SEAL'd Trust (Brotherhood of SEAL'd Hearts)

by Gabi Moore

The cold was thawing. He laughed and looked behind him at the woman and then back at me. My mind raced. Throat dry. He lunged at me and grabbed my arm, twisting it hard so I couldn’t get away. He was twice my size. My feet nearly come off the ground.

  “Little shit. You thieving round here? Give me what you got or I’m calling the police.”

  “No,” I said again, almost biting down on the word to get it out.

  He wasn’t laughing anymore.

  “I won’t give you anything,” I said. “And if you don’t let me go, I’m going to tell everyone what I saw you doing.” The words felt like they came from somewhere else. Not from me, but from a stronger, better boy that somehow existed just a few inches in front of me, like a photo negative. A stronger, braver photo negative.

  “I know you’re supposed to be married soon,” I continued. “I’ll tell your girl. I’ll tell her everything.”

  He flung me aside like it burned his hands to hold me, and sneered that sneer at me again. Then he laughed.

  “Little fucker. What’s your name anyway, kid?”

  “Leo.”

  “Leo what?”

  “Leo Bianchi.”

  He looked me over. This time his face is different, like he was thinking of something.

  “You got some nerve talking to me like that, you know that?”

  “I know.”

  “Bianchi, huh?”

  I nodded.

  “All right, kid. We have a deal, you keep your mouth shut and I keep my mouth shut, OK?”

  I took a long look at him and then nodded.

  “Now beat it,” he said, and turned to the woman, who was laughing again.

  I ran so hard it was like my feet were on fireLike I had firecrackers under my heels. I ran so hard the old grandma’s trinkets went mad in my pocket. I didn’t even care about the food anymore. I didn’t care about the cold. I had just spoken to Vito Roselli. In person. And I had told him “no”. I didn’t know how, I didn’t know why, but I had said “no”, and at that moment, a little flame took hold and started burning inside me, and I ran and ran as fast as I could, till my lungs burnt and I gulped for air so hard it stung my nostrils.

  I might have been some loser orphan nobody. I might have been seventy pounds soaking wet and good for nothing, but I had told Vito Roselli himself to stick it, and he did, because we had made a deal, me and him.

  I snapped back to attention and noticed my hands were shaking.

  That was the past.

  This was now.

  Today, I was a man who could not only afford to buy my own trinkets and jewelry, but I had a beautiful woman to give them all to. And today, today I was going to give her something truly special.

  I ran the pad of my thumb over the stubby velvet of the ring box I held in my hand. Stroking it over and over, my mind wandered. I had already lied to her about the stupid flowers that came that morning. I had lied to her about what had happened with Vito after that fateful day in the alleyway, years ago. And I was busy lying to her right now about allowing myself to be a pawn in a game played by the region’s most brutal mob family since the 1900s.

  But no more.

  I had met with a shady looking kid at the Westgate parking lot a day earlier and arranged to hold a sealed, 48-foot intermodal container in my freshly built warehouse for two nights. No documents, no questions, no nothing. I didn’t want to do it. But I also didn’t want them to even mention Sophia to me again. I didn’t even want her name dragged into a sentence these boneheads would ever utter. Hell, I didn’t want them to even think about her. And the fucking flowers? Creepy. Already a step too far.

  I would take care of it myself. Sophia had endured enough in life already. She could live to a hundred and five, perfect days every day, and still have had more than her fair share of shit in life. So I was no way in hell going to be responsible for giving her any more.

  I reluctantly shook the parking lot kid’s dirty hand and told him to scram. I’d hold the container for a few nights, but that was it. And then on my way home I stopped at a ring store.

  I heard the front door open.

  “Leo? Baby?” she said. Her voice was like a miracle. I ran over to her, swooped her up in my arms before she could close the door and spun her round quickly, getting lost in the curtain of long brown hair.

  She squealed and clung to my neck.

  “Leo! Oh my god, what’s gotten into you?” she laughed, as I deposited her on the couch and got to work unlacing her boots and yanking off her various bags and scarves.

  “I’m just glad you’re home, that’s all.”

  She smelt like heaven. It was always a wonder to me, how she always, always smelt good. Her eyes had those fine little crinkles in the corner as she looked down at me with amusement.

  “Getting the royal treatment, I see?” she said.

  I smiled back up at her and gave her a naughty wink.

  “Oh, something like that…” I said, and she squealed again. I embraced her and kissed her hard and deep, lacing my fingers through her locks, kissing her like I had forgotten how good it could be. She pulled back and looked at me with questioning eyes.

  “So what did you want to talk about…?”

  I averted my eyes.

  Marriage was never something we had sat down and had a big fat serious discussion over. I knew she wanted it, sure, but I had never seen the point if we were both just going through the motions. I wanted it to feel right. And these days …I don’t know, something about dredging up the past just made the present seem that much more real to me. I wanted her. And I wanted her for always.

  “We’ll get to that, just kiss me now,” I said, and her deep eyes, one brown and one blue, just like mine, twinkled at me. I leaned down to crouch on the floor in front of her, angling down slow and coy like she could tell how crazy it was making me, and she planted the sweetest, fairy light little kiss along my parted lips.

  “You seem different this evening,” I breathed, as she teased the tips of my lips with hers.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You like it?”

  “Of course.”

  She smiled and dipped her tongue in for another slow, delicious kiss.

  “Baby I’ve been thinking about you all day,” I whispered, and I slid two eager hands down the length of her voluptuous waist and onto her round hips.

  “Have you really?” she said teasingly, and giggled. “And what have you been thinking about exactly?”

  I so seldom saw her all flirty like this.

  “Well, I was thinking about …this,” I said and rested my hand on the swell of her perfect hips. “And I was thinking about …this,” I said, slowly sliding my fingertips down and in, so they hovered close to the deep cleft at the fold where her thighs met her belly.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. And I was thinking about how much it turns me on, everything that’s underneath… this…” Here I traced delicate circles over the fabric of her simple shift dress, feeling the silky material glaze against her skin. The air in the room went heavy and I could hear her breathing as she looked down and watched me.

  “And I’ve been thinking about those sounds you make when you’re really excited …when you’re so turned on it looks like you could scream it feels so good, only you can’t catch your breath long enough to scream,” I said softly, and carried on tracing those circles.

  She moaned and smiled.

  “And I was thinking, what would I have to do to her to get her to make those sounds again?”

  “Oh I can think of a few things…” she giggled.

  By now my circles had found their way to teasing up the hem of her dress to reveal her firm, tanned thighs underneath. She had flopped back on the sofa and I was now on the floor below, between her legs and peering up at her from underneath heavy eyelids. With her head tossed to one side and her long hair raining down onto her shoulders on the other, she looked so beautiful. So perfect.

  She grabbed one of my h
ands and, trembling, placed it higher up, to the warm, sweet mound right at the top of her thighs.

  “I’ve been thinking about you too…” she purred, and, while still holding my eyes with hers, she began to slowly trace my hand over herself in the same small, tentative circles. I could hear her breath coming in excited rasps. I kissed her knee, gazing up at her with worshipful eyes.

  “You like it like that?”

  She gave me a mischievous nod.

  With my other hand I slid the rest of the dress high up her hips and pressed her legs wider open still. When she peeled off her underwear, the warm, wet scent of her body underneath bloomed out and hit me, driving me wild.

  “Fuck, you’re beautiful,” I growled, and got to my knees to kiss her inner thighs, to bury my head into that sweet lap. My tongue slipped easily between the slick folds of her body, then slid the full length of her wet pussy, ending in a little swirl at her plump pink clit. My hands felt her thighs quiver in response to this and spread wider, perching her ass off the edge of the sofa and tilting higher up for more. So I did it again. And again.

  I looked up to see her head flop to the other side. Each of her hands were pulling at me, clenching and unclenching her little fists in my hair and grinding desperately up against me. The sight of her thrashing and moaning like that was all I needed: in a few moments I was rock hard and wanting her so bad it ached.

  And just at that moment, I had a thought. It was a dumb thought, but I had it anyway. I didn’t want anyone giving her flowers ever again. Not Vito. Not one of his goons. Nobody. Nobody except me. I wanted to be the cause of that beautiful smile on her face, always. I wanted to be the reason her whole face lit up and her eyes went wide. Why the fuck hadn’t I bought her flowers every single day?

  “That feels amazing…” she mumbled with half-closed eyes.

  “Marry me,” I blurted.

  She yanked my head up and looked me square in the eyes, shocked.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said marry me. Say yes. I love you Sophia. Let’s just do it, let’s not waste any more time.”

  “Woah woah woah,” she cried and quickly scooted her butt back so the hem of her dress flopped down again to cover her.

  “Are you serious?”

  I must have looked really goofy, grinning up at her, face wet, dick hard. But she stared back at me with something like suspicion.

  “You’re proposing to me …now?”

  “What better time to do it, right?” I laughed. Proposing while buried face full in the sweet lap of the woman I loved, completely venerating that most secret, most delicious part of her body …what made more sense in the world?

  She looked pissed, though.

  “Marriage isn’t a joke, Leo,” she said, looking confused. I got up quickly and sat next to her on the sofa.

  “But I’m not joking.”

  The mood in the room had gone from plasma hot to sputtering in a few seconds. I didn’t understand. I quickly scrambled to reach for the side table, then handed her the velvet box. She looked at it.

  “Is it a ring?”

  “Of course it’s a ring!” The dawning realization that I was fucking something up, maybe profoundly, hit me like a ton of bricks.

  “You didn’t want a ring…?”

  “No, I …it’s not that Leo…” she said quietly. She opened the box and put the ring on, then fanned out her fingers and took a long, cryptic look at it.

  “It’s nice. It’s a beautiful ring, really. It’s just that …I guess I didn’t expect this moment to feel quite like this.”

  “Baby…” I sat at her feet again, took the ring box from her, tossed it aside and grasped both her hands.

  “Baby, I know this is important to you, and I know I’ve been a pain in the ass about the whole idea, but you’re right, and I want to, and I think we’re ready.”

  She looked down at me with a faint smile playing on her lips and a few sparkly tears clinging to her lower lashes.

  “You’re a big idiot, you know that Leo?” she said and stroked my chin with her fingertips.

  “You said you liked the ring!” I said and laughed.

  “Uh huh. And how am I going to tell people you proposed to me, hm?”

  “Well, just tell them the truth,” I said with a sheepish grin. “Tell them I was eating you out and was so overcome by the amazingness of your perfect pussy that I basically had a religious experience and I couldn’t help but propose, right there and then.”

  She burst out laughing. I reached up and grabbed her, and the laughter stopped for a moment as we stared into one another’s eyes, the reality of the moment really hitting.

  “You didn’t give me your answer yet,” I whispered up close. She blinked hard and the tears rolled quickly down her round cheeks.

  “Leo, I would marry you a dozen times over, you know that. I love you.”

  I kissed her again, deeply, and was soon hard again. She laughed, tears still flowing, and looked down at me.

  “Well that’s very romantic,” she said, eyeing the massive bulge in my trousers.

  I gave her a completely serious look.

  “Isn’t it?” I said. “The thought of committing to loving you for the rest of our lives gives me a raging hard on …sounds pretty romantic to me.”

  The ring sparkled vaguely on her finger as her hands clasped around my neck and shoulders, and she lowered into a passionate kiss.

  “Now where were we…?” I said as I guided her body back to its old position and my hands found their way back up her dress again. She giggled as I gently pried open her thighs and found that familiar, juicy spot I loved.

  “Not that, I want your cock.”

  I lifted my eyebrow at her. She never, and I mean never said that to me. Sophia was always demure. Always the classy girl who nudged and smiled and hinted, but never, and I really mean never, used anything remotely like a dirty word. She didn’t have to tell me twice. I sprung up, tore off my clothing and soon had her dress bunched high up just under her armpits.

  Fumbling wildly, I lay her down on the sofa and tried to balance carefully over her, all the while she had that naughty fuck me look in her eyes.

  To my delight, she pulled her legs apart and up high towards her shoulders, completely exposing her gorgeous pink cunt to me. I couldn’t help myself. When I brought my hips down hard onto her and sunk the full length of my cock into her greedy little body, it felt so mind-splittingly good I had to stop breathing for a moment. She gasped and twitched against me, but I couldn’t hold back. It was as though I was falling off a steep cliff and now that I had taken the first step, I couldn’t stop myself from accelerating further and further down, chasing that sweet ecstasy she had tucked away inside her…

  In an instant I was fucking her hard and mercilessly, pulling up my hips and bringing them swiftly down again into her upturned hips, ploughing every last inch of my cock deep into her, stroke after stroke after stroke. To my surprise, she opened up further and took it all in without skipping a beat. She put her knees to her chest, folded up small, and squeezed her eyes tightly against every thrust. I scarcely recognized her, as though she was in a trance. But she wouldn’t look at me. Her eyes were closed, and soon, I realized something was wrong. Very wrong.

  “Sophia? Hey, where did you go?” I said, and she blinked her eyes open and stared up at me.

  “I’m right here,” she smiled, but there was something hollow in it.

  I looked down at her, gently grazing my knuckles against her cheekbones as I kept that same deep, smooth rhythm in and out of gorgeous body. But something was wrong. In a few moments, I could hold out no more. I growled and clenched my jaw, lost control and came inside her. Her face was blank as she steadied my arms and watched my face twisting and contorting.

  I was sweating like a pig and probably just as pink as one, too, but she lay underneath me, looking disconcertingly unruffled.

  “You didn’t…”

  “Not everything in the worl
d is about having an orgasm you know,” she snapped.

  I was stunned.

  I disentangled my limbs from hers, tried to gather myself and watched as she quickly shimmied her dress back down again and started to hunt around for her underwear.

  I wanted to say something. But I stood there mute, wondering what the hell had just happened.

  “I’m sorry…” she said eventually, when she had smoothed back her hair and stood up from the sofa. “It’s just …all of this is quite overwhelming.”

  She came over and gave me a sweet, lingering hug. But something was still wrong. I realized with a dull ache somewhere inside my chest: she could have secrets from me, too.

  Chapter 6 - Sophia

  I took a peek over my shoulder, pushed the heavy doors open and quietly let myself inside.

  I had been attending this salsa class for a few months now, but no matter how many times I skulked up to the non-descript entrance, I still had to double and triple check that the coast was clear before slinking inside. The group itself knew to hide, too.

  The room inside was identified only by a paper sign printed with “Melissa’s Salsa Club” and nothing more. But if anybody had seen me creeping into this room, it would instantly be clear that there was no salsa going on here at all.

  Inside was a wide ring of budget plastic chairs, arranged on a linoleum floor, and a steel foldout table laden with supermarket cookies and a few bottles of Coke Zero. Somehow, the spread of snacks always seemed to fill me with as much shame as the real reason I was here.

  I settled down, clutching my handbag close to my body and nodding curt smiles to some of the faces I recognized and had seen in previous sessions.

  More people drifted in through the big doors, some looking a little nervous and unsure, most just milling over to a chair or helping themselves to a cookie. Lizzy, our coordinator, came swanning through the doors in her usual wooden bead necklace and long skirt get-up, and smiled warmly as she settled down.

  “Right! If that’s everyone, we’ll get started,” she chirped, and opened up a folder.

  When you come to a sex addicts support group, the first part is always to put the newbies through the ringer. Everyone listens with blank expressions but I know, deep down, that they’re all taking notes, all measuring them up, mentally peeling off their clothing, mentally chastising themselves and then mentally placing it all back on again. It’s awful. It’s sordid, I know it is. But I can’t help but keep coming back here.