Chapter 8
8
Karma
We’ve now been at this lakeside cabin for a week. I think, because the nights and days have started to blend together. We’ve hardly been outside the forest, venturing out only once to get food from a supermarket. The rest of the time we spent riding the dark, empty forest roads, swimming in the lake, making love everywhere and in every way.
I feel like we’ve been here forever, and yet not long enough. But the food’s running out and I’ve been getting increasingly frantic texts from Grim, saying he’s sorry, saying he needs me back because life’s not worth living without me, saying he could never let me go and that he was crazy to try. Saying he only let me go because he was considering following Reaper.
I only replied to let him know I’m still alive and to tell him he better still be when I see him next. But beyond that, I didn’t know what to say to him.
Scorpio’s been eyeing me sideways whenever I have my phone in my hand, but he’s not been asking me any questions. Apart from that devastating heart-to-heart at the restaurant, we’ve only spoken of happy things.
The sun’s setting and I love watching the sky turn all the beautiful shades of the most beautiful colors in the world before the first stars start twinkling in the sky. I love doing that sitting in his lap on our deck chair wearing as little as possible, because I love the feel of his skin against mine.
But our food’s running out and he’s been checking his phone more and more today too. At least we got this week of playing house. I even cooked us dinner for the past three nights. The sheets in this cabin aren’t exactly clean, but other than that, I could make a home here. With him. I’ve known I wanted a place to call home for a while now. I just didn’t know how much until now. Being a nomad means never growing roots anywhere. That’s doubly true for someone on the run. But who’s gonna find us in this vast forest?
Someone. Eventually. It always happens.
He tosses his phone on the unmade bed and comes to the deck seemingly not even seeing the beautiful purple sky laced with gold. I must get my tattoo girl Isabella to work these colors, this cabin, this perfect little moment in time into my skin somehow, so I never forget it. Even though I already feel like I must.
“Something wrong?” I ask, not really wanting an answer because I already know it won’t be good.
“Joker wants me in Cali,” he says, sounding like he’d rather not be saying it. “He’s ready for the next stage in his plan.”
“And what plan is that?” I ask.
“Never mind about that.” He sits in the chair, pulling me into his lap. He’s only wearing his jeans, no shirt and I’m in my bra and panties, so it’s perfect. Skin to skin, like it should be.
I trace my fingers along the flames covering his forearms. They don’t quite mask the scars on his wrists. Both the scars and the flames have something to do with whatever happened to him fifteen years ago, I’m sure. Just like my ink tells my story, his tattoos tell his. But while he now knows the story of every one of mine, I only know a part of his and he won’t talk about the rest. Tonight’s not the night to change that.
Tonight feels a lot more like a night for saying goodbye. Even the beautiful sunset is somehow sad and cold, the colors not as bright.
“Maybe we could help you guys out with this job,” I suggest. “We don’t have anything else going on.”
He shakes his head. “Not this time.”
“You could ask Joker,” I insist.
“I could,” he says and kisses the top of my head. “But he’s gonna say no.”
“Ask anyway,” I say. “I’m going down to LA anyway, to find Isabella, so I’ll be around.”
“Right, you’re going there to find a way to stop being Jackie the Ripper,” he says, stroking my back absentmindedly.
He smells so good. Like the lake and all those bonfires we’ll never get to enjoy together. I wish he’d just kiss me and hold me and tell me he’s going nowhere, that we’re staying right here.
“Maybe we should just hit the road,” he says instead. “It’s a long ride to LA.”
I straddle his legs and rest my arms on his shoulders. “Or we could stay right here a little longer.”
He smiles but it’s a sad one. “I’m no good at goodbyes. Better just make it quick.”
I kiss his lips lightly, no tongue, just softness. “We don’t have to say goodbye.”
He scoffs. “Come on. You’re going back to Grim and I’ve got a date I can’t skip out on.”
“I’d be jealous if I thought you were talking about another woman,” I say. Not entirely true. Because whatever he’s talking about, I am jealous.
“Not a woman. It’s a date with a different kind of destiny,” he says cryptically and kisses my cheek. Then he continues to kiss my jaw and my neck, my shoulders and the soft spot right above my heart, making it flutter and pick up speed.
“But I think we can take a little more time,” he says dreamily.
I wish this was our first night here, not our last. But wishing is for people who have choices. Mine were washed away in blood a long time ago.
So I don’t ask any more questions and I don’t make any more suggestions. I just lean back and enjoy his lips on my skin. They started out sending little sparks of electricity through me, but now raging forest fires erupt everywhere they touch. Another thing I’ll get tattooed on my skin to stay there forever.
I already know that’s all I’m gonna get to keep of him. Memories. And good dreams, hopefully. I don’t know when I started wanting more. I don’t know when I started fooling myself that he wants more too.
It happened somewhere between his cock making me come in ways I never have before and falling asleep in his arms, listening to the steady beat of his heart as the forest hummed all around us. Or talking for hours on end about absolutely riveting things that had no basis in our real lives away from here. Right around the time I started wishing we could stay at this cabin forever, I guess. But all of that was doomed from the start.
Even those thoughts start to fade as his lips finally find my nipples and his fingers my clit. He’s so good at making me feel good. So good at making me forget I’m supposed to be tough and independent and strong. Not someone to be taken care of and cherished.
His fingers are inside me, brushing against that special spot that he can find so well. Pressing the button that makes me want a home and a peaceful life and everything nice. I feel his fingers everywhere, but mostly somewhere near my heart, right where his lips are too.
I surrender to the pleasure he’s giving me, let nothing invade the bubble of bliss he’s wrapping me in. Least of all the thought of it bursting.
Burying my face in his neck, his hair, I let those bonfires we’ll never get to share warm me as his skilled fingers and gorgeous lips coax yet another mind-altering orgasm from me. One of our last.
Because we stole this time together from our regularly scheduled lives. But thieves, just like murderers, never get very far.