Page 11

11 The Courtship

There were days when I stared at myself in the mirror just to see whether I could outstare that abyss of darkness inside me. I was always the first to look away, or so it always felt, for an echo of that thing inside me, never turned its gaze away.

That darkness stared back at me now. I was no stranger to having one’s life so utterly shattered and twisted in just a short few hours. I knew how quickly your world could turn inside out, leaving you adrift in a vast ocean of confusion and uncertainty. Even so, the speed with which it had happened to me once again left me breathless.

So, I looked into the mirror and saw a stranger staring back.

I will take you apart piece by piece.

He had done just that, with frightening ease, as if I was a flotsam to his stormy waves. He had come so abruptly, so violently into my life, I was still reeling from the impact of it. In mere twenty-four hours, he had turned me inside out, shattered pieces of me, made me feel things I had forgotten how to feel. Emotions that had long ago become alien to me. I wanted to hit and crack the mirror to see the true reflection of my soul.

He had rearranged my past, my present and my future. Marked me in every way, and even ways I could not fully understand. I felt raw, exposed, assailed by vivid memories I had resigned to the darkest reaches of my past.

He made me crave yet again, crave him . I was never na?ve, and knew that fantasies unmasked were rotten, hollow shells. There was no substance to them. Yet somehow, unmasking that man who had taken my breath away, only made me crave him all the more. From the fog of my past, he had emerged, solid and more devastating than my memory recalled.

My fingers dug painfully into the edge of the sink.

He was a Gendrian.

To me he was not complete. He didn’t even have a quim I could stick my cock into. And I loved quim. Loved the taste of it. Hated that even walking away from all that seemed paltry compared to walking away from him.

Yet I needed to break free from this insanity. And I needed to do it soon, for I felt the layers he had already stripped from me, felt myself falling apart. Knew that as soon as I did, I would be at his mercy, he would reshape me, and I would yield, I would embrace it.

I pushed away from the sink and strode naked and damp from the shower into my bedroom.

I had never been to the opera, but I had stalked suspects there, and knew how to look the part. I pulled out a purple tuxedo and froze with it in my hand.

I was to play a date for a Gendrian man . And not just any man, but Rain Wild. Dress accordingly, he had said.

I stuffed the tuxedo back and pulled out a red satin gown. I was not as curvy as Ezra. Or Serpent, I thought morosely. Still, my legs were long and slender, and with high heels, dressed as I was, I might even pass for a Gendrian woman, at least in form if not in face. I was simply not that feminine. My shoulders were broader than a typical woman’s, and my form was sharper and more muscled than their softer one.

I pinned up my hair and dabbed a small amount of spiced cologne behind my ears.

Then I hiked up my skirt, strapped a gun holder to my thigh and put my revolver into it. The dress flared enough to hide it. Satisfied, I left my apartment.

I was going to drive myself and was surprised to find a black car and neatly dressed chauffer waiting. When the Herm saw me, they bowed slightly and wordlessly opened the door. I got in and gave them the address. I suspected it was needless, for they nodded as if they already knew where to take me.

The exclusive neighbourhood was one of the more modern in construction, with arching windows in the high-rise buildings overlooking the rest of the city.

We went through the gate before proceeding down the street towards one of the more elegant buildings.

The driver opened the car door for me, and I was greeted by a security guard who opened the door to the building. ‘Sir Rockhall, you are expected. Please come this way.’ They directed me to a private elevator, where a porter pulled open the grill door and accompanied me to the top level. The elevator rose straight into the grand entrance of the enormous apartment taking up an entire top floor.

The porter closed the lift door behind me after I disembarked and was promptly gone.

I strode down the hallway into a vast room, which was unlikely to be outdone by a palace reception. Elegant music came from a mahogany phonograph on the side table.

‘You are early,’ Rain’s voice called out from somewhere down another corridor. ‘I’ll be out shortly.’

The floor was polished oak mosaics, and I took off my shoes, fearing the heels might scratch it.

The tall arched windows overlooked the city skyline from above.

Inexplicable drawn towards him in his layer, I followed the sound of motion coming from one of the rooms. My feet were silent, but it was not my intent to sneak up on him. I merely craved to see where a man like Rain Wild made his home, to see the private part of him I imagined very few ever got to see.

The door to his bedroom was open. He stood in front of wardrobe which took up an entire, long wall. He was naked, and glorious, all hard muscle and angular lines. But that was not what took my breath away. Scars upon scars criss-crossed and zig-zagged over the skin on his back. The brutal and very deliberate cruelty of those marks left me almost trembling in horror over what he would have endured to have been marked thus. Savage, possessive protectiveness that he had been so violated shook me. A sense that something that belonged to me was so abused and damaged. For there was no doubt it had been done to him with slow deliberation.

He pulled out a shirt and I stepped back silently, and still shaking inside, returned to the reception room.

‘There’s wine on the table,’ he called out. ‘Or help yourself to anything on the bar.’

I perused the decanters at the bar. To the side were two filled glasses of red wine.

With a wry small smile, I picked up the glass he had pre-poured for me. From the aroma, I could tell it was the best wine money could buy. As with everything my eyes beheld, a briefest glimpse left a lingering memory, detailed and vivid. As I took a sip, in my mind, I traced each one of those scars that had imprinted on my memory, my phantom finger running over his back, as if I could wipe them away. It was the first true glimpse I had of his broken mirror.

Then the air grew heavy and heady in the room. Strange how I could suddenly sense him without turning around. His presence seemed to invade every one of my cells all at once, leaving me breathless.

Slowly, I turned around.

Rain was staring at me, looking stunned and as still as a wolf who had come upon a startling sight he was trying to make sense of. His heated gaze raked me shamelessly from the top of my head down to my bare toes peeking from beneath the gown. His gaze devoured me, undressed me and ran dizzyingly over my naked skin.

I looked him over in the same breath. He was handsome, destructively so, dressed in a black tuxedo, his features a clash of harsh and sensual. He looked altogether dangerous.

‘What, never seen a Herm in a dress?’ I said gruffly, trying to break the stifling silence between us.

That seemed to snap him out of his daze.

He gave me a toe-curling smile. ‘Never seen you in a dress.’ Carefully, like an uncertain wolf he advanced towards me. ‘You look beautiful, Ari,’ he uttered, and the way he was looking at me almost brought me to my knees.

‘You said it was meant to be a date and to dress accordingly,’ I said feeling a blush coming on. ‘I assume you don’t want to draw attention, and you strike me as the type of man to take a …’ A woman , I was going to say. ‘… a date clad in a dress to the opera.’

He picked up his wine, stepping close to me. ‘You would be wrong, then.’ His lips quirked up as if my assumptions were childish.

‘Since I was a child, my preferences never strayed to men or women. In fact, I had been with both in equal measure. My preferences have, in fact, always strayed towards Herms. I went to a mixed school near the northern border, with both Gendrians and Herms. My first crush was on a Herm. I lost my virginity to a Herm. There is something elegant and oddly fulfilling about your kind. A clash of strength and femininity, a beauty of form. Sometimes, you seem … whole to me.’

I have thought so myself sometimes, though few Gendrians would share that controversial view.

‘You married a woman,’ I pointed out.

‘There are reasons beyond love and want that might force one to marry.’

‘There are?’ I asked bemused.

‘An unexpected babe, for one.’

‘Oh.’

‘A few brief and passionate encounters, a few late nights in the office, and …’ He raised his glass in a toast. ‘A man is facing a decision he never meant to face.’ Rain took a long sip. ‘A few months after we were married, Sarah miscarried. I guess it hurt us both. But I was a bastard, and beneath grief, I felt deep relief. We lived in separate rooms for a time, pretending that marriage to each other still mattered. Soon after that, she learned of my … obsession. I came home one day smelling of you, my thoughts twisted with you. I was frustrated, angry … and … well, we faced the pointlessness of our marriage then. It was rather civil really. She called me a bastard, a liar and a cheat. I agreed with her, and we divorced soon after.’

Slowly, Rains presence next to me was growing overwhelming and all encompassing. Passion radiated from him, the furious type of passion that consumed and devoured the soul along with the body. I walked aside, if only to put a little distance between us, until I could breathe a little easier.

He downed his wine and put the glass down next to a file on the table. ‘I’ve no expectations as to whether you wear trousers or a grown to the opera. My dates have, in the past, worn both.’

‘About that briefing …’ I reached for the file on a table.

His hand stopped me. His body was once again too close to mine, and his heat brushed my skin. His other hand came around, sensuously wrapping around my hand holding the glass and gently taking it out of my hand.

‘Rain … we need to talk …’ I began, as his lips found the side of my neck and my whole body jerked in reply.

He put my glass down, his arm going around my waist, pulling me into him. Kissing my neck, then pulling away. ‘Pleasure first, darling. I have a gift for you.’ His eyes sparkled as he produced a dark, walnut revolver case.

A flourished, gold, and most recognised letter H embellished the lid. My heart skipped a beat. Hawkthorn.

My hands trembled slightly as I carefully opened the case, and a terrible premonition shook me.

A revolver lay in a plush velvet lining. I knew every swirl of its grain, every unique line of the curvy design that marked it as the one I had gazed longingly at every morning on the way to work.

‘Agency issue?’ I tried for a light tone, but it came out strained and choked.

‘No. This one is from me.’

My gaze flew to his. ‘I can’t accept this, Rain. Not least the price of it … whatever this is …’

‘I made it especially for you, Ari,’ he said solemnly.

I started at that. ‘This is Hawk…’ I cut myself off. ‘You are Hawkthorn.’

‘A hobby of mine. Has been since I was fourteen. I made this one for you three years ago, after I saw you staring at them in your local gun shop. I wasn’t sure if you would like it, so I placed it where you could see it.’

That was when I first saw it in the window. ‘You forbade them to sell it.’

‘On the penalty of losing everything they owned, including their lives, if they did so. They were to inform me if anyone asked after it.’

I had done just that, to see whether there could ever be a time when I could buy it.

‘Turn it around. I don’t think you have ever seen the other side,’ he said.

I picked it up and examined it on the other side. A chill ran down my spine. The timber of the handle held an odd grain which made out the letters AR. It was a natural feature, visible just enough to make you wonder.

‘Rain …’

His fingers lifted my chin to look up at him. ‘Whatever else lies ahead of us, whatever your reservations are, you will nevertheless allow me to court you, Ari. And this is my courting gift. Bury it away with your magazines in the wardrobe. Keep it as a memento of our time together, or sell it to the highest bidder and buy yourself whatever your heart desires. But it is yours. Unequivocally so.’

I took a breath, dropped my gaze back to the revolver. ‘I’m not sure I could use something so fine to kill with.’

‘Then perhaps it will make you less trigger happy.’ The sensuous note in his voice made me glance at him again. ‘Let me,’ he said taking the revolver from my hands.

Puzzled, I released it, only to be bemused when he lowered himself to one knew before me, then slowly, sensuously, lifted the helm of my dress, whilst running his hand along my ankle, my calf and up my leg higher and higher, past my knee, and up my thigh, until he reached my revolver holder.

He kissed the inside of my thigh, then kissed higher and higher again, as my breath quickened. Before I knew what was happening, he withdrew my old revolver from its case and replaced it with the one he gave me. After he did that, he kissed my thigh once again, before slowly lowering the dress, running his hand down my leg, like a curtain closing.

Then he looked up at me, his gaze blue and heated, and I was taken back in time to the same gaze looking up at me from behind the mask.

I suddenly couldn’t draw enough air. My hand moved to gently brush his cheek with the tips of my fingers, as I had done then, feeling the rough stubble of his jaw that clashed with the silkiness of his skin.

A moment, a lifetime, eternity perhaps we remained thus, until he rose, took my hand and pulled. ‘Come, let me show you something I think you will like.’

My heart thundering, I followed him to another room, a private studio with glass cases holding various gun designs, each unique, each carefully crafted, and each beautiful.

‘I take it then it’s not the agency that keeps you in this lifestyle,’ I said opting for amused tone, though the collection and the intimacy of being here with him, took my breath away.

Hawkthorn was as mysterious as he was famous, and his identity had never been revealed in the papers. A third party always acted between him and his customers.

‘I fear you will be disappointed with what the agency actually pays their agents to risk life and limb,’ he replied.

I strolled from case to case. ‘I have a feeling you are trying to impress me.’

‘It is unfortunately a vain and shameless part of my courting you, my love.’

I froze, tensed.

His hands were suddenly on my waist, his heat surrounded me from behind, his breath brushing my ear in a starkly familiar and intimate way. Everything about him seemed ingrained onto my skin, so that I no longer was certain where I ended and he began. His erotic scent, his seductive whisper, the taste of his wicked tongue, even the sounds of his movements, his quickening breaths, we all now intimate parts of me.

‘Don’t dare hide from it, Ari,’ he whispered. ‘For we are well beyond that. Far past pretending that you do not crave me with the same ferocity as I crave you.’

He moved away, releasing me.

‘Why do you keep these hidden behind the cases?’ I asked, sounding a little breathless.

‘Believe it or not, although finely made, they are imperfect.’ He sounded amused by the idea. ‘The one you are looking at, the barrel is a little off, and over a hundred meters, the bullet deviates by a few millimetres.’ He moved along to the next one. ‘This one here has a notch in the grain which I did not notice when I put it together.’

‘Seems you are indeed vain, Rain,’ I said with amusement and looked towards an open door. ‘Is that your workshop.’

He inclined his head and motioned for me to feel free to explore.

Intensely curious, I peered into the dimly lit room, marvelling that I was gazing into a place few would have ever been privy to. The mysterious Hawkthorn’s workshop where he designed unique pieces and collectors’ items only a few could afford.

I’d have to be dead not to feel flattered to be so singularly pursued by a person who had already been marked in history books. His name had been known for near two decades. Most believed Hawkthorn to be a Herm. I myself had always imagined the craftsman of such striking instruments of murder to be far older than Rain was.

If this was meant to seduce me, it was working far better than I let him believe. I was seduced, awed, flattered and well and truly courted. To imagine this magnificent creature was fixated on me, was a compliment I did not feel I deserved. I was not the most handsome Herm, few would ever call me beautiful. What was it this man saw in me that stirred him so. The truth was, I was completely unworthy of him.

Unworthy of a Gendrian. I almost laughed. And yet absurdly, furiously, I suddenly and irrevocably believed it. It was the truth that shattered the moment.

I turned around and faced him. ‘I am honoured … truly, Rain. Thank you.’ With those oddly broken sounding words, I strode out of the room, returning to the lounge. ‘I think it’s time we discussed the case and our plan tonight,’ I kept my voice official, formal. ‘If Kyle Snow sees us, he will be suspicious.’

Wild leant on one of the Grecian columns and folded his arms. His gaze bore into me, as if he was stripping my soul bare for his examination. For a moment he said nothing, merely looked at me, trying to understand my sudden mood change. Then he spoke in a flat voice. ‘The plan is simple. We are on a date, and it will be best if you act like we are. You know, longing glances my way.’

‘By that you mean hungry, heated stares,’ I corrected lightly.

He quirked his lips. ‘Those will do. You might want to caress my chest.’

‘Or perhaps your arse.’

‘Maybe a peck on the cheek.’

‘My tongue ravishing your mouth?’ I quirked an eyebrow at him, suddenly enjoying myself.

He quickly checked his pocket watch. ‘We have a few minutes to practice all that before we need to leave.’ Abruptly he strode towards me, pulled me into his arms and kissed me.

I moaned into his mouth and my tongue darted in a deliberate invasion. My hands slipped down his body, to cup his arse and pull it towards me.

‘I want to eat before the opera,’ he whispered as he kissed the side of my neck, his hand cupping my breast. ‘I want to eat you ,’ he breathed and my knees almost buckled.

‘Rain …’

His hand roamed lower and over my erection. ‘Tell me to stop and I will stop.’

‘I …’ My head fell back, opening my throat for his mouth.

He kissed me along my throat, my jaw and up to my lips where once again his tongue battled mine.

‘I think that’s enough practice for now,’ I breathed against his lips. ‘I assume it was to your satisfaction?’

‘Perhaps we should try undressing … you never know how far we’ll need to go to fool them.’

I chuckled and stepped away. ‘We’ll wing it, Rain.’

‘Pity,’ he uttered mostly to himself, and completely seriously.

I laughed as I strode away from him to pull on my shoes.