Chapter 7 Confession #4
“There are eight targets in the village. Finish them within twenty minutes,” the commander said through the crackling walkie talkie I’d clipped to my belt.
I held up eight fingers to Rafe, then followed it by signing twenty minutes. He nodded, and I hoped he understood. I watched him dip through the open window of the barren upper story room and hit the fire escape to get roof access.
We were…terrible. Really, truly terrible. The commander’s threats were a sharp shout through our talkies as Kane, Thorne and I found each other four buildings in. We’d only killed two of the eight targets, both taken out by Rafe, and there was only five minutes left.
“We need to do one thing right,” Kane ordered. “At this point, they’ll buy Rafe, the dick. He couldn’t just suck?”
“In his defense, we didn’t tell him what we were doing,” Thorne argued. “We probably should’ve.”
“And he never would’ve agreed,” Kane hissed. “Bastard would’ve outperformed us ten times over if it meant selling himself alone and keeping Arden out of that room.”
I stiffened, and it was then that the brothers seemed to remember I was standing there.
“Can we just get this over with?” I asked, my voice uneven.
I swallowed and tugged my gun out of my holster.
“The two Rafe took out were likely the easiest targets. Halden had them tied up and in sight of a window. The rest will be more difficult. We fan out, kill one each. We only have three minutes.”
There wasn’t time to argue, so we didn’t. They followed my instruction with ease, all of us kicking in separate doors and disappearing into hallways.
I shot a man gagged and bound, hanging from a ceiling, twice.
Once to the heart, and once to the head.
I didn’t want to risk him being alive in any capacity.
We were already leaving three targets alive, and I knew Halden didn’t have anything pretty waiting for them.
A siren blared through the village, lights flashing to notify us of our time being out.
We were right. They took me to Room 82. There were no boxes. No lighter. No gun. Just me, that mattress, and the Buyers.
I collapsed when the guards shoved me into the cell hours, maybe days, later.
I had no way of keeping time in that damned room.
They threw down a fresh set of grey clothes on my bed before they stepped over me and bolted the door shut behind them.
I laid there on the ground, blood dribbling from my mouth, dizzy as I listened to the bunks creak.
“Little flame?” Thorne rasped from his bed.
I couldn’t answer. I’d let myself scream that time around. There was awhile where I hadn’t. I thought maybe if I kept my mouth shut, I wouldn’t egg the Buyers on, but they were cruel no matter what. I figured I may as well let my rage out while I was allowed to.
I rolled enough to press my good ear to the cool stone floor.
I didn’t want to talk to them, and based on the fact none of them were attempting to leave their beds told me they were in bad shape, too.
Shock rolled through me when the air shifted and familiar hands slipped under my body.
Rafe lifted me into a cradle, limping back to his bed and gently setting me down.
He laid next to me, pressing a firm kiss to the top of my head.
He held his mouth there for a long moment, and I felt something hot drip to my cheek.
I reached a shaking hand up and realized it was tears.
My own eyes burned, and I took his arm, tugging him closer.
He caged me in, tracing gentle patterns across my bruised skin.
Still, somehow, I managed to teach him different signs. He tried to stop me, to force me to rest, but I shook my head, bringing his hand to my swollen mouth.
“Promise me,” I whispered against him, “you’ll let us keep helping you. Promise me, Rafe.”
Tap. No.
My chin trembled. “I can’t lose you,” I breathed. “I’m begging you. Do this for me.”
No. He tapped more forcefully. NO.
Tears finally slipped free. “I can handle whatever they do to me. You just need a couple more days to learn the signs.”
He pressed his forehead to mine and sloped his hand down my neck, tapping me once lightly over my heart. No.
I moved closer and grasped his face. He kept his hand over my mouth and I kissed it gently, closing my eyes. “Then tomorrow,” I said against him, “we live or we die.”
He lowered his hand slowly, our lips brushing when he did. We both shuddered at the feel of it.
I ran my thumb over his cheek.
Then I pressed my mouth to his.
I was…so tired, and kissing Rafe felt like putting on a balm. It’d been so long since I’d chosen to kiss anyone, and I was already sore from Room 82, but I didn’t want to miss my chance to be with him. I’d ignored Thorne and Kane’s remarks, but I knew they were right.
Rafe would’ve done anything to keep me out of that room, even if it mean leaving us all behind. I would've too if it meant saving them.
He didn’t kiss me back at first. He let me sink toward him, his hands hovering over me like he was afraid one touch would take me past that threshold toward death.
I eased his fingers toward places I could bear—the collarbone, the hollow of my throat, the slope of my ribs.
He answered with taps, and I answered with squeezes and small, guiding shifts.
The dark made everything exaggerated, the press of his breath against the corner of my mouth; the small catch in his throat when he accidentally grazed a bruise and I flinched; the way his grey uniform shifted under my palm, a thin barrier I was desperate to remove.
I fumbled at the collar, fingers seeking seams in the dark.
He lifted an arm and let me slip the sleeve past his elbow.
He mirrored me on the other side without a sound.
The shirt came away like a quiet surrender and I let my fingers hook into his waistband, tugging him free, not caring that wounds tore open along my skin from the effort.
Any amount of bleeding was worth feeling him, choosing him, loving him.
I tried to bring my leg up, to hook it at his waist, but I was too weak, my muscles exhausted.
But he understood. Even in the dark, he was able to read me, nudging my legs open and gently pulling my thigh up over his hip.
He kept his hand there, the two of us with our foreheads pressed together.
Then he slowly slid his calloused palm down my thigh, his breath hitching when I arched toward him, feeling the head of him tipping lightly toward my center.
He hesitated for a beat, the kind of slow that asks permission without words. Two taps, quick and careful, into the hollow of my palm. I closed my fingers around his and held them there. Yes.
The first inch was slow, a warm, tentative press.
I felt the stretch, the sharp claim, and then the settling as he paused and waited for my answer.
I nodded, my lips brushing his and my breath spilling against his tongue.
His hand curled into my hair and he kissed me fully then, demanding and everything.
When he slid the next small distance, heat spread then folded into a dull ache that eased as he found an angle that fit.
His hands moved back to my hips, thumbs rubbing little circles as if counting out apologies.
He kept his thrusts minimal—a slide and then stillness, a check for pain, a check for permission.
He learned which shifts made me lock up and which opened me further to him.
I ground against him when he did, encouraging, biting my tongue to keep my moans silent and to not wake Thorne and Kane.
When he quickened, it was only by degrees, never by force; when he slowed it was with the same deliberate care.
I was a girl worth billions for sex, but in that moment I felt like virgin.
My head blanked. Every horrible memory just…
faded. I pretended I was just Arden. A nineteen year old woman in bed with her boyfriend, learning her body for the very first time.
Even sex with Thorne had never been as careful as sex with Rafe.
He was impossibly delicate, the kind of sure and thoughtful someone could only be if they had played that exact scenario out in their head millions of times.
Somewhere between the quiet and the ache, the world narrowed to the small geography of our bodies.
I felt every line of him press and draw back, the way his breath hit my mouth, the small hitch he couldn’t hide when he worried he’d hurt me.
I kissed him then—not a demand but an answer that I was okay as long as he was okay—and he kissed me back.
Everything in me unknotted. I let a small moan loose, pressing it into his mouth so the vibration hit his lips.
He responded by sinking a fraction deeper and holding, hand flat across my lower back, steady, as if bracing me against everything that wanted to tear us apart.
An orgasm built inside me, clawing from a deep place.
Sweat beaded our foreheads, slicked our bodies, and I urged him deeper, harder, my thighs shaking.
Heat coiled low, tightening, a fierce, climbing thing that shoved through my ribs.
My breath hitched, then came faster. I felt the pull like a tide, heard the hollow rush behind my ears, and then everything let go.
The orgasm ripped through me sudden, all-consuming, leaving me raw and trembling.
He rode it out with me, filling me with his own release.
He folded forward with a low groan, his mouth pressing against my sternum to muffle the sound.
His face twitched with pain from allowing the sound to escape, and I gently massaged along the scar on his throat, letting him melt further toward me.