by R. J. Lewis
But how could he let her go when the mere thought of it left him feeling like he was being knifed through the heart repeatedly?
No, he had to do it a different way. He could try and loosen the leash. He might handle watching her venture just out of view, but anymore than that and it was intolerable.
He had calmed down, breathing deeply through his nose as he came to a stop and stared at the night sky, waiting.
She would have to come to him of her own volition.
She must.
If she ran away now, then this was all for nothing.
He was so tarnished, so sullied with death and violence. Vixen was the only bright part of him left.
How did this come to be?
If he hadn’t taken that job, she’d be six feet in the ground, and he’d have lived his life untouched by this rampant madness. It was like a disease. No, she was the disease. She bore her eyes into him, dug her nails into his flesh, pleaded for her life and he became infected by her. She had infiltrated his system, clawed through layers of monstrosity, until she’d found his soul and re-awakened it.
And Nixon couldn’t let her go since.
And she…
She needed to remember their beginning, or he might never be redeemed.
21.
Vixen…
I had the most vivid dream. I was in a coffee shop in Surrey and I was free. My heart was heavy with sadness and I didn’t know why. I saw Kimberly for the first time, and she cried. She said she missed me, that she never stopped looking for me. We embraced and I hugged her to me, breathing her in, missing my dear friend.
Then she vanished and I left the coffee shop alone.
I stood on the sidewalk, searching the crowd of walkers for Nixon.
I spun around in circles, my mind racing. I felt lost, confused. I needed to find him. He must have been close. I searched every face that walked by, growing panicked.
He wasn’t there.
And I distinctly knew why that was. I felt it in my bones. I was free for a reason.
I was free because he was dead.
*
I woke up with tears in my eyes. The morning was early, the sun hadn’t come up, and Nixon was still next to me, his arm wrapped possessively around my middle. I turned my head and looked at his sleeping face. His breathing was light. He was never a heavy sleeper. If I stirred the slightest, he’d know about it.
“I had a dream you were dead,” I whispered.
He was too asleep to hear me. Oblivious, his eyes remained shut; his peaceful, sleeping form concealed the arrogant, murderous man within.
But was that all he was? I swallowed the ache in my chest. I felt a strong desire to understand all of him. To know the other parts he’d hidden away. To know his former self.
“What’s your real name?” I wondered, looking him over, trying to put a name to him.
I stilled when his eyes fluttered open. He looked back at me, saying nothing. I wasn’t sure he’d heard my question. He didn’t look like he had. But then his hand reached out to my face and his fingers trailed along my cheek, leaving warm tingles behind his touch.
“How’d I die, baby?” he groggily asked, watching me.
He had heard me.
I sucked in a breath and swallowed thickly. “I don’t know. I just knew you were gone, and I was free.”
When he didn’t respond, I let out a sigh. “It was just a dream, I know. It didn’t mean anything.”
“How did you feel in your dream?” he asked curiously.
I looked away this time, my eyes pinned to the dark ceiling. “I don’t know.”
But he saw the tears. He knew I’d cried. Thankfully, he didn’t pry, but his expression was intense. He turned my face in his direction and swiped away the tears that had slid from the corners of my eyes.
Something strange was happening between us. He was letting his guard down, and it was so sudden and inexplicable, it left me anxious.
It was kind of like he was preparing for something.
A change on the horizon.
But what sort of change?
Cutting my thoughts short, he kissed me tenderly. I couldn’t help the way my body responded to his lips. My mouth pressed eagerly against his, the tortured feeling in my dream carrying into the now.
I’d felt it.
The loss.
The sharp pain of realization. That he was gone, and it should have made me happy. It should have but…why didn’t it?
To my urging, he moved over me. His breaths were equally as erratic as mine. He hooked my leg over his hip and sank his hard cock into me. I groaned at the feeling and tore my mouth from his. This was so intimate, so real, like we needed more than just our bodies entwined.
I needed this moment to feel more…tangible.
It wasn’t just a fuck.
He wasn’t just messing with my head, and I wasn’t prepared to pretend I didn’t need his cock buried in me.
Because I did.
Looking into his eyes, my heart burst as I pleaded, “Can you say my name, Nixon?”
He paused, his lips turning down in disapproval. “You know why I can’t do that –”
“Just this once, Nixon, please,” I cried, feeling more tears fall. “For me.”
He watched them slide down my face, his expression growing tender. He had to give me this. He always gave me what I needed. He was never cruel on purpose. After he delivered a soft kiss, he looked me gravely in the eyes and whispered, “Victoria.”
I shut my eyes tightly, crying. It meant so much to hear him say my name. To know it was still real. It was still remembered. He wiped away my tears and kissed me again, fucking me slowly as I breathed through the burst of emotion in me.
“Thank you,” I whispered, opening my eyes. He pressed his forehead to mine, moving in and out of me so punishingly slow, watching me come apart beneath him with a riveted look.
My hands travelled down his back, greedily gripping his skin to me, wanting him deeper. Wanting him to taste my soul. My body hummed for his touch, the urge was so great, I wasn’t mindful of the words that spilled from my lips.
Do you feel it?
I’m letting go.
It hurts, Nixon.
You’re hurting me.
And it was painful, but it felt good.
Nixon, my bad habit, the villain in my tale.
*
After the sun came up and we were properly awake, I showered with him. I was weak and tired. My explosive row last night left me zapped out of energy, and that dream was the cherry on top.
Of course, Nixon looked the same. He helped me wash my hair and soaped my body, kissing me on random parts of my body throughout. He didn’t have sex with me, but he was hard and ready. His thirst was never satiated. He continued to want more of me, even after I’d delivered.
I physically couldn’t let him inside me if I tried. I sucked a breath in when he slipped his hand between my legs and washed between my folds. “You alright, Vixen?” he asked, tenderly, noticing the way I’d stiffened.
“Just sore,” I murmured, resting my back against his front.
“Anything I can do to help?”
“Just what you’re doing.”
He washed me with lighter touches, being mindful not to slip his fingers inside me. He massaged my clit as he went, aware of the way my breathing changed. I felt him chuckle deep in his chest. He rinsed me off and grabbed the towel off the hook. He turned the water off and towelled me down in the stall. I watched his face as he dried under my breasts and along my belly. He looked concentrated, content, like he was happy to be doing this. Always the little things seemed to bring him joy, I noted.
When he finished, I reached my hand out to him and he looked at me questionably.
“My turn?” I asked.
This time, the surprise was apparent in his eyes. He nodded slowly and handed me the towel. I looked over his mammoth body and felt slightly overwhelmed. Where to begin? I brought the towel to his chest a
nd wiped away the droplets of water. He looked at me curiously as I went, going over his neck and shoulders. He was so big and muscular; the towel was drenched already.
I dried his legs and cock, finding myself completely comfortable doing it. In fact, looking at him in the eyes was more awkward than taking his cock into my towelled hand.
“What’re you thinking, little one?” he asked, quietly.
I told him exactly what I’d just thought. “I can’t look at you in the eyes as easily as I can grip your dick, Nixon. It’s kind of weird, our dynamic.”
He nodded, his expression easing. “I can’t look at another woman the way I look at you, Vixen.”
My movements slowed as I looked up to meet his gaze. “Is that…a bad thing?”
His smile was faint, content. “No, baby, but there are things that are weird for me too.”
Bringing the towel up, I ran it through his hair while staring into his eyes for honesty. “When you go away on your trips, have you ever been with anyone?”
It was a hard question to ask because I’d never had the courage before now to do it. If I’d asked him before, he would have known I wondered, and I never wanted to give him the satisfaction of thinking it mattered to me. I’d been stubborn and defiant, treating him like he was just another body that slipped into me.
That was the game we played.
I pretended not to care, and he fought to prove otherwise.
And I was…tired of it.
My soul was weak and craved something deeper.
I understood this was the natural progression of things. You can’t live with someone so long and pretend they did not matter. You can lie to yourself all day long, but when the realization hits and you’re tired of skirting reality, you find yourself submerged in a sea of truths.
And the truth was apparent.
He’d taken a piece of me, long ago.
I just didn’t know the exact moment.
Or, I had never stopped to think it over because that sort of inner reflection frightened me.
Nixon shook his head, solemnly. “No, I’ve never been with anyone.”
My breath went light. “Never?”
“Never.”
“You’re saying you’re never tempted?”
“Never.”
I resumed drying his hair, but this time I edged a little nearer. I pressed my breasts against his chest and slowly kissed up his throat, noticing immediately the way his body stilled. I felt the pulse in his neck quicken, and it alarmed me how affected this man was by me.
I thought of the way he looked when he let me walk down the sidewalk, away from him. How hard it was for him to hold himself back.
He didn’t view me as a toy, I knew.
I’d known it all along, I supposed.
But confronting that truth had repercussions. It made things complicated. It made him less evil than he really was.
I pulled back to look at him again, and this time his expression seared me. He looked…anguished and needy. It wasn’t just lust, there was a desperate sort of longing for my touch.
I saw it, clear as day, and…I thought I’d seen it before between us, and I’d buried that memory away to protect myself.
“The cabin,” I whispered, quietly, almost afraid to hear my words, “it was real, wasn’t it?”
He nodded once, eyeing me carefully. “Time to look back on it, don’t you think?”
“I’m scared.”
He shook his head slowly. “Don’t be. I’m your villain, isn’t that right? Yet I have a feeling, if you stopped and remembered, you might be surprised what you’d find.”
Before I could respond, he took the towel from my hand and stepped out of the shower stall, drying himself off before leaving the bathroom. I stood in the stall for a few minutes, rubbing my hand against my chest.
Images flickered before my eyes.
Blood and snow.
Trepidation and tears.
Warmth and fire.
His silhouette in the doorway.
The body beneath him, gurgling.
Shaking, I shook my head, trembling. I couldn’t go back there. I buried it away, determined not to waver. I grabbed another towel off the hook behind the door and wrapped it around myself.
When I stepped out of the bathroom, I paused mid-step, my gaze snapping to the latest maid in the room. She was on her hands and knees before the window, cleaning up the lamp shards. I winced, feeling guilty. “I can do that.”
She paused and swung her sight to me. I repeated myself, “I can do that.”
Her face morphed to confusion and she let out a series of words I didn’t understand. I was about to repeat myself again just as Nixon emerged from the closet in nothing but his jeans on.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I tried to tell her to stop cleaning up the lamp,” I explained, watching as she resumed. “But I don’t think she understands me.”
“Leave her alone. She’s doing her job.”
I glowered at him. “Nixon, no one should have to clean up after my lamp fits.”
He grinned. “You wouldn’t feel so guilty if you knew how much I’m paying these ladies.”
I continued watching her fill up a tiny trash bin with all the big bits. “You keep recycling through maids, Nixon. Do you even know anything about them?”
“This is Maria,” he said simply. “She fled Venezuela after the country went tits up. She’s got two kids she didn’t want to watch starve to death. She isn’t totally legal…yet.”
My mouth hung open in shock. “Did you make that up?”
He smiled so wide, his whole face lit up. It made me lose my balance just a little. “No, baby, I didn’t. Get ready.”
“Can I at least help her?” I asked as he disappeared back into the closet.
“You can,” he answered.
“Can we also stop buying lamps for the room?” I added.
“And put that lamp company out of business?” he responded in mock dismay. “You’re keeping that cheap ass store from going under.”
I suppressed a smile as I called out, “Is that store located on the island?”
“Yeah, family owned business, baby. He needs your lamp purchases.”
I laughed, surprised by Nixon’s knowledge and how excited he sounded. I joined him in the closet and began leafing through my side of it, sneaking glimpses his way.
“Do you know every store here?” I wondered.
He slid a sweater on, hiding that sinful as fuck body. “Every single one.”
“Because you bought them out.”
He turned to me, his hair still in disarray. “I saved them from going under.”
“I was under the impression you wanted to own them all.”
“The ones that were swimming in debt, yeah. The owners weren’t keen on keeping their place when I gave them the option of either buying them out or loaning them enough to save them from going under. The latter didn’t appeal because they didn’t want to pay me off.”
“Has anyone refused both?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“And what did you do to them?”
He gave me a strange look. “Nothing, Vixen. It’s just business. Sometimes you win big, other times you don’t.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. Nixon had never struck me as the kind of guy that would take no for an answer. Then again, business wasn’t personal.
“What made you want the hotel?”
He paused to look at me, and God, I wanted to run my hand through his wet hair and tug it down to me. He was hot when he was wet. Who was I kidding, he was hot at everything he did.
“I thought the hotel was right for us,” he said, watching my expression carefully, like he was wary how I’d react. “I thought it was the perfect way to keep you.”
“You didn’t own it already when we met?” I asked, shocked because that wasn’t how he had presented it to me back then.
“No,” he said in a low tone. �
��I came here to escape, and then after the job I returned so you would escape the world with me.”
I watched him for a few minutes, understanding him a little more. It should have made me feel glum, or even outraged. I should have been defiant, like usual. I could have said a million snarky things, but it seemed pointless now.
He loved this island. Had put all his money into it, from what I could tell. He was making it his home.
Our home, he’d said.
He’d come here to keep me. To escape from mainland life. Probably to hide me from the media.
Guilt swamped me as I thought of last night. Of my conversation with Flynn. He said he could take me away from here, and I believed he could. He was too confident to bullshit it. It didn’t seem part of his nature to spew promises he couldn’t keep.
But such a thing was dangerous, and…irreversible.
I dreaded having to see him in the conference room.
As I stood for minutes on end, trying to figure out what I wanted to wear, Nixon let out a sigh and pulled out a random blue dress from in front of me. “There, done,” he said. “You can’t dress yourself, you know that?”
I frowned at him, dismissing my thoughts of Flynn. “When have I had the opportunity? You always put aside what I’m going to wear for the day.”
He pulled out his socks from his stack from the top shelf and shot me a look of disbelief. “Kitten, you are the most indecisive woman I have ever met. You can’t dress yourself for shit.”
I pursed my lips. “That’s not true.”
Yanking the dress from my hands, he gestured to my clothing. “Then dress yourself.”
He left the closet with the dress, shutting the door behind him.
He was challenging me.
Jerk.
As I leafed through my clothing, I heard him nearby, speaking to Maria. Time went on by as I continued searching, questioning what colour I would wear and if I had heels for it, and god, how long was it going to take me to go through my heels? Feeling overwhelmed with my options, I blew out a breath. Before Nixon, I’d had like three changes of clothes. I’d never had to think about what I wanted to wear.
“You ready, Vix?” he called.
