Kintsugi

Chapter 3

"They're so beautiful," Marlena whispered to John as she watched Brady and Belle sleep in their respective beds. "I feel like I've missed so much over the last year. With everything that happened at Maison Blanche, and then..." Marlena's voice wandered off as she became emotional again. John reached for her, pulling her into his arms. She had been very sensitive over the last week, as more and more memories of the possession came back to her. Sometimes the memories came as flashbacks, but most often they were coming to her in her dreams. She would wake in the night screaming, thrashing about, and calling out for John.

The gentle pressure of John's hand as it squeezed her arm reassuringly, and the scent of his skin drifting across her face, calmed her in a way nothing else could. John had been her rock over the last week, and as time went by, she found herself depending on him more and more. He had ended up in her bed three times over the last week, as a result of her near constant nightmares. He would hold her in his arms, whispering to her her in reassuring tones, bringing her back from whatever nightmare had entrapped her mind. She tipped her face up to nuzzle into his neck, running her nose over his pulse point, and then kissing him softly.

They were crossing lines. They were crossing so many lines. He was still a priest, and while his paperwork was being processed to leave the priesthood, until that was final...he was still a priest. John's body shivered with want, as he felt her soft lips on his neck. She pulled away, tucking her head into his shoulder, and he shivered again feeling the air wash over the wet spot left behind by her mouth. John released an involuntary moan from low in his throat, causing Marlena to pull back, and look up at him. Her fingers brushed across his lips, almost of their own accord, while they continued to stare at each other.

"John," she whispered, at a loss for words to express what she was feeling. She wanted him, and this was so wrong.

Unable to stop himself, he pulled her from the nursery by her wrist, and out into the hallway. Marlena moaned softly as her face, and her chest made contact with the wall, John's body flush with hers against her back. His heat permeated her body, as he held her hands in his against the cool flat surface. John's mouth was next to her ear, and he whispered, "You make me have the dirtiest fantasies about you."

Marlena was struck by another memory of when she was possessed. She was tied to the bed, surrounded by John, Kristen, Mike and Father Francis, as the exorcism continued. The demon inside her was frantic to end it, grasping at straws to find a weakness in one of the quorum members. They were baiting John, trying to get a reaction out of him, rage, fury...something...anything, that would break their focus, and end the torture. The demon started with talking about Kristen, but got no response. Then they said to John, "Maybe you want Marlena. She's the one you have all the filthy dreams about. Isn't that right?" Marlena had seen in her minds eye the type of dreams John had about her, and she wanted them. All of them. Even trapped in her own mind, under the control of an evil outside force, she couldn't deny that John's dreams and fantasies echoed her own. Marlena turned her face to him, and gasped against John's lips, in response to his confession, "Me, too. Oh, G-d! Me, too!"

He ground his hips into her backside roughly, asking her, "You have dirty dreams about me, Doc? Fantasies? If you only knew the things I dream about doing to you..."

"I think I do," she whispered breathlessly. "I saw them...when I was possessed...the demon showed me..."

John was surprised to learn the the demon had shown her his dreams, and aroused at the same time, knowing she wanted them. She knew, and she wanted it. John forced himself to pull away from her, saying, "I think we need to go to bed."

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Marlena stared at John from her position on the bed as he told her, "I recorded our session. A voice on the tape was calling out to me. It was a woman's voice."