Lethal Cure

by S A Gardner

  But even if I was forgetting the past for now, was I really up to this? Had to warn him. “Well, I’m not fine. A mass of bruises and aches won’t be too much fun for you—or me.”

  He gave me an are-you-out-of-your-mind smile. “Let me worry about me. And when I’m done, you won’t have any worries, either.”

  Then he undid his pants and stepped out of them.

  Mama! “Uh, another thing. We can’t. I—have no protection.”

  Protection, in the plural, materialized out of his jeans’ back pocket. “No problem.”

  Oh, yeah? “Came confidently prepared, huh?”

  “I knew you’d see the not-to-be-missed opportunity.”

  My body’s throbbing was escalating to pounding. I yelled it down. “Just for that crack, buddy, you get to miss it.” I pushed him away. I doubt I could have if he hadn’t ridden my shove. He ended up back to the door, an abrupt laugh escaping him.

  I looked back. Not very wise, taking another look at that hard, long, thick promise of endless pleasure beckoning me to come ride it. The pressure inside me rose to critical levels.

  I snapped, “What?”

  He closed his eyes. “I’m wondering why I do this to myself. Why I don’t walk out this door and save myself the unrelenting grief.”

  I wondered myself. But then, Damian never gave up. Was that it? My attraction? That he couldn’t be sure of me?

  God, paranoia was an insidious poison once it hit your bloodstream, wasn’t it? I was lucid enough to know I wasn’t lucid enough. Better not let any ideas take hold right now.

  Still, I turned on him, snarling, “Beats me! There’s the door, beckoning. Go right through. Send a postcard sometime. Or don’t.”

  He straightened, the eyes that had been teasing and seducing a minute ago, dark, troubled. “I’ll need to hear one thing first. So let me hear it. Set me free. Say ‘I don’t care, Damian. It won’t kill me to lose you. I’ll just get another man.’ Say this, Calista, and you’ll be rid of me.”

  Say it, Calista, self-preservation urged. Set him free. And yourself.

  Was it kidding? I’d die before I lied to him that way. Even if turned out that he was lying to me.

  A ragged exhalation deflated me. “You’re one hell of a blackmailer, Damian. You know I could never say that.”

  His eyes lowered, then squeezed shut. Finally he spoke, deep, deep and hushed. “I know no such thing, Calista.”

  He didn’t? Had he voiced his insecurities and asked me to validate them and end his torment? Or was this another act?

  As soon as the thought hit me, I wanted to hit him and scream, See what you’ve done to me? To us?

  He slowly approached me again, animation surging back into his gaze, his voice. “But you’re a tormenting imp, aren’t you? Giving me just enough to deny the extreme scenario I painted, but nothing really positive, either.”

  “Oh, you want an undying declaration of love?”

  He bent, carried me into the shower. Feeling his hard, cool flesh against mine sent my head lolling on his shoulder. “That would be a start. Make it as frequent as you can manage it.”

  The hot water hit my wailing nerve endings. Arousal and aches swept into an indecipherable mess. I clung, moaning, when he set me down. “Why? Because you’re a control freak? A conquest-fixated, chest-thumping Tarzan whose self-esteem would shrivel without constant fixes of female adoration?”

  “My female’s adoration.”

  I bit him. His taste, his chuckling groan, flooded me. A finger traced the canines embedded in his flesh.

  “Retract these feminist fangs. I’m your male, too.”

  Really? How could I pick what to believe in what he said? I—I—aah… Another wave of sensation crashed, swamping all doubts. He was undoing my braid, his fingers and mouth working on the loosened mass, working me from head to hips. My legs buckled.

  He went down with me, took me on his lap as he folded six foot five worth of muscle on the cramped shower floor. I panicked for a second. I had cleaned it yesterday, hadn’t I?

  He started shampooing my hair. The bolts of pleasure became a constant high-voltage current.

  He sighed, a sound of pure contentment. “I dreamed of this for over six years, us like this, your one-of-a-kind hair shrouding us. The past four months, it’s become an obsession. Owing you my life has sort of compounded the damage.”

  That dragged me back. “I can stop you feeling indebted, De Luna. I can push you off a cliff and cancel out my good deed.”

  “Very thoughtful of you. But if you insist, we can agree it was your actions, as usual, that almost got me killed in the first place, taking care of any gratitude.” He winked as he turned the water off, started splashing globs of shower gel on me. Another salvo of desire detonated, imagining him…ohh…

  His hands left no inch untended to. I bit into him again, pressing whichever part of me he was tormenting into his palms, asking for harder, more. Anything.

  He gave me everything, his groans pained whenever he encountered a gash or a bruise. “But even if you hadn’t held my heart in your hands and brought me back to life, you’d still have your grip inescapably there. What I feel for you sure as hell is enough on its own. More than I can handle most times.”

  My fingers dove into his wet silk, glided all over his smooth toughness, lathering, kneading, lost in tactile nirvana. “Sounds like a debilitating disease.”

  “It sure is. It’s invigorating and incapacitating. It’s liberating and enslaving. It’s every contradictory emotion I never thought I was equipped to feel. It is hell.”

  A hell I knew very well. Dammit. Why was it never easy? Why couldn’t I just take him, let him take me and not think? “So why not do yourself a great service and just unfeel for me?”

  He turned the shower on again, letting the jets bombard us and rinse away our mutual cleansing efforts. “You got an unfeeling-for-you medication? I’d need a lethal dose. Maybe some radical surgery.”

  “Mmm, how radical are we talking here?”

  “Let’s see. You’ll have to remove my gray matter, my senses, my skin, and—” He looked down. I looked. Whoa. “That…”

  That had to hurt. Bad. Good! I shouldn’t be the only one with rivers of hormones swelling my tissues to bursting. And he was taking it so slow. Should I just attack him?

  I basically had, that first time together. Back in Russia, in the refugee camp. There’d come a moment when I’d had enough. I’d lost too many people, in too many ways. I’d wanted him too long, too deeply. Then he’d protected me from the talons shredding my sanity, offered solace, laid back and let me devour him.

  I wanted a repeat performance. Perpetually.

  But had that been real? Oh no, I was losing it.

  I groaned. “Why don’t you forget about me, Damian? Make things easier?”

  He scooped me up, pressed me to the tile wall, slid up my body. “I don’t want easy.” He undulated his chest against my aching breasts. I gasped, arched. “I want hard. I want tempestuous and devastating and borderline fatal. I want you.”

  Suited me. I wanted the same, and only he would ever answer the criteria. I took the words from his lips. He tasted like life and power and need and ecstasy, his words like everything worth having.

  I opened for his tongue, a sigh of immense relief pouring as I murmured around it, “I meant easier for me.”

  “Would you forget me if I stopped? Coming, trying?”

  “Yeah. As soon as I unburn your brand from every cell in my body and brain.” There. The appalling depth of my involvement. Let him use it as he would.

  A profound sound escaped him, like he was a starving man welcoming the first bite. The need to offer myself for his devouring, to mingle with his flesh stabbed me. I hated that I needed him this way, that he was irreplaceable. Hated that I couldn’t forget what he’d done and drown in him. Hated it even more that I was doing just that.

  No more. Fear, doubt, responsibility, love…

  I hear
d echoes of what sounded like my voice vibrating the shower stall. Had I raved that out loud?

  Of all times to have a breakdown.

  “Shh, Calista, shh, mi amor.” Mi amor? Spanish? He coos to me in Spanish in my condition? Was he out to kill me? I bucked in his arms, pushing, pulling, wanting, needing—now!

  “Let me, amor. I’ll make it all right.” His power cherished, flexed, plastering me to slick, hard flesh.

  “You’re making it worse.” This was a definite sob now. I scratched him, sank my teeth in his pectoral, beside his scar, opened my mouth on his heart, shook with every slow, booming heartbeat, relief, grief, arousal, sending me berserk.

  Growls of pain, of voracity rumbled from his chest. He hauled me up, poured them into my lips. “Just let go, let go, querida.”

  I sagged in his hold. He held me up, slid down my body, buried his face in me, murmured his hunger and enjoyment. I pressed myself against him and he gently bit me. I screamed.

  He cupped my buttocks, kneaded, spread, his voice scorching my flesh. “Open for me, amor—give me all you have….”

  He hauled my thighs onto his shoulders, sliding my streaming back up against the cold tiles, opening me up, where all agony poured. And then he lapped it all dry.

  Screams welled from my depths, too frenzied to form. I had to make him understand. My voice wouldn’t come. I managed a word, the one that mattered. “You…”

  The hand kneading my buttocks convulsed in my flesh, opening me wider. He gave me one more lap. I think I blacked out, blinked back to eyes housing his intellect and virility. “Sí, amor. Me, every way you want me. Take this now.”

  It was his words. All desperation detonated, each convulsion wringing me tighter, drier of sensation.

  I sagged, my hands gripping his head as he sucked in my quivering flesh, making sure I had nothing more to want, to feel. He stopped when there was no more, leaned his cheek on my thigh, rubbed his forming beard into it, heightening the intimacy.

  Man, but he was magnanimous. My heart clenched an obsessive fist around the memory. Whatever happened, I’d never forget this.

  I melted off his shoulders into arms that cascaded relaxing strokes all over me. I groaned. “You promised yourself. What was it? Another insubstantial promise?”

  He rose, powerful, beautiful—alive. “That’s insubstantial?”

  Nope. Incomparable. I staggered to my knees, grabbed him between trembling hands and lips. His surprise at the role reversal was short-lived, his surrender to my worshiping even shorter. He stopped me, hauled me up, dried me, then swept me back to bed. Had I bought a king-size bed with him in mind? Only glitch here was—he didn’t join me on it.

  He picked up something from the floor. A black bag. His. He opened it, produced bottles, opened them, lined them on my bedside table. His lips pressed my forehead. “Close your eyes, amor.”

  I obeyed at once, my heart galloping and stumbling.

  The glug of thick liquid pouring brushed my straining ears, then a rich, honey-like scent with a fruity tea undertone hit my other senses, soaked them through. My tongue tingled. I moaned, swallowed. Would he paint me with something and lick it off?

  Sure enough, he spread the substance around my blackened eyes, my cheekbones, my jaw. Then powerful, tender fingers began rubbing it in. Slow. Hypnotic. The scent got stronger, my senses expanded. Comfort seeped with the oil through skin to bruised tissues. One hand remained diligent on my face, the other melted down my body. My eyes snapped open, saw his face, savage arousal stamping his stark beauty, his lips parted, swollen. I cried out.

  He groaned, “Close your eyes, mi vida.” His life. He called me that….

  His tongue plunged in my mouth, his fingers in my core, in total carnal invasion. I convulsed on his third stroke. He didn’t stop, his thumb joining in, rubbing, light, patient, then harder, relentless, just right. I splintered in another orgasm.

  “Sí, belleza, sí.”

  His encouragements singed my lips, peaked the waves of release to pain. I burned out my cries, my all.

  I know I fainted. Then awareness seeped back, to him caressing healing into other injuries, to an alien feeling shrouding me. Supreme well-being. My blood ran a heavy, luxuriant potion, my limbs hummed to a score of bliss.

  He watched my face, intent, polished skin taut over bones jutting with hunger. It was still supreme satisfaction that poured over me as he admired his handiwork, the puddle of fulfillment I must present.

  I spread arms begging to be filled. He only snapped up another bottle. This time he held it above my breasts, let the thick liquid pour, the golden trickle winking tiny stars against the background darkness. It smelled different, like ginger, with something spicy and warm, and a hint of something like sandalwood.

  “What is it?” I moaned deep and long as he began to massage it into my aching shoulders and ribs and breasts.

  “Ginger, celery seed and amyris essential oils. For easing muscle pain and reducing swelling, helping with fatigue and releasing tension and stress. Said to be an aphrodisiac, too.”

  I bucked up from the bed when he circled both nipples, subsided, heaved again, gasped, “Around you I need a dampener.”

  He bit and suckled the fingers trying to grab him to me. “No dampening. Only thorough and repeated satisfaction.”

  “And how.” I arched up, noticed his sustained erection. Oh, no. I’d been getting it all myself, giving nothing! I never saw anything so engorged before, not even him. I stroked him, mouth watering, insides clenching. “Come let me give it to you.”

  His erection jumped in my grip, his whole body quivering with suppressed tension. “Just lie back and enjoy, mi amor. I want you feeling no pain when I make love to you.”

  “I feel no pain now! That stuff you used at first must be a miracle. What is it?”

  “Immortelle.” Okay. Aptly named. I felt reborn, limitless. “Or helichrysum. Boosts healing and contains powerful anti-bruising agents. Soothing, antidepressant—helpful in exhaustion.”

  Everything I needed. “Oh, Damian. Thank you. I never thought you’d be one for aromatherapy. You came prepared for that, too.”

  “You were battered, in and out. I wanted to comfort you.”

  “You did. More than I can describe. But you’ve been aroused for—how long has it been?”

  “What’s an hour to six and a half years?”

  “Oh, stop showing off. I have firsthand experience with your legendary stamina. Make love to me. Don’t you dare hold back.”

  The look he gave me had a new gush flooding me. “I’ll hold your back. Turn over, querida. And around, head to feet.”

  I’d never flopped over and on my axis that fast, not even with bullets whizzing over my head. He came behind me, readying himself. My anticipation frothed, going mad guessing his intention.

  The next second oil poured on my back. My fist slammed the mattress. Enough. He rumbled something as fierce. I rammed my hips back at him, my insides scrunched, crazy for a relentless ride.

  He leaned over, sank his teeth in my buttock. “Rise on your elbows, Calista. I want you to watch this.”

  I obeyed him, found myself looking in my full-length mirror a few feet from the bed. My heart sputtered to a standstill.

  In caressing light and shadow, bodies of cream and bronze melded. A woman I didn’t recognize, a face of blatant arousal and a body inviting anything and everything, lush and small against dominant virility chiseled by gods and a face befitting a higher being, tender, tempestuous, out of control, and totally in it….

  And in this moment, I hoped I hadn’t found all of his surveillance equipment. That we were being taped right now, so I could have a permanent record of this magic, could watch it, relive it for the rest of my life.

  I watched his hands flowing down my back, thumbs pressing, gliding into my muscles, melting around my hips, positioning me. He turned me to the side so I could watch him push his erection against my entrance. I lunged back, tried to force him inside
me. He held me off, teased me with shallow strokes.

  “Just watch, mi amor. Do you see how magnificent you look, how voluptuous, how wild? And your hair—Dios, it’s blazing silver and bronze, flowing like it’s alive, a part of the storm that is you. Do you see how ready for me you are? How we fit? Do you see me?”

  Now what kind of a question was that, when all I ever saw was him? The only man I could ever love.

  Was he that man for real?

  His eyes closed, as if he’d heard my doubt, then opened on a new determination, his mass flexing around me. Everything in me opened, accepted.

  The power of his massaging deepened as it started. At last. Damian. Invading me, completing me, holding my eyes in the mirror as he eased his girth inside me, letting me open for him, letting me see the emotions transfiguring his face.

  I lost sight of the incredible sequence when pleasure slashed me. My eyes rotated inside their sockets. I swear. Like a slot machine. Clinked in a jackpot position—position… This was our best one yet. Or maybe each time he touched me it got better.

  My body wept more for him and he thrust, sought my depths. Found them. Then farther, filling me beyond capacity. Beyond description. The searing fullness, the idea. His hands caressed my back to the intensity of his thrusts, creating new pleasure receptors inside and out. Moans sharpened to keens. Then his hands took my neck.

  Alarm flashed. I never let myself be this vulnerable. Never.

  But this is Damian. Damian.

  I melted in his grip, moaned my trust, and his fingers moved, poured healing into ten-year tension and pain. I opened my eyes, saw him smile, bitter and resigned. The involuntary doubt. He had seen it. And it hurt him. I did.

  “Damian…”

  He stopped my explanation, apology—whatever, started the jarring thrusts I was mindless for. All nerves fired. No. I wanted it to last. Forever. If it ended, I’d have to think again.

  He gave me no chance to hold back. Spams of release started from the point he was buried deepest, rippled out in shock waves, each building where the last diminished. He rode me through every one.