by Joey W. Hill
Tyler pressed his forehead to hers, a shuddering going through those lean muscles as he closed his eyes. “You tore my heart out, Marguerite.”
“I know.” She kissed his cheekbone, his closed eyes. “Thank you for loving me beyond your heart. Can you forgive me?”
“If you promise never to leave me. If you agree to marry me.”
She lifted her head then, felt joy flood her. “That’s blackmail,” she said, her voice not quite steady. “And you’re as persistent as a terrier.”
“Angel.”
“Irritant.”
He smiled then, caressed her wet hair. “Say yes, or I’ll dunk you and hold you under until you agree.”
“Brendan will protect me from your bullying.”
Brendan chuckled, dared to run a hand down her back. “I think you should agree, Mistress. He looks determined to have his way.”
That surge was the last of her strength. As her feet came back to rest on the sand, her knees buckled. It was Tyler who lifted her this time. Striding out of the water, he laid her down in the hammock again. “Brendan, will you go in and find Sarah, ask her for some towels?”
The man nodded and left them alone. Lying in the hammock, Marguerite could not take her gaze from Tyler’s face. With her vision clear for the first time in days, she saw the deep lines of worry, the drawn tension of his mouth. The fierce resolve in him had been held in place past endurance so that the strain showed in every line. She remembered Sarah’s words, how he sat on the landing, avoiding sleep so the vision of a dancer whose toes had given out on her, strangled her into a willful death, would not haunt him in dreams.
She’d asked for forgiveness, but only now did it hit her, the magnitude of the request. She could feel again, see everything clearly, the water’s cleansing having loosened the guts and blood gumming up the dam to her emotions.
The things she had said and done on that building and since came back to her, not just from her own mind, but because she saw them buried in his expression where they could fester into a cancer if left untended.
She struggled up, despite her weakness. When he would have stopped her, she caught both his hands in her right one and dropped out of the hammock on her knees in the soft sand, bowing her head despite the pain that shuddered through her shoulder.
“Please forgive me, Master.” She repeated it, lifted her gaze to meet his. He’d squatted down and was holding her upper arms, apparently thinking she needed his assistance.
“I can never forgive myself for saying and doing such things to you as I’ve done. I know how much it must have hurt you.”
Her voice, low and broken, did something to Tyler. A wall shattered, behind which he’d stored his anger and worry, his gut wrenching, bowel-freezing fear. Because he heard her understanding of his pain, her knowledge of what she’d done, suddenly he didn’t know if he wanted to kill her out of fury, keep her chained to him until he didn’t feel the fury anymore, which might be by the time they were both well over a hundred, or hold her until every part of her was imprinted on him forever.
She sat on her knees, weak from physical and emotional stress and hunger, a woman willing to sacrifice life and more to save an innocent. A woman willing to sacrifice love. As he sat on his heels there long moments with her in her position of supplication before him, that thought repeated itself in his mind and love won out.
For he remembered the message she’d left for him. Chloe had insisted on calling and telling him as soon as they’d let her have a phone at the hospital. Sometimes it had been the only thing he’d been able to hold on to this past week, to believe somewhere deep inside her Marguerite was still there, wanting to be with him.
Marguerite had wanted him. Wanted to live with him. Which meant going onto that building had been even more difficult for her than most, because she’d just newly discovered the desire to live for love and she was about to go do something she’d been certain would obliterate that dream. He had been stupid to lose faith for even a moment. He thanked God that when he had, some other strength he could not name had kept him going.
All of that flooded in, intertwining with his harsher feelings, rational and irrational thought warring in an impossible conflict, until love touched him with insistent hands, recalling one other memory that made the conflict meaningless.
He knelt, lifting her chin. “Marguerite, when you jumped, do you remember anything that went right that should have gone all wrong?”
“You mean, other than us surviving that drop?” Her tone was dry, though her voice still shook with her emotions.
“It’s important. Remember for me, if it’s not too painful, angel.”
Marguerite thought back to the dive off the building, the shock of the dead wind freefall, her father’s abrupt release when she had expected more tenacity. The chute coming free…
“The whole jump was a miracle.” She shook her head. “My best hope was to get Natalie to the ground in a way she had half a chance of surviving. BASE jumping, building jumping…” she amended the term for his understanding, “is very dangerous and very precise. Her additional weight, my father’s interference, even when I released the chute. I should have been dead. Natalie might have lived, but likely with crippling injury. I didn’t expect to make it.”
“I know.” And the anger and pain were in his voice. She reached up to him, aching, but he closed his hand on her wrist, preventing her from touching him.
“Did Chloe tell you?”
“She did. I understand. I do, angel. It’s just…it’s going to take me some time. Just let it go for now.”
So she subsided, but it was difficult, for she needed his arms around her. “Why did you ask me that?”
“Because.” He released her to run both hands over his face, a gesture so weary and un-Tyler-like that it almost frightened her. Then she squelched the fear. She would not be Nina. She realized now she relied on his strength, had become dependent on it in a frighteningly short time, but she would never let him think he could not rely on hers and he was due for some leaning. Some serious leaning.
It was a humbling thought, to realize the weight of the world could not break him, but the loss of her could have. The impact of that struck her hard yet it told her what he needed. What she needed to give him. But first she needed to be sure of her direction.
“Have I lost your love, Tyler?” She spoke the words softly, a gift she’d never asked for, never thought she wanted. Now her life seemed to hinge on it. There was an abyss moving inside her, frozen belief her only light. Her voice trembled like a sputtering flame, unable to let him finish whatever it was he was trying to find out because she needed to know right then.
Shock coursed over his features, but she continued on.
“You’ve cared for me, yes,” she managed carefully. “As I’d expect you to do for me, or Leila, or Sarah or Violet, any woman you care about in similar circumstances. I just need to know.” Her voice broke. “Have I hurt you past bearing?”
He pulled her into his arms and lay back, pulling her onto him so he held her firmly against his full length, her body wrapped in his arms, her head beneath his chin.
“When you jumped from that building, I died,” he said simply, his voice a whisper in her ear. “I was so certain that I was going to lose you that I haven’t known how to feel or think since, beyond the basic steps of caring for you. There’s this rage in me, this anger. Every time I touch you, I want to hold you so tightly that I’ll see pain in your face so it matches what’s raging inside of me. So I’m afraid to let it show. I don’t know what to do with it. I love you so much, Marguerite. There are no words for this kind of love. It’s not pretty or romantic, it’s as visceral as sex or breathing, something undeniable, necessary to go on living, for anything else to matter.
“I…God…” His hands clutched her. She felt it ripping at him, the memories of one love lost mingling with one almost lost. It was going to tear his mind in two, break a man who believed he was supposed to be unbreaka
ble.
Marguerite lifted up, looked into his face, inches between them. Her skin was pale, face thin, but in her eyes Tyler saw that deep understanding she had of the world, its ugliness as well as its beauty, the temporal nature of it all. And something else. Her love for him riding all of it like a boat on rough seas, shining fiercely on her face like an angel’s light fairly revealed to a mortal’s fragile eyes. He blinked at the power of it as she held nothing back, showing him how important his answer was to her.
She needed him as much as he needed her. Whatever else had happened on her leap, she was no longer afraid to show it.
“Take me now, Master.” Her fingers curled into his biceps. “Take me with your pain and rage, and your love. I’m yours to do with as you desire.”
His gaze covered her face, the collarbone, still purple and bruised, the taped fingers. “Please.” Her voice dropped to a savage whisper, seeing it. “Do it for both of us. You’re my Master. It’s as much a part of taking care of me as your gentleness. I want the pain. So I’ll never forget, never abandon your love again.”
In retrospect, he would wonder what compelled him more, the vulnerable submissive in her that made it a plea, or the fierce Mistress that made it a demand.
He turned them over, using his strength to overpower her as she desired, but also using it to roll her onto her back in a way that made sure no pressure was put on the shoulder. Even so, his gaze was burning on her as he rose up on his knees and took each of her hands in his, turned her palms so they were flat on the grass on either side of her hips.
“You keep your hands right there and don’t move them.” He lifted off her enough to get his jeans open, shoved them out of the way, revealing that her words had made him fully erect, large. Marguerite shuddered as he gripped her hips, lifted them slowly up, impaled her. He was strong, relentless, leaving her no doubt that this was punishment as well as pleasure, even as his actions showed her he was trying to minimize the pain that the act could not help but bring her. As she cried out, tears came to her eyes, but she embraced all of it, wanting to suffer it, wanting this punishment, the pummeling of his thickness and length inside her. The proof of his love in a way that the civilized world could never understand the way she did. His fingers dug into her thighs, bruising her. She tried to tilt herself up to him even more, proving to him she was his, all his.
Marguerite thought his eyes were fierce like a warrior in the midst of battle, almost a berserker’s lust. Obeying instinct, she disobeyed, raising her hands enough to clamp down on his hands on her thighs, digging her nails in, drawing blood.
He snarled, caught her wrists and pinned them back down, using that grip and the force of his thighs between hers to keep her anchored at the right angle for his assault. A moment later, he let go of one wrist to put one hand high on her throat, making her undeniably helpless to him, to accept the mutual pain they both had roaring through them.
Thinking was hardly an option when her body and soul were so open and raw for him. She offered herself with the trust of a newborn. Since it was the first time since she’d been seven years old that she had trusted someone so much with her well-being, it was more fact than metaphor.
I’ll take you at my pleasure, make you mine, but care for you no matter what… Every movement of him inside her, the expression on his face, sent the message clearly that she was his and only his. It brought her a sense of belonging that, up until now, she could only believe in extreme moments such as he’d brought to her since they’d started their journey together. In the fairy tale, when she emerged from sleep, Sleeping Beauty saw the man who promised happily ever after. But happily ever after was essentially irrelevant. Certain things bound people together forever and those things lay between the two of them. She would never doubt the message again, whether in peace or passion.
He came inside her then and her body wanted to rise up, seek the same fulfillment, but physically she was no match for him. He held her down, made her protect her ribs and shoulder and serve his lust and need. He let go of her wrist, reached between them and found her, stroked her, his eyes burning into hers. Within five powerful seconds she came, her body barely strong enough even with his restraint to withstand the physical wave, the tide of feeling that crashed into her. But like her trip into the water, she needed it desperately to find herself and begin again. But not alone this time.
His eyes, the set of his mouth, the implacable clamp of his hands, the force of his cock, made it an oath to her. She believed it more in this moment of primal anger and pain than she would have if it was delivered in flowers and poetry. The most momentous moments of her life had always been forged in pain and darkness. While there might not be light in darkness at times, there would be heat and safety with him, and love existed everywhere. She believed it now, not just because she had felt a moment of it when her father’s expression shifted and she saw a memory of what he once was, but when she accepted the terrible pain she had inflicted on Tyler and saw and felt his love embrace her, a promise to always forgive. No matter what.
Desire. The joy of embracing it fully with body and mind rolled over her, left her quiet, at peace. For the very first time in her life.
He raised his body off hers at length, the harsh lines still cutting into his face. After he rearranged his clothes, he sat on his knees, gathered her up so she was straddling him, holding on to his shoulders with her one good arm as he buried his face in her neck. A shudder went through him, so strong it was almost like a seizure. His fingers dug into her back. He was shaking. And more.
She’d told him that he had to trust her the same way he wanted her to trust him. To give her his pain when it became too much to bear. Would she have gone to get Natalie if she’d understood how it would impact him? Yes, she had to, and Tyler had known that. But, oh, how sorry she was. How she wished she could have done something differently.
Her heart broke anew, yet it was a clean break, pouring out a wealth of poison and fear on the ground, giving it to the earth to absorb and cleanse as she held him to her. Held on as he did the one thing an intensely strong alpha man could do to bind a woman to him forever. Weep in her arms.
Her own tears bathed his temple. “Tyler.” She whispered his name, whispered it to him as a promise. “Tyler Winterman, I am going to love you forever, I promise. I will never turn away from you again, not when I’m afraid or even angry. I’m yours and you’re mine.” Her arm tightened over his shoulders as she absorbed the amazing truth of that. This incredibly interesting, handsome, exciting and loving man was hers. All hers.
Brendan was coming across the lawn and she discreetly gestured with her hand, holding him off, not wanting to interrupt Tyler or embarrass him. Brendan assessed the situation, nodded and placed the towel on a bench before retracing his steps back to the house. Another good man. Also hers, in a way Tyler miraculously accepted and appreciated.
Despite the darkness, she’d always been surrounded by gentle flames, like candles in a room. Brendan, Natalie, Chloe, Gen… Tyler, coming in to bring more than light— heat, nourishment, warmth. She had been blessed, in so many ways.
“Please, Master.” She held him close. “Let me have all of it. Let me take care of you. I’m not afraid of your pain. I love you. Nothing will make me stop.”
Jesus wept. Those powerful two words from the Bible. How odd it was that chauvinistic, old-school men like Tyler and likely Violet’s Mac thought it was shameful to cry in moments like this. When prophets could not help but weep at the folly and evil of men, knights of the round table wept at the loss of their king. Even Little John, a man as broad and strong as an oak, had wept when his great friend Robin had died in his arms. So the legend went. She thought the rare tears of a strong man might be a gift to angels and Divinity, proof that there was compassion and love in a world long ago gone mad and beyond repair.
At length he was still, just holding her. She rubbed him, rocked with him, silently gazed out at the water. She reflected she would have been content
if Josh had come out and poured clay on them, forever immortalizing them here, a sculpture she would have chosen to call No Matter What.
“Tyler,” she said at length.
“Angel.”
She lifted her head and put her hand to his chin, brought his face up when he didn’t want her to see the evidence of his tears. She leaned forward, kissed one eye, then the other, leaned back.
“What can I do to make you happy?”
Tyler’s gaze coursed over her collarbone area, the bruising that had developed a greenish-black coloring this week. “Maybe punch me in the face. I was an animal.”
“Don’t apologize for it.” She said it fiercely, surprising him with her passion. “We both know it’s not needed. I want to make you happy. I want to love you. Tell me how to start, how to put my feet on the right road.”
Despite the strength of her words, her voice was weak. Tyler knew she had to be fatigued in every limb. She was trembling as much from pain and exhaustion as from the late afternoon breeze coming in against her wet body and hair. His Ice Queen who always felt the cold. “Brendan’s dragging his ass with those towels.”
“No, he’s not.” She nodded. Holding on to her waist to keep her comfortably astride him, he turned to look toward the bench at the edge of the garden. There was a pile of terrycloth. “See? He even brought me one of your robes. He and Sarah both knew I’d want nothing clothing me but something of yours.”
The simple assertion gripped his heart. “He came back a few moments ago,” she continued. “He left them there to respect your privacy.”
Tyler grimaced and she smiled. It entranced him, because for the first time since he’d known her, it came easily. It was not a broad grin but a serene curving of her lips, as if she’d given herself permission to use the gesture when she liked and was testing it out.
“I’m sure he’s run off to tell everyone he knows that Master Tyler cried in the arms of a woman,” she teased gently.
“Damn. I hate to have to hide another body on this property. I just buried the last person who aggravated me past endurance.”
