Torture to Her Soul

  Thump.

  Thump.

  Thump.

  Fuck.

  I tear at her clothes with my free hand, teeth nipping at her skin, biting and licking along her jawline. Frustration mounts inside of me. It's probably twenty seconds. It feels like twenty minutes. It's a goddamn eternity not being inside of her.

  I let go of her neck, yanking away from her clutch. She grabs ahold of my shirt to stop me from moving away, but I have no intention of leaving. My hands grasp her shorts, yanking them down along with her underwear. She kicks them off as I unbuckle my pants, not bothering to do any more.

  It'll take too many seconds.

  Grasping her hips, I pull her up. She wraps her legs around my waist and kisses me again. A gasp echoes from her lips when I thrust inside of her, filling her deeply, slamming her back against the wall.

  "Fuck," I growl as she wraps her arms around my neck, gripping handfuls of hair and yanking as I do just that.

  Fuck.

  I fuck her.

  I fuck her hard, fuck her with everything in me, fuck her until my skin is sweaty and my knees are weak, until my skull throbs and my body feels like it's going to detonate. I fuck her until my side feels like I've been shot all over again. She presses against the wall as I pound into her, again and again, the light switch digging into her back. The force moves it, the lights flickering, but she doesn't seem to notice and I don't give a shit.

  Her eyes are squeezed shut, her bottom lip clamped between her teeth as she tries to restrain her cries.

  Shifting position, I try to slide a hand between us, but we're too close and she's relying on me to hold her up. Grunting, she nearly slips from my grip as I grasp her hips tightly and pull her away from the wall. I stagger across the room, her body colliding with the crisp sheets of the still made bed in the dim lighting. Her eyes open as I climb between her legs, hovering over top of her. A sliver of blood slices her bottom lip from where her teeth pierced the fragile skin. Her tongue darts out, slowly licking it away as she stares at me.

  Watching her ignites a fire in my veins.

  A fire that can't be tamed.

  I push inside of her again, driving her thighs apart from the force of the thrust. My fingertips find her clit, rubbing firm circles around it, as I fuck her so deep I can practically pierce her soul. She can't stop her cries this time, can't swallow them down like she did before, the strangled noises bouncing off the walls so loudly I'm surprised they don't quake the ground.

  It doesn't take long before her body tenses, muscles growing taut from her impending orgasm.

  As soon as I feel it building, clawing at her from the inside, I pull from her lips. She inhales sharply, filling her lungs with a deep breath, before my hand wraps around her throat once more.

  She exhales with surprise.

  This time, I squeeze.

  The tan drains from her face, her eyes widening as I press against her jugular, constricting blood flow and obstructing her air. Sheer terror courses through her veins. I know, because I see it in her eyes, even more intense now than the first time I did this. Last time she was confused, and rightfully so, but this time she knows what I almost did to her.

  What I wanted to do to her.

  She knows, and she feels it. Her hands try to pry mine away, nails clawing at my wrist as she struggles, battling my hold and my weight, bucking her hips. Color seeps into her cheeks again, this time redness coating her skin, as she gives up trying to stop me and fights back instead. Her hands rip at my clothes before she grasps ahold of my tie and yanks it, trying to choke me back. It's futile, her fighting. I don't even budge.

  It's only a few seconds. A few seconds before her eyes start to glaze over, her mouth moving but no sound coming out. Her legs quiver around me, every inch of her rigid as she arches her back, again squeezing her eyes shut. Her body explodes in pleasure the second I release my hold. She gasps loudly, her lungs hungrily devouring a breath.

  A breath I granted her.

  A breath she almost didn't get.

  She screams, an ear-splitting shriek that rattles my bones as it batters me. Her body convulses, my name the only coherent word rupturing from her lips. "Naz!"

  The sound of it is a punch to the chest. I lose it. My body shudders as I come hard, the force of it momentarily paralyzing me. I can't fucking move. I fist the sheets on both sides of her curvy frame, gritting my teeth as a curse slips through again. "Fuck."

  I pull away the moment I can control myself and look down at Karissa. She has her eyes squeezed shut, and she's panting, her body desperate, greedy for all the air it can get. She doesn't move an inch, lying flat like her limbs stopped working, the only sign of life the rise and fall of her chest.

  After her breathing slows down, she peeks open her eyes, instantly meeting mine. The terror is gone, instead replaced with relief. The sight of it sends a chill down my spine. It's like a rebirth, waking up to a new world, a reverence for life and an appreciation for each breath that didn't exist before. No one is more grateful to be alive than someone who thought they were going to die.

  Second wind.

  Second chances don't come easily. Most people don't get them. Most people don't know what it's like to come back from the brink of death.

  It changes people.

  It certainly changed me.

  Rome's quiet at night.

  The city is bathed in a burning glow from the lights of the buildings, the only thing visible in the stark blackness. From my chair on the balcony, I can see for miles, but there's not much to look at this late.

  Three, I think, maybe four in the morning. I've been out here for hours, ever since Karissa fell asleep. Insomnia is a bitch that stalks me in the darkness, making my surroundings more haunting than serene.

  I feel dead most nights. The walking dead, except I still have a pulse, a faint heartbeat. It's hard to feel alive when you've been obliterated inside, hard to feel real when you no longer remember how to dream.

  It's probably fitting.

  The only people that seem to be out at this hour are the Italian police, the military force called the Carabinieri, wielding their machine guns, monitoring the streets. You'd think it would unnerve me, but I feel more at ease here than back in New York.

  Nobody here is gunning for me.

  The doors to the room are open behind me, a breeze wafting through, ghosting across my sweaty skin. I'm still dressed, my sleeves shoved up to my elbows, shirt halfway unbuttoned, and tie discarded. I stretch my legs out, crossing them at the ankles, when I hear movement in the room.

  Her footsteps are subdued, like she's purposely tiptoeing, as she makes her way out onto the balcony. Her presence looms right behind me, shadows falling over me. She walks right around me, approaching the edge of the balcony to look out. She's wearing only a t-shirt and underwear, the white fabric illuminated in the darkness.

  She gazes out at the city, taking in the view. "It's so… orange."

  The peculiar description makes me smile.

  "It is," I say. "The glow reminds me of flames, like the city's on fire."

  She turns around to look at me, leaning back against the wall lining the balcony as she crosses her arms over her chest. "Rome burned once."

  "It did."

  "I heard the Emperor did it... that he burned it down so he could rebuild it like he wanted it. They say the jackass played the fiddle while it burned."

  "Is that what they say?"

  "Yep."

  "Huh."

  Her eyes narrow. "Is that wrong?"

  "Yes."

  "How do you know?" she asks. "You weren't there."

  "Neither was the fiddle," I point out. "It wasn't even invented then. And while I'm sure he could've had his own city destroyed, it's not really logical, since he lost his palace in the fire, too."

  "He built another."

  "But he salvaged what he could from the old," I say. "A man desperate enough to burn his home to the ground wants a clean slate... he woul
dn't carry anything over."

  "Maybe it just got out of hand," she says. "Maybe he lost control of it."

  "Unlikely."

  "You sound like you know a lot about this."

  I contemplate how to respond to that, or if I should even humor it, since it wasn't a question.

  "I know enough," I say. "I was once that desperate."

  She stares at me for a moment before uncrossing her arms and pushing away from the wall. She wordlessly strolls over to me, surprising me as she slips into the chair, draping herself across my lap and settling into my arms. I pull her to me, shifting to give her more room, and press a kiss to the top of her head.

  She smells like me.

  The scent of sweat and cologne is all over her.

  She's staring out at the city lights again, completely at ease. I brush her hair back off her shoulder as I gaze down at her, seeing the faint fingertip shaped marks on her neck. They're barely visible and will probably fade by morning, but they call to me like flashing neon signs. I graze my thumb along one, making her tense.

  "Does it hurt?" I ask.

  "Not anymore," she whispers.

  "But it hurt when I did it?"

  She hesitates. "I'm not sure."

  My brow furrows. How can she not be sure?

  Almost like she can read my mind, she sighs and shrugs. "I mean, yeah, it hurt, but it's hard to remember if it was more pain or fear, so I don't know if you actually hurt me or if I was just terrified you might."

  "I don't do it to hurt you."

  She tilts her head, looking back at me. "Why do you do it?"

  Heavy question.

  I'm not entirely sure how to answer.

  "You like it, don't you?" I ask. "The high's like nothing else."

  I've seen the way her body convulses, the pleasure so overwhelming she sometimes starts to cry. I can only imagine the intensity.

  "For me, maybe, but what about you?" she asks. "What do you get out of it?"

  An even heavier question.

  I don't want to answer this one.

  But she's looking at me, so vulnerable and open, it all laid out for me to see. She may hate me sometimes, but it hasn't stopped her from letting me back in. I owe her that much in return, even if the reality of what she'll see isn't pretty.

  It's ugly.

  Fucking wretched.

  Just like me.

  "My wife died."

  "I know she did."

  "So you know," I continue, "that I watched her die. That I held her, and stared down at her, watching as she took her last breath."

  "Yes."

  "There was nothing I could do for her... no way to save her... no way to make her breathe again. I was dying myself, but I didn't care, didn't care if I bled out right there just as long as I could keep her breathing. Nothing worked, though."

  She says nothing as I look at her, thumb still gently stroking the discolored spot on her neck.

  "So what do I get out of it, Karissa? I get to watch you inhale. I get to make you breathe. It's like you're coming back from death, and it's a goddamn beautiful thing to see. And maybe that's sick. Hell, I know I'm sick. But it gives me a high, too."

  "It's not sick," she says, looking away to settle in my arms again. "It makes more sense than most things you do."

  I laugh. "Everything I do makes sense."

  "Yeah? So why are you with me?"

  "Why—?"

  "Not," she cuts me off before I can finish. "Why not? That's your answer every time, you know. Every single time. But it's not an answer, and it doesn't make any damn sense."

  I have no other answer.

  She doesn't press for one.

  Instead she sighs, closing her eyes, and drifts off to sleep in my arms. I rest my cheek against her head, staring out at the glowing city as she starts to snore.

  I get no sleep myself.

  Why am I with her? I don't know. I really don't.

  I'm with her simply because I want to be. Because I need to be. Because she needs me, I think, and if I'm being honest, I need her just as much.

  "Italy." Her voice is a stunned exhale, the word accompanied by an edge of laughter. "Fucking Italy."

  At first, I think she's on the phone, that she called somebody back home, but I see her cracked iPhone with the pink case lying on the center of the bed, while she stands out on the balcony. Water drips down my chest, my hair still soaked from the shower, as I stand in the room and pull on a pair of boxers.

  Quietly, I step toward the doors leading outside, catching sight of her leaning against the wall and staring down at the city. It's just after dawn. Rome's coming alive again as tourists start to swam the area, cars packing the streets. She's in her pajamas, hair a tangled mess. She just crawled out of bed.

  "I can't believe it," she says quietly, and I realize she's talking to herself. "I'm really in fucking Italy."

  "You are."

  She jumps, startled by my voice, and clutches her chest as she swings around. Her face is flushed, a smile flickering the corner of her lips as she gazes at me. It doesn't escape my notice that her eyes trail the length of me, lingering on my bare stomach leading down into my boxers.

  "I didn't hear you."

  She never seems to.

  I step out onto the balcony with her, running my hands through my wet hair. "Yeah, you were in the middle of what sounded like an interesting conversation."

  Her flush grows as she averts her eyes, biting her bottom lip before turning back away from me to look at the city once more. "It's just… unbelievable. I never thought I'd actually be standing in Italy. I've always wanted to come here." She cuts her eyes at me as I pause beside her. "Which, somehow, you already knew."

  I offer her a smile in place of a response. Before that afternoon in Vegas, I wasn't aware she wanted to come here. I had no way of knowing. As much as I know about the woman—her mannerisms, her past—her deepest desires are still secret from me.

  I'd been lost in my head, sitting at that table in the courtyard, the ring box heavy in the breast pocket of my coat, mulling over whether or not I was making the right choice proposing to her. Years ago, I had everything figured out, my entire future drawn before me, a picture-perfect life that went up in flames, a story ending in the middle of a book, the rest of the pages left blank, wiped clean by the harsh reality that I was all alone now and I always would be.

  Or I thought I would be…

  I kept going through it again and again. I loved her, I wanted to keep her, but I knew doing so would be an injustice. Something I wanted to make right was so fucking wrong; something that made me feel whole would fracture her. I'm not an idiot. I'm not a fool. I knew what the truth would do to Karissa, and proposing to her would only make that worse.

  I almost didn't do it. Almost backed out. Don't tie her to you, I thought. Don't lock her in a cage. Thoughts of Maria kept infiltrating the moment, memories of what happened to her, thoughts of the woman she'd never get to be, the life she'd never get to live with me. I couldn't do that to Karissa, could strap her to someone she didn't even know, drag her deeper into a world she didn't realize wanted to swallow her whole. Maria never got to be a mother. She barely got to be my wife. I never took her on our honeymoon.

  'I've always dreamed about going to Italy.'

  'I know.'

  I answered quietly, absent-mindedly, not even realizing what I was doing until I turned my head and looked at Karissa, drawing me back into the moment, out of a past that ended prematurely.

  At the end, I ultimately pulled out the ring, ignoring everything that stood against me because of something Karissa said: 'I don't want to walk away from you. I'm never going to.'

  She swore she meant it.

  I'm still trying to take her at her word.

  Looking away from Karissa, I glance down at her hand, eyes lingering on her bare ring finger for a moment before turning to face the Rome skyline.

  "Why don't we get dressed and go explore?" I suggest.

&n
bsp; "Yeah?"

  "Yes."

  "I wish I had a camera," she says, looking around. "It's so beautiful. I never want to forget it."

  "Go shower," I say, motioning back toward the room. "I got you covered."

  The water is just starting up in the bathroom when I pull on some clothes—jeans and a white t-shirt—and head for the door. I slip out without saying anything to Karissa and am back within twenty minutes, holding a shopping bag from the store down the street. When I step back into the room, Karissa is standing there in nothing but a towel, hoards of clothes dumped out from her bags and covering the bed.

  "For you," I say, hesitating before dropping the shopping bag right on top of her things. Brow furrowed, she looks inside the bag and gasps. I don't know much about cameras… it's black and made by Canon. The man at the shop said it was the top of the line and the price tag certainly reflected that notion.

  "Jesus, Naz, you didn't have to do that!" she says, pulling it out and holding it up. "We could've grabbed one of those disposable ones, you know… they're like five bucks. This is…"

  "Worthy of Rome," I say as my phone in my pocket starts vibrating, the familiar beeps ringing out. "Charge the battery and we'll head out."

  I pull the phone from my pocket as I step out onto the balcony again for some privacy. Ray. My signal is decent here in Rome, good enough that I know I can carry on a conversation with the man, but I'm hesitant to answer.

  The ringing stops within seconds and I stare at the blank screen, not at all surprised when it starts up again almost immediately. I press the answer button as I sit down on the edge of a lounge chair. "Yeah."

  "You're alive."

  There's no humor in his voice.

  No sarcasm.

  It makes my insides coil.

  Genuine question.

  "Why wouldn't I be?" I ask.

  "Well, I haven't seen you around. Figured something must've happened to you. It's not like you to stay away so much."

  "I've just been busy."

  "Is that right?"

  "Yes."

  "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were avoiding me," Ray says. "You aren't avoiding me, are you?"

  "Of course not."