Out of the Ashes (Marked as His Book 1)

by Rossi, Monica

  She heard him groan deep in his throat as she moved, mimicking what she wanted so badly that she couldn’t even speak.

  She reached a hand down between them and freed him from his underwear and slid her hand up the length of him. She loved how he felt in her hand, both hard and soft at the same time, but she wanted him somewhere other than her hand at the moment.

  She moved her panties to the side and rubbed the head of him against her slit, groaning as he brushed against her clit. She moved him in circles for a moment, enjoying the way his heat felt against hers, before she guided him down further, to the place where she was craving him the most.

  With a growl he entered her hard, and she cried out, this is what she’d wanted all night long, even before she’d seen him looking handsome in blue jeans and black tee. To be honest it’s what she wanted from the time she’d laid eyes on him that first time she’d walked into his shop and every moment since then.

  She threw her head back as he pumped into, his naked body rubbing against her clothed one. Her flaming skin enjoying the way the fabric was rubbing against her as he slammed into her again and again.

  His mouth found her neck as they worked together, one hand coming up to grasp a breast and she held on to him for dear life.

  They moved together in frantic motion for mere moments before she found her release and spurred him on to find his own.

  He gently carried her across the room and onto the couch, where they collapsed in a spent heap.

  “Can it be this way every time?” she asked and was immediately embarrassed by her question.

  But he nodded, seeming to understand her, “You mean feeling like your heart is going to explode every single time we’re together?”

  “Yes, and that feeling like the universe is imploding when I come. I mean I’ve orgasmed before but never like that. And it’s been that way every time with you.”

  He smiled, “Well, you sure know how to stroke a man’s ego.”

  “You know what I mean,” Fern smacked his sweaty arm with her sweaty hand.

  “Yes, I know,” he nodded, “I don’t know if it can last, I’ve never felt this way before either.”

  She looked into his hazel eyes and knew he was telling her the truth and her heart lifted. She didn’t know if it could last either, but she did know that she wanted to test the theory. See how long they could make it last. She hadn’t had anything to look forward to in a long time. The future always hid under a foggy haze of doubt and fear. But she could feel the clouds parting every time she felt the touch of this man’s hand or felt the warmth of his smile. Maybe it would end in disaster, but maybe it wouldn’t. And maybe was time to let herself hope.

  Timothy dropped the cigarette on the ground and twisted it with his foot. No need to worry about liter, the whole apartment complex was a shitpile. No the whole neighborhood was a shitpile, and every person in it was a piece of shit. Including his wayward wife.

  He’d found her a week ago. First he’d gotten the phone number from his PI and he’d called it without hope, just like he’d done with all the other numbers the detective had given him.

  But this time had been different. This time he’d heard her voice on the other line. The voice he’d know anywhere. His heart had caught in his throat when she’d said hello and tears involuntarily sprang to his eyes. It was her, finally it was her. He’d wanted to speak to her, to say anything at all to her just so she would keep talking.

  Instead he’d pushed down those emotions, those longings, and let himself get mad that he could even still feel that way, after all she’d done to him. First she’d fucked up their marriage with her disinterest and lack of warmth, then she’d left him, kidnapping his child in the process.

  No, he wasn’t going to let that painful tinge of emotion color his reaction to her. He had to think about this calmly, logically.

  He knew there was no way she’d have listed a phone in her name with any reputable company that required credit and ID. No the phone was probably a burner purchased at a dollar store. No need to give a name or address in those places, just buy a refill card and bam, another month or however long of spotty service. No need to be a decent human being that has such trivial things as a home address or a bank account. No, just have enough to pay for a cheap phone and a month of minutes and voila, you’re all set. That is of course if you don’t qualify for one of the free phones the government hands out like candy.

  Times had really changed, and not for the better. There was so much government assistance these days you couldn’t tell who had worked for what they had or who was sucking on the government teet and living in a house that taxpayers were paying for. There was phone assistance, rent assistance, utility assistance, food assistance, medical assistance. Basically, if you failed enough at life you could get everything paid for you.

  And his wife was probably surrounding herself, not to mention his child, with people like that. Voluntarily. Instead of letting his daughter grow up surrounded by people who worked hard for the nice things they had, Felicity was surrounding her with generational poverty. How nice.

  But not for long. He called the PI, who knew just what to do. They’d figured out the store from which the phone had been purchased and then looked for any people in their life that could be connected to him or Felicity. And they’d quickly found one.

  Seanna. The babysitter who Catherine had always favored. Of course. She’d been the one to come care for Catherine while Felicity had been recovering from the last time he’d disciplined her. When he’d found her binder, the one where she’d planned to leave him.

  He’d thought that after that incident that maybe she’d finally learned her lessen. Had accepted her role in their family. Once she’d been able to get around better she seemed to perk up. She’d been lively, more animated than he’d seen her since they’d been dating. It was almost like he had the girl back he’d fallen in love with.

  But that was a lie of course. Instead of staying in their bedroom while the nanny was there, like he’d told her to, she’d gone to her and recruited her in her little escape scheme.

  He still wasn’t sure how she’d been able to get out of the bedroom. He’d locked her in just to make sure she stayed put, but somehow she must have been able to talk to the nanny anyway.

  It was ok, he wasn’t going to worry about it. She’d tell him once he got her back home and under his thumb, when she was back where she was supposed to be.

  He should already have her there. He didn’t know why he was stalling. Why he was taking this time to watch her do the little things throughout her day.

  At first he said it was just to see what his timid little wife got up to when he wasn’t around to keep her in line. Then, to be honest with himself, he’d been a little intrigued. She’d turned herself into a new person. She didn’t even walk the same way his wife walked.

  She called herself Fern, of all the things. She’d dyed her hair and it suited her so well that he couldn’t quite remember why he’d refused to let her dye it before. Her chestnut brown locks had been beautiful on her and maybe he just couldn’t imagine anything being more her. But somehow this color out of the bottle was. So of course he hated it.

  Her clothes were different. Tank tops and jeans instead of blouses and slacks. That wasn’t hard to figure out. Of course someone in decent clothes would stick out like a sore thumb in this garbage pile of humanity. But still, she somehow managed to make her dollar store wardrobe look classy. He hated her for that too.

  But the thing that shocked him most was just the way she moved, the way she held herself, the way she talked to other people. Gone was his shy timid wife, the one who never had to make a decision, who never had to deal with any of the worldly problems he kept from her because they were too much for her to deal with, the woman who shied away from contact with even the most friendly of people, talking loudly, laughing, moving through the world as if she belonged to it. In it. Like she wasn’t the separate sacred thing he’d made her, but
just an ordinary woman who had things to do.

  He hated it so much, but at the same time he wanted it. Wanted to walk beside her and see her laugh up at him with that unconcerned joviality he’d never seen before. But that wasn’t the way things worked. Everyone had their place and this wasn’t hers.

  Her place was in his home taking care of his daughter and his things. Not wading through life like she had it figured out. This life was his to figure out and her job was just to tag along.

  Still, she was mesmerizing.

  That is she was, until he saw him. The big tattoo artist she worked with. The one that walked her home and stayed over for dinner, and sometimes didn’t come out of her apartment until much too late for decency.

  The man he was pretty sure his wife was fucking. Right there in the same house with his daughter.

  His first reaction had been immediate rage. The sheer audacity of it made his gut twist with the need to lash out at her. But he’d learned long ago that discipline is best served as a cold dish. Also, he had no concrete proof that she was indeed sleeping with the large piece of white trash that seemed to follow her around like a puppy dog. Sadly, she lived on the second floor and despite his best efforts he hadn’t been able to find a place where he could peer into her windows. And if they were doing anything at work they’d seemed to have been able to keep it low key. So, he was going to watch and wait.

  Or that had been the plan until tonight. Tonight had been the turning point, the point where no more insults to his dignity could be ignored.

  He’d watched the large man come in and then emerge from the apartment building, Felicity’s arm tucked into the crook of his elbow.

  He’d watched them walk down the sidewalks of one of the city’s worst neighborhood. Watched as they got to the edge of downtown. An edge no one he’d ever known would be caught dead on. Watched them duck into a little restaurant where they’d looked like a couple of lost salt granules mistakenly thrown in to the pepper shaker. Watched as they’d finished their meal with smiles on their faces and laughter on their lips and then walk into the world’s dingiest looking theater.

  The happiness he heard in her voice as she laughed, looking up into the man’s face, simultaneously made him yearn for her, wish that he was the man she was laughing with, and made him want to hurt her. He wanted to see the laughter die a cold death as the smile faded from her lips, as his had grabbed her arm and tightened until the only things that showed in her eyes were fear and pain.

  He had to stop thinking like that though. He had to sit there and wait through the whole movie for them to come back out. Hopefully it couldn’t be a long one. It probably wouldn’t be. The guy had probably picked some low rent comedy or horror flick to watch, he doubted a theater like that would even show anything worthwhile anyway. And if a movie wasn’t worthwhile the least they could do is make it short.

  Tim started to make himself comfortable on a bench that sat up against the wall of a barber shop, but suddenly changed his mind.

  Out on the streets he had to be careful. Dress like one of the few white trash residents of this side of town, stay far enough back that he didn’t seem to be following them, not look at them directly so they wouldn’t get that ‘someone is looking at me’ feeling between the blades of their shoulders. The last was just his superstition, but it had worked to keep him hidden in plain sight so far.

  In a dark theater he wouldn’t have to try so hard to be inconspicuous, he could just sit behind them and watch them without having to worry much about being seen. And when they came out of the movie it’d be dark anyway and it’d be even easier to blend in to the darkness.

  But everything sensible had fled his brain about ten minutes into the movie.

  He’d been right, of course. They’d come to see a horror flick full of D list celebrities and jump scares. But that was ok, he wasn’t going to be watching the show anyway. Or so he’d thought.

  Little did he know that he was going to get a show of his own.

  When he got into the theater he noticed that they’d found a seat on the very last row. Nobody but delinquents who interrupted the movie and teenagers who wanted to make out ever sat on the last row. But there they were. With his arm draped over her and a ridiculously large tub of popcorn propped in her lap, they looked like they might be a teenage couple. The high school quarter back and his prom queen. The dim light took away the years and the trauma they’d both suffered and left them looking young and innocent. What the lack of light couldn’t mask was the way she looked up when she thought he wasn’t looking.

  That was how she’d looked at Tim when they’d been dating. Back when she hadn’t been a frigid bitch who walked from room to room with a dead look in her eye. God, why had she so thoroughly fucked up everything in his life? If she would just act like a normal woman then none of this would be happening, she’d still be at home looking at him through love-struck eyes and not roaming through the dirty streets with some strange man.

  And Tim was sure she thought he was somehow the villain in this scenario. How he couldn’t imagine. Female brains had a way of taking even the most straightforward of facts and twisting them to suit their narrative.

  Timothy found a seat off to the side where he could turn his head slightly and still see them out of his peripheral vision without making it too obvious he was looking at them. Sitting behind them would have been better but this would have to do.

  The lights dropped and the trailers began, more crappy horror movies for the unwashed masses to consume, and he sat with his own bucket of rubbery popcorn and mimed eating it while sneaking glances behind him.

  The movie began and it wasn’t long before he started wishing he’d stayed outside on the barber shop bench. At least out there would have been some interesting characters to enjoy. In here there didn’t seem to be much happening on or off the screen.

  Or so he thought, until he heard a small sound that he’d heard many times before. Well not so much in recent years but certainly when he and Felicity had first married.

  The sound was something between a quiet moan and an in-drawing of breath. He doubted anyone else in the theater would pay any more attention to it than they would if someone had coughed. To everyone else it might have sounded like a sigh if anything at all. But he knew what it was.

  He glanced behind him, not caring if they noticed.

  Felicity’s eyes were closed and her head was leaning against the man’s shoulder. His eyes were open though, greedily watching her response, his arm moving in a telltale motion letting Tim know exactly what was happening even though the back of the chair cut off his view.

  Here, in the middle of the theater she was letting a man touch her in places she’d promised before God were only Tim’s domain.

  Rage flowed through him.

  He’d known before what she was probably letting this man do to her but to have it so openly shoved in his face, right there in the middle of a movie theater like a common whore, was a slap he hadn’t been expecting.

  Tim’s stomach rolled and he wasn’t sure if the thing he wanted to do most was walk over to them and jerk her away from the man who felt like he had the right to put his hands all over his wife, or vomit.

  The way the rage was bubbling and rolling inside him, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop at just jerking her out of the man’s arms. She had to pay and she had racked up a large bill. It wouldn’t go well for him if he dealt with her out in public.

  He stood up and walked outside, he couldn’t stay and watch any more without endangering himself. Society had degenerated to the point where if he laid a hand on her in public, even though she was clearly an adulterous whore, he would be charged with assault, for doing what was well within his rights to do.

  No he had to step outside, calm down, and be logical about this. Calm and logical, two things that were solely a man’s domain and the things that had allowed men to succeed in things in which women would always fail.

  The thing that would al
low him to overcome the cold sweat that was breaking out across his body, demanding action, and let him meet out justice in a way that wouldn’t leave him vulnerable to legal action.

  His mind flashed back to the last look he’d had of her face before he’d walked out. White and smooth in the movie’s glow, mouth slightly open in the midst of her pleasure, wanton and exquisitely beautiful.

  All things she would not be for long.

  His lips lingered against hers as they paused at the door. It was time for him to leave since it wouldn’t be too long before Katy got up, she loathed to let him go.

  “I wish you could stay,” she pulled him back against her, his arms wrapping around her in response.

  His grin never got easier to look at, even when she’d had him, repeatedly only moments before. She still felt desire stirring as those white teeth flashed.

  “I wish I could too but you said you don’t want Katy to see me sleep over just yet, remember?” he said, nuzzling a small kiss into the crook of her neck.

  “I remember, and I remember why, but that doesn’t change the fact that I want to fall asleep in your arms,” she ran her hands through his hair.

  “It’ll happen sweetheart, we don’t have to rush it,” his mouth descended onto hers again and she gave a small ‘mmm’ sound that could have been agreement or enjoyment.

  They broke apart with regret and she watched him walk down the hallway and turn the corner before she closed the door and leaned against it, smiling like a schoolgirl.

  She felt like a schoolgirl. She wanted to clasp her notebook close to her chest and sigh and daydream and moon over the fact that she was lucky enough for one of the cool guys to like her.

  But she was an adult and adults don’t go around sighing and smiling and mooning over men. She sighed again, smiling as she remembered how his arm felt wrapped around her and how his eyes seemed to sparkle as he looked down at her.

  Well, she never claimed to be good at being an adult.