However, the rest of the space was left the way nature intended it. Short, stubby trees and sage-coloured patches of shrubs interspersed the rocky ground, painted in tender shades of pink and orange by the rising sun. Sandy red mountain ridges framed the horizon as far as I could see. There were no other buildings around, no cars and no people.
The pale-blue open sky above me and the wide unspoiled land around me created the feeling of absolute freedom. Pushing all my worries aside for now, I smiled to myself, enjoying the beautiful sunrise and the crisp, fresh morning air.
My skin prickled with cold, and I realized that the weather could still be chilly in Las Vegas in January and that my long-sleeved top alone wasn’t enough to keep me warm. After a few minutes outside, I decided to turn around and stop by the house to get my sweater before continuing with the walk.
Inside the house, I searched in the hall closet for the sweater I took off last night when I felt the first tremors. The ground shook slightly under my feet, and I had to grab onto the doorframe to keep my balance. Earthquake? The ground shook again, confirming my suspicions, and then a sharp screeching noise followed, rumbling through the walls around me.
This time the vibrations were much stronger. The dishes in the kitchen rattled loudly and the empty wine bottle from last night fell off the kitchen counter and exploded into a million pieces on the tiled floor.
Really scared by now, I slid to the ground, with my back to the door frame, and braced my legs on the opposite wall. It was impossible to keep standing when the floor moved under my feet.
What should I do?
I racked my brain for any knowledge on what to do in case of an earthquake, but it all got kind of scrambled in there. Was I supposed to go to the basement, stand in the doorway, hide under a mattress, or run outside? All the tactics of extreme weather response were mixed up in my head. I was sure that some of them were for a case of a tornado, not earthquake. I just couldn’t sort them out at the moment.
I had no practical knowledge of these things! Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, there weren’t any real earthquakes or hurricanes in Toronto to deal with. The biggest “natural disasters” I had to survive so far were electricity blackouts due to snow storms, and overflowing garbage on the streets due to city employees being on strike for weeks at a time.
The ground continued to shake, coming in waves, each one stronger than the last. The house groaned and screeched like a live creature from a nightmare.
Get out, I decided, trying not to panic. I should get out, just in case the house collapsed. Marcus said the house was reinforced, but still.
Marcus!
Oh, my God, he must still be inside. What if he fell asleep again? Could anyone sleep through this?
I got on all fours and crawled towards the bedroom as fast as I could, bracing myself for occasional blows to my shoulders and hips, as I was thrown side to side by the shockwaves.
“Marcus,” I called when I reached the bedroom door and pushed it open with an elbow. Not that he would hear me through the ruckus anyway. Are all earthquakes this loud? I wondered when a blast of heat from the bedroom hit my face and all thoughts stopped in my head, confronted with the picture in front of me.
Marcus hovered in the air, few feet over the bed where I left him. His naked body arched back like a drawn bow ready to release the arrow. Every single muscle was strung tight under his skin. His head was thrown back so far that it almost touched the sheets on the bed. His long hair cascaded down in a coal-black stream and pooled on the bed below him.
Heat, and light, and something else — something strong and palpable — rolled off him in powerful swells, in sync with the shocks of the earthquake that violently vibrated through the house.
With the door wide open, I sat on the floor inside the doorframe — each hand braced on the opposite sides. My mouth fell open, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the pale muscular figure gracefully arched in the air like a marble statue of an ancient spirit, seemingly frozen in time and space… except for the movement of his hand where his fingers were wrapped around his massive shaft, sliding up and down with force!
Embarrassment, followed by a violent heat of arousal, flushed my face when I realized what I was witnessing. Struggling to maintain the balance, with the ground still lurching from under me, I held on to the doorframe and got up to my feet. My knees shook, maybe from the tremors of the earthquake or maybe from the different type of shivers that were pulsing inside of me now.
Suddenly, his face furrowed into a grimace, baring his teeth. Marcus growled loudly as his hand pulled faster. A bright ball of white light exploded from inside of his chest and spread through the room like a supernova. I felt the impact of it when it reached me in a wave of hot, heavy, fragrant air that fanned my hair and enveloped my body in an embrace. It felt like the very essence of Marcus reached for me and hugged me before slowly dissipating into the air.
Flushed, confused, shocked, and turned on beyond belief, I stood there with my eyes and mouth open wide, watching Marcus’s body finally relax and languidly float down to the mattress.
The house no longer shook; the earthquake stopped completely, as suddenly as it began.
Marcus lay on the bed, his arms and legs spread wide, like the rays of a starfish. His head rolled to the side slowly, and he lifted his heavy eyelids, meeting my eyes.
I should not have been there! I should’ve been gone as soon as I realized what was going on. I should’ve given him his privacy.
Now it was too late.
Surprise, fear — borderline panic — flashed across his face for just a fraction of a second, and then a cocky smirk took their place.
“You’re not running.” Despite the confidence of his smile, his voice was tentative.
I let go off the door frame and made a step forward, my chin up in defiance.
“Why would I run?” I took another step forward. “Why didn’t you tell me? Or… show me? Earlier?”
He rose on his elbows and propped his back against the headboard, visibly calm.
“Sorry, I didn’t want you to find out like this,” he gestured towards his sticky thigh. He exhaled with force and leaned his head back on the headboard. “I didn’t want you to find out at all.”
“You were never going to tell me?” I was shocked and not a little bit hurt at this point. “I thought you knew you didn’t have to hide from me. Not from me.”
“Angela.” He eyes met mine, searching for my emotions. “I wanted to tell you all, even before I found you in Toronto. I was hoping I could one day. But then… you are my everything, Angela. I need you to be with me. It may be selfish, but I can’t imagine being without you anymore. Even if there was one in a billion chance of your running away, I couldn’t risk it.”
“Did you really believe that I would run? Did you really think an earthquake, a tsunami, a nuclear explosion or even the world’s apocalypse would scare me away from you?” I took a few more steps forward and now stood next to him, my knees touching the bed.
“You’re not afraid?”
I shook my head in reply.
“Fearless.” His eyes warmed up with unmistakable admiration.
“No,” I shook my head again. “I’m not fearless. I have many fears, so many fears, Marcus,” I inhaled deeply. “But you’re not one of them.” I pulled a tissue from the box on his nightstand and sat down on the bed to wipe his thigh clean while his eyes followed my every move.
“You already shook my whole world to the core.” I looked deep into those dark-blue eyes of his, willing him to understand. “You turned my whole life upside down and knocked everything I knew off its foundation.” I shrugged my shoulder and smiled. “What’s a little earthquake now?”
He took my hand in his.
“You’re not running.” It was not said for me. It sounded as a confirmation to himself, as if he still couldn’t fully believe that there was one person in this world who accepted him unconditionally. Me.
I ran my th
umb over the knuckles of his hand that held mine.
“Everyone else did?” I asked quietly.
“I never told anyone.”
His words made me pause.
“Never?”
“No.”
I thought about all those women that came through his hotel rooms over the years before me.
“Marcus, you could not have been a virgin when I met you.”
He actually rolled his eyes on me and laughed. “No, Angela. I haven’t been a virgin for a very long time now.”
“But you never came inside a woman before?”
He shook his head slowly, his laughter stopped.
“I never came anywhere near a woman, or anyone else for that matter.”
“Wow,” I exhaled. It was a complete surprise to me. In all our time together, I had never even considered such a possibility.
When I agreed to date him, I accepted all the baggage that came from his past lifestyle of a playboy. Now, though, I felt a warm feeling of quiet triumph in my chest. After the legions of women who came before me, I could still be his first in some way.
“We need to fix that.” I took hold of the bottom edge of my top and pulled it off over my head.
With everything out in the open, I didn’t care to wait any longer. What he thought was a problem, some kind of a disadvantage of being with him, was just another part of him to me. A part of Marcus, the beautiful, unique, complicated man I loved with all my heart.
“Anything else I need to know?” I asked with a small smile and tilted my head. “Any more secrets, Marcus Hargrave, before I proceed?”
With his eyes still firmly on me, Marcus didn’t return my smile. Dead serious, he inhaled a lungful of air and nodded.
“I love you,” he breathed out and pulled me to him.
The teasing smile disappeared from my face as all air was knocked out of my chest at once. All words left me.
He grabbed my waist and pulled me into his lap before I could blink. “I love you, Angela. Every. Single. Piece. Of You,” he kissed my hair, my neck, my face, punctuating every word. “And all of your pieces are now mine.”
He rolled me on the bed so that he ended up hovering over me, propped by the elbows: his face over mine; his hair shrouding us in a fragrant curtain of black silk; his dark, midnight-blue eyes piercing mine, reaching into my very soul.
“I love you,” he repeated in a hot whisper. “And this is my last secret. The secret that I have been keeping from you for some time now.”
His mouth covered mine in a long, tender, caressing kiss that slowly grew deeper, stronger, and more powerful.
My fingers reached into his hair, and I slid my hands along the length of the thick, silky strands. I took a fistful of his hair and wound it around my wrist, moaning, as he kissed me.
I felt his mouth move down along my neck to the valley between my breasts then lower along my stomach, and I pulled my wrist up with his hair wrapped around it, forcing him to lift his head and meet my eyes.
“No,” I shook my head. “I’ve had enough foreplay these past months. I want you inside me, Marcus. I’m ready.”
He slid back up my body and pressed his forehead to mine, “I don’t keep condoms here…”
“Since when is that a good excuse for you? Bring them from my bedroom then.” I sensed there was more to this. “What’s going on, Marcus?”
“I don’t want to use one with you,” he said quietly but firmly.
I let my arm drop, allowing his hair to unwind from my wrist and spill over us again.
“I’m not on the pill,” I reminded him.
“I know,” he lifted his head and found my eyes again.
“You know the consequences…”
“I do,” he replied and added with an absolute certainty, “and I want it. I want everything with you, Angela. Everything. Move in with me. Stay with me. Forever.”
I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him closer, feeling his heart beating against mine frantically.
This was my Marcus. He knew nothing of dating and never even had a real relationship before me. He didn’t proclaim his commitment by going down on one knee and holding out a diamond ring. He did it like this, in his own way — unconventionally, a little clumsy and so very real.
“I love you too, Marcus,” I breathed out into the side of his neck, “and I want you to be mine, all of you.”
With a groan, he dipped his hands into my hair and found my mouth with his, and then I was just trying to remember how to breathe as his mouth invaded mine with a possessive passion that made me melt in his arms completely.
He rocked his hips into me insistently, urgently, and I opened my legs wider, welcoming him. I felt him ease inside me, filling me. Sensations overwhelmed me, and my head swam when he began to move.
Finally.
I didn’t even realize how much I wanted this, how much I needed to have him like this, inside of me, as close as he ever could be.
I felt weightless, and I knew that we were no longer on the bed — we were high under the ceiling: the wooden beams were just a couple of feet away from my face.
The feeling of weightlessness only added to the sensation of floating in my brain while Marcus and I were fused together as one, suspended in the air.
Swirls of white-hot light curled all around us, creating a warm sensation of a tender caress on my skin wherever they touched me. My senses heightened. Every nerve stood on end, and I felt the faint tease of orgasm rising from deep inside. I let it grow, focusing on Marcus’s slick movements inside me, until finally it took over my mind entirely and shuddered my body in powerful spasms.
“Oh… Marcus…” I whimpered through the tremors of pleasure, digging my fingers into his shoulders.
He held me tight, as we rolled through the air, our arms and legs intertwined, our hair tangled together in one black-brown mass. I wrapped my legs around his hips and tightened my arms around his shoulders. I finally had him, all of him, and I was not going to let him go.
Suspended in the air, I didn’t feel the house shake, but I heard the earthquake rumble through it again. The noise reverberated between the walls and merged with the pained groan that came from deep inside of Marcus’s chest as his hips thrust into me desperately. He buried his face in my shoulder, as if trying to muffle his growls, as if it would stop the onslaught of pleasure exploding inside of him along with the radiating waves of the bright light and heat around us. His body tensed around me, his arms flexed, straining not to crush me.
“Shhhh.” I slid my hands up and down the bulging muscles on his back. “It’s ok. Let it go, my love. It’s just me. Let it go.”
Finally, he erupted in powerful shudders raging through his whole body; his growls against my shoulder resonated deep inside my chest. I heard the deafening noise the house made as it shook violently, and for a second I was convinced it would actually collapse this time. The thought didn’t scare me though, I was too happy to be scared of anything at all at that moment.
Marcus relaxed over me, completely boneless, as we floated down towards the bed.
“I’m so happy right now, Angela,” he whispered against my neck and kissed it tenderly. “You make me so happy.”
My heart swelled from the intensity of the feelings I had for him. So much love. So many unnamed emotions. I felt real pride at being able to make him happy, and I made my own vow right then and there: I would do anything to keep him happy. For as long as I lived.
29. Truly Fearless!
I walked from my parents’ house, from the house of my childhood, the place where I grew up, the place that held so many happy memories.
Everything had changed. Slowly, the house had become a burden on our family. The cost of keeping it had put all of us under a lot of stress and put a strain on the relationships between us. From a place of happy memories, the house had become the source of worries and even resentment.
Lately, I had done a lot of thinking and realized that our happy places existe
d in time just as much as they existed in space. I loved the place of my childhood, I always would, but I resented the house that cost my father’s health and my mother’s happiness.
It was time for all of us to say goodbye. It was time for me to make my parents see it this way too. Marcus always called me fearless, and for once I really wanted to be.
I couldn’t make my parents change overnight. I couldn’t force them do anything at all, even if I felt that it was for their own good; I only had control of my own actions.
As soon as I was finally able to arrange with my mother to come by the house, I delivered that month’s money in person. Then I asked my father to get all paperwork, including whatever unopened past-due notices they had lying around that day.
As it often happened, the situation turned out to be even worse than I feared. I still had to tell them that I decided to quit my retail job and that I wouldn’t be able to help them financially as much as I did anymore.
It physically hurt me to do it. It hurt to see the worry on my father’s face, the outright panic in my mother’s eyes.
I could see my own part in getting them in this situation. By giving them money, by avoiding this confrontation, I was enabling them to ignore the issue for much longer than was necessary. I stopped short of blaming myself for their problems, but I had to admit that my feeling of responsibility was misplaced in this case.
I resented that I struggled financially while I was helping them. Why did I do it then? I had to do another deep search within to come up with an answer to this question.
Yes, there was a strong sense of belonging I felt every time I sent them money, I felt proud that I could help my parents. I took their troubles personally, and my parents had become another problem for me to solve, another project to accomplish.
More importantly, though, I got addicted to the feeling of being needed. While dealing with Evan’s problems, my mother and I ended up feeding each other’s addictions. I enabled her excessive shopping therapy, and she stocked my need for being indispensable and important.
The Real Thing Page 19