I flew in, went through customs, and hired a local taxi within an hour of landing. With my innocuous luggage in the trunk, I was on my way to where he lived. I knew his name, couldn’t think it without fearing retribution. I couldn’t think it without feeling ill.

As we drove down from the hills surrounding the town, it unfolded like some perfect, pop-up children’s book. Small and peaceful, on the surface. The vast and sparkling blueness of the sea overwhelmed me more than the cuteness of the houses.

If this was the last thing I saw before I died, at least it was pretty. Such dark musings.

A dull gnawing in my stomach reminded me of the stupidity of my plans.

I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth, smearing lipstick. I rubbed off the marks on my skin with a tissue until all of it was gone. Cleanliness was close to innocence.

Could you become innocent after being dragged through the dirt? Not that he’d done much to me physically – it was having someone inside my head that bothered me. It’d left a stain, a dirty, stinking, life-wrecking stain.

Most of this trip was arranged and planned. Being downgraded to an analyst hadn’t deprived me of the ability to get things done. I’d manipulated the system and would get fired and arrested if I returned. When.

Who gave a fuck? Except it limited my free time here. The agency would catch up with me soon.

Years of agonizing lay in my wake.

I had the names of illegal gun dealers but hadn’t been able to arrange a weapon, and I couldn’t kill him up close.

Those years...

No lovers. No orgasms. No intimacy. Crying myself to sleep because I could tell no one what had caused my so-called breakdown in Cuba.

That first time I encountered a mesmer in the US...

Luckily, he’d died before he could do anything except brush across my mind, adding another microscopic layer of grime to what the other man had left. I took it as a warning and hired protection for when I wasn’t at work – briefed my bodyguard on possible actions if I did anything odd. I took other precautions, as a suspicious, over-paranoid agent might do.

Then...nothing.

No one came near me and no one obstructed my search for him. A fingerprint on my handbag was my treasured clue and I’d used it to find him – Isak Bain.

After three years of looking, the database had coughed up a match. A routine police investigation in a South American country, to rule out the innocent, had been picked up by NSA scans. His print was one of those tested and discarded, because he was innocent. As if he could ever be.

The taxi thumped over potholes, rattling my luggage.

I inhaled and let my hands rest in my lap. All I had to do was get a long gun, stay distant, and kill him before he realized I was here. The CIA had taught me to shoot and I’d enhanced my combat skills over the three years since, anticipating this day.

If he closed in, if I was brought within range of his freaky mind control, I would fail.

The longer I took, the more likely he or the CIA would find me. I’d been bad.

I stepped out of the cab into the shadow of a roof outside Reception. My apartment in this up-and-down, dilapidated little resort was elevated and on the fourth floor.

Signed in, keys given to me, and after a quick shower I walked onto the balcony and stared across a half mile of night. My first sighting of his dwelling.

Be still my wretched, hateful heart.

I could see over the white walls surrounding his compound – all the way to his bedroom which occupied the entire top floor – or I assumed it was his from the building plans. The mansion sat at the tip of this small peninsular, where the land wrapped about the north of the bay. No one could reach his house without travelling along the narrow road below and I was under no illusions – the compound gate would be guarded.

A bullet could leap his walls.

I walked inside, drew a breath, and punched the number for the gun dealer, praying I’d not get robbed, assaulted, or killed trying to do this.

That night, I bought a rifle. I walked into a room of men and bought a gun. Chutzpah, balls, whatever, it worked. Maybe they thought I had connections.

One AM.

I opened the French doors wide, tied back the lace curtains, and sat on a chair at the back of my bedroom, in the dark, in my black negligee, with the rifle over my lap. My hands liked the solidness of this weapon. I could smell gun oil, could feel my heart thumping.

While my heart beat, I would try to kill him. Failure would only be admitted if I were dead.

This was not a gun I knew well. The scope was ancient. If I could’ve practiced, I would improve my chances but being this close to him was shredding my insides.

The longer I stayed, the higher my chance of being discovered.

With a good sniper rifle and scope, with practice, I could hit a small six-inch circle at this distance. The wind speed would be nearly zero, if I chose well. Elevation was equal, plus or minus a couple of feet. Tomorrow night – a date on my dance card. I clenched my hands over the metal, drawing forthrightness from the weight. I prayed he’d switch on a light before going to bed.

If not tomorrow night, the next.

Being in the CIA meant I knew the basics of assassinating someone with a long gun. I smiled, realizing I was dressed in black. Appropriate, though I lacked the savoir faire of a Hollywood assassin, the black gloves, the case with the gun in pieces so it could be assembled from the parts.

Tonight was for assimilating the atmosphere and lessening my nerves. Imagine doing this. A glass of tequila, ice, and lemon kept me company, as well as a lone mosquito blown in by the sea breeze.

The old clock on the wall cut at my nerves. Tick, tick, tick, tick. I smirked and considered shooting it, downed a gulp of tequila instead. The tang sang to my throat as I swallowed.

Streetlights bathed the road as it climbed to the point where his villa perched – the globes casting circles of brightness.

There was the pathway to evil.

“Melodramatic, baby.” I felt like giggling.

A light came on in the villa bedroom – a big square of light that demarcated the floor-to-ceiling window. A man walked from left to right then disappeared. Had to be him? I nestled my hands around my instrument of vengeance and stroked the trigger guard with my finger.

Should I load it? Do it now? That might not be him. I hadn’t seen him in years. At the very least I should use the binoculars sitting on the coffee table to my right.

“Die you fucker,” I whispered, lovingly.

Do this...kill a man, and I hoped to be free of this influence. I could be normal, couldn’t I, though I wasn’t sure what that was anymore.

The rifle wasn’t silenced. I’d get a few shots then have to run. How to leave the country was planned but it wouldn’t be as simple as arriving had been.

And if I missed?

The man stood in that distant window, silhouetted. Fate was nudging me. Binoculars. I reached for them, and a key scratched in my door, followed by a sulking truckload of heaviness of thought that I recognized instantly.

Him. My stomach lurched.

This was not how it should have been.

I hadn’t fired a single shot.

I’d rehearsed this – sudden departure in the face of threat – somehow it carried me. I heaved aside the gun. In a few strides, I was on my balcony with my leg vaulting the railing. The door to my apartment swung. A sting on my skin warned me as my inner thigh was lacerated on a bastard-sharp piece of iron.

Lights flickered...on.

By the door, a hand showed on the wall, fingers leaving the switch.

A dark-haired man appeared, gun high, sweeping the room. He saw me and my mouth twitched.

Bye, asshole.

I was outside the railing, balancing, ready to...

What?

Fall and die? Four stories down, unless I accurately judged the swing to land on the balcony below.

To die... Not yet. Please.

He walked into my room. Though briefly eclipsed by the man with the wavy, black hair, I knew him.

Isak.

Blond hair cinched at the back. Tall. Broader of shoulder, heavier of build, than I recalled. The shirt he wore was red – burgundy red. Good for masking blood.

His thought or mine?

My lips parted, skin peeling from skin.

His collar was precisely folded.

His pants, sinfully dark, were rich of color and cut.

He’d dwarf the sun with his brilliance, let alone the fluorescents of my room.

His thoughts locked, snicker-snack, onto mine and froze me; my fingers clutched the wrought-iron, mock arrowheads.

Who the fuck decorated a railing with arrowheads?

Go! A whisper, a suggestion.

Fingers uncurled. My fingers.

Mine.

Horrified, I was unsure who was making my hands do what they did. Would he make me suicide? I watched them as they unlocked from the metal, felt my weight shift, and I fell, outward into space, pivoting on my feet where they rested on the edge of the concrete of the balcony.

My last link with the solid world.

I fell.

Strong hands caught my wrists and I jarred to a halt, gasping. Those hands hauled me inward, winching me to their owner. The circle of man flesh about my wrists was potent and promising.

“Hello.”

My stomach kissed the railings and I dared raise my head, dared meet the stark blue eyes of my possessor.

“Tell me, Red. Were you planning to shoot me?” That Scandinavian accent. In any other man, at any other time, I’d find it desirable.

Red? My mouth slackened, my tongue thought of lying. But, I couldn’t lie in the face of this man, never had been able to during the days with him in Cuba.

Those days. Three. Fucking. Days.

“I was. Yes. Asshole.” I cranked out a smile. I could defy him, though it took effort.

Maybe his power had waned.

One could hope.

“Climb over the railing and come inside, little robot girl.”

No. Don’t.

My thought switch flipped from no to yes, and I remembered that exact feeling from the first time, and was dismayed at how this replayed.

Yes. Oh yes.

Exactly like an obedient robot, I climbed over. I stood before him when he sat in a chair placed in the center of my room. On my rug. His weight pressed the chair legs into the softness.

If I didn’t look at him, maybe he’d go away.

The hard outline of the rifle lay to the side, hinting at my recent deadly intentions.

I could smell his thoughts, feel them in me, purring. Lucky he couldn’t read all mine.

And I quivered – fear, the unknown, my stupidity in coming here, though what else could I have done?

What...

Else...

As if I’d ever have stayed away and done nothing.

Some situations have that flash of comprehension where you see what should’ve been in your face from the start.

I should’ve known how weak my situation would be.

Should’ve seen he would find me. I knew his powers.

This was how it would always have been. It was inevitable.

Swallow your doubts. The battle hasn’t ended. I needed to figure out how to skew this my way.

“What am I going to do with you?”

The rumbling growl underpinning his voice hardened my nipples and awakened between my legs for the first time in three years.

“What...am I...” His finger touched my midriff over the silken negligee, precisely where my navel dwelled, and dug in. “Going to do.” He pushed. I swayed. “With you.”

That finger. The pressure.

Not a question.

My cunt liquefied with heat.

Shameful.

I strived to still my trembling legs.

With his forefinger, he beckoned me closer, until I had to spread my legs to navigate him, until I was poised over his lap where his cock bulged his pants. My negligee had ridden up my legs until it barely covered my black panties.

He laid a leisurely hand on my inner thigh then drifted his palm up and inward until he cupped between my legs. His palm pressed, his thumb made soft rhythmic indentations on my mons. I hung, caught in a moment of no time, mouth open, unable to stop him, unwilling to, and there was the puzzle.

There was why I had to kill this man – he made me crave what I should not want.

“You’re different, Red,” he drawled as he played with me. “How different is what I’m going to find out. Tell me, how many times have I fucked you?”

Loaded question. Fucking loaded question.

My mouth twisted and I swallowed several times, as if dust or his probing fingers were stuck in my throat. “Never,” I croaked.

“You might get lucky this time,” he murmured as he slipped a finger beneath the edge of my panties, and squeezed it slowly along my slit then back again, almost to my clit. Slip, slide. Not inside me, and barely parting my cunt lips...yet, an orgasm built.

Desperately, I shored up defenses, stiffening and muttering inane curses.

“Don’t come,” he added, gaze steady as iron.

As if. As if I would.

But, God help me, I did want to. Unwelcome, as it was, I lusted for that cataclysm of sensation.

Don’t come, don’t come, and so...I couldn’t.

Couldn’t, after he teased me for ages. That finger, playing me.

Don’t come.

He stroked until my legs shook and I had to clutch at his shoulders. My eyes leaked tears; my vision blurred; my abdomen cramped with need.

I wanted to. God I wanted to. Three years without coming and he stopped me.

“Beg.” Isak smiled, a thin unemotional smile.

The connection between our eyes could’ve bored a hole in the air. Some things were too far, irrefutably wrong. I scowled a denial, in silence.

“That.” He leaned in, voice hushed. “I haven’t seen that in years.”

He took his hand away, pushed on my belly, and my legs caved, I slipped to the floor, to all fours.

Moistening my lips, swallowing, I raised my head and rasped a question to this monster, “Seen what...?”

“Defiance.”

Oh.

“What pretty tits those are. Wriggle those panties off. Keep your head up.”

He waited for me to obey and drop my underwear to the side, then reached down and fondled my breasts until I was moaning, again. Fingers circling my nipples, squeezing. Fuck. When I felt liquid dribble down my thigh, I wanted to hide.

“Don’t come,” he whispered in my ear.

“Stop, please,” I said as softly.

“You don’t mean that, do you?”

It was a second before I shook my head, and pressed my breasts into his hands. A bare second. Humiliating.

I rode to his house in the car, curled on the floor below him, jarred uncomfortably by the bumps as the tires met uneven road. I was clothed as I had been, in lingerie, and compos mentis enough to know what was happening. We were going to his house. I was infuriated, sad, and in discomfort, for he kept his foot riding my stomach.

What was defiance when it achieved zero?

“Because you’re different, I’m going to give you a chance.” He rocked me, the sole of his shoe hard and squashing deep into my stomach. “Red. I don’t want to remember your real name so you’re Red from now on.” Poignantly, roughly, the feel of his shoe summoned me back to the almost-orgasm I’d wept over minutes before. “Forget your name.”

How could I?

I stared. What did he mean?

A chance at what?

“Your name is Red from now on.”

Of course it was.