No, it was more than cold-bloodedness.
It was…a lack of soul.
Yeah, cold soullessness. A lesser man would not, should not, have been able to do what he had done, and done with such skilled efficiency in a matter of hours. He had known exactly what to do, as if there was a textbook to this kind of thing and all it needed was proper execution.
But, there was more to torture, to breaking a man’s spirit than what she had just witnessed and she knew it.
~~~~~
She had to get out; she couldn’t stand sitting in this apartment for a single second more.
She wanted fresh air and to be able to breathe with other, regular people who knew nothing of the horrors that humanity inflicted on itself so callously. With such little thought and regard to collateral damage.
Such an innocuous word, for the way it catastrophically changed people’s lives.
Such an ugly world for it to mean what it did.
Ziya shook her head, slipped on her jacket, wanting out of this cooped up safe house now.
She placed her hand on the door handle after contemplating leaving a quick note for Krivi, telling him she was going out for a walk.
She decided against it.
He would only get madder if he knew her exact whereabouts, better to just slip out and come back when she wanted to. When she had sufficiently cleared her head and come to grips with yet another aspect of her lover’s personality and character.
Except, her conscience asked her, who was the good guy and who was the bad guy if everyone did the same thing? If they all engaged in the killing sport?
She didn’t have any answer.
All she had was the biggest case of claustrophobia that she had to get rid of right now.
Ziya turned the door handle and there stood Krivi.
Still dressed in the same clothes as he had that morning: jeans, sweater and a dark jumper over it. A day’s worth of stubble coating his dark face. His eyes as unfathomable and cryptic as they had always been.
He stuck his hands in his jacket pockets and nodded at her tightly belted coat. “Going somewhere?”
She nodded, unwilling to step back, but not sure how he was going to get inside without her doing so. Also, she didn’t know if she should just ease past him now that he was here…just moments before her big escape.
“Yeah. I thought I’d go for a walk. Clear my head a little.”
“Right.”
The wealth of skepticism made her tilt her chin up and regard him with defiant eyes. “Yes. I need a little head-clearing after—" Ziya shut her mouth, because she took a good look at him.
And he looked…
Different.
More contained, in some way, if that was even possible.
Krivi Iyer was one of the most self-possessed, unruffled human beings she had ever come across. So the idea of him being so severely affected as to have to put special effort in having to maintain his calm was not just unheard of, it was ludicrous.
Nothing affected Krivi Iyer.
Nothing, not as far as she could tell.
He walked in, with a quick move, which meant that she did have to step back automatically or risk being run into. She held onto the door handle though, so the door swung wider with her retreat and his advance.
He turned on her, regarded her with those frighteningly quiet eyes.
“Close the door, Ziya. You’re not going anywhere.”
Ziya shrugged. “Those agents who tail the halls around this labyrinth can follow me around as I go for a little fresh air.” She even attempted a little smile to go with her request. “I am sure, your vast organization can spare one or two people for a couple of hours.”
“No.”
She struggled to keep her anger in check. The shock was much more difficult to hide. So she chose frostiness to hide both. “I beg your pardon?”
He came closer, stalking her, as she had always imagined he would, given half a chance.
Stepping close, closer, invading her space, taking up all her space and making her aware, for the very first time that he was a man, much stronger and capable than her. He could detain her if he wanted, physically and she couldn’t fight him off. It wasn’t possible.
Her grip on the door knob tightened. “You’re not going to hurt me, Krivi.”
Krivi smiled; a strange, mirthless smile.
“You know I am capable of great hurt, Ziya. Don’t play dumb.”
Then he reached around her and grabbed her hand and the knob, so that their bodies brushed in the most intense, delicious kind of friction because this time she was so very aware of him. His very size and strength.
“If you don’t let go of the knob, I will make you. So let go.”
He looked straight into her belligerent, flashing eyes and the calm, almost indifferent manner in which he looked at her made her believe him.
She let go of the knob and the door swung soundlessly shut.
Thirty-Six
Krivi stepped back from her, as if he couldn’t stand being near her.
Ziya took two steps forward and poked him in the chest. Hard.
“You didn’t have to use your intimidation tactics with me, you bastard,” she spat. Her eyes spilled silver fire, her lovely face clouding with the force of her anger and hurt. “I know what you’re capable of. I know what you can do and how you can hurt…”
Ziya trailed off as she saw the way his face closed up again, muscle by muscle.
First the little light in his eyes went dark, depthless, then his jaw tightened, clenched and then the rest of his face followed.
And she poked him again, lighter this time.
“You’re trying to make me afraid of you,” she whispered.
The notion coming into her brain with a clarity born of the moment.
He didn’t move, didn’t even breathe; just stood there with his hands in his jacket pockets, looking unfathomably at her.
“Krivi, are you trying to make me afraid of you?”
“I don’t have to make you afraid of me, Ziya,” he answered, toneless. “You already are. I can see it in your eyes.”
Incredibly, given the gravity of the moment, she smiled.
Pure and free, as another truth burst free inside of her with the same stunning clarity as before. It was as ludicrous as the previous thought, but it had come out, nonetheless.
“You don’t want me to be afraid of you. You can’t stand thinking that I am.”
She was running light, dancing fingers up and down his chest, circling the area near his heart, getting nearer to it with every brush of the pads of her fingers. His warmth, that animal, drugging heat seeping into her fingertips as she moved them over three layers of clothes.
She looked up from where she had been touching his chest with such absorption.
“You hate it that I am.”
~~~~~~
The statement was made with such casual confidence that he couldn’t repudiate it even if he wanted to. All he knew was that his heart was beginning to beat uncomfortably hard in his chest and any second now, with her looking at him with those heated, beautiful eyes, the rest of his body was going to join in the hardness.
And he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to want her.
Especially after he knew exactly what she had seen him do.
Being a killer, a murderer and a torturer. An animal of the very worst kind.
How could he think he had any right to want her, to touch her, love her, when his hands had blood on them? The blood of the guilty and the damned, of course, but blood nevertheless.
Ziya spread her fingers, her palm over his heart, and he knew she could feel the rapid thud speed up at her touch.
“I’m a monster,” he made himself say. “I use people to get what I want. I used you. Don’t you remember?”
Ziya’s fingers stilled. “I remember. I remember it all.” Tears filled her beautiful eyes, tears that stayed on her lashes like stardust but didn’t fall down because she was
a crazy strong woman. Ziya Maarten.
“I remember the awful sound of the earth shattering open and my Nuria…my Noor and Sam being gone. Just gone. I remember you held me whole then. You made sure I ate and slept and took care of me. And now I’m using you. To get the animal who did that. Who killed Noor and Sam. Who’s the real monster, Krivi?”
He gripped her wrist. “That’s different. You want closure. You’re human.”
She tilted her head back and smiled. “Do you consider yourself to be less than human, then?”
He took her wrist and kept it carefully on her side. “Stop asking dumb questions, Ziya and let’s see what we want for dinner.”
“It’s nearly midnight, Krivi. I thought you would have had dinner with your unit.”
“I didn’t. I wanted to—" He stopped and cursed himself for the slip up.
She smiled, the tears drying up… and put her hand over his heart, which, dammit, started going wild. Beating at thrice its normal pace, until he could feel the blood rushing faster and faster, going everywhere, all at once…
He knew he had never exercised such superhuman control as he did right this instant, not grabbing her, just grabbing her and shoving her against the wall and pounding into her with everything he had.
The need as carnal as needs could get, but also so much more…all tangled with want and gentleness and possession.
Krivi stopped thinking. Wanting possession of someone implied that, by extension, they owned you too.
And he was a free bird. A lone wolf.
He didn’t want to own Ziya.
He just wanted her.
Ziya stepped closer, invading his personal space, brushing her chest against his, a contact he felt through all their clothes. It zinged him to his very marrow. She got on her toes and bit him on his earlobe.
He clenched his hands into iron-hard fists, inside the jacket.
“Let’s be monsters together,” she said, directly into his ear.
He didn’t respond because there were images in his head, hard and brutal ones that involved taking her, mating with her, right here, right now hurting her as she was hurting him with her soft words and knowing touches and those lovely, heart-breaking eyes he swore followed him in his sleep…
“Ziya.” He really hoped his voice was that raspy all the time, or she’d know.
“Krivi,” she said in the same, sober voice, her eyes lighting with desire and what looked like laughter. “Do you have any idea how fucking beautiful you are?”
He attempted a smile at her choice of words. It felt painful to him, because even his teeth ached with wanting her. It was that innate, that immediate. That scary.
“You’re the beautiful one,” he managed as he stepped back.
This time, backing into the kitchenette counter, which effectively blocked his escape.
~~~~~~
She smiled, pleased and glowing, like the female that she was.
“It’s good to know you know that,” she purred, as she untied the belt on her coat.
Then went to work on the thin red blouse she wore under it and the inner protection, which was standard winter wear in Britain.
Krivi couldn’t move an inch even if he wanted to; he was so turned on and scared by the woman in front of him. With her flame-tipped hair and silver-bright eyes and skin so soft it beckoned him as surely as the sirens had beckoned sailors to their doom since time began.
She stopped, with a fantasy of a bra holding her lovely breasts captive, the white lace so modest and sexual at the same time, because he could see her pouting nipples through it.
He dug his nails into his palms as he thought of what he wanted to do to that bra. The pain helped him focus a little past the bright red haze of pure lust swimming around him.
Then, she ran a hand up her belly, sucking in the quivering muscles, up, up, between those delectable breasts and right up to her throat, where a pulse ticked relentlessly.
“I feel beautiful when you look at me. Here.” She touched her throat, arching her neck as if to offer him a better view.
Krivi dug his back onto the hard edge of the kitchen counter.
She moved her hand down again. “Here.” She cupped her breast. Ziya came forward again, her hands limp at her sides.
“Everywhere,” she said, helplessly, touching his parted lips with trembling fingers. “I think I am in love with you.”
~~~~~
“Stop talking, Ziya,” he ordered, as desire and the need to do the right thing, the moral thing warred inside him with mighty rage.
Her voice became stronger; her spine straightened as she went on her toes and brushed her lips against his.
“I love you, Krivi,” she whispered against his lips, a little frightened by the enormity of her decision. The words.
But she didn’t go down on the balls of her feet. She still stood there, on tiptoes, surrounding him with her softness and fragility and sheer femininity, and she hoped he lost his head…and his control.
His hands snaked around her waist in a lightning fast motion that had her biting back a gasp.
The cold fingers bit into her warm skin, making the sensation one of pleasure-pain.
His eyes went devil-black, consuming as he lowered his head against her, still holding her suspended between the floor and him. Just a little, just enough for her to know what he could do to her, what he wanted to…
And she welcomed everything.
“I love you,” she said, again, winding her arms around his neck, his shoulders.
Relishing, cherishing the bones and muscles and sinew that knit this strong, proud, broken man. That made him everything he was.
“I don’t love you,” he said, clearly, distinctly.
Her heart broke at the crude, bald words.
“I don’t love you and you don’t love me. But I want you so much.” He bit her ear too, so a lightning current went straight from her lobe to her knees, liquefying every single muscle in between.
“I need you so much. It frightens me.”
“Why?”
He was kissing the side of her neck, so her question was more a sigh than an actual word.
“Because.” He bit the fragrant skin at her throat and licked it.
She rubbed one jean-clad leg against the hard muscle of his thigh. Going high, high up, so that they were entwined, enmeshed in each other.
“I don’t need anyone as much as I need you, which gives you all the power over me.”
She dragged his head back from where he was ravaging her neck and said, as clearly, as distinctly as he had.
“I love you, Krivi.”
Krivi stared into her lovely face for a moment more and then tackled her to the ground so fast, she couldn’t do anything more than blink.
Then, he was tearing at her bra, jeans, at his own, shoving whatever necessary clothing he needed to, and plunging hot fingers inside her. His hot mouth closing over one nipple in the same breath.
She cried out at the twin assault, arching her hips, arching into his heat, grabbing his waist, his back with the force of what was coming out of her.
The next instant, his arousal replaced the fingers.
And Ziya came instantly, astonishingly. On a long, long wave of satisfaction that rendered her blind to everything but the man inside of her.
She held onto him with all the strength and desperation of a shipwreck survivor as she rode it out and rode it out, her toes stretching against his hard thighs, her hands going rigid against his hard, hard bones.
When she finally opened her eyes he looked steadily at her. Still hard and strong and needed inside her.
“I don’t love you,” Krivi repeated.
She blinked once and then took his fingers, those fingers that had performed such acts of brutality a few hours ago.
Ziya she kissed them, curling them inside her slim, delicate fingers.
~~~~~~
He grew harder inside her at the action, the blood swimming like desire, like need and w
ant and every good thing in the world that ever was. Wanting to find comfort and solace and rest and sanctuary inside her.
In her which was so much more complex than just sex, just lovemaking.
“I love you, Krivi,” she sighed out, sounding replete, complete from just being with him.
But he wanted so much more, he wanted nameless things, to give her everything… but he wasn’t sure how much more he had in him to give.
Krivi moved, once, a sharp, delicious movement and she moaned. He moved again, their hands joined together, as she slammed them on either side of her head.
He had to follow his limbs, so he was pressed up against her, everywhere, every single where and it was beautiful and hurtful and nothing had ever felt so good against her.
He kissed her, deep and voraciously as he moved again and again, over and over, and took her where he could follow her to the sanctuary he so desperately craved. Inside her.
In her.
In Ziya.
The woman he needed.
The woman who loved him.
~~~~~
When Ziya woke up the next morning, she was all alone on the bed she shared with Krivi, her lover…with whom she’d had unprotected sex all of last night! Even though it was the wrong time of the month for her and she was very much on the pill.
Her aching muscles came awake one by one, protesting a little at the simple movement of stretching. She gave a sleepy smile and acknowledged the enormity of her decision. Both physical and emotional.
He wasn’t the easiest man or the best man to love. He wasn’t any kind of man she could have picked to love, because he so desperately didn’t want it, was so wary of it that it only made it easier to love him.
He was lonely and self-contained and last night…for the first time since she’d known him… he had lost control. Simply because he’d touched her.
It was wonderful, although they were going to have a talk about using condoms for the next time.
She moved her hand over the indentation his head had made on his pillow, a Krivi-shaped mark, she traced. And she was lonely too.
Warrior Knight Page 23
