Erik's Absolution

by Kristine Allen

  Frustration laced my words. “Fine. Can we get this wrapped up? My girl is waiting for me.” This wasn’t playing a game. Kassi was my girl, she just hadn’t admitted it yet.

  We stopped next to a polar-white Mercedes. I had to wonder if this was bought with daddy’s money or if she had suckered some poor fool into buying it for her. Because despite her being a business major when we were in college, I knew from my recent research in trying to figure out her game that she really never did anything with her degree. She just lived off Daddy’s money and flitted from rich boyfriend to rich boyfriend.

  Opening the back door, she leaned ridiculously far in as she stuck her ass in the air in front of me, causing her black dress to creep up the back of her thighs. Averting my eyes because I refused to give her any ammo to use as encouragement or to throw back at me, left me completely and totally unprepared for what she brought out from the back seat.

  She stood clutching a fuzzy pink blanket to her chest, and my heart plummeted. My body took an involuntary step back. No.

  “Erik… we loved each other once. We created something special, and we lost it. But I’ve never forgotten you over the years, and I’ve come to realize what a mistake I made in pushing you away. I now realize it was my grief driving my actions. I still love you, Erik. You can’t tell me you’ve forgotten all our times together. Please, give me another chance to repair our relationship. We’re both older, more mature… It could work, baby. We could have a family. Start over.”

  Her heavily made-up eyes fluttered innocently at me, but I knew she was no innocent and it was all an act. Her next words confirmed it, and her motive finally became clear. “Your sister-in-law said your security business is very successful. We would make a good team. I could be the face of your business, run the business side of it while you concentrated on the technical side.” It was always about money and status with her. Then what came out of her mouth made me want to wrap my fingers around her lily-white throat.

  “Surely that woman and her bastard baby aren’t really that important to you. How do you even know it’s your baby? I did a little research too. She was with someone else this whole time she was pregnant. It’s probably his little by-blow, but she’s trying to pass it off as yours because you have more money if she can dig her claws in you.”

  Letting out a disgusted laugh, I stepped further back. “You are incredible. You really have no clue I know what you did, do you? Maybe you should ask your friend Destiny. Remember? The one you went home with that weekend.” At the look of shock on her face, I turned from her in absolute revulsion. Clutching the small blanket in my fist, I stepped forward. Then, thinking better of it, I turned back around. “And, Layla? Stay the fuck away from me and my family. If I ever see you again or hear of you talking to any of them, I will ruin you. You know I have the ability. If you see any of them even walking your direction, turn the other way. Don’t even fucking say ‘hi’ to them. And so help me God, if you come anywhere near my son or Kassi, I will kill you with my bare hands. You feel me?” Her face had washed to white, making her bright red lips stand out like Jack Nicholson as the Joker. “Goodbye.”

  With that, I turned on my heel and headed back to my future. The only future I wanted. The one I was prepared to move heaven and earth to obtain.

  Forgetting I still clutched the soft pink material in my hand, Kassi’s expression of horror didn’t register with me as I tossed some bills on the table. “Come on, let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “What did she say?” Her small voice trailed behind me as I nearly drug her out to my truck. Boosting her up inside, I quickly made my way around to the driver’s side and pulled out of the parking lot like there was a raging ball of fire on our ass.

  “Erik? You’re scaring me. Please talk to me. We agreed you would try to talk to me, right?” At the feel of her smaller hand on mine where it rested on the steering wheel, I jumped. “Did she come to tell you she has your baby? Is that what that blanket is? Do you have another child?” At her words, rage and despair let loose and exploded from me.

  “No! Okay? She certainly didn’t have my baby.” Blind to her hurt, I drove on, focused only on getting to hospital. To see my son. To hold my baby. To remind myself he was here… he was real and alive.

  Why she didn’t leave me when we got there and made our way to our son’s plastic basinet, I’ll never know. Maybe she was watching me. Worried and waiting to see if I was crazy. As crazy as I felt in my head on so many occasions.

  Once I had his small form snuggled against my chest, his ear pressed to the rapid beat of my heart, she spoke. “He’s okay, you know. He’s doing great now, and he’s nearly ready to go home. The nurses told me the doctor said a few more days and we could be taking him home. I called since I couldn’t make my visit today because I was home.” Looking into her soft blue gaze, I allowed her voice and her beauty calm me. Between the scent and feel of Sebastian, his wiggling little grunts, and Kassi, I was grounded once again. Would she ever understand what she did for me?

  Placing a kiss on my son’s head, I thought of what a blessing he was and how she had given me this precious gift. The powers that be had seen fit to allow the small miracle to be in my arms, but she had made that choice. The choice to keep him and raise him even thinking I would be absent from his life.

  That was when I realized I needed to bring her back with me to my hotel. To a small piece of paper and a painful story of the guilt eating me alive from the inside.

  Thankfully, she agreed to go with me with very little explanation. It was going to be a difficult story to tell, and I didn’t want to be driving or have witnesses besides her. It would be hard enough if I broke down in front of her.

  Dropping my wallet and room key haphazardly on the dresser, I forged on to the bed and to the table next to it. In resignation, I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled open the single drawer where I had placed the worn scrap of paper. The same place it rested when I was at the clubhouse. It had never gone home with me, because to bring it in my house was too hard. It made me worried I would drown myself in my sorrows, alone in my house with no one to pull me back out.

  Over the years, I had tried to look at it less and less. The stabbing agony I used to feel had been replaced with a dull ache, but it still hurt. Thumbing the frayed edge, I looked up at her and held out my hand. The paper fluttered slightly as my outstretched hand trembled. Her gaze took in the shaking paper, and she then looked in my eyes.

  Our fingertips touched, and the same electric current zapped me straight to the heart. Letting go of that paper was one of the hardest things I ever did. She stared at me for a few seconds before her eyes dropped to look at what she held. Watching her, I saw her eyes widen, her pupils dilate, and her hand covered her mouth.

  “This is an ultrasound. I mean, uh, that was dumb, you know that. Shit, I—oh, Erik. What happened?”

  Digging my fingers into my hair and clenching it tight, I prepared the best I could and told her of my guilt. My pain that was born of that guilt…

  Closing down my emotions, I tried to recite the story quickly to get it out as quickly as possible. Talking about it shredded me, which was why I had only told this story twice, now that my mom knew.

  “It was the summer before our senior year at the University of Iowa. Layla came to me crying. She was distraught. Sobbing. Hysterical. She told me she was pregnant. I told her it was okay, we would figure things out. We talked about it, and we decide we would get married, we would finish school, and I would complete my internship with Dell in Austin, TX so I would be able to get a job with them.” Taking a deep breath, I continued.

  “We had gotten married at the courthouse. We didn’t even tell our parents, but I wanted my baby to have my name. Thanksgiving came, and she wanted to go home to her family in Omaha, and I had planned to go home to mine. I had wanted her to go with me, but she had cried and said she missed her mom, so I told her it was okay, to go home.”

  My body became restless, and I
had to stand. Pacing, I resumed this ugly story that was certainly not a fairy tale. “We get back to school, and she is pale, withdrawn and doesn’t want to talk to me. Finally, I get out of her that she miscarried over Thanksgiving. It nearly broke me, but I held her. I fucking held her and told her it would be okay, we were young. We would have more children when it was time. Then a few weeks later, I found out she had been cheating on me, that it may not even have been my baby. I didn’t believe it. Not the cheating part, but that it wasn’t mine. I was so sure it was my baby girl. It just felt right. Until she was gone, anyway. Then Layla’s friend Destiny came to me. She was so upset, and she told me I needed to know the truth. The truth was that Layla had never had a miscarriage. She had found a clinic that did late-term abortions.” My intake of breath was ragged and tortured.

  “She didn’t want to be tied to me. She didn’t want to get stretch-marks and have to take care of a baby while she was young and supposed to be enjoying life. She didn’t want to be married to a poor computer geek. It devastated me. Part of me was angry as fuck at Destiny for telling me, but the other part was so glad she had saved me from spending another minute with the lying, deceitful bitch. So, I filed for divorce. It was uncontested, and it was over before I knew it. The day I had the divorce papers in hand, I withdrew from my classes and joined the Marine Corps. I was a mess, and I wanted a way to get away from everything. What better way than to join an institution whose job it was to put their lives on the line.” Stopping to stare out the window, I folded my hands and rested them on top of my head as I gazed sightlessly at the summer scenery outside my window.

  “What I hadn’t expected was to find some guys that I would lay my life on the line for. One of those men was Kayde… Joker. He’s the only one I told this story to back then. I hadn’t even told my family. One night while we were restless and doing nothing but waiting, I spilled my guts to him and told him all of this. He encouraged me to talk to our shrink, but I refused. During my last deployment, we were on a mission and I was shot. I thought God had answered my prayers and was taking me home. Not to my family, but to him and my baby.” Briefly, I told her the story of the bombing and trying to save the child who would end up dying in my arms.

  “Instead, even though I had failed them all, I survived. It was all my fault. I hadn’t been good enough for Layla to want to have a baby with, and I wasn’t good enough to save that child or any of the others being held hostage in that shitty town. So, I told myself I wasn’t good enough to try again to be a father or a husband. I beat myself up about it and avoided any sort of relationship other than the occasional sexual encounter. Until you. You were the first girl to make me want more. To make me want to be a better man. To take a chance. But I was so fucking scared, so I pushed you away. By the time I realized how bad I fucked up, you were with Hunter.”

  Arms wound around my torso from behind, and out of the instinct I still couldn’t shake, I reacted before thinking and spun around. Realizing what I had done, I grabbed her before she could bolt and pressed her body to mine. My hand cradled her head against my chest, much as I had done our son earlier in the hospital. Silence reigned for an indeterminable amount of time.

  It felt so damn good to have her in my arms like this, I just closed my eyes and soaked it in. But she pulled back to raise on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to mine. Like always, a few soft brushes of our lips together and we were consumed with the licking, snapping flames of desire.

  Groaning into her mouth, I swooped her up, wrapping her legs around my waist, and carried her to the bed. Breaking away only long enough to rip her clothes off, I laid her down and worshiped her body with my tongue and hands. Her body was my temple, and I prayed.

  Biting her nipple through her lacy pink bra before sucking it fabric and all into my mouth, I left a wet circle around her dusky bud. It protruded out at me, and I reached under her to unclasp it so I could reach the other one unhindered. My mouth found its way around her breast, nipping and licking all the way around the curve. When I took her nipple in my mouth, I completely forgot she had been breastfeeding, and the overly sweet hint that spread across my tongue was a shock and, truth be told, a really big fucking turn-on. But that was for my son, so I left her nipples puckered and waiting, tiny, pearly drops resting on the tips.

  My teeth and tongue made their way down her body, reveling in the fuller curves I revealed as I slowly rolled her leggings and panties off as one. The tip of my tongue traced the sparse and few stretch-marks she wore like a badge of honor. My lips caressed and kissed each and every one as I thanked her for our son and whispered to her how beautiful she was. Finally, I reached my destination, and my lips hovered over the dark curves of the pussy that would be mine. She shivered as my breath floated across her glistening lips, and I inhaled the scent of her arousal. God, I had missed that smell, the feel of her in my hands, the taste of her skin.

  My tongue snaked out, and the pointed tip flicked the hood of her clit, eliciting a feral moan, and she arched up toward me. Smiling in triumph at the way her body responded to me, I flicked again before stopping and gazing up at her. Light blue eyes gazed at me with heavy lids, and full lips pouted as I hovered above her, building the anticipation, the need she had.

  “What do you want?”

  “You,” came her breathless reply. She was like a goddess spread out on the bed, magnificent chest heaving with desire, dark silken hair spread out over the crisp white sheets, her arms bent at the elbows and laying with her hands curled and holding the sheets in each fist. By this time, she was nearly panting.

  “Then tell me whose pussy this is.” My middle finger slid into her slippery, wet heat, and I felt her tighten around me, so I slipped a second finger in and she mewled as her back arched off the bed. “Tell me.” Demand was heavy in my voice.

  “Yours. Oh, sweet fucking hell, Erik, it’s yours. Please.” The complete capitulation in her tone was music to my ears. She was mine. Body, heart, and soul, and I would get her to admit every one before I was through.

  “Every inch of this body is mine. No man will ever lay his hands on it again, because I’m never letting you go. Not again. Do you understand?” My fingers slid in and out in a slow rhythm as I spoke to her, my breath teasing across her skin.

  “Yesss,” she hissed through clenched teeth.

  Grabbing her clit between my lips, I sucked as I pumped my fingers in her tightening pussy, curling them as I withdrew. Her hands latched onto my hair, and she pressed me tight to her wet heat. Flattening my tongue, I continued to lick, bite, and suck her clit while working that pussy until she tensed her body, shouted, and I felt the spasms around my fingers and tasted the flood of her juices as they washed across my hand. Softly, reverently, I placed a kiss to the arch of her pubic bone.

  Crawling up her body, I allowed the friction of my clothes to amplify the sensitivity of her skin. When I had at last reached her to the point we were face to face, I slid my hand free of her still clenching channel and raised it to her lips. First, I painted her lips with her own release. Because I wanted her to taste how sweet she was and because I wanted the taste of her pussy to remain on my own. Then I kissed her with all of the pent-up passion I had been carrying for months. Her fingers clawed at my shoulders and grasped my clothing as she franticly tugged and plucked at them. Pinned between us as they were, she couldn’t remove them, and I knew that was for the best.

  “God, Erik, I want you so bad.” Her whimpered sentence was music to my ears, but the timing was so shitty I wanted to weep.

  “Jesus, fuck, Kassi, I want to bury my cock in you. But we can’t yet. You have to wait. How much longer? Because I’ll keep pleasuring you every day with my hands and mouth until we can.” My own voice was gasping and strained. Holding back was taking everything I had, and I gritted my teeth at the throbbing ache pressed against the zipper of my jeans.

  “No! I mean, yes! Ugh! I mean, that’s what I went home for. To see my doctor. She said I’m good. We’re good. It�
�s okay. Now.” Her stuttered sentences were proof of how her pleasure had puddled her brain. My ego inflated at how well satiated she appeared, yet how much she still wanted me.

  When what she said registered in my own lust-muddled brain, I froze momentarily. “Are you serious?” Nodding her head, she grinned. Oh, holy Jesus. Hastily, I jumped up and dug through my toiletries bag to look for a condom. Surely I still had one in here somewhere. I always kept some in there. Wrapping my fingers around the familiar feel of the packaging, I pulled it out in triumph and returned to the bed where I knelt between her spread legs.

  Realizing I was still dressed, I stood, stripped, tossing my clothes wherever they landed, and resumed my place between her thighs.

  Rolling the condom down my considerable length, I watched her tongue slide out and trace over her bottom lip. Stroking myself twice, I then grasped my dick in hand and slid the tip through her glistening-wet, pink slice of sweet heaven. Spreading her legs further and raising her knees so I had a better angle, she beckoned me further.

  Without hesitation, I inched inside, concerned I would hurt her. I needn’t have worried because she dug her heels into my ass and pulled me forward in one swift thrust. “Jesus effing Christ.” It had been so long for both of us, and she was tight as fuck, which caused me to swell even more in her, filling her up tight and nearly strangling my cock.

  “Holy shit!” Her eyes rolled. “Ohmahfuckingod. Yesss. Erik. Yes…” Lowering myself above her so her breasts brushed against my chest, my body held steady with my weight on my forearms, my lips whispered against hers. We breathed in each other’s air with each thrust. Her nails scratched my shoulders, and then her head shifted and her teeth latched onto the corded muscle of my neck. With a muffled scream, and her core pulsing around my junk, I felt her climax wash over her. And that was the end of my control.