Unspoken communication passed between us and he drove into me with a hard thrust. We became like animals, driving deeper into me as I begged for more. The sweat glistened from our bodies like moonbeams, the heat and the slipperiness turning me on even more.
My body was on the brink of explosion again. He rolled me over, straddling me on top of him, and I arched my body back, forcing him to go deeper than I ever thought possible. I rode him without mercy. His eyes glistened as he came closer to the edge. His raspy voice called out to me, while the passion engulfed him. Rolling me onto my back again and grabbing my hair, he pulled my head back and slammed into me, making me to cry out. I was toppling over the edge, electricity charging throughout my body. I was on fire and my climax rose to the peak. I couldn’t hold out much longer. Pinning my hands, chaining me, he grabbed my face, forcing me to look at him.
“Say my name,” he demanded. “Who do you want? Who am I to you, now? Tell me I am the only one who can love you like this, the only man you could ever want!”
“Only you … Elliot! I want only you!” I screamed.
And he gave one last thrust as we both exploded into oblivion, our orgasms crashing together. I was floating and gasping for air at the same time as he emptied into me, my body convulsing over and over again. I kept trying to breathe, but I couldn’t fill my lungs yet. My heart beat wildly. My mind was somewhere beyond euphoria and heaven. I wasn’t sure I wanted to come back. I wanted to languish in this dreamlike state of ecstasy, this feeling of complete satisfaction.
Leaning on his arms, he lifted himself off to hover above me as he looked into my eyes, trying to read me.
“OH MY GOD!” he gasped out, still breathless. “Oh my fucking god!” he repeated.
My eyes cleared as I looked up at this man. My body still tingled and was damp from sweat. The stickiness from my climax mixed with his. I reached for his face and softly stroked his cheek. I traced the outline of his mouth and the stubble on his chin, pushing his wayward hair out of his eyes.
“Can I do anything for you? Get you anything?” he asked.
“More?” I answered him, grinning.
I couldn’t contain my need for him, the wantonness he brought out in me. After all this time, he was the only man who ever made me want him until I was oblivious. No inhibitions, no holding back. Yet this time was different from before. This time there was no fear.
He pushed the hair out of my face, gazing at me again.
“Always more, forever, always more.”
We spent the rest of the evening talking, snacking, drinking wine outside overlooking the water and making love. For the first time, I didn’t think of tomorrow or a month from now. I was here right now for this moment in time. I enjoyed the sound of his voice, his hands on me, his body curled next to me, holding me. Tomorrow would take care of itself. For the first time in many years I was content. Everything would be just fine because I had finally found myself. I had left it with Elliot.
In the early hours of dawn, the sun just starting to lighten the sky, I finally dressed, and Elliot, always the gentleman, walked me back to the beach house. Taking my face in his hands, he kissed me, long and sweet, making me float as I headed inside.
Andrea was up, enjoying a cup of coffee, sitting there with the biggest shit-eating grin on her face that I had ever seen.
“Out with it, girl! And I want more details. Don’t leave anything out. I am living my love life vicariously through you.”
Over coffee, wrapped in a quilt and sitting in paradise, I told her everything. Well, almost everything.
Where the hell was that bitch?
She was going to pay for this once and for all. I had plans and it was time to go home. She needed a lesson, the whore. If she begged enough maybe she could live, but I was sick and tired of her shit. Fuckin’ slut. She’d wish I had killed her the first time when I was done with her. Fuckin’ whore.
ELLIOT
I was home, sitting on my deck, overlooking the cove, and slowly turning the stem of my wine glass between my fingertips. The burgundy liquid swirled inside the glass as I spun it. It was hypnotic as was everything else surrounding me. The waves roared as they crashed into the shore. It was fierce and powerful, yet peaceful and calming. One could not stop the waves. They rolled into the shore however nature decided, not man. Like life, we had so little control, even when we tried to convince ourselves that we did.
All three doors were wide open. The breeze was perfect and the sun smiled at me. In front of me, a computer screen glowed with words. Last week turned my life upside down and back again several times over and I was still trying to catch my breath.
Emily was here.
I talked to her.
I touched her.
I made love to her, over and over and over again, never getting my fill.
I spent hours making love to the woman who held my heart hostage for the last seven years. Actually eight, if you counted the year we were together. She kept it when I left. She never returned it to me. I realized now, she was holding it and waiting.
I tried to get over her. I spent time with women all over the world. A few hours, a few days, even a few weeks, but I couldn’t find my heart in any one of them. I spent many a night raging over this with a bottle of Jack, screaming and sobbing. I picked up women and tried to fuck her image out of my mind. I was a demanding, cold lover. I thought I was the one in control, taking what I wanted. Who was I kidding? I never made love to those women—I fucked them. I didn’t give a damn about them. They were a vessel, a means to forget the one woman I wanted and walked away from. No matter how many different faces were in front of me or underneath me, in my haze I dreamed they were Emily. None of them ever came close. She had ruined me.
I quit women four years ago, all of them. I buried myself in my writing. I wrote constantly, sometimes for days at a time. Coming up only to eat and shower when I couldn’t stand the smell of myself, and the hunger pains in my stomach grew unbearable.
Every book I wrote hit the bestseller list. And every book had some part of Emily in it. She was the hero, the villain, the temptress, and the murderer. She was the destruction of nations and the savior of souls. Emily was a part of everything I wrote because she was gone.
I had everything I could ever dream of, except the one woman I couldn’t forget.
And now, she was here. My Emily was more beautiful and stronger than I ever imagined. There were moments I couldn’t breathe when she was next to me. The passion that ignited between the two of us. It was as if two broken pieces had finally come together creating an explosion. I’d never experienced anything like it before. Reaching for the wine glass I set on the table only a moment ago, I took a sip, savoring … remembering.
It was great before, but now? I got hard just thinking about her and what transpired earlier. We came together again with such force. It was an explosion. I couldn’t have held myself back from her if I wanted to, and neither could she … that was the beauty of it.
The Emily of years ago was shyer, more inhibited. She held back as if she were afraid to let herself go. Yes, she was angry and wild, untamed. She was younger, inexperienced, she never realized the power she could have sexually.
My Emily had grown up. Now she demanded and she took as much as she gave. She was confident and free, asking me and telling me what she wanted, begging me to satisfy her. Friday night was pure uninhibited lust mixed with desire and love. When she left to go home, I felt lost even though she was only a few blocks away.
Last night … it was magical, sensual. We made love for hours. Here on my deck, out on the beach, in the ocean, hidden by darkness. And finally, once again in my bed. I awoke this morning before dawn and she was still here, curled up next to me, her hair fanning the pillows around her. I couldn’t help myself. I softly woke her up, stroking her, touching her, making her wet and wanting before her eyes were open. She moaned and reached out to me and we made love again.
And again.
We
had dinner with Andrea Saturday night. She was an amazing woman. I listened as she spoke passionately about her work, her need to help the women and children that came into the shelter to escape the abuse and pain. The never-ending need for more help, more education.
Emily had told me a little about Andrea’s past, enough to understand the reasoning behind her passion for her work. I was astonished at how well she was doing and humbled that she didn’t play the part of the victim. She was using her pain, her experience, as she called it, to help others. The fact she almost died at the hands of her former boyfriend made me burn with rage.
A surge of anger hit me at the thought of someone beating a woman like that, of hitting a woman at all. I barely knew Andrea and I wanted to find the asshole and give him a taste of it, beat him senseless.
I wanted to learn more about the crisis of abuse, work it into a story somehow and try to increase more awareness. Lessen the shame and the silence these women felt they needed to hide behind. I wanted to help make a difference.
Listening to Emily and Andrea, I could see the bond in the friendship they’d created. I was excited to meet Maggie, too. I wanted to be a part of this life Emily had made.
When Emily left in the morning to go pack, I walked into town, picking up coffee and rolls, and scurried over to the beach house, surprising them. I wanted every minute I could have with her before she left.
Andrea smirked when she answered the door. She could read me. I was hopeless. I was sad, excited, depressed, and desperate at the same time. Emily was leaving in a few hours, driving home to her life in Phoenix. To her friends, her house, her dog. I spent the most amazing week of my life and the reason was driving east and away from me.
I know, get it together, man, it’s not the other side of the world. I took another sip of wine and stared out at the water. My eyes filled when her jeep pulled away, the two of them waving goodbye, as if a part of me was vanishing again. She promised to call when she got home.
I missed her already.
I didn’t think I could wait weeks to see her while we figured out a plan.
I didn’t want to push or to chase her and I didn’t want to scare her off. But dammit! I wanted her in my life. For as long as I lived, I wanted to be with my Emily. I was tired of waiting.
In this life, we only got so many chances. You needed to jump at the ones that kept knocking at your heart. Forget the what ifs and the maybes. When your gut feeling was so strong and the thoughts refused to go away, you needed to grab that chance. It was there for a reason.
God was handing you a gift. You could either grab hold of it and enjoy it, or you could let it go to waste. I’d learned the hard way and regretted it. I wasn’t doing that this time. There was a reason Emily was walking on the beach that night. It was my chance, my gift. I screwed up and walked away the last time she was in front of me and I wasn’t doing that again. Whatever it took … I was taking this chance.
With that, I stood up and finished my wine. Stepping back inside for a pen and notepad, I began making my plans.
It felt like an eternity when Emily finally called me from Phoenix. I could sense a faint hesitation in her voice, making me wish I could reach through the phone somehow and wrap my arms around her, reassure her. She was like me in many ways, she thought way too much and overanalyzed everything she felt. Second-guessing her decisions.
The conversation was peppered with moments of silence, as though we couldn’t find the right words to say to one another, awkward silences.
I reassured her how I felt about her, how important she really was to me and that I wanted to be a part of her life. We could make this work somehow.
We talked until I could hear the exhaustion edging into her voice.
“Think of the beach, Emily. Dream of me. Dream of the life we are going to share. It’s finally our time. Fate has brought us back together, given us another chance. No one is taking that away again,” I told her. “And dream of me because I love you.”
EMILY
THUMP!
I sat straight up in bed. Lucky lifted his head just as fast. He kept staring at my bedroom window, emitting a low menacing growl. Other than the sound of my heart, which was pounding in my ears, it was silent.
I glanced at my clock and the illuminated numbers read 4:10. What the hell? I looked quickly for my cell phone and then I remembered I’d left it in my office.
Shit!
I sat there, listening. Lucky was like a frozen block of ice, not moving a muscle as he watched the window.
More than a minute went by of complete silence. I started to think I was imagining things when I heard what sounded like a chair scrape across the concrete patio.
Lucky tore from the bed toward the window and let out a bark, then another growl. I ran to my office to grab my cell phone. I could hear someone trying to work the patio door, clicking and jabbing at it, the sounds magnifying with each movement. Lucky raced into the living room, his growl growing louder, meaner. The hackles on his back stood straight up as he faced whoever was out there, trying to get in.
I jabbed 911 as fast as my fingers could work.
Nothing…
It was then I realized I had forgotten to plug the phone in to charge it back up. The battery was dead. I reached for my landline. Again, punching the numbers 911.
Nothing.
Lucky lunged at the sliding door, shoving the blinds aside with his motion, his paws trying to dig their way through the glass. I could see someone crouched over the door handle, trying to work it open, poking at the lock with something and then pulling at it. It was so dark outside and the only light was coming from a small fixture over the kitchen sink. I could make out the shadow of a man and what he was trying to do, but his face was hidden from where I stood frozen in the doorway. This had to be a dream, a nightmare.
I felt like I was on the outside looking in at some horrible movie that I was starring in. I was in my home, alone, in the middle of the night and this man was trying to break in. He wanted to hurt me.
It was that split second I understood. This wasn’t a burglary. This man was after me. He wanted to hurt me.
My heart was pounding, immobilizing me, my mind a blank. I couldn’t make a rational decision. Lucky kept jumping at the door trying to get through to the monster on the other side, his bark becoming louder, fiercer.
My voice broke through my fear and I let out a scream, startling even myself. I didn’t recognize the sounds coming from my throat, the sheer terror of what was happening. A light flicked on in my neighbor’s yard behind me, casting a glow on the top of the wall. It backlit the man working furiously to open my sliding door. A dirty blue hoodie concealed part of his face. A face I didn’t recognize.
I stepped closer to the door, my need to know who he was overriding the fear. I needed to connect a face to the man who was making my life a living hell.
He stood up, pushing the hood of his jacket back. His dirty hair stuck up in tufts across the top of his head and hung long in the back, mullet style. His eyes looked at me, traveling up and down the length of me as I stood in front of him, a glass door separating us. A glimmer of recognition hit me but I didn’t know him. I couldn’t put a name to his face. I would have remembered him, especially those eyes. They were void of anything. His eyes didn’t see or feel; they were dead evil eyes that I didn’t know. A stranger’s eyes that I had maybe passed by at some point in time. I stared back at him as he watched me.
It wasn’t his dirty appearance or his dead eyes that had me hypnotized in fear now, it was the cold smile stretching his colorless lips in a straight line across his mouth, giving me a glimpse of tobacco stained and broken teeth. He smiled the smile of a hunter who had cornered his prey. I shuddered and my blood ran cold as I started to back away, my mind searching for an escape.
I watched in horror as his arm raised up from his side, realizing there was a gun in his hand. He pointed it at Lucky, trailing him as my dog raced back and forth, snarling. Half the ve
rtical blinds were broken, scattered on the floor where he had torn them from the header in his attempts to get at the man outside.
At one point I knew I was screaming, screaming for this stranger to leave us alone, screaming for help into a dark and otherwise silent night, screaming at the top of my lungs for someone … anyone to stop this nightmare. I barely registered the sound of breaking glass, the rock shattering the sliding door from the outside. I didn’t think. He had a gun pointed at Lucky and I jumped forward as Lucky lunged, jumping on the devil with the gun, pushing the man back, and his arm swung upward.
Everything began to move in slow motion, while in reality, it was only a matter of seconds.
I heard the gunfire as lights flooded the backyard. I registered pounding on my front door before the splintering of wood as it was kicked in. I felt the vibrations of a hundred feet pounding the floor around me.
The world was disappearing, growing hazy in front of me. I couldn’t focus or see anything. I could feel the intense heat spreading over my right shoulder and my chest, a burning, searing pain. What was it? I grabbed at my arm to make it stop, but I pulled away when my hand became warm and sticky. The jolt of pain came with a blast; the dizziness coming stronger as I realized my hand was covered with blood. Everything started fading, growing darker. Where was Lucky? I tried to turn my body to search for him but nothing cooperated. The pain engulfed me almost completely.
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