by N J Adel
What could it possibly be? He found it hard to believe anything Maggie would desire was awful in any way. He set his jaw. “Yes.”
Leaning forward, her eyes darkened. “I’d have asked you to stop being friends with Andrea.”
Scene 20
Mike
Unsure if it was real or another one of Maggie’s teasing jokes, Mike leaned back, processing her request.
“I told you.” She looked away. “But you insisted on knowing. Now you know.”
“You talking for real?”
“Can you just pretend I didn’t say anything? This night shouldn’t get any weirder than it already is.”
He scooted closer to her and touched her chin, turning her face in his direction. “Where’s this coming from?”
“Mike, please. I know she’s like family to you. I can never ask you that. I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s stupid of me. I’m sorry.”
“Maggie, it’s me. You can tell me anything.”
“Can I?” she mocked.
“Fuck yes.”
She tucked her hair behind her ear. “Well…”
“Well what? Tell me. Tell me why you want that.”
“Because to me, that is your only flaw.”
He stared at her for a second. “You’re kidding me, right? Not the partying, not the fucking, not wasting my talent to please people and make money? None of that bothers you, but being friends with your mother does?”
“Those aren’t flaws. They’re how you fight the loneliness and the fear of failure. I get that. Don’t get me wrong, it’s unhealthy, and you really need therapy—who doesn’t?—but I get it.”
Her clear insight into his soul took him by surprise. For all of the times he wanted to feel truly seen, he’d never expected it to actually happen.
She pinched the cherry blossoms on her bracelet. “I know everybody likes Andrea; she’s adorable and glamorous on the outside, but we both know she’s not all adorable and glamorous on the inside.” Her gaze leveled with his. “How could you like a person like Andrea?” she asked slowly.
I don’t like Andrea. I’m in debt to her. He sucked in a long breath. “Okay. Here’s a story that very few people know. When my mother got sick, Dad spent all our money, including my college fund, on hospitals. It was a terrible time. I thought I lost everything. Mamma died shortly after that. I couldn’t go to college. My whole life was ruined,” he muttered. “But Andrea, who wasn’t happy with her life either at the time, came up with an idea to solve all my problems and hers. She told me she could get me into the movie business if I signed with her as her first client.
“It seemed ridiculous at the time. I knew nothing about acting or the industry. All I wanted was to go to culinary school and have my own restaurant one day.” He shrugged. “But I had no choice, and it turned out to be the best decision I’ve never made.”
Her reluctant eyes drifted, the struggle in them clear.
“Why do you hate your mother so much? This can’t be about her pressuring you to go to architecture school.” It was time he saw more deeply into her, too.
A bitter smirk curved her lips, her face pensive.
“Maggie?”
It was a few moments before she spoke again. “I’m a beautiful woman, right?”
He quirked a brow, his eyes blinking fast.
“I need you to forget this overprotective brotherly figure for one second and look at me with the eye of a man, and tell me if I look beautiful to you.”
Oh, I forgot that a long time ago. Take one look at my pants, and you’ll know. He took a sip of water, scratching his forehead, searching for the right words. He wasn’t just her best friend. He was a fucking brother to her.
“Seriously? Nothing?” She scoffed.
The waitress came with their drinks. Thank God. He grabbed the cold bottle quickly and took a swig.
“Well, I know I’m no Monica Bellucci, and you’re surrounded by actresses and models all the time, but I’m not ugly either. I’ve had men come in their pants when they saw me naked.”
He spit his beer over himself, breaking out into a wild cough.
“You all right?” She sipped on her cocktail.
One more word and I’m gonna come in my pants. “I’m fine. Didn’t need that image in my head, though.” He cleared his throat. “Cheryl, get me some vodka shots… No, a bottle.” He waited for the waitress to leave before he stared Maggie in the eye. “What is this? And what’s it got to do with Andrea?”
“Answer the question,” she challenged.
He leaned forward, eating her with his stare, his heart throbbing in his ears. “Fuck Monica Bellucci. You’re not just beautiful or sexy. You’re fucking…perfection.” His chest heaved as his thoughts spun in circles. “Happy?”
She pursed her lips. “Well, I’ve spent the first sixteen years of my life thinking I was ugly and dumb.”
“What? Why would you ever think that?”
“Because that’s what Andrea has been telling me all those years.”
He grimaced. “That’s insane. Anyone with eyes can tell you’re pretty. And dumb?! You’re a fucking architect. You skipped a year. At college.”
“It’s the truth.” She threw the straw away and downed her drink. “She filled my head with this shit for years. I never knew I was smart or beautiful until I heard my teachers’ compliments and saw how boys looked at me.”
The vodka bottle arrived. Mike poured Maggie a glass, and she emptied it in one gulp. The pain etched on her face tightened around his heart. He poured himself a glass, too.
“Why wasn’t she happy with her life?” she asked, her finger rubbing along the glass rim.
The vodka burned through his throat. “What?”
“When she came to you with that proposal, why wasn’t Andrea happy with her life?”
“She sucked at law school. Never passed the bar.”
She slid her glass his way, motioning for more vodka.
“Easy,” I said. “We’re supposed to have dinner, not get wasted.”
“Then you shouldn’t have ordered the bottle. Keep it coming.”
He ran a hand through his hair as he filled her glass. She tipped her head back, swallowing the entire shot without blinking. “Who do you think she blamed for not passing?”
He shook his head in disbelief. “Maggie, that was never your fault. She hated law school right from the start.”
“Not according to Andrea.” A cynical smile crossed her mouth. “She failed because she had me when she was eighteen. She never had the time to study; she had to take care of me.” She chortled a humorless sound. “Remind me again when she’s ever had to take care of me? As far as I can remember, Loretta took care of me, not Andrea.”
Gritting his teeth, he rocked his leg. Andrea was selfish and spoiled, but what kind of mother would do that to her only child? Fuck with her head like that?
Her eyes stared at him, lazy yet dark. “She never wanted me, Mike.”
“No.” I shook my head firmly. “That’s not true.”
“She never wanted Dad either and blamed me for that marriage, too. Like it was my fault she got knocked up at seventeen.”
A tinge of revulsion ebbed up his spine. “She married Nick because she loved him, not because she got knocked up. They had their differences later, but…” He winced at the memory of a fourteen-year-old conversation with Andrea when she’d told him how much she loved her daughter. How she’d sacrifice anything for her. She’d said she’d put Maggie’s interest before her needs because her daughter meant the world to her. “This can’t be true.”
“If you don’t believe me, I’ve recorded one of her ‘my life would have been better if you hadn’t been born’ speeches. I’ll be more than happy to lend it to you.”
“What?”
“I know it’s weird to do something like that, but I had to do it so Dad would believe me.”
His stomach felt like ice. Maggie couldn’t be lying. Not about this. No one would lie a
bout this.
It was Andrea who had been lying to him for years.
Her daughter wasn’t her only victim. That serpent of a woman had fucked with his head, too. And not only about how much she loved her family.
How many lies had she told him? How many others had she pulled into her trap?
“Dad has been overcompensating ever since, which makes me come off as a spoiled brat, but who cares?” she added. “At least, it got her off my back for a while.”
“You’re not a spoiled brat.” He didn’t know what else to say.
“It doesn’t bother me. I prefer this image to the truth.” Her eyes glistened. “I hate how Dad handles it, though. I don’t need him to spoil me. I just need him to be there for me. To stand up for me.”
He couldn’t help seeing himself in the same position as Nick. His best friend had been abused her whole life, and he’d stood by, blind that it was happening at all.
“I didn’t know.” He took her hand between his palms and lifted it to his lips, kissing it, willing her to understand how he felt at that moment, how he wanted to hold her, protect her, comfort her, kiss her pain away.
“It’s not something I tell just about anyone,” she said. “Do you know what the worst part is?” Her breath caught, tears clouding her eyes.
“Maggie,” he groaned, a lump blocking his throat. “I can’t stand seeing your tears. Please…”
She continued as if she didn’t hear him. “The worst part is that I don’t hate her, and I just wish with all my heart she’d love me.” Tears broke free from her eyes, staining her cheeks. “How hard could that be?”
He rested his chin on her head, his hands rubbing her arms. A sigh shivered on his lips when he felt her tears on his neck. “You don’t need someone like her to feel loved. You are loved, Maggie.”
I love you. If you only knew how much I love you.
His mouth dropped to her face, planting little kisses on her cheeks, his head spinning from the vodka and her fragrance. His lips slid to her neck, and he kissed her there, his hands low on her back.
This was wrong. Inappropriate. WRONG.
Yet his mouth glided up and his eyes dipped to her red lips.
Draw back.
He blinked.
Draw the fuck back.
He was only moving forward.
“Fuck,” she whimpered, her head up in one abrupt move, her arms stiff ending in fists at her sides.
His heart ceased to beat.
“I promised myself I wouldn’t let her get into my head ever again, but I fucking keep breaking that promise.” Her thumbs ran under her eyes. “I’m sorry. I know I’m embarrassing you right now. I forgot we were in public.”
He tilted his head, letting out his breath. She didn’t notice he was about to break all the rules and kiss her—again. Part of him was relieved, but the majority of him was enraged. How could she be that oblivious? Had the thought of him being anything else but her best friend never crossed her mind? Or had that motherfucking broker dug his claws so deep in her she couldn’t see anyone else? “You really think I care about that? Fuck everything. All I care about is you. You have no idea how much I l…” He pressed his fist to his mouth.
“What? How much you what?”
He’d kept this secret for years. And he’d done so with good reason. He’d been a selfish monster in every other area of his life. But with her? He would always protect her. Even from himself. He couldn’t lose his nerve now.
“You have no idea what you mean to me.”
Her lips stretched with a pale smile. “I know. I mean, you flew to L.A. for one day just to see me. Who does that?”
Someone who can’t stand life away from you anymore.
“And I ruined the night with all the fucking drama,” she added.
“You didn’t ruin anything.” His fingers twined with hers and tightened around them. I almost did.
Scene 21
Maggie
I traced Mike’s little, meaningless kisses on my skin from palm to neck. The soft souvenirs weren’t meaningless to me at all. That one on the neck almost made me give in. I had to jerk my head away from him so I wouldn’t press my lips to his.
Fuck. Now, I was wet again just from thinking about it.
Kyle is gonna get lucky— if he’s there like he said he would when he texted three hours ago…awake, and not going to fight over being late till one a.m. with Mike—or I’ll have to come on my own tonight.
I barely stepped three feet inside the apartment before Kyle grabbed hold of me.
“What took you so long? I’ve been waiting for hours.” He kissed me. “I missed you.”
Good. No fight. I dropped my things and stretched on my toes, bending his head to devour his lips. “I missed you, too.”
He pushed my coat off my shoulders, and it hit the floor. He turned me around and pressed my front on the wall. His fingers teased at the back edge of my dress. “You’re so incredibly hot in red,” he murmured, his breath scorching.
What is it with men and the color red? I paused at the question as I recalled Mike’s face when I took off my coat tonight. My jaw dropped, and not because Kyle’s hand slid over my backside and between my legs.
That’s what it was all about. He couldn’t look at me ‘cause he thought I was hot.
My belly clenched with a chuckle. That was what he was hiding, and he respected me too much to show it.
Kyle moaned. “You’re drenched, baby.”
I arched back when he slid a long finger inside me. “Kyle, if you want any future for us, you gotta stop calling me baby.”
He laughed into a kiss he pressed on the back of my neck. “You hate that?”
“More than you think. I only accept it from Dad.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” His fingertip circled my clit. The slow, teasing movements blurred my thoughts away.
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
He chuckled, his face in my hair, his cock hard on the side of my hip, reminding me of Mike poking his elbow into my butt. I swallowed.
Kyle swiveled me, lifted the hem of the dress over my waist, and pushed down my underwear. He blew out a long, slow breath as his eyes dropped to my naked pussy, one hand gripping my ass, the other pulling his dick out of his boxers. He glanced up, his blue eyes smoldering.
“Someone is hungry tonight,” I said.
He nodded, pressing hard and insistent against my stomach, his kisses searing. I pushed his boxers down to his ankles. He stepped out of them, lifted my leg, spreading me, and hooked my knee around his hip.
Wrapping my hand around his erection, he felt heavy and warm in my palm. What would Mike’s feel like? Long? Thick? Hard? Exactly the right size for me? I snapped my eyes open. What the fuck? You already have a perfect man, and he’s hard in your hands. Focus.
“You okay?” Kyle bit his lip, his eyes half-open.
“Yeah.”
He pulsed in my palm, his lips curled as if he were about to eat me. He grabbed a tiny package from the table and tore it with his teeth.
We don’t keep the condoms here. I smirked as he rolled it on. This was no spontaneous fucking. I’d come home and found him up at one a.m., half-naked, with an erection the size of Texas and a condom by the door. He’d planned this. “What’re you up to, Kyle Burley?”
“My intentions are utterly dishonorable. Isn’t it obvious? Or my cock is too subtle for you?”
Kyle said cock. I giggled. It must be something big that you’re planning. Fine. Fuck first, find out later. He lifted me higher, his hands strong on my ass for support. Poised against me, he pushed in slowly.
My lips parted with a gasp when he filled me. His eyes glowed as they watched every reaction on my face. His thrusts grew faster, rougher. I gripped his shoulders, afraid I might fall.
“I got you,” he reassured me, his voice tight. His teeth scraped against my neck, and I was yanked back to that fucking moment when Mike’s lips were there.
Get the
fuck out of my head.
A man I liked so much was inside my pussy, but I couldn’t block out the images of Mike’s lips on me, burning my skin. Of my tearing his clothes off and crushing him against my body. Of him throbbing inside me.
“God,” I screamed.
“You’re close?” Kyle asked between gasps.
I winced and rolled my head back against the wall. “Almost. Slow down.”
He lifted my other leg, wrapping both around his hips. His thrusts became slow, deliberate, his delicious grunts hot on my neck.
Why the fuck am I not coming? “Shit. Faster now.”
He pushed in and out. Fast. Urgent. Still, I wasn’t coming. Just get it over with. Just this once.
With my eyes shut, my fingers tangled in Kyle’s hair. I pictured the curly hair instead. The rugged grunts. The naked chest. The fucking hottest ass I’d ever seen. The endlessly tormenting mouth whispering my name—
“Oh God!” My orgasm exploded. Finally.
I opened my eyes to find Kyle watching me come apart. His hips grew jagged around my thighs, and a long moan burst out of his lips as he came.
“Christ, Mags. You’ve worn me out.” He let go of my hips and set me on my feet, his breaths heavy on my shoulder.
A grin took over me, my legs shaking, worn out, too. He held my gaze, sweat beading his forehead, his breaths blazing my face. He never looked sexier. Why did I torment myself like that? Why couldn’t I enjoy the man standing before me, worshiping me?
Mike was a playboy who fucked any girl that came in his way. Even if it was temporary, and he was capable of devoting himself to the woman he truly loved, I’d never be that woman. Tonight was enough proof. He’d always be my mother’s friend, and I’d always be his friend’s daughter. A kid. For him, looking at me as sexy was a crime. Forbidden.
Never again, I promised myself, determined to keep my word this time, as I took a dive in the blue eyes. It was time I let go of that silly fantasy and enjoy what I already had.
“Move in with me,” he said.
Fuck.
His words took long moments to register in my mind. “That’s what you’re up to?”