Find Me In Pleasure

by Julie Kenner

  I want to say all of that, and yet I can’t, because Mal is inside me, filling me, and his hands are upon me. His lips are destroying me. He’s setting my body on fire and in a minute all of this will be moot because there is no way I can fight this riot of sensations. This storm that is about to burst over me, and is driving me up, building and rising and—

  Oh god. Oh no.

  “Don’t.” His voice is intense. Hard. Commanding. And I cling to it. Using his strength to build my own, even as he relentlessly torments my body, his hands and mouth and cock playing and teasing and tormenting me, urging me to come hard and come fast even as that one word rings through me. Don’t.

  And it’s building and growing—and not just the pleasure of an orgasm, but the dark fire of the weapon, too, and oh god, oh Christ. “I can’t. I can’t.”

  “You can,” he says, his touch relentless. “Lover, you can.”

  I breathe deep, trying to focus—to fight—despite the riot inside me.

  I try to imagine Mal’s touch—his power. I pretend that instead of tempting me, he is helping me. Pulling it back. Pushing it down.

  And then—

  —and then it all starts to fall away.

  Oh god oh god oh god.

  It worked.

  I still feel edgy and wild. I am still walking a precipice. But now it feels safe. Now I am steady.

  I breathe deep, pulling it in, and when I look at Mal, I can’t help but laugh in delight at the wide, proud smile I see on his face.

  “You did it.”

  “I am so damn horny,” I admit, and his laugh joins mine.

  I draw in a breath and then shift off of his still-hard cock.

  He chuckles. “That hardly seems fair.”

  I smirk, feeling playful. “Hey, I don’t get to come. You don’t get to come.”

  “Definitely doesn’t feel fair,” he says, but he moves over in the chair so that I can snuggle up against him.

  “Well, maybe I’ll change my mind in a bit,” I say. “If you’re very, very nice to me.”

  “I’m very proud of you. Does that work?”

  “It’s a start,” I say, and then kiss him.

  We stay that way for a while, warm in each other’s arms, and I like it. It feels nice. Comfortable. Gentle, and yet sensual. A little bit erotic, and yet safe.

  After a moment, I stretch. “I’m not even tired,” I say. “I thought that I’d feel the way I do when you back it down.”

  “I’m taking energy from you when I back it off,” he says. “But I didn’t take anything from you just now. All you did was redirect your own power.”

  I shift a bit to face him. “So when you take the energy, is it yours? I mean, you can use it?”

  “I can. It can fuel me. Or I can return it—to you or someone else who is in need of it. And when the need is very great, I can send it back out into the world instead of into a person.”

  “I have no idea what you mean.”

  His brows furrow as he considers. “I guess you’d call it a forcefield.”

  “Yeah? That’s cool.”

  “It requires a massive effort. I don’t do it often.” He frowns slightly, his gaze hard on me. “Only when the need is important.”

  “Oh.” I think about all that he’s told me, but I’m an actress and not a physicist, and I don’t completely get how it works. And while I do realize that deep inside of me is a woman with a much more cohesive understanding of all that, I’ve already reached far enough into myself today. The holes in my memory of our life together trouble me, but right now, I don’t intend to dig deeper.

  The thought, however, makes me melancholy. Not because I don’t recall the intricate workings of energy, but because I have lost so much of my life with Mal. Hell, so much of my life, period. Thousands of years, and what I remember is so fleeting, that each tiny thought and flash is precious to me.

  I frown, reminded of something that Jessica said earlier. About energy. About memories.

  I shift so that I am facing Mal directly. “You can take memories, too, can’t you?”

  I don’t need his verbal confirmation to know that I’m right. The expression on his face gives me all the answer I need.

  “Oh, god,” I say, sitting up straighter. “You’ve taken mine.”

  “Christina—”

  But I hold up a hand to cut him off. I frown as I recall the dream I’d awakened from just a few mornings ago. A sensual dream about a gray eyed man. His mouth on mine. His hands on me. I’d awakened aroused, believing it to be only an erotic dream. A fantasy.

  But it wasn’t. It wasn’t a dream, but the wispy remnants of a memory.

  “I want it back,” I whisper. “Christ, Mal, I want my memories back.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he says. “It doesn’t work that way.”

  Chapter 5

  ‡

  I am off his lap in seconds. “I want them back,” I repeat.

  But he just shakes his head and looks at me with eyes filled with sadness.

  I run my fingers through my hair and pace to the couch. There is a small afghan there, and I wrap it around myself, feeling suddenly, strangely exposed.

  “Christina, please.”

  “Please, what?” I ask, turning to him. My temper is ripe, my emotions a jumble. I feel violated. The me that I thought I knew isn’t really that girl at all. There are moments missing. Pieces of my life that are gone because someone else chose to take them.

  “You can’t do that,” I say. “You can’t just steal bits of my life from me.”

  I think of my mother and the weeks—even months—that she would simply lose. Forgetting that I’d had a friend over. Forgetting that we’d celebrated Christmas. Forgetting movies and talks. Just … forgetting.

  And my own fugues. Oh, god. Were those blank moments in my childhood because of Mal?

  I turn accusing eyes toward him. “Did you come to me when I was a child? Did you steal my memories even then? How many times did you kill me when I was still a child?”

  “Never.” The word is hard. Vehement. “I have only sensed you as an adult. I don’t know why. Perhaps the weapon stays dormant until then. I didn’t—hell, I couldn’t—”

  “Couldn’t?” I can’t keep the harsh edge out of my voice. “Sounds to me like you’re capable of quite a lot.”

  I look at him, still in the chair, but his hands are so tight on the armrests that his knuckles appear white. His face is tense, his expression stony. He is holding his temper in, but just barely.

  And I am not in the mood to coddle.

  There may well be an explosion tonight, but I’m beginning to think that it won’t be coming from me.

  “Only once,” he says tightly. “I’ve taken your memories only once.”

  “Tell me,” I demand, though I am certain that I already know.

  “Just a few days ago,” he says. “You were chasing a cat.”

  I close my eyes. That was the day that I arrived in New York. Brayden and I were heading back to his apartment, and we saw his neighbor’s cat. We chased Roger into an alley, but I’d thought we had too much to drink because after that the night was a blur, and I woke up in the guest bed feeling warm and wonderful in the aftermath of a truly exceptional erotic dream.

  “You touched me,” I accused. “You fucked me.”

  He flinches as if I have slapped him. “You remembered me. For the first time in three thousand years you looked in my eyes and you said my name. Christ, Christina, you wanted me as badly as I wanted you, and I couldn’t wait. So god help me, but yes. Instead of killing you as I knew I should, I took you in a goddamn alley when you deserved so much better.”

  I feel a tear trickle down my cheek. “You took my memory. Of us.”

  “No—no.” He is out of the chair immediately. “You’d already forgotten me.” His voice softens with pain. “Once I pulled out your energy and brought the weapon down, you forgot everything.”

  I can hear the sadness in his voice, and
I turn away, not sure if I want to hear what he has to say or if I want to run from it.

  “I took the rest of your memories because Brayden was passed out and there was a headless woman on the ground who I was about to turn to dust. I couldn’t have you seeing that. And I needed time to think. To figure out what—”

  “You needed time?”

  To his credit, he doesn’t answer. Smart man.

  I hold up a hand. “You know what? Right now, I need a little time.”

  “Christina—”

  “Jaynie,” I say firmly. “It’s Jaynie. And don’t push me. Don’t make what’s already hard even harder.”

  *

  I go into the first room I come to and call Brayden.

  I’m not sure why—it’s not like I can tell him what’s bothering me without telling him everything. And even if I wanted to do that, I can hardly do it over the phone. The story of my life requires in person and alcohol. That’s just a basic, fundamental truth.

  But even if he doesn’t know my secrets, he’s still my best friend, and I need to hear his voice. I need him to tell me that everything will be okay, even if he doesn’t know what everything is.

  He picks up on the second ring. “Hey,” I say. “Where are you?” It occurs to me belatedly that he might be with Dagny. She’s one of the female members of the brotherhood, and I vaguely remember her from my ancient past. Brayden doesn’t know that, though. He thinks she’s just a VIP at Dark Pleasures—and that she’s a very hot woman with whom he hit it off.

  “Just walked in,” he says. “Where are you?”

  “At Mal’s.” I keep my voice casual. No trouble here. Which, of course, entirely defeats the point of calling in the first place.

  “I figured,” he says. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you click with someone like that.”

  I don’t answer. I’m pacing the room, not really seeing it. Just paying enough attention so that I don’t bump into furniture. The huge modern desk, all chrome and glass. The dark wooden bookcases. The giant abstract painting that I think is an original Jackson Pollock.

  I turn away, intimidated by both the physical size and the price tag of the art.

  “Jay?” Brayden presses. “Did I lose you?”

  “Sorry. Bad connection. What?” I’m behind Mal’s desk now, trailing my finger over the top of the credenza. And as I do, I cannot help but see the small section of the bookcase devoted to a collection of miniature picture frames.

  “I said that you two clicked.”

  “Yeah.” My voice sounds distracted even to my own ears. There’s something so familiar about these photos. “Yeah,” I repeat. “We really do. I—I guess I just wanted to hear that from you, too. You know me. Always needing validation.”

  “I do know you, and I think it’s great. So long as you’re not planning on fucking and running. I like Dagny. I don’t want you to blow it for me by proxy.”

  I make a face at the phone, but I don’t deny. That’s my usual pattern, after all. Meet a guy. Fuck a guy. Leave a guy.

  Because how can you trust a guy not to hurt you first?

  The thought seems to twist around my heart. Because didn’t Mal do exactly that?

  He didn’t. It’s entirely different.

  I frown and push down the voice in my head that is determined to be sensible and reasonable. “I’m glad you and Dagny are getting on. I figured you must be when Mal said he bribed you with her phone number.”

  “Let’s just say I had a really great morning.”

  I laugh. “That’s awesome.”

  “Jay?” His voice has turned serious. “Why did you really call? Is something the matter?”

  I hesitate, but the truth is that although I want to hold tight to my anger, I know that it’s not real. It’s a knee-jerk reaction, because this is what I do. I make up excuses to run. Excuses not to get close.

  But with Mal, my usual pattern isn’t going to work.

  And that’s just a little terrifying.

  And that, of course, is why I ran.

  “Nothing’s the matter,” I tell Bray before the pause gets too long and he really does start to worry. “Just the opposite. In fact I was calling to tell you I’m staying here tonight. So don’t worry, okay.”

  “You sure? That’s awfully fast.”

  “I’m sure,” I say, then promise to call him tomorrow.

  I’ve idly opened a wooden box that sits on the shelf beneath the photographs. Inside, I find the resume I sent to Story Street when I signed up to audition for Juliet, along with my headshot. And beneath that are several other small items. Tiny paintings. Coins. A small cloth doll. Somehow, they are all familiar.

  Atop them all is a small, yellowing sketch of a young woman with wild curls and penetrating eyes. The words on the bottom are in French, but I know what they say. To remember me by when you cross the sea.

  The memory floods over me. I’d given it to my fiancé when he’d left Paris to come to America over two hundred years ago. His ship had been lost in a storm, and I had been lost in grief. I had not loved him—I had never loved any man—but I had been fond of him. And I’d wanted so desperately to leave France, which had always seemed to be a place full of danger, though in truth I knew that it was myself from whom I wished to run.

  When the stranger came with his odd sword and took my life in that cold Parisian street, I did not flinch. Hadn’t I always known that the end would come? One thing did surprise me—the words he spoke. “My love,” he’d said in a language I did not then understand. “Please forgive me.”

  I had died only moments later, and only now does the memory of those words return to me.

  Please forgive me.

  Oh, dear god, I do understand why Mal took my memories. I even know why he destroyed me over and over again.

  And each time he cut me down, he destroyed himself, too. Only he didn’t have my luxury of forgetting.

  On the contrary, he kept these horrible souvenirs to remind him of what he had to do—and of what he’d lost so many times.

  I had the luxury of oblivion.

  He had the pain of loss.

  The door opens, and I look up guiltily, realizing that I am still holding the French sketch. “You kept souvenirs,” I say stupidly. “Doesn’t that make it all worse?”

  His smile barely touches his lips, but the sadness clings to him like a blanket. “There is no way it could be worse.”

  I put the sketch back in the box and go around the desk to face him. “I’m sorry I got mad.”

  “I’m sorry for so many things,” he says. “Mostly I’m sorry I didn’t protect you better all those years ago.”

  At his words, my heart melts a bit. “Do you think I don’t understand? I do.” I reach out and touch his cheek. “I don’t like it, but I understand that you did what you had to.”

  He just shakes his head, and he looks so wrecked it makes me want to cry. “We’ve lost so much. Goddamn them.” The curse seems ripped from him, and I look up, confused. “The fuerie,” he explains. “Everything we had together, shattered in one night. One night when they took you from our camp and I wasn’t there to protect you.”

  “You are always there, Mal. How could you be anywhere but with me?”

  I mean the words with all my heart, but at the same time I know that will not help him. Not now. And so I go to him, succumbing to the passion that immediately sparks between us. It’s passion and heat, yes. But it’s also familiar. And even with the specter of the weapon hanging over us, I know that I am safe in his arms.

  We’ve known each other for an eternity, and yet there are so many things that we have to rebuild. So much we still have to learn. But this is how we are connected—this is how we will move forward.

  In touch and heat. In sex and submission. In passion and power, fire and desire.

  They are keys for us. The way back to each other. The way to save the world.

  “Kiss me,” I beg. And when his mouth closes over mine, it feels like coming
home.

  Chapter 6

  ‡

  Since I don’t have a change of clothes, I borrow a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt from Mal. The pants swallow me, and I have to roll the waist band over about a dozen times. The T-shirt bears the logo for Phoenix Security and hangs down to just above my knees.

  I’m standing in his stadium-sized bathroom studying my reflection in the mirror. The outfit may look ridiculous, but I can’t deny that I like the way it feels to be wrapped up in his clothes like this. It’s warm and casual and wonderful. And not just because I am practically vibrating with unfulfilled sexual potential.

  Unfulfilled in that I successfully—though frustratingly—managed hold back a grand total of four orgasms that promised to be amazing. But that small blip in my personal satisfaction isn’t a problem, but a victory.

  No, this warm and fuzzy feeling stems not from orgasmic delight, but from the feeling of togetherness. A sense of rightness that comes from the man—from the two of us together—and not just from the knowledge that thousands of years ago we were bound. It’s now. And it’s right. And it’s real.

  And as I look in the mirror, I realize that I am smiling.

  “You look like you’re thinking deep, but happy thoughts,” Mal says as he comes into the bathroom and stands behind me. He’s dressed now in jeans and a black T-shirt and looks as sexy as sin. To be honest, I’m no slouch either. I’m reasonably tall, though Mal still towers over me, and I have the kind of wavy brown hair that stylists love because it always seems to cooperate. I inherited my oval-shaped face and big brown eyes from my mother, and they are an asset as an actress, because if nothing else I can always rock the headshot.

  The truth is, we make an attractive couple, and as I look at our reflection, I cannot suppress a sigh of contentment. Because despite all the weirdness going on around me, being in Mal’s arms feels right.

  He puts his hands gently on my shoulders and bends down to press a kiss to the top of my head. “Will you tell me?”

  I reach up and take his hands, then ease them down so that he is embracing me just below my breasts. “I was thinking how this moment feels so right. Comfortable and warm and, I don’t know, real.”