The Killer’s Vow by Aria R. Blue
Simon
Ruby lips part for me.
I hold her elbow and tear my eyes away from that lush mouth.
“Hello, mister,” she says. And then she…giggles.
It’s so uncharacteristic of her to make that sound.
A lot of things about her tonight are uncharacteristic. From the way she’s wearing her hair so proudly to the way she’s dressed to show off.
But what grabs my attention are her pupils.
Her unnaturally dilated pupils.
This isn’t interest she’s showing. This is the effect of the drugs in her system.
In all my research of her, I never pegged her for a user. I thought she’d be smarter than that.
She gets uncomfortable when I don’t say anything.
“Let go of me,” she squeals. “I want to see the moon.”
I release her, still not saying a word.
It’s not safe for me to do so.
The less my targets know about me, the better. But Vera Reznikova isn’t just any target.
She feels like fate.
She feels like something that needs to be protected from this world.
The thought of it is alarming.
I’m a killing machine. I’ve never felt the need to take care of anybody before.
Vera steps toward the moon.
I take a step away.
Her curls brush her lower back as she tilts her delicate face up to the sky. She nods at it, as if it’s exactly how she expected it to be.
I’m about to slip back into the shadows when she speaks up.
“Stay with me,” she says, sounding more sober now. “I don’t want to be alone.”
Something clicks into place.
I think I’ll do anything she wants me to.
If she decides to sit in my lap and feed me poison one day, I think I’ll accept that too. Happily.
All because that’s what she wants.
I join her on the balcony.
“What’s your name?” she asks.
“Simon,” I say, surprised that I’m telling her the truth.
“And where are you from, Simon?”
“Same place you’re from,” I say.
She blinks at my thick Russian accent, sobering up some more.
“I usually don’t like Russian men,” she admits, tilting her head up at me.
“And why is that?” I glance down at her red lips again, quelling the urge to touch her.
“All of the ones I’ve met act too entitled,” she says. “But don’t worry, I like you.”
Her tongue is loose.
My vision turns crimson as I think about someone else finding her before I did.
I’d be mopping blood off the floor right now.
“You shouldn’t be out here all by yourself, Vera,” I say.
She freezes.
But it’s not because I accidentally spoke her name before she gave it to me.
“But I’m not alone,” she says, with an innocence that cracks my heart open. “I have you.”
I’m a danger to everybody else, but for reasons unknown, I’m a different man for this girl. She’s safe with me.
“That you do,” I say, leaning against the railing and staring up at the sky with her.
We can actually see the stars tonight.
Maybe it’s because the location of this party is closer to the lake, away from the city lights.
She turns around to face me. Side by side now, we’re so close I can feel her body heat.
“I’ve had the worst week,” she says.
“Yeah?” I grit my teeth at the thought of her actually missing the twat I killed.
“Worse than usual, and that’s saying a lot. They know now. They know what I do.”
Even in her intoxicated state, she doesn’t reveal any details.
She protects her secrets fiercely.
“And what is it that you do, Vera?” I ask, wondering if she’ll rise to the bait.
“Bad things,” she says, her eyes dimming. “I do bad things.”
“I don’t think I believe that,” I say. What she does is self-preservation.
Vera remains quiet.
I would sign over my entire fortune if it meant she’d reveal her thoughts to me.
“What family do you belong to?” she asks after a pause.
“I don’t belong to anyone,” I say. Except the Russian government.
“Then how are you here?” she asks.
“You can say that I’m here to meet someone.”
She flashes me a small smile, and every thought in my head ceases to exist.
“You’re totally crashing this party, aren’t you?” she asks.
I shrug, not confirming nor denying her accusation.
“I’d be careful if I were you,” Vera says. “They’re not too kind to outsiders.”
I bite back my amusement.
In this den full of criminals, I’m the most lethal of them all. If anything, they should watch their backs.
Vera’s face changes color.
The pink flush of her cheeks deepens, spreading down her neck and chest.
She grabs the railing tighter.
Acting on instinct, I move closer.
“Are you okay?” I ask, something growing heavy in my chest.
Worry.
I’m worried.
What the actual fuck?
She nods and then shakes her head. And then those blue-gray eyes fixate on me.
A storm in the ocean.
“Simon, can you help me?”
I nod. “What do you need?”
“You. I need you to touch me.” Her skin flushes all over again as she says the words. “You made my skin burn. I think I need more of that fire.”
So she felt it too—the primal electricity that exists between us.
I force myself to take a step back. “No.”
She steps toward me and reaches for my hand.
“Please,” she whispers.
By the amount of desperation in her eyes, I can almost believe that she needs my touch for survival.
But she’s not the one who seeks it. It’s the drugs flowing through her system that are making her horny.
I can’t stay here.
If I do, I’ll end up regretting this tomorrow.
But leaving her alone isn’t an option either.
“Who gave it to you?” I ask.
She blinks. “I did.”
“Is this something you do often? Get high and then ask for permission to grind on men?”
This makes her sober up. I get a peek at the real Vera Reznikova.
Passion, pure and hot, lights up her eyes.
“Forget it,” she says. “I’ll go find someone else.”
I clasp her wrist before she can leave. “Do it yourself.”
She stares at the place of contact between her wrist and my hand.
Her pulse flutters.
She licks her lips. “What?”
“Pleasure yourself in front of me.”
She glances back at the party. Nobody can see us here, but I’m not going to risk it.
I hold her arms and spin her around.
She sucks in a sharp breath as her back aligns with my front.
I lean down to whisper in her ear. “I’m a bad man too, Vera. I won’t touch you when you’re like this, but I’ll help you touch yourself.”
“H-How?” She hiccups.
I place my hands on top of hers. “I know you’re burning. Show me all the places that burn the hottest.”
Her back arches delicately, making her ass brush against my thighs.
I wonder if this is her pure form.
If her body already knows what it wants.
This simple act of submission tells me everything I need to know about her.
She’s tired of having to control every aspect of her life. She’s been doing it for so long.
And she needs to let go of that control for once.
She needs to be swept off her feet.
Dominated.
I wish she was sober so I could do all the things I’m already doing to her in my head.
With my hands on top of hers, she takes me straight to the slopes of her breasts.
They rise and fall as her breathing turns haphazard.
“Here,” she whispers. “It aches so bad here.”
She tries to slip her hands out from underneath mine, but I stop that by tightening the grip on her breasts.
Technically, she’s the one touching herself.
She’s the bow that lands on a violin string. But I’m the player.
Her lips part, and a guttural sound leaves her.
“And here,” she says, taking me to the slit of her dress over her thighs.
I help her bunch up the fabric.
“Tell me how wet you are,” I say, breathing in the scent of her hair.
She smells like a forest—natural and revitalizing.
“Very,” she says. “And it’s all your fault.”
“How is it my fault?”
“If you hadn’t touched me, you wouldn’t have started this fire. It’s so hot, Simon.”
“You were the one who bumped into me,” I say, fighting not to touch her anywhere else.
I brace one hand on the railing and another over her hand. Right between her soft thighs.
“More,” she says. “I need more.”
“Tell me what you dream about,” I ask her, biting the inside of my cheek to keep myself from kissing and fucking her.
She goes still in my arms. “That’s not a question I get asked often.”
My desire ebbs and is replaced by something else…empathy.
Empathy isn’t really a trait that killers come equipped with. But I find that this girl owns all of my unexplored emotions.
“Indulge me,” I say, pressing my palm up against her folds.
She’s going to remember this tomorrow.
And I don’t want her to remember me as some stranger she embarrassed herself in front of. So I need her to feel more connected to me.
“Freedom,” she says. “I want to feel freedom inside my mind and heart.”
“Who’s holding you back?”
She lifts a shoulder and rests her head against my chest. A sense of responsibility settles in my being.
She’s mine to take care of.
Mine and nobody else’s.
Her dreams belong to me. Her orgasms belong to me. And with time, her heart will belong to me too.
“I used to think other people were holding me back. But I think it’s me. It’s how I see the world around me.”
“And how do you see the world, Vera?”
“Sometimes, I feel like everything’s against me. I feel like I never get to do the things I want to.”
“The plants?” I ask.
She nods. “More than anything, I want to learn. I want to study botany and ancient remedies for ailments. Things that have been passed down in families for generations but are now starting to get lost.”
“But life had other plans for you,” I say, moving her hand up and down her slit.
“Yeah,” she says, biting down on her lip to trap a moan.
“My life was chosen for me too,” I say, admitting something I never had with anyone else. “I know how frustrating that can feel. But the thing about hard things is that they test the resilience and power that exists within you. It’s in the process that you get stronger.”
Her eyes close for a moment.
I don’t know if it’s because of my touch or my words.
“I like you, Simon,” she says, tilting her head to look up at me.
My breath catches in my throat.
It’s a sensory assault.
Her pretty almond eyes staring up at me. Her ass against my cock and her beautiful folds slippery against my palm.
Her lips curve up in a smile.
It’s the single dimple on her right cheek that becomes my undoing.
I didn’t learn about this dimple when I was doing my research on her.
It catches me off guard now.
I’m falling, not knowing where I’m going to land.
It’s dangerous to feel this way, but I do nothing to stop it.
She bites down on her pillowy bottom lip and bucks against my palm. Her pupils are the size of dimes, taking in every detail of my face.
“You’re dripping down my palm, Vera,” I groan.
She lets out a frustrated whimper. “Can you touch me bare?”
It’s a miracle I manage not to give in to her requests.
I need to make her finish. Fast.
So I spew filth into her ear.
“If I had it my way, I’d have my cock bare inside this sweet cunt,” I say. “You’d go to bed every night with a dripping pussy.”
She freezes.
I’m afraid I went too far, but she turns even messier than she was before.
And she’s even more frustrated than before. “Why don’t you touch me? Are you not attracted to me?”
I laugh without humor and go with the truth. “More than you can ever imagine.”
“Then why aren’t you putting your hands on me?”
“Not when you’re like this,” I say, taking her index finger and tapping it over her clit.
I know I hit the right spot when she moans loudly.
“Quiet now, princess,” I say. “You don’t want anyone to walk in here and find me squeezing your cunt.”
“Oh God,” she whimpers.
I flick her clit using her own hand and get dirtier with my words.
“I bet you’d be as tight as a virgin. Have you ever had a cock before, Vera?”
I turn aggressive with my movements when she doesn’t answer right away.
“No,” she pants. “But I want you now.”
“And I’ll give it to you,” I say. “When you’ve earned it.”
“What do I need to do to earn it?”
“Only the things I tell you to,” I say, applying more pressure on her core. “But you’re going to do whatever I ask of you, aren’t you? You’re going to spread these sexy thighs for me whenever I need some relief. Just like you are now.”
“Simon,” she yells sharply.
I clamp my hand down over her full mouth. “I like it when you scream, princess. But your screams are only meant for my ears. I bet you’ll scream for me when I plunge into this tight little pussy for the first time.”
She bites down on my palm as she shatters.
She’s trapped between the railing and my body.
Her luscious curves are begging to be touched. Her ruby lips are designed to be bitten. And her wet pussy is primed for my cock.
But now is not the right time.
I step away from her when she’s done, releasing my hand from her mouth.
She grabs my wrist in a surprisingly strong grip.
“Have you been in a Russian prison before?” she asks, voice rising even though it’s just the two of us here.
I pull her soaked hand up to my mouth and take her index and middle fingers between my lips.
She tastes even better than she smells.
Her essence is a drug to my system. A promise that I can have it straight from the source the next time.
“I told you I was from Russia,” I say.
She turns around with her fingers still in my mouth. I notice that her pupils aren’t as dilated anymore.
“Yes, but you have those tattoos,” she says, eyes glazing over as I slide her fingers out with a caress of my tongue. “Russian prison tattoos.”
“You really don’t like anything that has to do with Russia, do you?”
“Just the men,” she says wearily. “Especially the ones who have done time.”
I know better than to ask her the reason.
Suddenly, she takes a step away from me. “Did my father send you?”
“I have nothing to do with the Bratva.”
“If you don’t belong to any family here, and you don’t belong to any family in Russia, then who are you, Simon?”
I’ve allowed this to go on for far too long.
“Is your sister here?”
“What?” She blinks, understanding that I know a lot about her, and she knows very little about me. “Why are you asking?”
“You’re unstable right now. I need to take you to someone you trust.”
“You haven’t answered any of my questions,” she says, crossing her arms.
In this moment, I see her proud streak. Even though she has no choice in the men chosen for her, she’s still used to being treated like a princess.
“What do you want to know?” I ask.
“The prison.”
“I was a teenager. It was for a petty crime, and it was brief.”
“Your work?”
“I’m an independent contractor.” It’s the most polite way to say that I kill people for a living.
“And what are you doing at this party?” she asks.
“Business,” I say, looking at the way her smooth cheeks are still flushed. “And a little bit of pleasure.”
My .22 handgun sits heavy in my holster. I also have a suppressor in my pocket.
It’s not lost on me that this is the perfect moment.
For whatever reason, they sent her to me. They want her dead.
And in all the years I’ve been working, I’ve never once hesitated. I’ve had to kill women before, so that’s not the problem.
It’s her.
I didn’t expect her to unravel all these emotions in me.
I don’t want to kill Vera. I want to protect her from the rest of the world.
Which is exactly why a man like me has no place in her life.
I’m not worthy enough.
Just as I make that decision, two people enter the balcony.
The blonde sprints toward Vera. “Oh my God, we’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
The silver-haired man she came in with grits his teeth and sizes me up as he speaks to Vera. “Did he hurt you?”
I’ve been sent to kill her.
But when this man asks Vera if I had hurt her, rage burns down my arms, and I want to punch something. His face looks like the perfect landing place.
“What? Damian, no,” Vera says. “We were just talking.”
Damian.
I hate hearing another man’s name on her lips.
“Is he mute? Why isn’t he speaking?” Damian asks, even as his eyes level with mine.
I glance at Vera one last time, soaking in every detail.
Despite everything I whispered in her ear, I know I don’t have a place in her life.
Her life is complicated enough already.
She doesn’t need me to add to that.
So I turn from the three of them and walk away. I can feel Vera’s eyes burning my back, but I don’t turn around.
Not even once.