The Penance of Black Betty (8 page)

              She took his hand. “I saw a sign for horseback riding on the beach. Do you think we could do that tomorrow?” She yawned.

              Alistair sat on the bed beside her and brushed her hair back from her forehead. “We can do anything you want.”

              She reached up and slid her hand around the back of his neck and pulled him down to her. “Thank you for today—for everything, every day.”

              Her lips pressed against his and his chest swelled. “You don’t owe me a thank you. I haven’t done anything.”

              Bethany scooted over and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him down beside her. He snuggled in next to her and rested his forehead against hers. “You’ve done more than you know,” she whispered. “You’re the only person I have. I don’t know anyone else.”

              The weight of her words sank in his stomach. “You have other people. You have your old boss, Mark, and your co-workers. You kept to yourself though—were pretty independent.”

              She looked up at him, shyly. “Am I too clingy now?”

              “No.” He cupped her face in his hands. “God, no. Don’t ever think that. I love you just like you are.”

              “What if I’m never like her again?” Her eyes shined with wetness.

              “You
are
her, but the
best
parts. You’re kind and caring. You let yourself be vulnerable and trusting. That you can do that when you don’t even remember me—us—means so much to me. It means your strong and brave, just like you’ve always been. You didn’t lose yourself or her, you lost the shield you built around yourself and that’s okay. It’s for the best. There was so much of your past that needed to be forgotten to free you, and now you are—free to be who you’re meant to be.”

              Tears fell from her eyes. “What if--”

              Alistair placed a finger over her lips. “No more what if’s. Even if your memories come back, you’re still who you are. You can handle the memories without letting them take you down a dark path. And I’ll be here with you, no matter what.”

              He kissed her then, putting every ounce of emotion he felt in his heart into it. She shifted, urging him on top of her. Her hands found their way up his shirt, into his hair, over his hips. He was so delirious in his love for this woman, he didn’t know who started undressing the other first, all he knew was that soon they were bare, pressed skin against skin, kissing like it was their air to breathe. She wrapped her legs around his and he pushed inside her. They stayed that way, still, joined, kissing like they were drowning in each other. He began rocking into her, slowly, gently, making love to her. It had  never been like this—an act of the heart and mind—before. Alistair had never experienced anything like this, anything that wasn’t lust-fueled sex, even with a woman he loved. This was beyond sex. It was beautiful and innocent, the definition of love making. He wanted it to last forever.

              Bethany threaded her fingers between his, holding tightly. Her lips parted from his as her neck arched. He felt it then too, the heat, the gripping urge, the pressure mounting. Bethany let out a hoarse cry, her insides contracting around him. He groaned and buried his lips against her neck, spilling into her. “I love you,” he whispered against her damp skin.

              “Thank you for loving me.” She ran her nails up and down his back. “I love you, too. I know I have for a while, haven’t I?”

              “I hope so.” Alistair lifted his head and looked into her eyes. “I’m not ever going to stop loving you either. We might as well get married and start having kids.” He prodded her side, tickling her. “Am I scaring you?”

              She laughed. “No. We didn’t use a condom—does that scare you?”

              For a moment, he couldn’t breathe, but after a second or two of examining how he felt about it, was surprisingly calm. “No. I’m not bothered at all by that. I have this feeling that something bigger than us is guiding us together now.”

              “Ixchel?” She nuzzled her nose against the tip of his.

              “Maybe. Some kind of strange fate gets credit for bringing us together. I’m just the lucky bastard that gets to be with you.”

              He rolled to his back, pulling her against him. She rested her head on his shoulder and let out a contented sigh. It was the best sound he’d ever heard.

             
EPILOGUE

              The horses galloped ahead on the beach. Alistair did his best to hang back with Bethany. Leave it to her to get the slowest horse in the stable. “I’m trying,” he called back. “This bloody thing won’t slow down!”

              Alistair finally found something he wasn’t good at. She watched him struggle in the saddle and laughed. The group moved farther and farther ahead. She nudged her heels into her horse’s sides. “Giddy up!” He kept his slow and steady pace. “Come on!”

              Up ahead, Alistair was trying to turn his horse around to come to her rescue. Surely, someone would notice they weren’t with the group and come back for them.

              Bethany’s gray and white horse shuffled along in the sand, wandering diagonally toward the jungle away from the water. She tugged the reins, but the stubborn beast wouldn’t move where she wanted him to.

              “On my way!” Alistair shouted, hanging onto his horse’s reigns for dear life as it galloped toward her.

              When his horse got within about ten feet of hers, her horse finally decided to run—in the opposite direction. Bethany screamed as she leaned forward, clinging to the reigns, saddle and horse’s mane. “Whoa! I said WHOA!” She pulled back on the reigns doing her best to keep her balance while bouncing up and down on the saddle.

              She heard the hoofs of Alistair’s horse not too far behind her. “You need a whip for that thing!” he yelled.

              A memory burst in front of her eyes.

              Her.

              In a club.

              In front of him.

              A smug look on his face. A cigar in his mouth. Her cracking a long, black whip on the marble floor at his feet and saying, “For the next hour, you’re mine to play with.”

              A series of memories flooded her mind. Hot wax dripping on his chest, handcuffing him in a bathroom stall, the first time she’d let him inside her—physically and mentally at the same time.

              With another yank, her horse began to slow. Alistair came up alongside her. “Okay?” he asked.

              She knew she should tell him she’d remembered, and she would, just not right then. There was something very special with what they’d found together, the new memories they’d created over the days she’d been made into someone new. She didn’t want to return to where they’d been. She only wanted to move forward exactly how things were between them.

              When they got home she’d tell him.

              Home. To LA. With Alistair.

              Forever.

             
THE END

             
About Dolls & Doms And Kelli Maine

              Dolls & Doms is episodic, erotic flash fiction told at
www.DollsAndDoms.blogspot.com
. The Penance Of Black Betty is the second in a novella series based on the episodes on the blog and the follow up to The Submission of Alistair Ingram.

              Kelli Maine is the USA Today Bestselling author of the Give & Take series, Taken, No Take Backs, Taken By Storm, Take Me Back, Given (March 4, 2014)  and Take This Man  (March 4, 2014). She’s one of the founders of The Naughty Mafia and loves meeting readers on
Facebook
and
Twitter
. Updates can be found on her blog,
www.kellimaine.blogspot.com
.