Take (Deliver 5)

Neither of them spoke. There were only the sounds of their breaths, the slam of a door downstairs, the wind whistling across the thin roof. And something else. The stillness between them. It swelled with hurtful words, conflicting thoughts, and promises she didn’t want him to make.

With his hands at her throat and pussy, he held her there for a long moment as his gaze made a vow he didn’t need to voice.

He would never let her go.

Then his face blanked. He pulled away and shifted to the foot of the mattress. There, he lowered to the floor beside his clothes but didn’t pull them on.

He sat with his back to her, unabashedly nude, with his legs bent and his arms dangling over his knees. He seemed to be finished with her. At least, for tonight.

What now?

She wasn’t restrained, didn’t have anything to wear or cover up with. Every part of her ached and burned from hours of his brutal attention. She just wanted to curl up in bed by herself and escape into sleep.

Staring longingly at the door, she started to climb to her feet.

Until his low, creaky rasp shuddered the air.

“My wife was murdered twelve years ago.” His voice lapsed to a monotone, and every word pulled his shoulders down, slumping his powerful body. “I walked in while it was happening. Too late. Too slow. Couldn’t put her back together. Didn’t save her. I failed her in every way.”

Ice trickled down the base of her skull, and her throat tightened around a hot ember.

His wife.

He was married.

She couldn’t wrap her mind around it, even as she’d known there was something. Something horrendous that had left a bleeding scar on his life.

Tucking her thighs to her bare chest, she hugged her legs and watched the painfully slow break down in his posture.

An elbow wobbled on one knee, his head sinking toward his chest with a hand over his eyes. She guessed they were closed, his expression lost in memory. Or maybe his face was as tortured as his body language.

She hated that she couldn’t see his eyes, but she didn’t dare move.

He was quiet for so long she didn’t think he’d speak again. When he finally stirred, it was a jerky movement. His arm moved out to the side, sifting through the pile of clothes and disappearing in front of him again. He shifted, shoulders twitching, his hands fidgeting or doing something out of view.

His silence loaded the space between them, a roaring freight of heaviness, too loud in her ears.

She swallowed. “What was her name?”

His back tensed, relaxed, and he raked a hand through his hair. “Semira. She was a doctor, like her father. Grew up in a small village in…” He cleared his throat, his tone strained with pain. “In a faraway place.”

“What happened?”

“Someone I trusted turned on me. An assassin came. Gutted her from hip to hip. Let her insides just…spill out. He made sure I saw her bowels hit the floor as I walked in the door.”

“Why?” An outcry of emotions tangled in her chest, and she pressed a fist against her mouth to keep it all in.

“Why does anyone rape and butcher innocent women? Why am I hurting you? Everyone has their reasons. Pain is constant and everywhere. All you can do is endure and fucking accept it.”

God, that was heavy. Some of it echoed her own sentiments, slicing like hot knives in her chest. But he didn’t just accept the pain in the world. He added to it, made it worse. She couldn’t reconcile that.

“Before Semira died…” He hunched forward, further hiding his expression from her line of sight. “I was what society considered a good man. I had a lawful job, paid my taxes, and followed all the fucking rules. But there were conversations I should’ve had with my wife. I should’ve asked her if she was conflicted about the things I did and the man I was.”

So many questions piled up, most of which she knew he wouldn’t answer. “Why would you become like the man who had her killed?”

“I didn’t. He was my colleague. When he betrayed me, I became the opposite of him. I became his enemy.”

“It doesn’t make sense. What was your job?”

“This isn’t about the job. It’s always been about her.”

“I don’t understand.”

His arms twitched with movement, his torso blocking her view. What was he doing with his hands?

“When she looked at me,” he said, “she saw what I was. What I am. I didn’t even know it was there, this egregious thing inside me. But she saw it.”

Had his wife seen the rapist, the murderer, the gruesome artist who carved images into living victims?

She squinted at the back of his head. “You said you were a good man.”

“Whatever she saw when she looked at me was neither good nor evil. It just was, and it killed it for her. It killed the love she wanted to feel for me long before that knife killed her.” He drew in a breath and let it out. “Some men simply have something inside that makes them impossible to love.”