If Tomorrow Never Comes (22 page)

Hovering
over the invisible membrane separating sanity and insanity, Jordan never heard
a distant voice begging pitifully, “Jordan!
 
Jordan!
 
Are you in here?
 
Please, God, please.”
  

Slapping
at groping hands, she wailed, “No!
 
No!
 
Don't touch me.”
  
So desperate and terrifying was her battle
to survive, the old biological maxim of fight, or die, tugged bravery from the
floor as Jordan wondered dimly if she'd be sick before it was over.
 
The monster's hand was now clutching the mass
of cold steel as her finger tightened on the trigger.
 
How stupid of Jake not to know Jordan would
protect herself.
 

“It's
me, Jordan.
 
Jake.
 
It's me.”

The
moment Billy informed the men it was Jake entering the fortress, like a swarm
of killer bees; they closed the gap between themselves and the enemy
threatening their leader’s life.
 
Like
cancer, bullets riddled the dwelling, lodging in drywall, penetrating wood, and
tearing human flesh.

Before
Jake claimed control of the gun, Jordan squeezed the trigger, the hot cylinder
burning his hands as he ripped it from hers, and flung it to the floor.
 
Like a mad woman, her fingers tore at the
clothing suffocating her.
   

“Jordan,
it's me, it's me,” Jake yelled, his persistence barely preventing her from
taking the final step into a world obscure to those who have never known true
pain, true fear.
 
Bracing his hands against
the wall to hold her up wasn't working, so his arms circling her, probably much
too hard, lifting her, pressed her into a corner where his body became the only
shield separating them from the war outside.
  

Unexpectedly,
the Closter phobic space became a place with blue skies and brilliant warm
sunshine.
 
Where flowers dance in the
pure, fragrant air, and birds sing, where pain, suffering, and terror, become
nonexistent, a space in time when love surrounds us with its pleasures and
gifts.

Jordan's
hands on Jake’s face, his shoulders, and his arms, making sure he was real,
finally locked around his neck almost choking him. Accepting them, Jake prayed
she'd never let go while her head found his chest as if giving up all her
burdens.

“Are
you all right, Jordan?
 
Are you
hurt?
 
Please, God, tell me you're not
hurt.”
 
All Jordan could do was shake her
head in answer. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” whispers as he, kissed an,
earlobe, her neck, and cheek trying to block out the sounds of gunfire that
were making her flinch and tremble, cursed the inability to summon the magic to
whisk her away to a plateau where she'd never again know terror.
 

“Don't
be afraid.
 
Didn't I promise you I'd
protect you?
 
Keep you safe?”

Jordan
was frighteningly aware of the strength of Jake’s arms, the solid wall of his
chest upon the softness of her breasts, his hipbone hard against her pressing
her into the wall.
 
As if to fight off
those conscious thoughts, her head reared back.
 

“You can't fool
me; promises are made to be broken.
 
Isn't that what you said?
 
We're
never going to get out of here alive, but thank you anyway. Thank you for
trying.
 
Thank you for everything.”

Jake
didn't expect the earthquake striking when Jordan rose up on tiptoes to align
her lips with his.
 
Lips sweet, and soft,
the nectar he never believed he’d taste, more delicious than imagined.
 
A kiss that jerked his pulse crazily, as her
lips moved slowly, subtly, seductively, stirring his insides to boiling
liquid.
 
When she drew his lower lip gently
into her mouth, and gooseflesh followed, he was certain he’d fall flat on his
face.
 
Tentatively at first, as if afraid
of her, he obeyed the silent commands becoming a purring sound in her throat.
 
A lingering kiss so debilitating, so sedating
his sleek musculature pressed harder against her for fear of tumbling into an
abyss.
  
Tasting Jordan’s lips was a
sedative for the pain ripping through flesh and muscle causing eyelids to
squeeze tight, eyebrows’ to furrow, and his body to cave in.
 
He swallowed a silent groan.

Though
his heart was breaking from the awareness that little time remained to consume
every part of Jordan, inhale her sweetness, make love for the last time, as if
he'd never made love before, he couldn't.
 
Instead, guardedly, tenderly he responded, not taking more than she
offered, pressing his lips briefly against those trembling like taking tiny
sips that could never quench the thirst she made him feel.
  
He needed another and another each doing
little to ease his pain until she arched her neck to offer her full mouth as if
pleading with him to be conquered and soft whimpered words, “Oh, God,” floated
out, bursting through the barrier's, entreating him to surrender.

 
Despite knowing he'd never survive, to tell
Jordan how much he, wanted this, wanted her, he avoided touching the
temptations beneath layers of cotton, and, while the two loves of his life
bombarded him, ripped him apart, he shuddered.
 
The anguish of the wounds were nothing compared to the misery in his
heart from knowing that before he met Jordan, as he thought back in time, love
had only been in his mind.
 
For the first
time in his life, he found love hanging in a closet as if waiting to come back
into style, the kind of love that could shove all the dangling skeletons'
aside, a love that could never be.

Feeling,
her kisses deepen, her lips open slightly, somehow soothed his anguish and
offered stability.
 
Unable to resist any
longer, one of his hands cupping her cheek allowed his thumb to ease apart
trembling lips, coaxing and teasing until she innocently surrendered, and
praying she could not feel him grow large with passion.
 
A passion so new, so breath taking, he was
convinced she had come to claim his soul.

At
least, before she died, she knew what it was like to want a man to hold her,
touch her, and kiss her.
 
Shockingly,
Jordan loved the taste of Jake, so different, yet somehow familiar as if, she'd
been waiting for him all her life.
 
His
pressing weight was a surprising comfort that brought with it invading
sensations deep in her loins making her tense. Warm, moist, aches capable of
shattering control and making her want to scream.
 
Emotions, beyond reality, beyond
comprehension, that were tossing memories of other men over the falls smashing
them on the rocks below.

Now
she, saw clearly, understood the kind of love that made people marry, have
children.
 
How fitting it was to die in
Jake's arms while he kissed her still refusing to take what she would never be
able to give.
 
Unlike her, Jake would
survive.
 
He was stronger, braver.
 
Maybe in some way she helped erase his past
as he had hers.
 
Maybe, someday he'd love
again.
 
She wanted him to.
 
Jake deserved the best. Possibly, in another
life somewhere, sometime, there would be a time for them but not here, not
now.
 
Her past would never allow it.
 
A man like Jake would never want a woman as
tarnished as she.
 
If he ever learned the
truth, he’d shun her and that would rip her heart from her.
 

Why
wouldn't he?
 
After all, she'd allowed it
all to happen.
 
It was her fault for
being so beautiful, so desirable.
 
She
asked for it.
 
That’s what her father
told her. What other men told her who paid him for her favors.
 
She should have said no, fought them, but
that was exactly what they, wanted, and enjoyed.
 
Why did it take her so long to run away?
 
Though she may never know the answers, at
least she had a few short years of peace.
 
As tears pooled beneath clamped eyelids, with Jake’s arms surrounding
her, Jordan allowed his warm lips, slanted across hers with tantalizing skill,
to erupt foreign desires.
  
She was ready
now, ready for the devil to make his claim.
 

As
if in answer, gunfire ceased, and the door opened rudely returning them to the
real world.
  

Deciphering
Billy's shocked expression, Jake announced, “Take good care of her for me,
Billy.
 
Don't let anything happen to
her.
 
Promise me.”
 
Jake’s skin was pale, his clothes' blood
drenched.
 
Staggering, his back came hard
against the wall and as he slithered to the floor leaving a red trail on the
wall Billy and Jordan watched with the same horror in their eyes'.
 
 

While
fear reared its ugly head and tension pulled nerves taut, like cold wires
touching skin, Billy begged for the strength to accept what was happening.
 
“Call an ambulance,” he screamed like a
woman, his mist-filled eyes locked on his hero.
 

Dropping
sharply to her knees, frantic fingers’ tore at layered material.
 
Every fear Jordan ever knew charged when she
didn't find Jake’s bullet proof vest.
 
Feelings running deep inside, so terrifying and painful, caused Jordan’s
fists to flail Jake's chest her fingers ripping cloth as she violently shook
him.
 
He couldn't die, not now, not ever,
not before she told him, he was her hero, how full her heart felt, word’s anger
shoved aside.
 
“Damn you, Morgan.
 
Where's your vest, you, stupid fool, you,
idiot.
 
Don't do this.
 
Don't do this to me.
 
Don't leave me.
 
Jesus, Jake, not now, not you.
 
It should have been me.
 
Why wasn't it me?”
 
Shocked numb, her heart and mind completely
stripped, she cursed heaven and earth for surviving the petrifying battle but
despite her despair, tears begging for freedom never came.

Billy
watched the scene revolted by his own weakness consumed with feelings of
remorse and self-contempt that stained everything he saw and heard.
 
Alarm bells rang in his brain.
 
Fear knifed through him.
 
Somehow, he had to banish the panic clawing
inside, there was so much to come to terms with, why Jake?
 
Why did he allow this to happen?
 
Who was the woman in rags?
 
Why were they dressed alike?
 
Why did Jake care about someone so
appalling?
 
Surely, hell had broken
through the center of the earth and was spilling over before his eyes.

When
Billy attempted to pull Jordan off Jake, she turned on him, screaming, kicking,
biting, scratching, and punching until Jake's garbled voice halted her.
  
“Watch out, Billy, she's a tiger, trust me,
it's easier to surrender.
 
She's better
than both of us.”
 
Lips curled into a
half smile, thinned, he grimaced, and as a dark shadow fell across his face, he
whispered, “I love you, Jordan.”

Jordan
shot to her feet.
 
Her back came sharply
against the casing of the door.
 
Hands
quickly covering her face hid the disbelief registering there.
 
No one but her mother ever said those words to
her.
 
Jake was crazy.
 
Surely he was dying.
 
Why would he say something so
ridiculous?
 
How could he love someone
like her, why?

The
sensation of moisture on her face convinced her finally the tears screaming for
escape had come.
 
Red tears, the sight of
which forced her glance to the front of her clothes, then to the floor where
Jake's gun lay.
 
Within seconds her mind
rewound, and replayed the events.
 
She’d
pulled the trigger; and killed the only man she ever loved.
  
Turning hurt filled eyes on Billy, Jake's
words shrieked in her mind.
 
“Damn you,
Jordan, you'll be the death of me long before my fucking cigarettes.”
 

Before
Billy could stop her she stooped, plucked Jake’s gun held it to her head and
fired.
 
In the far off distance, she,
heard the most horrible scream, felt her body hit the floor, then more voices,
and flashes of light.
 
At last, she was
dead.