Manhattan Sugar (From Manhattan Book 1)

by V. Theia

  In our current times you couldn’t be too careful of mysterious packages, so I kicked it first. It neither ticked nor barked so I hauled it inside, used a butter knife to slice open the tape.

  His gifts made me feel.

  I know I know, I wasn’t an actual, unfeeling robot. I felt too much at times, that was my problem.

  But the emotional entanglements were something new and Gray was all emotions to me. Not just that. He seemed to tap into my soul with each surprise. It was the thought behind them that made me feel. Thoughtful gifts that weren’t flashy and overbearing. Each one delighted and brought a smile to what were crappy days.

  He became important.

  He became the one who gave me intervals of happiness.

  He’d caught me at a weak moment and now I was anxious, even excited to see him. Talk to him. Be around his kind of gravitational pull.

  Lust was a powerful emotion, kindness was a drug, for me at least and if Gray persisted in doing sweet, selfless things for me when I needed the gentleness the most I was going to fall for him.

  And then we’d both be in trouble.

  The next gift was a fruit basket. But no ordinary fruit. It was dipped in dark, milk and white chocolate and then after an exhausted day taking my mom to her therapy where she argued with me the entire way there that she was fine and didn’t need pills or a doctor, I found flowers on the doorstep.

  Vases and vases of fresh cut flowers in all colors.

  I felt tears sting the back of my eyelids as I carted them inside and searched for a note.

  “This is what I see when I look at you, baby-girl. Bright, vivacious colors. Nothing can dim your light.”

  There was no denying the blast of emotions he invoked in me.

  Hell, even thinking about Gray lately had me deliriously distracted.

  That twitchy half-smirk of his or the way he shoved hair out of his eyes messing it further and did I mention the way he played the guitar did things to my insides?

  His fingers plucked invisibly at my heart.

  I spent an hour on the phone with him after dinner. It was a struggle not to ask him when he was coming home. Every time he laughed the noise settled deep in my womb.

  I missed him.

  Strange, really, how attachments formed like roots growing underground. Only when it was exposed to the air do you finally see it.

  I found myself telling him things I hadn’t shared with even my closest people.

  How much of a struggle I found my mom most days.

  How I wish she’d let me help her.

  That I longed for her to be the mom I’d grown up with instead of this shell of a woman still waiting for the absent ex-husband to return home one day. Being a caretaker of a parent meant we’d missed the friends’ stage.

  He listened without offering advice as people were prone to do.

  He let me go on then told me to get tucked in. To sleep, because tomorrow was a brand-new day.

  The optimistic rock star made me smile so much.

  I fell to sleep to the sound of his breathing.

  We never did hang up the phone that night.

  He never did tell me how he knew to send me things I liked.

  Maybe the sugar daddy was psychic.

  Maybe he was magic.

  Maybe he was the one who made all my days better.

  ~*~*~

  GRAY

  Folding back my blue shirt sleeves, I stretched back in my big, black leather chair, the spring in the underside giving way under my weight.

  Phone in my hand.

  A big fucking goofy grin on my face.

  My girl had been busy today posting on her social media accounts.

  Yeah, what I was doing equated to fucking internet stalking. It was the closest I got to understanding her when she was closed lipped. It showed me her moods, her likes, the things she wanted from life. From scrolling back further than I cared to admit I made lists in my phone of everything that seemed to appeal to her. Clothes, food, music, destinations I longed to whisk her away to.

  All in good time, those would wait.

  But the small things? Those I could do for her now.

  I’d resigned myself to the twinge of guilt for my sneaky fact-finding campaigns because all I was doing was checking she was alright when she herself wouldn’t tell me.

  Not that food pictures or even funny memes told me much of her mental state or mood that day. But what it did tell me when I was so far away from her in Chicago was let me know she was present in the moment.

  No doubt about it, had India posted anything signifying she was sad or lonely I would have hopped a plane and got back to her that very day.

  Instead, I was a forty-one-year-old man, considered to be sane most of the time, with a structured life and a growing company to run, staff to oversee and I was stalking my girl online and loving every second of it. Because what she was posting was all the gifts I was sending her. And she captioned them with funny taglines.

  Caption: Cereal, SUGAR. D, cereal. Wink emoji.

  Caption: The way to my heart is not with chocolate. But it doesn’t hurt to try.

  Caption: New pants. New lunges.

  She made me laugh more than anyone else. Her caustic, almost hard cracks and rejection only served to be fuel to my fire.

  I wanted to be consumed in India Rivera in whatever form she’d allow.

  We were fast friends, like we’d known each other forever, but I wanted more from her. I needed to have her taste saturating my tongue day and night. I could still feel her lips under mind and those tiny mewling noises she made when she came. I’d pleasured her and made her sigh dreamily into my mouth and still I wanted more.

  I wanted everything from her.

  Not wanted. That was a watered-down version. Hungered.

  Waiting was a hard-fucking game for a man like me who usually went full speed ahead for something I desired. I didn’t become a self-made millionaire under slow steam. No, I went all out, taking risky moves to get where I was now, and the risks had paid off.

  I found taking uncharted chances with India before she was ready to admit she had feelings for me was something I couldn’t do. It meant something she’d turned to me in her hours of despair. I wouldn’t squander that chance by being too me and rushing her.

  Her last picture posted to Instagram only twenty minutes ago was of her feet standing on the subway platform.

  Captioned: The grind never stops.

  I frowned stroking my thumb over her beautiful printed satin Ted Baker pumps.

  Were her feet aching? Had she eaten today? I didn’t like that I didn’t know these things. She didn’t confide much this week other than her interviews were a bust, or the guy she interviewed with talked only to her tits or she didn’t like the feel of the company. I felt every rejection for her and just about called in a few favors from people in the industry I knew to give her a foot in the door.

  But she would hate me for that.

  India was a prideful woman and I admired the quality in her but damn if it wasn’t fucking frustrating to sit by and watch her deflate after each knock back.

  She had unshed tears she wouldn’t let me repair and holes in her heart that gaped their wounds out of her eyes. I think the most honest she’s been with me was when she was tipsy and even then, I watched her barricades coming up the next morning. I couldn’t claim to even know all her trials in life, especially her grief for her younger brother, but seeing an inch of her vivaciousness die out was not something I could stand by and watch.

  It’s not in me to not do anything if I could do something about it and yet I had no choice but to wait, until she gave the green light and her trust in me was cemented.

  Acting like a fucking wild boar would only make her run from me and thinking of even a second where she’s not mine was inconceivable.

  Knowing she was on limited time to move out of her apartment too was giving me a fucking ulcer when all I wanted to do was take care of her. To give
her everything she could possibly ever need and want to make her happy.

  I understood her hesitancy. On a scale we haven’t known each other all that long, but for me I would have moved her in five minutes after walking into that Irish bar and seeing the sadness soaked in her eyes. I would have carried her off to my car, cradling her the entire way, whispering sappy shit I’d never uttered before to anyone and offered her the world on a fucking platter if I got even a single sense she would take it.

  As it stood now, she got joy out of silly little gifts. They made her smile and giggle to me down the phone while she laid in bed late at night and drove me crazy to be there next to her.

  I lived for those moments.

  India was unlike any other woman I’ve known before. Her strength and tenacity were a huge turn on. The amount of time I spent with my dick hard it was a wonder my brain could fully function to run my business with no blood flow to the upper portion of my body.

  She tied me in knots and fed a side to me I never knew was there. Not with any previous lovers or the long-term disaster that was my almost-marriage. No one elicited these dark notions within me. Only my India.

  Hell, maybe she was right with this sugar baby running joke we had going between us. Because what I felt wasn’t normal, was it?

  I rubbed a hand through my hair, I should be working but here I was daydreaming over a girl like I was fifteen again.

  Dreaming of taking her home to the family. My mom would lap India up. She’d been dying for me to settle down. If only she knew how hard I was working to make that happen she’d have a stroke, then throw a party for 500 people.

  Going on vacation where I could spoil her until my old-fashioned soul was sated.

  I wanted to give to her and have her take from me. To know her needs …all of them… were being sated to a state of euphoria by only me.

  Caveman? Fuck knows. That’s what I wanted from her and I was never about lying to myself.

  It was sex, of course it was, she was more beautiful than the fucking sun itself and I had a need to pound her into my bed and leave a lasting imprint of her behind in the mattress. She was every thought I had, every heavy-laden dream where I woke solid and hurting and only stroking it out eased me.

  But what kept drawing me back to my girl was her dig-deep spirit.

  She wasn’t a quitter even if life was taking turns at bashing her.

  She fought, and she lived with steadfastness.

  All I knew last year was I’d got one look at her smiling face, that wicked little glint in her forever changing eyes and I was hooked.

  She had no idea I’d belonged to her minutes after meeting her. Body, heart and everything that came with it.

  With many regrets under my belt, not pursuing her then was top of the list.

  No one could claim I made the same mistake twice.

  I’d been damn celibate since that day because she’d bewitched me, and my body only wanted hers under my own.

  I inhaled and felt my belly tense. Sex thoughts in the middle of the day while I was waiting for an overseas rep to meet with? Had to get my shit together.

  Manic desire burned through my every nerve ending each time I manage to grab some time with her, and with India, that was not easy.

  Playing hard to get? I didn’t care, if she let me have some time. I loved that she made me chase.

  She wasn’t a challenge as Cal joked with me. That dumb fuck I was friends with had intimacy issues, he didn’t get I liked India. It wasn’t about conquering her pussy. I was fighting for us to be everything to each other.

  Clicking out of her Instagram I went to the text thread and sent her a message.

  Gray: Thinking of you, baby-girl.

  Her reply came five long minutes later when I was sending an email to Dubai about a latest shipment of shoes. It was instantly forgotten.

  My Girl: Dirty old sugar D’s need to be working.

  My Girl: Thinking of you, too. Ugh!

  I laughed. I was getting to her if she was frustrated about me being on her mind.

  My cock ached behind my zipper and that was my cue to put my feelings away or embarrass myself once my 11 o’clock client arrived. Ignoring the throb and the dry mouth aching to taste her between her legs, to see how pink and wet she’d get for me. I set the phone aside and switched browsers on my MacBook.

  Today’s delivery ... hmm… depending on how her day went, I wanted her to have a smile at least.

  And to know I was the one to put it there.

  To romance a strong-minded woman who appeared to hate my money and how I wanted to give it to her was a challenge. But one I was up to.

  First, I ordered pints of her favorite ice cream and had that delivered for her that night. She sent me 5 rows of emoji kisses and a promise to call once she’d gulped it all. She’d suffered with a bellyache when she eventually called me, my poor girl.

  Her fucking appetite would kill me if I ever got my dirty hands on her.

  She had no idea the raging lust that burned beneath my skin for her.

  My last gift before I saw her again was ordered. And I smiled thinking of her face opening it up.

  Couldn’t fucking wait to lay eyes on my girl again.

  Oh, adulting really did sting sometimes when hard decisions needed to be made.

  First, I had to bite the bullet and do something I didn’t want to do, amid my giant crying session and agitated anxiety attack on my bathroom floor at 2am, the choice was made.

  Taking styled Instagram photos of my seventy-four pairs of designer shoes, some still in their boxes unworn I put them on a for sale app.

  Already thirty-five pair had sold much to my misery.

  Desperate times.

  It was depressing to know I was over qualified for jobs I wanted and being told the positions were filled anyway.

  Well, thanks a fucking lot.

  Just when I thought the day couldn’t get any more miserable my mom called.

  It wasn’t unusual for her to call during the day. Typically, if she was having an episode it was at night, so I didn’t think much of it when I saw her name.

  Her crying on the other end had my belly clenching.

  Hair dripping down my back, the towel wrapped around me didn’t really give any warmth and goosebumps dotted on my flesh as my own heart picked up speed.

  “Ma? Slow down. What’s wrong?”

  Her crying went on and on. I caught my name in between her inaudible, garbled words. This was one of the reasons I needed her to live with me. Being so far made me feel helpless when this happened. We didn’t get clues. There was no memo. Her depression descended like acid rain.

  Getting dressed, a cab, the subway, the ferry, it all took time. Too much time. Anything could happen from now until then.

  Just when I was ready to hang up and call the neighbor to go and check on mom her sobs came to a rolling stop.

  “Sweetie, the power has gone out and I don’t know what to do. Nothing works! I can’t put the radio on and the AC stopped working. All the food in the fridge is going to spoil!” On and on she listed everything known to man and beast that relied on electricity.

  Jesus. That didn’t warrant a horror movie baddie is chasing me kind of crying she’d been doing in my ear for five minutes.

  My legs went out from under me as I wilted onto the side of my unmade bed, my sudden throbbing head lowered, and I willed my lungs to take the calming air it needed.

  I swear I was going to be one of those healthy young people who suddenly dropped dead of a heart attack without warning.

  I loved her so much, but Linda Rivera drove me insane with her overreactions.

  “Jesus god, ma,” my heart canted down to a dullish roar, “that’s no reason to scream down the phone at me. I thought you were being attacked.”

  “It’ll be getting dark soon,” she said frantically, gearing up for a fresh freak out.

  “Okay, ma. When did it go out?” I was positive I’d paid the light bill. But th
e way my mind had been the last couple of weeks, and how karma had taken a dump on my head, I wouldn’t be all that surprised to find the bill outstanding.

  “Just now. I can’t sit in the dark, India. I just can’t.”

  “Ma, calm down, okay? I’ll sort it. I’ll come right now. Go sit in the kitchen where the sun shines through the window, you like it in there, remember?”

  I caught the shuffle of her slippers. So, she hadn’t gotten dressed today. Again.

  She did so well in her therapy session, but she lost momentum as soon as it was over and reverted to her default setting the moment we were back home.

  In the process of pulling on a pair of three quarter shorts and a pair of white converse chucks, my head pounded through both temples with the added sting of weary tears at the back of my eyes.

  Just for one day I’d like for life not to shit on me. Was it too much to ask for?

  Just one day when mom was her old self and didn’t blow a gasket over the slightest thing. In turn sending my own anxiety through the fucking roof.

  “Do you want me to call Sasha next door and ask her to come and sit with you?”

  “No! No, sweetie. Just please hurry, okay? I can’t sit in the dark.”

  “I know, ma, but it’s day time, it won’t get dark for hours yet. I’ll try to get there quickly.” If the bill hadn’t been paid, then the likelihood of them switching the power back on today was slim to none. I would probably end up sleeping over tonight.

  I didn’t know if it was the prospect of spending a night in my old childhood bed that brought on the cloud of morose, or just everything weighing heavy on my shoulders, but I got as far as the front door and burst into sudden tears even before I had my purse over my shoulder.

  I hated crying. It was just one more thing I didn’t share with anyone.

  Sliding down the wall I sat with my knees in my chest and cried it out hoping to clear it from my system, so I could think straight to do what was needed of me.