“You’ve already done that,” she answered, feeling her cheeks stain anew.
“Well, obviously not recently enough. You’re disappearing. You have to take care of yourself, Kori. I don’t want you passing out again.”
“I was trying to take care of myself.” She forced herself to look at his entrancing eyes before continuing. “I was laying in my bunk on the other side of that wall,” she nodded her head to the right, “attempting to take a nap when WHAM! intergalactic mental porn started streaming into my head.” She was pleased at the startled look that suddenly flashed over his features.
“You saw that? Oh, lord.” It was his turn to flush a trifle pink. He looked away from her, down toward his still-open zipper. “Shit,” he mumbled, “that’s embarrassing.”
Softly, yet loud enough for her to hear, he said, “I’m sorry, Kori. I didn’t mean to do that.” He looked at her in earnest.
This was more or less what she’d expected: a contrite JT who had no clue he’d pushed his fantasies into her head. Now she had to ensure that he wouldn’t do it again, at least not intentionally. And that he’d exercise some caution about accidental overloads should the occasion arise again. Arise? Really, Kori?
“Knowing our track record together, you didn’t even suspect that I might pick that up? Those were some, uh, very strong images you were having, JT.” She believed him, but to make sure he understood her objections, she had to tighten the screws a fraction more. Still, she was gratified to watch his flush deepen.
JT cleared his throat. “Well, those were meant to be private. What I mean is, I thought they were.” The glint in his eye warned her the cocky JT was returning. “If I had known you were watching, love, I’d have spiced things up a bit more.”
He was rewarded with a flash of her self-conscious smile. “Trust me, they were enough.”
“Enough?”
Her pink cheeks leaned a bit more toward red. Damn. I’m not usually this easily embarrassed. But we shared an intimate moment when we weren’t even in the same room, let alone knew we were being intimate with each other. This is definitely unexplored territory here. “Yeah, enough. To… wake me up.” She silently pleaded with him to understand her meaning. She hadn’t walked in on him before he’d finished; his outcome was obvious, as evidenced by his shirt. And he’d been expecting it to happen.
JT leaned out of the pillows and sat up, crisscrossing his legs Indian-style and resting his forearms over his knees. Again he pinned her with his exquisite stare, renewing the churning tickle in her midsection. “You mean you… Did I get you off just by imagining it, Kori? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
She nodded mutely, afraid she’d stammer if she tried to reply. The butterflies continued their swarming stomach dance as his gaze grew more intense.
The flicker in his eyes sparked brighter and a wide, satisfied grin spread slowly over JT’s face. “Whoa. Talk about a mind fuck,” he chuckled.
He looks like he wants to try it again. That would be the absolute worst thing he could be allowed to do. Like I could choose the things he’s allowed to do. This was JT-freaking-Blackwood. He does whatever he wants. Oh, shit, this is bad.
Despite the coiling whirl in her stomach, she fixed him with her best ‘Mom’ glare and adopted her ‘don’t argue with your mother’ tone. “Do you think this is funny, JT?”
She bit back a sigh of relief as sheepish contrition crept over his face. Her victory was short lived. Her hopes disappeared as he narrowed his eyes and flashed her a wicked smile.
“Hey, that was good. It must work on Zach really well, ‘cause you had me feeling like a naughty little boy for a moment there. But,” his voice dropped to a shadow above a whisper, “I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’m an even naughtier man.” His grin widened, and he sank back into the pillows again, his eyes captivating hers with a look she couldn’t identify.
She opened her mouth to retort, maybe to beg (later, she wasn’t sure which one it would have been) but her words were lost as she watched him tilt his head a bit to one side, studying her. At the edge of her vision, she noticed his hands in his lap, the fingers moving lightly over one another.
And felt them tickle gently up her thighs. What the hell? She swallowed a gasp as the caress moved higher, swirling over the soft flesh that was their apex. She stumbled a half step toward the bed, dizzy and confused as the fingers continued their tender explorations. What is he doing? And…how?
The sensations intensified. She felt herself being parted with warm touches, her eyes still held captive by his; he brushed over his bottom lip with the tip of his tongue, teasing her with the feel of it on her most sensitive of places. Her sigh reached his ears unchecked, bringing a hint of a smile back to his lips.
“Mmm, you can feel me, can’t you, love?” he asked, hypnotic and low.
Korina was certain she felt the vibrations of his voice sweeping through her. She gave a tiny nod.
JT pictured her, her face flushed as it was now, her lips parted as she sighed out his name…
– Running my hands over that tight ass, cupping it to bring you closer. Ah God, love, you’re so damn wet for me…oh so good, I’ve missed your sweetness, Kori…mmm so tight under my tongue…can you feel me? tasting you…pleasing you…
She was gone, and he knew it. Wanting to continue, but afraid he would truly piss her off, he reluctantly shut off the vision of her warm curves writhing underneath him and closed his eyes. That’s enough, just to know I can get to her.
The spell broken, Korina blinked hard and swayed. She whirled on her heel and fled the room, leaving the door open behind her.
Seventeen
Korina hardly noticed the flesh-colored surreal trail following her arm as she reached for the shampoo bottle. She wasn’t surprised to see it back again today; her vision of nonstationary objects had been continuously marred by the colorful, wispy illusions for more than a week.
“Damn them both,” she mumbled as she waited for the trail left by her hand to catch up and disappear. After pouring shampoo into empty air several times in the belief that the ghostly image was her real hand and then upending the shampoo bottle over a whole lot of nothing, she’d learned to wait for the mirages to settle down. “Between the two of them, they’re going to be the death of me. I’ve got to get some real sleep.”
Since they’d left Chicago two and a half weeks earlier, Mark’s health had declined exponentially and merely sleeping in the same room with him was near-impossible. He tossed and thrashed for most of the night, groaning with every movement. He was beginning to swell faster than any diuretic could drain him, his face was puffing into distortion and his hands were often too distended to close around a fork or spoon. Being in any one position for very long made his limbs tingle then go completely numb. His joints ached from the fluid retention and from the buildup of toxins his failing kidneys could no longer completely filter out. Even his fingertips throbbed.
Korina barely resisted the impulse to take him to the closest emergency room. Only because Mark told her he wouldn’t go. Even in his weakening state, he was still too strong for her to drag. Their family doctor had given Mark a veritable ream of written prescriptions to fill once Mark explained he would be traveling for what was most likely the last months of his life. A list of symptoms accompanied the neatly-written drug orders, dictating when to fill which one, and what each pill was prescribed to help. The dosages became stronger and more frequent the deeper she’d looked into the stapled stack.
And then there was JT. His newfound ability to invade her mind had gotten completely out of hand. He was sending his slumbering dreams to her, as well. She wondered how much of the cerebral broadcast was intentional and how much was emotional leakage, hormonal overload, or his typical male mind constantly thinking about sex.
At first, the images had come only when she was mentally relaxed and approaching sleep. Or upon waking in the morning, still dozy and unprotected. Before long, they began overtaking her
dreams, rousing her from sleep yet rendering her unable to escape and helpless to keep her body from responding. The last few days, the scenes played every time he so much as looked at her. Korina attributed her increased receptiveness to her escalating exhaustion.
Korina had forever bragged that she needed little sleep compared to most people. But now her rest was regularly interrupted by Mark thrashing and groaning or images of JT taunting and pleasing her body in ways they had yet to experience together. I can get by just fine with four hours of sleep and five is perfect, as long as the hours are mostly uninterrupted. A cumulative four hours of little twenty-minute catnaps is driving me bonkers. And making me see those damn color trails. The whole moving world is like a nineteen-seventies music video, ghost images, contrails and all. This has got to end.
Although, I suppose ultimately it is my own fault. I should never have gotten involved with him. Or broken it off once I knew that, eventually, I’d be on my own and would be free to have a relationship. At minimum, I could have left the headphones off that day. All I wanted was to exercise a bit and look where it got me…
Korina had sought out the fitness room shortly after checkin at the Chicago Hyatt, itching to stretch and move. The boys, too, were tired of being cooped up. While everyone registered and picked up their keycards, they had caused a near-disaster trying to play soccer in the expansive lobby, using the floor-level marble fireplace as the goal. They knocked down the protective grate and a large potted palm, but luckily they did no permanent damage and (luckier still) they weren’t asked to stay in another hotel.
Korina smiled as she rode the service elevator down to the first floor, wondering if the hotel manager would have been so forgiving had the boys opted to use JT’s idea for the goal, instead. Sure, the elevator would have presented more of a challenge, since they couldn’t score unless the doors opened at just the right moment, but still…
The elevator slowed and stopped. She looked down and held her breath as the doors slid open, remembering another freight lift she’d intended to ride in by herself. She gripped her water bottle a little tighter and sighed heavily. She was alone. She hadn’t seen JT since checkin and she didn’t dare risk running into him, not after the ‘feel good movie of the week’ he’d sent into her groggy brain on the tourbus yesterday. Not with her emotions running so high. Not with her uncertain she could resist the temptation when JT was too near and could so easily overtake her thoughts. Not with Mark watching the boys at the indoor pool right next door to the gym. Mark said they’d watch for her to wave on her way by. She wouldn’t be able to adequately explain if she appeared later than expected and looking disheveled.
She turned left, as she’d been instructed by the sweet but garishly over-made-up desk clerk, and followed the hall as it turned several corners.
She knew she was getting closer when she heard whooping squeals and splashing from down the hall. Korina turned one final corner and her nose was stinging with the pungent scent of chlorine. A few more steps and she could see the tall steam-spotted windows. She smiled broadly and waved, surprised to see they were the only people in the pool. No wonder they were so noisy.
The fitness room was across from the pool. She opened the door and found she was alone.
She picked a stair-stepper facing the windows and draped a small towel over the handrail, setting her water bottle in the cup holder built into the front. She looked at the control panel and chose level five, the halfway mark. She wanted to sprint, at least in the beginning, to get rid of the edgy energy that had been building for days. She’d brought her MP3 player, wearing it clipped to the waistband of her bike shorts. She slipped the headphones over her ears, hit play and filled her mind with fast-tempoed music geared to make her move. After a quick test of the stepper’s tension, she bumped up the volume and began to run.
She didn’t hear the door open behind her.
He smiled, appreciating the sight of her from behind, particularly enjoying watching her run from behind. He settled onto a stationary bicycle because it faced the same windows and was directly behind her. Normally he stayed off the things; they didn’t give much of a workout and the seats were damned uncomfortable. Today, however, he felt this particular bike was anything but boring, and watching her might be all the workout he could handle. He peddled idly, just in case she turned around. He didn’t want it to appear that he was here simply because she was. Matter of fact, that’s not why I came in here at all. But it certainly is a happy coincidence.
Korina jogged on, her pace changing with the music.
I wonder what she’s listening to. I can’t really make it out from what I hear leaking out of the headphones. Whatever it is, she’s almost dancing. It doesn’t sound like anything of ours, though. JT sat up straighter on the hard seat of the bicycle, taking his hands from the handlebars and crossing his arms over his chest. These things obviously weren’t designed for men to sit on. His smile widened as he admired the sight before him.
“Oh, what a lovely ass you have, Kori,” he muttered, certain she couldn’t hear him over the music blasting through her ears.
She didn’t. Her head danced along to the music, her ponytail swiping over her back with each bob and sideways bop.
The door opened again, but neither one turned to look. Korina didn’t know, and JT didn’t care. He toned down his grin as the new occupant settled onto a bike beside him.
“Nice view, huh?” came the quiet question from his right.
JT couldn’t tear his eyes away from the lovely vision in front of him. “Uh huh,” he replied absently, still smiling. “It certainly is.”
“But I’ll bet you see a lot of that in your line of work,” the voice stated. “Nice female figures, I mean.”
“Pretty women hanging around are one of the perks I’ll never complain about,” JT answered, feeling that he ought to turn to face the man next to him. But he held the view of Kori’s posterior for a moment longer as he replied, “But they mostly want one thing, and quite frankly, I’m not into that ‘easy sex with the groupies’ thing anymore. I don’t like being just another hash-mark on some woman’s bedpost.”
“Hey, JT, tell me something. Do you always stare at other men’s wives, or is there something about mine in particular that you just can’t tear your eyes away from?”
Oh, shit. JT turned at last to meet Mark’s eyes with his own. “Uh, no, actually, I never really think about it. Whether or not they’re married, I mean. Someone who brightens up the landscape the way she does just seems to draw my eye. I don’t mean anything by it, Mark. But I won’t stare any more if it bothers you.” Not where you can catch me at it, anyway.
“Oh, no, be my guest. Looking’s just looking. But I warn you, if Kori catches you and takes offense, watch out. She doesn’t like to be objectified and she’s got a helluva temper, and a strong slap to match. I’ve seen her put several men in their places, if you know what I mean.” Mark’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “She thinks her looks are merely ‘not unattractive’ and no matter how often I tell her she’s so much more than that, she doesn’t seem to believe me.”
Careful, JT, this feels like a test. “She’s one of the most striking women I’ve ever seen,” he said cautiously. Mark continued to hold his eyes; JT wasn’t sure if he passed or if he didn’t.
“Well, you’d never get her to admit it. See, Korina wants to be seen for what she can do, for how much she knows. She doesn’t want to be just seen, if you catch my meaning.”
JT watched as a faraway look stole over Mark’s face, and he felt a surge of pity. The man is in the prime of his life, and soon it would be the end of that life. I know I sure as hell wouldn’t be so damn peaceful about it. I’m about as far from noble as a man can get. “Are you all right, Mark? You wanna go somewhere, maybe grab a beer and talk?” Okay, so maybe I’m actually a little unselfish.
“Aw, no. I think—”
“Really. I mean it. I know there’s gotta be things you won’t talk about with Kori.
She and I talk, and she’s worried because you’re so matter-of-fact about dying. Look, if it makes any difference, whatever you tell me won’t get back to her.”
Mark met JT’s stare and considered the man, and his offer. After a moment, he nodded. “With one condition.”
JT’s eyebrows rose.
“You’re buying.” Mark’s face cracked into a genuine smile, one that reached his pale blue eyes and brought them a mischievous sparkle. He slid from the seat and glanced at his wife’s flexing muscles as she continued to climb imaginary stairs.
“That’s a deal I won’t shy away from,” JT replied as he, too, dismounted from his bike.
Mark took a step toward Korina, then stopped and turned back to JT. “I’m just going to tell her we were here, and now we’re going. I don’t want her to worry about me. Well, any more than she already does.”
When he got next to her, Mark touched her shoulder gently to draw her attention. He could hear the music blaring from the edges of the headphones, and was grateful for once that she liked to listen to it so loud.
She slipped the headphones from her ears and turned the volume down, looking surprised.
Mark brushed a light kiss over one high cheekbone and smiled. “Hi, sweetheart.” He indicated behind her with a sideways nod of his head. “JT and I were going to knock off from our non-workout to grab a beer. I just wanted to let you know where I’d be.”
She turned to look behind her. JT gave her a watered smile and a little wave.
****
Korina and Zach returned to their room after a late dinner. Mark was still gone.
She found a deck of cards in the bottom of her suitcase and they played Rummy (she won) and War (he beat her soundly, twice) until Zach’s eyes grew droopy and he began to yawn. They snuggled up in one of the beds and watched cartoons until Zach fell asleep on her shoulder. She kissed his cheek and eased his head down to a pillow, then slowly rose from the bed; she didn’t want to wake him, and her legs and butt were stiff and sore from the earlier punishing workout. She groaned as she bent over, flattening her palms to the floor to stretch the aching tendons in her legs.
Dream Me Off My Feet (Sex, Love, And Rock & Roll) Page 33