Trust Me When the Sun Goes Down (25 page)

“Hmm, I want to, but I’m not so sure that’s a good idea with everybody up and around.  It feels kind of mean to parade our happiness in front of them, doesn’t it?”

His hands stroked along the tops of my arms, his breath tickling the tiny hairs on the back of my neck.  “Wasn’t asking to let me do it to you up here on deck. I was planning on a bit more discretion, yeah?”

“You know there’s nothing discreet about what we do together when you start touching me.”    

“Can we pull in to port for a spell then?  Perhaps a spot of piggybacking is in order.”

I turned in his arms, studying his face in the moonlight.  “Rob, we already went hunting tonight.”  And we’d gotten pretty friendly in the process, so I wasn’t sure where all of this was coming from.  “You’re not really hungry already are you?”

“How’s about we pull in and see some of the local sights then?” he said, switching tacks.  “I’ve a real yen for the local culture.”

“Since when?”  He hadn’t shown much of an interest in anything we’d seen so far.  “What’s the matter?  Are you getting tired of being stuck on the boat?”

“A bit, yeah.  Can’t we go to shore for a while?  Even an hour would suffice.”

“I don’t think there’s a port big enough between here and Puerto Vallarta and I really want to get there before dawn.  But once we get there, we’ll have all the privacy we want and no more boats.  You should see the hotel Maggie found for us.  You can hold out until then, can’t you?  I promise, I’ll make it worth the wait.” 

“Right then.” His shoulders set with acceptance, lips pressed into a faint smile.  “Perhaps I will go join that card game then, to make the time pass faster.”

“Good idea. I’ll come and join you guys in a minute.  Not for cards, but I have a book I keep meaning to come back to. I’ll just go get my Kindle first.”

By the time I got to the lounge, they were deep into the next poker game, a mountain of chips on the table with Rob and my sister duking it out.  I settled into a comfy chair by the window with my book, looking up every now and again when they groaned or cheered over a particularly devastating loss or win. 

Out of chips – both poker and Cool Ranch flavor – Bridget pushed away from the table with a groan, hands smoothing over her tightly restricted middle.  “Leave me out of the next hand.  I’m gonna go change into my piggy pants.” 

“Same here,” Rob announced, getting up as well.  “I’m off for a smoke, but don’t get too comfortable, I’ll be back soon enough to give you a trouncing.”  He narrowed his eyes at Hanna who laughed, arranging her win into neat stacks.  “See you in a bit,” Rob said, leaning low as he passed by me.  I lifted my cheek to be kissed, intent on finishing the last two chapters before my battery died, swiping through the pages faster and faster as I got to the dramatic conclusion. 

All of a sudden the screen flashed and then went dark.  “Argh…” I growled in disgust.

“What’s the matter?  Did she kill somebody off?” Maggie asked, frowning over her cards.  The poor thing, she didn’t have the least idea how to manage a poker face.

“I hate it when they do that,” Hanna chimed in.  “Do you want me to deal you in?  We can switch to gin rummy if you want.”

“No, my
gorram
battery died.   Ugh, I have to go find my charger is all.  Be right back.  But sure, I’ll play some gin when I’m done.  I’m only a few pages away from finishing.”  I knew exactly where it was, the same charger fit my cell and I had it plugged in next to my side of the bed. 

Charger in hand, I started back up to the lounge, distracted by a grunt that came from Bridget’s room.  She really had to lay off the crème brûlée if it was getting that hard to take off her Spanx.

“Hey, Bridge, they’re switching to gin if you want to…”  I pushed the door, which was open a crack, freezing at what I saw.  Rob stood between her legs, his mouth fastened to her throat, hand up under her shirt.  Her hands were deep in his pants, too busy to notice me standing there for long seconds.  The scent of blood hung heavy in the air, and shock gave way to so much hurt and rage, I blanked out for a moment. 

I have no memory of crossing the room.  I only know that in the next instant I was pulling them apart with a snarled, “Get out.”  I’m not even sure which one of them I meant.

“It’s not what you think.”  Rob recovered first, swiping at his mouth with one hand even as he worked to fasten his pants with the other.

“I don’t want to hear it, just get out!” I shouted, my voice raw with frustration and pain when he didn’t move. 

“Anja, I had to feed, that’s all it was.”

“That’s
not
all that was.”  My hands ached with the need to break something, the horrible energy building inside me, desperate to get out.  I couldn’t look at either one of them because more than anything, what I wanted to hurt was them.  I turned away, picking up the ship phone, fingers trembling to keep from obliterating it in my hand.  “Pull into the next port, I don’t care where it is,” I barked at the Captain.  My hands wrapped around the handset, twisting and crushing, the sharp plastic cutting deep into my fingers, but the destruction felt good. 

“Anja…” Bridget started to say, her voice throbbing with regret, but I couldn’t look at her. 

“I’m trying really hard not to hurt you right now,” I said in a low voice.  If I let myself get any louder, I might shatter eardrums.

“Shit, if you’ll just listen…”

I didn’t want to hear it.  I couldn’t.  There wasn’t a single thing she could say to make it better, apart from one thing.  “Did he compel you?” I asked, whirling to face her.

“Anja, it’s not like that.  This isn’t a thing, it just sort of happened.”

“Did he compel you?” I repeated, my words tightly controlled.

“No, but…”

The desire to smash her face in rose with surprising speed and force, and I barely kept it in check.  “Get out of my sight before I do something you’ll regret.”  I closed my eyes, trying to block everything out until the rage subsided.

“Anja, please…” she sobbed, and all I could think was that her tears were a good start.  I wanted to hurt her so badly, she’d never know anything but tears again. 

It scared the hell out of me. 

With great difficulty I approached her, and it took everything I had in me not to lunge for the smooth column of her throat that taunted me, still stained with blood from Rob’s invasion.  “The next time I see you I will choke the life out of your body.  Do you understand me?” I whispered, vibrating with anger.

She shrank away from me with a piteous cry, running out of the room without another word, while I counted to ten inside my head, trying to conquer the desire to chase after her and make good on that promise.

“Don’t take it out on her, it’s completely my fault.”  Rob grabbed hold of my shoulder and I wrenched it free.

“Don’t you dare touch me,” I snapped.  “I don’t want to see or talk to you until I leave this boat, is that clear?”

“I ain’t leaving it like this between us,” he insisted, deep furrows on his brow making me think of steps.  “You got to know…”

“I don’t have to do anything, and unless you’re in the mood for a world of pain, you’d better leave me alone.”  I meant it too.  My hands were clenched hard enough to make my joints creak. 

“Go ahead then, hit me if it makes you feel any better.”  His jaw thrust out pugnaciously.  “But I need you to understand.” 

“I don’t give a damn what you need.”  I slammed him against the wall, hard enough to feel his ribs crack under my palm. 
Good
.  Another shove and I could snap the rest of his ribcage like twigs.  A sharper push and I could reach in and crush his heart the way he’d crushed mine.  I could hurt him, seriously hurt him, and he wouldn’t fight back, that much was clear.  The worst thing was that part of me really wanted to. 

You know that part in
Return of the Jedi
where the emperor is goading Luke to let the hate flow?  That’s exactly how I felt – like there was hate flowing through my veins.  That kept me from doing it more than anything else, the fear that bloodthirsty Anja might take over and I’d never be me again. 

“I’m sorry.”  I let go of him, tucking my hands under my arms to keep from reaching for him again.

“I deserved it,” he croaked, still working on getting his breath. 

“I know.”  I didn’t debate the fact, hating the way I twisted with remorse to see him wince in pain over the broken ribs, despite the anger that simmered barely under the surface of my emotions.  “Go ahead, give me one reason why I shouldn’t want to carve your heart out with a spoon right now.”

“I’m sorry for what you saw, but it ain’t about cheating.  You can’t believe I prefer her charms to yours.  I tried to get you to go down to our cabin with me.”

“Oh, so this is my fault for not doing you on command?”  He definitely wasn’t helping my rage any with that explanation. 

“No, course not.  It’s no one’s fault but mine.  All she was doing was helping me out of a tight spot.”

“I don’t want to hear about you in her tight spots,” I scowled.

“No…” He took a deeper breath, groaning at the pain.  “It’s something I been struggling with, and I thought I could make it better…”

“By sucking on my best friend?  How could that possibly make
anything
better?”

“I needed her blood and I got carried away is all.  We both did.  But it wouldn’t have gone any farther, I promise you.”

“You’ll forgive me if your promises don’t carry a lot of weight right now,” I said with a bitter laugh.  And to think how guilty I’d been, so worried over how he’d react to letting Carter drink from me. 
Ha!
 

“I only wanted her to get something out of it.  I didn’t want to pain her for helping me out.  I didn’t count on losing control like that. You know feeding can turn intimate.”

“Her hands were in your pants.  That’s beyond intimate and you know it.”

“I know and I’m sorry.  Usually I’ve got more control, but ever since I stopped using the stims, it’s been all over the place.” 

“I don’t understand, you fed right after sunset, I saw you.   You shouldn’t need to eat again until at least tomorrow night.”

“I shouldn’t, but I do,” he said with a half shrug on his good side.  “I’ve been making do with the crew this whole time, taking bits where I can and compelling them to forget, but I couldn’t take more without drawing notice.  Bridget gives blood on the regular, I honestly didn’t think it’d be that big of a deal.”

“Wait, so it’s not just Bridget you’ve been dry humping, it’s everybody on board?  Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“No… it wasn’t like that.”  His face twisted with frustration.  “I can’t explain it except to say I need to feed more than once a night.”

“You mean you
want
to.  Jesus Christ, Rob, you’ve always been so tightly controlled.  What the hell happened?”

“It’s not only a matter of self control.  I get weak if I don’t feed more than once.”

“Since when?”  I’d never heard of that before.  Even when Ellie’s feeding had been out of control she’d only had problems stopping in time, not feeding multiple times a night.

“For months now.”

“So you’ve been doing stuff like this behind my back for months now?  Is that what you’re saying?”

“No, not like this.  I was doing better before on the stims.  They gave me a boost to carry on.  I’ve tried to keep it controlled, drinking from you whenever possible, but I didn’t want you to feel like I was only on you to feed.”

Wode tìan.
  My eyes clamped shut again as I realized what he was saying.  Was that what was behind all those impromptu office visits?  Less him missing me and more of him needing my blood?  Rob wasn’t simply trying to distract me with sex to smooth over his stim addiction, he was using me as a feeder in the process. 

“I didn’t, until now.” 

“Once we get off this infernal boat I’ll be fine.  As long as I can hunt freely, I don’t need to rub up on anyone.  This is the last time you’ll have to see something like this, I promise.”

“Oh, I can guarantee that,” I muttered, turning to look out the window where I could see we were approaching the shore. 

His arms closed around me in an obscene mimicry of his embrace up on deck.  “I’m sorry, luv.  I never wanted to cause you pain like this.  It’ll never happen again, I swear it.”

I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of his arms around me.  The smell of Bridget’s blood had faded, leaving only the scent of his bay rum aftershave, a tinge of smoke, and that smell that was uniquely him.  I’d loved that smell, but now it made me sick to my stomach. 

“You remember what you said about what I should do if you ever did me wrong again?  This is me taking care of it.”  I peeled myself out of his embrace, my voice as cold as the ice covering my heart.  “I deserve better than this and I won’t let you hurt me again.  You and I are done.”

Rob nodded, the emotions draining from his face as he shuttered it all away.  He turned and left the room without another word.