Revenge (6 page)

Before the words can come out he’s on top of me. The blanket of his hot, vibrant body reduces my ability to think to nothing. Zero.

I am incapable of anything but sensation.

Ah. Finally. This is exactly where I need to be. Nothing but touch. Taste. Sound. Sight.

Him
.

I run my palms up both sides of his body, startin
g
at his hips and r
ac
ing up his ribs, to his shoulders, then down his back. He’s layered and contoured, ropy and
cut
. Powerful muscles rest, coiled and ready, beneath skin lightly peppered with hair. I could lie beneath him for the rest of my life, ensconced in his heat and energy, and be fulfilled.

Thank goodness I don’t have to settle for
only
that.

Mark’s hands roam like mine. We take our time, being tender with each other. Three years ago I was too shy, too skittish to be fully naked with him. He was too gentlemanly to push me. We’re more vulnerable and truly naked than we’ve ever been with each other before.

Which suits us well.

He’s so
primal, like a hunter. His mouth seeks mine, then dips to my neck, my collar bone, my breasts. Seeking whatever he needs, he’s so gentle. This is new for me, this stretch of skin against skin. I move my leg and his thick erection rubs against my hip. The potential of what’s to come fills me with a wet anticipation.
 

A
n urge I’ve never felt before
takes over
. It’s ripe and ready and bursting. I need him in me. I need my legs wrapped around him, his body over mine, thrusting and joining and—

He slides down my torso, his mouth making a trail of kisses down to my hip.

Then without a word, Mark parts my legs and gives me a very different kind of kiss.

My breath hitches and a million thoughts swirl through my mind, the first of which is full-on embarrassment. Does he...what is he...do I taste okay...do I...?

And then I arch up as his tongue takes me to places inside myself I didn’t know could feel
this
.

“Oh, God,” I murmur, my hands instinctively threading through his hair.

“I’ve wanted to do this for so long, Carrie,” Mark says softly. His hot
exhale
tickles my inner thigh.
The steady stream of sensations tie my synapses into gossamer strands that float on his breath. I am nothing but time itself. I’ve become the seconds of pure want that await his touch.
 

Carrie ceases to exist.

I am jus
t
whatever he finds of me at the end of his fing
e
rtips, his tongue, his mastery. Who I am dissolves into a mist. I wait to be re-imagined and recreated after shattering into a million tiny pieces and letting our love bring me back.

And then he moves, his mouth knowing exactly how to splinter me with a divine ecsta
s
y. My legs widen as his hands slide under my ass. He cups me and lifts, the angle so perfect. I’m frozen. Do I move? Do I say something?

I tighten my grip on his silky hair and he slows his
pace. The feeling is like velvety luxury, like I’m being savored from the inside out. His goal is
my
pleasure. Mark’s touch is pure selflessness. All he does is for me.
 

And I freeze again.

“Carrie?” he says, sitting up, sliding along my torso and coming to me for a kiss. His lips and tongue taste like me, and I smile. He smiles. We’re kissing, mouths slanted against each other, and we’re smiling.

It’s pure bliss.

“You tensed up,” Mark says, pulling back, his forehead touching mine. His hand caresses my breast and everything is perfect.

“I...this is new.”

He nods.

“Yes. Please. Please let me. I want you to feel everything, Carrie. Years ago, all I wanted was to be with you.
I
t’s all I want now. Let me show you how much pleasure I can give you. Let’s just let the world not be here. Let’s just be real with each other. No pretense. No fears. No past.
J
ust the now. Just this. Just
you
,” he says as his hand reaches lower, his other arm embracing me.

His fingers dance and play, sending music through my body like my blood is
the melody
. I move against his hand, my face tipped
into
his shoulder. I fight the urge to bite him. I lick his skin instead as he brings me close, so close to climax. I moan against him, unable to speak now.

“
I’ve wanted to feel you against me like this for so long. I’ve wanted to hear you make that sound and to know I’m the one triggering it in you, Carrie,” Mark says in a low hum. His voice feels like the rumble of an engine. I can barely understand his words, though, because I’ve lost the ability to string thoughts together.
 

A wave swells inside me, making me move against hi
s
hand in a rhythm that se
e
ms ancient and untaught.
I seek what he gives. I crave his touch. I move against him until the swollen, begging need in me reaches a tipping point and I pull away, afraid of this feeling inside. It’s too much, too intense, too bold.
 

“Let go,” he whispers, moving with me, keeping his fingers on the core of my being. His mouth dips down and he slides his tongue around my nipple, the sensation the last drop that overflows my cup.

And I crash, like a wave on ragged cliffs, like a boulder down a rocky mountain, like a waterfall in
the mountains during
spring th
a
w.

“Oh, Mark,” I whisper, my voice raw before the cries emerge, my body chilled and on fire.
Like an atomic reaction, I implode, then explode, every nerve ending filled with a fiery sensation that leaves me boneless, dripping with gratitude and the glowing sensation of discovery.
 

I cling to Mark until it’s over, my orgasm like a natural phenomenon, both glorious to experience and awe-inspiring in its power.

When our eyes meet it’s like seeing a mirror into the very essence of our soul.

O
ur
soul.

The one we just fused together.

I lunge at him, my mouth commanding, my newly-tap
p
ed power matching his. The furious push of skin against skin isn’t a nicety any more.
I
t’s a must. I’ve waited all these years, timid and fearful. I’ll be damned if I’m going to have a taste of power like that and not ask for more.

Mark pins me down, his arms stronger than mine, and soon I’m under him, unable to move, as he reaches into a bedside table and pulls out a condom. I’m on the pill but I don’t say anything, so transfixed by watching his hunter’s body move with a presence that
says he owns me.
 

Condom on, he reaches down, holding my arms.

“I’ll never let you go,” he whispers.

Having him pin me in place feels safe. Nude and hot, slick and sweet against each other, the ownership feels right. He lets go of my arms and centers himself. I widen my legs and will him. Will him to come in.

Will him to come
home
.

He does, entering me with a fullness that makes me cry out his name. The moment is so perfect I could relive it forever, caught in an endless loop of nothing but the pure joy of his body completing mine. Of all the ways I had imagined sex would fe
e
l, I had never, ever fathomed that I could feel a sense of completeness so infinite that it would turn time itself inside out.

Love. Only love c
an
do that.

Sensual strokes, his movements so careful that I want to beg him to move, carr
y
the first minute. He buries his cheek against my neck and bites my earlobe, making me gasp. The twinning of a tiny pinpoint of pain with so much joyful movement just heightens the pleasure.

Who knew? I surely didn’t. And now that I do, I want n
o
thing more.

Ma
rk
’s scent fills me, a mix of sweat and
man and
my own
essence
. We’re creating an infusion that will
consume
my senses for days to come. Years to come. Decades, even.

Yet centuries would never, ever give me enough.

“You okay?” he asks softly, moving my hair from my ear. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

I laugh. “Hurt? This is the opposite of hurt.” I wrap my legs around his waist and angle up, a sudden electric spark making me clench.

He groans. “You feel so good. Oh, so good, Carrie.”

I reach up to kiss him, b
i
ting his lower lip and sucking.
H
e returns the kiss with more, his lips so hard, his tongue so demanding I feel bruised.

I
n a good way.

He pulls back, then thrusts in, the friction making me shudder. Another wave begins, off in the distance, as if my body is the ocean and my climax is on the horizon, just beg
i
nning. Again?
The rolling bliss of bonelessness changes. It shifts, my body clenching and pulsing. My blood plumes and recedes, the buzzing bliss like a gift from the divine.
 

He moves with tight, taut thrusts and a kind of primal push that tells me Mark has abandoned reason, pitching into that privileged state where he’s willing to be vulnerable not only with me, but
to
me. He moves with such power and grace, the heat and fullness of him suddenly changing as he groans, the sound like an expression of love, my hands on his back, pressing him to me as he comes.

We breath
e
in short spurts against each other. We’re sweaty and panting, our bodies spent and happy.

Hearts, too.

He gives me a look that I can’t describe. I see all of him when he looks at me like this. Every part. And he sees me. In his eyes I’m turning, slowly, like a ballerina on a music box. His eyes admire me. He cherishes me.

I’m
his
.

The word “love” hangs in the air between us. It’s like a pendant on a gold chain, suspended between us. I want to say it. I feel it. I breathe it in and out. I touch it in the slick heat of his skin. I
absorb
it in the salty scent of his skin. I taste it on his lips.

But it goes unsaid.

That’s fine.

We have the rest of our lives to say it.

I am exhausted. I crash, the weight of my eyelids so heavy suddenly. Mark feels it, too. We snuggle together, wordless and weightless. Sleep takes us to another place where love is unencumbered by the real world.

Where we just
are
.

Exactly where we’re meant to be.

Everything that happened with Mark feels like a dream as I wake up and stare at a strange ceiling. The bed is cold. Birds chirp unfamiliar songs outside. A
foreign
odor of men’s cologne fills my senses. I shift my legs under the covers and snuggle in to the pillow and then halt.

I’m not in my own trailer.

I sit up suddenly and a blast of cold hits my chest. I am naked. The sheet feels like it’s judging me as I yank it up, covering my nakedness.

I am unclothed, alone, and in Mark’s bed. I close my eyes and take a deep bre
a
th, inhaling his essence. My palm seeks out where I know he was last night. The bed is still warm.

Then I hear the unmistakeable sound of a coffee maker gurgling. Leaning back, I rest my head on the pil
l
ow and look up at the ceiling fan as it makes its slow, lazy circle. Over and over, all it does is spin. It has one job.

I wish my own life were so simple.

My thighs ache and my nipples brush against the soft fabric of well-worn sheets. Mark’s bedroom is neat as a pin but everything is old. Faded. When I knew him, he bought everything used. Second-hand. We haunted yard sales and consignment shops for fun. I once asked him why he liked to buy everything this way and he passed it off with a wave and a grin.

“I don’t like to be tied down to my possessions. If I ever had to leave everything behind, I don’t want to leave anything
important
behind,” he’d said.

Those words had lingered, staying with me the night I snuck out of town three years ago.

Now, though, they take on a completely different to
n
e. I know the truth about Mark. He’s dee
p
undercover and in thick with drug dealers at the university. He’s searching for El Brujo
—not “a brew home,” like I thought.
 

El Brujo is
the biggest drug lord in North America.
The guy’s been featured in all the major newspapers and magazines for years for the size of his drug operation. When the President of the United States talks about the “war on drugs,” he really means the war on El Brujo.
 

Mark
told me what happened to his brother, Chase, and his brother’s girlfriend, Allie. He tol
d
me everything.
El Brujo, their father, and Allie’s stepdad were caught in a competition that almost led to Allie being handed off to El Brujo for a drug debt. Women are traded like property. Given away for their virginity.
 

Treated like something you consume. Like a drug.

Chase had called Mark in desperation and the two saved her from a fate worse than de
ath
.

Being attached to things doesn’t make sense when you live a life like Mark’s.

Being attached to people doesn’t make much sense, either.

A sense of unreality makes me blink, over and over. I wonder for a split second whether
I’m
expendable. I left him three years ago.
I
t was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Would it be as hard for him to disappear on me? What do I mean to him? Last night I gave him everything I have—mind, body and soul.

We claimed a sensual connection between us that we couldn’t continue to fight. Fate makes you act in strange ways. The pu
l
l of fire and heat in Mark’s eyes was too strong to keep at bay.
Knowing so many truths makes me realize how hard it is to hide. It takes all your energy to keep your own truths from leaking out.