Violet Ends

by Jisa Dean

  "Z...," I can't get his name out to tell him what's happening. My body locks up like I'm having a seizure. I'm pressing into him, my head probably hurting his chest I am pushing so hard but I can't stop. If he's saying something I can't hear what, everything around me has faded away except the feelings coming from his touch on the inside of my body. My hips aren't moving anymore, but my legs are. They're shaking like the world is having an earthquake around me but I can't tell other than to watch my legs twitch.

  Sweat is glazing my body and something big is going to happen. I just hope it gets here before I die from heatstroke. I'm not even making words now, just disjointed sounds that I can't hold back. I don't realize what the rest of my body is doing. I have no idea if I'm still exploring his dick or if I've had to let him go when everything started getting shaky.

  With one final curl of his finger inside of my body, I break and my body throbs in time with my heartbeat. Both of his hands are on my thighs preventing me from closing them, not that I want to now. In fact, I've opened myself wider and push back on his lap, trying to find something to fill the space that his finger left. When everything is all over I collapse in his arms and for the first time in years my mind shuts off completely.

  Nine

  ____________

  "Spain!!!"

  I knew she wasn't going to take this trip easy. I knew she would freak the minute she found out we weren't where she thought we were supposed to be. She didn't handle Canada well. Now I have a whirling dervish of a woman in the bathroom telling me she's thinking about killing me. Even if I did just give her the orgasm of a lifetime.

  That last one makes me smile. I can't help it. Fuck! She's amazing. The fact that she came so hard in my lap and covered me in her release had me going off in her hands covering her in my own, thus, the bathroom.

  She started to get shy on me when she realized she had squirted in my lap. I wouldn't let her run away. I held her in my arms until she calmed down enough for me to explain to her how fucking hot it was. She still looks dubious even after I got both of us cleaned up and told her where I had taken her.

  "Why are we in Spain? How did you bring me here? Where we on a plane? How much of that stuff did you give me?"

  "Slow down some, huh. Just breathe. Everything's going to be alright, baby. Just be calm." I pull her back into my lap. "The guy from New York gave me enough information that I could use to buy us a little help in tracking down Noel. These guys keep records of everything they've done, for them; it's nothing more than buying and selling stock. I have a friend who can tell me which way they took her, Asia or Africa. They didn't take her to South America even though they've taken girls there before. But after that, I lost the trail with just the information Tabbs gave me." She's calmed down and listens intently now. "I'm meeting a friend of ours so he can give me more information on possible leads and handing over more information to him. We have the hard drive,"

  "Oh my God! Poppie?" She bolts up now like she's going to try to run all the way to her. From Spain.

  "Relax baby. She's with my brothers. They'll keep her safe. The last time I saw her she was..." Well fuck, walked myself right into that one. "Involved."

  "Involved how? Willingly? Did your friend or brother or whatever force her?"

  "Yes, she was most definitely willing, even if a bit reluctant for much the same reasons you are reluctant. She's going to be safe. Hades would die to keep her with him." That's an understatement. The last time I saw the blue-haired bastard he was being yanked around by the chain hooked to the collar of the girl Nat is so worried about. I don't think if she understood how pussy whipped my brother was she would worry one bit. Hell, if she knew what she could do to me, get me to do for her...Thank God she is a decent person and not someone who would abuse the power I let her have over me.

  "Sally?"

  "Safe with my other brother, Neptune." It takes her a minute to assimilate the information but when she does her reaction is not one I expected.

  Her eyes widen and she goes pale like all of the blood has drained from her body. I reach for her but she takes a step back and damned if that doesn't just piss me the fuck off.

  "Oh my God! I..." her mouth is making the shape of letters but nothing is coming out. "I just realized who you are." She keeps backing up nearly tripping over a chair. I keep advancing; I refuse to let her run away now that she knows what I am. She should have thought of that before she let me touch her.

  "Bravo. It seems our reputation precedes us." I block the door just in case she is thinking of running. "Since you now know who and what I am, I shouldn't have to tell you that I speak the truth when I tell you that I will find the men who hurt you and your friend and I will make every last one of them suffer."

  "You...were you sent to kill us? Do you work for him?" I assume she means the Senator.

  "My brothers and I were hired to bring back the disk and one of them was ordered to kill Poppie." I will never lie to her.

  "Which one?" her breathing is coming out in short tight puffs even though her chest is heaving.

  "Hades."

  "The one you left her with? The person who is trying to kill my friend because of something I've done? Were you sent to get close to me so you could find out just how much information we have? Are you working? Is this a work trip where both of us leave and only you come back?"

  I throw my head back and laugh. If she thinks I could ever harm her and walk away afterward maybe I haven't proven myself to her just yet like I thought I had.

  "Stop evil laughing. You don't get to villain cackle when I thought you..." her eyes give her away. She would never make a good assassin.

  "The terms of the agreement changed the minute my brother fell in love with your friend. Then my other brother laid claim to your other friend." She goes still again, thinking. "It's complicated." I nod.

  It does sound unbelievable that my two brothers and myself fell for the women who themselves are so tight and close.

  "Sally? She was willing? No one forced her?"

  Yeah, I am not even going to start on how Neptune basically kidnapped Sally and wouldn't let her leave his horse ranch until she was married to him. Something tells me Nat isn't going to see it the same way I do. Me, I think it's sweet but I'm also the man that gave my own bride to be a corpse as a wedding present and our honeymoon came before the wedding and involves us tracking down and killing human traffickers. My judgment may be skewed. To keep my explanation brief, and not tell a lie, I just give her a nod and a tight smile and hope she accepts it.

  "You are like a legend with the guys I work with. They think you all can't be who you say you are. There's a rumor that there are hundreds of you but all of the members use the same three names."

  I'm not sure if I'm flattered or pissed that fat, over-fed, middle class, white guys can't imagine a world where three people can cause so much mayhem.

  "I...thought about..." oh now I am intrigued by where this conversation is going. "I thought about hiring you guys if I ever found someone to lay all the blame on. But it felt wrong not to do it myself."

  The fact that she could have been one of my clients isn't just a turn-on; it seals the deal that fate has brought her to me. One way or another she would have been mine. She will be mine. My own personal apology from the universe for shitting down my neck for so many years.

  "Are you...going to hurt us? Do you still work for the Senator?" I take her by the hand and pull her close to me faster than she can even start to think about getting away from me.

  "Baby, I don't work for the Senator. I work for a friend of both of ours. And at no time in this world, or the next, could I ever hurt you once I met you."

  "Friend?" She tried to stiff-arm me and keep me at a distance but I don't let her.

  "Kronos." The strength leaves her arms and she falls into me. I can tell she is on the cliff's edge about trusting me and letting me keep her safe. "He told me you contacted him in the hotel room back in Canada. He is the reason I didn
't lose you then. He probably kept half of Canada from dying."

  "Have you met him? Do you know who he is?"

  I shake my head. No one has ever met him. I have a pretty good idea who he might be but his secrets are his own to tell. I am a man who guards my own well and doesn't mess with others'.

  "How do you know you can trust him? How do you know he isn't the Senator?"

  "Kronos has been hiring us for years. Way before this whole thing with the senator popped up. Hell, he's the reason we became the brothers. He told us about a threat to each of us and helped us take care of it. Besides, if he was the senator and he knew I was not going to kill you under any circumstance, why would he tell me you're about to run. It would have been easier for him if he let you run from me and have his men finish you off."

  The acceptance of what I'm saying is in her eyes. I have put my trust in Kronos too many times for me to have to worry about what side of this battle he's on. Hell he's the person who changed the rules when he found out about Hades and Poppy and Sally and Neptune. When I checked in with him he already suspected how far gone I was for Nat.

  "Wait you said we have to go meet the friend, are we meeting Kronos? Is that who is helping us?"

  I nod. Her mind is so beautiful and nothing is sexier than seeing her try to figure out moves and risk assessments concerning her situation.

  "There is one more thing." She looks up but I don't look back. Instead, I go to my bag and bring out the black box I brought with me.

  "What?"

  When I turn to her again I present her with a very thin, very intricate piece of jewelry. She gasps when she looks at it.

  "It's beautiful."

  The piece is designed to look like a necklace or choker. It is woven strands of silver connected in the front with a Celtic love knot and in the back is a specially designed lock that will never be unlocked by anybody else but me. It has only one key, the key is tiny and already hanging around my neck. To anyone outside of where we are going tonight the necklace looks like a very expensive piece of jewelry. But it is so much more in the culture I take part in.

  "Do you remember me telling you that I am different from most men?" I wait for her to nod. Her gaze leaves the collar in my hand and goes to my eyes. I wonder what she sees when she looks in them. "I live, work, and play in a culture that makes it highly imperative that if something belongs to you, you not only claim it but you put your mark on it."

  She tilts her head, "Like a biker gang?"

  I feel the smile stretch my face and think about the last time before her that I used those muscles.

  "Not exactly. Do you know what BDSM is?"

  "Um, yeah. That book that came out a couple of years back made sure everyone knew what it was all about." She has a cautious look about her now. I close my eyes when she mentions the Hollywood version of the culture I inhabit.

  "Not...exactly a true representation but we'll use it as a jumping-off point. I take it you understand what a Dominate is?"

  She nods.

  "Oh shit, you...you’re...Oh my God, you spanked me!" I chuckle at her. She seems appalled. "You got off on that?"

  "So did you." She opens her mouth to reply and then closes it.

  "You knew about that?"

  "Cherry, I know everything there is about you and what I don't, I can't wait to find out. I watch you, I see you. Every breath taken in, quick and fast, held for just so long before you exhale on a repressed moan. Every push back into my hand when it lands on your bottom and searching for it when it leaves. How wet you got afterward. I know all of it and it makes me feral."

  I walk to her and she falls back in the seat she just jumped up from.

  "I was going to ask you but that's not really who I am. You belong to me and you know you do. That's all to be said about it." I reach around her and clasp the lock before dragging her hair out from under the back.

  Her hands go up to touch it, fingers gliding over the knot in the front.

  "Is this...?"

  I raise an eyebrow. I don't think I have to confirm for her that she now belongs to me but I'll do it anyway just because I like saying it. "Yes, Cherry, this means you belong to me. It's a slave collar."

  Her eyes go big and round. I can tell by the way she sits up and gets straighter in her seat that she's worried. I'm not sure when she'll realize that I can read her and that she doesn't have to tell me what she needs, most of the time it's written on her face for the world to see.

  "I understand you have a thing about consent and ownership, baby. I'm not going to push you further than you're able to go. Just like with my fingers, if I think you aren't ready for more than I will not be pushing for more, but we will be going all the way. I want to share my life with you and that means I want to share my kinks and my love for controlling and dominating. More than anything I want to take care of you. I want to watch over you and guide you and keep you safe."

  "You say that a lot, 'keep me safe', but I don't know what that means to you. Does that mean you control what I do, who I am, who I'm around? Because that isn't healthy, that isn't a good relationship at all. I mean I don't have first-hand knowledge since I've never had a relationship but I've, um, read stuff and researched stuff."

  "Really, what kind of stuff have you researched?" Better to let her tell me what I need to fight against instead of trying to battle blindly.

  "Um, I was really worried that I would fall into a relationship like Noel's and I didn't want that to happen so I tried to study things about good and bad relationships and warning signs to look out for so you won't fall into one without realizing you're in one."

  "Do you think I am offering you a good or a bad relationship?" I play with the ends of her dark hair, enjoying the way it curls around my fingers.

  "I...don't know." She says it like she's afraid she's going to piss me off.

  "You talk about someone trying to control you, trying to tell you who to be or maybe change the way you are." When she looks at me I can tell I've hit the major problem she's having being in any relationship, not just a kink one. She saw her friend change and become someone else because of a bad choice and she's terrified she'll make the same mistake. A part of me aches for the little girl she was then, scared, alone, sad, and confused. I know those feeling too well. I've seen them reflected not just in the mirror but in my memory of another girl far away in my past.

  I pick her up and sit in her seat before I take her in my lap.

  "I don't want you to change anything about yourself. I like who you are and who I can see you becoming if you feel safe enough to come out of the dark. I want you to have control. And you do. You give me dominance over you, you tell me how far to take you and I listen and do for you what you want. Can you understand that baby? We won't do anything you don't understand and want to do." I give her a minute to become comfortable with the idea. "I don't want to change one thing about you."

  I see the hope in her eyes and it makes me want to kick the shit out of the people that made her think having a good relationship was something to be hopeful for instead of her god damned right as the goddess she is.

  "That's not true. I said I would never lie to you and I won't." Her face goes blank for a moment and the hope is replaced with fear and caution. "I want to change your last name as fast as fucking possible. Like today if you would let me."

  She sits balanced on my knee with her mouth hanging open giving me ideas. "I want to change how you think about the future. I want to change this little body of yours when I put my baby in it."

  "I don't want children." She says it so fast I think she worries if she doesn't spit it out she won't ever. Or she doesn't want me to talk about something she desperately wants but is terrified to have for obvious reasons. "I can't have children. I'm not okay enough and I don't want something I've done to come back on an innocent child and what happens if something bad happens. I can't go through that. I wouldn't recover."

  "That's okay baby, we'll take that part slow if you need to. A
nd if you never get there than we adopt a cat."

  She smiles for the first time in too long, "Why a cat?"

  "More self-sufficient. It doesn't need as much love and attention. And I like how sly they are and they look soft."

  "Have you never had a cat?"

  "I've never had a pet. I...didn't have a great childhood. By the time I was stable enough to have something of my own I was too busy killing to think about taking care of anything other than myself and my brothers."

  "Can I ask you something?" I think I can spot where this is going to go and even though I don't want to, I made her a promise to always tell her the truth. I give her the go-ahead.

  "How young were you?" I understand what she means. She wants me to tell her how young I was when I took my first life.

  "Too young. Let's just say I was still single digits and leave it at that for now." I don't want to look at her. I don't want to face the pity.

  "Oh," it's a hurt sound that makes my eyes immediately go to her. She makes the sound again like she's feeling my pain for me. She reaches for me and I won't stop her. I want her touch, I want her kiss, and I want her to want me like I want her.

  She touches her fingertips to my cheek and runs them down to my mouth. I'm not sure how long we sat there staring at one another. It's the most calming thing I've ever done. Normally, I am the restless one of my brothers, the one that needs to be out and away from anything that would resemble a normal home but her eyes look like what home must be like. She feels like home to me.

  She leans in tentatively and slowly, never taking her eyes off of me. When her lips brush mine I have to talk myself into being still and letting her do what she wants without taking over. She cups my cheeks in her hands and places her cool lips over mine, giving me something instead of me taking it from her.