Dark Sins and Desert Sands

by Stephanie Draven

  Ray reared back, his brow furrowing as he held her at arm’s length. “Layla—”

  “I’m going back to Seth. I belong to him.”

  Ray’s bloodshot eyes narrowed. “The hell you do!”

  She’d feared he’d never let her trade her freedom for his, and now she could see she’d been right. That’s why she had to lie. “I have my memories back. Now my feelings for him are coming back, too. I told you before that I loved him.”

  Ray’s features twisted with incredulous anger. “He betrayed every feeling you ever had for him and he scares the shit out of you!”

  All these years she’d never been able to cry, and now she couldn’t seem to stop. Tears welled in her eyes as she said, “I guess love is complicated.”

  “No,” Ray said. “Love is simple. Like what we have between you and me.”

  He was wrong. There was nothing simple about her feelings for him. Her love for Ray was deep and complex and tortured. She had to lie to him for his own sake, but it was agony to do it. “We don’t have anything between us, Ray. I belong to Seth.”

  “Stop saying that,” Ray growled, grabbing her by the arms so hard it made her teeth rattle. “I know how it must have felt when I left you by the side of the road, but I swore I’d find you later and I meant it.”

  “It’s too late, Ray.” She didn’t know how something could hurt so badly without killing her, but it wouldn’t. Nothing would ever kill her. Ray would die, but she’d be without him forever. Living every day with a hole in herself deeper than the one in which her memories had been buried. “I just wanted to see you this one last time to say goodbye.”

  She saw the air leave his lungs as if he’d been punched in the gut. “Do you think I’m stupid? I’m not letting you go back to him for my sake.”

  “I’m not doing this for you,” Layla said as the world outside the train windows passed by in a blur. “I’m doing it for me. You’re just a mortal man. Seth is a god. He’s an immortal like me. We’ll be together long after you’re dead.”

  “He doesn’t love you, damn it!” She tried to pry his fingers off her arms, but Ray held on and shook her. “He doesn’t love you and I do.”

  “But I don’t love you, Ray.” She took a deep breath over the crushing weight of the lie. “At least, not in the way you want me to.”

  “You’re lying,” Ray said. “You’re lying to yourself or you’re lying to me or both. You don’t want Seth. You want me.”

  Then he kissed her. The kiss was as tender as his grip was firm. This one was so different. It was as if he’d never kissed her before. A kiss filled with longing, his rough lips seared to hers as he breathed her in. His kiss was as salty as the ocean, as salty as the tears that welled in her eyes, as salty as the perspiration that beaded on the back of her neck with desperate want. She lifted her hands to push him away, but those traitorous arms wrapped around his neck instead. The train was pulling into a nearly empty station. She heard the rushing sound start to slow. When those doors opened, she’d leave him. Until then, for just this moment, she’d let him kiss her. “You love me,” Ray whispered against her mouth, his breath warm on her cheeks. “I’m not letting you go.”

  The flashing lights of the station flickered and she steeled herself for this moment. The train screeched to a stop, its wheels sounding like a high-pitched keening wail. She’d chosen the subway system because of Ray’s nature. The metro tunnels were a twisted warren, but they were spacious and wide. Hopefully, they wouldn’t trigger his anxiety. Yes, it’d been a good plan as long as she could disentangle herself from his arms and leave him now.

  The doors slid open and Layla felt the wall of warmer air buffet her as a few passengers jostled toward them. Ray caught the eye of a man about to step into the train, pulling away from Layla only long enough to growl, “Find another car, buddy.”

  The man staggered back, pushing several other passengers as he did so.

  “Stop it,” she whispered as he used his power to force passengers to step back, leaving the car empty but for them. She should leave him here and now, but Ray held her fast by the wrist, and when she looked up at him in surprise he caught her in the snare of his gaze. She should’ve known better than to look Ray in the eye because now he’d captured her, using all the force of his control.

  “Stay with me,” Ray said, compelling her with his powers. A distinctive tone signaled that that the train doors were about to close and Layla couldn’t move. She saw Ray grimace with the effort, but he was pushing through the pain, pinning her in place. She couldn’t move her arms, couldn’t move her legs, couldn’t take a single step.

  “Let me go, Ray. You’re only hurting yourself. You’re going to kill yourself.”

  He all but gnashed his teeth. “I don’t care. Stay with me.”

  She couldn’t stay with him. Going back to the god who created her was the only way to make up for everything she’d done. It was the only way to give Ray back what was left of his life. “Ray—” Whatever explanation she was going to give was drowned out by the sound of the car doors sliding shut.

  She told herself she’d just get off at the next stop. Eventually, Ray would have to let her go. He was weakening; she could feel it as he closed his eyes to kiss her. The break in eye contact was dizzying. It released her from his control, like someone abruptly let go of a leash she’d been pulling against. She staggered and he grabbed her under the arms before she fell, his hand at her waist, his lips murmuring soft words against her neck that she couldn’t hear. Then he captured her lips again and kissed her so passionately that she thought her lips might bruise.

  He pulled her into a seat with him as the train churned beneath them. His lips parted from hers only long enough to say, “I was a goddamned fool to leave you before. It won’t happen again.”

  His hands were like liquid fire on her body. She burned everywhere he touched. His hand slid beneath her shirt to caress her belly and her blood turned to lava. Before she knew it, her knees went to either side of his hips. She straddled him, holding herself upright by grabbing the metal rail behind his head. She felt unleashed, untamed, uncivilized. So this was lust in all its splendor. This was what it was like to be controlled by instinct and cravings of the flesh. To be pushed by desire beyond reason.

  It wasn’t only lust. She loved him and he loved her. She could see it in his eyes just before his lips drifted across her collarbone. He tasted her skin, the salt, the sweat of her, as his big hands cupped her breasts and her nipples pulled taut beneath her shirt. There was no hiding her reaction to him, and she could tell that he was just as excited. Kneeling over him as she was, she could feel him hard between her legs. Her skin was so hot. Her brow, her cheeks, her belly, her thighs. They all burned. There was nothing she could do to find relief against her fevered need but rub against him.

  He groaned, taking her grinding hips as a signal that she wanted more. He wasn’t wrong, but as he reached between them to unzip his pants, she finally found her voice. Her last shred of sanity. “No, Ray…”

  He drew her head down so that her forehead touched his. Their noses touched as he stroked her hair and said, “Layla, you want me. Not Seth. I’m going to show you that right now.”

  The tears spilled over her lashes and down her cheeks. “I’m not like this, don’t you understand?” she asked. “I don’t do things like this. I don’t kiss for the pleasure of it. I don’t cry with sadness or joy. I don’t make love on trains. I’m not that kind of woman.”

  “You are with me.”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice a sob. She didn’t know what she’d become, what they’d begun. When she was with Ray, she felt like some naked creature trying to spread wings she hadn’t known she had. The train sped up, the lights flashing by in the dark, and Layla knew only one thing.

  Just once, she wanted to fly.

  “You want me, Layla. You love me,” he murmured.

  “Yes,” she said. “And I want to touch you. I want…I want to taste you.”
/>
  That made Ray groan. She slid down his body until she was on her knees. As she settled herself, the tunnel lights flashed through the window and put her in shadow. The motion of the train forced her to sway side to side, as if she were in prayer, but if she were, this was a cathedral of stainless steel, Plexiglas, and the magnetic buzz of the rails beneath them.

  It didn’t matter. The closeness of her face to Ray’s groin actually dizzied him. “Layla…”

  “Is this what you fantasized about?” she whispered, pressing her cheek against his thigh.

  Her face had all the innocence of an ingénue, as if she didn’t realize what she was doing to him with her eyes so wide and her lips so near. Ray nodded his head, bracing himself as she unfastened his pants and her lips brushed his erection. He growled low in his throat when her lips encircled the head of his shaft. If he hadn’t already been seated, her delicate, experimental suction would have brought him to his knees.

  Reflexively, his hips jerked against her face, but she didn’t pull back. She made a startled sound at the deeper penetration, then dug her nails into his thighs to keep him still. With excruciating slowness, her tongue teased him and she sighed with something that sounded like contentment. When her eyelashes fluttered open, he could swear he saw a self-satisfied and smoldering seductress in those green eyes.

  She worked her lips up his shaft, and a pleasurable jolt of electricity arced between them. The sight of her lips stretched in this most intimate kiss made him throb in her mouth. Her teeth grazed the underside of his cock, and her cheeks bulged with the size of him. He wanted to put his hand in her hair, but he didn’t trust himself not to grab a fistful of it. And he didn’t want to do anything that might scare her or make her stop. He just had to sit here and let her do this amazing thing with her warm, wet mouth even if it killed him. And it might.

  The velvet of her tongue drove him absolutely insane. Every muscle in his body tightened and he had the brief but crazed thought that she’d come up with an entirely new way to torture him. Afraid that he’d spill in her mouth with embarrassing haste if this went on for even one more moment, he plucked her up from the floor by both arms and settled her back over his lap. That didn’t seem to stop her from wanting to be in control. Her hands trembled as she hitched her skirt up over her hips, but she still found the courage to do it.

  He responded to her urgency with a scorching kiss. In the rush, their teeth clashed, and they both gave a shy but heated smile. The steel bars seemed to glitter with conspiratorial winks, goading them to do more. To risk it. To give in to the reckless yearnings of their bodies.

  “I’m going to make love to you,” Layla said, trying out the words to see how they sounded falling from her lips. It made her blush to say it, but then she boldly pulled her underwear to the side in invitation.

  He was ready and eager, still wet from the ministrations of her tongue. He pressed between her legs and pushed up. The broad head of his erection nudged at her entrance, swollen, and she wanted the thickness to fill her, to stretch her to the limit. The elastic of her panties cut into her skin and he must have sensed it, because he tore them. She didn’t care. She just wanted him inside her. She lowered herself onto him, until she could get no closer. His pants were only open, and the zipper scraped her skin, but now all she felt was where she and Ray joined.

  He panted and his hands cupped her, drawing her down in a slow and steady pace, but Layla didn’t want slow and steady aboard a speeding train. The beams of light cut across her thighs as she rode astride him, and she strained, pushing faster than the train, grinding against him in the way that gave expression to the most primal part of her.

  “Layla.” He whispered her name as if to stop her or make her go slow, but she was heedless of anything but her own pleasure. Her hair flew wild behind her as she moved, their combined scent like an animal musk. Her breasts bounced against him and she felt herself clenching, convulsing, locking him inside her as if she could keep him there forever.

  Her climax took her by surprise, fast and sharp, and her knuckles went white on the seat behind Ray’s head as she came. She cried out once, twice, then again, then wilted against him. That’s when she realized he was watching her, his lips parted in silent reverence. She thought that he’d come too, rapid fire, but now there was a flash of embarrassment as she realized what she’d done. She’d used her own body—and his—to bring only herself pleasure.

  But if he minded, it didn’t show in Ray’s wolfish eyes. “You don’t think we’re done, do you?” What happened next was like a beautiful dance. He hefted her off him, the separation a momentary agony. But soon, he was lifting her, and she felt she was spiraling toward the sky. He turned her to the window, stretching her arms to the side and pressing her palms to the glass. She faced her reflection again, but this time she didn’t see a whore in the mirror. She saw herself in all her facets. She also saw the night outside. She saw the whole world.

  And she saw Ray too, behind her, his big body bolstering her. His teeth were on the back of her neck, catching the flesh just behind her ear. It felt so good that she was afraid she might fly apart, but Ray’s solidness held her together. With someone so strong behind her, was there anything she couldn’t do or feel?

  He entered her from behind this time, his mouth on her nape. She could feel his thrusts speeding up. Faster, faster. He whispered her name as the lights started blinking. The next station was approaching. If they didn’t finish now, they’d be exposed to anyone, everyone, but at this moment she didn’t give a damn.

  He loved her body. He loved how he felt when he was inside her. For Ray, all the pain and struggle went away when he was inside her like this. Even half-sated and pliant, Layla still moved with a feline grace that tugged at his deepest core. Her arms spread like the wings of an angel, and Ray’s fingers tangled with hers against the window, her back arched to take him deeply. He had her like a bull mates. Like a lion takes his lioness. Only she could make something so animalistic into something that was also filled with meaning. Layers upon layers. The riddle of his feelings for her.

  He was close—so close to climax that a single word could have made him explode. But he held back. He buried his face in her black satin hair, straining against his own pleasure, drawing it out even as time ran short, because he wanted her to climax again before the train pulled into the station.

  She wanted it, too, pushing back against him to take him deeper, racing against the train. They passed into the tunnel and everything went black. He heard her murmured cry and everything in him released. His arms, his legs, his whole body. He spent himself inside her with three bursts, each one wringing him out.

  He wasn’t sure he could stand. He had to press his cheek against the glass, the chill of it steadying him, before the two of them collapsed into the nearby seat just before the train pulled into the station.

  He realized how much trust it had taken for her to show him this side of her, and it moved him. He didn’t just want her, didn’t just love her. He needed her. Needed her breath. Needed her near him. Needed to have her like this, again, in the raw. She’d been so brave, and now he was going to have to tell her everything, because he couldn’t bear to have anything stand as a barrier between them.

  Not even a secret. Never a secret between them again.

  Layla lay quietly nestled in Ray’s arm, her head tucked under his chin as the train shot past another station and into another tunnel. She had no idea where they were anymore or where they were going. She wanted to savor this memory. She saw that his eyes were half-lidded and realized how tired he was; he’d been through so much, and his face was heavy in shadow. He’d start to bleed soon, from having used his power.

  “I have to tell you something,” he whispered. “Something that I did…”

  “Shhh,” she said, putting her finger over his lips. Nothing mattered now but the solace she found in his arms, for soon it would all be gone.

  He kissed her finger, then put it aside. “I have
to tell you what happened in Afghanistan. You deserve to know.”

  How many times had she tried to get him to tell her before? How terrible that he wanted to confide the truth in her now, when she was so close to betraying him.

  “You have to understand how it was for us, Layla. We were walking around carrying guns with no idea who to trust. It starts to wear you down. It breaks people.”

  “And it broke you?” she whispered.

  “No. It broke my buddy Jack.” He looked slightly nauseated, but swallowed, and forced himself to go on. “There was this Afghani farmer. Always screaming at us. Pissing and moaning about the poppy crops our soldiers burned. Didn’t matter that we were trying to curtail the drug trade. They’ve got hungry kids and few options, and here we are with our guns trying to tell them not to grow something the junkies in our country are buying. So this farmer, he’s riding over to us on his bicycle cussing Jack out. I guess Jack thought he saw a weapon.”

  Layla could imagine the dust. The confusion. The fear.

  “Jack thought the guy drew on him, and he shot him. When the other villagers came out of their houses, he just kept shooting. I tried to stop him. I screamed at him to stop. I’m the one who knocked him to the ground and wrestled the gun away from him, but when it was all over…”

  “You lied for him,” Layla finished.

  Ray nodded, his eyes red and glassy. “Layla, out there, in the field, if your buddy screws up, you have to have his back. If a soldier shoots an unarmed civilian, every other soldier around is gonna swear it was an ambush.”

  Layla trod carefully. “Do you think that honors the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who do their duty every day without cracking under the pressure? All the fighting men and women who protect civilians from the enemy? Do you think covering up what Jack did is right?”

  “No,” he rasped, his head drooping. “But Jack was the one person in that situation I could help. There wasn’t anything I could do for the dead.”