Die for Me (Killing Eve #3) - Luke Jennings Page 0,5

behind her again, with the sharp smell of her hair in my face. “Admit it, pupsik,” she murmured, barely audible, “this is a much more romantic honeymoon than your first one.”

We woke the next morning as the truck shuddered into life and began its journey to the docks. We lay motionless, the only sound the slopping of the urine in the bucket. Twenty minutes later we came to a halt, and I felt Villanelle’s body relax and her breathing become slow and calm. This was the moment of maximum danger. If there was to be an inspection of the container and its cargo, it would be now. I tried to imitate Villanelle’s zen state, but started to tremble uncontrollably. My heart was pounding so wildly I thought I was going to pass out.

A dull clang reverberated throughout the container. I burrowed desperately into the bales, ignoring a brief explosion of pain as my nose struck Villanelle’s forehead or shoulder. The truck began to move again, but I stayed submerged, inhaling the thick smell of unaired cotton. This time the journey was shorter, our stop–start progress indicating that we were in a line of vehicles approaching the loading bay. With the final halt, the truck’s engine fell silent. There was a harsh scraping of metal on metal, a heavy thump, and we started to ascend. I’d dreaded the moment the container was hoisted from shore to ship, picturing it swinging sickeningly beneath the cranes. Nothing of the sort happened, of course. The process was smooth and deft, with only a brief kiss of steel to indicate the moment we were locked in place, and a faint knocking as our temporary home was fixed to those beneath it.

Hours passed, during which the smell of urine grew stronger, and Villanelle maintained an unapproachable, trance-like silence. Was she telling herself that she’d made a fatal miscalculation in bringing me with her? Had the previous night meant nothing to her at all? I lay there, staring into the cold darkness. Finally I slept.

I woke to the steady thrum of the Kirovo-Chepetsk’s engines and the faint creak of the containers around us. As I regained my bearings, Villanelle’s hand reached through the darkness and found mine.

“Are you OK?” she whispered.

I nodded, still not quite there.

“Hey. We’re alive. We got away.”

“For now.”

“Now’s all there is, pupsik.” She pressed my palm to her icy cheek. “Now’s all there ever is.”

2

I’m beginning to learn Villanelle’s ways.

She withdraws. She locks herself into the secret citadel of her mind. I’m sitting there next to her, her leg warm against mine, our breath mingling, but she could be a thousand miles away, so arctic is her solitude. Sometimes it happens when we lie down to sleep and she burrows into me for warmth. Part of her is just not there. I long to tell her that she’s not alone, but the truth is that she’s utterly alone.

This frozen state can last for hours, and then, like dawn breaking, she’ll wake to my presence. At these times I’ve learned to wait and see which way the cat jumps, because she’s so unpredictable. Sometimes she’s pensive, just wanting to be held, sometimes she’s as sullen and spiteful as a child. When she wants sex, she reaches for me. After four days and nights at sea, this has become a raw, feral business. We need the water that we have for drinking, washing is impossible, and our bodies are rank. Not that either of us cares. Villanelle knows what she wants and goes straight for it, and with the last of my inhibitions dispelled by the darkness and the desperate uncertainty of our situation, I’m soon giving as good as I get. Villanelle likes this. She’s much stronger than me, and could easily throw me off when I pin her down and roll on top of her, but she lets it happen, and lies there as I stroke her breast, and my tongue and my teeth probe for the scar tissue on her lip. And then she grabs my hand and pulls it downwards, cramming my fingers inside her, and grinds against the heel of my palm until she’s gasping, and sometimes laughing, and I can feel the muscles of her thighs twitching and shuddering.

“You’ve never been with another woman?” she says. “I’m really your first?”

This is a conversation we’ve had before. “You know I am,” I tell her.

“I don’t know.”

“Sweetie, take my word for it. You’re the first.”

“Mmm.”

“I thought about it a lot. What