My Cherie Amour (Fully Posted)

Chapter 1

To most of the world, Karina was dead. But sometimes, through methods he didn't quite understand, Blaise brought her back to life.

Amid the dinner that he shared with his current girlfriend, Laurencia, he was tempted to do just that.

"Are you listening to me?" she asked. The edge in her voice contrasted sharply with the smooth jazz from his record player.

Catching himself before he jumped in his seat, Blaise worked to still the trembling of his fingers. "I'm sorry, darling," he said. Awareness of his suite on the upper level of Club Laveau returned slowly. His mind and body had been in a cabin with a view of Niagara Falls, where Karina was happy by his side.

Laurencia's expression changed from one of frustration to concern. "You've been so distracted lately. I guess it's because of the tour. I know it can't plan itself."

While he didn't regret diverging from the present, Blaise had meant his apology. So, he shoved down the discomfort he felt whenever he looked at his bare ring finger, and he took hold of her hand. "True, but I never want you to feel ignored. What were you saying to me?"

"I was saying that Newcastle starts filming soon. What do you think about coming to set? I'd love to have you there on my first day."

"And I'd love to support you, but I can't promise anything. Ontario's a bit far from my rehearsals."

Laurencia folded her arms, and Blaise admired the ferocity behind her beauty. He always found her striking, especially in the ways that she resembled his late wife, but he usually bypassed this realization until she was angry.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were avoiding me," she said. "This is the third time this month that you've turned down an invite. What gives?"

"Darling, no one's avoiding you. It's just like you said: I've been busy preparing for the tour. But believe me when I say that I want you around as much as possible. That's why I asked you to come here tonight. I missed you. I need you."

As he spoke, Laurencia's lips widened into a smile. She appeared to have bought his half-truth completely.

Gripping his black silk shirt with the hand he wasn't holding, she leaned in to murmur in his ear. "Maybe what's throwing you off is this meal. I bet your other appetite wants attention."

In this, she wasn't wrong.

"Why don't we have our dessert in the bedroom?" he suggested, his natural bass tone deepening even further.

Her eyes darkened with desire. "Ah, cariño, I thought you'd never ask."

***

Every time they were intimate, Blaise told himself that things would be different, that he would be different. He'd vow that he'd allow the woman in his arms to remain in her dominant form, and he'd accept her on those merits alone.

He always broke that vow.

He waited for the moment when she said she could take no more, indeed, when she was slumbering from their exertions, and then he made a trail of exactly seven kisses from the top of her head to the skin above her heart. "Take me to the river," he'd hum after the seventh kiss.

That was when the transformation began.

Blaise could never look away from the reshaping. He felt a kind of fascination for the horror of contortions, retractions, and extensions, a heightened attraction to the process that supplanted one set of curves, casing of skin, mane of hair, and package of features with those three years lost. His favorite part was also the most terrifying to his faculties.

In the bed where seconds before another laid, Karina Hayworth-Draper opened her eyes.

"Hello, my baby," Blaise whispered when those eyes met his own.

His wife giggled. "Hello, Mr. Draper."

***

Blaise felt what he called an electric kind of love with Karina. He didn't feel in control of it, and in both life and death, she professed that neither did she.

"Are you satisfied?" she asked while they recovered from the shocks of mutual pleasure.

"Never," he said. That's when the tears of rage, rage that had plagued him for so long it was an old friend, fell.

Karina's shaky breaths cooled his face wherever she kissed his tears. "I wish I didn't have to go," she said between kisses. "I wish we could be together all the time."

"It makes no sense," he said, attempting to pull her closer although they were as close as they could be. "Of all the things to take you from me, an accident seems so random. The fact that I can bring you back, even for a little while, proves that we're bound, that you should be here."

Karina's brow furrowed. "I don't know if that's true, liebling. We still haven't figured out how you've been able to do this or why it only works when you're with Laurencia."

"I don't care about the why," he said.

"But I do. My spirit's in limbo when I'm not out here. I'm trapped in a cold, quiet void without the first clue for an escape."

Blaise shook his head. "Don't talk about that place. We'll find a way to get you out for good."

"At what expense? Laurencia's life? Your well-being? Maybe—"

"That's enough," he said. "I know what you're going to say and I don't want to hear it. I won't even think it."

Sadness and humor waged war on her face. "The green in those hazel eyes . . . it gets stronger when you're upset."

"Well, jealousy's a green-eyed monster. I've always been jealous for you."

Her form began to shake, and her eyes rolled back in her head. "The connection is weakening."

Blaise had known that these words were inevitable, but that didn't stop him from wanting to stop the shift. "Don't leave me," he pleaded. "I love you."

"I love you," she echoed.

This same exchange had been repeating on a loop for two years now. He couldn't help the response, and he couldn't halt what followed. The transformation reversed, he relived his grief for Karina, and he waited with no little anguish until Laurencia was back in her place. Miraculously, she slept like nothing of significance had happened. It was enough to make Blaise question his own sanity.

When the guilt, grief, and questions finally got too loud, he left her and the bed to visit his liquor cabinet.

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