Blitzed(164)

Afterward, we cuddled, his previous power and controlling force gone and replaced by the tenderness and gentle caresses I had come to expect from him. “You've never been so controlling before,” I whispered, tracing the light hairs on his chest. “What happened?”

“I don't know,” Felix replied. Thinking for a moment, he chuckled. “I guess after being made to act and be a slave for so long, I was unwilling to give up control. Was I too rough?”

“You weren't,” I said comfortingly. “Actually, it was sexy. I've never seen you as powerful as you were tonight, and it's a side I'd love to see again.”

“That you will,” he said, kissing my forehead tenderly. “That you most certainly will.”





Chapter 41





Felix





Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year, and for the first time in four years, I was actually celebrating it with my family. We were at the house on the Rhone, and it felt like I was finally complete again.

Despite Jordan's help, not all of my issues were dealt with so easily as unlocking my memory with an Aerosmith song. It had taken me most of the spring and summer to deal with my night terrors, and long sessions with a psychologist who was willing to be even more confidential than normal, considering the scope of what I revealed to him.

A lot of my tension had fallen away when we learned that Vladimir Ilyushin had died of mysterious causes during an airplane flight to St. Petersburg, and my safety had seemed that much more assured. With his specter gone, I was finally able to hear the sound of hissing gas or a punctured tire without freaking out or feeling the need to piss my pants, which I was very grateful for.

Jordan and I had decided to skip the idea of a honeymoon after our wedding, which was carried out in the old Romani style, as per Jordan's wishes. For her, getting married by a family member — in our case, my mothers — was more than enough for her. We filed the paperwork with our local government office, and that was it, we were married in both the eyes of the law and the Romani people.

After that, a honeymoon seemed silly to both of us. After all, when you have a Winnebago, millions of dollars in various accounts, and four other houses throughout Europe, taking a week to go down to Mallorca seemed somewhat pointless.

Right after Thanksgiving, an American tradition that I had happily carried with me to my Romani family and expanded to include a gigantic one-hundred-person strong feast at our Albanian estate, Jordan came to me, telling me that while she was happy to have spent the spring through fall there, she wanted to go back to France. “It's the place I most associate with you and Francois,” she said simply that night as we lay in bed together. “And while he’s buried here, I'd like to remember him as he was during the Christmas and New Year's holidays.”

“Then we can go on Saturday,” I said. “Would you like me to invite Syeira and Charani?”

“If they want to come, of course,” Jordan had said, smiling. “They're kind of my mothers now too, you know.”

It had been true. If Syeira had been my advisor before, it was nothing compared to the miracles she and Charani had done in bringing Jordan up to speed on her duties as a Romani queen. While she still struggled with speaking Rom, her French was getting to be quite good, and even her Albanian was growing by leaps and bounds. She learned about our customs, her work as my wife, and even found the time to explore the music scene in Durres, starting a band along with some of the other members of the tribe. With my cousins Gregor on drums, Leonidas on bass, and Karl on backup guitar, Jordan had made quite the impression on the local music scene, handling not only lead guitar but also lead singing duties. “Oh, I'll never be top of the charts,” she had admitted to me after their second sold out club date in a row, “but it's unique enough for this area, and we're having a lot of fun.”

“Don't forget that your band was the reason Karl was able to find himself a girlfriend,” I noted, looking across the club as Karl and his new girlfriend, a nice girl named Elaine that admittedly had first said yes to him because the normally soft spoken, intensely shy man had picked up a little stage presence and charm being a rocker. “They make a cute couple.”

“We're cuter,” Jordan teased me. “Besides, the band gives me an excuse to stay in shape. Can't be blowing out the seams on my leather pants in the metal scene. Not kind at all to chicks that way.”

“You are much more than some rocker chick,” I teased back.

And such our lives went. Of course the guys in the band were disappointed that Jordan was taking a four to six-month hiatus, but by then, most of the big festivals had been over, and except for the standard club stuff, Durres was quiet through the rest of the winter. Leonidas had asked, and Jordan gave her permission for the trio to seek other gigs with him as the lead singer, promising to pick right up when we came back in the spring.

The house in the Rhone Valley had welcomed us back with a comfort that surprised even me. Syeira and Charani, now as inseparable as they'd been when they were little girls, joined us, taking for themselves the second master bedroom that had been Francois's while Jordan and I used my room. They found strength and healing together, and I was sure that no man would ever come back into their lives. They had each other, and they had me. It was all they needed.