by Cynthia Dane
“Who are you?”
“Someone who is well aware of the danger that permeates wherever Xavier Crow goes. He’s a textbook sociopath. He plays with toys until they break or he has to throw them away. If they have too much information… well, there are ways.”
“They were sending me a message through Robin.”
“Yes.”
Nala shook her head. “What does he want me to do, then? Run away, scared for my life?”
“Yes.”
“And what about you? Has he done something to you?”
Now Maggie frowned, her body turning away from Nala. “Just know that you’re not the only one searching for justice.” She turned back around after hitting the elevator button. “This conversation never, ever happened.”
“Of course not.”
Maggie disappeared into the first elevator that popped up. She did not wave goodbye.
Nala stuffed the manila envelope beneath her sweatshirt before going back to Vincent. Not once between their stay at the hospital and heading out to his car did she bring up Maggie, the envelope, or the assassin’s note. She was still trying to process it all.
Chapter 2
Not only was the loft still a crime scene, but both Vincent and Nala agreed that it was much too dangerous to stay in. Vincent found them a hotel downtown and checked them in under assumed names. Nala worried about toiletries, but Vincent returned from the lobby with enough shit from the gift shop to get them through a week’s stay.
Suffice to say, Nala had never owned so many pieces of “Portland” and “Oregon” merchandise.
“I’m going to need two suits delivered to my office by tomorrow afternoon,” he said into a phone while they ate their dinner of takeout. “I know it’s short notice, Andrew. I don’t give a shit. I can’t go home and I need clean suits. Do you want to be the one responsible for running the dry cleaning? Didn’t think so.”
Nala said nothing through the course of the evening. When Vincent was in the bathroom, she took off her sweatshirt, making sure the manila envelope was secured within and everything folded neatly in a chair so Vincent wouldn’t touch it. Since they were settling in for the night, she pulled her bra out from beneath her T-shirt and took off her jeans. The heater was on, meaning she could sit like this on the end of the bed without a care. Well, she had many cares, but that was beside the point.
The shower turned on. Vincent probably wanted his privacy to sort out his thoughts, so Nala tried to busy herself with the TV. No good. She turned it off, her eyes continuing to linger on her sweatshirt and the manila envelope she knew was in there. Should she look at it now? What was in there? Did she actually want to know?
Vincent’s shower was short. Or maybe Nala spent that whole time staring at the floor, thinking about Maggie, Robin, and all the people Xavier Crow ever had hurt. Was Hawk his only hired help? Or did he have a crew of assassins around the world? Maybe Hawk was in charge of the PNW branch of killers.
When Vincent emerged from the bathroom, clad in nothing but a white terrycloth towel, all Nala could think was that she was glad to not be alone. How would have things went down if she still lived in Patrick’s house? Shit, what had happened to Patrick? Anything? He was an annoying stoner, but didn’t deserve that shit!
“Nala.”
Although low, Vincent’s voice was hardly soothing. Nala looked up from her folded legs and the breasts poking through her thin white T-shirt. Don’t tell me I’m inappropriate, boyfriend. She didn’t see lust in his eyes.
Perhaps it wasn’t lust, but his next few actions were definitely fueled by something as powerful.
“Vin…” Nala’s mouth was covered with his, his intentions clear when he snatched the back of her neck and let his towel fall to the floor. Whoa! Nala flung her arms behind her, bracing herself against the bed as her boyfriend inhaled her throat and sucked her nipples through the cotton of her shirt. She moaned, involuntarily, her mind trying to catch up with her body as it quickly turned to thoughts of sex.
He said little, preferring to rub his body against Nala, kiss her skin wherever he could find it, and gently tug on her ponytail whenever his hand wandered up that way. When he did speak, it was with embittered desperation. “Please, Nala,” he said. “I need you.”
She needed him too.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
This time it was her who started kissing first.
She didn’t expect him to be gentle, but she also didn’t expect the frenzy that erupted once she gave him consent to do whatever he wanted. As it turned out, it was what Nala wanted too. While she was sure Vincent acted on his own desires and nothing more, it was almost as if he read her energy and decided to throw them both into a sexual hysteria that would hopefully either knock them out or make them forget what happened that day. Or both, if the world suddenly turned into a perfect place.
I don’t care what he does to me. Just make me forget. Surely, Vincent was on that same wavelength. He sucked her skin hard, leaving behind red bruises that would take more than a day to go away. His hands squeezed her, from her breasts to her ass, taking stock in her body and making sure it was still there, still warm, and still breathing. I’m here, Vincent. They didn’t get me. Likewise, she pawed his muscles and ran her fingers along his fine hairs in an effort to imprint everything about him into her eternal memory.
Nothing was as sweet as when he ripped her lingerie off her hips, his hardness immediately coming for her with almost no warning.
She cried out in both awe and pain as he shoved himself in, grunting into the crook of her neck while the rest of his body completely overpowered her. Yes, yes, make me forget. Take me over and let me know I have nothing to worry about but what we do together. She was ready, she was willing. Nala wanted him fucking her even if it meant her body hurt and her thighs regretted it in the morning.
“More,” she whimpered, her Vincent growling in frustration as he tried to do too much too quickly. “Don’t worry about hurting me! Oh!”
Once he was in, nothing mattered anymore.
Sometimes he embraced her tightly, bringing their bodies harmoniously together as he thrust as hard as he could into her small body. And sometimes he sat up, slamming his hands on either side of her as he told her to open her eyes and look into his. Nala did. Every time she did she felt like she was disappearing to another planet, another galaxy. Vincent filled her in ways no other vice could. Thank the heavens, because it was all Nala needed.
He’s here. I’m here. We’re okay. That’s what’s most important.
Whether he tired of the intimacy or wasn’t comfortable enough as is, Vincent eventually released Nala and rolled her over onto her stomach, his hands grabbing her hips and pulling her up toward him. Nala deferred immediately, letting her legs spread over his as he grabbed the base of his cock and directed it inside her again. She barely had time to bask in the relief of having him inside her again before he was pounding into her, his anger, his fear, and a thousand tons of frustration channeling into Nala’s body as she grabbed the comforter beneath her fingers and moaned loudly into the hotel pillow.
She didn’t need him to talk dirty tonight. Every stroke of his cock and pinch of her ass and shoulders told her that Vincent needed her. He was right in the moment, whether his brain was in reality or somewhere else too. I’m helping him and he’s helping me. This wasn’t lovemaking, per se. This was searching for evidence that someone else was alive – and then searching for peace.
“Fuck me,” she groaned into the pillow, feeling his thrusts increase in speed as his skin smacked against hers. He probably couldn’t hear her under these conditions. It didn’t matter. “Fuck me!”
She knew he was close to orgasm when he grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and yanked hard, the cotton tearing against her skin while his cock impaled her and began to swell.
There was a layer of primal desire to his actions. Particularly when he shoved her down into the pillow and released into her, one wa
ve of liquid warmth after another filling her and taking her to a level of comfort she rarely felt, with Vincent or not. I’m his. I’m protected. No one will come near me if they know he’s here. Was that how her ancestors did things out in the wild? Have sex to keep predators away? Think of all the noise it creates. All that rustling and moaning. And then the smell should be enough to keep the asshole tribe from infiltrating for another night. Would that work in the 21st Century? Nala had to believe it to get through the next few minutes.
That and a hard, rolling orgasm on her end helped. If she didn’t start coming before Vincent, she could always count on his jumpstarting hers, and vice versa. They were well synced that way.
Vincent squeezed her hips so hard that it hurt, but Nala did not protest. She needed to feel him buried within her, doing what he did best at the end of a rough round of sex – make her feel like this moment was the only thing in the world that mattered.
“Shit,” he muttered, slipping out of her and collapsing nearby. Nala’s hips dropped to the bed, his seed already attempting a great escape. Vincent did not stop it. Nor did Nala, who was too tired and too worn out from the day to do anything besides letting him get all over the comforter. “Shit, shit, shit.”
Nala didn’t know what that meant. Either Vincent was finally relieved, or he was more pent up than ever.
She didn’t hang around to find out.
“Where are you going?” he asked, as if he had initiated snuggling and she rejected it. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” Nala stood beside the bed, losing the torn T-shirt and pulling her neatly folded sweatshirt into her arms. She was naked, so exposed and so vulnerable that she almost considered what ran down her thigh to be some barrier of protection, like the hair on her head. “I really need to go to the bathroom.”
“Hurry back.”
“Uh huh.” Nala headed for the bathroom. “You sit there and suffer through your recovery period. Round 2 is coming up in twenty minutes. I want that same thing again.” And again. And again. “You’re young. You can do it.” That was the last thing she said before disappearing into the bathroom and latching the door behind her.
Nala sat on the toilet and tossed her sweatshirt onto the side of the tub, pulling out the manila envelope and finally opening the damn thing.
It was a large, glossy photo. That much Nala could tell without pulling it out very far. She was in no hurry, either, because written on the back, near the top where her fingers smudged the material, was a handwritten note in Xavier Crow’s careful hand: Xavier and Raven.
The missing photo from his office. Nala held it in her hands.
It could not be anything good.
It could not be anything good.
That was her mantra as she slowly slid the photo from the envelope, knowing full well what she would see, and yet denying it at the same time.
Her body shook. If Vincent thought he was angry earlier? Nala was so disgusted, so livid that every fiber of her being vibrated, threatening to give her an honest to God heart attack at the age of twenty-one. Or at least a seizure.
“You fucking pig bastard,” she snarled, nails clawing at the face of Xavier Crow, haughty and amused with himself as he wrapped his arm around a woman slightly shorter than him. Raven. A woman with a svelte body, long, black hair and the kind of smile that inspired confidence and warmth, even when that smile looked tentative and… scared.
Nala threw the photo down on the bathroom floor, her shout of exasperation probably alerting Vincent on the other side of the wall.
“I’m going to get you,” Nala muttered, hands covering her mouth as she leaned on her knees. “I’m going to get you, and when I’m done with you, they won’t know who you are anymore because I fucking destroyed you!”
Her eyes kept going to the picture of Tasha. Her heart and mind were full of darkness.
Entry #16
A girl, whose name I shall omit, was tortured and dropped off in my home tonight. It’s the work of Crow if I have ever seen it.
To say that Nala and I are in danger is an understatement. I must protect her at all costs. If I lose her, I have lost everything.
Chapter 3
Nala’s existence was based in a dark, conspicuous cloud that loomed over her head for the next week. Her life was silence. Wake up. Work. Change hotels. Dinner. Sex. Sleep.
Nothing stood out. Everything refused to leave her alone. The haze Nala found herself in was unlike anything she ever experienced before – worse than the fog of grief she had swam in twice in her short life. Grief made sense. Everyone experienced grief. There were even stages to track one’s progress through grief. Were there stages to figure out when Nala was done being so fucking angry?
She was used to the kind of anger that manifested itself in fits, tears, and finally, stone-cold acceptance as one fell asleep in the hopes of waking up refreshed. This wasn’t normal anger. This was poison brewing in her body. She was in so much shock from the photo – which she kept hidden in a backpack Vincent bought her to keep her clothes in – that her mind both rejected it and chewed it over, tasting every bitter, rotten morsel as if it were the only sustenance she was allowed.
It was a dangerous way to live. One day she woke up and it was Thursday, and she had no idea how she had arrived there from Monday. The only thing that could have spared her from this ill fate was Vincent, but he was in his own toxic world, and they enabled one another until the only words they exchanged had to do with hotel locations and what to order for dinner.
I’m fucked up. He’s fucked up. This manifested every night when Vincent emerged from his shower and took Nala wherever she waited – for by the second night, she recognized the pattern and appropriately prepared herself. Sometimes she sat on the couch, watching nothing on TV, and the next thing she knew she was beneath Vincent’s body, succumbing to the frenzy of intense, sudden sex. Other times she flopped on the bed the moment she heard his shower turn off. Once, she sat at a table – until she was rather plastered against the table.
Like most sensations, these rough rounds of sex were a blur to Nala. Yet they were a single ounce of escape. Whenever Vincent wandered into the bathroom to take his shower, Nala became more alive than she had been in days. Take me away from here. Make me forget. Unfortunately, the only words they said to each other during the act were grunts, moans, and the occasional wail if something was exceptionally memorable.
By the third day Nala’s body warned her that she couldn’t keep doing this. Not the rough stuff. She was sore, but her brain in such a haze that she barely registered the discomfort. It wasn’t until the fifth night, when Vincent finally noted the way she shuffled around the hotel room as if she had been sitting split-legged for a week. I have, dumbass. Sitting on your cock. That night he found other ways to take her and give her the escapist pleasure she deserved.
It was funny. Until that week, Nala was still counting the amount of times they had sex. I only needed two hands to do it. By the end of that week, however, she no longer had any idea how many times Vincent was inside her, let alone until completion. Sometimes she stood at work, trying to count when she should be counting tank tops and torn jeans instead. Has it been ten times now? Or thirteen? Did the head I give him last night count? Of course it counts, duh. Okay, I’m still confused… It was better than constantly wondering if an assassin was going to burst through the door and take her out, leaving her to die in a pile of donated jerseys.
In all her wondering, she didn’t stop to think of something crucial until Friday night, when she and Vincent stayed in a mid-tier hotel on the outskirts of downtown.
He had emerged from his shower naked, as usual, dragging Nala across the bed and using his mouth to leave a mark on her neck. Within minutes he was between her legs, fucking her with the rawest power he could muster while she groaned in the ecstasy she was desperate to embrace.
She didn’t think of this crucial thing until he came within her, as he usually did, with his hands holding her hips down
and his animalistic growls echoing in her ears. Nala came down from her own orgasm feeling less like a sex-starved demon and more like a forest animal in heat.
Oh, no.
Vincent rolled off her and stared at the ceiling, chest gradually stilling from heavy breaths. His hand searched for Nala’s until their fingers lightly clasped together. Nala turned her head away and stared at the dark window overlooking the river.
“We forgot my pills.”
Vincent’s eyes bored into the back of her head. “What?”
“My birth control pills. They’re still at your apartment. I haven’t taken one in almost a week now.”
“I’ll send someone to get them tomorrow.” Not the first time Vincent had an assistant go into his loft and pick up a few things.
“Dumbass. All it takes is one missed pill, and we’ve been fucking like dirty rabbits all week.”
“So then what?”
“So I could be pregnant.”
Vincent sat up on his arms. “Could be pregnant?”
“I’m just saying. We’re both young and healthy… and you come in me a lot.”
“You only thought to tell me about this now?”
“Excuse me for being in a shitty fog all week. I didn’t think about it until now. Other things have been on my mind.”
“Fuck.”
“Don’t worry about it. I only wanted you to know. I need my pills. Or something.”
“Or something?”
“Look, man, you’re shooting a loaded weapon at me and I no longer have my bullet-proof vest on.”
“Mother fucker.”
“I’m sort of trying not to be a mother right now. Let alone a fuckin’ one.”
Vincent slapped one hand on his face and groaned. First time in a while Nala didn’t hear a pleasurable one. “I will get you your pills, and I’ll get some damned condoms.”