Chapter 3: The Interrogation of a Soldier
The smell of burned chicory root filled the single room. Jennie placed the chipped cup on the crate that served as a table, steam curling between them like a ghost. Leonid sat rigid on the edge of her sofa, its stuffing bleeding from a corner seam. He looked enormous in the small space, his uniform a dark stain against the faded floral upholstery.
“It is not real coffee,” she said, sitting beside him, closer than necessary.
“It is warm,” he said, and took a sip. He didn’t flinch at the bitterness. “Thank you.”
A week of furtive walks, of murmured conversations in the shadow of ruins, had led here. To her domain. She controlled the light, the heat, the proximity. She wore a simple, worn dress, but had left the top button undone. A calculated vulnerability.
“You are quiet tonight,” she observed, letting her knee brush his.
“The patrol… it was long. We had drills. At the rail yard south of the city.” He rubbed a hand over his face, the exhaustion evident.
The rail yard. Her interest, professional and cold, clicked into place. “That sounds dreadful. All noise and shouting.”
“Mostly waiting. Checking papers for a shipment. They bring in civilians for the labor. It is…” He searched for the word. “Heavy work. The officers, they stand and watch. Drink schnapps.”
She made a sympathetic sound, moving her hand to rest on his thigh. The wool of his trousers was coarse under her palm. She felt the powerful muscle beneath tense, then slowly relax. “Which officers? That awful fat one you mentioned?”
A faint smile. “Hoffmann. He was there. Red-faced from the schnapps. He shouted at a man for dropping a crate. Said the shipment was too important for clumsy hands.” Leonid took another swallow of the ersatz coffee, his guard dissolving under her touch and the simple relief of complaint. “Munitions from the Krupp works. Coming in Thursday night. He said the track must be cleared, no delays. Like any of us can stop the bombs from falling.”
Thursday night. Krupp munitions. The information slotted into her mind with icy precision. She kept her breathing even, her fingers tracing a light circle on his leg. “It must be frustrating. To guard things that only bring more destruction.”
His dark eyes met hers, a flash of surprising intensity. “You understand that?”
“I see the results come back to the factory,” she said carefully. “Men missing limbs. The uniforms we sew… they come back stained, or they don’t come back at all.” She let her gaze drop, a performance of sadness. “Sometimes I wonder what it is all for.”
It was the wrong thing to say. A bridge too far. His face clouded, the soldier’s instinct surfacing through the haze of weariness and attraction. He looked down at her hand on his thigh, then around the sparse, quiet room. A room belonging to a simple seamstress who spoke of the war’s futility.
“Jennie,” he said, his voice low. “These things… the shipment… I should not speak of them.” The fear was back, the animal fear of the regime he served. “It is dangerous.”
The moment hung, delicate as a mine trigger. She saw the doubt in his eyes, the first fissure in his blissful blindness. She couldn’t let it widen.
She shifted, turning her body fully towards him. She lifted her hand from his thigh to his cheek, her touch cool. “Look at me,” she whispered.
He did. The sorrow in his eyes was bottomless.
“Here, with me, there is no danger,” she lied, her voice a soft murmur. “Here, there is only this.”
She leaned in and kissed him.
It was not gentle. It was a claiming. A silencing. Her lips parted his, and he made a choked sound in his throat, a mix of surprise and surrender. His hands came up, clumsy, one still holding the cup, the other hovering before settling on her waist as if she might break.
She took the cup from his trembling hand and placed it on the floor. Then she guided his hand back to her body, this time to the curve of her hip, pressing his palm hard against her. She poured everything into the kiss—feigned passion, genuine desperation, the calculated need to consume his doubt. She tasted the bitter chicory on his tongue.
When she pulled back an inch, his breath came in ragged bursts. “Jennie…”
“Shhh.” She kissed him again, biting his lower lip gently. Her hands went to the buttons of his uniform tunic. “You talk too much.”
He was lost. The fear, the war, the shipment—all drowned in a wave of sensation he had been denied for years, perhaps forever. His kisses became hungry, inelegant. He fumbled with the buttons of her dress, his large hands surprisingly clumsy.
“Let me,” she breathed, and undid them herself, letting the dress fall open. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath. The air, cold and damp, puckered her skin. His gaze raked over her—the small breasts, the dark nipples, the smooth plane of her stomach leading down. A low groan escaped him, a sound of pure, ragged want.
He bent his head, his mouth hot and urgent on her neck, her collarbone, taking a nipple into his mouth. She arched against him, a moan torn from her throat that was not entirely an act. The scratch of his wool uniform against her bare skin was a brutal reminder of who he was, but the heat of his mouth, the reverence in his touch, spoke of someone else entirely.
“I need to feel you,” he gasped against her skin, his grammar fracturing. “All of you. Please.”
She stood, letting the dress pool at her feet. She stood naked before him, in the faint, flickering light. A goddess of deception. He stared, his mouth slightly open, his eyes wide with awe. Then he rose, a tower of dark cloth and pale skin, and ripped at his own clothes. Buckles clattered, fabric tore. He shed the uniform like a hated skin, until he was as bare as she.
His body was a masterpiece of violence, all carved muscle and tense sinew, scars mapping old pain across his ribs and shoulder. He was fully erect, thick and flushed. The sight sent a genuine, unwanted bolt of lust through her core.
He didn’t give her time to think. He pulled her against him, skin to skin, and the shock of heat was electric. His hands were everywhere, gripping her ass, sliding up her back, tangling in her hair. He kissed her with a bruising intensity, walking her backwards until her knees hit the edge of the sofa.
“Down,” he murmured, and she lay back on the worn fabric. He followed, covering her body with his, his weight pinning her in reality. The smell of him—sweat, metal, and the faint, clean scent of his skin—filled her senses.
He positioned himself between her thighs, his cock pressing insistently against her entrance. He was shaking. “I have not… for a long time,” he confessed, his voice thick with shame and need.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, and wrapped her legs around his hips. She was wet, her body betraying her mind, preparing for the invasion. “Just fuck me, Leonid. Don’t think.”
The crude word from her lips shattered his last restraint. He pushed inside her in one rough, deep stroke.
She cried out, her nails digging into the hard muscles of his back. He filled her utterly, a stretching, burning ache that quickly melted into a fierce, building pleasure. He began to move, his hips driving into her with a soldier’s rhythm, relentless and powerful.
“You feel… Gott, you feel so good,” he choked out, his face buried in her neck. “So tight. So fucking perfect.”
Each thrust drove the breath from her lungs. The crate table rattled with their motion. Her moans were not fabricated now; they were punched out of her with each impact. She could feel the sweat-slick slide of their bodies, the slap of skin, the raw, primal noise of their coupling. It was obscene. It was glorious. It was a weapon.
She met his thrusts, rising to meet him, hooking her heels harder to pull him deeper. “Yes,” she hissed. “Just like that. Give it to me.”
His control snapped. His pace became frantic, pistoning into her with a desperate, pounding need. The language dissolved into German, guttural, filthy words she didn’t need to understand. He was claiming her, worshipping her, destroying himself inside her.
Jennie’s own climax surprised her, washing over her in a brutal, convulsing wave that had nothing to do with strategy. She clenched around him, a sob tearing from her throat. Her vision whited out.
It triggered his end. With a strangled shout that was almost a scream, he drove deep and held, shuddering as he emptied himself into her, pulse after hot pulse. He collapsed on top of her, his weight crushing, his breath sobbing in her ear.
They lay tangled in the silent, damp room. The only sound was their ragged breathing and the distant, ever-present rumble of war.
Slowly, the world reconstituted itself. The chill air touched the sweat on their bodies. Leonid’s hand came up, trembling, to stroke her hair. “Jennie,” he whispered, his voice raw with emotion. “My Jennie.”
She stared at the water-stained ceiling, his seed leaking from between her thighs. The intel was secure. The mission advanced.
His gentle kiss on her shoulder felt like a brand.
He was hers. Completely. And the victory tasted of ashes and salt.