36. Riley
RILEY
It only takes a few days for Aron and me to settle into a rhythm that’s comfortable if not exactly harmonious. He usually departs early in the morning, leaving me alone like he did on my first day here, except now he always brings some breakfast up for me before heading out.
I wake up late, when the sun’s already high up in the sky, tangled in the sheets and with Aron’s taste still in my mouth and his phantom touch on my skin.
I lie in, then take a shower. The pipes creak in protest before spurting out a burst of water that’s either too hot or too cold, but never anything in between.
I make coffee and eat my food leisurely before lying back down to read one of Aron’s shockingly detailed erotic novels that he doesn’t know I’ve discovered in a box underneath the bed.
When the sunlight mellows out with an approaching sunset, I hide it back and nap, resting before Aron comes home, tense from having spent the day in preparation for the Abyss Gorge ambush—an operation he tells me almost nothing about.
On most days, he drags me into the shower with him, and by the time he carries me back out, my legs are already wrapped around his hips, and his cock is lodged deep inside of me.
The first fuck of the night is always rough and quick, almost desperate, like he’s satisfying a gnawing hunger that nothing else can satisfy.
He never lets me clean up after—we always go to dinner with his cum still leaking out of me.
He also never leaves my side in the mess hall.
I’m mostly grateful for that, even if I wish I could have a private conversation with Corrado.
But the other Retrogrades scare me. All large and bulky, most tattooed, many scarred, they all look like killing machines who have been through far too much to be capable of normal human emotions.
The irony of feeling safe with the most dangerous one of them all is not lost on me, but I don’t question it.
How could I, when every day after dinner he leads me back upstairs and without fail my legs turn to jelly mid-ladder from anticipation, because I already know my body’s about to spend a big portion of the descending night shorting under his touch like it’s making up for lost time.
For those few days that seem to stretch for eternity and go by in a heartbeat at the same time, I don’t question anything.
I don’t ask to speak to Corrado. I don’t ask about my camera or our laptop.
I don’t ask what Aron’s planning to do with our photo proving the Continuum’s involvement in Rift Day.
And I certainly don’t ask any questions about us, about who we’ve become for each other.
Whether that’s because I know how I’d answer those questions, or because I have no idea how he would, I couldn’t tell.
This cannot go on forever. It cannot. And yet day after day I keep pretending that it can, making no effort to tear myself out of this limbo of existing for little else than his and my pleasure.
Because I find as much comfort as I do shame in being nothing more than Aron’s plaything, freed of all responsibility and devoid of any thoughts beyond a preferred position for the evening.
Because on some level, I want to stay this way.
ARON
The day has come. The advancing offensive has been successfully delayed by the water incident at Revnik and then redirected to Fort Bayer. Based on our intel, today is the day it will pass through the Abyss Gorge, one of its walls already spiked with dynamite in its narrowest section.
I’m dressed already and securing my tactical belt when Riley stirs, rubbing her eyes.
“What? Is it today?” she asks when she takes in my apparel.
She sits up fast, fully awake and alert.
“Yes,” I grunt. “I may be back later than usual. I’ll bring you enough food up before I go.”
I may not come back at all if things go south.
Normally, I wouldn’t give a shit. But after the fiasco with Attila, unwelcome concerns keep gnawing at me.
What might someone do to her if I’m not here?
Especially if word gets out that there’s such an outrageous fucking bounty on her head.
I’ve forbidden anyone from going into town since I found out.
But it’s only a matter of time, and I have no idea what to do about it, how to keep her away from the shitstorm that I know is coming.
But I can’t worry about that right now. Not today.
“Hello!” Her sharp voice jolts me, tearing me away from my thoughts. “I asked, were you even going to tell me before leaving?”
I’m on edge and in no mood for discussions, adrenaline already flooding my system and the familiar feeling of crushing heaviness resting on my chest and shoulders—thrill and terror colliding.
“No,” I reply to her simply without looking at her. “You didn’t need to know.”
She scoffs, crossing her arms. Inwardly, I’m daring her to argue with me.
But she’s too smart, too aware of the dynamic between us to ever question it out loud, to give me a chance to tell her things that she doesn’t want to hear.
Clever girl, playing her game of cat and mouse with me like she doesn’t think she’ll eventually get caught.
“Has it not occurred to you to bring me with you?”
Her words yank my gaze to her face.
She’s sitting on her heels on the bed, knees wide apart, the shirt I gave her high up her thighs—the fabric just fucking asking to be slid further up. I hate that my cock gets instantly hard at the sight of her, I hate that my body reacts to her like she’s the most desirable thing in the universe.
“Why the fuck would I do that?” I snap at her.
I can’t stand how weak I get around her, all my resolve fading, everything I know is right dissolving into irrelevance.
“So I can document it,” she replies. “Let me do my part for the resistance. Maybe I can help get you more support with my photos.”
I picture her lying flat on her stomach on top of the cliff, her upper half hanging over it, the camera glued to her face.
I picture stray bullets catching her. I picture the explosion, the ground shaking and her losing balance and toppling over.
I picture someone spotting her, taking her ...
molten rage rushes through me, searing me on the inside.
“Not a chance, Riley,” I grit out. “Fucking a rebel leader doesn’t make you the resistance.”
She flinches, hurt and anger flashing through her face, nostrils flaring. But she takes a deep breath before replying in a calm, measured tone, “I could be an asset. A resource. It’s not a very good leader who doesn’t use all the resources available.”
That makes me even more furious. Not just her words, but also how much I’d like to punish her for them in a way we’d both enjoy, and I don’t have the time.
So instead of wrapping my hand around her throat or spanking her before making her come until she begs me for a break, I relieve my wrath the only way I know how. By sharing it with her, riling her up.
“Today’s too important for me to look after you.”
She pales, and her eyes darken, lips stretching into an outraged grimace. “Look after me? I’ve seen more combat than you have, you arrogant bastard!”
She doesn’t fucking get it, does she? I can’t have her there. I can’t afford any distractions. I won’t be able to function if she’s there. I just need her to stay put and not give me any grief today of all days. I just need a break from this all, a break I’ll never ever get.
“There’s a bounty on your head!” I roar.
Words tear up my throat, rushing out of me in a torrent.
Her eyes widen as I tell her what I learnt from the rodent lieutenant whose name I hadn’t bothered to learn.
The more people who know, the more dangerous this gets—and that includes even her.
Still, the relief at no longer bearing this burden alone is overpowering.
But it’s also distorted by something dangerously close to guilt.
Guilt for worrying her, for not being able to protect her from all this.
But I refuse to acknowledge it, chasing it out, knowing it’s a weakness I can’t afford.
I can’t start questioning everything. If I do, this whole thing just falls apart.
She doesn’t deserve for me to feel this way about her.
I’m shocked at how calm her voice sounds when she speaks, her demeanour soothing and completely at odds with my inner turmoil.
“There’s a bounty on all your heads, too,” she points out.
“That’s different,” I grunt, her lack of concern grating against my nerves.
“We knew this would happen sooner or later,” she says it like it hardly matters.
“Sooner or later, they were going to find out, and Volker was always going to throw a fit.” She shrugs.
“It’s not like you can keep me hidden here forever.
Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. I promise I know how to stay under the radar out there. ”
Is she ... consoling me? Comforting me? She can’t be for real.
“Don’t worry about you? You think I’m worried about you?” I spit at her, but my voice is just a cornered dog’s bark, frenzied and aggravated, but not commanding.
She’s seen what I’d tried so hard to conceal, not just from her, but also from myself.
She’s seen it plain as day. And because she has, I can no longer pretend it doesn’t exist. I can no longer hide from it in the warmth of her body, in the softness of her thighs.
She is forcing me to face it, and there’s only one way that can go.
“Are you not? It sure sounded like you were.” She isn’t gloating; her voice is mild and her expression gentle, but they rub me the wrong fucking way.
Because the moment has come at last. A moment I’ve been planning, a moment that should have been my victory. But it suddenly feels like nothing but a defeat.
I find myself roped into a scheme I have myself set in motion, unable to get out unless I sever ties with everything I have fought for, with everything that people I have loved and lost fought for.
And that’s not who I am.
I’m someone who does what he knows is right. Even when it’s hard, even when it hurts, even when everything inside me revolts against it. I’m a paradox, a rebel who likes rules. Not rules others have tried and failed to impose on me but rules I set for myself in the stone that used to be my heart.
Once the rules are set, they are followed, and in all its messy glory, life becomes surprisingly simple.
And the rules are clear. Once a traitor, always a traitor. There cannot be anything in between. There has only ever been one way this could have ended up.
I just didn’t know we’d both hate it.