Page 36 of The Seller

I pull myself out of the fantasy. Things have changed. She’s changed. Or maybe she hasn’t. Maybe this is who she was all along. Maybe I’m finally getting to see the real Siri.

As strong as she’s projecting herself to be, I can see her fear and her uncertainty too. I don’t believe that I’m the only one who wants this, but what kind of monster doesn’t listen to a woman when she says he’s not wanted? The kind of man I used to be. The kind of man I refuse to be anymore.

“You better not have bought anyone with you,” she says. “If you were followed…”

“I’ve been traveling every day since you left,” I reply. “Nobody is following me. I’ve rooted out every spy and contact along the way. My organization is clean.”

“No organization is ever clean.”

“Then maybe you should worry about yours.”

She doesn’t take the hint. Instead, she takes offense.

“I don’t need your advice, Stavros! I don’t need you! You should never have come here. You should have left me alone. You’re part of my past, just like the rest of it, a necessary evil, but one I won’t tolerate anymore. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if you don’t leave.”

This is as firm a ‘no’ as I’ve ever gotten from a woman, under any circumstances. I have to take it, and her, seriously. I didn’t come here to repeat the past and take her whether she wanted it or not. I came here to see if the yearning I’ve been feeling for her, the incessant need, is mutual.

It doesn’t look that way.

Every instinct I have is being tested right now. Every bit of self-control is in use. We should be together, her and I. We’re not just compatible, we’re a perfect match. She’s made for me and she has to know it, just like I do.

She’s fighting it. She’s fighting me. She’s fighting herself.

I could break her of that tendency. I could make it so she doesn’t dare fight. But those are the old impulses, and I’m trying to leave them behind. I’m trying to be a better person, one who women don’t run from.

Siri

God I love the way he looks at me, those dark eyes blazing into me, making my entire body fizz with desire. He’s not even touching me, and yet he’s changing me chemically. I react to him with a powerful hormonal flow which will not be ignored.

“So you came all the way here for what… a date?”

A smile captures his mouth and makes him look all the more menacing. “I think we’re past dating, don’t you?”

“So what did you want? You wanted sex? Was that it?”

“Among other things.”

“What other things?”

“I want to look after you,” he says.

“You came all the way here, hopped out of a ship like a shitty birthday cake, demanded to talk to me and now you want to look after me?”

“Yes.”

“That makes no sense.

“Love doesn’t.”

“Oh, so now you love me too?” I can’t believe this. I don’t believe him. Men like Stavros don’t love anybody beside themselves. He probably came after me because I got away, unlike the other girls he usually gets rid of by selling. I’m the one he can’t have, and he can’t stand it.

There is no way he loves me, because he doesn’t know me. He knows a girl who turned up in his basement, someone who barely spoke to him except to lie, someone who left him unconscious and fled his life. I am done with Stavros, because I am done with all men. There is no such thing as love.

But there is such a thing as sex.

As I look up into his cocky face, I’m realizing that I want him, but I want him on my terms. I want to be with him, but not as his captive. I want to be on top. I want to ride him. I want to show him that not only did he not break me, that I was never even close to cracking.

I walk up to him. I take him by the shirt, my fingers clutching at his collar. He looks down, his lips twisting with what might be amusement. He’s not used to me taking charge, but here, I am in control.

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