Pieces of Autumn (34 page)

I needed this. I needed him.

My whole body buzzing with the high, I kept up my pace, until I felt the telltale flare of his cockhead against my tongue. He groaned a warning that sounded like my name, but I grabbed his hand and squeezed to silence him. To signal that I understood. That I wanted this, just as much as he did.

When his cock jolted inside my mouth, I moaned. I swallowed him greedily, savoring the salty bitterness of him, reveling in the closeness of the act. Something I never thought I'd experience with anyone, let alone Tate.

I released him, panting. The suppressed desire inside of me was throbbing harder than I ever thought possible, and I looked up at him through heavy-lidded eyes.
 

"Autumn," he whispered, taking hold of my wrist and dragging me to my feet. "Autumn, Autumn..." His eyes still lust-hazed, he grabbed me around my waist, pulling me towards him. I moved as if in a trance, my arousal crashing down on me so suddenly I almost collapsed.

With one hand, he pushed my dress up around my waist. With the other firmly planted on my ass, he pulled me close. Until his face rested against my stomach, each hot breath making me quiver.

"Come," he murmured, leaning back on his elbows, still pushing me closer. My knees collapsed onto the mattress, and I shuffled forward, until my cunt and his mouth reached the same level. "Yes," he sighed, just before swiping his tongue across my clit. I shuddered, cried out, grabbing his shoulders for support. "God, you taste..." Another swipe, almost pushing me over the edge. "Incredible..."

I almost sobbed with pleasure when he started lapping at me rhythmically, bringing me swiftly to an earth-shattering climax. I screamed, clutching his shoulders, my legs shaking underneath me. I swore I could hear him laughing softly, in the aftershocks, with his face still buried between my legs. He gave me once last little kiss, which made me jump, before he shimmied out from under me.

I collapsed.
 

We fell asleep in a tangle of limbs, and I forgot why I'd ever been afraid.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The Viper's Tale

It was still dark when I woke up, long shadows crawling across the room. Only the last remnants of embers lit up the fireplace.

Stirring slightly, I turned towards the heat and bulk of Tate's body. To my surprise, he was propped up on his elbow, eyes glittering in the darkness.

"Tell me I wasn't snoring," I said.

His mouth twitched. "Certainly not," he said. "You just made some very delicate involuntary sleeping sounds."

"Oh, well, that's a relief." I glanced at the fire, because it was something to look at. "Seriously - I'm sorry if I woke you up."

"Don't be. I'm just teasing." His fingers ghosted along the side of my face, pushing a lock of ridiculously mussed hair behind my ear. "I almost never sleep through the night."

Of course he didn't. Unspoken questions danced on the tip of my tongue, but I held back.

"What?" His hand stilled and withdrew. "Say whatever you're thinking, pet. That's an order."

I blinked. "Even if it's a question you don't want to answer?"

He watched me for a moment. "Rules are only for the daytime."

I laughed softly. "I don't recall that stipulation."

"Well. I'm only human. Sometimes I forget."
 

Lying back on my pillow, I stared at the shadows on the ceiling. What could I ask him? And more importantly, how many questions could I squeeze in before sunrise? He might've been joking, but I wouldn't put it past him to enforce the nighttime only rule.

"What were your parents like?" I asked, finally.
 

He considered this for a moment.

"Resourceful," he said. "We didn't have much. Even back then. But they did their best."

He was finished, but I wasn't.

"Did your mom used to sing you any other songs?" I smiled. "Besides the ones I already know about."

I could hear him smiling back. "Yes. The Beatles. 'All My Loving.'"

Laughing in soft surprise, I sat up a little. "Mine, too. What about 'Suzanne?'"

"Christ. I forgot that one." He laid his head back on the pillow. "I would've thought your parents would be younger than mine."

"Not by that much, probably. My mom got a late start." The fond memories were coming back, gently, without the requisite sorrow. For now. "She wasn't really a flower child, but she wanted to be."

He was silent for a while.

"Are your parents..." I left the question unfinished, not quite sure how to put it into words.

"No."
 

That was the answer I'd been expecting, but it gutted me nonetheless. "I'm sorry."

"I thought they'd be better off, when I left them. Got picked up by Stoker. But they disappeared after that. For years I didn't hear a thing about them."

He paused for a long time.

"I did try to find them, once," he said. "Once I had the means to help them, I knew I had to. It would break their hearts, knowing what I did for a living - but I had to try. If they were disappointed in me, so be it. At least they wouldn't starve."

The look on his face, flickering in the last of the firelight, told the rest of the story before he opened his mouth again.

"I finally tracked their last known whereabouts to a shantytown. I made Holland believe I was going there for headhunting. But I just asked about them. I still had a photograph, as much good as that would do me. Already, before I left, they were aging a little more every day. They would be haggard now, unrecognizable to anyone but me. Still, I searched.

"There had been a cold front a few nights ago, and it swept in and devastated many of the people who had no warm place to sleep. It was the talk of the town. I took it all in, not wanting to believe what I knew must be true. A lot of people died. Too many to count. But they showed me where the graves were. Not covered, of course. The ground was too hard. It was just a convenient gulch."

He swallowed hard, his eyes hollow with the memory.

"I looked for them," he said, simply. "And I found them."

It was too much. The mental image of Tate searching through a mass grave, just to confirm what he already knew. That feeling of devastation. Failure. Just one more tragedy in the ledger that was his life.

"I was so sure," he said. "I was so sure, when I left, it was the best thing for them. But what if I hadn't? I could have taken care of them. I thought they were being idiots, being so selfless, and if I left at least they'd have something to eat. Instead, I left, and they died."

Tears stung in my eyes, but it wasn't my right to cry over them.
 

"You did the best you could," I told him.

He didn't respond.

"How much do you know about me and Stoker?" he asked me, at last.

I took a deep breath. "Just that you were headhunter. A trainer. The favorite. Until you went on a killing spree."

Tate's hand buried itself in his hair, scratching his scalp lightly. "Did he tell you what it's like? The punishments for refusing to play along?"

"Kind of." I remembered the criss-cross of scars all over Tate's body. "I couldn't have imagined what it looked like."

"By the end, I think they were surprised I was still alive." There was a bitter smile in his voice.
 

I held my breath, trying to gather courage.

"I know what you want to ask," he said, before I could. "Did he ever sell my body? And the answer is, he tried. It took a long time to push him that far. A lot of punishments. A lot of blood. He wouldn't let them stop until I screamed, and it took longer every time. Finally he felt it wasn't having enough impact. He decided I would have to be broken. Broken and sold. It wasn't a threat that he liked to act on. Especially not me. His prize stallion. But eventually, he had no choice.

"Holland sent three men into the room to break me. A room the size of a closet. They locked and barred the door. To this day, I don't know exactly how long I was in there. But I was the only one who walked out. I took everything I could use as a weapon, and I massacred my way up to his office. It wasn't that difficult. They weren't expecting me."

His eyes flashed with the memory.
 

"But when I reached him, and had him in my sights, a dead man's gun in my hand, I stopped dead. I looked at his face and I saw the man who crouched down in the gutter and gave me bread when I was starving. By now, I knew who he really was. A man who traded in people like they were a commodity. Not a sadist - worse. He only took pleasure in the
business
of breaking us. The money made him hard. Not the pain."
 

Tate smiled his feral smile.

"He didn't flinch. He didn't even look afraid. Maybe he thought I couldn't do it. Or maybe he just didn't care. Maybe just knowing the cash would still flow after he was dead, maybe that was all he needed. Maybe that was his peace of mind. His legacy. I'll never know. I didn't ask. All I did was stare at him and will my finger to pull the trigger. I was a monster if I didn't. I was a monster if I did. He was the closest thing I ever had to a father. Nothing else connected me to humanity. If I severed that connection, what would I become?

"In the end, I chose the monster I knew."

Tate paused, his fingers running absently through my hair, picking out little tangles with a surprising gentleness.
 

"Mr. Charles was his successor. He never sent his men after me. At first I didn't understand why. I suppose he was doing me the same courtesy I did him. Maybe he felt something like guilt. Maybe he just preferred to leave me alive, to suffer. I don't know."

I couldn't offer any words of comfort. What could I possibly say, to lessen any of that hurt?

At least now, I understood why his door could never be closed. The memory still haunted him, and it would haunt him forever. He always needed an escape route.

Just like that, so many things made sense. Every mystery of Tate was coming together in a story of suffering.

I glanced at his revolver, which was sitting on the bedside table. "Do you think they'll come back for you? Is that why you're always armed?"

He nodded. "One bullet. Always chambered. Just in case they tried to take me alive."

My heart clenched in my chest. I didn't want to imagine what had happened to him in that room, but I couldn't help but wonder.

I swallowed hard. It was time to talk about something else.

"Before me, had you ever slept with a virgin before?"

"Only once before," he said, after a long pause. "Daniela."

Understanding began to seep into my mind, black and brackish and poisonous. I knew he'd hesitated for a reason, but I had no idea it was like this.

"She didn't want it to be a stranger," he half-whispered, lost in the memories. "She begged me...I knew it was a bad idea, but..."

Acting on instinct, I draped my arms around his body, snuggling close. I didn't want him to answer any more questions. I just wanted to hear him breathing until the sun came up.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The New Rule

We were fighting.

I didn't know how it came to this. One minute we were eating breakfast in the kitchen, Tate in stony silence, because apparently he regretted our early morning conversation. Apparently, because I couldn't be sure without him actually
telling
me.

God damn it. We were already turning into my parents.

While I was reaching for something on a high shelf, trying to ignore him, my ankle twinged. I ignored it - which turned out to be a bad idea - and kept reaching anyway. I had the teapot just barely by the handle when a shock of pain sent me reeling, and I managed to throw the stupid teapot directly onto the marble floor.

It shattered spectacularly. I winced, my eyes filling with tears.

"What was that?" Tate stared at me, annoyed. I wanted to fucking punch him.

"My ankle," I told him. "Yes, I'm fine, thank you for asking."

"I told you to be careful on it," he groused, going for the broom. "You have to take snakebites seriously."

"Okay. Jesus." I couldn't believe this shit. What ever made me think I could actually get
along
with this man? He was impossible. "I'll clean it up."

"I've got it," he snapped. "Just go."

I stood there, fuming. "Seriously? You're mad because I broke a teapot? You break shit every time you wake up on the wrong side of the bed.
On purpose
."

"If you can't reach it, just ask me to get it for you." He swept in quick, violent motions. "How many times have I told you?"

"I wanted to do it myself."

"Well, you shouldn't."

"Well, I'm going to keep trying. Stop acting like this is my fault."

He was silent for a moment.

"You shouldn't have run," he said, quietly.

"You shouldn't have thrown me in the God damn basement." I couldn't help myself, and he seemed to be in a passive mood. Something had changed. Not just since last night, but since the beginning - he was different now, unbalanced, like some fundamental belief about himself or his world had been challenged.

He looked at me, sharply, but without any real anger. "I won't apologize again."

"I wasn't after an apology," I muttered. "God knows, that would be asking too much."

Whatever. In his fucked-up brain, he probably thought he needed to lock me away so he wouldn't be tempted to go full Marquis de Sade on my ass. I wasn't even going to touch that one.

"I've already said I'm sorry," he said. "How many times have you apologized to me? For lying? For risking my life to protect yourself?"

"Enough," I shot back. "You would've done the same thing."

I couldn't stand it anymore. Stalking back to my room, I slammed the door behind me and threw myself on the bed.

This wasn't going to work, if we couldn't talk to each other.

A few minutes later, he opened my door without knocking.

"Don't you walk away from me," he growled, stalking towards me. I stood up.

"You told me to go," I pointed out, petulantly. "So I went."

"You're wrong, by the way," he said. "I wouldn't have done the same thing you did. If I were you, I would have ended all this a long time ago."