by Marni Mann
“Jesus.” I couldn’t begin to understand this.
Roman fucked anything that looked at him, but he loved Vera. And they’d been able to hide that along with everything else from me.
“The minute I told Roman that I thought it was you at the bus stop, he started looking for you.”
“It took me a couple of days to find you, but I got all the paperwork pushed through and handed the right people the right amount of cash. Then Vera was able to adopt you.”
“You took me in because I was his son.”
She reached across the open space and put her hand on mine. “When I saw you at that bus stop, I wanted to help you. I had enough to give, and you were in need. You weren’t just Roman’s kid to me, Trapper. Never have been. You’re someone special and someone I love very much.”
I didn’t know much about love, but I knew the way Vera and Adrianna and Brea made me feel. I’d felt it from almost the moment I’d moved into Vera’s place.
Roman walked to the front of his desk and sat on the edge. “The Mrs. wasn’t going to take care of any more kids, and I still couldn’t tell her about you. Vera’s place was perfect because it gave me a chance to be close to you again.”
“Again?”
“Look, kid, I was never your father, and I’m not trying to say I was. But I was your friend. I looked out for you, and that’s what I’ve been doing since. So, yeah, it was nice to be around you again.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “What about Cody?”
“Missy never told me about Cody.” His fist hit the top of the desk. “That bitch. I don’t know what the hell she did with him.”
“She sold him.”
“Oh God,” Vera said.
“She needed money, and selling her kid gave her a nice chunk. When she ran out, she came looking for you,” I told him.
“That fucking cunt. Everything I did for her, and she never even told me I had another son.”
“It worked out good for him. He had parents who were well-off and cared about him, and he made something of himself.”
“So did you, honey.”
I looked at her and then at Roman. “When did she die?”
“A few months after she gave you up. I’d paid a full year on the lease, so she was still living at the apartment. Boyfriend came home and found her dead. She OD’d, and it wasn’t pretty. She suffered, Trapper. She suffered hard.”
It wasn’t what I wished for her. As shitty as she was for a mother, I didn’t want her dead, and I didn’t want her to suffer. But I didn’t know what I wanted to do about all this.
“Does Adrianna know?” I asked. I saw the answer in their eyes before either of them responded. I got up from the chair and walked to the back of the office, squeezing my hands together into fists. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“How could I?” Roman said. “How could I tell you that I’d been lying to you for more than half of your life? I couldn’t kill you like that, kid. So, I chose to risk it, and I hoped you’d never find out.”
“The women could have told me.”
“I didn’t give the women a choice. I was your father. It was my decision to make, not theirs.”
“Don’t you see how fucked up this is?”
“We all feel that way, kid.” He took a step toward me, and I put my hand in the air to stop him. “I didn’t mean for this to happen, and I wish you hadn’t gone through all that shit. Had I known things were so bad for you, I would’ve come for you sooner.”
I moved to the door.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going home because, right now, I can’t look at either of your faces.”
“I get that you’re pissed, Trapper. But we care about you. Don’t push us away because—”
“Care about me? Push you away? Are you fucking listening to yourself?” I shoved my hands in my pockets, so I wouldn’t punch the wall behind me. “You weren’t man enough to tell your wife that you fucked another woman. And then you made Vera and Adrianna—two of the only people who have ever meant anything to me—lie to my face for years. You’re the reason all this happened, Roman.
“And, no, you have no idea why I’m pissed. How would you like me to wrap my hands around your son’s neck, kick him in the gut until he’s spitting out blood, and tell him how worthless he is? And how would you like me to do that every day for twelve fucking years? When you go through that, then you can understand. But don’t you dare say to me that you get that I’m pissed. I’m not pissed. I’m fucking devastated.
“I considered you a best friend. You’ve been the closest thing I’ve had to a father, and you’re one of the only people I’ve ever trusted. And this whole time, you actually were my father, and you were lying to me about it.”
“Oh, honey…” Vera cried.
“So, yeah, I need some time. I need to get my thoughts straight, and I need to figure out how the fuck I feel about all this. Until then, I don’t want to hear from any of you.”
I opened the office door and slammed it behind me. Then I escaped out the back of the club and jumped into a taxi as fast as I could.
Brea
I woke up on the couch to a loud knock at the door. I couldn’t have been asleep for long; there was still ice floating in my water glass. Rushing to the door, I opened it once I saw Trapper through the peephole. “How’d it go?”
He walked in and threw his jacket on the couch. When he turned around, his hands went to my waist. “Roman’s story matches Cody’s notes. He’s my father…and Vera and Adrianna knew about it the whole time. And he’s a fucking coward for leaving me in that hospital. I don’t know if I can forgive him.” His tone was so dark.
I stood on my tiptoes and cupped his face in my hands. “Baby, I don’t even know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything.”
He kissed me, his lips so demanding, his tongue so titillating, that my chest arched into his, and my legs widened and spread. I could feel my pussy already getting wet. I moaned when he pulled away, and I stared into his eyes.
“I don’t want to talk about Roman. I want to bury myself inside you until I can’t think about anything other than your pussy.”
His hands were now on my ass, squeezing my cheeks, lifting them, and I wrapped my legs around his waist.
“I want that, too,” I breathed into his ear.
I felt so tiny as he carried me to my room, so weightless as he tossed me onto my bed. He ripped my clothes from my body, and I lay on the mattress, completely naked, waiting for him to strip off his clothes. Once they were on the floor, he was on his knees in front of the bed, pulling me to the edge of it. He pushed against the backs of my thighs, spreading my legs and stretching them over my head.
“Yes,” he hissed, staring at my pussy. “This is all I thought about during the ride over here—putting you in this position, your cunt nice and wet and ready for me to eat.” He dragged his long tongue past my hole and licked up, focusing on the top of my clit. He flicked it with the most intense pressure.
“Trapper…your tongue. It’s fucking wicked.”
He looked up at me from between my legs, his eyes ravenous, his lips wet from me. “You want more of it?”
“Yes.”
He sucked it into his mouth, holding it steady, while he lightly licked the end of it. Then he released it, flattening his tongue to sweep the whole length.
“Oh my God.”
When I started wiggling and bucking against his mouth, he finger-fucked me, and I screamed from the pleasure.
“I can’t…even. You are way too good at that.”
“Come on my face, Brea. I want to taste it.”
I let it go, unable to hold it in anymore. The orgasm shot through my stomach, causing my back to arch and my legs to close. “Ahhhhh, Trapper…”
He pushed my thighs apart, keeping his face in my pussy, licking, until I stopped squirming and screaming.
“Wow.” I rolled my head up to look at him. Those eyes and that
mouth…they were so beautiful and so insatiable, and I wanted them on my lips. “Get up here.”
I pulled his hair, begging him to climb up my body, and he did, his mouth slamming against mine. He kept his hips flexed back, touching me with only his lips. I was devouring them so hard, his scruff made my skin burn. But the burn felt so good; it meant I got to taste more of him.
“Please,” I moaned. “I want you.”
I had barely gotten the last word out when he thrust his hips forward and buried his cock inside me. I moaned from the fullness and the closeness of him. He reached for my hands and held them above my head, linking his fingers with mine, while keeping his lips on me.
“You’re so fucking wet.” He licked across my bottom lip. “And you feel so good.”
“Don’t stop.”
“I’m not stopping, baby. I’m just getting started.”
My shoulders pushed into the bed, and my breasts pressed against his chest. Once my hardened nipples rubbed over him, he kissed down my cheek, across my throat, and up my chin. Then he ate his way down to my navel. He heated each patch of skin that he kissed, and it cooled as his mouth moved to the next spot. It was the perfect mix of temperatures, making me yearn for more of his warmth and definitely more of his tongue.
When he flipped me onto my stomach, there was no warning, and his cock instantly found its way back in.
“Fuck,” he groaned. “You’re so tight.” His lips were now on my back, kissing up and down my spine, as his hips circled, his dick sliding in and out of my wetness.
I gripped the blanket between my fingers, pressed the side of my face into the bed, and held on, trying my hardest not to come. It seemed like only seconds passed before he was moving me again, lifting my ass so that I was on my hands and knees, and he was standing behind me. He reached around and started rubbing my clit at the same time he was fucking me.
“Oh!” I shouted. “This feels…so good.”
He pumped into me just a few more times before flipping me onto my back again. “I need to see your face when you come.” He was on top of me, stroking much slower than before, gripping my face so that I couldn’t move it. His eyes bore into mine. “You’re so fucking gorgeous.”
“Your cock, Trapper…”
“What about my cock?” He moved even slower, and the tingling inside me stayed at the same level, not building and not increasing either. His expression told me he knew exactly what he and his cock were doing.
“It’s perfect…and I can’t get enough of it. Give me more.”
His hand trickled down between my legs, and the pad of his finger touched my clit. I gasped.
“That’s it, baby. Tell me what you want,” he said.
“I want to come…and I want you to come inside me.”
He started moving faster, his teeth sinking into my lip and not releasing it. “Then that’s what I’ll give you.”
I tightened around him as he pumped into me, his finger now moving back and forth across my clit.
“I want to feel you come, and I want to fucking hear it.”
I didn’t move my face; I couldn’t. I was holding on to his eyes while he held on to my cheek, and I let him see exactly what he was doing to me. He was the best feeling I’d ever had inside me, that had ever pulsed through me. I forgot to breathe, I forgot where I was…and all I could do was moan.
The orgasm started to spark, and I became lost. Lost in him, lost in what was happening in my pussy.
“Ahhhhh,” I screamed, my back arching as the mix of his penetration and flicking across my clit came to a peak. Powerful tingles shot through me. My hips rocked and bucked, and I met him with every thrust, every swivel of his cock.
Before the ripples finished passing through me, his gaze grabbed ahold of me again and didn’t let go. It wasn’t just his eyes that chained me; it was his scar and the roughness of his touch, and it all brought my body to a shuddering explosion. As I cried out, I could smell his unique scent. I could taste his lips. I could feel him on every part of my sensitive body.
And then I felt that familiar set of powerful pumps; they were quick, hard thrusts as his own orgasm started to spark. As he poured himself into me, his mouth turned ravenous on mine.
“Brea, fuuuuuck,” he hissed.
His moans and breathing were some of the sexiest sounds I’d ever heard. We continued to kiss as his strokes slowed and then our bodies eventually stilled.
“You’re…insane.” I could barely catch my breath.
His eyes were open and on mine as he was still on top of me. I swore, I saw his smile reach them.
“Insane?”
“Yes. That’s exactly how your cock needs to be described. Insanely good, insanely big, and insanely generous.”
He nipped my bottom lip. “It just really likes being inside you.”
“Good, because I don’t want to ever give it up. I’m kinda in love with it.”
He finally pulled out of me and slid down my body, using my navel as a pillow. I ran my hands through his hair as he breathed over my belly button. With each exhale, his scruff rubbed me harder.
“Tonight was hard for you,” I said.
And it probably wasn’t the right time for the love comment. But it was about his cock, so I assumed it was safe.
He didn’t move. “It wasn’t easy.”
“I’ve been thinking about it. I know it’s none of my business, but—”
“It is your business, Brea.” He tilted his head, so he could look up at me. “I want you in my life, so my decisions affect you.”
I felt so much warmth in my chest. “What does it feel like to find out Roman is your dad?”
“It’s a mixed feeling. He’s been in my life for so long and supported everything I’ve done. He’s given me advice and listened. Those are things I would expect in a father, and he’s done them well. I just can’t forget how badly he wronged me.”
“I have to believe he knows what he did was wrong, and in his own way, he’s been trying to fix it since you were twelve.” I could tell he was thinking about what I was saying. “I bet tonight was even harder on him than it was on you. If he respects you as much as I think he does, then being called a coward had to have absolutely killed him.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“Do you think things will change between you and Vera now?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want them to. I’m pissed at her for not telling me, but I don’t want to stop seeing her. I really care about her. The memories I have of her are real good ones.”
I brushed my hand over the top of his head. “Adrianna and Vera only had his back because they’re a team. If one person from that team had crumbled, the whole circle would have caved. They love you too much to have let that happen.”
“Vera’s in love with Roman, so I get why she didn’t say anything. But Adrianna, I don’t get at all. She’s been with me since the beginning. She knew what I went through. She saw it. She fucking owed me an explanation, and I’m furious she didn’t give me one.”
“Adrianna was your social worker,” I was speaking out loud, working through the details as they came to me. “Do you think that maybe because Roman told her he was your father, she was able to put the paperwork in the right hands to get it approved much faster than normal?”
He seemed to think about my question. “Yeah, it’s possible.”
“You were only in that group home for a day. Sounds like a short amount of time to have that amount of paperwork processed.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Do you see where I’m going with this?”
He looked up at me. “I get it. She worked hard to make it right and has continued to ever since—not because she had to, but because she wanted to. But I’m still furious.”
“That doesn’t make her a bad person, Trapper. I think it makes her human and motherly. She was doing what she thought was right to protect you.”
He turned his head and rubbed his cheek over my stomac
h. “I didn’t need protection as an adult. I needed honesty from all three of them. I fucking deserved that, and they couldn’t even give it to me. I think I just need some time.”
“I would be just as hurt as you.”
He moved again, this time climbing up my body until he was on top of me, our faces so close. “I want to get my mind off it and give you something…if you still want it.”
“What is it?”
“A job at the compound.” His kiss was so soft, I melted. “Nothing full-time. I know how much you like your gig with Frankie, but you can come in and work as much as you want.”
“I’d really like that.”
“But I want you to work with the imports. There’s a lot they can learn from you, and they won’t be able to learn it if you’re working in a back office. They need to see you and be around you and love you.”
I smiled. “Love?”
He nuzzled my neck. “Yeah, Brea. Love.”
I didn’t know where the sappiness was coming from, but my eyes watered a little, and a wave of flutters passed through me. “Well…I’d love that.”
“Good.” He climbed off me and lay flat on his back, pulling me so that I was resting my face against his chest.
I ran my hand over the light hair that covered his pecs and then to his full sleeve of tattoos. It was made up of symbols all relating to poker—cards and terms, suits and chips. All of the art was done in black and white. Poker was the light that seeped through all his darkness.
I hoped I would become some of that light for him, too.
“Good night, baby.”
I looked at his face. “Good night, love.”
He smiled and closed his eyes, and I listened to his breathing. It only took a few minutes before he fell asleep, comfortable enough where he could completely relax and turn vulnerable with me. That was enough to make me close my eyes and wait for sleep. In my own darkness, there were no voices. No memories. Nothing at all tugging at me, except for him and his beautiful scars.
The next time my eyelids opened, the spot next to me was empty, and on the pillow was a note.
I’VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT WHAT YOU SAID.
I’M HEADED TO ACED TO TALK TO THEM.