A Promised Fate (24 page)

“You would lie to me?”

“I would lie to you, but only to keep you safe and
happy.”

She leaned up and kissed my lips. “You were late
tonight, Ari. Your greatest responsibilities lie here at home. Not
at
baio
. I need you. Max needs you. This baby is going to
need you. Please try harder at keeping your work from interfering
with your home.”

I nodded. “I will.”

“Thank you.”

“So what’d the doctor say anyway? What did I
miss?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “The baby weighs three
pounds and is about fifteen inches long. He has a strong and
beautiful heartbeat.”

“Healthy?”

“Yep.”

“We still have nearly ten more weeks before we can
hold him. I don’t think I can wait that long.”

“Me either. I can’t take my mind off this silly
pregnancy. This baby is all I ever think about anymore. I am going
crazy with all the unknown fears that this child brings. I have so
many questions.”

“Your doctor isn’t addressing your concerns? Maybe
you should call Phillips and have him refer you to another
obstetrician. I don’t want your concerns going ignored. Ava, this
is very important, it’s serious.”

Ava rolled her eyes at me. “Not those kinds of
questions.”

“Then what?”

“Us.”

“What do you mean “us”?”

“
You
are the person ignoring my concerns.
Who
will this baby be? Will he be a fate or will he be like
you? If he’s like you, what does that mean -- what will his
responsibilities as a deity be? And how will we even know and when
will we know?”

“He'll be like you,” I answered and her bunny nose
scrunched in response. “Our child is a Fate, Ava. Any child we ever
have together will be a Fate.”

“
Why
?” Her face fell in a sort of disappointed
frown.

“It’s predetermined.”

“
But how?”

“It’s hard to understand.”

“Try me. I want to know. I’m not an idiot, I’m sure
I’ll understand. You can’t just know this stuff and assume that I
know, too. You have to tell me these kinds of things, Ari. Who we
are may not be important to you, but it is to me.”

“Who we are is important to me, Ava.”

“Then explain this to me. Make me understand. Why a
Fate? Why won’t our children be like you?”

“You are a Moirai. As a Fate, you are above us all.
Gods and mortals have to submit to you. It has been suggested that
even Zeus is bound by your orders. Your bloodline is dominant,
especially over mine. See Ava, you are way up here,” I lifted my
arm, pointing to the air above our heads, “and me, I am somewhere
down here.” I lowered my arm and drew a line in the air near my
stomach. “Our children together, all of them, will be Fates.”

New tears clouded her eyes. “I wanted something
better for this baby. I wanted him to be like you. Whatever that
is, it has got to better than a Fate.”

“Oh, Ava.” I kissed the top of her head. “You are
perfect, Max is amazing and this child is going to be awesome. You
did the hard part already for them, eliminating the Kakos and
making them safe. Together, you three are going to rule my
world.”

“Tell me about where you come from and who you are. I
want to know.”

She wasn’t going to stop. She would never stop. I
would pacify her until the next time and eventually, I would have
no choice but to cave. We would fight and she would win. The truth
was that it didn’t matter, I wasn’t lying. Who I am does not
matter. But to Ava, the real story, the long version –
that
would hurt. She would question me and that’s when the real fight
would begin.

My lips continued to press into her sweet smelling,
soft hair.

“I’ll tell you what you need to know.” Sinking down
into the pillows, I took her with me, snuggling her into my arms.
“Adonis is the god of fertility,” I rubbed her tummy and she
giggled. “No, seriously, it’s true, I’ll probably knock you up as
often as you let me. But Adonis is known best for his beauty... he
is desire.”

“And?”

“And women love him. And the rest does not matter
because you are the only woman I love in return.”

“Join us.”

Fear cemented in my throat, solid, tight and
unwavering. My lungs were denied even one deep breath.

Blinking from sleep to wide-awake, I found
her there, pinned to my body. Ava’s smell, her gentle breaths and
the slow, soft murmur of her heart calmed me. We were sweaty again,
wet and stuck together, unwilling to peel apart for the slightest
bit of crisper air. My arms, wrapped around her, tightened and I
hugged her even closer to me.

“Baby?” I squeezed her and her eyelashes
fluttered on my chest. She looked up at me with sleepy, loving
eyes, her fingers caressed my stomach, leaving a trail of tingling
flesh in her wake.

“Mmm.” She gave a weak, tired smile and then
pressed her lips to my hot skin for a kiss.

“Ava, I am having nightmares.”

A curvy rumple knitted her brow. “Nightmares?
Like what?”

“I don’t know exactly but they’re so real.
There are two of them, two nightmares, and they both keep coming
back to me.” I smoothed her forehead with the soft pad on my
thumb.

“Tell me about them.” Her green eyes stared
into mine. Sea green, so deep I could swim in them.

“I need you first. I need to feel you.” My
nose burrowed a path to her ear and my tongue slipped around the
seashell curve of her lobe. Ava’s smile pushed up against my cheek
and the corner of her mouth pecked a kiss onto my jaw. Her teeth
grazed me.

I tugged at her nightie, a silk, sleeveless
top with a narrow row of pearl buttons that dotted all the way up
her tummy to the dip of her collarbone, encasing her. “What the
heck is this thing?” I murmured in her ear, struggling with my
one-handed effort to strip her. “This will take all morning.”

“You’re not up for it?”

“Oh, I’m up for it.” I adjusted Ava beneath
me, pinning her hips to the mattress with my knees, and looked down
at her glowing skin and smooth hair. Waves of dark tendrils splayed
out across the white pillowcases. As each button was undone, I
kissed her. My lips followed her neckline down to the tops of her
breasts. Undressing her is grand exploration, a pursuit that never
fails to excite me. Ava’s body entices me. The sway of her hips is
a mouth-watering seduction. Each press of my lips, each biting
kiss, the nips and sucks against her skin ignite a flame and her
body temperature rises from warm and then to hot and then to
fire.

A quarter of the way down the buttons, my
mouth on her chest, she moaned. The sound of her pleasure shredded
my composure and my need for her went wild. I wrapped my fists
around the delicate, silk fabric and ripped her shirt open. Dozens
of pearly, beady buttons popped with a snap of the thread and
rolled along the bed around her.

“
Sweet Jesus.”
Always astounded, I
murmured a prayer, a litany.

Ava is a goddess and I had her naked and I
marveled at her. I ogled her. Ava blushed all over and I reveled in
the knowledge that I am the only man in the world who will ever see
her loveliness and splendor. She is mine. The rose gold glow of her
breasts belongs to me and the color of sweet coral on her inner
thighs will always be mine, only mine. Her scarlet bottom is mine.
Every curve of her skin flushed its own healthy shade of pretty
pink, cherry, ruby, garnet, and fuchsia. It was our secret – a map
of color meant for my eyes only and forever. I would kill for her.
I would die for her.

“I want you.” I choked in a throaty, needy
husk. “Please.”

Her smile was still shy after nearly one year
and I kissed Ava’s mouth and we melted together in a slow, carnal
rhythm. More kissing and heavy breathing, my name on her lips, her
teeth on my mouth, nails on my back, moans and melting eyes, Ava is
always my undoing.

“I love you.” We always say I love you.

“Love
you
.” I nuzzled her neck,
pressing one last morning kiss to the dip of her shoulder.

After everything, warm, nude bodies pushed
together in passion, sweat, groans, and lust, Ava gripped the sheet
around her chest and wrapped it around her, covering her exposed
skin from my sight and pushed off the bed. The sheet slowly pulled
away from in-between the blankets and the mattress and trailed
after her as a long train trails a wedding gown. Round buttons
danced along the bed to the edge where they bounced off the rug and
then scattered to the hard floor and rolled under furniture and to
the corners of the bedroom. White linen covered her scarlet bottom,
the small of her crimson back and her rose-gold chest as she firmly
shut the bathroom door behind her.

Ava is modest and it is such a turn on. I
strip her down, ogle her, make love to her, and kiss her
everywhere, yet she denies me her naked walk to the bathroom.

Undressing her is exciting. I’m like a kid on
Christmas morning. I never tire of her bare body. Her wild side is
fun
, it’s unexpected and thrilling. I love her noises, her
moves and those freaking teeth on my flesh. Her commands to my body
are so hot that I can just barely keep hold of my self-control. She
gives herself to me, only me, and there is nothing hotter in the
world than to know that she is my girl and I am the only man who
will ever have her. Her modesty is seductive and she keeps sex
exciting by not always allowing me in. She denies me her private
moments and her inner-most thoughts. She keeps her secrets, no
matter how trivial they may be, and I understand that even though I
myself have no reserve. I like to sleep naked and my nakedness,
somehow embarrasses her. I pee with the door open and she
hates
it. She catches me, slams the bathroom door and stomps
away. “You’ve seen it before,” I always yell to her and she hollers
back, “that’s
not
the point!” and she is right.

Once, carelessly, because she is, after all,
my wife, I barged in on her in the bathroom and she blew up at me
as if I were some sort of pervert trying to catch a peek. I only
wanted to let her know her Cubs had scored – I thought she would be
happy. I could only smile at her blush. I even giggled when I
walked away and forgot to shut the door behind me. No one will ever
penetrate Ava’s mind the way that I have and yet I still am plagued
with questions. Intimacy with her is like nothing else in the
world; it is a drug, shared on her terms only, and I am dangerously
addicted.

I lay there in bed, cold now without her, and
frowned at the closed door. “
Join us.”
” The man’s words
echoed in my mind. The fear I had felt in my nightmare, far from
forgotten, was nearby; I could still taste the liquid metal
adrenaline. I could feel the heavy salt in the air. I knew this
scene as intimately as I knew my own thoughts, but the man himself
remained unrecognizable. This time Julia had been there too. I
didn't see her but I could feel her, sense her somehow. She had
been in this dream before.

Incessant meowing carried up through the open
bedroom window. “Welp, we have a cat,” I mumbled and pushed myself
from the bed.

It was the morning of the fashion show and I
had to be on site until the late afternoon. I ventured to the
closet, pulled on jeans and an oxford shirt and then slipped from
the bedroom, into the hall and down the steps to the kitchen.

“Mew.” Tiny paw and nose smudges covered the
lower half of our glass door. Max’s stray fluffy kitty looked up at
me with golden yellow eyes, then stretched its way up the glass to
leave more paw prints behind.

“Forget about it. Go away.” I poured myself a
cup of coffee and walked away from the door.

“Mew.”

“Aahhhh!” I hollered as quietly as I could
manage.

“Mew.”

“Fine. You stupid, ugly, fluffy, piece of…” I
grumbled into the refrigerator door and removed a few more slices
of fresh deli meat from the package, blocked the bottom half of the
doorway and tossed the food way out on to the deck. The kitten flew
after its breakfast.

At the kitchen counter, I watched it play
with its food and then scarf it all down. Finished with the meat,
the cat began to lap up water from the pool.

“No, no, no…No pool water.” I grumbled again,
filling a dish with fresh, cool, filtered water. I grabbed a second
dish, added one more slice of turkey and left both offerings by the
outside back stairwell. “Stupid cat.”

“
Hey
, you.”

My heart shot up into my throat at the
startling, disembodied sound of Julia’s voice.

“You’re up early on a Saturday.” She climbed
up the stairway from the misty beach. The early morning foggy
moonlight marked her path.

“I have to work today. What’s your
excuse?”

She shook her head slowly side to side and
shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Mmm hmm.”

Julia came up to me under the glow of the
porch light and gave me a disbelieving shake of her head.

“What? What’d I do?”

“It looks like you’ve already had an eventful
morning.” The pad of Julia’s thumb wiped at a smudge of dry blood
on the corner of my lip. Ava had re-opened my scar with her sharp,
white teeth. I licked at the skin and could taste her there, a mix
of midnight and warm rain. “Where’s Ava?”

After a quick glance down at my watch, I
pointed up at the open bedroom window, “Probably back in bed.”

“You ok?”

“Mmm hmm.”

“No you’re not. Come on … you know you tell
me everything. What’s bothering you, Ari?”

“Julia, I do not even come close to telling
you everything.”

“Okay, fine, you
used
to tell me
everything. I know something is bothering you. I can see it in your
eyes. Spill it, Alexander.” She found a place on the lounge next to
the table and curled her bare, sandy feet under her goose-pimpled
legs.