I could always call his fiancé and tell her where he is. The thought was so dark that she surprised even herself. She didn’t know anything about crime families, apart from what she’d seen in the movies. And in the movies they were generally painted as a violent lot who punished allies the same way they punished enemies. She had no desire to be on the receiving end of a baseball bat or slowly slashed into thin strips of human flesh. Maybe she could turn Erik in? Maybe his formerly-soon-to-be-other-half would accept it as a peace offering if all she asked in return was to be left alone and that she was ever involved could be forgotten?
Even as she reached the conclusion, a river of guilt began to flow through her. Oh yeah… do no harm… you got that part of your Hippocratic Oath down real well, didn’t you?
She cringed inwardly and shut her eyes so tightly that it hurt. Shame cut through her the same way a chain saw cut through aged and spoiled wood. It clawed at her very soul as if it had talons, threatening to rip her to pieces.
No… she wouldn’t turn Erik over to the woman who wanted him dead. Hell, she wouldn’t even know where to begin. It wasn’t like she could look her up in the phone book just as Erik had found her. And she’d studied enough history to know that what was happening in Erik’s life now was a coup for power. And in such instances, anyone that posed a threat to the new regime was swiftly eliminated. And that would include her, now that she had seen to Erik’s wounds and assured that there might be a fighting chance for him to take back what was being stolen.
No, she was positive that in the eyes of Erik’s’ enemies she would be seen as an enemy. And enemies didn’t live long if they had no way to protect themselves.
“Thinking of how best to advise my formerly beloved of where I am?” Erik’s voice asked.
Her eyes shot open and she saw him staring at her, the piercing green orbs of his eyes caused her to fumble the empty bottle onto the floor, though it did not break. The look in his eyes added new shame to her and she regretted having even entertained the idea of executing her private thoughts.
“No,” she said, quickly. “No… I was… just…”
“I couldn’t blame you if you did,” Erik said, his voice sounded distant… detached… just as he had seemed last night. “This is a terrible situation that I’ve put you in, Evie. No one deserves it.” He paused and the look in his eyes changed, becoming soft. “I am sorry for it… really, I am. But… you see…”
“You wanted to live,” she supplied, cutting him off.
He nodded. “I did.” He looked away from her, rotating his head so that he looked up straight at her kitchen ceiling. “But surely you must know that if you turned me over… they would kill you too. Just for having seen me, to say nothing of helping me.”
She looked away shamefully.
“If I were in your position, I would have wondered the same thing. How could I manipulate the situation to my advantage? What course of action could I take so that I come away unscathed and get back to life?” He was silent for a few minutes. “I find that I can arrive at no solution that benefits me at all.”
She folded her hands guiltily in her lap. “Neither could I.”
He rolled his head. “However… there is one solution that comes to mind.”
She looked up, curious if not hopeful. “There is?”
“Yes… one that doesn’t benefit either of us individually… but one that benefits us. Our chances of survival are better if we should work together, I think.”
There was a ring of optimism in his voice and it caught her attention like a car horn on the street. “I’m listening.”
“You say that it would be unwise for me to move from this place… and that I am already showing signs of infection. You are the doctor and I trust you at your word on that. Then it would seem that we are stuck together at least for the duration.” He took a short breath. “Believe me, Evie, I would spare you entirely from this nightmare were it within my power. I swear I would. But I can see no way out where neither you will be free to return to the life you lived before this morning and I would be free to reclaim that which was stolen from me last night.
“All that I can see is a bleak future for us both should we attempt to go our separate ways. My former fiancé has considerable resources, even from her place of power now. Those resources are not infinite, mind you, but considerable. Sooner or later she will discover you. There are those who witnessed the two of us speaking at the party last night when we retrieved our drinks, I’m sure. And someone was sure to notice that we had disappeared from the general frivolity of the party for those hours that we spoke. She’ll put it all together eventually and then she will come for you.”
The words carried a heavy meaning in them that made Evie feel like sinking to the floor and crying. Of all of the things that she could have imagined going wrong in her life, being on the angry side of a crime princess hadn’t been on the list. Dolefully she looked down at her empty hands as if contemplating them and could not see a way out of her predicament without Erik’s help.
“What do you suggest?”
“That we simply choose to disappear… together.”
She sat and stared at him incredulously for a moment. Then she rose up from her chair.
“Where are you going?”
“To take a shower,” she replied over her shoulder coldly.
“A shower?”
“Yes… I’ve got your blood all over me… I need to wash up.” She disappeared into the bathroom.
The kiss of the thin jets of water was warm as it washed over her naked form. The water dripped from off of her forehead in thin strings as she leaned her weight against the wall of the shower.
She had abandoned any thought of using the soap to cleanse herself ten seconds after she had stepped under the jets. Though the blood that had caked on her fingers had been washed away, she still felt dirty. Not that it mattered. There were some things that no amount of soap could simply cleanse. It felt like even her shadow had been compromised in filth and like her shadow, this new trouble would follow her around for the remainder of her life.
Her eyes were locked on the drain and she watched the gentle swirls of water as they formed miniature cyclones and disappeared down the drain. The gurgling sound of the liquid as it vanished from sight was the perfect metaphor for her life. It was cliché, she knew, but accurate: her whole life was down the drain now.
A lifetime of desire… years of study… of killing herself so that she could get ahead in life… a good job… helping people… doing what she felt like she was meant to be doing… it was all gone now. Her desire – her ambition – to help people had landed her in this predicament and all because she simply hadn’t obeyed her finer instincts and called an ambulance… or the cops… or anyone. And now, it felt like she was paying the price for it. And not even in the worst of ways.
She formed a fist and lightly punched at the tile walls of her shower, the sound reverberating in the room and in the walls of her mind. The obviousness of the solution to her problems was simple, but no less frightening.
What if I had called for an ambulance?
The question was simple, but not so in its answer. If Erik was telling the truth – and she had no reason to doubt him – then the life she had been living up until now would have been down the drain anyway. For all she knew Erik’s newly estranged fiancé had men in black SUV’s or something with police scanners listening to the calls and they would know right away where Erik was… where she was. And then perhaps they might show up guns blazing… or pretending to be EMT’s and silently stuck her with a needle to make it look like she had a heart attack or something…
She shuddered.
Given her options her choices were simple. It was better to be ruined than to be dead. It was a grim choice, but somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that it was the right one. She couldn’t help the predicament that she was in any more than Erik could have stopped his own bleeding with the power of positive thought.
/> She wiped water that ran under her eyes, wondering if there were any tears in that mix. She doubted that there were. She was too stunned to do anything other than dwell on her life as she now knew it. She felt hollow inside… empty… like a piggy bank without a single coin inside to rattle around.
Her mind inevitably went back to Erik and what he had suggested.
Run away? The words rang with a note of defeat in them. There had been times in life where she’d felt the thing to do was to find a deep, dark hole and crawl into it, sure. But this didn’t feel like one of those times. And Erik had said it so simply it was as if he’d been planning it the whole time. That she could just up and leave… give up everything that she had spent her life building… the idea left a terrible emptiness inside of her. Despite that, running away seemed like the thing to do given the alternative. Nothing that she had heard and everything that she imagined supported that notion.
It wouldn’t be the life she imagined living… but at least it would be life. What good was her career or her desires if she was dead? How could she help anyone then? Alternately if she did run away, she would at least be helping one person: herself. And perhaps she would even be helping Erik as well, but only to a point.
The thought stirred something odd inside of her.
What was he to her? He was no one really. He was just some stranger that she had met and talked to only last night. She didn’t have to do anything he said. She could just choose to stay and let him leave, taking her chances that she wouldn’t be found out. Part of her was convinced that she could spin a believable lie to tell if anyone did come looking for him. Perhaps she could bluff her way out of this mess after all.
Yeah… and maybe I’ll find out that they’re serving ice water in hell.
Her thoughts were thrown when she heard the bathroom door open. For a brief instant she thought that perhaps something akin to Psycho was about to happen and she might be stabbed to death in her own shower. But the fear vanished as quickly as it had come when she heard the bathroom door close. Through a quick bit of rationality she knew that a killer wouldn’t have given so much forethought as to close the door behind them.
This was something else.
The curtain to her shower slowly opened and she resisted the urge to turn and see whom it was. She didn’t need to. She felt that familiar warmth that she’d encountered only once before and knew whom it was that was entering into her shower with her.
And to make that warmth far more palpable, she felt his hands circle her body and cup her large breasts. She could feel his erection poking at her from behind. The heat that suddenly consumed her threatened to turn the spray of the shower into steam before it even touched her skin.
She couldn’t voice her disapproval, her senses felt so absent. It took only a few seconds before she found that any disapproval that she might have had at his sudden interest evaporated faster than the would-be steam of her shower.
She didn’t care.
Her world was so fucked up even now that all she could really determine was that she wanted to feel something… anything. And as Erik’s hands slowly massaged her breasts she decided it might as well be lust.
Why not? I could be dead in a couple of days. Why not go out on a high note? The thought almost made her want to laugh.
Almost.
She brought her hands up to his and slowed the rate at which his fingers moved over her skin. She showed him how she liked it done and his fingers were quick to absorb the instruction. She relaxed, leaning back and resting her weight against his, resting her head in the crux of his shoulder. Some small part of her wondered how he was able to stand after being shot and she did have some small concern that the water would wash away her hard work. But after only a few moments, those fears disappeared as his fingers and hands suddenly became more adept at pleasing her.
His hands opened and contracted, his fingers stretching out to encompass more of her breast and then receding inward. His fingers played at her nipples, the contrast of his paler skin against the darkness of her own was almost mesmerizing.
She found enough motivation in her to speak. “What are you doing?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“Something that I should have done last night,” he replied calmly.
He spun her around to face him with such speed that it elicited a small yelp from her lips. He pressed her up against the wall of her shower with such force that she suddenly felt powerless. Though he was injured and should have been weaker he still seemed more formidable than she would have thought him capable of being. His hands went to her wrists, pinning her up as if he were shackling her to a stone wall.
He put his mouth on hers with such tenacity that it almost seemed as if he wanted to devour her. In a way, she felt that he was. His tongue passed over her lips so quickly that he reminded her of a snake, tasting everything on the air around him. But in this instance, all he could taste was her.
His breath was hot… full of fire… something that she might have expected a mob boss to be. But there was something that was also sweet… alluring… even a little demanding about it. It was like heavy alcohol and she knew that she wanted more. His presence was intoxicating enough as it was. She wanted the full effect of what he was like as she took in more of him than she could handle.
Make me feel… make me feel, damn you!
As if hearing her silent demands he fell to his knees and spread her legs. The water washed over him, turning his thin brown hair into a mess of clumped tendrils. His hands traveled from her wrists down over her slickened breasts and to the small patch of pubic hair that she had.
He pried the folds of her vagina apart with his fingers and slipped his tongue inside of her. He did so with the grace and precision of any doctor using a scalpel and the effect was immediate. He knew where to probe with his tongue and the small bristles of his depleted beard lent to the sensation.
Her legs turned to instant jelly under his tongue as it moved around inside of her. Her head recoiled and her hands shot to his scalp, massaging him there as his tongue explored the innards of her body. Only the ministrations of his mouth kept her upright, some small part of her realizing that she wanted this… she wanted more of it… and the only means by which to experience it was to remain upright.
“Oh, god,” she whispered, the sound lost in the hissing of the jets of the shower.
He moaned under her, a wordless sound of desire, like he had just been served some delectable dish that was pleasing to every taste bud in his mouth. And the sounds that followed only told her that he was interested in getting more.
She was happy to oblige him in that regard.
His tongue swirled inside of her and the part of her that was medically trained recognized each portion of her innards as he caressed them with his mouth. Her mons… her labia… her clit… he managed to get them all with expert precision. The shudders that he generated in her legs felt powerful enough to have been able to shake the pyramids to dust.
He broke away from being inside of her and rose up to his feet, the shower spraying his chest and small rivulets of water rushed over his well-developed pectorals and over his washboard perfect belly. The grin that was on his face showed the improvement of his spirts and reflected the emotions that had been building up inside of her. This was crazy… she had only met the guy last night… and here she was. And though it was crazy – nay, downright asinine – she couldn’t help but feel excited about it. And only then because she realized that she was feeling something.
She leaned forward and kissed him, running her hands over the sides of his face… his neck… his chest… and his abs. She let her hands sink a little father south and began to gently stroke him. She felt his hardness and her fingers and the palms of her hands traced the veins within his cock. The tips of her fingers gently played with the tip and he shuddered under her gentle prodding.
She broke their kiss and allowed her tongue and lips followed the same path along his body that her hands a
nd fingers had moments before. Kissing and licking him, unable to even remotely taste the water she traveled over his chest, to his belly, and beyond.
His cock was hard… she’d known it from the start. He’d wanted her… he’d wanted this… and she was ready to reciprocate.
She took him into her mouth, clamping her hands firmly on the cheeks of his ass as she did so. He groaned aloud at this, his hands running through her thicker and longer hair and twisting handfuls of her scalp together. The movement brought a small amount of pain with it, but also a small sense of excitement as she began to move her mouth on him.
His cock tasted as sweet as his tongue had as she bobbed against him. There was a hammering sound in her ears that at first she thought to be the sound of the shower as it poured upon her head but after only a few silent beats she realized it was the sound of her own heart beating. The magnitude with which it beat made her think that perhaps some invisible force was playing a large drum inside of her chest.
His hands shot out and he rested his weight against the wall of the shower, groaning in time with the movements of her mouth. She cupped his balls, gently playing at them. For a brief moment she opened her eyes and they traveled to the bandage that she had left on him. The bandage was soaked through, but she saw no signs that he had pulled a stitch. That alone was remarkable… as if he was simply defying the laws of medicine by being up and being here with her.
She chose to ignore it.
“Get up,” he ordered her softly over the dull thrum of the shower as it washed over them both. “Get up, now.”
She pulled him from her mouth and did as he commanded.
He spared a brief moment to kiss her, framing her face with his powerful hands. His tongue flicked in quickly over her lips before he changed tactics once more at top speed. He again demonstrated his ability to be the conqueror and pushed her up against the wall of the shower. Though he acted thuggishly… even almost brutally… his eyes remained locked on hers, unable to be torn away. She found that it was becoming easier and easier to be lost in his eyes. It was another feeling that she felt building up inside of her that could be quite comfortable.
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