Page 11

Chapter six

Change Your Hair, Change Your Life

Kira

I stared at myself in the mirror, looking at the last dregs of what had once been Anna Jones. My hair was shorn and dyed purple. I knew it would need to go, if I was to be the woman I needed to be—for my son, for Paradigm… and for Eoghan Green.

I had to be someone I had never been before.

Something more than Kira Kekoa, who sold paintings in Gallery Four.

I had to be more than Anna Jones, the single mother who painted on the side of the road.

I had to be Kira Green, a woman who was stronger, bolder, and capable of things that would be unfathomable to the regular person.

I brushed the black dye into my hair, as dark as the eyes of my lover, until it covered every strand.

Who was it that said that a woman who changes her hair was about to change her life?

I spent the twenty minutes I needed to let it soak in staring at myself, at my body, at my fucking soul… What am I doing here?

I wanted to talk to Blink. I wanted to hear his voice and have his counsel. My purpose had been so clear long ago, when my hatred of Giorgio Morelli and his kind had driven me to be very good at what I contributed to Paradigm. I wanted to bring men like Eoghan Green and Eugenio Durante down.

Things used to be black and white. But Eoghan had a way of staining everything blood red, lined with various shades of morally gray.

He wanted me to rule by his side. He loved me. He’d kill and die for me.

It wasn’t metaphorical, either. It wasn’t to have me as arm candy. He listened to me. It wasn’t just a marriage, it was a partnership that he wanted.

God, I wanted to give that to him.

If Blink were here, I think he’d tell me to influence Eoghan to correct his ways, and to steer us into the kind of paradigm shift we wanted—to steer them out of extortion, crime, and misery, into the kind of living that would result in growth and wealth instead. That was the way to find peace.

I did not want my son to grow up like his father. I didn’t want him to have a dead mother, tortured by an enemy, like Isla Green. I did not want him to be kidnapped as a child, starved, and left for dead like Yuliya Vasilieva.

I did not want him to have a father drawn to madness the way Alastair Green had been.

I loved Eoghan for all that he was, boils and all! His flaws made him who he was. But I wanted something else for our child… for our children! I didn’t want that darkness in them.

Maybe Cillian would be the artist that Eoghan couldn’t be… maybe that was in his future? Maybe… maybe… maybe…

I washed the dye from my hair, feeling the curly strands between my fingers. As black as midnight, now. It was the early morning, and Eoghan wasn’t back in bed. The cold of his absence was what had roused me from sleep, and when I could not find him in the usual rooms, I did this.

I dried my now black locks, twisting them into a towel over my head. I stared at myself, the bags under my eyes, my sullen skin.

How was Eoghan still infatuated with this face?

I couldn’t believe it. Not that I suspected that he would lie. But I just couldn’t understand it. Motherhood had not been kind to my appearance.

A knock on the bathroom door made me flinch.

“Come in,” I said quietly.

“You’re up early, Love.” Eoghan entered, wearing a suit as always.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I whispered.

“Hmm,” he said as he came to me, placing his nose at the crook of my neck, before running his hands over the towel that covered my body. “Is it about yesterday?”

Yes, and no. It was about his absence. But I couldn’t tell him that, even if he had no judgment in his voice. No expectation.

“No,” I answered honestly, but blurted out, “Where were you last night?”

He came behind me, wrapping his hands around my waist, lowering his head into the crook of my neck. He didn’t say anything about the smell of hair dye, or the stains on my skin where I hadn’t washed the color off. He didn’t mention the spots that had to be on the towel either.

“Hmm, with an advisor, discussing the war effort.” He kissed my neck, up my jaw, to the place behind my ear, sending a shudder through me.

Who the hell was his advisor? I suppose I could have asked, but the fact that he didn’t name them immediately made me suspicious.

“If it’s something that will affect my son, shouldn’t I be involved as well?” I tried to keep my voice as even and powerful as I wanted to be, but still. That bit of lingering insecurity made me sound less certain and more pleading.

Who spent all night with his advisor?

“ Our son,” he corrected quietly. “And not for these meetings, Love. But if you want to be involved with others, it can be arranged.”

“Why not this one? Who is it with?”

His hands tugged the towel loose from the knot at my breast, unraveling it to the floor. He stared at my image in the mirror as his hands traced my rounded lower abdomen to the deep, jagged scar below my belly.

“You are so…” He sucked air in through his teeth, his smile in the mirror growing. “Irresistible.”

I shrugged him off, prying myself from his grasp, to face him, refusing to be hypnotized by his words, his scent, his… everything. The way he had made my mind foggy at the beginning of our marriage would not weaken me again.

“Answer me—ah!” His hands were insistent, finding their way to the trim hair between my thighs before his fingers slipped inside my heated core.

He kissed my neck, my shoulders. His free hand cupped my breast, pinching a hardening nipple, and I moaned, my needy body bucking against his masterful hand.

“It’ll be easier to know how to involve you, Muse, if you tell me how it is you’re able to shoot the way you do.” He threw his hand into my hair, unraveling the towel I wore like a turban. He fisted my newly blackened locks, tilting my head back, as he devoured my mouth.

My knees shook when his finger dipped inside me, curling to find that sweet, sensitive spot inside that made my body shiver. He caught me before I fell, turning me around to push my ass onto the vanity, pulling my knees apart to look directly at my pussy.

“My beautiful, sweet, secretive Muse.” He made it sound like a prayer.

He kissed down my chest, taking a breast into his mouth, and I moaned at his affection. I held onto him, my fingers in his hair, as my body responded to my husband’s ministrations.

That was his power over me. Not just his touch, his words, the way he made me dizzy with lust. It was the way he made me love him.

“Talk to me, Wife,” he whispered against my skin. “Unburden yourself to your husband.”

“I can’t tell you,” I whispered back, even though his touch made me want to give him everything, anything, as long as he swore to never let me go.

“Then I can’t tell you of my counsel.” His voice was raspy, almost mournful. I tried to create space between us so that I could look down at him and see his expression, but he kept himself close to my chest, his lips grazing my skin. “We each have secrets, then.”

He kissed over my heart, one hand massaging my naked breast, palming it, until he pinched my pebbled nipple.

“Eoghan,” I whined, as heat pooled down to my core, my head light, my mouth dry.

I wanted more of this. I needed more of this forever.

“Don’t punish me for things I can’t say!” I whimpered as he grabbed the backs of my thighs and sat me on the porcelain counter.

“I punish you for nothing,” he whispered, his face coming up, until he was buried in my throat again. “It is what it is.”

“Tell me who you were meeting,” I begged. I don’t know why I was fixated on this. Maybe because it was forbidden? Was I that childish?

“No.” He bit at my earlobe, and my legs spread, my arms wrapping around his shoulders to pull him in closer to me.

“Eoghan, please…” Was I begging for his secret, or was I begging for him to make love to me?

“Let me live in this for just a moment longer,” he rasped, his breath on my ear. “Let me live in the madness of this delusion for just a few more moments, I beg you, Kira. Let me believe that this could all end happily.”

The sad yearning in his voice made me pause. I tried to push his shoulders away, because I needed to see his face. But almost as if he knew, he stayed close, keeping his handsome features out of my line of sight.

“Let us live in this bliss for a few more moments, Love,” he whispered, and my walls crumbled just a little more.

I felt him nudge the tip of his cock against my entrance. I hadn’t even known when he’d unzipped his trousers, but that wasn’t unusual. Why would I care about that when I could get lost in the sound of his voice and his words?

“Allow me a few more sweet memories to keep me company in this wretched place.” Moisture trickled down my shoulder, down my back.

I didn’t know if it was my wet hair, or from him. Was he crying? Certainly not. Not Eoghan fucking Green.

But his words buried themselves in my head. It sounded like a goodbye…

“Let me be greedy, and let me be selfish, for a moment longer, please.” His cock safely nudged into my entrance, his arms wrapped around me, as he held me close.

In one, slow, agonizing thrust, he connected us, until our hips pressed together, our bodies completely molding into one as he filled me with his thick length.

I moaned, holding onto him tightly, our cheeks pressed together. I felt the wetness again on his cheek, and knew for certain that there were tears in his eyes. Or… or maybe they were mine. I felt a tear fall down my other cheek, following the path of my jaw down my throat.

But these were not the usual tears of lovemaking, when pleasure made me scream with every feeling my body could not contain. Even his lovemaking, the slow, sweet thrusts, the way his hands and arms kept me close to his body, had the feel of a mournful farewell. He savored it like it were our last.

“Eoghan,” I whispered, “We will not die in this war.”