Chapter 34
Nick
Jesus Christ, I’ve lost my damn mind.
I know I have.
It’s not a wonder. It’s fact.
A simple observation.
I’ve lost my damn mind and lost myself in her and I know it’s neither good nor bad.
I’m looking at her asleep in my bed, again.
Angelic.
Still fucking angelic and the moonlight beams down on her like heavenly rays of starlight gracing her in that ethereal glow.
She fell asleep hours ago and I’ve just been thinking and watching.
My little tie up session took it out of her but I still got another three rounds out of her before sleep took her.
I’m sitting at the window in my boxers, smoking a cigar.
I haven’t smoked so much in a long time but like her it soothes me. It stops me from thinking too much and sometimes feeling too much.
As I watch her I’m not sure if the effect I get from it is working the way it usually does, but this doll has sure done a fucking number on me.
The situation is shit but what did I expect?
The last time I was this fascinated with anyone I ended up in the fucking shit with my heart crushed in so many damn ways it was irreparable.
Mia was supposed to be a game. A distraction but she ended up being the boss of me.
Same as Vanessa but she didn’t start of being a game.
And what frightens me is the distinct fact that if some motherfucker thought they could take Mia I’ll fight for her.
I won’t fucking care if every crime family came to get me, I’ll do it. I’ll fight for her and I won’t allow anybody to take her no matter what debt is owed or whatever it is.
I will do it because she’s mine.
And not because of the past where it happened before. That’s what scares me.
What scares me more is the lingering fact I have over me that I don’t want to accept yet what she means to me.
That means more.
It means so much more, because I’ll have to change things up.
She stirs and her gorgeous breasts bobble when she rolls to the side and reaches for me.
I’m an ass because I love watching her do that. She’s been doing that every night she’s been with me.
Like every night I watch I go back to her in our bed.
Our…
Yes ours…
I have lost my mind.
I slip in next to her and I hold her. That’s all I want to do tonight because I know she’s exhausted. I am too and sleep takes me in a few seconds. I notice how I haven’t had any sleepless nights since being with her.
We work and we play hard and she makes me forget.
She keeps me grounded and she keeps me alive.
It’s true. That part is true. She’s keeping me alive by just being with me.
The reality of the situation is I’m like a pressure cooker waiting to explode because there’s no news of what’s happening with the Fontaines, and I know people are watching me.
Watching us.
It’s too quiet.
Far too quiet…
I wake from the sunlight beaming through the window and the aroma of deliciousness in the air.
It smells like Christmas mornings as a child.
Ma’s cooking. She always makes a big breakfast big enough to serve the family we have and anyone else visiting for the holidays.
When I open my eyes properly I see the angel’s left my bed and I pray it’s her down stairs and not Ma. Not that I wouldn’t enjoy seeing Ma. I just want my doll right now. That’s all.
I make my way downstairs and there she is in the kitchen.
Just like the other day she has her hair in a messy bun and she’s wearing my shirt.
No yoga pants. Just my shirt and she’s moving around the kitchen like she knows where everything is.
She moves around like she lives here.
She knows where I keep everything. What goes where and I notice over the last few days and times she’s been here that she has her own set up. Like the seeded bread near the bred bin she likes for breakfast and the nutty peanut butter.
She likes hot chocolate a lot and in the cupboard above the giant sized tub I got her is an assortment of marshmallows and chocolate ‘this and that’ she insists on covering one poor mug of chocolate with before she deems it as suitable to her liking.
She’s made a feast for us, but I want to feast on her.
Look at this beautiful girl in my kitchen. She bobs her head to some old jazz music playing on the radio in the background. It’s old like nineteen forties. I recognize it as something my grandparents listened to.
She turns around and jumps at the sight of me.
“Morning,” she beams. Bringing her hand to her chest she smiles and I see the hint of the bruises around her wrists from last night.
I hope I didn’t hurt her. That was playing and pushing to the edge. She enjoyed it. I just hope I didn’t get carried away, hurt her, and she’s not saying.
She moves over to me when I don’t answer and presses her dainty hands to my bare skin. Her touch wipes my brain clean of everything.
“I made you a French feast to make up for last night,” she adds.
I look at her and I don’t know what to say. I should say thanks but it feels like I should say something more.
“You’ll like it. I have toast and I made your favorite eggs with a dash of siracha peppers to give it a kick, and I did the herby sausages under the grill so it holds the herbs and –”
I stop her with a kiss.
That’s what I do because it’s the more I feel I should do. I can’t say it. I feel it. I feel for her and it frightens me but not enough to stop me.
She kisses me back with the hunger we usually share but the cup of her face and the way I stroke the skin there tames the hunger to something more sensual.
She feels it too.
Like most things I can tell she feels it. It’s obvious because she backs away from me with a jolt like someone’s zapped her with electricity.
Her chest rises and falls and her wide eyed stare confirms my thoughts.
She presses her fingers to her lips and the soft plump flesh parts as she stares at me.
“I …should tend to the food.” She rushes back to the stove and I move over there to her and switch off everything.
She watches me, stunned.
“No,” I tell her. “I want you.”
“So you can forget life?” She throws back.
I shake my head and it feels like it’s the first time in weeks I embrace reality and the present. And I’m not thinking about Tommy.
I’m thinking about her as in right here and now and how she fits in my life and how she feels like she belongs there, and everywhere I am and everywhere I go.
“I want to remember,” I declare, stunning her. “I want to remember… you.”
As the declaration slips from my lips again my mind goes right along with it and I allow myself to fall.
It’s laughable since this was my game. My plot to use the angel and break her. She’s the one who broke me.
She broke that damn control I strive to keep and as she moves to me I know I want nothing more than this woman in my arms forever.
A flutter of her fingers over my chest as she presses her palms to me sparks my heart and soul. I can’t remember the last time I felt this way. Or, if I ever did.
I lower to kiss her and she moves to me too.
The kiss starts with a brush of my lips against hers and it sends a scatter of electricity through my nerves.
I caress her face to gaze into her eyes and I know I want her, and she wants me too. She kisses me back and then we fall into passions call. It takes us and claims us. The only thing I think to do is pick her up and carry her back to bed. Back to the place we exist in the lure of passion. Back to the place where I claim her and truly make her mine.
I lay her on her back and pull the shirt off. It’s then that she doesn’t look like the angel. She’s more. She’s the goddess. She’s the goddess of my heart.
I step out of my boxers and plunge into her hot wet pussy, immersing myself in her body as it welcomes me.
As I pump into her over and over again I feel it. I feel the thing I’ve been fighting. I feel it take me and it fuels my moves.
I’ve had sex with this woman more times than I can count, I’ve been with enough women to know the difference between sex… and love.
What I’m doing is not having sex, and the passion filled look in her eyes as she writhes beneath me shows she knows too.
The need to be closer to her takes me and I lower to press my forehead to hers, entwining my fingers with hers. It’s then the ultimate sensation of us takes over and I get truly lost in her.
I make love to her.
I make love to the angel and it doesn’t stop there.
That’s just the first time.
Days pass and we’re in the house, we rarely leave the bed.
She calls her father and tells him she’s with me, and I check in with my family.
It’s been days since I did anything called work and in the time I do work it’s just to answer a few emails here and there. I don’t venture to The Dark Odyssey either. I’m too wrapped up and loved up with my doll to do anything that’s not related to her.
The only break of sorts I have from the bubble we’ve created is my calls to Sherine. I check in on her to see what’s going on with Tommy. I promised to visit on Saturday.
It’s Thursday now and I’m giving myself until Saturday to change things up. Whatever that means.
It’s a plan of a sketchy variety.
I only know the first part and it’s what I’m thinking about now as we sit in the bath tub together.
I must look like some kind of king, smoking my cigar with my doll sitting between my legs resting against my chest. I have my cigar in one hand and my other arm wrapped around her.
We’ve been in here for over an hour. The water was hot, now it’s cold.
We talked about Italy then silence took over and the question of what next hung in the air.
She starts working for Peter this week and my what next involves that. I just don’t know how to tell her.
Mia shuffles against me and rests her head back on my chest. The dampness from her hair tickles my skin. I take a draw on the cigar and blow it out. She hums as I do and uses her finger to make a ring around the smoke.
“What are you thinking baby?” I ask. My voice pierces the silence.
“I’m thinking… I’ve …been here for over a week. I should go home, but I don’t want to go.”
I plant a kiss on her head. I don’t want her to go either. “You don’t want to go?” I ask playfully
“I don’t. I’m looking at us and I don’t want to leave.”
Across from us is a floor to ceiling mirror that captures the image of us. It looks scandalous and forbidden. I look like a dark haired demon, with the goddess in my arms.
“We look like a classic Hollywood picture.” She giggles. “Something cool and sexy. I feel like Marilyn Monroe.”
I chuckle, it’s so different to what I thought. “Angel doll, don’t you dare compare me to JFK. I’m not presidential material.”
She lifts her head and shakes it. “No, you’re Clint Eastwood or James Dean. Or, Al Pacino.”
“Now we’re talking.”
She holds my gaze and I think of that fairy like presence she has again. I could get lost in her beauty. The beauty inside and out.
“What are you thinking Nick?”
I continue to watch her in the mirror and decide to go through the door that question just opened for me.
Time for action.
“I’m thinking I love that you’re working for Peter and it’s where you need to be. I’m thinking I like the idea of you being here far too much, and it fits that you don’t want to leave me. I don’t want you to leave either. I want you to be my girl. I’m thinking I don’t want you working at The Dark Odyssey anymore. If we go there its’ for fun, nothing more, nothing less.”
There… I said it.
That’s what’s on my mind. And… she looks exactly like how I imagined. Except maybe a little more shocked.
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“What?”
She straightens up and shakes her head. “I can’t. I have to work for you.”
I tense up but I know now’s not the time to be a control freak. I need her to tell me what’s going on with her.
“No you don’t.”
“I do Nick.” She rises to her feet and I almost allow myself to get suckered into her body but I tamp down my emotions and focus.
She steps out of the bath, grabs the towel and wraps it around herself.
I put out the cigar and do the same, following her into the bedroom and grabbing her arm before she can get to the clothes she was about to put on.
It’s time to talk.
“I could put a million dollars in your account now,” I blurt and her eyes flash with indignation.
“No.”
“Wow. Not many chicks would turn away a million dollars.” I had a point in the comment and she just proved me right. “Why are you?”
“I can’t take it.”
“How comes, you clearly came to me desperate. You went to a place you would never go to. A sex club. A fucking sex club. Mia you’re off the charts intelligent and you come to my sex club to apply for a waitressing job. Now I offer you a million dollars and you won’t take it. Why the fuck not?”
“Because I love you.” She cries and brings her hands up to her cheeks the instant the words fly from her lips.
I’m not shocked to hear it. Not as shocked as she is that she said it.
I felt it.
I felt the start of it weeks ago and I felt the fruition days ago when love came to claim me. She tries to break free of my grasp but I pull her to me.
“I love you too,” I say and it’s then she stops wriggling and gazes at me stunned. “I love you too Mia.”
Those aren’t words I say all the time. I’ve said them one time only to a woman who wasn’t my mother.
“You …do?”
“Yes. I love you too and I want you to be mine. Not some damn contract where I pay you. I don’t want to feel like I’m paying you to be with me.” That’s what this will be if we continue as we are. That is what it will become, but the fucking poor sap that I am will take it if that’s what I have from her.
“You’re not… It’s not that at all Nick. I am yours and I don’t want to feel like you’re paying me to be with you either. I just …need the money.”
“Yeah, I figured. So here’s the question I should have asked you weeks ago.” I stare at her and show her I’m serious as fuck and I want an answer. “Are you in trouble Mia? You must be.”
“I’m not anymore.”
“But the worry can’t be over if you’re saying you need the money. Let me pay it for you and you can forget the problems.”
She’s shaking her head even before I finish. “I can’t. You mustn’t. You mustn’t. It’s not fair.”
“Is it your dad? Is he in debt.”
“No, it’s complicated Nick. Please let’s just leave it here.”
The fear I see in her eyes now snaps my attention right up and I start thinking all sorts of shit.
“Do you owe money?” I prod.
“Nick please…”
“Fucking hell, Mia, I don’t know if you realize who I am but I could find out whatever shit it is you’re in in a heartbeat, but I’d much rather do it this way. With you telling me. Tell me what’s going on. Tell me something…”
Her hands shake and I release her but only to take her shoulders to give her some reassurance.
“It’s my brother. He owed some really bad people money and my father had to pay them so they wouldn’t kill him. We ran out of money so that’s why I came to you.”
“Who are these people baby?” What she’s saying sound very close to my world, so I know now it can’t be some fucking run of the mill debt. I gave her twenty grand and she still had to work for me and she’s talking about needing more money.
The fear in her beautiful eyes enrages me because it’s now that I know things are more serious than I thought.
“I can’t tell you Nick. It will make things worse. That’s the part I can’t tell you. That’s the part.” A tear runs down her cheek and I catch it.
“Mia, tell me who it is. Baby, is it mobsters?” Jesus, I swear to God if she says yes I’ll lose my shit.
“No. It’s not. Nick, it’s one of those situations … where it’s bad and it could get worse, but I have a handle on it. I do. I have it under control. Telling you could make it so much worse. Whatever way I look at it, my brother owes the money. We got dragged in and someone has to pay. It doesn’t matter who the people are. What matters is who gets paid.”
I look at her and I feel like an idiot for not asking her about her situation sooner, and I feel like a fool for accepting the answer she just gave me.
It’s as she says, there are things that are bad and things that could get worse and it’s dependent on what you do. I’m not known for my patience, but maybe this is one time I need to cool off. But… within reason.
“I’m paying the debt,” I declare.
“No,” she shakes her head.
“Like fuck, I don’t care if you turn me away. I’ll go talk to your father, and tell him I’m crazy about you and I’m paying the fucking debt. Then I’m bringing you here to live with me.”
She looked stunned before, now her skin is pale with it and tears run down her cheeks.
“Nick…”
“Don’t push me Mia. You know me now and I always get what I want. You can go home tomorrow and spend some time with your family and we’ll talk about money over the weekend. That’s what we’re doing.” I couldn’t help the control freak inside me. It was coming out. “You’re coming to live with me.”
“Nick… don’t you think we’re moving too fast? I don’t want you to-”
“I love you, and you’re mine,” I interrupt. “That’s all you need to know. Fast and slow don’t fucking come into it.”
“Oh Nick…” her hand covers her mouth and her shoulders tremble as she breaks down.
I see it all now. She crumbles and I feel like shit because I wished I’d seen it before.
All I can do is hold her. I hold her and promise her I’ll fix everything and I hope she trusts me to.