“Up on all fours, Eve. Ass to me,” I say, looking at the array of lotions the hotel left on the nightstand. I take one.
When I turn to her, she’s watching me. She hasn’t moved yet. I lean down and get in her face. “Ass to me so I can fuck it.”
Her eyes are dark, pupils dilated and she’s breathing in gasps. She bites her lip, then moves slowly up to her hands and knees. I flip her skirt up and drag her panties down and just look at her for a long minute, her knees wide, ass cheeks splayed open, all of her displayed, offered.
Mine.
I lean my head down and lick her tight little asshole and am gratified with her shocked, aroused gasp.
When I straighten, she’s craning her neck to watch me and I press one hand between her shoulder blades to push her down onto her elbows, her face in the bed. I slide my cock into her pussy and she sucks in a sharp, audible breath. I don’t move inside her. I don’t want to come yet and with her, my control always slips away.
I empty the contents of the little bottle of lotion onto her back. She lifts her hips, and it makes me smile seeing her like this. All mine. I’ve claimed her mouth and her pussy. Now, I’ll claim her ass too.
Dipping my fingers into the lotion, I smear it down toward her asshole. I pump my cock a little as I began to circle that tight little bud.
“It’s going to be a tight squeeze, Eve.” I groan and can hardly fucking wait to have her snug little ass milk my dick. “Think you can take me?”
I meet her eyes as I slide all the way out of her pussy, then back in slowly, making sure she knows how many thick inches she’ll be taking.
She moans and I press a finger into her tight hole.
Her eyes squeeze shut and her muscles tighten around my finger, but then relax again and I can slowly pump in and out, in and out. I add a second finger and spread more lotion inside her and when she slips her hand between her legs and begins rubbing her clit, I know she’s almost ready.
“Make yourself come.” I pull my cock out, but leave my fingers inside her. “Make yourself come with my fingers in your ass, Eve.”
She’s so fucking obedient. I hook two fingers inside her and hold her hips up and watch her cunt drip down her thighs as she closes her eyes and comes and—fuck me, I’m going to blow right now if I don’t get inside her.
I pull my fingers out, smear her cum all over my dick and bring it to her tight little virgin asshole. She’s filled up with lotion, lubricated inside and out, and I take her cheeks into my hands and pull her wide and penetrate her.
“Too big!”
She’s gone still, her hands are fisted.
“Shh. I’ll go slow. Put your fingers back on your pussy. Rub your clit. Get ready to come harder than you’ve ever come in your life.”
She’s a good girl and obeys, begins to rub herself again. I know she’s nervous, I can see it on her face, I rub her back, then grip her hips again, slide in a little more, take a few more inches.
“I can’t wait to come in your tight little ass. I’m going fill you up and when I’m done, I’m going watch my cum drip out of you.”
“I’m going to come again,” she manages, just as the waves of her orgasm begin to squeeze my dick. I press in deeper, pumping in and out slowly, claiming more of her, all while she comes beneath me, and when I’m fully seated, our eyes lock and she’s so fucking beautiful and so far gone, my dirty little virgin, that I know I don’t have long.
“One more time, habibi. One more time for me.” And when I say it, I begin to fuck her. I fuck her like I want to, like I need to, and she’s whimpering beneath me. She’s fisting the blankets—she’s ultra-sensitive now after those orgasms—and as tight as she is, as slippery as she is with all that lotion inside her, it doesn’t take long for me to come. For me to blow inside her with a sound every room on this floor must hear. I grip her hips hard and I come, and she’s coming with me, one more time.
We’re sweating by the time I fall on top of her, spent. I hold her close, my dick still inside her, and she’s got her hand over my wrist and is holding tight.
I want to ask her if she’s okay. I should. But I can’t speak. And I know she is. She’s more than fine. She came three times.
“I like fucking you, Eve. I like fucking you every which way.”
“I like you fucking me every which way.”
“Dirty little virgin.”
She cranes her neck and looks at me, gives me a wicked grin.
I give her a nasty one back and slide my dick out of her, then get up and go into the bathroom. When I return with a damp washcloth, I draw her over my lap so her ass is elevated.
“What are you doing?”
I spread her ass cheeks open. “I told you. I’m watching my cum drip out.”
“Zach!” she tries to pull away but I smack her ass once and grip her ponytail, which is falling apart after the sex.
She twists her head back.
“You’re dirty, Eve. You like it as dirty as I do. You want to show me. Don’t deny it, the innocent act isn’t you, habibi.”
I don’t mean habibi like I did in the beginning. Then, it was a taunt. A degradation. Now, she’s just habibi. Baby.
My baby.
She stops fighting me and I spread her wide and I watch, almost hard again at the sight.
Afterward, we sit in the tub together, and I know she remembers our conversation from before.
“Eve,” I start. We need to do this.
She shakes her head. “I won’t leave.”
“You’re not safe here.”
“You’re wrong.” She turns to me, her eyes searching mine for a long moment before she finally speaks. “I’m safest with you.”
14
Eve
I’m still wrapped in a towel when Zach’s phone buzzes with a message. He walks across the room naked and I can’t take my eyes off him. Being with him, it’s intense. Insane.
And fleeting.
That last one, it scares me. The feeling sits like a brick in my stomach.
“What is it?” I ask when he tosses the phone on the bed and pulls on his jeans.
He glances at me while searching for a clean T-shirt in his duffel. “I have to go. Beos is at the market.”
“He’s the one who made my passport.”
Zach nods. He’s sitting on the bed putting his shoes on.
“I’ll be ready in a sec,” I say, picking up a dress that’s still lying on the floor after our earlier battle.
“Eve.” His hands are on my shoulders, warm and strong. He squeezes gently, then turns me to face him.
I know what he’s going to say.
“Zach—”
“No.” His answer is final, I know it.
“Please.”
“It’s too dangerous.” He’s shaking his head. “Stay here until I’m back. I promise we’ll make a plan together when I’m back.”
I’m looking up at him, his gaze is heavy, dark.
“This is about me too.”
“If he sees you, he’ll run. We’re too close to lose him and he can get us to Malik. To your brother, maybe. I have to go, okay?”
Reluctantly, I nod. He’s right. I know it.
“Good.” Setting me aside, he reaches into his duffel bag and takes out my pistol, the one he’d confiscated a few nights ago. He loads it with ammunition. “Do you know how to use this?”
I look at it. I don’t want to use it. I suck in a breath, steeling my spine. “Aim and shoot,” I say.
He puts it in my hand and closes my fingers around it. “Don’t let anyone in.”
“You think someone’s going to come?” I’m scared. I hate feeling like this, but I am.
“No one knows we’re here. You’ve been inside the hotel or with me the whole time. I just want you prepared.”
I remember my trip to the falafel stand the day before, but I don’t mention it. He needs to focus on getting information out of Beos.
“Okay, Eve?”
I nod.
I have to get better at hiding my thoughts. He reads me like a book. “Go. I’ll be fine.”
He wraps his hands around my upper arms and pulls me in tight, his eyes intense on mine, like he’s trying to memorize me. Like it’s the last time he’ll see me. I shudder at the thought because I wonder if it is. If he’s walking into a trap.
“When you’re back, you’ll tell me who Malik is.” It’s not a question.
He nods. Then leans down to kiss me hard on the lips. When he’s done, he looks at me for another long minute before tucking the Glock into the waistband of his jeans then slipping on a jacket to hide it. “Lock the door behind me. Don’t let anyone in but me, understand?”
“I understand.”
The moment he’s out the door, the room feels empty, too big. And I feel too alone. I look at the pistol in my hand, set it on the nightstand and sit down on the edge of the bed. What am I doing? What am I thinking? Feeling?
I’ve been alone for the last two years, yet I’ve never felt as lonely as I do right now. It’s like when he walked out the door, he took something with him. Some part of me. I get up and walk to the window and see him just as he circles to the car. He glances up, but I don’t think he can see me. The windows are tinted so I can see out but from the outside, no one can see in. I stand there until he’s driven away then begin to pick up my things from the floor, begin to neatly fold the clothes he’d randomly thrown into my suitcase.
I put on a pair of panties and bra, then choose a dress. That’s when I glance at his duffel bag. My eyes drift to the locked door, then back to the bag. I know it’s wrong, but I go to it. Unzip it. Pull it open.
He carries this thing around like it’s some part of him. To me, it’s like a rope around his neck, the anchor dragging him under, and it’s only a matter of time before he sinks. I want to know what’s inside it. What’s got this hold on him. I should ask him, I know, but I don’t. Instead, I shove the few pieces of clothing aside. The thing I’m looking for is at the bottom. It’s inside those worn-out folders that look to be a hundred years old.
My hands are shaking as I lift them out and I can’t drag my eyes away as I carry them to the bed and sit with them on my lap.
I open the first one and there’s Armen’s face. This photo I’ve already seen. I touch it, touch my brother’s face. He’s not smiling. He’s in the middle of what I can tell is a heated conversation. The person he’s talking to isn’t in the shot, but Armen looks fierce. Not quite angry, but intense.
I place the picture face down on the bed beside me. I wish I had another one of him. One where he’s smiling. He had the best smile. At least he did before Malik stole it away.
The others in this file are also ones I’ve already seen, back at the McKinney property. My brothers, and Zach’s men. They’re smiling, some of them at least. I make myself look at each one. See each man who died that night. Remember each of their names. Say them out loud. It feels right, even if it makes tears stream down my face. Zach was right this morning. I didn’t want to go to Baskinta, but we needed to. We owed it to them.
I take a tissue from the nightstand and wipe my nose. My eyes are locked on the pistol and something makes me pick it up, put it beside me on the bed. I look at the next folder. I should get dressed. I should wait until Zach’s back and ask him to show me himself. But I don’t. I open it instead.
And I regret the moment I do. Because what greets me, well, I’m not expecting that. I’m not ready for it. I don’t think I ever could be ready for it.
One hand covers my mouth as bile rises up my throat. He’s carrying these around with him? The massacre, the scene of the bloodbath, the bodies, body parts. Walls, the ones that are still standing, leak blood and flesh and insides. I can’t count the number of bodies. I can’t count how many lives were lost. It’s impossible. A severed head here, a foot there, someone I recognize in the corner, captured as he’s dying, blood smearing the wall as he slides down, a corpse. Beos showed me some photos before I left Beirut, but they were nothing like these.
I’m going to vomit.
I stand so fast, the photographs scatter to the floor at my feet and I run into the bathroom and lift the toilet seat just in time as the first wave sends the little I’ve eaten today up and out. Wet hair sticks to my face, I can’t pull it away fast enough before I throw up, tears clogging my eyes. I feel like I’m going to die. Like nothing is left inside me. One clammy, trembling hand fumbles up to flush the toilet as I lean back, but only for a moment, because it’s not finished yet. The images are burned onto my brain now and it’s like they’re running on a slideshow I can’t stop and I’m puking again. I don’t know how long this goes on, but it feels like forever before the dry heaves end and I’m leaning my back against the cool tub, weeping. Filthy. Covered in my own vomit.
That’s when I hear him.
He’s back. Zach’s back.
I hear the sound of the lock disengaging, the doorknob turning.
The chain breaking.
I’m breathing hard and I can’t get up. I can’t make my legs work. My eyes are locked on the open bathroom door and my fingers move of their own accord and I only half acknowledge I’ve brought my pistol with me. I must have picked it up when I ran in here.
Because I’m going to need it.
It’s not Zach.
Heavy boots walk through the bedroom. The bed strains with the burden of weight and someone makes a tsk-tsk sound.
“Someone’s made a mess.”
He hears my intake of breath. He must. It’s so loud. He knows I’m here. In here puking my guts out.
I force myself to stand, the gun in my hand.
He stands too. I hear the bed creak. Hear papers crunch beneath his boots. My fingers are working involuntarily and the gun at my side is cocked and when the man steps into view, he takes up the entire doorway. He’s huge, his face scarred, his black eyes hard. Cruel. He’s wearing black from head to toe and it’s like he’s blocked out any sunlight.
A smile breaks across his face but it doesn’t touch his eyes. No. They’re roaming over my body and I realize I’m still naked, or almost so.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he drags his eyes back up to meet mine. “Well, well, if it isn’t Eve El-Amin, all grown up.”
I recognize him then. It’s his voice that does it, that triggers something deep inside me. And without thinking, without hesitating, the arm that’s holding the pistol rises to his chest and there’s a moment of shock on his face, and it looks so strange there. So human.
But he’s not human. He’s one of the men who came that last day. One of the ones Armen brought into our house. The one he had words with. The one who dragged me up by my hair as Armen injected me.
I wait until his eyes meet mine and he gives me that grin again. That grin that says he’ll hurt me now, like he did then. And then it’s done. I pull the trigger, and it’s finished.
This man, this giant, stumbles backward one step, two. He still has that look on his face. That surprise. But then that’s gone too and I watch him the whole time, follow him into the bedroom, memorize every flash of anything that crosses his face. And when he falls, it’s like slow motion and as he’s falling on those photographs of death, it’s like history repeating itself. Death on death. Blood on the walls. Blood on me. In my hair. In my mouth. I can taste it. I taste his blood in my mouth.
It’s me who stumbles this time. Me who falls backward against the wall. Slides down it, the pistol falling to the luxurious, ruined carpet beneath my feet. And all I can see all around me is death.
Death.
Past and present colliding.
Death.
15
Zach
“What do you mean change of plans, Ace?” I’m making my way through the market and trying not to yell into the phone, but I’m pissed.
“He sent a text message. Didn’t exactly explain himself.”
“What the fuck is going on?” My phone beeps. It’s another call. I ignore it.
/> “Maybe he got spooked.”
“Maybe.”
“Relax, okay? I’ll arrange another meeting.”
The caller won’t stop. “Soon.” I hang up. I know it’s not Ace’s fault, but I was counting on this. On today. Beos is the next step to finding Malik. He’s the next link. Without him, I’ve got nothing.
I pick up the call just before it goes to voicemail.
“Zach?”
“Eve?” I know something’s wrong the instant I hear her voice. “Eve?”
A loud sob.
“Eve? What’s happening?” I’m running to the car now.
“I killed him.”
“What?”
“There’s…it’s…Zach?”
“Where are you?” I’ve reached the car and start the engine before the door even closes.
“I stayed in the room.”
“I’m on my way. I’m fifteen minutes away. What happened?”
Someone honks the horn. Fucking Beirut traffic. I don’t know why they bother with traffic lights.
She starts sobbing so hard I can’t understand her.
“Eve, are you hurt?” Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“I killed him.”
“Killed who?”
“I don’t know.”
I keep her on the phone as I race to the hotel, swerving through traffic so I make it back in ten minutes. When I scan the parking lot and lobby, I don’t see anything out of the ordinary and take the steps three at a time to our room. When I get there, the door’s locked.
“Eve?” I’m fumbling for my key, and finally find it, slide it into the lock. I push the door open and stop short because I need a few minutes to take it all in.
She’s sitting against the far wall and is aiming the pistol at me. Blood’s splattered on her face, on her body but it’s not hers. It’s the big guy’s.
“Put the gun down, Eve.”
She blinks twice, as if just recognizing me. The phone is still in her other hand. Slowly, she lowers both. I step inside, close the door and get a look around as I bend to check the guy’s pulse. It’s faint, but he’s got one.
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