“I’m hanging up now.” I waited, giving her time to wind up the conversation.
“Listen, Thanksgiving.”
“When’s the last time we celebrated a holiday together?”
“It has been a while.” I actually couldn’t remember the last time we had a family holiday.
“Can you even cook a turkey? In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cook anything, Mom.”
“That doesn’t matter. I can have anything and everything cooked to perfection without moving from this chair. What should I tell him?”
Of course. This was my dad’s idea. Everything that happened had changed him, completely. This wasn’t the person I’d known for the last thirty years, this was the man I knew when I was four.
“Let me discuss it with Anika.”
“And the wedding, Cole?” She pressed. I knew she wasn’t asking me about Gus and Aimes’ wedding.
“She’s going to look beautiful. She’s wearing the dress she wore to the Gillie’s…”
“You know very well what I’m asking you.” I suppose being an only child and also being thirty-five, my mother was getting antsy about being a grandmother. She was young, so I didn’t know why she felt the need to rush everything along, but she asked me about it constantly.
“I’ll talk to her about that, too.”
“Cole, throw me a bone here. Let me do this, you know it’ll be beautiful, she’ll be beautiful and I won’t take over.”
“I know that Mom. Just relax. We’ve been engaged for about five minutes.”
“No, you’ve been engaged for seven weeks.”
“Hanging up now, love you.”
“Love you, too.”
“Wow, you’re really making her sweat, aren’t you?” Anika giggled. I had just started heating up dinner when she came downstairs.
She’d had a setback only a few days ago. I didn’t tell my Mom, Aimes, no one. I knew she just needed that time and I wanted to give it to her. Now she was coming back.
“Ya heard all that huh?”
“Yeah. Why don’t you just tell her we want to have it here? I don’t mind her doing all the legwork. I have to hand it to her, she’s pretty good at all that stuff. She and Aimes could do it together. All you and I would have to do is walk downstairs to the beach.”
“Sure.” I didn’t want to tell her what I was really thinking. She’d get it out of me though, like she always does. For now, I needed to just buy some time and figure things out.
“You’re doing that far away thing again. What’s wrong? And if you ask me how I’m feeling one more time, I swear to God I’ll make you eat this fork.” Her good mood was infectious, as usual. I moved the plates in front of the barstools and put napkins next to them. “You know” she began, “a fork and knife seem like a lot of trouble for take-out being reheated in the microwave.”
“Is that some kind of dig on my culinary skills?”
“No baby. You know I like your cooking.” She reached around and pulled me in front of her. I started to lean in for a kiss, but she stopped me. “I know there’s something else going on, Cole. Something you’re not telling me. You’ve told me everything about Joe. I can’t imagine there being more to that story, so it’s something else.”
I cupped her face and held her eyes, her hands wrapped around my arms. “I just want to keep you safe, Anika.”
“What does that mean, exactly? I’m here. If I’m not with you, I’m with Aimes or Gus or your mom. I’m never alone anymore, so how much safer can I possibly be?”
I couldn’t say anything now, but my mom took it upon herself to find Anika’s dad, who’d walked out when she was six. I hated keeping this from her, but I had to meet him and hear what he had to say before exposing her to more hurt. Mom wanted to make sure Anika was safe from anyone else that could cause either of us any more pain.
“Cole. What is it?” She was getting pissed and I didn’t want that. “You’re kind of scaring me now, tell me?”
“Can you please trust me that I’ll tell you if I need to tell you?”
“That’s not very reassuring.”
“How about we compromise and I tell you this.” I wrapped her in my arms and began to kiss her neck. I knew she loved that. She always made little moaning noises when I did it. “I am making sure nothing and no one can ever hurt us again. I can’t stand the thought of you ever being hurt, Anika. Please don’t ask me anything else. Just trust me to take care of you.”
I wasn’t really playing fair. I pretty much assaulted her with kisses in the kitchen. Or, it started that way, but it certainly didn’t finish that way.
“Cole, are we going to eat dinner?” She asked me breathless.
“Eventually. But for now…” I lifted her t-shirt over her head with no resistance on her part, I might add, “I’m going to turn you around,” which I did. “Then I’m going to lift you onto the island behind you,” which I did. “Then I’m going to push your skirt up around your waist.” God her skin was so soft. “And then, my beautiful fiancé, I’m going to kiss you hard and deep, while I slide a finger inside you and feel how wet you are for me, and we’ll see where we go from there.”
“Dinner’s cancelled, baby.” She said while I pushed her panties to the side. As hard as I tried, I just couldn’t get her to not wear them. But fuck if she didn’t choose the sexiest things I’d ever seen. I’d bought her beautiful lingerie, but this woman could wear full-ass cotton briefs with little pink flowers and I’d want her just as bad, as if she was wearing something lace, black, and crotchless. “Take me outside, Cole.”
Amongst the ever growing list of things I loved about this woman, she let me take her just about anywhere. You couldn’t see the deck from the beach or any of the neighbor’s houses. The only way you could see it is if you were on a boat with binoculars out on the water or in the living room. My mom learned the hard way, it’s better to call before you just pop in and say hello. So, tonight, I lifted her with her legs wrapped around my middle, carried her to the deck, and sat her on the railing. The surf was loud, which seemed to make Anika go crazy when she came. All her inhibitions went out the window. She reached down and pulled me out of my pants. I think I was hard from the second she walked into the kitchen. The railing is wide at the top, enough that you can sit comfortably, or lay a beautiful woman there and devour her. I lifted her up just enough to remove her skirt, she was left with her lacy, pale pink panties and matching bra, and gently laid her across the beam.
“God, Anika. You look beautiful there. I may have to sketch you just like that.” I moved my open hand down her leg to her bare foot and started back up the middle.
“Can you do that later?” She sighed as I reached the wet heat between her legs.
“I’ll put it on the list after ‘eat dinner’.” She didn’t respond. I leaned over and kissed her soft lips while my fingers slid back inside her, slowly gliding in and out of her soft folds, then removing them to cup her sex, while I moved my wet fingers over her clit. I couldn’t get enough of her. Her beauty, her pussy, she was like no other woman I’d ever known. I stared at her, her eyes closed, her back arching up with each small circle I made against her sweet spot. I leaned in and grazed her nipple lightly through the lace of her bra making it even harder, her flesh tightening against my touch, against the cool ocean breeze and I wanting nothing more than to be balls deep inside of her. But we had all night, we had all our lives and I couldn’t fucking wait.
When she came, it was loud and hard, but I didn’t stop. “Too much, Cole! Please, stop, baby, stop.”
“No way. I told you today would be three.” I teased, although I meant it. I was going to give her multiple orgasms and I would increase them by one each day. She thought I was kidding. Yesterday was two, today was going to be three.
“Are you saying you don’t like it?” I teased.
“I. Fucking. Love. It. Oh!” I loved watching her face when she climaxed.
“That was two. Now for three and then I’
ll make love to you in bed, later.”
“Oh my God, Cole. You’re killing me.”
“You sound like you’re enjoying it, baby. This time I’ll use my mouth though.”
After she came – again – and I’d distracted her from our previous conversation, I lifted her from the railing and brought her to her feet. “Now it’s your turn, baby.” She raised her eyebrows and for a split second I thought she was going to make me come from that expression alone. It reminded me of when I was a kid and I got a new swim teacher; she was hot, but I was twelve so she could have been hideous… she had boobs, end of story.
Anika began stalking me, “You better run. I’ll give you a head start.”
I bolted across the patio, into the house and headed up the stairs. I hid behind the wall at the top and waited for her. When she rounded the corner, I grabbed her as she burst into a fit of giggles. “Don’t tickle! Please!” She begged.
“It’s just so easy, Anika.” I was causing her a different kind of torture, but she eventually got hold of me and held me by my wrists. Since she’d been abducted, we talked very openly about everything. When we were first together, we were both reluctant to share all the horrible things that we’d both endured. Hers were far worse than mine.
She would tell me anything and everything, all the horrific details of her childhood that made my blood boil and actually a little happy that Joe and her mom were almost certainly dead. With all that detail, I couldn’t help the urge to coddle her and protect her, but it was too late for that. She just needed to get it out, talk about everything without me looking at her with pity, so I didn’t. Even if I felt it, I never showed it. I’d just hold her and if there was anything that he did to her that might trigger her anxiety, all she had to say was “stop” and I would.
I kissed her fingertips every day and always told her how much I loved her. For my part of the open and honest deal, I let her touch the scars on my wrists. It was a long time ago, but yeah, I was in a dark place at the time and it was the only way I could see out of it. My dad had a lot to do with it, but now we met with a counselor; someone he had been going to since the day he found me on my bathroom floor and saved my life. Thank Christ he did or I wouldn’t be here, with this beautiful woman. This was our fate. Her ugliness and mine made us fit. It took her a little bit longer to get on board, but that was because she was with someone else at the time. All that mattered was here, now, but nothing, and I mean nothing, scared me more than the idea of losing her again. I knew without a doubt, if I did lose her I wouldn’t use an exacto knife this time… I’d use a gun. I’d make sure I never had to wake up from the nightmare of not having her in my life. But that’s not something I’m going to share with anyone, not the psychologist, not my mom and most certainly not Anika.
That’s why when my mom said she started digging, I was all for it. It was assumed Marla was dead… proof would make everyone feel better.
At first my mom feared that with the family status and Anika being photographed at society events, her mom would ask for money. The money wasn’t a problem, but this woman had to be pretty fucking sick to hurt a child like she had. I could not and would not risk Anika’s safety or her sanity. Joe, he did terrible things to her. No doubt about it. But somehow, when your family, your blood does terrible things, it’s harder to comprehend. I didn’t want to classify Marla Redding’s demise as luck; it was something, maybe her own karma for being an abuser, maybe divine retribution. But whatever it was, I was over the fucking moon about it. I didn’t know I had that in me; that hateful demon of justice that only seems to be satisfied when someone bleeds or dies for their crime.
Now I do.
Her dad was very much alive.
I have a meeting with her dad next week, but I haven’t told her. I will meet him and hear what he has to say first. Maybe he’s just an asshole that didn’t care about his family and walked out. Maybe he had another family, who knows. But if there is another reason, something that can bring her peace, I needed to do it.
We were laying there for a while. I knew she had to have been worn out with my previous ministrations outside, so I slipped from beneath her and went back to the kitchen. I returned with left over Thai and a couple of beers.
“Hey, Anika.”
“Oh, yummy,” She said sleepily. “I need to start working out or something. You have amazing stamina for your age.”
She did that on purpose. “It’s the Viagra.” I smirked.
“If you took Viagra, you’d need a harem. I don’t think I could keep up with you.”
“I think they make something for women now, too.”
“Is that so?” She stated, sitting up and stabbing a fork in some sort of chicken curry dish.
“But you don’t need it.”
“No?”
“No. You’re all the woman I can handle and all the woman I want.” I flashed her a smile and she smiled back.
“Are we gonna talk about whatever it is your mom was pestering you about? And you know I mean that in the nicest possible way.”
“Thanksgiving. Our wedding. Oh, and eventually I need to discuss how I’m going to make a living.”
“I like having you as my personal sex-slave. It is a full time job, ya know.”
“I’m a thirty-five year old, college-educated trust fund baby. I have to do something. I no longer have Trinity.”
“Ooo, tell me. I know you have ideas!”
“I’m still working it out in my head. I’ll get there though, and as soon as I do, I’ll tell you.”
“Well, tell me a little bit. Maybe I can help brainstorm.”
“Okay, well, I’d intended on selling my dad’s company when he died. That’s always been a given. I can keep a controlling interest and attend the odd board meeting, so our children and our children’s children never have to worry about money. But I also want to change things; some of the aspects of the mining really bother me. So, eventually I’ll hire a team to look into better mining practices. If I can’t find a solution, I’ll just sell.”
“But the problem is still there, isn’t it? You could be the one company that does things differently. And did I hear you correctly… our children’s children ?” The way she said it was kind of sexy.
“Keep talking like that and I may not let you finish your food, baby. No, you’re right. That’s the problem. I need to find a way to convince my dad to do it. I hate to admit it… no, hate isn’t even the right word, but it’ll have to do; he did the Drago’s a favor by buying Trinity. He didn’t even know the details of why it was important for him to buy it, but he did. I have to believe that if I go to him and ask him to start restructuring the way he does business, he’ll win back my mom’s affection.”
“Does she want that? I seem to remember a very flirty woman when we went to that party at Olaf’s.”
I put down my food and looked at her, taking a deep breath. “Anika, he broke her heart, it’s as simple as that. He left his birthright, and did exactly what I did, but he did it for love. My grandfather was convinced my mother was a gold-digger, but according to her, and my dad it was love. He worked his ass off for five years, she stood by him and he was a great dad then, really. I remember how he was, just barely. Dad’s brother died a year before his dad. My grandfather had never written my dad out of the will or the company, he just had too much pride to make peace with my dad. It broke my dad; the regret, the guilt, he threw himself into the business and shut off his heart. I became the only light in my mom’s world and she was the only light in mine. But she never stopped loving him.
“Wow. I would never have thought that. It’s kinda beautiful, isn’t it?”
“I witnessed… a moment, between them. The night you were abducted. They love each other.” She took a moment to let everything I’d just said sink in.
“Cole, are you telling me at long last, you might want to step into your father’s shoes?” She set down her food and pushed it aside. She also looked scared.
“I�
�m good at it, Anika. I hate to admit it, but I am. That said, it’s not the life I want. When the time comes, I’ll probably sell. Maybe it’s wrong not to want that, knowing the blood, sweat, and tears that were poured into the family business, but it feels dirty. I don’t want that ugliness in our lives, baby.”
“I don’t care what you do, as long as you’re happy and we’re together. I know it sounds corny and easy even though I’m sure it won’t be, but whatever you decide, I’ll be by your side, Cole.”
Damn I loved this woman.
“Let’s toast” I handed her the beer. “To the future and all the happiness it holds for us.”
“Cheers, baby.” Her eyes smiled at me as she took a drink.
I moved everything to the floor and pulled her to me. “Do you remember the day you had the anxiety attack at Rusty’s?”
“Of course.”
“And you and I toasted our bottles together?”
“Yes, Cole. I remember.”
“That was the day I knew without a doubt I had to have you.” She smiled. A beautiful wide smile that reached her eyes, but didn’t stop there, it made its way to my chest, making me ache for her. “It’s funny, how at the time I was so angry with myself for not seeing Emma for what she was, resenting my family, my wealth, after all those years still feeling trapped. Then the realization that it would be okay, tolerable even, if I just had someone like you by my side. I still didn’t want it, any of it, but then when I needed it to get you back…”
“Okay…” she moved closer to me, wrapping her long fingers around my neck and pulling my forehead to hers. “Are you okay, Cole? I mean it… what’s going on?” She said it softly, which killed me that I was keeping something from her.
“I’m strong, Anika. I really am, but I’m not strong enough to lose you. I’m in no rush to jump into all that bullshit. I feel like I just got you back. I need to take things one day at a time. But I know for sure, I don’t want that life.”
“Okay, Cole. One day at a time.” She agreed.
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Anika
Cole (The Leaves) Page 6