Take Me

by Anna Zaires, Pepper Winters, Skye Warren, Lynda Chance, Pam Godwin, Amber Lin

  Then it broke like a fever. Katrina practically whispered “cut,” and everyone cheered. It was over. We packed up for the umpteenth time, put everything back in the trucks. The affairs that had started during shooting would either amount to something or not. The friendships would be tested. If the movie would get to theaters depended on the next few weeks, and no one but me, Katrina, Michael, and the deepest Hollywood insiders knew how unlikely that was.

  I got in the car, thinking I’d just take a midnight drive up Alameda and crawl into bed. I texted Antonio, even though it felt more and more like screaming down an empty alley.

  —I know I’m harassing you and I don’t care. If everything’s okay just text me anything back. A fuck you would be sufficient—

  I waited ten minutes, watching the last of the PAs pack up. I was distracted by the silence of my phone. Tired of waiting for something that wasn’t going to happen, I left.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Our final shoot had been in the West Valley, a straight shot down the 101. The freeway was relatively empty, and I went into auto pilot, listening to the news that the shootings and violence were unrelated, random. A southside gang shooting had hit the wrong man. A shooting during a robbery attempt. A beating in Griffith Park.

  “The lady doth protest too much,” I mumbled.

  A Lexus cut me off as I was complaining to myself. I slammed the brakes, screeching and swerving as adrenaline dumped into my bloodstream. The Club slid out from under the passenger seat.

  “Fuck!”

  The Lexus picked up speed, and I did too. I was filled with a blinding hot anger. The Lexus swerved around, and I saw the man in driver seat. Young. Goatee. Flashing me his middle finger. He sped ahead, and I had no choice whatsoever.

  I chased the car. I had no idea what I would do when I caught it, but I would catch it. It sped up even as it pulled off without a blinker. I rode his ass in my little blue car. Twenty-four, then twelve inches away at eighty. I was insane, not thinking like Theresa.

  He didn’t know who was in my car. I could have been a gangbanger, and he ran. Oh, if I caught him, what would I do… Choke. Kill. I couldn’t imagine it any more than I could control it.

  We landed on Mulholland, the most dangerous, twisted street to speed down, but we did. He would get an ass full of vintage BMW if he slammed to a stop, and I didn’t know how to care. The Lexus turned so fast I almost missed it. We stopped on a private street with only our headlights illuminating the trees on either side of the road.

  A bloated bag of unreleased rage, I grabbed the Club from the floor and got out of the car. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I yelled from deep in my diaphragm.

  His driver side door opened. I didn’t have time to hope there was only one of them. I swung the Club at the nearest taillight.

  Smash.

  That felt good. I went for the brake light.

  “What the fuck?” shouted Goatee.

  As the light smashed, I recognized him from Zia’s. He’d been in a booth. I went at him with the Club, and he stepped back.

  “Lady, you’re fucking crazy.”

  He reached into his jacket just as the street flooded with light. Cars. I felt caught in the act and rescued at the same time. Goatee got his hand out of his jacket. He had a gun in it, but instead of shooting me, he shot at the cars pulling up behind me. A ping and a clunk. Another shot, and Goatee spun, screaming and clutching his bloody hand. His gun had been shot out of it.

  Three car doors slammed behind me. I couldn’t see the three men due to the backlighting, but I recognized the shape of a Maserati.

  “Bruno, you dumb shit.” It was Paulie.

  When I felt strong hands on me, pulling on the Club, I knew it was Antonio. I felt like falling apart, but I didn’t, even when I saw his dark eyes, their joy and charm gone. He had the face of a mafia capo.

  I yanked the weapon away from Antonio and stepped forward, nailing the side of the Lexus on the foreswing. I aimed for Bruno’s screaming head on the backswing. He ducked, and I swung again.

  Everything happened at once. I was pulled back. Bruno’s screaming stopped. Doors slammed. Road dirt sprayed my face. Antonio shouted in Italian, and Paulie shouted back in English. A few fucks were the only words I understood.

  I was in the passenger side of my car, and the car was moving. Fast. Antonio was driving. I held the Club up, and he grabbed it from me while driving with his other hand.

  “You’re fucking crazy, you know that?” he said.

  He hit the gas, slipping the seat back to accommodate his height. In front of us, the Lexus took off, and Antonio chased it.

  “Where were you?”

  “Put your seatbelt on.” He threw the Club into the back seat. “What did you think you were doing?”

  “Breaking things!” Why was I screaming while I was obeying? “Not like it’s your business, but I was going to crack his head open.”

  “Do you know who that was?”

  Our car swung around a corner. Behind us, the Maserati followed, with Paulie at the wheel, I assumed.

  “Bruno Uvoli,” he said. “Cazzo! He’s a made man. He’d sell his sister for a dollar. And you’re like a fucking beacon, asking about me everywhere. What the fuck, Theresa? I’m trying to protect you, and you step in it. Deliberately.”

  “Answer a text next time.”

  We blasted into the Valley on the Lexus’s tail, onto flat, wide boulevards and poorly lit side streets.

  “Hold on.” With one hand, he held me to the seat while he followed the car under a viaduct and out into a twisty service road, clipping the concrete wall in a shower of sparks. We were going seventy-five, and though I thought I should care about what my car would look like at the end of this, I didn’t.

  “I want you,” I said, breathless. “I want you, and I’m going to have you. That’s it.”

  “I’m death to you.” He accelerated. The BMW kicked awake as if that was its shining moment.

  “No. You’re like mainlining life. I want it. I need it. I don’t care what I have to do to earn your trust, I’ll do it.”

  He pushed me down, swung the car right, then left, bumping the Lexus onto a turn up the foothills. The Maserati shot around us and in front of the Lexus, taking it in the side with a crunch.

  “Cazzo,” he growled again, but not to me. He screeched the BMW to a halt inches from the Lexus.

  Paulie and Zo were already out of the Mas with their guns drawn.

  Antonio unbuckled me with one hand and pulled my head onto his lap with the other. “Stay there.”

  I glanced up at him, his rock of an erection at my cheek.

  He looked out the windshield. “I need you to drive away.”

  “You’re not getting rid of me.” I heard a scuffle outside.

  “I don’t want you seeing this. I don’t want you near it.”

  “I’m not going back to Daniel with any of it.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Look at you, ready to kill a man with a club. I’ve contaminated you enough.” He slipped out from under me, opening the door and getting out.

  I sat up. In my headlights, I saw how desolate the area Antonio had pushed the Lexus into was. Bruno was pinned to the ground by Paulie’s foot on his busted hand. Zo knelt on him with one knee on his unbusted arm and the other on his thigh. Bruno’s sneaker had been stuffed in his mouth to muffle his screams.

  It all sunk in, what I’d gotten into and how. I froze, becoming myself again for a second.

  Antonio leaned in the door. “Contessa. Drive.”

  “I want you.”

  “I heard you.”

  “You don’t believe me.” My eyes were locked on the pinned man.

  “You want a man you imagine. If you knew who you were talking to, if you knew what I could turn you into, you’d run back to your DA.” In my peripheral vision, I saw him take a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.

  I turned to him. “Walk away. Don’t do this. Not over a little road rage.�
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  He lit the smoke with a clack of his silver lighter. “This wasn’t road rage. He is stupid and dangerous. And he was after you. Now I have to make sure he never touches you, and that I never touch you.” He closed the door and spoke through the open window. “Make no mistake, I will hurt you to protect you. Now go.” He turned to the three men. “Zo, get off him, I got it. Drive her if she won’t go.”

  “Yes, boss.”

  Antonio turned his back on me, and Zo approached. My beautiful capo didn’t look back, only down at the man who had gotten me to chase him into a desolate area for a purpose I could only imagine, with the smoke and fire of hell winding around his fingertips.

  Before Zo could reach me, I backed out and into the street. I didn’t get far before I had to pull the car over. I covered my mouth with my hands and cried, muffling myself as tears fell down the cracks between my fingers.

  What had I done?

  Of all the things I could do from the front of my dented BMW, I had not one I would do. I could call 9-1-1. I could call Daniel. I could reveal the whole thing to the press. But I wouldn’t, and I knew it.

  And Antonio knew it. On some level, he trusted me.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I thought Katrina would come home and collapse, but when I walked in and found the house empty, I was the one who collapsed, throwing myself on the couch with my forearm over my eyes. They hurt from crying and would continue to hurt because the tears came again. I didn’t even know what I was crying about exactly. Was it stress? Or the man I knew was going to die? Or the fact that I was responsible? Was it because I was pretty sure I had been about to kill him myself?

  I don’t know how long I laid there like that, but I fell asleep. I woke to a knock on the door. I looked out the peephole and felt so much relief that I whispered his name when I saw him. I opened the door.

  “Contessa.” His voice was rough.

  “Capo.” I leaned on the door, looking up at his eyes, sunken and tired and a little bloodshot. They flinched when I called him that then warmed.

  “Send me away,” he said. “Slam this door in my face.”

  I stepped aside and let him in.

  “I tried to stay away,” he said. “I’ve never wanted a woman this much in my life. I’d burn cities to have you. I’d fight armies. I’d commit murder to take you right now.”

  I grabbed his lapels and pulled off his jacket. He let me slide it down his arms. I didn’t ask him any questions as I unbuttoned his cuffs. I didn’t ask how he was when I undid the front of his shirt. I must have been a sight with my swollen eyes and stained cheeks.

  He touched his thumb to the hollow of my eye. “You were crying.”

  I put my fingers on his lips, shushing him, and he kissed the tips.

  “I can’t keep away from you,” he rasped.

  “Don’t. Don’t ever.” I took his hand. “Come. Let’s wash tonight off.”

  I pulled him upstairs, walking backward. Halfway up, he lifted me. I hooked my legs around his waist and my arms around his shoulders, letting him carry me to my bedroom. We didn’t kiss but kept our eyes open and our faces close, sharing breath and space.

  He set me on my dresser. I finished unbuttoning his shirt and slid it off. I got his undershirt off so fast his gold charm clinked and dropped. That’s when I noticed the yellow hospital wristband.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You were admitted.”

  “Somebody had to be. For the records. Otherwise they have to report a gunshot wound, even in the hand. Nobody wants that.”

  I inspected his face for a second.

  “What is it, Contessa?”

  “You took him to the hospital?”

  “To a doctor I know at the hospital. We have people for emergencies.”

  My face got hot again. I felt my nose tingle and my eyes moisten. “You didn’t kill him?”

  “No.”

  A breath whooshed out of my mouth, and I cried with a smile. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just wanted to see you again. I didn’t mean—” I was lost in tears.

  “He’s ambitious, and he saw an opening. What he did is past forgiving, but I kept seeing your face.” He looked away and set his jaw. “If he comes near you again, I will kill him.”

  He held my chin in those powerful hands and tilted my face up. Our mouths crashed together. Our arms twined around each other, seeking purchase, finding it, an moving again.

  He brought his lips to my ear and whispered, “When you left my office, I thought I’d never see you again, and it made me crazy. I was so angry at myself, I did stupid things it’ll take years to fix. God forgive me.”

  I held him, kissing his neck and cheek with all the tenderness and forgiveness I could manage. It wasn’t enough, not by a lot, but it was all I had. I wanted his skin against mine. I pulled my shirt off and twisted out of my bra.

  Looking down, he touched my nipples with the backs of his fingers. “This is wrong. We’re wrong. You and I. One of us is going to get the other one killed.”

  “I think about you all the time.”

  “I can’t let you into my world. It won’t work. They’ll rip you to shreds.”

  “I touch myself thinking of you.”

  “I’ve done things I can never talk about. Even knowing what they are could hurt you.”

  I slid off the dresser and took his hands. “Come with me.” I led him to the bathroom and turned on the shower. I wiggled out of my pants then reached for his waistband.

  “This doesn’t fix anything,” he said.

  “There’s nothing to fix.” I unfastened his trousers, and they dropped to the floor. I reached into his underwear and got out his cock. “This works.”

  “It’s for fucking you.”

  I snapped the shower door open. “Never stop putting that cock in me.”

  He kissed me hard, pushing my head against the wall. “God help me. You make me crazy. We can’t be together, but you’re all I think about. Making you mine completely.”

  “I’ll be yours. Let me be,” I said.

  “You’ll be destroyed, Contessa. Peacetime is over. If anything happened to you—”

  “We won’t tell anyone. I’ll be your secret, and you’ll be mine. We’ll meet in the night, when no one can see.”

  “It’s too late for that.”

  “No, we’ll say it’s over. It’s that, or nothing. If never seeing me again works for you, then go. I won’t chase you again.”

  “Promise?” he asked.

  His body relaxed, and I thought he was really going to go. It seemed impossible that his body wouldn’t be pressed on mine, but it was his choice to make.

  “I promise. I have the will to do it.”

  He put his nose to mine, his eyes scanning my face, then dropped his gaze. “I believe you.” He kissed me, and the rigid pressure of his body returned. “You have the will, but I don’t. I have to have you. Tonight and after, you’re mine. Your first loyalty is to me. Every moan on your lips. Every wet drop from your cunt. When the thought of fucking crosses your mind, it’s mine. Say it.”

  “I’m yours, Capo.”

  “No more halfway bullshit.”

  I swallowed nervously, because I didn’t want to test our resolve or find out his desire truly was halfway, but I wanted to surrender completely to our pledge.

  “I want your skin on my skin.” I hated to bring it up, but it was my last chance. “After I found out Daniel cheated on me, I got tested for everything. I’m clean. And I left the IUD in.”

  He smiled, and my heart opened. “I’m a condom guy.”

  “Every time?”

  “Of course.”

  “No halfway bullshit, then.”

  I got into the shower. He peeled off his underwear and joined me.

  The water was hot and powerful. He leaned his head back and let it fall over his face in rivulets. The water darkened his lashes, making them stick together. I rolled the rect
angle of soap in my hands then put them on his neck, running soap over the curves of his body. Shoulders, biceps, forearms, the space of his chest under the gold chain with the circle charm. He enfolded my hands in his, transferring the soap.

  “What’s this?” I asked, touching the gold medal.

  “Saint Christopher. Patron saint of protection.”

  “Does it work?” I kissed it and the skin around it.

  “Am I dead?”

  I took his cock in my hand. “Apparently not.”

  Turning me, he put his hands between my shoulders, my ass, the backs of my thighs, then up the crack, massaging my pussy with his finger and my ass with his thumb. I picked up my leg and rested it on the ledge so he could get his fingers farther into me.

  “Oh God, Antonio. I’ve wanted you for days.”

  “I’m going to fuck you so hard, little princess. I’m going to break you in two.”

  I twisted to face him. “Do it. Take me hard.”

  He looped his arm under my knee, pulling it up. The skin of his dick was so smooth on my pussy, he stretched and slid into me. He had to thrust twice more to get all the way in, hitching up my leg. He was so rough that I had no choice but to be a doll in his hands.

  “You’re so fucking hot,” he said, pressing his thumb to my ass.

  “Hard, please, Capo. Take me hard.”

  “Have you ever been fucked in the ass, little princess?”

  “No.”

  “I’m taking your ass, right here.” He grabbed my conditioner and squeezed the cold, viscous liquid down my crack. “Are you ready?”

  “I don’t know.” I was nervous and admittedly aroused.

  He fucked my pussy hard and wedged his fingers in my ass. “Your little ass is so tight. It’s so sweet.”

  His fingers sliding in and out of me, stretching me, opened up new pleasure. “Oh, that feels so good.”