Essence of Time (16 page)

Suddenly at that moment all she really wanted was to be left alone. She gulped, picturing his soft green eyes, his earnest words and amazing lips and body.
Unfair
! Her brain screamed.
Don’t do this to him. Because you know where it’s going. You are not worthy and you know it. Mitchell is never going to divorce you. This is your life now. Take it or leave it, or do something else about it. Do not subject that lovely young man to this shit a minute longer.

The taxi drove up breaking her train of thought, and Suzanne took a deep breath and sank back into the seat cushions, her ears humming with fear. He spoke to the taxi driver then cursed as he tried to manipulate his crutches up the long walk. She jumped when he barked out her name, but stayed silent as he clanked his way up the steps. “God damn it, Suzanne, where the fuck are you? Come give me a hand.” She rose, nearly deafened from her own terror, and took three steps toward the stairs, reaching it just as he got to the top one.

The look in his eyes meant one thing. There was no simple “divorce” on her immediate horizon. Mitchell’s eyes blazed with a sick fury she had seen a couple of times, the last one right before he administered the beating, rape and mutilation of her face and body. The echo of her screams filled the space between her ears. The sharp, coppery smell of her own blood, and sensation of excruciating agony shot through her as if they were still happening. The humiliation of emerging from a pain-filled fog to find her husband pounding into her, raping her like a psychopath, cursing wildly, calling her names. Then the broken glass from the shower door… She whimpered as the memories flooded her senses.  The final vision of him lifting the bloodied shard he’d used to cut her vagina, puncture her cervix, raising it toward her face, flashed in her vision like a bad horror movie.

 She watched, detached from the scene somehow. Her hand rose, as if to ward off a blow. The one he could not initiate encumbered as he was with crutches and lower leg cast. Silently, she put her hand against his chest, felt his heart beat for a split second, and shoved hard. Horrified at the spectacle of him falling backwards in cartoonish slow motion, arms pinwheeling, his one good leg scrabbling for purchase. The sound the back of his skull made connecting with the granite banister would haunt her for the rest of her life.

She stared with morbid fascination, frozen in place, as blood pooled beneath the man she had married. The one she had loved, and who had systematically destroyed everything she knew about love with his fists, his cock and his need to punish her for his failings. She screamed when Blake shoved her aside and leapt down the steps. “No! Don’t touch him.” He stopped halfway down and turned to her, a combination of dismay and relief in his eyes. He managed to run back up and catch her before she crumpled to the porch.

Chapter Five

One Month Later

Blake stood in the bedroom doorway, coffee mug in hand, smells of breakfast suffusing the house. He loved this moment of the day, just before Suzanne woke, and he got to watch her sleep.  It had been a rough night. They all were. He ran a hand across his jaw. Her asshole of a husband was dead on arrival, and the police had taken one look at Suzanne’s still obvious bruises, and ruled it an accident. She swore Jack probably had something to do with it too. But Blake didn’t care, as long as the bastard was good and gone.

He’d had a will in place, leaving everything to her, so no probate had been required. Blake had moved into her house and her life almost immediately. They had spent a solid week in bed, or on the couch, or on the kitchen counter. She’d been tender still, but the word “voracious” came to mind when he thought back to those early days. He watched her flip over, and smiled at the sight of those pert, pink nipples when the sheet slid down to her waist. 

Sara had berated him up one side and down the other, of course. Told him he should slow down, not move in right away, give her some space. But as far as he was concerned, he’d wasted nearly his entire life waiting for her. He had no intention of staying away any longer. Besides, Suzanne wanted it too. He sipped his coffee and ran a hand over his hardening cock as he watched her turn once more, exposing her small, heart-shaped ass to his gaze. Although, if he were honest, the more time went on the worse her nightmares got.

She was starting some kind of therapy that week, which he hoped would help. Because every time she woke screaming, he had to hold her for hours to calm her down. It was exhausting. Not that he minded, but he'd hoped the terror would have faded at least some by now. To be the man who comforted, the one there for her when she woke, sweat soaked and sobbing, felt like his calling. He couldn’t imagine anything better than taking care of her.

 He set the cup on the side table and slid into the bed, unable to resist any longer. Curving his body around hers, he cupped a breast, kissed her shoulder and sighed as she arched back into him. He stroked her nipples until they were lovely hard peaks and she squirmed and whimpered against him.  He ran a hand down her waist, hip, then around to find her clit hard and pulsing. Teasing it he kept kissing her neck and shoulders. As she opened her legs, he reached further, found her moist center, still slick from their activity the night before. 

She arched back further. He groaned and slipped his shorts down, loving the feel of her warm ass against his cock.  “Mmmm…” She muttered, reaching back to grip his hair, lean her head against his shoulder giving him more access to her luscious neck.  “Lovely.” She sighed, put her hand over his that was fingering her clit. “Gonna make me come.”

He grinned into her skin. “That’s the general idea, isn’t it?” He took her hand, pressed it against her sex. “May I join you?”

“You’d better hurry,” she whispered, her hand moving fast against herself.

“Arch back more my love,” he whispered. Ass play was not something he was ready to do with her. He associated that with men. Something he kept separate. While equally erotic, it was nothing like this. Every time he made love with Suzanne he felt something of his soul leave him and fly into her. While alarming, the look in her eyes after told him all was well. That this was meant to be. “Ah yes,” he groaned as she lifted her top leg, draped it back over his and he slid inside the tight glove of her body. He gripped her hip, thrust out and in as she stroked herself, gripping him so hard he came with her, their cries of passion mixing and filling the air around them.

He kissed her shoulders again and again, loving the sight of her pebbling skin as he pulled out and held her close.  “I love you,” he whispered. She stiffened in his arms. But he wouldn’t let go, and finally she relaxed. She wouldn’t say it, not yet. But he was sure she felt it too.

Suzanne insisted on getting back to work a week after the accident. Claimed it settled her nerves, gave her something to think about other than what she’d done. Their workdays were long and complex, their paths not crossing much. She spent a lot of time on the road around Michigan, selling with their distributors, or training new sales people to add to her staff. When he did catch sight of her, usually as she studied the production board or with her laptop open on the Tap Room bar, he would catch her eye, smile, and she’d blow a kiss. And all was right in his universe.

**** 

 A few weeks later, he was rushing through his day, trying to play catch up as usual with the new sales push for his apparent success with a dark lager and a funky hybrid California common style. He had handed off a lot of daily brew house responsibility to Cal, his second brewer so he could focus on longer range planning. But he hated it. After staring at the computer screen, the endless grids of spreadsheets and order futuring Suzanne had demanded, he gave his hair one last tug and gave up. He stretched his arms up over his head, and gazed out over the late evening brewery activity. The contentment that settled over his nerves when he saw her, at the far end of the room seemingly chewing a bartender a new one over something, made him smile to himself.

Her small form, encased in thin black skirt and silky cream shirt, hair yanked up in a messy bun pencil stuck behind one ear caused all sorts of erotic humming in his brain. He shifted in his seat, glanced around to make sure no one remained in the back area where his worktable sat alongside stacks of packaging materials. “Hey,” he called out. She turned instantly, as if in tune to him, then held up a hand. “Suzanne, can you come here a second?” She frowned at the unlucky bartender another second then stomped back through fermenters. He stood, took her elbow and pulled her back into the shadows.

Dear god, he could not get enough of her
. Part of him was already sending warning signals, reminding him he was going way too fast after what she’d been through. But she hadn’t complained yet. If anything she seemed to want him more every day. “Blake, cut it out,” she protested, without much fervor before wrapping her arms around him and molding her body against his.

“I have something I need to show you,” he whispered, nibbling at her ear then covering her lips to cut off any other protests. When one of her hands found the mound under his zipper, he grinned into her mouth. “Oh, look, you found it.”

“Uh huh. Question is,” she gasped as he yanked her skirt up and found her bare underneath, already lovely and moist for his fingers. “What ever shall I do with it?” She leaned back, batted her long eyelashes, the pulled him a little further into the shadows, turning him so his back was against the wall before unzipping him and dropping to her knees in nearly one smooth motion. “This, I think.” She lapped at his stiffness, flicked her tongue around his head, dipped into the slit, swallowing the fluid already collected there, keeping a firm grip with one fist, letting the other palm slide down to cradle his balls. “Lean back, lover. I’ve got this.” He groaned, spread his legs and threaded his fingers in her hair, fucking her lovely mouth until he came with a grunt, the force and surprise of the climax blinding him as she sucked down everything he gave and released his cock with a tiny bit of suction, making him shiver.

She slid up his body, curving into him once more, capturing his lips and giving him a taste of himself. He sat her on a stack of crates, smiling as her clit pulsed under his touch, kissing down her neck. He shoved aside the flimsy shirt and bra so he could capture her small, rock hard nipple in his mouth.

She wrapped one leg around his waist, tilted her hips so his fingers slid inside her warm, familiar depths. He sucked hard at her nipple, felt his body tingle and respond, his cock actually staying stiff and needy against her hip. “Ah, yes,” she sighed, parroting him, fisting her hands in his hair moving her hips, fucking his fingers. He groaned against her flesh, lapped the sweat that beaded up between her breasts, along the superb perfection of her neck until he reached her lips. She gripped his face, pulled him close, her breathing short and body starting to spasm around him.

“Come, Suzanne.” He demanded,   “Give it to me.” She sighed and leaned back and did just that, the sounds of her breathy moans making him want to come again, hardly possible since he’d just done that, more than he thought possible, down her throat. He covered her lips with his, swept into her mouth as she clutched at him, still in the throes of her release.

He released her, tugged her skirt down and put her back on the floor. She leaned into him a minute. “You are such a bad influence.” She muttered against his chest. He held her close a minute. “But I love it. Your youthful enthusiasm is … “

“I know, perfect.  I love you. And I say it all the time.” He meant it too. The strange intensity of his feelings about her kept him off balance a lot of the time, which was simultaneously weird and invigorating. He lived to see her, touch her, hold her, feed her food he made, fuck her silly.

Just last night Sara had given him a tongue-lashing for being so “obsessed” as she called it. He’d stopped into his condo to pick up some clothes since he had more or less moved into Suzanne’s giant house, when he answered Sara’s phone call.  He’d not talked to his sister much at all since the “accident” with Mitchell. It was one of the things that felt wrong to him amidst all of the rightness. They were close and hardly went a few days without talking or sharing a meal. He knew Suzanne was avoiding her friends too. Jack came into the Tap Room every now and then, would share a beer with her and Evan. But Blake knew she was holding back. He could tell it about her already. Evan had pulled him aside a few days ago too, asking not too subtle questions about what was going on between them. Making it clear that he did not approve of the way the two of them were isolating themselves.

None of it bothered Blake in the slightest. Not even Sara’s insinuation that Suzanne was using him to get over Mitchell. “No, we were together before… all that went down.” He’d insisted, stuffing clothes and shit into a duffle bag, phone on his shoulder, his mind already on what he was going to fix them for dinner and the movie he’d rented to watch after. “I love her Sara. Stop nagging me about it. Jesus.”

“Well, you guys need to stop hibernating. Get out in public a little, maybe. Don’t be so … I don’t know … sequestered? Detached from the world?”

“Okay, thanks Dr. Freud.”

“Fuck you. I’m just worried about you is all. Don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I don’t plan on getting hurt. I’m in love for the first time in my life. It’s weird as hell, but I recommend it pretty highly.”

“Whatever.”

“You are working too hard. This real estate bullshit is not good for you.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.” He could practically see her pouting through the phone lines.

“Look, I know I’ve been a little absent lately. But I’m just, I don’t know,” he’d stopped, and sat on his couch. Reality suddenly hit him between the eyes. It was a little odd, how he and Suzanne came to be. But he knew in his heart it had to be this way. They were meant to be together. Period. Despite the recent small voice that started to pester him about the very things Sara mentioned. “We’ll be better about it.  She’s been through so much. I’m letting her set the pace. Maybe we can go out, you know a foursome eventually. You got a man these days?”