Avenoir

Avenoir - Marlena

Marlena

"Never!" I can't believe he would feel guilty for all this. The only thing he ever did was what I urged him to do. What I begged him to do. To walk away. To make a life with someone else. "You never let me down, John. It was me. I pushed you away. I pushed you into Kristen's arms. If this is anyone's fault, it's mine."

"Oh no, baby," I feel his fingers thread through my hair and clutch handfuls of it and I draw my fingers down his chest, dragging my fingernails lightly through the dark hair. "No. This is not your fault," he tells me earnestly as he takes a breath. "We've both been the victims of circumstance."

"Circumstance with the name DiMera," I look up into his eyes. I want him so badly. I don't want to spend the time we have together discussing who is to blame and I definitely do not want to sully it with thoughts of Kristen or her vile father. "John, we've lost so much time."

"Then let's not lose anymore," he says as he looks down at me, his eyes a deep midnight blue, full of mystery and wonder. And love. So much love. "Fuck, I love you, Marlena. I just fucking love you. With all my heart and soul."

My heart feels full to overflowing and I have to choke back my tears as I reach up to kiss him. "I love you too," I whisper against his beautiful soft lips, "I love you with my whole, entire heart. There is no one else for me. There really never has been, since the moment you took my hand in Shenanigan's, I was yours. I was so stupid to ever let you go." I slide my hands down over the concave arch of his lower back and pull his ass close to me so that I can kiss him, deeply and firmly. I never want him to doubt again how much I love him. I will spend my life making my mistakes up to him.

"I want to touch you," I tell him softly against his ear as his mouth explores my cheek and the curve of my jaw and my throat. "I want to see you. All of you." My hands slip beneath the elasticated waistband of his boxers so that I am fingering the warm soft flesh of his ass. Almost immediately I feel him tense beneath my touch, his buttocks taut as he groans and pulls back.

"I'm telling you," he growls, "If you so much as touch me, Doc, I am not going to be able to control myself."

"Maybe I don't want you to," I smile and bite my lip again. I know that drives him wild. This is all taking far too long. Foreplay is nice, but I am already more than ready for him. I can feel the moisture already coating my thighs, pooling on the wooden surface of the desk below me.

"Baby," he shakes his head. "We need to take this slow. It's been a long time since you..." He swallows and his cheeks redden slightly. "I mean, I am assuming here, I know. I mean, you've never dated or... anything... to my knowledge."

"You noticed?" I raise my eyebrows.

"Honey, honestly if I had seen you with another man, I probably would have gone insane with jealousy," he steps forward again and runs his fingertip ever so softly along my collarbone. "Maybe you should have," he murmurs, watching his finger as it traces a trail down over the swell of my breast and then hooks it between the lace of my bra and my skin. "Maybe it would have shaken me out of my stupid, selfish complacency."

"I couldn't," I confess slowly, my breathing shallow with arousal. Every time he touches me, my desire for him grows. And I didn't think I could want him any more than I did when he kissed me on Kristen's bed. But I was wrong. "I mean at first it was... the pain and the guilt after Roman left. You know it destroyed me. I didn't believe I deserved to be happy. I certainly couldn't let myself believe that I deserved you. And then, well..." I trail off.

We don't talk about what happened in late 1994. It's too painful for both of us. Him because he had to watch me do terrible things and had to resist my attempted seductions of him. And then, in the summer he had to watch as my body faded, terrified that if he failed to rid me of the demon, my soul would be damned to eternal torment.