Dark Sins and Desert Sands (19 page)

He groaned, taking her grinding hips as a signal that she wanted more. He wasn’t wrong, but as he reached between them to unzip his pants, she finally found her voice. Her last shred of sanity. “No, Ray…”

He drew her head down so that her forehead touched his. Their noses touched as he stroked her hair and said,
“Layla, you want me. Not Seth. I’m going to show you that right now.”

The tears spilled over her lashes and down her cheeks. “I’m not like this, don’t you understand?” she asked. “I don’t do things like this. I don’t kiss for the pleasure of it. I don’t cry with sadness or joy. I don’t make love on trains. I’m not that kind of woman.”

“You are with me.”

“Yes,” she said, her voice a sob. She didn’t know what she’d become, what they’d begun. When she was with Ray, she felt like some naked creature trying to spread wings she hadn’t known she had. The train sped up, the lights flashing by in the dark, and Layla knew only one thing.

Just once, she wanted to fly.

“You want
me,
Layla. You love
me,
” he murmured.

“Yes,” she said. “And I want to touch you. I want…I want to taste you.”

That made Ray groan. She slid down his body until she was on her knees. As she settled herself, the tunnel lights flashed through the window and put her in shadow. The motion of the train forced her to sway side to side, as if she were in prayer, but if she were, this was a cathedral of stainless steel, Plexiglas, and the magnetic buzz of the rails beneath them.

It didn’t matter. The closeness of her face to Ray’s groin actually dizzied him. “Layla…”

“Is this what you fantasized about?” she whispered, pressing her cheek against his thigh.

Her face had all the innocence of an ingénue, as if she didn’t realize what she was doing to him with her eyes so wide and her lips so near. Ray nodded his head, bracing himself as she unfastened his pants and
her lips brushed his erection. He growled low in his throat when her lips encircled the head of his shaft. If he hadn’t already been seated, her delicate, experimental suction would have brought him to his knees.

Reflexively, his hips jerked against her face, but she didn’t pull back. She made a startled sound at the deeper penetration, then dug her nails into his thighs to keep him still. With excruciating slowness, her tongue teased him and she sighed with something that sounded like contentment. When her eyelashes fluttered open, he could swear he saw a self-satisfied and smoldering seductress in those green eyes.

She worked her lips up his shaft, and a pleasurable jolt of electricity arced between them. The sight of her lips stretched in this most intimate kiss made him throb in her mouth. Her teeth grazed the underside of his cock, and her cheeks bulged with the size of him. He wanted to put his hand in her hair, but he didn’t trust himself not to grab a fistful of it. And he didn’t want to do anything that might scare her or make her stop. He just had to sit here and let her do this amazing thing with her warm, wet mouth even if it killed him. And it might.

The velvet of her tongue drove him absolutely insane. Every muscle in his body tightened and he had the brief but crazed thought that she’d come up with an entirely new way to torture him. Afraid that he’d spill in her mouth with embarrassing haste if this went on for even one more moment, he plucked her up from the floor by both arms and settled her back over his lap. That didn’t seem to stop her from wanting to be in control. Her hands trembled as she hitched her
skirt up over her hips, but she still found the courage to do it.

He responded to her urgency with a scorching kiss. In the rush, their teeth clashed, and they both gave a shy but heated smile. The steel bars seemed to glitter with conspiratorial winks, goading them to do more. To risk it. To give in to the reckless yearnings of their bodies.

“I’m going to make love to you,” Layla said, trying out the words to see how they sounded falling from her lips. It made her blush to say it, but then she boldly pulled her underwear to the side in invitation.

He was ready and eager, still wet from the ministrations of her tongue. He pressed between her legs and pushed up. The broad head of his erection nudged at her entrance, swollen, and she wanted the thickness to fill her, to stretch her to the limit. The elastic of her panties cut into her skin and he must have sensed it, because he tore them. She didn’t care. She just wanted him inside her. She lowered herself onto him, until she could get no closer. His pants were only open, and the zipper scraped her skin, but now all she felt was where she and Ray joined.

He panted and his hands cupped her, drawing her down in a slow and steady pace, but Layla didn’t want slow and steady aboard a speeding train. The beams of light cut across her thighs as she rode astride him, and she strained, pushing faster than the train, grinding against him in the way that gave expression to the most primal part of her.

“Layla.” He whispered her name as if to stop her or make her go slow, but she was heedless of anything but her own pleasure. Her hair flew wild behind her as
she moved, their combined scent like an animal musk. Her breasts bounced against him and she felt herself clenching, convulsing, locking him inside her as if she could keep him there forever.

Her climax took her by surprise, fast and sharp, and her knuckles went white on the seat behind Ray’s head as she came. She cried out once, twice, then again, then wilted against him. That’s when she realized he was watching her, his lips parted in silent reverence. She thought that he’d come too, rapid fire, but now there was a flash of embarrassment as she realized what she’d done. She’d used her own body—and his—to bring only herself pleasure.

But if he minded, it didn’t show in Ray’s wolfish eyes. “You don’t think we’re done, do you?” What happened next was like a beautiful dance. He hefted her off him, the separation a momentary agony. But soon, he was lifting her, and she felt she was spiraling toward the sky. He turned her to the window, stretching her arms to the side and pressing her palms to the glass. She faced her reflection again, but this time she didn’t see a whore in the mirror. She saw herself in all her facets. She also saw the night outside. She saw the whole world.

And she saw Ray too, behind her, his big body bolstering her. His teeth were on the back of her neck, catching the flesh just behind her ear. It felt so good that she was afraid she might fly apart, but Ray’s solidness held her together. With someone so strong behind her, was there anything she couldn’t do or feel?

He entered her from behind this time, his mouth on her nape. She could feel his thrusts speeding up. Faster, faster. He whispered her name as the lights started
blinking. The next station was approaching. If they didn’t finish now, they’d be exposed to anyone, everyone, but at this moment she didn’t give a damn.

He loved her body. He loved how he felt when he was inside her. For Ray, all the pain and struggle went away when he was inside her like this. Even half-sated and pliant, Layla still moved with a feline grace that tugged at his deepest core. Her arms spread like the wings of an angel, and Ray’s fingers tangled with hers against the window, her back arched to take him deeply. He had her like a bull mates. Like a lion takes his lioness. Only
she
could make something so animalistic into something that was also filled with meaning. Layers upon layers. The riddle of his feelings for her.

He was close—so close to climax that a single word could have made him explode. But he held back. He buried his face in her black satin hair, straining against his own pleasure, drawing it out even as time ran short, because he wanted her to climax again before the train pulled into the station.

She wanted it, too, pushing back against him to take him deeper, racing against the train. They passed into the tunnel and everything went black. He heard her murmured cry and everything in him released. His arms, his legs, his whole body. He spent himself inside her with three bursts, each one wringing him out.

He wasn’t sure he could stand. He had to press his cheek against the glass, the chill of it steadying him, before the two of them collapsed into the nearby seat just before the train pulled into the station.

He realized how much trust it had taken for her to show him this side of her, and it moved him. He
didn’t just want her, didn’t just love her. He needed her. Needed her breath. Needed her near him. Needed to have her like this, again, in the raw. She’d been so brave, and now he was going to have to tell her everything, because he couldn’t bear to have anything stand as a barrier between them.

Not even a secret. Never a secret between them again.

Layla lay quietly nestled in Ray’s arm, her head tucked under his chin as the train shot past another station and into another tunnel. She had no idea where they were anymore or where they were going. She wanted to savor this memory. She saw that his eyes were half-lidded and realized how tired he was; he’d been through so much, and his face was heavy in shadow. He’d start to bleed soon, from having used his power.

“I have to tell you something,” he whispered. “Something that I did…”

“Shhh,” she said, putting her finger over his lips. Nothing mattered now but the solace she found in his arms, for soon it would all be gone.

He kissed her finger, then put it aside. “I have to tell you what happened in Afghanistan. You deserve to know.”

How many times had she tried to get him to tell her before? How terrible that he wanted to confide the truth in her now, when she was so close to betraying him.

“You have to understand how it was for us, Layla. We were walking around carrying guns with no idea who to trust. It starts to wear you down. It breaks people.”

“And it broke you?” she whispered.

“No. It broke my buddy Jack.” He looked slightly nauseated, but swallowed, and forced himself to go on. “There was this Afghani farmer. Always screaming at us. Pissing and moaning about the poppy crops our soldiers burned. Didn’t matter that we were trying to curtail the drug trade. They’ve got hungry kids and few options, and here we are with our guns trying to tell them not to grow something the junkies in our country are buying. So this farmer, he’s riding over to us on his bicycle cussing Jack out. I guess Jack thought he saw a weapon.”

Layla could imagine the dust. The confusion. The fear.

“Jack thought the guy drew on him, and he shot him. When the other villagers came out of their houses, he just kept shooting. I tried to stop him. I screamed at him to stop. I’m the one who knocked him to the ground and wrestled the gun away from him, but when it was all over…”

“You lied for him,” Layla finished.

Ray nodded, his eyes red and glassy. “Layla, out there, in the field, if your buddy screws up, you have to have his back. If a soldier shoots an unarmed civilian, every other soldier around is gonna swear it was an ambush.”

Layla trod carefully. “Do you think that honors the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who do their duty every day
without
cracking under the pressure? All the fighting men and women who
protect
civilians from the enemy? Do you think covering up what Jack did is right?”

“No,” he rasped, his head drooping. “But Jack was
the one person in that situation I could help. There wasn’t anything I could do for the dead.”

It broke her heart to see the anguish on his face, but she couldn’t tell him another lie. “You’re wrong, Ray. There was something you could’ve done for the dead villagers. You could’ve given them justice. The same kind of justice you want for yourself. You could’ve told the truth.”

“It wouldn’t bring them back,” Ray said. “Besides, I wouldn’t sell out my friends. I’m a good friend. A good soldier. I’m loyal.”

After a few moments of silence, she said, “I was loyal to Seth for thousands of years and I learned that sometimes loyalty is misplaced. You’re not ever going to be free of this until you set the record straight about Jack. You can’t just see the things you want to see.”

The loudspeaker boomed into the silence.
Last stop
. The train was coming to the end of the line. They were somewhere in Maryland. It was night.

“It’s time to go,” Ray said. Telling her his secret seemed to have sobered him. Wrung him out.

It’d wrung her out, too. Layla stood up on wobbly legs, straightening her skirt. She fought tears as Ray steadied her, helping her step off the train onto the platform. In a few moments, the train would reverse direction and go back into the city, and Layla would have to be on it. Alone.

“We’ll have to take a bus from here,” Ray was saying, wearily, starting toward the escalator.

He obviously thought he’d convinced her to stay with him; she didn’t want to give him any indication otherwise. “You look so tired,” she said, stopping him to kiss the corner of his mouth.

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “As long as I have you.”

“You’ll always have me, even if we’re apart.” She’d tell him the truth, and he’d have that much to hold on to when she was gone. “I love you.”

“I know,” he said, with just the hint of a cocky smile.

The lights were blinking. The train was getting ready to close its doors. She waited for the last possible moment. The last bell. The last warning. “Goodbye, Ray.”

He wasn’t expecting it—didn’t even seem to comprehend what she was doing. Breaking away, Layla turned and ran, cutting it so close that the train door clipped her heel before slamming shut like a solid wall between them.

I end conversations and accompany waves. I live in
heartbreak and at the side of graves.

G
oodbye?
It took Ray a second to even realize what was happening. Then his sluggish mind roared to attention. “Layla!”

He ran after her, too late. Layla’s palm was on the window in farewell. Ray pounded on the door to no avail as the metro train pulled forward, the metal sliding beneath his hands.
Damn it!
This couldn’t be happening. He ran a few steps, contemplating smashing the glass to get to her, but finding no purchase for his grip. He couldn’t even
make
her stop; she’d squeezed her eyes shut. She was shutting him down. Locking him out. “Layla!” he shouted again as the metro whisked her away.

He stood there on the platform of the tunnel in stunned shock.

Where the hell would she go? Back to Seth? The idea made him sick. Ray ambled up the empty escalator in a haze, wondering how to find her. He was bruised and battered, inside and out. He couldn’t think straight. To make matters worse, a pay phone was ringing. Its shrill cry split the night air and reverberated through Ray’s aching head.

The phone was housed in a silver stand, open on three sides. It had to be a crank call. A wrong number. There was no one else on the platform and who else could know he was here?
Unless it was Layla.
With that thought, Ray snatched up the receiver.

“Rayhan?” The war god’s malevolent voice was unmistakable.

“How the hell did you find me, Seth?”

“I put a microchip under your skin when you were unconscious. It’s something all responsible pet owners do. After having lost Layla once, I wasn’t going to make the same mistake with you. I’m letting you go, as a favor to her, but I want to give you a parting gift.”

“The only thing I want is Layla.”

The god laughed heartily. “I have something else you want.”

What Ray wanted was to hammer the receiver down onto the stainless steel until it broke into pieces. Then Seth said, “Don’t you want to know who is responsible for taking everything away from you? Don’t you want to know the name of the anonymous informant who named you a traitor?”

Ray had to know. “Who was it?”

“Jack Bouchier.”

Ray burst into outraged laughter.
“Bullshit.”

“Who else needed to get rid of you? You witnessed his crimes.”

Ray’s jaw worked by the receiver. No, it didn’t make sense. Jack couldn’t have been that desperate. Couldn’t have been that evil.

“Ray, even with your damaged mind, if you think it through, all the pieces fall into place. When you’re ready to accept it, you know where to find him. Jack lives in Virginia, doesn’t he? Not so very far, given how long you’ve come to exact vengeance….”

Layla stepped into Seth’s office in Arlington, her feet whispering reluctantly over the rug until she stood in front of his desk. She didn’t look at him. Didn’t say anything. Just stood there, trembling, resolved to remember Ray’s face no matter what Seth did to her.

The blow Seth landed across Layla’s cheek was sharp enough to send her face to the side, and it stung afterward, needles of pain. It was only a warning strike; she knew Seth and how much more violence he was capable of. She also knew that he’d want to humble her, so she wasn’t surprised when he hit her again with such force that one of her earrings came loose and skittered across the floor of his office. She lifted one hand in a pitiful effort to defend herself, but he wrenched it back just short of the breaking point. “Have you learned your lesson, Layla? What has all this taught you?”

It had taught her that there were better men in the world than Seth. Men who could master her without touch and hold her without chains. She’d learned that she was more than a minion. She was capable of love,
happiness and more. She could feel things that had nothing to do with her creator and that she could stand on her own. But she could tell Seth none of that, so she said, “I’ve learned that you can take away everything that matters to me, and so I must submit myself to you.”

Seth struck her again then shoved her into a chair. Even over the ringing in her ears, she heard him say, “Show me where the minotaur touched you.”

Layla’s chest rose and fell with her fear and indignation. She didn’t want to tell him, much less show him, but the war god wouldn’t be denied, so she put her hand over her heart. “Here.”

Seth seemed confused. His thumb traced Layla’s lower lip, which had split open from the blows and was now bleeding and throbbing painfully. “Did the minotaur touch you here?”

“Yes,” Layla whispered.

Rough hands cupped both breasts, and squeezed with angry force. “And here?”

“Yes.”

Seth grasped her by the nape of the neck, arching her head back as he forced her knees apart with his thigh. “And here?”

“He touched me
everywhere!
And I let him because he loves me and I love him.”

Seth’s brow creased, as if he’d never heard something so vexing. “You
love
him? Why?”

“Because he’s a good man.”

“Is he?” Seth caught her fingers in a crushing grasp. “Do you know why I chose him? I chose him because he was already the kind of man who could witness murder and look the other way. I knew that he was the kind of man I could shape into a monster. Why do you
think I agreed to release him, Layla? Did you really think I’d trade his freedom for yours? I let him go because he’ll return to me eventually—when he realizes that there’s no other place for him.”

Seth sleeked her hair back, like she was his house cat. It disgusted her. “Ray would never willingly serve you.”

“Oh?” Seth let her go, walking around to the side of his desk to turn his computer screen so she could see it. “What do you think Ray is going to do with the freedom you’ve given him? I predict that he is, at this very moment, about to become exactly the vengeful monster I want him to be. Do you see that red dot? That’s your minotaur.”

“You’re tracking him?” Layla staggered to her feet, the sour taste of betrayal in her throat. “You promised—”

“I promised I’d let the minotaur go. I’ve done that. I didn’t promise to unleash a monster into the world without any notion of where he might roam. I’m not the only god who might want to use him and I’m not about to allow someone else the benefit of my work.”

Layla’s mouth was dry as she watched the little red spot move on the screen.

Seth’s lips curled in amusement. “You’re wondering where he’s going, aren’t you? I’ll tell you. He’s on his way to commit murder.”

Layla’s hands balled at her sides. “If only it were yours!”

Seth smirked. “You don’t believe me.”

No. She didn’t. She’d never believe anything that Seth had to say. “Ray isn’t a murderer.”

“Tell me, what do you think Ray would do if he
found out that his best friend is the one who set him up to look like a terrorist?”

Layla actually felt the room spin. She didn’t even have to wonder what Ray would do. After everything Ray had been through—after all the betrayals he’d endured—this final piece of the puzzle would push him over the edge. Ray’s inner monster would take utter possession of him and he’d kill Jack. Probably with his own bare hands. “I’ve got to stop him….”

Seth shoved her so hard that she fell, landing on her hands and knees, the burn of industrial carpet beneath her palms. Seth hovered over her, saying, “See the truth, Layla. Rayhan Stavrakis is a rampaging monster. Not you or anybody else can stop him.”

Prostrate at Seth’s feet, Layla remembered that the god liked begging and she was too desperate now to let her pride get in the way. It disgusted her to use a transparently sexual appeal, sliding her hands up his thighs. But there was nothing else to do. “I could stop him. Just let me try,” she beseeched and he allowed her to draw close. He even allowed her to slip her hands teasingly into his pockets. “Please let me try.”

He’d only let her touch him so that he could hurt her. She didn’t see the needle until it was jabbed halfway into her arm. “You and the minotaur already said your goodbyes,” Seth said, shoving her away. She landed on her back, heat flowing up her arm even as her puncture wound closed over, hiding all evidence of the injection.

For a moment, she was afraid that Seth was going to descend upon her, kick her knees apart and reclaim her as he used to do. Instead, he stepped over her and she watched his black polished shoes retreat across the carpet to the door. “Now, my pet, it’s time for you
to get some sleep.” With that, he closed the door and locked it behind him.

Sleep
. Her eyelashes were fluttering closed, and she fought against the coming darkness. Layla opened her hand slowly, revealing the cell phone she’d stolen from Seth’s pocket. She didn’t know who she’d call for help until she saw the name in his call log.
Isabel Flores.

Layla fumbled over the keys and hit the recall button. Struggling to bring the phone to her lips, Layla whispered, “Isabel, please find Ray. You’ve got to stop him….”

Then everything went black.

Outside Jack Bouchier’s suburban McMansion in Virginia, Ray stayed in the shadows, watching his friend through the glass. Ray kept rewinding every conversation he’d had with Jack since his escape. All the times that Jack had tried to set up a meeting… Had those been earnest offers of help, or had it all been part of a plan to lure Ray into a trap? Had the authorities
really
followed and arrested Missy or had Jack called them? The pieces of betrayal started falling into place, and the sick certainty that Jack was the son-of-a-bitch that stole his life from him crowded out every other thought.

Ray used to think of Jack as a brother. When they got leave to come stateside, Ray had even been a guest in this home. Now he just wanted to smash it all to pieces. Ray forgot his family, he forgot Missy, he even forgot Layla… Because if Jack was the anonymous informant, the only way to clear his name for treason would be to tell the truth about what Jack did—which Ray couldn’t do without implicating himself in the
cover-up. If Jack had set him up, then Ray’s whole life had become a maze with no exit. He’d be going to jail, one way or another. And that left only one option: revenge.

His shoulders heaving and fists raised, Ray crashed through the sliding glass door. Jack jumped up out of his chair, dropping the bottle of beer which shattered and mixed with the rest of the glass on the floor. Ray trampled it, heedless of being cut. His footfalls were hard and his face was elongated into a menacing snout.

A strangled cry escaped Jack’s lips before he leaped back. He was going for the gun cabinet. Ray had been a guest in this house enough times to know where it was, and blocked his path. Trapped, Jack grabbed up the nearest thing he could find to use as a weapon—which happened to be a lamp. He swung it and it crashed into Ray’s shoulder, popping and blinking out. Ray didn’t even feel the pain.

“Who in the hell are you?” Jack asked. “What are you?”

So Jack didn’t recognize him. Whatever Jack saw when he looked at Ray wasn’t entirely human. Maybe Ray shouldn’t have been surprised, because that’s what had happened to Jack in Afghanistan. He’d forgotten how to recognize human beings; when he’d looked at those civilians, all he’d seen was an enemy bent on killing him. Now Ray didn’t see human beings either. All he saw in front of him was the lowest kind of scum on earth. Grabbing Jack and throwing him down, Ray snarled, “We’re both monsters now, Jack, but I’m a minotaur.”