The Novice

by Ava Lohan

  My heart skipped a beat. Wasn’t I at Lust to protect the convent?

  “…I didn’t do it because I’m an asshole. A self-centered jerk who wanted you here since the first time we met. And when the opportunity presented itself, I just couldn’t resist. How the hell could you ever love or be happy with someone like that?”

  Kegan was ignoring my question. He slapped his palm against his forehead and laughed to himself. It was the fakest laugh I’d ever heard. He stared at me as if trying to read my mind. His eyes took on a new, sarcastic light. He flashed me his perverted smile, the same one that had convinced me to buy a one-way ticket to Hell.

  “I brought you here, to my own personal hell. I blackmailed you for that shitty old convent, and here you are trying to convince me that you can’t build a new life for yourself without me in it?”

  I hid my shaking hands in my pockets. “You can give it all up. We can…”

  Start over. I tried to complete my sentence, but the words wouldn’t come out, especially after seeing the look of pure horror in Kegan’s eyes. Horror at what I was about to say. Horror at the idea of leaving Lust and coming away with me. The air had been sucked out of my lungs. My voice faded with every word, disappearing entirely before I could finish what I had to say. I was hardly able to get out a squeak.

  Kegan grabbed my face between his hands and lowered his head until our foreheads met. His fingertips were digging into my skin. I had the impression that I wouldn’t want to hear what he had to say.

  “You can do it,” he said. “Remember when I said that happiness doesn’t exist? I wasn’t being totally honest. It does exist, but not for everyone.” He stroked my face with his hand. I had never seen him look so tired or unhappy.

  I was strung tighter than a violin. “Everybody can be happy,” I said, finding just enough of my voice to contradict him.

  “No, not everybody.” His confidence was back. “I can’t.” Kegan believed what he was saying as much as a priest believes in God.

  I slowly shook my head, his hands still on my cheeks. “We could be,” I said to him with my eyes, with my mind. We could be. I clenched his shirt between my fingers, hoping that this act of desperation would help me convey my thoughts. We could be.

  We’d both lost our parents. We were alone in the world. We’d been on each other’s minds since that day in the confessional. Even if it had seemed that he'd stepped back into my life by chance, I knew that nothing here had been a coincidence. It was destiny. Or it was the Lord. Or the law of attraction that my father had always believed in. The others just saw him as a beast. Kegan, too, only saw himself as a beast—a sex-crazed beast. But I saw more: I saw beyond his facade. I saw someone that I could be happy with. We could truly be happy together. To hell with everything else. I saw a flicker of hope in his eyes. I placed my hands over his. His expression began to change, to soften. I could almost see his defenses crumbling. He swallowed and closed his eyes. A battle was taking place inside of him. I was about to win.

  “We could be,” I insisted, or perhaps pleaded.

  Kegan opened his eyes. “I can’t, but you can…”

  It was all useless.

  I could see it in his eyes that he wouldn’t budge. He was still firmly rooted in his convictions. “…and you will. But not with me.”

  I let go of his shirt and looked away. I gave up on begging him with my eyes and mind. I’d failed to convert him along the road to Damascus, not even with all of my being. I’d failed to make him choose me over his pain. Over his job. Over his clients that he hated kissing. I’d failed. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes and stared at his perfect cheekbones to stop them from falling down my cheeks.

  Kegan exhaled in exhaustion. “There’s no future for us, Rose. Get it through your head.”

  He caressed my arms, trying to convince me. But this time he was the one who had failed. I shook my head imperceptibly. I still saw hope for us. A light in the darkness of his pessimism. Kegan seemed to have noticed. He muttered some swear words under his breath and backed away.

  “Get out of my house. I won’t lay a finger on the convent, and I’ll have Finn bring you the rest of the money along with your things.” He was as cold as ice. “Go find him and have him call the driver. Get out of my sight and start a new life. Now.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I’ve been to a lot of different places.”

  “I never would have guessed,” I said.

  I stared blankly at the door. Blink. White door. Blink. White door. I moved on to examine the golden frame that surrounded the door. A crown of thorns.

  “I’ve only ever seen Atlanta, my hometown, and a few other places. I’ve never left the US,” I continued. My voice was flat, completely void of emotions. Once, I would have loved to travel the world and to see new places. But now I didn’t give a damn. I pressed my face into the pillow and focused my attention on the wall.

  “You can make up for it now,” said Kegan.

  I pursed my lips in annoyance. My stomach twisted like it had been possessed by a snake. I wasn’t too enthusiastic about the opportunity presented to me. One more day and all of this would come to an end. Since he had told me to disappear, I’d felt empty. Kegan had extinguished my will to live with just a few words. With his conviction that there could never be a future for us.

  His contract had only mentioned sex. But it was more than just sex—at least for me. He had picked the wrong novice for consequence-free fun.

  My stomach twisted even more.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The room smelled of sex, cigarettes, and him. I was naked, stretched out on top of the sheets, my right foot held hostage by his hands. He massaged the sole, as he had just done with the other foot, then let it fall back to the bed.

  “Brazil,” he said as he walked his fingers from my ankle to my calf. A simple gesture that felt strangely sexual when performed by his hands. “Argentina.” He touched me behind the knee, but it felt like he was touching me between my legs. “Cuba.”

  Coming from his lips, it sounded like a dirty word. My body reacted as if he had just uttered the word sex or had made one of his scandalous comments. Kegan had the most sensual voice I’d ever heard. It was fire and ice. It burned my skin and froze my breath. There was nothing I could do about it. If he had touched me, he would have discovered I was dripping wet, again. I prayed he wouldn’t. I prayed that he would. I hated him. I wanted him. I wanted to kick his ass. I wanted to kiss him. Leave and never come back. Stay with him forever. I was one contradiction after the next. He made me accept things that I never thought I would allow. And my twisting organs were paying the price.

  “Part of Europe.” His fingers stopped at my butt and my hormones flared. Damn him. Damn his eroticism. I clenched my teeth, nearly crushing them in frustration. The jerk was insanely sexy. A natural gift that he took advantage of every opportunity he got. His movements, his voice, his eyes. He charmed everyone. I always fell for it. I clung to my pillow. I didn’t want to react to his touch, but he had more control over my body than I did.

  “I love your dimples of Venus,” he confided as his thumbs moved in circles around those indentations. I had never liked them, but now, for the first time, I thanked my genes for giving them to me. He stopped touching me. He stopped talking to me. The silence was deafening.

  “Where did you go in Europe?” I propped myself up on my elbows and lifted my head off the pillow.

  The golden swirls on the wall and the iron bars of the bed were no longer enough for my eyes. They needed to see him. I was just about to turn on my side to get a look. But what he did next foiled my plans in an instant. Kegan pressed his lips against my backside. I let myself enjoy the feeling of his soft mouth. I stifled a sound of approval in my throat. He was kissing my dimples of Venus. My arms fell back onto the mattress above my head. I dug my face into the pillow and closed my eyes. It was like floating on a cloud.

  I once again asked myself how I would go on prete
nding that I had never met him. I’d been asking myself that every day. I would need brain surgery or an endless amount of alcohol to drown my memories of him. That, or I’d be unhappy for the rest of my life. He, on the other hand, would just go on as if nothing had ever happened. His indifference over the past few days had proved that he wouldn’t miss me at all. That he was already considering my replacement.

  I had begun to doubt he’d ever been truly interested in me. My confidence faded day by day. It didn’t matter that he’d come back to me that morning. For four days, he hadn’t tried to contact me at all. Finn had definitely told him I was still there. But when he saw me, there was no reaction. No questions, no signs of disappointment or happiness. Nothing.

  Maybe it really was just sex, and I'd refused to see it. Maybe he’d just wanted to give me endless orgasms, no strings attached, and to receive the same in return. I was the one making things complicated. And Kegan didn’t like it.

  Feeling his mouth on my skin made me feel like I was floating, but I just couldn’t relax.

  Since our fight, I’d had a little voice in my head telling me that I was seeing things clearly now. I didn’t want to listen to it. I knew he hadn’t kept it in his pants the past couple of days. He’d avoided me, but I knew he couldn’t avoid sex.

  I thought back to the blonde girl I’d seen outside his office two days before and my heart sank again. It was impossible to misunderstand: the half-buttoned blouse and the triumphant smile were all clear signs that something had happened behind that door. But I didn’t have the courage to face Kegan, just as I didn’t have the strength to leave Lust.

  I’d spent the past few days locked up in my room, with only that little voice to keep me company. The blonde and I were the same to him. The employees of Lust and I were the same to him. I was just another client who couldn’t afford him.

  He’ll destroy you. Finn had warned me about Kegan. And damn, was he ever right.

  “I’ve seen a lot of places.” Kegan touched my hip, startling me. Finn’s glaring warning echoed in my mind. “Germany, Italy, France…” His fingers traveled up and down, tracing invisible paths from my neck to my lower back, then back up again.

  Did he do this with everyone? Did he kiss the dimples of Venus on all the women who had them?

  I was a masochist, still clinging to my hope. Still dreaming that his touch and his attention were for me alone. That the bracelet and the sunglasses were the only gifts he had ever given to a woman.

  I grasped the crucifix around my neck. Even if I would never return to Saint Clare, I still needed the Lord to face my future. A future that would begin in twenty-four hours. A horrible future, thanks to Kegan Anderson. But the present was terrible, too. A present full of illusions, of kisses, of sex that felt like it was something more, and of hopes that were built up and destroyed in seconds. I built houses of cards and he knocked them over, just for me to put them back together again.

  His teeth rubbed against my shoulder. His hair tickled my cheek. “They say the Italians and the French are the best lovers. But they haven’t met me. If there were ever a survey, I know what you’d answer.”

  “Maybe not,” I said, refusing to go along with his game. “I bet I could find someone better than you. I’m going to go looking for him, starting tomorrow.”

  I never could have gone through with it. I wanted him. I was willing to overlook the things he’d done—and had continued to do—to me, just to have him. He could give everything up and start over with me. I had just one more day, and then I would have to give up on my illusions. One more day and I would give up everything.

  Tell me you want me. Tell me you don’t want me to go. Tell me that I’m yours and yours alone.

  My heart pounded in my chest as I waited for him to say something. Silence.

  Kegan stopped touching me, kissing me, and whatever else he was doing to my body. But then he almost instantly began again with his torture. He lowered his body. His hands were on my sides. I had no idea where he was looking.

  “I want to lick you.”

  I let out all my breath at once. I lowered my eyelids. My blood pumped at full speed through my veins. I imagined his tongue all over my body and a liquid heat came over me. It was a mixture of anger and depravity. He had succeeded in diverting my attention. He still couldn’t admit that he had feelings for me.

  “I hate you,” I hissed into the pillow.

  “Excellent,” he replied smugly. He moved over me and came through on his promise. His tongue started at the base of my spine and followed it to my neck. I held my breath until he reached the top. “You should hate me a little more than this,” he whispered, turning me to face him. His eyes were as intense and serious as ever. He rubbed his nose against mine. His words had pushed out any thoughts running through my mind.

  “How much?” I provoked him, positioning my hands on his chest and pushing him away. I couldn’t stand his face being so close to mine, clouding my brain. “How much do you hate the idea of having feelings for me?” I continued, trying to bring him down a notch.

  He winced. My plan seemed to work. He sat up and looked at me angrily. “I don’t want to talk about this now.”

  His eyes met with mine before looking down, first at my lips, then lower. Then back up again, slowly. Down again, just as slowly. Up and down, like a broken elevator. He began following the same trajectory with a finger. He started at my chin. Then down my neck, between my breasts and toward my belly button. Then back up. But his eyes didn’t follow. Instead, Kegan focused his gaze on my face to analyze my expressions. He was making me uncomfortable on purpose and I wasn’t going to let him win.

  My palms began to sweat. “Then what do you want to talk about?”

  He smiled. I’d fallen into his trap. Like a pawn, I had just moved in the exact direction Kegan wanted. And now it was too late. He had foreseen my protesting, and he placed his index finger on my lips until I closed my mouth.

  “About geography.” He wasn’t smiling anymore. His index finger moved to my cheek while his thumb took over my lips, pressing them closed.

  I frowned.

  “This is North America,” he said, drawing lines over my body again. “It starts right here.” He touched my forehead and followed the outline of my face before making his way down toward my stomach. He appeared extremely focused on what he was doing as he examined the curves of my body like the outline of a continent. “Then there’s South America.” His eyes nailed my body to the mattress. His eyes blazed.

  Had I been in front of a mirror I could have seen the fire in my eyes too. I didn’t feel much like America. No, I was more like an underwater volcano that had been inactive since before the start of time. And Kegan had just awakened me. I had trouble swallowing.

  “Do you want me to show you where South America starts and ends?” He issued a challenge with his eyes. I knew exactly where his stupid South America was going to end. And it wasn’t my toes. I felt the blood rushing to my cheeks. “It starts here,” he began, playing with my belly button. “Then it goes south,” he said, pressing his palm between my legs. I counted the seconds that it took for him to move it lower. He shot me a heart-attack-inducing glance before turning his attention back to his invisible map. He went around that area and concentrated on my sides. I just wanted him to forget about their existence. If he wanted to play, then I was game.

  “So, what’s your favorite part of South America?” I asked. My voice trembled with impatience. “And what about North America?”

  He didn’t look up at me, but an amused grin spread across his lips. He slid his hand down my thighs. “On one side of South America, there’s the Pacific Ocean. On the other—”

  A tune sounded from the other side of the room. Kegan stopped. His eyes and hands abandoned my body. He looked for the source of music that filled the room. His cell phone. But where was it? Two things came to mind as I listened to the melody. First, my own cell phone, lying dead on the floor where I’d thrown it the night o
f our fight. Then, his ringtone. It wasn’t Demons anymore, but something new. It had to have come out in the past two years because I’d never heard it before.

  I couldn’t understand a word. The annoying rock song kept blaring. I imagined that he’d changed it to prevent me learning more about him through his taste in music. Jenna had always said that we are the music we listen to. Maybe Jenna was right. Maybe Kegan really was haunted by demons. Demons that had nothing to do with Lust. Demons that he wanted to hide from me. After all, I always listened to music that spoke to me personally.

  Kegan was unaware of my musings. He seemed torn between getting up and answering and staying on his knees in front of me. The cell phone went silent. He turned back to my naked body, that nobody else would ever see.

  “You changed your ringtone.”

  He shrugged, completely indifferent. “Let’s get back to geography.”

  His phone started up again.

  “Why don’t you answer it?”

  Another shrug. He grabbed me by the ankles. “Because I don’t want to be interrupted while I’m discovering America.” Cannon shot. Right on target: me. My core exploded, with aftershocks traveling through my entire body. He looked at me, covered in sweat. I couldn’t have cared less about the annoying music in the background. The bells in my head rang even louder, drowning his phone out. Kegan blinked with those eyelashes that I loved so much. He looked at me in the way that Columbus must have looked at America: as something he had dreamed of seeing, of discovering. His eyes longed to explore my body. I stayed still, like a continent waiting to be seen for the first time.

  “If I’m America, what are you?”

  “I’m Africa,” he responded immediately. “Do you know what they say about Africa?” He scanned my body again with his eyes.

  Yes, I knew what they said. That anyone who visits Africa longs to return for the rest of their life. But I didn’t understand what it had to do with him.