A Promised Fate

by Cat Mann

  Chapter 8

  Need

  “Hey, I’m home,” I called out to anyone who might be interested, closed the garage door that led to the kitchen and dropped my car keys in a little bowl on the counter top.

  “Ava? Max?”

  A loud crack of a baseball smacking off a bat pulled my attention into the living room. The broadcasters offered a play by play and I leaned in and shut off the TV. Quieting the house.

  They were curled up together on the sofa, both of them sound asleep. A discarded children’s book was draped across Ava’s chest and Max’s face was nestled into her neck. His body snaked around her protruding bump and his leg hitched over both of hers and sloped down off the sofa. My shoulders dropped in disappointment. Although his bedtime had passed a long time ago, I had a glimmer of hope that I would at least be able to spend a little bit of time with Max before bed. Instead, I eased him into my arms, careful not to wake him, and carried him up the steps, down the hall and into his room.

  As soon as his head met the pillow, he curled onto his side and shoved his thumb into his mouth. Ava would have taken his hand away from his mouth and tucked his fingers under his pillow to help him break the thumb-sucking habit, but I left him alone. She was probably right to discourage his thumb-sucking but I liked to watch him be little and innocent. He won't go to college sucking his thumb, I always told her. I kissed his head and his plump cheek, covered him with his blankets, pulled myself away and closed his door.

  Ava’s laptop was in the office, her House to Home site pulled up and open. I minimized her work, took her laptop to our bedroom and brought up my baio applications and email program. I unloaded the pile of documents I had brought home for review onto the bed, stripped down to my underwear and set a gift I was debating even giving Ava on my nightstand.

  “Baby?” She didn’t budge even after a gentle shake to her shoulder so I balanced her in my arms and, as carefully as I could, I carried her to bed. I tried to ease her onto her own pillow but after I rolled her out of my arms, her hand gripped my shirt at my chest, she nuzzled her face back into my neck and breathed in deep.

  “Hold me,” she mumbled in her sleep and tried to wrap her body around me as I bent awkwardly over the side of the mattress. I glanced down towards the footboard where the laptop sat propped open next to a stack of paper that was as thick as an encyclopedia and hesitated.

  After trying to unclasp her hand from my shirt, I felt Ava’s grip tighten. Her eyelids were squeezed firmly shut and her face was twisted and pinched.

  Oh, crap, a nightmare...

  Ava started to thrash, and as usual when her dreams get to that stage, I started to panic. In one swift move, I wrapped her up against me and held her in bed. My arms around her tightened and I tried to keep her from moving too violently. I always worry that she will hurt herself and now I worry for the baby, too. Ava started to cry, hot tears streamed down her round cheeks and whimpers broke loose from her throat. Shushing her, I told her over and over again that I am there for her, that I love her and that I am sorry. She sobbed and held fistfuls of her own hair and pulled. I couldn’t drag her from the depths of her mind. No amount shaking or pleading could render her conscious and free her from her hell.

  Ava has different types of nightmares and in our time shared together, I have learned to be able to tell them apart. Some are quite a bit more severe than others. She relives the death of her of mother, but with decreasing frequency. I had noticed that her dreams of Lucy were limited mostly to around the holidays, when memories are active and when those we miss most are most with us.

  She has grown to accept also the dreams that satisfy her role as a fate – the constant pacing up and down dim corridors, listening to the pleas of the petitioners for death and choosing the next life that is due to end. To say that the emotional stress of cutting a thread is difficult is to engage in understatement, but that stress is who she is.

  A tear may slip down her cheek in the middle of the night when it is time to say goodbye to someone new, but that feeling is nothing compared to the dreams that take her back to the Kakos. The lifelike images that bring her back to the torture she endured with Damion and the memories of guns, nooses, knives, poison and fire are agony for her. The flashbacks are a main feature of her dreaming mind and I have come to dread them. But lately something new and profoundly dark has been stirring inside her and it is these dreams, the nightmare that I’d one day stop loving her, that terrify me most.

  Hours passed and the tears continued to roll. I was wet, my shirt suctioned and clung to my skin. Ava’s damp hair lay matted down her neck. I never let go of her, not for a single moment. I couldn’t stand the thought of making her endure her sadness alone. She kicked and I only pulled her closer, she choked out cries and I kissed her tightly shut eyes, her pinched lips and deeply creased forehead. I talked to her all night, whispering in her ear that I loved her and that I was there for her. I would always be there for her.

  Just as quickly as her nightmare hit, it ended, and Ava’s eyes blinked open in shock.

  “You’re here,” she murmured.

  “I am here.”

  “I need you.” Ava’s breath was ragged and her heart thumped in her chest like a ticking bomb. Her hands moved down my body in a frantic, desperate pursuit. “I need you, Ari.”

  “Shhh … I’m here.”

  Her fists clutched at the hem of my shirt and she yanked it off me.

  “Whoa. Ava, slow down.”

  She smashed her lips against mine and thrust her tongue in my mouth. Her fingers knotted in my hair and she pulled my head back, keeping me in place.

  “I need you now,” she panted.

  “I am yours. Take me. Every part of me belongs to you.”

  She pushed me back against the mattress and took whatever she needed from me. Her wet cheek pressed against my own and new tears lined the brim of her long, dark lashes. She made silent and verbal demands from my body like never before. Her body moved against mine in a perfectly measured rhythm and her gasps became more labored and intense. Her nails scratched down my chest, my palms cupped her warm curves and I kissed the soft skin around her shoulder to the dip of collarbone. We were one body and one soul. Her eyes stared into mine, our hands clasped together tightly and the flesh just above our hearts met so closely that no light could ever push through. Our passion exploded into a gentle wave of emotion and pleasure, my teeth clenched down with the intensity of my desire and Ava collapsed into my arms, hot, breathless and replete.

  She eased down onto her side, slid into the nook of my arm and propped her hardened tummy onto mine. Our hearts pounded together in unison.

  “Holy shit, Ava! Where the heck did that come from?” I puffed out my words and tried to catch my breath.

  Ava is a flirt – she can seduce me with a simple look – but she has always relied on me to me to make the next move. As coquettish as she can be, she is twice as shy and truly introverted. Getting her to tell me what she wants from me in bed is usually a challenge. This night had been a historical event.

  The very tops of her cheeks turned a darker shade of pink and she drew on my bare skin with her fingertip. Her touch was gentle and made my nerve endings dance and crave even more of her.

  “Seriously?” Rolling slightly to my side, I moved to face her and wound our legs up together. “After that you're going to be self-conscious?”

  She chewed on the corner of her mouth and gave a small shrug. “I don’t know what overcame me. I just really wanted you. All of you.”

  I twirled my wedding band on my left ring finger. “Baby, I am yours. My body belongs to you and you can have it whenever you want for whatever you need.”

  Her fingertip continued to trace a path on the skin just above my heart. One jagged line formed that rose into two tall pointed cliffs with a deep v-shaped valley between them. Like the line that follows the bleeps on a heart monitor. She traced her des
ign on my skin, erased the lines with her palm and then did it again and again and again.

  “What is that?”

  “Hmm?” She blinked up at me and her finger continued its path.

  Line up. Line down. Line further down and then back up. Line up. Line down and down again. Line back up again.

  “Your doodle?”

  “My name. A...” she said and drew the first tall pointy cliff, “V,” her finger sank down low into the valley and “A,” she finished the line with another mountain top.

  “So you're branding me?” I teased.

  “Mmm. You’re mine.” Her lips curved upward, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. My own fingers traced the pretty, tattooed skin on her arm.

  “You were very angry at me today.” My nose nuzzled through her thick waves of hair to her ear. I breathed her in as deeply as my chest would allow and held on to her until my lungs burned. She always smells so good, like warm rain and midnight. If baio could bottle her, we would make a fortune. “I was very angry at you, too.”

  “I still am mad at you, Ari.” She pushed away from me and left me cold and exposed.

  “Wait a minute,” I said, grabbing her and moving her back into my arms. “Did you just use me for sex then?”

  “I guess I did. How did it feel?” Her eyes twinkled and I knew she wasn’t as mad as she was pretending to be.

  “It felt really, really good, but that's beside the point.”

  “I need to be me, Ari. I don’t want to lose out on life because I am afraid of living. It was just a run.”

  “I want you to be safe only because I love you so much. I cannot stand the thought of someone hurting you.”

  “You hurt me,” she pointed out ... and my soul ached.

  “I don’t want to hurt you. I’m sorry if that is how you feel.”

  “It is how I feel. I don’t want to be controlled. I won’t be.”

  “You’re right. But please, I cannot lose you. Please be safe.”

  “I always am. And I'm sorry too, about taking over your life, wearing your shirts and stealing your blankets. I had no idea I was bothering you so much.”

  “Whoa, no, no, no. I don’t feel that way at all. Although it is annoying when you snag the last fry from my plate after you've said ten times that you aren't hungry … I love us. I love how comfortable we are with each other. You look sexy in my underwear and adorable when you borrow my glasses to read when you’re tired. And you seriously looked really hot wearing my watch, but it is mine. That watch is special to me and if it is ever lost or broken, I want that loss to be my fault, not yours. I want to have only myself to blame.”

  “Ok. I understand.” She yawned. “I love us, too. We’re cute.”

  “Still mad?”

  Ava shook her head from side to side. “No.”

  “Good. Me either.” I reached across her and grabbed the bag holding the gift I was still uncertain about giving her. “For you.”

  “What’s this?” She propped herself up on an elbow and leaned toward me.

  “A gift. I ended up with some free time on my lunch and bought it for you today.”

  She hesitated with crooked, pinched lips.

  “You have to at least open it.”

  She gave in and, after removing the layers of tissue paper, unearthed a Harry Winston watch case. Ava popped open the lid and her pinched lips dropped down to a frown.

  “What’s wrong? You don’t like it? You can go in yourself and pick out something else. Whatever you’d like. I just thought this one was perfect for you. This is from The Ocean Collection but they have other collections to choose from. I’ll have my assistant schedule you an appointment with the jeweler ...”

  “Ari, that’s not it. This is too nice. I don’t need something like this. I don’t want you buying me all these things. I don’t need this stuff, I need only you. As long as I have you, I am happy.”

  “You are my wife and the mother of my children. You deserve the best and I will buy you silly things like this forever, so get used to it. I want you to be happy. Do you like it or not?”

  “The watch is very pretty. Of course I like it, Ari. This is exactly what I would have chosen for myself. But really, just having you is what makes me the happiest.”

  “Good.” I took the Harry Winston watch from its case and secured the band around Ava’s wrist.

  She yawned again and admired the detail on the watch face and the rose gold buckle. “Thank you.”

  “You are most welcome. What time is it anyway?”

  “Very late.”

  “Can you sleep now or do you want me to stay up with you?”

  Ava leaned in, kissed the corner of my mouth and then gestured to the laptop, which had been kicked and pushed down towards the corner of the mattress. My paperwork was spread out along the blankets in a scattered disorganized mess. “Looks like you plan on staying up anyway.”

  “I was going to catch up on work, but I'm not anymore. I’m tired and I’d like to sleep, if you are able. I would like very much to hold you some more.”

  Ava smiled a sweet genuine smile and scooted back down into my arms. Her head settled on my chest and her eyelashes tickled my skin each time she blinked. She shoved her ice cold toes between my legs.

  “Are you sure you’ll be okay?” I asked, afraid that I would fall asleep before she did and not wake to her cries from another nightmare.

  “Mmm …” she nodded a slight nod. “Why do you ask me?”

  “You woke from a nightmare. It was a bad one, too. You were terribly sad and I didn’t know what to do to help you.”

  “Oh.”

  “What was it?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Ava.”

  She didn’t say anything more and her eyelashes stilled when she fell asleep.

  I watch her the way some may count sheep, or pray. I smoothed back her hair, lacing the silky stands through my fingertips and kissed the top of her head seemingly a hundred times or more. My mind took me back to my own nightmare from that very morning and, although the images seemed to have come to me ages ago, they rattled my mind to its very core.