Page 54 of Karma

He shakes his head. “Can’t tell you the plan.”

Then he turns to us and smiles weakly. His eyes are as soft as the lake where I spent one of the best weeks of my life with him. The lake that’s forever etched into my skin. And my heart.

“Can’t we just roll with it, go where it leads?” he asks. “Maybe it’ll all work out for the best. I know I’m due some good stuff happening from God, or the universe or whatever. And I’m sure you are too.”

The plea in his voice wraps itself around my heart and squeezes so tight I almost shed a tear.

I wrap my arm around him and pull him close, happy that he lets me, happy that he buries his face in my chest.

“Yeah, we can do that,” Grim says in his calming, mist-like voice, speaking for the both of us.

This is a promise I’ll keep if it kills me, all the while hoping it won’t. Because he’s absolutely right in that we have good things coming. Even if life or the universe rarely plays fair. Which is why you gotta take what you need. And that’s what I’m gonna do from now on. Take the good, leave the rest. Come what may.

28

Grim

Time passes differently in places like Fire & Heart Inn. At first it seems to slow, then it grinds to a halt and you’re suddenly stuck in this world that the real world doesn’t touch in any meaningful way. That’s because anything goes in places like this. Because freedom in its rawest form lives here. And it’s often a dirty, horrible thing. But sometimes she’s magnificent too.

Or maybe I’m just feeling that way because of Scorpio and this newfound youth he’s somehow managed to drag from me. I haven’t looked forward to the rest of my life for years. And now, since coming here, I woke up one morning and I did. And he has a lot to do with it. Karma too, the way she’s transformed back into the young woman in love with her freedom that I first fell in love with. That’s the best I can explain it. But I do also know that the picture isn’t complete. I want more. I want all of him. And when I want something, I don’t stop until I have it.

I’ve been making that known to him too and it’s not been going well.

The day is just starting, the light coming through the open window a soft yellow, the kind that makes things appear picture-perfect and somehow unreal, even as it shows you everything you ever wanted.

We only just fell asleep, I’m in the middle of the large bed, Karma to my right, Scorpio on my left. I like the feel of their naked bodies pressed against me. It’s good enough to lull me back to sleep if I wanted that.

But a nightmare that is actually a memory woke me and I know it’s waiting for me to close my eyes again. It shows me Reaper dead before I could spend more than half my life with him and the pain gripping my chest when I wake up is worse than what I felt holding his lifeless body under that bridge. I’ve had this nightmare for decades and I’ve told no one about it. Usually, it comes every night in one form or another. Except for the past few nights that I’ve fallen asleep with them both in my arms. But it came back tonight.

So maybe if I take it all the way, wipe away the lines keeping us separate, it’ll never come again. Blame my sleep deprived mind for thinking it. Or maybe it’s the way Scorpio’s skin is always so wonderfully warm. The kind of warm that I’m thinking could keep me warm too, even in the dead of winter. Or maybe it’s just the fact that I’m sporting some great morning wood and I don’t want it to go to waste.

He’s sleeping on his stomach beside me, the sheet draped low over his ass, showing the grooves where the muscles of the back give way to the rolling mounds. Not something I can just look at without touching. So I roll to my side and run my hand down his back, tracing the hard muscles from his shoulders down to the sheet. Even in sleep, he doesn’t relax fully. I’ve noticed that. I want to change it.

Predictably, my soft touch doesn’t wake him, so I spend some time admiring his biceps and triceps, delts, and all those other muscles I never bothered learning the names of. Anything from the waist up, I can touch. It’s what’s under the sheet that hekeeps from me. Unless it’s his cock which he has no problem feeding to me. As long as he’s in control. But he’s a giving sort of man. And I’ve been patient. Especially for a guy who has no patience for anything.

He stirs as I wrap my hand around his arm, needing a stronger grip on his firmness. But I let my touch get soft again as I slide my hand down his back, not stopping at the edge of the sheet this time. He doesn’t let me touch his ass, and maybe that’s why I need to so much. Or maybe it’s just because it’s such a prime example of what a guy’s ass should be. Round and firm in all the right places, perfectly proportionate to the rest of his flowing, hard muscles, yet softer somehow, more inviting. The flesh gives way to my hand, the skin here warmer somehow than the rest of it. Definitely good enough to fight for.

Didn’t think I’d have to though. But his elbow in my ribs says different.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he hisses, glaring at me like he wasn’t just sleeping soundly.

I can’t speak because I’m still catching my breath. He got me good.

“We had this fucking conversation a hundred times already,” he says and rolls off the bed. “It’s still no.”

He starts dressing in a hurry, his movements jerky like he’s not fully in control of them. Karma is now sitting up beside me, blinking as she looks from me to him, confusion slowly turning to sadness in her eyes.

“What the hell fucked you up so bad?” I ask, rubbing my side. “I was just touching.”

I probably should’ve just gone for a straight up apology. At least that’s what his glare right before he slams the door on his way out said. And it’s what the look in Karma’s eyes is telling me too.

“You and your lack of patience,” she says. “Can’t you just wait for him?”

I sit on the edge of the bed, run my fingers through my hair and really think about the question.

“I can’t be with a guy if I can’t be with him.” I get up and start dressing.

“Maybe you should let him cool off,” she says.

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