by Sam Mariano
“I don’t know if we’re allowed,” I tell her.
“Fuck that,” she says, suddenly spirited. “Mateo isn’t our keeper! We’re getting a hotel room,” she decides, climbing gracelessly off my lap and grabbing her drink. The bartender is still over here, so she takes a break from gulping her drink to say, “We need to close our tab, please.”
I’ve had enough alcohol to agree this is a great idea. We should break all the rules.
Nope, thinking about that brings me back to Mia. A burst of anger pierces the alcohol fog, but I don’t know why I’m angry.
“People can have leftover feelings, right?” I ask Carly.
“Huh?”
The music in here is really loud and she’s waiting at the counter for the bill. I lean forward to wait with her so she can hear me better. “Leftover feelings. You’re good at all that psychobabble bullshit. Can people have leftover feelings that don’t mean anything?”
Carly grimaces, grabbing her cup and taking another gulp. Once she swallows it, she nods. “They can, but you don’t have leftover feelings. You have an addiction. Mia’s not a person to you, she’s… something else. A substance. An idea. A feeling. You love to chase her, but you’ll always be disappointed when you catch her. It’s not her you love. It’s just an idea.”
“I don’t love her, I love you.”
“Another idea,” she mutters.
I scowl at her. “Hey. No. You’re not an idea. It’s not the same with you. We’re happy together.”
“Yes, we’re approaching blackout drunk in a city neither one of us should be in so we don’t have to go back to Hell house, where your ex-obsession is probably cuddling your rape baby right now. This is what happiness looks like, ladies and gents. Take a picture so you can post it somewhere with the goals hashtag!”
“Whoa, that’s a whole lot of… I don’t feel like dealing with any of that right now,” I inform her honestly, taking a drink of my whiskey.
“Can I be honest? I love that you’re a mess. It doesn’t even bother me. It makes me feel better about being a mess. Sometimes. Other times it makes me feel like an asshole and a fraud.”
“You’re the realest person I’ve ever known,” I inform her.
“That’s because you were raised in a bubble of toxicity. That I’m normal to you is sad.”
I shake my head, finishing my drink and pulling out my wallet. “Man, drunk Carly does not hold back.”
“I love being with you, but I hate the feeling that I’m taking advantage of you. I hate the certainty that there are things you could find out that would just… they’d make you walk away.”
“Nah. I’m not walking away. I know this week is hard, I’m sorry about that, but nothing has changed between us. Not for me, anyway. I hope not for you.” I blink a few times to focus on the bill, second guess how big a number that is, then grab enough money to pay it anyway. Oh well. Fuck it. Mateo pays thousands of dollars for a single bottle of alcohol, I can blow a few hundred on drinks.
We better get some water on the way to the hotel so we don’t die.
“We had a lot to drink,” I inform Carly.
She nods, pleased. “He took ‘keep ‘em coming’ very literally and I love that in a bartender and a boyfriend.”
“How come Laurel couldn’t come out?” I ask, realizing she was supposed to call her or text her when we first got here.
“I didn’t ask her to. I felt like my lips were going to be loose tonight and Laurel doesn’t know I was a whore for a minute, so I didn’t want to accidentally tell her.”
I slide my hand around her waist, tugging her close. “Hey, no calling yourself a whore in a mean way. I’m only allowed to be an asshole about it when I’m fucking you. You’re not allowed.”
“Mm.” She snuggles into my side. “How about you go treat me like your little whore right now?”
“Yeah?” I ask, warmly.
“Oh yeah. I need your dick like I need my next breath.”
We drift around the empty city streets for a little while, completely fucking unprepared. I’m too drunk to pay attention to where I’m at so I assume she knows, but we might just be wandering around aimlessly.
We finally stumble upon a hotel, but Carly stands in front of it, glaring up at it like it offends her. “Not this one.”
“Does it have beds? Then I vote for this one,” I inform her.
“This one’s expensive.”
“Remember how we just talked about that inheritance I’m getting? I don’t care.”
“I miss our apartment,” she states. “I miss our cold, small, stupid apartment.”
I smile faintly, taking her hand and dragging her inside the hotel lobby. Once I’ve rented out a room for the night, I try to focus on following the directions to get to said room. It takes a while, we linger longer in the elevator than we need to, but eventually we make it to our room. Nothing too fancy, but it has a bed, and that’s all we need. Right now I just want to fall face-down into the white sheets and pass out.
Carly has different ideas. Her hands are on the button, then my zipper, then my pants are coming down and she’s dropping to her knees, rubbing my cock until it’s hard.
“Fuck,” I murmur, letting my head fall back.
“I want to please you,” she tells me, looking up at me, gripping the base with her hand.
“You’re well on your way.”
She smiles, then drags her tongue along my length. “I love your cock.”
“You can be president of its fan club,” I assure her.
She narrows her eyes at me. “I’m the only member. I kicked all the other bitches out.”
I can’t help smiling. “Drunk Carly has gone savage.”
With a little wink, she further proves my point, swallowing my cock and sending me to Heaven. I watch her blonde head move back and forth over my cock, the walls of her throat and her skilled little tongue doing beautiful work. Carly gives the best head. I wasn’t initially in love with the idea of a girlfriend who had sex for money at one point, but damn, if there aren’t perks.
Before she can work her magic to completion, though, I reach down a grab a fistful of hair, dragging her off my cock. She must be in the mood for roughness because she makes me drag her ass up off the ground by her hair. I toss her on the bed and she crawls back to make room for me. I shove her dress up around her waist, yanking her black lace thong down and flinging it.
I slide my hands up her thighs, spreading her legs and diving between them. She sighs in anticipation just before I latch onto her. I love feasting on her cunt. I love the way she squirms for me, the way her hips twist and buck, the desperate way she reaches for the pillow, clutches the sheet.
I love the way she cries out, arching her body off the bed, eyes closed in ecstasy. Her perfect breasts move as she does. Fuck, I need to touch them. I move my hand up, anchoring her hips as she does her best to wiggle away from my mouth. I hold her little ass still so I can toy with her clit.
“Vince,” she cries, clutching the pillow. Her legs shake and I hold tighter, licking along her beautiful pussy until she’s good and blissed out.
My cock throbs. I want to do too many things to her, but also to sleep. Fuck, I am tired. I kiss along her abdomen, then worship one breast with my mouth while my hand takes care of the other one.
Carly rakes her fingers through my hair, smiling down at me. “Fuck me, baby. Give me all your rage.”
I growl against her breast, biting down on her nipple before releasing it and lifting my body. I turn her over on her stomach and give her ass a light smack. “Up on your knees.”
“Yes, sir,” she replies, assuming the position.
I get on my knees behind her, clutching one hip to hold her in place, and thrust into her hard. She moans, dropping to her forearms on the bed and pushing her ass out slightly higher.
“Good girl,” I tell her, running a hand down the curve of her back.
I love when she tells me to vent my rage. I don’t
always like to let loose on her, but when she issues an invite, it’s a relief to tap into the well of anger that always seems to be brewing beneath the surface. As much as I love her, I still savor the way she whimpers with every fierce thrust of my hips, the way she hisses as my fingers dig into her hips too hard, the sound of her skin as I slam into her.
I vent my rage, she comes hard, and then I do; we all win.
Afterward she curls up in my arms, snuggling close, both of us more peaceful than when we started.
“I love you,” I tell her, pushing her hair behind her ear and leaning in to brush my lips across her soft, sweet mouth.
Carly smiles up at me. “I love you, too.”
Chapter Twenty Five
Vince
By the time we make it back to the mansion, it’s well past lunch. I have no idea what time—if at all—Mia was willing to let me play with Dom, but now I feel shitty about missing it. When Carly suggested we get a hotel, I wasn’t thinking about that.
We went to the store so I could get Dom a couple presents. That was Carly’s idea. We were already out on our own, so why not?
I shower the smell of last night’s alcohol off myself and get dressed, then I go to look for Mia. I just end up wandering around the house, though. I don’t know where she’s at and I don’t have her phone number. For all I know, she’s not even here. I check the playroom and she’s not there. I check the servants’ quarters since I guess she’s friends with Elise now. I even check Meg’s room, but no one is there, either.
There’s only one place I haven’t checked. Once upon a time, I would have never walked through those doors without an invitation. Not only because Mateo would never be okay with it, but because the bed he fucked her in during those awful days is the last place I want to see Mia.
Right now I don’t care, though. Right now I’m inoculated. I woke up with Carly, remembering clearly how happy she makes me. I can handle finding Mia in their bedroom, if she’s even in there.
I rap lightly on the door, but no one answers. I turn the knob and push the door open anyway, just to make sure. I probably shouldn’t have. For all I told myself I could deal, if I’d opened that door and seen him fucking her, I would’ve had to pour straight bleach in my eyes.
But he’s not inside. She is. Mia’s asleep on the bed with Dom on her chest. Her shirt’s not entirely covering her breast so I try not to look there, but Dom’s sleeping with his tiny mouth hanging open like a baby bird, waiting for food. Damn, he’s cute.
I should definitely leave them here, but now I don’t know if I’ll get to play with him at all and I want to see him up close without Mateo breathing down my neck. I approach the bed, setting the bag down at the foot. Mateo has a giant-ass bed. I guess it’s a king, but it looks bigger. Mia looks so small curled up on it with our son.
Our son.
I start to sit down, then decide to explore first. When Isabella was first born, Beth and Mateo kept her in an adjoining bedroom. After Beth died, he turned into an oversized storage closet, but I have a feeling Mia wouldn’t want Dom to be far away, so I wander out to see if that’s Dom’s bedroom.
Seems like it is.
The bedroom has been remodeled since Isabella, obviously. Now it’s blue and gray, with elephant paintings on the wall and a soft, blue elephant play mat thing in the floor that Dom must play on. There are pictures hanging up on the wall—three black and white shots, newborn photos. Christmas newborn photos. The middle one is Mia, Mateo and Dom in front of the big-ass Christmas tree he puts up in December. Flanking it are black and white newborn photos of Dom by himself. On the next wall, three more pictures. One for each month. He’s wearing a little sticker that looks like a tie, and it reads 1 month, 2 months, 3 months in each picture.
I’ll never have any of these. There will never be a picture of Dom on my wall. Mateo gets to stand there with Mia in a picture, acting like his father. He’ll always have Dom’s pictures on his walls, him napping in his bed while he works, his mother in his bed every night.
I try to shake off those thoughts as I drift over to the bookshelves on the wall. Carly wanted to buy Dom a copy of Goodnight Moon since she used to read it to Laurel, so we did. I’m relieved to see it’s not one of the books he already has on the shelves.
On the corner of the bookshelf, aimed directly at the crib, is a security camera. Or is it just a standard baby monitor? I guess it could go either way. Someone is probably watching me right now, alerting the fucking watchdogs to come retrieve me.
I should probably go.
I don’t, but I should.
I do leave Dom’s nursery, but only to wander back to Mia’s bedside. She’s still fucking cute when she sleeps. It’s honestly annoying. She’s close to the middle of the bed, probably so she didn’t have to worry about Dom falling off. There’s plenty of room for me to sit on the edge. Her body shifts slightly as I take a seat. Flashes of Vegas come back to me, me asking her to fix my broken heart; Mia helpless, eyes shining, telling me she couldn’t, she didn’t know how.
Carly knew how.
Maybe it’s Dom. Maybe he’s why my thoughts keep drifting back to Mia. This is the exact opposite of how I was raised. I know in most modern households divorce and blended families are commonplace, but not mine. I’ve never known a Morelli man who had to watch his son be raised by someone else. It just doesn’t happen. Our women belong to us ‘til death—theirs, generally, but death nonetheless. Mia broke that rule and traded up. I know that wasn’t her intention, she just slipped and fell into it, but this is weird as hell to me. Just seeing her again triggered things in me, but seeing her and finding out she had my baby?
I don’t even understand how that happened.
In a hundred million years, I would have never imagined Mateo letting her have my baby. He must have known it could be mine. Mia can’t lie. How would Mateo Morelli, of all fucking people, accept that his wife was having another man’s child?
I know I don’t deserve any kind of rights after what I put her through, but damn, if it doesn’t hurt to know he’s going to grow up never even knowing me. Mateo is 90% of the reason I didn’t want to have kids when Mia and I were together, and now he’s going to raise my son.
Would she have been happy with me if I’d given her that baby when we were together? If we’d had Dom together, if his conception hadn’t been mean and ugly? I bet she would have tried harder with a baby involved. She wouldn’t have caved to Mateo so easily. She would have looked out for Dom, tried to keep us all together and happy. Mia was born to have a family. I bet she’s a great mom.
I glance back at the door, half expecting to see Adrian or Mateo standing there, glaring at me, but there’s no one. Maybe they aren’t watching the cameras on live view. Or, if they are, they probably just wouldn’t think to look for me in Mateo’s room.
Fuck it. I crawl as gently as I can to the other side of the bed, right next to her. Dom’s hand is slung over her shoulder. I settle into Mateo’s spot next to her and reach out to touch his hand, but Mia stirs. I freeze. She doesn’t open her eyes, just sighs and eases Dom down between us as she snuggles up against my side.
Well, shit.
I should say something. She thinks I’m Mateo. I’m in his room. In his bed. Lying beside his drowsy wife. Mia’s not the most conscientious half-asleep person; if him fucking her in my bed all those years ago wasn’t evidence enough, this sure is.
Dom throws an arm over mine, turning his face and snuggling my arm.
Yeah, I’m not getting up. Maybe I can sneak out before she wakes up. She’ll just think she dreamed Mateo came home. First I’m going to let Dom cuddle my arm for a little bit, because this is fucking adorable.
---
Something cold and hard presses into my temple so hard that my head moves. My head knocks into Mia’s. I jerk upright and the hard object is still pressed against my temple, but as the sleep fog quickly clears, dread creeps down my spine and I know exactly what it is.
I raise my
hands to indicate I don’t want trouble, turning to meet Mateo’s glare as he holds his gun to my head.
“Relax,” I say, evenly. “I didn’t touch her.”
“Get the fuck off my bed,” Mateo returns, his tone caught somewhere between utterly calm and unrepentantly murderous.
I clear my throat, easing away from Mia. Dom moved around in his sleep so he’s snuggled up against Mia again. Since he’s not on my arm anymore, I’m able to move without waking him up.
The noises—or the head-knock—are enough to wake Mia, though. She rises up, twisting my way. Her sleepy smile promptly melts into alarm and her blue eyes widen. “Mateo, what the hell are you—?” She halts, realizing my presence in her bed makes no more sense than him standing there with his gun drawn. Then she looks down and sees her boob popped out of her shirt. She sighs irritably, tucking it away and pushing off the bed.
Since she was sleeping when I came in, she has no idea what is going on, but she still runs around the bed, putting a calming hand on Mateo’s chest, moving her body in front of him and doing her best to ease him back. He’s immovable, so her best effort fails, but she keeps trying to soothe him. “Nothing happened. He wasn’t—I don’t know—” She casts a look back at me for help, but realizes quickly there is no good explanation for why I’m on Mateo’s bed, so she gives up logic and just tries to snuggle him into putting his gun down, leaning in and murmuring things I can’t quite hear in his ear as she runs her hands over various parts of his body—his chest, his stomach, his arm, his back, his shoulder.
He continues to stare at me and I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, he would love nothing more than to shoot me dead, right here, right now. Whatever illusion of civility he’s maintained since the moment he called me to tell me he had my father killed, the bloodlust burning in his eyes right now is what’s real. He wants me dead, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.