Page 9 of Karma

I take another long swallow, welcoming the burn this time. Sadly, it doesn’t hurt worse than my heart.

“And I’d rather not talk about it,” I add, because he’s just sitting there, all sorts of ideas popping in his eyes.

He reaches for the bottle, but instead of taking it he just closes his palm over my hand. Making butterflies with searing hot wings fill my stomach. Just like they did when I first touched him earlier tonight. I figured that was just the adrenaline of the situation. But this is not. This is something I haven’t felt for a guy in a very long time. But just like everything in my life right now, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. So I should just ignore it.

Kinda hard when he’s still holding my hand and the butterflies are multiplying. I never noticed just how deep his eyes are. They’re blue like Grim’s, but not hard and predatory.They’re more like this lake licking the wooden pillars below us might look in daylight with the sky reflected in it. Blue and vast and much deeper than you’d expect it to be.

I’m coming apart here. I know that. Just cracking apart, joining the rest of the broken pieces of my life. Used to be, at least some of those pieces were stuck together and functioning. But now Reaper’s dead and he was the glue.

I push the bottle into his hand and stand up. “I should go.”

If I’m gonna fall apart, I’m gonna do it alone. With no one to see.

He doesn’t say anything until we’re standing by the kitchen table and I’m already holding my bags. The tears in my eyes have nothing to do with whiskey now. So why aren’t I moving? Why aren’t I in the darkness outside, alone, where it’s safe to shed them?

Why am I looking into the depths of his eyes, wishing it was daytime and I could swim in the lake they remind me of?

He grabs my bag with one hand and the back of my head with the other. Doesn’t say anything, just kisses me. In a way that makes my knees tremble and a bunch of wishes I wasn’t even aware of come. It answers a lot of my other questions too.

He’s a great kisser. Not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t anything like this. His kiss is soft where it needs to be, and hard where it needs to be too.

I’d only just gotten used to his lips on mine when his tongue demanded entrance into my mouth. I let him in, beginning the dance as though we’d done this a thousand times before. I even forget to be sad as our tongues tussle and his hand closes around the back of my neck, pulling me closer as he deepens the kiss some more.

I don’t remember the last breath I took. But that’s OK, because I don’t need to breathe. This kiss is enough. Every one of the searing butterflies in my stomach is telling me this. They’reforming a river, heating my core, lighting up places that haven’t been seen in a very long time. Places where freedom meets a lust for life and every minute carries the promise of a new adventure. Places where words like loss and death andit’s overhave no meaning. At least none that I can feel.

I surrender my bag to him, clanking as it hits the floor announcing something broke, but I don’t care.

All I care about is getting him out of his clothes before this high I’m riding, this wonderful promise that everything will be good again, which his kiss is making, can end.

His cut comes off easily enough, but his t-shirt is another matter. We have to break apart so I can push it over his head. But it was worth it, because his scent explodes in my mind and I now know exactly why it reminds of winter and summer. It’s the scent of fire as the clean, clear wind stokes it higher and higher. It’s camping in the middle of nowhere, it’s being free and carefree, it’s being alive.

He’s ripping my clothes off too, first my jacket, then my tank top and bra. I kick off my boots as he unzips my pants. And he does the same while I fumble with his belt buckle. All the while moving us closer to the bed. The pleasant camp fire grows hotter, becomes an inferno as my naked back touches the quilt on the bed.

And I’m sure he’s about to make it even hotter. But instead of burying me under his weight and taking me with all the passion now crackling in the air between us, he stands back, pure admiration in his eyes as they graze over my nakedness.

Every single tattoo covering my arms, belly and legs seems to light up and grow warm as his gaze falls on it—from the necklace of tiny gems held up by two hummingbirds to the flowers along my belly. This isn’t the kind of burn that tells me danger is near. This is my ink coming to life like it should.

“Why’d you stop?” I ask, coming up on my elbows to get a better look at him.

He gives me a smile that’s almost shy and runs his hand through his wonderfully thick hair.

“I can’t believe I’m gonna say this, but… are you sure you want this?”

I do, but I don’t answer right away. Instead, I bite down on my lower lip and let my eyes graze over him too. He’s an incredibly well-built guy, from his chiseled, perfectly proportionate face, to his neck that’s just wide enough, to his defined arms, chest and abs right to the dark blond happy trail leading down into his boxers where I’m sure I’ll find yet another example of how perfectly in proportion everything on him is. He’s more like a fitness model than anyone I had ever expected to find in this off-the-grid place in the middle of nowhere. Or more like something straight out of a fantasy.

He’s got tattoos too, but nothing as elaborate as the ink covering my skin. Still, I’d love to check every one of his a lot more closely.

“I feel like I kinda jumped you back there when you wanted to leave,” he adds, still waiting for my answer. Funny, because I’m sure his cock just grew even bigger as my eyes skirted across it.

It’s been a long time since a man asked me for my permission. With Grim and Reaper, it just sort of happened. And before that… that’s not something I’m gonna think about now. I know why he’s doing it though. It’s because of Grim. But I won’t think about that bastard tonight. He managed to smash what was left of my already very broken heart because he’s got all the finesse of a bull, and I’m not ready to start making him feel better about it. Time will tell where we land after all this. For now, I’ve landed here.

I smile at him and run my bare foot along his perfectly muscled thigh, along the hard muscles on the outside edge of his stomach, and finally across the package I can’t wait to open. His cock jerks as I caress it gently with my foot.

I grin at him. “You have my permission to do what you want to me.”

In a flash, the shy half-smile on his lips is replaced by a predatory, wolfish grin, the look in his clouded eyes promising a ravaging I’ll remember for a long time yet.

He takes hold of my foot and runs his thumb across the arch, making me shiver as the gentle forerunners of goosebumps race across my skin.

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