by Marata Eros
When the sobs come, I feel as though I'm breaking in her arms.
Marissa is stronger than I knew. She doesn't let a single piece of me fall.
*
I kiss each one of her knuckles, smelling her delicious juices on my chin from the moments before when I devoured her.
I was relentless, eating her until she screamed her orgasms into the room so loudly they echoed.
“God—how do you do that—with your tongue?” she asks in a thready whisper, flopping back breathlessly, her eyes on the ceiling.
I begin to kiss up her arm. “Practice makes perfect, is that not what you Americans say?”
She gives me an amused smile, barely turning her head to look at me. “I don't think that expression is meant for what you just did to me.”
“Perhaps not.” I finally reach her face, hovering above her mouth, and she caresses the back of my hair.
“I think I love you, Léo.”
I become a statue above her.
My former wife never told me she loved me. My parents who died over two decades ago might have—though I do not remember.
Marissa's words gut me.
Not because I do not like them but because I might feel the same way as she.
I cannot love a cherry in a handful of days. In this circumstance. It is not real—but surreal.
Yet these feelings Marissa provokes inside me are not unfamiliar, but they are unprecedented when combined with romance.
I had a kind of love for Juliette. Enough love to let her go. I loved my parents. But corpses do not reciprocate.
Marissa might very well be my first true love.
I press my forehead against hers, breathing in her confession. I want her to take it back.
I want to hear it again.
“You don't have to say you love me, Léo. Actually, you never have to say it. You loving me isn't going to change whether I love you. It just is.”
My hands fist the sheets next to her head. Her words are true, and they surface my feelings.
“I do not know if I can love anyone. I do not know if I am capable... of loving.”
She lays her hand on my bare chest, right above my rapidly beating heart.
“I think you are.”
Opening my eyes, I dare to let my feelings fill them. “Perhaps”—I sweep a stray kinked tendril from her face—“with you, all things are possible.”
She smiles. The happiness touches her eyes. “Definitely.”
A tentative smile seats on my face.
Then a booming crash sounds from the front, and I leap off Marissa.
Her nudity spears me, but I am steady under pressure and chaos. “Get dressed. Inside the bathroom is a trapdoor underneath the rug. Use it.”
Marissa lurches to her feet, picking up her clothing as she runs to the small bath.
I follow, and she moves aside. After tearing off the lid on the commode tank, I remove my illegal automatic weapon out of hiding and pry the extra clip from the back of the porcelain. Adhesive remains from the duct tape.
Marissa grabs my forearm over the bundle of her clothes, her eyes wide, narrowly missing the wound she gave me with her teeth.
One of her beautiful nipples is erect, peeking out over the top of the clothing, and I close my eyes against the image.
What if we cannot be together again? What if this is the last time I feast on her beauty?
Why could I not tell her how I truly felt? My eyes open.
“Is it them?”
I nod. Another answer does not make sense. “Oui,” I say into the hush of the room.
Tears hover at the corners of her eyes, scattering with her movement as she whips the rug off the top of the door installed integrally into the bathroom floor. A looped handle is flush with a divot carved out of the latch in the center of the square doorway.
She hooks her fingers through the catch and pulls with both hands. The door lifts. Steep steps dive below into darkness.
“Go,” I say, tilting my head toward the steps.
Marissa surveys the murk then turns her face to me. “Be careful.”
I will be predatory in my caution. Because I now have so much to lose.
My hands cup each side of her face.
Marissa's fingers trail down my body as she follows the steep stairs that travel to a hidden basement underneath the house.
I shut the door and key in numbers for the lock. The lock engages, beeping its security.
Moving outside the bathroom are footsteps that I hear sliding over the worn floors. Stealth steals in around me. When I exit my bedroom, I do not find what I expected.
The cop—Thorn—stands in the center of my living room.
Quelle?
Instantly, I recognize the one who shot Roi from a year ago. “Drop your weapon!” he bellows into the stillness.
My automatic weapon points toward the floor, heavy in my grip. My gaze moves to Thorn and I make an instant decision. “La famille is pursuing me. I have saved Marissa Augustine,” I say in rapid French.
“Sure,” Thorn says, clear disbelief laced in his reply.
I suppose I deserve his distrust. Especially considering he is now married to Juliette.
The other cop raises his weapon, a steady black circle aimed at my chest. “Drop it, fucker—or I drop you.”
My eyes move over the team of American law enforcement.
“Where is Marissa Augustine?” Thorn questions through his teeth.
I think of la famille. I think of Thorn's presence and what it could mean. “La famille might already be here. If you are here, what makes you think they are not?”
“What the fuck is he saying?” the other man shouts, whipping his face to Thorn.
“That our collective goose is cooked.” Thorn's eyes are restless inside the house.
“Move a muscle and I shoot you,” the cop says while the reinforcements appear to wait for his next move—a signal.
“Understood,” I reply, my gaze following Thorn. I see the ghost of Roi all over him. Some of their mannerisms are even similar.
“You sweep the perimeter?” Thorn suddenly asks the other cop, his eyes on me.
The other lawman jerks his chin back in disdain. “Of course.”
As though on cue, the windows shatter, antique glass spraying like a blizzard of rain.
I fall to my belly, barely saving the gun.
Two of the officers are down, bleeding on the floor that Marissa cleaned.
Thorn's upper chest blooms red.
I hesitate, thinking through my options, and French words touch my ears. La famille is here after all.
Thorn's eyes meet mine, his hand against his side. “Fucker,” he seethes at me.
I nod. “Oui.” Then I grasp his arm and drag him toward the bathroom.
“Get your fucking hands off me!”
He winces.
“Shut up. I am saving you, though it is a stupid choice,” I whisper in quick French.
More bullets slam into the living room, causing clouds of plaster to plume around us like a dust storm. We duck, then I turn on my knees and grab Thorn underneath the armpits, continuing to heave and drag him backward.
He is a heavy man—dense with muscle.
His breathing becomes shallow, his eyes rolling to meet my own. “Juliette,” he says quietly, a question in his tone.
Gunfire erupts, and we duck. Thorn groans at the movement.
I shut the bathroom door, just grazing his toes in the process.
Shots echo their shrieking through the rooms, causing our eyes to narrow at the loudness. It sounds closer.
“She is safe from me.” I answer his unspoken question.
He briefly closes his eyes. “Marissa?” he manages.
“You will join her.” I flip the rug from the trapdoor, tap in the numeric code, and open it.
Marissa's face appears at the bottom of the run of steps. “Shepard! I hear shots....”
“Catch him,” I say without explanatio
n.
I swing Thorn's body around and slide him into the meter-and-a-half-foot-wide hole, and Marissa grabs his legs. She pulls, and I slide him.
There's a huge crash as he slides and falls below, hitting the treads with his back on the way down.
I grip the edges of the trapdoor. “Are you all right?” I peer into the darkness.
“Yes.” Her voice is breathy in reply. “He's shot, Léo.”
“Yes. Good girl,” I say and close the door. I key in the security code and turn, bringing my weapon up as I do, into the face of the enemy.
We fire simultaneously.
One of us bleeds.
NINETEEN
Thorn
Thorn's been in worse shape, but right now, his shoulder feels like one big raging, fucking slice of agony.
A woman who must be Marissa Augustine hovers over him while bright light crucifies them.
“Can we turn down these fucking lights?” he gasps.
“I don't know how,” she admits.
“They're like fucking outdoor vapors.”
Her lips turn up. “You've been shot, so you're in bad humor.”
Thorn nods. “Yeah, ya think? Got any first aid in this place?”
A boom sounds from above, and she sinks to her haunches, her frightened face turned toward the ceiling.
Thorn thinks of Tag, momentarily closing his eyes. What a colossal motherfuck.
“Hey.”
He opens his eyes, and she's holding up the traditional blue-and-white box with a red medic cross on the front.
“I'm Marissa.”
She kneels beside him and opens the kit.
“I'm Thorn. Used to be a cop, now I consult.”
Shots bellow angrily above their heads again, and Marissa rolls her lip into her mouth.
Auto fire answers.
The thunk of bodies falling above their heads is obvious.
Marissa's hand shakes as she cuts off his shirt, her eyes darting over his wound. She begins to use gauze to stop the flow of blood.
“I don't want him to die.”
Thorn grimaces. “Who—fucking Shepard?”
Her eyes meet his. They're a pure, clear gray. Never seen that color before.
“Yes, ʻfucking Shepard,ʼ and he's got a name, Thorn. Léo Dubois.”
Thorn snorts, winces from the pain, and glares up at her. “Is this like Stockholm Syndrome or some shit?”
Marissa's sigh is exaggerated. “No, it's not. He's not who you think he is. I don't want him shot! He saved me from these French freaks.”
Thorn's brows dump. “You don't know who he is. What he is.”
Her eyes darken like a storm. “I know enough, Thorn.”
Beeping sounds from the top, and Thorn tries to sit up, grabbing at his ankle. “Gun!”
The trapdoor opens, and weak light slides through. Shepard's face peers down at them.
Thorn grasps the butt of his snub .38. “Don't move, Léo Dubois.”
Shepard smirks. “Shoot me—after I saved you.”
“You shoot him and I'll brain you,” Marissa threatens.
Thorn sighs, giving up. “Where's Tag?”
A gun appears at Shepard's temple. “Right here.”
Thorn hears the clicking of the hammer on the old-fashioned revolver that Tag insists on using.
Shepard raises his hands. “I surrender.” His smile is slight.
“Tag—stand down, pal. Looks like Shepard has done a three-sixty.”
“Don't trust this guy.”
Me, neither.
“What's the status?”
“Lot of dead French guys.”
Good.
“Our guys?”
The barrel of the gun disappears. Tag tries to shove Shepard out of the way, but he remains like a leech.
He huffs an exhale, the gun loose but steady in his hand. Their eyes meet. “Two down.”
Thorn struggles to sit up. His head feels light.
“You're hit?” Tag yells in alarm.
Thorn nods. “I'll live,” he says.
Then promptly passes out.
*
Marissa
Ten days later
Juliette is nice. Thorn has rough edges but he's cool in his own way.
But I want Shepard.
He could be extradited to France. We're waiting for the long arm of the French law to scoop him up and take him to a prison.
In the strangest twist of fate ever, Juliette used to be married to Léo. She doesn't volunteer what went down between them.
Juliette is focused on something new.
I gaze at the newborn baby she holds and smile.
Sometimes there is a happily ever after. Just not for people like Shepard and me.
Thorn bursts through the door, and Juliette scowls at him. “You'll wake her, Thorn,” she admonishes, and even a guy as big and tough as Thorn looks as though, if he had a tail, it'd be tucked between his legs.
I smother a laugh, and he frowns at me.
“Don't get all comfortable here, Marissa. This much estrogen, I don't need. I got my ball and chain—and the miniature princess—and you. God.” But he smiles, bending down to kiss Juliette on the top of her dark head. He leans close to his infant daughter, smelling her. A cloud of dark hair covers her tiny skull.
“She smells so new,” he muses, straightening.
“She is new, silly boy,” Juliette replies. “Colette will always be ours,” she says so quietly I barely hear her.
But she and Thorn exchange a weighted glance of understanding I'm not a part of.
The moment breaks, and he looks at me.
I take a deep breath. Let it out.
“Léo Dubois has to return to France. We got the weapons charge dropped, and there was no proof in this country of anything illegal, though there's plenty we suspect.”
There is plenty to suspect, but I keep my mouth shut.
“France wants him, Marissa.”
Tears slide a burning pathway down my face. “Why?” I cry, beating the top of my thigh with a fist.
Thorn raises his bandaged shoulder. “Listen, girl, you gotta let him go. He's committed crimes in that country. He's got to be accountable for them, no matter what he did for you.”
I raise my face to him and hiss, “And you.”
He drags a hand over his short skullcap of hair and meets my defiant stare dead on, giving a curt nod. “And me.”
Juliette says quietly, “Go back to your life, Marissa. Forget Shepard. He's a tortured soul.”
And I am tortured without him.
*
October
My boss lets me continue my job, even though I was kind of kidnapped and missed days.
November
I haven't heard from Shepard since he was deported, and I've been so sick I can barely lift my head. But still, thoughts of him haunt me like a ghost.
December
I take the French fluency test and fail.
March 2017
I take the French fluency test and pass. My boss approves my transfer to France.
June
I say goodbye to Juliette, Thorn, and Baby Colette.
July
I've reached my goals, but they're empty without someone to share them.
I move to Paris, France. Every thought I think is of Shepard. Every word I speak is French.
Every breath I take yearns for him in it.
TWENTY
Léo Dubois
One year later
I stroll the Parisian streets, and a light spring drizzle falls, causing my damp hair to cling to my skull.
I approach my destination. Café de la vie, the sign reads.
My palms are suddenly as damp as my hair.
Marissa moves fluidly between tables, smiling and chatting with the customers in fluent French, only lightly accented with her native American tongue. I know this because I have covertly listened before.
I straighten my light suit coat, Italian and tailor
made for my figure, and try to force myself into the confidence that once came so instinctively.
Marissa had become like a needle in the proverbial haystack. Even with my monetary resources, I was unable to find her easily. It appeared as though she did not want to be found.
But I persevered.
Little did I know she had changed her last name to an old family name. Marissa Augustine is now Marissa Martin.
The change had eased her passage to a country where her grand-mère had once lived. It had also made her more difficult to find.
When I had reached out to Juliette, she had given me a tongue-lashing. Guilt, remorse, and happiness had been a part of that particular conversation.
Thorn had told me to fuck off in what I've found is his typical manner. At the end of our words together, he'd also told me good luck.
Their forgiveness had not been enough to absolve me of the horrible deeds I had committed against others. Yet it was a start.
Now as I stare at the woman I love, a full year and a half since I last saw her, I don't know if it's sufficient.
Will Marissa still profess love as she so easily did in the small cabin within the heart of the Black Hills of South Dakota?
Or has she moved on to another man? Now she’s an extremely exotic woman in a foreign land.
I suppose there's only one way to find out. My hand grasps the handle of the door. I’m awaiting my rejection.
Fearing it.
Hoping for another result.
*
Marissa
I love Café de la vie.
France, and especially Paris, is everything good everyone told me it would be.
But if happiness can be empty, then that's what I've got.
Each day I walk the streets of one of the most beautiful cities in the world and can't move past the ceiling of mourning I've built. Whenever a gorgeous moment happens to me, I want to instantly share it.
With Shepard.
But in the last couple of months, I've begun to slowly dig myself out of the grave of what ifs.
We weren't meant to be.
I can't find him—and I haven't tried. I can't bear to discover that the boy so abused and starved for the love he deserved is maybe back in a similar hellhole for adults. No better off for his time of self-realization and turning his life around.
