by Tiana Laveen
“Okay. How long will you be away?” She crossed her legs and tried to ignore the way he slowly licked his lips like a hungry lion.
“A couple of days, three tops.” He took another sip of his wine and winced… an obvious glutton for torture.
“Why do you keep drinking it if you don’t like it? I’m not going to look at you all evening making that face. That’s just silly.”
“I paid two hundred for that shit! I have to drink it!” She rolled her eyes and smirked. “So, how’d it feel to know you’re a pro at swimming after only six lessons with me?” He grinned and crossed his arms on the breakfast bar, obviously proud of himself. She raised an eyebrow and kept sipping on her wine.
He’s a damn fool… This is delicious.
“I’m far from a pro. It feels good though. To be able to at least not drown is a blessing, and hey, no floaties!” She raised her left arm and made a muscle pose, causing him to laugh. He walked leisurely to the refrigerator. “Maximus…”
“Hmm?” He opened the door and peered inside, checking out the contents.
“We need to talk.”
“About what?”
“When you came over the other night, it was, uh, strange between us.”
He retrieved a bright green apple from the refrigerator and faced her.
“What do you mean?” He bit into the crisp fruit and chewed noisily as he made his way back towards her.
“You’d been out working, and you came over… You didn’t say anything but you had blood on you.” His eyes grew darker as he took another bite. “You went into my shower and stayed in there for over an hour.”
“So what?”
“If you let me finish, I’ll tell you what!” she snapped. He kept on biting and chewing, clearly not giving a damn. “When you came out of the shower, I could see bruises on your arm. You didn’t say much… We… made love, and you were quiet… so quiet. That’s not like you. You didn’t smile, laugh, joke, say sexy things… You were simply… simply… fucking me.” He bit into his apple once again, the crunch loud and rude. Just like him. “It was rough…”
“I always fuck rough,” he said around a mouthful of fruit. “That’s how we both like it. Don’t you think I know that about you by now? You want to be taken, not toyed with. I like to be in control, take over. I want to be felt… remembered. I want your pussy to scream my fucking name whenever I come near it. I want to possess your entire damn body.” He swallowed.
She blinked a few times, momentarily taken off track from where she wished to drive the discussion.
“Um, yes, it was passionate, but something was missing. Something was off. There was death in your eyes. Your lips offered no confessions, but I could see it. Tell me, how many people have you killed, Maximus?” The man’s eyes turned to black slits, and he looked like he was about to go off the rails with his wide stance and hard lines. A chill ran up and down her spine, and her breathing hitched. This was the demon he’d spoken of and warned her about. He said it lived inside him, but she hadn’t seen it yet. He took another bite of his apple and inched closer, scaring the living daylights out of her. His brows bunched and his nostrils flared. She averted her gaze to gather strength and courage, then stared him back in the eye.
“Let me ask you something, Eva. How in the fuck is that information going to help you?”
“I don’t know. I’m curious though. I understand what you do, I get it, but I believe it takes a toll on you. I believe that it’s killing, pardon the pun, your humanity, Savage, and I have the right to tell you such.”
“Really?” He chuckled mirthlessly, licking the corner of his mouth to chase a drop of apple juice. “And how do you even know that I ever had any humanity in me at all?” The room temperature dropped to freezing. Those eyes of his glowed as he smiled at her—a foul, beastly smile. His head was cocked to the side, and he looked vexed and amused all at once. He stood to his full height. “Do you want to change me, baby? Make me, I don’t know, confess my sins and purge my lust for assassination? Treat you like a priest? I can’t. I’m good at what I do for a reason. I’m no choir boy. I can’t be tamed and anyone who believes anything else is an idiot. I do what the fuck I want and how I want to do it. I’m just lucky that I found a legal way to do it.”
“I’m not trying to change you. I’m simply—”
“The hell you aren’t. This right here is why I never wanted to be in a relationship! You’re on that bullshit!” Iciness seeped from his voice, into the air. He tossed the apple core in the trash, then pointed his finger at her. “I knew, eventually, the molding attempts would begin. You’d turn me into a fuckin’ patient. ‘Oh Maximus, maybe you should drink less? Maximus, maybe you should smoke less. Maximus, maybe you should cuss less. Maximus, maybe you should stay at home more and kiss my fuckin’ ass! Maximus, stop taking assignments and just become a square. Be miserable just so I can be happy. Sell yourself out because now, you love me, and I must have my way.”
“You’re overreacting,” she stated calmly. This hadn’t been her first time engaging in an exchange with a wounded animal parading around like some beast. “I never said any of those things.”
“Yeah? But you’ve wanted to. I’ve seen how you look at me, Eva. The worst part of this is that I care that you look at me that way. That you’re appalled by me. Oh heavens to Betsy, whatever shall she do?!” He mocked, pushing her buttons. “Poor little Eva fell for a dude that’s bad news! You don’t want me to do my job, to kill, but you’re intrigued by me, so you stick around. For now. Your pussy keeps you close, doesn’t it? You don’t really want me. Your body does.”
“That’s not fair…”
“Nothing in life is fair, now is it? You just like how I make you feel. You like how I push my big, hard dick in and out of your pussy. Fuck the shit out of it. You like to suck my dick and taste my cum. You like both my unpredictability and reliability at the same fucking time, but really, you can’t handle me, can you Eva? You tried and failed. And now.” He tossed up his hands and turned his back. “I’m stuck, right?! You know I’m in love with you!”
“And I love you, too!”
“No, you don’t. You’ve got me in a jam. So now, what am I going to do?! It will start like this. This is just the beginning. First, it’s you asking about body counts, then it’ll escalate to us arguing and not speaking at all as you manipulate me, probably even withhold sex like a punishment. Then, before I know it, you’ll be gone! There’ll be an exit investigation in which I will have to explain every… fucking… detail… of our breakup to my authorities and then you’ll have to be cleared so they never have a fuckin’ reason to interview you again. But only if you’re lucky, because now you know too much. There will be a smear on my record because I took a chance with my heart and come to find out, this woman is the wager I bet on! I gambled and lost everything. I chose to lay it all on the line for you, and you can’t even handle it! Damn! How could I have been so wrong?!”
“I can handle it!” She shot up from her seat, tired of his shit. He was a classic case, and too smart for his own good. Savage didn’t want to have the real conversation, the deep conversation, the one that would change everything. Make him reflect and remember. He could feel what she was gearing up to do, and though she hadn’t planned it, it was happening. She had to keep pushing forward, to get it out of him. She loved him, and she refused to let him out of the hot seat.
“I didn’t ask about a body count to change you, Savage! I accepted this situation a long time ago! I understand that people like you exist, and I understand why people like you exist! That still does not mean you can skirt around self-healing and reflection. What you do messes with the brain! It fucks up the mind! This all started from somewhere, and if I love you the way I say that I do, I am going to find out what is truly going on inside that head of yours and make you purge and cleanse. You can’t keep killing all these motherfuckers and not talking about it! Without thinking that it changes you!”
“And what wou
ld you know about it?! You couldn’t even stop some punk ass pussy from callin’ and harassing you for over a gotdamn year! It takes people like me to step in and handle that shit. You try to ignore anything you find ugly or embarrassing, pretend it isn’t true. Or you can mind fuck it to death and then people like me have to strap up, show up, show out, and I fix it. Period!”
Oh my God. No wonder the calls stopped…
“I am telling you, Savage, that I am worried about you and I want you to start processing what you’re doing, not just going through the motions! I never told you to stop your work. I told you to slow down and think about it or you will go crazy. Now you can stand there and keep lying to yourself, telling yourself that you’re some robot, but you’re not! I fell in love with you because you know who you are, yes, and you accept it. You’re not ashamed of who you are, but there is another part of you that is a scared little boy!”
“Oh, bullshit!” He rolled his eyes. “Here comes Sigmund Freud in a dress!”
“You’re a child. One of my favorite bible verses is, ‘When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.’ It’s time to put away the childish things, the hurt, the pain… You’re a child that is afraid to get too close to someone because you think they’ll run away or emotionally abandon you, like your mother!”
“Don’t you listen? My mother didn’t abandon me, Zaire. She’s been there the whole time! Try your little brain tricks on someone else!”
“SHE DID ABANDON YOU! She didn’t mean to. It was her way of trying to protect you; hell, it may even be a cultural thing, I don’t know, but what I do know is that it affected you, baby. You’re so… so cold! It’s not natural. I’ve seen the light in you. That child plays with my heart, my soul! He wants to be acknowledged, not just swept under the rug and only used for humor! Your mother was never taught how to love. She had to learn on her own. I’m not saying she doesn’t love you. In fact, I believe she probably loves you so much that it frightens her. Like me, you leaned on your father for some semblance of normalcy, but there was only so much he could do, especially since he was in and out of prison so often.”
“Oh, so now you want to take a bite out of him, too? You wanna go down the entire fuckin’ family tree? Don’t forget my cousins, aunts and uncles then, they’re available for dissection, too!”
“Maximus… listen to me. I am no longer talking to Savage. Savage, please step back for a moment. I am talking to Maximus…” He sucked his teeth then looked away. “You’ve had to wrestle with the fact that your mother sold her body. The same body you were born from, the same body you fell asleep against when you were sick or worried as a child. She did it to help you have the kind of life she never did. Her body is sacred and it was desecrated because that was all she knew how to do! It hurt you! Deep down, you were ashamed of what she was doing! You knew that if she put her mind to it, she could do something else though. She was smart and beautiful, but she was hurt because her little girl within was broken, too! That little girl inside of her was taught that her vagina was the only thing people cared about. She’d been raped and abused! It was wrong! Her spirit was destroyed! A part of you just wanted a normal family, and you hated her for that! Admit it!”
“Shut up.” His eyes became wild like those of a frightened horse. He took a step back from her, then another. He put his hands up, practically balling up, retreating.
“No. I won’t shut up, Maximus! Your distrust of women began with her! I told you when we first met that you had a problem with women. You denied it! You’re forty years old and never been in love. Stop blaming that on your job! That is the real reason why you’ve avoided commitment. That’s the real reason why you put yourself on autopilot and just go out here and do your job and aren’t phased because you learned a long time ago that when you become emotional, when you become attached, when you hope for the best and refuse to expect the worst, you become a victim.
“I learned that lesson, too. I remind you of your mother. Strong! Frontin’! Playing make believe and pretend! You told me yourself that I came across as aloof and a workaholic. Now why would any man in his right mind want to get involved with me? I had purposefully put up barriers, but you saw through all of my bullshit immediately because you grew up with the same bullshit in your home! I was familiar to you. I made you feel, comfortable. As crazy as it sounds, there’s a parallel and you know it! You wanted her to just tell you that she loves you. I did. You now are reminded that you still want the same from her. Was that too much to ask?”
“Stop it.” His voice cracked.
“You know she loves you, but you’re ashamed to admit that, even to this day, you still want to hear it. That’s okay. You have the right to feel that way.”
“I’m not doing this shit with you. Leave me alone, Eva!!!” He roared like a lion, his anger and fear palpable.
“No, I won’t leave you alone. That’s the problem. Too many people have left you alone when they should have been surrounding you with love! You are callous—not because you were born that way, but because you were made that way!”
“You couldn’t wait to do this shit, could you?! I’m not one of your callers!”
“No, you’re not. You’re my man, and that makes this even more necessary. You made me swim. It’s time for you dive into the deep end, too. Come here… let’s talk, baby.” She went around the breakfast nook and tried to wrap her arms around him. He fought her, pushed her arms away, shoved her back. His strength nearly took her breath away, and yet, she knew he was trying to be careful and not hurt her.
Rage filled his eyes as his face twisted. An unholy evil poured out of him and confronted her, but she wasn’t afraid.
“Come here!” she screamed, backing him into a corner, her fist balled tight.
She pressed her body against his and he refused to look at her. Refused to give her any eye contact at all. Placing her hand against the back of his head, she rested her cheek against his chest. His heart was beating so fast, she thought it might explode. He went stiff, barely breathed. They stayed locked like that for what felt like an eternity.
She’d found it. His little secret, his one and only fear.
Slowly, he began to move against her. She felt his arms come around her and squeeze. His body shook against her as he fell apart. She smiled and closed her eyes…
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Key to Her Heart
…a few minutes later
“Say it.”
“Say what, Eva?”
“Say what you’re afraid of. I promise it’ll make you feel better. I want you to say it out loud. Confess.”
Seconds ticked by. No sound… His heartbeat slowed to a normal pace.
“I’ve… I’ve been afraid to get close to a woman, to allow myself to fall in love… because… then she’d have power over me.”
“Power over you to do what? Come on… say it.”
“To hurt me.”
“And how could she hurt you?”
“By not really wanting me, not even really liking me as a person at all…”
“And as a little boy, you sometimes felt like your mother didn’t want and like you at all. As you got older, you realized that wasn’t true, but the pain that it caused when you were unsure did irreparable damage.” She ran her hand along his shoulder, soothing him.
“I didn’t want to spend my time tryna convince someone to love me, that I’m worthy of them, ya know? I know I am, but it seems bad to feel like you have to make someone else believe it.”
His voice broke, and she waited so he could regain his composure.
“How did that fear from your mother’s rejection translate into your romantic relationships?”
“I’m afraid of bein’ in love and that person not lovin’ me back.” He sighed. “It scares the shit outta me. So, I just never let it happen.” She heard him swallow. “But I wanted—”
“Say it…”
“No, it’s not, baby. The worst feeling in the world is what your mother experienced as a child—knowing for a fact that no one loves you.”
They stood there, holding one another, feeling the pain, the joy, the love. She sighed when he squeezed her tighter, picked her up in his arms, and set her down on the counter. His cheeks were wet, taking her off guard, making her fall apart at the sight of him. Shuddering, she wrapped her arms around his neck, holding tight while he jerked her leggings and panties down. The cool air hit her exposed nature. Moving fast, he dropped his pajama pants, revealing his erect member.
“Ahhh…” She hissed when he drove himself inside her. Deep. His big hands cupped her ass, bringing her close for each thirsty plunge. They moaned together, shaking and calling out to one another with need and desperation.
“I’m balls deep, baby. Feel me… feel all of me…”
“Oh, God… yes, I feel you, Max…”
“I wanna be so deep inside you that my thoughts become yours, and your thoughts become mine, baby. I want to be one with you.”
Clawing at his back, her breath hitched as she came, her orgasm a thing of beauty. It floated within her like fluttering butterflies set free. He pumped harder and faster. Her head bumped against the cabinet behind her as he had his way with her, fucking her with brute determination. His growls were deep and throaty, his need relentless…
“I love you so much, baby.” He groaned and she clutched him close.
“I love you too, Max. So very much.”
He picked her up from the counter and she crossed her ankles around his back. Holding on tight, he kept fucking her while he walked, pausing every few steps to keep the rhythm. They reached his staircase and he kept her steady as they climbed, using her pussy for his therapy…