Powerless (22 page)

I was angry. Pissed off about the time we had wasted being on opposite sides of the world. A year and a fucking half without him was too much. I wouldn’t let it happen again, no matter what I had to do to keep him next to me. But I couldn’t hurt anymore. I had to know if whatever this was between us was real. I had to trust, and I didn’t know if I could.

“I have to know…” I started, my breath stuttering out from the pressure in my chest, that bone-deep ache of loss—of him, of the President—spearing through me. I couldn’t withstand another loss. Not him. “I have to know you won’t leave me again.”

Armise’s features fell, making my stomach clench. He tipped his head, stepping closer to me, his blue-silver eyes dangerously clear. “Why can’t you see it? I never left you, Merq. I always had your back, even when I couldn’t be at your side. I never will leave you—”

I slammed my mouth against his, forcing him to stop talking. To stop making declarations I couldn’t believe.

Armise pushed back against me, separating us, holding his palm inches away from my chest, silently telling me to stay back. “Not like this. I won’t let you push me away again for another meaningless fuck.” He gritted his teeth so loudly I could hear the rough, grinding noise. “I can’t be just a fuck to you. You are more than that to me. I won’t let you use your body to tell me things your voice should. Not anymore.”

I was stripped bare with his words. Bone and flesh. Nerves and desire that only came alive for him. Need. I’d never needed anyone like I needed Armise. And not just physically.

“I need you, Armise,” I answered him honestly.

He stalked away from me furious. “That’s not what I fucking want to hear.”

“What the hell do you expect from me?” I bellowed at him. “What the fuck do you want to hear? I’ve torn myself open for you. I’ve said things to you today that I never thought I would. What the fuck else can I say?” I advanced at him, grabbing a hold of him so he had to face me then shoved him away viciously. “I can’t fucking satisfy you with anything I say. I let you in that goddamn door! Even when you murdered the President. What the fuck else do you want from me?”

Armise stepped back as if I’d punched him across the chin. His shoulders hunched, sadness overtaking his eyes again. “I’ll never get it from you.”

My chest heaved from the outpouring, from everything I’d confessed, yet that wasn’t enough for him. “Not in the way you want to hear it.”

His nostrils flared, his entire body tensed. I could see his confidence draining further away in the unsure slant of his posture.

I swallowed, finding my voice, then added, “But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

I left that ‘it’ unnamed on purpose. Nebulous. Because I was terrified. I knew what he was asking of me and I couldn’t…

There wasn’t anything else.

I just couldn’t.

He dropped onto the edge of the bed, sighing loudly. He wasn’t looking at me, but he reached his hand out, curling his fingers towards me. Beckoning me. Relenting when I couldn’t find the courage. “Come here.”

I sighed. Giving in the fight. Why did I think I had to be so guarded around him? Why couldn’t I just…be?

“Armise—” I started.

He growled out a frustrated huff. One that I’d heard dozens of times from him before, but that felt new. “You don’t have to say anything. Not to me. Come here,” he commanded, this time with force, his hand still outstretched.

I hurt. And I didn’t want to hurt anymore.

I crossed the room, that unseen, ever-present tether pulling me to him.

He widened his legs, opening a space for me, grasping onto my hand and dragging me those last few steps. My heartbeat stilled with that first touch of his fingers interlocking with mine. The coldness of his skin sinking into my blood and travelling through my body in waves of contentment. Peace.

The first real peace I’d felt in a long time.

He let go of my hand and gripped my hips. He pushed up the hem of my shirt, his thumbs just grazing the length of skin he exposed. He rested his forehead on my stomach and I could feel the brush of cold breath on my skin.

“You need to sleep,” he urged me.

I sucked in a ragged inhalation, set my hands on his shoulders. “I need you to touch me.”

I thought I heard Armise swear under his breath in response, but I couldn’t be sure. Armise licked a swipe up my stomach that made my abs contract, my body jerking with the unexpected attention, but I couldn’t pull away. Didn’t want to.

He went for the button on my pants, flicked it skilfully open with one hand, the other snaking behind my back and underneath the waistband. He kneaded the flesh of my ass, digging his fingers in painfully, as he pushed my pants to the floor and swallowed me whole without warning.

My knees threatened to buckle, but his firm grip kept me on my feet, swaying into him, my hips driving forward so he could take my hardening cock deeper. Teeth caught on the head of my cock, sending shock waves rippling through me. His mouth was cold, his tongue more frigid than I’d ever felt it before, like ice being dragged up my length. And normally that coldness would have centred me, focused me on him, but I knew it probably meant that he was even more guarded than normal. He was shutting me out even as he took me inside his mouth. Giving me what I’d begged for, but taking nothing for himself. Keeping himself distant, removed.

That dull ache of loss throbbed within me. This was worse than not having him here. This complete detachment was a deprivation that hollowed me at a much deeper level. But I’d been the one to force him to withdraw. Because I wasn’t man enough to say what he needed to hear. What I felt. What wasn’t a lie, a manipulation, or a placating meaningless sentiment.

My cowardice wasn’t what he deserved.

I drew back, pulling my cock from his mouth. I couldn’t think when he had his hands on me.

Armise sneered, anger sharpening his features, his almond-shaped eyes narrowing as he stared accusingly at me. “What the fuck?” he viciously bit out.

I pushed against his shoulders, forcing him back onto the bed. I straddled his waist, palms on his chest holding him in place, and glared down at him. “I don’t just need you on my cock. I need you. All of you.”

“Then fuck me. Have all of me,” he callously spat back at me.

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

Armise laughed darkly. “No. I do not.”

The man under my hands was nearly unrecognizable. That inhuman battle-ready mask I knew so well firmly keeping his emotions in check. Buried.

My nostrils flared, jaw clenched, as I tried to piece together the reason for his dispassionate emotional disconnect from me. When he was mad there was still fire there, still fight and life. But me giving in to him only made him shut down. Almost like how I’d reacted with Neveed that night on the island. I dug my fingernails into his chest through the fabric of his shirt, a sickening thought pushing through my sleep-addled brain. “Is there someone else?”

That mask was firmly in place, offering me nothing. Then, “You said it yourself. One and a half years. It’s a long time to go without.”

I tensed. “You’re lying.”

His response was immediate. “Am I?”

He was lying. Had to be. While I hadn’t known where he was and what he was doing, he’d known where I was. And if anything he’d said to me today was true, then there was no way he would have fucked anyone else. Or let anyone fuck him. I covered his body with mine, putting my lips to his neck, inhaling the bitter scent of his skin. “You don’t smell like yourself, but you don’t smell like anyone else.”

Armise was unmoving beneath me. “And you do not smell like Neveed.”

I bit at his earlobe, returning his verbal attack with a physical one, refusing to be baited into a fight. “You really want to know just how far things went with Neveed?”

Armise’s fingers dug into my thighs like individual knife points piercing my skin. “No.”

Armise had wanted me to talk, and I wasn’t going to leave this part unsaid. Leave him wondering. Even if he thought he didn’t want to hear it. “He went for my cock and I told him I wouldn’t.” I spoke in hushed, but adamant tones in his ear, keeping my body over his so he would be forced to listen. “Not just that I couldn’t, but that I
would not
let it go any further. I told him it was because of you. You had been gone almost a year then. And I still couldn’t get you out of my head. I couldn’t let you go long enough just to get a fucking release. Just to be touched.”

I pushed up, off him, found my feet and went to my bag, ripping it open and pulling out a small, black, circular container. I was half naked and seething, but I didn’t fucking care how I looked in the moment. He wanted to hear the truth from me, then he would get it. No matter how fucking humiliating this confession was for me.

I stalked back over and climbed onto the bed, straddling him again. I waved the container and his eyes tracked the movement. “You know what this is? Closest I could fucking find to the balms you use. I scoured countless stores in Singapore when I was there on a kill. Nothing I could find was right, could match what memory told me was you, yours. I used this to fuck myself on my own hand because I couldn’t get you out of my fucking head.” I tossed the canister down on the bed and put my hands on either side of his head, leaning over him. “I know what you want to hear, Armise. But I can’t lie to you. Not anymore. What I’m giving to you now, what I’m saying has to be enough for now. I need you, Armise. That has to be enough. Just fucking give me what you can of yourself, too. But don’t shut me out.”

Armise licked his lips, that mask cracking as he blinked, studying me. “Okay.”

I fisted his shirt in my hands and tugged at the fabric. “Now fucking take this all off. I want to wipe whatever that fucking awful scent is off of you. I want you sweating underneath me, leeching it all away.”

I didn’t wait for him to answer. I stood, unlaced his boots, and dropped them with a thunk to the floor. Then I popped the buttons on his pants and swiped them off as he lifted the shirt off his head. I put my hands at the back collar of my shirt to pull it off, hesitating for one stuttering heartbeat as I remembered that tattoo. I couldn’t feel the mark anymore, but I could feel the scar, the flesh dimpling with the movement of my shoulders.

I had no doubt. I was bound to him, not limited, as Neveed had asserted.

And I found myself needing Armise to believe that, too.

Armise scooted back to the headboard, watching me, not touching himself. Waiting.

I threw my shirt off, prowled to the end of the bed, gesturing to him. “Back to where we were.”

He arched an eyebrow in silent question but moved, putting his legs over the edge of the bed, opening his thighs wide to fit me in between the powerful muscles.

I ran my fingers through his hair, gently at first then gripping the strands tightly, forcing him to look at me. “Just let go, Armise. Let me feel you. The real you.”

Armise licked his lips, pulling that thick bottom lip between his teeth. He leant down, kissing up the cut line that ran from my hip to my cock. The first touch of his lips was tentative, but warm. The second more insistent, hot. And the third searing, as Armise finally let go of all control.

“Fuck, I missed you,” I ground out, unable to keep the sorrow from my voice.

I pushed against him, forcing his back to the bed, climbing on top of him and sealing our lips together.

I couldn’t find enough places to put my hands, my lips. To dig my teeth into soft flesh and hard muscle. I wanted to touch him everywhere, to drive away the memory of his absence. Fuck, just to be in the moment, lost to him.

He arched his back, his dick sliding hot against my hipbone as he thrust up at me. And I moaned. Our pace was easy, but not careful. Hands digging in—claiming—lips and teeth leaving wet marks on reddened skin. I set my leg between his and thrust against him harshly, allowing him to use my body just as readily as I was using his.

I gave a deep, throaty growl as his cock slid along mine. “Do you really think I let Neveed touch me like this?”

He shivered at the words, his nails cutting streaks into my back. “No.”

I kissed up his jaw, along those twists of scars I could feel underneath the closely cropped hair. “Could Neveed ever drive me as insane with want like you do?”

He dug his fingers into that scar on my back, into that mark, and I knew I would have angry red scratches over that spot tomorrow and for days to come. “No.”

“Now I never want to hear that name again when it’s just the two of us. I’ll never let anyone touch me like you do. Ever.”

“You can’t promise me—”

I gripped his cock harshly. “And you won’t let anyone touch you like this besides me.”

His throat moved with an audible swallow. “Just give me more, Merq.”

My heart ached, blood thrumming through my veins. Finally alive again.

He moved to turn over and I put my hand on his chest, stopping the movement. “No. Like this.”

I urged his legs farther apart, grabbed the canister of balm, opened it, then dipped two fingers in. “Want to watch as I take you apart.”

Armise balled his hands into the sheets. “Fucking take me, Merq. Now.”

I put my fingers to his hole, slicking him before I pushed inside. “This is going to hurt.”

Armise gave a wicked grin that made me pause. “You’re not the only one who’s been fucking himself for too long.”

And with that, I let all control go. Armise had always been able to handle what I gave him. I’d never been easy on his body, and I wouldn’t be now. Because watching him fall apart was the only drug I needed.

I thrust both my fingers in his ass, and he arched off the bed in a shuddering rush. I pushed his hip to the bed with my other hand, sliding my fingers in and out harshly, quickly. Bending his body to my will, but never forgetting that this was more than just sex. I wanted to drive inside him and strengthen that unbreakable connection. I could feel that overwhelming need coiling in my gut. But with the way Armise writhed under my touch—moaning my name, the scent of his sweat and mine and that distinctive musk of Singaporean balms filling my senses—I didn’t want this to come to an end.