Good Karma

by Donya Lynne

  Don glanced out the door. “Karma, we’re ready for the next one on the list.”

  * * *

  By the end of the day, long after the last terminated employee had been escorted from the building, Mark was feeling slightly better. His throat wasn’t as raw, and at last check, his eyes weren’t quite so bloodshot.

  He picked up his phone and typed out a text. You’re still coming to Chicago with me this weekend?

  A moment later came Karma’s reply. Yes. If you still want me to.

  Yes, I do.

  The screen on his phone lit with another message from her. In that case, count me in, Mr. Sicky.

  He looked up and caught her eye as she grinned secretly without meeting his gaze. Even now, with the end looming, he found such joy in the simple act of texting her.

  He looked back down and typed out a response. I’m not sick, but you can still feed me chicken soup and herbal tea…play nurse with me.

  Do I get to take your temperature?

  He chuckled. That depends, he typed.

  Are you worried about where I’ll stick the thermometer?

  Now he laughed. You must be psychic.

  Nah. Just very good at my job.

  That you are, Miss Mason. You’re good at ALL your jobs.

  He looked up and met her gaze. Then she glanced down, and he could tell she was typing out a response. His phone dinged with her message a moment later.

  Thank you. And thank you for whatever you said to Don. Today was such a surprise.

  A welcome one, I hope. That was the intent.

  Yes. Very. It means a lot to me. I can’t thank you enough.

  You already have, Karma. Believe me. You’ve given me more than I ever imagined. So much so that I feel I should be thanking you. And you deserved that raise.

  *hug*

  Mark smiled at the simple message, and quickly tapped out his answer. *hug and kiss* I’ll pick you up at 6:00. Bring your dancing shoes and a nice dress. He would take her dancing this weekend. It had been years since he had taken a woman dancing, but it just felt right with her.

  He began to pack up his things but stopped as another message came through.

  And a thermometer.

  He heard her stifle a giggle, surely because she had just seen the goofy, amused look on his face. His fingers danced over his phone’s touch screen.

  Perhaps I should take YOUR temperature, Miss Mason. But I won’t use a thermometer if I do. ;)

  It took a few seconds for her to get it, but when she did, the resulting gasp was music to his ears.

  As morbidly as the day had begun, it was ending on a much nicer note. And even though by next Friday he would be gone, they still had one last weekend together. Two more days to forget about the rest of the world and enjoy one another.

  On his way past her desk, with his bag over his shoulder, he gave her a secret wink.

  For a few more days, she was his.

  And he wouldn’t waste one more second of the little time they had left dreading the inevitable moment when he would leave for good.

  Chapter 55

  The best proof of love is trust.

  -Joyce Brothers

  They arrived at Mark’s apartment around ten o’clock after getting a late start out of Indy. On Saturday, Mark started them off early with breakfast at a quaint bakery near Grant Park, and then took her to Navy Pier and Shedd Aquarium. After lunch, they laid in the grass in Millennium Park, and Mark took a couple of selfies of them together. One of them straight on and smiling, and one of her kissing him on the cheek as he laughed from her tickling him.

  Around four o’clock, they returned to his apartment to get cleaned up for a night out.

  While Mark showered, she took the red dress she had worn the night they met out of the garment bag and laid it on the bed. She hadn’t worn the Jimmy Choos since that night, either, and she placed them on the floor with thoughtful precision, as if she were setting chinaware on a table.

  She blew out her hair and brushed it smooth. Mark exited the bathroom as she was applying her mascara. He stopped, and Karma turned to see him smiling at the dress. He glanced at her, nodded once, and bowed his head as he walked into the closet.

  When he came out, he was buttoning the cuffs of a sleek, almost shiny charcoal grey shirt. She had just pulled on the dress.

  He stepped behind her, wound his arms around her waist, and kissed her bared shoulder. “Thank you for wearing this.”

  She leaned into him. “I thought it was fitting.”

  He nudged her toward the edge of the bed. “Take a seat.”

  She did, and he knelt, lifting her foot in his hand as if it were made of delicate crystal. After reverently caressing the top of her foot and her red-tipped toes, he picked up one of the Jimmy Choos and, like the prince to Cinderella with the glass slipper, slid it on her foot and nimbly fastened the clasp. Then he did the same with the other, stood, and took her hand to help her up.

  “You’re beautiful.”

  “Thank you. So are you.”

  He took her to a romantic dinner at Boka then to The Joynt where they danced to jazz music and sipped high-priced libations for a couple of hours.

  A little after eleven, they returned home.

  As she eased out of her red scarf and jacket, placing both over the arm of the couch, Mark turned on some easy jazz and shut off the lights.

  “Hi,” he said, stepping in front of her and sliding one arm around her waist as he lifted her other hand into his. This was seductive Mark. The man who always made her knees weak and her heart race, even now, after months together.

  “Hi.” She lifted her face and gazed into his steamy, hooded eyes.

  “Can I have this dance?”

  She nodded and fell into step with him.

  “Did I tell you how beautiful you look tonight?” He rocked her gently from side to side.

  She rubbed her lips together. “I think you did mention that once or twice.” She let go of his hand and let her fingers skim down the placket of his shirt, unbuttoning it as she went. She slid her hands under and against his skin. He was smooth and warm, firm. And then her fingertips found that handsome sweep of sparse hair that flowed to his sternum and led down the center of his torso.

  “You’re absolutely stunning. The most beautiful woman in the city tonight.” His grip on her waist tightened.

  “And you’re the most handsome man.” She fondled the opened collar of his button-down.

  The appreciative grin that spread over his face drew a blaze from the kindling in her belly, as if a gust had blown over hot coals and fed a burst of flames.

  For a while, they merely danced. He pulled her close, held her, rocked her, swayed to the lazy tempo and muted trumpet as if part of some old-time romantic movie. The air crackled between them. Electricity intensified the longer they danced in the darkness, and blurred shadows joined them from the subtle light breaking through the window that overlooked the lake.

  And then Mark’s hands began to roam with a controlled urgency that lit Karma’s internal inferno for good.

  “Take off my dress, Mark,” she whispered.

  With barely a second of hesitation, his fingers pinched the fabric at her waist and tugged upward. Once the hem reached her hips, he slid his hands underneath and carefully lifted the dress off her body, leaving her in a red strapless bra and matching lace panties.

  “Tonight is all about you, Karma.” He kissed her bare shoulder. “Your dreams.” His lips slid up to her ear. “Your desires.” His whispered words sent warmth through her abdomen…and down lower, between her legs. The tip of his tongue flicked the place just behind her ear. “Your fantasies.”

  He tightened his hold around the small of her back, his seduction merciless and calculated. The effect he had on her was not unlike the effect a feline in heat had on a tomcat. She would do anything he asked. Her breath came in heavy gulps, and moist heat slicked her most intimate flesh.

  Mark bent and leisurely trail
ed his lips from the left side of her neck to the right, sweeping down and across her collarbones as he spoke. “So what would you have of me tonight, Karma?” Mark’s lips dazzled her skin, leaving tiny crackles in their wake. “Where do you want me? Anything you want, tonight it’s yours.”

  She knew by now that Mark was not one to come right out and say what he wanted. Every intimate action he perpetrated was part of a game. A seductive, sexy, playfully erotic game that she was more than willing to play, because she was beyond ready to feel him inside her after their long day of foreplay.

  “I want—” She cut off on a moan as his mouth closed at the tender place between her neck and shoulder and applied gentle suction. Fireworks exploded under her skin as he drew her flesh between his teeth and into his mouth. Heat raced to her nipples, followed by a detonation of butterflies springing to flight low in her belly.

  “Yes? Tell me, Karma.” His whispered words in the darkness were hushed and languid, falling over her like decadent, dark chocolate. “I’m yours tonight. All yours.” He kissed her neck again. “Whatever you want from me, I’m willing to give. Just for you. Just for tonight. Say the word, and I’ll be anything you want.”

  She tilted her head back, dug her fingers into his thick, soft hair, and sighed up to the ceiling. “Mark…”

  Firm yet gentle lips placed measured caresses up the column of her neck, over her chin, and finally to her mouth, where they hovered a hair’s breadth away. “Tell me what you want.”

  God, how his hands and mouth worked together with the precision of a surgeon, laying her bare, undoing her, dispatching all rational thought from her mind.

  “I want you,” she said on a breath that wafted gently from her mouth in a slow tumble of surrender.

  His arm encircled her, flowing like fluid strength, a constant dance of movement as he shifted his hold, adjusted against her, and swayed her to one side. “And what do you want from me?”

  If desire could be defined with motion, their bodies, pressed together, gently swaying, with arms caressing and lips teasing, would be the definition.

  She lost herself in the music, his embrace, his soft-as-silk kisses, the warmth emanating from his torso, and the heat of his breath on her skin. Even as she realized this was their last real night together, the evening seemed right. The entire day had been perfect. Once more, Mark had granted her another beautiful, unforgettable good-bye gift. She knew even now that she would never forget this night. Ever. Even if she grew old and senile, this one night would stay cemented in her memory, no matter what other memories faded with age.

  “All of you,” she said, not holding back. He was hers, at least for now, and she would take all she could, live hard in the moment, and leave nothing to regrets. Because when next Friday came, and he left for good, she didn’t want to look back and wish she had done more, said more, been more. It was now or never with Mark. “I want all of you, Mark. Right now. Just for tonight.” She wanted him to remember tonight, too. She wanted it burned in his memory forever, so that he knew for the rest of his life that no other woman could give him what she could.

  In that moment, Karma felt an invisible barrier around her shatter. The young, shy, innocent, do-gooder she had always been fell away once and for all. She was now and forever a changed woman. It was one more gift Mark had given her. He had brought her completely out from her shell. She was the sexy woman she had always fantasized being, but never knew how until he taught her. All their time together—the lessons, the time spent flirting with strangers, the naughty stories, the training—all of it had been for this moment. Right here. So she could become her true self in Mark’s arms and show him what he had given her.

  With a surge of newfound confidence, she ran her hand down his bare stomach to the waist of his pants, paused for just a heartbeat to say a final good-bye to the last, lingering vestige of the little girl making her final retreat into the shadows, then let her hand drop past his belt to the bulge pressing against his zipper.

  As her palm gently caressed the length of his erection, empowerment and determination surged to the surface. She looked up at him through her lashes. “I want this,” she said, sweeping her palm back up his length to the tip, where she let her fingers rest.

  Mark’s chest rose and fell heavily, and he blinked as if drunk and swayed toward her.

  “Karma…” he whispered, eyes shimmering.

  Fortified by his reaction, Karma lifted to her tiptoes and dusted her lips softly across his, taking complete control. Their gazes locked. “I want this,” she said again, more forcefully, closing her fingers around the cylinder of hardness under her palm.

  He lightly gasped and shivered then drew her top lip into his mouth, slowly slid his tongue across it, then drew away almost drowsily. “It’s yours.” He repeated the kiss on her bottom lip. “I’m yours.” Then he placed his hand over hers and held it against him. His cock pulsed against her palm. The subtle jerk was just a single, tiny hiccup, but it pulled a dreamy moan from his throat. “You can have all of me…all night.”

  Karma nudged him toward the couch, using her free hand to push his shirt off one shoulder. He shook it from the other and let it fall to the floor.

  With a shove against his chest, she pushed him to the couch. “Take off my panties.”

  He hooked his fingers around the waistband and drew them down her legs while she unhooked her bra and let it land beside his shirt. All she wore were her gold, strappy high heels.

  As she straddled his lap, she pulled her red scarf—the one he’d used to blindfold her on the Fourth of July—from the arm of the couch. “Do you trust me?”

  * * *

  Mark was in awe of Karma. She was in control. He had never seen her like this, with such a dominant edge. She was a transformed woman in every way, and the power shifted completely into her hands.

  For a moment, as he stared at her scarf, which she waved side to side like a hypnotic pocket watch, he almost said no. But then he gazed into her eyes, into a well of honesty, and knew, no matter his fears, he could trust her.

  “Yes.” He breathed the syllable even as his heart began to race.

  He had never let a woman blindfold him. Doing so made him too vulnerable, but he had promised Karma that he would be anything she wanted tonight, that he would give himself completely to her for these last precious hours.

  She lifted the scarf to his eyes, covered them, and his pulse quickened. His breathing picked up tempo as panic threatened to consume him.

  “Sshh,” she said, kissing his forehead. “Trust me.” Her lips dotted his skin to his cheek, along the slope of his jaw to his chin, and finally to his lips.

  He exhaled through his nose as her mouth closed against his, and he gripped her naked hips. Without his eyesight, everything was heightened. Her lips scorched his mouth and lit a fire so hot under his skin that he feared he would lose control. When she raked her blunt nails down his torso, he hissed as flames burned through every muscle in his body.

  Mark had never felt anything like this. So fiercely intense and extreme. Vivid colors lit behind his closed eyes as her tongue left a sinuous trail down the center of his stomach. He gasped for air, dug his fingers into her hair, and fought to maintain their physical connection as she left his lap and settled between his legs.

  She pulled off his slacks and pushed his knees apart, and then her mouth found him.

  “Oh fuck…” He laid his head against the back of the couch, inhaled sharply, and surrendered to desire so acute and all-consuming he couldn’t recall ever feeling more alive.

  Her tongue swirled around and around the head, her hand working him up and down. Without his sight, the feelings amplified. Every stroke of her hand, every flick of her tongue, the way her moist lips brushed the sensitive head…every wicked sensation exploded times the power of ten.

  It was better head than she’d ever given him. “Damn, Karma,” he whispered on a breath.

  He found her face with his hands, slipped his fingers
into her hair, and sank further into the couch.

  Her mouth was a combination of fire and ice, making him shiver and melt all at once. When she finally closed her lips over him and sucked him in, he knew he was a goner.

  “Karma…” He tapped the top of her head. He was going to come. So fast, so hot, like lightning. But he couldn’t hold back.

  But she didn’t stop. If anything, she swallowed him more enthusiastically.

  “Karma…” Fuck, but he was about to shoot. “Karma, I’m going to…oh, fuck…I’m going to come. Stop. You need to stop if you don’t want it in your mouth.”

  She doubled her efforts, taking him deeper and moaning.

  Jesus! She wanted him to come in her mouth. She’d just blown his mind again. Pumping his hips, he gripped both sides of her head, seized fistfuls of her hair, clenched his jaw, and held his breath as his orgasm advanced like a tidal wave. He had never come this hard, and he hadn’t even released, yet.

  “Karma! Fuck!” His breath shuddered from his throat as he grunted and spilled into her mouth in vicious, uncontrollable waves.

  Before he was even finished, he was ready to go again. He had never experienced multiple orgasms, but Karma, the blindfold, and her merciless onslaught had other plans for him.

  Her mouth released him. Then her weight shifted as she climbed back onto his lap and found his lips with hers. He tasted himself, the salt of his offering, and it only made him want her more. For a woman to swallow a man’s release like that was damn near the most erotically intimate act in the universe, and Karma worked her way a little further into his soul.

  Still hard and in need of more, he gripped her hips and thrust himself against her. He needed to come again. Needed to feel her quiver around him as he did.

  “More…” He sounded like an addict begging his dealer.

  “Already?”

  “Yes.” God, he needed inside her. Now.

  He felt her lean to the side, heard the sound of ripping plastic, felt her nimble fingers roll the condom on, and then her hand guided him inside as she sank down onto his lap.