Restrain (Siren Book 3) (10 page)

I can't tell myself the same teasing, taunting, feral woman who sparred with me is now beneath me crying, her nose bloodied, the floor wet with her urine. What if she genuinely
doesn't
remember the damn safe word? My grip fails, and with my other hand still on my cock, she jerks her hands free and throws her weight to the side, rolling both of us. She grabs for the knife as her wrists come apart, and I'm a second behind her, both of our hands on the handle, and the blade burying itself
hard
in her other arm.

She screams, genuine pain in it, and hearing the difference I'm more convinced than ever that she was playing me with the theatrics over the rest of this. More convinced than ever that whatever this game is to her, I'm
losing
. She's never gonna say the damn word, and one of us will end up dead before she tells the truth.

I catalog every memory I have of her, every moment that felt truly authentic, parsing her actions through the deep familiarity I've gained of her. And one sticks out in my mind. That first night, her cunt convulsing around me in an earthshaking orgasm, and her eyes wet with tears. A moment I haven't shared with her, since.

I know how to break her.

Her hand curls around the handle. If she truly was an industrial worker, first aid would have been part of her training. “You know better. Leave it in there.” Her fingers flatten against her damaged skin, and her stomach flexes with her sobs. “If you move, I'm yanking it out myself.”

I plant myself between her thighs, and reach below her legs to seize her hands and drag them away from the blade, grasping them as tightly as I can. If I'm wrong about this, I'm
sure
she'll be fast enough to grab the knife and kill me. Saying a quick prayer, I lower my face to her cunt and lick for all I'm worth, tasting, surprisingly, sweet arousal mixed with the tang of her pee. Whoever the hell she is, she gets off on the thrill of the fight. I cling to that to tell me what I'm doing is right, and that I shouldn't trust her, shouldn't trust the little bucks and spasms from her tears. Nothing matters but getting her close, getting her to admit the
truth
, encapsulated in that
one little word
.

Please, please, please, please, please,
I repeat in my head, over and over again. Her moans change, hoarse with sobs, but with a sensual edge behind it, one that doesn't sound conscious enough to be performative. I drive my tongue against her clit, in fast circles, as her hands tug in mine, and she screams my name, begging for
something
in incoherent yelps. I tell myself she's begging for more, not that she's begging me to stop.

Her thighs tremble on either side of my face, toes curling as she tries to kick them into my knees, to shove me away.

I pull back long enough to say “
You know the only thing you can say
,” before returning to my work. A deep regret settles in my gut, that this might the first I get to taste her come, and it's in such unpleasant circumstances. It's probably the
last
I'm gonna taste of her at all.

But it's not about me. It's about survival, and her lies are standing between us and our freedom.

My jaw begins to ache, and my tongue to slow, but still I lick her desperately; in those moments, her pleasure and my life weigh the same, because I can't have one without the other. Still, she holds strong, denying me the truth.

Angry, wearing thin, I sink my teeth into her clit, not as hard as I want to, but still causing enough pain to attract her attention. I suck her furiously as her clit pulses in my mouth and she arches into me, screaming the one word that could make this whole thing worthwhile.

“
Red, red, motherfucking
red
.”

Chapter
Seventeen

I've won the battle, but I still don't know what it means for the war. Milla cries inconsolably, not moving from where I left her, her eyes wide and unseeing, and after a few minutes, I decide the best thing I can do is try to make her comfortable so we can talk, now that the barriers are broken. I pull my pants on—thankfully the majority of our clothes missed the trail of pee on the floor and only her shirt will have to be cleaned—and make my way out to dip my shirt in the cistern we've been using for bathing and cleaning water. I come back with the cool cloth in hand, and wipe her clean, blurring the tears off her cheeks, though they're soon replenished, and then starting on the blood, arousal, and urine staining the rest of her.

She flinches under my touch, and when her eyes finally focus again, there's a hint of the demon in their depths. No doubt she's still gonna try to manipulate, even if she can't lie anymore. I gather her into my arms, squeezing her trembling fingers, and praying she can feel my guilt in my touch, if she can't see it in my eyes or hear it in my voice.

“Talk, birdie.”

And the words come forth, spilled breathlessly through swollen lips. “So I like anonymous sex. Since when is that a crime? When I woke up here, I thought—I thought you'd think I was using you, for
certain
, if I let on. And after a point, the embarrassment got too much. You treated me so sweetly, and I knew you wouldn't if you thought I was a fucking worthless
whore
—Besides. You realized I work for you. We could have gotten out of here, only for you to fire me for it, and make sure the union blacklisted me... I'm not
good
for anything but this. I can't afford—”

I can't quite tell if the tears are genuine with how hoarse and broken her voice is. I hold her as tightly as I can, while I think, pulling her chin into my shoulder to muffle the words. The knife's still in her arm, almost her shoulder, and I know I'm gonna have to take it out; right now, she seems to be running on adrenaline and anxiety, but that won't last forever.

“And the knife?”

“I found it when I climbed out of the tank. It hasn't done me any good, but I thought it might, especially after you started pushing so hard, so fast, for something serious... by the time I trusted you enough to tell you, I knew it would destroy your trust in
me
... I never wanted to hurt you... I just wanted to know that if I
needed
to keep you back, I could.”

There's one question I have to ask, one piece missing from the puzzle. “So why did you give in, in the end?”

“Those secrets—they weren't worth
dying
for. I thought you were gonna
kill
me.”

She's watching me too closely. That's a load of lies. She
would
die for her secrets. And she hasn't told me the one I was asking about. If she didn't want to die, why didn't she concede earlier? Or at the
very
least, when the knife sank into her arm.
That
moment made it
damn
clear.

“Why was it that important, both times—come to think of it,
every
time that we've been together—that you not come with me?”

She flinches, her face closing off. At first, I think I'm gonna get another lie, and prepare myself for the heartbreak that'll cause, but when she answers, there's no tension in face or voice, nothing that I can fault. “It's just... it's too much of me. I
don't
come with a partner. That's too... too...” She peters off, and I bite my lip, guilty for forcing her into something—
twice—
that obviously was such an intense violation.

“I'm sorry for twisting that against you,” I concede. “I won't again.”

She looks at me, eyes wary and disbelieving. “
Right
.” There's not even a spark of optimism left in her. Nothing that could convince her I won't hurt her again.
That
stings, but I know I deserve it. She's obviously in the damn dark, with a handful of minor secrets that have escalated this whole thing. Piddly things I shouldn't have cared about. Things I should have tried to understand.

“I'm not gonna hurt you again. Physically, or mentally.” I tap her head. “From now on, there's
no
secrets between us. If you lie to me, I
will
call you on it, but our arrangement is
over
. I'm not gonna touch you again. I don't want to be someone—” the unspoken
else
haunts me. “—that you have to defend yourself from.”

She stares at me, eyes unreadable, but pain, tension, and vulnerability in every exposed inch of her. “No.”

“I'm not trying to get you to put it behind you, Mil. I'm
not
. I mean every word of it.”

“That's—that's not what I mean.”

“Then what
do
you mean?”

She straightens, an eerie calm settling over her features. Almost a numbness and look of resignation. “I don't want our arrangement to be over. Or, at least, I don't want
this
to be what ends it.”

“Woman, there's a
knife
in your arm.”

“But I know why it's there, and I'd have done the same, in your shoes.”

I can't believe that of her, not after all this. “No you wouldn't have.”

Her mouth flexes in a sad smile. “Maybe you don't know me as well as you think. I've—I've done things...”

Just what she's done, I'll never get the chance to find out. A voice echoes in through the crawlspace. “You guys ready to come out? I could use a hand...”

She casts an anxious glance my way. “You go ahead.”

*              *              *

Allen stares at us when we file out of the cistern, but doesn't comment at having to help me pick Milla up out of it, the knife still in her arm. Eventually, his curiosity gets the better of him. “What the hell?”

“An accident,” Milla says lifelessly, and her tone obviously confirms his worries. She picks up on that, and amends, “Your mother ever tell you not to run with the scissors' blades pointing up?”

He still doesn't look convinced, but he drops it. “Guess I wasn't disturbing you much, then.”

We both shake our heads, guiltily.

“Well, I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't important.”

We both stare at him, too exhausted for the bullshit, and he stretches his leg in front of him. Though his pants are dark, they're torn, and blood drips from them. I have to fight back a flashback of Denise draped on top of a catwalk nearly the same way.

“
Shit
,” Milla says. “We need to—”

“I know, I know,” Allen says. “I tore my shirt to make a tourniquet. Looks like you'll need the rest of it for yourself.” He passes her a bundle of fabric, and she looks at it with confusion.

“Milla, love,
brace yourself,
” I tell her, steeling myself to do the thing I've been dreading since the damn knife went into her. “I think I need that back.”

She chuckles, a hysterical-sounding giggle that's not at
all
right, and I yank the knife out
fast
, and close my hand around her arm to slow the bleeding. I shove the bloody blade toward Allen. “Get me strips, please?”

He plucks the fabric back from her as I use one hand to pinch off the artery higher up, and the other to hold the flesh together. Milla tucks her forehead against my chin, and it feels like a privilege I don't deserve, after it all.

“So what'd you do?” she asks him, obviously trying to focus on something other than herself.

“Loose grating. Same as you. The third catwalk up from here, on the steps. For a moment, I thought it hit an artery or something; I tied it off, and was too woozy to try coming down to look for help.”

“Shit, I'm sorry,” I say. “We should have been with you.”

“You were doing... whatever you were doing.”

At least he doesn't seem to hold a grudge. “Good thing we saved a little more of the booze,” Mil chirps, giggling brightly. Allen exchanges a worried look with me, and I shrug. He passes the first of the strips over, though, and I begin making a better tourniquet and bandage for Milla, wrapping the tourniquet around her arm until she winces.

Allen shivers, his sallow flesh sunken in the light. “I'll go for the vodka,” I say, putting a hand on his shoulder to keep him from standing.

I leave the two of them there, immersed in their own kinds of pain. Their conversations drift past me on the way out. “You're gonna get an infection, if you don't catch your death of chill,” Milla's saying. “My shirt needs a rinse, but it's big enough to fit you. You can keep it.”

“But don't you—”

“That's what god made sports bras for. I'll be fine. Calder keeps me warm at night.”

“If you're sure...”

I make a mental note to give her my undershirt, instead. Cold or not, I'm not sure it's healthy for either of us to have her wandering around with her chest all but bare for the world to see.

I'm not sure what to make of how easily she seems to have left what happened in that cistern behind.