by Marata Eros
I know Mick and I share something. I keep saying we don't need to go further, that we can be casual. Somehow, he nods and says the right words while his body moves against mine like ownership, forever... and maybe the promise of something I can't contemplate.
Love.
The L word is worse than a curse right now. It's a have not.
“He can have anyone for a fuckfest, Faren. He doesn't need you.” Kiki folds her arms, deep in thought. “This is going to sound awful because you know I think you're a little hottie, but”—her eyes apologize—“he can have any hot piece of ass he wants. Experienced tail.”
“I know.” I shrug with a small, sad laugh. “I don't understand it either. The more he knows about me, the more he seems determined to have me.”
“And?” Kiki says.
Truth time. “And I want to let him.”
Kiki stands, and I do too. She walks over and hugs me, some five inches shorter than me. “You don't have to do this, Faren. You want an anonymous guy to take your virginity? Done. You want to quit the laps? I'll give you the money. You want me to make an anonymous call to the cops and let them know their local high-end pimp is wanted for attempted murder?”
Her eyes hunt in mine so deeply I feel as though she's mining my soul.
“I'll do anything to make this better.” Kiki cups my face and swipes the lone tear that tracks down it, pulled by gravity, eased by her finger.
“Tell me what I can do. Because, god damn, you don't want love mixed in the witch's cauldron here.”
I'm so overwhelmed by her generosity, I can't speak. The lump in my throat chokes me. Our eyes lock.
“Don't tell me you're falling for... Mick?”
I say nothing.
I don't have to.
“Oh shit, honey...”
Kiki wraps me in her arms as I sob. The pity party's begun, and she’s crashed it. Just like I knew she would.
What are friends for?
~ 7 ~
Bryce again.
One-two-three, he huffs through his leg extensions and for the first time, my mind wanders during a session. It could be because Doc Matthews is pressing for protocol.
I have big decisions to make about radiations, chemotherapy and the rest.
I don't like “the rest.” I know the counteractives will make me sicker than the actual progression of the tumor's growth. They'll screw up the things I want to gain from the short life I have left. I can't allow it. So I'll go in and sign a novel's worth of release forms.
They don't want to be responsible for my decision.
My phone chimes with a text just as Bryce finishes his set.
He stands and grabs a terrycloth hand towel from a peg that reads Bryce, and he gives me a penetrating look that's part glare, part inquisition.
“You're not all here today, Miss Mitchell.” He wipes sweat off his forehead then drags the towel up his forearms.
You're not all here...
True. Definitely not all here. I don't answer with the whole truth. “I have a doctor's appointment, and I'm... thinking too hard.”
“Huh,” he says, staring at me.
“Headaches,” I supply, and Bryce's brows cock to his hairline.
I sigh. “Y'know, migraines.”
He nods, and my shoulders drop as my mind skitters across things like another therapist taking my patients when I'm gone. I shove the thought away, latching onto the conversation at hand.
“Yeah, my mom gets those once in awhile,” he says.
We stand awkwardly for a moment. Then Bryce asks, “Am I about done?”
I am.
I push through my emotions. “Yes, you've got almost full extension now.” I narrow my eyes, thinking about how hard he must have worked to finish his sessions early. My brows arch. “I guess you were doing your homework?”
Bryce grins. “For this? Yeah.”
I hear the part that he doesn't say—not for school.
“Listen, Bryce—”
He gives me the hand. “Nah... don't need a lecture about my future from my physical therapist.”
I smile. “Okay.”
Bryce nods and turns away. No limp anymore. He pivots back, and I see the light bulb of a question on his face.
“Yes?” I ask.
His eyes travel to my hand. The left.
“Is that why you do this?”
I don't look at it, but I feel the subtle tremble. “Yeah.” I give him steady eye contact.
“Can I see it?” Earnest. Young. Leave it to a teenager to go where adults fear to tread.
“Okay.” I don’t want to show anyone—ever.
I hold out my hand, and he towers over me. Bryce was a lineman on the football team before he wrecked his knee, and I feel the acute disparity in our sizes.
He’ll play again. We made sure of it—together.
Bryce's large hand opens my left hand. My fingers slightly curl, but the pinky sticks straight out, frozen. The twisted pucker scar on my palm is just off center. He runs a finger over it, and my entire hand convulses.
His eyes sweep to mine. “Why does it do that?”
I swallow hard. “It...” I collect myself as he hangs on to my hand. “There was nerve damage from the wound.”
His eyes darken. “Who did this to you, Miss Mitchel?”
I try to lighten the moment. “I thought you hated me?” I give a small smile, and he frowns. He doesn't take to my effort at distraction.
Bryce shakes his head. “No, I never did. I hated the therapy.”
I nod. I knew that. I gulp again. “My stepfather.”
“Jesus,” he whispers in horror. He looks at my messed up hand, a raw ball of pink flesh stares back at us.
It’s pretty horrible, bare to the scrutiny of a teenager whose main gripe is not playing football.
“Can you use it?” he asks.
Not much. “Yeah, some.”
His anger is palatable. It beats the air between us into a thick trench of emotion. “Where is this dick nozzle?”
I burst out laughing, and he lets go of my hand. “Dick nozzle, huh?” I grin, the tension evaporating.
He replies, totally serious, “I was editing that.”
My brows quirk. Wow, editing. Must've had a really choice comment.
“I hope they find that bastard,” Bryce says.
I hope so too. My palms sweat. I have laps tonight in a new location. I don't know what I'll do if Ronnie shows. Somehow, I don't think Thorn will give two shits who Ronnie is. Why does Mick have that prick in charge?
More questions than answers. Ones I can't ask without giving away what I'm doing.
After Bryce leaves, I reach into my smock and pull out my phone.
A text from Mick.
Of course.
A thrill shoots through me with dread at its heels. Mick is circling so close to the truth. Truths I don't want him to know.
Before I leave the clinic, Sue asks how my visit to the doctor went.
I thank her for the recommendation and say it went well. It's just another of many lies. I'm becoming expert at sinning by omission.
I have the papers to sign and my mom to see.
And money to collect off the lust of men.
But... I look at the text from Mick. Apparently, no circumstance in the universe can distract me from him. I'm getting sucked into the vortex of Mick.
I want to see you.
I want to see him too. My hand shakes as I text back the most important word of the day.
When?
*
I load ice into a washrag that I press against my eyes. It'll take the swelling down to something I can hide with makeup.
The tears come no matter how hard I resist them.
My mom's situation is worse. They’re talking of moving her to the state facility. The discussions have moved to down payments for retention.
Like my finances are incontinent.
I have two weeks to come up with ten percent of the year’s care
of my mother, or she'll be moved.
My right hand throbs from the papers I signed at the hospital. Do I hold them liable since I don't want drugs that lengthen my short life but make what's left diminished?
Yes. I sign anyway. After thirty signatures, Faren Mitchell is a parody of who I am. White pages with blue mock me.
I slip on another work outfit. They all blend together now. I twirl in front of the mirror with no admiration for how it makes me look. Deliberate calculation stares back as I go through my mental tally.
Is it short enough? Does it show just enough skin? Did I remember to coat my nipples with edible strawberry lotion in anticipation of a stranger’s suckling?
Can I shower fast enough before Mick arrives to scour the filth of other men's mouths and fingers from my body? A burn begins behind my eyelids. I widen them, and the feeling passes.
I will not cry. I will work, dance, and collect money. Above all else, I will not contemplate what it means if Ronnie Bunce is psychotic enough to reappear.
I drop my cell inside my purse, along with my keys and lip gloss. I slip through my door and turn the bolt with a swift click. I turn and scream, my hand flying to my neck.
Mick stands there, a wicked look on his face. My startled gaze drags over him. His outfit is impeccable but more causal than I've ever seen.
I'm in my stripper outfit. Thorn is expecting me.
Shit and double shit.
Mick had told me he'd be here at midnight, not nine. I moved heaven and earth to get off work early, and here he is.
I'm so mad that Mick can't keep to our arrangement.
I get a physical reaction of pleasure that he ignores it.
My nipples harden, and a sliver of his neck holds my eyes as his heartbeat pulses in the exposed hollow. My body remembers him perfectly, reacting in a predictable, pulse-thudding surge of desire that hits my core like a typhoon. The fingers of lust touch every intimate spot on my body. Awakening it for him.
“Surprise,” he says, his deep rumble threading through my body.
~ 8 ~
My hand lowers from my chest, my heartbeat undaunted as we stare at each other. “I thought we agreed on midnight...”
Mick's deep auburn eyebrow arches. “You agreed.”
I swallow, and his eyes catch mine.
“Where were you going?” he asks, his eyes driving up my body like a whip of heat.
Oh god. “Out of milk.”
“Really?” He folds his arms.
My gaze shifts to his bulging biceps. He probably gets those sleek muscles from counting his money and throwing the extra into his built-in incinerator. I realize how uncharitable I'm being and laugh at myself before slapping my hand over my mouth. I'm living a surreal existence, and I keep finding pockets of humor at the strangest times. At least it gets me out of my insta-lust problem.
Mick strides to me, and my mouth closes. His athletic fluidity makes all of my other senses step back as my vision narrows to only him. His shirt sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. The material stretches taut over his chest and arms. The fine muscles in his forearms ripple as he puts one against my locked door and presses against me. I feel his hardness through the thin material of my outfit. It should trigger every alarm I have from the soulless job I perform... but it doesn't. Everything to do with Mick seems too real.
“Are you laughing at me, Miss Mitchell?” he whispers, pressing against me deeper.
I gasp when his mouth moves from my earlobe to the soft skin underneath it. His mouth swings back and forth, making me shiver uncontrollably. I lose every thought of work, timing, and my inappropriate milk-fetching outfit.
In his arms, I come alive.
My hands creep to Mick's broad shoulders as I beg with my mouth, rasping against the stubble that peppers his jawline. He doesn't make me wait, taking my mouth in a sweep of brutal ownership that makes me stop breathing. He ravishes me with a kiss so simultaneously deep, hard, and tender, I let go of him through sheer self-preservation. Mick sweeps his arms behind me and draws me into him, disallowing my escape. When his fingers plunge into my hair and my lipstick is worn away, Mick finally lifts his head.
We stare at each other, our ragged breathing the only noise that fills the hall.
Mick grins. “Now that's the only look I want you to wear, Faren. Naked would be better, but I'll take this too.”
His deep voice vibrates against my body, and I shiver from that subtle vibration, from his scandalous words and the images they provoke. I swim to the surface of my mind. I'm in the hall of my apartment building making out with Mick in my lap-dancing outfit.
Mick scrutinizes my morphing emotions as they blaze across my face. His brows pull together. The dip of dark red hair at his forehead is near-black in the shadowed hallway. “Tell me where you're really going, Faren.”
Mick demands, not with his words but with the gentle kisses he lays between my breasts and I shudder, sinking my fingers into his hair.
He groans.
“No.” My face turns, and his fingers tighten into my hips as he drags me deeper into the stiffness that presses between my legs. “You don't own me, Mr. McKenna,” I say in a voice low with need.
“God, I love your defiance,” he says, his tongue against my flesh. “It's such a turn on.”
My eyes seek his. “Only because it's true.”
He raises his eyes to meet mine. I can feel each of his fingers blazing like spots of heat through the slinky material of my dress as he cinches those fingers tighter.
“I could find out,” Mick says. His words are light, but his eyes are dark with intent.
I nod. “You could,” I challenge.
Mick cages me with his arms, the heat from those hands beside my face, and sighs. “It's not good enough. I want you to want me.”
I laugh, and his brows jump above those dark eyes. His expression makes my heart race. I want him to dominate me, control me because I don't want the control I have to own. In this one thing, he is the antidote to my situation. The perfect opposition to my decisions.
“I do,” I answer. The truth is almost painful.
He surprises me by cupping his large hand over my sex, his thumb pressing against my clit. I buck against his hand, sucking in a breath that he captures with his mouth.
“I know that you want me.” He lifts his mouth and meets my eyes.
Mine are half-closed with lust. Mick moves his thumb, and moisture surges down against where he touches. I whimper at the swirl of that soft pad against my most intimate of areas. I can't argue because what he says is true but...
“Okay,” I gasp as that dexterous thumb swirls faster, harder. “Then what are you saying?”
His hand leaves me, and I slap my door, my bad hand steady as a rock. My core throbs for a finish he doesn't provide. It's not blue balls; it's blue clit.
His finger moves to my jaw, running the length of it. “I don't know.” His stare never drops as his finger slides a trail of heat between my breasts.
I sigh, moving my face away from him. He steps back, and my body is cold without his. “You do know, or you wouldn't have said anything. You've made yourself into a billionaire.” I glare at him with uncertainty and sexual frustration. “You're not going to let one woman get under your skin, screw up your agenda, your easy life.”
Mick's expression darkens. He slams his hand next to my face, and the door rattles as my eyes widen.
“You're scaring me, Mick,” I whisper.
“Good,” he says, an inch from my face. “You don't seem like you know what you want or how to protect yourself. Keeping me at arm's length because you're scared of what's here between us isn't working.” His eyes move to my mouth. “It isn't going to work.”
I move into his body, and his hands drop, clenching to keep from touching me. His body leans toward me, a physical tell of his desire and forced restraint.
But I keep pressing. “It is working.” I plead for neutrality because I know what I can reasonably give. And
there isn't one speck of reason within our entire relationship. A casual meeting was lost the second he took my hand in the middle of the street. Neither one of us would admit it. We still won't.
He loosens a hand and touches a tendril of my hair, spreading it to thinness between his fingers then tucks it behind my ear. “It's not going to work for me.” He drops his hand.
“I don't know what to tell you.” I want to tell him everything.
Mick is telling me that he wants sex, that he wants more. But he wants the Faren he thinks he knows. The martyr who has been through hell and survived, who takes care of her mother. A woman who is an enigma. A fixer.
Not the Faren who performs illicit dances at his clubs. Who is a dead girl walking. No, he doesn't want her.
I change the subject like a gutting. “I'm meeting Kiki later. We need a little dress-up girl time.”
I can see he doesn't believe me.
“Fine,” he says with a casual shoulder lift. “I don't offer this to most women.”
“I feel so special, Mick.” My sarcasm echoes in the hall where kisses did moments before.
Mick rakes a hand through his hair. “That's not what I meant and you know it.”
I shake my head. “No.” I press my finger into his chest, and his scent wafts between us, cinnamon, spice, and male. I suck it in greedily. “What I do know, is that you're used to getting what you go after.” I fight my instinct to fling myself in his arms and wrap my legs around him.
His face falls into grim lines. “True.”
“Then why are you telling me you want more? That my 'defiance' gets you off? We both know it's some kind of flame that'll burn bright only to snuff out. What's the point?”
I shouldn't say those things. I had planned to give Mick that precious part of myself, and now I think, worse than my approaching death, that I might have given more than I meant. Having sex with him might slowly kill who I am instead of being the easy experience I wanted to mark off before I'm gone.
Mick grabs me, his fingers desperate against my bare back. He breathes against my goose-pebbled flesh, and his steady words sink like talons of truth into my psyche. “What if it's not?”