CHAPTER TWELVE

 

 

Kiera

I had never been so embarrassed in my life. I snatched my shirt and bra down, covering myself. I yanked on my pants and ran for the bathroom.

Fuck.

I was bleeding? That happened in real life, not just in trashy historical romance novels?

I cleaned myself up, and then I stared at myself in the mirror.

What the hell had just happened?

I had not meant for that to happen, not really. I had just… Oh, I don’t know. At first, it had all felt so good. I didn’t want it to stop. I had let him touch me, because every time he did, it was even better than the last touch. I was eager to help him get at my body.

I thought about his mouth of my breasts.

I bit my lip.

Oh, that had been amazing. I had never realized that it could feel so intense.

And the way he had touched me between my legs…

I…

But then, it had all suddenly been bad. Scary. And painful. And I’d felt tense and tight, when before I’d felt loose and ready and open. And then he was forcing himself into me anyway, and I didn’t…

I made a face at my reflection.

So, was that it? If there had been hymen breakage, did that mean I wasn’t a virgin anymore?

I guessed I wasn’t.

It was only that I felt so… unfinished.

I stayed in the bathroom for a long time.

When I came back out, the lights were off. Danger was on the air mattress, lying on his side, facing away from me.

Oh, good. I didn’t know what to say to him, anyway.

I climbed onto the couch.

“Kiera?” came his voice in the darkness.

Damn it. “What?” I said, and I was annoyed with myself, because my voice was so tiny.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” I said.

“No, I should have never have—”

“Let’s just forget about it,” I said fiercely. Another reason for him to think that I was a stupid kid. I couldn’t even handle having sex with him. But seriously, he had to be deformed or something, because his penis was the size of the Empire State Building. Normal people did not have dicks that big. Did they?

I wasn’t even sure that he had gotten the whole way into me.

He probably wouldn’t have fit.

I fumbled around in the darkness for the blankets. I should go and put on my pajamas, but I wasn’t going to. If he saw me in those stupid alien-printed things, he’d be convinced that I was a little girl. And I wanted to be… Well, I didn’t know what I wanted. I almost wanted to go over to the air mattress, climb in next to him and tell him to try it again. To tell him that I hadn’t been ready for it, and that maybe if he just went a little slower, gave me a chance to get used to feeling him there, maybe we could—

I pulled the blankets up over my head.

“I don’t know what came over me,” he said. “I promise that I will never—”

“Stop it, seriously,” I said.

“I stayed here to protect you,” he said. “And I did the opposite.”

“I don’t need protection from your penis,” I said. “It was stupid, and we were just both… insane. Temporarily insane. You don’t even like me, and I don’t like you either, so—”

“I never wanted to hurt you. I can’t believe that I—”

“Would you please, please, please stop talking?” There was a note of hysteria in my voice.

He shut up.

Then it was quiet, and I thought I might lose my mind. I thought of several things to say. Discarded them. Clutched the blankets tight and stared at the ceiling. The lights from the city outside made patterns there.

Time passed, and I heard his breath across the room. Steady and even.

Was he asleep?

I thought of saying something, seeing if he would answer.

But I didn’t.

I wanted to go to sleep, but I knew that was impossible. I would lie awake all night, thinking of his body, thinking of the way he’d touched me, kissed me, stroked me into a fervor like he was stoking a fire.

I turned over on my side, against the back of the couch. I wondered if he had the better deal, sleeping on the air mattress.

Oh my God, I’d never expected it would be like that. I had seen things, and I had touched myself, but the immediacy of his fingers, his mouth… It had shattered all of my expectations.

And I had ruined it.

I wished that I hadn’t.

Okay, so it hurt a little bit. It was supposed to do that, right? And then it would have gotten better, and then maybe I wouldn’t feel as if I was adrift here, stuck on the edge of a waterfall, ready to dive in, but caught and unable to move.

I thought again of going to him, trying to get him to touch me again.

But that wasn’t an option anymore. I knew it.

He had thought that I was young and inexperienced before. Now, he thought that I was even stupider, even more innocent.

Screw him.

I didn’t need him.

But an ache in my body begged to differ with me. Something inside me did want him. Very, very badly.

I rolled onto my back again.

I let my hand snake down my body—under my pants, between my legs—to touch myself. To ease the ache.

* * *

 

Demetrius

I could hear her across the room, hear the way that her breathing had picked up speed. There was a little hitch when she sucked in air.

What the fuck was she doing, and why wouldn’t she stop?

It was making me crazy.

I was still turned on as fuck, even though I knew that I shouldn’t be, and her little noises were not helping.

I couldn’t believe that I’d done what I’d done. I didn’t have any excuse for it. I had given in to the worst part of myself, that was all that I could think. Having conversations with her about sensuality and food and sex? I had played with fire.

She had gotten burned.

I didn’t know how I was going to face her in the morning. I had never felt so awful in my entire life. She was too sweet and too innocent to have—

Fuck.

That was her first time.

That travesty was her first time.

She could never get that back. I could never take back what I’d done to her.

And when she got around to losing her virginity for real, with some other guy, she would have this freakshow hanging over her, all because of what I’d done.

On second thought, I didn’t particularly like the idea of her being with some other guy.

But that was the way it would be, because I was never going to touch her again.

It was funny, the way that sexual fantasies are nothing like real life. Funny how something that turned me on in my mind had only made me horrified in real life. There was an edge to it in my head that was sexy and dangerous, and I liked pushing the line back little by little.

But knowing I had hurt her broke something in me a little.

It was the worst thing that I could ever have done.

I knew there was darkness inside me. I couldn’t be the kind of man that I was, do the things that I did, and not have it lurking. But I liked to tell myself that I kept it at bay, and that I was nothing like the men that I killed. That I was nothing like the men in my family. That was why I had left them behind. I had seen firsthand how casual they were about violence toward women.

How many times had I seen my own father slap my mother?

He never really hurt her, that was what she said. She said that he just lost his temper sometimes. But he doesn’t use his fists, Demmy. And don’t you ever use your fists on a girl either. Patting me on the head while she said it. As if he didn’t denigrate her every time he did it.

But my mother was the mistress of spinning things, hiding things, pretending not to know things. That was the way of a mafia wife. She did it with aplomb.

I could still hear her shrill voice, cutting me off as I tried to tell her why I would never speak to my father again. Don’t you lie about that. Don’t you lie about that girl. Why do you want to make up lies about that slut?

Why would I lie, Ma? Why would I make that up?

I rolled over on the air mattress, which was already starting to deflate a little. If I had to sleep on it tomorrow night, I was going to pump it up before I went to bed.

Goddamn it, how could I have fucked up like this? I had sworn to myself that I would never allow myself to hurt another girl, and here I was, Kiera sleeping next to me, and all I could see was her face, contorted in pain, whispering to me that she was a virgin after all, and—

And even if I had known that she was, would it have made a difference?

Yes. I wanted to believe yes. I wanted to think that it would have changed everything, because I wouldn’t have done it at all. I didn’t have the desire to be any girl’s first time.

I didn’t want that responsibility.

Or maybe I just didn’t want it to be Mia all over again.

Don’t you lie about that slut.

Not a slut, Ma. She was never with anyone except me. I was never with anyone except her. And if I hadn’t loved her, none of that shit ever would have happened.

Fuck me.

Now I was tearing up.

I rubbed at my eyes. I wouldn’t think about her anymore. It didn’t help anything to think about her.

It was going to be another long night. I wasn’t going to be able to sleep.

But screw it if I was going to think about this crap anymore. I wasn’t. I would think about anything else. I would do my times tables over and over. I would count backwards from five hundred.

I couldn’t deal with thinking about this anymore.

Kiera was right.

I was an asshole.

* * *

 

Kiera

I woke up to the smell of coffee.

Demetrius was already awake.

I threw aside my blankets and ran to the bathroom. After using the toilet, I surveyed myself in the mirror. Not having a shower was starting to get a little old. I took off my clothes and used the sink to wash myself as best I could. I ran a wet comb through my hair and brushed my teeth.

When I came out, I felt almost human.

Demetrius wasn’t in the kitchenette, but there was coffee in the pot, still hot on the warmer. I filled a cup, put in cream and sugar. Stirred.

Then, gulping in air, I went to look at my computers.

Demetrius was already in there, standing at the window as usual.

Good. I didn’t want to have to look into his face.

I sat down at the computers and began checking things.

I’d gotten a reply about the translation. Silently, I read through her transcription. It was nothing. Just a conversation about what Nikolai and Popov were planning on doing over the weekend. Gross, because it involved the girls they had captured, but nothing about where they were keeping them.

Damn it. I was going to have to tell Demetrius about this, and I really didn’t want to talk to him.

“Um,” I said, and my voice sounded all strangled and weird. Great.

He turned to look at me.

“The translation’s nothing,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

I stood up, gesturing to my chair and the computer screen. “Read the email yourself.”

He came over.

When he got close, I backed away.

And he flinched, looking down at the ground. “Listen, Kiera, I really need—”

“No, you don’t.”

He heaved a huge sigh. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I backed up some more. I wanted to run away. Stop treating me like a little kid, I wanted to scream. Instead, I went into the kitchenette and poured some cereal in a bowl.

I opened the little mini-fridge, looking for milk.

There wasn’t any.

“Hey,” I said, coming back to the doorway. “Did you use the last of the milk?”

He turned from the computer. “Sorry.”

“Sorry?” My voice was steadily increasing in volume. “You kidding me? What the hell am I supposed to eat? Dry cereal?”

“There’s cold pizza,” he said.

“No,” I said. “I’m not touching that pizza.” I didn’t think I would ever eat pizza again. It only made me think of what had happened last night, which was the most embarrassing, awful experience of my life.

“That’s what I ate,” he said. “There was only enough milk for my coffee.”

“There’s creamer for the coffee,” I said.

“I don’t like creamer. I prefer milk.” He stood up, and there he was. Hulking and enormous, taking up the whole room.

And I was angry now. Angry, and I wasn’t really sure why. So, I stalked across the room, and I shoved him.

It was like shoving a stone wall, but he stumbled anyway.

“I can’t believe you would do something so inconsiderate.”

He hung his head.

“You didn’t plan this well at all, you know,” I said, gesturing all around me, at the computers, the couch, the air mattress, the window. “That’s your damned job, to plan everything out, and you suck at it.”

He bowed his head down further.

I shoved him again.

He seized my wrists. “Kiera,” he said in a soft, even voice, “please stop doing that.”

“You should have thought about the fact that we would need food,” I said. “And let go of me.”

He dropped my wrists immediately.

“Why didn’t you think of that?” I was yelling, I realized.

He slowly raised his gaze to me, tendrils of dark hair falling into his eyes. “Is this really about the milk?”

“Yes,” I said, but my voice cracked.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “You have no idea how sorry—”

“Stop it,” I said. “This is about the milk.”

“Well, I’m sorry about that too.” He held my gaze, and his brown eyes were pools of regret.

I looked away. Fuck him.

That’s when I caught sight of Nikolai’s office through the window, and realized that he was in there. And that he wasn’t alone. He was talking to someone.

“Damn it,” I said. “Why aren’t we hearing anything?”

“What?” he said.

I pointed. “There’s no sound.” I went back to my computers, checking levels. Everything looked good. I turned the volume all the way up.

Nothing.

“Damn it,” I said again.

“Kiera?” he said. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know, okay. I’m working on it.”

“We could be missing the information we need to hear.”

“I know that.” I froze, simply staring at the screens, trying to think.

“Do something.”

“Give me a second.”

“We don’t have a second. We’re missing it.”