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21

Sálvame

T hroughout the evening, the fridge was a source of terror. Marisol jumped at every rattle and hum, even when it was just the ice maker or the ambient noise of the working appliance. Her heart and imagination could suffer only so many more tremors before either would kill her, not to mention that the duct tape she used was off-brand and would only hold a cannibal super-mouse for so long. But getting the man capable enough to handle such a thing required poking a wound that hadn’t quite formed a scab. How would she survive making contact with a bad case of the feels? Why, reference pages from her I ’ m the Asshole playbook.

Play one, ask Vincent to come over for mouse storage, initiate a phone call to her sister Nicole, and say something upsetting like, “Is there really a difference between Windows and Linux?” Vincent would arrive right as Nicole was in the middle of losing her shit, and all Marisol would have to do is signal to the freezer and gesture apologetically about really needing to take the call. Mouse would be out of her hands, and she’d barely have to utter anything to him. But Vincent was the ultimate bullshit artist and would see right through the ruse.

Which might mean she’d have to opt for playbook page two: Leave necessary item outside the apartment and give the rejected paramour a short window of time to collect it. Hey, if you want that snarling rodent your DNA created, you have 15 minutes to get it off the curb before some unhoused person places it in their shopping cart. No fuss, but that plan risked the muss of an unhinged lab experiment wandering the city streets. Not just a lab experiment, a bit of Annie and a key to bringing her murderer to justice. Marisol had to try something different, crazy even. To accomplish that, she had to become a new kind of asshole. Luckily, she had a good role model to take after.

She perched at the top of her building’s water tower, wearing the canvas jacket she borrowed. She gripped the tower’s spire with one gloved hand and adjusted her domino mask with the other. Flicking up her hoodie, she summoned forth her smooth-as-silk alter ego, the one that could confront the Patron Saint without becoming a blubbering idiot. But she still was not-so-smooth, as Marisol had busted out the knee of her jeans climbing the tower. She hit the commlink button at her wrist to call for Vincent. For rabid mouse storage and nothing more .

A burst of glowing blue veins beamed from her fire escape. Vincent already waited for her outside her apartment’s window, probably after visiting Tobias to learn about the mouse. As soon as she rubbed her cross pendant, she leaped to the railing. She swung and slid down the tower’s scaffolding, soundless—no scraping of flesh or screeching of rubber against metal.

She landed on the balls of her feet. Hiding in the recesses of darkness, he remained still. He hadn’t noticed her. She clicked her tongue and shout-whispered, “Vicente.”

He swaggered toward her. His cape whipped in the breeze behind him.

She popped up straight, hands on her hips. “I got something getting freezer burn that might interest you. Annie synthesized a serum based on your DNA and tested it on her mouse. It eliminated its tumors, but it had a weird side effect of turning it into a superpowered, deathless killer. Sound familiar?”

He nodded and huffed. Frozen breath swirled around his face.

“But you’re not a vicious killer. You’re different. A good man?” Her muscles tightened as she awaited the answer. But which part was the question—good or man?

His downcast gaze flickered up, meeting hers. “I try to be.”

The answer wasn’t reassuring, but it was pure Vincent, living along the blurred edge between a sanctuary and a trap. She wanted to dwell on that edge too. So much that even under a layer of armor, her nipples furled tight.

Remember: nothing more. She rolled her shoulders and averted her eyes, returning to perform as the tough badass extraordinaire. “Based on the security measures, Annie had to have known the Bloodsucker to let him into her lab. The night he killed her, she injected him with the serum. I’m guessing, from the mouse’s antics and the latest news, we are facing a criminal mastermind who is closer to us than we realize. And he can now meet your magic superstrength with his own lab-created superstrength.”

She shifted her weight to one side and dropped an arm. “I relayed important information. What’s next? Wait for you to turn around before I disappear into the night? Isn’t that what you do?”

“Sometimes.” He turned to jump off the rooftop’s edge.

A weird mixture of desire and guilt brimmed to the surface, but instead of saying, Please don ’ t go , she called out, “I spent the day trying to hate you.”

He stopped but didn’t even bother to turn around. “Okay.”

How dare he brush her off with a short, noncommittal response! She snagged his cape and yanked him away from the ledge. “Okay? It’s not okay.” She spun him around to stare right into those stained-glass eyes. “I think of all the shit pies I’ve been served, and your finger is in every one of ‘em.”

He looked down and stepped back—like he did back at the estate. He was giving up on her, and the squeeze in her chest returned. There was no way she could handle his resigned expression again. She had to jostle him enough to care.

So, she shoved him. “You’re just going to accept that? Stand up for yourself!” She hurled her might into a punch. He raised his forearm and blocked it. She swung fist after fist into his forearm like it was her punching bag. “Tell me I’m wrong! Tell me you’re a good man! Just fucking fight me!”

He caught one of her flying fists in his palm. “Would that please you?”

No, resurrecting the dead would please her. Or maybe finding a gray strand in his golden hair. But of course she answered, “Yes!”

His lips curled into a smile. “You’re bringing a butter knife to a gunfight.”

Once she extricated her fist from his grip, she’d use it again to wipe his smirk off. “Eat my ass! It’s your fault she’s not alive! The problem was right under your nose the entire time!” He finally let her go, and she shook her cramped hand out. “You had to know! You could’ve stopped her from going too far!”

His smile deflated. “I’m sorry. ”

She threw him a cross hook and another one. “I don’t care! You could’ve saved her! I should hate you for… for everything!”

He dodged her punches, bobbing and weaving. “Then do it.”

An iron-like taste filled her mouth, so she lowered her guard to catch her breath. “When I try, I end up only hating myself.”

He swept-kicked her legs out from under her, knocking her onto her back. “You shouldn’t do that.”

The force struck the breath from her lungs, which dissipated toward the sky. Adrenaline and dopamine mixed into a heady rush, like fireworks popping inside her skull. He really just did that? She sipped at the air, collected enough oxygen, and sprang back onto her feet. “How? If I hadn’t fangirled over you, I could’ve seen that she needed my help. I could’ve been there in time.”

Never mind reason. Never mind that she intended for each punch and kick to pummel herself. As if under a spell, her body continued to fight, and he answered the call to battle with fluid flips and turns, dodging her attack. The sparring became a dance; the dance morphed from the jabs, kicks, and blocks of kickboxing into the pushes and holds of wrestling.

They reached a standstill huddling together. Her right hand pushed against his shoulder, and the left gripped behind his neck. His position mirrored hers, bracing and holding. “You did see that she needed help, and you were there,” he replied.

Her feet started to slide, and her leg muscles burned as his strength overtook hers. This pissed her off more. He was easily ten times stronger than her and patronized her with a fair fight. Or he cared, and she was locking horns with the only man who dared to take on her bullshit. She pivoted out of the way; he barreled forward and stumbled to regain his footing. Her exhausted muscles could no longer hold back the truth. “Yet I’m still angry at myself!”

Vincent hugged her from behind and pinned her into a full Nelson with both arms held above her head. “Why?”

She attempted to wriggle out and grunted through clenched teeth, “Because today I saw the life I should live, and I didn’t want it.” She donkey-kicked him away. “I should care that you’re dangerous. I should care if you’re a good or bad man.” And she felt it: that she’d sell her soul if it meant being close to him again. It arrived like a shimmer behind her chest, like spinal fluid reversing to a rhythm of more, more, more. “You’re a barbed hook in my guts, and it fucking hurts, but I don’t care. Whatever you are, whatever you’ve done, I want you in my life.” Everything in her verged on trembling, crying, or breaking as the ultimate fear of running from him lingered in the air. “Do you still want me? ”

“Siempre,” he whispered before drawing her into a kiss. The perfect combination of strength and softness in his mouth made her body respond with a swoon. His arms caught around her waist.

Lightning crackled in the distance. They should head inside. She flinched, hugging around his neck tighter.

But she felt no fear.

In each other’s arms, they fidgeted out of their gloves. Fingers freed, she pulled him by the shoulders of his cape and nibbled his lower lip.

In his kiss, she savored all that was ancient and powerful. In his kiss, she tasted his destiny—a man seeking Justice wherever he trod. From the salt on his mouth, he was a man who set ships on fire in the Atlantic. From the sizzling electricity of his touch, he was a man who witnessed the spark of Enlightenment. His tender lips belonged to the man who led a quiet revolution of kindness, defending and protecting the vulnerable. Their mouths parted from each other, only to gasp for enough air. It was a sip of pure oxygen, the taste of the freedom he gave to those he carried to salvation. His hands, digging into the flesh of her lower back, were the hands that cut open the barbed-wire fence of a prison camp. His kiss possessed the history of a man who saved all that he could. He was the original. The hero that inspired other tales. But he was real. He was hers.

Click. Click. Marisol released his cape from its clasps. Click. She unfastened his utility belt. It dropped to the roof, landing with a metallic timbre that stoked a fire between her legs. He smoothly unzipped her coat and hoodie with one fell stroke. The fire within roared after he shucked off her clothes, dropping her armor into a frenzied pile. The cold felt like nothing against her flushed skin.

He pulled at the thick strap of her sports bra and grunted. She jumped back and out of his grasp. With her arms raised to grapple, she circled him. Eyes glowing and mouth parted, he reached for her, ready to play. She grabbed his arm and twisted it behind him, shoving him face first into the colossal HVAC unit.

Lured by her hunger, she bumped her pelvis against his backside. She desired to drive into him like an animal, to leave him a mindless mess, begging for it again. So she asked, “Want to please me?”

He tipped his head.

“Be still. I’ll tell you when to move.” She kissed him, skimming his jawline.

She found the zipper at the neck. It purred as she undid it. As she pushed away the armored neoprene of his suit, she admired the rippled muscles of his back and the groove of his spine. She followed the groove with her tongue. He tasted like the city, hints of copper and salt.

He exhaled through his teeth. “Should we head inside? Someone might see us.” Thunder pounded closer.

She asked, “Do you need to tap out? ”

“No.” His grimace softened. “But we need a signal if we do.”

She pushed the back of his head. “Like a safe word?”

His leather-clad cheekbone pressed into metal, and he squeezed his eyes shut. “Any preferences?”

She peeled the top layer of his suit off, stopping at his hips. His suit bound his wrists to his body.

“Sálvame,” she answered.

“Our safe word is sálvame?”

“All right, Vincent, I’ll stop.” She backed a few steps, holding her palms out.

He chuckled and faced her. “I said it as a confirmation not—”

She grazed his chest with her fingertips. “You don’t want me to stop.” He struggled, pulling against his bind. She yanked the wisps of his chest hair. “I told you not to move.” Bam ! She shoved him into the HVAC unit again because she could be dangerous too. Her fingers released him, and she kissed the red marks on his chest, flicking her tongue in the shape of a cross.

She turned her back to him and rolled her hips into him. “I know it hurts to want me so much.” The heat of his impassioned breath burned against her neck. Her hips coaxed him again, and she added, “Show m—”

He wiggled free of his sleeves, grabbing her at her hips. He pushed. She braced to resist. They stumbled. She caught herself against the ledge wall, her palms scraping the stone.

Bent over the ledge, her curves ached to meet his solid muscles. Yet nothing. Did he ditch her in a switchy state of submission? Trap her in a big gotcha moment before disappearing? She looked back. He hadn’t left. He had begun to untie his mask.

Marisol stopped his hand. “Keep it on.”

He growled and rocked into her backside. She dug her teeth into her lower lip, riding the high of another unlocked secret: Masks stayed on tonight. She’d have the real version of him, the contradiction. He’d be the hero to save her, and he’d be the villain she conquered.

He reached around and unbuttoned her jeans with rough jerks, pulling them off. He dropped to his knees and pressed his face against her ass cheek. His nose caressed higher and higher. A soft kiss became a bite. His teeth pulled at her underwear, guiding them down her legs where they bound her at the ankles.

His caressing nose and mouth traveled up her leg, reaching their destination with a nibble at her rounded flesh. She closed her eyes and leaned into him. He gripped her cheeks and separated them. His tongue traced over her folds. She stiffened; her eyes popped open in shock. Not ready. Too… He hummed. She quivered from the vibrations of his mouth. Filthy. Another hum and his mouth explored further, his tongue grazing her clit. Too mu ch. She lifted her thigh back to block where his mouth, tongue, nose—the rest of him—dared to go next.

He drew his head back. “Do you need to tap out?” His breath, hovering close, heated and teased her.

Her hands trembled against the ledge. “Um...” She squeezed her thighs together, surrendering to her fears. Too sweaty. Too dirty.

“You can say it.”

Danger and desire twisted her insides, wringing them to liquid. If feeling his breath drove her wild, why would she stop him? She steadied her palm and inched her legs apart. “I didn’t say the word for stop.”

His lips and tongue returned with a vengeance. Possessed with slick heat, she arched her backside. Then his fingers joined his mouth and... my God. Lightning dazzled among the clouds moving above them.

After a prod of his tongue and a circle of his fingers, she gasped and reached back, holding the tie at the back of his mask. Before she caught her breath, he devoured her. Her body fought a tug of war. Her hand, gripping the back of his head, demanded more. Her hips, tilting away, sought to dull his power. But his hold on her meant that the only direction she’d go was his. He mastered her as her supplicant .

She begged, “Please,” but she wasn’t sure what for—release or respite. His tongue fluttered. Her body seized. “Vincent!”

Marisol let go of his mask and gazed back at him with heavy-lidded, sex-drunk eyes. Pleasure racked her body in ever-returning waves.

He ran the edge of his tongue over his pout and rubbed his lips together. “Hm.”

”Hm,” she breathed.

But he moved without permission. There must be a consequence.

She bucked into him, knocking him on his back. “You didn’t wait for my command.” Sitting on the ledge, she dug her boot into his shoulder. “I’m not pleased.” Her pursed lips hid a smile. “Put your hands against that wall and don’t move.”

He moved to the HVAC unit and put his palms in place. She took the moment with his back to her to wriggle out of her boots and unbind her ankles, adding jeans, socks, underwear to the growing clothes pile. She approached him and reached down his leg. He twitched. She steadied him with a hand to his back and used the other to unzip his boot at one calf and then another. “Take off your boots.” He stepped out of them. Her fingertips glanced across the brawn of his shoulders and back. At his back, she peeled the rest of his suit away to expose his beauty in entirety.

She marveled at his buttocks with a sculptor’s caress. Her hero. After a massage with her thumb, she swung her hand back. The villain she’d conquer. Crack! Her hand landed against his backside. His abs pulsed and flexed as he took deep breaths. He turned his head, his profile to her. His aghast mouth closed into a grin. She could face her darkness and create pleasure from it.

Crack! He laughed, deep and haughty. That won’t do. The other spanks landed harder and louder until her hand stung. Until he grunted and shuddered. Until he rutted against the wall.

The marks on his skin faded into the unsullied ivory skin of a statue. She tugged at him to turn around. When he did, she licked her lips at the sight. She hadn’t really known what to expect from a 500-year-old dick. He had deprived her of it long enough that she wondered if his sculpted, godlike body came with one of those disappointingly flaccid penises that adorned otherwise gorgeous statues. But it was perfectly normal, as in, dusky red, erect, pointing to his navel. Most importantly, ready for her.

She leaped onto him, and he collapsed onto his back. She straddled him, dragging herself over his length. “You want this?”

He hissed out a “Yes.”

She crossed her forearms over his chest, digging her elbows into his muscles. “Say please.”

“Please.”

At his word, she guided him inside her, using the strength of her legs to roll her hips. He pulled her down as he thrust up into her. An ecstatic gasp left her mouth like a ghost in the frosty night air. Her body spasmed from the deep and full sensation, reveling in another boundary pushed, another dose of his perfection.

He squeezed her fleshy hips with one hand while the other pushed her bra over her breasts. Sitting up, he licked and sucked at each nipple with a hungry lack of precision—slippery and savage.

Another deep thrust, and Marisol flung her head back. Her hair danced around her face.

Between rough breaths, he said, “You’re beautiful.”

Her silken strands snaked over her lips and brushed across her shoulder blades. Her gaze seared into his. “I know.”

Marisol shoved Vincent’s mouth away from her breasts and pried his hands off her body. She slid the rest of the way out of her bra and ran her hands over her breasts, delighting in the cooling traces of his saliva on them.

His thumb flickered over her sweet spot, and she writhed backwards, clawing into his thighs. After a few pumps with her hips, she adjusted her weight forward and pinned his arms overhead. “No. Watch me.” Her hands glided down his arms and over his chest. She caressed her thighs and dipped a hand between them. At her heated apex, her strokes matched the frantic pace of her rolling hips. “Beg me to use you.”

His gaze fixed to where their bodies met. “Use me. ”

She pulled him out and restrained herself from grinding and rocking. “I said beg.”

Lightning forked from the sky to the ground. The slick underside of his cock pushed against her, hoping to return to the snug place deep inside. The tendons in his neck strained as he groaned out, “Please.”

She sank down on him. Her thighs slapped against his as she rode him. He inched closer and closer to release with every wild buck of her body. His lips parted in a sigh. There it was—the agony. Now for the ecstasy.

The pressure grew inside her. Every nerve wired into her pleasure. “I’m so close, Vincent. I’m so—”

Something guttural rumbled from his chest to his throat, as if it was the only thing to keep him from exploding apart. She stuck her fingers inside his mouth to muffle his sounds. She couldn’t hurt him, but her masked side desired to delve inside—to gag, to mangle, to make him beautiful only for her. Destroying and devouring him passed his power to her. Now she knew why people ceremoniously ate their gods.

His teeth crushed her fingers. The pain challenged her to ride harder and harder. After another squeeze and a moan, his eyes rolled back as he died a little death for her.

His lingering bite released another wave of ecstasy, bolting straight to her core just as lightning struck the spire of the water tower. Her cry blended with the thunder, ricocheting off the buildings until it disappeared into the night. She collapsed. Aftershocks tumbled through her.

A hole ripped into the sky, and rain poured down. Sweat and rain anointed them like deities as they shone in the city lights. Breathless and stunned, Marisol closed her eyes and rested her ear against his chest. For once, his heartbeat raced. For a moment, she had made him an ordinary man. Nothing stood between them now. Unbound and raw, they shared their bodies. And she wanted it again and again and forever.

He carried her inside her apartment and insisted she stay in bed as he cleaned up their mess. He moved around her apartment like he belonged there, like home was with her in the heart of the city, hanging their wet clothes and masks in her bathroom.

Together in bed, her fingers interlaced with his, she admired his soft, pink knuckles. She compared the top of her hand to his. Both belonged together now, lustrous with strength and the last vestiges of youth. How long would it be until her hand looked ridiculous in his? Until his agelessness became noticeable, and he’d have to recycle himself into someone new? Twenty years? Fifteen? Ten?

She wanted to tie him to her bed to stop time, to stop the outside world. Over centuries, she couldn’t have been the only one with a bed warm from his body with the sands of time sifting rapidly through her fingers. How did they handle it? “What about other… lovers?” The word spouse itched her tongue, but it would’ve been presumptuous to speak it.

He kept his eyes closed and stroked the hair at her temples. “Some. None knew what made me different.” He opened one eye with a hint of a smile.

“Not even Staci?” Marisol couldn’t forget the picture of the timelessly beautiful woman with news reporter hair next to the Victor version of him in his ballroom.

“Staci was my wife on paper but—”

Marisol patted his chest. “Don’t feel you have to under-embellish the truth for my sake.”

He opened his other eye, and he propped his head up. “Security Transportation and Communication Interface. She’s the computer program that operates my security system, vehicles, and commlinks. The woman in the pictures was a robot Leonard put together. Based on a real person. Hence the paperwork. Good for photo ops. Terrible conversationalist.” He shrugged away robot clone artificial intelligence the way other people say, “grown apart,” cueing her to nod in understanding.

She ignored the massive weight of his life story, which receded into infinity like a mirror reflecting another mirror. “But I know about you.” Though there was still so much to know, the notion hit like a stiff drink, buzzing with strength. She was the only one to possess him in entirety. Although he wasn’t a possession, it assured her enough that perhaps in another hundred years, he wouldn’t be in a similar conversation, lumping Marisol with some.

He held her tighter, drawing his magically dry cape around her. Inside his perfect warmth, she dozed off against him.

She opened her eyes to find Vincent sitting at the edge of the bed, mask back on, and zipping himself in his suit.

She rubbed his back as he jammed his feet into his boots. “Where are you going?”

“Work.”

She checked the time. Only midnight. “After that? I’m surprised you’re even awake.”

“Benefit of super recovery.” He kissed her and eased her to the back onto the pillows, tucking his cape tighter around her. “Love you.”

Marisol snuggled inside the cape’s warmth. What did he just say? She sat up. “What?”

“Um...”

“You didn’t say the ‘I’ of ‘I l—’” She dared not to repeat it. The words conjured a superstitious force that would definitely break her heart. “That’s like saying, ‘Good night,’ right? You didn’t mean to say—”

“I love you?” He clipped on his utility belt and adjusted his mask. “I suppose I have no right to say it given my circumstances, but I feel it. Overwhelmingly, in fact. Being around your compassion and courage moves me like witnessing someone walk on water.” Vincent held her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “And for that, I want nothing but life and joy for you. I will be whatever you need to make that true.” He brushed her hair with his fingers so that it gathered on one side. “Let me carry your burdens.” He kissed her clavicle. “Let me be your vengeance.” He kissed the edge of her jaw. “I will take your anger so that you can have peace. I will be your wrath so you can be our healer. I will bring you the justice you deserve.” With a gentle pull of his hand, she faced him, lifting her eyes to meet his. His eyes glowed. “When the Bloodsucker looks into the abyss, it will be me who looks back at him.”

A single tear trickled down her cheek. Not a tear of sorrow but of awe, as if she witnessed the beginning of the universe.

He wiped away the tear with his gloved thumb. “I can’t give you a future, but I can give you this.”

Rendered speechless, she kissed the inside wrist of his tending hand.

”I’ll return before dawn.” He opened her window and crouched on the ledge.

No. He couldn’t just say “I love you” and leave. She had to say something, anything back.

But he jumped out below. Her gauzy curtains fluttered and went still.