Each time Lorna moved or made a noise in her sleep, my pulse raced, ready to comfort her from a nightmare or soothe her back to slumber.
I worried: what other memories like those of Nancy Pierce would come to her while she was asleep?
Laurel explained that the unconscious mind was unhindered by conscious thoughts. Though I longed to ease myself out of our warm cocoon to further my plans to avenge my wife and check on programs running a floor below, I wouldn’t. My desire to be with Lorna was the only reason that those things could wait. As I’d said, she was my only tether to the light.
My thoughts raced in circles, similar to cars on a racetrack. Spinning and spinning, yet never going anywhere. I blinked my eyes, taking only a moment to savor my wife’s body against mine.
I woke with a start, sitting upward and trying to orient my thoughts. No longer moving on the track, my thoughts were in a spiral. Darkness still shadowed our room. The clock now read 5:37.
Lorna. My hand went to the empty space on the bed beside me.
Missing.
My heart pounded against my chest.
“Lorna,” I called as I threw back the covers. My pulse continued the race as my thoughts sped out of control. “Lorna.” My volume rose.
How was she gone?
Did someone take her?
I tried to reassure myself that no one could access the tower.
My circulation echoed in my ears until the sound of running water came into range, urging me toward the attached bathroom. Without hesitation, I reached for the handle and pushed the door inward.
A warm fog of steam hung in the air.
How long had she been in the shower?
Lorna hadn’t noticed my entrance or heard the door as she stood unmoving under the falling spray. Her naked body revealed a canvas of grotesque art—evidence of her abuse. Yet as I looked upon her, I saw beyond her bruises, cuts, and insect bites. My dick hardened beneath my boxer briefs as her curves glistened a shade of pink in the hot water.
As I stepped closer, more than the falling water could be heard. Lorna’s soft cries came into range. I now saw the way she trembled, her eyes closed as tears added to the shower’s spray.
Without further thought, I reached for the handle on the shower door and pulled it open.
All at once, Lorna spun toward me, her green eyes opening in surprise. Her hands came upward to cover herself before she sighed. “Reid.”
Even my name was laced with her sadness.
Still wearing the underwear I’d worn to bed, I stepped inside the stall, closing the door behind me. The sweet scents of soap and shampoo filled my senses. “I’m here, sweetheart.”
More tears flowed down her cheeks as she nodded and took a step toward me. Pushing herself close, her small breasts flattened against my chest. She fit perfectly under my chin as I again wrapped my arms around her and water continued to fall.
“Shh,” I soothed. “How long have you been awake? Why didn’t you wake me?”
Her forehead fell against my chest as she shook her head. In my grasp, her body trembled as more tears combined with the shower on my skin. I turned us away, shielding her with my body from the hot spray.
Gently, I ran my large hands over her back, down her spine, and over her tight round ass. “Did you have another dream?”
When she didn’t answer, I tenderly palmed her cheeks and lifted her face upward. Her gaze flickered to mine before her eyes again closed. Bending, I brought my lips to hers. Like Viagra, as our lips connected and her soft, naked body molded to me, my circulation redirected, hardening my dick.
She looked down, seeing my confined erection before glancing up and grinning. “You’re supposed to take those off before you get in the shower.”
“I’m supposed to be with my wife when she needs me.”
Her nostrils flared as she took a ragged breath. “I need you, Reid.”
My head shook as another part of my body replied in the affirmative.
Slipping from my grasp, Lorna knelt before me upon the wet tile and reached for the waistband of my boxer briefs.
“Lorna.”
She didn’t speak as she pulled the silk boxers down over my hips and down my thighs until my dick sprang free and my boxers were nothing more than a wet pile of fabric on the shower’s floor. Her green eyes, veiled with lashes, peered upward as her two small hands took me in her grasp, running her grip up and down over my stretching skin.
Her touch was electricity to my nervous system. Synapses sparked like rapid gunfire throughout my body, one after another. My dick grew painfully hard as her tongue lapped my pre-come-covered tip.
I reached out to the tiled wall as words of rebuke came to mind. They were there, telling her no, telling her that she needed rest, but the words couldn’t or wouldn’t roll from my tongue.
My breathing labored as her lips parted, and she took me into her warm mouth.
“Fuck, Lorna.”
Deeper and deeper she took my length. Her lips were firm, her mouth warm, and her tongue tantalizing. Her fingers of one hand wrapped around my base, pumping me, while the other reached for my balls.
“Oh fu-c-k.” I elongated the word. It had been so long since we’d been together. She was at the ranch without me and then...
A pop filled the stall as I took a step back. “Stop.”
Lorna
The hole in my chest, the one that I couldn’t identify but was similar to the hole in my memories, ached as I tried to make sense of what was happening and why Reid had told me to stop. My thoughts had been consumed with pleasing and tasting my husband as my core tightened and moistened. And like the flip of a light switch, that was now gone. Everything was gone.
When I looked up, my husband was offering me his hand.
It wasn’t his hand I wanted.
It was the massive cock that seconds before I’d had between my lips. I wanted it for more than sexual pleasure, though I knew my husband was capable. It was the closeness that I longed for. When I’d awakened in his arms, I yearned to turn to him and find bliss in our unity.
Reid wasn’t always present when I woke. Often, he was down on 2, doing what he did. But when he was present, it was an unspoken invitation. Sometimes he’d wake me. Other times, I’d wake him. However, since I woke from whatever happened, he’d made it clear that sex was off the table.
When I entered the bathroom, his reasoning was as crystal clear as my reflection.
Who would want to make love to a woman as truly disfigured as me?
Who would want to fuck someone so damaged?
“Lorna,” Reid offered with his hand still extended.
Instead of placing my hand in his palm, I acted like the child I’d never been allowed to be. I sat upon the wet shower floor, scooting back to the wall and drawing my knees to my chest. Wallowing in his rejection, I surrounded my legs with my arms and laid my chin on my knees.
“Lorna, come on,” Reid said. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“Fuck you, Reid.”
I refused to look up, yet I felt his reaction. I saw it in the way his steps staggered in the swirling water. Though I wondered how I had any left, more tears came, prickling my sore eyes. There must be a bottomless pit somewhere inside me. Not a pit. There was a black hole where memories disappeared and emotions bubbled like a witch’s cauldron.
Reid took a step toward me as I pulled my legs closer to my chest. It was as he reached for the shower’s handle to turn off the water that I spoke again, “Leave the water on and get the fuck out. I’m not done.”