My orgasm is unlike any other. It washes over me like warm honey, slow and sweet.
“I love to feel you, so tight and wet all around me,” he groans, slowing his delicious torture to prolong my pleasure.
He doesn’t stop until the earth is firm beneath me once more. Then, with a gentleness I haven’t seen in him thus far, he slips out of me and rolls me onto my stomach.
I’m boneless, with neither the will nor the desire to resist him as he stuffs a pillow beneath my hips. I feel like I have nothing left to give when his lips touch me.
“I love this ass,” he says softly, kissing my cheek then nipping it lightly with his teeth. His hands caress my butt, then travel down my thighs to tenderly spread my legs. He slides a finger inside me and, much to my surprise, I feel a gush of heat flood my stomach. Again. “There’s at least one more in you,” he says. I feel his weight against my butt when he leans over me and whispers in my ear, “Can you do that for me? Can you come for me one more time?”
I don’t know the answer to that, so I say nothing. But when his finger moves down to rub back and forth over my clitoris, I feel like there’s a distinct possibility.
His legs between mine force them farther apart and I feel his thick head probe my entrance just before he pushes into me. That full feeling, that glorious full feeling, makes me groan and my body comes immediately back to life.
He moans as he pulls out and thrusts back in. “That’s what I thought.”
I push up onto my elbows and arch my back, giving him deeper penetration. “Oh yeah,” he whispers, his hands grabbing my hips and pulling me harder against him.
Moving the fingers of one hand around, I feel his fingertip at my clitoris again, rubbing rhythmic circles that keep perfect time with the thrusts of his body. It isn’t long before I feel the familiar ache of tension building.
I rock against Nash. His breath starts to come in pants and I know he’s getting close, which excites me that much more. When he suddenly stills behind me, I feel the pulse of his own explosion and it triggers mine. Together, we climax, my body squeezing his, his throbbing inside mine.
Almost absently, he rubs his palms over my lower back and butt, over and over in soft, wide circles. Just before he pulls out and collapses onto me, I feel his lips between my shoulder blades. It sounds like he whispers something, but the darkness swallows it up, never to be heard again.
TWENTY-FIVE
Nash
The ring of my phone wakes me. I roll over in bed, still groggy. Sleepily, I reach for the noisy square and glance at the display. I shoot straight up in bed, coming fully awake. There’s no name associated with the number, but I know who it belongs to regardless.
Dmitry.
“Hello?”
“Nikolai, meet me in two hours,” he says in his thick accent. He proceeds to give me the address of a motel in a town about an hour’s drive from Atlanta. “Room eleven. Come alone. We’ll talk more when you get here.”
I hear the click of the broken connection. I lower the phone and stare at it for a few minutes, marveling at the reality of my life.
Shit like this is only supposed to happen in the movies.
As quietly as I can, trying not to wake Marissa, I get up and shower. With Dmitry, there is no hesitation. He’s one of the few people that I nearly trust. Even with such an ambiguous, ominous message, I’ll still do as he asks. Oh, I’ll be cautious, of course. And I’ll be armed. But I’ll still go. He knows my ultimate goal better than almost anyone. And I get the feeling what he has for me is pertinent to it.
It’s barely nine, but I can tell the day is going to be hot and humid. My shirt is already sticking to my back after five minutes in Cash’s car.
By leaving now, I should arrive about half an hour early, which is far better than arriving late. I can sit at a reasonable distance and watch the place for a few minutes before showing myself.
My thoughts on the trip are a bizarre splicing of Marissa and all the unwanted emotions she inspires in me with the rage and bitterness that has gnawed at my gut for what seems like an eternity. What could be the strangest thing of all, however, is that, more often than not, I find that my mind strays from revenge and death and loss to Marissa. Again and again and again.
Could I be wrong about everything? Could there be a future for us? Could I finally have the life I was supposed to live all along? Is it too late for a guy like me? And could it ever work with a woman like Marissa? Do I ever stand a chance of being good enough for her?
You’re a fu—damn idiot for even thinking stupid shit like this!
But even as I chastise myself, I shake my head at the change in my thoughts. Even when she’s not around, when she can’t hear me, I’m censoring myself. For her. Out of respect for her.
I’m no clearer on what the hell I’m thinking or doing when I arrive at the intersection across from the motel. It looks like a serial killer’s wet dream, what with its peeling paint, rusty doors, and erratically blinking neon sign. It might as well read “Bates Motel.”
Slowly, I guide the car to the right rather than going through the intersection to the motel. I pull into a defunct gas station and head for a small crop of trees at the back of the lot. I think I can see room number eleven from there.
And I can. I put the car in park and I watch. And I wait.
A couple of times, I see the curtains that cover the big picture window part. Dmitry isn’t close enough to the glass that I can see him. I only see a shadow move against the dim light in the interior of the room.
Time crawls by until I finally decide to make my appearance. I drive back the way I came and, this time, make another right at the intersection, bringing me alongside the entrance to the motel.
I bypass the office and the greasy bifocaled man I see sitting behind the counter watching television. Instead, I head around the side to the row of parking spaces in front of the motel room doors. I drive all the way to the end and park in front of number twenty.
From the corner of my eye, I closely examine every vehicle I pass and every window of every room I pass, cataloging them in intimate detail. Nothing looks amiss. But that doesn’t mean it’s not.
I knock on the door to number eleven. The third time I rap my knuckles on the cold metal, one of the ones in “11” comes loose at the top and swings down, dangling by its bottom edge.
Nice.
The curtain over the window parts again. This time I can identify Dmitry. My muscles ease the smallest amount.
The door opens just enough for me to step through. Dmitry is behind it, so I have a clear view into the empty room. My tension eases even more.