::FIVE::
I almost hated to close the box again, so lost in the moment was I. Just standing, with my hands resting on the cool steel, that strange oiled feel of it, like a living thing, was enough to make me think of Riddick. Not that I required much prompting, especially not lately. Still, it wouldn’t do to be found in the private quarters of a man you’ve just thrown into an incinerator.
The rest of the collection pales in comparison to this one beautiful thing, so the red Valentines box, with it’s exquisite blade, is the only thing I take with me. I leave the doctor’s quarters unlocked, the door resting gently on it’s bolt, as though the doctor simply neglected to close his door. Soon, any evidence that I had been there at all would vanish, as the room was ransacked, and trampled. Any trail to me would be lost, provided I actually left one.
Janette Harding. A freelancer for the Universal Press Agency. A grand sounding name, but, in fact, a smaller outfit. It’s lack of Company connections ensuring that every story was a struggle. It wasn’t really a hard thing to discover. As simple as looking at the brochure for the convention. A list of participating news agencies was thoughtfully provided. A small matter of a bribe to a desk clerk, to let me take a look at a computer for a moment, obstensibly to look for a lover gone astray, told me that there were only three female reporters here for the convention. Two of whom could not possibly the woman who was watching me. Leaving a Miss Janette Harding. In her own room, the other two women sharing a room. Convenient.
The scent of Riddick. Back in my own quarters again, my head filled with the heady male scent of Riddick. I had let no man touch me, not in any way that mattered, since the first night we were together. I’ll never touch another man, ever. I belong only to Riddick, body and soul, for as long as he loves me. Yet, for all this, seduction is still such a large part of what I do. Assassination involves an intimacy that simple killing would never require.
This Janette Harding was watching me, and not simply because she happened to be attracted to me. Her glances down at papers in her lap, followed by her eyes flicking back up to me. Whether she was following me, or it was just a chance moment, I would have to find out. I’m sure that it would be simple enough to merely ransack her room. I could even do it in such a way that she would never know that I had been there. This would not tell me what the woman knew, however. It would only tell me what she was willing to leave in her room. For this, I would have to get closer. I would never touch another man, that much is true. But seducing a woman? There is a part of me that says Riddick would find that….amusing.
It’s with Riddick in mind that I undress, to prepare. For me, it’s hard not to think of seduction and Riddick in the same breath. To simply look at his rather lengthy record, you would never guess that the man was such a sensualist. Then again, from our first encounter, with me as an assassin hired to kill him, I have never really expected to find much of Riddick, the man, in those records.
He had asked me once, quite some time ago, if I would let him buy clothes for me, if I would wear them. Any woman would understand the flicker of horror that went through me at that moment. Imagining some painfully whorish scrap of cloth, which would have to be dragged out and worn, until it could be quietly ruined in some way. His grin, just an imperceptible raising of a lip over one canine, let me know that my fears had not gone unnoticed. Riddick, being who he is, said nothing.
I have to admit that at first I was deeply surprised by his choices. Although I shouldn’t have been, if, instead of that moment of female panic, I had thought about the man himself. Colours, of course, will always be an issue, but I have always loved to wear black, and black is a colour he sees well. It was the cut of the clothes, and the fabrics he chose, that surprised me. Feminine, not frilly, but very ….female. Clean, classic lines. Covered a lot more of me than I’m used to, which may have just been a desire on his part to not have others see so much of me, except that the cuts he chose showed every curve, just covered it. Silk, linen, velvet. Lace, but only if it was soft.
He never once had to ask my size, just chose, and knew. I’m sure it wouldn’t have been all that difficult for him to check sizes, but he didn’t need to. His choices, on the surface, were surprising. As with so many things with Riddick, you had to look deeper.
There isn’t an inch of my body that he hasn’t explored. There are times when he would close his eyes, and just run his hands over me. So lightly. So gently. His hands, hands that had seen so much killing, so much violence, would move over me like water. Stopping occasionally, as though something in my skin in that one spot spoke to him, through his hands. When he explored me with his mouth, his lips, his tongue, I couldn’t think straight. It was like he was creating an image of me in his mind, a map back to beauty, to softness, in case it ever got too dark for even him to see.
His hand running over me when I wore silk or velvet, that deep almost purring sound of him. A low growl, that’s felt rather than heard. Absolute contentment in that sound. For him to feel something he’s so unused to feeling, that softness, and that no one would understand his desire to feel that way, making this something else shared just between us. I haven’t bought a thing for myself since that day.
It does make finding something beautiful to wear, something suitable for seduction, considerably easier. Black silk wrap skirt and blouse. As simple as possible. In the bottom of the briefcase, a standard prop for an assassin trained in the killing of the elite, I place the beautiful knife from the box of chocolates.