Rose
In Abel’s violence, he is magnificent, and I am perpetually smitten.
Blood is beautifully splattered on his skin as if placed by some divine artist; someone with a hand only a god could have designated. Blood is paint and his weapon is the paint brush. Life is our endless canvas.
Even under the dim streetlights, I can see it start to wash away under the rain.
“We’re artists,” I murmur.
Abel glances over at me and pulls me into his arms. “Are you hurt?”
I shake my head, with an urgent wanting to feel his lips against mine. He doesn’t disappoint.
We are ravenous in our victory.
In my love, I am a fool.
In his love, he is my protector.
I wanted to be perfect, just so he could ruin me, but he ended up being the one ruined.
I’m the beast to his beauty.
I am his prisoner and he is mine.
In our love, we will perish.
I hear the sirens before I see them, and we break apart to get in the car. We’re speeding down the street, just as they’ve pulled up to the diner.
I watch them in the rearview mirror, my pulse hammering.
“It’s okay, .” He kisses my knuckles. “We’re okay.”
We speed the rest of the way to the motel. No words are shared between us. The feeling of something ominous breathing down our necks keeps us silent.
“Get upstairs and start packing,” Abel directs me as he reaches for something in his pocket.
I see his phone in his hand and I pause, confused.
“Go, .”
I run up the steps and get everything I can, jamming them into bags and even a few pillowcases.
When Abel comes in, he shakes his head. “You’re efficient, that’s for fucking sure,” he says with a chuckle.
We take turns loading our things into the car and then we’re gone.
I’d like to say without a trace but leaving a hotel room you’ve lived in for weeks without notice tends to be a little messy.
Still, Abel handles everything and as he pumps gas, I wonder what happened with his phone. When he gets back in the car, I ask.
“Who were you talking to on the phone?”
The shrug is nonchalant, but the words feel so forced. “You’ll see.”
I nod and leave him be, trusting that we’re in this together. Whatever he does is what’s best for the both of us.
I’m asleep when we reach a destination that has Abel shaking me awake. He hands me the gun and I tuck it into the front of my bodysuit, too exhausted to care about who may see it.
“Come on,” he says as he presses a kiss to my cheek before leading me to the room he’d checked us into while I slept. “Stay here. I’ll get our things.”
I stash the gun on the shelf in the closet. Then I sit on the bed, but I can’t sleep. So, I watch Abel come in and out until he’s finished. And then he starts to organize our things, as if we’re staying here. “Where are we?”
“New Jersey,” he informs me. “Somewhere we haven’t been before.”
Somewhere they won’t look for us. Somewhere the trail of dead bodies won’t lead .
I hear all of the unspoken words.
“Go back to sleep.”
“I can’t.” And I’m yearning to release myself from this uncomfortable suit I’ve trapped my body in. “I have to take this off. I feel disgusting.”
“You don’t look it,” he says with a grin.
I start to pull at the zipper in front and Abel stops for a moment, watching me. When I’ve taken the suit completely off, he focuses once again on the clothes in front of him.
“Do you like it when I’m naked?” I ask him.
“Do you like it when I slap your ass?” he counters, taking his eyes away from the clothes he’s folding to stare at me. Perhaps he thinks he can read my mind the way I’ve always wanted to read his.
“If I didn’t, you’d be dead,” I answer. I snag one of the white t-shirts and pull it on.
His smirk is like a wrecking ball to my defenses. I should be careful. I shouldn’t love him to the point of pain.
It’s too late.
“You like pain? Or is it just that it’s me?” he asks.
I remember bringing up my past sexual encounters when we escaped Silverwing. That was the last time I’d ever even eluded to my sexual history. “I couldn’t be certain but I’m thinking it may just be you.”
He sets one of his t-shirts down and leans forward, elbows against the ironing board for a moment. That moment is all it takes to make my skin tingle, especially that place between my thighs. The way Abel’s eyes are glued to my chest makes me think he can see the way my nipples have tightened as I sit on the edge of the bed.
“Then how about I don’t fuck you right now?”
It feels like my heart has left my body when he says this. “No sex?” I lick my lips, straightening, confused because I don’t remember when I’d started to lie back. The moment he looked at you with those eyes that see everything.
“No fucking,” he corrects me. He’s standing in front of me and then he’s bending at the waist, following me all the way until I’m lying on my back. “Think I can taste you without going fucking crazy, espinita? ”
I keep my wide eyes on his, even as he breaks the contact.
His fingers pinch the hem of my shirt and his eyes are greedy on the flesh he’s revealed. “Want to try?”
My nod is eager. In my need for Abel, I am eager and terrified.
“Should I start,” he presses a kiss to my chin, “here?”
I shake my head.
“No?”
I watch the top of his head, admiring the dark curls as he pulls my shirt over my breasts before settling the fabric over and into my mouth and then shoving it between my teeth. Warm wet suction envelopes my nipple and I arch my back with a groan.
“What about here? Is this a good place to start?”
I’m nearly gnawing on the fabric as I shake my head and slide my feet down the mattress.
“No?”
He’s quiet as he keeps my shirt against my mouth, the other hand struggling to remove my panties. He loses his patience and ducks under and into the space between my body and the layer of cloth he’d tried to rid me of.
One of my knees is on his shoulder and he curses before pressing his mouth to my body.
I feel the shriek build in my chest and work its way up.
“Can I start here?” he asks as he looks up at me and licks his lips.
I’m trying to catch my breath and he takes my lack of words as consent.
The orgasm is instantaneous.
As if he can no longer wait, he pushes into me and I relish the way I stretch to accommodate his girth. Thrust after punishing thrust, I listen to the words he says as another orgasm threatens.
“Look how this pretty pussy takes me. Yes, good girl. Come for me one more time.”
And I do so, even as I yell out a garbled mess of words before losing my words in my throat.
He pulls out, warm liquid hitting my stomach. After a few moments, he reaches over and picks up his shirt before wiping his orgasm from my skin.
We’re a mess of euphoric tingles, this high that nothing can touch.
This high is love, and yet the worst things can come of it.
We do terrible things for the people we love.
And I would do the worst for him, just for a moment like this.
We gave our love away so freely to each other. Something sacred given without thought or reservation. It was as effortless as existing. I exist and so I love Abel Cartagena.
We give love for free and yet we want the world in return.
“Do I make you feel safe?” He whispers the question across my skin like he’s trying to slip the words past my pores and into my soul.
Still, I shake my head. “I make myself feel safe. You just make life bearable in my soi-disant safety.”
He grabs me and pulls me against him so my bottom sits against his groin.
I want to jerk away at the feel of his returning erection, but I don’t. Not when the last thing I want is space between us.
“What’s that mean?” Another whisper, this time in my hair.
I blink a few times in the darkness. “It means I should never be without you. It means I’m never going back. Promise me you’ll end my life before that ever happens.”
I expect an immediate answer, one aimed for my heart to soothe the ache that threatens to paralyze me.
But there’s only dark silence. So silent, I can hear the music from the lobby, a few doors away from us.
“That something you think about a lot?” he asks. The silence gives way to the edge of fear in his voice, betraying his emotions.
“Do you think about it at all?” I wonder aloud.
“Of course,” he tells me as he squeezes me tighter, nearly to the point of pain. “I can hardly breathe if I think about it for too long.”
I inhale, deeply and steadily, feeling the way my chest tightens and my breath hitches. He’s holding me so close he must feel my momentary tremor. “You love a mad, mad woman, Abel,” I whisper and turn in his arms. I can feel his exhale against my face just as I inhale again. His exhale, my inhale; his air becomes mine as he presses a kiss to my cheek.
“Eh. She’s not so bad.” He presses a kiss to my cheek and holds me close before whispering, “Now go to sleep. I have a surprise for you tomorrow.”