Chapter 4
4
Karma
Everything happened so fast. From the way Grim broke it off with me after fifteen years of a love so intense I was sure even death couldn’t end it, to deciding to spend the night at this out of the way place to get some peace, to the pack of rabid dogs in the bar coming at me like they hadn’t seen a woman in years. To Scorpio just showing up out of the darkness to save me.
Now his arm is still around my shoulders as he leads me up a set of creaking wooden steps to a dark cabin on the lake. Moonlight is all the light we have to go by until he flips a switch inside the cabin and a light not much brighter, only yellower, illuminates the one-room space.
It smells like stale lake water and wood, and him—this mix of scents that always somehow reminds me of winter and summer at the same time. I never gave it much thought because even though he’s one of the hottest guys I know, and he has pursued me relentlessly for a while, I wasn’t free, so there was no point getting interested.
The room only has one queen sized bed, a little kitchenette with a simple wooden dining table and a rug that was once white but is now crisscrossed by dark lines, which I’m sure are mildew or worse.
“Here it is,” Scorpio announces. “It’s not much, but…”
“There’s only one bed,” I say, not even sure why.
He looks at me, grinning, and winks. “Yeah, and I’m not sleeping on the floor.”
I don’t know how he does it, but he can make just about everything he says to me have this rushing undercurrent of sexual innuendo. I wonder if he does that with every woman he likes. Probably. You don’t get that good at it without a lot of practice.
And on that sobering thought, I finally step out of his embrace and deposit my bags next to his on the kitchen table.
“I’d rather not sleep on the floor either,” I say.
He shrugs and walks over, pulling a fresh bottle of whiskey from his bag, then walks out on the deck. I find myself let down by the lack of some racy comeback to my statement, and not in a good way.
“They called you Joker’s bitch,” I say as I join him outside. “But you didn’t seem to mind. Most guys I know would.”
“Would they?” he asks and sits down in one of the two deck chairs, cradling the bottle in his lap. “I figured whatever it took to get out of that amped-up disaster. And I’ve been called worse.”
“So there’s no truth to it?”
I don’t even know why I’m asking. Grim sent me packing. I don’t have to worry about who I fuck and whether they’re compatible with him. I’m sure Scorpio, with his messy blond hair, bright blue eyes and muscles that flow all over his tall body like waves of the sea, would be. In fact, he has suggested I just bring him over once or twice, back when Scorpio would pursue me and Reaper was still alive, and I doubt he was joking. He’d always been open to that kind of thing. Reaper was not. At all. Now things are very different. So much so I’m still trying and failing to put all the pieces back together into something that makes sense.
“What? You’re asking if Joker and me are together?” he asks, looking genuinely surprise. “Nah, never came up. He’s solidly straight.”
“But you’re not?”
Why the fuck am I even asking? Must be that stupid, long ass text Grim sent this afternoon after I wouldn’t answer his calls or respond to the voicemails. So he sent me a whole string of texts. Ten to be exact. He apologized for the way he treated me, the way he broke it off with me, but he didn’t take it back. Just said he should’ve done it more gently. When I got to that part, I was too pissed off to read the rest.
That’s why I came here looking for peace. So I could process all of that.
“Why are you asking?” he says. “Are you secretly a guy?”
He laughs at his joke, but I can’t even smile at it. Instead, I take the bottle from his hands, unscrew the cap, and take a long swig, ignoring the burn that is bad enough to make my eyes water.
He’s no longer smiling either as he watches me. “I heard about Reaper. I’m sorry for your loss. That guy really loved you.”
I turn to him, wishing my eyes weren’t still full of whiskey tears. “Yeah, how could you tell?”
I shouldn’t be snapping at him. He seemed genuine in offering his condolences. But I still can’t hear Reaper’s name without either getting very angry or very sad. Anger’s easier.
“Well, he threatened to cut off my junk if I didn’t leave you alone,” he says and takes the bottle from my hands. “And he sounded serious enough to convince me.”
He takes a swig and I’m just sitting here, mad at Reaper now for keeping this from me. I can fight my own battles. Didn’t he trust me to stay true? Now I’m sad and mad and it’s a very annoying combination.
“I didn’t know he did that,” I say. “But I did wonder why you stopped trying to get me naked.”
“Oh, I wanted to do a lot more than get you naked,” he says, giving me one of those all over looks that makes all those things he’s talking about pop up in my mind like perfectly lit photos. “Now you’re free. And of all the places you chose the one where I could save you at, and get you into my room without even trying all that hard.”
“There’s still Grim,” I say, no idea why. Probably because I’m not done processing the new state of things. Or the stupid ten texts which had to be about wanting me back, because why send so many otherwise?
“Grim what?” he asks, looking confused. He’s just holding the bottle, not drinking, so I snatch it back and take another eye-watering swig.
“Grim nothing,” I say in a raspy voice. “We were all together, the three of us, but now that’s over too.”
I take another long swallow, welcoming the burn this time. Sadly, it doesn’t hurt worse than my heart.
“And I’d rather not talk about it,” I add, because he’s just sitting there, all sorts of ideas popping in his eyes.
He reaches for the bottle, but instead of taking it he just closes his palm over my hand. Making butterflies with searing hot wings fill my stomach. Just like they did when I first touched him earlier tonight. I figured that was just the adrenaline of the situation. But this is not. This is something I haven’t felt for a guy in a very long time. But just like everything in my life right now, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. So I should just ignore it.
Kinda hard when he’s still holding my hand and the butterflies are multiplying. I never noticed just how deep his eyes are. They’re blue like Grim’s, but not hard and predatory. They’re more like this lake licking the wooden pillars below us might look in daylight with the sky reflected in it. Blue and vast and much deeper than you’d expect it to be.
I’m coming apart here. I know that. Just cracking apart, joining the rest of the broken pieces of my life. Used to be, at least some of those pieces were stuck together and functioning. But now Reaper’s dead and he was the glue.
I push the bottle into his hand and stand up. “I should go.”
If I’m gonna fall apart, I’m gonna do it alone. With no one to see.
He doesn’t say anything until we’re standing by the kitchen table and I’m already holding my bags. The tears in my eyes have nothing to do with whiskey now. So why aren’t I moving? Why aren’t I in the darkness outside, alone, where it’s safe to shed them?
Why am I looking into the depths of his eyes, wishing it was daytime and I could swim in the lake they remind me of?
He grabs my bag with one hand and the back of my head with the other. Doesn’t say anything, just kisses me. In a way that makes my knees tremble and a bunch of wishes I wasn’t even aware of come. It answers a lot of my other questions too.
He’s a great kisser. Not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t anything like this. His kiss is soft where it needs to be, and hard where it needs to be too.
I’d only just gotten used to his lips on mine when his tongue demanded entrance into my mouth. I let him in, beginning the dance as though we’d done this a thousand times before. I even forget to be sad as our tongues tussle and his hand closes around the back of my neck, pulling me closer as he deepens the kiss some more.
I don’t remember the last breath I took. But that’s OK, because I don’t need to breathe. This kiss is enough. Every one of the searing butterflies in my stomach is telling me this. They’re forming a river, heating my core, lighting up places that haven’t been seen in a very long time. Places where freedom meets a lust for life and every minute carries the promise of a new adventure. Places where words like loss and death and it’s over have no meaning. At least none that I can feel.
I surrender my bag to him, clanking as it hits the floor announcing something broke, but I don’t care.
All I care about is getting him out of his clothes before this high I’m riding, this wonderful promise that everything will be good again, which his kiss is making, can end.
His cut comes off easily enough, but his t-shirt is another matter. We have to break apart so I can push it over his head. But it was worth it, because his scent explodes in my mind and I now know exactly why it reminds of winter and summer. It’s the scent of fire as the clean, clear wind stokes it higher and higher. It’s camping in the middle of nowhere, it’s being free and carefree, it’s being alive.
He’s ripping my clothes off too, first my jacket, then my tank top and bra. I kick off my boots as he unzips my pants. And he does the same while I fumble with his belt buckle. All the while moving us closer to the bed. The pleasant camp fire grows hotter, becomes an inferno as my naked back touches the quilt on the bed.
And I’m sure he’s about to make it even hotter. But instead of burying me under his weight and taking me with all the passion now crackling in the air between us, he stands back, pure admiration in his eyes as they graze over my nakedness.
Every single tattoo covering my arms, belly and legs seems to light up and grow warm as his gaze falls on it—from the necklace of tiny gems held up by two hummingbirds to the flowers along my belly. This isn’t the kind of burn that tells me danger is near. This is my ink coming to life like it should.
“Why’d you stop?” I ask, coming up on my elbows to get a better look at him.
He gives me a smile that’s almost shy and runs his hand through his wonderfully thick hair.
“I can’t believe I’m gonna say this, but… are you sure you want this?”
I do, but I don’t answer right away. Instead, I bite down on my lower lip and let my eyes graze over him too. He’s an incredibly well-built guy, from his chiseled, perfectly proportionate face, to his neck that’s just wide enough, to his defined arms, chest and abs right to the dark blond happy trail leading down into his boxers where I’m sure I’ll find yet another example of how perfectly in proportion everything on him is. He’s more like a fitness model than anyone I had ever expected to find in this off-the-grid place in the middle of nowhere. Or more like something straight out of a fantasy.
He’s got tattoos too, but nothing as elaborate as the ink covering my skin. Still, I’d love to check every one of his a lot more closely.
“I feel like I kinda jumped you back there when you wanted to leave,” he adds, still waiting for my answer. Funny, because I’m sure his cock just grew even bigger as my eyes skirted across it.
It’s been a long time since a man asked me for my permission. With Grim and Reaper, it just sort of happened. And before that… that’s not something I’m gonna think about now. I know why he’s doing it though. It’s because of Grim. But I won’t think about that bastard tonight. He managed to smash what was left of my already very broken heart because he’s got all the finesse of a bull, and I’m not ready to start making him feel better about it. Time will tell where we land after all this. For now, I’ve landed here.
I smile at him and run my bare foot along his perfectly muscled thigh, along the hard muscles on the outside edge of his stomach, and finally across the package I can’t wait to open. His cock jerks as I caress it gently with my foot.
I grin at him. “You have my permission to do what you want to me.”
In a flash, the shy half-smile on his lips is replaced by a predatory, wolfish grin, the look in his clouded eyes promising a ravaging I’ll remember for a long time yet.
He takes hold of my foot and runs his thumb across the arch, making me shiver as the gentle forerunners of goosebumps race across my skin.
Then he finally gets on the bed with me, the wood creaking and groaning under our combined weight.
He kisses me again, with less passion and need, but a lot more depth. And this time the goosebumps stay on my skin as he trails kisses down my neck, his lips hitting all the absolute best places there are to kiss. Places I didn’t even know existed until his lips found them.
My breasts are next, my hard nipples begging for his lips long before his lips find them. And when they do, a deep moan escapes my lips sounding like the exhale of a breath I’ve held onto for much too long.
I arch up into his warm hands which are tracing soft paths along my sides, my belly and everywhere they can reach, needing to get closer. Closer to this soft pleasure which is unlike anything I’ve expected to find here. My head is starting to spin and every drop of ink on my body is pulsing. He grins at me as he sucks my nipple in again and again, calling up more deep moans from the depths of my core. Soon they’re edged with a sharp need that I have no idea what to do with.
By then his lips are on my belly, soft against my tender skin, the pleasure they leave in their wake serene and timeless. The kind I want to last forever.
My pussy is ready to accept him and he hasn’t even touched me there yet. When he does, tracing a single finger over my clit I jerk all the way off the bed, needing much more but wanting exactly this soft, gentle pleasure his lips and warm touches are offering.
This pull in the two different directions is threatening to tear my mind apart, but I don’t want it any other way. He’s grinning at me, probably reading all that off my face as he gazes into my eyes and continues his sanity-stretching teasing of my clit. Any more of this and I’ll lose my mind. But the good part is, I want it lost. Yesterday.
He applies more pressure to my clit, tracing circles now, as his callused fingers tease my nipples. This pleasure is like a hot, sharp knife, and I’m edging along it, stuck in that moment right before the cut that will blow it all up in an explosion of pure bliss. I know this orgasm will leave me in a million glittering pieces that I won’t know what to do with. And I can’t wait. Yet I want to wait.
“You seem ready,” he whispers and I can hear the wolfish grin as much as see it.
“I’m ready,” I whisper back.
He eases the pressure on my clit and slides first one, then a second finger in, going maddeningly yet perfectly slow at the same time. He starts sliding his fingers in and out, his thumb tracing lazy circles over my clit again, mixing up the pool of pleasure he’s stoking to life. Slow and slow. Making me feel every ridge on his fingertips, every soft spot, every rough patch, as he touches me, inside and out, finding places no one else has. Places that hold so much pleasure. So much bliss. So much good, sweet peace.
“Harder,” I moan, knowing I’ll go mad if he doesn’t give me the release he’s dangling in front of me like so many pieces of a fruit I’ve never tasted before but want to with every fiber of my being.
“No,” he says and continues his slow teasing. And his slow caresses continue bringing me closer and closer to a place I don’t know, but desperately want to visit.
“Please,” I beg, my voice as soft as his touch, as deep as the ravines left by his fingers.
I don’t beg, ever, yet here I am. I thought I’d found and felt all the pleasure my body has to offer over the years. I thought there were no surprises left. And here I am, moaning and writhing and finding out I was completely wrong.
He doesn’t relent. Keeps his slow, tantalizing, insane-making pace. But he leans down and kisses me again. Just as slow and gentle as the roaming his fingers are doing inside me. His tongue plays with mine, very much in control even here, dictating the pace. I moan into his mouth as his fingers find my nipples again, the steady, slow teasing adding yet another note, another melody to the building pleasure consuming me from the inside out.
He won’t stop until he’s turned me insane.
And I don’t want him to stop.
So I let go, give in to his gentle demands that have me fighting against restraints that aren’t there.
And when I do, I’m rewarded with an orgasm that clean takes my breath away, making me forget how to inhale, forget how to blink, forget how to do anything but let it wash over me, filling places that have never been full with bliss and light and tiny licks of sparkles that will never go out.
It takes me forever to remember how to breathe again, how to see, how to adjust to this new reality where secrets still exist in the world even though I thought I already knew them all.
By the time I regain enough awareness to speak, he’s lying next to me on the bed, his hand caressing my pussy gently.
The smile on his face is still a little wolfish, but mostly just satisfied. I’m sure mine is too as I look into the watery depths of his eyes—another secret he’s kept from me.
“I guess it’s your turn now,” I say, my voice slow and sultry, still riding that soft river of bubbling pleasure inside me.
He shakes his head ever so slightly and pulls the quilt over us both.
“Nah,” he says lazily. “I’ve waited too long for this to burn through it in one go. You should sleep now.”
My eyes flutter shut as though obeying his command without my brain having any say in the matter. Because my brain very much wants to give him all the pleasure he’s given me and more.
But this works too. His strong arms around me, taking me to a peaceful fireside out in the clean and clear free world works very well too. It’s easy to fall asleep like this. I haven’t slept much since Grim sent me away. I haven’t slept much before then either. But here, I can sleep and not worry about any of that. I don’t have to worry about anything at all.
And that’s another gift I never thought could be mine.