Snapshot Page 15

  “Hovno!” He paused. “Why are you running away from me?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because I know you did it. You killed that man.”

  “It’s not what you think, Rosie.”

  I snorted. “I think it was murder. Can you tell me anything different?”

  He didn’t speak immediately, and I knew every assumption I’d made about him was right. I didn’t feel vindicated. The knowledge sank to the bottom of my stomach like a hot stone, uncomfortable and suffocating. I drew in a shaky breath.

  “I finished the car.” He peeked around the side of the tree. “I finished fixing it the day before yesterday. I was going to tell you… I just couldn’t bring myself to let you go. If you come back to the house, I will give you the keys and you can go home.”

  My laugh was hoarse and full of darkness. “Go back so you can murder me? Fucking unlikely.”

  “I would never hurt you, Rosie.” He started to step around the tree, but I fired another shot.

  “I don’t believe you. You already lied once.”

  I only had four more bullets loaded. We couldn’t keep this up all night. I was sure he knew that fact as well as I did.

  “I meant it when I said I love you. I never lied to you.”

  “You did. Telling me that you didn’t have a working phone when you clearly had one in your office is a fucking lie.”

  “Did you use it?” His head poked out from around the tree, watching me with narrowed eyes. “This is important, Rosie. Did you get on that phone?”

  “What does it matter!”

  His nostrils flared as he stepped out from around the tree, looking like the Terminator on a mission to destroy. I fired again, but he didn’t flinch, didn’t cower. I had to make a decision: run or shoot him. Running won out. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a killer.

  I turned and bolted back toward the alcove. It was the only option, really; I wouldn’t have made it up the hill quickly enough, and the other directions led me toward him or a cliff. Only ten steps into my sprint, and I felt his body crash into mine.

  Time seemed to slow. My body prepared itself for impact as the ground rushed toward me, but at the last second, with his hand braced behind my neck, he flipped us. When we landed, he took the brunt of the fall. The gun fell from my grip and skittered across the wet leaves.

  The chilling, cold wetness of his clothes seeped into mine. It shocked me into inaction for a second before my mind caught up to the fact that his hold had loosened with the impact.

  I rolled off to the side and started to scramble to my feet before he caught my ankle. My breath sawed in and out of me as visions of past and present collided. I wanted to scream, but my voice wouldn’t work. He was going to kill me. Xander would finally finish what Fred had started all those years ago.

  My vision dimmed as I kicked at his hand with my other foot and clawed at the wet ground. Do not pass out. Do not pass out. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity-fuck. Fuck.

  He dragged me toward him before I felt his weight pressing into my back. Ragged breaths puffed near my ear, stirring my hair. I pushed up from the ground only to have my hands ripped out from under me and pinned behind my back. He sat up, still squeezing my thighs together with his knees. His ankles held my calves to the ground, rendering me immobile.

  “I want you to listen to me, Rosie.” He barely sounded winded.

  I was still struggling for breath, wheezing out wispy breaths like I was incapable of breathing in. I didn’t want to acknowledge him as much as I couldn’t, and he must’ve noted that because he kept talking.

  “I did not lie to you. I would not ever lie to you. You have to believe that. I love you.” He used a free hand to push the hair out of my face as he leaned down to look at me. “But I need to know if you used that phone.”

  He stared at me, expecting an answer.

  I nodded.

  “Do háje! What did you say?” His face was a mixture of panic and anger. It scared the shit out of me. “Tell me, Rosie.”

  “Nothing.” I spluttered and spit as a leaf tickled my lips. “I didn’t say anything. She just answered, and I hung up.”

  He leaned his forehead against the space between my shoulder blades. I didn’t know if he was going to say anything else, he sat there so long, silently. There was a low, quiet groan that left him and vibrated against my back so quickly that I could’ve imagined it. But it sounded pained, and then he spoke.

  “You need to leave.”

  “That’s what I was doing—”

  “I do not want to let you go. Can you not see that?” He sat up, but he was out of my range of vision. “No,” he mumbled and rocked in place, not letting me up. “You are right. I have no right to keep you. I did kill that man. And I would do it again and again. Because it was necessary.”

  I closed my eyes and squeezed them shut, holding tears at bay. Not tears for the mystery guy, but because I knew this was it. The killer can’t let you go once you know the truth. They can’t risk the loose end.

  “You remember the man on the TV, the night of your Thanksgiving dinner?”

  I nodded.

  “The man buried in these woods was his private secretary. The only person on earth that knew the location of the minister’s family. My job was to get that information from him and deliver it to the right people. It was to stop a war that was inevitable… up to that point. That was all we needed to get him to keep the army from attacking our own people. To ensure a peaceful transition of power.”

  I opened my eyes and tried to look at him, but I still couldn’t see him.

  “I will not say what I did was right. I am a monster. A highly-trained and skilled monster. I work for an agency much like your country’s CIA. I have done many, many horrible things. But I did that—I killed that man—to save lives. My mother and my sister would have suffered otherwise. And I already lost my father to that corrupt government. That was how they recruited me for this job—the people who needed that information. It was a trade. One life for thousands, possibly more. And you have to understand that you can never tell anyone about this. It makes you a threat to those people, but also your own country’s involvement in any of this cannot be known. Promise me you won’t tell.”

  My head spun with what he was telling me. The implications… whoa. That’s not something I ever thought to be in the vicinity of. Xander had changed the course of history, and some nobody from Texas was the one flaw in his plan. A stupid girl wandering in the woods she never belonged in.

  “Please, promise me, zvonová sklenice.”

  “Who would believe me?” I tried to shrug. But I knew I needed to give him the answer he was looking for. Doubtful he’d leave me alive if I didn’t. The stakes were way too high for loose ends. “Xander, I won’t tell a soul. You can trust me. I don’t even have a cat to tell.”

  His forehead was back between my shoulders as he slumped over. Hopefully in relief. His body pressed into mine, and somewhere on the other side of the press of cold, wet fabric, I felt the heat of him. He must’ve felt it too because he groaned.

  “I want you to promise me one more thing.”

  “What’s that?” I breathed out.

  “That you will come back to the house and take the truck. You don’t have a car anymore. It will be my gift to you.”

  I nodded, unable to find the words or truly comprehend what was happening.

  He leaned back, releasing his hold on my wrists and pulling my purse strap over my head. The sun was nearing the horizon; the sky to the east was navy blue. It wasn’t much, but it was enough light to see by, now that the moon had set. He dumped the contents of my purse onto the ground, shaking it out. He jumped up off me, snatching two items—the blanket and something… I only caught a flash of silver.

  Pushing up on my hands and knees, I gave myself a moment to adjust after being held in that position for so long. But when I moved to stand up, Xander was there, helping me.

  His h
ands settled on my hips, but I didn’t move. “I need you. One last time. I need to mark you. I want to burn part of me into you so you will never forget me.”

  “I don’t think that’s possible.”

  “No?”

  I shook my head. His fingers curled around the back of my neck, and he tipped my chin up with his thumb. Lips that were chilled at first touch warmed quickly as they gently pressed to mine. It was a slow caress that matched the pace of his other hand that slid under my jacket and pulled my body flush against his. I trembled against him, but not from the cold. It was this overwhelming urge to touch, to kiss… to connect. I felt like a can of Coke that had been shaken too hard for too long, ready to burst.

  He growled deep in his throat and lifted me off my feet, walking us to where the blanket was at. I wrapped my legs around him and held on tight. He fell to his knees, then pushed and pulled off my jacket. My shirt was next. It was like something inside of him snapped. Some measure of control was lost. He ripped and pulled at my clothes and his, until I only had my underwear left and he was fully naked. Goose bumps pebbled his flesh in the purple light of the early morning. Adrenaline pumped through my veins, numbing me to the cold. He paused and looked me over.

  One.

  Two.

  Three heartbeats, and he pulled me toward him by my ponytail, until I lost balance and fell against his chest. His mouth crashed into mine, his lips insistent and demanding. I opened my mouth on a sigh, something like relief consuming my whole body at being back in his arms. His entire body shuddered in response. Our tongues danced and fought for dominance as he lowered me to my back. Once he settled between my legs, he ground his hips into me with near-painful force. A quiet groan that was half pain and half pleasure sounded deep in his throat. He broke the kiss, panting.

  “I cannot be gentle with you right now.” He pulled the sides of my panties away from me until the fabric tore, the sound loud against the quiet gurgle of the creek nearby and the utter silence of the early-morning woods.

  Throwing the tatters over his shoulder, he watched me, one side of his mouth tipping up in a smirk. The smile was somewhere between sinister and playful. It had me on edge. Then he reached for me and roughly flipped me on my stomach without so much as a warning.

  “What are you doing?” My whole body tensed.

  “What I promised I would do. I am going to mark you. You will remember me forever after this.”

  “What does that mean?” I tried to flip over, but he held me down with a hand to the center of my back.

  I heard a grating sound and the clink of something metal. Then I smelled it.

  Peaches.

  “What is that?”

  He chuckled. “You don’t know?”

  “I wouldn’t be asking if I did.”

  When I felt the brush of his fingertips against my ass cheek, I tensed even further, but nothing could’ve prepared me… I yipped as something cold and wet touched my skin. He made a noise, half heavy breath and half laughter, as if he found my discomfort amusing.

  His hand was gone from my back for only seconds before I felt it on my pussy, teasing my folds and prodding my entrance.

  He hummed in appreciation. “So wet for me.”

  The other hand slid the cold, wet stuff down the crack of my ass.

  Peaches.

  It took a couple of seconds more for it to fully sink in. I must’ve grabbed the jar of peach preserves in my mad dash to escape. And now he was smearing it all over my ass. But as he massaged it against my skin it began to warm, and as the fingers of one hand fucked my cunt, the other circled the tight ring of muscles. I relaxed into it and let him have his way.

  When the first digit pressed against my asshole, I froze. I didn’t know how to handle it. Was it going to hurt?

  “Relax,” he cooed. “Breathe in through your nose and out of your mouth. I promise this will feel good.”

  I did as he instructed, trusting that he was right. He leaned down until I could feel his breath tickling the shell of my ear.

  “You are so beautiful right now. Such a good girl.” His finger slid inside of me.

  I gasped, my eyes widening. A low moan bubbled up from within my chest.

  “You like that, do you not? Does it feel good?”

  “Yes,” I rasped out on a gasp.

  “Just wait until you feel my cock inside you.”

  I could feel the release building inside of me. “Please, Xander. Fuck me.”

  “Not yet, zvonová sklenice. I have to get you ready for me. You will remember this. This ass will always be mine.” I felt a second finger at my back entrance at the same time as his fingers curled inside, hitting just the right spot. My body jolted from the added stimulation and the fullness of further penetration. “Any other man who touches you here will have your thoughts coming back to me. Though, if I had my way, you would be chained to my bed for eternity and no one would ever touch you but me.”

  “Oh God, yes. Yours. Only yours.”

  He scissored those fingers in my ass, stretching me open. “You can’t keep that promise, Rosie. Because you are leaving me.”

  I didn’t know how to respond, but I wouldn’t have to. A third finger joined the other two and a mewl gurgled out of my mouth. It was almost too much and yet somehow not enough.

  The hand at my pussy disappeared, and I heard the telltale tink of the metal lid to the jar of preserves.

  “Ježíšmarja! It is cold.”

  I couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled out of me if I wanted. The smell of peaches permeated in the frigid air surrounding us. I turned my head to see him, and my breath stalled at the sight of him, stroking his cock, in combination with his fingers that pushed and pulled, stretching me for him. It may have been cold, but it didn’t look to affect him in the least. The heat in his eyes had me lifting my hips for him to get a better angle.

  He leaned over. I could feel the heat of his chest against my back, even though he was holding himself above me. His fingers pulled out of me, but I didn’t have time to think, to process, as the flared tip of his dick pushed into me. I screamed through gritted teeth, and Xander bit down on the back of my neck, pulling my focus from the pain.

  A buck with a huge rack, at least sixteen point, stumbled out of the tree line, made eye contact with me, and froze. Xander grunted and thrusted in farther. How this became my reality, I’d never fully understand. I was being fucked in the ass with peach preserves by a European spy, out in the woods in the dead of winter, while a deer watched. The same spy that had recently killed a man to stop a civil war in his country.

  It felt so surreal and vulgar, like we were spoiling this peaceful piece of nature. Xander wasn’t mine; he was larger than that. He belonged to history, to the world. And I was a nobody. This must have been what Eve felt like when she bit into that apple and discovered the wicked ways of the world—the sinful pleasures that could exist—but also knowing that it was only within reach for a fleeting moment before it would all vanish. That the cruel world was just around the corner.

  As Xander’s hand snaked under my belly, reaching for my clit, I groaned and my body clenched. Xander grunted in response and intensified his thrusts, his skin slapping against mine, punctuating the silence of the serene countryside.

  All thoughts fled my mind, and I surrendered to the sensations. When his fingers entered me and moved in tandem with his cock, his thumb rolling over my clit, the buildup was fast. The pressure started low in my belly and climbed up my spine. It had me panting and mewling. I pressed my face into the blanket to muffle my sounds until I was gasping for air.

  “Please, Xander.”

  I didn’t know what I was asking for. It ceased to matter in the next second as his fingers pinched my nipple, and that in tandem with his other hand and his cock… it was all too much and just right. My sight narrowed and sparks of light filled my vision. I screamed as my body jerked and spasmed in his hold. The orgasm went on and on, like nothing I’d ever felt before.

>   He quickened his pace for a few more thrusts and stilled. A sound ripped through his throat that could only be described as a roar. He held himself still as his release poured out of him. It was so animalistic, so masculine.

  The flap of wings echoed through the trees as birds scattered.

  And that’s when I knew. He did it. He ruined me. Because any other man would never measure up to this kind of perfection. The only thought left in my head when I came down from the high was that I was well and truly fucked. Because now I had to leave.

  Release

  I stood beside the truck as it idled. My gaze strayed over the house, the barn, and lingered on the chicken coop as I opened the door to get in. I would’ve hesitated more if I hadn’t come back to the house, showered, and put my own clothes back on, which were hardly fit for this weather. Luckily, Xander had started the truck and turned the heat on so it was nice and toasty warm.

  As I slid into the seat, the strange sensation was a reminder of what we’d done. My fingers curled around the slim steering wheel. Xander shut the door behind me. I closed my eyes, fighting the urge to get out and ask him to hold me one more time.

  All I wanted the entire time I’d been here was to leave, but now that I was, everything felt wrong.

  I opened my eyes and released the emergency brake. Pressing down on the clutch, I shifted into gear as the passenger door opened.

  Xander climbed inside. He reached over, pulling my face to his. Everything faded to the background outside the point of contact. My lips tingled as if he were weaving a magical spell and my body was absorbing every bit of the magic. The world seemed to get brighter at that moment. Though it wasn’t until he pulled back, pressing his forehead to mine, that I realized we’d rolled out of the garage.

  I pressed the brake to halt our movement.

  “It is so hard to let you go.”

  I tried to smile, but it was weak.

  “I wish that things were different for us. But you need to know that you have changed me. I am not the same man I was when I met you. I will never forget you. You will be on my mind with my dying breath.”