“Then one day I was in the store when a dog got inside. He was running up and down the aisles, barking and wagging his tail, knocking over displays. Everyone was shouting or chasing after that dog. I—I just grabbed the necklace and ran. No one came after me.” She swallowed. She felt better just saying it out loud. “But I didn’t go back inside that store for years.”
“Elisa, I—” He sounded a little choked up.
“No! I’m sure you’re going to say that you’ve done something far worse. But it doesn’t matter. Don’t you see? My mother always said I was going to get punished, no matter how small my sins were. And I believed her. I’ve spent my whole life hating myself and being afraid.” She buried her face in his chest. “I don’t want to be afraid anymore. Please, Adrian... let me not have to worry about being good. I want to be free, and I want to be with you.”
He was silent for a long moment. “You’re making it hard for me.”
“Why?”
“Because I want you so very much. But I also want to do what’s right for you.” He gave a harsh laugh. “And unlike you, I’m not accustomed to stopping myself from doing the wrong thing.”
She traced the well-defined lines of his biceps with her fingers and rubbed her face against his shoulder. “Then let’s forget about the world, and right and wrong, and just be together.”
He let out a long breath and stirred in the dimness. She lifted her face to his. His tongue darted out to circle his mouth, and she caught a glimmer of moonlight on his lush lower lip.
His features were shadowed by moonlight, his hair in disarray. He drew nearer, closer and closer, only an inch away, less.
Then he tangled his hands in her hair and smashed his lips into hers. She let out a small cry, but it was muffled by the heat of his flesh. His tongue searched deep inside her, stroking the roof of her mouth back and forth in an erotic dance. She gripped the sheet, and her body thrashed in his hold.
Adrian covered her mouth with his, his lips caressing hers over and over. But this time she tasted something different in his kiss, something fierce and full of longing. It was as though he needed something from her this time, something only she could give him.
He stroked his thumbs along her cheekbones, and she quivered at the careless power in his grip. “I want you,” he said. “I’ve never wanted anything like I want you.”
“I’m here.”
He gave a dark chuckle. “You’re in the lion’s den and you willingly give yourself to me? I would say you’re foolish, but I think you already know.” His eyes glinted in the dimness. “You’ve put yourself in my hands. There’s no escape.”
His hands brushed long, slow strokes of heat down her sides and she quaked at the barely contained force in his muscles. His teeth nipped at her earlobe, and her body shook. His lips skimmed over her cheek and swept down her throat, like fire licking over paper, burning, consuming, flashing. Her body broke out in flame.
His mouth was scalding. Lightning zigzagged across her skin and his kiss poured molten moonlight down her spine. She was in too deep; this was too dangerous for her, but the spark of the forbidden had caught her and she couldn’t turn back.
His fingers spread across her neckline, tugging her loose nightgown off her shoulders. Cool air splashed over her bare breasts. No one had touched her like this before, no one had ever felt how soft she was, how her breasts were a pillow made for a head to rest on: his head, only his, her own secret locked away all her life, now bared to him, given to him, shared.
She arched into his touch. She wanted his hands on her; she longed to drag her hair across his skin, to match skin to skin in an agony of delight. She had never known anything like this, had never experienced this urgency, this craving, this yearning for closeness to another human being.
He drew away; she whimpered and reached for him. “Patience,” he whispered. With a single, long, languid movement he shed his nightshirt and stood naked before her, a shadow outlined in moonlit silver. She could not see his face, but she knew his expression was dark and sensual; her gaze dropped lower but all she could see was darkness pooling between his legs.
The bed dipped under his weight and he pressed himself against her belly, stripping her nightgown from her body like flame takes wood from iron. Their bodies glided against each other, tongues of fire licking and twirling. She wanted him like paper wants to burn, desiring nothing more than to be utterly consumed, losing all rationality under his deadly touch.
His hands and mouth trailed along her torso and across her flat belly, fingers and tongue playing with the hair below. She gasped, clutching him, crying out as a gush of pleasure shot from her core. He dragged his tongue through her curls, circled the area below no one had ever touched, licked her with that incendiary tongue until she was about to explode.
“Trust me,” he whispered. Amusement flooded into his voice. “Of course, you don’t have any other choice.”
She shuddered, a wreck of sensation, the fever at her core flaring across her body. His tongue probed deeper, curled into her, slid out, warm and wet and delicately circling.
He paused and leaned away with a lopsided smirk.
“No!” she cried. “Please, don’t stop!”
He laughed and slid his torso along her legs; his mouth stroked up her thighs until his head nestled between her legs, his tongue lapping at her folds. Shaking, she ran her fingers through his soft thick hair. She was a throbbing mess of heat and need, reduced to inarticulate groans. His circling tongue paused and he gave a single lick to the heart of her sex.
She screamed.
Finally, finally, he kissed and caressed exactly where she wanted him, where she needed him, stroking with his long silken tongue, more, more, the unbearable tension rising to a peak until she couldn’t hold it any longer and her body exploded: she was his; she belonged to him, utterly and completely. She would do anything, go into any darkness for him and for him alone. She cried out and clutched him, convulsing over and over until she gradually quieted, easing into long, lingering streamers of pleasure, his tongue lazily stroking her with slow caresses of utter bliss.
After a few sweet minutes just lying together, he twined his arms around her, slid along her body, and very gently kissed her throat; something hard and hot pushed against her core. He shifted and reached underneath himself, his palm flat against her, his finger probing inside, deeper, deeper, reaching through the waves of pleasure until she felt a sudden, burning pain.
She gave a sharp cry.
“Shhh,” he whispered, “I’m stretching you so it won’t hurt. Relax.” Trembling, she let herself enfold his fingers; but it burned, and she cried out; he murmured to her, and she relaxed. He moved deeper; she felt pain where she had never sensed anything before, and then his fingers were caressing, stroking, and once again a wave of pleasure began to mount in her.
He lifted himself away from her, and she heard a crinkling noise.
“Mmm?”
“Just getting a condom, my sweet.” He returned and kissed each of her nipples, flicking his pointed tongue across the tips and tracing rings around each, his mouth fiery across her skin. His teeth grazed her lips, something salty and strange on his tongue. He rubbed his long and toned body against her, her soft flesh molding to his ridges of muscle, skin to skin, from her breasts to her belly to the soles of her feet, and back to her aching core.
He straddled her legs, his shadow stretching tall above her, and she felt him at her entrance. She tensed. “I’ll be gentle,” he said. “May I?” he asked with infinite tenderness.
“Yes,” she said, breathing deeply. Her hands sprawled over his broad, firm, smooth back, and she shivered at the potency in his eyes, at the barely constrained danger they emanated.
Then he slipped inside her, excruciatingly slowly, filling her, stretching her beyond belief, and she burned and gasped.
“Relax,” he whispered. She felt the tightness in a ring of pain, until at last her muscles loosened. As she breathed, she realized
it didn’t hurt as much as she had feared; it was bearable, it was worth it, it was satisfying, it was wonderful.
He began to move, slowly, slowly, like a groundswell of the ocean, like the tide surging; heavy, undulating waves washed over her as he thrust, plunging in and drawing out in an ancient rhythm. His arms tightened around her, and at last they were close, as close as two people could be, one within the other, dancing the dance of passion and completion.
And at last she saw him, this tightly controlled man who never made a move without calculation, surrendering himself to his own sensations. He threw his head back, thrusting deep into her, and released in shuddering waves; he held her as though he would never let her go, collapsing over her, his breathing harsh and fast against her ear.
He sought out her mouth with his, and she drank him in, sealing her lips against his.
They lay together, skin against skin, heart against heart, as their heat slowed and cooled, embers glowing, fire banked by the long shore.
Enfolded by his warmth, in the ringing silence, with no voice but his echoing in her ears, she slept.
Keisha
Keisha kicked aside the used syringes on the precinct steps. It was precisely 8 AM on the morning of All Souls Day. The desk sergeant didn’t meet her eyes as she strode past him into the bullpen. All her colleagues appeared to be exceedingly busy at their desks, conspicuously not glancing in her direction. The path to Captain Truong’s office had never seemed so long.
Truong’s head was bent, only his fine black hair visible as he scratched away at some paperwork.
“Sir,” she said stiffly. “I apologize for the events of last night. I—”
“Lieutenant Huston.” He held up his hand to stop her. “Please sit down. I want you to hear the details from me, because I was there. We’ve got an informant somewhere, so I decided I’d handle it myself to make sure it stayed unleaked. I don’t want you to blame yourself. None of us expected the target address to be a safe house for battered women and not the gang headquarters.”
Keisha’s lips tightened.
“All those terrified young girls... One girl—she couldn’t have been more than sixteen, a tiny blonde—had bruises all over her face and arms, two black eyes, cut up lips. Broken collarbone, arm in a sling.” He glanced up at the far corner of the ceiling. “She spat in my face.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “We’ll be taking some flack. From the press, from some elected officials, no doubt. I think the department’s going to be facing a lawsuit. The woman who ran the place came out and tore into me. Kept repeating that we had just compromised the safety of all the women and children there.”
He let Keisha take it in. “Somebody planned this out very carefully. They set us up so we would raid the wrong place.”
“But—how?” asked Keisha.
Truong’s nostrils flared. “It was a perfectly baited trap. They lured us in—and snapped it shut on us last night.” His fingers curled into a fist on his desk. “I don’t need to tell you that we need to take down whoever is making us run in circles for their amusement.”
“The ‘Captain’ of Tenebras?”
“Maybe. One thing is definite. We’re not dealing with just a high school gang. This is a full-blown organized crime syndicate, and I’m certain the leaders are adults. We’re trying to find who could be capable of running an operation of this magnitude. We’ve contacted the federal Drug Enforcement Agency for help.”
He pinned Keisha with his glare. “I need you to find out more. We’re getting pressure from above. I want you to solve this. Solve it now, and I don’t really care how you do it. Find out who’s running the gang at Rockton High. Find this ‘Captain.’”
15
Adrian
ADRIAN OPENED HIS EYES in the early morning darkness of Elisa’s apartment. He lay curled around her, face buried in her sweet-smelling hair. Her breathing was peaceful and even. His internal clock told him it was around five in the morning. He never needed much sleep, and usually rose early, using the time to work and plan for the day. His adversaries were behind from the moment they got up. He had never given a lover the pleasure of waking up beside him.
But today—today would be different.
He smiled into the darkness. The night had been fulfilling in more ways than one.
Cesar had called him during the night with the coded responses that indicated their headquarters’ location was safe for now, and more cops had been made to look like incompetent fools.
He brought his lips to the back of Elisa’s head and kissed her. She murmured in her sleep. Adrian remembered her sweet body lying under his, her eager, inexperienced kisses. She had been so responsive, so delightfully enthusiastic about following his lead.
Elisa had whispered, “I love you,” and for the first time, Adrian had felt an odd twinge at those words. He had heard them many times before from so many people, and they had previously only shown him that yet another soul had fallen under his control.
Control.
Power.
For so long, nothing had mattered more than bringing as many people as possible under his dominion, expanding his own influence and wealth by whatever means necessary.
But now, for the first time, he wondered if there was something more.
Last night had been overwhelming. Terrifying. Completely different from anything he had felt in his life. When they made love, Elisa had held him as though she would never let him go. It had been her first time, so he was not surprised that she was so emotionally affected. But his own reaction disturbed him like nothing had for many years.
He had thought himself incapable of feeling certain emotions, had thought they had been burned out of him long ago. He had accepted that state, even welcomed it; emotions only limited his actions, hindered his rational, linear progression towards his goals.
But now, with Elisa warm in his arms, he wondered. A part of him he had thought long dead was coming to life again. Although it was intensely painful, he did not want it to stop. The way a person with nerve damage welcomes the pain of pins and needles as the signal of awakening life, so did this agony remind him of another Adrian Salas, of the child he had been a lifetime ago, when he had once been loved, before everything changed.
He still remembered bits and pieces from his early life. His mother was warm and beautiful, with long curly hair that he could grab in his small fists, soft hair that tickled his skin when she bent over him. How comfortable and secure it was to be held in her arms, and how sweetly she sang to him. She smelled like flowers, and her voice itself was like a melody.
She played games with him, reading and counting games. She had been so proud of him. She cut up his meat, and he counted the pieces and laughed. She clapped her hands and he spun in a circle, jumped up and down to the rhythm.
But so much was gone. What was left was vague, as though a gauzy curtain had been drawn over it.
Everything afterwards had been seared into his memory in sharp focus.
Sharp, cold focus.
He had been five years old. He was at home watching television after dinner with his parents and older sister when four intruders burst into their house. He remembered glancing up from the TV, uncomprehending, as they entered the living room.
“All right!” one shouted. “Everybody down and don’t move!” The boy Adrian froze, staring at what he realized was a gun.
His father, tall, dark-haired and imposing, stood up slowly. “What is the meaning of this?”
The leader pointed his gun at him. “Shut up and get down on the floor!”
It happened in what seemed like an instant. His father, enraged, charged the guy and knocked him to the ground. But one of the others must have fired. The shot was so loud, the young boy felt it in his eardrums and mouth more than he heard it, and the echoes rang in his head, muting the sound of the television. His father crumpled to the floor, and blood oozed from beneath his shirt.
His mother screamed. She was cryi
ng, shrieking in panic and fear. One of the others slapped her face. “Shut up, bitch!” But she seemed unable to stop. His sister sobbed and wailed, adding to the din.
“Shut up or I’ll shoot you all!” someone shouted.
The young boy, crouching motionless on the floor, wanted to urge his mother and sister to please be quiet; couldn’t they see what was going to happen?
And then it did. Two more gunshots made the boy’s ears ring even more. His mother and sister collapsed on the floor. Blood spurted from his mother’s thigh and spread across the pitted hardwood floor.
“Come on! Tie him up and let’s go.” One of them pulled out a couple of zip ties and locked the boy’s wrists to the arm of a heavy wooden chair. They pounded up the stairs.
He heard them stomping and cursing upstairs for what seemed like hours. Eventually, there were more thumps on the stairs; they ran downstairs and were gone.
He learned later that it had all been a mistake: their neighbor had been involved in a drug deal, and had kept cash in his mattress. Somehow their house had been mistaken for his. His family had been shot over nothing.
Adrian stood there, chained to the arm of the chair, listening to the footsteps die away. And then it was silent in the living room that had once held the three people he loved most in his life. In the silence, he gradually became aware that his mother was still alive. She was whimpering and gasping.
“Mommy,” he called, but she did not respond, just continued with tiny moans and cries of pain. Blood seeped from her wound. 911, he thought, he had to call 911. The telephone was on the kitchen counter. He began dragging the heavy chair, slowly, in that direction. The sharp plastic hurt his wrists, but he kept on going.
After a very long time he reached the kitchen. He saw the telephone, just above his eye level, on the counter. But he couldn’t reach it. He tried lifting his bound hands, over and over again, but he was just not strong enough. He tried to reach the phone with his head, push the buttons with his nose or mouth, but he was just a little too short. He collapsed over the chair arm. His eyes stung with tears.
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