by Alisa Mullen
Our eyes illustrate to one another the passion we both deem impossible to ignore when were around each other. I would love nothing more than to please him, to let him take me. My nipples extend into pointy bullets that shoot straight to my core. Damn it. Why couldn’t we be stuck here in a fucking Illinois lake effect blizzard? I sigh, thinking about how truly blessed I am to someday be able to wake up every morning to this man.
“That’s the best thing you’ve said all weekend,” I laugh. I don’t know what has come over me. I feel so playful with Camden, like he transported me back to my college days when life was much easier and all I cared about what having a fantastic time. He knows me. I don’t know how or what he did, but ten years later, he knew exactly how to remove the pipe up my ass that everyone else sees. When I am with him, life is a big amusement park with games and thrill rides.
He snaps his towel in my general direction and laughs. My body breaks out in chills at his playfulness. I need him both physically and emotionally. He is showing me what it feels like to be happy, and that’s something I’m not sure I’ve felt since I last saw him. At least not truly.
“Get up and don’t touch me. Drink your coffee like the princess you are, or fuck work. You’ll be bound, gagged and, overly fucked. I make no threats about you not being able to walk. It’s a damn promise. Hell, you might not even be able to crawl for that matter,” he says, laughter ringing through his words.
“Bossy.” I stick my tongue out at him. The thought of crawling on my knees with my hands bound behind my back leaves a brooding ache between my legs.
He comes to me, a serious face in place, and frames my face with his large, soft hands. “Kiss me, princess. That’s all I need to get through these next few hours without you.”
We melt into one another for a long moment and once he knows I feel the evidence of his arousal against me, he jerks back. “No, no, no. Work is the only thing we are doing this morning. We have to get going. I can’t keep you locked up all morning. You have to get to work and make those millions I am banking on.” His chortle tells me he is joking, but somewhere deep down I wonder if he knows exactly how much I’ve accumulated over the last ten years. Does he plan to use me for my money? A sudden chill rakes down my back and I shudder at the thought. He makes enough of his own, there is no way he would disrupt my life for money.
I pretend pout, snatching up my coffee to take a sip as I watch the man of my past dreams and future hopes begin to assemble his three piece suit. I push those dark unwarranted thoughts from my mind and watch him. It is a sight and I am enjoying in it.
Twenty minutes later, Camden leaves. I take my time seeing him off, before indulging in a fabulous shower. Once I am dried off, I retrieve my phone to call Colin. It’s been days since I called him and I need to make sure he is ready to get me for work. I am completely scatterbrained. No one has ever been more confused about anything in the history of the world before today. I feel like I deserve my own therapeutic term. Lucafucksic. BiLuca Disorder. Yes, that one is perfect. The two people I’ve been living as have come down to one, they are both of me. The both of her.
Camden. Steel Charter. Heath. Camden.
This past week needs a place on a daytime television and I’m the first one to admit it. Now, I have to perform some sort of miracle and look like my life is as normal as it was one week ago. Colin will figure something out, of that I am sure. Shit, he’ll probably drive Camden and me to dinner tonight. I plant my palm on my forehead and think of ways to talk to Colin about Camden. I’ve never had a man in my life like this. Colin will be cool about it I’m sure. He’ll make fun of me before asking me when the wedding is. I’ll tell him to go fuck himself. It will be easy. It’s just like every other day.
“Well, I wondered if you were still breathing,” Colin jokes into my ear, right as he picked up.
“Aw, that is so sweet, ass hat. Come get me. I need a ride to Divider,” I bark out with love, of course. He has to sense the smile behind my words. He knows me almost as much as the boys do. I think he adores me as much, too.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m nearly there, so come down when you’re ready,” he says in a slight sarcastic tone I could live without right now. Nevertheless, the banter continues to make me smile.
“I still have to get dressed but I should be quick,” I bark just before hanging up. I head into my dressing room and notice that the ugly dresses I never wanted to see again are scattered on the floor.
“What the hell?” I think out loud. Pulling the dresses back to see the safe completely, I gasp in horror. My safe’s door is wide the fuck open and the whole thing is cleaned out.
“Oh my God,” I shriek, fumbling with the phone that is still in my hands and dial 9-1-1.
“My jewelry,” I yell. “My jewels are all gone. Over a million dollars of jewels! Gone!” The woman can’t get a word in edgewise as I tell her the address, the apartment number, and when I start to list all of my pieces, the oxygen from my brain diminishes.
“Ma’am, the officers will be there shortly, but can you tell me if anything else in the house was tampered with? Perhaps the front door? Where were you when you were robbed?”
I go completely still. I think of Camden. I think of spending everyday this weekend in the bed, not even twenty feet from the safe. He had access to all my jewelry. He had that have taken it all? Oh my God. He fucking stole everything from right under my nose.
“This can’t be happening to me,” I breathe out. “He robbed me of all my jewelry.”
I think about his hatred for my lifestyle. Why would he actually go to all this trouble, just to erase everything I’d done before this weekend? I’m nauseous and crying. Nothing makes any fucking sense.
“Who?” the mechanical sounding woman on the phone asks. “Who robbed you of all your jewelry?”
I take a deep breath and look at the safe again. I can’t believe it is all gone. All of those weekends. All of those times I was presented with a piece of jewelry so the man could ravage me. I wore each piece of jewelry with pride and thought how about lucky I was to have those men in my life, even if it was for a brief weekend.
How could I be so god damn stupid? How did I not see Camden’s intentions before letting him into my place so he could rob me of it all? Not only did he take away my future as an escort, but he took away the past, too. How blind was I to let it all happen in a matter of minutes?
“His name is Camden Steel. He is my lover,” I say. He is my ex-lover now, I think to myself. “He was with me in my apartment all weekend and he must’ve stole all of it while I was sleeping in my bed twenty fucking feet away. How could I be so goddamn stupid?” I ask, knowing the operator won’t answer.
I hear the police car sirens coming closer and tell the woman I can hear them. I hang up on the woman that just witnessed my complete and total breakdown. I’m still in just a towel, water dripping down me, so I lift off the ground in a twirl to grab my robe before I head toward the front door of my apartment. My phone rings in my hand and I look down to find a text from Camden.
Princess, I miss you so much already. Let’s have lunch.
I read the text twice to be sure that what I’m reading is actually fucking real. What an absolute mother fucker. Does he actually think I haven’t noticed the empty safe? How stupid does he think I am?
I hit reply.
Bring back my jewelry and maybe I’ll let you go fuck yourself.
The phone starts ringing right after I hit send, but I have no time to answer it. The door is shaking with the knocking on it, and I hear Colin’s voice coming through the crowd of people assembled outside my door.
“Ma’am, you called in a robbery?” The first officer I see looks like he is a teenager, but he’s wearing a Chicago PD badge and has a gun strapped to his belt, so whatever. That’s all I need when that mother fucker gets back here.
I whirl around and race toward my dressing room. I stop short when I see a pair of diamond tear drop earrings on top of my armoire. Next
to it is a photograph of me with Heath and we are… oh fuck, we are naked. I quickly toss the photo and earrings in my drawer and turn around just in time to see the lot of the policemen and Colin coming through my bedroom door. I point to the dressing room and with all the strength I can muster, I say, “The safe was cleaned out. I didn’t realize it until this morning, after I showered and was starting to dress.”
Colin comes over to me and pulls me into a hug. I’ve never been so overwhelmed to have someone’s arms around me. Colin is safe. He knows me like a brother knows his little sister. He feels right. He is the right person to hold me right now. The rest of the people in my life? I’m not so sure anymore. I’m not sure of anything anymore.
Why would he do this to me? It’s not like he needs money. He owns Steel Charter and it is worth quite a bit of money. Maybe they are having money issues. I’ll have to look into their file when I get into work. And if he needs money, he could’ve asked me; he knows I’m with him for the long haul. If he needs my jewelry so badly, it has to be for a reason, but stealing it wasn’t the best way to go about it. Then to plan to see me again – why would I want to invite him back if he’s a thief.
Nevertheless, the facts are all plain as day. He was the only person in my apartment all weekend long. He was the only one with access, and very intimate access, I might add, to my personal belongings. Only Lola has been this far into my apartment and that was for her to sleep off her drunk.
Before I see the sick bastard that did this to me, I can feel his presence throughout every part of my body. He has a way of melting me now that we spent all those glorious moments between the sheets.
“Luca, baby. What the hell happened here? What was with that text?” Camden looks sincerely concerned and I don’t know exactly how to play this one off. Does he honestly think he can get away with taking all of my jewelry, only to leave a photo of me and Heath together? If he has known where I’ve been since he got my name off the passenger list, then he easily could have followed me to Savannah where I spent a weekend with his…God fucking damn it, son of a bitch, mother fucker – he lied. Everything he said to me was nothing but lies and betrayal. And for what?
I look over to Colin who is sizing Camden up and down with some weird look I’ve never seen on his face before. I get up to stop him. I need one of my best friends by my side, not locked up in a damn jail cell for murder.
“Officers, this is the man that was with me the entire weekend. He was the only one with access to my safe. I believe this is the man you’ll want to question.” I stare deeply into Camden’s eyes with a rage in my heart that I can’t believe I have in me.
“If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Steel, the officers will escort you the fuck off my property now.” I look down quickly so he doesn’t see the disappointment or the single tear that just formed in my eye, ready to trail its way down my cheek.
I quickly wipe my eye, pushing the tear away and turn to Colin. I flash five fingers to him, letting him know I’ll be five minutes. Colin imperceptivity nods at me. He looks fierce like he wants to actually dress me now, refusing to let me out of his sight. Oh, holy hell. I’ve had enough alpha men in my life forever.
I think about having told Carl I am done with the lifestyle and even though things with Camden will not be working out since he is the biggest mother fucking bastard cocky son of a bitch I’ve ever met, I still feel good about that decision… My life needs to slow down. I need to find a happy balance between work and Chicago’s nightlife. Perhaps, this was full circle. I started and ended with Camden Steel. I am over it.
THIRTEEN
Colin is trying to do everything possible to cheer me up. He stops at Starbucks on the way to the office and grabs me a coffee without my asking. He puts the radio on my favorite station, in hopes I will get lost in the music. He’s being overly attentive as well.
I don’t cheer up, I refuse to. I walk like a mummy through the lobby and into the elevator. Holding my cup of coffee, I replay the look on Camden’s face over and over. My heart is breaking at the loss of him, yet to think before last week, I was adamant that I didn’t even have a heart.
Annie is standing next to my door as I approach and she still looks pissed off at me from Friday. What the fuck did I do to her?
“What is it, Ann?” I ask, using her real name for the first time ever that I can recall. “Please, tell me what I can possibly do for you since you’re supposed to be my assistant.”
Her gasp is audible. Hell, the front desk clerk probably heard it. I wince and slide by only to slam my door in her face.
“Well, that’s the beautiful Luca we all love,” Leo laughs from my love seat. Mitch is sitting next to him, open jawed.
“Damn, Luca. That was harsh.” Mitch can hardly look at me.
“That mother fucker I trusted ten years ago and again only ten fucking minutes ago robbed me. Everything in my safe is cleaned out.” Again, I am shaking at the thought of those beautiful pearls. Strands and strands of them. I think about the fact that I will never see them again. No, I will see them again, because the police will search Camden’s property, wherever that is, and find them.
“What?” they both bellow out with fury and dismay.
I nod in reply before losing my calm. I crumble to the ground in sobs. My two friends run to my side and carry me to the loveseat, where both of them try to appease me with soft back rubs and soothing words. I love these guys. They are so innocent and sweet. They’d never hurt me.
Leo pulls back from rubbing my shoulders and looks like he just came up with the idea of the century. Even though I didn’t think I had it in me, I giggle at his face. He is so pure and wonderful. Why didn’t I ever find boring to be enough for me? I mean, really, if I’d never met Camden, would I be the one with the family and the house in the suburbs, wondering which soccer practice was my turn for snack?
“Come to Miami with me,” he exclaims. “We have that client, Evan Meyers, down there. He needs us to do an in-house sweep of their presentation. It will give you a few days to chill out, get some sun, and do what you do best in the office. They won’t know what hit them.”
I think about it. I have to call the police and find out what else they need from me. I need to be sure that my apartment is completely secure, so that no one can get in. I need to figure out what Camden is up to.
I shake my head. I can’t do it. With longing in my eyes, I refuse.
“I’m sorry. It’s the best idea you ever had, but I can’t leave right now. They will need me close if they find my belongings.”
We all sit in silence for a few moments while I try to think of ways I can go to Florida. I’d do just about anything to see my parents right now, to sleep in my childhood room of pink and fluffy things, as well. There is no sweeter place in this world than that twin bed.
“Nevertheless, you will need someone with you, and seeing as we aren’t getting along for some unknown reason I have yet to understand, please take Annie. She looks like she could use a little sun.”
Leo’s eyes perk up. “Annie? Really? You guys wouldn’t mind?” By the looks of it, he had the same idea, but didn’t have the nerve to ask himself.
“Yep,” I say with a finality in my voice. “Go. Take my assistant and make her work her ass off.”
I stand up from our little powwow and head over to my desk to boot up my computer. “Also, can one of you get me the Steel Charter file?”
“Um, Luca, we aren’t taking that account, remember?” Mitch asks hesitantly.
“Yeah, I know. I just want to look over their financials again. Something about Camden isn’t adding up.” I look up to Mitch and give him a tight smile. “Please, I just need one more look through.”
He nods and as they leave, I open my pencil drawer and gasp in immediate horror. Sitting on top of everything in my drawer is a string of pearls, all broken and loose. It’s one of the first strands of pearls I ever got and I can’t believe they are ruined like this. But that isn’t what causes me to shake. I
pull the picture out from underneath the pearls to find another poised picture of Heath and me. He is kissing my neck, in the process of undressing me. I remember this moment. All you can see in the picture is my back and his arms and head, but it’s us. It’s me, getting my picture taken during sexual relations with a man…without knowing.
I close my eyes against everything that is happening and focus on the hotel room in Savannah. How the hell was someone taking a photo from that side of us? Yes, these pictures are blurry, so they have been cropped, but they couldn’t have been taken from too much of a distance. I think about the picture I received at my apartment. I only looked at it briefly, but it is ingrained in my brain nonetheless. From the angle of that picture, someone was either taking photos from the entrance of the bathroom or the French doors leading to the small patio balcony. The room was too high up for someone to be perched in the trees, so they had to be there, in the room. I open my eyes and look at the photo I just found in my desk. This one is him undressing me and I’m wearing the destroyed pearls. I didn’t wear them that first night, so it was the next day when I switched out my jewelry, always leaving the anklet on. That poor fucking anklet.
“Stupid, son of a bitch,” I think out loud. Looking back to the picture, whoever snapped this had to be somewhere in the room.
Then it hits me. It doesn’t hit me like a gasp or a little “oh no” in my head. No, this one is a grand slammer that knocks all of the wind that has ever passed through my chest, straight out of the room, into the cold air of Chicago. I literally feel myself turning blue with the stunned feeling of not breathing.
Breathing would mean that I’d have to admit that I must be the absolute stupidest, selfish, most pitiful, asshole that has ever lived. How did I not even think of this back at my place? With the tunnel vision that I pride myself on not having, which I should probably revisit that with my therapist, I only thought Camden had access to my apartment, but what if it was Heath that got into my place and took all of that jewelry. He would have had to be quick. Or maybe he had been there all weekend. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been completely distracted with Camden the whole time.