Dark Kiss (The Two sides of me Book 1) (16 page)

The way he said that made me consider that he hadn’t just been fired from a job…but something more permanent. A chill ran up my spine, and I visibly shivered as he continued, “Anyway she insisted on working the club, then threatened to quit and work in another club where I couldn’t keep an eye on her, so I chose the lesser of the two evils and I let her.” He pauses and I get the strong feeling he doesn’t want to continue, but I stay quiet, afraid that if I interrupt he may clam up and stop letting me in. It’s a good decision, because he goes on. “I’m not proud of what I allowed to happen…. the relationship between Cameron and I became sexual, and we slept together casually for years. She knew I slept with other women, a lot of other women, but the night of the accident I was driving her home after closing the club. She told me she was in love with me, had been all along, and wanted to take it to another level, wanted me to stop having sex with other women.” Pain passes over his face. “I don’t know why I thought she knew…she had to have known it was casual…. for me anyway.”

I decide to risk a comment “What does that have to do with the accident?”

“We were arguing, or fighting whatever…. I wasn’t paying attention I guess, we were yelling but I had control of the car, and then I didn’t and we went over the bridge and into the water. She died on impact, the coroner told me her neck snapped, she didn’t suffer. Gabriella put together a service for her. I don’t know why, she had no family; the only people who showed up were her junkie friends and the Lee’s who she worked for as a teenager. She sent me the ashes, Cameron didn’t have anybody who would want them.” The room is so quiet; the only sound I can hear is my heartbeat pounding in my chest. “You said you saw her…. when you woke up, you told me you saw her floating in front of you and that you knew she was gone.”

“Yes, I did, it’s the last thing I remembered after going into the water. When I was unconscious I wanted to let the darkness take me, I felt so guilty knowing how I’d hurt Cameron, I should have never touched her. She was like my little sister for Christ’s sake. I knew it was wrong, I even think I knew she loved me but I didn’t care, she pissed me off by getting into drugs and blackmailing me into letting her work as a stripper. I thought she deserved it after all I’d tried to do for her.”

I gasp and pull away from him heedlessly and he closes his eyes, shaking his head. “This is why we can never talk of this again.”

“Wait…you said you wanted to let the darkness take you. But you hung on…why?”  I already know the answer to my question; he’s told me before that my words kept him anchored to this world. But after that story I need reminding of our connection, of his goodness, that he’s not a monster.

“You…you were my savior Mia, you know you were. Your voice, your words, your music, they called to me, kept me holding on. I had to continue to exist so that I could get to you.” He’s pleading with his eyes for me to understand, to accept all that he’s done, and I do. There isn’t anything from his past that could drive me away, he owns me, and I am his. He is my Dominus.  Master and Lord of my heart. I will not admit this to him, exposing myself that much to anyone could be a fatal risk. I cannot let him know how easily he could ruin me, and he could ruin me completely.

Chapter 24

“Yellow Light” by Of Monsters and Men

As if by magic, Cecelia appears at the bedroom door, knocking lightly on the frame as it’s open, as usual. “You need something Senior Lawson?” she asks timidly.

“Yes Cecelia take this and put it in my office, I’ll put it away later.” He holds out the urn and her eyes get wide for a split second before she hurries to the bed to retrieve it and quietly scurries away, carrying the last of Cameron.

“How did she know you needed her?” I ask, baffled as to where she must keep herself to be at his disposal so quickly.

“She knows,” he answers flatly, as if that were an answer at all.

“What do you mean
she knows
?” 

“Just what I said, she knows.” Ok so that’s not the answer I want and he knows it, so I’m dropping it- he’s being stubborn and I refuse to fall into that trap right now, I’ll figure it out anyway. Rolling my eyes, I step away from the bed, all of the information he has just provided me with swimming around in my mind. This is not at all how I expected our relaxing evening in with pizza and a movie going. I need to get lost, I need music, I need a book, online shopping, anything normal and familiar to get my mind off all of this crap. “I’m not in the mood for a movie, can we just eat, listen to some music and go to bed?” Oh please, please, just don’t argue with me and agree.

“Yes, we can just eat, listen to music and go to bed,” he says with a sigh and a touch of regret in his voice.

“Ok…ok,” I repeat quietly, confirming to myself that this is indeed what I want to do. Looking at my feet and fiddling with the belt of my robe, part of me wants to go to my room and be alone to sort out my feelings. But I know he won’t allow it, he’ll follow me. The other part of me, the one that wins, wants the distraction of Evan to avoid sorting out my feelings; avoidance is another skill I’m very familiar with. Setting my iPad up and turning on a playlist, I scoot across the bed while he opens the pizza box. The first song on the playlist is Yellow Light by Of Monsters and Men, and after a few words he stills and looks directly into my eyes. “I remember this,” he says softly, oh shit, I just chose the first playlist without thinking, and this was the music I played for Evan when he was unconscious. “Why do I remember this, who sings it?”

“Of Monsters and Men,” I say, turning my head to the side and looking at him out of one eye.

“I don’t listen to them, where do I know this from?” He bows his head and closes his eyes in concentration when he suddenly looks up at me. “You played this for me, when I was asleep, you put an ear bud in my ear and played music for me didn’t you?”

“Yes. I did.”

“Can you start it over? I want to listen to the words.” The song is half way through. “Why?” I ask.

“I just do.” There’s a long pause while I sit gazing at him. “Please,” he asks, and that’s all it takes for me. When he acts like a gentleman I’m putty in his hands. I replay the song, the singers take turns singing the verses and he closes his eyes, listening closely, opening them slowly, and probing mine.

I’m looking for a place to start

But everything feels so different now

Just grab ahold of my hand

I will lead you through this wonderland

Water up to my knees

But sharks are swimming in the sea

Just follow my yellow light

And ignore all those big warning signs

Somewhere deep in the dark

A howling beast hears us talk

I dare you to close your eyes

And see all the colors in disguise

Running into the night

The earth is shaking and I see a light

The light is blinding my eyes

As the soft walls eat us alive

“You are my yellow light Mia.” he says softly. I quickly crawl across the bed, pushing the pizza box off onto the floor in the process, straddle his beautiful, chiseled body, and take his face in my hands and kiss his mouth with a fever unmatched until this moment. His hands roam my body, shoulders, back, and ass, pulling me close and grinding his length against the exact spot that sends that electrical jolts from my chest to my core. Sliding my hands over his chest, desperately trying to get closer to him, I feel as though I can never get close enough; I need him inside of me
now
. He moves the silk robe off my shoulders and I slip my arms out as he continues with my tank top. I only move my lips away for a microsecond while he yanks my tank top over my head, and then our mouths reconnect and the passion continues. I kiss a blazing trail down his neck where I feel his blood pulsing through his arteries under my lips, to his chest where his heart pounds, ending at the edge of the pajama pants that he begrudgingly wears for me. I pause to look up at his face and find dark, heavy lidded eyes replacing the bright green ones I’ve become so familiar with. Taking the waist of his pants I tug and he responds, lifting his hips so I can remove them. Kneeling between his legs moving down his body, I finally stand on the mattress when I have accomplished getting them off of his cast and I shimmy out of my shorts, dropping them on the floor into a pile of pizza and clothes. Pausing my sudden attack to admire this man lying under me, hard and ready, I can’t wait another second, I nudge his legs together with my foot and drop to my position over him, tempting him until he takes charge and pulls my hips down to glide my liquid sex over his impressive length again and again while circling my clit with his thumb.

My head swims, my heart pounds, I’m panting so hard and I can’t take the delicious torture one second longer- he plunges into me so deep that my vision goes to only white. I gasp then as he sits up, going deeper, wrapping our arms around each other, and then reconnecting our mouths, our tongues circle with a hunger that’s indescribable. He begins to lift my body up and down, up and down, building a fire inside my belly that begs to be extinguished, I hold on though, sensing he isn’t fully satisfied yet. Matching the increasing intensity of the music that builds and builds, his thrusts become faster until he breaks the only sounds in the room, our heavy breathing, panting and the slapping of bodies.

“Now Mia!” And we crash together, the supernova orgasm exploding, washing over us simultaneously. We scream one another’s names; at least that’s what I think we said, the moment so intense it’s hard to focus. I’m sure the entire island has heard us when the music slows, fading away taking that little moment of heaven with it. Holding each other tightly, coming down together the playlist continues to
Stay
by Rihanna. He pulls away, piercing me with those glimmering green eyes that convey the meaning of the song straight to my heart… stay. Overcome by emotion, tears slide down my cheeks, and he moves his thumb to sweep one away in a gesture of understanding and then kisses the other, keeping his cheek against mine as he sings with Rihanna into my ear. I am utterly thrown at the beauty of his voice, he can really sing! The song ends and he declares, “I remembered that was the next song on your playlist.” He pulls away now, penetrating me with a look that says plain as day that he means every word of the song.

“I’ll stay, I promise,” I whisper. “Good.” Evan lowers us down and gently moves me to his side, our sleeping position, with me curled around him while he lays on his back, leg propped on pillows, my leg over his good one, face pressed against his chest listening to his heartbeat. The music continues as we cuddle, sated, I am asleep before I can even think another thought.

Chapter 25

“Say” by John Mayer  

“Mia.” Evan nudged me softly with his shoulder. “Mia.” He came again, only slightly louder and I opened my eyes to a nearly dark room, except for the soft glow of his lamp at the bedside, Evan’s night-light as I have come to think of it.

“Hmmm?” I answer, unable to form a sentence as of yet.

“You fell  asleep.”

“Ahh yea.” So it appears I had fallen asleep, so I’m wondering what the problem is. “You didn’t take anything, I was worried you might have a nightmare, stayed awake as long as I could watching you but I really need to shut my eyes for a few.” Propping up on my shoulder I look at the time. Shit! It’s 4:30 a.m. I haven’t slept this long without a sleeping pill or a nightmare for…well for 10 years!

“Shit Evan, I’m sorry. You didn’t have to do that, you should have woken me earlier!” “Baby, you were sleeping so well, there was no way I was interrupting that, and I enjoy watching you sleep. All your wheels stop, the worry melts away, every muscle on your face relaxes, you’re peaceful…” he says, as he brushes the back of his knuckles against my cheek.

“I haven’t slept without a nightmare since it happened,” I whisper. “I figured as much, another reason I let you be.” He smiles with a tiny bit of the smirk I love so much.

“Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome,” He says, moving his hand from my cheek to glide down my shoulder to my arm, entwining his fingers with mine. I watch his hand until it meets mine. Then he looks at me, hesitates a few beats and offers me another piece of him, of his history. “I have nightmares too.”

“I remember, I heard you once when you were in the hospital.”

“Oh yes, you did didn’t you?” Not wanting to extinguish the beginning of a story I try to keep him talking.

“Why…do you have them?” He closes his eyes and I sense he may be changing his mind about opening up so I lower myself off of my elbow and snuggle into his side, maybe if he didn’t have to look directly into my eyes it would be easier. I know it worked for me when I told my own story to a therapist. His body relaxes microscopically and he goes on, “I didn’t have the best childhood, and actually that’s putting it extremely mildly. My mother, she was…. ill…. mentally ill…schizophrenic.” He paused for my reaction and when he heard and felt none, he continued. This was important; I intentionally reigned in my feelings until he could say what he needed to say. “My sister and I were left home with her nearly all the time, my dad traveled and he was in serious denial of my mother’s condition. Gabriella and I had no idea what was wrong with her, but we knew other kids’ mothers didn’t act like ours. She was delusional, psychotic, and abusive, had hallucinations, and forced a new religion or belief on us every week. We barely slept, trying to stay on guard, and she starved us in the name of sacrifice to whatever god she was worshipping at the moment. Locked us up in dark closets to pray. Teachers and people in the community turned away from us; they didn’t understand mental illness back then. They all knew something was wrong, but following my father’s lead, they ignored all the signs of abuse. We thought it was our fault, why else would a mother treat her kids that way?” He paused and I let that sink in, like really sink in- how could two little kids survive with no hope of ever being rescued from the abusive hands of their own mother? “What about your family, didn’t they suspect and intervene?”

“No Mia, they didn’t, they couldn’t. My family had connections and my father was not a good man to oppose, nobody wanted to be caught on my father’s bad side…except my Aunt Sophia. She didn’t give a fuck what my dad said, she was
so
strong, she was his sister and blind but never afraid of my dad. I’ve never known why…she just wasn’t. Gabriella and I would sneak to Aunt Sophia’s house when my mother would sleep, which wasn’t often, so we took advantage whenever we could. She would feed us, bathe us, stroke our cheeks and show us love that no one else in the world would give us. Then she would send us home; she knew my mother was sick, but she also knew her limitations, she was a Band-Aid on a critically hemorrhaging wound. She did what she could, and we clung to these moments desperately. My dad had been gone on business for a month, Gabriella and I were down to anorexic weights and exhausted from guarding each other every night. Mother went over the edge. We were 10 years old, she came at Gabriella with a butcher knife, screaming that she had switched a sacred pendant with an alien so they could spy on her, or some fucked up shit like that. She had the knife to her throat after crashing through the bedroom door, we stayed in the same room for security but it made no difference that night.” When he stopped I realized I was holding my breath and let it out.

“What did she do to Gabriella?” I whispered.

“I talked her out of slitting her throat, told her I had done it, that I’d switched the damn pendants. She came at me, we fought- I was a 10 year old boy, undernourished completely vulnerable and weak I couldn’t fend her off, and she stabbed me. That was the last time I allowed myself to be exposed, I’ve never let anyone close since.”  I gasped and tightened my hold on him.

“What happened to you?”

“She stabbed me in several places, causing superficial wounds, but in the end she put the knife into my belly, low, really low, I thought she was going to cut my dick off, I started bleeding out all over the bedroom floor.”

“Oh my God, Oh my God Evan!” The scars…that’s what they were from. The thought of Evan’s mother stabbing her own son made me physically nauseated, and I swallowed back the bile while he continued.

“The sight of all the blood stopped her for a minute, stunned her I guess, long enough for Gabriella to slip out and run to Aunt Sophia, who sent police and an ambulance. They took us all to the hospital, I had surgery, Gabriella had IV fluids and they fed her, and mother was committed to the psychiatric ward. Aunt Sophia stayed by our sides until Dad came home. That’s why I can’t have kids, the scar tissue and severe infection that developed from the stabbing made me sterile. My own mother practically killed me and took any chance of having kids away from me.” Fucking hell. I had been through torture but it had been at the hands of strangers, I had never heard of a mother attacking her son that way.

“I.... I don’t know what to say Evan, I’m so sorry,” I breathed.

“I don’t want your pity any more than you want mine for what happened to you, but I thought you should know what you’re dealing with here, my shit is seriously fucked up and I want you, a lot, but I want you to know all of it before we go any further.”

He was giving me an out, and he had no idea that it was impossible for me to take it, no matter what he told me. I was in this all the way, no going back and I’ve been hiding this from him, guarding my heart knowing he could crush it so easily but now he needed to know, at least a little, how far I would go for him. “Evan if I’m your yellow light, you’re my air. You took my breath the first time I saw you in that hospital bed and I haven’t been the same since. I’m drawn to you like a magnet, I have no control. I couldn’t stop my heart from loving you if I wanted to.” Ok, so I’d told him a lot more than a little, it just came out, love vomit; shit, should I have said all that? His arms tightened around me so much that I was actually having trouble breathing when he shifted me onto him and pressed my face against his chest. Scooping my hair out of the crook of my neck and over to the opposite shoulder with one hand he wound it around a few times and into a fat knot. He stroked my bare back up and down trailing his fingers as I clung to him, if I could have one wish it would be to stay like this forever, close to him, warm, safe, loved and cherished.

I felt a hand leave my skin and heard a click followed by music, beautiful classical music that I wasn’t familiar with, but that made me melt into him even further He knew how to take a perfect moment and make it more perfect somehow. When things were too perfect though, uneasiness crept into my mind and spread to my body, and he sensed it. “Stop worrying.”

“How do you know I’m worrying?”

“I know everything.” I can hear the smile in his voice and some of the uneasiness evaporates, not nearly all of it though.

“Ok Mr. Genius, tell me, what do I want to do right now if you know so much?”

“You want to take a bath with me,” he says in the sexiest voice since the beginning of time. Not what I was thinking exactly but it sounds like an excellent idea so I go with it. “Well you
do
know everything don’t you?”

“Told ya.”

“I thought you were tired.”

“I feel a second wind coming on,” he says, laughing and gently shaking my body with the vibrations.

“How do you propose we take a bath with you in a cast?”

“Mia, we’ve figured out how to do just about everything with this fucking cast in the way, bag it up and I’ll hold it on the edge of the tub, come on.” He slapped my ass, hard! I let out a yelp.

“Hey!”

“Up woman, let us bathe.” Hmmm, he’s playful, and I love it. Crawling off of him it occurs to me that he only has the Taj Mahal shower in his on suite, no tub.

“So, you don’t have a tub in there, where we going?” I ask, hitching my thumb toward his bathroom.

“Your bathroom, but of course,” he says with fanfare.

“Oh, how silly of me.” My bathroom, huh? I’ve used it once but it does have a gorgeous huge claw foot tub in there, so we set out at almost 6 a.m. to take a bath. I run the water very hot the way I like it. He’s leaning against the vanity, eyes on me as I kneel in front of him to cover his leg with a plastic bag and secure a wide band of tape around his knee at the top of the cast to keep it dry. After making his way to the tub, he hands me the crutches and I’m curious as to how he plans on handling entering the water, but not for long. He perches on the edge of the tub facing me for a moment then turning his torso he reaches across behind him to the other side of the tub and scoots back, lifting all of his body weight with his arms like a gymnast on parallel bars and lowers himself into the water, keeping his cast up resting on the edge, bent at the knee.

“Impressive upper body strength Mr. Lawson, “ I compliment him.

“Mmm you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. You wait until this thing is off and I’ll impress you with my upper body strength all right.” The damn smirk is back in full force, eyewink and all, and I shiver slightly, not from the cold but from the thought of him at full strength, it’s pretty damned perfect now, I can’t imagine more. “Get in, you’re cold,” he orders, mistaking my shiver for being chilled and I oblige by stepping in.

Before I can lower myself down into the scorching hot water, he stops me by holding my thighs as he reaches up to caress one side of my ass, the side he smacked earlier. Looking back, I see a perfect red handprint there; it stings when he touches it. “You have such beautiful skin. Come here.” I sit. His arms circle me, pulling my back close to his front…and his cock, full and thick, presses into my back.

“Water too hot?” I ask.

“No,” he answers, sliding his hands up my belly over my breasts and curling under my arms, trapping me in a cage of his arms. I drop my head back onto his shoulder and turn to his waiting lips; he kisses me gently before licking a trail across my bottom lip and urging them apart. I move closer, urging him to enter but he continues to tease me with his tongue, nipping and sucking lightly and eventually pulling away. I whimper at the loss of his mouth on mine and I feel him smile against my cheek before he reaches to a table next to the tub and grabs a bottle of body wash, squeezing it into one hand and returning the bottle with the other. Nudging me forward he begins to wash my back, rubbing my shoulders, and working out the tension there I drop my chin to my chest. His hands glide around to pinch each sensitive nipple lightly, I gasp and he continues down my belly between my legs.

“Braid your hair real quick for me baby,” he says, in that godforsaken seductive voice and I immediately comply, braiding the ultra-long mess into a quick braid off to the side. “Mmmm better, I can see all of you now,” he continues, with the fingers of his right hand circling my clit slowly and the left traveling back to my breast, tugging and circling my nipple simultaneously with the rhythm he has going on down below. I feel his breath on my shoulder as I arch my back, pressing my breast further into his hand.

“You like that don’t you baby? Just. Like. That, “he says with a low groan. God I could never have imagined a more erotic scene than the one I see in the mirror on the wall at the end of the tub. Skin beaded with sweat, steam coming off the water, our eyes heavy with desire, he slides two fingers inside of me and continues stroking my clit with his thumb, and I come HARD, unexpectedly, throwing my head back on Evan’s shoulder, gripping the edges of the tub as I yell out.

“Ahhhh!” My head is foggy from the heat of the bathroom and the heat we’re making together.  When I have recovered just enough to open my eyes I see him staring at me in the mirror, a tinge of his smirk on his lips he sets his chin on my shoulder.

“I love watching you come.”

“I love you making me come.” Hmmm, something we agree on 100%. Finally Evan unbraids my hair, scooting me further in front of him and pressing my shoulders gently down. I cross my arms over my chest and submerge my body long enough to get my hair wet. When I slide back into position in front of him, he has shampoo in his hands and begins to work at washing my hair, which is no easy job; my hair is long, like mermaid long, Rapunzel long. Well maybe not Rapunzel long, but close. He works silently and meticulously. He starts at my scalp, massaging and lathering, such a tender intimate thing to do. Nobody has washed my hair for me since I was a little girl. When he has finally worked his way to the ends he leans closer, kisses the side of my neck and we repeat the rinsing several times by dunking me under the water. I’m a bundle of giggles when we finish.