by Soraya Naomi
Everyone’s witnessing our scene, and that occurs to Adriano too.
“Get your things. I’m taking you home,” he says.
“I’m ready,” I answer, and he expects me to follow him to his vehicle.
The leather car seat squeaks beneath my shifting weight as we drive back to the Loop through the dusk of the evening.
When I look at Adriano, his death grip on the steering wheel has loosened, and he grants me a sideways glance.
“We need to talk,” he states.
“What happened when we woke up yesterday? I’m a bit confused.” I’m earnestly at a loss about the turn of events.
He lifts his left arm, resting his elbow against the window. “I had to work, honestly. I was just a little mixed up. God, Cam.” His hand tangles in his wavy strands of hair. “It was good to finally be with you, but I also realized I can never give you what you want. Do you even comprehend who I am, whom you work for? You’re different from those other girls. I don’t know where you came from, but you’re not a stripper. I think you’re running from your past. I’ve been focused on having you without considering the consequences.” He pauses, licking his lips. “Where do your scars come from?” he asks directly.
So much information to process. His question catches me off guard, and I close down. “I can’t tell you.”
He blows out a sigh. “If you can’t tell me about your past, how are we supposed to continue?”
“Why is it so important?”
“Because I want to know,” he fires back.
“Have you told anyone—”
“I haven’t told anyone else. But in my line of work, it’s not accepted for me to hide vital information. Are you in trouble?”
“No.” Technically, I’m not in trouble right now.
Adriano evidently doesn’t believe me as he shakes his head almost imperceptibly. “Why do you live an isolated life? You don’t have friends. You live in the cheapest part of town, but you earn enough from us to move. There are too many unknown factors. You need to give me something.” He brakes at the red light.
My unease keeps spiking. “Why are you suddenly pressing this matter?”
“Because your scars anger me! I can’t forget them.”
Insecurity seeps in and words seem to clot in my throat. “I’m not ready to tell.”
“Fine,” he snaps.
“Fine!” A little consideration would be appreciated.
We round the corner onto my street, and he stops at my building, cutting the engine.
“Are you coming up?” I ask, astounded. He’s never been inside my apartment before, and I don’t want him to see exactly how poorly I’m living – it would scare him away.
“I was planning to.” A look of distrust carves his features.
“I’m tired. Can we talk later?”
He clutches his hair in exasperation. “You won’t talk to me. You refuse me in your home. I was late last night, and you go off with another man! And you’re telling me you’re confused?”
“Stop it. I’m not mad anymore about last night, just upset. And we’re both on edge.”
“Then let’s cool down. Get out,” he retorts.
I stare at him in amazement.
“I’ll have a driver ready for you every morning and every night. His name is David. You do not get into a car with anyone except David. I’ll call you.” And he places both hands on his steering wheel; he’s ready to leave.
I’m being dismissed. Completely speechless, I vacate the vehicle and hear the engine start as I unlock the front entrance.
When I enter my studio and peek out from behind the curtain, he’s gone.
Three days go by where I don’t see or speak to Adriano. I’m at the strip club for two shifts each day, and he’s missing in action. All I do is go to work and then home. Sometimes I have the distinct feeling someone’s watching me, and I’m constantly on high alert.
I miss Adriano the entire time, but I wait for him to make the first move. I let him cool down, hoping he’s not doing the opposite and warming up another woman.
On day four, I enter the club for a nightshift at ten p.m. and stop in the doorway when I see Adriano perched on a bar stool.
His gaze absorbs my skintight, black knee-length dress as I stock my purse beneath the bar.
“Hi,” he greets, looking marvelously handsome and motions me to him.
“Hey.” I stand in front of him, and he reaches for my hips, drawing me closer.
“You look beautiful.” His arms loop around my waist, and his forehead touches mine. We’re sheltered in a world of our own.
“So do you.” I grip the hard muscles of his thigh.
He laughs softly, and I rub the tips of our noses together.
“I’m not sure it’s flattering to call a man beautiful?” he says with a lopsided grin.
“I think you’re man enough to handle the compliment,” I tease and add truthfully, “I missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
A feeling of joy ignites at hearing him admitting it. I inch my lips toward his, wanting him to feel how much I’ve missed him.
Graceful hands cup around my neck and jaw. The tips of his fingers find the fine skin behind my ears and his mouth is on me. Adriano brushes his lips back and forth almost roughly, and my dulled senses come to life, erasing any hurt, because we were both guilty in creating this weird vibe after we had sex. He retreats and plunges in over and over until desire streaks through me. I press my breasts against him as his hands slide down my spine to my ass.
I disrupt our kiss because I have to start working. “Are you staying?”
He nods with a smile and pecks the tip of my nose. “You can stop work early. I want to be alone with you.”
I take my place behind the bar feeling much lighter than several minutes ago. Adriano stays close-by me the entire time. When I see Gina coming up to us, I kiss Adriano full on the mouth. He braces my neck and bites my lip, but I break apart when a shadow falls over us. He glances left, then raises a brow at me, knowing why I initiated it.
“What can I get you, Gina?” I ask.
She behaves, seeing that Adriano is focused solely on me, and I revel in it.
“White wine,” she replies with a false curl of her fake pink lips.
I pour her a glass of white and return to my bubble with Adriano.
After an hour, he’s tired of waiting. “You’re done working. I need to atone for my sins.”
“Well, please, atone away. I’m curious to see what you have in mind.”
He entwines our fingers and takes me to the enormous state-of-the-art kitchen on the first floor.
“I’m starving...” He opens the stainless steel doors, and the light reveals a stocked fridge.
I laugh because he’s perpetually hungry. “There’s spaghetti and meatballs I ordered yesterday.”
“No, that won’t do,” he muses, scanning the shelves and grabbing grapes, cheese, and some antipasto.
Adriano dips and comes up with a basket and a red blanket from the island cabinet. He makes swift work of packing the food and a bottle of red.
“Come with me.” Adriano holds open the back door and bows slightly, making me giggle.
“Thank you, sir,” I say theatrically.
The porch extends into the well-trimmed backyard, but the darkness encompasses the night. Summer is just around the corner, and the days have started to heat up. There’s barely a whisper of a breeze, and the night air already smells like summer. I remove my sandals before we step off the porch and into the dry grass, and we put up camp once we’ve walked well into the yard.
Adriano spreads out the red blanket, and I lie down onto my back. The stars are brighter out here than in the city.
He retrieves the grapes and tears one off, resting it at my lip. I open my mouth and let him feed me in silence.
It’s peaceful here, in the middle of nowhere, with nothing around except the trees and sky. We switch places so that he�
�s staring up at me with his hands tucked behind his head as I sit Indian style and take the grapes.
I hold one up. “Open.”
He smiles and complies.
I throw the grape, but it hits his forehead.
“Sorry!” I offer, sheepishly.
“Seriously? What’s wrong with your hand-eye coordination?” he asks with a wide grin.
I angle my head sideways. “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it; I can guarantee that.” And I quickly throw two grapes at his face.
Adriano ducks to dodge them and jumps on me. “Oh yeah?” He pins my wrists next to my ears. “Then show me.” His mouth crashes down on mine, and we roll on the blanket. His hands push my dress up my hips, and I unzip his pants.
We sit up, me straddling him. Nose-to-nose, with his hand woven into my hair, he uses his tongue to magnetically compel mine while I press my center over his hardening erection. My dress is high up around my waist, exposing my black lace panties, and I gasp when he scratches his nails up the skin of my thighs.
“Stand up, Cam,” he breathes against my lips.
I obey, and Adriano steadies my hips, his thumbs linking into the edge of my underwear. Then he looks up at me and rubs his nose over them before slowly pulling them down my legs for me to step out of.
“I’ve been pining away, my love.”
My head falls back as I laugh, and he sinks his teeth into my hip.
“Isn’t it an improvement over my previously lacking way with words as you said?” he asks with a chuckle, jostling my hips.
I tickle him behind the ears. “It is. But I don’t believe that you’ve been pining away.”
He urges my feet apart, lips right at my core, and he trails his tongue over me, one enticing time. “You have no idea how often I dream of eating you.” His tongue probes between my legs as I rest my hands on his shoulders. “And of ruining your pussy so it always smells like me.” Then Adriano’s fingers trail toward my other hole. “And I’m going to fill your ass with my cock, Cam,” he promises in a tantalizing tone. “Soon.”
“You’re too big. It won’t fit.” But I’m secretly wondering how it would be to let him do that to me.
“Yes,” he growls. “Give me what I want.”
“No,” I moan when he starts to suck on my clit, and I smother him, pushing against his face.
Abruptly, he looks up and sits back. “I’ll take it anyway. I want to be your first, in that way,” he mumbles in an anguished, possessive tone.
I place my foot against his chest, pushing him flat on the ground as he smiles widely. Then I drop onto my knees between his thighs and yank his pants down together with his boxers. I wrap my lips around his hard-on and graze my fingers up his honed stomach while peering up through my eyelashes.
Adriano cradles my head and slides into my mouth, and then, just as quickly, he tugs me back. “I need to fuck you. Now.”
I straddle him again, my back to his front, and he rubs his arousal against my core before pushing inside, weakening me with his rapturous and heady thrusts. My head rests against his shoulders and a whimper flies into the sky.
“Ride me, Cam.” He lies back on his elbows and drives his hips up.
Placing my hands on his thighs, I happily do as ordered, riding him with a steady motion. The faster I go, the louder he grunts. His fingertips dig into the swell of my ass as I start to circle my hips.
“It feels so good to be in you bare,” he whispers through a groan.
Our skin slaps together, and my back arches to take him in deep.
“Touch yourself, Cam,” he says in a low tone, and I do as asked.
He’s ferociously pounding into me while I push back. Animalistic, electrifying pleasure thickens into an exquisite spasm, and the bright stars come raining down on me.
He growls and sits up, lodging an arm around me, as he finds his own release with a few hard plunges. We sit together like that for a long time, covered in sweat, absent in our high.
Adriano drops a kiss on my shoulder and moves me off his lap. “Lie down. I’ll be right back.”
He buttons his pants, dashes into the house, and is back within minutes with more blankets with which he makes a mattress for us.
“Take off your clothes. We’re sleeping out here tonight.”
I smile at his romantic side that’s popping up. “I can sleep in the dress.”
“No, I want you naked when you sleep with me. I want to feel the heat of your bare skin,” he clarifies huskily and strips his clothes.
The red blanket is used as a cover, and we huddle up together. With my head resting on his chest, I gaze up at nothingness, feeling content for the first time in days.
The basket suddenly has my attention from the corner of my eye. “I thought you were hungry?”
“I’m fulfilled.” From his tone, I gather he’s smiling while caressing my back, and I mesh our legs together.
I’m getting attached to him, even though I know he probably doesn’t feel the same way and will get tired of me soon. For now, I enjoy what he gives me while I keep a part of myself secret too.
Without discussing anything, he’s got me right where he wants me again. And just like that, he convinces me to forgive him his hot-blooded behavior without words. Eventually, he atoned quite well. But I was never sure where we stood.
For a while, Adriano made me forget about my past. Yet, it would always come hovering back. I was still held captive in a way. My life consisted of only Adriano, the strip club, and my apartment for over a year.
*
I finish my coffee, still scrutinizing the ATM across the street, feeling my bravery deflate while Adriano monopolizes my thoughts.
I developed feelings for him but couldn’t confide in him yet. And he never revealed anything about his work in that house. On my own, I learned there was some kind of power hierarchy among Luca, James, and Adriano, and later, I found out James was the Capo crimine, but I never understood Luca and Adriano’s positions. Though, at that time, I didn’t really care.
I’ve never felt as alive as I did with him. I’ve never felt as beautiful as when he’d lavish his kindness on me. He even convinced me to give him backdoor action within weeks of the beginning of our sexual relationship.
It didn’t even occur to me that we didn’t discuss anything. We didn’t talk things out. No, we chased, fucked, sought distance, and then had makeup sex. And that’s how our relationship regressed. When he’d be angry with me for still not opening up, he’d flirt with someone to draw a reaction from me. I’d retaliate by just talking to Damian, and he’d be on me within a second. He couldn’t stand it if I gave the opposite sex the same treatment he gave other women. We fucked the tension away, and the cycle started again. We were so dysfunctional and both guilty in sustaining the situation since we’d provoke one another.
When we argued, it was heated, and he wouldn’t speak to me for days. Then we’d miss each other, and one of us would cave – usually me. When he’d retreat, I’d feel alone and deprived of his touch. I clung to him at times, and that made him distant as well. For almost a year, we danced around each other. I knew he felt something more for me, because he couldn’t stay away, and I used that; seducing him continually and not requiring him to explain his behavior.
We were addicted to fucking each other, and in the end, I fell in love while he didn’t. His lovemaking was freeing me. Freeing me from bad memories and replacing them with wondrous new ones.
When I first started working at the strip club, I was vulnerable, just being out of captivity. Maybe that made me accept our predicament for what it was for such a long time. But as the months passed, and he wouldn’t commit in any way, I started to resent him. I started to resent him for always pulling away from me. I started to resent myself for letting another man control me, while I had vowed after I escaped Club 7 that I would never be this vulnerable again.
In hindsight, I also let him use me as I used him. I used him for companionship and protect
ion. Somehow, I felt I was always safe with him, until a few weeks before I disappeared. We had already been drifting away from each other for weeks, and we were heading toward a collision that broke us indefinitely.
Only once did I have the courage back then to challenge his feelings for me. It was one morning while he was getting ready for work after a night with me in our private room. He was, again, probing into my past, and it was the only time I asked him for more. And he wasn’t even surprised by my ultimatum, yet his answer shattered my heart into a million pieces.
“Love me and all of my flaws. I’m far from perfect, but love me nonetheless,” I say in an uncertain voice.
“It’s not that I can’t – I won’t, Cam. I won’t bring you into my world.”
This was the turning point. Even during my imprisonment, I never felt as bad as with his blatant rejection, because back then, I was numb from heroin injections. Somewhere, I was grateful for the drugs since they made me forget a lot about those five months. I blacked out so often – that was my saving grace. But Adriano’s rejection was received loud and clear in my mind. That day, I decided to stop our dysfunctional relationship.
Perhaps if I’d had the courage to ask further and communicate more, I wouldn’t live with so many regrets nowadays. It’s true what they say, it’s better to regret something you’ve done, than to never even try.
CHAPTER 8
Adriano
The three of us stare into the distance in James’s office. Henry, James, and I, all at our wits’ end about how to locate Cam.
James speaks up first from behind his desk. “We need to go back to the beginning, which is Club 7. Someone at that club knows something more. We need to bypass Fat Sal.”
He’s right. It’s our only chance to uncover new information. Luca and I discovered Cam used to work at Club 7. And not Club 7, the legal dance club, but the underground fight and sex club – where medieval fights and all forms of sex take place – one of the creepiest places I’ve ever seen. The problem lies in gaining access to that area of the club. We do have a working relationship with Fat Sal. He buys batches of drugs from the Syndicate, but I don’t trust him. So far, we’ve never had any conflicts, yet he hasn’t been helpful in finding Cam.