Pieces of Autumn

by Mara Black

  Maybe he loves you too.

  As much as I wanted to laugh at myself, the notion made my aching heart beat even faster.

  "Tate?" I said, softly.

  A breath. "I'm here."

  "Why?"

  This one befuddled him momentarily.

  "Why are you here?" I clarified, my eyes shut tight.

  He hesitated. "Because. You...you didn't look well."

  "Obviously, if I needed your help, I would say something."

  Another small noise, like he was shifting his weight. "That's not true. And you know it."

  Well, touché.

  "I don't understand, Tate," I said, tears gathering in my eyes. "Am I supposed to confide in you? Am I supposed to trust you now, because I saw your scars?"

  It was exquisitely painful to say, and probably much worse to hear. But I had to voice it. I couldn't keep biting it back, every time he looked at me.

  "Autumn," he said, softly. "Please open the door."

  I sat there silently, tears falling down my cheeks.

  "I'll never..." There was a slight catch in his voice, and I didn't want to think about why. "I swear to God, Autumn, if you don't tell me what's going through your head..."

  I wanted to ask what, what will you do to me, but my throat had closed up.

  Finally, in the silence, he left.

  We avoided each other for the rest of the day.

  I felt immensely stupid. For once, we'd managed to connect in some real way, and he didn't turn tail and run. He didn't try to lash out at me. So how did I handle it?

  I freaked the fuck out.

  Most of the rest of my day was spent pacing the room, jumping out of my skin at every little sound. I couldn't believe my own cowardice. I had a chance at what I wanted, and I'd pushed him away. Now, he'd probably never open up to me again.

  I had to do something.

  It was late evening by the time I worked up the courage to find him. He was in his room, a soft glow of light slicing across the darkness of the hallway.

  I knocked, timidly, at the threshold.

  "Yes?" His voice was quiet, subdued. A little rough with disuse. I wondered how long he used to go without talking, back before I came.

  "Can I come in?"

  He cleared his throat. "Yes."

  I slipped inside, my eyes on the floor. When I finally raised them to his face, I didn't see any of the anger I expected. He almost looked - wounded. Sitting on the edge of the bed, his shirt unbuttoned, barefoot, hands clasped between his knees.

  "I'm sorry about earlier," I said, the words coming out in a half-whisper. "What I said..."

  "You were right," Tate cut in. "You were absolutely right to say that. I never earned your trust." His eyes flickered. "And I never will."

  I wanted, so badly, to tell him that it wasn't true. But I couldn't. That was a promise I simply could not make.

  "It would be insane to trust me. Suicidal." A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "I can't expect that of you."

  My chest ached. We might not be normal, but we wanted all the same things normal people did. We want to trust, to connect, to care for each other unconditionally. But the circumstances of our lives conspired against us.

  "Well, I certainly can't trust your word," I said. "As I recall, you once promised me that your protection would end at your front door."

  The smile reappeared. "It's like I told you. I can always alter the terms of the arrangement."

  "Why did you do it?" This question had consumed my thoughts since I saw him running down the track, but I'd never asked. I'd always been afraid of the answer.

  I wasn't afraid anymore.

  "Because." His voice was so dark and beautiful, his face showing a glimpse of emotion I never thought I'd see from him. "I'd rather die than see you hurt again."

  Instantly, tears sprang to my eyes. I hugged myself tightly, trying to hold them back.

  "Take that for what it's worth," he said, wincing at his own honestly. "Considering the source."

  I wanted to tell him, so badly, what I'd been thinking about. How I didn't know what my future was without him. How I never wanted to leave his side.

  I didn't say it aloud. Neither of us did. But our eyes spoke all the words that we couldn't say.

  In the space of one heartbeat, a thousand years passed. We stared at each other. We breathed in, we breathed out.

  "Come here," he said, softly.

  Sitting there like that, hair rumpled, he almost looked vulnerable. But in the darkness, his eyes were darker still.

  He spread his knees wide, pointing to the floor between his feet. Smiling, I walked to him and knelt down, laying my hands on his thighs.

  His chest rose and fell sharply, but he didn't stop me. I slid my hands up and down, relishing the feeling of his muscles tightening and twitching under my fingers. I could kneel at his feet, but I'd never let him forget that this was my choice.

  He was hard already, anticipating my touch. This heady, intoxicating knowledge made my breath catch in my throat, and I shifted slightly, feeling the slickness between my legs. Tate was drunk on me, just as I was drunk on him. But it was never enough.

  In this moment, I controlled everything. He could overpower me, he could force anything he wanted on me, but only I could choose to come to him willingly. And the Viper might not care - he might thirst for my tears - but Tate was different. Tate was just a man, and he wanted a woman. A woman who desired him. Not a slave.

  He was so hot and stiff in my hand, sighing and arching towards my touch. I stroked him slowly and relished the sounds that caught in the back of his throat.

  I stroked him until he was leaking, both of his hands gripping the edge of the mattress.

  "Enough," he murmured, at last, his voice roughened by lust. "Suck me."

  I laughed, softly, raising my hand to my mouth and licking a drop of his precome from my thumb. "Yes, Sir."

  He groaned at the sight, his cock twitching and pulsing. For me. All for me.

  When I lowered my head and enveloped him in my mouth, he let out a huff of air, his whole body going bowstring-taut. I took him as deep as I could, relishing the taste of his skin. My own arousal was reaching a fever pitch, but I was focused solely on him, ignoring the pulsing heat between my legs.

  This, I realized, was what it felt like to have power over a man who could destroy me.

  The act of pleasuring him banished all thoughts. I didn't worry anymore about what it meant to love a man like this, or what it meant to have him love me. I just breathed him in, the scent of his body, drinking in his taste. So perfect, and so uniquely Tate. Just like this house, he had so many things locked away and hidden. Even now. Still. I had seen his scars, but I hadn't seen all of him yet. Before the end of tonight, I would strip him bare.

  I made that promise to myself.

  He sighed, his hand compulsively stroking my hair, and I expected him to grab on and force me deeper. I could sense that he wanted to, and it wouldn't have surprised me. But more than that, it seemed, he wanted it like this. Every part of this freely given to him, exactly how I wanted it to be.

  I rocked back on my heels, feeling the slickness, the heat of my swollen cunt, wanting him so badly. The pressure was good, but it wasn't enough.

  I looked up at his face.

  Our eyes met, with my lips wrapped around his cock. His chest was heaving, his jaw slack, losing himself in me. Our eyes met, and I saw everything.

  He made an urgent sound in the back of his throat, his hips making small, erratic movements towards me. I clasped my hands tighter around each of his legs, loving the feeling of his body losing control. He was still fighting for it, but he didn't have much left.

  The feeling was unreal, like I was being transported to another plane of existence. One where nothing else mattered, except my ultimate goal. I wanted to taste him, swallow him, accept him in the most intimate way possible. If he tried to stop me, I would turn into a wild thing.

  I needed this. I n
eeded him.

  My whole body buzzing with the high, I kept up my pace, until I felt the telltale flare of his cockhead against my tongue. He groaned a warning that sounded like my name, but I grabbed his hand and squeezed to silence him. To signal that I understood. That I wanted this, just as much as he did.

  When his cock jolted inside my mouth, I moaned. I swallowed him greedily, savoring the salty bitterness of him, reveling in the closeness of the act. Something I never thought I'd experience with anyone, let alone Tate.

  I released him, panting. The suppressed desire inside of me was throbbing harder than I ever thought possible, and I looked up at him through heavy-lidded eyes.

  "Autumn," he whispered, taking hold of my wrist and dragging me to my feet. "Autumn, Autumn..." His eyes still lust-hazed, he grabbed me around my waist, pulling me towards him. I moved as if in a trance, my arousal crashing down on me so suddenly I almost collapsed.

  With one hand, he pushed my dress up around my waist. With the other firmly planted on my ass, he pulled me close. Until his face rested against my stomach, each hot breath making me quiver.

  "Come," he murmured, leaning back on his elbows, still pushing me closer. My knees collapsed onto the mattress, and I shuffled forward, until my cunt and his mouth reached the same level. "Yes," he sighed, just before swiping his tongue across my clit. I shuddered, cried out, grabbing his shoulders for support. "God, you taste..." Another swipe, almost pushing me over the edge. "Incredible..."

  I almost sobbed with pleasure when he started lapping at me rhythmically, bringing me swiftly to an earth-shattering climax. I screamed, clutching his shoulders, my legs shaking underneath me. I swore I could hear him laughing softly, in the aftershocks, with his face still buried between my legs. He gave me once last little kiss, which made me jump, before he shimmied out from under me.

  I collapsed.

  We fell asleep in a tangle of limbs, and I forgot why I'd ever been afraid.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The Viper's Tale

  It was still dark when I woke up, long shadows crawling across the room. Only the last remnants of embers lit up the fireplace.

  Stirring slightly, I turned towards the heat and bulk of Tate's body. To my surprise, he was propped up on his elbow, eyes glittering in the darkness.

  "Tell me I wasn't snoring," I said.

  His mouth twitched. "Certainly not," he said. "You just made some very delicate involuntary sleeping sounds."

  "Oh, well, that's a relief." I glanced at the fire, because it was something to look at. "Seriously - I'm sorry if I woke you up."

  "Don't be. I'm just teasing." His fingers ghosted along the side of my face, pushing a lock of ridiculously mussed hair behind my ear. "I almost never sleep through the night."

  Of course he didn't. Unspoken questions danced on the tip of my tongue, but I held back.

  "What?" His hand stilled and withdrew. "Say whatever you're thinking, pet. That's an order."

  I blinked. "Even if it's a question you don't want to answer?"

  He watched me for a moment. "Rules are only for the daytime."

  I laughed softly. "I don't recall that stipulation."

  "Well. I'm only human. Sometimes I forget."

  Lying back on my pillow, I stared at the shadows on the ceiling. What could I ask him? And more importantly, how many questions could I squeeze in before sunrise? He might've been joking, but I wouldn't put it past him to enforce the nighttime only rule.

  "What were your parents like?" I asked, finally.

  He considered this for a moment.

  "Resourceful," he said. "We didn't have much. Even back then. But they did their best."

  He was finished, but I wasn't.

  "Did your mom used to sing you any other songs?" I smiled. "Besides the ones I already know about."

  I could hear him smiling back. "Yes. The Beatles. 'All My Loving.'"

  Laughing in soft surprise, I sat up a little. "Mine, too. What about 'Suzanne?'"

  "Christ. I forgot that one." He laid his head back on the pillow. "I would've thought your parents would be younger than mine."

  "Not by that much, probably. My mom got a late start." The fond memories were coming back, gently, without the requisite sorrow. For now. "She wasn't really a flower child, but she wanted to be."

  He was silent for a while.

  "Are your parents..." I left the question unfinished, not quite sure how to put it into words.

  "No."

  That was the answer I'd been expecting, but it gutted me nonetheless. "I'm sorry."

  "I thought they'd be better off, when I left them. Got picked up by Stoker. But they disappeared after that. For years I didn't hear a thing about them."

  He paused for a long time.

  "I did try to find them, once," he said. "Once I had the means to help them, I knew I had to. It would break their hearts, knowing what I did for a living - but I had to try. If they were disappointed in me, so be it. At least they wouldn't starve."

  The look on his face, flickering in the last of the firelight, told the rest of the story before he opened his mouth again.

  "I finally tracked their last known whereabouts to a shantytown. I made Holland believe I was going there for headhunting. But I just asked about them. I still had a photograph, as much good as that would do me. Already, before I left, they were aging a little more every day. They would be haggard now, unrecognizable to anyone but me. Still, I searched.

  "There had been a cold front a few nights ago, and it swept in and devastated many of the people who had no warm place to sleep. It was the talk of the town. I took it all in, not wanting to believe what I knew must be true. A lot of people died. Too many to count. But they showed me where the graves were. Not covered, of course. The ground was too hard. It was just a convenient gulch."

  He swallowed hard, his eyes hollow with the memory.

  "I looked for them," he said, simply. "And I found them."

  It was too much. The mental image of Tate searching through a mass grave, just to confirm what he already knew. That feeling of devastation. Failure. Just one more tragedy in the ledger that was his life.

  "I was so sure," he said. "I was so sure, when I left, it was the best thing for them. But what if I hadn't? I could have taken care of them. I thought they were being idiots, being so selfless, and if I left at least they'd have something to eat. Instead, I left, and they died."

  Tears stung in my eyes, but it wasn't my right to cry over them.

  "You did the best you could," I told him.

  He didn't respond.

  "How much do you know about me and Stoker?" he asked me, at last.

  I took a deep breath. "Just that you were headhunter. A trainer. The favorite. Until you went on a killing spree."

  Tate's hand buried itself in his hair, scratching his scalp lightly. "Did he tell you what it's like? The punishments for refusing to play along?"

  "Kind of." I remembered the criss-cross of scars all over Tate's body. "I couldn't have imagined what it looked like."

  "By the end, I think they were surprised I was still alive." There was a bitter smile in his voice.

  I held my breath, trying to gather courage.

  "I know what you want to ask," he said, before I could. "Did he ever sell my body? And the answer is, he tried. It took a long time to push him that far. A lot of punishments. A lot of blood. He wouldn't let them stop until I screamed, and it took longer every time. Finally he felt it wasn't having enough impact. He decided I would have to be broken. Broken and sold. It wasn't a threat that he liked to act on. Especially not me. His prize stallion. But eventually, he had no choice.

  "Holland sent three men into the room to break me. A room the size of a closet. They locked and barred the door. To this day, I don't know exactly how long I was in there. But I was the only one who walked out. I took everything I could use as a weapon, and I massacred my way up to his office. It wasn't that difficult. They weren't expecting me."

>   His eyes flashed with the memory.

  "But when I reached him, and had him in my sights, a dead man's gun in my hand, I stopped dead. I looked at his face and I saw the man who crouched down in the gutter and gave me bread when I was starving. By now, I knew who he really was. A man who traded in people like they were a commodity. Not a sadist - worse. He only took pleasure in the business of breaking us. The money made him hard. Not the pain."

  Tate smiled his feral smile.

  "He didn't flinch. He didn't even look afraid. Maybe he thought I couldn't do it. Or maybe he just didn't care. Maybe just knowing the cash would still flow after he was dead, maybe that was all he needed. Maybe that was his peace of mind. His legacy. I'll never know. I didn't ask. All I did was stare at him and will my finger to pull the trigger. I was a monster if I didn't. I was a monster if I did. He was the closest thing I ever had to a father. Nothing else connected me to humanity. If I severed that connection, what would I become?

  "In the end, I chose the monster I knew."

  Tate paused, his fingers running absently through my hair, picking out little tangles with a surprising gentleness.

  "Mr. Charles was his successor. He never sent his men after me. At first I didn't understand why. I suppose he was doing me the same courtesy I did him. Maybe he felt something like guilt. Maybe he just preferred to leave me alive, to suffer. I don't know."

  I couldn't offer any words of comfort. What could I possibly say, to lessen any of that hurt?

  At least now, I understood why his door could never be closed. The memory still haunted him, and it would haunt him forever. He always needed an escape route.

  Just like that, so many things made sense. Every mystery of Tate was coming together in a story of suffering.

  I glanced at his revolver, which was sitting on the bedside table. "Do you think they'll come back for you? Is that why you're always armed?"

  He nodded. "One bullet. Always chambered. Just in case they tried to take me alive."

  My heart clenched in my chest. I didn't want to imagine what had happened to him in that room, but I couldn't help but wonder.