Sleep evades me at every turn. I’ve brought up Trick’s number on my phone at least a half a dozen times, but my finger won’t press Send. After hours of restlessness and pent-up anxiety, I ignore the clock reading 3:30 a.m. and throw on my shorts and sports bra.

An hour later I’m drenched in sweat, and my legs feel like jelly from spinning the hell out of them. The only thing more exhausted than my legs is my mind. I’ve replayed the evening so many times trying to figure out what went wrong. Why does Trick feel off and what does that mean? It’s as if it has something to do with Rachel, but that really doesn’t make sense either. He watched her with a tense look of confusion even when she wasn’t looking at him. Maybe he was pissed that she was so insistent on dinner then completely avoided all topics of conversation that involved him.

Ugh!

I wish I could figure it out. Instead, I’m showered and ready for work two hours early. Hunger hasn’t hit, and exhaustion is lurking but not ready to overtake my incessant stream of thoughts. A quick text might ease my mind. He’ll get it when he wakes and maybe text me back so I can focus on work today without obsessing over last night.

Me: Sorry about dinner. You were right, we shouldn’t have gone. Couldn’t sleep well without you … missing you. Hope your day isn’t so “off.”

After I send it, I force down my last Green Lantern and head into work early. It’s sad that I hope some emergency comes along that will require an extra set of hands. I need to preoccupy my mind until I can see Trick again.

The unusually slow day in the ER drags on, but I’m off now and headed to Trick’s. He never texted me back, which is surprising since I was nice enough to send my earlier message Emoji-free. The lights are off at Rogue Seduction, so I park and head up to his place. When I reach the top floor and open the gate, I’m greeted with him in just a pair of shorts doing another funky yoga pose that brings shades of crimson to my skin. His name alone turns me on; everything else is an erotic bonus.

“Hey.” I smile as he lowers to his feet.

“Hey.” He wipes his face with a towel. “I didn’t know you were coming by.”

I stop my forward motion that’s intended to put my body in his arms—the place I’m so desperate to be right now. “Uh … well, I’m sorry. Guess I should have called.”

He gulps down a glass of water, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “So what’s up?”

I’m not the foremost expert on relationships, at least ones that mean anything, but the thick, tight knot in my stomach gives me the uneasy feeling that he’s trying to blow me off. Holy shit, is he dumping me? Trick’s not saying the words, but his actions speak volumes. He didn’t kiss me goodnight; he didn’t return my text; he’s not welcoming me with any sort of affection … He’s not making me feel welcome at all.

Pushing the words past the lump in my throat, I muster a weak smile. “Nothing’s up. I thought we could get some dinner or something—”

“I already ate.” He sets his glass down and looks at me like I’m the equivalent of a neighbor coming by to ask for a cup of sugar … and he doesn’t have any.

An embarrassing mess of emotions threatens to overtake my composure. “Okay, well…” I step back toward the elevator “…I guess I’ll see you around.”

He stares at me … no words, yet his silence says everything.

I shut the gate and flip the switch. With just one shaky breath my heart overflows with suffocating pain pushing a flood of emotions to the surface. Cupping my hand over my mouth, I hold my breath, my tears, and my sobs inside until a gush of air hits me as I emerge from his building.

The door slams shut and I lean against the side of the brick building and fall to pieces. I know the anger will hit at some point, and I’ll say the words to him that will give me back some dignity and help rebuild my confidence; but right now … I just need to cry.

Not being able to make sense of it just intensifies the pain. Was it my father? Rachel? The wealth that surrounds me? Wiping away the tears, I push off the side of the building and adjust my scarf so it covers most of my tear-stained face as I take shaky steps toward my car.

“Darby.” Trick’s voice at my back twists the knife a little deeper.

I stop, but I can’t turn and look at him.

“Come.”

Closing my eyes, a few more painful tears fall down my cheeks as I shake my head. Opening them I take in a breath of courage and continue walking to my car.

“Darby!”

My legs move faster until I’m jogging. With each pounding step I rush my heart to safety. Strong arms grab me from behind, and as he hugs me I completely shatter. My brain screams for him to let me go, but my words are buried under too many emotions. When love and anger collide, it rains down a flood of heartache. I hate feeling vulnerable; it hurts so fucking bad.

“I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, just come back.”

“I-I don’t understand …”

Trick turns me around; the stoic face that I’m used to seeing has been replaced with dark eyebrows gathered in a pained expression. “I’m messed up and I should …” He squeezes his eyes shut.

Clenching my fingers into his shirt, I jerk at it. “What? You should what? Let me go?” Rage builds with each word, each breath.

He opens his eyes—regret. God, it’s so thick in his expression.

“If you try and give me the ‘it’s not you it’s me’ or ‘I should let you go’ bullshit story, I swear I will never forgive you.” I release a sob. “So fucking make up your mind…” I shake my head, emotions surging out of control “…because you’re killing me.”

Trick grabs my head, and fisting my hair he kisses me so hard it feels like he’s taking my very last breath. My tongue fights with his for control as desire turns into an insatiable need that can no longer be ignored. As he starts to ease up, I grab his face, holding his mouth to mine. Stopping or even slowing down feels impossible.

Grabbing my ass with a bruising grip, he lifts me up and I clench my legs around him as he moves toward the alley. He pushes my back against the unforgiving brick wall a few feet from his door and rips off my scarf. The friction from his rough face burns my sensitive skin as he sucks and drags his teeth over my flesh.

“Trick …” I grind my hips into him, feeling the head of his erection through his shorts. My mind flashes to ‘what if someone looks down the alley?’ but that’s all the further that thought goes. “Fuck me, Trick …”

His hands move under my blouse, and with the impatience I’m craving, he jerks down my bra and cups my breasts so hard I cry out in pain. Sliding one hand around, he palms my ass and stumbles the last few feet to the door. He types in the code while I reach between us, sliding my hand into his shorts.

“Fuck!” He throws open the door, staggering inside until my back hits the metal lattice elevator gate.

My grip on his cock hardens and so does he as I stroke him, grazing my thumb over the wet tip. Pulling my hand away, he sets me on my feet. Before he can slide the gate open, I hunch down taking his shorts and briefs with me.

“Darby—”

I take him in my mouth and suck until he falls forward with a clanging rattle of the gate, leaning his forehead against it and gripping it with his hands.

“Shit! St-stop …” His words come out desperation and broken as he clenches his teeth, sucking in a hissing breath.

Releasing him, I kiss my way up his torso, pushing his shirt up until he grabs it with one hand and shrugs it off. Pressing my lips to his hard pectoral muscle, I bite down on it relishing the salty taste of his sweat.

He growls and grabs my face, smashing our mouths together. I dig what little nails I have into his hard ass with one hand and stroke him with my other. One minute I have my shirt on, the next he’s tearing it open; the clink of the buttons flittering across the floor barely audible over our moans.

My breasts tingle, heavy in his hands as he kneads them with a firm, rough grip, circling his thumbs over my nipples. “Trick—” My head falls back against the gate, jaw slack.

He tortures my neck all the way to my collarbone with nipping kisses; sometimes sucking so hard I swear he’s marking me. When his mouth finds my breasts, I grab two fists full of his hair and hold him to me while arching my back. Pressing one hand to the small of my back, he slips his other down the front of my leggings.

“Oh … God …” My chin falls to my chest, he looks up at me with his mouth covering my nipple, sucking and teasing as he slides two fingers into me, pressing his palm against my clit.

“You’re so fucking wet.” He releases my nipple and groans while holding my gaze.

Trick hypnotizes me with his eyes. I cup his sexy face, running my thumb across his lips as my breaths come quicker. His tongue darts out and I slip my thumb into his mouth. Closing his eyes he sucks on it, matching the slow thrusting rhythm of his fingers.

“N-now … I-I need it now,” I beg with a weak, breathy voice.

I whimper from the loss of his touch, but then he pulls off my boots and removes my leggings and drenched panties. He wets his lips and grabs my hips. I know where he’s going, but the instant his touch breaches my folds I know I’m going to explode, and I need this to last.

“Don’t!”

He looks up at me with a slight squint of confusion. My heart still aches, and I want him to take that feeling away. I need to feel him crawl under my skin and possess me … claim me … own me.

“Just fuck me … I need you to fuck me until the only thing I feel is how hard you’re fucking me.”

In an instant, a storm rolls into his eyes and everything goes dark. I see the color of his past and feel intensity radiating from his body as he comes to standing. I look up and I. Just. Need.

“As you wish.” No smile, not even a twitch.

Grabbing my hips, he turns me toward the gate. My heart pounds against my ribs, my breath the only sound slicing the eerie silence. I gulp down any fear that tries to work its way up my throat as Trick ghosts his hands down my arms, leaving a prickling of bumps in their wake. With a firm grip he takes my hands and places them on the metal lattice.

“Hold on tight,” he rasps in my ear.

Wedging his leg between both of mine, he spreads me wide, clenches my hips until I suck in a seething breath of air between my teeth, and then he slams into me. My piercing cry doesn’t stop him. He pulls back and does it over and over again. My knees threaten to buckle as the intensity builds. Trick grabs my hair and pulls my head back with a slow but very firm tug.

“Stay standing,” he demands through labored breaths.

My numb fingers curl into the unforgiving metal of the gate that’s slipping from my sweaty grip. “Trick!” I cry his name as his fingers press to my clit. “I’m … I-I’m … close …”

And then … he pulls out.

“No!” The orgasm that’s sitting on the edge waiting to be released blurs my vision.

Whipping my disoriented body around, he assaults my breasts and neck with his lips, teeth, and tongue. Mission accomplished, my heart feels nothing but its own galloping beat. Now I need the release so I move my hand between my legs and my drunken eyes start to roll back in my head.

“Not happening.” Trick grabs my wrist and moves both of my hands around his neck.

“T-Trick …”

He lifts me up and eases me down onto him. I drop my head to his shoulder, but he doesn’t move, even when I try to rock my pelvis into him, our chests ebbing and flowing together. The split second of reprieve ends and he finishes me.

My back hits the gate and the metal bites my skin as he shows no mercy fucking me not into next week, but the next century. Even after my orgasm rips me apart and his warm release invades me, he continues to grind into me as if he’s making sure I have absolutely nothing left to feel, like each thrust is an exclamation point at the end of the most profound sentence.

When our bodies come to rest, he licks a slow path up my sweat-covered neck and whispers in my ear, “Hard enough for you?”

Chasing my breath that’s just too far gone to ever catch, I nod.

Wrapped around his body, we take the elevator up and he lays me on his bed. Somewhere between that first punishing kiss and my incredible, hard-earned orgasm, the pain evaporated and now I’m … better.

Confusion? Pain? Regret? I wonder what’s going through Trick’s mind as he sits on the edge of the bed with his back to me, head bowed. I sit up and press a soft kiss to his shoulder while wrapping my arms around him.

“When I was twenty I was hit by a car.”

My grip on him stiffens. I rest my cheek against his back, waiting idle for his next word.

“The trauma to my head involved some memory loss. They said it could be permanent or temporary … it feels permanent.”

Holding my breath, I remain paralyzed by his words.

“When I think about my past it’s … it’s like I can’t remember and I can’t forget. Sometimes I’m so lost I can’t find my own reality.”

Tracing my finger along the sanskrit that wraps around to his back, I blink through the tears … the raw empathy I feel for him. Don’t look back in anger.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

He lets out a small breath of a laugh. “Sketching my father playing his harmonica at the subway station. He made twenty-one dollars and fifty-two cents that night. I sold the sketch to a commuter for thirty.”

I stop my tracing motion. “But you told me about the day your parents disappeared.” I can’t bring myself to concede that they’re dead. “That had to be after you sketched your dad.”

“I’ve been gifted bits and pieces of my lost past from people who knew me. A pastor from an inner city church was one of those people. He visited me in the hospital every day after the accident. When I was ready to face the reality of my memory loss, he told me about the weeks I spent looking for my parents.” Trick turns and looks at me but only for a moment before he casts his eyes downward. “So sometimes I take those pieces and fill in the gaps to give myself a story … a past.”

Of course I can’t fathom what he’s really been through, but in a small way I understand what’s it’s like to take pieces of something and give it a life again. I do it every day. “Is that what happened last night? Were you giving yourself a past for my father and Rachel … for me?”

His eyes find mine again, and there they are—those million unspoken emotions. “Sort of.”

“I still don’t understand why you tried to shut me out.”

With a slight shake of his head, he sighs. “It was too much. Last night I wanted so bad to remember; I needed to remember, but I couldn’t. Five years of my life—gone, erased. What if I remember? What if I wasn’t a nice person? What if I did bad things?” He rests his palm against my cheek. “Will you still choose to love me?”

Placing my hand over his, I close my eyes. A world where I’m not loving Trick seems unimaginable and cruel. But since he snuck into my life and claimed my emotions, I have no idea how I would react. He’s good at keeping secrets, he owns a gun, and an hour ago I thought he was dumping me. Predicting my reaction to the shitload of unknown that happened in five missing years of a drug addict’s life is astronomically impossible.

Opening my eyes, all I can do is speak what my heart shares with his. “If you remember who you were, will you still choose to love me?”

He answers with a slow kiss. It may be a yes or it may be a no … or it may just be that in love and life certainty is never more than a breath away.