Good Karma (62 page)

Perhaps I should take YOUR temperature, Miss Mason.
But I won’t use a thermometer if I do. ;)

It took a few seconds for her to get it, but
when she did, the resulting gasp was music to his ears.

As morbidly as the day had begun, it was
ending on a much nicer note. And even though by next Friday he
would be gone, they still had one last weekend together. Two more
days to forget about the rest of the world and enjoy one
another.

On his way past her desk, with his bag over
his shoulder, he gave her a secret wink.

For a few more days, she was his.

And he wouldn’t waste one more second of the
little time they had left dreading the inevitable moment when he
would leave for good.

Chapter 55

The best
proof of love is trust.

-Joyce Brothers

They arrived at Mark’s apartment around ten o’clock
after getting a late start out of Indy. On Saturday, Mark started
them off early with breakfast at a quaint bakery near Grant Park,
and then took her to Navy Pier and Shedd Aquarium. After lunch,
they laid in the grass in Millennium Park, and Mark took a couple
of selfies of them together. One of them straight on and smiling,
and one of her kissing him on the cheek as he laughed from her
tickling him.

Around four o’clock, they returned to his
apartment to get cleaned up for a night out.

While Mark showered, she took the red dress
she had worn the night they met out of the garment bag and laid it
on the bed. She hadn’t worn the Jimmy Choos since that night,
either, and she placed them on the floor with thoughtful precision,
as if she were setting chinaware on a table.

She blew out her hair and brushed it smooth.
Mark exited the bathroom as she was applying her mascara. He
stopped, and Karma turned to see him smiling at the dress. He
glanced at her, nodded once, and bowed his head as he walked into
the closet.

When he came out, he was buttoning the cuffs
of a sleek, almost shiny charcoal grey shirt. She had just pulled
on the dress.

He stepped behind her, wound his arms around
her waist, and kissed her bared shoulder. “Thank you for wearing
this.”

She leaned into him. “I thought it was
fitting.”

He nudged her toward the edge of the bed.
“Take a seat.”

She did, and he knelt, lifting her foot in
his hand as if it were made of delicate crystal. After reverently
caressing the top of her foot and her red-tipped toes, he picked up
one of the Jimmy Choos and, like the prince to Cinderella with the
glass slipper, slid it on her foot and nimbly fastened the clasp.
Then he did the same with the other, stood, and took her hand to
help her up.

“You’re beautiful.”

“Thank you. So are you.”

He took her to a romantic dinner at Boka then
to The Joynt where they danced to jazz music and sipped high-priced
libations for a couple of hours.

A little after eleven, they returned
home.

As she eased out of her red scarf and jacket,
placing both over the arm of the couch, Mark turned on some easy
jazz and shut off the lights.

“Hi,” he said, stepping in front of her and
sliding one arm around her waist as he lifted her other hand into
his. This was seductive Mark. The man who always made her knees
weak and her heart race, even now, after months together.

“Hi.” She lifted her face and gazed into his
steamy, hooded eyes.

“Can I have this dance?”

She nodded and fell into step with him.

“Did I tell you how beautiful you look
tonight?” He rocked her gently from side to side.

She rubbed her lips together. “I think you
did mention that once or twice.” She let go of his hand and let her
fingers skim down the placket of his shirt, unbuttoning it as she
went. She slid her hands under and against his skin. He was smooth
and warm, firm. And then her fingertips found that handsome sweep
of sparse hair that flowed to his sternum and led down the center
of his torso.

“You’re absolutely stunning. The most
beautiful woman in the city tonight.” His grip on her waist
tightened.

“And you’re the most handsome man.” She
fondled the opened collar of his button-down.

The appreciative grin that spread over his
face drew a blaze from the kindling in her belly, as if a gust had
blown over hot coals and fed a burst of flames.

For a while, they merely danced. He pulled
her close, held her, rocked her, swayed to the lazy tempo and muted
trumpet as if part of some old-time romantic movie. The air
crackled between them. Electricity intensified the longer they
danced in the darkness, and blurred shadows joined them from the
subtle light breaking through the window that overlooked the
lake.

And then Mark’s hands began to roam with a
controlled urgency that lit Karma’s internal inferno for good.

“Take off my dress, Mark,” she whispered.

With barely a second of hesitation, his
fingers pinched the fabric at her waist and tugged upward. Once the
hem reached her hips, he slid his hands underneath and carefully
lifted the dress off her body, leaving her in a red strapless bra
and matching lace panties.

“Tonight is all about you, Karma.” He kissed
her bare shoulder. “Your dreams.” His lips slid up to her ear.
“Your desires.” His whispered words sent warmth through her
abdomen…and down lower, between her legs. The tip of his tongue
flicked the place just behind her ear. “Your fantasies.”

He tightened his hold around the small of her
back, his seduction merciless and calculated. The effect he had on
her was not unlike the effect a feline in heat had on a tomcat. She
would do anything he asked. Her breath came in heavy gulps, and
moist heat slicked her most intimate flesh.

Mark bent and leisurely trailed his lips from
the left side of her neck to the right, sweeping down and across
her collarbones as he spoke. “So what would you have of me tonight,
Karma?” Mark’s lips dazzled her skin, leaving tiny crackles in
their wake. “Where do you want me? Anything you want, tonight it’s
yours.”

She knew by now that Mark was not one to come
right out and say what he wanted. Every intimate action he
perpetrated was part of a game. A seductive, sexy, playfully erotic
game that she was more than willing to play, because she was beyond
ready to feel him inside her after their long day of foreplay.

“I want—” She cut off on a moan as his mouth
closed at the tender place between her neck and shoulder and
applied gentle suction. Fireworks exploded under her skin as he
drew her flesh between his teeth and into his mouth. Heat raced to
her nipples, followed by a detonation of butterflies springing to
flight low in her belly.

“Yes? Tell me, Karma.” His whispered words in
the darkness were hushed and languid, falling over her like
decadent, dark chocolate. “I’m yours tonight. All yours.” He kissed
her neck again. “Whatever you want from me, I’m willing to give.
Just for you. Just for tonight. Say the word, and I’ll be anything
you want.”

She tilted her head back, dug her fingers
into his thick, soft hair, and sighed up to the ceiling.
“Mark…”

Firm yet gentle lips placed measured caresses
up the column of her neck, over her chin, and finally to her mouth,
where they hovered a hair’s breadth away. “Tell me what you
want.”

God, how his hands and mouth worked together
with the precision of a surgeon, laying her bare, undoing her,
dispatching all rational thought from her mind.

“I want
you
,” she said on a breath
that wafted gently from her mouth in a slow tumble of
surrender.

His arm encircled her, flowing like fluid
strength, a constant dance of movement as he shifted his hold,
adjusted against her, and swayed her to one side. “And what do you
want from me?”

If desire could be defined with motion, their
bodies, pressed together, gently swaying, with arms caressing and
lips teasing, would be the definition.

She lost herself in the music, his embrace,
his soft-as-silk kisses, the warmth emanating from his torso, and
the heat of his breath on her skin. Even as she realized this was
their last real night together, the evening seemed right. The
entire day had been perfect. Once more, Mark had granted her
another beautiful, unforgettable good-bye gift. She knew even now
that she would never forget this night. Ever. Even if she grew old
and senile, this one night would stay cemented in her memory, no
matter what other memories faded with age.

“All of you,” she said, not holding back. He
was hers, at least for now, and she would take all she could, live
hard in the moment, and leave nothing to regrets. Because when next
Friday came, and he left for good, she didn’t want to look back and
wish she had done more, said more, been more. It was now or never
with Mark. “I want all of you, Mark. Right now. Just for tonight.”
She wanted him to remember tonight, too. She wanted it burned in
his memory forever, so that he knew for the rest of his life that
no other woman could give him what she could.

In that moment, Karma felt an invisible
barrier around her shatter. The young, shy, innocent, do-gooder she
had always been fell away once and for all. She was now and forever
a changed woman. It was one more gift Mark had given her. He had
brought her completely out from her shell. She was the sexy woman
she had always fantasized being, but never knew how until he taught
her. All their time together—the lessons, the time spent flirting
with strangers, the naughty stories, the training—all of it had
been for this moment. Right here. So she could become her true self
in Mark’s arms and show him what he had given her.

With a surge of newfound confidence, she ran
her hand down his bare stomach to the waist of his pants, paused
for just a heartbeat to say a final good-bye to the last, lingering
vestige of the little girl making her final retreat into the
shadows, then let her hand drop past his belt to the bulge pressing
against his zipper.

As her palm gently caressed the length of his
erection, empowerment and determination surged to the surface. She
looked up at him through her lashes. “I want this,” she said,
sweeping her palm back up his length to the tip, where she let her
fingers rest.

Mark’s chest rose and fell heavily, and he
blinked as if drunk and swayed toward her.

“Karma…” he whispered, eyes shimmering.

Fortified by his reaction, Karma lifted to
her tiptoes and dusted her lips softly across his, taking complete
control. Their gazes locked. “I want this,” she said again, more
forcefully, closing her fingers around the cylinder of hardness
under her palm.

He lightly gasped and shivered then drew her
top lip into his mouth, slowly slid his tongue across it, then drew
away almost drowsily. “It’s yours.” He repeated the kiss on her
bottom lip. “I’m yours.” Then he placed his hand over hers and held
it against him. His cock pulsed against her palm. The subtle jerk
was just a single, tiny hiccup, but it pulled a dreamy moan from
his throat. “You can have all of me…all night.”

Karma nudged him toward the couch, using her
free hand to push his shirt off one shoulder. He shook it from the
other and let it fall to the floor.

With a shove against his chest, she pushed
him to the couch. “Take off my panties.”

He hooked his fingers around the waistband
and drew them down her legs while she unhooked her bra and let it
land beside his shirt. All she wore were her gold, strappy high
heels.

As she straddled his lap, she pulled her red
scarf—the one he’d used to blindfold her on the Fourth of July—from
the arm of the couch. “Do you trust me?”

* * *

Mark was in awe of Karma. She was in control.
He had never seen her like this, with such a dominant edge. She was
a transformed woman in every way, and the power shifted completely
into her hands.

For a moment, as he stared at her scarf,
which she waved side to side like a hypnotic pocket watch, he
almost said no. But then he gazed into her eyes, into a well of
honesty, and knew, no matter his fears, he could trust her.

“Yes.” He breathed the syllable even as his
heart began to race.

He had never let a woman blindfold him. Doing
so made him too vulnerable, but he had promised Karma that he would
be anything she wanted tonight, that he would give himself
completely to her for these last precious hours.

She lifted the scarf to his eyes, covered
them, and his pulse quickened. His breathing picked up tempo as
panic threatened to consume him.

“Sshh,” she said, kissing his forehead.
“Trust me.” Her lips dotted his skin to his cheek, along the slope
of his jaw to his chin, and finally to his lips.

He exhaled through his nose as her mouth
closed against his, and he gripped her naked hips. Without his
eyesight, everything was heightened. Her lips scorched his mouth
and lit a fire so hot under his skin that he feared he would lose
control. When she raked her blunt nails down his torso, he hissed
as flames burned through every muscle in his body.

Mark had never felt anything like this. So
fiercely intense and extreme. Vivid colors lit behind his closed
eyes as her tongue left a sinuous trail down the center of his
stomach. He gasped for air, dug his fingers into her hair, and
fought to maintain their physical connection as she left his lap
and settled between his legs.

She pulled off his slacks and pushed his
knees apart, and then her mouth found him.

“Oh fuck…” He laid his head against the back
of the couch, inhaled sharply, and surrendered to desire so acute
and all-consuming he couldn’t recall ever feeling more alive.

Her tongue swirled around and around the
head, her hand working him up and down. Without his sight, the
feelings amplified. Every stroke of her hand, every flick of her
tongue, the way her moist lips brushed the sensitive head…every
wicked sensation exploded times the power of ten.