My Beautiful

by J. M. La Rocca

  I could feel his erection on my leg as he started rocking against my leg in rhythm with his hand. The feeling was too much. I pulled his lips down to mine and kissed him hard as I moaned into his mouth. Moving my hand from his arm, I grabbed onto his hand outside my jeans to still his movements, as I took over. I rocked against him as my orgasm took control.

  “Oooooh, God!” l groaned as I broke the kiss and looked into Bryce’s eyes.

  He watched me pant out of control as his own breathing sped up and his nostrils flared.

  Without breaking eye contact, he pulled his hand out of my jeans and brought his finger to his mouth. Closing his eyes, he sucked my juices off and groaned. I bit my lip again to contain my smile as I watched him. Opening his eyes, he dropped his hand down to my breast, and lowered his lips back to mine.

  We kissed softly, exploring, tasting, and sucking, until we needed to come up for air.

  Pulling away, he rested his forehead against mine. “We have to stop.”

  I lay there panting, not saying a word. I hadn’t talked the whole time, not wanting to break the sexual trance I was in.

  “I don’t want our first time to be in a treehouse on a cot.” He pulled away and looked at me.

  I don’t know why, but I started laughing. Hearing him say that out loud just sounded ridiculous, and he laughed along with me. Pushing himself off the cot, he stood up, offering to help me up, but I declined as I fixed myself. I kept my gaze away from his after I was put back together.

  Why did I feel guilty? I could feel the tears start to well up in my eyes. I knew Bryce was standing there … waiting.

  I looked up at him to see a frown on his face.

  “Bryce … I …”

  He let out a heavy sigh and looked at the floor. After a moment, he looked back at me. “Come on. Let’s get you back inside. It’s getting colder.”

  I thought about that night often, about what could have happened. I felt guilty for using Bryce as a way to get Kade out of my head, not thinking about his feelings at all. We haven’t talked since, and that was six months ago. I didn’t know how I felt about that.

  The next day, after the Bryce incident, Jules and I were scheduled to leave Alabama that night, but I wanted to confront my mother about the letter my dad had left me. With Jules by my side, I asked my mother the question that I had been waiting to ask … “Why?”

  “He left his family behind to start another one. Why should I have let him see you? He left us both,” she spat. I could tell that she still had hate and resentment buried deep inside. It was written all over her face. I could understand her hurt, but it was always all about her and that pissed me off.

  “He didn’t leave me, Mom. He left you. He tried to see me, tried to get custody of me, but you ruined any chance I could have had to get to know him. Do you have any idea how much that hurts me? How much I hate you for doing this to me?” I yelled at her.

  Losing all of that time with my dad brought me to tears. How could she be so selfish, so inconsiderate? My heart pounded as the anger built up in my chest and I wasn’t able to contain it. I even ran at her as the rage flowed through my body, but Jules stopped me and took me out of there, doing her best to comfort me.

  I had not spoken to her since, and I didn’t plan on speaking to her again. She was dead to me. There was no point in ever trying to have a relationship with her when all she did was think about herself.

  When Christmas rolled around, a small package was delivered to me with no return address. When I opened it, I didn’t know what to think…inside was a CD case with My Beautiful written on it.

  In disbelief, I ran to my room, put the CD in my player, and pressed play. As the music began, I recognized it right away. It was the song that Kade wrote for me. The band had recorded it, and he sent a copy to me. I still held the pain from my broken heart and tears easily fell from my eyes as Kade began to sing the lyrics.

  “The night I first saw her

  My world stood still.

  Mesmerized by her beauty

  She was dressed to kill.

  I should turn away

  And never look back

  ‘Cause she’s full of light

  And I’m nothing but black.

  She’s my angel in this darkness

  No matter how hard they pull.

  One look in her eyes, and I know

  Ooh, she’s my beautiful.

  Her skin cools the heat

  Running through my veins.

  Her mouth leaves me breathless

  So I can’t remember the pain

  Our bodies fit together

  Like nothing I’ve felt before.

  I don’t go a day

  Without wanting more.

  She’s my angel in this darkness

  No matter how hard they pull.

  One touch of her body, and I know

  Ooh, she’s my beautiful.

  The blood in my veins is tainted and black

  But she’s pulled me under, so I could never go back.

  She’s shown me the way; I’ve seen the light.

  Being with her now feels so right.

  ‘Cause she’s my angel in this darkness

  No matter how hard they pull.

  One touch from her lips, and I know

  Ooh, she’s my beautiful.

  Ooh, she’s my beautiful.

  Ooh, you’re my beautiful.”

  Images of the night that he sang it to me flowed through my mind, but it hurt too much to think about it. I didn’t understand why he would send it to me. What was the point? It only hurt me more knowing we were not together.

  Jules thought it was strange too and begged me to not play it, that it would only make it harder for me to get over him. I agreed and put the CD up in my closet so I wouldn’t see it.

  When March rolled around, Matt called a meeting with all the agents. We all gathered in the meeting room and waited for Matt to address us. He walked into the meeting and stood at the head of the table. “I wanted to bring you all together and let you know that Jacob and I are opening up a new location in California called Entertainment Los Angeles,” he said with a smile.

  Jacob was Matt’s business partner. I had seen him a couple of times around the office this past month, but it never occurred to me that they were making plans to open up a new location.

  “Now that we’ll have two locations, things will start to slow down a bit, but I expect you to be as aggressive as possible in getting clients. We’ll need to really build up our clientele out there, which brings me to the other announcement,” he said, looking over toward Jules and me. “I’ve asked Jules to manage this new location.” I looked over at Jules with wide eyes. She glanced over at me with a big smile on her face. I wondered how long she knew about this. I could see by the smile that she was excited about the promotion. It meant she would live closer to Brent. Although, she tried to play it off as a casual thing between them, I could see how the distance between them was affecting her. I was sad that she would be leaving me though. She was the only family I had left. I definitely wasn’t jumping up for joy with this news.

  “Now, let’s get back to work. Jules,” he said as he walked up to the both of us, “come see me in my office and we’ll talk.” He walked out of the meeting room leaving us by ourselves.

  I turned to her and quirked my eyebrow. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. When did you find out?”

  She shook her head and smiled at me. “He talked to me about it last week, but don’t say anything yet. I need to go talk to him for a minute. I’ll be right back.” I opened my mouth to protest, but she had already turned and walked out of the room.

  Walking back to my desk, I could hear Jess talking on the phone. I cringed at the thought of being here by myself with her. Jules was the one with the witty comebacks and smart-ass comments where Jess was concerned. Even though she had been keeping her distance since the ‘incident’, I wasn’t looking forward to not having Jules around.

/>   After making all my follow-up calls, I turned to see Jules walking over to my desk. It looked like she had an even bigger smile on her face as she walked up and leaned against my desk.

  “What’s with the cheesy grin?”

  She folded her arms across her chest, dropping the smile to look at me seriously. “I just talked to Matt.”

  “Okay,” I drew out as I looked at her curiously.

  “What would you say if I told you that you were coming with me to California?”

  I furrowed my brow and looked at her confused. “What do you mean?” I heard what she said, but I wanted her to explain what the heck she was talking about. I didn’t want to get excited just yet.

  Jules unfolded her arms, crouched down by my chair and grabbed my hands. “I don’t want to do this without you by my side. I’m the reason you moved up here in the first place. It wouldn’t be right for me to just pack my shit and leave you here all alone. You’re my sister and I want you with me; that is, if you want to come? Matt agreed and said I would need help to start training people, so you are in, if you want to transfer with me.”

  I couldn’t contain my smile. “Really?”

  She nodded her head.

  “You mean I don’t have to stay here and see Jess’s face every day?” I said as I scrunched my face up in disdain.

  Jules threw her head back and laughed, “No, neither of us will have to endure that agony any longer.”

  She left my desk saying we would talk more that night when we got home. I smiled to myself at the thought of the new adventure. I had always wanted to visit California and it wouldn’t be long before I’d be living there. I opened up my email to start filing through the important messages when Kade popped into my head. I hadn’t thought about it during my excitement, but at that moment, it was in the forefront of my mind. Moving to California meant I would be moving closer to Kade.

  There was a part of me that was excited at the thought of living so close to him. The thought of seeing him again made my stomach flip. Not that that would ever happen, but the thought was appealing. The other part of me wasn’t so sure it was a good idea. What if I did run into him? It had taken a long time to get him out of my head; seeing him again would bring all the hurt I buried back to the surface.

  We left Frank’s place in Paul’s black Escalade after I retrieved my gun from my car. I put it in the glove box until we arrived at our destination. I didn’t know exactly what we were getting into, but I knew that someone owed Frank money, and Paul was the guy that made sure he got it.

  I could only imagine what that entailed.

  I looked over at Paul as he pulled out onto the interstate. He hadn’t said a word to me since we left, and he looked pissed to have to haul me around with him.

  Like I was excited about the situation.

  I didn’t know where we were going, but I knew we were headed to a part of LA where I grew up. It was run down and not anywhere you wanted to get lost after dark. At least I didn’t have to worry about running into any of the paparazzi assholes again. Not that anyone would recognize me anyway since I had let my hair grow longer and I’d kept a scruffy beard for the past couple of months.

  “I wish you’d just spit it out already,” I coaxed, looking back out the window. I could tell by the look on his face that he had shit he wanted to say.

  I saw him glance at me in my peripheral vision. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  This was my opening. If I was going to put myself in any sort of status with Paul, I needed to lay it out. Tonight was my chance to do something that would impress Frank and I planned to do just that. I turned and looked at him as he drove. “You don’t like me and I sure as fuck don’t like you, but we’ve got a job to do and I plan on getting it done. So wipe that pissed-off look from your face. It is what it is.”

  I looked back out the window just as he started to accelerate. I knew I pissed him off, but I really didn’t give a fuck.

  “You have no fucking idea what you’re getting into,” Paul said, letting out a laugh.

  I looked over to see him gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. He was right. I had no idea what I was getting into. A part of me didn’t want to know, but I knew I needed all the information I could get. “Then why don’t you enlighten me.” I turned my body toward his and waited.

  He just shook his head and laughed, “Have you ever tortured someone, Nick?” He looked over at me for a brief moment before turning back to the road. “That’s my expertise,” he grinned. “Once … only once did someone get the best of me,” he pointed to his face, “but he didn’t live very long to talk about it.”

  Fuck me!

  I could tell he enjoyed his job just by the look on his face. This was the shit I didn’t want to be involved in. I would never kill anyone, but if it came down to choosing between my life and the life of someone else, I would always choose mine.

  “So, are you telling me you torture everyone that owes Frank money?”

  I needed to know how this business was run. I didn’t know why I never thought about asking these questions before. All that time working with Kevin, Frank’s newest recruit, I never thought about this side of the business.

  “Nah, only the ones that don’t show respect,” he laughed.

  “Respect for you or for Frank.”

  I could see his grip getting tighter on the steering wheel.

  “Both,” he smirked.

  We had been driving for about forty-five minutes when Paul finally pulled into a parking lot on the side of a rundown building. I pulled my Berretta out of the glove box, stuffed it in the back of my jeans, and covered it with my shirt as I got out of the car. I looked around and started examining my surroundings.

  This part of town was lower class, known for drugs and whores. There weren’t a lot of homeless people walking around, but hookers were lined up on the streets.

  I followed Paul out of the parking lot around the corner of the building. There was a small sign above the door that said The Pink Cheetah’s.

  A strip club … how original.

  Paul walked up to the red door of the club, and I followed behind him as he pulled it open. It was dark and the music was blaring. The place looked old and run down; it had a grungy, dirty, feel to it. Whoever owned the place, definitely needed to put some of their money into remodeling.

  As we walked past the bar that was on the same wall as the entrance, I could see the two stages that held the attention of most of the occupants. The girls on stage danced along with the music, fully nude.

  There weren’t many full nude strip clubs in LA and I didn’t know there was one on this side of town. It was too bad their girls weren’t more appealing and the place didn’t look better. They’d probably get more business, but I guess you could only do so much having this kind of business in the slums.

  We made our way to a door that wasn’t too far from where the stages were located. Paul lifted his hand and pounded on the door three times. We waited for a few moments before a big, burly, bald man wearing a tight black t-shirt with the name Pink Cheetah’s on the front, and some dark washed jeans, opened the door.

  Paul didn’t waste any time as he made his way past the guy to enter the room. I nodded at the burly guy and followed behind Paul.

  We walked into an office where an older guy, with thinning grey hair and glasses, was sitting in his desk chair. He was leaning back with his feet propped up on the desk. I could tell just by looking at him that he wasn’t in good health, with his small frame and his sunken in cheek bones. He looked like he was sick.

  Moving my attention to his office, I had a look around. It was nicer than the whole building. It almost looked nicer than the one at my place. The walls were painted off white and there was a bookshelf on the far wall. He had pictures hanging everywhere, and right in the middle of the room was a huge mahogany desk. I knew that thing had to cost some money.

  “Paulie boy, what can I do you for? And who’s your
friend?” The guy asked as he got up from his chair, making his way to the front of his desk.

  I looked over at Paul who had a smirk on his face. “That’s Nick DiCosola, Joe.” He took a seat in one of the two chairs facing the desk.

  Joe looked over at me, furrowing his eyebrows. “Don’s boy?” he asked, looking over at Paul, and then back to me.

  I stood there with my arms crossed over my chest while he observed me. I assumed Joe had done business with my dad a long time ago, since he was pretty old himself.

  “That’d be the one, but we aren’t here for schoolyard introductions. Where’s Frank’s money?”

  Not moving from the spot I was in, close to the door and only a few feet away from Joe, I watched Paul as he spoke. He looked bored as he looked over at Joe and waited for an answer.

  “What do you mean ‘where’s Frank’s money?’ You picked it up last month.” Joe looked confused.

  Paul reached into his jacket and pulled out his glock. I wasn’t sure what would have prompted him to pull it out. Joe definitely didn’t look like a threat, but this must be a tactic Paul used as intimidation.

  “Yeah, about that … I was supposed to pick up twenty thousand, not ten.” He tilted his head to the side leaving a blank expression on his face.

  Joe instantly became pissed off. “What the fuck are you talking about, I gave you twenty, Paul. You counted the shit in front of me when I pulled it out.”

  I could see Paul toying with the gun in his lap as Joe stared him down. I had to give the old man credit. He was holding his ground. I’m guessing this was where the torturing came into play if he didn’t cooperate. I tried to think back on all the mob movies I’d seen growing up. I’m not sure I would be able to handle some of that shit.

  I tried to think of the best way to resolve this problem fast and without Paul having fun with his sadistic ways. So, I did the first thing that came to mind.