Dark Moon (9 page)

“Do you like it?
You don’t have to wear it,” he said again.

“I love it,” I
said, smoothing my hand over the beautiful fabric.

“It’s silk.
Originally, I was going to get you black; I’ve noticed you wear that color a
lot, and don’t get me wrong, you look stunning, but then when I saw this red
one I knew that’s what I wanted to buy you.”

“When did you get
it?” I asked.

“I took a long
lunch break.”

“I want to wear
it,” I said, my heart racing, “but can I take a shower first?”

“Of course. You
can try it on later. I would join you in the shower again, but I’ve got to wait
for the delivery guy.” He grinned sheepishly. “I really do enjoy cooking, but
sometimes delivery is so much more convenient.”

“You know I’m
easy,” I said.

“Oh, really?”
Michael teased. “Only with me I hope?”

I playfully batted
him on the arm. He grabbed my hand and pulled me to him. We fell back onto the
bed and he started to unbuckle my jeans. “Priorities, Michael,” I said,
laughing and swatting his hand away, even though it was exactly what I wanted
right now. “Shower, food,
then
sex.”

“So I’m just a
good lay to you, huh?” Michael asked.

I looked over at
him. His expression was serious, but then his face dissolved into a smile. “You
dork,” I said, laughing.

I headed into the
bathroom. “Oh yeah,” I called back. “I forgot one thing. That list should have
been: shower, wine, food, and
a good lay
, all in that order.” I turned
on the tap before he could reply.

The pizza had just
arrived when I got out of the shower. Not having any clothes of my own, I got
one of Michael’s t-shirts, which reminded me of the first night we made love.

He had set the
kitchen table with two glasses of red wine, plates and forks.

“I’m surprised you
don’t want to watch a movie,” I commented, sitting down at the table.

“What, are you
kidding me? I haven’t seen you for almost two days, Lana. I want to soak up
every bit of you.”

I swallowed a big
gulp of wine nervously. Michael was looking at me intensely. “What are you
thinking?” I whispered.

“That here I am
buying you sexy lingerie, and you already look sexy as fuck in that t-shirt,
which I want to rip right off of you.”

“Maybe I should
put the lingerie on now, and let you rip that off instead?” I suggested in a
low voice. “Are you even hungry?” My stomach was such a bundle of nerves that I
wasn’t sure I could eat.

“I’m fucking
starving. For you.”

It was all the
encouragement I needed. I went to Michael’s bedroom and took the lingerie back
out of the bag. I slipped into the sexy underwear and pulled the corset around
my body. Once I got the eyelet hooks on the front of the bodice all clasped
together, it pushed my boobs up, making them look a lot bigger.

Barefoot, I padded
into the bathroom to look at myself in the full-length mirror. I did a double
take at my reflection.

I had never seen
myself looking like this…like a vixen.

“Does it fit?”
Michael called. He had come into the bedroom.

“See what you
think?” I asked, walking out for him to take a look.

I’ve never seen
someone’s jaw literally drop open, but that’s what happened when Michael saw
me. “Holy, shit, you look like a model, Lana. Really sexy. I mean, look what
you do to me,” he said pointing at his erection.

“I know what I
haven’t done for you yet,” I said in a sultry voice. Feeling confident, like I
should take charge, I walked over to Michael and pushed him down on the bed. I
yanked off his jeans and underwear.

“Lana, you don’t
have to,” Michael was saying.

“But I want to.” I
put him inside my mouth. Even though I’d never given a guy a blowjob before, I
didn’t have to stop to think what I should do. I just let instinct take over.

“You’re really
good at that,” Michael said in between moans. He reached down and ran his
fingers through my hair.

I kept pulling him
in and out of my mouth, lost in the moment, loving Michael’s reaction to each
pull.

“Baby, I’m so
close; you’d better stop.”

I paused and
looked up at him. “Then why don’t you cum? Just relax.”

Michael struggled
to a sitting position, his face flushed. “That outfit was supposed to be about
you
,
not me, I swear it,” he said, laughing. I stood up.

Now it was his
turn to push me down on the bed. I readily pulled him on top of me. I was just
as turned on as he was after having his cock in my mouth.

“Your turn, Lana,”
he whispered. Without taking off any of my clothes, he pushed the tiny panties
to the side and slid his tongue against me. I opened my legs wider,
surrendering to the wonderful sensation.  

I could feel the
pressure, that sensual, titillating pressure that I had gotten so used to
feeling right before an orgasm. Now it was my turn to tell Michael to stop.
“Don’t you want to feel me cum around you?” I asked him.

He looked up just
long enough to say, “Of course I want to feel you cum around my dick; that’s
why I’m going to make you cum at least twice.”

So I let myself
fully go, gave into the pressure looking to be released. When I had finished,
Michael got up from the bottom of the bed. As he had promised, he slowly pulled
off the lingerie. He unbuckled from the top downwards, clasp by clasp, until my
breasts spilled out over the bodice.

He softly kissed
and licked over every inch of my exposed breasts and hardened nipples. My body
moved uncontrollably under his. When the top was completely off, he kissed all
the way down my stomach to my underwear and pulled those down with his teeth.

Totally naked now,
I spread my legs as wide as possible and grabbed Michael around his waist,
pulling him down deep inside of me. We both moaned with pleasure. Maybe it was
because I hadn’t seen him, felt him for a day, but it seemed like our
lovemaking was the most intense it had ever been.

 “I can’t
believe that just really happened,” I said, when we had finally finished.

We were lying side
by side, our faces just inches apart. “Lana, I let it slip before, and I was
embarrassed. But now I know that I meant it. I’m not just
falling
in
love with you. I’m
in
love with you. I love you more than anything.”

“Michael, I love
you, too,” I said immediately. We didn’t say anything else; there was no need
to. Michael pulled me against him, my face against his chest, our legs and
naked bodies intertwined.

We lied there in silence,
relaxing in each other’s embrace. Michael finally spoke. “Now I actually am
hungry – for food,” he said.

“Me, too,” I
admitted.

“Do you like cold
pizza?” Michael asked. “Because if you tell me you don’t, that just might be a
deal breaker,” he teased.

“I
love
cold
pizza, almost as much as I love you,” I joked back.

Grinning like two
stupid teenagers, we made our way into the kitchen, still entangled in Michael’s
sheets. He sat down in a chair and pulled me on top of his lap, my naked bottom
against his legs, the sheets wrapped around us, protecting us, like a cocoon.

We ate the pizza
right from the box, only stopping to kiss and drink wine. I had never felt
happier in my life.

###

Friday morning
arrived all too early, but I was excited that I’d get to see Michael at the
hospital, and then again that night. Like I usually did, I went home, got a
shower and headed off to my first class.

“You should bring
your clothes here,” Michael said before I left. “So you can go straight to
class from my place. And…I was thinking. I could make you a key to my
apartment.”

I’d happily said
yes to his suggestion.
You’re not moving in with him,
I rationalized,
thinking about how Maryanne might react if I told her about the key. No, I’d
keep that piece of information to myself, at least for now.

I found myself
watching the clock, willing the minutes to pass so I could go to the hospital
and have a chance to see Michael. I had warned him this morning about Evie’s prying
and my stupid slip-up about the Thai food, but Michael had just hugged me to
him and said, “Lana, I don’t give a shit who knows that I’m in love with you.
If they find out, they find out. I just don’t want to perpetuate gossip.”

In love with
me.
I could hardly believe it. My bleak, desolate life finally had a
purpose other than helping sick children.

When I got to the
hospital, I was surprised to see Michael at the nurses’ station, chatting with
three of the nurses.
There are never that many nurses hanging around the
station. They must have all flocked over when they heard Michael was there.
If
only they knew the truth, that he was waiting for me.

“Hi,” I said to
the group as I checked in for my shift.

“Nice to see you
again, Lana.” Michael flashed me a secretive smile.

“You, too, Dr.
Reynolds,” I said coolly.

Evie managed to
tear herself away from the conversation to tell me that today I would be
running the Cheer Cart again.

Good. More
chances to see Michael.
If I wasn’t working with any of the nurses and
could do my own thing, no one would be checking up on me, wondering why I was
hanging out an extra long time on floor six…

I forced myself
not to rush from room to room. This was the highlight of the day for most of
the patients. It would be selfish of me to cut them off just because I was
dying to see Michael.

When I got to
Cynthia’s room, the old lady who used to be a ballet dancer, I was surprised to
find it empty. I had actually been looking forward to talking to her. She was
so down to earth and had such a positive attitude.

I flagged one of
the nurses down. “Did Cynthia, er, Mrs. Green, check out of the hospital?”

“Oh no, dear.” The
nurse shook her head, a sullen expression on her face. “Mrs. Green passed away
two days ago.”

“What?” I asked in
shock. “But she seemed so normal, so
alive
.”

The nurse gave me
a strange look. “This
is
a hospital. Mrs. Green had a heart condition.
But don’t worry, she died peacefully. She’s with God now.”

God.
I had
very mixed feelings about him, especially considering what I really was.

It bothered me
that Cynthia had died, but I didn’t quite know why. She was old, but not
that
old. Maybe eighty? Weren’t people living well into their nineties nowadays?
It wasn’t fair. Didn’t being a nice person count for anything anymore? Why
would God kill someone good, and let murderers, child molesters and countless
other sickos live healthy, long lives?

I forced myself to
move on with the Cheer Cart, to smile and laugh with the patients, but with
each person I visited all I could think about was when they were going to die.

You’ve got to
snap out of this, Lana.
I pictured Michael, my gorgeous, loving boyfriend.
I needed him to hold me, to tell me again that our lives were going to work
out.

When I did see
Michael on the cancer floor, he immediately sensed that something was wrong. No
one else was in the hallway. Michael motioned for me to come into an empty room
and shut the door behind us.

“What’s happened?”
he asked, his face filled with worry.

“I don’t know,” I
said honestly. “I heard that a patient I liked died, and for some reason it
really bothered me.”

“That’s normal,”
Michael said. “Even I’m not immune to it. Unfortunately, it’s the horrible, all
too common reality of working with sick people. But you’ve got to put it out of
your mind, Lana. You can’t question why some people get to live and others have
to die. For every bad situation, there’s always a worse one. Why does a
five-month-old baby get cancer? How can you tell a thirty year old single
mother that she has inoperable tumors, and the only thing you can do is shrink
the tumors with chemotherapy? And all that does is buy time; it’s not a cure.”

“That’s awful,” I
whispered.

Michael hugged me
to him. “It’s one of the worst possible things in the world. But that’s
reality.”

I pressed my face
into his chest. “Thanks, Michael,” I said. “I know you’re right. It just hit me
hard today, for some reason.”

He pulled back and
leaned down to kiss me. “It’s because you’re such a caring, sensitive person,”
he whispered. “You’d have to have a dark heart to not be moved by that kind of
stuff.”

But I do have a
dark heart.

Maybe there was a
chance for me, after all. I was supposed to be thriving on death, not recoiling
from it.

Wanting to erase
everything from my mind, I leaned forward and kissed Michael, aggressively this
time. He didn’t resist. Michael pressed his body against mine as the kiss
intensified. He reached his hand under my shirt, then under my bra.

“Shit, this is
crazy,” he said breathlessly between our feverish kisses.

“I can’t stop
myself when I’m with you,” I told him.

Michael groaned
and took a step back. “We’re at work,” he said, laughing. “It’s my goal to fuck
you in as many locales as possible, but I never imagined the hospital being one
of them.”

“It’s a bit creepy,”
I admitted, staring at the depressing hospital bed.

“I’d better get
back,” Michael said. “I know I didn’t ask you…I guess I just assumed we were
spending the evening together.”

“Of course.” My
face broke out into a smile.

“I’ll take you out
to dinner tonight,” Michael said. “Somewhere romantic, dimly lit. I would say
to wear something sexy, but you’re always mind-blowingly sexy, no matter what
you’re in.”

“Do you say that
to all the women?” I joked.

Michael’s face
turned serious. “No, just you.”

I felt myself
blushing. “We can’t go out there together,” I said.

“You go first,” he
instructed me. “I’ll wait a few minutes after you’ve left.

I squeezed his
hand. “See you tonight.”