My back hits the gate and the metal bites my skin as he shows no mercy fucking me not into next week, but the next century. Even after my orgasm rips me apart and his warm release invades me, he continues to grind into me as if he’s making sure I have absolutely nothing left to feel, like each thrust is an exclamation point at the end of the most profound sentence.
When our bodies come to rest, he licks a slow path up my sweat-covered neck and whispers in my ear, “Hard enough for you?”
Chasing my breath that’s just too far gone to ever catch, I nod.
Wrapped around his body, we take the elevator up and he lays me on his bed. Somewhere between that first punishing kiss and my incredible, hard-earned orgasm, the pain evaporated and now I’m … better.
*
Confusion? Pain? Regret? I wonder what’s going through Trick’s mind as he sits on the edge of the bed with his back to me, head bowed. I sit up and press a soft kiss to his shoulder while wrapping my arms around him.
“When I was twenty I was hit by a car.”
My grip on him stiffens. I rest my cheek against his back, waiting idle for his next word.
“The trauma to my head involved some memory loss. They said it could be permanent or temporary … it feels permanent.”
Holding my breath, I remain paralyzed by his words.
“When I think about my past it’s … it’s like I can’t remember and I can’t forget. Sometimes I’m so lost I can’t find my own reality.”
Tracing my finger along the sanskrit that wraps around to his back, I blink through the tears … the raw empathy I feel for him. Don’t look back in anger.
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
He lets out a small breath of a laugh. “Sketching my father playing his harmonica at the subway station. He made twenty-one dollars and fifty-two cents that night. I sold the sketch to a commuter for thirty.”
I stop my tracing motion. “But you told me about the day your parents disappeared.” I can’t bring myself to concede that they’re dead. “That had to be after you sketched your dad.”
“I’ve been gifted bits and pieces of my lost past from people who knew me. A pastor from an inner city church was one of those people. He visited me in the hospital every day after the accident. When I was ready to face the reality of my memory loss, he told me about the weeks I spent looking for my parents.” Trick turns and looks at me but only for a moment before he casts his eyes downward. “So sometimes I take those pieces and fill in the gaps to give myself a story … a past.”
Of course I can’t fathom what he’s really been through, but in a small way I understand what’s it’s like to take pieces of something and give it a life again. I do it every day. “Is that what happened last night? Were you giving yourself a past for my father and Rachel … for me?”
His eyes find mine again, and there they are—those million unspoken emotions. “Sort of.”
“I still don’t understand why you tried to shut me out.”
With a slight shake of his head, he sighs. “It was too much. Last night I wanted so bad to remember; I needed to remember, but I couldn’t. Five years of my life—gone, erased. What if I remember? What if I wasn’t a nice person? What if I did bad things?” He rests his palm against my cheek. “Will you still choose to love me?”
Placing my hand over his, I close my eyes. A world where I’m not loving Trick seems unimaginable and cruel. But since he snuck into my life and claimed my emotions, I have no idea how I would react. He’s good at keeping secrets, he owns a gun, and an hour ago I thought he was dumping me. Predicting my reaction to the shitload of unknown that happened in five missing years of a drug addict’s life is astronomically impossible.
Opening my eyes, all I can do is speak what my heart shares with his. “If you remember who you were, will you still choose to love me?”
He answers with a slow kiss. It may be a yes or it may be a no … or it may just be that in love and life certainty is never more than a breath away.
Chapter Twenty-One
My phone alarm screams at me, an unwelcome reminder that vampire season is here—I will go to work in the dark and come home in the dark. Leaving a naked Trick behind in bed is not an easy feat. Of course I love my job and the worthwhile feeling I get from helping others, but right now I want to help myself to a naked Trick. Indulge in the physical bliss of him inside me, possessing every single atom of my being.