The Foiled Plan (War of Sins Book 2)

He brought one hand to her face, wiping away some of the moisture as he let her cry her heart out. His thumb brushed at her cheek, a soothing gesture that didn’t go unnoticed, her eyes flaring with shock.

Michele wanted to say something—anything. But as he opened his mouth to utter fake platitudes, or even a dumb response, no sound came out.

Instead, he merely brought her closer to his chest, holding her tightly, so tightly her breath hitched in surprise.

Not speaking, he simply held her.

She cried. She cried and cried and was unable to stop.

And he didn’t stop her either.

For a man prone to anger at the smallest inconvenience, he held on to her, bearing down her sadness and her sorrow, her pain and her hurt. He took everything on to himself, not only as the cause, but also as the cure.

And only when she was so spent from crying and her sobs abated did he let go, noting her even breaths and her sleepy sighs, did he gently lower her to bed.

His actions were against himself, but for a brief moment he considered himself out of his body, out of his mind, out of what made him him. And so for a moment he let himself do what he’d wanted from the beginning—touch her. Not in anger, not in revenge, and not in deviousness. It was simply the touch of a man starved for touch, but one who was afraid to take that leap.

He settled her head on the pillow, brushing her hair from her face as he placed her in a comfortable position. Grabbing the edge of the blanket, he pulled it on top of her, covering her and swathing her in a small cocoon of warmth.

He moved slowly, as if he knew the precariousness of the moment—the fact that any errant movement could take him out of it, make him lose it forever. His gaze still on her, he stepped away, slowly, carefully.

He backed away until he found himself in the kitchen, his cabinet fully stocked with his favorite whiskey.

He didn’t want to miss that period in time, yet he needed to get away—he needed to become detached. Because in that instant, he’d had a flash of himself in another life, in another time where he hadn’t lost himself or his capacity for empathizing with another human being. Where he was still the old him—the one who’d taken life in stride with shining optimism in his eyes.

But he wasn’t that person anymore.

He didn’t know how to be that person anymore.

And he was afraid that for her… For her he might wish to be again.

He poured himself a generous glass of whiskey, emptying it in one go and wincing at the bitterness of the liquid as it washed down his throat.

‘Damn it,’ he swore, bringing the glass down on the counter with a resounding thud. The force was so great that it instantly broke, shards of it snapping all around, with the largest one embedding in his skin.

He opened his mouth on a moan of pain, but instead of cursing the discomfort, he welcomed it.

For a moment, his gaze was arrested by the red of the blood as it poured from his wound and on to the marble counter, the white inundated by that substance of life. Yet in his mind’s eye, it was the substance of death, of everything that was wrong and foul and awful on this earth. Of everything he’d suffered with no reprieve or hope for salvation—for everything he was still wont to suffer.

He’d tried to end it once. Unsuccessfully.

And since then, he’d resigned himself to seeing this all to the end—to leave his mark in a way that everyone expected but that no one saw coming.

Wasn’t he, like any monster, the product of his environment?

It was in times like this, when his mind was in continuous turmoil that he once more debated whether he’d been a monster by birth, or one by making. Because even in the darkest times of his life, there had still been a glimmer of hope… Something to tell him that not everything was bad—that he wasn’t all bad.

Now…he didn’t know anymore.

He took the bottle of alcohol, drinking greedily, the liquid pouring down his chin just as tears stabbed at his eyes, longing for the same treatment.

Step by step, he was heading down the road of no return—perhaps he’d already done so.

And as he glanced longingly towards the bedroom door, he knew he was embarking on the worst torment yet.

He just couldn’t acknowledge it.

Deep down, he was well aware.

But up, where his conscience lived, he was still confident in his plan, in his revenge and everything that would follow.

The demons weren’t quieted though. If anything, they were more restless, and impatient, crowding his mind and sending him on a winding spiral—one that had no beginning and no end.

His forehead creased as he screwed his face in pain—this time of the mental variety.

Dropping the bottle to the ground, he stepped back, bringing his bleeding hand to his temple as he sought to assuage the pain.

He just wanted relief.

For one second, he wished for relief.

He wanted out of his head, out of his mind that was full of the most atrocious thoughts that would not let him be. Past, present, and potential future mingled again in his eyes, and he saw the possibilities—the countless possibilities.

But he also saw more.

He saw the disappointment and the devastation if he should hope for something only for it to turn to dust.

From the moment he’d put his plans into motion, he’d been one with his demons. And because he’d chosen to embark on that journey, he knew there was nothing else to be done.

Nothing but see it to the end.

He swiveled, his grave gaze on the tentative form hiding behind a pillar.

It was her.

His pet.

The one who’d hate him the most. But also the one who’d cut him the most.

‘You’re hurt,’ she whispered, her eyes landing on his hand. Without a thought about her own safety, she dashed towards him, the intention on her face clear.

But just as she stepped into his space, he suddenly swooped her up, her feet not touching the hazardous ground. Gently, he deposited her on the other side of the counter, the clean one where no glass lay. And for a second, his touch lingered on her, almost as if he tried to commit it all to memory.

She grabbed his arm, raising it to her assessing gaze.

‘Why weren’t you more careful?’ she asked in a soft, caring voice, her fingers trailing over his cut. And damn if that gesture didn’t take away all his hurt…

‘Didn’t I tell you, pet?’ his lip curled up in a sad smile. ‘I like to hurt myself.’

She frowned, regarding him with confusion.

‘Don’t,’ the sound escaped her, the soft order cloying the air.

Her eyes widened as she realized her faux pas, but she didn’t retract it.

She merely continued to regard him, her courage rising by the second.

‘Don’t hurt yourself anymore,’ she continued, taking his hand in her two small ones and bringing his open palm to her mouth for a soothing kiss. ‘Please…’ she whispered against his skin, the hotness of her breath penetrating his open skin, traveling up his veins and making its home in his body.

The moment grew tense as he didn’t speak. He didn’t reply, for he did not know what to say. A tremulous smile appeared on her face as she didn’t quite know how to continue.

And though he sensed her growing discomfort, he didn’t move, or say anything. He wanted to know what she would do.

He was letting her call the shots, curious to see what her next step would be.

From the beginning of their relationship, he’d been the one ordering her around and dictating how every moment in each other’s company would go. He would command and she would follow. For that was her purpose, wasn’t it? A lowly distraction, but one with which he could advance his revenge. She fit his plans, and so he continued to indulge her.

Yet at some moment, something must have switched. Something incredibly minuscule that neither of them realized.

Because as it stood, Michele should have thrown her away months ago. He should have broken her, then discarded her without a second thought.

Maybe it was comfort, he told himself as he continued to watch her directly, yet furtively.

He’d become so used to her presence, her company, that he found it hard to give it up even as his mind was screaming at him to put an end to everything—focus on his end goal.

‘When you hurt, you hurt me too,’ she finally said, searching his gaze with her insistent one. Her expression was one of worry, of caring, or real love, not the make-believe kind he’d used as his shield from the beginning.

He perused her features, from her heart-shaped face to her chiseled cheekbones and pouty lips. Everything was sexy about her—everything but her eyes.

Big and doe-like, they reeked of innocence and kindness, the type he’d never been familiar with, especially with him as the main target.

A flash of rage entered his mind at that thought, a poisonous need to dispel any illusions she might have had about them, crush all the remaining innocence in one last blow. But no matter how much he readied himself for it; how much he tried to muster the strength to do it, he found he could not—at least not yet.

One last time…

He let himself be led by her dainty hand as she took over, beckoning him to the bedroom where she seated him on the plush mattress of his bed. He let her order him to stay still as she brought the same medical kit he’d used before, tending to his injury with such care, he didn’t know whether this was his reality, or just a fantasy—one he’d had before, in the deepest recesses of his mind.

‘I know you don’t like to talk about yourself much,’ his pet started, startling him with her words. ‘But I understand,’ she gave him a shy smile, all the while working to patch his hand back together, dabbing disinfectant and cleaning the wound of any residue glass before carefully wrapping it with bandage.

‘What do you understand?’ he asked hoarsely.

As if he’d been bespelled, he looked upon her like one would a mirage—one half of him hoping it was real, one half hoping it would dispel faster, so the disappointment wouldn’t be so dire at the end.

‘Your pain,’ she answered. ‘Here,’ she lifted two fingers, brushing them against his naked chest right over his heart—or what should have been his heart. ‘You’re alone. Like me,’ her face strained in a sad smile.

‘What do you know of alone, pet,’ he didn’t recognize his voice as he spoke, the words seemingly stuck in his throat.

She shifted in front of him, coming closer. Slowly. She was slow, almost as if she sensed he was like a wounded animal about to bolt at the slightest brusque movement.

Raising herself on her knees, she leaned in, her hand on his face before he could voice any objection.

It was so gentle, so foreign, so…

He blinked.

‘I know of alone, but I know even more of loneliness,’ her cheeks tightened as she tried to imbue her words with a smile. ‘Of wanting to belong, but never knowing where. Of longing for that one connection…’

‘You’re wrong,’ he told her harshly, his breathing out of control. Yet he didn’t swat her hand away. ‘I don’t want to belong anywhere,’ he added with extreme certainty. After all, he’d exorcized those particular demons a long time ago.

She didn’t argue with him.

She merely smiled, though at what, he did not know.

‘What if I want to belong?’ she fluttered her lashes slightly. She had no idea of her own appeal and the fact that one bat of those pretty lashes of hers could have such an effect on him.

But it did. Oh, but it did.

He felt the surface of his skin heat up, his pulse accelerating.

‘Where?’ he asked, not taking his eyes off hers.

She shook her head.

‘Not where,’ she corrected, her hand continuing to stroke his cheek, going down to his chin and brushing her thumb over his lips. ‘To whom.’

The words were an echo in the room and in his own brain. Sounding and resounding, until he looked at her and could only see one thing.

His.

She was his. Wholly his, unlike anyone had ever been before. Unlike anyone would be after.

She was his.

‘You’re mine,’ he declared, the statement heavy, but encompassing all those foreign feelings she awoke within him.

‘I am yours,’ she nodded, as if she’d been waiting an eternity for him to reach that conclusion.

His hands covered hers, squeezing tightly before moving and cupping the sides of her face. He had no idea that every little touch, of his own volition, was a prized possession for his pet. He had no idea that she saw more than he wanted her to see.

That she wasn’t just the cute, adoring and loyal pet he assumed her to be.

But for his benefit, she was.

‘Zia,’ he groaned, her name burning on his lips, hurting, but also purifying. ‘My Zia…’ He closed his eyes, lest she see the anguish in them, but it wasn’t before he, himself, saw the unguarded reaction on her face.

Shock. Wonder. Love.

So much love, he didn’t know what to do with it.

And as he blinked anew, it was to watch her move closer, leaning in until her face was inches away from his, her breath already on him.

‘Take me,’ she whimpered, the urgency in her tone as foreign as the moment itself. She’d never once taken the initiative for anything. Yet there she was, waiting. Never the other way around.

He shook his head slightly.

‘You’re sore,’ he whispered, regarding her through hooded eyes as the storm inside of him raged and raged. He wanted her. He wanted her too damn much. And for once, the first and maybe the last, he wasn’t going to take. He wasn’t going to…

‘No,’ she denied vehemently, lying to his face though he knew the truth. ‘I’m not. Please, Michele…’ she wet her lips, her vulnerability shining through in every uncertain breath and the tentative smile she put on.

He lowered his hands to her shoulders, dismayed to find her trembling against him. And as he saw the powerful need inside of her, as powerful as the one that had been building in him, he couldn’t tell her no. He couldn’t deny what was freely given.

Michele bent his head, his lips brushing against hers—a light caress. He felt her shuddering against him, giving into him as she’d never done before.

‘Take me,’ she repeated, a cry for something…

He thrust all rational thought out of his mind as he maneuvered her around the bed. On her back, he loomed over her as he tore at her towel, leaving her naked and bared to his sight.

For a second, the numerous cuts on her body made him pause. But her honeyed voice was enough to make him forget about anything and everything, the moment at hand the only one that mattered.

His own robe was wide open, and he shrugged it off his shoulders, throwing it next to the bed. Fully naked, his arousal was evident, his cock rigid against the plane of his stomach. Yet this time she wasn’t afraid. She was looking at him straight in the eye, urging him on, needing him.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ he rasped as he took hold of her thighs, parting them so he could settle between them.

He was in no hurry—not as usual.

His hands were on the swell of her hips, and he tenderly moved them up, caressing her and memorizing her features.

She responded beautifully, her skin immediately shivering under his touch, her little noises of encouragement making his chest swell with the same foreign feeling as before.

‘And all mine,’ he said in awe, as if he could barely believe it.

She nodded fervently, reaching out for him, her arms around his neck as she drew him to her.

His lips were on hers, probing, tasting, consuming. And it was all instinct. No longer was he concerned with restraint, or keeping himself aloof—or God forbid, have her touch him. In that moment, none of that mattered.

His skin was on top of her skin.

And it didn’t burn.

It didn’t hurt. Far from it.

It made him feel powerful—overflowing with power.

She wrapped her legs around him, drawing him in. And reaching between their bodies, he adjusted the tip of his erection to her center, stroking her lightly before pushing inside of her.

Her mouth opened on a gasp, but he swallowed it, keeping her with him rooted in the moment as he joined his body to hers, slowly, passionately.

‘Does it hurt?’ he leaned back to ask, only to find her eyes shimmering with tears.

He frowned in confusion.

She just shook her head, her fingers peppering small, ghost-like touches over his face as she looked at him like she’d never seen him before.

‘It doesn’t hurt.’

She smiled then. A smile so blinding, it took him a moment to catch himself. A moment to wonder what the hell he was doing.

But then she tilted her hips, moving with him.

He groaned.

She moaned deep in her throat.

‘Zia,’ he found himself calling out her name as he established a rhythm for both of them.

A slow, rocking motion that had nothing to do with fucking, though that’s all he knew, and barely. It was so much more that neither could properly define it.

He continued to move within her, thrusting and withdrawing, his eyes on her face as he tracked every small reaction. The way her mouth parted ever so slightly as he was wholly inside her, or how her breathing accelerated in anticipation as he moved back.

‘Kiss me,’ she whispered, and he did.

He didn’t think he could deny her anything at that moment.

He kissed her, moments on end.

Even as he spilled himself inside of her, he didn’t stop kissing her.

It was sometime later when, spooning her from behind, his arms wrapped tightly around her slight body, that he finally spoke.

‘Did you,’ he cleared his voice, swallowing hard as a lump formed in his throat, uncertainty eating at him. ‘Did you like it?’

He’d never asked her that before—had never cared if she did or not. Yet now it was imperative he knew.

She turned, shifting in the cradle of his arms as she brought her front to his, brushing her nipples over the hard plane of his chest.

She nodded, a deep pink coloring her cheeks.

His lips stretched in a smile as he simply took her in—her sweetness and her unusual beauty.

Bringing a finger to her face, he brushed it over her cheek, tugging a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

‘You’re all mine,’ he found himself repeating, wanting that sentence to be the culmination of everything. Regardless of what tomorrow brought, and regardless of where his fate would take him. He wanted her to be his forever—beginning to the end.

She caught his hand, fitting his palm to her cheek as she burrowed deeper, an expression of pure satisfaction descending on her features.

‘Mhm,’ the sound vibrated in her throat, enthralling him further. ‘Are you mine, too?’ she asked in a soft tone, her big eyes on him as she regarded him with trepidation.

Was he hers?

He didn’t have an answer to that question. He didn’t know what it was like to be anyone’s. And so he answered the only way he knew how.

‘I’m not not yours.’

She frowned in confusion. But it wasn’t for long as her lips worked in silence, repeating those words just as a smile spread over her face.

‘You’re not not mine,’ she chuckled lightly, taking his hand and laying a gentle kiss in the middle of his palm. ‘I hope you’ll always be not not mine.’

She understood.

That was the first thought that crossed his mind.

She got him. She…

‘Michele…’ she called his name in that lovely voice of hers.

‘Huh?’ he raised his brows, regarding her indulgently as two dots of pink appeared in her cheeks.

‘Why do you love me?’

He blinked, wholly taken aback by the direction of her questioning.

‘Why do you love me,’ he countered, uncomfortable being the first to answer such a loaded question.

Instead of feeling slighted, or put on the spot; instead of finding outrage on her pretty face, he only found a smile.

‘Because we’re the same,’ she said, and he narrowed his eyes at her. ‘There’s a void inside here,’ she took his hand and placed it over her heart, ‘that only you can fill. Just like there’s a void inside here,’ she placed her other palm on his heart, ‘that only I can fill.’

He blinked, awareness slowly seeping in. A few words, and it had been enough to realize his error of judgment, and the fact that he may be prone to bouts of insanity, in spite of his previous convictions. Otherwise, he couldn’t explain the madness he’d just committed.

She seemed so pleased with herself, so happy at the prospect of being the same as he.

What did she know of him, or of his void?

What did she know?

The ugly voice inside his mind asked, awoken and ready to wage war.

‘We’re not the same,’ his chilly voice resounded in the room. ‘We’re nothing alike, pet,’ he said coldly, his eyes already blank as he stared in the distance.

So lost was he in his own head that he didn’t notice the stiffening of her body, or the way her eyes became dead at the sound of that one word.

Pet.

She was his pet once more.