fourteen
. . .
Remo– 36 years old
My eyes flew open. Heart hammering against my ribs. Head pounding. Sweat-soaked sheets plastered to my clammy skin. I sat up, dragging my hands through my damp hair, the air choking in my lungs and let my eyes adjust to the darkness, breathing hard.
Same, dream, same terror, different night, and fucked-up images I couldn’t seem to escape. Always dragging me down, keeping me submerged, keeping me from being normal.
“When would this stop?” I grunted, my head hitting the pillow again, my gaze stuck to the white ceiling, now an eerie pale grey against the moonlight peeking through the gap in the curtains I hadn’t bothered to close fully before going to bed.
The dark room gave me a moment to adjust, to breathe, to think. I was a man who made decisions without thinking, took what I wanted without asking and killed without blinking, yet the weight of my past had the ability to reduce me to a boy stuck in cage, blinded by fear.
At times, I called myself a pathetic pussy for feeling this weak and at others, I debated if it was normal to feel so helpless, soridiculously catatonic in an inescapable past until I reminded myself, I was just a boy without power.
Glancing at the luminous dials of the bedside clock, I cursed the early morning infidelity once more, slid my feet off the side of the bed and stood. On the floor at the foot of the bed, Duke lifted his head, tilting it to the side, his soft whine felt like an apology for my plight.
“You’re back, traitor.” Grinning, I crouched beside him, scratching his head and neck. “Same shit, different night, boy.” As if he understood, he nuzzled my palm then looked at me with those big green eyes, making me smile. “If only I possessed your calm.” He shifted his gaze to the patio door, and I frowned. “Is she here?”
He stood, walked to the patio doors and sniffed the threshold. Curious, I straightened, crossed the room and stopped next to him. A blast of chill air hit my bare chest, reviving my brain cells. I closed my eyes, breathing in cold oxygen, momentarily forgetting my dreams. When I opened them, I watched Duke circle the glistening pool, sniffing specific spots before he stopped at one of the loungers and looked at me.
Knowing what I’d find as I walked over, I rested my hands on the backrest then picked up the single stem of small purple flowers, the sweet mix of vanilla and cherry filling my nostrils.
The first time I found the flowers in my bedroom I was at our estate in Italy and tossed them in the trash. When they appeared again at a hotel in Russia, my curiosity was a little less mild than before until I found them here, on my nightstand one evening after waking from my nightmare. Only then did I accept I had a stalker.
A shift in the air behind me, had me slowly turning. Nestled comfortably in one of the sofas sat what I should call my nemesis. I didn’t. In her full black latex catsuit, her face hiddenwithin the shadows of her hoodie had me wanting to rip off the offending material and choke her name out of her.
I resisted.
“Do you know what it symbolizes?” Her voice like the last time, was soft, raspy and fucking sexy.
Before the fuck in the cemetery, I hadn’t found someone to intrigue my cock or whet my appetite for something depraved, sinister, dirty. This woman though, had persuaded my cum out of me like she owned my fucking dick. Clearly, I should be concerned since no woman possessed that kind of hold over me.
I was captivated.
My gaze shifted between her and the stem, smirking. “Who the fuck cares what it represents.”
She tilted her head to the side giving me a view of the black cat-like mask, similar to the one at cemetery. Finally, a silent confirmation shewasthat woman.
“Greek mythology talks about Clytie,” she began speaking. “An ocean nymph who fell in love with Helios, the sun god. He showed her some affection until he grew bored and moved onto another sea goddess. Bitter with jealousy, Clytie thought she’d get Helios back by exposing the affair to the goddess’s father. Angered, he buried his promiscuous daughter alive. Unfortunately for the nymph, she failed to win back Helios. Alone and abandoned, she’d sit every day on the sun-warmed rocks, following Helios with her eyes as he passed through the sky above her in his chariot until she eventually transformed into the heliotrope.” She tipped her chin at the flower. “It favors sunlit rocks and will always turn toward the sun seeking its warmth.”
“And that means what exactly?”
“The flower is associated with eternal love, devotion and faithfulness.”
I threw my head back with a hard laugh. “You stalk me for years for no rhyme or reason and now you speak of love and devotion. Wrong sucker, Katana, you’re not getting that from me.”
“You don’t have to give me anything.” At my frown, she added, “you’re mine, Remo. I’ll just take it.” Her quiet words dripped with unmistakable possession. “Like Clytie, I’ll watch over you, waiting for you to come to me and unlike Helios, youwillcome to me. Within the next six months you will belong to me, completely.”
“Is that so?” I didn’t know if I was fascinated or concerned. Then again, very little worried me.
Fisting my palm around the flower until I felt the tiny petals crush against my skin, and dropping it, I neared her. My hands on the armrests, caging her in, I leaned over, forcing her head back and the light to slide into those blue eyes, vibrant with an energy I rarely experienced from the women I fucked.
“Such confidence?” My sarcasm didn’t faze her.
Silently, we stared at each other, my expression blank, hers, except for those red lips that hosted a slight smirk, lay hidden beneath the mask.
“When you know you know.”
