.”
“I know. Why do you think Max Barlow’s division is black ops? It’s been black ops since the Seventies when he figured out the Company existed. We don’t have any infiltrators in that area, Sasha. I promise you. There are only four people in the whole department.”
“You?”
“Me and Max. And two others I can’t name unless you sign on.”
“I don’t know what to think.”
“Don’t think anything yet. OK? Just… let’s just go to bed. Get some rest. And then we can discuss it again over breakfast and I’ll take you home if you want.”
She turns to look at the wall of Nick again. “I need to know what he’s been doing. All of it. Even if it’s bad.”
“Not now. Tomorrow. You’ve heard enough tonight.” I take her hand and lead her towards the bedroom. She resists for a moment, but then she’s walking with me. “I’ll sleep on the couch if you want.”
“No,” she says. “The last thing I want tonight is to be alone in a strange bed.”
I smile into the darkness. “I told you, you’re safe with me. I meant it.”
We walk into the bedroom and she starts to climb under the covers. I put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. “Wait. I have some dry clothes you can change into.”
I grab her a new t-shirt and boxer briefs and point towards the bathroom. She shoots a shy grin towards the floor as she takes them from my hands and that just kills me. I imagined her a million ways as I gathered information these past few months, but finding out she is soft and so very, very sweet is a complete surprise.
“Thank you,” she says, walking into the bathroom and closing the door.
I watch her shadow change the light seeping out from under the door for a few seconds, and then climb into bed, leaving the covers open for her.
She comes out a few minutes later, flipping the light off as she passes through the door. And then a few seconds later her small body is next to me. “You know a lot more about me than I know about you.”
“Sorry about that. But if you have any questions, just ask. I’d love for you to know me better.”
She turns her body and I can see her shadowed face in the dim light from the window. “Why me?”
“You’re special.” It comes out easy because it’s true.
“I’m bad too. I’m just as bad as Nick.”
A strand of hair falls over her cheek and I reach over and tuck it behind her ear so I can continue looking at her face. “I know you think that thirteen was old enough to call the shots, Sasha. I can tell. You’re independent and strong. You’re well-educated and logical. But that’s not logical. You were a child. They killed your whole family. You responded the way they trained you. You didn’t choose to continue that path like Nick did. You allowed someone else to take charge and you left it behind. I’m stunned that you don’t see yourself as a survivor.”
“I do,” she says, her defenses up. “I’ve always seen myself that way. I kicked ass back in the day. And I can still kick ass now.”
“As Julian is now aware. And that’s not what I meant. I meant that you allow yourself to be a product of your environment. And you’re not. You rose above it. You’re out. You can stay out.”
“If I join you.”
I lean in and kiss her gently on the mouth. She responds in her soft way that has had my full attention since I saw her outside her school yesterday afternoon. She is on the edge of something. A discovery. About Nick, for sure. About herself, I hope. About the world, unfortunately. And tomorrow it’s only going to get worse. I pull back a little and whisper, “Let me erase those doubts.”
“With sex?” Her eyes are searching mine. Longing for more, I can tell. But afraid to ask for it.
“You can call it that if you want. But I’m not gonna.”
“What’s it called?”
“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully. “I just got you, ya know? I wanted you so fucking bad, you have no idea.”
“You don’t even know me. You know Nick better than you know me. And I don’t know you at all. So tell me something real, Jax. Because every day I feel like a fake. I’m not real. I’m that illusion you thought I was. An apparition of that girl the Company made me. I have no idea what I’m doing. And I feel like I’m suffocating. I feel like my past is back to strangle the life out of me. I feel like I’ve been walking around wearing a costume for ten years and it’s so much a part of me, I’m afraid to take it off. I think I’ll lose myself for good if I take it off, Jax. So tell me something real. Or this ghost version of me might float away and disappear. I might never pull myself back from that. I was young when I killed those people. I was scared and I didn’t know any better. But now I know. What I did was wrong. What I became—”
I stop her words with another kiss. This time I cup her face with both hands, afraid that she really will float away and disappear. She opens her mouth, her tongue seeking me out. One hand slips up her shirt and I find her breast and twist her nipple.
Her moan makes me instantly hard. “That’s real,” I say, placing her hand over my erection. “That’s real. And last night when I was inside you, that was real, Sasha. I like you. Not because of who you were or who you might be in the future. I like you for the person you are now. I’m hard for you now.”
She squeezes my dick in her small palm. I flip her over on her back in one swift motion, and then hover myself over her body. “Say no if you want me to stop.”
I stare into her eyes as she thinks about my words. And just when she’s about to answer me, I put a finger to her lips.
She moans.
And then she opens her mouth and my finger slips inside. The wetness of her tongue sliding up and down my finger as I pump it in and out drives me insane. I would do anything to keep this girl. Anything.
She bucks her hips upward, driving into mine. Rubbing against my hard-on. “I want you on top,” I say, withdrawing my finger.
“Put me there.”
I reach underneath her back, hold her close to me, and then flip us over. Her knees immediately slide up next to my hips and she rises up on them as she pulls her t-shirt over her head.
“Holy fuck,” is the only thing I can manage as I stare at her perfect breasts. “You want something real? If you walk out on me tomorrow, Sasha, I will never recover. That’s something real.”
“I’ve never been naked in front of a man before.”
The change of subject is seamless. And it stuns me. “Never?”
“I have never let a man look at my body.” And then she rolls on her back, balancing herself on top of my thighs, and slips my boxer briefs down her legs. She gives me the most perfect pussy shot in the history of lust.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
Before those words are out of my mouth, she’s back on top—knees at my hips, pussy over my hard-on, and her breasts pushing into my chest
. “Fuck tomorrow. I always thought that was my motto. But I’m a fraud, Jax. I’ve been afraid of tomorrow my whole life. And just once I’d really like to give tomorrow the finger and not think about the consequences.”
“I am happy to help you flip off the future.”
She laughs. “I’m serious.”
“Me too.”
“Then why are you still wearing pants?”
“Sasha—”
“Please,” she begs. “Make it stop. Make this loneliness go away. I’m so fucking tired of being alone.”
I pull my shirt over my head and toss it into the hazy darkness and she lifts up her hips to allow me to get out of my boxers. They go flying into the void with the shirt. “You’re lying, right? About never being naked in front of a man?”
“I’m not. I spent every night I ever spent with a man trying my best to hide who I am. I never took off my clothes in the light because I thought they’d see through me.” And then she reaches over to the bedside table and flips on the small lamp. She bares her body to me in the glow. And when I look up into her eyes I see nothing but fear.
“Come here,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around her back and pulling her into my chest. “We don’t need sex, Sasha. I’m not here to take advantage of your confusion.”
“I do need it, Jax. I really, really do. And I need it with you. Because I believe you when you say I’m safe. And I’ve got to be honest, safe is something I’ve never felt before.”
God, that is sad. “You’re safe now. OK? And maybe you should say no tomorrow. You can say no and I’ll still want you. I don’t care about the job, Sasha. Really. I don’t. I was so persistent because I thought I’d get to keep you around. I thought I’d get to see you every day. We might become friends. And then maybe more than friends.”
Her chest hitches for a moment and there’s a split second when I think she might cry. But she draws in a long breath of air and gets it under control. “I thought we were flipping tomorrow the finger?”
“We are,” I say, rolling us over again. She lets out a small squeal and I take that as encouragement. I want her to be happy. I don’t want her to feel used by me tonight. I don’t want to take her. I want to feel her.
I inch my way down her body, kissing the soft skin of her breasts as I go. I squeeze the nipple of one and suck gently on the other. She moans and brings a leg up. Just the sensation of it brushing against mine is erotic.
“It’s all about you right now, killer. All about you.” I continue my journey south, my tongue dancing along her belly, then her hip. I nip her skin and she buckles her back, urging me to find my final destination. “Fuck, you’re so goddamned sexy.” My tongue flirts with the tip of her pussy, easily finding her sweet spot. I lick small circles around it and then nip the inside of her thigh.
“Keep going,” she urges softly. Her fingers are threaded in my hair, grabbing tight fistfuls, like she’s holding on for dear life. And then she pushes me into her folds, her hips doing a little dance along with my tongue.
I grab her clit gently between my lips and then suck. Not hard—she is far too soft to make this hard—but just enough. Just enough flicking of my tongue. Just enough movement of my lips. Just enough of my fingers reaching between her legs to find her opening before sliding in.
Everything tonight is just enough to make her come.
And she does. She contracts her muscles around my finger and she comes on my face with barely a whimper. But I know that giving herself to me like this is surrender. And letting me take control of her body this way is a gift.
“Fuck,” she moans, once the contractions stop. I kiss her once more and then roll off to the side and scoot up to her face. Her eyes are closed, so I surprise her with a taste of herself. Never knowing what to expect from this woman, I have a moment of fear that she will push me off and call me disgusting.
But she doesn’t.
She takes my offering and reaches down for my cock.
“We don’t have to go any further,” I whisper into her mouth.
“Yes,” she says, opening her eyes, saying it back just as softly. Like we’re keeping secrets. “We do.” She climbs on top of me and holds my cock in her fist. Her hand is small, barely arching around my wide girth. And then she lifts up and flicks it across her wet opening before easing back down. She slumps towards me, resting her head on my shoulder like we are lovers.
I wrap my hands around her back and hold her tight as I sit up straight, leaning against the headboard. She moves her hips, rubbing herself with each back and forth motion.
I cup her face again and tilt her head towards me so I can kiss her. And then, just as she really begins to move, I grab her ass with one hand and place my finger over her lips one more time.
I fuck her mouth as she moves on my dick. Our motion is synchronized, like we’ve done this a million times before. Like we know all the small movements, all the tiny gestures that will make each other climax. The motion of her lips. The friction of our bodies. Her long hair gently caressing my chest.
We are love in slow motion. We move as one, leaving the darkness behind, where it belongs, and become the light.
This is the moment I realize we are in this together. No matter what it takes—I don’t care what the sacrifice is—Sasha is mine. She deserves me. She deserves a man of truth. She deserves loyalty and love. She deserves to let her past go, embrace her present, and find her future. I will do whatever it takes to keep her safe so she can find that future, even if it means putting my own life on the line. I will die for her.
“I will die for you too,” I moan as she sucks on my finger. Tasting herself. Embracing herself. What she was, who she is, and what she can be if given the chance to live out her destiny.
She pulls away and frowns down at me. “Please don’t die, Jax.” She says it with such emotion, I feel her sadness flow through me. “Please don’t die. I won’t be able to live if I lose another person in my life. I won’t be able to go on. Promise me, Jax. Promise me you won’t leave me. And promise me you won’t kill Nick.”
“Sasha…”
“I can’t lose him, Jax. I know he’s not the boy I thought I knew, but I can’t lose him. I need to know he’s alive. Even if it’s in prison. Just the thought of him dying makes me want to shrivel up into a tiny ball of sadness.”
Fuck. “I can try, OK?”
“No, Jax. I need you to promise that the only way you will kill him is if he’s trying to kill you. Promise me that much, at least.”
I stroke her hair and kiss her mouth, but she ducks away and hides her face in my neck. I give in. I can’t help it. It’s the mission objective anyway. Bring them in alive is always better than dead. “I promise, then. I promise. I will do anything to make you happy again.”
She lets out a long breath, like she was holding it in until she got my answer. And even though every rational person on this planet understands that life and death don’t obey the law of promises, she believes me. I know she believes me because we climax together. And once again I find myself coming inside her. I hold her close and moan into her neck as I fill her up in every way possible. I don’t care one bit about the consequences. I don’t care that I made her a promise that I can’t keep or she accepted it on misplaced faith.
I do not care.
She is mine and I’m going to keep her forever.
Chapter Twenty-Five - Sasha
“Yeah,” Jax growls into his cell phone. My eyes are refusing to open, even though I can tell by his ensuing silence something is wrong on the other end. “When?” More silence. “Where’d they take him?” He breathes out a long breath of air and I manage to open my eyes in time to watch him rub his hand down his face and swing his feet over the side of the bed so he can sit up. “I’ll be there in two hours.”
He doesn’t turn to me, just puts his head in his hands and rests his elbows on his knees.
“You OK?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” No emotion in that statement. Just b
lank.
“You gotta leave?”
He finally turns a little to give me a sideways glance. “I do. I know it’s bad, Sasha. I know I should stay here with you. But I have to go.”
“Should I go with you?”
He smiles then. Like big. And then he lies down and pulls me up to his chest. “God, I wish. See, if you take me up on that offer we could be partners. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
I picture it in my head. “Am I Scully or Mulder?”
“Definitely Mulder,” he says with a huff of laughter.
“I think so too. Can we look for aliens and take on weird X-Files cases?”
“For sure.”
It’s my turn to smile big. I think I might really like Jax. He’s nice. “I’ll think about it.”
“Will you be OK here?”
“I’m OK everywhere, Jax. Don’t worry about me.”
He leans in and kisses me on the lips. It’s a little kiss. Not meant to be spectacular. But for some reason it feels amazing. “I gotta go. That call was about my brother.”
“Oh, did something bad happen?” Jesus, I hope not. I can tell his brother means everything to him.
“Very bad. Very, very fucking bad. But he’s OK, so I can’t ask for anything else without being selfish.”
I prop myself up on my elbow. “Are you religious?”
“What?” He shoots me a confused look.
“Do you have guilt for wanting more out of life, even when you have plenty?”
“A bit.”
“And you think asking for too much makes the bad luck come?”
“In a way, I guess. I just try to be grateful for the small things.”
I lie back and think about that as Jax drags himself out of bed and starts to get dressed. “Do you think we bring our own bad luck? Or do you think sometimes our luck mingles with the luck of someone else, and gets tangled up in it?”
He’s pulling up his pants when I ask this question, but he stops with his fingers on the zipper to look at me in the approaching dawn. “I never thought of it, I guess.”
“What time is it?”