2020, February 14th
(Velora, Stormhold)
AIDEN
Memories of my mother, Queen Mary, reared their ugly head. It was the everyday stuff that got to me. How she taught me to read. The first time she took me to the shooting range. Our late night history lessons and games of Go. I knew it was by no means average mother/son stuff, but it was my normal. Made me who I was.
Maybe that was why her imprisonment and my part in it still haunted me.
How I was surprised by what I found when I came back to myself I didn't know.
There she stood, at the center of it all, twisting a knife into a hulk of a man's hand on a table.
"Forgive me, My Lady!" the man cried in agony. "I thought you were Lady Kate!"
Believe you me, he wouldn't have pulled that shit if he knew who he was touching. Lady Katherine Dormer, Keira's twin, rivaled her sister in the slightly crazy department. Having met them both, I would know.
"Did you now?" Keira asked.
The row of people that awaited her new friend dispersed after she threw them a glance.
"And what? You figured my ass was her hand? Just a little harmless arm wrestling?" Keira deadpanned.
The man nodded frantically, probably unaware of what he was nodding about, tears in his eyes. She twisted the knife this way and that. A sinister smirk spread across her face.
"Well in that case," Keira said coyly, yanking the knife out of the man's hand.
She took his blood soaked hand in hers and squeezed. He sobbed like a child.
"Show me what you got, big guy," she said.
The man hesitated. She raised the knife with her other hand, eying his other hand. I covered the hand holding the knife with my own and stuck the knife into the table, a mere inch away from the man's hand.
"Fun's over. Let's go," I said.
Keira grinned at my matter of fact tone. Men didn't speak to her that way. No one did. I considered making a fuss about her stabbing random creeps who failed to recognize her as more than just a hot piece of ass, but then thought better of it. All I cared about was getting her to Imperium.
She let me believe I was in charge, but subtly steered me away from the lights and into one of the back rooms.
"You must be out of your mind," I said, when she turned around and pulled the zipper of her dress down.
I certainly knew I was out of mine as I watched the dress pool around her black heels. In the center of the room where she stood was a poker table with chairs surrounding it illuminated by light. A bar off to the right in a corner, a bed right next to it.
I begged my eyes not to look, but being a betting man myself, I wouldn't have bet on me leaving that room unscathed.
"I'm a grown ass woman. You're certainly aware of that, aren't you Denny? Grown ups should get to make their own calls, shouldn't they?" she cooed innocently, laying her Victoria Secret lingerie clad body out on the bed.
Except for the poker table, the room was dimly lit. I couldn't quite make everything out. For that I'd have to go closer. My legs moved on their own. Baby steps, but I was definitely moving.
Keira should put on what was left of her dress. I should take her home. The irony of me wanting to take a one night stand home was not lost on me. I saw her trapping me coming from a mile away. I fell for it anyway. I was still in the middle of falling for it, but I couldn't stop going to her.
She tossed her bra at me. I caught it with a gulp.
Crazy woman. Stabbing men at the center of a chaotic club brawl that, no doubt, she started. I meant to chide myself, say I wanted the safety of home. But as I felt the fabric of her bra under my fingertips, the denial I was in went to my head.
It wasn't just the perfection that was her laid out in front of me. She was pushing the right buttons. Like a lightbulb going off above my head, I realized I didn't want to go home.
Home was difficult right now. My two broken engagements. Mary's imprisonment. Elena's declaration of love. My baby sister was newly wed. John and Jane were expecting their first baby.
Being around my happy family as life went on for them while mine came to a grinding halt hurt too much.
I wasn't hurting tonight though. Watching Keira out there, not exactly on her best behavior, distracted me. Misbehaving with her felt good. It wasn't, of course. I knew that.
"What are you trying to say?" he asked quietly.
"You know how it goes for people like us, Denny. Once you take me home, you'll have to go home. No. More. Fun. For either of us," she answered.
"And let me guess: you have the solution to our little conundrum," I said, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
Her eyes were still as dark and terrifying as the moment my dick entered her. Assassin. Dangerous. Not my usual. Not within my control. She could have knocked me out by now and ditched me if it pleased her.
I gave her something else she wanted. Maybe the very thing she gave me. The thing that made me screw her in a restaurant full of people. Courage.
"I sure do. A few more days with me," she said smoothly. "Sex optional," she added with a
shrug as she pulled her panties down her legs a second time that night.