Of Love and Ink Ch. 04

"Just go." She whispered broken and defeated.

She was crying now. I did not realize how loud we had been, but now we had an audience. The maître d' came over to check if everything was ok offering Renée his handkerchief. I tried to put my hand on top of hers to lend some comfort, to say that we had always been and always would be friends, but she snatched her hand away as if my hand had been flame.

"I said go Justine! You have made your choice! Now leave me the hell alone!"

"She will forgive me ... again." I thought aloud with little conviction that she would, at least not for sometime anyways. And Like a self absorbed coward I'd left her at the restaurant to be consoled by an empty martini glass and our now very nervous waiter. But somehow, as I turned into my driveway and saw Malichai's car in its spot, all of my angst over Renée had erupted into an overwhelming need to be as close to him as I could get.

"Malichai? I'm home!" I called with a tremor in my voice.

The house was silent except for the faint ticking of a broken clock on my fireplace mantle. The clock ran, but it was never set right. At one point the batteries had died. The clock was silent for a few days, but then suddenly I woke up after drinking myself to sleep one night to find it ticking away with enormous vigor ... it had just come back to life, much like I had, and I never had the heart to stop it again, even to change the batteries. That clock had more of a will to live than I did at the time.

As I stood pondering the oddity of the clock that refused to die I felt fingers travel up my waist starting at my hips. Soon, the light stroke of fingers turned to the demanding needy grab of strong hands snaking around my belly and up over my breasts to rest there for a single moment in time only to continue their exploration of my body until they found purchase hooking up and over my shoulders pulling me into loving protective arms.

"I've missed you." Malichai's sultry voice sailed into my swimming head, and I just wanted to melt into him.

"How could you miss me in just a couple of hours?" I whispered.

Malichai did not answer my question; instead he began to kneel to the floor taking me with him as he suckled at my neck and nuzzled my ears. Once we found the floor we became a tangled mess of passion that had been locked away far too long within the depths of our souls. It was not until I felt him tugging at the lingerie under my skirt that I was able to come to my senses. My pliant body tensed in his arms as I tried to sit up, but he was having none of it.

"Damn it Justine, let me make love to you ..." He said with a fire I had not heard in him in years.

"But Mal ..."

"Please Justine ..."

He had me pinned to the floor, so it wasn't like I could go anywhere, nor was he. Somehow I knew, he was not really asking. This was going to happen. And though I tried to fight him, I knew my fight was ego driven, and that was not enough for me to really put up a good enough fight to make him stop. He had broken my heart, humiliated me, and my fight against him for the most part had been to punish him. But my resolve had waned to nothing. I wanted him, I needed him more than I have ever needed anyone before, and he knew it. In the attentions he rained on my body and soul in that moment made quite clear that the time for broken hearts, fighting, and punishment was over.

Night had fallen by the time our passions were sated. I lay in Malichai's arms listening to his heart beat steadily as he slept. Part of me wanted nothing more than to bask in the pleasure of what had just transpired between Malichai and me. I had forgotten how much I loved his hands on me. I yearned to have him again. My body screamed for him. He was my drug, and though I had just had a hit, I needed yet another, and another and another, each stronger than the last.

Just as he had years before, time and again, tonight he teased my skin with a touch so soft my nerve endings seemed to stand at attention begging for a heavier hand. And just when I thought I would perish from his tender attentions, his grip tightened rough and demanding on my breasts, belly, thigh, whatever he could get to, and I would be diminished to mush in his arms. He devoured my mouth with his own forcing me to delight in the sweetness of his essence, and as my tongue danced a forbidden dance with his own I decided that I needed no air ... ever again. And when he coaxed what I thought would be my last climax up from the depths of my soul my breath hitched in my throat threatening never to resume again. But as he surged into me hard and fathomlessly deep I felt the first spasms of his own climax and when he came my fingernails dug into his back marking him forever as mine. Finally, when my last orgasm hit me hard I screamed in my pleasure ...

"Malichai! I will die from this!"

Yet still, through all of the pleasure, another part of me wanted to run away as fast and hard as I could to put as much distance between Malichai and me as possible. Like I said, he's a drug, and I was hopelessly addicted, there was no letting go, and I found myself terrified that he would do it again, he would break my heart, I just knew he would. In that knowledge I tensed up and tried to wriggle free from his hold without waking him lest I rouse his desire for me again.

"Mmmm, don't move ..." There was serenity in his voice that I had not heard in ages as his grip tightened on me.

"Malichai, please, it's late, I have to go to bed." I tried to sound as non-confrontational as possible.

"Oh come on, let's sleep here on the floor tonight Justine. Well, let's sleep after that is." He chuckled as he rolled my body under his again ... but this time I was not going to give in and pressed him to let me up.

"Justine, what's wrong?"

"Nothing Malichai, I'm just tired, that's all."

"No, you won't even look me in the eye ... are you regretting what we just did?"

"No ..." I paused a moment sighing heavily. "I don't regret anything Malichai, I am just tired." I said forcing myself to look at him.

With that he got off me and helped me to my feet.

"Thanks ..." I murmured before trying to side step him so that I could head to my room.

"You're not getting off that easily Justine ... what's going on?"

"Malichai please can't we chalk what just happened up to the fact that we are both just really lonely right now?"

The look that fell on his face at my question broke my heart. He crossed his arms over his chest and pursed his lips. He looked like he was desperately attempting to hold back a flood of tears.

"No, we can't Justine, because that is not what this was for me." He said simply.

I stood staring at the floor for what seemed like an eternity. What could I say after all? I love you but not enough to lay my trust in you again? Yes, that is exactly what I was supposed to say, it was the truth after all. But what came was something grossly more acidic and full of cowardice.

"Yeah right Malichai, you and I both know the only reason you are still here is because you wanted to see if you could get in my pants just one more time ... and you got your answer, you have reached your goal tiger ... bully to you! Now, I need a drink."

I turned away from him to go and find some vodka, but before I could get far Malichai grabbed my arm in a vise grip wrenching me around to face him again. His azure eyes had turned to ice with a coal black rim lining them making him look other worldly and he trembled with anger as he studied my shocked face.

"You're hurting me Malichai, let go!"

"I'm not hurting you nearly as much as you have wounded me Justine." He said through clenched teeth as his grip tightened even more on my arm.

"What the hell do you want from me Malichai?" I yelled trying to shake free of his hold.

"I didn't do all of this damage Justine, I couldn't have." He pondered aloud with a shake of his head. "I am standing here telling you, showing you that I love you and you throw it back in my face with so much venom? What the hell happened to you Justine?"

"Let go of me Malichai." I seethed as my arm throbbed slightly in his hand.

"I called you home thinking this would be a new beginning for us ... I thought you understood that! You seemed to understand until after ... oh, yes, I get it now. You did understand that is until after you let your guard down. I uncovered your soft tender side again, the bit of you that is still capable of loving and accepting love and you can not handle it can you?" he asked.

"Malichai I have writing to do, I don't have time for this."

"Yeah, your precious novel you've been writing and rewriting for the better part of two years, and let's not forget your most valued tool, the chilled martini glass in the freezer huh? You'd rather play it safe drunkenly writing about love instead of living it! Justine, I am right here ready for all the love you have bottled up inside! I am here loving you Justine!"

"Yes, you are here now, loving me, but for how long this time Malachi? You loved me before, remember? And I almost ended up in a bloody bath after. You may not have done all of the damage, but ... you know what, never mind, it doesn't matter. What does is that love never works for me, martinis and writing do ... simple as that Malichai now for the last time let-me-go!" I growled trying again to pull away. His grip tightened on my arm and when I winced he swooped me up into his arms with little effort.

"I'll never let you go again Justine ... deal with it." He said more furious than I'd ever known him to be. And despite my raucous protests he carried me into his bedroom slamming the door behind us.