Page 32 of The Pakhan's Captive
My body listens to none of it.
He killed Papa.I press the thought down like a bruise I need to feel.He killed Papa and you are sitting here wanting him and you should be ashamed of every cell in your body right now.
Except.
Except I’m going to die soon.
That’s the other thing living in this cell with me, the thing that has been sitting in the corner since he told me I had one day and that day has come and gone and another has passed and I’m still here, but I know it’s coming.
I can feel the shape of it getting closer.
And maybe that’s what this is, maybe this is just what the body does when it knows the clock is almost out, grabs at warmth and want and sensation because those are the things that confirm it’s still alive.
Maybe I just want to feel something before I don’t feel anything at all.
Maybe I just want him and there’s no pretty reason for it.
The door yanks open.
I look up and he’s standing in the frame.
The breath I pull in doesn’t come back out.
He’s in a dark shirt, collar open, and he looks like he’s been drinking, not sloppy, nothing about this man is ever sloppy, but there’s something loose in him that isn’t usually there.
He’s looking at me like I’m on fire.
Neither of us speak.
The silence fills the cell from wall to wall, and I should be afraid.
I know the shape of afraid, I’ve been living in it for days, but what’s moving through me right now is not fear.
He steps inside and the door swings behind him and he stands there looking at me and I look back and neither of us moves.
The air gets heavier and thicker with every second that passes until I shift in the chair without meaning to, my thighs pressing together, and I watch him watch me do it.
Is he here to kill me?
He crosses the cell and crouches in front of me. He looks at my face for a long time with an expression I have no name for.
“Why do I want you this much?” he asks, his hand is under my chin, tilting my face up to his, and his grey eyes are storm clouds about to break. I can smell the whiskey on him, feel the heat coming off his body in waves.
This is wrong. This is so fucking wrong.
My own body is a traitor.
A slow, slick heat has been pooling between my thighs for hours, a relentless ache that laughs at my logic, at my grief, at the memory of my father’s face.
He killed Papa.
And I am wet for him. Soaked.
A sound leaves me that’s almost a laugh. “You’re the enemy,” I say.
Something moves across his face. “So are you.”
Before I can even think of a comeback, he moves and his lips are on mine.
