Page 71 of Mangled Memory
He pauses and looks toward the moose high on the black wall. “Some days, you’re the woman I’ve known and on other days, you’re a stranger to me. I guess that’s how you feel with me too… And I hate it. I so badly want you to remember me, remember us, be anusagain. You know that band of wild horses in Oregon?”
I shake my head.
“You told me about them once and that you want to find a way to get shots of them sometime. I don’t want to break you. I want you—your unbridled spirit, you running wild and free, you being exactly who you were designed to be. And I still want you to come home to me. To choose me. To have shelter from the storm—that is, when you don’t want to play in the rain, and tempt the lightning and the thunder. You’re mine to protect. You’re mine to love. I love you, Ayla, and I need you.”
He stops and drops his head, studying his knuckles. When his face rises to mine, the anguish written there is palpable.
I leave the chair and move to perch on the sofa next to him. I extend a hand to his thigh, my pale skin a stark contrast to his dark trousers.
“I don’t know what to say. Most days I know who I am and what I want. Some days this life”—I look around the room—“is as foreign to me as Timbuktu must be. All the time is me trusting beyond my comfort zone to become someone I don’t know and being asked to trust a situation that feels like a shirt that’s two sizes too small. The old me trusted you. It’s like she made a recommendation to this me that you’re solid and can be believed, but I’m trying to learn it for myself. Does any of that make sense?”
He nods.
“I’m trying. That’s what I’m saying. I’m trying. You’retrying to get back to a place I’ve never been. I don’t know the way, and no one will show me the map.”
“Will you try to at least trust that I’m driving you safely and that we’re going to the same place?”
“If you’ll be patient with me that the motion sickness is real and that the whole drive is scary. And I hate being scared.”
“Hate being scared.” His three words are spoken at the same time as mine, creating a chorus in the room.
I lean his way and push up on my feet, pressing my lips to his, opening my mouth to slide my tongue inside. His groan echoes in the quiet space, and he takes control, flipping me onto my back on the blue velvet sofa, and holds his body over mine.
“What do you need from me?”
“I don’t know. Some days that’s gentleness and patience. Others it’s a reminder of who and what I am. And I don’t really know which of those I’m going to need or when.”
“And what about now?” His hand slides up my side, his hand stopping on my ribs.
“Right now, I want to be fucked the way you fucked the old Ayla. Treat me as if this”—I roll my eyes to my temple where the puckered red scar is—“never happened. I’m not a fragile, broken woman and I want to be reminded of that.”
The look in his black eyes goes feral. “You sure?”
I nod and he lifts off me, reclining back into the corner of the bright blue sofa.
“Get on your knees.”
No doubt surprise is plastered all over my face.
“Wife.” The one-word command annoys me but also excites my curiosity.
I push up to stand before him. I hold his eyes in near defiance as I sink to my knees on the floor in front of him ever so slowly. He’s honoring my request, so I can play along.
“Now what?”
A smirk tugs at his lips as he extends a hand between us. “Come. Take me out of my pants and lick my cock.”
I lean forward and use unsure fingers to release his button andzipper. The hum of it is loud in the room and mixes with the sound of my heartbeat in my ears.
I slide a hand over his boxers and stroke the heat of his hard length before he lifts his hips and drops boxers and trousers alike under his ass.
“Don’t tease me.”
I peel down the fabric and watch his cock spring free. It reaches for me as if it has a mind of its own.
I lean forward between his legs and begin a long slow lick from the base of his cock until I reach the tip, spending extra time at the crease under his head, flicking and teasing. I lick his slit, feeling him go rigid beneath me.
One strong hand goes around my neck, pulling my hair back and fisting it into a knot that verges on painful. It pushes me down over his length all the way to the back of my throat. “Relax your throat, baby. Take all of me.”
