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The game is over.
Careful not to hurt her with the sight on the muzzle, I pull the gun from between her legs. The barrel is coated with her arousal. It’s not a game I intended on taking that far. She just doesn’t know when to fucking stop pushing me.
I’m not unaffected. Far from it. I want her too much. I hate her too much.
Putting distance between us, I leave the gun on the dresser and head for the shower. I don’t make it to the door before I sense her movement. I never quite know what to expect from Sabella, but what I see when I turn around freezes me on the spot.
She’s jumped from the bed and snatched up the gun, pointing it at me with her arms locked in front of her and the shaft clutched in both hands. The gun shakes violently in her hold. It’s not just her hands. Her whole body trembles. Her face is contorted in a mask of hatred and fury.
Her voice is as tremulous as the rest of her as she aims for my heart. “You sick fuck.”
I raise my hands. “Calm down, Sabella.”
“Calm down?” She laughs. “You could’ve fucking pulled the trigger.”
I keep my tone even. “I didn’t.”
“Your finger could’ve slipped.”
Unbuttoning my shirt, I turn back for the bathroom. “I know how to handle a gun. I’m not shooting since yesterday.”
She sounds close to hysteria. “Do not fucking take another step.”
I face her again, letting my shirt hang open. “What are you going to do? Shoot me?”
“I should,” she says, her teeth chattering. “You made me believe you were going to pull the trigger. You fucked with my head.” Her voice rises in volume. “Did you enjoy that sick game, huh?”
I walk back to her slowly. “Are you angry that I didn’t shoot you?”
Her nostrils flare. The gun shakes even more in her hands. She pushed me. Now, I’m pushing her. What are her limits? How far is she prepared to go?
“You should’ve just done it, you coward,” she grits out.
I step right up to her, letting her press the barrel on my chest. Lowering my lips to her ear, I caress her with soft words. “Remember,cara, your life is mine, and I decide when I pull the trigger.”
Retreating with a smile, I watch her. Faint blue bruises shaped like my fingertips mar her cheeks. I always regret the marks, but I can’t deny who I am. Yet something stirs in my chest when I take her in as she stands up to me, looking too damn fragile and brave with that weapon in her hands. I doubt she’s ever held a gun.
I hold out my palm. “It’s over.” The game. The lesson. “Give me the gun.”
Mistrust flickers in her eyes. She doesn’t believe me. But there’s also a spark of vulnerability. She wants to believe me. In the end, a vicious mixture of shock and anger wins out, distorting her pretty features.
Not breaking our eye contact, she braces herself. She tightens her finger on the trigger, gets a feel for it. Time stops. So does my pulse. There’s nothing but her, me, and that gun. As if in hindsight, she jumps back a step, making sure I can’t grab her, all the while pointing the gun at my heart.
The human body is wired to function on instinct. The spiking of my heartbeat is an involuntary impulse. The organ reacts to being threatened. We’re tuned in to each other, breathing each other’s air and will of survival. Like a hunter and its prey, we’re connected in the most intimate of ways in the second that separates life and death. In that second, we’re living inside one another. I feel her intention even before I see it in the way her eyes flare at the same time as her pupils contract.
Surprising both of us, she takes the leap. She jumps over a cliff from which there’s no return. Instead of going for quick and painless, she aims for my stomach.
Click.
The hammer triggers the striker, firing the empty chamber.
Her face turns ghostly white. She’s shocked that she did it, that she would’ve killed me. Or maybe that she didn’t. That she chose a long and torturous suffering instead of a quick and painless death. Perhaps she’s most surprised by the latter. Hell, so am I. I didn’t think she had it in her, not even for a minute, and I can only respect her for it.
The gun drops from her hand, hitting the floor with a clank. She backs up, looking from the gun to me.
“Sabella.”
The commanding tone of my voice stops her. Her gaze flits to the useless weapon on the floor.
