by Sienna Parks
“You have no fucking idea!”
I can always count on Xander to offer his support. “Have you met my wife and his girlfriend? Opinionated, bull-headed, and complicated as hell. Welcome to the club!”
That revelation hits me square in the chest. I’m in exactly the same position as these two idiots. I thought I was all about being in control, keeping my relationships neat and tidy, but I’ve ended up in the same place anyway. Hopelessly in love with a girl who is far too good for me.
Addi offers a reprieve, interrupting to let us know that dinner is ready. Now all I have to do is get through dinner without declaring my undying love for Vittoria in front of everyone and I can call the night a success.
Dinner is amazing. The food, the wine, and the company are fantastic. I find myself unable to go five minutes without at least a glance in her direction. It’s so nice to see her having fun and laughing with her friends. She must be able to sense when my eyes are on her, because every time, her eyes find mine. Stolen glances that say a thousand words.
My ears prick up when the girls start grilling her about her new ‘boyfriend.’ I’m intrigued. I didn’t know that she had been in touch with Addi while we’ve been… seeing each other. Vittoria plays it down, blaming schedules, saying that they haven’t spent much time together, which is true for the most part. Ever the wallflower, Addi won’t let her off that easily. “Oh come on, you can do better than that. You told me last week that he gave you, and I quote, ‘the most phenomenal orgasm you’ve ever had.’”
Holy. Fucking. Christ!
There is no way I’m getting out of this alive.
“What the fuck, Addi? Brother in the room here. I don’t want to hear shit like that. Lucky the son of a bitch couldn’t make it tonight.”
He turns and stares right at me. “ANY man that lays a finger on my sister, better be prepared to take a severe beating from me.” I hold his gaze. He knows. It’s now or never.
Vittoria stands up for herself but Carter isn’t interested in what she has to say.
I need to step in before she says the words that need to come from me.
“If Vittoria’s happy, surely that’s what matters?”
The table is silent; everyone is staring at me… waiting. Xander gives me a knowing look, a flash of sympathy in his eyes.
“No. What matters is that this new guy is clearly not good enough for her. He couldn’t even be bothered to show his face tonight.” So, this is how he wants to play it; force me into admitting it.
“Or maybe, he’s trying to respect her wishes.” This just angers him further.
“And why are you such an expert on the guy, LOGAN? Do fucking tell!”
“Goddammit!” I stand from the table and make my way round to where Vittoria is sitting. “Because it’s me, but you already worked that out, so let’s not play games.”
Vittoria stands, wrapping her arms around me, and Carter looks about ready to rip my throat out. She pleads with him to give us his blessing, to be happy for us, but it’s a red rag to a bull at this stage.
“HAPPY??? One of my closest friends has been fucking my little sister behind my back, and I’m supposed to be happy about it?”
Now, I’m angry. I don’t give a shit what he thinks of me, but he’s disrespecting her now. He knows she wouldn’t just go around ‘fucking’ anyone. She’s not that kind of girl. I step in front of her, my instinct to protect, on high alert. “Don’t talk about her like that, Carter. You know this is more than that, or I would never have let anything happen. We both travel all the time, but we’ve kept in touch since the wedding, and we’ve only seen each other twice since then.” He needs time to process this. “There are no guarantees that we can make this… arrangement… work…” That was the wrong thing to say. I’m so used to using that terminology with my subs, it just sort of slipped out. “But, I want to give it a chance. I would never do anything to intentionally hurt you, you’re like a brother to me. And I would never hurt Vittoria.”
He is seething with rage. I haven’t seen him this upset in a long time. “Well if I’m your brother, that would make her your sister, and that makes your ‘arrangement’ just fucking sick.” I knew he would jump on my inept word choice, but this is out of fucking order.
I move Vittoria out of the way before squaring up to him. He has every right to be angry, but he’s taking it too far. I’m not the fucking devil. I’m his best friend. “Say one more word like that, Carter, and I won’t be responsible for my actions.” Adrenaline courses through my body, my anger reaching boiling point. How dare he talk about her like this. She’s fucking perfect and he shouldn’t be judging anyone. I wouldn’t treat a dog the way he treated women when Addi was gone.
“Get the fuck out of my house… NOW!”
I grab Vittoria’s hand and make my way to the door. She doesn’t give any resistance, and I know, she’s with me.
“Vittoria. Don’t you dare walk out of here right now, especially not with him.” I knew he would take it badly, but I wasn’t prepared for how devastated I feel by his disdain for me right now.
She holds her head high, her voice even and assured as she delivers her parting words. “I have to go with him, Carter. If you can’t at least try to be happy for me, then I guess we won’t be seeing each other much for a while. Please… don’t make me choose.”
Xander and Lily look shell-shocked, and Addi looks sympathetic to both Carter, and, Vittoria and me. I give Carter one last glance as I walk out the door. This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. He’s my family, and the look in his eyes as I leave, tells me that he feels betrayed.
I feel so many emotions as I stride down the hallway with Vittoria by my side. I’m so angry I could punch through the walls of this place until my hands can’t take it anymore. The way he spoke about her. He had no right to do that, and I don’t care who he is, he doesn’t get to talk about the woman I love like that.
I’m worried about her. What this will do to her if we continue on this path. I can’t ask her to choose between her family and me. It would be selfish and wrong. But if I walk away from her, how will that affect her?
I’m sad that I almost came to blows with my oldest friend. I don’t know how to make things right with him, and until I do, there will be a gaping hole in my life. I know I shouldn’t be, but I’m also fighting to curb my own arousal in this moment, waiting on the elevator to arrive. Thinking of Vittoria, and how she stood her ground… for me. No one has ever done anything like that for me before. Her hand is tight in mine as we stand in silence, the gravity of what has just happened weighing heavily between us.
She’s the one to break the silence.
“He needed to know. I can’t live my life for him, Logan. I won’t. I want to be with you. I am yours. I always have been. From the moment we met, I was yours, whether you knew it or not; ready and waiting for the day that we would find our way to each other.” Her voice becomes quiet, a hint of insecurity as she continues. “I know I made a fool of myself to begin with, that I threw myself at you, but I’ve been waiting since the day I met you, to kiss you, to touch you, to feel you inside of me. To be… yours, in every possible way.”
I can’t believe how vulnerable she looks in this moment. Fragile and unsure of herself. How does she not know that I feel the same way? Didn’t I just prove that? I just gave up the closest thing I have to a brother, to be with her. I’ve obviously not shown her enough, if she doesn’t have faith in the depth of my feelings for her.
My disappointment in myself is overshadowed only by my overwhelming desire to let her know, in the only way I feel she’ll understand. I can’t hold back any longer. It’s hurting her more than it’s helping, and every moment that I’m not kissing her, feels like an eternity.
I grab her with both hands, hoist her up into my arms and wrap her legs around my waist. I take in our surroundings and spy the door to the stairwell. I’m there in two strides, opening the door with one hand, grasping her with the other as
I hold her gaze, inches from mine. She coils her hands up around my neck and into my hair, tugging ever so slightly. It drives me wild, and I can feel my control slipping.
I press her back up against the cold, hard stone walls, encasing her, trapping her. My breathing labored as I struggle to find the words.
“Vittoria... Nyx… I… need you more than my next breath.”
“I’m right here.”
My lips find hers in an instant; the feel of her soft, full lips on mine is a taste of paradise. I’ve been a man lost in the desert these past few weeks, thirsty and desperate for the smallest drop to keep me going. She is my oasis. Her tongue tangles with mine, and I can feel her need; it fuels my own as I run my hand down her side, finding the space between us, cupping her breast and squeezing it in my palm.
“I’ve wanted this for so long.” Her words are a strangled plea for more, and in answer, I start grinding my cock against her sweet spot, eliciting a sexy as hell groan from her. I swallow it, thrusting faster; feeling myself getting harder and harder until I feel like I’m going to burst out of my pants.
I break our kiss, gasping for air. “I want to be inside of you so badly right now. But I’m not going to do that to you, to us.” I continue to thrust against her slowly, unable to stop myself from trying to alleviate some of my discomfort.
She shows her appreciation with a sharp thrust of her hips against my cock, sending a jolt of pleasure straight to my core. I know I can’t make love to her tonight. She’s too vulnerable after what just happened, and I don’t want our first time to be fueled by anger and hurt. I want her to remember it as a moment that is ours and ours alone; not marred by an ugly fight with her brother. My balls ache as I pull back, putting the smallest of spaces between our bodies, and yet it feels like miles; trying so hard to focus on getting her home before I fuck her right here, right now; to hell with good intentions.
I can’t do this to her.
I know she thought she could walk away from her brother and be okay with it, but she’s falling apart. It’s been almost three weeks since our run in at dinner, and Vittoria just isn’t the same. The sparkle in her eyes has faded, she doesn’t look at me the same way. I feel like every time I look in her eyes, all she sees is the reason that her brother won’t take her calls. We were supposed to spend this time together, exploring our new relationship, but we’ve barely seen each other, and when we have, it’s been… different. She’s different. She’s due to fly back out on tour tomorrow, and if I don’t let her go now, I won’t be able to.
I need to fix this. For her. For them. I should never have kissed her. I should never have let myself believe that I could have it all. A best friend who is like a brother, and a woman to love, and who loves me back. It’s just not in the cards for me. There are millions of women in New York, and I had to fall in love with Carter’s younger sister. It really is true what they say – you can’t choose who you love. But, you can choose whether or not to act on it, and I made the selfish choice, and now Vittoria is paying the price.
She’s going to hate me, but I hope that in the long run, she can forgive me, and see that what I’m about to do is because I love her. She should be here any minute, and I know that I’m going to want to cling to her with everything that I am, and never let her go, but I have to do this. If I don’t do it now, I never will. I couldn’t bear to have her resent me in a year or five years’ time, when she realizes that I’m the reason that her relationship with her brother will never be the same. Maybe this way, someday, she’ll forgive me, and I won’t have lost her from my life completely, and maybe I can repair the damage I’ve done to my friendship with Carter.
The doorbell rings and my heart lurches up into my throat. I take a deep breath, steeling myself for the vision of beauty that I know is waiting behind the door. How can I look her in the eyes, her stunning brown eyes, and tell her that we can’t be together? That I can’t give her all of the things in life that I want to.
A knock at the door, forces me to face my darkest fear.
She throws herself into my arms, kissing me with a vulnerable passion. She tastes like coffee and Vittoria. Bittersweet in more ways than one. The painful duality of it isn’t lost on me, and she senses my dilemma, pulling back, breaking what will probably be our final kiss, and staring up into my eyes with… love.
“I missed you. Are you okay? You seem… I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, you’re an amazing kisser, Mr. Fitzgerald.” It makes me hard hearing her say my name like that, even if she’s being playful. “But, you seem a little lackluster today. Do I smell bad, or do I look a mess?”
How could she ever think she’s anything less than perfect? I pull her back into my arms, selfish enough to want our last kiss to be something for her to remember me by; a kiss that conveys how deeply I feel for her. “You’re perfect, baby. Always perfect.” She flinches, but quickly melts into my arms when I close the door and press her gently against the cold, hard wood, and pour my soul into this kiss. I savor the smell of her perfume, the feel of her lips against my own; the taste of her tongue as it strokes mine. I love how her body molds to mine, as if she were the other half of me. I ache at the feel of her breasts pressed tightly against my chest, and how her hair feels as I tangle my fists into it, pulling her as close as possible. My heart beating in time with hers.
I never want to let go, but I know I have to.
I break our kiss, leaving us both breathless and desperate for more.
“I want you to make love to me, Logan.”
Her words cut me like a knife. “I can’t.” Resting my forehead against hers, I repeat the words over and over, a mantra; trying to convince myself to stay strong; to do the right thing by her. “I can’t… I can’t.”
“Why? I don’t understand. You have feelings for me. I want to be with you. I know I turn you on, I can feel you right now, hard and big, and ready for me. Why won’t you let this happen?” She slides her hand between our bodies, rubbing her hand over my erection, clouding my judgement, and making me want her so badly I feel like I might die if I don’t make love to her.
“You need to stop that. I… I can’t think straight when your hand is on my cock.”
“Then stop thinking, and feel it. I want you to make love to me before I have to leave you to go back out on tour tomorrow.”
I want to do that for her; I want to do that for me. But, what kind of man would I be if I chose my own pleasure over her relationship with her family? I would be a bastard, and a hypocrite. It goes against everything I believe as a Master. Her needs come before my own, even when she doesn’t see it. Even when she doesn’t understand that’s what I’m doing.
I find the strength to step back, to take her hand, and lead her to the couch. “Sit with me. We need to talk.”
“Nothing good ever came from that phrase. What’s wrong? You’re scaring me.”
I sit for a moment, trying to figure out how to say this. To speak the words that I never want to say. To break her heart, and my own.
“These past few months, the wedding, talking with you, and getting the rare chance to see you a couple of times, has been the most amazing time of my life.”
Her face looks tortured. She knows what’s coming. “Don’t do this, Logan. Please. Don’t.”
“Tori, if I thought it could be different, trust me, I would be doing everything in my power to keep you by my side. I’ve waited so long… to touch you, to taste you, to give you everything I have.”
“Then why do I feel like you’re throwing me away, casting me aside because it’s too difficult.”
I grab her face in my hands, wiping the tears that mar her beautiful cheeks with my thumbs. “Please don’t think that. If it was only difficult for me, I would fight until my dying breath to be with you, but it’s not. I can’t be the reason that you and Carter don’t talk to each other.”
“He’ll come around. He’s a pigheaded asshole sometimes, but he’ll come around.”
“I broke his trust
. I was his best friend, and I broke his trust. He loves you more than life itself. I understand where he’s coming from, and yeah, maybe he’ll come around, but it’ll never be the same, as long as you’re with me. I can’t shoulder that burden. You have a family that I would kill for, and I can’t come between you. I can’t do that to you. I care too much.”
She turns her face, pulling away from me, standing to put some distance between us. “That’s bullshit! You don’t care enough. If I was worth it, you wouldn’t let Carter or anyone else stand in the way.”
I can’t breathe.
“You’re not hearing me. This isn’t about me, or the way I feel. It’s about you and what’s best for you. Your family, your brother – you need them, and I would never forgive myself if I took that away from you; if you had to give them up to be with me.”
I try to comfort her, to hold her, but she pushes me away. “DON’T! You can’t have it all, Logan. You don’t get to touch me and kiss me, and discard me. Don’t fool yourself that this is about me; about protecting me. It’s about you. You thought you wanted me, and now that you realize you don’t, that reality isn’t as good as the fantasy, you want out. Fine. I’m out. Don’t speak to me, don’t look at me, and don’t come to my parents’ house. I don’t want to see you ever again.”
I try to stop her from walking out, “Please, Vittoria. That’s not true. Let me explain,” but as soon as my hand find hers, she whips round and slaps me in the face.
“FUCK YOU! I thought you were different. I thought I meant something to you.”
“You do. You mean everything to me.”
She slaps me again. “Don’t you dare say that to me. I know you, Logan. Better than you know yourself. You want to be in control of everything? Fine. Enjoy controlling all of the NOTHING and NO ONE in your life.”
She slams the door behind her, and the walls start closing in on me. I can’t speak. I can’t feel. It’s too painful. Knowing that she hates me, that she thinks I don’t care enough – will haunt me for the rest of my life.