“I didn’t have to. I saw him approach a hooker in the bar when those of us who’d been sent on the job went out for dinner. Anyone with a speck of brain matter could tell the woman was a pro. He didn’t know. I watched the cops cuff him an hour later.” Luna snorted and raised her bottle to him. They clinked.
“And you know more about me than you think. I won’t give up on my mom, even though it sort of makes me insane and stressed and depressed sometimes.”
“How could you?” she sighed. Was this really knowledge or just facts. She did feel like she knew him, much more than the average man she might decide to date. Luna was pretty sure that was why she made such a point of not knowing him that well.
It felt too fast.
Adam traced the edge of the table with his thumb nail. “My brother has. He’s stopped going to see her. He’s stopped asking about her. He pays half the bill on the months he remembers—or if I call him—and that’s his obligation as far as he’s concerned.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, her throat tight.
“Not my problem.” His mouth was a thin line. “Our mom was good to us. I plan to be good to her.” He looked at her and she felt naked. He touched her hand and she thought she might cry. “So see, we know each other well enough that we don’t need to beat the shit out of each other to have sex.”
“Okay.”
“And admit it, you feel like you know me. Really know me.” Luna nodded once, fast, to get it over with.
“So what does that mean?” he asked, tracing the length of her fingers so that her hand tingled with energy.
“I don’t know.”
Chapter Twenty-One
They had two days off, most weeks. Unlike other traditional places that took the weekend off, Luna and Savannah tended to book jobs when they could get them and then take days off in between. They had no jobs for the next two days.
Luna turned the house phone off, but left her cell on vibrate and the computer up for Skyping should she need it. She didn’t want to talk to Adam or Savannah or anyone but her son.
The last night she’d had with Adam had confused her. She’d felt protective but also protected.
She’d felt safe and close and intimate. There had been an urge to stay and bask in him—learn about him. That was not what she’d signed up for.
Her cell went off repeatedly but until she saw NICK show up at the top of the screen, she simply deleted and put the phone down.
When the phone burbled at her and she saw the message MA? she answered.
SKRAPE? Nick texted back, making a joke at her parents’ expense. They could never remember what the proper name was.
SURE THING. GIVE ME A MO
She set it up and he appeared on screen, his face a bit hollow. He looked a little too thin, not as happy as she expected him to be.
It’s mother worry. He’s fine…
“Hey, babe,” she said. Her fingers touched the screen before she knew she’d do it. She wanted so badly to touch him, and hug him, and ruffle his hair. All the things she did on a daily basis most days since he’d been born.
“Hey, Ma.”
No. She was wrong. She wasn’t paying attention to her instincts. He looked off. “You okay?”
“Tired.” He ran his hands through his hair. “How’s catering?”
“Off today.” She smiled. “You taking your meds?”
“Yep.” His face went somber but he nodded. “In the morning and at night. Like clockwork.”
Ah, there it was, the resentment that any logical person would feel having to take a daily regime of meds every day. “Sorry, honey.”
He shrugged with a shoulder a wee bit narrower than when he left. Or maybe that was her worrying. “Not your fault.”
So Luna said what she always said and laughed when he echoed her instantly. “That doesn’t mean I can’t be sorry,” they said unison. He pointed to the screen and forced a grin.
“You know I’m right!”
He almost smiled and she wished so hard that he would smile—for real. Instead he said,
“I miss you. I’ll be home before you know it though. With dirty clothes and stinky feet and my big mouth shouting into the X-Box mic.”
“I look forward to it,” she said. And she meant it. Luna cleared her throat feeling very juvenile. “How are Grandmom and Pop?”
He grinned. He knew he had something on her. “Want me to get them so you can talk?” She snorted, narrowing her eyes dramatically at him to play along. “No.”
“I didn’t think so.” Then he sighed. “They are fine. Taking me out to eat, feeding me big dinners, giving me spending money, taking me and Joshua to the beach and the movies.
Sometimes they drop us off and go to lunch while we shop and wander around and hit on chicks.”
She laughed. “So spoiling you rotten, my little chick magnet.”
“You know it. That’s why I’m here.”
But he didn’t laugh, and worry reared up inside her. It had fur and teeth and claws—a monster that felt impossible to defeat. “Anything you need to tell me?” she asked as gently as she could.
Nick smiled. It was almost genuine. “That I love you, Ma. But I’m beat. We haven’t talked ‘face to face’,” he did air quotes there, “for days so I wanted to. But I’m going to go nap.” Luna watched as her dad slowly entered the room behind Nick. Her heart sank and her stomach went sour with nerves. Now she’d have to talk to him.
“Mind if I butt in?” he asked.
Nick’s eyes went to her and he looked apologetic. Luna shrugged and waved. “Go rest, baby. I’m fine. I need to say hi to Pop.”
Nick blew her a kiss and left the room. Her father watched him go, and then shut the door almost all the way. That didn’t help Luna’s worry any.
“You talking to me?” Samuel asked, sitting down.
“Of course.” Under her desk her fingers warred with one another. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because I was a jerk and hurt your feelings.” He smiled at her, his pale blue eyes looking worried—not in general but for her.
Luna blew out a sigh, scrubbed her face with open hands. “No you weren’t. You were just honest and I couldn’t handle it.” She felt tears prick her eyes, but swallowed hard to keep them at bay. “Dad, do you really think I’m the problem with him?” He blinked at her, looking mildly surprised. “Of course not, sweetheart. That wasn’t what I meant at all. I just meant—and surely I didn’t say it in the best way—that you white knuckling it with him…worrying so much about what’s normal and what’s not, isn’t doing either of you any favors. It’s just adding stress to an already stressful situation.” She picked her fingernail, peeling one off at the quick, before forcing herself to sit on her hands. “So,” Luna challenged. “I’m Nick and you’re me. Would you worry?” He grinned at her. Her father that she loved so very much. He’d always been a parent but also a friend. “Touché,” he said.
She inclined her head. “Victory is mine.”
“But…” He held up a finger to the screen. “That is the beauty of being a grandparent.
Being able to step back some and get a bigger picture. Maybe be allowed to offer a little wisdom.”
“I hear you,” she said. And she did. “So, Daddy, how is he?” For the first time her father looked worried, and that caused fear to spike her chest. Little jagged cuts from invisible glass all through the soft meat of her. Her father leveled his gaze at her—never one to shy away from honesty—and cleared his throat.
“He’s frustrated and tired. He’s not himself but he’s—”
“Should I come get him?” she blurted, panicking.
He held his hand up. “As I was saying,” he winked. “He’s more open about his frustration than I think he’d be at home. At home, Luna, he’s so worried about you.” She chewed her lip to keep from crying, and peeled another fingernail down to the quick.
“You’ll take care of him?”
“Promise,” he said. “He’s hanging
out with Joshua and some other local kids. Having fun. Blowing off steam, but not in a bad way. Ben calls every day and they’ve Scrapped—“
“Skyped, Dad,” she said, giggling. It was like a pressure valve, that laugh bursting out of her.
“Whatever. But I think he’ll be fine and he’ll pull through this, lightning bug. I know he’s your son, I know you want to protect him…from everything. But that’s not life.”
“I know.” She did and that’s what made her so, so sad sometimes.
“I just think he thought it would be fixed by now. Not a real thing, but you know what I mean. That the episodes would have either passed on their own or the meds would have eradicated it. But then he has to up his dosage, and they make him tired. So it’s a hell of a choice for a young kid. Movement disorder or exhaustion.”
She put her head down and almost cried. But managed not to.
After a moment she heard, “Sweetheart?”
She looked up, her eyes stinging. “Yeah, dad?”
“It will all work out. I promise.”
“Promise?” she echoed.
He nodded. “Yes.”
It was bullshit. No one could promise that. But for a moment in time Luna allowed herself to believe, just as she had when she was young, that her father was magical. He could work wonders. And if he promised, it was true.
* * * * *
“This is disgusting…”
The following day, Luna was going stir crazy. No phone calls from Adam, or Savannah or anyone else who bothered to call. No one to talk to, no kid to care for. And worry. Giant huge gobs of worry that made her heart beat too fast and her mouth go too dry.
To occupy herself, she decided to clean Nick’s room. Now she crawled around on Nick’s floor with a garbage bag, picking up anything that fit the term garbage. A sock that was more holes than sock, cracker wrappers, candy wrappers, soda cans. There was a whole mound of tissues she thought were covered in blood—and then she really panicked—before realizing they were dotted with paint from his models. Water bottles for recycling, boxes from every model he’d ever bought (empty), napkins, gum packets, and various other atrocious debris that to a teenage boy was just probably normal. But to a frazzled mom, it was trash.
Three trash bags later the doorbell rang. Luna froze. Her first glance was in the hallway mirror. Cut-off jeans, an old concert tee for U2, no bra. Her hair was twisted up in a messy knot with a death clip—that was what Nick called them—and not a lick of makeup on her.
The doorbell rang again. What if it was Adam?
Another ring. She swore she could hear that annoyance and persistence in the ringing.
Luna dropped the garbage bag. “Fuck it,” she muttered, rushing down the steps before her visitor could hit that infernal button again to make it bong.
She threw the door open to Adam. There he was. Tall and tan, and looking an odd mix of infuriated and concerned.
“What?” she demanded.
“My God, are you fucking dead?” he growled.
“Do I look dead?” She didn’t know why she was so angry. Why she was so antagonistic.
Luna slammed her hands down on her hips and waited. She didn’t step back or offer to let him in. She just stood there, feeling stupid and angry.
“No. I’m not sure what you look…” His eyes ran up and down her body, making her feel hot and exposed, and then he almost smiled.
“I’m fine,” she sighed. “I’m just…hiding. There. Is that a good word?”
“No. Hiding is a coward’s word.”
More anger speared her and she puffed her chest up some. “I guess I’m a coward then!”
“Move. I’m coming in.”
“You are not,” she hissed.
“It’s hot. Move.” When she didn’t, he put his hands on her arms and physically propelled her back to allow himself room.
“I could scream,” she grumbled.
He pushed the door shut behind him and shoved her to it. “Do it. Scream.” She opened her mouth to maybe do just that, but instead of making any noise, she stifled it. He kissed her, roughly. His lips harsh, his tongue intrusive. He swept it over hers and all of her nerve endings slammed to a halt. She shuddered in his arms, all her pent up emotions from the last few days shaking the blood and bone cage she’d held them in. Desperate to get out.
Ready to break free.
“You’re upset.”
“I’m a big ball of upset, but it can’t…nothing can be done,” she finished weakly.
“I can be done,” he chuckled. Fingers on her button, mouth on her throat.
This was true. This had been the point of them. To ride out her time and her fear and her frustration—literally. Ride it out astride a big strapping man not holding anything over her.
Unattached. Uninhibited.
But it had all gotten muddied.
“I know, but I’m so…” She shook her head. She meant to bat his hand away when he splayed it low over her belly, but didn’t. He stayed that way, his wrist brushing her mound, his fingertips brushing the divot of her navel.
“So what? You’re so what, boss lady?”
He pushed her cutoffs down and with his left hand, slid the chain across the lock.
“I’m so damaged,” she blurted.
“No, you’re not. No more than yours truly,” he muttered.
She barked out a laugh, but found her hands working the button of his shorts. She wanted him. That was one thing she knew as clearly as she knew her love for her son, or her passion for her job, or that she woke up and looked in the mirror to see blue eyes staring back at her. Her desire for Adam was one of the few clear things she held onto. So she pushed her hand down into his shorts, with his zipper still up, and gripped him through his boxers. He made a frantic sound in her ear, and she found him beneath that thin layer of cotton and gripped him again. Bare. Hot and hard, searing the palm of her hand so that all the air seemed to rush out of the room.
“Take your pants off,” she said.
Now that he was here. Now that she was touching him—there was no desire to run or play coy. Now she just wanted him bare and warm against her. In her, moving, making her feel all the things that caused her not to feel her pain.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“You avoided me,” he growled.
“Hush up.”
“Don’t tell me to hush up.”
“Hush up,” she hissed again, squeezing his cock.
He tsked, almost like he was sorry and pulled back. As quickly as she got used to the presence of him, she was distressed by the absence of him. He took two steps back from her, shorts around his knees. He kicked them free, his cock flushed and hard.
“Wha—“ she started.
He yanked her by her wrist and when she came forward, he dipped his shoulder and stood up fast. Effectively, grabbing her in a fireman’s carry as he turned toward her bedroom.
Halfway up the steps she kicked out. Half anger, half fear. She wasn’t a fan of heights and dangling off his broad shoulder didn’t feel like a secure vantage point. Though, in her mind, Luna realized it wasn’t very bright to try and bring him down half way up a steep flight of steps.
“Knock it off,” he growled, grabbing her legs to try and steady them.
Panic had set in. And yes, a bit of rage. She wiggled and kicked, and he made a noise of frustration and then they were turning. Spinning. And wildly Luna thought, We’re falling!
But they weren’t. He sat down hard on the middle step of her staircase and pushed her ankles through the wooden spindles. Adam popped them through before she realized what he was doing and once they were in, barring being able to bend her legs the way she needed to…she was trapped. And he—well, he made sure to sit close enough to the banister so that she couldn’t.
“Let me go,” she grunted. Her ass was kissed by cool air-conditioning coming from the ceiling vent. She felt exposed and vulnerable, and that just made her angrier.
“No.”
�
�Adam!”
“No.” His palm began smooth, soothing circles over the skin of her bottom. Her pussy grasped greedily at nothing. Luna was hyper aware of her cunt going wet and ready for him. She was aware of the skin along her back and thighs pebbling in goose flesh. She couldn’t deny the prickle and sway of the fine hairs on her arms and her neck. All of her body was at attention as he cupped and touched and rubbed her bottom.
The air was charged—she could feel it—it set her teeth on edge a bit. Like chewing tinfoil. Was he? No…there was no way he could possibly know that she—the thought cut off, and a cry tore out of her as his hand came down for the first blow.
“You should have talked to me,” he said. The smack was like being bitten by a thousand tiny teeth. Painful in a buzzy, electric kind of way.
Luna bucked on his lap, feeling the blunt vibration of the next blow in her pussy. She moaned, feeling ashamed at how good it felt. How much she liked the position he had her in.
How powerful he felt, how powerless she was.
“Let me go,” Luna said, to make it sound good.
“No.” Three more fast blows and then his fingers probing her damp nether lips, skating over her clitoris so that she sobbed. He thrust a finger into her and found her out. There was no hiding it. “You’re really wet, boss lady. I don’t think you want to be let go so much.” Luna hung her head, her hair brushing the blue carpet. She let herself go limp, surrendering to that moment. Her need to be bullied, his need to make his point. The pleasure that resulted.
“Please,” she said, lying.
“You want me to let you go?”
He laid down three more stinging blows, whack-whack-whack, in that heartbeat that Luna took to get her mind together. Her ass titled up, her pelvis forward and she made a sound that no one would mistake for pain. Adam chuckled.
“You should have talked to me,” he said and pushed a finger into her cunt. Then another finger slid into her back hole. Luna bucked, not having expected it. The sparkle-bite of penetration there made her jerk, but he kept moving those fingers slowly. One in her cunt, one in her ass. His body still, his demeanor calm.
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