Full Circle (11 page)

“Give me more credit than that, Mark. I love
you. Whatever you have to tell me, we’ll get through it.”

He certainly hoped so, because now that the
memories of that wretched year and a half had pushed their way back
into his mind, he wasn’t sure he could even live with himself.

“Karma, I did some awful, terrible things.
Immoral things.” He sighed. “Shameful things.” For a moment, he sat
silently, sorting through all the shit, deciding what he should
reveal first. “Not only did I drink, but I did drugs.” Just saying
it made him feel like a criminal. Like he was the lowest form of
life.

“What kind of drugs?”

“Cocaine.” He bowed his head, shaking it.
“God, this is hard to talk about.”

She let go of his hands and cupped his face.
“It’s in the past, Mark. Let go of it.”

He met her eyes. “I’m trying. That’s why I
want to tell you this.”

Compassion filled her gaze, and she offered a
tiny smile of encouragement. “Like I said, I’m not going anywhere.”
She nodded encouragingly. “So, tell me. How long did you
use . . . cocaine?” She said the word softly,
hesitantly. As if she didn’t like how it felt rolling off her
tongue.

“Not long. A few weeks, maybe a month.”

“And was cocaine the only drug you used?”

“No. I did try crack once. I guess
technically it’s cocaine, though, so . . .” He
cleared his throat and glanced down. “But I also took a few hits of
Molly.”

“Molly?”

“It’s a designer drug.”

“Oh.” She bit her bottom lip as her eyes
shifted awkwardly.

“I didn’t really like how the drugs made me
feel, though, so I stopped. But I was hurting. I was looking for
any outlet to help me forget. So, I turned to drugs and alcohol.
Then it was just alcohol. And then Rob pulled me out of the bottle,
and I thought maybe I was going to be okay, but there was still
something missing. I was still hurting. That’s
when . . .” He closed his eyes and lowered his head,
giving himself a moment to breathe before going on. He looked back
up, met her gaze, and said, “That’s when I became addicted to
sex.”

She pulled back a fraction of an inch and
blinked as her eyebrows lifted. Clearly, she hadn’t expected him to
say that.

“Clinically speaking, I wasn’t addicted, but
I started going out with a lot of women. I wanted to replace Carol.
It’s like I had this deep-seated need to find what I’d had with her
with someone else, and then it just turned into something
ugly.”

God, it was a wonder he hadn’t caught some
disease or gotten some girl pregnant. He’d been so reckless.

Karma deserved so much better than a man like
him, but fate had driven them together. Now he needed to come clean
so they could go into their future unencumbered by the past. But
right now, he wouldn’t even be able to look at himself in a mirror,
he was so ashamed.

“The things I did, Karma. I was such a
hedonist, and not in a good way.”

“Like what?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“What did you do?”

“I think a better question is what
didn’t
I do?” He shook his head shamefully. “I did it all,
Karma. Threesomes. Foursomes. Sex parties. I went to fetish clubs.
I even paid a woman to have sex with me. Do you understand what I’m
saying? I paid a woman, Karma. What kind of an asshole pays for
sex?” He let go of her hands and scooted away. He couldn’t stand
the thought of defiling her simply by touching her.

She grabbed his wrist and pulled him back,
pushing up on her knees and inching forward so she could close the
distance between them and prevent him from turning away. “Hey, you
were in a bad place, remember? You said so yourself. You weren’t
thinking clearly. Don’t be so hard on yourself, Mark. That was a
long time ago, and you’re not that person, anymore.”

Now it was his turn to frown. Was he in
another dimension? He’d just told her he’d done drugs, done
unspeakable things, and paid for a night of sex with an escort, and
yet she was comforting him. She was putting her arms around him,
hugging him, pressing her cheek against his.

This wasn’t the reaction he’d expected, but
he was grateful for it.

“You deserve better than me,” he said,
pushing her away so he could stroke his fingers down the side of
her face. “I’m not good enough for you.”

She cocked her head to the side and arched
one eyebrow. “Why don’t you let
me
decide what is and isn’t
good enough for me. I can assure you, if I didn’t think you were, I
wouldn’t be here now. I’d probably still be with Brad.”

Just the mention of Brad’s name sent prickles
up and down Mark’s back. “Maybe you should be. Maybe—”

“I didn’t love him. I love
you
. You
coming back helped me see that before I made a terrible mistake and
married him.” She stared him down hard, as if she were trying to
burn her thoughts into his brain. “He never excited me the way you
do.” She exhaled sharply. “He didn’t excite me
at all
, if
I’m being honest. Sex was more like a chore. So what if he seemed
like Mr. Perfect? Perfection is boring. There’s no character in
perfection.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Brad never
did a foul thing ever in his entire existence. He exercised. He
didn’t smoke. He didn’t do drugs. He worked hard. He ate right. He
made good money. He was a decent man. Check, check, and check.” She
slashed her finger through the air three times as if drawing
checkmarks. “He had everything my dad wanted me to find in a man.
Everything a lot of women would give anything for. But you know
what he didn’t have? He didn’t have my heart. He didn’t touch my
soul. He didn’t make me feel alive.
You do
.”

She pressed closer, her expression stern,
eyes intense. “You came into my life, and for the first time, I
actually felt alive. You made me see things in myself that I’d
never seen. Things I’d taken for granted. You made me see that I
am
a beautiful woman. That I
am
passionate. That I
have an inner, sexy vixen who has desires of her own.
You
did that. And you were able to do it because you
aren’t
perfect. You’ve lived hard, Mark. And living hard is sometimes
ugly. But that’s what makes us who we are, changes us for the
better, and gives us a greater understanding not just of life, but
of the world and others.

“So, stop beating yourself up thinking I’m
going to think less of you, or that I’m going to leave, because I’m
not.” She stared into his eyes. “Whatever else you have to tell me,
just say it. Get it out. All of it. I promise I’ll still be here
afterward. And I promise you more than deserve me, because, Mark,
I’m no angel. I’m not perfect, either. But together,
we
are
perfect. Okay? Believe in
that
.”

His heart nearly exploded with the love he
felt for this incredible woman he’d chosen to make a life with.

“You’re amazing. I’ve never known a woman
like you.” He’d been sitting across from her hating himself, but
all she saw was a man worthy of her love. Learning the truth about
his past hadn’t pushed her away, it had drawn her closer.

She smiled. “You’re not so bad yourself.” She
sat back and slid her hands around his again. “So, what else do you
have to tell me? I want you to tell me everything. It’s important
that you’re honest with me, Mark. More important than any of this
other stuff. As long as you’re honest, I really don’t care what you
have to say. Just don’t lie to me. Don’t hide the truth. That would
upset me even more than hearing the truth, no matter how
painful.”

He took a deep breath. She seemed more than
ready to hear what he had to say. Might as well keep ticking down
his list and see if she was as forgiving of everything and not just
items one and two. “Okay, so what if I told you that even though
I’m ashamed of a lot of what I did during that time in my life,
there were other things that I really enjoyed? Things I wouldn’t
mind experimenting with again. With you.”

Her shoulders tightened slightly. “Like
what?”

“Have you ever heard of role-play sex?”

She tilted her head inquisitively to one
side. “You mean, like me dressing up in a schoolgirl outfit or
something?”

If only his fantasies were so tame. “Not
exactly. I like taking sexual role-play further.”

Her fingers twisted together in her lap as
she bit her lip. “Are you talking about BDSM? Like whips and chains
and pain? Domination and submission?”

He shook his head, and she let out a relieved
breath. “I don’t take it that far. Think more along the lines of
between the two extremes. I’m into acting out darker, more serious
fantasies. Fantasies that take a little planning.”

She grinned. “Of course.”

He raised one eyebrow and cocked his head.
“Don’t mistake my planning to mean boring or stilted. I plan these
fantasies because they require a little forethought.”

“Okay . . .” She scooted a
couple inches closer. “So what exactly are you talking about
here?

He leaned toward her, smoothing his palms
reassuringly over her bare thighs. “Let’s say your car breaks down
on the side of the road.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “Maybe your
car ran out of gas. You’re miles from the nearest gas station, so
you’re hitchhiking to get there, carrying your one-gallon gas
can.”

“I would never hitchhike,” she said.

He smirked. “In my fantasy, you do.”

Her cheeks flushed pink as she glanced down
at his hands as the tips of his fingers slipped under the satin hem
of her robe. “Okay . . .”

He dragged his hands back down to her knees.
“So, as you’re hitchhiking, I’d pull up and ask if you needed a
ride. Of course, you’d say yes and hop in my car, even though I’m a
complete stranger and we’ve never met before. We’d talk. I’d ask
you where you were headed. You’d tell me some story about how
you’re on your way to Vegas to become a blackjack dealer or
something.”

She smiled at his obvious reference to how
they’d met. “And then what?”

The flirty lilt in her voice reassured him.
It meant she liked the idea of his fantasy. “Then the conversation
would turn more personal. Maybe I would ask you how you plan to
thank me for giving you a ride. Then you’d offer to pay me, and I’d
tell you I don’t want your money. I’d suggest something more
intimate. You might resist at first, but I’d finally wear you down.
I’d pull over somewhere, and we’d have sex. Really hard, feverish,
on-the-side-of-the-road sex that leaves us both shredded. Then
maybe I’d take you to a hotel for the night if I don’t feel you’ve
compensated me enough for my kindness. Tie you to the bed. Torture
you with sex until I’m satisfied. Afterward, I’d take you to the
gas station, return you to your car, help you fill the tank with
your one gallon of gas, and then drive away.”

“You’d leave me there?”

“That’s part of the fantasy.”

“Couldn’t that be dangerous? I mean, where
would we do something like that, and what about—”

“That’s what the planning is for.”

She gave him a chagrined smile. “Touché.”

He winked. “Exactly.”

Then he gave her a moment to weigh his words
and think about the scene he’d just laid out.

After a few seconds, she said, “Okay, so how
did you discover that you liked that sort of thing?”

He cleared his throat and glanced down at the
shallow stretch of comforter between them. He was confessing, so he
couldn’t stop now.

“I got involved with a woman who was very,
shall we say, adventurous. Nina was older than I was, and she was
bisexual. She introduced me to my first threesome, and then to my
first foursome. I discovered sex parties and fetish clubs through
her.” He cleared his throat again and nervously rubbed his thumbs
back and forth over her fingers. “She was into some hard-core stuff
and got off on role-playing some pretty intense scenes. At the
time, I was so messed up that I didn’t have much of a moral
compass, so I did some pretty fucked-up shit. But as time passed
and I began to reconnect to my moral and ethical side, I grew
uncomfortable with some of the extreme shit she wanted me to do to
her. I loved the role-playing, but sometimes she took it to a place
that was just too dark.”

“How dark?”

He shook his head. “Too dark for me to be
comfortable saying much more about it. All I’ll say is she got off
on rape fantasies.” He cringed at the stuff Nina had gotten him to
do to her. He would never be that man again and was glad he’d
gotten out when he did, or he’d be an even bigger fucked-up mess
than he already was. “I’ll admit that much, but I don’t want to
talk about it beyond that. It’s just too much for me.”

“That’s okay, I won’t make you.” She nodded
compassionately. “How long were you together?”

“About five months.”

“Really? That’s a long time for you.”

He brushed his thumbs over her knuckles. “It
was. But when she hit me up wanting more—wanting a commitment—I
couldn’t do it. It wasn’t just all the hardcore shit she was into.
It was me. I couldn’t commit.”

“Because of Carol.”

“Yes, because of Carol.” He paused, recalling
the sense of desperation and panic he’d felt when Nina suggested
they move in together and hinted they’d make the perfect power
couple if they got married. “After Nina, I decided I didn’t want
that kind of relationship. Not the lifestyle she led nor the
commitment she wanted. I started looking for nicer women. Women
like you.” And women like Carol. But admitting that would take his
confession too far. It was better to keep some things to himself.
“I redirected my energy toward learning what women like you want
instead of catering to my own desires. I wanted to become the best
me I could. The kind of man every woman wanted.”

“Even though you couldn’t commit.”

“Right. Even though I could no longer
commit.” He snuffed out a derisive exhale. “I was like a gigolo,
only I wasn’t. Always with a woman but never really with her.
Always giving her what she wanted without really fulfilling my own
needs. But I’ve already told you about all that, haven’t I?”