Aras

I’d wanted to stay away, but Lake was proving to be a challenge to my discipline.

“Oh God,” she moaned as she pulled my head closer, slamming my face against her pussy.

I’d come to her night after night, and this one was proving no different. Every taste of her only made me want more, and watching her come was my newest obsession.

I stilled and stayed that way until she let out a frustrated sigh. She was still wary, closed off sometimes, but when we fucked, she was completely open, giving, taking, asking, demanding.

“Aras…” she said, her frustration clear.

“What?” I whispered, blowing against her wet, heated skin.

“You know…” she said.

“Do I now?” I responded, not able to keep the smile off my face.

“Yes,” she hissed, the sound shifting to a moan when I swiped my tongue against her clit.

“What do you want, Lake?” I said before edging my tongue along her opening.

“I want to come,” she finally spat, voice equal parts desperate and annoyed.

“Was that so difficult?” I asked.

“Shut up,” she muttered, her words again lost on a moan as I thrust my tongue inside her.

I made her come with my tongue, then fucked her slow and deep, my own climax so strong I felt it from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.

“Say what’s on your mind,” I said much later.

“Nothing’s on my mind,” Lake responded.

Her response had been automatic, and when I didn’t say anything, she looked up.

I sat across from the bed in a chair. More than anything, I wanted to be in bed with her, holding her, but I resisted the temptation.

Being in the chair was enough.

Too much, in fact.

But the desire to hold her close was one I refused to give in to.

What did I know of such things?

Nothing, and now was not the time to try to learn.

But even despite the physical distance that I made it a point to keep between us, my understanding of her was deepening.

Her passion was there, explosive, addictive, but there was something underneath, more that I desperately wanted to uncover.

“I don’t know if I should,” she finally responded.

She looked at me, her shoulders bare, the moonlight that filtered through the shutters giving her an ethereal, almost angelic look.

And even in the darkness of the room I could see the emotions, the question in her eyes.

“Lake, you have no reason to trust me, but I want to make you a promise,” I said.

“A promise?” she responded.

There was wonder her voice, and it sounded to me like she was questioning whether she believed in such a thing.

“Yes. If you ask something of me, if I can tell you, I will. And I wouldn’t lie to you,” I said.

“That’s a promise? “ she said.

There was a hint of something I couldn’t quite identify in the question.

“Yes. Is it not sufficient?”

“I…” She trailed off, clamming up.

“Speak freely,” I said.

“I just couldn’t help but notice what wasn’t in it,” he said.

“What is that?” I asked.

“You didn’t promise you wouldn’t hurt me,” she whispered.

I hadn’t, and with that sentence, she was putting my earlier words to the test.

I looked at her, saw that she was watching me, waiting, trying to see how to respond.

I was a man of my word.

“I didn’t, because that would be a lie,” I said.

She didn’t move, but I could see the momentary startle in her eyes and then the way she tamped it down.

“So you intend to hurt me?” she asked.

“No. I don’t intend to. But I can’t promise it won’t come to that,” I said.

“I know that’s a distinction, but one that, for me, might not make any difference,” she said.

I felt the urge to tell her I was sorry about that, but that also would have been a lie.

Because to be sorry about that would mean that I was sorry she had been with Vlad, which would have meant I was sorry that she was in my life.

And I wasn’t.

The circumstances were fucked up, more than, but I didn’t care about that, not when it came to me and her.

“So…” She trailed off again, again looking at me, clearly trying to gauge whether she should continue.

“Ask,” I said.

“Why am I here?”

“You’re here because you are something he values,” I said.

She snorted, lifted one corner of her mouth in a grim smile. “Values. It’s an interesting word. One that I don’t think is entirely accurate,” she said.

“But I do.”

“So this is all about hurting him?” she said.

“Yes,” I responded.

“But it’s not gonna stop here. You want him dead,” she said.

It wasn’t a question, but I answered nonetheless.

“Yes. And he will die. Because I’m going to kill him,” I said.

I watched her, trying to gauge her reaction to that, but not finding one.

“Why do you want him dead?” she asked.

It was my turn to be quiet then, thinking about how to respond to that.

Only Ezekiel knew about Vlad, and we had last spoken of the details more than a decade ago.

So my hatred, what he had taken from me, was something that I carried alone.

That wouldn’t change now.

“He owes me. I intend to collect,” I said.

That was as much as I was going to say, and from the expression on her face, she knew that.

“He owes a lot of people a lot of things,” she said.

“But none of them have been brave enough to take it,” I said.

“Not until you,” she said.

I didn’t know how to interpret what she meant.

Was it a good thing? A bad one?

I had no idea, and that not knowing was something I didn’t like, but something that was very much part of all of my time of Lake.

I considered myself disciplined, focused. Relentless.

I was all those things, knew that, and knew that I had developed those qualities over the years.

But with Lake, something was different.

She spoke to a part of me that I hadn’t known existed, one that I wasn’t entirely sure I liked.

I wasn’t foolish enough to wish that things had been different, wish that we had met under different circumstances.

Doing so would be futile, and anyway, circumstances didn’t matter.

Lake was a part of me now, something I craved, coveted, and feared that I would never truly have.

She was here because I made her be.

I didn’t doubt the sincerity of our time together, couldn’t mistake her passion as anything but authentic.

But I wanted more than that.

I wanted her, all of her, with a ferociousness that was alarming even to me.

I wanted her to want me back.

And worse, knew I could never have that.

I could demand it of her, take it, but I didn’t know if it was something Lake would ever give freely.

And as screwed up as I was, I wouldn’t take anything else from the woman.

“I’m not sure if I should wish you good luck,” Lake said.

I had been lost in my own thoughts, but I looked at her again, saw that she was studying me.

“You don’t have to because I don’t need it,” I said.

“Tell me,” she responded.

“I don’t need luck. This will happen. He will repay his debt to me,” I said.

“No matter what it takes,” she whispered.

I locked eyes with her, wanted her to see how serious I was, how certain.

“No matter what it takes.”