I own none of the WWE superstars (but I'd love to own Mark for a night).
Gone
"Well. that's everything," Mark said, zipping up his luggage. "Almost."
I sat at the foot of the bed in the guest bedroom, just looking at him, taking in his appearance. I had been observing him the entire time he had been packing, trying to get as many details as possible so that I could have a good mental representation of him in my mind. I closed my eyes to see if it had worked. Of course it had. I could already see him...
"Oh no, do I look that bad today?" he asked, sitting next to me.
I opened my eyes and looked at him. "What do you mean? You don't look bad and you know it."
"I know it, but I thought maybe you didn't," he said in a joking voice. "You had your eyes closed, and I thought that meant that you thought I looked bad."
"Never. I've always thought you looked good, even back when I supposedly 'hated' you," I said, putting one hand on his arm. "My opinion hasn't changed one bit... Well, except for the fact that I don't hate you."
"Mmmm, are you sure?" he asked, leaning over to kiss me.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure, but your kisses make me even more sure," I replied, kissing him back. This went on for quite some time until I pulled back, softly caressing his face. "Mark... Your flight..."
"Damn the flight," he whispered, leaning in to kiss me again. "I can catch another one later."
"What if there's not another flight that'll get you there on time?"
"Then I'll just be late."
"But you're under contract."
"They can rip up my contract."
"But then you won't have a job."
"Says who? There's always TNA."
"You? In TNA?" I repeated. "Yeah right. You've been with the WWE since 1990, and you've gained a lot of respect there. You wouldn't just lave that behind... You shouldn't."
"For you, I would," he said sincerely, cupping my cheek in his hand. "Jade, there are a lot of things I would do for you, just for the chance to be with you. I would literally give up wrestling for the chance to be with you, and you know how much wrestling means to me."
"I don't want you to give it all up for me," I said quietly. "I'm a married woman and there's no way I can divorce Glen right now, given our current situation... So don't give up your livelihood for me."
"I've been wrestling for a long, long time, since before I met you," he said, still cupping my cheek. "Jade, you're more important to me than wrestling, way more important..."
"You feel that way now, but you'll regret it later," I said matter-of-factly. "You'll regret it when Glen comes home and then I never see you again."
"Of course you'll see me again," he said. "But, like I said before, you mean so much more to me than wrestling."
I sighed and closed my eyes, leaning forward to kiss him. I wanted him to just stop telling me how much I meant to him, because it was just going to make it that much more difficult to watch him leave... I put my everything into the kiss, trying to show him how much I cared about him. When I pulled back to look at him a while later, the look on his face scared me, truly scared me.
"What's wrong?" I asked quietly.
"I don't want to leave you," he replied, just as quietly. "It's always like this, me having to leave you..."
"What are you talking about? This is the first time," I pointed out.
"For you, maybe, but I've always found it hard to leave you behind, even back when we argued constantly," he said, looking off into space. He had that look in his eye, that look a person gets when they're reliving old memories and reminiscing about the good old times. "Damn, you were so feisty," he said with a low chuckle, still thinking about times from the past. "I'd say something to you that was guaranteed to push your buttons, and you'd say something back just as bad. Every time we argued, you'd have that look in your eyes that made me just want to throw you up against the wall and... God, the things I wanted to do to your body..."
"Shhh, don't talk about us...doing it," I interrupted, looking over at the clock. "You'd get me all in the mood and we don't have enough time left before you have to leave..."
"I told you I'd catch a later flight," he reminded me, gently pushing me down on the bed until I was lying flat on my back. He leaned over me and looked down at me for a minute, trying to memorize my face like I had done to him earlier. After staring at me for a minute, he kissed me, and I kissed him back because, well, it just felt natural to do so. The kiss quickly got heated, and before I knew it, his rough hands were creeping beneath my shirt, trailing along my skin and lightly tugging my shirt up.
"Mark, Mark, baby wait," I whispered, breaking the kiss and trying to catch my breath. He looked at me, waiting for me to speak, which I did after a few moments when I finally caught my breath. "Your flight..."
"Could we please just forget about the damn flight?" he asked, frustration evident in his tone. He got off me and just kneeled there on the bed, looking at me before speaking. "It's like you want me to leave. Is that it?"
"Why would I want you to leave?" I asked, surprised that he thought that I wanted him to go. The truth was, I never wanted him to go, ever...
"You keep talking about my flight instead of talking about us," he said, sitting down fully on the bed. "That makes me feel like you want me to go...and that doesn't feel good." He sat on the edge of the bed and turned his back to me, obviously upset.
I crawled over to the edge of the bed and leaned against him, putting my arms around his neck from behind and leaning my chin on his shoulder so I could whisper into his ear. "I don't want you to go," I whispered into his ear, pressing a soft kiss to the space just below it. "I want you to stay with me so badly... Words can't even describe how much I need you in my life, Mark, so don't ever feel like I want you to go, because I don't..."
"You don't?" he asked, still not moving.
"I don't," I confirmed, letting my hands run over his chest. "I don't."
He didn't say anything else, but a minute later, he turned and looked at me with an excited look on his face. "I have an idea."
"What's that?" I asked curiously.
"Why don't you come with me?" he asked simply.
"Come with you where? To the airport?" I asked, confused.
"To the airport, on the plane, to whatever city Vince has me going to next..."
"That sounds appealing, but I can't... Glen..."
"Jade, Glen gets out of the hospital in exactly one week. One week! Do you know what that means?" he asked me in a desperate voice. "That means... We might not see each other for a long time, a very long time...and I don't want to be without you, but you insist on staying with Glen."
"He's my husband. I made a vow to stay with him," I said, looking away from him. "You know that."
"Yeah, I know," he said bitterly. "I was there, I was the best man, I had to be right up front and watch the whole blasted wedding... That was difficult."
"I'm sorry. I didn't know," I said, touching his chin, making him look into my eyes. "I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault," he said sadly, staring into my eyes. "But you could make it all better for me if you just came with me for these next four or five days."
"Playing the guilt trip on me, huh?" I asked, smiling lightly at him as I touched his face.
"Only if it's working," he said slyly, cocking his head to the side and studying my face intently. He looked at me like he knew he'd won already, but he wanted to hear me say it. "Is it?"
"I never need much persuasion to be with you, and I'm guessing you know that already," I said, leaning my forehead against his. "Yes, Mark, I'll go with you..."
"It'll be fun," he said happily, grabbing me and hugging me tightly to him. "Me and you on the road... We've never done that before, not without Glen. It would be a new experience, one where we're not pretending to hate each other's guts and-"
"Mark?" I interrupted quietly.
"Yeah?" he asked, still hugging me to him.
"I can't breathe..."
I'm not quite sure how he managed to pull it off. Maybe it was because of his status as a well-known, well-respected wrestler, or maybe because he looked like he would snap someone in half if they ever told him no... Either way, he somehow managed to snag a plane ticket for me, too, and hours later, we were entering the lobby of a high-scale hotel together.
"This is nice, isn't it?" he asked, looking down at me as we walked over to get checked in.
"Yes, this is nice," I agreed, smiling up at him as he smiled down at me. We were walking side by side, but we weren't holding hands or anything because we were in public. Any one of his coworkers could see us, and all of them knew that Glen was my husband so it would've been quite suspicious... How would we explain ourselves anyway, given the fact that everyone knew how much he and I had supposedly "hated" each other in the past?
"Jade!" an excited female voice exclaimed from behind me. I knew that screechy voice anywhere. I turned around to see Stephanie hurrying over to me with her husband Paul in tow. "Oh my God, what are you doing here, girl?" she asked excitedly.
"Mark thought it would be good for me to get away from home for the next few days," I explained, glancing at Paul for a moment. He looked at me with one eyebrow raised and an inquiring look in his eyes, and I quickly turned back to Stephanie. "Glen comes home next week."
"Wow, really?" she asked, eyes wide.
"Yeah, really," I replied, looking over at Mark. "Steph, I don't know how I'm going to do it..."
"Do what?" Paul asked, interrupting our conversation.
"It's nothing. We're having a girl talk," Stephanie told him. "Why don't you and Mark go get checked in while Jade and I go for a little walk?"
"Fine," he agreed. "I guess I'll meet you up in the room or something."
"Jade, where are you going?" Mark asked as he came back over to where Stephanie and I were standing.
"We're going for a walk," Stephanie answered for me. "We have things to discuss..." She lowered her voice, even though her husband had already walked away. "We're going to go talk about...you know, what's going to happen when he gets home."
"Ok, but... Don't keep her away too long, ok? These are our last few days together for a while, and I don't want to be away from her," he said quietly. He looked at me for a minute, then passed me a key card and told me what room we were staying in. "Don't leave me alone too long," he whispered to me.
"I won't," I whispered back, wanting nothing more than to reach out and touch him. "I'll come back to you..."
Stephanie and I watched him walk over and disappear into the elevator before we turned and left. We walked down the street in silence, and pretty soon we had ended up in a small little diner just down the block from the hotel. We managed to get a booth in a discreet area of the diner, and before we knew it, we were both sipping our drinks and sitting in silence.
"So, how's Chris?" I asked, finally breaking the silence and looking at her.
"Chris is the same as usual... Always as perfect as ever," she said, her eyes lighting up at the mention of her lover. She looked at me and her brows furrowed a little. "But this isn't about Chris... What are you going to do now that Glen is coming home?"
"You waste no time in getting to the point, do you?" I asked, laughing lightly. "You're straightforward in every situation..."
"I know, thanks," she said, laughing a little as well. "And sorry, Jade, but you can't change the subject that fast with me and expect to get away with it."
"Damn it, you're too smart and witty," I said, sipping my drink and hoping I'd successfully changed the subject from me to her.
"I know. Chris does say that to me often, but Paul doesn't..." Her voice trailed off and she stared somberly off into space for a minute, before shaking her head and looking back at me. "You're slick, Jade, real slick, but I'm on to you... Now spill. What are you going to do?"
"I don't know," I admitted, looking down into my drink. "I mean, I guess I'll break it off with Mark and-"
"Whoa, whoa, no way," she interrupted, causing me to look up at her. "There's no way you can just end things with Mark. The man loves you. You can't just break his heart that way."
"But I can't keep being with him when Glen gets home. The guilt is already overflowing," I explained, shaking my head. "I just don't see any way that I can continue seeing Mark, especially with the fact that I'm going to be taking care of Glen until he's better."
"You're going to need help taking care of him. He's a big man," she said thoughtfully. "Will he be able to walk and everything?"
"I'm not sure when he'll be able to walk, but I know he's not going to be able to walk just yet," I informed her, remembering what Dr. Gunter had told me a few days before. "He'll have to stay off his feet, and we haven't decided whether we'll let him stay upstairs or if we'll make up a room downstairs for him."
"You're going to have to hire help," she said decidedly. "And you're going to have to come up with a schedule, and make sure that you make the appropriate space in that schedule to be with Mark."
"So wait, you think it would work? You think when Glen comes home that I could continue this...thing I have with Mark?" I asked curiously.
"It'll only work if you want it to work," she said wisely. "I mean, how do you think Chris and I manage to stay married but be with each other at the same time?"
"I don't know," I said, shaking my head. "But I'd pay you to teach me."
"I'll teach you for free," she said with a laugh. "See, it's like this..."
A little while later, Stephanie and I parted ways when we got out of the elevator on my floor in the hotel. Her suite with Paul was on a different floor, but Chris's room was on the same floor as mine, at the opposite end of the hall. I made my way to my shared room with Mark, then went inside.
"Mark?" I called quietly as I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me. "Where are you?"
"I'm in here, baby," he called back. "Back in the room... Come on back here."
I walked through the suite to the room where Mark was. When I entered the room, I saw him sitting on the edge of the bed. The room was dark, lit by the glow of a single bedside lamp. I walked over and sat next to him on the bed, and he instinctively put an arm around me. We sat like that for a while, and then he sighed.
"What's wrong?" I asked, looking at him.
"I missed you," he said, looking back at me. "You were gone for maybe only half an hour, and I missed you." He looked away from me, off into the darkness where the light of the lamp didn't reach.
"What's so wrong with missing me?" I wondered, putting one hand on his thigh. "I missed you, too."
"You weren't even gone that long, and I felt like I was going to go crazy without you," he said, still looking off into space. "I wanted to leave this place, go find you, and take you away from Stephanie... I wanted you all for myself."
"I didn't mean to stay away for so long," I said apologetically. "I just... Stephanie was telling me how she and Chris manage to maintain their relationship despite the fact that they're both married to different people."
"Our relationship is different from theirs," he pointed out. "Really different."
"I don't think it's that different," I said thoughtfully. "I mean, they started out supposedly "hating" each other, just like we did, and somewhere along the line, they fell for each other, amidst the constant teasing and arguments... It sounds just like us."
"They haven't been caught yet, though, and we have," he said sadly. "Glen knows about what happened between us. How are we supposed to still keep seeing each other when he gets home?"
"I don't know," I admitted. "But I don't know how I'm going to live without you, Mark."
"I don't know how I'm going to live without you, either, Jade," he confessed. "I don't know anything right now, except for the fact that I need you..."
"I need you, too," I whispered back, reaching over to lightly touch his face. I kissed him softly, then more urgently, before pulling back, breathless. I looked into his smoldering green eyes and my breath caught in my throat. "I need you tonight..."
He didn't say anything, but he smiled softly before lowering me gently to the bed...
A/N: I am SO sorry for how long it has taken me to update this story. I think it's been since December, and it's nearly April now! It's just, every time I started this chapter, I found something wrong with it, and then I felt it wasn't exactly up to par... I hope this chapter was ok. Please review and let me know what you think. Also, thanks for sticking with the story and sending me reviews!