As Karma woke, she realized she was still next to Rea. They had fallen asleep. She pushed at the makeshift blindfold. The fabric was caught in her hair. Her eyes alighted on the digital clock on the computer. She guessed she'd only been out for a short time. Her face turned to Rea.
Rea's green eyes blinked slowly in the soft light. She was so sexually sedated that unless Fletcher showed up at this moment to kill them both, she wasn't moving. Karma wanted to stay snuggled next to Rea for a year. She didn't remember ever being this content, even when she and Rea were first together.
"You wiped me out," she whispered.
Rea took one hand and ran the tip of his finger over her eyebrow and then down her nose and chin. His hands smelled like soap, and his hair was damp. He must've gotten up and showered. She'd slept right through it. Karma wanted to laugh when she realized he indeed had knocked her out. She never slept this hard.
He traced her face slowly and let his hand wander over her chest and stomach.
Whenever he hit a scar, he paused and ran his fingers over the raised skin before touching some other part of her.
He looked at her beaten body, but he didn't appear disgusted, merely inquisitive.
"Why don't you leave? I've nothing to offer you. I'm tied here."
"You know why I won't go."
"I've tried to get rid of you." Rea rolled onto his back. He stacked his hands on his chest.
"I know you've tried."
"I wanted you to know who I am. What it's like here."
"I get it."
"I've told you every horrible thing I could think of. I've even given you jobs my men find irritating. Hell, Karma, you've cleaned every weapon I own, yet you're still with me. The way we had sex a bit ago, it was hard. I'm hard on things. I'm hard on you. I don't know how to be with someone. I'm happy alone."
"I don't believe you're happy alone. I don't think you'll ever be happy without me. I wouldn't be happy without you, either." Karma chose her words carefully, and she let them sit in the air between them.
"Damn it, Karma, are you going to leave again?"
"I'll leave if you tell me to go, and you mean it. I do want you happy, if nothing else. Please believe that."
"I told you to go when you first showed up," Rea muttered.
"But I knew you didn't mean it." Karma grinned and snuggled closer.
Rea wrapped one arm around her. She could tell he didn't want her to go away. He stated it because he thought he had to. He thought he was ruining her life by keeping her here, but it wasn't real. He needed more time to see that they could be happy wherever they were. The sex had helped as she'd thought. Now, all she had to do was give him a little more time.
"What about your life before? Do you miss the action? Do you miss the Equator and all the sex with strangers? I bet men loved you."
Karma laughed out loud and then realized he was serious.
"You haven't heard one thing I've said all week. My life was like oil-filled ocean water. It was garbage, Rea. When I left you, it was like you'd thrown off my sexual thermostat. After you, I could only ever reach lukewarm. And I told you I'd quit long before I even came here. I wanted to do something else with my life. I'm happy here. You've a built-in lie detector, but you won't see the truth."
"You're just saying that."
"You're the worst lie detector ever. Do you want to know about other men, Rea? Is that what this is really about?"
"Oh, God. No." Rea's tone was a mix of disgust and demand. Karma couldn't help but laugh at the sour expression on his face.
"Too late. Now I'm going to tell you."
Rea turned suddenly and flipped her over, and she ended up face down on the bed.
"No," he repeated sternly. He was amazingly fast sometimes, and Karma marveled at his strength.
When he had her pinned, he laughed low in his throat. She didn't struggle under him, even though she could probably get out of the position. Once he had her down, he took both her hands and held them behind her back.
"I mean it, Kitten. Don't tell me." He breathed the words harshly into her hair at the back of her neck. It tickled.
He was trying to scare her, but she wasn't afraid. If she tugged, Rea would let go because that was the kind of man he was, but she didn't move. Instead, she thought about how he kept insisting she wanted freedom—that she didn't want to be tied to him because of the base. No matter how many times she insisted she was choosing to be here, he seemed to think this was still about Fletcher. He really thought they couldn't be mended, and she didn't know why. Was jealousy part of the problem?
"Rea?"
He murmured incoherent words as he shifted down her body. He began to spread her legs apart as he rained kisses down her spine and tried to make her squirm. It worked, but she wasn't going to forget this conversation. She needed him to know she wanted to be here. Fletcher, and The Seemyah, and all that be damned.
"Rea, there hasn't been anyone but you. No other men."
He stilled his actions and let go of her hands suddenly. She shifted to look over her shoulder. He was giving her the mesmerizing stare he gave people when he was trying to decide if they were lying.
"It's not that out there if you think about it. Everyone in The Seemyah knew my dad. He was the kind of man that had a quick temper. Anyone I liked, he frightened away, and the rest, I had no interest in. Like I said, I couldn't get past lukewarm. We were so in tune. I could never find that again."
Karma felt Rea breathing behind her. She rolled over and shifted her legs to go on either side of him. After she arranged the pillow, she waited for him to speak.
Rea knelt between her legs, and he looked like he was thinking hard. He traced the muscles on her abs. His fingers circled her belly button in an absent way. Actually, Karma had noticed Rea touched her when he was lost in thought. It was as if he wanted to make sure he wasn't alone.
Finally, he broke the silence.
"You're telling me the truth, but it's hard to believe. Your life has been intense. You've told me the stories. For every scar, you tell me about a thing you did or someone you were with. I don't picture your father as being so frightening that men would run away from you. If I were after you, no one would stop me. Not your dad. No one."
Karma wrapped her arms around the pillow and arranged her hair. He kept up the touching, but once in a while, he let his fingers drop between her parted legs to slide over her tender flesh. His hands danced over her thighs, to her stomach, and then moved between her legs again.
"If you'd known where I was… would you have come for me? I mean, you said no one would be able to stop you. Does that include your dad?"
Rea had a ready answer for her as if he was already thinking about that himself.
"Hell yes, I would've blown off my dad. I could've blown him off years back, but I didn't have anywhere to go. I couldn't cut the strings."
"You were responsible, and you helped Gears. You've helped a lot of people. You're a good man, Rea. You had a reason to stay. I didn't."
"Don't say that. I'm not some honorable, noble person. I couldn't do what you did. I couldn't leave, and I thought you were long gone. My father said you left, and you didn't say goodbye 'coz you were done with me. He said you couldn't watch me be beaten anymore. He wasn't lying. I could tell, but now that I know the story, it changes what he told me. You thought I was dead. You couldn't watch me get beaten, but not 'coz you were ashamed of me. I gave up on leaving when my father told me that. After my dad died, I stayed. I devoted my life to the water bases. I stayed 'coz I wanted to leave this world knowing I'd done something other than wander around being lost."
Rea had a faraway look in his eye, and Karma hoped he wasn't in the past. The two of them pondering what might've been wasn't good for this relationship.
"You're no longer lost, as you put it. The water bases are quite a legacy." She paused. "But in the end, having a bunch of future historians yammer about how great you were means nothing if your life was miserable. My dad said that once. I think it's true."
"I think I'd have liked your dad. He doesn't sound that bad, other than the fact the man taught you to kill people."
Karma smiled and touched his shoulders when his hands came up to massage her breasts. He leaned over her, and he caressed her nipples softly.
"My dad would've hated you. He tried to kill anyone who even thought about sleeping with me. I told you he had a temper. It never bothered me, however. I wasn't afraid of him. We were close, him and me. I miss him a lot. I don't miss being told what to do, but him I miss."
"There are a few guys I know who have a temper like that. Ken, who watches the office, can fly off the handle. Gears has a temper, too. He doesn't seem like it, but he can be unbelievably scary. He gets pissed about shit, and he can really screw you over if he wants to. I don't worry about either of them. They're good men and good help. If it weren't for the two of them, I wouldn't be here to take care of you."
"After Fletcher shows up and I kill him, and after everything is settled with you and me, I'll have to remember to make a special trip to say thanks to them," Karma said with a languid sigh.
"It's surprisingly good to have you around to meet the men I train." Rea paused, and she could hear his thoughts getting wound up again. "It's nice right now, but I know how this will go. You'll leave when you get bored here. The base is very day-to-day. That's what happens. There is no adventure here for you."
"We could be an adventure."
Rea touched another scar.
"Do 'we' really have a chance? So much time has passed. We can't go back."
Karma didn't want Rea to live in the past and wonder about the what-ifs. The what-ifs could kill this new relationship she was trying so carefully to build.
If only Rea could see how rare second chances were and how lucky the two of them really were.
"No, we can't go back. I wouldn't ask that of you, and I don't want to. But I also don't want to waste time on regrets. I want…"
"What?" Rea's eyes searched hers.
"For now, I want less talking and more rubbing." Karma scooted her body closer to his legs and wiggled.
Rea's hand dipped lower between her legs. He let his fingers run over the wet flesh that was still coated with his cream. She wanted him over and over again. The rest of the night was going to be hers. When he was inside of her, all the problems of the world dropped away.
"I can do that."
She could tell his thoughts were no longer on either one of their dead fathers, the water bases, or training.
Karma purred and lifted her hips to give him better access. No matter what Rea did, she would stay if he asked. He was worth it to her. She could never go back to a lukewarm existence again. Being with Rea made her count herself very, very lucky.