Piers .
He lay as one who had run a marathon. Spent and panting, exhausted.
He had spilt his seed so many times in the woman he had been taking all morning. Repeatedly, again and again. he had flipped her over, fingering her clit as he drove his hard member into her, yanking her head back, a fistful of her silky black hair grasped in his fist, biceps bulging as he f*cked her ungently.
And then, later, he had taken her tenderly, like lovers who had been together for a long while, lovers who were aware that they could not be together anymore, lovers on the verge of parting.
Bittersweet, gentle, almost romantic?
She had had a suspicious moisture in her slightly tilted eyes as she gazed at him, bending over him when they were done. She had trailed kisses down his hairline, that began on his chest and tapered down to his erect c*ck, licking his proud member reverentially.
He had pulled her head up then, to kiss her again. She had pushed his shoulders down, forcing him to lie still as she straddled him.
‘One more time, my love,’ she had breathed and his lust-filled brain had barely registered her words, taken in as he was by the sight of this woman, slim and tall, her long length astride him, her small breasts with the rosy nipples which he had sucked so greedily, now pert and hard, as she impaled herself on him with a small groan. And then, she was riding him, first with a look of mischief, which was soon replaced by a wild look of pure ecstasy on her face as he filled her, holding her hips, locking her to his body as he pounded into her.
It was not as though Piers was a callow youth and this was his first time; on the contrary, he had been with quite a number of women. College life had been a time of discovering that he did have his father’s genes and desire in his veins. Of course, he wasn’t like Claude who gleefully went from one woman to the other every day.
Piers had been to parties when he was a student, and had discovered the joys of a woman but then, he had thought he was about to settle down with a sweet Southern belle. His engagement to her had meant that he was faithful, something he found very easy to be . But after she had dumped him on her father’s orders, on account of the mob connections, he had been with plenty of women. But no one had made him come alive like this woman. She was fire to his ice and he realised that he had never felt such a connect, such an awakening, ever before.
Now he sat up, as the hammering at the door grew louder.
He sat up, hair tousled, pulling on a shirt and stumbling to the door.
Where the hell was Hila? He thought dazedly as he flung open the door and then he froze. His mother stood there, her hair a cloud of black, her eyes flashing with contained anger.
*
“Well?’
Said Proserpina, her voice a controlled sound, evidence of how she was keeping a dangerous, tenacious hold on her temper as she surveyed her son. Her heart had sunk when she walked in and had seen the guard looking sheepish, shamefaced.
And the fact that Piers had locked his door and looked for all the world as though he had been indulging in an orgy, did not make her feel any joy. But the most important fact was that the woman , the assassin, Hila, had seemed to have disappeared.
Poof!
It was as though she had never been here. She had vanished into thin air.
Piers sat before her on an armchair, his hands loosely clasped before him, head bent, elbows balanced on his knees.
He had been lightly sedated, they had found out. Just enough to make him sleep for a few hours; enough to knock him out while she fled.
Piers felt cheated, derived and he ran a hand over his jaw, where the swelling was evident, his black eye which still hurt. His wide, pouty mouth tightened as he avoided his mother’s stern gaze. She sighed in exasperation, shifting and he caught a whiff of her perfume and something else.
The smell of his father’s clothes? His distinctive manly smell.
Piers looked up swiftly.
‘Did you go to meet Pappa?’ he demanded. The tell-tale flush on her beautiful face gave her away but her eyes narrowed as she glared at him.
“What has that got to do with anything? Yes,’ she went on proudly, shifting and his heart ached for the woman who sat before her.
He had always been her Golden Boy, the one who never let her down. And now…
A flash of deep anger towards the woman who had aroused him, who had driven him wild, rose in him.
His mother sighed, an imperceptible sound.
Mumma was so lovely, so majestic, he thought bitterly, hating himself, and she had been in his corner, all the time, every time.
*
Proserpina’s heart sank. Piers had been with the woman who had conveniently drugged him and slipped away. She had managed to get out of the heavily guarded house, had succeeded in leaving so effortlessly, it spoke volumes for her stealth and her training.
But that was the least of their worries; Lucien had been livid when he had heard of how the assassin had duped his son. He had forbidden his son from coming anywhere near him. Proserpina had felt suitably chastised too. She had been supporting her son all along but now she felt drained, defeated.
She got to her feet with a small sigh. Piers looked up, noting the disappointment which she was struggling to hide.
‘Mumma,’ he said, getting to his feet, his hand stretching out to enfold her in a hug but she turned away, bowing her head sadly.
And it was that gesture that broke his heart.
She looked so lost.
Biting her lip to stop from crying, Proserpina said sadly,
‘ I had gone to meet your father…’ She did not need to say anything more. She had gone to fight for him, to demand why his father had hit him. And he had let her down. He sank down, his head in his hands, exhausted.
Dimly, he heard his Mumma’s soft, tired voice murmuring,
“Stay here. Do not leave the house. Your Pappa does not want you to …’ And then the sound of her heels, the clickety-clack of her footwear as she swept out.
He groaned.
He knew he had let her down. She would have gone to hell and back for him, she must have had a huge argument with Pappa over him. And now, Piers had shown how dastardly he had behaved.
How? Why?
Why had Hila left in this manner?
He dimly remembered her getting him a glass of water at some point of their feverish, rutting.
Making him drink, kissing his chin, his jaw, tenderly.
Sh*t! How could he have been such a fool? He smote his forehead, standing up and walking to the window to stare out, leaning his forehead on the window sill, unseeingly.
*
A small distance away, a figure huddled in a hoodie and wearing a pair of faded jeans, blended in the crowd, watching him.
Hila felt her heart constrict. She had had to use all her will to leave the man she had spent the morning making wild love to. Unprotected sex, at that!
*
It had taken her all her determination to slip out after drugging him. Luckily she had had a small vial with her and had used it. Kissing his pouty mouth, she had felt a deep sense of loss; and then, she had lain, her head on his chest, as he slipped into a slumber before she had extricated herself from his arms. Pulling on her jeans and picking up a parka that she found in the cupboard, she had slipped out soundlessly, locking the door behind her. It had not been difficult to leave the house, for she was a person trained to slip in and out of places, unnoticed. But she had had to lean against the wall once she was outside, to hold back the deep, crushing sense of loss she was feeling. Piers had trusted her; had given her the details of her brother’s safe house and she had immediately rung up one of her former colleagues, a friend she could depend on, and had . him shifted. Payphones were a lifesaver in that regard she thought drily as she strode away, hands in pockets, shoulders slouched.
But the desire, the longing, to see him one last time, had brought her back to the street where Lucien Delano had his townhouse and she had seen the black cars, around four of them, draw up at the door and a small, curvy figure alight to be immediately whisked in by a a posse of guards.
Proserpina Delano , she thought, her breath hitching. The Matriarch had come to check on her son.
Leaning on the wall, propping herself up with a foot on the wall behind her, she watched guardedly.
*
After having been molested, nay, raped so brutally by the enemy soldiers, she had crawled into a shell, her body refusing to accept another man. It had been years now since she had slept with anyone and her psychiatrist had understood her deep angst.
But she realized that the deep state of fugue she had been in, had evaporated when she had come to Piers. Their coupling had been wild and violent, two souls who knew that they were star-crossed, but were unable to deny the deep calling of each other’s bodies and something more.
She bit her lip hard. as she was now a woman on the run and she had to slip out of the country and move far away with her brother.
But Piers.
No, she had work to do. Unfinished business with the Monk whom she hated for the way he had dangled her brother’s safety above her head as he forced her to do his bidding. Some more loose ends to tie up and then, her breathing stopped for a split second as she saw the face appear at the window. Oh, my love, she thought, as she saw Piers, his tortured face appear at the window, the tousled golden hair, the eyes probably misted with confusion.
She was too far away to see him but her heart ached for him.
Forgive me, my love, she thought as she turned and blended in with the crowd once again.