My throated bobbed and I climbed up onto the chair behind me with a little trouble, wrapping the blindfold around his head and knotting it tight. Then I held my middle finger up to his face. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Yer swearing at me, I know that much, but I can’t see ya, I just know you too well.”
I laughed. “Alright. I trust you.”
“You shouldn’t trust anyone, Spider,” Niall said seriously. “Especially not an O’Brien. And especially not the one who has a reputation for being psychotic.”
“Well you’re the only O’Brien I’ve ever met and you’re my favourite. I can’t help who I trust, it just sort of happened. But now it has, I can’t take it back, so don’t break that trust, kay?”
“Spider,” he sighed and I let my eyes drift down to the ink on his neck then further still to his pecs and the tightness of his abs. Fuck a duck in a bucket, he really was a sight for small eyes. And with him blindfolded, I could let myself feast on this sight until the crows came home.
“Hand me the knife then,” Niall encouraged and I dropped down off of the couch, picking it up and slipping it between his fingers, my hand remaining on his for several seconds longer than it should have. But sometimes I craved his touchies so bad, it was hard to stop myself from stealing them.
He released a slow breath and I could tell he was excited by this game, his broad chest beginning to heave and I realised my fingertips were tiptoeing up his arm, off on adventure of their own like Frodo and Sam towards the pits of Mordor. I reached out with my other hand, snatching them back and crushing those naughty fingers in my palm, trying to stop them kicking, but they kept twitching for more contact with Niall and the glorious artwork of his skin.
“Three,” Niall warned. “Two…”
I darted away, as quiet as a mouse in a hammock as I crept up onto the coffee table and fell entirely still.
“One.” Niall lunged at me like there wasn’t a thing wrong with his sight, slashing a flour bag open at my hip while I squealed and dove onto the nearest chair. Niall was still coming and I gasped, climbing over the back of it, but he caught my ankle and a quick succession of stabs sent flour pouring all down my back. I kicked out with my free leg, knocking him away as he grunted and I scrambled over the back of the chair, moving as silently as possible towards the front door.
Niall didn’t slow, running at me like he was a bat hunting with echolocation, and I ducked down low only to serve myself a knee to the head as his strike hit the door.
“Ha,” he barked a laugh as I scurried between his legs, but he caught me by one of the belts and three more stabs sent flour exploding over me.
I undid the buckle as he tried to keep me in place and the belt came free of my body, giving me a chance to crawl through his legs and make a break for it. I dove behind the couch and crawled around the other side of it, pressing myself in close and tucking my head low as I made myself as small as possible.
There were only a few bags of flour left intact on my body and I realised how hot Niall’s killer instincts were getting me as I bit my lip and refused to move a single muscle.
Niall was quiet too and I listened for his movements as hard as I could, but the room sounded empty now. But surely he wouldn’t have left mid-game? A minute ticked past, then another and impatience got the better of me as I peered up over the arm of the sofa in search of him.
But my foot slipped out at the same time, making a slight scuffing noise and Niall came at me like a warthog with an arrow in its ass. I shrieked and leapt up, but he was already on me, knocking me down onto the couch, his hand grasping the flour bag over my heart and sticking it with his knife. He twisted it too before yanking it out and a spray of white powder rained over my face, giving me a moment to imagine what it would be like to die for him as I pictured the flour as red, red blood.
A moan left me as his hands roamed my body, seeking out the final flour bags and stabbing them as he panted with the thrill of a kill he hadn’t really claimed, but he knew he could have in so many terribly cruel and wonderful ways if he’d wanted to.
I pushed the blindfold up onto his head so he could see the destruction he’d delivered, and his pupils dilated as he took in the powder coating every inch of me.
“I’m dead,” I whispered in reverence of this murderous deity. “All dead because of you.”
He jerked back at those words, his brow pinching and terror crossing his eyes. “No,” he grunted, pushing to his feet and carving a hand over his hair, sending more powder flurrying down around him like a mini snowstorm. “Fuck no…Ava.”
He turned his back on me and the name of his dead wife made my stomach knot and pain fill me.
“I like when you play killer with me,” I said quickly. “I’m not fragile. I know you won’t break me.”
He didn’t turn back around so I jumped up and hurried in front of him, gazing up at him with all the honesty I had to offer blazing in my eyes. “If you wanted me dead, I’d be dead and buried and chopped into pieces by now. But you don’t, and your hand won’t slip with me, you’re the best at what you do, and I need you to keep teaching me. I need you to treat me roughly, to bend me to my limits. Don’t look at me like I’ll shatter, because I already did, Hellfire, it’s too late for that.”
His brow pinched and he wouldn’t meet my eye so I punched him in the gut, making him splutter a cough and his hand shot out to fist in my shirt, dragging me close enough to devour all of my air and then some.
“You know what they say about people who play with fire, little psycho. Eventually they get burned. This ain’t a game. It’s the life I lead. I live and breathe death. I’m a reaper and I harvest souls. Killing is far too easy a thing for me, and there will always be a chance I’ll accidentally pierce your flesh and steal away the beats of your heart, d’ya understand that? I don’t intend it. In fact, I wanna swear I’ll never fuckin’ hurt ya, but what if I do? What then?”
“You won’t,” I said, knowing it down to my roots and beyond.
“But what if I do?” he pushed and I shook my head at him, cupping his cheek.
“You. Will. Not. Hurt. Me. Niall. O’Brien,” I said, not blinking a single blink as I told him straight what I believed.
“And what if the world hurts ya and I’m not there to stop it?” he asked beneath his breath. “Or I’m not big enough of a monster to save ya from yer enemies?”
I frowned, trying to think of an enemy that this ferocious creature couldn’t take on. I heard koalas could be pretty aggressive. Maybe a pack of those could take him down, especially if they were friends with a few muscly kangaroos. We’d better stay away from Australia.
“Train me up good and I’ll be strong enough to take on anything,” I suggested. “I mean, I guess there are some things I’d struggle with alone. Like if there were twelve men with baseball bats and a couple of tommy guns. Or if there was a T-rex with a taste for human blood, I don’t know if I could take him on, Niall. I’d probably try and shove a bomb up his butt, but where would I get the bomb? Do you have a bomb? Do T-rex’s even have buttholes?”