“So I’m to be with you on your island for a year, while I work on breaking the Code?”
“That’s right and perhaps even longer.”
Her gaze became somewhat sarcastic itself, “And you agreed to your part in all of this, because you want to save the world?”
“Nope. The world’s done nothing for me, so why should I risk myself and save it. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like what I’m seeing in terms of destruction, but I don’t have a dog in the fight so to speak.”
“Then what payment were you offered to perform your duties?” She asked cautiously.
“You. You were offered as payment. You and a request from an old acquaintance are why I’m here.”
She stood up stiffly, as she put weight on her ankle, “I don’t like your deal!”
“I don’t imagine that you would, but the deals been made and all that remains is for me to collect payment, which I will.”
She backed away from me then to the bedroom and closed the door and locked it. I sat there staring at the door in brooding passion.
I stared at the door all day long.
I wanted to give her time.
Why did I want to give her time? Exactly! There’d been enough time gone by already.
I rose to my feet and approached the door. My foot lifted and I kicked the door hard and it shattered backward, even as I stepped into the room. She swung around toward me and it was clear that she knew what was coming, as she started backing away from me, as far as the room would allow.
“This only has to be as hard on you as you make it to be.” Was all that I said, as I approached her, even as I willed my aroused consciousness sparked by the fear in her eyes, to be silent.
She wasn’t succumbing quietly, but whacked me several times with articles that she could lay a hand to. She was still too weak from the fever to really resist though and I picked her up with relative ease and tossed her on the bed. She tried to scuttle off of it, but I pulled her back and pinned her beneath me.
I let her beat at me with her fists unimpeded, as I captured her lips in a savage kiss of need. My need.
I let her mouth go and she gasped for air in panicked fright. I grabbed her shirt and tore it down the front and pulled it apart to reveal her smooth skin. I debated about tearing the pretty bra off, but I didn’t need to rush this and doing so might hurt her.
I kissed the upper swell of one breast above her bra line, as I worked my way up toward her neck. I felt the point of the knife dig into my side enough to break the skin. I had been expecting this.
I continued on my journey, as I dared her to plunge the knife in deep. The knife pressed in deeper and it hurt, but all I did was to continue to press kisses against her throat. The knife left and I heard it clatter to the floor, where she’d tossed it like I knew she would. She wanted to break the Code more than anything and to do that she needed me alive.
It was a dirty underhanded way to get the best of her, but it had worked and now she was mine for the taking. She’d gone still beneath me and showed no further sign of resistance to the inevitable. Curious I drew back a little and met her eyes. She was still breathing a little hard, but her face was strangely calm and her eyes direct, as she watched me.
“Can we talk a little before you continue?” She husked out softly.
I couldn’t deny her that and I nodded my acceptance of a temporary lull in the action.
“Thank you. I don’t even know your name.”
“John.” I said softly.
“John may I ask you a question?”
I nodded.
“What do you want most?”
That seemed like a silly question, “You!” I said for lack of a better answer to the obvious.
“Your deal with this Agency, although I don’t like it, I have to admit that it’s binding, because as by now you know that I would sacrifice anything in order to break the Code and you give me my best chance to do that.” She gestured with her head off to where she’d tossed the knife for emphasis of her point.
“But deal or no deal John, I don’t deserve to be treated like this.” She pulled both of her hands up to lay beside her head and exposed her wrists to me in a sign of surrender.
“I’m yours John, but you can only have me one of two ways. I won’t fight you anymore. You can do with me as you please, but know this John! If you continue to take me now against my will, I will hate you for it! Whatever joy you hope to achieve from being with me will disappear and you will long for the day, when you can get rid of me. There is, however, a second option open to you.”
My hands gripped over top of her wrists and I pressed them into the bed, as I more or less growled into her face, “I’m not letting you go!” My head started to descend back towards her neck.
“Please hear me out! Please John!”
I stopped.
“Thank you! I’ll make it quick I promise!”
There she was again with the infernal manners!
Her tone was utter sincerity as she spoke, “If you stop right now and give me the respect that I deserve, as a person, I will pledge myself to you for forever!”
“What?” I exclaimed completely baffled by her words.
“If you give me time to get to know you, understand you, and even care for you, when I’m ready I’ll become your lover. I’ll do anything you ask of me and I’ll try to please you in any way that you want. I won’t hold anything back from you. More than that I’ll cook for you, and anything else a mate would do for her spouse. I’ll bear your children and I’ll give you my heart, if you want it. John you can have a small part of me or you can have all of me. The choice is yours, either way I’ll honor my part of the deal and be yours.”
I couldn’t believe it! How did she twist up words so emotionally? I pressed down on her wrists harder trying to gain some measure of control over the situation that was spiraling away from me.
“I’m the one who’s in control here!” I shouted down into her face.
She was crying softly now, “Yes you are and I hope you make the right choice for both of us!”
I stared at her feeling my astonishment grow.
“Why would you offer me so much of yourself?”
“I have the option of learning to enjoy the rest of my life with you or spend it in shame shattered and broken by you. Which would you choose?” Her eyes were completely sincere, as she stared up at me imploringly.
I had never expected anything like this! I didn’t know what to think!
“You’re just saying all this to get out of me taking you!” I accused hotly.
She shook her head vigorously no, “No I’m not! I swear it!”
“I’ve been tricked before!” I said not letting up on her.
“But not by me! I swear it on my faith that what I have said is the truth!”
“Faith! What good is faith?” I raged.
“It’s all I have left.” She responded softly looking up at me in complete sincerity.
I was probably hurting her wrists. I let go of them. I didn’t want to hurt her. I just thought that was the only way I could ever have her.
“What’s wrong with you?” I accused harshly.
I swung away from her and onto my feet and with a roar I sank both of my fists into the wall. My fists busted through the drywall and out the other side, but it did nothing to calm the wrath that I felt.
“What the hell is the matter with me!” I raged out, as I stalked from the room.
Chapter Eight
Healing Touch
Asia lay on the bed listening to the heavy footfalls lead away and then up the stairs to an upper level. Truly there was more to work with him than she had at first thought, if he could have the heart to listen to her, as he had and walk away from his impassioned desire to have her. She had never thought this would work, but now it had and she had her own part of the bargain to live up to now.
She slipped off the bed and onto her knees. What did she say? Thank you that I’m not being rap
ed right now didn’t quite seem to fit.
“Thank you for moving a mountain for me Lord that I couldn’t even begin to move by myself!” Yes, that was a better more inclusive way of putting it.
“Now what?” She said out loud poised on her knees thinking.
“Lord show me some way that I can fulfill a need of his other than having sex with him.” It was kind of embarrassing to even bring the word “sex” up in a conversation with God, but then since He had been the one to create it He must know what it was all about then.
John had kept his end of the bargain, which meant one day not so very long from now she would have to as well. Her cheeks flushed red. She might be doing a lot of praying about sex soon enough. She’d promised a lot and she knew next to nothing.
She didn’t see John the rest of the day and well into the next, which is when she grew concerned. Cautiously she made her way throughout the floor in search of him. She made a few grisly discoveries of rotted corpses, but that was it. She made her way up to the next floor really hoping that he wasn’t going to bite her head off or worse for disturbing him, but in a way she had signed herself into the position of caring for him from now on.
She found him in a plush looking business office. It was a corner office, which once had no doubt offered a beautiful view of the city. The view now was much less so.
John was sitting in a chair facing out at the city. Something didn’t seem right about him.
I heard her come in and I traced her movements across the carpet. She was standing in front of me now.
“John are you sick?”
I started to shake my head, but that hurt too much.
“Headache…… Bad one…… The pills aren’t working.” I said softly in a cryptic fashion, as it hurt even to talk.
Sometimes I thought it would be best to just put a bullet in my brain then continue on dealing with this handicap. No one would miss me anyway. My eyes were glued shut, as the light only made the pain worse. This was a bad one.
Her cool hand touched my sweaty forehead and then it was gone. She could so do me in right now. Anybody could. I was so helpless a kitten could’ve scratched me to death. I hated this helplessness!
I heard her pick up the bottle of pills. “John there’s stuff in these pills that going to eat your liver and kidneys up!”
“Like you care!” I whispered back in sarcasm.
“I do care!”
“Since when?”
“Since I made it my business to care for you John.”
I heard the bottle of pills set down and then she was kneeling down in front of me. What was she doing?
I cracked one eye open, but the light seared my eyeball and I reclosed it quickly. She picked my slack hand up and then her fingers began to press and move on it. It wasn’t just a hand massage. She was doing something else in the process of the massage.
“What’s this called?” I asked curious.
“Reflexology.”
“And you know how to do this how?”
“My father had a lot of health problems, when he got older. I tried to help him out as best as I could.”
That fit with everything I knew about her. She was the type of person always willing to help someone else. She was helping me of all people!
My eyelids cracked open less painfully and I glanced down and saw her wrists. “I’m sorry!”
She glanced up from my hand, “For what?”
I touched the black and blue discoloration of one wrist.
She shrugged, “They’ll fade.”
This woman amazed me. I’d never met anyone like her, but that wasn’t entirely true. There was someone she reminded me of. She’d switched to my other hand at some point.
“You take all this religious stuff seriously don’t you?”
She nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I believe my Lord for what He’s done in my life, even as I am a witness to His continued working.”
“You’re just like my brother.” I muttered out disgustedly. “I suppose you’re going to try to save me from all my wicked evil ways?” I added.
“Yes.” She responded without any hesitation.
Time went by; as I felt the headache gradually release its hold on me.
She spoke into the silence, “I don’t think you’re evil. Perhaps wicked, but then we’re all guilty of that.”
“I have a hard time thinking of you as being wicked; you’re such a little saint!” I said truthfully.
“Does that bother you?”
“I’m getting used to it.” I said again truthfully.
Her hands left off the relaxing massage of my hands and I almost groaned in despair at the absence of her healing touch. My eyes flew open, as I felt her unlacing my boot.
“You don’t have to do that!” I said, even as I wished that she would.
Her eyes had a soft intrinsic quality to them, “Sit back and let me care for you.”
I shook my head, “Why are you doing this for me?”
“Because I want to.”
“But why?”
She looked at me earnestly, as if seeking for the right words, “Because you’re my man now and I like taking away your pain.”
She looked back down at my foot, as her fingers began what they had done to my hands. What was wrong with her? Who did things like this for someone else? Who forgave like this?
She was close to perfection in a way I’d never thought possible and I totally didn’t deserve her or her attention. My hands gripped into fists at a sudden truth. She deserved a far better man than me, but I was never going to let her go!
Asia let her hands go about the pressure point procedures, as her mind dwelt elsewhere. God had answered her prayers yet again in the form of her being able to do something for her captor. John was different now, more even natured. Why was that? She was full of questions and she had a pretty good idea of how she was going to get answers to them.
She’d never imagined herself with someone like him. She’d thought it would be with some bookish like-minded individual she met within her own field of expertise. She certainly hadn’t been expecting anything like this man of elemental passion that would completely have fit in with the barbaric savagery of the 300 Spartan warriors at the battle of Thermopylae. He still frightened her, but the more leaves she was turning over were exciting her now too.
She was done. She got up to her feet and met his gaze for the first time in a long time. She had a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach, as she took in the intense level of gratitude directed toward her that she saw in his eyes.
“Is your headache all gone now?” She asked.
He nodded.
She picked up the bottle of pills, “Don’t take these anymore. When you have a headache just come to me.” She tossed the pill bottle away into a corner of the room.
“I’ll do that.” He responded softly. He started to bend down to put his socks and boots back on, but she stopped him with a hand to the shoulder.
He met her gaze, “I’m not through with you yet John. Take your shirt off and lay face down on the floor.”
“Why?” He asked somewhat defensively.
“Because I’m going to give you a massage honey.”
He blinked a couple of times, but complied without further words.
Gingerly Asia sat down on the rise between the small of John’s back and the corded strength of his buttocks. He instantly tensed up and she wondered for the thousandth time, if she was making a mistake. This was by far the most intimate she had ever personally contacted with anyone before.
She started to massage the corded plain of his back and the sharply tensed body beneath her began to relax slowly. She’d already learned one very important thing about John, earlier when she’d been working his pressure points. John absolutely adored physical touch. She could tell it in so many ways. The ways his breathing changed, the way he relaxed, the way he moved toward her touch.
&
nbsp; She’d found a way to love him physically without being intimate with him, but in a way it was extremely intimate. She started to dig for the answers she wanted, as she felt him relax deeper and deeper beneath her touch.
“You must work out crazy to get so defined, as you are, with your muscles?” She asked softly.
“I wish.” He responded softly.
Asia paused for a moment and glanced at the back of his head, now that was an odd answer, she thought to herself. “You don’t work out?” She asked pressing further.
“Other than work no.” He affirmed.
That didn’t seem possible to Asia, as her fingers glided over the well defined muscles that he was made of.
“You must have a ton of testosterone then.” She said half jokingly.
His response didn’t match her joking tone in its flat finality of statement, “I do.”
Asia stopped for a moment as she sensed a story. “Why is that John?” She asked softly, as she dug her knuckles into his lower back. All of a sudden he was a tensed bundle of nerves and she watched muscles ripple all over his back and shoulders.
“I’m sorry! Did I hurt you?” Asia asked concerned.
“No, just memories.” He gritted out into the carpet.
Feeling on the edge of pushing him too far Asia asked, “Memories of what?” Silence greeted her and she worked hard at trying to relax his tensed up back.
He continued in silence for a moment and then he began to talk, “I was taken from my parents, as a little boy, along with my older brother and little sister. We were gifted you could say. Our captors did tests on us, all kinds of tests. Government funded tests I might add. My older brother managed to escape, but I got hung up in the barbwire. I made him go on without me. In the years that followed they did more testing and made changes to me. I managed to escape later and here I am today.”
Asia stared at his back; he made a horrible story sound matter of fact somehow.
He craned his head around to stare at her curiously, “Are you crying?”
She nodded.
Agent in the Dark (The Agents for Good) Page 6
