A Dagger Through Dimensions - Chapter 10

How far am I willing to go?

Author’s Note: This is a webnovel. First 10 chapters are free to all Substack subscribers. After that, you can access the ongoing chapters plus receive access to the digital file at the end of each arc by becoming a paid subscriber.

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Chapter 10

As I kissed and caressed her gently for a while longer, I broke the kiss so she could breathe. While I was definitely breathing heavily, I noticed Adele’s face, ears, and neck held more color. She looked at me, her eyes searching mine. I knew she was seeking a reason to stay in my arms. Her husband changed so suddenly, and she couldn’t trust me.

“You didn’t expect me to do this,” I reflected on her thoughts. She acted like I was reading her mind, and she looked down.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered. “I’m not falling for the same lines as before. You’ve hurt me too many times.”

“Listen, I realize that. But I’m not the same guy for a lot of reasons,” I explained, then my thoughts went back to her boyfriend.

Crap, I’m not too late, am I?

“Besides, you can’t tell me you’re in love with that jackass I saw last night,” my voice lowered to a growl. “A beautiful woman like you can certainly do better than that wimp.”

Her frozen glare came back, and she again tried to push away. I held on tight.

“All you got to do is tell me you love that piece of shit. Come clean and tell me. Is that jerk going to please you? Will getting rid of me truly make you happy with him?”

Surprised at my growing loud voice, I hesitated. Inside, I remained quite calm since I needed the truth from her. Then a thought came to me. Was the little black book wrong? Maybe I should let her ride off into the sunset. Hell, I’ll still have money afterward.

Then, I’m just following this setup. No fucking way am I doing that!

“Tell me the truth, Adele,” I pushed for a reply. “Do you really want that crappy guy or not? Is it your goal in life to be like Jenny?”

I used her friend’s name because the black book told me that Jenny kept introducing Adele to other men. Her best friend reminded me of a slut who enjoyed dictating the lives of others. Lane Dagger despised Jenny, and it showed in his writing. My guess was they were too much alike.

Still, the notes showed me that Adele apparently understood that Jenny’s relationships were far too shallow and momentary for her. According to the black book, Adele fell for Lane because he treated her like royalty and acted like his partner in life. Even if untrue from Lane’s perspective, Adele fell for him, hook, line and sinker.

Tears welled in Adele’s eyes, and I suddenly thought my tight hold on her body was causing the pain. However, she collapsed into my chest as her anguish spilled out in her sobs.

I admit I had plenty of second thoughts at this point. Harming someone is not something I enjoy. Besides, I was hurting a woman I only met a few hours before. Yeah, an NPC in my mind, but the flesh and blood woman in my arms felt too real to disregard. Just as I loosened my hold, she mumbled a whisper that I almost didn’t hear.

“Lane, I’m so tired of being—alone,” she confessed through sobs. “Even when you’re here—I—don’t want someone who doesn’t give a damn about me.”

Adele lifted her head to look at me. Her mascara covered tears running down her face.

“I tried so hard to make you love me again, even though I never understood why you quit. But now I know you can’t change,” she wept. “That’s why you can’t fix this.”

It hurt me to breathe when I saw her tormented confession. Seriously, who can handle a distraught woman in their arms?

Then I realized why I was upset. That bastard went after someone who couldn’t directly fight back. Lane emotionally broke her because he knew he could do it. It was like I understood Lane even without reading his notebook. Even now, Adele didn’t punch me or slap me like I half-expected. Hell, Lane deserved it. But her soft personality would not allow it. Instead, Adele’s sensitive nature overrode those powerful memories of her negative experiences. She truly believed there was something good in the other person.

It was one thing I remembered from my psych class about such a personality. It’s hard for them to let go of their relationships, even if it’s toxic. A person like that wants to believe in their lover’s good side so desperately that they’ll suffer for it. Remembering this item, I redoubled my efforts to turn this around. I still had a chance to make lemonade out of the lemons this place handed me.

“Like hell, I can’t fix this!” I wrapped her tightly in my arms.

Even if I wasn’t the cause, gazing at such heartfelt pain made me think about life and my selfish needs. Feeling those warm tears on my shoulder as she continued to cry made me reconsider trying to get her on my side. We stood together for a while. The warmth we shared made us strangely comfortable. I heard Adele sniffle as she turned to place her head on my chest.

“I need a tissue,” she mumbled.

Somehow, I remembered there was a handkerchief that I found earlier in my suit pocket. I reached down and gave it to her. As Adele dabbed at her nose as I put my arms around her waist. I noticed she didn’t try to stop me.

“Listen, all the words I say, you’ll be suspicious about. You have every right to feel that way,” I said. “I have no shame in telling you I need you. Yeah, I’m an idiot who just figured it out late, but I can guarantee you that things are going to be different. It’s a promise that I must keep. Please, no more of this bullshit that it’s impossible.”

“You don’t sound like yourself.” Her bloodshot eyes wavered. “The person I married never apologized like this.”

I kissed her delicately on the lips. Suddenly I hoped that my morning breath didn’t offend her.

“Adele, there’s no doubt I’ve changed. I can make that in the form of a guarantee.”

That’s a no shit statement!

I took her left hand and lifted it for us both to look at.

“You still wear this wedding ring even after all this trouble. I know all I’m saying can’t fix everything at this point. However, I want you to remember some of the good things we did as well, so I can prove I’ve changed for the better.”

I kissed her hand.

“Nothing is impossible if we work together. It’s just that I’ve been a stupid fool. Believe it or not, people can change.”

That’s for damn sure, so I’m begging you to believe me!

Adele put her head back on my chest and the tears continued, but she kept her hand clutched with mine. I kissed her head while continuing to hold her tight, and she wrapped her right arm around me. Slowly, the sobs stopped.

“Can you tell me what I did to make you want to leave me?” I heard the pain in the words as she took on the guilt for Lane Dagger and it pissed me off. However, I remained still, letting my anger calm while trying to come up with an acceptable answer for her. I tried a version of the truth with a story that came back to me.

“Do you remember that story about King Midas?”

She nodded amid her sniffles.

“I think that the guy you married finally found out the same lesson.” I combined the Greek myth with what I figured out about my character as I rambled on. “When he turned everything into gold, he regretted his wish and cursed it. Dagger got wrapped up in his own world without a thought to how much he hurt others. The only thing on his mind was how to control and manipulate you and your money.”

Pleased with how I managed to put that story together, I softly kissed her head again.

“That you still can love a guy like that makes you an angel in my mind.”

Adele looked up at me with surprise, filling her tear-covered face.

“I never thought I would hear such ideas coming from you. Everything you said before told me you wanted the world, not me.”

The woman put her head on my chest again.

The time slowly passed by, and I kept my arms around her. Even in the silence, the position felt more comfortable. Gradually, I felt her relaxing.

“Your heartbeat still calms me,” she breathed. “By the way, you never called me an angel before. Please don’t let it to be another throwaway line.”

This time, I grasped her shoulders and gave her a deeper kiss than the last one. I felt no resistance when I softly sucked on her lips and savored its softness. I pulled away slightly to look into her eyes. They revealed a passionate interest now, overcoming the doubts I witnessed earlier. Adele wanted our relationship to work out. I saw this clearly in her reaction.

Yeah, I’m going there!

When we finished a second round of sex, Adele gave me an unsure smile. I saw the conflict in her expression. Lust won out, and now she was having second thoughts. I pulled her to her feet and hugged her as she put her head on my chest.

“We’ll do something fun every morning,” I told her while kissing her head. “I haven’t done a good job giving you pleasure, so I intend to make it up to you.”

I felt her tense up.

“What’s the matter? You didn’t enjoy doing that.”

She shook her head but remained quiet. I used my fingers to lift her head to face me.

“That’s not it. I want to know who you are,” Adele blurted out.

To my surprise, she wasn’t angry or upset. The person in front of her genuinely confused her. It was a tough question for me to answer. I scowled, trying to produce a rational explanation. Obviously, she would not believe that I’m from another place and time.

“Yeah, I can understand. All of this is kind of sudden,” I sighed. “But I’ve learned something recently. And that starts with you, the one person who’s still on my side. I need you in my life. Now I want to please you and become the man you wanted. That’s not something bad, is it?”

Yeah, I knew the last thing I said was typical bullshit, but I believed Adele certainly started the marriage with the right intentions. It didn’t matter that Lane had little interest in treating her right. My goal might be selfish, but I wanted her to trust me and be happy. The woman’s face flushed, and she lowered her eyes, obviously still in turmoil.

“But you saw—how can you? I mean, the men I’ve been with,” she mumbled.

Her statement caught me off guard. Her concern about how she must look in my eyes gave me pause. Again, Adele worried about someone else’s feelings before her own. No wonder Lane used her so easily.

“Angel, you take that weight off to your shoulders,” I warned. “You didn’t do anything wrong in my eyes. This is all on Lane Dagger.”

Normally, a guy finds his wife’s cheating on him, then all hell breaks loose. Hell, I’m the same way if I’m back in my real world. However, I only knew Adele for a few hours, so I could not rightfully turn malicious against her for being lonely. Lane deserved her screwing around on him. Hell, he probably calculated it with his plans to control her money.

Yeah, I’m a son of a bitch. However, I’m not that deceitful. Adele might deserve better than me, but I would do the best I could. Besides, I had plans for Lloyd and his partnership with me. She didn’t need to know everything, since I couldn’t explain the whole mess anyway.

Still, I playfully swatted her ass and my tone turned cold to make my point.

“But there’s going to be hell to pay if you ever meet with another guy from here on out. I’m a jealous guy now, so what you saw last night is only a preview of what I mean.”

Feeling like I was coming off too strong, I lightened my tone.

“Seriously, we’ll forget everything about the past. Today is a new day. I’m taking the morning off to catch up and to work on giving you a baby.”

Adele glanced at me, still unsure how to take my statements. Then she nodded and picked up her clothing from the bed. She paused when a thought came to her.

“I’m supposed to meet with Jenny for breakfast.”

“No, you’re staying home with your husband so we can fuck,” I insisted. Then I grinned.

“We’ll catch up on months of a stupid man ignoring his beautiful wife and robbing her of affection.”

I moved behind her, and I playfully swatted her ass again. Her shocked but somewhat amused reaction caught my eye from the reflection in the mirror on the wall. My grin turned into a smile.

“This is step two in you learning to trust me again. It’s our real honeymoon. Seriously, I want to make up for being such an ass to you. I’ll even make you breakfast in bed.”

“Alright, I’ll call her,” she finally said after a slight hesitation.

Yes, she has some masochistic traits in her.

Aside from my horniness for her sweet body, there was another reason I didn’t want Adele to meet Jenny. Jenny Penske was a divorced, gold-digging bitch working to undermine the marriage. Even the bastard Lane Dagger hated Jenny, just not enough to stop using her to get his divorce. The way I read it; unhappy people like to bring down others to their level and Jenny Penske was as unhappy as they came according to the book. She was the one person I planned on removing from Adele’s life soon.

Jenny can get the hell out of my way!

“Just tell your friend that you’ve got other plans this morning,” I hugged Adele from behind as I whispered in her ear. “I’ve never asked you to do this before, have I?”

The woman pulled away and faced me. Tears were building up in her eyes again.

“Lane, you’re not playing with me, just to throw me away again, are you? I couldn’t...”

I interrupted her, bringing her into my arms. Then, I placed her head on my chest and we stood there for a while.

“No, I swear upon my life. I meant everything I’ve told you.” The heartfelt words came out much stronger than I expected.

Maybe I’m convincing myself!

“All I ask is that you give me a chance to prove that a man of my word. You can shoot me if I’m lying. Now, you go make that phone call to your friend and I’ll get out the food going for our feast. We need our strength for later.”

I watched her walk away wearing only her panties and reflected upon the morning so far.

God, she’s hot!

Now, I’m a man of my word, as Adele found out that morning. I looked at it like we started after the wedding. So, we took our time, enjoying the closeness as I slowly introduced Adele to various sexual positions that came from porno films. I had little reference beyond those videos since it’s not like my girlfriends experimented with me that much.

We explored our intimacy in ways that might make my great-grandparents blush. Adele’s naïve statements and embarrassment made me even hornier. Fortunately, my wife gradually loosened up. The glint in her eyes told me she found the time rewarding as well.

As we wandered around naked through the apartment, I showed I’m not above marking my territory. We made love on the couch where I discovered her and boyfriend last night. I also discovered a small office that looked more like a private library hidden behind two sliding pocket doors. Adele seemed to enjoy the swivel desk chair since she came up with a creative game for us to play.

As the ideas became more scandalous given the era, her eyes lit up which allowed me to nudge her past embarrassment. I nuzzled her neck while I told her a few of my Hollywood Babylon-type stories I remembered. Since I didn’t care if they were fiction or not, my purpose was to bring my modern sex thoughts into her old-fashioned world.

While she tried to avoid the subject of fantasies at first, I kept insisting and finally she revealed a few. Trust me when I say that I won’t forget to bring those hidden dreams to reality in the future. But it made me wonder something about myself.

Damn, how far am I willing to go? Am I just using her?

Moments later, I forget my thoughts as I gazed out at the parking lot below. For the finale that morning, I pressed her naked body against the window overlooking the parking lot. While Adele objected at first, she never wavered, as we had passionate sex in front of the world. When we finished, my woman finally answered my question from earlier when I repeated it to her.

“Yes, I love this,” she panted out as we held each other at the window. Her answer immediately caused me to briefly frown with a sudden thought.

Can I develop feelings for the characters in this place?

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