Arrow to the Soul (21 page)

He wanted to pull her
sohei
from the ground and rip them to shreds. He wanted to kill Joseph Bombardier with his bare hands and then reanimate him so he could do it again and again and again. His hands tightened into fists, and his back almost bowed under the force of his fury.

They took something precious and molded it to be deadly. Yet underneath her surface lay a heart that yearned for love and acceptance. She trained it to not feel, but in this room he had heard it beat harder as her body accepted his.

And he would hear it again, feel it under his hands and mouth, and know he brought her to that. Maybe killing was all she had known, but he would give her more tonight and hope she didn’t take too much from him come the morning.

“I will hurt you,
Adam
.”

His name on her lips locked every muscle in his body. Her voice was flavored with longing, the husky tones of it dripping with need.

“I can handle anything you choose to dish out, Saya. Now come here to me.” No quarter given.

She attacked him as he’d known she would. The woman was walking a line between this world and the next as all killers did. Immersed for too long in taking life, she didn’t have reason to think she deserved more. And he’d just backed her into a proverbial wall. For her there was no choice but to fight.

He absorbed the blow to his jaw and spun, catching her around the waist, caging her arms, and moving his head to the side to avoid a head butt. He dug his chin into the area between her neck and shoulder, and she stilled immediately. Pain and pleasure—a vicious circle.

“I can smell you, Saya. The cotton of your panties does nothing to hide your arousal. Even as you hate me, you want me inside your body.”

Anger vibrated through her. Holding her, he felt it, and it made the flames of his rage fan higher. They hurt this woman.

She twisted in his arms. He squeezed harder and at that moment she wrapped her legs back and around his knees, then twisted her body again and effectively tripped him, taking them both to the floor.

He was unprepared and hit hard, but before she could untangle herself, he had her hands in his and his body settled between her legs. She used her legs like a vise then, squeezing his midsection until he maneuvered up far enough that she was forced to squeeze his hips instead.

He slammed his mouth down on hers and she bit at him, drawing blood. He continued to kiss her, the lust burning too hot for him to do anything other than take her once again.

“Do not,” she begged even as her hips curled up, pressing against him, a plea in her eyes and actions.

“I can do nothing else,” he responded.

She arched and bucked, trying to throw him off, but all she did in the end was seat his cock more firmly at her entrance. The only barrier between them was thin cotton. He pressed forward and his eyes crossed at the heat of her pussy.

He transferred both her hands to one of his and ripped her panties off before pushing his sweats down. Adam grabbed her hip and between one breath and the next he was inside her.

He dropped his forehead to hers, catching her gaze and refusing to let her look away. “Tonight you are Saya,” he said.

“I am Arrow, Mr. Collins.”

He rolled his hips, making sure to rub his pubis against hers, catching her gasp with his mouth when he rubbed against her clit. “Saya.”

Another roll and her arms relaxed, eyes going hot as she bit her lip. But she remained silent, and he knew then she wouldn’t naysay him. He had her body now, wrapped up in his.

“Say my name, Saya,” he murmured at her throat.

She shook her head violently, refusing him even as he dipped into her body over and over.

“You. Will. Say. My,” he thrust harder and her breasts bounced deliciously. “Name.”

She looked at him beneath her lashes and then said, “Adam.”

It was full of heat, stripping his control. He came inside her so hard, so suddenly, that for a split second he lost his mind. It rushed from the tip of his cock, leaving him locked inside and filling her with a promise he refused to voice.

She could not have him. He was forsworn.

She took everything. And he was lost.

Her body rippled around his, internal muscles stroking his shaft, pulling even more from him as she gave herself up to release.

It took long moments for him to realize they were on the floor and still wrapped around each other. He raised his head from her chest and pulled his flesh from hers. She moaned, he groaned, and then began to harden again. His body was as much of an enemy as Arrow herself.

Saya, on the other hand, was…
not
.

He lifted her limp body into his arms and was surprised when she let him. He transferred them to the bed. As their sweat began to cool, he wrapped her in his arms and pulled the covers over their bodies. Then he pushed her head to his shoulder and waited.

Her breathing deepened and he thought her asleep, until her tongue touched the vein that ran up his neck. She suckled the skin there. Adams hips flexed instinctively as the heat she stirred relentlessly sank into his skin and tortured his cock.

“I have something you can suck,” he said with a grin.

She said nothing, but he felt her lips curve.

“You took too much, Mr.—”

He squeezed her hip in warning.

“
Adam
.”

He kissed her forehead and his mouth watered—
plum blossoms
. “I didn’t have to take anything, Saya. You willingly gave it to me.”

She nodded, and it was with no small amount of shock that he realized she’d agreed with him. “Will you tell me of her?”

Ice stopped the blood in his veins. “Who?”

“The one who has your heart.”

“She isn’t here between us, Saya,” he responded, and then he pulled away from her a just a bit and rubbed his chest.

“If you are here, then she is too. You cannot live without your heart, and if she holds it, and you still breathe, then she is here.”

Her words forced said breath from his lungs. Like the kidney blow she delivered with ease, she’d sucker-punched him in the gut. Spoken softly, they rang in his ears like a cymbal.

He was here. And Aziveh most definitely was not. It hit him then, the truth of this thing with Saya. Adam was loyal to a fault. He could have never fucked another woman if his heart was still truly engaged with Aziveh.

The knowledge was devastating. He turned away from her and sat up, needing to move away from the source of his angst so he could think clearly. Aziveh’s name did not bring chills to his skin. The memory of her brown eyes did not stir him.

Instead a killer’s name reverberated through his mind and eyes the color of Midas’s gold made his heart thud heavily. He couldn’t use Aziveh as a talisman anymore. Not after losing and then finding himself in Saya.

He heard the rustling of the sheets and glanced back. The moon cut through the darkness she so abhorred and danced along her skin. Her heart-shaped face was drawn in relief. She was so fucking beautiful it made him ache inside. But that beauty was eclipsed by what she held inside. She had no fucking idea…

“Tell me of her,” she cajoled and her hard demand was hidden by the silken tone.

Adam pulled on his sweats and ran a hand over his head. Saya’s eyes followed his movement, gaze caressing the planes of his body and furthering the throb in his chest. “What would you like to know?”

He gave in simply because at some point over the last hours what Saya wanted had become important to Adam.
Fuck
.

“Tell me of Aziveh.”

He took a moment to settle in the chair she’d vacated earlier, and he stared out the same window. What had she seen looking into the night? Had she found whatever she was looking for?

“I was a soldier years ago. In fact, that’s where I met Rand, in Ranger school. We were on the same team and had been deployed to Afghanistan for support and special operations.” Adam took a deep breath, but it didn’t help the dread of reliving his nightmare. “I remember the first time I saw Aziveh,” he trailed off lost in the remembering.

“Tell me,” Saya whispered.

“She was the oldest daughter of a village warlord who had gone against the Taliban and offered shelter and support to the coalition forces. She was a tiny woman, barely up to my breastbone, but her eyes took my breath. Big and the color of chocolate, they seemed to look through me, see every part of who I was, and she didn’t judge, didn’t find me lacking. If her eyes took my breath, it was her smile that took my heart. I think I fell in love with her the second time I saw her. She smiled at me and the sun got brighter.”

He took another breath and rubbed his chest. He couldn’t look at Saya while he spoke of this. He couldn’t. So he didn’t.

“Her father welcomed us into his home because we were protection from the Taliban. He offered us his food because we gave him money for information. But it was his daughter I went to see every single day. I met her at the market. I met her in the fields. Whenever I had time, I snuck away to meet the woman with soulful chocolate eyes and a heartbreaking smile.”

She had a generous heart, wanted to get out of Afghanistan, come back to America with me. We made such plans because after the first time I held her in my arms, touched my lips to hers, I knew she was mine.”

He did look at Saya then, some part of him wanting her to understand something he couldn’t verbally communicate. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open on a small “O.” Something about that look hurt Adam, and he realized something new. He hated hurting Saya. He turned his gaze back to the window.

“We never told her father we were planning to steal her away to America. I made plans for her to obtain a visa, and she was supposed to head back here long before me, though I would have been able to see her home. But her father knew just the same. It was hard for me to keep my gaze from her when we visited his village. Yeah,” he said roughly. “He knew I wanted his daughter for my own.

“The day she was supposed to board a transport flight here, I went to meet her, but found her instead with her father at our usual meeting place in the fields. I remember the look of triumph on his face and the look of terror on hers, and I knew then—she wasn’t leaving. She ran to me and begged me to forgive her. I couldn’t understand what she needed forgiveness for, but her father helped me out with that. Aziveh had been wed the night the before to a neighboring village’s leader. Her father sold her into slavery. She was the leader’s fifth wife.

“Her eyes when they looked at me were filled with fear and love. She told me she loved me. Her father pointed a gun at us both. Rand was there then, and he pulled me away from Aziveh. Told me I couldn’t kill the fucker because it would be murder, and the whole fucking time Aziveh was yelling for me to save her—save her from the man she’d married.”

“You loved her?”

He hung his head because that’s exactly what he’d thought until he’d met Saya. What he’d felt for Aziveh paled in comparison to what the woman in the bed across the room stirred in him. “Yes.”

“Did you make a vow to her?” she asked softly.

What the hell? Did she know everything about him? “If you ask me that, you must already know the answer,” he said through clenched teeth.

She shrugged delicately and lust barreled through Adam. A simple shoulder shrug and he was ready to go.
Fucking ridiculous.
“I know the type of man you are.”

He narrowed his gaze on her and her lips curved. “What type of man is that?”

“A rarity.
Senshi wa nijūzetsu o motte imasen.
A warrior does not have a double tongue. You are a man whose honor means more than his own personal safety and comfort. You promised her you’d return, yes?”

He nodded, unable to speak after her assertion about his character. At one time he’d thought of himself that way. Not any longer.

“You told her you’d return, and when you did, she was not there.”

“If you know the fucking story, why make me relive it?” Adam took refuge in anger. It was a coward’s way, but he had no discourse. She tore him wide open and was now pouring salt into the wound.

“Did she believe you?”

“What?” Exasperation moved through him, chasing the anger and making it burn hotter.

“Did she believe you’d return to her?”

“How the fuck would I know?”

Saya cocked her head and stared at him. “It would have been in her eyes, Mr. Collins.”

He wanted his name on her lips.

“Her eyes would have spoken to you of her belief in your word. What did they say?”

He rubbed a hand down his face. “Yes. She believed me.”

Saya got up then and pressed her face to the window. Adam was reminded of her in the sun room just yesterday. Jesus, it had only been a day. “I have never made anyone’s sun brighter,” she mused aloud.

Her words cut him. An arrow straight to his soul. He didn’t know if he could survive it. “What about their moon?”

She looked at him then, and he knew. She was going to leave first chance she got. “I am nobody, Mr. Collins. A killer born in darkness, never to know the light. The shadow I cast blends into the black because light doesn’t touch one such as me. It skirts around me, avoiding me at all costs, because I am a light-eater…a death-bringer. I don’t bring the light. I destroy it.”

What sifted through him then was potent, dangerous. “You will not leave,” he said harshly. He would do whatever it took to make her stay. He didn’t understand the why of it, only that it was imperative.

She stared back out the window. “Not tonight.”

Adam stood then and walked to her, pressing his front to her back, reaching around and palming her breasts. Her head fell back and she sighed, fingers pressing against the pane of glass. “You will not leave.”

“It is inevitable that we all leave, Mr. Collins. The truth comes in whether or not we return.”

Her turned her, pressed her back to the glass and lifted her legs. She wrapped them around his waist and he sank into her heat.

“My name,” he demanded.

“Adam,” she whispered.

“Louder.”

“Adam,” she yelled.