Twelve
LOSS OF CONTROL
I WOKE UP confused, my memory dull.
I was still so out of it, I didn’t much care.
I also found myself distracted from trying to remember anything when I realized I wasn’t alone. A body was pressed up against mine.
For a decent stretch of time, I didn’t much care about that either.
Well, other than the fact that it was comfortably warm.
I must have fallen back asleep.
When I woke up the second time, my brain moved a little faster. Fast enough for the reality of that body to fully sink in.
I still didn’t know where I was.
After a pause where I just lay there, thinking about that, I turned carefully, shifting my weight and head just enough to verify what I already knew. Someone was definitely with me, holding me more or less in place. I didn’t want to wake whoever it was, but I did want to know who they were. When I moved, trying to crane my head around to look, the arm around me tightened, pulling me deeper against him.
The tensed arm caused me to look down instead of back at his face.
The arm was entirely bare. Between that and the heat of his skin and feel of his chest against my back, I realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Yet it wasn’t Ian’s arm I found myself looking at, or Ian’s chest I felt against my back.
Tattoos ran down the inside of a more muscular and darker-toned left arm, including a large “S” on his forearm in black ink. I stared at that “S” mark for a long time for some reason, trying to decide what it meant. Next to it someone tattooed what looked almost like a serial number.
He had no scars that I could see, no marks at all except the recent ones from the other night, which consisted of a couple of cuts and bruises on his hand. The rest of his arm was untouched apart from those simple and somehow official-looking tattoos.
Studying the lean musculature, the even color of his skin around the tattoos, I didn’t move for a long moment as my mind processed the fact he was even there. I was pretty sure I recognized the arm by then, from having seen it bare once before.
I at least recognized one of the rings he wore.
It was heavy brushed silver, with a set of rune-like patterns on the outside.
I was still looking at it, touching his fingers tentatively to turn it slightly so I could better examine the markings, when he pressed up against me, tightening his arm a second time.
That time, I felt a curl of heat go through me, catching in my chest.
Whatever it was, it didn’t feel like it originated in me.
Before I could decide how to react to that, he tugged me further into the middle of the bed. I still hadn’t yet made up my mind whether to resist when he pulled his own body out of the way, still tugging on me so that I shifted to my back. I found myself looking up at him, fighting the conflicting emotions running through me when I saw those gold eyes staring down.
I felt that heat on him intensify.
“How do you feel?” he said gruffly.
Closing my eyes, I looked away. I started to get up, but he didn’t move out of my way to accommodate me. Catching hold of my wrists, he held me down instead.
“Relax. You’re injured, doc. Don’t get in a hurry.”
I looked back up at him.
“What are you doing?” I said. “Here, I mean? With me?”
“Sharing light,” he said at once.
“What? What does that mean?”
His jaw tightened. He shook his head perceptibly, but seemingly not in a no, or in frustration really. He didn’t look away, but continued to stare down at my face. I saw his pupils visibly dilate and swallowed, feeling a wash of nerves go through me in spite of myself.
“It’s a seer thing,” he said, his voice still gruff. “It should help you heal faster.”
“From this... sharing light?” I said. I tried lamely to insert humor in my voice and only half-succeeded. “And that required you to be in bed with me? Shirtless?”
His eyes flickered over my face. “Yes,” he said.
The silence between us deepened.
I started to get up again, but he held me there, gripping my wrists.
“Relax.”
“Am I a prisoner here?” I said, exasperated.
I still wasn’t afraid of him for some reason.
“You hurt your leg,” he said.
“I’m aware of that. Does that mean I can’t use the bathroom?”
“That’s not why you want to get up,” he said.
Swallowing, I stared up at his face. He was right. I didn’t really want to think about the implications of his observation, but I knew he was right.
My mind went to Ian. But I didn’t want to think about Ian either, or what Nick had told me the night before, which I now remembered, even if some of the details were still fuzzy.
I remembered the gist.
Ian lied to me.
More than lied, he’d treated me like one of his damned interrogations for his job, like I was a spy behind enemy lines. And yes, I’d been lying to him too, so maybe I deserved it. Maybe he even had a right to do it, if he’d been worried about me like Nick said.
Maybe, like Nick, Ian thought I was being manipulated by a psychopath.
Even so, I couldn’t believe Ian had done what he did... or maybe just that he’d done it the way he did it. I knew we’d been having problems lately, and miscommunications, and yes, honesty issues... but I couldn’t believe he’d resort to running a game on me rather than asking me outright what the hell was going on, at least once he’d brought me outside. Even with Ian’s job, I never would have believed it of him.
Moreover, if he was that worried about me, why had he left me with Black at all? To see if I’d sleep with him? To see if I’d feel guilty and call him, confess my sins like I’d contemplated doing as I stood outside the Cliff House door?
I’d never wanted to believe that we could be that couple. The game-playing, entrapping one another, spying on one another couple.
I never would have done anything like that to him.
Well, I thought to myself. Probably not.
I tried to decide if that would be true if I’d suspected Ian of an affair.
I’d always been the one who struggled with jealousy... not Ian. I was the one who had to fight to be rational, to act like an adult when it came to my feelings. Ian was Mr. Rational. That was part of the reason I told myself Ian was good for me; he helped me to think before I spoke, to put reason before feeling. When I was a kid I’d been so out of control. Outbursts, tantrums, irrational anger and jealousy. I’d gotten in fights. I’d worked most of my adult life to develop a cooler exterior, to be able to present my feelings logically.
Normally Ian helped with that.
Now this rationality of his struck me as a bit cold.
Maybe mine had gotten pretty cold, too.
I found myself remembering Zoe, how dumb she thought it was that I was always trying to control my emotions. Being sixteen, she mocked me for “playing grown-up,” and “acting like mom.” Zoe was more like our dad. Unapologetic. Spontaneous. Quick to anger but also quick to laugh. Affectionate.
Yet dad had always worried about me... not Zoe.
Dad thought I was the one who was too volatile.
Thinking about that now, it struck me as strange.
I knew I was still distracting myself from Black though, whose stare I could still feel. I tried to think about Ian objectively instead, to put myself in Ian’s shoes, but I knew at least some of that was avoidance, too. I tried to decide how I really felt about him, but I couldn’t make up my mind about that either.
Whatever his reasons for doing what he did, I couldn’t think about it now.
I needed to ask Ian those questions personally.
“I can’t be here,” I told Black, looking up. “I need to go home.”
He shook his head, once. “It’s not safe.”
I let out an incredulous laugh. “From who?”
“The killer,” he said. “Give me more time, Miriam. A few more hours. Stay with me until we ID him for real... then you can go home.”
I gave him an impatient look, meeting his gaze. “Now who’s lying?”
“I can have multiple reasons for saying something without lying,” he said, no apology in his voice. “And I do have people looking for him right now... which is all that matters.”
When I exhaled, half in exasperation, he pressed up against me again.
That time, I closed my eyes. I couldn’t help it, or the flush of reaction that heated my skin.
Glancing up, I felt my jaw tighten as he watched my face. I felt that heat on him intensify more, the longer he stared at me, right before he lowered his mouth.
“Don’t,” I said, turning my head.
He raised his head at once.
I felt more of him though. Enough of him seemed to snake around me that I was having trouble thinking about or feeling anything else. Heat lived in that wash of presence. Heat, but not only that. The feeling there caught in my chest, making it hard to breathe. I felt emotion in that heat, longing, a pain that slid through the very pores of my skin, pulling on me like a physical force. It brought a strange mix of nausea and discomfort, most of that centered in my chest and belly. My hands curled into fists as the feeling worsened.
I realized whatever it was, it was making me more emotional, too.
“What the hell is that?” I said finally. “What are you doing to me?”
I looked up when he didn’t answer right away.
I studied his face, noting the hardness of his features as he looked at me.
I want you, a voice murmured in my head.
I let out a disbelieving laugh. “No shit. It’s not gonna happen, Black.”
Please.
“Absolutely not.”
“Why not?” he said aloud.
I met his gaze, biting my lip at the expression there. He’d lowered his face somewhere in that, so that he was only a few inches away from my mouth again.
“You know why,” I blurted, fighting to hold his stare. “I told you why... yesterday...”
“Is that still the reason?”
“That I’m engaged?” I said, disbelieving. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Because you want me, too.” That heat on him intensified once more, making my eyes close as my breathing sped up. “You were pulling on me all night... you’re pulling on me right now, doc.” He pressed his forehead against mine, his voice a murmur, “And you’re having doubts about him. About your man... the one you were going to marry...”
“The one I am going to marry.” Moving my head away, I glared up at him.
“If you say so, doc.”
He pressed against me deliberately, sensually, his jaw tightening as his weight grew heavier. I let out an involuntary gasp. Before I realized I meant to, I pressed against him in return, unable to help myself when I felt his erection.
His eyes closed, right before he let out a low sound.
“Gods... you want me. I can feel it... it’s driving me fucking crazy...”
“No,” I said. I shook my head. “I don’t want you. You’re wrong.”
I didn’t sound wholly convinced though, even to my own ears.
I had one hand on his chest, ostensibly holding him up and back, but I wasn’t really pushing on him, or even creating much resistance. I definitely wasn’t trying to get him off me.
I found myself feeling his heart under my palm and fingers instead, noticing there was something strange about it, and not only because it was beating harder the longer I stroked him there. The muscles of his chest were strangely perfect, his skin unblemished even for a man much younger than him. I felt another, stronger wash of that heat and pain off him and bit my lip, hard enough to taste blood.
“Fuck,” he said, watching me. “Fuck... tell me something... anything...”
When I looked up, that pain had reached his eyes, softening his expression. His eyes grew more glassed as he watched me look at him.
“Say no like you mean it, at least.” He kissed the side of my face, pressing his cheek against mine. He leaned into me with his face, rubbing it against my neck. “Tell me no again, and I’ll listen, Miriam...” he murmured. “I promise.”
He raised his head, once more looking down at my eyes.
I couldn’t hold his gaze.
Swallowing, I looked back at his chest, then at his arms tensed on either side of his body where he held himself up. I fought to think. I felt him pushing at me with his mind, trying to get an answer out of me... but I didn’t feel any manipulation or guile there. I felt intensity instead, woven into the question even behind what had to be self-restraint. I fought with that pull––a pull so strong I almost couldn’t think past it now.
There was something there. Something I didn’t understand.
And yet... all I needed to say was no.
He was listening for it, waiting for it.
I could feel that he meant it, that some part of him felt guilty for how hard he was pushing me now. That alienness lived there too; I couldn’t push either thing out of my awareness entirely, or the fact that he felt strangely young as he hung over me.
Not young. Nervous. I was making him nervous again.
When I looked up that time, he studied my face carefully.
When I nodded, barely perceptible, he let out a low gasp.
He lowered his mouth, kissing me before I could think that through, either. His mouth was soft; in seconds he used his lips to part mine, then his tongue was exploring my mouth and he was doing that thing he’d accused me of doing... pulling on me in some way.
It felt like some part of him was pulling me out of my own mind.
It definitely felt like he was pulling me into him... away from myself... even as he put more of himself into me. Feeling his presence flood into me, I gasped against his mouth and he groaned, gripping my hair in his hand as he kissed me harder.
Something about that kiss completely shut off my brain.
I don’t mean only in relation to Ian.
I think I forgot about everything about then.
He pressed his entire weight into me as the kiss continued, and that intensity on him worsened, making me lose touch with the room.
When he raised his head next, some undetermined chunk of time later, he was lying between my legs, leaning on the thigh that hadn’t been hurt, maybe to keep himself off the bandaged one. One of his arms and hands was wrapped around my back, his fingers fisting my hair. The other hand was under my shirt, stroking my skin, pausing to massage muscle and trace bones. I’d barely noticed him doing it, although I shivered now under his touch. My own fingers gripped his hair. I kissed the sides of his mouth, caressing his jaw with my fingertips.
I wanted him. I wanted him... God, he was right.
I’d wanted him practically since we’d first met.
The realization scared me.
Guilt flooded into me, blanking out my mind in a different way. I tried to pull my thoughts back together, to make sense of what I was doing.
I tried to think about Ian.
I tried to think about whether I should stop this.
I tried to make myself want to.
Black kissed me again, harder, pressing his body against mine.
He was sending me pictures then, images so sharp I winced.
Then that heat flooded into me more, dimming my doubts all over again.
I felt the question behind the images. I felt it, but pretended I didn’t.
Then he was pushing up my shirt, kissing more of me as he slid down my body. I didn’t even pretend to fight him that time. I felt drugged... like something about him drugged me... or maybe something about the two of us together. I closed my eyes as he pulled off the sweat pants and then my underwear carefully, moving them cautiously over my injured leg before yanking them the rest of the way off my calves and feet almost roughly.
Then his fingers were inside me and I moaned.
He had his mouth on me seconds later and my brain fuzzed out again, unable to think past what he was doing. That pain in him worsened, even as his fingers circled my wrist, holding it down on the bed. I still had my other hand in his hair, gripping him tightly enough I had to be hurting him. I felt his pain from that too, but it only intensified that other heat, turning him on more. He had his fingers inside me again as he lowered his mouth.
I honestly have no idea how long he was doing that.
My mind shifted to the blond he’d had in here the day before, what she’d said to me as he led her out. Jealousy nearly blanked out my brain, shocking me with its intensity, much less the fact that I felt it at all. For some reason, he got off on that, too.
I felt that heat radiating off him intensify even though––briefly at least––I had to restrain the impulse not to hit him in the face.
He got me to talk to him at one point. He stopped me from coming, demanding I talk to him to get him to go back to what he’d been doing.
He did that again. And again.
I felt glimmers of insecurity or maybe doubt on him in that, or maybe just that echo of my first no. I felt his pain worsen alongside mine when I finally begged him, gripping his hair in my fist.
I came not long after that.
I lost it completely when I did, bucking involuntarily up against his mouth.
I don’t think I had a single thought in my head by then.
Even so, those more intense emotions were crashing into me harder, blinding me with their intensity. Most of those weren’t his. They were mine. Feelings about Zoe. Feelings about my parents, my life... the war... Ian... Nick... those murdered girls. Confusion around Black. I fought to control the emotion that caught in my chest, and the mere fact of doing so made me realize just how long I’d been fighting to control those feelings––with Ian, with my friends, my family.
I felt Black fighting with that control even now, fighting to get me to open.
He brought me to a second orgasm before I’d come down from the first, and then he slid his body back up next to mine so that he was lying on me again, still carefully avoiding my hurt leg. I was studying his face when he caught hold of the bottom of my shirt, pulling it up over my head and working it off my arms. He tossed it on the floor once he had me free of it.
Then he was staring at the rest of me, that pain on him worsening.
He’d gotten naked somewhere in that too. I didn’t notice until he pressed down his weight––then I groaned aloud, feeling him against my inner thigh.
I felt him wanting me to look at him.
When I didn’t, he let out a low groan of his own.
“Look at me...” he gasped. “We’re different, Miriam. Look at me.”
I glanced up at him, fighting that pain in my chest as I bit my lip.
“Look at my cock... look at me, Miriam... my body...”
He felt softer somehow in the request, almost vulnerable.
That strange pain on him grew more intense, the one that felt more like desire and longing than real pain. Again, images flickered through my mind, that time of him inside me, fucking me. I closed my eyes, biting my lip, but I couldn’t get away from it, or from the feelings pluming off him in hotter clouds as he let himself go into the fantasy. If anything the images themselves only grew clearer without his real face and body to intervene.
When his feelings rose... mine did too, until I couldn’t breathe again.
“Stop...” I begged him. My voice wavered. “Please.”
I felt him pull it back with an effort.
“It might hurt,” he said, his voice a gasp. “The first time... just the first time. It might hurt, Miriam, but only that one time... then it will feel so fucking good... so good... for both of us.” That pain on him worsened, forcing him briefly silent. “I want you to know what you’re getting yourself into... you need to look at me, Miriam.”
I felt the wanting there, so intensely it blanked out everything else.
More than just wanting, loneliness lived there, a wanting of contact... God, he wanted to be inside me so badly he was barely controlling himself.
Something about knowing that worsened my desire to the point of complete irrationality. I felt him fighting that loss of control, half out of his head as he struggled to talk himself down. Some part of me didn’t even want him to talk himself down. I felt that more animalistic part of him fighting the rest of him, saw it behind his eyes. That part of him just wanted to hold me down, to fuck me until I understood him. I felt him wanting that, even trying to rationalize it to himself, why it would be all right.
That wanting stabbed through me, once more choking off my own rational thought.
Not just sex. He wanted to be with someone like him.
He so desperately wanted to be with someone like him.
Fighting back that impulse to end the conversation, to just give in to what he wanted, he used his mind to show me another image instead, until it dominated the rest.
It was an image of his cock, I realized.
The realization managed to jerk my mind off pulling on him, trying to get him to lose control.
He looked different from any man I’d ever seen––or any boy, for that matter.
Longer, thicker, his sex organ had more of a triangular tip than the mushroom-shaped ones I associated with other men. But it wasn’t just the difference in the curve, or the differences in his shape. A smaller, sharp-looking, thorn-like... something... came out of the end while I watched from my mind’s eye. Whatever it was, it emerged from right below where the urethra lived on most men. It didn’t look quite like flesh.
It looked almost like cartilage.
I gasped, my hands gripping his chest as I stared at it.
“Hirik,” he said, his voice gruff. “We call it hirik... it’s normal for us, Miriam.”
That time, real fear writhed through me.
It was enough to snap me out of that fugue state at least.
He must have felt me pulling away from him. He must have felt at least part of my brain turning back on from wherever it was we’d both gone.
“I won’t hurt you more than I have to,” he promised, his voice cajoling, reassuring. He pressed against me again, groaning as images of being inside me once more flooded his mind. “Don’t be afraid of me, Miriam... please. It’ll only hurt the one time. I swear it.”
He closed his eyes, and the desire on him grew so intense I let out an involuntary whimper, writhing under him, grasping his biceps with both hands. He groaned, pressing against me as his voice grew almost hoarse.
“It’ll be so much better after. Gods, Miriam... so much better. Better than sex with humans. I promise you... I promise you, Miriam.” He shook his head, gripping my hips in both of his hands, and I realized he was sweating, that he was so turned on his body had completely softened over me as he pressed against me. “I promise you’ll like it... I promise... and I’ll do whatever you want. Anything, Miriam. Anything... I’ll give you anything you want...”
I felt the truth there.
I heard him begging too, which brought back that fog of desire, making it impossible to think or even see him clearly. He wasn’t lying to me, not knowingly anyway. I believed him somehow, even though a part of me couldn’t wrap my head around any of it in terms of logistics. He didn’t want to hurt me. He wanted me to be okay with this.
Some part of me spun around what we’d already done, how lost in this I already was.
That emotional intensity still burned there, in my chest. Foreign... but also not foreign. It was me. It was definitely me. I’d just forgotten it was me, somehow.
I thought about how different Black was... normally, I mean.
When he wasn’t begging me for sex.
That fear worsened, growing unbearable.
I remembered Ian.
I couldn’t. I couldn’t do this.
“Stop,” I managed, pushing on his chest for real that time. “Get off me. Black, get off me... please...”
He obeyed.
I felt the split-second of hesitation before he did, right before that pain coming off him worsened exponentially. He rolled to his right and my left, landing on his back on the mattress, gasping as he gripped the sheets in his hands.
For a long moment, neither of us made a sound apart from breathing.
I moved away from him once I could.
“Gods,” he said, half a groan. He looked up at me as I slid my legs to the side of the bed, his gold eyes so glassy I wondered if he could see me at all. “Don’t leave. Miriam... don’t. Please. I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to...”
I winced at his tone.
That pain wove into his words, pulling on me like an electrical force.
Worse, it brought the emotion back, nearly bringing tears to my eyes.
But I was already halfway to my feet.
He didn’t move as I got up... or as I grabbed my clothes off the bed and the floor, gritting my teeth at the pain in my leg. I only paused long enough to pull my shirt over my head, balling the sweatpants up in my hands once I was mostly covered. I grabbed my underwear off the floor too, feeling myself flush as I crushed the gauzy fabric inside my fist.
I didn’t look at him again before I walked out of the room.
I told myself I’d stopped because of Ian. I told myself I had to stop, that I couldn’t do this, not without talking to Ian first. I couldn’t make myself believe it, though.
The realization only made me feel more guilty.
Black didn’t follow me into the other room.
I finished dressing in his living room, even as I looked around for my bag, for money or anything I could use to get the hell out of there. I found my purse on the bar in his kitchen, right where I’d left it the day before... complete with my car and house keys, my ticket stub for the parking garage and even my wallet. I’d left all of that behind when we took Black’s helicopter across the city, mostly because Black advised me to leave it here.
He seemed to think it would be better if I didn’t have identification on me.
Since I’d known I needed to come back to California Street for my car anyway, and Black clearly didn’t need my money, I’d felt pretty safe leaving it behind. I’d brought cash with me instead, but I couldn’t remember spending any of that either, apart from a bottle of water I bought at the Legion of Honor café.
It was hard to believe that had been less than twenty-four hours ago.
Grabbing my purse off the granite counter, I looked around for my shoes.
Those, I couldn’t find.
After a few times of circling his living room and checking the few closets I found, I decided I didn’t care. Not enough to go back to the bedroom to look for them.
I wasn’t thrilled about walking on the city streets barefoot, but I’d survive.
Driving barefoot didn’t bother me. I’d done it before.
I could feel Black recovering in that other room. That pulling sensation hadn’t stopped, but I felt his restraint lock back into place, which was probably what kept him from following me.
I knew neither thing would last, though.
He’d follow me into the living room soon enough, and he’d want to talk. If I knew myself or him at all by now, I had to get the hell out of there before that happened. If I didn’t, we’d probably end up having sex on his living room floor.
As I thought it, that pain in my chest worsened.
Enough to let me know he’d heard me thinking that, too.
Miriam, he murmured in my mind. Please, don’t leave. Please.
I didn’t answer.
It’s not safe...
I let out a humorless laugh, once more inexplicably fighting tears. I think it’s pretty obviously not safe for me here either, Black.
I felt him fighting for self-control again. I wondered if it was what I’d said.
Then I realized it was from me speaking to him in his mind at all.
He felt the emotion there, too.
Let me send a car at least...
I fought back and forth with that. Then I shook my head. No. I need my car.
A ride to the parking structure then. My people can follow you home...
Black, I warned. I’ll be fine. You know Nick’ll have people here... people who’ll see me leave. They’ll follow me home.
I swallowed as the truth of that sank in, and the fact that Nick would know already that I’d spent the night here, at Black’s penthouse. I wondered if he’d tell Ian. Shoving that out of my mind, I shook my head.
No one’s going to try and break into my place, all right? Not now. Not with half the cops in the city watching me and you...
I’ll lock myself in the bathroom, he offered, even as that pulling sensation strengthened in my chest. I’ll masturbate. His desire worsened, enough that I felt my heart stutter. I’ll hire a fucking prostitute. Don’t leave, Miriam... please. Please...
But I was already standing in front of the door to his penthouse apartment.
Gripping the purse against my chest with one arm, I fought to control my breathing.
At his mention of hiring a prostitute, I gritted my teeth.
Then I reached out with my hand and grasped the handle, jerking open the door.
That time, I didn’t look back.