by Anna Collins
His breathing was short and raspy. His skin was covered in the glistening sheen that had me ready for what was brewing inside him. He had to feel it coming. It was the look in his eyes and the way his mouth slowly parted. He had me waiting like time had stood still. I was there for him, and I gave him a salacious swipe of my tongue to make him unable to relax. His knob grew to twice its diameter, puffing up inside me and soon discharging a volume of blistering seed that had my walls inside convulsing right alongside him.
There was sweat dripping from his hair. It was matted down by the exertion of what he had put himself through. I heard him moaning in my ear as each stream drew from him whatever energy he had left. He slumped forward on top of me with both of our bodies now plastered together. It felt right, and I didn’t want it to end.
“Oh, my God… Willa…that was worth the wait and then some. I can’t even begin to know how this felt for you. I was just soaking in the beauty of your body. I let myself forget about everything. I found a way to keep you at the edge. I knew we were going to come again together. That doesn’t happen often. I do pride myself on making my woman cum first before I even attempt to do so. I had to fight my natural urge. I don’t have anything left for you. You have drained me completely dry as the Sahara desert,” Tristan said as he pulled at my lips with his teeth. He kissed me with a feverish pitch I wasn’t expecting.
He lifted himself with his arms, and I could tell his muscles were fatigued. The exhaustion was settling in. His eyes had this thin glaze, but there was a smile on his face which had me blessing our union squeezing down on him to get the last drop. He fell from my grip, spent and done for the time being. I had just learned what sex really should be about. It was more of this connection and not just a physical bond most people mistook for being love.
“There comes a time in every woman’s life they find the perfect man. I’ve found this with you, Tristan. Life is a mystery. You never know what surprise is around the corner. I suspended any thoughts of my condition. I let it float away by the way you looked at me. We make the perfect pairing,” I said with my fingers kneading the muscles on his shoulders and my legs lazily moving down the back of his thighs. I didn’t want to let him go, but I knew I was going to have to. I loved him, and I had shown him how my body had responded.
Chapter 16
“I have gathered you all here because we are about to go to war. The cameras have been most informative of where my enemies are coming from. We are lucky they weren’t able to find the road. It is well hidden, and you wouldn’t know it was there unless you had the blueprints to the mansion. It doesn’t mean they can’t find us, though. It won’t be long until they cross the land with force. What they don’t realize is that this place is not only fortified, but we also have an arsenal at our disposal,” Spencer said letting me see he was worried but still acting as if he was the general of some kind of platoon which was in over their head.
“I have never fired a gun in anger in my life, and I don’t want to start now. My brother died because of an unfortunate accident involving gunplay in the house. I saw him bleed out in front of me and this is the reason why I went into medicine. Life has a funny way of showing you your path. It was seeing him dying, clutching onto my summer dress with bloody hands that instilled in me the need to help people. I will not kill even if it’s for the sake of my own survival. You will not be able to convince me otherwise. I can’t even look at a gun without being haunted by the images of my brother’s eyes as they faded into nothing,” Leslie said with all of us listening, seeing the angst and the pain she was feeling. It was like it was happening to each and every one of us.
“I understand your feelings, but I wonder how your convictions are going to hold up when somebody has a gun to your head. You’ve always been a survivor, and I don’t want to lose you because of some stupid idealism. It might make sense to you, but the Hippocratic Oath and what happened to your brother is not going to stop them from charging at this place. My men have battened down the hatches. The doors are fortified with a steel plate between the frames. The shutters are made of the same composite and have been closed for our own protection,” He said as I thought back to when we first came here. It made sense now why the door was a little bit heavier.
“I can’t say for sure what will happen if I am faced with this dilemma. It’s possible I will rise up and fight back, but I hope I won’t have to do that anytime soon. That moment with my brother shaped me and molded me into the woman I am today. I will not disgrace his memory doing something that will hang over my head for the rest of my life. Taking a life is not easy. Any soldier can tell you it’s in the eyes you look when you pull the trigger. It’s then when you know you are not coming back from that. I’ve heard horror stories from veterans who come in for care and decide to regale me with war stories,” Leslie said as I could tell she was not going to back down from her desire not to hurt others.
“You may say that now, but things may change when you least expect them. I am making it mandatory you carry a weapon regardless if you use it or not. It would make me feel better to know you will be able to fire off the gun. You can scare the person away from coming any closer. I insist that you learned from the expert hands of Tristan. You don’t have to kill, but you do need to show you are willing to. Convince them you mean business,” Spencer said as he walked around like he was inspecting the troops before the big day.
“I’m willing to do my part. I feel up to protecting this place and preventing those who are coming to destroy this paradise. I do have to reiterate what Leslie said about not wanting to kill anybody. I don’t know if I would recognize the person in the mirror after doing something like that. I have come too far to be done in by some mercenary who doesn’t have the same respect for human life I do,” I said directing my comments to Tristan in hushed words.
“I’m not going to go easy on you. This is going to be an hour long boot camp to get you ready to fire this gun. After that, I’m going to show you a few moves I learned which will essentially help you incapacitate your enemy. It’s a matter of muscle memory, and I will drill these maneuvers into you until you have them down to a science. I don’t want to be a drill sergeant, but I feel it’s necessary to make sure we are all on the same page,” Tristan said as he began to take apart the weapon which was going to do the maximum amount of damage.
It was almost as if I saw a different man than the one who had been with me down by the Olympic pool. This was a callous man with no regard for life. I had to hope this was only a momentary lapse and he would come back to me not broken into a shell of what he once was. This didn’t even have anything to do with me. I felt compelled to help the best way I could. He showed us how to fire the gun and be ready for the recoil to our shoulder when the gun went off.
I only had to be shown once, but I couldn’t exactly say the same thing for Leslie. She kept throwing the weapon onto the ground. It was a good thing it wasn’t loaded. Otherwise, it might have gone off prematurely. She would have witnessed firsthand another moment like the one she had with her brother back in the day.
“You might be what my trainer said was a gifted soldier. You may not have wanted to take up arms, but you are a natural. I’m not saying this to build you up. You really do impress me every time you do something unexpected. There’s no time to put you through the test of target practice. Actually, there might be a way, but it would only inform them how well armed we really are. We have the element of surprise, and nobody is to shoot until you see the whites of their eyes. If you need them to get closer to make the shot, then let your nerves be your guide,” Tristan said as he went from one man to the other and found they were ex-soldiers who hadn’t seen a battle in quite some time.
It didn’t take them long to show what was ingrained into their psyche. It emerged like it was yesterday. Leslie and I were the only ones including Spencer who had to be taught certain things.
I stood there in front of Tristan. He wanted me to come at him, but I didn’t know
if that was such a good idea. He was waiting, finely honed and taut tight like the string of a guitar, although this had nothing to do with making music. I rushed him and found myself Airborne. I landed heavily on the floor with the breath blown right out of my lungs. He lifted me and told me to do it again.
“Watch what I’m about to do and then find a way to turn the tables. There’s always a way, and you just have to learn to see it as a seasoned soldier,” Tristan said as I did this 20 times before I finally was able to turn and take him down in a chokehold that had him tapping against my hand.
He went through several different moves, and it took almost 2 hours to become proficient enough to use them. I could immobilize a man, use his strength against him and detain him long enough to put him into an unconscious state. I had hoped it wasn’t going to come down to ending his life. I wanted more than anything not to have to kill, but I was not foolish to think it wasn’t going to come down to that.
Leslie was sobbing, her knees up against her chest and her eyes closed to the horrors of war about to take place. I knelt on the floor and touched her knee reassuringly. It made her lift her tear stained face to listen to reason.
I placed a knife in her hands, a blade sharp and with enough force to render a man gasping for breath. She could barely touch it with her shaky fingers. Her hands were trembling with the handle of the blade wrapped into the palm of her hand.
“I got this from Tristan, and if you can’t use a gun, then this will be your last line of defense. You may not feel good about it, but being cornered like an animal will prove you that your survival is more important than you are able to realize right now. You’ll come out ready to do whatever you can to make your enemy submit. This is what Tristan told me, but everybody is different. Nobody really knows what they’re going to do and whether or not their flight or fight instinct is going to betray them. I’m not even sure of that myself, but at least, I have something I can use to give myself more than a flying opportunity,” I said as she looked at the gleaming steel and most likely wondered if she could actually give someone their final breath.
I sat there and watched Spencer go toe to toe with Tristan and amazingly, he was picking things up like a sponge. Each maneuver had another counter maneuver. I was quite taken by the beauty and the way they moved so eloquently; it was almost like a ballet dance.
“You can’t tell me it doesn’t burn in your veins. I can see it in your eyes. You haven’t been in battle, but I think you have the killer instinct. You have only used it in the boardroom, but now we’re going to translate this into a fighting force unable to be beaten. We will withstand whatever they come at us with. I know you said reinforcements are coming, but they are still going to get here a little too late,” Tristan said as he was flipped onto his back with his shoulder almost pulled from his socket, with Spencer smiling as if he enjoyed hurting somebody.
“I have to admit I do feel the adrenaline. I have found my hand does not tremor, and this might be a way to fight back against the illness. I need the cure. I should have known the injection of adrenaline and Viagra I took was part of the answer. I have to be very careful and monitor my blood pressure otherwise, I’m going to die before my time. We have less than an hour before they get here. I have three men meeting them, and they are going to give them something to think about. It’s a suicide mission, but I’ve chosen wisely to have men who have nothing to live for. That makes them dangerous, but also reckless which is something we don’t need inside this house,” Spencer said as I thought about the men he had sent to their doom. I couldn’t get over how easily he had dispatched them without even thinking twice about it.
“That is only going to slow them down, and maybe it is all we need. I’m going to go out and leave a few surprises along the perimeter. That should give them a better idea of what they’re dealing with. They will understand we are not complacent and we are ready to fight if we have to. They will see somebody is in here. Someone who has seen the kind of death and destruction that leaves a permanent impression,” Tristan said as he laid down all the weapons on the table.
It looked kind of strange seeing these implements of anger and resentment in the hands of people who claimed to know what they were doing with them. They were awkward in a place of pristine and luxury. They were twisted metal of destruction with trigger happy men, and one woman who had the gun in her hand. I loved the feel of it. I couldn’t admit that, but there was something comforting about having it in my hand. I saw a twisted version of my mirror image looking back at me in the steel.
“Just remember you need to turn off the safety before you fire the weapon. I would like you to use something with a bit more firepower, but that gun is one of my favorites. I have a soft part in my heart for it, not unlike a certain someone who still makes me smile every time I think about our time together,” Tristan said as he showed me the finer points of the 45-caliber with a clip loaded to bear and ready to use with a pull of the trigger.
“I do love the way you have stood close to me this entire time during the training. There’s something manly about grappling and holding onto each other, it’s almost sexual. I don’t want to ruin it for you, but a man and a woman fighting is almost foreplay in my opinion,” I said feeling a wave of nausea, sitting down to collect myself.
“I’m sorry to say it is only going to get worse from here. I have made some progress, but nothing I really feel comfortable talking about. You still have some time, and I believe I’m going to leave this ugliness to all of you. My time is better served in the lab. I will take the knife with me, though. I don’t think I’m going to need it, but it’s probably a good thing to have it. I appreciate your understanding about my need not to kill for any reason. I won’t be able to do it even if my life is threatened. I’m just warning you ahead of time I would rather die than to take a life,” Leslie said as she got up and walked past Spencer with a shrug of her shoulders to indicate she was not at all happy about him picking a fight.
He did not allow her to get away with that. He spun her in place and made her stand there and look into his eyes. “I never wanted this for you. I never wanted to show you this side of me. I have kept this part of myself hidden. I do feel better you will be in the lab, where the only way to get to you is down the elevator. There is no external entrance. They will have to go through us to get to you. I will give them a fight they will never forget. I don’t even want you to hesitate. If you see somebody you don’t recognize coming in there, anyone other than me, attack with vengeance and don’t stop until you are covered in their blood,” Spencer said as he stood there with guns strapped to his body like a one-man army.
“I will give a silent prayer for all of you. Everybody can use some divine intervention from time to time. I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t reach out to the man above for some assistance. You may not think he answers, but he always does, in his own way. I have never been that religious growing up, but I found my faith when I went into medicine. I saw the Bible has a strong connection to a lot of people. They believe they are going to get well, sending out prayers to him, and they are always returned in some way. It doesn’t matter if they understand the message or not,” Leslie said making me see her as a bible thumping preacher, standing on her soapbox, delivering a sermon which was going to leave us scratching our heads.
As soon as she had left the room, we got a little bit more serious about the training. Furniture was turned over, and there was a scattering of broken glass pieces which most likely cost more than I wanted to know about. That didn’t seem to affect Spencer, though. These were material things and could be replaced, unlike the life of all of these people.
“In the short time you have been training all of us, I have seen you are patient and don’t go off the handle if somebody doesn’t get it right away. You have a soldier’s spirit, and this is something you’re going to have to rely on when push comes to shove. I don’t think I have to say this, but I don’t want anything to happen to Leslie. When the bullets s
tart flying, I want her protected at all cost, even if that means I will die doing it,” Spencer said in a tone which made me believe he thought we were already outgunned and outmatched.
That was probably the case, but I didn’t need a reminder from a man who saw no hope on the horizon. As long as we were breathing, there was still hope, and that was something I was going to hold onto. After all, I had done the same thing after learning my time was limited on this earth.
Chapter 17
The tension in the air was thick enough to cut with a knife. Everybody was waiting, hoping it wasn’t going to happen but also that it was inevitable. I wanted to scream to let off some steam, but there was no way I could show that kind of weakness. They needed to think I was with them to the end, regardless of the outcome. I didn’t know what was going to happen or whether I would run at the first sign of trouble. I hoped I would be able to stand and deliver, but there was only one way to find out for sure.
I was sitting with my back against the back of the couch, and I was breathing heavily. I was trying to bolster myself up for what I was going to have to do. I looked back at my life, and I could not believe this was happening to me. I had already accepted death would not be escaped. I would still continue to fight, but I was ready to find out what came after. It was like I had been given a profound message from the man above. A sense of calm had come over me, but then all of this happened, and now I was faced with not only my mortality but the possible mortality of others.
