CONTAINS CONTENT:
Sexual Content
Marielle went to the desk where Vincent’s glasses were and brought them to him as he readjusted his tie.
“Ah,” he said with a nod as he took them from her and fitted them back over his face, pressing them up the bridge of his nose. She wondered how they were ever going to rejoin the party without it being obvious they’d snuck away for a tryst. Everyone probably knew already, but that wouldn’t stop either of them from doing their best to compose themselves.
He leaned in, kissing her temple. “Are you satisfied, love?”
She grinned, flushing. “No,” she purred.
“You never were, Masin.” He stroked some of her hair back behind her left ear. “Not with me.”
Her heart pounded with all these new thoughts, feelings, and realizations. Her mind reviewed the last month-plus with him, everything he’d said and done… Wait, had he actually almost said her name a few times that night when he had told her about their flight to Turin for their honeymoon? She exhaled, going over all of his words to her, all of the phrasing. It all made so much sense now. He’d mostly spoken about her in the past tense, he’d known how she wanted her coffee… Oh gosh, the painting without a face!
Her eyes widened as she glared at him. “Marielle was a profiler!” she growled, then put her fingertips to the sides of her face and shook her head. “You said was! Past tense!”
He smirked, remembering that day in the meeting room. “I’m not perfect. I caught that too, although I hoped that you didn’t.”
“I never considered it. How did I never consider it?” she asked him, feeling dumb.
“Marielle… I have always believed that your abilities blink you just outside of time, or into another dimension a little, which is why you sense things about people or what will happen. You get an itch in the back of your neck, and you know… you know something is not right. I think there are times when you even perceive the future. No one can do what you can.”
He stroked her face again, taking little tendrils of hair with his fingertips with each movement as he put his forehead against hers. “It’s one of the reasons you’re attracted to me. Somewhere inside, you always knew,” he said, gently touching the space just above her left breast. She nodded, considering. “You just weren’t ready to know.”
Her expression conveyed confusion. “And tonight I was?”
“I didn’t really know,” he explained, shrugging and blinking upward for a moment. “I wanted to tell you after we were first attacked, but I had no idea how. People don’t consider things that seem impossible, Marielle,” he explained. “You never considered the possibility that you were my wife because how could you be? Right?”
She looked off, deep in thought. He sat down by her on the desk where they’d just made love and clasped his hands between his knees for a moment, exhaling raggedly. “Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to keep still instead of jumping into your arms and holding you against me the moment I saw you?” he asked, tears threatening to prick his eyes.
Tears did come to hers, and she shook her head and laid it on his left shoulder. “Why didn’t you just tell me?” she whispered.
“It was always in the cards. But I never knew how any of this would go.”
She picked her head up and looked into his eyes questioningly, waves of realization hitting her in droves. Questions, answers, more questions, endless thoughts, and paths dappled her mind like honeycomb.
She clamped a hand over her mouth. “I’m dead,” she breathed. Then it hit her a second time. “Oh my gosh… I’m dead.”
He pulled her to him, hushing her. His eyes rimmed red. “Yes, my love. You are,” he said sadly, his voice cracking a little.
Another realization hit her, and she pulled back from him, her green eyes wide with terror. “Oh my gosh…” She clasped her heart. “Do I have cancer?”
“No,” he replied quickly.
She narrowed her eyes. “How do you know?”
He cleared his throat, an eyebrow flicking. “I had you tested.”
“How did you do that?” she pressed, her eyebrows snapping together.
Vincent swallowed and looked down. “That night—after Hazal. I came to your side and took a small sample. You’re clean, Masin. You’re not dying.” He placed both hands on the sides of her face. “You’re perfect… No cancer.”
She drummed her lip for a moment, uncertain of whether or not she wanted to understand his method and what exactly he had tested. Her eyes glittered, and tears fell unbidden again as she imagined him sitting with her as she died, how little she’d become next to how little she already was.
He drew her close again. “No cancer,” he repeated, and she heard the powerful relief in his whisper. She had no idea why, but this shook her to her core and she began to sob in his arms. “Oh, love. This is why I didn’t tell you earlier.” He gently rocked her as she cried. “My love… my wife,” he breathed. “Oh, God, my wife!”
Eventually she spoke shakily through the remaining tears. “How did I get cancer in the other world?”
He shook his head. “Possibly the radianite, the same as the others. Maybe it just hit you first. It was all in your left leg.” A single tear formed in his eye and slowly rolled down his cheek. “I did everything. No one could heal you; no one could stop or slow it. It just… devoured you,” he said through clenched teeth, hardly able to get out the words. “There was very little time between the realization that you were going to die and when you did. You were stubborn to the end. The doctors… There was a small chance, very small, that you would survive a bit longer if we removed the whole leg.” He looked away and moistened his lips. “You refused. You said-”
She knew exactly what she’d say. “‘No, Vincent, I’ll die a whole woman.’”
He winced, and the tears finally came fully, and now—for just a moment—he was the weak one, needing her to hold him against her. “I would have taken part of you to have you for ten more minutes,” he sobbed into her shoulder. “But all I got was a few more days. The last two, you only slept—peaceful, already gone.”
Taking a fistful of her hair and squeezing it, Vincent continued to sob. “You in all of your perfection and radiance, and I couldn’t capture any of it to take with me… My beautiful, perfect wife, and I had to put you in the ground and pretend like any semblance of my life could go on.”
He shook his head against her. “And I did a lot of bad things in my agony, Masin, in my blind grief. A lot of things I wish I could take back.” He gritted his teeth. “I slept with… a lot of women and always wanted them to be you.” His fists clenched, and he pulled back, looking into her eyes. “And yes, Sabine was in that mix. She was the start of that downfall.”
Marielle looked off for a moment in shock. It made perfect sense: Sabine looked like her. “How did that happen?” she asked shakily. It seemed odd considering their disdain for one another now. Well… Sabine’s disdain for Vincent and Chamber, anyway. But somehow she was reminded again that Vincent bore a small resemblance to Morgan, too. Both had been tall with dark hair and eyes and that classic V-shape in the upper body. Morgan had also had an earring.
“She had loss, I had loss. We brushed past each other in a room, and a quiet ‘I’m sorry’ both ways turned into passion, rage—her on top of me on a table somewhere…” He swallowed. “I barely recall it, to be honest, just the feelings I had afterwards. Guilt… horror…sadness… I’d used her. She’d used me. We only spoke of work after that.” He sniffed, the tears subsiding a little. “We certainly never spoke of that.”
“It makes sense,” Marielle said quietly, understanding. She wanted to be mad, but she found it all ironic. She’d been with Morgan physically before he had dated Sabine.
“It just… happened.” His head fell forward, hanging once again on her shoulder as his tears gradually stopped. “I killed in rage, and they always deserved it, but I promised myself I would never be that man… never. I’m not a monster.”
She couldn’t be mad at Vincent for how he had dealt with his pain and loss. “I am sorry for your pain,” she murmured, tears beginning again as her eyes filled with sadness.
He almost laughed. “Mon Dieu! Does my confession mean nothing to you?”
“It means…” She searched for a word, but all she found was compassion for a broken person. “Something, but not necessarily the way you think it does. We’re from two different worlds, Vincent. Whatever you did over there…” She took a deep breath and let it out. “Look, I get it, okay? I’m dead. I can’t imagine that grief. I probably would have done some horrible things, too.”
“I felt disgusting, dégoûtant, after each one and lost all of their numbers. It’s amazing how much a little sex can numb the pain, but then how it can accuse you in the late hours when you’re alone.” He pulled her close against his body protectively and let out a long, hard sigh. She wasn’t sure why, but her mind flashed to Austin. “My bedside saw several bottles of Jack Daniels—my best friend for a while.”
“But… you pulled yourself back. How did you manage that?” she asked in wonder.“Liam helped me. So did Hazal,” he said distantly but it was clear he didn’t want to talk about either of them in this moment. “I have a life motto, similar to the one I used for the bullying.” He let out a ragged breath. “Be grateful. I only got you for three years, but they were three years I didn’t deserve. No one deserves the bliss we experienced, and I was grateful for your love, no matter how short it lasted.”
Vincent sighed and closed his eyes. “It took days… weeks… months… but that’s how I survived it. I became grateful. Grateful for your smile: one less bottle of Jack that week. Grateful for your love: five less women in a month. Grateful for our marriage”—he was speaking against her mouth now—“grateful for our relationship and everything it taught me: no women, no liquor… And I came up with a new goal to find you again. The problem was how distant I was. I was never the same, Masin.”
He held her face under her chin, and his lips closed over hers in a tender, loving kiss. She exhaled dreamily, already wanting him again, already needing to feel him being one with her.
“What were we like, married?” she ventured.
He grinned and flicked an eyebrow at her. “French,” he said matter-of-factly.
She chuckled and shoved him in the shoulder. “No, really,” she pressed.
He shrugged as if he’d answered the question already. Then he blew out through rounded lips. “Okay, uh…” He thought for a moment. “We woke up most mornings laughing,” he began. She went silent, listening like a little child hearing their soon-to-be-favorite story for the first time. “When we fought, it was loud, passionate. We yelled, we said things we regretted, but we had a deal from the beginning. However horrible we were to each other, that’s how passionate we had to be later on when we made love to make up.”
She flushed. That sounded right.
“We took care of each other. You knew you were a hitman’s wife, and you traveled with me sometimes. You never liked it, but you turned a blind eye. We went to Paris several times, Italy at least twice. You were with me in Afghanistan once…”
He paused, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “I made you coffee in the morning, or took you to this little French café we loved down the street from where we lived. You wore that pearl necklace everywhere.”
She felt her cheeks fill with color and briefly looked away, but he tipped her chin back and made her look at him. “And I obliged at every opportunity. We were the kind of lovers, Masin, that would sneak into a corner or an empty room if we wanted one another.” He laughed and looked around, noting the office setting and the desks, including the one he’d already repositioned back in its original spot. “Just as we are now. We ate amazing food, we read to each other a lot, we talked about dreams, about romance. I bought you a house.”
Her eyes widened. He nodded, combing her hair back from her face again. “Oui.”
“How long were we married?” she asked.
“Over three years. I didn’t see it ending anytime soon.” He chuckled, then paused, his face growing serious again. “I expected to have gray hair with you.”
She bit her bottom lip. “Did we ever have any children?” She suspected the answer was no.
He sighed, his empty hands briefly parting. “We… planned to. But—”
“I got sick.”
He nodded. “There was a part of me that was grateful we hadn’t succeeded.” He pulled her against him again. “Oh, Masin,” he breathed. “My love… my wife.” She twined her arms around his torso, understanding some part of herself now… the part that cried in need for this man, his touch, his body. “I never want to be apart from you again.”
After a moment of peaceful silence, he ventured, “Where do you think we can go from here?”
“Well, we did just make love,” she purred.
He pulled back and looked down at her with a smirk. “Oh, you caught that?” he asked.
She beamed. “I don’t know. I like you so much,” she murmured dreamily. “But I don’t—”
“You like Austin,” he said quickly with a nod.
“Let’s not talk about him.” She sighed, resting her cheek against Vincent’s chest. She let out a breath she felt she’d been holding forever. “Let’s just… see what happens.”
He sighed, knowing he’d have to accept that answer for now. He also knew she wanted to lean fully into a forever yes… and she knew he was still lying to her about many things.
***
Barbara had already made her big announcement in front of a camera crew, which went live online and had a spot on the eight o’clock news. Austin stayed off-camera while Liam and Barbara spoke to a reporter about the government’s plan to join forces with Valorant. The fact that Marielle and Vincent were not present made Austin’s head spin with sadness and desperation.
Why him? he asked himself as confused thoughts and feelings tangled around his core. Didn’t he have a plan already in action? Vincent wasn’t supposed to interfere with that; Austin’s plans never failed. And why did he care so much? What did it matter if he failed this time? This kind of thing didn’t affect him, so why did it feel like it was affecting him deeply now? He’d waited too long, like a snake waiting in the grass to strike, only for its prey to run when it heard something else. He’d waited… too… long. Now what? Anxiety swirled around his middle, threatening to make him sick. He already felt that familiar feeling of falling beginning to rise in his core.
He scratched his right arm below the elbow and cracked his neck before rolling his shoulder a few times. Why him and not me?
A creeping, crawling voice from inside slithered up the back of his spine and replied, You know why. You’re only good for one thing.
Austin took a glass of whiskey from a waiter, knowing he’d have to stop soon. Barbara was flashing him an obvious look: “You’re done. No more drinks.”
He wished that the little alcohol he’d ingested would make him so blackout drunk that he’d forget tonight—except, perhaps, for the brief moment he had held Marielle in his arms on the dance floor. He wished he’d pulled her a little more tightly against his body. The feeling of her had already left his bones, and the desperation for more pounded inside him, causing that pit in his stomach to bore a little bit deeper.
He breathed into his hand to create a small icicle, then dropped it into his drink and watched it float around before he swirled the glass and threw it back, slamming it back down on the table and trying desperately to wipe the abysmal expression off his face with his gloved hand.
Han was on the dance floor, and she’d smiled at him a few times as if to tell him to come join her, even curling her fingers at him flirtatiously with both hands. He smirked and gave her a look that said, “Trust me, at any other time in my life, I would… but no.” She pouted and went to dance with the others for a while. He watched with a twinge of jealousy as Wei Ling abandoned everyone she’d been dancing with and approached Sasha, sitting next to him at a table. The two began to engage in a deep conversation. Austin closed his eyes for a moment and wished he could have Marielle there with him, just to talk… just to look at… just to reach over and finger her lovely lips.
He reached over and stole the cherry from Han’s abandoned drink, then popped it into his mouth and tied the stem into a knot with his tongue. Ghosts danced around his head.
“This is how you tie a cherry stem with your tongue. Trust me, it drives girls wild,” said a feminine voice he knew all too well. “Let’s see you try, come on.”
Austin pulled the stem from between his lips and dropped it to the table. A perfect knot. No girls around. He stared at it like it was a bug he needed to squash, feeling the deep caverns of anxiety start to swirl even more.
The waiter, whose nametag read “Freddy,” was picking up glasses and taking them back to the bar. Austin put twenty dollars on the table in front of him, planning to get up and walk away. But he eyed the waiter for a moment, the voice inside screaming.
The waiter was young, twenty to twenty-five, dressed smartly in slacks, nice shoes, a shirt, tie, and vest. His blonde hair flopped to one side of his head; the rest was shaved. His gray eyes glanced at Austin from under a pair of glasses. He was self-conscious in a way that screamed to Austin that he was gay and either didn’t fully know it yet, or hadn’t accepted it.
No, he told the voice inside. But it grew louder, more insistent. Freddy had looked at him when he’d pulled that cherry stem out of his mouth, and that look had contained a longing Austin was acutely familiar with.
Austin closed his eyes. No…
But it seized him by the throat and pressed him to the ground against his will. The feminine voice came again. “You’re handsome, Austin. Use it.”
He glanced around once more. Where was Marielle? He needed her. If he could just find Marielle, he could—
Freddy reached for the twenty, and Austin snatched his wrist like a snake that had struck, then smiled up at the young man, a predatory smirk full of intention, just innocent enough to catch Freddy off-guard and reveal his full interest.
The waiter eyed him, but didn’t pull away. Austin looked at the money in his hand. “How would you like to make four times that?”
“S-sir?”
“You know what I’m asking.” Austin straightened his back, cocky and sure of himself. “Don’t play stupid,” he added in a fatherly tone, giving the waiter a clear once-over. He could see Freddy react to that. Freddy had a father complex, possibly because Dad had beaten him; Austin had read this about him. He didn’t care why taking a paternal tone worked, he was simply using everything he could despite knowing how it would make him feel later.
The waiter glanced around, and it was obvious now that he was mostly concerned about getting caught.
“What time can you leave?”
Freddy licked his lips. “About half an hour,” he whispered.
Austin smirked. “I’ll be here.” It was then and only then that his eyes drifted down to Freddy’s wrist, which he was still holding. Then he looked back at his face, waited a beat, and let him go. He knew exactly what would get to this kid, and he’d exploited it pound for pound, inch for inch.
Who are you? Austin’s mind screamed as Freddy walked away, throwing a needy glance back at him.
But when he guided Freddy later in the back seat of his car, all that mattered was his fix. For a moment, he was outside of himself, playing the part he needed to play to get what he wanted, saying things that weren’t in his voice or tone. He’d never see Freddy again, and he didn’t care. He’d still palm him a hundred and send him on his way with a Tic Tac-commercial smile, a few quick words of approval and thanks, and a wink…
Sick. You’re so sick, Austin.
He wrung the steering wheel and pressed his face against it, grinding his teeth hard enough he was afraid he’d chip them. “That kid didn’t want to do that,” he growled at himself.
The feminine voice broke in. Yes, he did, or he wouldn’t have done it, sweetness. It’s always them, not you. You don’t push, you make the offer.
“No,” he barked. “He needed money, now he’s going to go home and feel guilty for days.”
Or wonderful until he finds another lover. You’re so handsome, Austin, so perfect. Don’t waste it.
“Shut up, shut up.” He squeezed his eyes closed, trying to make her go away.
Why? Don’t you like when we work together?
“No,” he hissed, flicking his gaze to the rearview mirror.
Yes, you do. You enjoyed every moment of that, every ounce of power I taught you how to wield. Sweetness, you’re just acting out because you can’t have Marielle.
“And I haven’t figured that out?” he hissed sarcastically. He knew exactly what was going on. Then he shook his head from side to side. “I don’t want to be that man.”
But you are that man, sweetness.
He glared in the mirror, seeing his demon in all of her beauty, all of her delicious seduction and come-hither red lips as they pouted at him. She looked like she would purr at him any second now.
“Shut up…” he demanded one final time as he turned the key to start the car. “Mother.”
***
Vincent and Marielle were long gone from the building. They stopped on the way to her car, their lips meeting in a kiss, then another. They had almost reached her vehicle when he pressed her against a concrete pole in the parking lot and kissed her more, then trailed his lips down her neck. Both giggled like little kids.
“Think you can wait ‘til we get back to the apartment?”
He shook his head. “What if I don’t want to? What if I want to torment you a little on the way home?”
“I’m driving,” she reminded him.
“I don’t care,” he breathed against her ear.
She shuddered in a good way as her skin prickled in response. “We’d better leave soon, or we’re about to have an issue.” She pulled away from him and the pole.
He grabbed her wrist and jerked her against his body. “An issue, Masin?” he asked salaciously. “There is no issue here,” he continued with a grin, drawing her upward in his strong arms. “There’s just me and you… and how focused you think you can be while holding the wheel if you’re being…distracted.”
“Oh, you are wicked.”
“And you will love every moment of it,” he purred against her mouth, and they engaged in another deep, sensuous kiss.
Marielle giggled again and pulled away, looking around nervously. They were alone, but she didn’t want to risk any more. She grabbed his hand, and they darted to the car and peeled out of the parking lot.
Once back at the apartment, they were hardly through the door before clothes began to drop. Vincent pulled his coat off and removed his gloves as their lips danced upon one another’s.
She jerked away with a come-hither grin and wandered into the living room, discarding her flimsy dress by lifting it up and over her body, lengthening her arms and accentuating her figure. Standing with her back to him in her boots, jewelry, and little else, she glanced at him over her shoulder. Then she bent and slipped out of everything except the boots, smirking at him.
He gazed at her, shaking his head as he slowly loosened his tie. Once it was loose enough to take off, he slipped it over his head, went to her, and put it over hers, letting it fall between her breasts. Then he took a step back and perused her naked body, his eyes telling her she was perfect.
“What do you want, Vincent? I’m yours,” she said breathlessly, her eyes blissful and delirious with need.
He reached out and took hold of the end of the tie, then jerked her toward him. She stood nude in his arms for a moment, panting and excited, before he bent and lifted her.
“Oh, Masin,” he groaned against her temple, “I’m going to show you who you are tonight.”
She gasped, and her head rolled back over his arm as he swept her off her feet.
Then he carried her to the bedroom and closed and locked the door.
A moment later, the door opened again, and Vincent set Felix in the hall, patted his head, and closed it again.