Winter

by Michelle Love

  She wants it too as her mouth opens for me and her tongue goes to work on mine. Her hands move up my back and tangle in my hair. She moves one foot up the back of my leg, opening her body to mine.

  The bed isn’t far and I move back with her until it stops us. I fall onto the bed with her and kiss her harder than I’ve ever kissed anyone. She wraps her legs around me as I grind into her.

  Her moan makes my mouth vibrate and I can’t stop myself from groaning in response. Finally, I pull my mouth off hers and find her looking at me with wide eyes. “If I take you, you will be mine and only mine,” I tell her and her eyes close.

  “No,” she whispers. “If it has to be that way, then my answer is no.”

  I roll off her, madder than hell. “Gia, why? Why can’t you admit you have feelings for me?”

  She leans up on one arm, her dark blue dress is bunched up around her waist and her black panties are making my mouth water. She doesn’t even try to get herself back together as she licks her lips. “I have admitted that to you, Ryker. You have yet to admit that to me.”

  “You want me to tell you that I love you?” I ask her. “And if I do then will you be mine?”

  She shakes her head. “No. I belong to Damien until he leaves this planet.”

  “I can’t have a mere piece of you. I want you all!”

  “And why is that?” she asks as she pushes down one side of her dress, revealing to me one perfect, naked breast. The nipple looks as if it’s pulsing and I find I’m trembling.

  “I don’t know if I love you yet. Do you want me to lie?” I ask her as my mouth is watering like crazy to taste that pert tit.

  “I want you to tell me the truth. If you don’t love me then why do you want me to yourself?” she asks me then runs her hand over her tit the way I want to run my mouth over it.

  “Stop,” I moan as I watch her. “I can’t explain why it is I want you to myself. I just fucking do.”

  “You should leave,” she tells me as she uncovers her other breast. “You want more from me than is mine to give. You have my heart, Ryker. When he leaves I can come to you. And in the meantime, we can play around. He doesn’t need to know.”

  And just like that, she’s pissed me off. “What has gotten into you? Put yourself away. You’re making a fool out of yourself!”

  She sits up and tucks her boobs back into the dress and pulls it back into place to cover her panties back up. “Ryker, you are all over the place with yourself. You flirted with a woman who was obviously with a man. You baited and tempted me to no end. And now that I’m willing to give you what you want, you want more. More than I have to give.”

  “Leave him,” I tell her. “Leave him. Take the job I offered you.”

  “I can’t.” She gets up and walks to the dresser and pulls out the opened envelope. “I read your offer when Damien wasn’t around. I suppose he told you at your meeting that I didn’t read it but I did. I just didn’t tell him anything about it. I’m not dressed like this for him. I knew you’d come looking for me. It was me who told him to take his kid and the kid’s mother out for the evening. I feigned feeling sick.”

  “Damn, you’re devious,” I say as I’m seeing her in a light that I don’t much like.

  “I wouldn’t say that. I’m just going out of my mind with what life has thrown at me. I need a quick fix. A roll in the hay with you might right my head again. Or it might just kill me. Either way, something changes. I’m not in control and I know that.”

  “You are in control,” I tell her and see she is swaying in the breeze here. “You can have a job. I want you to do the rest on your own, to prove to yourself that you can.”

  The way she looks at me has me worried. Her chest rises and falls with her breathing. Like the process is almost too hard for her. “If you could feel the weight I carry, you might understand me better. It feels like an elephant is on my shoulders. There’s not just my family to think about any longer. There’s this little kid. A kid I feel so sorry for because he can’t know that Damien is his father until they leave this world. All because of money.”

  “That isn’t your problem,” I tell her and go to take her in my arms again as I can’t seem to stop myself from doing it. “Baby, listen to yourself. You’re letting him make you think only you can help him with the shit he’s gotten himself into.”

  “The poor kid, Ryker. This poor, little, innocent kid will live in poverty. Sure, he’ll have his mother and father but at what cost? It’s a few years of my life. I can handle it. I know I can. But it would be so much easier of I had you as my little hidden secret.”

  “I am not a man who hides,” I tell her as I cradle her in my arms. “And you should not be a woman who martyrs herself for anyone. Not even a child. Has it ever occurred to you that Damien isn’t being honest with you? Have you not thought about asking his family some, what if, questions to see what they’d really do?”

  “He’d kill me if I did,” she says and shudders. “Ryker, why can’t you work with me? Why can’t we just have one another and keep this all to ourselves? Please. You have no idea how much easier that would make my life if I knew I had you, in secret, but that I had you.”

  “You make it sound easy. But it’s not. I’d go insane with the thought of him touching you. Being intimate with you. Can you tell me you wouldn’t hate the fact I would be with other women too?”

  Her eyes fall away from mine as she nods. “I’d hate that.”

  “Your quick fix isn’t what you think it will be. And I know better than to do that to myself, whether you do or not.” I kiss her again. Long and slow. I hold her in a loose grip, running my hands up and down her sides.

  When I end the kiss, I feel more than I did before and my heart races as I say, “I do love you, Gia. Leave him.”

  Looking into each other’s eyes for the longest time, she finally says, “I can’t.”

  “Then neither can I,” I tell her then let her go.

  My heart feels awful. It’ filled with love and hate at the same time. I didn’t know this was possible. Each step I take toward the door has me feeling more and more weak.

  “Ryker,” she whispers. I stop and wait to see what she’s going to say. Her hands move over my back. “Please tell me you love me again.”

  “Why, it won’t change a thing?”

  “I love you, Ryker. I will be yours alone as soon as he leaves. I can make it where he and I don’t have sex at all. I can pull that off. Then once he leaves, you and I can be together.”

  “I’m leaving too, you forget that.” I turn around and find her looking down at the ground.

  Her eyes cloud and she steps back. “Oh yeah.”

  “Oh yeah,” I say and step forward, taking her back into my arms. “We have limited time if you refuse to go too. Or we can have the rest of our lives if you’ll come to Mars with me.”

  “I don’t want to leave my family,” she says. “That’s the reason I won’t go. I’m giving up time now, so I can have time with them later.”

  “Has it ever occurred to you that you should give the people you love your time now? You never know when that will be taken away from you. Your way of handling life will bite you in the ass if you keep it up.”

  “What are you offering me, really, Ryker?” she asks as she gazes at me. “Are you offering me marriage?”

  “Marriage?” I ask as I wasn’t looking that far ahead. “Can’t we get to know one another better?” I laugh a little and watch her frown.

  “You’re a risk and Damien isn’t.”

  “Damien is a sure thing,” I tell her. “Sure, to leave you with you not knowing love for years. Sure, to leave you feeling used and abused. Sure, to hurt you in ways you can’t even imagine. You think you feel broken now, wait five years.”

  “And you?” she asks as her hand moves over my cheek. “You are sure to do what?”

  “With me, you get uncertainty. You get it in spades, baby. Will we work out? Who knows? Will we travel to a new world together?
Who knows? Will we fall so madly in love that I stay here with you? Who knows? It’s a gamble. I will admit that to you. I can make you no promises because I refuse to lie to you. But I can tell you that I’ve never felt more of a connection to anyone in this world than I do with you.”

  She moves in for another kiss and this one sends me to another place and time. It’s soft, sensual, and the easiest thing I’ve ever done. Our hands flow over each other’s bodies as the kiss grows deeper.

  My feet move backward until I find the sofa behind me. I sit on it and put her on my lap, so I can move my hands over her pert breasts and then in between her legs.

  She’s warm and open to me as I move my hand over her mound of flesh that provokes me to no end. I pull my mouth away to see if she’s ready to concede to me. “Be mine, Gia. Be only mine.”

  Resting my forehead to hers, she gasps for air. “Ryker, please. I can be yours and yours alone but I have to live with Damien. Please understand.”

  The pain in my heart is too much to take. “No.”

  Gently, I pick her up and place her on the sofa and get up to leave. I won’t let her stop me this time. I can’t. She’s made up her mind and I can’t take what she has to offer me.

  “Ryker!” she shouts but she doesn’t get up.

  “You know what I want. I will take nothing less than that. I hope you take my advice and get up on your own feet. Stop playing martyr, stop playing victim, stop playing house with Damien. And stop playing with my heart, Gia. Just stop it all and take your life back.”

  Then I walk out the door and down the long hallway to the elevator. When the doors open, Damien and his little family come off it. “Ryker?” he asks me with concern. “You look like you’ve been hit by a truck.”

  I can’t even look at him or say a word to him. I get onto the elevator and push the button that will get me the hell away from them all. That man will never do what’s right for Gia and God knows she won’t help herself, either.

  I know I should be happy I know that, without a shadow of a doubt now. But I don’t feel happy at all. I feel crushed by the knowledge. Crushed that she’d do this to herself. I am but a by-product of her self-annihilation.

  At least I know there’s nothing I can do anymore. That should help but it doesn’t…

  GIA

  Lying in a crumpled heap on the sofa where Ryker left me, I find myself in a puddle of tears, yet again. I’m so tired of crying and feeling sorry for myself.

  The door opens and in steps Damien then he steps right back out. “She’s a mess. I don’t want Friedrich to see this. I’ll come to you soon.”

  He comes back in and I shout at him. “Go with her. Leave me alone!”

  “What did he do to you? Why did you let him in? What the hell do you have on?” his questions pepper me in rapid succession.

  “Just leave me alone!” I shout at him again.

  “He’s ruining everything,” he says then begins pacing and throwing his arms up into the air. “Three years we have managed to keep it together. Less than two weeks this man has come in and made you doubt everything we’ve built. You, my dear woman, are a billionaire. Your family will be taken care of forever. That was great with you, just days ago. Then he came along and you have been a wreck ever since. He does strange things to your mind.”

  “Yes, he does. He tells me things that are true. He tells me I’m smart. No, brilliant. He tells me I’m worthy of love. He tells me he wants me but he won’t share me.”

  “Neither will I,” he says, infuriating me.

  “Yet, I must share you!”

  “You’ve just recently found that out and it’s a shock to you, I know. But the money…”

  I slap the hell out of him and he recoils. “Damien!” I hurry to run my hand over the red mark I’ve left on his face. “My God! Damien, I’m sorry! I am. What am I becoming?”

  “Erratic,” he whispers as he looks at me with hurt in his eyes. “You need to step away from me.”

  I step back as he’s asked me to. “I am sorry. I am. Ryker makes me crazy.”

  “Yes, he does. His influence on you is appalling.” He rubs his cheek then goes to sit down on the edge of the bed. “I need to think about things, Gia.”

  I can see it running through his head. He’s worried I can’t stand up to the pressure of this situation and I suddenly find a river of strength that’s been dormant inside of me. “You can count on me, Damien. I’ll get a grip. This thing with the new woman is going all over me. I’m a mess. Ryker is pushing buttons and it’s all been too much. When we get home, things will even out. I can pretend I don’t know a thing about Svetlana and your son. I need to act like that, anyway, don’t I?”

  “We need to get you home sooner rather than later. I don’t think Ryker will ease up on you. Not the way I saw him looking. He’s fallen for you.” He gets up and walks into the bathroom as he rubs his cheek.

  My heart pounds like crazy in my chest and I wait to see if it will hop right out and leave me, chasing Ryker down.

  He’s fallen for me!

  How can I leave here? How can I turn my back on him?

  I have my family to think about. Ryker said it, himself. He’s a gamble and Damien isn’t. Ryker isn’t promising me a damn thing and Damien is. I have to get back to my life in Russia with Damien.

  He walks out of the bathroom. “The only way this is going to work is if you never see him again. Once I’m gone, I don’t care what you do. Until then, you will stay away from that man. He will have to come to Russia at least once. At the end of this month. When he is coming, I will send you to see your family. I don’t want you two in the same place ever again, until I am gone. Do you understand me, Gia?”

  “Yes,” I say and fall to my knees as I look up at him. “Thank you, Damien! Thank you for not giving up on me. Love is fleeting and financial security is forever. Thank you.”

  His face is stern as he looks down at me. “We will need stricter rules. I’ll need your cell and you will only be allowed to call your family when I’m around to make sure that’s who you’re talking to. Agreed?”

  I nod. “Yes, agreed.”

  “Get it for me. I want it now. You are weak, where he’s concerned.”

  I get up off my knees and hurry to get him the phone, he just bought me, from my purse. “Here,” I say as I hand him my phone.

  “I’m sorry I’ll have to be so strict with you. This is too important not to be. My son is at risk.”

  “I understand. I do. I never understood more than I do right now. Ryker is making me something I’m not. When I give my word, I mean it. I never go back on it. I gave it to you. I am yours until you leave. Whatever that entails.”

  “Yes, whatever that entails. Now, it means you must ignore the fact of what I will be doing under the roof I share with you and my family. You must only think of the money and not your foolish pride.”

  The term, foolish pride, echoes in my brain. Is it really that, I’m feeling? I don’t think so. I think it’s more than pride. But I’m not about to argue with Damien about the words he’s used. Not after all I’ve done.

  “Go wash yourself. I’m going to make the arrangements to leave as soon as possible. I have to go to help Svetlana get the things together. You can handle getting our things together. I’ll be back soon. I can’t wait to leave this place and that man. It’s amazing the change he’s made in you in such a short amount of time. I can honestly say, I never saw this coming from you. You’re always level headed and business minded.”

  I nod and watch him leave as he shakes his head in confusion. I too am confused. Why would I let anyone get in my way of what my goal has been?

  Secure the wealth then let my real life begin. That’s been the plan since Damien told it to me.

  As I go to wash away the makeup my tears have ruined, I have to face myself in the mirror. Turning a blind eye to the weak-ass person I’m looking at, I wash the black trails of mascara off my cheeks. The smudged red lipstick, Ryker helped to de
stroy, is washed away too.

  My stomach clenches when I see a red lip imprint from his lips after he kissed me and got my lipstick on him. Across one cheek, the mark is there. Perfect and memorable.

  I fall against the wall, my back to it. Staring at the place on my cheek, I close my eyes and relive the kisses, the touches, the feelings I’ve never had before and may well never have again.

  His touch made my body hot and liquid in an instant. His mouth on mine felt like I was attached to an electric socket that filled me with its energy. Only it was Ryker filling me with something I didn’t know existed. Raw power and what has to be love!

  But if it’s really love I feel and that he felt as well, how are we walking away from it? It is rare, isn’t it?

  Filling the sink with cold water, I plunge my face into it. I have to stop thinking. I’ve kept my brain shut off for three years, what’s five or so more?

  When I come back out of the water, I dry my face with a hand towel and feel my mind has gone quiet. It took some time to silence it in the beginning but I must’ve gotten used to it. I can do it again. It shouldn’t be a problem. All remnants of the man who has messed up my head are gone. I see no traces of him and with no traces, I can put him out of my mind.

  I step out of the bathroom and freeze as I see him standing in the middle of the room. “I will not give you up without a fight.”

  “Ryker, we’re leaving. All of us. I have to get away from you.”

  “I won’t let you go.”

  “Ryker,” I whisper as he falls to his knees.

  “Stay. Please, stay, Gia.” Tears fall from his dark eyes and I don’t know what to do.

  “If Damien comes back in here and finds you, I don’t know what he’ll do,” I tell him as I stay right where I am.

  “I’m not afraid of him or what he’ll do. I’m deathly afraid of you leaving with him and me never seeing you again.”

  “It’s been less than two weeks, Ryker. We’re being delusional. We don’t love each other.”