by L.J. Shen
I grinned and poured her a glass of wine. I was already in my jeans and T-shirt. “Mmm, women in suits and sneakers. The antidote to an erection.”
She laughed and threw one of the heels at me playfully, purposely missing me by a few feet. I cocked an eyebrow, striding over to her and handing her one of the full glasses of wine.
“You’re aggressive lately. Must be all that sexual tension.” Without giving her the option for a comeback, I turned around and started opening takeout boxes, fixing us our plates.
She took a sip of the wine and I felt her eyes on my body. “How are you sleeping these days, Vic?” Her tone was sweet and seductive.
“Like a fucking baby. Thanks for asking.”
I’d somehow managed to snag some more planned sleep recently, mainly because I no longer had to worry about everything. Jo was my only loose end, and I was going to deal with her soon enough. Everything else was running smoothly. I slept every other night, which was huge progress. I don’t know how it’d happened. Maybe it was the fact that I had someone by my side now.
She tilted her head slightly and stared at me almost dreamily, and I loved her for it.
Shit. I did.
She untangled my fingers from my glass of wine and placed it on the kitchen island as she linked her arms around my neck, and that’s when I realized that all this time, all this fucking time I was chasing her, I was actually loving her.
I loved her when I hated her.
And I loved her when I didn’t want anything to do with her.
I was so crazy about her, the lines had blurred together. Feelings were mixed, emotions twisted together.
I was stealing her pens and pencils, when actually, I was desperate for her words.
All of them. Every letter and syllable. Every silly doodle.
It was clear to me then, in a generic white kitchen I didn’t particularly like, in a city I hated, in an apartment I was supposed to vacate in three weeks’ time, that I was in love.
A love that was worn and old, but still burning.
“Ask me what I want again,” I said softly, and she grinned, pressing her lips to my chest through my tee.
“What do you want?” she murmured. Her hair smelled fantastic. Like flowers and how my fucking pillow was going to smell tonight.
“Nothing. I’m done wanting things. I have everything I need now. Ask me how I feel.”
“How do you feel?”
“In love.” I breathed hard, burying my face in her hair. “I feel in love, and it’s you that I love. So fucking much.”
We didn’t eat our dinner. Instead, I carried her to my new bed, one that Dean had never slept in, and placed her on the mattress, on her stomach, watching her heart-shaped naked ass, and all that purple hair fanning her back and my pillows. I leaned forward, kissing her tattoo and dipping my hand between her legs, running a finger over her slit. She shivered in pleasure, but waited, motionless.
I purposely waited this time. Waited for it to feel right. To show her this wasn’t a fling.
I licked my way slowly from her neck to her tailbone, where I stopped and propped her ass up by raising her knees. She was on all fours now, twisting her head behind her shoulder to see what I was doing. I stole a desperate kiss and guided her face so she was facing the headboard again.
“Don’t you trust me?”
“I’m just starting to.” She laughed breathlessly, and I sank my fingers into her again, feeling her grow wetter.
I borrowed some of that heat and swirled it around her nub, my finger pads stroking smoothly, and felt her pussy rubbing into my hand desperately. I placed one hand on the small of her back, nailing her down.
“Don’t move.”
“You’re always so bossy,” she moaned, but complied. This time I didn’t forget to put on a condom. Hell, this time I didn’t forget anything. Slowly, I sank into her from behind while still working her clit. It felt good to be inside her again, but it felt even better to know that this time, it meant something.
At first, I went in slow. Desperately slow. Teasing her. Frustrating her purposely.
“Vicious,” she begged, her head falling to the pillow as she let out a sigh. “Please.”
“Please what?”
“Please don’t torture me.”
I picked up speed inside her, still not giving it to her the way she wanted it. Emilia liked to be pounded. She liked it rough and angry. Which is why we were so compatible in the first place.
“I think you like to be tortured.” I leaned forward, whispering into her ear. “I think you always liked it. Very much.”
The first wave of pleasure slammed into her, and her knees and elbows gave in. She collapsed, lying on the bed now, but I still pumped into her hard, my fingers still working her clit. I was relentless. And after depriving myself of her for so long, I had good reason to be.
“Up,” I instructed. My voice held its usual cold tone.
“I don’t think I can.” She sounded just about ready to pass out.
I tugged her up so her back met my torso, cupping one of her bouncy breasts as I fucked her from behind, brushing her nipple with my thumb over and over, rubbing it in circles while sucking on her tattoo.
“Do you know how you feel?” I growled into her neck. I was going to come any second now. I knew it, and some orgasms, you knew it was same old, same old. But this one? It felt like a first. A once-in-a-few-years epic peak.
“Good?” she asked.
“That too.” I smirked into her hot, sweaty flesh, licking it to taste her again. I was riding her so hard I knew she burned everywhere, but it was for me, so I didn’t care.
I used one of my hands to support her while playing with her tits, and the other to grab her knee and spread her leg to the side for better access, then pounded harder. She yelled louder. Everything between us throbbed.
“You feel like redemption. And do you know what that’s like?”
I flipped her over, but I was still at it, and she was shaking with what might’ve been her third orgasm.
“No. Tell me.”
I came inside her hard, feeling my release inside her warm, tight pussy.
“It’s perfection, like you.”
I fucked Emilia so hard my back looked like I’d fought a fucking grizzly bear by the time we were done.
When we collapsed back on bed, she rolled over on top of me and whimpered, “I love you.”
“I know,” I said. Because I did. Because who else would ever put up with my bullshit if they didn’t love me?
“It scares me,” she added.
“Don’t let it. I promise I’ll protect you from anything. Even from myself.”
An hour later, I was already dragging her out to the balcony—hey, it was a hot day outside, almost summer—sitting her naked ass on the dining set and pushing her legs wide with my shoulders. I ran my tongue along her slit teasingly, hardening in my briefs again. I slid my hand between her legs and pinched her clit. It was good to feel her flesh against mine again. And at least now I knew that the vacation I had booked in the Hamptons would be a fuck-fest
“People can see us,” she told me, and not for the first time. She was right, of course. We were on the twentieth floor, but so was pretty much the rest of Manhattan.
“Fuck ’em,” I said, eating her out, filling her with my tongue and fingers at the same time.
She cried my name, and I loved it on her lips so much, I nearly burst. Her mouth hung open for the rest of the time as I plunged into her with my tongue. After she came once more, I stood up and lowered her body so she was flat against the table and fucked her raw, the dining set dancing under her ass, until we both found our releases.
When we ate our cold dinner at the dining table inside, I decided I was going to use my new trait of being honest and just give it to her straight.
“I sold ten percent of my shares in Fiscal Heights Holdings to Dean in exchange for six months in New York.”
Silverware clattered on the
table and silence filled the air.
I continued. “That was back in January. I have three more weeks before I need to pack a bag and move back to Los Angeles. I’m not going to ask you for shit, because I know you have your life here and that you love your job, but…I’m just letting you know.”
Her eyes shot up, and she choked on her dim sum. They glittered with different emotions, which I was still too much of a dick to recognize. But I was fairly sure she wasn’t pissed off at me this time.
“Three weeks?” she repeated.
I nodded, solemn. “I can try and sell ten percent more of my shares, but there’s no way Trent and Jaime will let that happen. It’ll put their asses at risk, too.”
She drank more wine, probably to buy herself some time. After polishing the whole glass, she winced. “Thanks for telling me.”
I didn’t know what I was expecting. Actually, I did. I expected her to say that her job could go fuck itself, she was moving with me.
But then, why would she give up on her career just so I could chase mine?
“Sure. Are you gonna eat that last dim sum?” I pointed my chopsticks to her plate. She shook her head, suddenly looking sad. I picked it up and stuck it in my mouth, chewing so I wouldn’t have to talk anymore. “Good stuff.”
“AND AGAIN, I’M SO SORRY,” I parroted my own words for the twelve hundredth time, twisting my fingers together as I stood like a punished kid in Brent’s office. It was all white, other than the paintings hung on each wall of the room. They were beautiful.
One of a strawberry field.
One of naked men wearing fancy dress shoes.
One of a gun crying.
And one of a cherry blossom tree.
He stared at my painting and sighed, pushing his reading glasses up his nose.
“I’m not sure what to tell you, Millie, other than the obvious. You’re making a huge mistake.”
I would have argued, but there was no point. He was probably right. How many girls would have left everything they knew and loved—their city, their dream job, their sister, for a guy who kicked them out when they were eighteen? Not many. Yet I was that girl.
I was everything illogical and reckless, everything stupid and irrational…because I was his.
So I continued standing there, tapping my foot nervously. Brent got up from his seat, pushing from his white desk, and strode over to me. It was different than standing in front of Vicious when he was my boss.
Because now I wasn’t scared, just sad. Sacrifices were like vices. You made them, gave up something good, in order to get something better.
“What will Rosie do?” he asked. He didn’t know my sister all that much, but he’d met her a couple of times and knew our story. I shrugged. That was the most painful part. The part that made me feel like a traitor.
“She met a guy. Hal. She’s staying here in New York. Wants to enroll back in nursing school, anyway.”
Brent gave me a look—that look that said, See? You should stay here too—but I dismissed it by fixing my eyes on the naked-men painting.
“I’m so sorry I disappointed you,” I said. Which was true.
“You didn’t.” Brent leaned into my face, sighing. “I’m just hoping you’re not going to disappoint you.”
I made my way to Vic’s office right after I handed in my resignation. On the subway, I thought about the fact that I’d never resigned from so many good jobs in such a short amount of time. Ever. But I knew what I wanted, and what I wanted was to move to Los Angeles. I’d never been there, but it didn’t matter. He was going there. My parents were there.
LA was my home, and I hadn’t even been there yet.
I sauntered into Vicious’s office, and as usual, his receptionist gave me the stink eye, though at this point she knew better than to try and stop me from getting inside. Over the past few months, I’d walked in that door countless times, and, embarrassingly, produced noises she could hear perfectly while I was there. Noises that clearly gave away the idea that I was engaged in some grueling cardio activity. Vicious didn’t have a treadmill in his office, so she knew exactly what we were doing.
“Hi.” I nodded to the receptionist.
“Mmm,” she answered back, flipping through a glossy magazine with a picture of heavily photoshopped Selena Gomez on the cover.
I missed Patty. I’d only worked there one week, but it didn’t stop me from getting attached. She was fun, even when she’d twisted my arm so I’d ask Vicious to do things for her.
It took the young receptionist exactly three seconds to realize where I was heading, and when she finally snapped from her gossip-induced haze, she jumped from her seat and waved her arms at me.
“You don’t want to go in there!”
I’d stopped knocking on Vic’s door long ago. Since he took me to see the cherry blossom tree, to be exact. It was as if after that, there were no secrets between us.
I arched an eyebrow and stared at her questioningly. “Why?”
She shook her head, looking exasperated and stressed all at the same time. “He’s…he’s with this woman. It’s been loud the last half hour.”
She was kidding me.
“What?” I felt my face whitening. The receptionist pushed her hair back. She was sweating. She looked like she wasn’t sure what she should do. This was serious.
“I don’t know, I hope he’s okay. I…”
Before she could finish her sentence, I twisted the door handle and breezed into his office.
It was loud in there, but he wasn’t the one doing the screaming.
And he was with someone.
The last woman I expected to see.
Jo.
Josephine was standing over his desk, her manicured fingernails clawing at the glass, yelling loudly, while Vicious sat perfectly still in his executive chair. His eyes tore from her to me, and he gave me a private smirk peppered with a wink. It said “nice to see you” and “don’t get too attached to those panties, because I’m going to chew them off you in a second” all at the same time.
His chin rested in his hand, and he got back to staring at Josephine, who turned around and scowled at me.
“Can’t you see we’re in the middle of a conversation?” She jerked her head to me and seethed.
I walked over to her silently and slapped her. Hard.
Violence is never the answer. But it felt good when directed at the woman who orphaned the man I love.
Shocked silence filled the air after the thwack of my palm, before Jo brought her hand up and rubbed the pink flesh of her cheek.
“I hate you,” I said, staring at her through a curtain of unshed tears. “And I will protect him from you. Any way I can.”
She made no move, too astonished to react.
“It’s fine.” Vic waved her off dismissively, rising from his chair and striding in my direction.
I still eyed her like she was trash I forgot to take out, and he placed a kiss on my cheek and collected my wild hair into a ponytail, releasing it over one of my shoulders.
“Emilia knows everything, and I mean every fucking single thing, so you can talk freely in front of her.”
I still couldn’t seem to unglue my eyes from Jo. We did look alike. Sort of. And it made me sick to my stomach. Oh, how Vicious must have felt when he saw me day in and day out and all he could think about was the woman who was responsible for his mother’s death.
I hugged him, then slowly moved to her. All I did was squint at her, and she almost crumbled to pieces, still clad in her Prada dress, her high heels, and fake demure expression.
“Why are you here, Josephine? Are you begging to get thrown into jail?” I asked.
She blinked at me once, like she was sure I was incapable of actually talking just because I wasn’t the proud owner of a thousand overpriced designer dresses.
“Emilia? I thought your name was Millie, honey. Bless your heart, and here I thought you’d be cleaning someone else’s toilet right about now. You know, like you
r folks? Talk about ungrateful. I gave you a roof, a job, and a good education, and this is how you repay me?”
“Josephine,” Vic warned, “I wouldn’t upset my girlfriend, unless I was eager to get out of here in several pieces.”
“Fine,” she huffed. “I came here for negotiation, not to get ripped off.” She pointed at Vicious animatedly. “I’m not giving you everything.”
“You are, unless you want to get charged with murder.” He loosened his tie.
I stayed rooted to the floor, too stunned to do anything. He was so calm all the time that I’d mistaken his indifference for a lack of feeling. But I was wrong. Vicious was full of feelings. He was a walking, talking ball of feelings. Just because he didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve, didn’t mean his heart wasn’t bleeding.
“Baron, if you think I’m stupid, you’re dead wrong. I know exactly what you did. I always thought the timing of my brother’s death was odd. Just before you went to college, after you’d already gotten bigger, physically stronger.” She wheezed, blinking. “I always maintained there was something off about you. Told your dad you were a psycho.”
Vicious shrugged. “This is fucking adorable. You do understand that your opinion has zero weight in court, right, Miss Delusional? What you need is a little thing called hard evidence. Got some of that?”
“Well, n…no—” She started, and he cut her off.
“I heard you plotting the death of my mother with my father, and my body is covered in scars. Now take a moment to let that sink in.” He paused dramatically. He was mocking her, knotting his hands behind his back and taking a deep breath. He then proceeded. “You had a motive. And Daryl was no angel. Then there’s the weird will my father left behind. For no reason whatsoever, and without informing me or his lawyer, he disinherits his only son. Viteri told me the new will was mysteriously found in his safe deposit box after he died, and both witnesses who signed it are dead.”