Page 4

4 The Bank

My head snapped to the side. The slap stung. As the sting subsided, my cheek heated where Andie’s palm left a blistering imprint. ‘You’ve some nerve, Rock.’

‘Good to see you too, darling,’ I gave them my most charming smile, one that in the old days invariably led to Andie throwing themself at me in a frenzy of need. ‘But take pity, Andie. You know I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate. I’ll even take the slap as my due.’

Andie huffed and flung their curly blond hair back from their shoulder. ‘I’ve a lifemate now, Rock.’

This was one of those times where not feeling was useful. For if I could feel things like guilt, pity and regret, I might have recoiled from the callously calculating way I reached out with my hand and tenderly brushed Andie’s cheek whilst putting a wistful expression on my face. ‘I’m happy for you, Andie. Honestly. You know I was never good enough for you.’ A slight pause, as I lingered in seeming memory of what we once were to each other, before lowering my hand with a sigh of regret. ‘But I need this job. Today. I’ll even sweep floors if you want me to. I’m late on rent …’ I shook my head as if embarrassed.

There wasn’t a Herm alive whose pants I couldn’t get into. The art of seduction had come naturally and unexpectedly to me at the time when my life was filled with black grief and anger. It was the cynicism, the callous hate of my life and disregard of those in it that seemed to translate into cynical manipulation of body and mind towards my own pleasure. I no longer toyed with hearts or bodies as I used to. Not out of remorse, merely a sense of self-loathing, such as I felt now as Andie’s face softened and that flame of hope and adoration ignited in their eyes. An echo of pity flitted through my consciousness and vanished. I had no wish to break their heart again, but I needed to get to Grant. For that I would sell my soul to the devil themself.

‘How the hell did you lose your job with Secureforce?’ Andie asked, a little petulantly.

I blew out a self-deprecating breath. ‘You know me, Andie. Too many late mornings, bad dress code and not answering my phone when the chief needed me.’

Andie glanced at my red stilettos, which were most certainly not standard officer dress code. ‘You really need to straighten your life out, Rock,’ they said with a slow shake of the head.

‘You said that the last time we spoke, love.’ Or rather they yelled it just before slamming the door in my face. ‘I guess you were right then as you are now. This is my last chance to do it. No more … being myself.’ I followed that absurd statement with another charming smile, one that said, I am doing all of this just for you my love.

Andie sighed. ‘Damn it. I never could stomach to see you beg.’

To be fair, I only ever begged to suck their cock, and fuck their pussy, and to have their mouth on me …

Our relationship was mostly just angry, fierce, needy sex in any place we could find a vague sense of privacy. It seemed that our every conversation and argument ended that way. At the time, I was angry, broken, and Andie fancied themself as being the one to fix me.

For a time, I indulged them. Maybe even fancied myself settling down one day, and maybe it would be with Andie. But then came the night of the masked party hosted by the CEO of Secureforce. It was the night that ruined me for Andie and dulled the passion that we shared. Ever since that night, those wild adventures we shared no longer stirred me, and neither did Andie.

That was the night I discovered just how erotic a ragged chin stubbled with a day’s growth could be. How a sensuous mouth of a Gendrian man felt around my cock and how those large, crude, lustful hands could sensitise my skin to a touch so overwhelmingly, my whole soul craved to surrender to the man before me on his knees.

I fled that man, fled the shame, the self-loathing, and the desperate need to pull of his mask and kiss him, claim him and be claimed by him. It was the last time I ever touched a Gendrian in the way that did not include violence and pain.

That night destroyed the illusion of passion I shared with Andie and taught me about the true nature of erotic pleasures and want so profound it almost crippled me. That was the night I believe I surrendered my soul to the devil him self. For the devil was a he after all.

‘You won’t regret this, Andie,’ I lied most graciously, knowing that by tomorrow they would.

At quarter past ten, I found myself sitting behind a clerk’s small desk, sorting through piles of cheques to be deposited into various accounts. Behind me, an office full of clerks and secretaries were clicking away on their typewriters. Phones were constantly ringing to be answered promptly. The sense of ruthless efficiency ruled over the office.

Andie’s eyes flicked up at me often from their own desk, as they entered numbers into ledgers or typed away at their typewriter.

My next step was to find Thomas Grant’s accounts ledgers. A few casually innocent enquiries and idle conversations told me that the ledgers were kept in the records’ room at the back of the bank. It was never hard for me to get information. Herms responded well to my charm and flirtatious interest in them. A few winks and I found out that the records room was always locked, and only the account managers carried the key for it.

As I sorted the incoming cheques, my mind worked on a way to slip unseen into the records’ room. Andie’s close watch on me, gave me little room to move. I had until lunchtime to get the ledgers, at least that was what Agent Wild expected from me.

I was never one for monotonous work, like writing reports, or sorting through cheques, nothing that required me to gaze down and be left alone with my thoughts.

Next cheque.

Enter number, name and amount into the ledger.

Put the cheque into a filing tray.

Next cheque.

Invariably, my thoughts drifted, and they drifted at first to Agent Wild and his unsettling blue gaze that stripped me of all the layers down to my soul. The gaze that left me breathless, and made me … feel …

Breath caught in my throat. He made me feel. Things … emotions I could not untangle, could not truly recall not since …

Grant’s face flashed before my eyes, the foul smile, the laugh … sickness crept up on me as a crack appeared in some part of my chest that held an overwhelming flood of grief and rage at bay.

Enter number, name and amount …

Put the cheque into a filing tray.

Next cheque.

I rubbed my eyes, trying to stop my mind from returning to that room … to the blood … to Ma …

Ever since I saw the bastard’s face again, it felt as if I was hovering on the precipice of a bottomless cliff and the devil was weighting there for me …

‘Rock,’ the stern loud voice came from the abyss and pushed me out of it. ‘You’ve been staring at the same cheque for almost five minutes.’

I looked up at Andie’s face.

‘Sorry,’ I mumbled and entered the number, name and amount the ledger.

Hell, how much time had passed?

‘It’s lunchtime. Want to go to the coffee shop across the road?’ The question came out stutteringly and Andie’s cheeks pinkened.

Bloody hell. That was the place we had our last sexual encounter five years ago. At lunchtime. In the toilet.

‘What about your lifemate?’ I blurted, though I was not sure what I even meant by that.

‘What about them? It’s just lunch, Rock, don’t go getting any ideas.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ I mumbled and rose from the chair.

The Cat and Elk Café was always busy at lunchtime, though it emptied out quickly as the office workers raced back to their desks.

A sense of frustration gripped me as we crossed the street. I had been at the bank for hours, and all the while, Andie had been watching me too closely, staring at me with those broody, na?ve eyes of theirs. That aside, there was constant movement around the bank, and I doubted I could get into the records room unseen.

Damn. I had to change my plan. There was one sure way to get into that room quickly, and that was with Andie leading the way. Except I knew I would be a bastard to do it … Grant’s face flashed in my mind, and any reservation drained away.

I glanced down at Andie and gave them my most adoring smile. ‘May I buy you lunch,’ I said smoothly. ‘You know, for old time sake.’

Andie blushed, smiled back. ‘Sure, why not, Rock.’

I opened the door for them and placing my hand on their back gently guided Andie in that possessive way I knew would jolt them. Indeed, my touch did to them what it always had, made Andie start, gaze up at me with widening pupils. I noted how their breath hitched a little, smiled down at them with just the right amount of innocence and smitten adoration, before saying. ‘Oh look, our usual table is free.’

Andie stared at the far end and giggled, no doubt remembering the foreplay under the table whilst we ate, before we rushed into the bathroom.

As I led them towards it, with a hand on their back, and a smile of affection on my face, I suddenly noticed Wild at a table nearby to the one we took, sitting back with that easy arrogance of one who owns the world, a newspaper stretched in front of him and a cup of steaming coffee to the side. I felt the sensation of being punched in a gut.

My smile grew brittle, and suddenly the hand that was guiding Andie into their seat felt heavy, as I fought the impulse to snatch it away.

We sat down near the window looking out across the road at the bank. We were close enough to Wild that he would hear every word we spoke, and that too unsettled me.

The menu hadn’t changed in five years. I knew I had. The sensation was akin to stepping outside my own body, and back into the one I had not worn for a long time and did not quite fit into.

‘Do you remember the last time you were here,’ Andie asked in a whisper of confidence and chuckled. ‘You ruined this place for me, you know.’

Hell, I didn’t want to go there, but I needed to if I was going to seduce Andie into a quick tryst with me in the records room. My gaze darted to the toilet door, and I allowed my smile to widen, before chuckling. ‘You were pretty wild then, Andie. I supposed you are now settled and boring, hey?’ I winked at them.

They bristled at that, as I knew they would. ‘I’m not so boring, Rock. I still have my wild moments.’

I leant forward. ‘Oh yeah? Prove it then.’

They jaw dropped. ‘What do you mean?’

I chuckled. ‘Oh., not that! Where has your mind wandered? I only meant a little game … A dare, if you like.’

From the corner of my eye, I saw Rain Wild lift his gaze from the paper and land on me. There was a dark, feral gleam in his eyes, which bordered on possessive.

‘What kind of a dare?’ Andie asked with a mix of fun and caution.

‘After lunch, how about we pretend that it’s five years ago and instead of the toilet, see if we can sneak together, into a room in the bank … Urm … the records room. Anyone rarely goes in there.’

‘I’m not so sure, Rock …’ Andie began.

I gave them my most charming smile. ‘Of course not. Forget I said anything. As I said … boring. But happily so,’ I added with a pacifying wink. ‘I envy you, Andie, being leashed like that to another Herm for life.’ Just for good measure, I covered their hand on the table. ‘I guess … just seeing you again brought back all those feelings, and I just wanted to have a moment with you alone … just maybe a kiss. Don’t think anything more on it. The mistake was mine to let you go.’

I took away my hand and returned to perusing my menu. Counted to five …

‘I guess if it’s just a kiss, I guess we could sneak off … just to prove that I’m still adventurous and not boring.’

I raised my gaze, added heat to it. ‘You really know how to make a Herm regret every bad decision they ever made.’

I returned my attention to the menu.

‘Are you seeing anyone right now?’ Andie blurted out as if they couldn’t hold it in any longer.

I wanted even less to be drawn into that conversation. I was seeing two others, but I did not want to go down there again with Andie. I knew how they felt about polygamy. Andie was one of those romantics who believed there was one person for everyone. If there was one for me, I was yet to meet them.

Blue eyes flashed in my mind. Blue eyes behind the mask. Rain Wild’s eyes were also blue. I shoved those thoughts away with force. Thankfully, I was spared a reply to Andie’s question by a waiter coming to take our order.

‘Guess you’ll be having your favourite salami and goat’s cheese grilled sandwich,’ Andie said to me with a smile.

I smiled a little tightly. ‘My favourite, how did you remember after all this time?’

Andie beamed.

A cough hiding a laugh came from Wild, which he quickly stifled behind a fist. No doubt because he knew from my blasted file they kept on me that I hated goat’s cheese. Something that Andie loved and wanted me to love as well, and somehow convinced herself that it was indeed my favourite. I remembered now why I fled from our relationship all those years ago. Andie had a habit of moulding me into the perfect image of their ideal Herm.

‘Well, I’ll have my usual, thanks Tonie,’ they said to the waiter.

When the waiter left, Andie suddenly stared in the direction of the offending cougher. ‘Don’t look now, there’s a Gendrian in here,’ they whispered loudly enough for the Gendrian in question to hear.

I glanced towards him, only because Andie would expect me to.

‘I said don’t look,’ Andie hissed.

Rain raised his eyes, and they instantly collided with mine, impacting me to the core, pinning me like a butterfly to the seat. Raking me with something potent that seemed to strip the flesh from me down to my core and soul.

‘Bloody hell, he looks like a savage,’ Andie whispered.

I turned away abruptly, wondering what it was about him, about the way he looked at me that turned me inside out. ‘He can hear you whispering, Andie.’

‘It’s a he ,’ Andie whispered even more fiercely.

‘You’ve seen hims before.’

‘But never one that big. And only twice before, and never this close. They don’t come this side of the city. They have their own business district to the north. Besides, I much prefer the Gendrian hers . The women are just nicer to look at, don’t you think? I honestly cannot see what they like about their men .’

A flash of memory … a party … a masked face gazing up at me …my hand brushing the day-old stubble, coarse, rough and so erotic. Sensuous lips opening for my cock.

My hand began to tingle with the memory, and my cock began to stiffen.

‘I mean the facial hair is repulsive and … so crude and primitive ,’ Andie continued.

I suddenly wondered what that stubble would feel like rubbing on my thighs, and my cock stirred.

From the corner of my eye I saw Rain’s lips curl into that masculine smirk of his that heated my innards. I could feel him looking at me, as if he knew exactly what my mind was conjuring with each word Andie uttered on the repulsion of Gendrian men.

‘And their jaws are just so … wide and rugged,’ Andie kept speaking in low outrage.

I cleared my throat as I imagined that strong, wide jaw that put Shay’s to shame working away between my legs. An ache developed in my groin.

Rain Wild rubbed his jaw, moving it from side to side as if testing it out, his gaze still locked on me as if he knew … just knew what I was thinking. The bastard.

Thankfully the waiter came out carrying our meals, and Andie’s attention turned to food. As we ate, Andie chatted away, whilst I barely listened, my attention taken with the hulk of flesh boring into me with that gaze of his, hot and icy at once. My appetite fled as my arousal became its own beast craving release. The only outlet was Andie themself, and I began to count minutes to when I was going to get them alone in the record room.

I forced food past the knots in my stomach, and somehow managed to finish everything on my plate.

Andie glanced at their pocket watch and sighed. ‘Well, lunch is over, best get back to the office.’

Most of the customers had already gone, and we were one of the last tables there.

‘You go on ahead,’ I said rising. ‘I’ll just go to the bathroom.’

‘I’ll wait for you,’ Andie said far too eagerly for my liking.

My cock was aching, my quim wet. I want to snap at them to chase them away or drag them into the toilet with me. I smiled instead. ‘Seeing as we have an adventure planned ahead, I think it best if we do not return together. Otherwise others will become suspicious. I leant down, cupped their face and whispered into their ear. ‘Remember, no one knowing is half the fun.’

Andie’s eyes glazed, their breath quickened. Then they chuckled. ‘Yes, you are right … I’ll see you soon.’ And with that they left hurriedly out of the coffee shop whilst I went to the back of the building.

Once inside, I leant on the wall beside the mirror and waited. Before long I heard, slow, measured steps, then the door opened and Rain prowled inside, like a wolf entering a grassy clearing with grazing deer. His gaze singled me out, and I could not help but feel like prey, with an almost frantic racing of the heart in anticipation of a chase.

It made me furious. That and the aging erection on his account. ‘You keeping an eye on me, Drizzle, or can you simply not stay away?’

He leant against the wall with his shoulder. ‘I take it you have not completed the objective of your mission as yet.’

Everything inside me was raging, and his condescension was raising every fighting instinct in me. ‘Andie is watching me like a hawk. I have a plan that will get me in and out quickly.’

His gaze seemed to darken and heat. ‘By seducing your ex?’ A quiet ferocity laced his voice.

‘If that’s what it takes.’

He was silent for a heartbeat, then, ‘No. Find another way.’ His voice was low, threatening, its rumble reverberating through me as a waning.

‘You don’t get to tell me how to do my job, Wild,’ I said, every part of me honing in on him, every sense was now sharp and alert in breathless anticipation of a coming battle.

He moved suddenly, prowling towards me with an air of predatory danger. He planted a hand beside my head on the wall, leant into my face and growled. ‘I said, find another way, Rockhall, or I will.’

His scent filled my nostrils, hitting me with dizzying force. Gendrian men smelt nothing like Herms, who had more dainty smells, nothing so earthy and raw. Rain’s scent was potent, musky, hard and violent, like the sea in a storm. It was a primal smell of wilderness and danger and it tightened everything in me with uncontainable rage and keen, aching need, urging me to seek out and fuck.

My lips parted on a breath as he leant into my ear and whispered, ‘You do not want to fuck them, Rockhall. It is not them you are thinking about right now.’

The heat of him mixed with mine, and my mind suddenly tore in different directions at once. I was back there, ten years ago, a knife advancing towards me … I was at a masked party, pale blue eyes were gazing up at me, a sensuous mouth opening for me … Rain Wild’s heated gaze boring into me here and now …

The sensation was overbearing, and everything focused on a single threat, a Gendrian man in front of me, breathing into my face, creating havoc in my brain.

I broke apart.

Without thought other than mere survival I shoved him back, and spun to pin him to the wall with my hand at his throat. Blood pumped at my temple. My jaw clenched, and my fingers tightened. I glared into his face, my knee slipped between his legs. One quick jerk up and he would be floored. Except I pressed in, because I needed to get closer, and my thigh pushed against his erection. It was a jolt to the senses. The bastard was aroused …

Far from shock, his eyed challenged me, dared me just like before in the office.

‘Who do you think you are, you bastard?’ I spoke low and hard. ‘Stay out of my bloody investigation, Wild. Stay out of my life.’

Every cell in my body was suddenly attuned to him and him alone, every cell in me vibrated with restless energy that wanted to merge with him. The intensity of it was frightening, bewildering and breathtaking. His body felt familiar, his scent felt familiar. Everything about him felt like we had been there before, felt like my body knew him. He felt like he belonged to me and I to him, felt like home. Fear suddenly cut through me, an emotion I had long ago forgotten, and yet I had no source for it, save the man before me, and the churning vortex inside me he had created with merely a few words. He was making me loose control, making me crave what I did not want to crave. Making me hate him beyond reason.

His smile spread on his face, sensuous, hard and cruel. ‘You think you want to kill me, Rockhall?’

I looked him in the eyes, brought my face closer and said, ‘I want to kill every one of you bastards Gendrians.’ My breath was ragged, choked with a storm of emotions seeping from the crack that had opened up in my chest.

And his laugh prodded into that crack like a knife. Leaning into me, his smirk turned into a vicious grin, his breath warm against my lips. ‘You do not want to kill me, Rockhall. You want to fuck me. So badly it is messing with your head.’ He dug his fingers into my hair and yanked my face towards him. ‘You want to fuck me so badly it’s eating away at your very soul.’

‘You don’t know me, Wild. You know nothing about me.’

Suddenly he spun me around the hand that was on his throat now pinned high above me to the wall along with my other hand, a vice like grip, stronger than mine. His overpowering strength propelled me back with force into a moment when I was afraid and weak and at another man’s mercy.

‘I know everything about you, Rockfall. I know you better than you know yourself. I know every one of your lovers, every one of your fantasies. Your hates, your shame, your tears and your rage. I know your scent and the taste of you. I know you keep those magazines in the brown file box in your wardrobe and jerk off over those pages you marked by bending the corner of the page. Or do you put two fingers in your cunny when you look at those Gendrian cocks?’

All breath left me. My mind spun with what he was saying, what he was revealing, what I was feeling . Shame, thrill, rage. ‘You were in my rooms?’ An image of him in my bedroom flashed in my mind, followed by an image of him naked in my bed.

His lips whispered into my ear, his voice hot and sensuous. ‘I’ve been watching you for seven years. Seven fucking years. I know every detail of your life, your home, your file that we have on you. I know you, Ari Rockhall.’ He moved his head to look into my shocked eyes, his lips a breath away from mine. ‘Seven fucking years I watched you, wanted you, yet was unable to touch you. I’m done waiting and watching and craving.’

His palm cupped my cheek and his lips collided with mine. The taste of him hit me like a drug. It dizzied me, rendered my mind useless, sent all thought scattering to places I could not reach.

He released my arms, and yanked out my shirt from the trousers, and his hand slipped up along my bare flesh towards my breasts, cupping one as his thumb caressed my nipple. His lips kissed along my neck, his deep groan travelled deep into the core of me. Of their own accord, my fingers tangled in his hair. I was reduced to a creature of feeling and sensation, unable to form a single thought.

Slowly his hand moved lower and his fingers found the scars on my stomach. They traced them tauntingly, lovingly, and through the haze a small part of me screamed with rage as blood flashed before my eyes, a Gendrian man walking towards me knife in hand. Hatred laced his smile.

‘I know exactly what you like, Rockfall.’ Wild’s lips brushed my cheek, making my legs tremble. His nimble fingers quickly unbuttoned my trousers. ‘I know what turns you on.’ His fingers slipped inside my trousers and wrapped around my cock.

He kissed me again, deep luscious strokes.

I ripped my lips from his. ‘Fuck you, Wild,’ I ground out. ‘I am not a fucking woman for you to toy with.’

He stilled, slowly raised his head, his eyes glassy, dazed and heated. He was as far gone as I felt. He removed his hand from my cock and put both his hands against the wall either side of my face, caging me in place. His smile spread on his face, mocking and hard. ‘Are you sure darling? Both of us know you’ve been fucked by a Gendrian. But can you fuck one back.’

His cruel taunt hit every wrong fibre in my body, it pierced my heart, my soul, for I knew exactly what he was alluding to …

Blood … so much blood. A knife with Ma’s blood coming towards me.

But Wild wasn’t finished taunting me yet, wasn’t finished provoking me. He leant to my ear and whispered. ‘And I am not speaking of Grant, darling. I think we both know how eagerly you dropped your pants in that nightclub for a Gendrian cock.’

An image of another night flashed at me, a room, a stranger pumping into me as I moaned with pleasure and hate …

My eyes closed with rage that he should know of that, that he had witnessed my hypocrisy, my slide into depraved, the dissolute, the ultimate betrayal of my Ma. I opened my eyes and suddenly there were two men before me, one wore Grant’s face the other Wild’s.

With a roar, I grabbed his hair, yanked his head back, moved and spun behind him and pushed him hard against the tiled wall. I pulled one of his hands behind his back, pinning him in place like a suspect. A grunt escaped him, then another taunting chuckle. ‘Oh you feel, Rockhall. Every emotion known to man is pouring out of you. You think you have the courage to fuck me, or even the strength …’

Light exploded in my eyes, rage of the like I had never felt, for it was not Wild I heard laughing, but Grant as he threw aside Ma’s cock.

With one hand pinning Wild, my other went around him, found his belt and quickly undone his trousers. I yanked them down and pulled aside his coat. He did not struggle, though I felt his strength, felt that he could push back and I’d struggle to hold him down. But he did not struggle, because I did not struggle as Grant came for me, knife in hand, dripping with blood. Grant grabbed my hair yanking back my head so I could look him in the eyes.

I released Wild’s arm, and instead grabbed his hair, as I pulled out my cock.

I did not fight … Wild did not fight, and we were one and two at once, a shadow of Grant between us.

Then a knife struck into my stomach, and I thrust between Wild’s cheeks.

Rain grunted a sound between pain and pleasure, and I stilled, catching my breath. Feeling … feeling too much and at once oddly numb. The knife withdrew and thrust into my stomach again and again I thrust into Rain.

‘That’s it, Ari,’ he said breathlessly, dropping his head back. ‘Take what you need from me.’

And again, that knife came at me and I thrust again to its brutal motion. And the sense of helplessness was overwhelming, braking me once again. I froze unable to breathe. But then history reordered itself, and suddenly I snatched that knife from Grant and I plunged it back into him again and again and again … my hips moving, my fingers digging into his skull, until I fell over the edge, groaning as I spilled into Rain, my cock throbbing inside him. I closed my eyes tightly against the pain and wild sensation I had no name for which went beyond orgasm. And as light and impulse and terror subsided, I leant my head between his shoulder blades, breathing. Just breathing. My hand in his hair gentled, and turned into a strange, grotesque caress, as if I was soothing a skittish, abused horse. The thick silkiness of his hair suddenly stung my hand. So soft, like Ma’s hair …

With a wild roar, I pushed myself away from him, ashamed, mortified, horrified and so fucking angry.

‘Fuck!’ I yelled and kicked in the door of a cubicle twice, as it bounced off the wall and came at me again. My head was throbbing painfully now, and I felt suddenly sick. I ran my hands through my hair, feeling out of control, detached, unhinged. Everything I should have felt ten years ago came at me with an unstoppable force. I never even fucking wept, not for Ma, not for myself. Never raged, never felt anything.

I slipped to the floor with my back to the wall, gripping my hair and my head with both hands. Breathing, just breathing. Wild had goaded me … mocked me as if he wanted to bring me to this edge of madness and push me into it. I have never before forced myself on anyone. Never abused anyone, never fucked in anger. If this was a test, I failed.

‘Ari,’ a gentle voice reached me from the distance. I clung on to it. Tender hands wrapped mine.

My chest contracted. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t look at him.

‘Look at me, Ari.’ His voice was tender, kind and it almost broke me into a shuddering weeping wreck. Which maybe why I did look up, for I would sooner face disgust and scorn.

I looked into his face and found compassion. he looked sombre, no hint of mockery or goading or cruelty in his features. So calm and composed I thought I imagined everything. He was crouching in front of me looking neat and tidy and not at all dishevelled. As if I did not just throw him around and fuck him. As if it was all in my head. Except my cock still felt the tightness of him around me, still felt the release and a slight after-throb.

‘Why?’ My voice was hoarse, broken.

I could see that he understood everything I was asking with that one simple word. Why did you let me do that? Why did you goad me? Why did you not fight me? Why did you drive me insane then feed it some more? Why?

His gaze flicked down to our hands. He was holding mine in both of his, steadying me. Then he looked me straight in the eyes. ‘Because you needed me to. Because you have been lying to yourself for too long. Because I could not stomach watching you fuck another one. Because you want me and you will never admit it until you face the past and let it go. Because I am tired of waiting for you, Ari, of hoping that one day you’ll release this beast of mindless hate that has you in its thrall. Tired of watching the past destroy you piece by broken piece’ His expression hardened just a little. ‘I know you, and I know what you want, Rockhall. And now you know what I want. I just need you to know what it is I don’t want. I don’t want you taking up with your exes again, not even for the sake of this case.’

His words were like ice poured over the heat of my flesh. ‘All this because you are fucking jealous?’ My voice was quiet outrage, for I had no strength in me to fight. I snatched back my hands from his. ‘I’ve never even met you untill today.’

He did not move, showed no reaction, his gaze intent. ‘I am past jealousy, darling. Past wanting every one of your lovers dead. I’m now merely claiming what is mine. Maybe you do not recall our previous meetings, but I’ve been making love to you for far longer than you realise, Rockhall.’ He cupped my face gently in his palm and leant in to whisper into my ear. ‘I will take you apart piece by piece, Ari, and then I will rebuild you again until you are whole as you once were. I will tear down every one of your walls, slay every one of your demons, destroy every shadow still haunting you, until you know what it is to love again. This I swear to you.’ With those incomprehensible words, he placed a soft kiss on my cheek, stood up and marched out, leaving me a shaken wreck on the floor of the public toilet.

His words swirled inside my head, like a swarm of bats in an echoing cave, a mass of incomprehensible mass and noise, all heading in the same direction, all looking to find perch.

Claiming what is mine.

I will take you apart piece by piece.

I looked down and found that my hands were shaking. I rubbed them together, seeking calm, pushing away thoughts and a vortex of feelings until I was once again mute, still, untouchable.

Maybe you do not recall our previous meetings.

There was a sense of familiarity about him, about his presence. We have met before.

I got up and stared in the mirror, at the reflection that told me I was far from composed. I threw water over my face and smoothed my hair. Then straightening my jacket and tucking my shirt in my trousers before buttoning them up, left the bathroom and returned to the bank.