High Stakes, Hard Sell Ch. 06

"Purse?" he asked, looking left and right urgently. She kept the condoms there.

"Just go inside. I'm...protected. I want to feel you," she said. Pregnancy was not a concern anymore and she wanted to feel him flesh-to-flesh. Wanted him to feel her pussy enclose his cock; wet, tight and yielding. Wanted to see in his eyes the pleasure she was giving him.

He hesitated for a moment but the offer was better than he could pass up and he quickly positioned himself on the couch, strong arms holding his torso above her, careful not to put too much weight on her still-tender abdomen.

She felt his erection nudging the soaking entrance to her sex. She reached up with both hands, cradled his head, determined to capture his eyes as he claimed her pussy for all time.

"Jesus," he breathed as he slowly sunk his full length into her. She lost herself in his gaze, emerald irises with dilated pools of black in the middle. She could read the ecstasy in his expression as he pushed himself in to the hilt. He breath left her in a rush - his cock filled her perfectly.

"Please...not too fast," she said as he pulled back and prepared for a second push. There was no pain, no discomfort yet but she didn't want anything to detract from the pleasure of his penetration.

He rocked forward again and she could see the muscles in his arms, shoulders and chest flexing and tightening. So much strength there, so much power, yet his thrust was deep and smooth and gentle, sending quakes and ripples of pleasure through her core.

He slowly built up the speed but not the force of his thrusts. He was coming in at just the right angle and she could feel the friction driving her closer to the brink with every stroke. She could see he was close to his own release but kept her palms on either side of his face, staring up into his eyes.

"Don't close your eyes. When you come, I want to see it," she whispered, her breathing ragged and fast.

"Okay."

"I love you. I love you so much." She couldn't say it enough - the words felt too good to hold inside her and there was no need to keep them pent up anymore.

"I love you too." His thrusting was a little too hard now but she welcomed it, loved feeling his control slip, seeing it in his eyes as he started to lose himself.

Her orgasm hit hard and unexpectedly and she hoped the wanton moan that escaped her hadn't been as loud as it sounded to her own ears. As her tight sheath contracted around his cock, it brought on his climax too. She could feel it in her sex, could see the intensity of the pleasure reflected in his face. It filled her with a boundless joy to have brought him that kind of sensation, one last time.

He dropped his foot onto the floor and supported his weight on his elbows as he recovered, his body stretched out on top of hers but not pressing on her too heavily. His cock remained inside her and she enjoyed the pleasant fullness of it. Slowly, their breathing slowed and returned to normal.

She pulled him down for another deep, wet kiss.

"That was beyond incredible," she said. "Thank you, Mike. For everything - your care, your trust, your patience. These last few weeks have been more than I could have hoped for."

"Well stay tuned, there's plenty more where that came from," he said, winking then nuzzling her neck with his lips.

She didn't have an answer for that, and she suddenly knew she had to leave. Urgently. It felt too good, too comfortable, too safe to be lying underneath Mike, and if she didn't get out now she might lose her nerve entirely.

"Let me put myself together," she whispered, and Mike slowly pushed himself up. His cock slid out of her and she immediately wished she'd stayed where she was. Leaving him would take all the will she could muster.

But it was time.

Jane retreated to the bathroom on her crutch. She didn't wash; she wanted to feel him - sticky and warm - on her thighs. She never wanted to lose the memory of what they'd shared. She dressed in a hurry and grabbed the purse she'd stowed on the bathroom floor earlier in preparation for a smooth exit. She left the washroom and slowly limped her way toward the front door.

She couldn't meet his eyes.

"What are you doing?" he asked. He'd pulled his track pants on but remained topless.

"I'm going back to my apartment tonight."

"What - my lumpy, old couch isn't good enough for you?"

She finally looked at him and smiled. "If I had my way, we'd spend a lot more time on that couch."

"So stay. I want you here," he said. A puzzled expression was beginning to form, as he got the first sense that there might be a problem.

She shook her head. "It's going to happen tonight or tomorrow, Mike. The curse, I mean. I can't be in your apartment when it does. How would that look, especially given our history? Every finger would point at you. I've stayed too long as it is."

"Nothing is going to happen. There is no curse. And even if there was, I already told you I trust you. Totally, one-hundred percent." Despite his dismissal of the curse, his tone was serious.

She continued to hobble to the door, regretting the need for such an obvious and awkward retreat. "I know you do - I believe you. And you have no idea how happy that makes me, how great it was to be able to fix things with you and to get to know Nessa a little. I'm grateful you opened your home and your heart to me."

"If you know I trust you, then I don't see the problem here." He walked toward her slowly.

"The curse is still there. I feel it. Maybe we're too late, or there's something else I was supposed to do. Maybe it was a no-win situation from the start and the old lady just wanted to torment me with false hope. I don't know, and I'm out of time."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because what we shared tonight was important to me, and I didn't want to spoil it."

He caught up to her and grabbed her left wrist. His grip was firm and she was forced to face him again. He clearly intended to make this harder than it already was. She needed to get away from him before she lost her nerve, before she ended up a terrified, sobbing mess. She didn't want that to be his last memory of her.

"If something is going to happen - IF, is all I'm saying - it's better if I'm around. I could call an ambulance or protect you in some way," he said.

She sighed but made no effort to break his hold on her wrist. She'd never be able to overpower him and certainly not while limping on a sore ankle.

"Think about Nessa. Do you want her to see what's going to happen?" she said.

"NOTHING is going to happen," he insisted.

"Okay. Nothing is going to happen. Let's do this: I'll go back to my apartment tonight and we'll meet up again on Monday morning, if possible. How does that sound?"

She could tell he wasn't happy with the idea; the expression on his face left no doubt of that. But he couldn't object without conceding the curse was real and her death was imminent.

"How could the curse still be in effect?" he said; a clumsy effort to switch tactics. "The old lady said 'regain the trust you most cruelly betrayed', right? And that was me, right? And you regained my trust so the curse is broken. What am I not seeing?"

Jane was about to correct him - those weren't exactly the old lady's words - but she thought better of it. Mike's version was mostly correct; why quibble over the fine print? It wouldn't change his mind, or hers.

"Mike, it doesn't make..." Jane stopped mid-sentence. The salesperson in her was waving a red flag, sounding a warning. She mentally retreated a few steps to consider - she trusted her instincts and had learned through bitter experience the folly of ignoring them.

Mike's version of the old lady's words was mostly correct. Why quibble over the fine print?

Why quibble over the fine print?

The fine print could make or break the deal, that's why. The fine print was where the danger lurked and where the opportunity lay. No salesperson worth her salt would EVER ignore the fine print!

"That's not what the old lady said, exactly. She said 'regain the trust most cruelly betrayed'," Jane said, frowning, deep in thought.

"Yeah, and the one you most cruelly betrayed was me, right?"

"But she didn't say 'the trust YOU most cruelly betrayed', she just said 'the trust most cruelly betrayed'."

"I don't get it. Isn't that the same thing?"

It wasn't, not at all. One word in the wrong place could ruin a contract or suck all the profit out of a venture. Every word counted, even the short ones.

"It's not the same thing. In the old lady's version, there was a cruel betrayal, but it wasn't necessarily me doing the betraying. The word 'you' makes a big difference in interpretation."

"But if it wasn't you doing the betraying, how could you be expected to regain the trust?" Mike said. His furrowed brow told her he was struggling to keep up.

Understanding slammed into her all at once. She wanted to slap herself for not seeing it sooner.

"Because it was MY trust that was lost as a result of the betrayal," she said. "You could interpret the curse as 'I have to regain the trust that I lost when I was most cruelly betrayed'."

"Hold on...the old lady was mad at you because you betrayed her nephew. Why would she curse you to regain your own lost trust?"

"Maybe she wanted me to die and was trying to trick me with words. Maybe she figured it would be harder for me to change my own mind than for me to change someone else's," Jane said, and she felt a growing excitement. This might be an eleventh-hour reprieve!

Mike caught her excited tone.

"Are you sure this is the answer?" he said.

"It has to be. Regaining your trust didn't break the curse, so the other interpretation has to be the correct one."

"Okay, so you just have to regain your trust. When were you most cruelly betrayed? Was it when I hit you?"

She considered, then shook her head. "I goaded you with the intent of being hit, so it would be a stretch to say I felt betrayed by it."

"Did the nephew - Pierto - did he damage your trust in some way? A previous boyfriend maybe? Someone you work with?"

She considered each possibility. She couldn't recall her trust having been unduly affected by any of those candidates.

"It was my mom," Jane said at last, unable to conceal the disgust in her tone. "It has to be. She killed my dad, tore the family apart. Ruined my childhood. She cruelly betrayed my trust, no doubt." The conclusion had her close to tears. Mom had killed her dad and was on the verge of killing her, too. How much damage could one person do?

She glanced up at Mike and found him watching her. She recognized the look; something was on his mind and he was trying to come up with the right wording. Finally he let go of her wrist and put his hand on her shoulder gently.

"Janey...your mom didn't do anything wrong," he said, and his tone was gentle even if his words were an affront to decency.

For a moment she just stared at him. Hadn't he understood anything she'd said earlier about shared responsibility and shared consequence? Surely he wasn't that dense!

"Come on, Mike! We've been through this. She and dad shared the responsibility for keeping their love strong, so when she dumped him, his suicide was mostly her fault. That's what ruined my trust."

He shook his head. "The reason you ended it with me, the reason you've kept your other boyfriends at arm's length, is that you don't trust MEN to handle the pain when the relationship ends. It wasn't your mom who ruined your trust in men."

"No, that's..." she trailed off, horrified. She'd already followed his line of thinking to the end and was met with the dreadful realization that she couldn't refute it.

"Your dad's suicide was the cruelest betrayal of all."

She wanted to lash out, tear into Mike for even suggesting something so offensive, so hurtful. But his words resonated rationally, if not emotionally. Refusing to believe the truth didn't make it go away.

Overcome, she covered her face with her hands and wept. Wept for wasted opportunities. Wept for lost time. Wept for the father who'd left her too soon.

**

She wasn't sure how long she'd stood leaning on the crutch crying before she allowed Mike to help her to the couch. They sat together in silence for a long time as her tears gradually petered out and her sniffles abated.

To his credit, Mike stayed silent. She knew a lot of men would have tried to say something to make it better or to lighten the mood, but he just held her and let her process the pain and regret on her own. He knew how to be supportive but not intrusive. More than anyone else, he knew her and understood her.

An hour passed before she felt strong enough to speak again.

"All along I've been trying to get you to trust me and it turns out I was the problem," she muttered, shaking her head. "I spent all that time doing housework, laundry, cooking for you. I even cleaned the crud around the base of the toilet with a toothbrush!"

"Uh, thanks?" he said in a guilty tone.

"If I'm still alive Monday morning, I will have my revenge," she said, not entirely joking.

"Speaking of which, we think we know what the curse means, so how do we beat it?"

She breathed a deep sigh. She'd figured that part out already.

"Trust. I have to trust a man I'm in a relationship with. I have to accept his love, and somehow trust him not to...to hurt himself...if that love goes sour. Even though I know that's what happens - I've seen it happen. It goes against every instinct I have."

She was under no illusions abut how difficult it would be to achieve the kind of trust it would take to dispel the curse. A lifetime of doubt and bad experiences couldn't be overcome as easily as flicking a light switch. It would be scary to let go of the lessons history had taught her.

Of course, the alternative was death, so she had every incentive to try her hardest.

"Sounds like a tall order. Did you have a man in mind?" Mike asked lightly.

"It would have to be a man who loves me, who wants a relationship with me. A man who's worthy of my trust and who trusts me. A man who understands me. A man I can love."

"And you have...about twenty-seven hours to find this guy, so he'd better be close by."

"Unfortunately, the only guy I can think of is an unemployed single dad with no money and no car who lives in a dump," Jane said. "He has a history of domestic violence and my family despises him."

"I'd stay away from that loser, he sounds like trouble."

"He IS trouble. But he's got a cute kid. And pretty eyes."

**