Reaper’s Desire

Julian

This is too fucking much.

The terror that hit me when I woke up and found her gone, when I realized she'd slipped out while I was sleeping and she was out there alone and unprotected, is still coursing through my veins like poison.

And I was sleeping too fucking hard. I woke up because I heard a sound outside—the slip of a foot on a fire escape.

The asshole wouldn't have gotten that far if I'd been as alert as I normally am.

I sleep like a soldier usually, but tonight I'm so fucking worn down that death got as close as the window before I woke up and saw him see me, sitting up on the couch.

He didn't get far. I caught him down the alley and kept him alive just long enough to find out that he was after me, and not Isabelle. “There's plenty more,” he'd choked out, just before he died. “You're a dead man, Reaper.”

That's almost certainly true. But I've barely thought about it since then. Instead, all I could think about was that when I got back inside and went to check on Isabelle, she wasn't in her room.

Instead, she was out nearly getting herself fucking killed.

I caught up to them just in time to see her going into the hotel with him.

The goddamn old elevator was so slow I had time to look him up while I was following her to put a stop to whatever bullshit she'd gotten herself into, whether it was actually her going back to a hotel with a guy from a bar, or something worse.

It was something worse. Tomá? Novak. A Czech freelancer, mid-tier skill level, known for making hits look like accidents or overdoses.

He would have taken her back to his room, fucked her, and then strangled her.

Probably would have made it look like autoerotic asphyxiation gone wrong.

The police would have written it off as a tragic accident involving a young woman who liked rough sex.

She would have been dead within the hour.

I want to blame it all on her recklessness, but I know part of it was my cruelty in pushing her away too. I tried to make things better, scared out of my mind after the video of Katya, and instead, it made it worse.

I'm not cut out for this. For feelings, for navigating whatever this is between us, hell, for trying to keep her alive.

I'm furious at her for leaving, furious at her for touching another man.

I'm glad he's dead after he put his hands on her, saw her naked.

I wish I'd had time to cut out his eyeballs before I fucking killed him.

The anger and fear, and frustration are vibrating through me, on the verge of exploding.

"Julian." Her voice is small behind me. "Are you—"

"Don't." I bite out the word. "Don't ask me if I'm okay."

Her voice tightens instantly. "Fine."

I turn around to face her. She looks terrified, her hair a messy halo around her head, still naked on the bed with her arms wrapped around herself.

I want to hold her, and I want to fuck her, and I want to shake her until her teeth clack together for what she did tonight.

There are too many conflicting feelings rattling around inside my chest, and I don't know what to do with any of them.

"Do you have any idea what almost happened? Do you have any fucking idea?"

"Yes." She glares at me. "You told me. He was an assassin. He was going to kill me."

"He was going to fuck you, and then kill you. Do you get that? He would have fucked you and gotten off in you and then strangled you to death. He was going to wrap his hands around your throat and squeeze until you stopped breathing. That's what you walked into when you decided to prove a point."

Her face goes pale. "I didn't know—"

"You didn't know because you didn't think." My hands clench into fists at my sides. "You were angry at me, so you went out and found the first man who would pay attention to you, and you almost got yourself killed."

Her eyes go glossy, but she still looks pissed off. "I was trying to—"

"Trying to what? Punish me? Make me jealous?" My teeth clench, grinding together. "Congratulations. It worked. I was fucking terrified when I realized where you'd gone. When I saw his hands on you."

"You pushed me away!" Her voice rises. " You look at me like you want me, you touch me like you can't help yourself, and then you pull back and tell me it's a mistake. What am I supposed to think? I get now that it's all to protect me or whatever, but I didn't know that!"

"You're supposed to trust me when I say it's complicated."

"That's not an answer!" She jolts up from the bed, hands clenching at her sides, seemingly forgetting that she's naked.

And fuck, somehow she's even hotter when she's angry.

"That's not an answer, Julian. You keep saying it's complicated, that I don't understand, that you're trying to keep me safe.

But you won't tell me anything when it matters, or until it's too late.

You won't tell me who you really are or why you're helping me or what you're so afraid of. "

"I'm afraid of this!" The words explode out of me. "I'm afraid of you doing something reckless and getting yourself killed because you don't understand what we're dealing with. You think this is some kind of game? You think these people will hesitate to hurt you?"

"I know they won't. But that doesn't change the fact that you're lying. You've been lying this whole time. About who you are, about why you're helping me, about what you feel. I can see it in your eyes every time you look at me."

"Isabelle—"

"No." She takes another step closer. "You don't get to shut me down this time.

You don't get to push me away and tell me it's for my own good.

I almost died tonight, Julian. I almost died, and the only reason that I didn't is because you came for me.

If we're in this together, then you need to be honest with me!

You keep me at arm's length, you refuse to touch me, you tell me it's a mistake every time we get close.

But then you look at me like I'm the only thing in the world that matters.

So which is it, Julian? Am I just a job to you, or am I something more? "

The question hangs in the air between us.

She's furious and flushed, an arm's length away from me, and fuck, I want her so badly it hurts.

I should just fucking tell her the truth, put her on a plane to the safest place I can think of, and give all this up, but I fucking can't. I don't know what she'll do if she knows, but I know I have to save her if I can.

She has to be the one good thing in this world that I manage to do before the end.

And I shouldn't touch her again. I was meant to be her murderer, and I have no right to any part of her. She wouldn't want me if she knew. But…

She's so close. Bare and beautiful, and I realize that I'm hard. My cock throbs, desire pulsing through me, and fuck… she's the only thing in this world I've ever been weak for.

I can't do this anymore.

I cross the distance between us and kiss her.

She gasps as I grab her, hauling her up in my arms as I fist a handful of her hair and crush my mouth against hers. I pull her head back as I devour her lips, and her legs go around my waist as she makes a sound that goes straight to my cock.

She doesn't pull away. She pulls me closer. Her hands fist in my shirt, dragging me against her, and she kisses me back with the same desperate hunger. Her mouth opens under mine, and I taste the vodka on her tongue… and I'm lost.

I throw her back onto the bed where that asshole was going to fuck her a moment ago, desperate to brand my claim on her, to fuck her and make her mine.

I yank at my shirt with one hand to drag it over my head as I grab her hip with the other, pulling her against me so she can feel how fucking hard I am.

I can't stop. Not this time. Whatever happens next, I can't do this again. I have to be in her, feel her, come inside her. I have to have her wrapped around me again, or I'll fucking die. I need to taste her.

I toss my shirt onto the floor and wrap one hand around her breast, teasing her stiff nipple as she moans and arches beneath me, sliding down her body. With my other hand, I undo my belt, yanking down my zipper and pulling my cock out as I press my mouth between her thighs like a starving man.

One taste, and I jerk my hand away from my cock.

I'll come too soon if I stroke myself while I do this, while I feel the heat of her pussy under my tongue and taste her arousal flooding my mouth.

I roll my tongue over her clit, gripping her breast in one hand and her hip in the other, holding her down for the onslaught as I lick her ravenously.

I'm not slow or teasing; there's nothing gentle or drawn out about it.

I want her to come, and I want her to come for me now.

She's already on the edge. She claws at my hair, my shoulders, bucking and writhing underneath me as I eat her perfect pussy, my tongue focused on her clit as it pulses beneath my tongue. "Julian! Julian, I—"

Her entire body seizes up at once, and I kick my pants away frantically as I press my mouth hard against her pussy, sucking her clit between my lips to intensify her orgasm.

Her moan rises to a shriek, and as the rest of my clothing falls to the floor, I rise up over her and fist my cock as I press the tip to her fluttering entrance.

I don't have a condom, but I can't stop. I'll pull out, I tell myself as my hips slam forward, sinking every inch of my thick, throbbing length into her as her back arches and she cries out, grabbing at my arms.

"Fuck, Julian!"

"You can take it, pretty girl," I growl the words as I bend forward and kiss her, tangling my tongue with hers. She feels so fucking good, her tight, hot pussy wrapped around me, engulfing every inch of my sensitive length. I could come right now, but I want more. I want to fuck this girl forever.

The thought jolts me, but it's not enough to stop me or slow me down.

I thrust into her, again and again, hand tangling in her hair as I crush her mouth to mine.

I angle my hips down, grinding into her clit with every stroke as she wraps her legs around me, her nails clawing at my shoulders and back.

It's raw and feral and violent, and I want to keep going, to keep feeling this exquisite pleasure for as long as I can.

I'm glad that asshole's dead fucking body is still in the room. I hope somewhere he sees me fucking the girl he never got a chance to touch before I killed him.

"Julian." Isabelle gasps my name again, arching as she rocks against me. "I'm going to… oh God, I… I'm…"

"Come on my cock, pretty girl." I bite her lower lip, thrusting again hard and then rocking into her, grinding us together. "Come all over it. Fuck, you feel good. I want to feel it. Fuck…"

I feel the moment she starts to come, her nails digging in as she clings to me, tightening along my length like she wants to milk the cum from my body.

It takes everything in me to hold onto my orgasm as she bucks and moans, her mouth sucking against my neck as she writhes on my cock. It feels so fucking good, so…

The moment I feel her start to ebb, I pull out with a groan, fisting my cock as I jerk it over her taut stomach.

The first hot spurt arcs up to her chin, spattering her lips, then her breasts, painting them with my cum, and the sight intensifies my orgasm.

My balls go tight, my cock throbbing as I spurt again and again, covering her breasts and stomach and thighs in it as I mark her as mine.

Mine.

She can't be. Not really. But in this moment, flushed and panting, covered in my cum… she looks fucking beautiful. She looks like mine. And she is for just a little while longer.

I sag forward over her, my mouth an inch from hers, my heart still pounding and my body still thrumming with the aftershocks of the best sex I've had in my entire life.

Better than Ibiza. Better than anything, probably because I've been denying myself again and again, and this was the release I so desperately needed.

"Julian." Her voice is soft beneath me. "That was—"

"I know."

"I've wanted that for so long."

I close my eyes and breathe her in. Me too, I think, but I can't say it. There's no point. We have no future. Nothing ahead of us, and all the best things already behind us.

I swallow hard and start to pull back. I rise up to my knees, looking regretfully down at her gorgeous, naked, cum-painted body. My cock twitches, already eager to go again, but there's no time. We've wasted too much already.

"You need to get cleaned up and dressed. And then we…"

My voice breaks off as I glance toward the mess of clothing at the side of the bed. My wallet is lying on the floor, fallen out of my jeans when I kicked them off in a rush to get inside her. Which wouldn't be a big deal, except…

Lying on the floor beside us, face-up and impossible to miss, is a photograph.

A surveillance photo of Isabelle. It's a picture taken while she's sitting at a café in New York, the lens zoomed in on her face.

The kind of photo an assassin receives when he's hired to kill someone.

Isabelle sees it at the same moment I do. Her entire body goes rigid beneath me. Every muscle locks up, and her breathing momentarily stops. "What—" Her voice is barely a whisper. "What is that?"

I slide away from her quickly, reaching for the photo, but she's faster. She shoves me off her and scrambles away, grabbing the photo before I can stop her.

She stares at it. At her own face circled in red and the notes in the margins—height, weight, the location where it was taken. When she looks up at me, her face is pale and bloodless. I see her gaze flick across the room, to the fallen photo that she found in the jacket. A very similar picture.

"Why do you have this?" Her voice is shaking. "Why do you have a picture of me like this?"

My mind races, trying to find an explanation—any explanation. But there isn't one. There's no innocent reason for me to have a surveillance photo of her, no lie that will make this okay.

"Isabelle—"

"Answer me!" she shouts now, clutching the photo to her chest. "Why do you have this? What is this?"

I open my mouth and close it again, not a single word coming to my lips. There's nothing for me to say. The truth is written all over my face, and I know she can see it.

"Oh my god." She backs away from me, her eyes wide with betrayal. "Oh my god. You—you were—"

"Isabelle, let me explain—"

"You were sent to kill me." Her voice rises sharply in pitch. "That's why you have this. That's why you were in Ibiza. That's why you've been helping me. You were hired to kill me."

I don't answer. Because she's right, and there's no point in lying anymore. The truth is out.

And everything is about to fall apart.