Assassins: Slow Agony Part 37

I cried out. My knees buckled, but he grabbed my hips, bracing me against the wall, keeping me upright.

And his mouth attacked me in my most vulnerable place. He was anything but delicate, but there was something in the intensity of his actions that drove me to the brink. He barraged me, bombarded me. His mouth overwhelmed me, his tongue ruthless-ferocious.

I panted, writhed against him. I wasn't sure if I was trying to get away or if I was trying to get more of what he was doing.

It didn't matter. His fingers bit into the skin at my hips. I was pinned down, unable to move, and I couldn't even think because of the sensations that were racking my body.

He made me come again, goading me until the waves of delight surged over me.

I felt destroyed by it, moaning and thras.h.i.+ng against the wall, unable to think or breathe.

On his feet, he kissed me again, harsh and urgent. I could taste myself on him.

I choked, struggling for air.

He wasn't holding me up anymore.

I stumbled, clutched the wall, pulled myself upright. "Griffin."

He had a condom from the bathroom. I heard him tear apart the foil wrapper.

"I don't know if..."

He turned me again, shoving my face into the wall.

"Griffin, I'm not-"

"Please, doll," he said in a grating whisper. "I need this."

I gasped. I needed to say something. But what? Did I need to stop him? My legs were still shaking, my s.e.x still twitching from the pleasure he'd given me. Did I want it to stop?

"Spread your legs." His voice was dark like ash.

I shut my eyes. I moved my legs apart.

"Wider."

I did it. I felt cold air against the inside of my thighs.

He wrapped his fingers around my wrists and tugged them over my head, holding them against the wall. He kept one hand there, trapping both of my hands, keeping them from moving. His other hand traveled down my back, tracing my spine gently, cupping the curve of my backside, dipping into my wetness.

I tried to say something, but it only came out as strangled gasp.

Then- He was inside me, pounding into me, f.u.c.king me.

I could only make tiny noises as he rammed in and out of me again and again. It didn't quite feel good, exactly. It felt intense, powerful, severe, consuming.

Griffin was muttering behind me, moaning something. Words, maybe. It was guttural and bitter and rough and- No.

He was sobbing.

His face pressed into my neck, and I could feel the wetness of his tears.

His body started to convulse with the force of the sobs that were coming from him. I'd never heard a man cry like that. I'd never heard anyone cry like that. It was a terrible coa.r.s.e sound, brutal and pained. He sounded broken. Shattered.

But he kept jamming himself into me as he cried like that, each thrust more forceful than the last, as if he thought he could somehow get rid of all of it that way, that he could pour it into my body or something.

I would have touched him, tried to sooth him, but he still held my hands prisoner, and I couldn't move. "Griffin," I murmured.

"I'm sorry," he said in a ragged voice. "I'm so sorry, doll." He stabbed into me one last time, burrowing deep. I felt him come.

His grip loosened on my hands.

"Griffin, baby, I..."

He pulled out of me, staggering backwards. He was still crying. He held up his hands to ward me off. "Don't-"

I ignored his gesture. I wrapped myself around him, pulling him close.

He struggled for a second, and then he relaxed in my arms. He buried his face against my skin.

"Let it out," I whispered. I gently stroked the back of his head, running my fingers over the stubble there.

His shoulders shook, and he sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

We didn't talk about it. I didn't know how to. Maybe he'd need to talk about it someday. I didn't think he could yet. I supposed his behavior made a certain kind of sense. When he'd been abused before, he'd been unable to perform s.e.xually for years. It had taken us a long time to get to a place where Griffin could trust me.

If they'd raped him again-and I a.s.sumed they had. I didn't ask him. I couldn't find the words. If they had, I guess it might have been very important for him to know that he could perform. Maybe that was why he had to take me like that. Or maybe I was just different enough than they were. I was softer and sweeter and smaller, and he needed to be close to that. Or maybe, after being dominated and ruined, he needed to feel stronger than someone. He needed to dominate me.

I don't know.

He needed me, and I did the best that I could to make it better.

But I knew that I would never really be able to make it better, that somewhere in there, he was scarred very deeply, so deeply that he might never really heal.

And I... I was feeling raw on the inside too.

We slept together on a narrow mattress in one of the rooms. There were no blankets or sheets in the rooms and the air conditioning was extremely cold. We huddled close for warmth, entwining our bodies, wrapping our limbs around each other.

We didn't talk much, but we communicated with every touch, every brief kiss, every caress. After what had happened between us, there was now an undercurrent of tenderness in everything we did. We were both careful with each other.

The last thing I remembered before slipping into sleep was Griffin's voice at my ear, whispering that he loved me.

"They can't have gotten out. Both the doors are still locked." Marcel's voice boomed from the inside of Naomi's house, floating through the open windows. "What are you telling me, they went down the drain or something?"

The response was too m.u.f.fled to hear. Griffin and I were outside the house, hiding in the woods nearby. It was late morning.

"They can't have gone far," said Marcel. "The cars are still here. Check the woods."

Griffin smiled at me. This was what he had hoped would happen. There were four guys besides Marcel in the house. If they were sent into the woods, we could surprise them, kill them, and get their guns.

That was about as much of a plan as we'd made that morning while stealing breakfast from the empty dining hall kitchen. At that point, we'd been so hungry that we weren't picky about food. And the dining hall definitely wasn't excellent cuisine.

But now our stomachs were full, and we were back for revenge.

We watched as two of the men came into the woods several feet away from us.

Griffin pointed. "Go that way, make a bunch of noise."

"Really?" I said.

"Like it's going to be hard for you," he said. "You're loud in the woods."

I glared at him.

"Go already."

I got up and started in the direction Griffin had pointed. I unintentionally made intensely loud thras.h.i.+ng noises. He was right, G.o.dd.a.m.n it. Why couldn't I be quiet like he was?

"There!" yelled one of the men.

The crack of a gunshot.

A bright burst of pain in my ankle. I stumbled and fell, gritting my teeth at the pain.

They'd freaking shot me. Was this part of Griffin's plan?

"Got her." The two men ran towards me, making even more noise than I had.

I saw Griffin leap on one of the men, snapping his neck.

The man fell to the ground.

The other man turned, bewildered. Seeing the other guy dead beside him, he brandished his gun.

Griffin kicked it out of his hand. He tackled the man and knocked him onto his back.

Griffin crawled on top of him. "Get me his gun, doll."

I started to crawl, but it hurt. "I've been shot, baby."

"Oh," he said. "Right." He wrapped his hands around the man's neck. "Better not to shoot you, anyway. Too noisy." He squeezed.

The man's eyes bulged.

"Do you think they've been given the serum?" I asked.

Griffin padded the guy down, finding a knife in his pants' pocket. "Better cut their spines to be sure, huh?"

I cradled my wounded ankle in my hand while Griffin slashed the backs of their necks.

Then he came over to me. He knelt down and inspected the shot. It was bleeding pretty heavily.

"It went through and through," Griffin said. "You'll be fine. You're going to heal up in a few minutes."

"It hurts," I said, sticking out my lower lip.

He drew me into his arms. "I'm sorry I got you shot, doll."

I laid my head on his chest. "You better be sorry."

He kissed the top of my head.

But he was right. I could already tell that it was healing.

"Hey!" yelled Marcel's voice. "What the h.e.l.l? I heard a shot out there. You hit anything?"

"False alarm," called Griffin, changing his voice to sound more like the men's. "We're going deeper into the woods."

"Motherf.u.c.ker," Marcel yelled back.

Griffin picked up the gun the man had dropped. "You take this. Think you can walk yet?"

I tested my weight against my ankle. I flinched. "Not yet."

"Okay," he said. He pointed. "You can see the porch from here?"

I nodded.

"One of the guys is going to walk around outside in a minute. You think you can hit him?" "Um..." I wasn't sure if I could. "If I don't, does it ruin everything?"

"You can do it," he said. "I watched you practice with Sloane. You got this. Just stay loose and remember to breathe, okay?" He kissed me on the forehead again. Then he picked up the other man's gun and darted away.

I took several deep breaths, raising the gun and pretending to aim.

I heard Griffin's voice. "Hey Mick."

And, sure enough, a man walked around the porch, right into the spot Griffin said he would. "Who is that?"

I aimed at Mick, lining up his head in the crosshairs of my gun. I could do this. Okay. Relax. Stay loose. Breathe.

"It's me," said Griffin.

Um, maybe not his head. Maybe his torso. I realigned.