by Cole McCade
To punish himself, and she wondered at the litany of his crimes.
The moment it stopped struck her like a slap. She’d been counting in her head without realizing it, and she was at forty-nine, fifty, waiting for fifty-one but it never came. The silence rang as loud as the crack of the cat-o ’-nine, that multilayered sound like a rain of pain as each of the nine lashes came down in close sequence. She opened her eyes, holding her breath. Priest still knelt, the cat-o’-nine resting on the concrete between his knees, his hands laid palm up on his thighs, his head bowed. Thin trickles of blood ran down his back as if trying to paint in the lines of the image burned into his flesh, color in all the spaces red. Sweat glistened on his shoulders and matted a few strands of his hair to his arm. The only sound was the careful susurration of his voice, that near-inaudible whisper that rose to a crescendo, only to stop in a final breathless Amen.
His head lifted. He looked at her. He saw her, and she hated the sharp strike of pain piercing her chest, when his eyes were wet and that princely face wretched and aching and haunted. Sympathy for Priest was worse than sympathy for the devil. The devil had been made to be what he was, but Priest…
Whatever he’d become, he’d chosen to be that way.
She lowered her eyes first. She couldn’t stand to look at him when he looked at her that way, as if he needed something from her when all she could give him was her hatred and her fear. And so she didn’t hear him coming until he was already there, until his hands were gripping her chair and her balance went sideways and then right-side up and she didn’t even know which was which anymore; only that her head was spinning and this close heat radiated off him, riding the sharp tart scent of his sweat and, mingled with it, the darker tang of coppery blood.
He handled the chair as if she weighed nothing at all, then settled it lightly on the floor. His fingers brushed her cheek. His breaths curled over her lips, warm and cloudy as a kiss. She lifted her gaze—then jerked back. He hovered close, too close, kneeling before her once more and looking intently into her eyes, the sheen of sweat on his naked skin glowing and turning each hard line of him into a slick shine of caramel glaze. Her stomach twisted. He caught her chin gently, and it was only knowing the finesse in those hands had been honed by killing precision that kept her heart from doubling over on itself. Careful, so careful, he turned her face from side to side, gaze flicking over her.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, low as a whisper.
Not what she’d expected.
She’d expected trying to escape, little one? or this is what you get for struggling or don’t you look fetching down there—or anything but the quiet, simple way he asked are you hurt? in that inflectionless voice.
She lifted her gaze as high as the bridge of his nose, no higher. “I hit my head.”
He nudged her head to the left. “Let me see.”
“Why do you care?”
“Why should I not?”
“You’re going to kill me.”
He tilted his head to study her. His fingertips grazed her scalp as he brushed her hair back from her face and tucked it above her ear, searching and probing with a gentle touch that brought back that light whispering tingle, prickling down deeper than her skin.
“Perhaps I will,” he murmured. “Perhaps I will not.”
She flinched back. Her head was the only thing she could move, the only thing she could control, and she lifted her chin sharply to jerk from his grasp. “What is wrong with you?”
“The same thing that is wrong with everyone.” He rose to his feet, moving as if he didn’t feel the pain that must be coursing down his back, fox-gold eyes skewering her. “I am simply more honest about it.”
“I don’t understand what that mea—”
He tugged at the ropes, and she broke off with a gasp. She’d managed to twist the cords askew with her squirming and wriggling, and his fingertips trailed fever along her skin as they ghosted over her shoulders, hooked delicately underneath the ropes arcing to either side of her neck, and adjusted them to re-settle on her shoulders. The slightest tug pulled the bindings across her chest and against her breasts, and she swallowed a breath, stilling completely. His eyes—like whiskey, golden and simmering and intoxicating—found hers, as he skated a slow touch along the length of the ropes; his knuckles grazed her throat to either side, those cruel hands that could so easily snap her neck, his skin like sandpaper and silk and the heat of the sun caged within a man’s body.
Her face warmed in a fever flush. She wanted to look away but couldn’t, as if he held her bound. As captured by his will as by knots and ropes, compelled to meet his eyes as his touch traveled downward, following the converging lines of twisted nylon to the knot between her breasts. The gentlest tug to set things right, and a deep shiver rolled through her and left seismic waves in its wake when the ropes across her breasts squeezed with an almost human touch—while the cords arcing under her breasts lifted her flesh as surely as if he had cupped her in heated hands.
Still she couldn’t look away, as he touched a single finger to the knot in the center of her chest, then traced it downward. Down over the nylon cords stretching down her chest; down over her stomach, which sucked in sharply as his touch strayed to either side to graze her skin.
Pull away, she told herself, but her mind was fogged and strange. Don’t…let him think he can…
That large, coarse hand slipped between her legs. Caught the rope. Pulled. Heat exploded through her, and she inhaled a sharp cry, broken and hitching in her throat, as the coarse rope teased and licked against her, toying and stroking and taunting until it slid through that lingering wetness shamefully and slicked it against her flesh. She jerked away, clamping her knees together and straining the muscles in her thighs against the ropes to force her legs closed, tension pulling the cord tighter—but that steady pressure was better than his hand there, moments away from brushing her tingling, aching, pulsing flesh.
“Don’t!” she gasped. “Don’t do that!”
He stilled. His hand slipped from between her legs—and rested, proprietary, on her thigh. His fingers were so long he could easily encircle her thigh, his touch so hot his handprint branded her skin. He looked at her with that utter and infuriating calm, his brows lifting mildly.
“Do what? Would you prefer to stay this way?”
Another tug on the ropes, pulling them taut as a rubber band, letting them go with a snap that vibrated over her and scintillated every point of her body; she whimpered, curling forward.
“You…you know what you’re doing,” she forced through her teeth.
“And what is that?”
“Touching me.”
“Yes. And?”
She bit back a curse. He was the most maddening, implacable—“Not…there,” she hissed. Her ears burned. She sounded like a little girl who couldn’t even use adult words, but she wasn’t talking about that with him.
Never him.
But he was relentless; silent and slow-moving as a glacier, with a glacier’s same weight and deliberation and imposing presence—and it was with a glacier’s slowness that he curled his fist around the cords over her stomach. His hold tightened, and with every ounce of pressure the ropes licked against her folds a little harder, until she squirmed, squeezing her eyes shut with a gasping cry.
“Ah—!” Tighter. Tighter, grinding slowly against her until she almost…almost wanted to… “N-no…no!”
That grip instantly relaxed. The tension in the ropes subsided, leaving her slumped, panting.
“Then I must touch you,” he said, and she didn’t even have the energy left to argue.
She just wanted him to get it over with, and get away from her.
She didn’t resist when he parted her thighs, even if the surety of his hands on her skin was so very wrong. He had no right to her: to her flesh, to that sensitivity that was hers and hers alone, and yet he had taken that right and taken away her ability to fight back.
But he’d stopped when
she’d said no.
The moment she’d begged N-no…no! he’d let go, and waited for her passive acceptance before he continued.
She clung to that, as he adjusted the ropes. Clung to the idea that maybe this killer who didn’t kill innocents had a sense of honor, of chivalry; clung to a thin sliver of hope as he pulled the ropes away from her flesh, giving her a moment’s respite, only to bring torment of a different sort when his fingers slid along her panties. A dark low throb shot through her flesh. She ground her teeth as—gently, so gently, he shouldn’t be so gentle with such murderous hands—he tugged her tight-creased panties free and smoothed them to cover her completely. Every touch made her tremble, something hungry and raw clenching tight inside her, a ravenous mouth opening and drawing some unnamed thing inside her into its burning gullet. That spark was growing, kindling, threatening to burst into flashfire, and she struggled to force it down.
Dirty thing. Dirty thing.
She was her mother’s daughter, and she hated herself for it.
This man meant to kill her, and she was quivering to his touch.
Her body refused to quiet. She tried to ignore it. He was watching her, watching as if he knew the dirty thing that lived inside her. She couldn’t look at him. He would sneer at her. He would, with the same sort of dirty avarice as the men who’d looked at her mother, the men Mama had run away with, tumbling into their arms and leaving Willow and her father standing on the porch and wondering when she would come back.
But this man would not be ignored, and his hand once more curled against her thigh, squeezing slowly, pressure building. His thumb pressed against her panties, gliding with quiet purpose over the soaked cloth, sliding from the trembling, sparking sensitivity of wet folds upward to circle over her clit. She arched sharply, lifting off the chair with a keening whimper, straining against the dragging roughness of the ropes as a hard burst shot through her, arrowing down her body and centering in the most agonizing, wonderful pain right where he’d touched. With it came swelling, rousing, straining toward that slow, spiraling stroke.
“Don’t—Priest, don’t!”
And once again, he stopped.
She crumpled in the chair and wished desperately that her arms were free, so she could wrap them around herself and make herself small—protected and cocooned and safe until she could gather herself. She didn’t want this. She’d expected him to torture her. To hurt her. She hadn’t expected it to be like this, his touch invading her in ways she’d never allowed anyone, never felt safe allowing anyone when her distance was the only thing keeping a leash on this snarling thing inside her. This beast of flame, red and bright, waiting to turn her into a syrupy cloying thing who swayed and jiggled and couldn’t be happy with herself unless she was saying look at me, look at me, look what I can do.
“You are very responsive, firefly,” he breathed, something husky and dark in his voice.
“You have no right,” she panted, swallowing back the lump threatening to block her throat and dam up the words inside. She glared at him: at the unmoved stone-carved features of his devilishly beautiful face, and God she hated him for being so perfect, crafted like pure temptation and sin. “You have no right to touch me that way!”
“Perhaps I don’t.” He inclined his head. “But that does not change that you are very responsive…firefly.”
No. No, he didn’t get to know that about her. About her sensitivity. He’d only use it against her, and that was hers.
Her secret, and no other’s.
She jerked her gaze from his and glared at—anything. Anything but him. The paintings. She settled on those, meeting the eyes of the man in the painting, asking—pleading—with him to reach through and take her hand and give her strength.
“Firefly?” she ground out. She would rather focus on that than on how naked she felt with her nipples hard and hurting and thrusting needily against her shirt.
“Firefly,” Priest repeated. He wouldn’t let her escape his touch; he caught a lock of her hair as he had before, and twined it around his fingers. “Lucciola. Beautiful. Bright. Quick. Ephemeral.” He traced the tips of her hair against her cheek, ticklish prickles licking her skin, taunting her and making her painfully aware of the heat still simmering underneath the surface, waiting to seep like smoke through her pores. A faint scent rose off his fingertips, creamy-tart, and something hot drew up tight inside her as she realized that was her. That was her scent, coating his fingers, filling her nostrils as he whispered, “And so very, very easily snuffed out.”
A chill doused her, crashing hard and snuffing the sparks under her skin. Such silken words, purred with such quiet certainty, a fact and a threat. She stared at him, her mouth drying.
“Is that it, then? You’ve decided?”
“No. I have not.” He idly played with the captured lock of hair, gaze dropping to study it as if it fascinated him. “You are a problem. Neither sinner nor criminal; yet not quite innocent, either.”
“I am innocent! I’ve never done anything!”
“Haven’t you?” Fox-gold eyes weighed, judged. “Everyone has, deep down. It’s simply a matter of finding it.”
“Not me.” She shook her head. “Just because you looked me up doesn’t mean you know me! You don’t know who I am. You don’t know what I think, or what I feel. I’ve never killed anyone, never committed a crime, never—never anything. I…I can’t stand hurting people. I can’t stand causing anyone any kind of pain. I’d never do that. I can’t even stand to see you in pain.”
“So defensive,” he said. “You speak of right and wrong as if they are so simple as abiding by the law. But one can be a criminal and a saint, or a law-abiding citizen and a sinner. The sinner’s heart is a dark place. A place full of all the secrets they would never show, but in their heart of hearts they are cruel.”
“Like you?” she spat. “Or are you the criminal and the saint?”
“Criminal and sinner. And one day, my justice will come due.” Again and again, he twined that coil of hair around his finger. Like it was a string of heart’s blood, tethering her to him. “You care for my pain.”
The way he said it made it sound like she cared for him, and she would never. Never. “I just don’t…I don’t know how you can ignore that.”
His shoulders rolled in a lazy shrug, tight muscle coiling. “It is nothing.”
“Why do you do that to yourself?”
“Do you really care?” His eyes lidded. “Or are you simply trying to make sense of me, so you can understand why I do this to you?”
Something inside her hardened. Something tired and fed up and ready to be done. “Don’t do that,” she said firmly. “Don’t twist it like that. I know why you’re doing this to me. I know what you’re going to do to me, and it doesn’t matter what sick game you play or how you dress it up in religious fetishization. There’s only one choice you can make in the end.”
“Are you so certain?”
“If you weren’t, you would have let me go already.”
“Willow.” His fingers slid into her hair, curled against her nape, dragged her closer to meet his eyes—eyes that turned fierce, turned feral, burning bright and filling her world with their acid strangeness. “Do you think I want to kill you?”
She searched his gaze. Searched for some hint of humanity, some hint of something she could understand, but she found nothing. “I can’t figure out what you want,” she whispered. “Or what you think.”
Nothing. Nothing but measuring silence; nothing but heaviness, a darkness she didn’t understand, dwelling between them with a quiet promise far different from the promise of violence caged in that powerful body. He was too close again, smothering her, enveloping her, and when he spoke his voice was a physical touch, his lip a caress, stroking the air over her mouth and holding her prisoner to a shivering, skin-stripping sense of intimacy.
“You are more interested in what I feel, I think.” His fingers tightened in her hair, fingertips pressing harder against h
er nape. “Empathy. You seek empathy. You feel empathy.”
“And you don’t?”
“What if I do not?” Harder. Harder he gripped her, until pain grew in dull throbs that matched the prints of his fingers. “What if some people are simply incapable?”
She shook her head—denial, frustration, desperation, a pathetic attempt to shake off his grip. “That would make you a sociopath. I don’t believe that. I can’t believe that.”
“And why is that?”
“Because if I didn’t…” She fell still. Stared at him. Silently begged him, even if pride wouldn’t let her say the word please. Please, please don’t kill me. “If I didn’t, I’d never be able to put my faith in another person again.”
“Are you hoping to put your faith in me?”
“…yes,” she admitted, choking on the single word.
His fingers went slack. His grip on her relaxed, then fell away entirely. His heat retreated, and he turned his back on her. His back, written in lines that made up a strange and esoteric language, a message in patterns she didn’t know how to read. But it whispered to her of hope and broken things, even as his cold, forbidding voice floated over his shoulder in a single clipped word:
“Don’t.”
* * *
SHE’D THOUGHT HE WOULD LEAVE again. He’d spent his time probing at the prisoner, playing with his toy, humiliating her for his own enjoyment, and now that he was done he would walk away and abandon her here until it was time to play again.
She hadn’t thought he’d flick the lights on over the range top, strap on an apron, and start cooking.
She stared in incredulity as he tied his hair into a sleek tail at his nape, flicked that tail to pour down his chest and away from his back, and slipped the noose of an apron around his neck, laying it over his bare chest. It tied at the waist, leaving his back exposed, and she thought maybe the lashes hurt him more than he let on, if he refused to pull a shirt over the raw welts.