by Cybill Cain
In a display of core strength that boggled my mind, he sat back, taking me with him, and then shifted around until his legs were out behind me. He kept himself inside me the whole time, like a sex magician who knew all the moves. I’d seen him do it, but the how was mystifying.
He held me to him, and looked me in the eye, frowning a little at what he saw there. Then he kissed me like we had the rest of our lives together. It was soft and sweet, and it felt like love. He’d said he was falling in love with me, and I’d told him what he meant to me our first night in the studio, but we’d never spoken of it again. The way he felt now, I could almost believe falling had become fell, and he was mine.
The idea filled me with new urgency, making me rise up on him and slam my hips back down hard, breaking his tender kiss with a groan of pure pleasure. I was about to do it again, when he grabbed my hips and stilled me. “Tell me what’s wrong, Annie.” His tone was deadly serious, but the look of him, sleepy with kiss swollen lips and stubble across his jaw made it hard to appreciate his seriousness. He was breathtaking.
“Let me,” I begged him, needing to move again almost more than I needed air. I squeezed him inside me, and a thrill shot through me when his eyes rolled back in his head. I’d learned the ways of Max Alexander in our time together. There were no secrets in our sheets.
He let me press him down to the bed, so I could lean over him, slamming my hips down again and again until he couldn’t take it anymore. His hands grasped me hard enough to bruise as he held me up enough to let him thrust into me. The sound of our bodies crashing into each other filled the room as he fucked me fast and hard. “Oh, yes, Max, yes!” I screamed, my vision going dark as he made me come. He pushed me down hard on him, filling me completely before he let go. The wet heat of his release made me tingle from head to toe. I could stay like this forever, I thought as he rocked slowly into me again and again, not wanting to leave the warmth of my body. I could stay like this forever.
***
Max
“Now, tell me, what’s wrong,” I said to the top of her head, after she’d caught her breath from giving me an orgasm that made my toes curl. I mentally added it to the list of best orgasms ever, noting that each of them had her name beside it in my mind.
“You’re going to be late,” she said, trying to sit up and leave me. It made me angry that something was wrong, and she wouldn’t tell me so I could fix it. I caught her arm, hating the rush of cool air on my wet dick from where she’d abandoned me.
“I don’t give a fuck about being late. I need you to tell me what’s wrong.” I wasn’t yelling yet, but it was coming next if she didn’t answer me. She stopped pulling against my arm and sat back, pulling a sheet around her almost protectively. I thought it was strange, since we’d barely bothered to dress in weeks. I watched her pick at the sheet restlessly with her hand, while my mind came up with all kinds of horrible ideas about what was bothering her. Finally, she sighed, and looked up at me.
“I don’t want to make this a big thing, Max. It’ll spoil the time we have left.” Time we had…what?
“I’m sorry, you’re going to have to explain that a little more.”
“When I think about you leaving it makes me upset,” she finally said, swiping a tear from her cheek, before looking away from me again. I felt like face palming myself right there. You jackass, you never told her you planned to take her with you? No, I hadn’t brought it up because a tiny part of me was afraid she was going to say no. I’d let myself make plans to show her the world without talking to her because I was afraid she wouldn’t want to leave Escape. If she was upset over me leaving, maybe that fear had been justified.
“You’re coming with me, aren’t you, Annie?” She sniffed as she turned back to me, her eyes wide with surprise.
“What?” I was frozen, more afraid of what she was going to say next than I had ever been of anything in my life.
“When I go, you’re coming with me, aren’t you? I want you to. I can’t stand the idea of not seeing your face when I open my eyes every morning. I can’t…” I stopped, unable to keep my voice from cracking as the dark empty future without Annie loomed before me. Before the emptiness swallowed me whole, she threw herself into my arms. The sheet fluttered to the floor, leaving us skin to skin. “I’d lose my mind if I couldn’t feel you like this every day,” I whispered into her hair, holding her tightly to me.
“You didn’t say anything,” she told me, turning her head to rest it on my shoulder.
“Neither did you,” I reminded her.
“I never dreamed you’d want me to go with you.” How could she not know? I shook my head, we were both ridiculous, but it was out now. I hadn’t missed the fact that she hadn’t answered me.
“Will you come?” She was quiet for a long time. Every passing second filled me with dread. She was supposed to say yes, and we were supposed to ride off into the sunset together. Why wasn’t she saying yes, damnit? “Annie?” She tightened her arms around me, refusing to let me see her face.
“I’ve always lived at Escape. I told you I never even left to go to school, that I didn’t want to. Max,” but I stopped her there.
“Think about it, please, Annie. Don’t say no now, just please think about it?” She was quiet again for a while, but she was holding me tightly, too. She might not be sure about leaving, but she didn’t want to let me go either. I took that as a good sign, one that meant she just needed some time to get used to the idea. “There’s a whole world out there I want to show you, Annie. Things that will make your art come alive in new and wonderful ways. Things that will make you laugh, and things that will make you cry, and every night I will hold you until you fall asleep. Please think it over, Annie.”
“I will,” she said, finally pulling back to look at me. Her eyes were red from crying. I wiped her cheeks with my thumbs while I held her face in my hands, and prayed she would be willing to take the risk and give us a chance. She put her hands on my wrists, holding them there as she looked into my eyes. I wanted to say more, hell I wanted to beg, but I held it inside. I’d told her how I felt. It was up to her now if we would have the future I’d been planning for us.
***
“Captain?” I called out as I approached the fishing boat at the end of the pier. He waved to me, gesturing for me to come aboard. He was standing on the deck looking at the cloudless blue sky with a squinty eye. He reminded me of the captain from Jaws, which left me uneasy and amused. I immediately resolved that if he decided to chase any large scary sharks, he was on his own.
“Is something wrong, Captain?” He shrugged his shoulder, massaging it with his hand as he continued to frown.
“Storm coming,” he grunted. I looked at the sky again. The blue was blinding. “You sure you want to go out today?”
“Whatever you think is best,” I told him, relying on his expertise to guide me here.
“I think we’ll get a half day in at best, and then have to come home, but I need the money, son. I can’t afford to give you a full refund.” I waved my hand.
“If we get half a day, you can keep the whole fee. I insist.” I needed time away from Annie to calm down before I said the wrong thing and soured any possibility that she would decide to leave with me when my time here was up. The distraction of fishing was just the medicine I needed.
“Mighty kind,” the old captain told me, moving toward the wheel. I took a seat at the back of the boat, and watched the land slowly disappear behind us. What would happen to Annie if I left here without her?
Stacy had tailed Jackson for a week, and found nothing out of the ordinary. The coroner’s report came back saying that Todd had died of the gunshot wound to his head, and that his lungs had evidence of smoke inhalation prior to his death.
Stacy had finally packed it in and told us to call him if we needed anything. He was going to travel down the coast, and take a few weeks off, but he could be right back in two shakes if things went sideways again. Everything had been quiet s
ince then, leaving the two of us in our own little world.
I’d seen enough of how Meenan took care of her to believe that she would be fine without me, and enough of how wonderful she was to know that I would not be fine without her. As the motor roared in the little boat, drowning out everything else, my mind flipped through the unforgettable moments I’d shared with Annie. One of my favorites was the afternoon she’d given me a card reading. It was raining outside, a dark and lazy day that we’d started in bed, not leaving my room until nearly lunch time.
After ravaging the kitchen together we’d wandered into the living room, thinking of watching a movie, but I’d seen the cards again, and remembered that she had promised me a reading. She’d agreed, and we moved to the little table beside the window.
“Shuffle the cards until you feel like stopping,” she told me, lighting a candle and placing it on the table before placing the crystal ball on a little stand off to the side. I picked up the deck and did as she said, and then placed them back on the table between us. Her hands reached out, palms up to me. I’d placed mine over hers.
Something snapped between us. A non-believer might have thought it static electricity, but I was doing this because I was a believer. I felt her energy mix with mine and knew it for what it was, welcoming her, and her touch. I won’t hide anything from you, I thought to her, watching her face, hoping she could feel it from me. She pulled her hands back, and laid out the cards.
“This is the Grand Cross,” she told me. “It tells me who you were, who you are, and who you might yet be. It tells me what lies behind you, what’s in front of you now, and what lies before you. It tells me what opposes you in this life. It tells me what your final outcome will be if you remain on the path you are on, but remember, you have the power to change your path any time you wish, and this is only a glimpse at how things might be, not how they will be. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” She looked at the cards for a long time. I watched her face in the flickering candle, and waited for her to speak.
“You are the Hanged Man,” she finally said, sounding different. There was a dreamy and distant tone to her voice that made it more deep and resonating than usual. “Not where you want to be, not doing what you want to do, but you can’t see a path that will take you where you want to go. You are opposed by the Tower, which tells me that great change is coming for you.” She stopped, frowning. “I can’t say if it’s good or bad change, just that something powerful is about to break you out of the place you are currently in.” She glanced at the card above the Hanged Man and the Tower. She swallowed, and her eyes cut up to me before going back to the cards.
“Above you is the Lovers, telling me that the change coming will be something deeply personal and intimate to you. It’s a dream or secret that you hold tightly to your heart, and have never shared with another before.” She shifted in her seat, leaning closer to the cards as if they were whispering to her. She was quiet for several minutes before going on.
“The Moon is behind you. You’ve been lonely, even in a sea of stars there is no light for you. This loneliness has trapped you in some way, forging you into your present position as the Hanged Man. You will have to leave those hollow emotions behind before they consume you.
“Before you is the World. She is everything. She is the mother of magic and healing. She is the source of all light. She shows you the way to where you want to go. Listen to her when she speaks, and heed her words. She is a guide to the rightful place you should hold.”
“How will I know her?” I asked, speaking for the first time since she had started the reading. She frowned.
“You will feel the rightness of her. It is something only you can know.” She paused to see if I had any other questions before going on. “The King of Swords will stand in your way. He is vicious and mean, and he seeks revenge for slights both real and imagined. He is unstable and could bring unexpected danger into your life. You must beware of him. He will be hidden from you until he attacks.”
“When?”
“Soon.” She frowned again, and stared at the card.
“What is it?” She shook her head, but did not look up from the cards. “They only say soon, but the sense of alarm they give off is loud and red.” Her gaze moved to the next two cards and stopped there.
“You are seeking something, but lack the faith of your convictions. These cards tell me it is your secret wish, the one that is tied to the Lovers card, but you doubt your ability, and so are blocking yourself from getting there. You use distractions, people, and places to divide your attention, only playing at making your dreams come true. You are always able to find a reason not to do the thing you long to do. You make yourself a victim when you would be a king.” She came to the last card, the Chariot.
“You will run over yourself, stifle your own light if you don’t heed The World. When she comes to you, you must be ready, or you will lose your way.”
We’d sat there in silence for a long time. I watched as she slowly slipped out of the near trance she had been in while giving me the reading. I felt tired, and raw. So much of what she had said hit home. I knew exactly what the dream was, it was writing and making my own movies, and she was right, I kept finding reasons to wait and not do it. I sat back and sighed, making the candle flicker with my breath.
“Are you all right?” she asked me, sounding as tired as I felt.
“That was…intense. I’ve never had a reading before, are they always like this?”
“The real ones are. The reader and the seeker pull at one another as they seek the truth. If either is playing it’s no more intense than a hand of rummy, but if they are both committed and open themselves up fully to each other, both end up feeling the drain.”
“I also feel very close to you, more so than before.”
“It takes a while for our connection to fully dissipate.”
“Then you feel it, too?”
“Yes.” I stood up, and held my hand out to her. She took it, and I felt the connection snap back as tightly as before. I wanted to touch her. I wanted to be close to her. This feeling was undeniable, and so much stronger than it had been even an hour before. I wanted it to stay.
She stood when I tugged her hand, and walked to the sofa. I stretched out, and opened my arms to her. She came into them almost gratefully. I’d fallen asleep almost immediately with my nose buried in her hair.
The boat throttling down pulled me back to the present, but I knew now what I had only suspected then. Annie was The World for me. She said I would know, and I could feel it in my bones.
We hadn’t talked about it, but I’d been writing again, and it felt almost as amazing as being with Annie. She’d seen me with my laptop, but had only smiled encouragingly at me. At first I’d expected questions and distractions, but I should have known better. Annie was an artist, too. She understood what I needed almost better than I did. It was one of the many reasons why I loved her, and needed her to come with me.
“Ready to fish, sonny?” I stood up.
“You bet, Captain.”
“Grab that bucket of chum over there, and let’s get started.” Chum? I looked into the bucket, and held my hand to my nose, not sure if I wanted to gag or laugh out loud as our conversation from this morning came back to me. I settled for laughing, and passed the bucket to the captain, careful to hold it at a distance.
“Something wrong, sonny?”
“Nothing at all, Captain. I’m just in love.”
“Hrmph. I got some Dramamine in the cabin, but I don’t reckon it does much for the heart.” I laughed again.
“Thanks, but I’m good.” He squinted at me, cocking his head to the side taking in the large grin that I could feel on my face, before shaking his head and getting down to the business of fishing.
***
Annie
It was three hours since Max left for his fishing trip, and all I had managed to do was make myself a cup of tea that was now stone cold. I was curled up on the en
d of the sofa, looking out the window at the view I had known my entire life. It never got old to me, I loved it here. The thought of leaving had never occurred to me until Max had asked me to leave with him.
Did he mean forever, or only a little while? I should have asked, but I’d been too surprised. I couldn’t stand the idea of never seeing this house, or the ocean again. If that’s what he was asking, was it too much?
And what kind of life would I have, following behind him from movie to movie, living out of two little bags like he had arrived here carrying? What was it he’d said that night? I travel light because I travel all the time. I couldn’t carry my studio in a back pack. What would happen to my painting if I left here? Did he expect me to give it up, and just tag along wherever the wind blew him?
It dawned on me then that I had no idea where he was going when he left here. He’d never said what was next on his agenda, let alone where it would be taking place. I had so many questions, but only one that really mattered. Could I stand to watch him walk away?
I heard the backdoor open and close quietly. I glanced at the clock, it was barely lunch time. The fishing trip was supposed to last all day. What was Max doing back so soon? “I’m in here,” I called out, setting my cold tea on the end table. I was anxious to find out how Max thought our lives would work if I went with him. “I have some questions for you, before I answer you about going with you when you leave.”
“Oh, you’re not going anywhere with pretty boy,” Jackson Bartley said, making my head jerk up. “You’re gonna stay here with me, where you belong, Annie.”
11. Falling for You
Annie
“Jackson? What are you doing here?” I was slow, but not that slow. I could see why he was here, but I was playing for time. Where the fuck had I left my cell phone? Kitchen counter, when I’d made my tea. Was it still there, or had he picked it up and pocketed it on the way through? There were knives in the kitchen, too. If I could get by him I could do some damage with the expensive Japanese knife set Meenan had provided in the remodel.
