45. Mara
45
MARA
A n uprising of emotions hits me at once when a shadow casts over the doorway of the room I’m settling Tillie in. The spare room closest to Ark’s bedroom has a soft and inviting palette— if you exclude the inclusion of numerous Australian soap star posters tacked to the walls.
Ark’s design team replicated Tillie’s room to perfection. If it weren’t triple the size and caked with that new furniture smell I’ve not experienced in years, I’d swear I was back in our apartment, slumming it with the less fortunate.
I don’t mean people with no funds in their bank accounts.
I mean the people who don’t have a love money can’t buy.
I’d be worried Ark’s request for us to spend the night was a mistake we couldn’t come back from if I weren’t aware how brilliantly smart he is. Barring a random photograph of two commuters sharing a cab fare, we have no known association before my father attempted to blackmail him.
As far as anyone is concerned, my father’s contact, the request for a bribe, and the meetup it instigated occurred before a rogue detective put me back on Ark’s radar.
My employment at the Chrysler building was always off the books, and my arrivals and departures over the past six months are wiped from the servers of this building and the many around it by Maksim’s security team as per my request before I started working here.
As far as the world is concerned, Ark and I are strangers who have a hunger so strong for each other that we can see murder as a non-villainous act.
I wasn’t lying when I said a mother knows who her children are safe with.
Tillie was not safe with my father. That is the sole reason I ran before she was born. I knew he would hurt her as Ark had imagined while standing across from him.
Although violence is rarely the solution, Ark reacted in the same manner I did when I saw the horrifying glint in Dr. Babkin’s eyes when he tracked me down under my first alias.
I didn’t have the means to hide my identity, so it didn’t take much for him to find me.
He wasn’t scared about possible prosecution for his crimes. He was more worried about his wife finding out about the money he had paid my father, and how he’d explain the mishap in accounting at her father’s multimillion-dollar business.
He wanted me to write an affidavit that I was a willing participant during our “exchanges” and that I had both consented and was of age before our “affair” began.
His demands only stopped when the giggle of a child who was terrible at hide-and-seek alerted him to the fact that we were not alone.
It was then that I realized my mother hadn’t told anyone about the positive pregnancy test that encouraged me to run. She somewhat protected me, though many years too late.
When I recognized the voice of the person banging on our motel room door, I made out to Tillie that we were playing a game. I shoved her under the mattress like it’s normal for the seeker to know the hider’s hiding spot before pleading for her to stay hidden.
Dr. Babkin burst into my room two seconds after I lowered the frilly bedspread until its hem tickled the carpet.
The look he gave Tillie when he told her to come out from beneath the mattress scarred me for life. I knew then and there that she wasn’t safe, and I took immediate action to remove her from what I deemed a dangerous situation.
Like Ark, I don’t recall much of what happened. I remember snatching up a lamp, swinging it hard enough for Dr. Babkin to fall onto the mattress Tillie had recently climbed out from under, and then collecting my minimal belongings and fleeing.
We haven’t been back to the Trudny District ever since.
I never considered checking Dr. Babkin for a pulse or calling an ambulance. I ran as I am sure Ark wishes he could have after his fear got the better of him.
I smile at Ark to assure him the panic in his eyes isn’t required before nodding at his mouthed question of if Tillie is asleep.
“You don’t need to whisper,” I say, my voice normal volume as I invite him into her room. “Tillie can sleep through a tornado.”
The ache in my chest I haven’t been able to shift since Ark begged us to stay the night clears away when he gently brushes back a curl flopped down the front of Tillie’s forehead.
He loves her as much as I do. He’s just confused as to what that means since his abuser is still a living, breathing part of his life.
With her wayward lock wrangled into submission, Ark gathers a box from a chest of drawers and hands it to me. I smile when I notice what it is. He bought Tillie a baby monitor.
I giggle. It is unexpected but very much needed. “She may never forgive us if we set this up. She appreciates her privacy. Greatly .” I use couple terms to certify that that is what we now are. We’re a team. “But I did show her the intercom and gave her a quick rundown on how it works, so she knows how to contact us if the need arises. But she has slept through the night since she was three months old, so I am confident she is out until the morning.” There’s no hiding my pride in my last two sentences. Tillie doesn’t have nightmares because I did everything in my power to keep her sleep restful.
Now Ark has done the same.
I don’t hate him for what he did. How could I? He protected my daughter when a threat presented. I could never hate someone for doing that.
Love is the only adequate word to describe my feelings about what he did.
Ark’s exhale makes heating unnecessary when I slip my hand into his before guiding him out of Tillie’s room. We’re risking a lot spending the night together, but we both need this. We need to close out the world for twenty-four hours again and put the focus and energy we used to fight away our demons on each other.
“Mara… don’t. Fuck,” Ark pushes out breathlessly when a second after we enter his room, I commence removing my clothes. “This isn’t why I asked you to stay. I just…”
I stare into his impossibly beautiful eyes when he struggles to express himself while I unzip my skirt and step out of it.
His chest expands with a big breath when my shirt is the next thing to go. Attraction fires through the air as the heady scent of lust wafts into my nostrils.
My body is drained both emotionally and physically, but as I said earlier, we need this.
I need to express how grateful I am for what he did to protect Tillie, and he needs to know that protecting someone you love no matter the cost doesn’t make you a monster.
“Let us have this. They”—I point to the door I know he checked twice before coming to find me—“can have us tomorrow. But tonight… tonight is about us. Y-you…” I choke on a sob, and Ark is at my side in an instant.
“Don’t. God.” He breathes out slowly, his chest rising and falling faster than his mind works through the words he’s struggling to express. “The thought of you being scared of me. It’s killing me, Mara. I’ll… I’ll never forgive myself if I’ve scared you.”
“Why in the world would I be scared of you? I love you, Ark.”
“Don’t. Fuck,” he repeats. “I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve you?—”
I end his lies by propelling onto my tippy-toes and kissing him.
He hesitates for barely a second before he returns my embrace with just as much devotion, love, and respect. Our kiss is soul-stealing, above and beyond anything we shared.
His sacrifice gave us this.
After kissing me so tenderly I feel dizzy, Ark drags his lips down my chin and along my neck before he buries his nose into my loose locks and inhales deeply.
I washed my hair every day for a week, waiting for this moment.
“You smell”—I wait for the praise that always boosts my confidence. I get that and so much more when he finishes his sentence—“like home.”
As we reacquaint our lips, we stumble back until the mattress folds my knees out from beneath me and I fall backward.
Ark catches me with one arm while the other gathers my wrists and pins them above my head. I squirm when the most intimate parts of our bodies collide before I rock my hips, grinding against the girth his pants are struggling to contain.
I barely get in two grinds when Ark’s focus shifts lower. After pulling down on the cups of my bra, he licks my nipples and grazes them with his teeth before his five o’clock shadow tickles the squishy part of my stomach I’ve not been able to shed since giving birth.
My legs scissor when he kisses each little mark Tillie’s growth caused my skin. His admiration is unmissable, and it has me teetering toward the brink of ecstasy.
Ark’s thrilling kisses stop at the edge of my panties. He lifts his eyes to my face, searing me in place with a hungry stare, before he does something unexpected.
He frees my hands.
I keep them locked together and above my head when his focus shifts back to adoring my body. He kisses the bow at the top of my panties before he slowly peels them down my legs.
A tinge of self-consciousness should plague me when he stares at my pussy, but it doesn’t. His stare is too hungry, too admiring, to instigate something as worthless as shame.
The praise I was seeking earlier bears down on me when he says, “You smell so fucking good.” He closes his eyes, enhancing his senses, before he flares his nostrils, sucking in the scent of my near arousal.
When his eyes open, the panic behind them earlier is gone, replaced with lust.
“I want to taste you again. Can I?”
The needy rumble of his deep timbre darts through my body, making me shake when I nod.
“Tell me, baby. Give me your words.”
My nerves are too low to be heard in my voice. They’re clustering in my pussy. “I want you to eat me, Ark. I need you to.”
With a smirk that will highlight my dreams for years to come, he runs his index finger down the seam of my pussy before he teases my clit with his thumb.
“You have such a beautiful pussy, Mara. So pretty and pink.”
My pussy sucks around him when he lowers his thumb and dips it ever so slightly into my pussy. He watches me under hooded lids, his body thrumming with as much excitement as mine is being bombarded with.
“I’ll get you off like this first before bringing you to climax on my face. I need you wet enough so that my prickles don’t chafe you when I eat you for dessert.”
The eagerness in his voice almost sets me off. I dig my nails into my palms as the scent of my impending orgasm lingers in the air.
I moan when his thumb returns to my oversensitive clit, and he rolls it with precisely timed grinds.
One expert twang has my shoulders endeavoring to meet and my eyes rolling. I’m so close to the edge, so hot and raw, that I lose all sense of control after a handful more rotations.
His name tears from my throat as an uproar of devastation and elation rips through my body. My toes curl as a shake I’ll never fear hands over the control of my body, its relinquish of the reins swift and without hesitation.
Just as the shudders making me a quivering, blubbering mess slowly surrender, Ark’s mouth is on me. He devours my pussy with greedy licks and powerful sucks until I’m unsure if my climax is everlasting or if I am on the verge of orgasming again.
I’m almost certain it is a new one, but it is hard to tell.
It is intense. Blinding.
It makes me moan as if I am possessed.
But Ark never relents. He eats me until stars explode before my eyes and my nails claw at the bedding, desperate for something to cling to.
I lose all sense of control when he answers their private pleas. In a movement too quick for my heart to register, he pulls down my hand, rakes it through his sweat-damp hair, then sucks my clit into his mouth with so much power that my hips vault off the mattress.
I come with a cry, my climax toe-curling and immediate.
“ Oh… ” I moan, stunned by the power of the shivers racking through my body. I’m tugging on Ark’s hair too firmly, screaming like I’m fighting for my life, but Ark can’t get enough.
His growls as he licks, bites, and sucks me prolong the length of my orgasm.
My core spasms as sparks erupt around us.
It is such a beautiful moment I can’t help the handful of tears that trickle down my cheeks and puddle around my ears.
Mercifully, this time, Ark doesn’t see them as a bad thing.
He’s just as moved by our exchange as I am, just as besieged.
His smile announces this, not to mention how he uses my hand to mop up any of my arousal left on his kiss-swollen lips before he lowers it to his bulky leather belt.
He wants my hands on him, and I’m more than a willing participant with his plan.
My legs feel like Jell-O when I crawl across the bed to assist Ark in undressing. I work on his belt as he undoes the buttons of his crisp midnight-black business shirt.
The stark material falls off his shoulders with a whoosh as the grind of his zipper lowering doubles the output of my heart.
He is such a beautiful man. Washboard abs, defined pecs, and the desirable V muscle all women imagine while idolizing their ideal man. I could climax just looking at him, and the press of my thighs can’t hide this.
“Go slow,” Ark pleads after toeing off his shoes and kicking them and his trousers to the side.
I nod before wetting my lips, my mouth suddenly parched.
This is scary for him, but you wouldn’t know it for how thick and long his cock is. It stands between us tall and proud, as jutted as the honor that fills my chest when he doesn’t balk from me gently wrapping my hand around his shaft.
I could have started elsewhere, but if I want to switch his fears to desires, I need the sparks to turn into dynamite and his shakes to shift to shudders of lust.
He feels heavy in my hand when I drag it to the base of his cock and gently increase my pressure. I jack my hand up and down a handful of times in small, defined pumps before returning it to the crown.
Air hisses between his teeth when my thumb instinctively rolls over the slit to gather a droplet of pre-cum pooled there. It switches to a moan when I use it as lubricant to quicken my strokes.
I’m desperate to taste him again when a handful of pumps have a second salty drop beading at the end of his big cock, but I need to see his eyes, so I can’t.
I have to guide him through this as well as he guided me through the realization that sex isn’t dirty.
I stroke his cock hard and fast but also slow and easy, gauging the speed of my pumps by the desperateness of his moans.
If they get too hoarse, I go a little slower.
If they soften, I increase my speed.
I work out what he likes by watching his numerous expressions and feed off the euphoria that I’m responsible for the snippet of peace slowly slipping over his face.
The throbs of the vein feeding his magnificent manhood announce he is on the cusp of release. I’m right there with him. I hated Dr. Babkin’s demand for touch. The emotions pummeling into me now are nowhere near disgust. I love the moans rumbling in Ark’s chest, and the sheer bewilderment in his eyes as he watches me jerk him off. They have me so desperate to taste him again that my tongue darts out to lick up the pre-cum on his swollen crown without a single thought crossing my mind.
“Fuck…” Ark grunts as the rock of his hips greaten.
As I lick, stroke, and suck his cock, he keeps his eyes locked on mine.
His gaze is searingly intense, and it catapults my excitement to a never-before-reached level.
I moan against his knob, confident pleasing him orally is as good as when his head is buried between my legs.
I love that I can give this to him, that I can satisfy him like no one else has, and the knowledge has me losing all sense of control. I draw him to the back of my throat again and again, gagging when his thick crown plunges an inch too far.
“Fuck, Mara,” Ark grunts again as his fingers get lost in my hair.
He holds me still as the veins in his cock pump furiously, his eyes never leaving mine.
Then, two seconds later, hot spurts of cum flood my tongue and slide down my throat.
I swallow eagerly, equally loving the taste of him in my mouth again and the utter relief on his face.
He looks at peace, at home.
He’s finally content.
I’m so exhausted by the emotions pumping out of us that my body is limp when Ark crawls up it to re-lock our lips. I taste myself on his tongue when he licks a droplet of sweat off my top lip before he delves it inside my mouth, and I am sure he is experiencing the same, but his kiss is one for the memory books.
It conveys everything words never will.
His love, his devotion.
His protectiveness.
“Thank you,” I whisper again, aware my words will never be enough to express my gratitude on how ruefully he protected my daughter, but optimistic that I have plenty of time to convey to him how much his sacrifice freed me from the shackles of my childhood.
Ark smiles as if we have the world at our feet before he lines up the crown of his still-throbbing cock with my pussy, digs his toes into the mattress, and then enters me with one ardent thrust.
The pain of taking a man of his girth and length exposes that the reward for those who persevere far exceeds the pain of those who give up.
It shows that quitting is never an option.
Fighting is the only choice, and I will fight for this man until I take my last breath.