I waited for Sofia in the back of her shitty car, in the parking lot of the high school. Lying on my back and staring at the cloudy sky, with cut-out blue patches, I waited contentedly for my prey to finish work. It was quiet, with only the faraway sounds of students running outside on the track to break the stillness. Lying there, comfortable, warm and free, knowing that soon, Sofia would be near me, I felt the closest to content I’d felt in seven years. When the bell rang, she arrived quickly. She was fidgety, searching over her shoulder as she hurried toward her car. She knew I was near, she could feel it, she just didn’t know where.
She got in and locked the door without glancing in the back seat. Once the doors were locked, she looked out the window. I could see the line of tension in her shoulders.
“Looking for me?”
My voice sent a yelp from her, and she spun around just as I easily eased my body between the seats and into the passenger side.
She stared at me, her eyes round, mouth open with surprise. Her hand went for the door, just as I reached across her. This close, the scent of her light perfume and the addictive scent of her skin threatened to undo any kind of self-control I had around her.
“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you. Buckle up, safety first.”
“What are you doing? You’re just stalking me now?”
“Stalking is a pedestrian word for what I’m planning for you.” I put my own belt on and reached into my pocket to withdraw the butterfly knife that I’d picked up today.
Sofia stilled. “Are you threatening me?”
I tutted. “No. I’m reminding you that getting out of the car right now, calling for help, involving anyone else, won’t end well for them, so I wouldn’t risk it, if I were you.”
I flicked the knife open, moving it between my fingers with ease. Sofia’s gaze was riveted to the blade.
I smirked at her. “I’ll let you play with it later. I know you like your knives.”
She scowled at me and then turned her attention to her keys. She slid the key into the ignition and turned it. Nothing happened. A chuckle left me.
“This car is a real piece of shit, you know that? Antonio De Sanctis doesn’t care about his only daughter riding around in this death trap.”
“My father has nothing to do with my life.”
“Clearly.”
On the third attempt, her engine turned over, and she pulled out. The lot was packed, but no one looked in the car as she drove slowly through the crowd.
“Have you seen Kirill? I wonder what he’d think of what you’re doing.” She took a shot, and I appreciated the effort, but she clearly had no idea how my brother had wooed his wife.
“Not yet. He has children, you know. Two of them. I haven’t met them. I can’t be trusted around kids, or his wife, apparently.”
“Why?” She seemed to turn even paler.
“I wasn’t a good boy in jail. Chances are that Kirill thinks I’m too unhinged. Too violent.”
“Is he right?”
I bared my teeth at her. It could have been a smile, but it wasn’t. “What do you think?”
She tore her gaze from me and focused on the road. Her hands were clenched tightly on the wheel. “So, where are we going? I’m not taking you to my house.”
“How rude. Your hostess skills really need work, prom queen. Turn right up here.”
She shot me a look that was half worried, half pissed off, but followed my command. We drove through the little town she had settled in. The ring on her finger caught my attention, winking in the late afternoon sun.
“Are you married?” No one had come home to save her from me last night, so I thought it unlikely.
“No.”
“Have you ever been?”
“No.”
“You better not be lying, prom queen. I’ll find out if you are. It would be easier for us both if you told the truth and gave me his name. Save me the trouble of hunting him down myself. I’ll only be angrier then, and he won’t go peacefully to the afterlife.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Yes. I am,” I stated flatly. “You wanted to speak last night… now’s your chance. Tell me your excuses.”
She hesitated. She was thinking so hard, I could practically hear it. It drove me crazy that she was full of secrets and I had no way to pry them out of her. If I couldn’t threaten them out, or scare them out; I had no idea how to find out what had really happened in the past. Had her father threatened her? Had she just decided to make a clean break from all the devilish men in her life, and my name was on the list? Had she stopped loving me? Had she ever really loved me in the first place?
She was silent so long, I knew I wouldn’t get my answers right now.
“You’ve nothing to say? Last night you seemed desperate to speak… changed your mind after that little game in the woods?”
She stayed mulishly silent. If I knew Sofia at all, and I did, I knew she could be stubborn as fuck. It used to be endearing. Now I wanted to strangle her.
“Pull over here,” I instructed.
She did, turning on her blinker. We stopped just off the road.
I stared straight ahead, flipping my butterfly knife around in my hand, playing with it. She watched me, her body rigid with tension.
“Now’s your chance. I won’t stop you.” I nodded to the squat, one-story building across the street.
Cop cars were parked outside the precinct, and a few boys in blue were hanging out on the front steps, talking.
Sofia followed my gaze. She stared at the police station, wetting her lips.
“I don’t see you moving,” I pointed out after a moment.
“Why are you doing this? Is it a test?” She turned to look at me. My clever little swallow always knew me better than anyone. “You want to see if I could really turn you in?”
“Maybe. Maybe I want to realize what it means if you don’t get out of the car right now and walk in there and tell the first officer you see that a man held you at knifepoint in your car, and he’s still outside.”
Sofia turned to me. Her insightful eyes latched on to mine. In the afternoon light, they looked lighter than usual, flecked with dark green. “You really trust me not to, don’t you?”
“Trust is a strong word, after what you’ve done. Really, I just don’t care. Jail, free… they’ve all become much the same.”
Her eyes looked sad. “You buried me in a coffin in the woods the other night.”
“I’m aware. You deserved it. You’re supposed to be dead. Waking up in a box is the least you could do. You want to tell me why yet? You got the sob story worked out?”
For a second, I thought she was about to share. Maybe she’d cry and explain. Maybe she’d lie again or be brutally honest.
Instead, she simply raised her chin and held her tongue. She was a locked box of secrets, and I could torture the truth out, but that wouldn’t be any fun.
“You never know, prom queen. Maybe I’ll forgive you.”
“You’re not exactly known for your mercy.”
If Sofia was really planning on turning me in for stalking her, I might as well find out now, seeing as there was no way I was stopping. If I couldn’t have her, I might as well be in jail.
“Tell me your sorry excuses for abandoning me, or walk into that station and make sure I can’t haunt you forever, because those are your only options.”
Her gaze never broke mine. Her hands were curled in tight little fists. I could feel her secrets, hidden behind high walls that I was no longer permitted to see behind. I was on the outside, and no amount of attacking the gates was going to get me in. Frustration mounted inside me, making that bloodthirsty beast of madness gnash its teeth. I wasn’t a patient man, and Sofia was testing every single ounce of it I had. I wanted her story, as sorry and inadequate as it would be. I needed it, and for some reason, she didn’t want to tell me. That could only mean the truth was the worst possible reason. The one we couldn’t come back from.
That she didn’t love me, like I loved her, and she never had. My fury clouded my gaze, making my body hard and the urge to do violence simmer below my skin.
“Fine. If you don’t want to use that beautiful, lying mouth to talk, use it for something else.”
Her eyes widened. “Meaning?”
“So, now she talks? Meaning… I gave you the chance to call the cops. I gave you the chance to hurt me, and I’ve given you the chance to plead your case… if you don’t want to do any of them, then you can at least clean up the mess you made this morning.”
She blushed hard. It was a startling thing to see that she could still be so achingly sweet at times. I lowered a hand to my belt and undid it, losing the seat belt and shifting my hips forward so I had a modicum of space.
“I can still taste your cunt from this morning and the way you came all over my face. My days of jerking off are behind me, and you’ve left me with a cock so hard, it could put someone’s eye out. Fair’s fair, isn’t it? Your turn, then my turn. Will you keep playing with me? Or will you walk into that station and never have to see me again?”
It was a powerful bluff. She could easily call me on it. What she didn’t understand was how little I had to lose. I wanted to see how far I could push her. I wanted to see if she really feared for her life in my hands, or if somehow, just like I trusted her, a part of her still knew that I’d put her life over my own, every single time. It was just the way I was wired. I knew no other way.
I slid a hand into my jeans. Fuck, I was so hard it hurt. I wanted her touch like I’d never wanted anything. I wanted her to fight herself and lose. I wanted her to understand that I wasn’t the only fucked-up one.
I pulled my cock out. It was leaking from the top, desperate for her touch. The cool air in the car blew over my skin. That chaos in my chest stilled again when Sofia looked down, her gaze landing right on my dick. She wet her lips. An involuntary movement, and utterly soul-destroying.
“Hurry up, before one of those cops come and check out why we’re stopped here.”
A look of panic chased across her face, closely followed by determination. There she was, my stubborn girl. Slowly, she reached out a hand toward me.
“Take me all the way out, lastochka.” My voice had dropped to a gravel tone. My throat was dry, awaiting her touch.
Her hand made contact with my cock, and it jerked sensitively under her touch. She seemed fascinated by the response. After a second, she moved again, this time more purposefully, taking me firmly in her fist and pulling me out of my tight jeans. It was difficult. I was so hard, it was unwieldy. She muttered a curse, and I watched her, turned on and amused at the same time.
When I was fully free, all nine inches jutting proudly up, she wrapped her hand around as far as she could and slowly pumped. It felt indescribable.
“Make it nice and wet.” My voice was a hoarse grunt.
She leaned over me, and in a move that I’d never forget, dribbled a long line of spit over her fist and the head of me. It was hot as hell.
“Fuck. Are you trying to kill me?” I growled, grabbing her chin as her hand spread her spit around, heightening the sensation of her lazy pumps.
I tilted her face toward me as her hand continued its motion. She looked so beautiful. Her pupils were blown, like she was the one lost in lust, not me. Her lips were slightly parted, and I slid my thumb between them. I ran my other hand through the silky chopped ends of her hair.
“I like this. It makes you look so innocent. Not like someone who could gut a man and walk away without a glance.”
She turned her face into my palm as I freed her mouth, her hand tugging on my dick the entire time. Fuck, maybe I could come just like this, her face filling my vision, her hand on me.
“You’re running out of time, before we get a boy in blue knocking on the window.”
My reminder sent pink to her flushed cheeks. She turned to look down at my cock and leaned forward. She licked the tip, toying with me, just as I gathered her short hair into a handful that I could tug.
“Let me remind you how it’s done. Open up wide.” I guided her mouth down on me.
I was big, and thick. I knew it was a lot to handle, but Sofia tried like a champ. My cock met the back of her throat, and she gagged softly. I brought both hands to her head and moved her up and down, a few careful bobs to make sure she was as stretched out and ready to take me as she could be. Then I tightened my hand on her hair and held her head in place. My hips rose, and I pushed right to the back of her throat, then out. She moaned around my cock as I set a rhythm of fucking her mouth, holding her pinned in place.
I lost track of time, but it couldn’t have been long, since my body was so on edge. Her hot breath against my skin and her clever tongue swirling around my tip was too damn much. I pulled her down as far as she could go and spilled down her throat. Jet after jet of cum left me. It felt like my soul was disappearing down her perfect throat as she swallowed around me.
I smoothed her hair back when the pulsing finally ebbed and let her up. She pulled back, gasping for breath, her face red and eyes wet. I swiped the cum from the edge of her mouth, rubbing it over her lips like gloss.
“How can such beauty hide such cruelty?” I wondered aloud and then laughed softly. “Someone once said that about me, too.”
I could still remember that guy, a priest nonetheless. The good father had been using his position in the church to start a little indecent video company, using the unpaid talents of the drugged-up kids who came to Sunday school. He’d also owed the bratva a hefty sum from gambling debts. I’d been told to get the money out of him; instead, I’d cut off all his fingers and toes, and then his tongue, before sending him to Hell. Viktor had been displeased.
“You’re the cruel one. What are you going to do to me?” Her voice was still strong.
“Whatever I want. That’s something you have to accept, if you don’t get out the car right now and go into the station.”
She blinked at me hard, and a tear escaped her already wet, sooty eyes. “You’re so sure I won’t. Why?”
She swallowed hard. I wondered if her throat hurt.
“Because, I know you. Despite the time apart, I still know how your brain works.” It was the very reason why it was hard to square away her fake death and her stubborn silence. It didn’t feel like Sofia. It was half the picture, and she wasn’t telling me the rest.
“Haven’t you thought that maybe you don’t know me anymore? It’s been years.”
“Years, decades, lifetimes… between you and me, it doesn’t matter. Time has no meaning. I’ll always know you.”
She dashed away that stray tear, the one sign that this cost her as much as me. “You’re wrong,” she said simply, and just like that, opened the door and got out.
I watched her cross the street and walk right into the police station.
