58. Mina

FIFTY-EIGHT

mina

“Do you think we left evidence behind?” I ask. I was cavalier when it was a clean and ordered kill, but in the end it was messier than it should have been. And even with the misdirection of fire and all the precautions we took, it still feels like everything is somehow unsafe.

“No,” Brian says. But he has the steering wheel in a death grip, belying his fears.

I mentally run through the chain of events. The listening devices Brian planted no doubt got destroyed in the fire and likely any devices left by anyone else as well. We searched the property until we found the van where the data was coming in. Only one side was officially watching the Nolan estate, the other side was watching them. Brian destroyed the tech in the van, and there were no recordings. So everything is clean. It’s all clean. It’s fine. Maybe if I say it to myself a hundred more times, I’ll believe it.

“Brian, are you okay?”

“No.” His hand is shaking as he tries to turn on the radio and no doubt the Chopin CD that we traveled with.

I close my hand over his and pull it away from the console, then with my free hand, I turn the music on. He lets out a long slow breath as Chopin’s second nocturne begins to play. I wonder how the composer would feel knowing he routinely soothes an unrepentant killer’s soul.

Maybe I’m mentally obsessing about what evidence may have been left behind to avoid thinking about the one thing I don’t want to be thinking about. That girl.

And the most horrifying thing about it? I’m not still upset. I don’t understand. I was so upset when it happened. I had a complete fucking meltdown. But it’s almost like all the feelings I released were captured, put inside a bottle, and then placed on a shelf out of my reach. This can’t be normal. Even for a killer.

I want to stay mad at Brian. I want to hate him, but I don’t think it crossed his mind for even a moment that he should do anything other than shoot her. When he did the original recon he knew Cole’s daughter was a senior about to graduate this spring, so as far as Brian was concerned she was pretty much an adult. Of course I couldn’t use the same reasoning I’d used to save a five year old.

He was thinking about us. Protecting me. But should we really be protected? I don’t know anymore. All I know is that I’m slipping farther and farther down a path that I won’t be able to come back from. It’s a one-way ticket. As each little piece of my soul is chiseled away, I won’t be able to find it again to put it back where it belongs. I run my fingertips over the handle of the carved ivory on my newest knife and just breathe.

I wonder if I’ll have a bruise on my throat tomorrow from that one guy. I wonder if Brian will.

Watching that girl bleed out should have lingering effects on me. It should create trauma. What is wrong with me that it doesn’t? Am I just so well practiced at being human, I’ve convinced myself I still am? What if I’m more like Brian than I want to admit? What then? Can I allow myself to fall back into the decadent blackness and let go of conscience forever? It would certainly be easier that way.

I remember the first time I felt this eerie calm. It was when Brian brought me back from Japan after he rescued me from Matsumoto. I remember calmly eating my dinner while screams from the woman Brian was torturing for putting me in danger drifted to our dungeon room.

I felt like a duck floating along a clear peaceful lake, not a care in the world. I remember feeling a little itchy. And that was all. I feel like that now. Why is Brian so on edge when I am so calm all of a sudden? Am I crazy? Am I in shock? Have I lost my mind? Is Brian picking up the shards of soul I’m losing? Will he become the good one while I become the bad one?

I know he doesn’t feel bad about the girl. He’s shaken about that last fight and what a close call it was for both of us.

We may or may not have left any evidence behind but there is definitely physical evidence in this car because we are covered in blood. Not our own. I’m finding myself grateful for all the plastic. We don’t talk as Brian parks in front of the motel room. Our room is on the isolated back end of the property where no one will see our comings and goings. It’s the only reason we aren’t still at the Biltmore.

Nice places have cameras. Nice places have people who notice things and like to be helpful. Places like this, nobody sees anything, and if they do, they aren’t getting paid enough to speak.

I take the key from him and unlock the door. We stand inside the room, quietly staring at each other. There is so much fucking blood.

“We should shower this off,” I say.

But Brian is still staring at me. He takes a step closer, and instinctively I take a step back. This dance continues until my back hits the wall, and there’s nowhere left to go.

“Do you want to shower first or should I…” I don’t know why I’m still babbling right now.

He presses a finger to my lips, silencing me.

My eyes shut involuntarily as the back of his hand strokes my face. I lean into him. I don’t even know if he’s getting more blood on me. And I don’t care. He’s touching me. We’re here together in this room, both of us alive. And he’s touching me.

He pushes my hair out of my face, then he takes my chin in his grip and pulls me closer. I gasp against his invading tongue. His kisses are slow, languid, touching me like gentle rain pattering against a tin roof.

It takes everything in me not to start crying again because the terrifying cold loss of emotion that was beginning to creep over me like icy vines has receded again. When his mouth is on mine, I feel briefly like I’m still human. I wonder if he feels the same.

“Brian…” I whisper when he pulls back enough for me to speak.

“Shhhhh.”

He turns me to face the wall and places my hands flat against it.

“Brian! Bloody fingerprints!”

His mouth is suddenly at my ear. “Shhhh, we’ll strip the wallpaper and take it with us.”

Does he mean as a trophy? I can’t think right now.

He pulls my hair to the side and licks the back of my neck and then starts to kiss and gently bite me there. A moan escapes my mouth as I arch back, hungry for more of him in spite of everything. He wraps my soul around his finger and just drags me along for the ride.

Then he starts to unhook my corset. After the last hook, it hits the ground, submitting to Brian’s insistent desire far more quickly than I do. The Kevlar follows the corset.

From behind me he unbuttons and unzips my leather pants, dragging them partly down my thighs. I can feel his erection against my lower back as he presses into me.

My breath catches in my throat when he pulls out a knife and holds it where I can see it.

“Brian…” I whisper. “What are you doing?”

“Shhhh,” he says again. He drags the tip of the blade lightly down my back, causing an involuntary shiver, and I’m not sure if it’s from fear or desire. He stops and cuts my thong off, then he tosses the shredded red silk on the floor.

I bite my lip to stop the million questions tumbling through my mind. There is nothing to chain him up with, and it isn’t like the pumpkin patch on Halloween. This is… different.

“Be very very still,” he says. Then he proceeds to cut the leather pants off my body. He slits down the seams with surgical precision and rips them off.

“I liked those pants,” I pout.

“I like them on the floor where they are,” he snarls. “Now step out.”

I don’t protest that we could have just taken the pants off—probably much more easily—but I think he wants the boots on, and nothing kills a sexy vibe quicker than having to take off boots before pants.

He helps me step out of the destroyed leather and turns me to face him. The only thing left on me is my collar and black high-heeled boots. My chest rises and falls, and his gaze goes to my bare breasts. His pupils are dilated like a hungry animal, and I have never felt more strongly like another being was weighing whether he should fuck me or eat me than in this moment.

And I’ve never questioned my sanity more over why the fuck that turns me on.

“Stay,” he says.

I don’t move an inch as he goes to my suitcase and starts rifling through the contents. Finally, he comes back with a large hair elastic.

“Put your hair up.”

I take the hair band from him, and obey his order. His hands aren’t shaking anymore. Whatever he was experiencing during the drive over here has shifted to something else. A wild, yet controlled intent. And it’s only now that I realize just how truly steady his hands were only moments ago when he was cutting the leather off my body.

He takes a few steps back and sits on the bed, his gaze moving slowly over me. I want to speak so badly right now, but I know if I say anything, he won’t answer me, and I’ll break this moment. I want to ask if he wants me to do anything. I can’t strip, there’s nothing left to take off. All I can do is stand here, bare under his ruthless gaze, and wait.

How long is he going to keep me in this limbo? How long is he going to stare at me like this? The space between my legs burns and pulsates with desperation. I need him to touch me.

Finally, he rises from the bed and pulls his black T-shirt over his head, then the Kevlar. And then I get that stunning view of sleek compact muscles and washboard abs.

Here we are: two killers, stripped down, covered in so much fucking evidence.

He steps closer, still wearing his pants. His hand hooks around my waist and he pulls me flush against him until I could almost ride his erection like this. I could almost get off if he’d just let me rub against him.

“Mina, I’m going to fuck you now. And you’re going to lie sweetly beneath me and take every inch like the good girl you are.”

“Okay,” is all I can say. It’s barely more than a breathy sigh.

And then his mouth is on mine again, his hand at the back of my neck as he seeks to devour me. He maneuvers us to the bed and gently lays me down in the middle. He unbuttons his pants and then a moment later, he pushes his thick rigid cock into me.

I let out a gasp as he seats himself fully inside me, and then his mouth is at my throat again, kissing and licking as he slowly moves. I can barely believe he’s… making love to me?

Like normal human coupling. No whips or chains. No me having to tie him up so he doesn’t get out of hand. No crazed violent fucking, just slow, gentle lovemaking. My brain might be short circuiting right now.

I whimper when his hand trails between my legs to stroke the swollen bud that has been hungry for his touch for this long eternity he’s made me wait. I move with him, my back arching, my moans and panting growing louder.

“Yes, Killer, just like that, come for me sweet girl.”

And then I do.

He groans as my muscles contract around his cock, and then when he can’t hold back anymore he spills inside me, his own pleasure mingling with mine.

Our eyes are locked. I don’t want to break this silent intimacy. He stays inside me until he goes soft, then he pulls out and leans against the headboard. He holds me against him, his breath coming out in harsh pants.

“Brian?” I finally say.

“Yeah?”

“I’m hungry.”

He just chuckles. “There was an all night diner a few miles up the road. We’ll get cleaned up and grab something.”

“Okay.”

We wash each other in the shower, careful to make sure we get all the blood off. Brian washes my hair, and I wash his. And finally, when we don’t look like we just murdered a bunch of people, we get out, dry off, and get dressed in fresh clothes.

I watch as he puts on gloves and proceeds to put the destroyed bloody clothes in a large black garbage bag. Then he pulls the bloodied wallpaper off the wall and checks the rest of the room for evidence. He strips the bed and puts that in garbage bags as well. When he’s sure he’s got it all, he puts the bags in the trunk. He strips the plastic out of the interior of the car, rolls it up, and adds it to the rest for disposal, and then we get in the car to go eat. Just two people on a late night Valentine’s day date.

“Oh, wait…” I say.

He turns to me, a question in his gaze.

“I forgot to give you your present.”

He smirks. “I already got it.”

“No, I mean the thing I got you before we left.”

I go back into our room and take the wrapped package out of my bags and bring it out to him. I felt a little silly wrapping it with pink and red heart wrapping paper, until I got his gift and card. Now I wish I’d gotten him something more sentimental.

“It’s not as romantic as yours,” I say as he tears into the paper.

He pulls the black jacket from the box and presses the leather up to his face and inhales deeply.

“Dead cow. I approve.” He says.

“Yours was kind of beaten up. I thought you could use a new one.”

“I love it,” he says, putting the new coat on over his T-shirt.