A Promised Fate (10 page)

As soon as his head met the pillow, he curled onto
his side and shoved his thumb into his mouth. Ava would have taken
his hand away from his mouth and tucked his fingers under his
pillow to help him break the thumb-sucking habit, but I left him
alone. She was probably right to discourage his thumb-sucking but I
liked to watch him be little and innocent. He won't go to college
sucking his thumb, I always told her. I kissed his head and his
plump cheek, covered him with his blankets, pulled myself away and
closed his door.

Ava’s laptop was in the office,
her
House to Home
site pulled up and open. I minimized her work, took her
laptop to our bedroom and brought up my
baio
applications and email program.
I unloaded the pile of documents I had brought home for review onto
the bed, stripped down to my underwear and set a gift I was
debating even
giving
Ava on my nightstand.

“Baby?” She didn’t budge even after a gentle shake to
her shoulder so I balanced her in my arms and, as carefully as I
could, I carried her to bed. I tried to ease her onto her own
pillow but after I rolled her out of my arms, her hand gripped my
shirt at my chest, she nuzzled her face back into my neck and
breathed in deep.

“Hold me,” she mumbled in her sleep and tried to wrap
her body around me as I bent awkwardly over the side of the
mattress. I glanced down towards the footboard where the laptop sat
propped open next to a stack of paper that was as thick as an
encyclopedia and hesitated.

After trying to unclasp her hand from my shirt, I
felt Ava’s grip tighten. Her eyelids were squeezed firmly shut and
her face was twisted and pinched.

Oh, crap, a nightmare...

Ava started to thrash, and as usual when her dreams
get to that stage, I started to panic. In one swift move, I wrapped
her up against me and held her in bed. My arms around her tightened
and I tried to keep her from moving too violently. I always worry
that she will hurt herself and now I worry for the baby, too. Ava
started to cry, hot tears streamed down her round cheeks and
whimpers broke loose from her throat. Shushing her, I told her over
and over again that I am there for her, that I love her and that I
am sorry. She sobbed and held fistfuls of her own hair and pulled.
I couldn’t drag her from the depths of her mind. No amount shaking
or pleading could render her conscious and free her from her
hell.

Ava has different types of nightmares and in our time
shared together, I have learned to be able to tell them apart. Some
are quite a bit more severe than others. She relives the death of
her of mother, but with decreasing frequency. I had noticed that
her dreams of Lucy were limited mostly to around the holidays, when
memories are active and when those we miss most are most with
us.

She has grown to accept also the
dreams that satisfy her role as a fate – the constant pacing up and
down dim corridors, listening to the pleas of the petitioners for
death and choosing the next life that is due to end. To say that
the emotional stress of cutting a thread is
difficult
is to engage in
understatement, but that stress is who she is.

A tear may slip down her cheek in the middle of the
night when it is time to say goodbye to someone new, but that
feeling is nothing compared to the dreams that take her back to the
Kakos. The lifelike images that bring her back to the torture she
endured with Damion and the memories of guns, nooses, knives,
poison and fire are agony for her. The flashbacks are a main
feature of her dreaming mind and I have come to dread them. But
lately something new and profoundly dark has been stirring inside
her and it is these dreams, the nightmare that I’d one day stop
loving her, that terrify me most.

Hours passed and the tears continued to roll. I was
wet, my shirt suctioned and clung to my skin. Ava’s damp hair lay
matted down her neck. I never let go of her, not for a single
moment. I couldn’t stand the thought of making her endure her
sadness alone. She kicked and I only pulled her closer, she choked
out cries and I kissed her tightly shut eyes, her pinched lips and
deeply creased forehead. I talked to her all night, whispering in
her ear that I loved her and that I was there for her. I would
always be there for her.

Just as quickly as her nightmare hit, it ended, and
Ava’s eyes blinked open in shock.

“You’re here,” she murmured.

“I am here.”

“I need you.” Ava’s breath was ragged and her heart
thumped in her chest like a ticking bomb. Her hands moved down my
body in a frantic, desperate pursuit. “I need you, Ari.”

“Shhh … I’m here.”

Her fists clutched at the hem of my shirt and she
yanked it off me.

“Whoa. Ava, slow down.”

She smashed her lips against mine and thrust her
tongue in my mouth. Her fingers knotted in my hair and she pulled
my head back, keeping me in place.

“I need you
now
,” she panted.

“I am yours. Take me. Every part of me belongs to
you.”

She pushed me back against the mattress and took
whatever she needed from me. Her wet cheek pressed against my own
and new tears lined the brim of her long, dark lashes. She made
silent and verbal demands from my body like never before. Her body
moved against mine in a perfectly measured rhythm and her gasps
became more labored and intense. Her nails scratched down my chest,
my palms cupped her warm curves and I kissed the soft skin around
her shoulder to the dip of collarbone. We were one body and one
soul. Her eyes stared into mine, our hands clasped together tightly
and the flesh just above our hearts met so closely that no light
could ever push through. Our passion exploded into a gentle wave of
emotion and pleasure, my teeth clenched down with the intensity of
my desire and Ava collapsed into my arms, hot, breathless and
replete.

She eased down onto her side, slid into the nook of
my arm and propped her hardened tummy onto mine. Our hearts pounded
together in unison.

“Holy shit, Ava! Where the heck did that come from?”
I puffed out my words and tried to catch my breath.

Ava is a flirt – she can seduce me with a simple look
– but she has always relied on me to me to make the next move. As
coquettish as she can be, she is twice as shy and truly
introverted. Getting her to tell me what she wants from me in bed
is usually a challenge. This night had been a historical event.

The very tops of her cheeks turned a darker shade of
pink and she drew on my bare skin with her fingertip. Her touch was
gentle and made my nerve endings dance and crave even more of
her.

“Seriously?” Rolling slightly to my
side, I moved to face her and wound our legs up together.
“After
that
you're going to be self-conscious?”

She chewed on the corner of her mouth and gave a
small shrug. “I don’t know what overcame me. I just really wanted
you. All of you.”

I twirled my wedding band on my left ring finger.
“Baby, I am yours. My body belongs to you and you can have it
whenever you want for whatever you need.”

Her fingertip continued to trace a path on the skin
just above my heart. One jagged line formed that rose into two tall
pointed cliffs with a deep v-shaped valley between them. Like the
line that follows the bleeps on a heart monitor. She traced her
design on my skin, erased the lines with her palm and then did it
again and again and again.

“What is that?”

“Hmm?” She blinked up at me and her finger continued
its path.

Line up. Line down. Line further down and then back
up. Line up. Line down and down again. Line back up again.

“Your doodle?”

“My name.
A
...” she said and drew the first
tall pointy cliff, “
V
,” her finger sank down low into the valley and
“
A
,” she finished
the line with another mountain top.

“So you're branding me?” I teased.

“Mmm. You’re mine.” Her lips curved upward, but the
smile didn’t reach her eyes. My own fingers traced the pretty,
tattooed skin on her arm.

“You were very angry at me today.”
My nose nuzzled through her thick waves of hair to her ear. I
breathed her in as deeply as my chest would allow and held on to
her until my lungs burned. She always smells so good, like warm
rain and midnight. If
baio
could bottle her, we would make a fortune. “I was
very angry at you, too.”

“I still am mad at you, Ari.” She pushed away from me
and left me cold and exposed.

“Wait a minute,” I said, grabbing her and moving her
back into my arms. “Did you just use me for sex then?”

“I guess I did. How did it feel?” Her eyes twinkled
and I knew she wasn’t as mad as she was pretending to be.

“It felt really, really good, but that's beside the
point.”

“I need to be me, Ari. I don’t want to lose out on
life because I am afraid of living. It was just a run.”

“I want you to be safe only because I love you so
much. I cannot stand the thought of someone hurting you.”

“
You
hurt me,” she pointed out ...
and my soul ached.

“I don’t want to hurt you. I’m sorry if that is how
you feel.”

“It is how I feel. I don’t want to be controlled. I
won’t be.”

“You’re right. But please, I cannot
lose you.
Please
be safe.”

“I always am. And I'm sorry too, about taking over
your life, wearing your shirts and stealing your blankets. I had no
idea I was bothering you so much.”

“Whoa, no, no, no. I don’t feel
that way at all. Although it is annoying when you snag the last fry
from my plate after you've said ten times that you aren't hungry …
I love us. I love how comfortable we are with each other. You look
sexy in my underwear and adorable when you borrow my glasses to
read when you’re tired. And you seriously looked really hot wearing
my watch, but it
is
mine. That watch is special to me and if it is ever lost or
broken, I want that loss to be my fault, not yours. I want to have
only myself to blame.”

“Ok. I understand.” She yawned. “I love us, too.
We’re cute.”

“Still mad?”

Ava shook her head from side to side. “No.”

“Good. Me either.” I reached across her and grabbed
the bag holding the gift I was still uncertain about giving her.
“For you.”

“What’s this?” She propped herself up on an elbow and
leaned toward me.

“A gift. I ended up with some free time on my lunch
and bought it for you today.”

She hesitated with crooked, pinched lips.

“You have to at least open it.”

She gave in and, after removing the
layers of tissue paper, unearthed a
Harry
Winston
watch case. Ava popped open the
lid and her pinched lips dropped down to a frown.

“What’s wrong? You don’t like it? You can go in
yourself and pick out something else. Whatever you’d like. I just
thought this one was perfect for you. This is from The Ocean
Collection but they have other collections to choose from. I’ll
have my assistant schedule you an appointment with the jeweler
...”

“Ari, that’s not it. This is too nice. I don’t need
something like this. I don’t want you buying me all these things. I
don’t need this stuff, I need only you. As long as I have you, I am
happy.”

“You are my wife and the mother of my children. You
deserve the best and I will buy you silly things like this forever,
so get used to it. I want you to be happy. Do you like it or
not?”

“The watch is very pretty. Of course I like it, Ari.
This is exactly what I would have chosen for myself. But really,
just having you is what makes me the happiest.”

“Good.” I took the
Harry Winston
watch from
its case and secured the band around Ava’s wrist.

She yawned again and admired the detail on the watch
face and the rose gold buckle. “Thank you.”

“You are most welcome. What time is it anyway?”

“Very late.”

“Can you sleep now or do you want me to stay up with
you?”

Ava leaned in, kissed the corner of my mouth and then
gestured to the laptop, which had been kicked and pushed down
towards the corner of the mattress. My paperwork was spread out
along the blankets in a scattered disorganized mess. “Looks like
you plan on staying up anyway.”

“I was going to catch up on work, but I'm not
anymore. I’m tired and I’d like to sleep, if you are able. I would
like very much to hold you some more.”

Ava smiled a sweet genuine smile and scooted back
down into my arms. Her head settled on my chest and her eyelashes
tickled my skin each time she blinked. She shoved her ice cold toes
between my legs.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” I asked, afraid that I
would fall asleep before she did and not wake to her cries from
another nightmare.

“Mmm …” she nodded a slight nod. “Why do you ask
me?”

“You woke from a nightmare. It was a bad one, too.
You were terribly sad and I didn’t know what to do to help
you.”

“Oh.”

“What was it?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me, Ava.”

She didn’t say anything more and her eyelashes
stilled when she fell asleep.

I watch her the way some may count sheep, or pray.
I smoothed back her hair, lacing the silky stands
through my fingertips and kissed the top of her head seemingly a
hundred times or more. My mind took me back to my own nightmare
from that very morning and, although the images seemed to have come
to me ages ago, they rattled my mind to its very core.