I stared up at him, speechless, into those dark, burning eyes. There was no mistaking the sincerity and depth of the passionate love he felt for me when he said, “Marry me, Angelina.”
When I managed to find my voice, I whispered hoarsely, “I... Isn’t this too soon? I mean, shouldn’t we wait to...”
I trailed off, not knowing what to say next.
“To what? To know each other better?” he asked, still holding my face between his hands. “I know you, Angelina. I know your soul, I know what you like, I know how you think and how you feel. And you know me better than anyone. We love one another. We make each other happy. So why wait? Haven’t we lost enough time already? Haven’t we stayed separated long enough, suffering in silence and yearning for one another?”
I was lost in the bottomless fire of his gaze spearing into mine. I nodded my head slowly, held captive by his penetrating stare.
“You’re right. Oh, my love, you’re so right... Yes, yes I will marry you, Blade.”
I barely had time to utter the words before he pulled me to him and his mouth crushed mine in the most ardent and meaningful kiss we had ever shared.
He kissed me with all the longing and desperation that had resided within both of us all this time. I responded in kind, digging my fingers in his hair to draw him to me, plowing my tongue into his mouth and biting his lips in a wild torrent of need to prove our love, to possess and be possessed.
He yanked off my bath sheet and threw it on the floor, leaving me naked to the assault of his relentless caresses. I did my own share of untamed exploring, as he walked me backward to the bed. I fell down on the black satin sheets and he followed me, moving his lips, tongue and hands all over my heated skin. I felt I was going mad with the primal need to have him inside me. I reached down and heard his gasping growl when I found him steel-hard, throbbing with elemental lust.
He stretched out on top of me and kissed my mouth thoroughly, as his erection tested my moist center. I was more than prepared for his first long, smooth thrust, which brought him deep inside me, making me arch back and cry out in unimaginable rapture. I moved with him, surrendering to the rhythm of the explosive pleasure that built in me as he stroked that sensitive gem of femininity with each undulating, rocking motion of his hips. When the climax shook me, I wrapped my legs tightly around his waist and sank my teeth in the velvety lobe of his ear, unable to restrain a breathy moan. His own orgasm was long and intense, leaving him weak, trembling in my arms.
Still breathless, he gathered me against him and held on tight, burying his face in the hollow of my throat.
“I love you,” I whispered raggedly, fingers still clenched in his hair as I clung to him, seeking to draw him inside my soul. “I love you so much, Blade!”
Sixteen
My mother received the news of our marriage with mixed reactions. First, she cried tears of joy, hugging me tight and telling me how happy she was because Blade and I finally found each other again, this time for ever. Then she cried some more, at the thought that she would be left alone, with only Rat as companion. I reassured her at least a dozen times that we would visit her every single day, and reminded her we would live only fifteen minutes away. At long last, she dried her eyes and sniffled loudly, before letting a broad smile lighten her face.
“I’m truly happy for you,” she said to me. “I have no doubt Blade will make you happy. I never thought any man was good enough for you, but he... Well, he is special.” She released a long breath, then asked, “How soon do you plan to bless me with grandchildren? I want to be a young, awesome grandma.”
I nearly choked on my coffee, before I put the mug down on the little table from our balcony.
“What? No, no, no. We’ll wait a few years for that. We haven’t even had time to enjoy one another, Mom. I can’t think about a kid right now. I’m barely able to take care of a cat,” I said in amusement and nudged Rat with my bare foot. He sat sprawled on the tiles next to my chair, tousling a discarded candy wrapper.
“I guess I can relate to that,” Mom conceded. “You’re still young and have all the time in the world.”
I sighed contentedly. Looking around, I thought I’d miss the prettiness of our tidy, green neighborhood, but Blade’s condo was even more beautiful and much classier. My life was back on track. I felt as though I was floating on a pink, fluffy cloud, with no worries darkening my horizon.
It was Monday morning. Blade had gone to the office, while I insisted on stopping to see Mom before going to work. Now I got to my feet before she could make more wedding plans and outline the menu, when Blade and I hadn’t even set a date. I kissed her cheek, gave Rat a final rub and headed out.
The Unabridged headquarters were in full activity. I briefly opened the door to Blade’s office to blow him a kiss, and found him almost buried in paperwork. I waved hastily and withdrew, but not before I heard him shout, “Chicken!”
I widened my steps to quickly put distance between me and his office, with its monstrous stacks of papers and things to be seen to. I had my own stuff to cope with. A smaller pile of papers waited on my own desk. I eyed them grimacing when I plopped down in my chair. Mail was always an unpredictable Pandora’s Box. I often found love letters, marriage proposals, indecent suggestions, and on one unfortunately memorable occasion, I received a high resolution picture of the smallest and most shrunken penis I’d ever seen. It’s not that I’ve seen a lot, but that one—which incidentally belonged to a guy from Pakistan—was indeed a terrible sight.
With that less than encouraging thought in mind, I started sorting out the envelopes, placing them in categories. One of them was postmarked New Zealand. That caught my attention and aroused my curiosity, so I opened it to find a two page letter signed by a certain Zorro Kalashnikov.
Raising one eyebrow, I reclined against Gym’s backrest and started reading the printed sheets.
Dear Miss Jameson,
First, allow me to congratulate you on your article called ‘Billionaires, BDSM and Blah-blah-blah’. I read every edition of your magazine online, and I enjoy it tremendously. Along with the new look of ‘Unabridged’, last Saturday’s edition was like a breath of fresh air. I have been following your weekly column for the past two years and I was actually wondering if you would ever approach the subject of the pseudo-literary phenomenon involving BDSM and kinky billionaires. Personally, I only managed to digest twenty pages of the trendiest book on this subject, because after that I got the impression I was reading only insignificant variations on the same flavorless text. However, the little reading proved to be enough for me to form a pretty clear idea regarding the rest.
Even though it might seem paradoxical, the way-too-explicit insistency of the sex scenes drove me to the assumption that in fact, with all that lusty abundance, the author proved an acute lack of imagination. Following this line of reasoning, I reached the conclusion that, in creating the artificial main male character, the author in question had as a model a real person. This urged me to start an ample research to identify the mysterious specimen who ignited the author’s inspiration.
I won’t bore you with the detailed recounting of my investigation, but will only lay out the interesting elements I found out with this occasion. Unlike the fascinating and charismatic protagonist of said monument of verbosity, the original model was neither too young, nor well schooled, not even good looking, and by no means a billionaire. He was an illiterate, jobless porter, rendered stupid with drink, with no specific address and who frequented a sordid honky-tonk where he earned some extra money by exposing his cock—a truly impressive tool, which adequately tickled and stimulated, reached fifteen inches in length and five inches in diameter.
A chuckle escaped my lips at this point, but I muffled my laughter and went on with this extremely interesting read.
Since the result of those measurements was confirmed by several independent sources from the subject’s entourage, it wasn’t necessary to personally check their accuracy. The same sour
ces also informed me that, a good while back, our porter was visited several times in that honky-tonk by an enigmatic lady armed with a voice recorder. Seeing as the meetings took place in a private corner, I couldn’t obtain any pertinent information regarding the discussions between the two. Also, the visitor’s identity remained unknown. But a faithful client of the joint provided me with the lady’s description, after I bought him several glasses of some foul-looking brandy. I quote: ‘Twas a fancy-looking broad, mate. She came here with a limo and a driver, and she was kinda like pudgy-looking, and only by her gear you could tell she ain’t a man.’
I abstain from making any speculations regarding the lady’s identity. I am more than pleased to have cleared up the mystery.
Zorro Kalashnikov
P.S: I leave to your judgment the differentiation between truthful and credible.
By this time, I was hooting with laughter and tears of mirth had formed at the corners of my eyes. I was still in this hilarious state when Blade came into my office a few moments later. He stared at me in puzzled amusement.
“What’s so funny?”
“Take a look at what the mailman brought in,” I said still laughing and handed him the overly-comical letter, holding my aching stomach with one hand. “We should offer this guy a job.”
He took the sheets from me and propped a hip on the edge of my desk as he started reading. I watched his eyes move and his lips twitch subtly at first. When he uttered a short, incredulous laugh, I assumed he’d reached the part with the illusive porter’s genital measurements. By the time he finished, we were both laughing hard, holding our sides.
When he finally caught his breath, Blade said, “Where did you get this? This guy is phenomenal!”
“It was in my mail, post marked New Zealand. I get a lot of weird stuff, but this is the most entertaining composition I’ve ever received. Even better than the lewd self portrait of the guy from Pakistan.”
“What guy?”
When I told him about the absurdly graphic photo I got several months back, he raised an eyebrow, putting the sheets on my desk.
“I’ll have to thumb through your mail before you read it.”
“Oh? Didn’t you ever get pictures with bare tits or shaved—”
“No, and I don’t want any of those images in my head. The only tits and other anatomic parts I want to see are yours,” he continued, grinning down at me.
“Good. That way I won’t have to castrate you, or get in prison for scratching out some bitch’s eyes.”
He lifted my head with one finger and bent to give me a quick kiss, then headed toward the door. When he reached it he turned around, as though reminded of something.
“I’ve started reading the latest book of your admirer.”
“What admirer?” I asked, surprised.
“That DiLucca fellow. Spooky character. The old story of the psycho obsessed by the girl next door, but taken a level too creepy. I think I’d rather you get pictures with small penises than get attention from this guy.”
I laughed.
“How about if I receive photos of large penises?” I asked cheekily, causing him to shoot me an acid look.
“Well, then I guess I would have to try even harder to keep you satisfied with the one you have. We leave at four,” he added on his way to the door, where he turned and winked at me with a wicked bad boy grin.
Seventeen
Life couldn’t get better, in my opinion. Blade cooked breakfast every morning, I ordered pizza every night, and we both took turns in doing the laundry. He had a cleaning lady who came by once a week to do the vacuuming and such, so I didn’t have to bother with much of anything. And the nights... Oh, the nights with Blade were bloody fantastic! I spent the days looking forward to the time we would get home and make use of our immense bed. And the kitchen table. And the living room wall, the one where a talented artist had actually painted a window with a black and white street view of Rome. I can only imagine what we looked like when Blade pinned me against that wall with his hot, solid body and rocked my world, along with that of the black and white Italians.
Now it was Friday evening and I was wondering what he had in store for me, while we were heading home from work. I was just speculating on the pros and cons of having sex in the tub, when he said, “I want to take you out to dinner later. I’ve reserved a table at Corleo’s.”
I arched an eyebrow toward his profile.
“Really? That sounds lovely. Special occasion?”
One corner of his mouth lifted.
“Having you in my life is enough of an occasion.”
“Ditto,” I replied smiling and rested a hand on his thigh.
As he drove on the crowded avenues, I made a mental inventory of my wardrobe, trying to decide what to wear on this memorable first time we went out together as official fiancés. Blade and I had made a less than formal announcement of our engagement at the office, which was greeted with various reactions. Most of the staff seemed to be glad about it. Some of them had even cheered, led by Belle of course.
The only sour face I saw among my workmates was that of Corinne, who had curled her lip and glared in my direction, as though to say ‘Didn’t take you long to get into the boss’s pants, did it?’
I was too happy to pay her any attention. Besides, there was another face at the gathering that looked less than pleased. Jim, who was usually affable and good-humored, looked stricken at the news. His smile had collapsed, replaced first by astonishment, then by what I thought was sadness. He’d darted me a quick hurt glance, then his hostile eyes had fixed on Blade and stayed like that until the short meeting was over. I hadn’t taken Belle seriously when she told me Jim had a crush on me, but that little scene made me wonder.
I jerked when Blade snapped his fingers an inch from my nose.
“Hey, where have you gone? Can I come too?”
I smiled back at him, pushing all my previous ponderings to the back of my mind.
“I was thinking of what to wear. Do we have time for a quick shower?” I asked as I climbed out of the car.
“Sure. The reservation is for seven o’clock.”
“I’ll take the bathroom first.”
“We can shower together,” he suggested playfully, his fingers meandering on the back of my neck.
“Oh no!” I shook my head emphatically. “I’m not getting into the shower with you now. We’d never make it to the restaurant.”
He uttered a short laugh and dragged me into the elevator.
I took a very hot shower, washed my hair, then dried it and kept it rolled on large curlers while I did my makeup. My eyes looked brilliantly green against the smoky-gray eye shadow. I highlighted my cheekbones with bronze blusher and applied pale-coral lip gloss. After a lot of rummaging through the closet, I chose a black backless dress that reached my knees and fit like a second skin. I took the curlers out of my hair and ruffled it, satisfied with the wild-yet-chic look I had aimed for. When I looked in the mirror, my glamorous reflection took my breath away. I truly looked stunning.
Blade was just coming out of the bathroom, a towel carelessly wrapped around his hips. I spun around to face him. He came to a halt when he saw me. His ardent gaze traveled appreciatively up and down my body and his lips parted slightly.
“You look fantastic,” he said as he walked toward me. Mindful of not ruining my makeup, he traced a caressing finger on the side of my jaw.
“Thank you,” I whispered, letting my gaze linger on his bare damp chest. “Not as good as you.”
He gave me a one-sided smile.
“I’ll go and fancy myself up. I have to measure up when my date is the most beautiful woman in Seattle.”
He winked at me and walked to the dressing room. When he came back, I was just making the final touches on my appearance and cramming some necessary accessories into my minuscule black evening bag. I did a double take when I saw him. He looked like something out of a magazine, dressed in a black pin-striped suit, white
shirt and midnight-blue tie. I could see my reflection in the sheen of his expensive black shoes. Add to that a three hundred dollars haircut and a watch that probably cost more than my car, and the effect was breathtaking.
Wordless, I did a circle with my finger in the air to indicate he should spin around, so I could admire him from every angle. He obliged and I couldn’t keep from whistling.
“Wow! All the women in that restaurant will dream of scratching my eyes out tonight,” I said, making him utter a short laugh.
“If that’s so, all the men will have erotic dreams about you. I can’t say I like that, but I do delight in knowing that you’re only mine,” he replied and took me in his arms. He stopped short from kissing my lips and, to avoid my lip gloss, kissed the tip of my nose instead. Then he offered me his arm.
“Shall we go?”
The restaurant was the classiest place I had ever been to, located on the top floor of a stunning building. The lobby was magnificent, with high ceilings, crystal chandeliers and quality art work. We got into one of the elevators and Blade pressed a button, while I was checking out my appearance in the mirror one last time.
When the elevator doors opened, we were greeted by a uniformed attendant who led us toward a private booth on the far side of the enormous room, where people sat in warm candle light and the appetizing smell of expensive food. Blade and I made an outstanding couple and more than a few gazes turned to follow us.
Our table was placed next to a glass wall, which revealed a spectacular view of the Seattle skyline, with its myriad lights and imposing skyscrapers. Blade held the chair for me and I sat, feeling overwhelmed by such opulent elegance. Scented candles burned in ornate candlesticks on the table, their reflections sparkling on the polished silverware and porcelain plates. A waiter came to our intimate corner, carrying a tray with two crystal glasses.
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