Good Karma (60 page)

“Okay.”

But they didn’t have plenty of time. Mark
knew it and Karma knew it. But it would have to be enough, because
as much as he wanted to take Rob’s advice and let go of the past
and embrace a new future, he couldn’t.

He just couldn’t.

Chapter 53

Everything
that has a beginning, has an ending. Make your peace with that and
all will be well.

-Buddha

Karma tried not to think about Mark’s looming
departure, but each day brought the end of their relationship a
little more into focus, and the weeks passed faster than she could
keep track. She took advantage of every opportunity to spend time
with him.

Mark seemed just as motivated to make the
most of their time together, as well, because after that night he
never brought up his eventual return to Chicago again. It was as if
he wanted to focus on what little time they had together instead of
the brick wall looming in the distance.

But she knew the end was coming. An hourglass
sat over their heads, and grain-by-grain, time slipped further
away. The nights spent together, the laughs, the way they seemed so
perfect together. All of it would eventually cease.

Karma lay in bed and stared at the ceiling.
It was now the first week of September. She and Mark had been
together four months. Four incredible, magical months. In one
respect, it felt much longer than that, but in another, it felt
like they had only just met.

It was a rare night when they weren’t
together. She slept as many nights in his bed as her own, and when
she was in her own, he was usually with her. Not that they always
made love. Three or four nights a week, he had business dinners or
work to do after regular hours and showed up at her place a little
before bedtime. Or he would call her from his place to let her know
he was home and invite her over.

And then there were the nights he was in
Chicago and she was here. Sometimes they would talk on the phone,
and sometimes they only texted back and forth, but no matter how
she sliced it, she and Mark either saw each other or communicated
in some way at least once every day. He had become the most
dominant force in her life, and she had never felt so confident and
purely feminine.

It was hard to believe that only four months
ago she had been a different person. Thanks to Daniel and that red
dress, he had unknowingly thrust her into Mark’s path, and she had
found her true self through his eyes. She smiled into the darkness.
Four months ago, she had been a naïve mess, lost, confused about
what she wanted and who she was, and a little self-conscious. But
not anymore. She was still a good girl, but now she was the type of
good girl who embraced a little sexy, a little bad. She had become
good-but-a-little-naughty Karma.

Her phone chimed on her nightstand. It had to
be him. He was the only one who would text her after ten o’clock,
and even then, he didn’t do it often.

She picked up her phone and read his
message.

Hey, beautiful. Are you sleeping?

She grinned and texted back.
No. Are
you?

LOL. No. Want company?

Do you have to ask?

A knock came at her door less than a minute
later as if he had been waiting outside in his car.

She darted into the living room. “That was
fast,” she said, pulling the door open.

He was on her so swiftly she didn’t even have
time to blink. Strong arms pulled her in as he kicked the door shut
behind him. Without a word, he lifted her, his mouth hot with
kisses so blazingly intense, he stole her breath. Within record
time, she was back in her bedroom, on her bed, her pajamas
discarded wherever he had thrown them.

The sex consumed her, his body almost
desperate with urgency as he sank inside. Something was different
tonight. Something raw and almost frantic dwelled inside his coiled
muscles as he rolled and surged above her.

“Come with me,” he gritted between clenched
teeth.

They had found that rhythm long ago. After
making love so many times, he knew her body better than she did,
and simultaneous climax wasn’t something they struggled with. But
tonight he seemed especially keen on the two of them hitting the
end together. It seemed important. Almost crucial.

Barely hanging on for the ride, Karma hooked
her arms under his and gripped his shoulders from behind, crying
out with each urgent thrust. She was close, and she wouldn’t
disappoint him.

“Hurry!” Desperation gripped her body.
Whatever drove Mark tonight, she was on board and ascending with
him, unable to hold back as he unleashed a torrent of pleasure that
invaded her senses.

“I’m close.” A long, ragged groan rumbled in
his throat, and he repositioned himself so he could meet her gaze
and hold it. That connection, that link between them. No one before
and no one ever again would claim this mastery over her. She was
all his and always would be.

“So am I,” she whispered urgently.

“I’m about to come.” Duress tightened the
skin around his eyes. His jaw clenched, but his gaze stayed locked
on hers. He wouldn’t even blink.

“Don’t stop don’t stop!” She was about to
come, too.

“Now, Karma!”

Both of them let loose a guttural cry of
release, their bodies hitting the height of the crescendo
simultaneously, shredding them with jarring spasms that rocked them
to their souls.

For several long moments, not a word was
uttered, just the shuddering sounds of breathing mingled with
broken moans. And then he fell on top of her, driving his arms
around her, crushing her to him as if he would never let go.

They stayed like that for a long time. So
long that Karma began to worry that something was wrong.

Just as she was about to ask if he was okay,
Mark sighed, kissed her neck, and eased away.

“That was…” she began.

“Good,” he said, filling in the blank.

“I was thinking more along the lines of
intense.”

He grinned, but the gesture didn’t quite
touch his eyes. Something was bothering him. “Intense is good.”

“Yes, it is.” She combed her fingers through
the dark hair on his chest.

Tonight hadn’t been about a lesson plan or
what he jokingly called hands-on teaching. In fact, as the weeks
had ticked by, it seemed like, more and more, their time together
had become more about just that: spending time together. The level
of comfort between them was more like that of a bona fide couple,
not two people having a temporary affair.

He got up, went to the bathroom to discard
the condom and clean up, then returned to the bed. He sank onto the
mattress and pulled her into his arms. “I had a conference call
with my boss tonight,” he said quietly as his fingers tickled her
arm in a feathery, affectionate dance from her shoulder to her
elbow and back up.

A momentary pulse of fear jolted her. Without
hearing him say it, she knew their time was up. The inevitable end
had come.

“And…?” she said.

He sighed. “My assignment’s over.”

So the hammer fell.

“Oh.” That was all she could say, because her
mind went blank.

They hadn’t talked about this moment since
Fourth of July weekend, as if both had refused to risk damaging
their magical dynamic. No sense talking and worrying about an
ending they couldn’t do anything about, right?

Well, they had to talk about it now. And
Karma wasn’t prepared. Like a speech she hadn’t practiced
beforehand, all she could do was stand at the front of the room and
stare blankly at all the eyes looking at her. She had no notes to
refer to, no experience to pull from, nothing at all to help get
her through this.

So she said nothing.

“All the reports are done,” he said. “The
analysis is complete. Recommendations have been made and accepted.”
Mark’s fingers continued caressing her as if they weren’t playing
from the same program as his words. “All that’s left to do is pull
the trigger.”

What an appropriate expression, because right
now, it felt like someone had shot her in the chest.

“How long will that take?” She had finally
found her voice, and now survival mode kicked in.

He answered the real question. “Next week is
my last week. Don will be telling you tomorrow, so I wanted to make
sure you knew in advance so you weren’t caught off guard.”

In other words, he wanted her prepared so she
didn’t behave inappropriately when Don told her, lest she let the
cat out of the bag about their relationship.

“Oh.” She was back to one-syllable
responses.

Silence engulfed them for several minutes,
then, out of the blue, he said, “Come to Chicago with me this
weekend.” He spoke as if he hadn’t just dropped a weapon of mass
destruction in her bedroom. “Spend one last weekend with me where
we don’t have to hide from everybody.”

The fact he wanted to take her away for a
weekend brightened her spirits a little. She had one more week left
with him, and it wouldn’t do any good to mope around and waste that
time. It was a much better idea to embrace these final days and
make them count. But count for what? She didn’t know, she just knew
she needed to make them count.

“I’d like that,” she said. She forced a fake
smile, but who was she fooling? She was hurting so badly. This was
heartache. Now she knew why people called it that, because her
chest felt like an elephant was sitting on it.

“Me, too.” His voice took on a clinical tone.
“We’ll drive up tomorrow night after work, if that’s okay.”

Tomorrow was Friday. Doomsday, as far as she
was concerned. “Sure. After work is fine.”

She suddenly didn’t know how to talk to him.
The walls that had dropped around him over the past couple of
months seemed to have fully reformed, and she couldn’t seem to
bridge the divide already pushing them apart. He already seemed to
be pulling away.

She recognized his behavior as a defense
mechanism. Of course he would have one. Maybe she needed to get
one, too.

He rolled to the side of the bed and sat up.
“I need to get going.”

“Okay. Yeah, it’s late.”

Normally, he would stay, but not now. The
magic was over. He was leaving in a week. The carriage was turning
back into a pumpkin, and her prince was stealing her magic glass
slipper. Only, in her case, it was her heart.

He found his pants and pulled them on, taking
away her view of his muscular thighs and backside. And then he
fumbled with his shirt, turning it right-side out. Within seconds,
his perfectly sculpted six-pack and the lightly hairy chest she had
grown so fond of were stolen from sight, too.

Everything was different now.

They had spent a beautiful summer together.
One she would never forget. Ever. Because you didn’t forget men
like Mark. He had transformed her from a girl to a woman, taking
her from gawky, geeky, and insecure to comely, confident, and
self-assured. The man was a miracle worker. He had delivered
everything he had promised.

And that was where it ended. No extras were
thrown in. She would receive no gold stars for being an honor
student. There would be no happy, surprise ending.

After he sat down on the edge of the bed and
pulled on his shoes, he leaned down and kissed her, but there was
no passion in his lips. Not like there had been when he swept
through her door not even an hour ago and stole her breath with an
urgency that screamed into the depths of her soul.

“Good night,” he said.

“Good night.”

He got up and walked out of her room, and a
moment later, she heard the front door open and close.

And a moment after that, she rolled over and
buried her face against her pillow.

And cried like she never had before.

Until she finally cried herself to sleep.

* * *

Mark drove back to his condo in a stupor. The
ache in his chest gnawed his sternum like an army of carpenter ants
devouring a fallen tree.

But he refused to give in to the pain.

He pulled into his garage, parked, walked
calmly inside, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, drank the
whole thing, trudged up the steps to his loft, and got
undressed.

The pain magnified the longer he tried to
ignore it. He would not give. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He was
doing the right thing—what he had promised from the very
beginning.

Entering his bathroom, he flipped on the
faucet, leaned over, and splashed cool water on his face.

Splash-splash.

But the ache continued to intensify. He tried
taking deep breaths. He tried closing his eyes. But nothing
helped.

Bile rose in his throat, and he gagged. No.
He was in control. He was. He shook off the wave of nausea, doused
his face again with more water, took several deep, shaky breaths,
then gazed at his reflection.

Oh God. This wasn’t happening. Not again.

Falling to his knees in front of the toilet,
he tried to keep it down. He fought, he swallowed, but it was
useless. He couldn’t fight his anguish any longer. He threw up,
sobbing even as he continued to wretch. When the gagging stopped,
he threw his arm over the seat and rested his forehead against the
front edge, lost to wracking sobs that tore at his raw throat like
the tines of a fork. Tears splattered the tile floor.

It had been six years since he’d cried—truly
cried. But this time it wasn’t Carol who had forced his emotions to
overflow.

It was Karma.

More specifically, his feelings for her.

He loved her. In his heart, he knew the
truth, no matter how much he tried to deny it.

But his relationship with Karma was over.

And there was nothing he could do about
it.

Chapter 54

Welcome to
the Karma Café. There are no menus. You will get served what you
deserve.