by A. Zavarelli
Little too fucking late.
I needed a drink. Maybe a priest. Something to numb my blackened soul and vanquish this nightmare.
“What does one get for the woman they almost killed?” I asked.
The attendant’s head rattled with nervous laughter, her eyes darting about. She thought I was joking.
I wasn’t.
“What says, I’m really fucking sorry, and I need you to believe me?”
The insufferable giggling persisted, only to be followed up by a fluttering of lashes. She didn’t get it- I was really asking her. Desperation had a strangle hold on me.
She finally got a grip on herself and pointed to the gaudiest ring on the display case. “I like to say bigger is better in this case.”
I frowned at her salacious tone and actually shuddered. For all of my faults, there was one thing that remained steadfast in my intentions. I only wanted one woman, and it wasn’t the one sitting across from me.
“I’ll think it over.”
I pushed back my chair, and the attendant scurried to her feet. “Just let me know if there’s anything special you’d like. I can find it, I’m sure of it.”
“Of course.” I gave her a thin smile. What I needed wasn’t in this store though. Redemption couldn’t be bought here.
I stepped outside and met Ted at the curb. He endeavored idle chit chat while driving me back to work, but I wasn’t in the mood. I hadn’t been in the mood for anything but wallowing in my own self-loathing for the last month.
I dialed Mick, and he answered on the first ring. For the tidy sum I padded his bank account with, I’d expect nothing less.
“Yeah, boss?”
I got straight to the point. “How’s my girl today?”
“All’s quiet on the home front,” he replied. “Don’t think she’s even left the apartment.”
I should’ve been content with that. I wasn’t. Like the greedy fiend I was, I’d grown more demanding of the photos I required to see me through the day. It was the only connection I had to her, and yes that’s what it had come to. I wasn’t proud. I was in love. And love’s a bitch.
“I want an update every hour,” I said. “Even if there’s nothing to report.”
Mick was silent for a moment before mumbling his agreement. He had his own opinions on this whole situation. Opinions I had no inclination to hear or give a fuck about.
“You got it, boss.”
I moved to hang up before I thought of something else. “Did she get my flowers today?”
“She sent them back, sir,” he said quietly.
As I expected. It was the same every other day.
Chapter Two
Brighton
Staring down at the sonogram in my hand, I fought away tears for the fifth time that day. I still couldn’t believe Ryland and I had made this. It was only a little squiggle, but it was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
The moment was bittersweet. Ryland should have been here with me, staring at what we created in awe. We should be experiencing all of these things together. But he still didn’t know, and I didn’t know when or if I could tell him.
I was scared. For so many different reasons. I didn’t know what he was going to think. But even worse, I was scared that he would never let go of his need for revenge. And I couldn’t bring my baby into that mess. I wouldn’t.
Even still, I missed him so much it hurt to breathe. Most days, I could barely get out of bed. A month had passed since I’d seen him. A month of unending pain. I knew it wasn’t good for me or the baby to be so stressed, but I couldn’t help it. I hated him. I loved him. It felt like my heart was split in two. After everything, I still wanted him. But I doubted I’d ever be able to trust him again.
I picked up the photo I’d had framed of us. It was the only one I had. The night we were photographed by the paparazzi. The night he’d showed the world I was his. But he’d had an ulterior motive for doing so. Even that moment was tainted by darkness. There wasn’t a single part of our relationship I could recall that wasn’t. That was the way it always went with him. Pleasure and pain.
But not anymore.
I needed to put Ryland out of my mind. I needed to do what was best for me.
It was time to move on.
***
The landlord arched a brow at me expectantly while I took another look around the apartment. “Well?”
I clutched my purse a little tighter and gave him a stiff nod.
“I’ll take it.”
Nicole wrinkled her nose and squeezed my arm as if I’d lost my mind. “Brighton, are you sure about this?”
I gave her a weak smile and shrugged. Sure the place wasn’t the best. The walls had some cracks. And the paint was probably lead based. It kind of smelled like old socks. But it was in my budget, which was really the only determining factor at this point.
For the last month, Nicole and I had both been crashing at Matt’s cousin’s house. It was very generous of her to offer, but I knew I couldn’t stay there indefinitely. I had enough in my savings to live off of for six months if I was careful. And that meant settling for a less than stellar apartment.
“Nicole, I can’t stay at Misha’s. I need to get established somewhere of my own before the baby comes.”
“Yeah, I know,” she whispered. “But I’m pretty sure this neighborhood has like the highest murder rate in San Francisco.”
The landlord snorted and scratched his balls. “Are you gonna’ take it or what? I have other shit to do.”
“Yes,” I said again, a little more resolutely this time.
Nicole sighed and turned to the landlord, gesturing between us. “She means we’ll take it. As in both of us.”
“Nicole…”
“Nope.” She raised her hand and gave me a stern expression. “I’m coming with you. No way in hell am I letting you live in this neighborhood alone. And you’re right. I’m not working at the Bennett Corporation any more, I need to start thinking more realistically in terms of money.”
I reached over and hugged her before the landlord slapped down a lease. I knew Nicole was only doing this as a favor to me, but I was grateful nonetheless. She’d left her apartment and her job when she found out what happened, and she hadn’t spoken to Ryland since.
I didn’t know how I felt about that, but Nicole insisted it had been a long time in the making. She assured me she would have quit regardless of the car accident, and she didn’t want an apartment that wasn’t rightfully hers.
The landlord cleared his throat, and we both laughed. He was already getting annoyed with us. I picked up the pen, and with a shaky hand, hovered over the dotted line. The irony wasn’t lost on me that the lease was for six months. I had to swallow down my nerves as I pushed the pen to paper. The last time I’d agreed to a contract for that length of time, all hell had broken loose.
Chapter Three
Ryland
Three am.
Sleep eluded me.
The quiet whir of the ceiling fan overhead mingled with the shallow breaths dragging from my lungs. The faintest hint of her still lingered on the bedsheets, taunting and teasing me. I hadn’t washed them since she’d gone.
Mementos of her littered my apartment. Her clothes, her jewelry, her sticky notes with reminders scrawled on them in child-like loops and swirls. I couldn’t let these things go. I figured if she hadn’t come back to collect yet, hope still breathed.
It was fading though. As was my control of this situation.
Every night I lingered on the edge of reality and insanity. Imagining her face brought me peace, if only for a moment. Then it always blurred into something else. Blood. Smoke. Water. Pain.
Gone.
I groped around the bed for her nightgown and brought it to my face. It still smelled like her. Strawberries and sunshine. Christ.
Smoothing the silk material through my fingers, I recalled fondly the way it slid against the decadent curves of her body. Reminisced on the pleasant sound of threads
giving way as I freed her creamy flesh from its gilded cage. The bite of leather against her skin and the way she came alive for me. Marking her with arrogant ownership. She was too lenient with me sometimes, and oh what a heady fucking feeling that was. I believed her when she said she loved me. And I also believed I could still have her once I’d gotten my way.
What a fucking prig.
Self-deprecation was not an attractive quality, but that’s what it’d come to. For a small while, I held an angel in the palm of my hand. Like one of those little dancers in the musical jewelry boxes. All I had to do was wind her up and watch her shine for me. Nobody else could do that. It was all for me. And now only the memories remained.
I slid the nightgown down and wrapped it around my cock, fisting myself through the silk.
Was that judgment I heard in your thoughts? Did you forget that I was a man? This is how we deal. We could be deep in the clutches of grief and still get a fucking hard on. Blame it on biology.
It didn’t mean I didn’t feel things. I felt plenty. I had Brighton to thank for that. She walked into my life and blew everything to smithereens. Talk about the best laid plans…
I envisioned her spread out over my desk, her ginger spiced locks spilling over her shoulders like a flaming halo. I curled and twisted those silky threads in my hands, tugging until two bright hazel orbs stared back at me. Often, I had trouble deciphering the exact color of her eyes. They changed so frequently depending on her moods. Sometimes they were liquid amber, warm and inviting. Other times, I’d find them tinged with blue or gray. There’d been times they shut me out, but she’d never gone cold. Brighton was never, ever cold.
Right now, they were burnished caramel. Hot and sweet and filled with naughty promises. Her lids were heavy like I’d drugged her into narcosis. She was high on me- I knew- because the same drug ravaged my own veins. Thick and potent it burned as I dragged my fingers down her spine and groped her heart shaped ass.
Pure perfection. My cock itched with the need to purge this agony from my system. It was too soon. Always too soon. I smacked Brighton’s pretty little ass cheek in reproof, enchanted by the tiny noise that tore from her throat. It was her fault I was in such distress. If she wasn’t so goddamn exquisite, I could make it last forever.
Rough hands slid around her front, her tits filling my palms with each stuttered breath she drew. My cock dragged in and out in a measured tempo so as not to plunge from the ledge just yet. Her snug pink pussy sucked me deeper in an invitation I could not refuse. Christ, she had such a pretty little pussy. If you didn’t agree that pussies could be pretty, it’s because you’d never seen hers. Brighton’s was the prettiest.
Fucks sake, I’d reverted to a boy in the schoolyard.
Back to the fantasy. Brighton was in my debt, and nothing short of proper chastisement would do. She’d made me wait. She alone had sentenced me to muddle through every insufferable day in her absence. Didn’t she know I couldn’t function without her? I wrapped my fingers around her throat and fucked her like a man possessed. If she’d forgotten how this worked, I’d be more than happy to remind her.
My eyes were nothing but vacuous pits of lust as I looked down upon her and shouted out my declarations of love and frustration. In the end, she’d cave recklessly to my every whim. We were simpatico, her and I. She loved to drip all over my cock while I tormented her. The dynamic of our connection couldn’t be recreated in the most intimate of sadomasochistic relationships. It was a perfect storm of events that catalyzed this bond.
From an outside perspective, my cruel and abhorrent behavior might appear nothing more than ire wrapped in thorns. At first, perhaps it was. But Brighton’s submission and thirsty demand for more forged something else. Devout worship for the creature who flirted with my darkest desires and begged them to come out and play. I was as much her servant as she was mine.
You’d probably assumed that my grief was to blame for my insanity. It wasn’t entirely true. It was Brighton. She made me fucking insane. Her beauty and absolute perfection dissolved any moral boundaries that may have existed within me. She hadn’t a clue that sometimes when I looked at her I could scarcely breathe. How my need for her outweighed everything else. It was the way she loved me in spite of it all that made me unable to walk away.
Misery and bliss wrestled inside of me at the silent admission, and I choked out my release, spilling it across my abs like I was sixteen years old again. Pitiful. Even my cock thought so. My hand was a poor imitation of her.
I needed my light. I needed to know she was okay.
I rolled over to check my phone, and as promised, Mick had texted me every hour on the hour. There wasn’t anything to report. I sent Brighton a text.
I didn’t expect an answer. I never got one.
The nights were the worst of it. Not having her close, her heart beating a rhythmic tattoo across my chest. I was supposed to protect her, but instead, I’d been the one to hurt her. I couldn’t stop the horrific events of that night from playing through my mind. The fear and betrayal on her face and the stinging realization on mine. There was no forgiveness for what I’d done. I knew that. I would never forgive myself.
But this wasn’t about forgiveness. It wasn’t just want for her, it was a vital need. She was the only antidote for the bleakness that lived inside of me. My goddess. My deity. I wasn’t a believer in any religion, but I’d make an exception in this case. I’d get down on my knees and worship at her alter every day if it brought her back to me.
I couldn’t take no for an answer. A better man would have. I had no claims on such titles. Causing her pain had never stopped me before. It was part of the process. I’d dole it out, and she’d accept.
This was a different kind of pain, I’d admit it. A whole different animal. So I’d indulge her some space. For now. It was generous for me. She didn’t grasp how the weight of my sins crushed my chest with every passing hour. How without her, there’d never be absolution.
Brighton saw the good in everyone. She saw good in me too. I’d believe for her sake it was true, lest my darkness swallow us both whole.
I still had Brayden to compete with. There weren’t enough choice words in my vocabulary to describe the many feelings I had about his weak and tarnished soul. But I wouldn’t ever lay a hand on him again. For Brighton’s sake.
She wouldn’t believe it, but there wasn’t even a question about it at this point. What happened that night couldn’t be undone, but it had undone something. I’d promptly realized I was far more selfish than could be considered purposeful. Five years of planning went out the window in the presence of five minutes of her pain. Thoughts of family and revenge forgotten I’d learned there was something I wanted more. And I almost lost it that night through my own careless actions.
I’ve washed my hands of evil plotting. As much as I liked to hand out punishments, I wasn’t too proud to receive them when warranted. I shouldn’t have tried to kill her mom and brother, maybe. I’d even felt the tiniest flicker of regret if you can believe it. You probably don’t, but who the hell gives a shit?
Brayden was digging his own grave, anyway. Back in Chicago, he’d hooked up with the usual shady contacts. Did you expect anything more from an ex-con? Okay, let me rephrase that. Did you expect anything more from the son of Frank Gallo?
I sure as hell didn’t.
Still, I wondered if Brighton knew what he was up to. Or if she’d sent him to the same special purgatory that was reserved for me. Silence.
I only hoped Brayden didn’t go digging up old dirt. Nothing good could come of that. Frankie’s associates had been well and truly paid off, but I trusted them about as much as I believed in unicorns. What they did to Brayden was of little consequence to me, but if they ever came after Brighton, they’d have a different beast to contend with.
I was the son of Michael Lockhart, but there were vast differences between him and I. Unlike Michael, I wasn’t afraid to protect the woman I loved. I’d single-handedly go to w
ar and burn their whole organization to the ground before I ever let them harm what was mine. And there were no two ways about it- Brighton would always be mine.
Chapter Four
Brighton
We’d spent the weekend moving.
And by moving, I meant Nicole’s stuff. Because I’d left all of my meager belongings at Ryland’s. Nicole was nice enough to let me borrow her clothes in the meantime, but that wasn’t going to work forever. My belly had already grown, and soon I would need some real maternity clothes.
I bought a second hand sewing machine on Craigslist for that very purpose. It wasn’t a Singer, but I would take what I could get. Nicole and I continued to work on our project, and it was quickly expanding into something even bigger than I could have ever imagined. Once Nicole put her mind to something, she was truly unstoppable.
I really needed to find a real job though. I’d been pouring all of my spare time into sewing, and as much as I loved it, I had to be realistic. Everything was going to change in six months, and I needed to be financially prepared for that. Luckily for me, Matt said he might be able to help me out. He’d organized for me to talk to the owner of the dive bar where his waitress friend worked. They had an open position for a server which wasn’t ideal, but it was a place to start. I was heading there this afternoon.
“You want me to drive you?” Nicole asked as I glanced at myself in the mirror.
Even with the flared waist of my dress, you could still see a little baby bump if you looked close enough. I chewed on my lip, and Nicole grinned.
“You look fine, Brighton. They won’t even notice.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Now get your butt in the car, or we’re going to be late.”
I followed her out of the apartment and to her car. It still felt weird every time I got into it like I was breaking one of Ryland’s rules. I understood why he had that rule now. He was afraid of me getting into a crash.