Full Circle (21 page)

“I’m going to tell you. Trust me.”

Why couldn’t he just say what he needed to
say in the dining room? Or the living room? Why the bedroom?

“Karma . . . trust me.”

Then it dawned on her. The bedroom was their
sanctuary. It was where he seemed most comfortable with her. Or,
rather, more open. Maybe he needed the sense of neutrality and
freedom her bedroom provided to reveal his secrets.

She took his hand and followed him down the
hall.

Watching him curiously, she sat beside him on
the edge of the bed.

The mysterious atmosphere he wove was both
agitating and exciting. Maybe even a little erotic. Whatever he
wanted to tell her, she believed he’d been telling the truth when
he said it wasn’t nearly as bad as what he’d already revealed.

But the fact he hadn’t told her in Saint
Lucia irritated her. She’d thought everything that needed saying
had already been brought to light.

As if reading her mind, Mark said, “I wanted
to tell you this in Saint Lucia, but it felt like too much. When I
found you by the pool that night when you couldn’t sleep, obviously
conflicted and struggling to process everything I’d already told
you, I decided to wait . . . so I didn’t burden you
with too much too fast.”

That made sense. His intentions had been
noble. Thoughtful even.

“But if this isn’t as bad as all that,” she
said, “why not just get it over with and tell me? I mean, if all
that other stuff was the hard stuff then telling me whatever this
is shouldn’t have been a big deal.”

He sighed and offered a sheepish grin. “I
guess this is what they mean when they say it’s hard to see the
forest for the trees. I’m so deep in the shit that it’s hard to
figure out what’s a big deal, what isn’t, and how to think
logically. And, Karma, I’ve been deep in the shit for the past
couple months, dredging up old memories, trying to make sense of
them, wanting to tell you everything but terrified of how you’ll
react. I am so thick in the trees that I can’t find the forest even
if it’s wearing a neon sign.”

“Okay, okay.” She took his hand. “I get it.
I’m sorry. I’m trying to adjust, too. This is all happening so
fast, and I know you’re on your own kind of vision quest right
now.” He’d made that pretty clear in Saint Lucia, and even though
she’d thought he’d gotten past all the mental and emotional rubble,
clearly, he hadn’t.

“Vision quest. That’s a good way of putting
it. Because the visions of my memories are definitely sending me on
a quest.”

“A quest for what?”

His eyes met hers with as much clarity as
she’d seen from him in the last few hours. “Me.” His mouth set in a
grim line. “I’m searching for me.”

She held his hand in silence for a few
seconds, giving him space to absorb and make sense of whatever his
brain was throwing through his mind. Oh, how the tables had
turned.

She smiled and inched closer. “Remember how
confident you were when we first met?”

He met her gaze almost apologetically. As if
he knew he was different now and hoped she wasn’t regretting her
decision to accept him back into her life.

Turning her body so she was facing him, she
said, “I liked that man. He was cocksure, in total control, no
cracks whatsoever in his armor.” She paused and glanced down at
their joined hands. “But you know what?” She met his gaze again. “I
like who you are
now
even more.”

A small, inquisitive frown bent his brow, but
he didn’t say anything. Only stared at her, seemingly eager for her
to continue. As if he
needed
her to continue.

“You’re vulnerable,” she said, “and I know
you don’t do vulnerable. So for you to expose yourself like that
means you trust me. Even that you need me. And it feels good to be
needed, especially by you. It makes me feel important, like it’s a
reassurance that my role is no longer that of student, but that of
an equal partner.” She held up one hand as if she were warding off
a counterargument. “Don’t get me wrong, I like being your student,
because I know you still have so much you can teach me, but I like
being your partner, too. Or maybe even
your
teacher, for a
change. Like it’s my job to be there for you now the way you were
there for me then. Like now we’re there for
each other
instead of remaining static in the roles we created two years ago.
It means we’re growing, and I like the balance. The balance of
us
.”

Devotion shone from his eyes as if he were
looking at a goddess who’d finally revealed herself. “Sometimes I
wonder what I ever did to deserve you.”

She shrugged. “You made me feel alive. You
sat down at that blackjack table and told me not to take that bet.
And I did anyway. In more ways than one. And, you know what? I
don’t regret anything we’ve done since.”

His smile widened. Then he laughed and bowed
his head. “You know, we’ve done this all backward.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our relationship.” He faced her, holding her
hand in both of his. “Usually, two people meet and they get to know
each other. And if they like what they learn, they want to spend
more time together. Then, if all goes well, they have sex. And then
they get to discover all the wonderful things having sex does for
their relationship, bringing them closer until they enter into a
commitment.” He shook his head, expression filled with sad wonder.
“We started out with the sex. We got to know each other sexually
first, and we were
never
supposed to form a commitment. That
wasn’t how it was supposed to work. But it did.” He stopped as if
all the air in the room suddenly vanished. “You found me. You got
to a place no other woman was able to get to for six years. By the
time I realized that, it was too late. I was already gone. I was
already on my way back to Chicago.”

His grip intensified as he slid closer. “But
I couldn’t forget. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I had to
find a way to get you back. And when I returned, you didn’t want
me . . . until finally, you did.” His gaze searched
hers, filled with confusion, love, and unspoken promises. “And now,
here we are, trying to reboot ourselves from square one. Trying to
go through the getting-to-know-you phase when we’ve already reached
sex and commitment and are about to move in together.”

She shook her head and smiled. “Just so you
know, I always wanted you, Mark. I never stopped wanting you.”

“I know that now, but for a while, I thought
I’d lost you.” He caressed the backs of her hands with his thumbs.
“But we’re all turned around, and I’m fumbling as I try to figure
out how to be a normal man again. A normal man who hasn’t already
fallen in love with you. Who hasn’t got this tremendous amount of
emotional baggage he’s still trying to unpack and sort through.
We’ve taken a very unorthodox path to get where we are, and I feel
like I’m fucking everything up.” He frowned and looked away. “God,
I don’t even know what I’m saying. I wanted this to go differently,
but now all the words I wanted to say are all tied up inside my
head.” He searched her eyes. “You do this to me. You make me want
to be better when I know I’m not. When I know I’ve done shitty
things. You make me want to settle down when I never thought I’d
want to settle down again, which was the only reason I could live
with what I’d done. Because if settling down was never going to be
in my future, I never had to worry about coming clean and
confessing all the shit I’d done.

“I have to worry about that now. Which means
I have to worry about the backlash. Like what happened on the yacht
when you teased me about the waitresses joining us in a foursome. I
was so hypersensitive about what I’d told you about my past I
thought you were making a dig at me. That you resented what I’d
done. But that wasn’t the case at all. You were simply playing, and
I took your words out of context, because I’ve become this man who
regrets his past. Who’s ashamed of it. And self-doubt made me
question you when you’d simply made an innocent comment.

“The man I was four years ago never would
have batted an eye at what you said. I would have ridden it for
what it was, a playful, sexy game. I would have played along, maybe
pushed the envelope and untied your bathing suit, tempting you to
do things you’ve never done before. Exhibitionist things, because I
want that. I want to dress you up in a slinky, backless dress and
tell you not to wear any panties underneath so I can parade you
around a crowded party then slip my hand down the back and slide my
finger inside you and make you come in front of all those people. I
would get off watching you trying not to reveal what I’m doing to
you, not to let on that I’m fucking you with my fingers.” His gruff
voice deepened as he inched closer on the bed.

Karma was practically panting simply from the
mental image his words created.

His gaze cut into hers. “On that yacht, the
old me would have stolen you away to bed and fucked you. Hard. Hard
enough to make you cry out so that everyone on board could hear you
and know what I was doing to you. Old me would have taken you as
far to the edge as you would let me without caring about the
consequences. Old me wouldn’t have cared if you walked away
afterward, claiming my proclivities were too much. But this man I
am now? I still want all those things and more. I want to strip
you, defile you, make you do things you’ve never done, but I’m
terrified of pushing you too hard, because I
do
care. I
do
care if you leave. I don’t want to lose
you . . . to make you fear me and my fantasies to
the point you
do
walk away.

“There’s more at stake now, Karma. A lot
more. And I can’t stand the thought of losing you simply because I
want to indulge my fantasies, my desires . . . my
fetishes. That’s what this is about. I’m afraid. You took my
confession in Saint Lucia better than I thought you would, but now
it’s like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. And that’s why I
withheld revealing everything, because I’m worried doing so would
be just that
little bit
too much. I didn’t want to risk
tipping the scales.”

“You won’t.”

He let go of her hand and tucked her hair
behind her ear before caressing her face. “You say that now, but
what if you don’t like what I have to say?”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

He studied her for a moment. “In a lot of
ways, you
have
become my teacher. Yes, there are still
things I could teach you . . . if you’re willing and
open to explore them with me. But you’re teaching me, too. I may
not be the best student, because, like I said, I’m struggling to
see the forest for the trees right now, but I’m changing because of
you. You’re showing me how to trust again. It’s just happening in
baby steps.” He paused. “So, you
are
my equal. We do have a
perfect give-and-take between us. I just need to have more faith
and trust in that.”

“Yes, you do. Because I’m not going to bite.
I’m not going to walk away. You keep thinking that, but I’m still
here. What’s it going to take for me to prove I’m in this for the
long haul?”

His hand dropped to her knee. “I don’t know.
Time. Patience.”

“You’ve got it. You have all the time in the
world. And I’m not going anywhere. Ever. Now . . .”
She scooted closer so there was hardly any space between them.
“What is it you need to tell me? What is it you think I won’t
understand?”

He squirmed, frowning intently as he inhaled
deeply. “Part of it I already told you. Or at least, I hinted at
it.”

She replayed his soliloquy in her mind but
drew a blank.

“I’m an exhibitionist, Karma. I love the idea
of being seen having sex. I get hot just thinking about showing you
off in public and finding ways to risk us being seen fucking at a
party, in a theater, in the car, a stairwell.” The grey-green of
his eyes darkened under hooded eyelids as his gaze dropped to her
mouth and he leaned closer. “I’ve repressed my exhibitionist side
for years, but now . . . with
you . . . I want to unleash it. I want to set it
free and see how far we can push the edge. I’ve even fantasized
that we’ve gone to a sex party where people are standing around the
bed, watching while I fuck you.”

Oh. My.

Karma trembled at the thought. From excited
anticipation or abject fear? But really, did it matter? After all,
one emotion fed the other, intensifying both.

“There’s more,” he said quickly, as if
fearing she would speak and halt his newfound surrender. “I want
anal sex. With you. From you. I want . . . it’s
that . . . I like . . .” He was
stammering uncharacteristically all over himself, suddenly
tongue-tied.

Wait. Back up. What?
From
her?

“Wait a minute.” She raised her hand, palm
out. “What do you mean when you say you want anal sex
from
me?”

His expression tightened as he rubbed his
hands over the tops of his thighs. “Uhm . . .” He
glanced down then to the side before meeting her gaze again.

She’d read about stuff like this in her
books. “Do you mean . . . like . . .
you want me to wear a strap-on or something?” She wasn’t sure she
could do that.

He frowned, his head flinching backward
slightly as his brow wrinkled. “Uh . . . I,
uh . . .” He appeared completely confused. Then his
eyes flew open wide as he sucked in a quick breath and shook his
head. “No, no. Not that.” He uttered a nervous chuckle as he wiped
his palm down his face and shifted his weight on the bed. “I’m not
talking about anything quite that kinky.”

Whew! She wasn’t sure she could have done the
whole strap-on thing. She was the one with the cave. She had no
interest in being the one doing the spelunking.

She let out a breathy giggle. “Okay, that’s a
relief.” The moment she said it, his posture stiffened. Oops. Maybe
she needed to show him she was a bit more open-minded. “I mean, not
that I wouldn’t have given it a try if you wanted me to. I just
think I’m more of the ravag
ee
, not the ravag
er
.”