“Do you want to talk about it?”
He didn’t respond for at least a minute, but he turned back towards her, the emotions she had seen replaced with darker ones, but at least she was more familiar with the way he was looking at her now.
“Help me forget,” he said as he pushed off the headboard, pulling her into him.
She looked into those fathomless blue eyes of his and asked the one question she wanted the answer to. “What are you trying to forget?”
Carefully, his fingers drifted beneath the edge of her panties, deftly pulling them down and off, tossing them over the side of the bed. Her bra quickly followed and without them, she was naked before his gaze while he remained clothed.
Now that she thought about it…there was never a time when she had seen him fully naked. And at that moment, as she thought about the way he held her arms pinned to the bed, she couldn’t remember what his skin felt like.
But tonight, whatever had caused the change in him had his shirt coming off, revealing ropes of muscle that flexed with the movement. To say that he was a work of art was an understatement. From the indentations at his waist, to the sharp lines that made up his abdomen, it was quite clear that he was cut. Yet, he wasn’t physically perfect.
He had scars, lots of them, some of which she was finally seeing and not just where the two stars were inked into his chest. Another looked like someone had slashed across his stomach with a knife, and even one that looked suspiciously like a bite mark.
Whatever life he had come from, it hadn’t been an easy one.
And she had never seen them, not until after he had crawled off her, going over to his bag to grab a condom that she saw his back for the first time.
And the scars that were all over it.
She gasped, unable to contain the sound, not even as her hand lifted to her mouth as she stared.
Jagged, vertical lines stretched nearly across the entirety of his back, some bigger than others, and a few that even looked like they were still painful to the touch.
How had he even gotten them?
Her minds ran wild with possibilities, each one worse than the last, and she was so caught up in her thoughts that she hadn’t noticed Niklaus moving back towards her until he was right back between her legs, but his expression was different now.
Less lust.
More…something.
He held her face in his hands, far gentler than she was expecting. “It was a long time ago.”
“But—”
“No, I don’t want you to worry yourself with this. Because right now,” he said then paused, as though considering his next words, “when I’m with you, I don’t think about them.”
She didn’t know who or why the scars had been embedded into his skin, but she wanted to erase them, eradicate the pain that she knew would have been excruciating for him.
Reagan didn’t realize there were tears in her eyes before one slipped free, spilling down her face.
Very carefully, he used his thumb to brush it away, bringing his lips to her cheek as though she were the one in need of comfort instead of him.
“Can I…”
She was almost afraid to finish that question, not sure whether for him or for her. She didn’t want to bring up bad memories for him, but she wanted to touch them, to offer him comfort when he quite obviously hadn’t had it then.
Reagan didn’t have to finish her question for him to understand what she was asking. Though his motions were stiff, he did turn, offering her an unobstructed view of what she wanted to see, and now that he was close, they only made her hurt more.
The scars didn’t seem to be made in any discernible pattern, but it was quite obvious that whoever had left the marks on him had wanted him to hurt. Badly.
Hesitantly, she reached out, careful to let her fingers ghost over one of the lines that was a shade lighter than the rest of his skin. With the way that the scars looked, she had expected to feel something when she touched them, but it was just as smooth as the rest of him.
Though healed, those scars remained with him.
“You got the others covered up,” she said after some time, tracing the length of another line. “Why not these?”
“I wanted the reminder,” he said, glancing back at her over his shoulder, his expression unreadable.
“Of what? Pain?”
“No, that I won’t break.”
She was readying to go on, to offer him comfort in the form of words, but he shushed her with a kiss, almost making her forget what she was questioning him about.
This time felt different.
It wasn’t like they hadn’t ever touched before, that they had never explored each other’s bodies, but as her fingers drifted up his spine, feeling the grooves, but also over the scars the decorated his skin, she felt like she was feeling him for the first time.
Like she was becoming lost all over again to the things he made her feel.
*
“Niklaus?”
He turned his head in her direction, her calling for him distracting him long enough that he lost track of what shape he was tracing on her leg.
“Hmm…”
Shifting onto her side she looked down at him, her expression unreadable. He would have thought after the hours they spent rolling around in bed that she would be a little more relaxed next to him, but she just looked inquisitive, as though she was trying to figure something out about him.
“What do these mean?” she asked, gesturing with a touch of her fingers to one of the stars tattooed on his chest. The raised skin of the scar felt different to those on his back. Here, she could feel the texture.
“To me? Nothing. To someone else? Everything.”
She didn’t understand. “Then why get them if they mean nothing to you.”
“Because they meant something to someone, and in a moment of weakness, that someone meant something to me.”
Reagan still didn’t understand, not really, but the way he spoke about it made her wonder about the person he meant.
“Did you lose them?”
He shook his head, seeming sad in that moment. “I don’t think I ever really had them.” Then, he touched her face, smiling at her in a way that melted her heart. “But I have you, and that’s better.”
What could she say in that moment that could adequately describe what she was feeling for him…what she had been trying to avoid since the very beginning.
But his next words brought her back to reality.
“Don’t,” he said after a moment, his gaze drifting over her face.
Confused, she asked, “Don’t what?”
“Don’t fall in love with me.”
Was she that transparent that he could see just how much she enjoyed being around him? And worse, how could she possibly be falling in love with someone she hardly knew, not really anyway.
Unable to respond as she didn’t know how to respond to that, Reagan remained silent, listening to the thumping beat of his heart, the cadence slowing with every breath he took before he was asleep, still holding her like she was a lifeline.
Even as he slipped under, she still remained awake a while longer, too restless to fall asleep.
Chapter Fourteen
One thing Niklaus had learned after a year-and-a-half on the job was when to walk away. Whether it was just him losing perspective, or that he was risking death by staying on the mission any longer than what was necessary, he knew when it was time to abandon ship and get as far away from it as he could.
It wasn’t that he was in a particularly dire place, or even that his life was being threatened in any way, but his mind, his thoughts, his sanity…he felt like he was losing it.
All because of the girl fast asleep tucked into his side.
How had another week already passed them by? Niklaus could still remember flying out for London, helping an associate with an extraction job just six months ago because he had felt he had gotten too close to Reagan.
From the curve of
her smile when she saw him, or how they fit together like two puzzle pieces when she was by his side…He had enjoyed it, the time he spent with her, and though he had been a little reluctant the first time around, he still had been able to leave her without thinking too much on it.
But now, lying next to her, feeling the way her chest rose and fell against his side, how her dainty hand rested against his chest, her fingers nearly touching one of the stars he had inked on his chest, Niklaus knew it was time to leave again.
He didn’t know when things had shifted between them, or rather, when it had finally shifted for him. He’d been content with using her for his own selfish needs, releasing pent up aggression that constantly hounded him.
Except now, he was beginning to crave more of her. Her time. Her attention. Everything.
He just wanted her…
Already, she had called off twice from that job of hers just so she could spend more time with him, and instead of dissuading her, he had been silently glad that she had.
Niklaus was beginning to realize it was no longer just a hookup to him. He actually liked her.
And knowing that, even without having ever spoken those words aloud made the delicate gold chain around his neck to feel a little heavier.
He knew the impossible task he was undertaking, his debts, and obligations. Though he had already killed three so far, he knew without a doubt that the others, those that were in higher positions in their respective organizations, wouldn’t be nearly as easy, especially when so few of them came stateside where he had the advantage.
This obligation to Sarah was the reason he had accepted Z’s offer in the first place, allowing the man to mold and transform him into the very person he needed to be to get the job done.
So if this was what he gave his life and identity to be, why was he fucking around? When he wasn’t working towards the goal, making sure that he finally brought an end to the men that tortured without care, he felt like he was failing at the one thing he should have been able to do.
The last thing he needed to be doing was relaxing, letting his guard down, and enjoying the company of someone like Reagan.
That wasn’t what he deserved.
It was because of him that Sarah had died so brutally, and worse, only he knew the truth of this. Her family still mourned the daughter they lost, his disappearance long forgotten by all except his mother.
Only once had he had the courage to venture back to that place in the dead of night, peeking through the windows of his old family home just to catch a single, quick glance at her.
Maybe it was ritual. Maybe he had caught her in a reflective mood, but she’d been sitting in the rocking chair, holding a picture of the pair of them, her eyes sad as she regarded them.
How easy it would have been, knocking on the door, letting her know that he was fine, that there was no reason for her to be sad anymore.
He could still remember the self-control it had taken for him to content himself with just the reminder of her face before he slipped back out into the night.
Some could still have a family—sometimes their assignments were actually sanctioned by various governments—but for Niklaus, whose introduction to the Den had been as brutal as it was, he couldn’t ever see anyone from his previous life.
And that led for a lonely existence.
That, on the other hand, he did deserve.
He didn’t want, or need, anyone else getting hurt because of him.
Slipping out of the bed, knowing that Reagan slept like the dead, he walked over to the small closet, reaching for the book bag he had thrown up there earlier. Maybe some part of him had known that he needed to leave, otherwise, why would he have stopped by one of his drop-spots and packed it full of bills he had on hand. He’d sat and counted it all out, making sure he had the exact amount that she said she needed to open up the place of her dreams.
No, Niklaus realized belatedly. It wasn’t because he was planning on skipping out on her again that he had gathered up the money. He had wanted to give it to her, hopefully see a smile—even as she asked him where he got it from—and be glad that he was finally able to give someone something. But he knew that it could never be like that. Not when she could be hurt just by his association with her. Once again, he found himself leaving another piece behind.
Why had he ever entertained the idea in the first place? He and Reagan could never be anything more than what they were, and he knew that without a shadow of a doubt.
Never mind another case of mistaken identity, after the things he had seen, and the men he had crossed, there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t be hurt, and then the next time around, he would have no one else to blame but himself.
Not her too…he couldn’t have her on his conscious.
Dressing quickly, he packed what little he had left in the room, scanning to make sure, leaving the book bag on the table for her to find in the morning.
As he was leaving, Niklaus turned back at the last moment, drifting to her side. He smoothed her hair back out of her face, gently so as not to wake her. Tracing her face with his eyes, he pressed a kiss to the center of her forehead, another light one to her lips, then drew back.
There was no farewell, not even in his thoughts as he backed away.
Though he knew it was, he still didn’t want this to be the end.
Not yet.
*
Before she had even opened her eyes, Reagan knew he was gone. She could feel it in the chill of the air, the way the silence of the room seemed to try and swallow her whole.
She turned, reaching out anyway, finding the spot where Niklaus had lain before empty and cold. It shouldn’t have bothered her—it wasn’t like this was the first time he had done it.
But as she sat up, holding the sheet to her chest looking around at how barren the place felt without presence, it felt like her heart was fracturing.
It had only taken mere days for her to recall why exactly she had missed him so much. She should have known better. Once should have been enough for her to know not to give him more, to be careful with her feelings and thoughts and dreams.
Her gaze landed on the bag, the lone item in the room that didn’t belong to the motel and she hadn’t brought along.
Maybe Niklaus had forgotten it in his haste to get away from her…
Before, she might not have looked, would have held onto it hopes that he would come back looking for it.
She would still hold onto it now, but not before she had a look inside.
Tearing at the zips, she tugged them down, pulling at the edges of it to look inside, and promptly blinked, just to make sure she was seeing correctly.
With a shaky hand, she reached in, pulling out one stack of twenty-dollar bills, another of hundreds, and even some in fifties. Reagan didn’t even realize she was dumping the money out of the bag as she tried to make of what she was seeing, but it wasn’t until she got to the change in the very bottom of the bag that she got an idea.
She could not have been sure, she had only mentioned it in passing, just an afterthought in the conversation they’d had, but as she sat at the table, counting each bill, tallying the numbers up in her head, and by the end of it, it felt like he had taken her breath away all over again.
$167,852.36 exactly…
This wasn’t a mistake on his part, but a goodbye.
He wasn’t coming back.
Part Two
Chapter Fifteen
2014
One year. Eight months. Twenty-one days.
Finally, Niklaus thought with some grim satisfaction as he watched the Russian and one of his men drag Jetmir through the freezer towards a hook that hung from the ceiling. Even as he struggled against their hold, a blindfold keeping him oblivious to his surroundings, he was no match for them. Not when he was bound.
How many days had he sat and fantasized about this very moment? How many nights had he lain awake, feeling like he was being suffocated as the days passed him by, and he had
been no closer to getting his hands on the Albanian that was finally within grasp?
This was what he had been waiting for…
Mishca, with the help of his associate, had Jetmir strung up, his arms hooked into restraints, his feet dangling a few inches from the ground.
Helpless.
Snatching the barrier from his eyes, Mishca waited a moment, giving Jetmir a chance to focus on him, to take in his surroundings before he spoke.
“Hey,” Mishca said, smacking the man a couple of times to get his attention. “You’re going to want to focus for this.”
Jetmir, whose head had been slightly lolling on his shoulders, straightened, turning a glare on Mishca, the scar down the right side of his face pulling. “If you’re going to kill me, just do it!” Jetmir snarled as Mishca stepped away and turned his back.
Pausing mid-stride, Mishca faced him once more, canting his head to the side as his gaze flickered to Niklaus for a moment—Jetmir had yet to realize they weren’t alone.
“I’m not the one you should fear,” Mishca said with an air of casualness. Shaking his head, as though he almost felt sorry for the man, Mishca looked past him to Niklaus. “Don’t make a mess.”
The request was unnecessary. It wasn’t as though Mishca didn’t know what Niklaus was capable of. The man had made it quite clear he’d been keeping tabs on him.
By the time he finished with him, there wouldn’t even be anything left of Jetmir to identify.
With Mishca gone, the echo of the freezer door slamming shut still in the air, Niklaus got to his feet, circling Jetmir so he could finally face the one man he’d been tracking down religiously.
“You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this,” Niklaus said as he started rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, rotating his head on his shoulders to stretch the muscles in his neck.
There wasn’t a day that had went by since Jetmir had turned his life upside down that Niklaus didn’t think of how he would make this particular Albanian pay.
The blood.
The sweat.
The tears.
No one could possibly understand just how much Niklaus had sacrificed to get them both in this room. And more was just how much of himself he had lost in the process.
Red. (Den of Mercenaries #1) Page 9
