A Woman Gone Mad (31 page)

“Lil, you keep hiding from me, baby, and I’ll keep finding you. You think you were the only person in that church who knew your daddy was dragging you down that aisle? And the other renter that waited outside in the driveway while you chose the house you were gonna to bring your daughter home to? I’ve always been there, baby, and I always will be. No matter what”

My mind is having a hard time grasping what he’s telling me. I want to ask him to say it again, but I know I can’t. I know it isn’t necessary. I heard it. As clear as I hear my heartbeat thrumming through my ears.

“I’mma call you tomorrow, ’kay, baby?” His mouth brushes mine and then he’s gone. Once again, he leaves and I’m left to fall apart. I sink to the floor and sob until I am no longer conscious.

W
hen Leo isn’t at my house on the weekends, I’m at his. He really does live only three minutes away. And I find myself truly happy for the first time in I don’t know how long. My relationship with Leo maintained platonic for all of that first night he came over and ate chicken cordon bleu. The next night, our dinner and movie date on the couch turned into an all night sex marathon, and it was so fucking phenomenal that we really haven’t stopped to come up for air since.

The things that this man does to me, to my body, are so damn crazy that it scares me. We are unlike anything I’ve ever felt in my life, even more chaotic and hungry, more tender and loving than when we were two teenagers high on youth and love.

I did try to tell myself in the beginning that my years of solitude are why I am so crazy mad over him, but I know now that it was all just him. He has always and will always light me up unlike any other man. I know it—we—were written in the stars.

As teenagers, our borderline obsession with each other walked the edge of sanity, but now, as adults, we fly right past obsession and laugh in the faces of those who called us insane.

We knew what we were, we knew what we wanted, and while family and friends scoffed and said we’d never work out, we didn’t care. We just laughed with our middle fingers in the air, all the way up the steps to the court house and through the doors of the Justice of Peace. Thirty minutes later, I am Mrs. Lillian Phillips, and an hour and a half after that, we will be on a plane to Bali for four weeks.

It is so spur of the moment that bills are left unpaid and the entire trip is put on credit cards. We have no bags to check and no carry-ons. We have each other, we have our love, and that is all either of us needs.

We are almost past the exit to the airport when Leo cuts across four lanes of traffic and takes the exit ramp.

“What the hell are you doing?” My heart is pounding in my chest.

Not only did he just almost kill me by nearly sideswiping a minivan, but he’d also bounded into my house that morning, jumping on the bed to wake me up with a full dress bag and a white gold wedding band, screaming, “Get the up hell up, baby. Today’s the day! I ain’t waitin’ no more! I don’t give a damn what you say!” Let’s just say, my heart at any moment may either burst from my love for this man or the adrenaline he keeps shooting through my veins.

“We gotta go back, Lil. And after we look at how bad I fucked up with you the first time, we are getting on the next damn plane that’s destination is an island, baby!” I’ve never seen Leo this excited—
ever
. And it makes me fucking giddy as hell.

“We are not! You’ve lost your damn mind!” As we pull up in the old airport motel’s abandoned parking lot, a surge of different emotions almost takes my breath away, and I feel my eyes pool with tears, remembering not only that night but the years that followed when I was without him.

“I’m gonna fix it, baby, starting today and every day for the rest of our lives. I’m going to fix it.” His strong arms have me pulled into his lap while tears—happy tears for what we now have and sad tears for all the years we lost—soak into his crisp white dress shirt.

He keeps me cradled in his lap as he pulls the truck into traffic and drives into the airport parking area and parks. After a minute or an hour—I don’t know how long it takes for me to reel my emotions back in—Leo pulls back and I look into his sapphire blue eyes. “Ready, baby?” I nod and smile up at him as he kisses my forehead. “That’s my girl. Come on, baby.”

I don’t question him; I just follow him. Within three hours, we’re touching down in Atlanta to board our connecting flight to Bali. Ask me if I say anything about the fact that we had nothing but the clothes on our backs, our passports, and each other…

Hell no I don’t, because I don’t care. I have Leo, and as long as I have him I will never, ever need anything else in this world.

They teach you in school that you only need three things to sustain life—food, water, and shelter. They lied to me. Turns out I needed a fourth thing—Leo.

After Leo throws large sums of money at several people, we are in the back seat of a black Lincoln and speeding down dark, narrow roads. To keep myself from freaking the hell out, I curl onto Leo’s lap and squeeze my eyes closed as he runs his fingers through my hair, humming ‘Black Balloon’ by Goo Goo Dolls softly to me.

He always hums this song to me. I never ask why though. Because I can practically taste the sadness in his hum every time I hear it. I don’t know if it’s his regrets that are colored so much like mine over what we could have had so long ago or something else that I don’t want to know. I’d rather not bring it up, so I never ask about the song or its meaning.

We pull up to one of the most breathtaking resorts. Well, the only resort I’ve ever seen. But I know if I’d seen one before this one would kick its ass.

I haven’t even tuned on the lights of suite, much less seen it, before Leo has me shoved up and caged against the door.

And ah… Before we get into this, I should give you a heads-up. Mr. Leo, it seems, discovered in our time apart that he likes shit rough, and by rough, I mean… Well, you’ll see.

I start unbuttoning his shirt and get hung up somewhere between button three or four and just tug, his buttons tinging and scattering across the floor as I let my mouth run across any and every available patch of skin I have access to. Then I feel the bite of his teeth sink hard into the flesh where my shoulder and neck meet. His nails roughly graze my skin, and the entire front of my dress is shredded in tatters and around our feet a split second later. Excitement lights me up like a Christmas tree as my head involuntarily rolls back and thunks against the door. A moan spills out of me when Leo’s muscular thigh rubs so hard against my already soaked core that it borders on pain.

“God damn it, baby. Do you know how much fuckin’ control it takes for me to keep my hands off you at 30,000 feet in the air, huh? With your sexy little ass, those sexy little legs, and that hot fucking pussy between them right next to me? I almost hauled your ass into that mile high club a hundred damn times. I almost grabbed that fucking blanket from the flight attendant and draped it over my lap with your head underneath it.”

His growls and ragged breathing make me whimpering mess.

“You fucking wanted it too, didn’t you?” His teeth sink into my earlobe as his warm hands grab my heavy, tender breasts so hard that I gasp in pain. I rake my nails through his silky hair and pull with as much strength as I have, trying to crawl inside of him. A second later, my spine is crushing against the door and Leo has my legs draped across his strong shoulders. Then I feel his teeth biting my clit and his tongue laving the sting away before sliding inside me so deep that the first pulls of ecstasy have my hips bucking against his face. Suddenly, my bare ass is six feet off the ground and Leo is standing at his full stature, holding me still against the wall, fucking me with his tongue like a man starving.

BAM! The world tilts off its axis, and all I can do is wrap my legs around Leo’s neck, ride this bitch out, and hope the ride lasts forever.

Before I can comprehend that we aren’t against the door anymore, I feel a table bite into the flesh over my hipbones and Leo’s hand shoves my face down onto the table right before he slams into me so deep I scream in pain. Soon I’m moaning in pleasure as he drags me to the edge of the stars again. Then he has my body yanked up from behind and I’m on my knees, his hands around my neck. He continues to thrust into me at a madman’s pace.

“Tell me you fucking like it. Tell me!” His voice echoes off the walls and his hands around my neck tighten, cutting off the air to my lungs and my ability to speak.

When my vision begins to tunnel, his hands shoot around and grab my breasts, tugging and pinching at my nipples. I let my body fall forward, but he keeps me up, using his hold on my breasts as leverage to continue to stab deep into me over and over, faster with each plunge. “Tell. Me. You. Fucking. Like. IT!” he screams, angry.

The orgasm thunders through me so fast and with so much strength, but I know I have to try to answer his demand before it sucks me down and I become an incoherent, mumbling bag of seizing bones. I faintly recall hearing a whine mutter,
“I fucking love it!”
before everything goes dark.

I come to, lying on a bed, wrapped in a sheet and Leo. The sated happiness I feel shatters from Lilith’s snickering. “
Did you
really
just pass out from an orgasm? Jesus H. Christ, this is going to be so much easier than I ever thought possible.”

Go fuck off, bitch, and don’t come back. Better yet, tell Lilly I miss her. I’m so tired of your condescending attitude. Just leave. Go screw someone else’s life up.

“Nu, uh, uh…” she singsongs. “I’m not going anywhere, darling.”

When I feel Leo’s tears soaking my shoulders and neck, I immediately grab his face in my hands, staring down into his pools of dark blue, searching his face and expression for clues. “Baby, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“I fucking love you so much.” His arms wrap around my waist so tight that the air in my lungs whooshes out as his entire massive frame shudders against mine, racking in silent tears before a dry, whispered sob escapes his chest. “I fucking love you so God damn much, Lil. Please don’t let me fuck this up again, baby. Please.”

“Baby, hey…” Running my fingers through his silky long bangs, then over his eyebrows, down his straight, perfect nose, over his thick, long eyelashes, and to his soft bow lips, I whisper to him through the dark over and over, “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. We have each other. We’ll never be apart again, baby. Shh…” until Leo’s body stops shaking and his tears slow.

“Did I hurt you? I went too far this—”

I slide my finger over his mouth to stop him from beating himself up. “No, baby. It was perfect. It was passionate. It was hungry. It was you… My lion, my Leo.” I smile up at him, running my hands up his strong forearms and wide shoulders to play with the hair at the nape of his neck. “There is no other way I would want to make love to my husband for the first time, baby, than with that much need and urgency. It was fucking hot as hell and we loved it.” A smile slides on my face as happiness and contentment surge through every corner of my heart and soul. And for the first time in my life, I am truly and completely in love. As we fall asleep, I use the thought that this is my happily ever after and wrap it around myself, happy and in love.

Leo and I have been married for two months. When we return home after our four weeks in Bali, Leo has me totally moved in with him and my lakeside cottage rented out. And I couldn’t have a care or a worry in the world. I am on cloud nine, ladies and gentleman. After all the hell, all the ups and downs, I finally, at last, am at peace.

Until I’m faced with a curveball after we’ve been home almost a month. And I realize my period is two weeks late.

Leo and I never talked about having kids. Not once. And with my less than stellar mommy of the year—the century—award still hanging heavily on my heart, I am not sure how I or Leo would feel about a baby. I am scared to death that I will fuck this up, just like I did the first time.

So there I stand in late summer in the aisle of shame, once again trying to understand why in God’s name they put the condoms right next to the pregnancy tests. This time I only grab two tests and a liter of Dasani before then checking out and chugging the bottle of water on the way home.