A Rush of Blood to the Head Ch. 04

"How are you?" I asked her, sitting in the chair next to her bed.

"It's not so bad just yet. They're trying to induce labor but it seems this kid is going to be the most stubborn of them all."

"Poor Shari." I reached over and pushed her hair back. "Want me to do your hair?"

She smiled and nodded. I took out my brush and braided her hair. She told me she felt much better when I was finished.

I stayed for as long as I could.

"Love you," she whispered as John brought me to the door.

"Call me if anything changes," I said to John while he walked me out to my car.

"I will. Thanks for being here, Lucy, really. You calmed Shari down. Before you walked in she was shrieking at her mother and threatening me and my manhood." He stopped to laugh. "She gets so hyped up. Understandably so, but I worry a little."

I smiled. "I'm glad I could help. I'll be thinking of you guys, okay?"

He waved and I hopped in my car, thoughts split between the life forming upstairs and the dead marriage my ex-husband seemed to want to bring back to life.

***************

I didn't bother going back home. I called Mark on his cell as soon as I hit the highway.

"Yes?" he answered crisply.

"What hotel are you staying in?"

"The Marriott, and it fucking sucks. You'd think they—"

"I'm coming over. What room are you in?"

He paused and then said, "223."

I hung up without saying anything else, torn between being terrified and intrigued. There was no denying that Mark's presence, that his kiss, stirred something inside me. That's what terrified me. That, and whatever he could possibly be dreaming up to do to me.

The lights in the Marriott parking lot were mostly off; a few were incredibly dim. One kept flashing like a beacon, waving me into shore. I parked and walked into the lobby, nodded at the bored-looking concierge and walked onto the elevator, asking myself what the fuck I was doing.

Then I was in front of his door, glaring at the gold-covered 223. I raised my hand to knock, but reconsidered. All I wanted to do was figure out his plans—which were nefarious, no doubt—but knowing Mark, he wouldn't roll over that easily. There was absolutely no point in my being there. It was better to go home and ignore him. Whatever chaos he intended on doing I'd have to ignore.

Just as I made up my mind to leave, the door slid open just enough for Mark to pop his head out. He looked at me and smirked.

"How long have you been standing there?"

"I don't know," I whispered.

He pulled the door open wider, keeping himself behind the door. "Come in."

"No, I—"

"Come in, Lucy."

"I can't. I don't want to."

His eyes narrowed. "Why not?"

"Because I have a bad feeling about it. Because I don't know what you're aiming for."

"We can't have a chat? A chat isn't bad."

I snorted and looked down the empty hallway. "I don't buy that you're lonely, or that you missed me, or any of the other bullshit you tried to feed me this afternoon. I especially don't buy you want me in your room to chat."

Mark's laugh was low. "Yet you drove all this way. You parked your car. You came as far as my door. Why do you think I want you in my room?" I didn't answer. His smile was mischievous. "Are you really sure you don't want to come inside? I'm certainly not going to beg."

It was ridiculous, but I was turned on. For the first time since our whole mess, I could feel that familiar tug to him. My nerves were tingling and desperate wetness formed between my thighs. It was humiliating, humbling...thrilling.

"Mark. Please."

"Are you begging me for something?" His voice sunk lower and became silky. His sex voice. I'm pretty sure I shuddered.

"Please." I blinked back tears. "This is a horrible idea."

His arm reached out to stroke the length of my own arm. The touch made my eyelids flutter.

"Are you begging me to drag you in here?"

My eyes squeezed shut. "We can't."

"We can," he insisted. His arm clasped my elbow and subtly dragged me closer to his room.

"After everything? Why would you want—"

"Shush. Don't think. Stop thinking. Just come in my room, Lucy. I need you."

He kept guiding me inside, and I didn't resist. When I was over the threshold, he shut the door. His hotel room was dark, with only faint light of outdoor lights shining through the folds of the curtains.

His hands were all over me. I didn't even have a chance to acclimate, to think things over, to deliberate. Then he kissed me. He gave me several hot, dragging kisses that cleared my mind of all thought. My body relaxed and responded to his insistent ministrations.

"I shouldn't miss you. Or want you. Or even think about you. But it's ridiculous, and unrealistic, that just because we're divorced that I cut you off like a limb." He kissed me again and I groaned low in my throat. "Then I see you here and you're so different, Lucy. You don't even know it, can't even see it. You're where you belong... and you look so hot being here. So pink and," he kissed my shoulder, "clean and happy. Not like before."

He pushed me further into the darkness until I felt the backs of my knees hit the bed. He pushed me down carefully, his hand running up my thigh. I reached for him blindly, stroking his back, his face.

"Kiss me," I whispered.

I felt his hot mouth smother mine. He hadn't shaved, and his whiskers roughly chaffed my face. I didn't care; I wanted more.

I searched until I found his cock and squeezed through his pants. He cursed and moved away. I sat up with a foggy mind, blinking slowly as if I'd been jolted awake.

"Mark?"

He came back to me, pressing me down onto the bed. I realized he was naked. He ripped off my clothes and pressed that hot, swollen cock against my wet lips.

"I haven't fucked anyone since you."

"Mark..."

"I should have."

"Mark, I—"

"I wanted to, but every girl I looked at left me uninterested and depressed."

"I think we should talk and not—"

"Shhh." He rammed into me in one long, slick glide. I cried out and he grunted, burying his face into my neck.

"I almost feel like I sullied you," he said against my throat.

"Oh, God," I whispered. It felt exquisite to have him inside of me. "What are you talking about?"

He moved in a delicious way and I cried out again. "I brought you back and made you like one of them."

"Mark, you didn't do anything wrong. So please stop it."

He kissed me and then proceeded to fuck my brains out.

It was primal, dirty and rough. He never let up, never slowed down. The pace was fast and determined. He rutted into me, slapping his hips against mine. The sound itself made me wetter and I clawed his ass, pushing him closer. I had initially wished we had a light on so that I could see his body again, so that I could see his eyes and read his thoughts, but the darkness added something far hotter to the encounter. I wasn't sure what it was...but the blocking of one sense heightened all the others. The sensation of his sweaty skin frantically rubbing against mine, his hairy chest providing tortuous friction for my nipples, the sound of his desperate and guttural moans and the taste of the salt on his skin drove me wild.

"Mark," I whispered. My breath twisted in a breathy moan. "Mark! I've honestly mi—"

"Be quiet," he said in a tone that shut me right up.

For a moment I was nonplussed, and my fingers squeezed into his biceps. He ignored me and continued until I forgot the moment entirely. My mind was filled with pleasure, and my pussy was filled with Mark's cock.

His body hadn't changed at all. At least, from what I could feel. I just longed for another kiss.

"Kiss me?"

He pressed his lips to my throat and then licked up the line of my neck. He nibbled on my ear. My frenzied hips moved faster against his and he let out a loud and long groan that told me his was close. That pushed me further towards my own release.

"I'm going to—ugh!" was all I got out before my pussy contracted around his cock. His mouth finally came back to mine, and he thrust his tongue deep inside my mouth to give me a hot, sloppy kiss.

He slammed the mattress and came right after me, prolonging the excitement of my own orgasm.

Then he rolled off of me and I felt lost somehow. I slid over to him but he gently pushed me away.

"It's time to sleep."

"Mark, I think we need to talk about this."

"In the morning," he promised. "For now, we need sleep. Okay?"

I didn't answer, and shortly after I heard him snoring. I crept closer to him, making sure he stayed asleep, as I wrapped myself around his left arm. Eventually, I fell asleep, too.

And when I woke up, he was gone.

***********

How many times can you fall into old patterns? How many times can you make the same mistake? How many times can you call yourself an idiot?

I dressed myself slowly—in that same pink dress I'd been so happy to wear the day before—and tried desperately not to cry. I'd cried and mourned over our marriage over and over again. I couldn't do it anymore.

That's what I told myself, anyway, as I cried and sniffled and begged my tears wouldn't turn into uncontrollable sobs.

I was sore, which made it all even worse. I could see the hickeys he left behind, the bruises from his fingers and his teeth-marks from the little bites he gave me. I was marked all over, in more ways than one.

Before I left the hotel room I took a glimpse of myself in the mirror. A pale, scared and depressed girl reflected back. All my hard work was thrown away for one night of sex with a man who apparently loathed me.

I did my walk of shame and then drove back to my parents. My mother was waiting for me in the living room.

"Where the hell were you?" she barked out as soon as I slid the front door open.

But that she saw my expression and just knew, as mothers do.

She brought me into her arms delicately and gave me the sweetest hug.

*****************************

I took a long, hot shower. When I came out I saw I had one text. Heart thumping, I slid my finger across the screen. It was John, I realized with a rush of disappointment. Then I absorbed the words. Shari had her baby—another little girl.

I found myself smiling as I dressed for work. Then I tapped out a text—"Congrats, be there after work!"—and found myself marveling at the way the world worked. A birth for every death.

*****************************

Randy didn't say much. Sometimes I was positive he had a sixth sense and just knew things. Other times I was pretty sure he could just read people, and it was my misfortune that I was fairly easy to read.

I was just about done for the day. I put some papers in order, picked up my purse and cell, and called out to Randy.

I took two steps out of the shop and there was Mark, hands in the pocket of a newly purchased coat. I wasn't even sure it was a major designer, and I had to suppress my gasp. Then I realized he was in jeans. He was completely dressed down. I didn't know whether to be shocked at his apparel or his presence. This wasn't the Mark I knew.

"I didn't mean to leave you in the hotel room," he said when I got closer. "I just panicked. I had a lot to think about."

I didn't say anything.

"It was wrong of me to push that last night. Neither of us were ready."

"I didn't stop you," I murmured.

He smiled without humor. "No. But I was the one who had the intention to use, or hurt."

"Are you leaving today?" I asked, not wanting to discuss the night before.

Mark nervously ran his hands through his hair. I didn't think I'd ever seen Mark nervous before, except perhaps on our wedding day. "No. I just rented an apartment."

I almost fainted. "What?!"

He shrugged and nearly smiled. "I like it here. You're practically glowing here. I could use a vacation. A retreat. And you begged so hard in that letter..." His stare was fierce. "It affected me, okay? You don't just stop loving someone, just like that. I'm not a fucking robot with no feelings, like you always loved to pretend I was. You can hate someone at the same time as you love them. I still hate you a little and..."

"Do you even forgive me?" My heart was pounding so fast I thought I might have a heart attack or pass out or something.

He thought for a minute and played around some more with his hair. "No." My heart sank. "No, not yet. I need time with that one." He saw my crestfallen face and cleared his throat. "I think I'm going about this the wrong way. So, maybe we'd need therapy, I don't know. Whatever you think. I want to give this a try, and in your letter you seemed like maybe you still had some feelings for me. I mean, you've succeeded on your own, though, so—"

"Yes, yes, I've missed you, too! I just do a better job at hiding it." I was grinning like a moron, and a few rebellious tears had slipped down my cheek. "Survival tactic."

Mark laughed and looked down the street. I took the opportunity to study him, the man I'd known for years as my husband. He looked the same—strong jaw, dark eyes, a devilish smile with a dimple in his right cheek— but I suspected I was only starting to get to know him. To really know him. To know him as the person he wanted to be. And I was sure the same was true of him; there was no doubt I'd changed. I was blossoming into someone else, someone I liked much better than the snarky and snide Lucy that judged others at dinner parties.

Then he turned his eyes back to me. "What do you think? Should we... Do you want to try? Dating? Therapy? Are we being stupid to do it all again? I feel pretty stupid but it feels kinda good, too. My father flipped out on me when he heard I was coming up here." We both shared a smile. "What should we do, Lucy?"

I bit my lip and felt a droplet of rain. I looked up at the sky. "It's going to pour."

"We'd better get to where we're going, then."

Gently and slowly—so slowly he could snatch it back if he wanted—I reached for his hand. "Yes."

********************

Shari was still a little doped up, but I think her drugged mind caught on that my ex-husband Mark was standing next to me and all the implications tied to it.

She gave me a "what the fuck?" look but smiled when Mark introduced himself.

John shook Mark's hand but the baby, currently in the hands of her older brother, distracted him.

Amanda Lucy, they'd named her.

"I'm sure there were other people you could have used for a middle name," I said, a little embarrassed but a lot more touched.

"Telling you, Luce, we're gonna have ten kids," Shari called out.

John smirked and rolled his eyes. Then he took his daughter from Michael and brought her over to me.

"Oh, I don't know. I probably shouldn't. I—"

"Shut up and hold her, Lucy!" Shari ordered.

I laughed. No matter how many drugs they plied her with, she was still a bossy thing. I washed my hands and then tried not to let my shaking hands show as I took the baby into my hands.

I peered down at her, this pure, innocent baby, and kissed her warm forehead. She huddled closer to my chest. She was a new beginning, a new hope, a clean slate. She had her entire life ahead of her. She would make mistakes, but she would be okay.

"Hello, Amanda," I whispered. "Welcome, baby. It's so nice to meet you!"

I looked up, teary and choked up, and met eyes with Mark. He watched me, fascinated and touched. Longing. So different from the cool, calculating attorney who could use words as knives and looks as bullets. He had wanted a kid, even back in our past life. Looking at him now, it occurred to me for the first time that it wasn't a status thing, keeping up with everyone. He'd really wanted a kid, probably since we lost ours.

"Want to hold her?" I asked him, my lips curved in a small smile.

He answered with a slow, secretive smile of his own—the one I knew well on the man I was just starting to know again—and then reached for us.