The Pledge by Yash

Chapter 7

The nauseating smell of coffee woke her.  Dara could never understand how people could drink the horrible tasting stuff.  Her coffee rant was quickly discarded as the aches and pains resonated throughout her body though some where in all the right places, she grinned.  She waited for the guilt to crash down upon her, but it didn’t.  The lack of guilt confirmed what she had come to realize while "talking" to Salvador Achoy.  Dara Taggert was dead.  Unbeknownst to her that woman had died on the early morning Marcus lay dying in the filthy alley, while she lay in their bed blissfully unaware.  Dara Jensen emerged from the horrific tragedy and she was tougher, fiercer, and more dangerous than Dara Taggert or even the maiden Dara Jensen had ever dreamed of being. 

She pondered how Marcus would feel about the person she had become.  She didn’t think he would have approved, but what he would or wouldn’t have thought was irrelevant because he was dead.  He didn’t stay like he promised, so he could roll over in his grave all he wanted.  Her heartlessness should have shocked her, but it didn’t.  Marcus wasn’t coming back and she had to move on the best she could.  For her own sake and that of their family.  She couldn’t waste her time, wondering if he would have liked or disliked changes she made.  She would let him be.  He deserved to enjoy his eternity in peace.  He earned it.

Rolling over on to her side, trying to avoid getting up, her mind raced ahead.  While she and Sonny had taken care of the man who shot Marcus, they still had to find the man who put the gun in Salvador’s hand.  That man was truly responsible for Marcus’ death.  She was under no illusions that Sonny was helping her out of the goodness of his heart.  She knew he had to make an example of Salvador and his boss, teach them a lesson for disrespecting him and his rules.  Though whatever his reasons, she didn’t care as long as he honored the promise he made to her.  Admittedly she knew in her heart that he would have helped her regardless of what she asked him because of their shared past.

She almost had a heart attack when she moved to Port Charles and discovered this was Sonny’s new home base.  She never imagined him outside of Bensonhurst or Brooklyn.  Seeing him with Brenda around town had put her heart at ease that he had moved on though a part of her, the part that she refused to give voice to was jealous that he tried to make it work with Brenda and Lily, but not her.  But then one went insane and the other blown to bits, and she thought maybe she had been the lucky one.

The first time they ran into each other at Kelly’s, his eyes had shown his surprise at seeing her again but he quickly masked it, as if she imagined his surprise.  Marcus, of all people, publicly introduced them one night when Sonny had been brought in for questioning.  No one would have ever guessed that hers and Sonny’s teen years were spent together; they had been two peas in a pod.  As always, Sonny remained cool through Marcus’ introduction; she hoped her coolness matched his.

Their first time together on opposites sides of a courtroom, he nodded then turned his attention back to his lawyer, cool as a cucumber.

She turned her thoughts from the past to the far distant past. 

Oh how, she remembered being a young fifteen-year-old on Coney Island with her girlfriends when Sonny turned those brown eyes on her.  She had thought, for sure, he was interested in her visiting girlfriend, Brooke Logan.  Brooke had legs, even then, that wouldn’t quit, long blonde hair, and light colored eyes.  But when Sonny approached them, he was cordial to Brooke and the other girls, but focused all his attention on her.  And when he flashed his dimples, she was his.  He had shown them around the real Coney Island, not the tourist trap.  And during their day together, she found him to be charming, funny, smart, respectful, and fine as hell.  It had been the greatest day in all of her fifteen years. 

And over the years, whenever she passed a carnival or smelled funnel cake, she thought about that glorious day.

Turning over onto her stomach, she buried her face into the nearest pillow.  The scent hit her nose the second it touched the pillow.  It was Sonny’s smell.  The scent that was uniquely him.  It comforted her like he had last night. 

She had been worried in the bathroom that he would refuse her.  For a while he had resisted turning a comforting experience into a sexual one.  But suddenly her mind was infused with her former knowledge of his body.  And between her determination and her moves, it hadn’t taken long for him to give in.

After all the death and destruction she heard and witnessed, she need something life affirming to keep her sane, to keep her from running back to her husband’s grave and dying on top of it.

Dara had avenged her beloved’s brutal murder, but the peace she had been longing for escaped her.  Maybe it was because the job wasn’t finished or maybe it was because none of this would bring Marcus back regardless of whom she killed or how high the body count.  She shook her head.  It was too soon to be thinking about this.  Once they captured Salvador’s boss then she would reevaluate how she felt.

Suddenly she heard the room door open and two new smells hit her immediately.  One brought a smile to her face, the other laughter.

"I see you’re awake," Sonny said, stating the obvious as he sat down on the edge of the bed.

Sitting up, she graciously took the whip cream covered hot chocolate from his hand.  "Thank you.  A safe house with hot chocolate and whip cream- -"

"A former safe house.  And my mother taught me that not everyone loved coffee."

Dara nodded and looked wistfully at him, as she remembered her hot chocolate talks with Mama Adella waiting for Sonny to come home, while Deke was at work.  "Smart woman, your mother," she said, still lost in the past.

"Yes, she was."

Taking a sip of her chocolate, she discreetly tried to sniff around Sonny, but she failed.

"Yes, it is," he replied to her unanswered question.

She handed him back the mug and fell on the bed laughing.  Sonny Corinthos with the thousand dollar suits still wore Stetson.

"It’s not that funny."

She laughed harder.

"I happen to like the smell of it," he explained, over her laughter.

"I’m sure you do," she replied, laughing and wiping the tears from her eyes.  She recalled the first time he had worn the cologne for her. 

Her freshmen year in college, she had taken a Western film class and fell hopelessly in love with cowboys.  Poor Sonny.  She couldn’t even begin to count the number of westerns she had made him sit through.  Then one Friday night as she sat in her room studying, while Sonny worked, there was a knock on the door.  She opened her dorm room door to find Sonny leaning against her doorframe with cowboy boots, skin tight jeans, a cowboy hat on, and the smell of Stetson on him.  Her jaw hit the floor and the next thing she knew, she had thrown him to the ground and was ravaging him.  They didn’t leave her dorm room the whole weekend. 

From that day on, nothing turned her on faster then the smell of Stetson. 

"Carly, Brenda, Lily, Hannah, Alexis, and Karen all liked the scent of Stetson?" she asked curious.

"They didn’t have a say in the cologne I wore," he replied.  He sat her mug on the nightstand.  He was surprised by her jovial mood, but he wasn’t going to question it.  He was just going to thankful for it and go with the flow.  "I heard that it was a known aphrodisiac."

"Really?"

"Yes, the first time I wore it I wasn’t even able to make it through the front door without being attacked."

"You don’t say?"

"The woman was insatiable."

Sick of the foreplay, Dara jumped on top of him, kissing him savagely as she ripped his clothes off of him and thanked God she hadn’t bothered to get dress yet.