by Sam Mariano
I catch a whiff of her cheap perfume as soon as she’s within reach. Alec picked well. “Doesn’t matter,” I tell her. “If you want to get some lipstick on my collar, that’s fine, too.”
The redhead smiles. “I can do that.”
“This is a bad idea,” Alec tells me again, in case I missed his opinion the first 29 times. “Girls don’t like this shit.”
“Your job here is done,” I inform him. “Come back in ten minutes.”
“Your brain is broken,” he states. “This is why you’re going to die alone.”
I scowl at him for that one, but he doesn’t stick around and wait for it to land.
I uncap the flask and take a swig. “Let’s get on with this.”
The redhead straddles my legs and places her hands on my shoulders, lowering her thong-clad ass until she just brushes my thighs. “So, what did your lady do to deserve such treatment?”
“I don’t want to talk,” I tell her.
Her eyebrows rise and fall in the space of a couple seconds, but she nods, accepting her dismissal and continuing to move against me. It’s a long ten minutes. Not-Mia rubs her scent all over me, smears lipstick on the collar of my white shirt and tries to be as pleasant as possible, given she’s not allowed to touch or talk to me. Her hand dips dangerously close to my cock at one point and I shut her down with a curt, “Nope.”
She eases off, finishes the odd job I’ve assigned her, and when Alec comes back, leaves me with little reluctance. Alec watches me rise, clearly annoyed, then follows me back out to the car where Adrian is waiting. For the record, he also thinks this is a terrible idea. None of them understand. They don’t understand that even if I try to force my way inside Mia, if I don’t do something to hurt her first, she’ll just let me. I can’t explain that to them. That’s only for me to know. They can just think I’m an asshole and mind their own business.
I drink from the flask the whole way home. Throw in a little bit of drunken “honesty” for good measure. I’ll obliterate all the progress I made today, every last bit of it, but that’s the point. I can repair the damage once she talks to the cops—or, doesn’t talk to the cops, rather.
Hopefully this isn’t too effective. It would be rotten fucking luck to go to all this trouble to make her hate me and have her decide to talk.
It would be best to know that now, though. I can only keep her if she passes the test—that’s always gone without saying. I could only keep someone whose trustworthiness is beyond reproach. Mia’s is right now. Hopefully, that remains the case after tonight.
Adrian doesn’t speak to me once on the ride home. I expect him to join Alec’s cause, to warn me that I’m fucking up and I shouldn’t do this. It’s not too late. I could go home and shower, and pretend none of this ever happened.
I can’t get the right reaction out of her, though. I thought about the easier ways. I thought about just being cruel to her, turning off all the affection. Only thing is, just a couple days ago I listened to her tell me she knew I was only behaving in the awful way I was toward her because she got too close, and I was trying to push her away.
I shouldn’t have told her the goddamn dog story. I shouldn’t have told her any stories. Now she’s nursing this idea of me as a wounded man instead of an evil one—which works in a few days, when I want to turn this into an actual courtship, but not so much when I need her to be so furious and thirsty for my blood that she’ll spill all my secrets and try to get me sent to prison.
I should’ve sent the men earlier. I’ve kept her too long.
It doesn’t matter now. I’ve made some mistakes, I’m going to fuck up a little bit more, then I’m going to fix it. Then we’re not going to live in this gray area where she’s not sure if she’s being forced or seduce, where she doesn’t know how she should feel about me.
Adrian pulls up outside the house, kills the engine and walks inside without me. He’s so mad at me. He’ll get over it. Everyone will be just fine next week.
I make my way up to the bedroom and let myself inside. Mia must have been bored because it’s not late, but the lights are out and she’s curled up in bed.
“Hey, you,” she greets, her tone warm as I step inside. I don’t bother turning on the light. To be honest, I don’t want to see any more of tonight than I have to. The foggier the memories of this night in the great scheme of things, the better.
“Tired?” I ask, tugging my jacket off and dropping it on the chair. I probably should have taken the jacket off before the redhead rubbed her scent all over it. Now it’s probably going to infuse my fucking chair, and the whole point is I need the scent on my body.
Oh well. I can’t smell it on myself, but I’m sure Mia will. I’ll make sure she does.
On second thought, I reach into the jacket and pull the flask out, taking another swig of it in front of her. I push the door shut behind me and cross the room, emptying my pockets and leaving the flask on the end table.
“Rough night?” she asks, sympathetically. Of course she’s in sympathetic mode. I ran out of here this afternoon after sharing a personal story, and she wants to lick my wounds.
Instead of letting her, I’m going to give her new ones.
As tempted as I am to enjoy these last couple moments she likes me, I can’t. I’ve already gone so far off plan and I can’t afford to do it again. Not only will my performance lack the ability to convince her, it will also be harder to recover the positive feelings she has for me later. It will be harder for her to trust me, and I’m making it hard enough as it is.
No, I need to keep it clean. Tonight and tomorrow as long as I’m around her, I have to be an asshole. As soon as she gets home from school Monday, that can end. I’ll bring her up to this bedroom, lay her down on my bed, and bury my face between her legs. I’ll let her know she’s irrevocably mine; I’ll mend the rift I’m creating. I can’t wait for Monday.
Thankfully, Saturday is nearly gone.
One day.
I climb on the bed and yank her blankets down, revealing that beautiful body of hers. Tonight she’s basked in moonlight, twisting in my direction, her perfect breasts grabbing my attention. I dip my head to kiss them and Mia chuckles warmly, her fingers sliding into my hair.
Then she goes silent. I might think she’s just caught up, but she’s not making any noises. Mia has slowly started responding to me, not stifling them and trying to keep quiet; she’s past that.
Her voice is a little uncertain as she says, “Where… Um, you certainly have a…” She doesn’t know what to say, so she places a hand on my shoulder and pushes. “Mateo, wait.”
“I don’t like waiting,” I tell her, but I pull back anyway. I look down at her. The troubled look on her face is decidedly unpleasant.
She swallows, looks at my chest with a frown, then opens with the least offensive observation she can make. “You seem to have had a quite a bit to drink tonight.”
Dread rolls over me, but I keep it off my face. “I have. Went out with my brother.”
With forced lightness, she raises her eyebrows. “Where, to a perfume counter?”
I play dumb. “A perfume counter?”
I lean in to kiss her neck, but she turns her head to block me. I’m sort of glad. I don’t want to kiss her neck during this bullshit. She likes that too much to dirty it up.
“You smell strongly of…” She stops again, just short of leveling an accusation. I don’t think it’s because she’s afraid to rip a man’s head off for cheating; I think it’s more because I don’t actually belong to her, so even though it will make her hate me, it’s not like I can’t fuck someone else. I have no desire to, but this isn’t a relationship we’re in. Hopefully it will be after Monday—if not Monday, by the end of the week it will be—but right now, I’m free.
It just doesn’t feel that way. Not to mention, I just told her I wasn’t sleeping with anyone else and reassured her. Now I’m going to blow it all to hell.
I don’t know the stripper’s name,
but I decide to give her one. “Of Jessica?” I ask, my lips curving up slightly, like I find this amusing. “Yes, she wears a bit too much perfume, doesn’t she?”
Hurt and confusion cloud over her normally clear blue eyes. I decide it’s the perfect time to let her see the lipstick on my collar, so I bend my head toward my hand and scratch my eyebrow.
Mia’s gaze locks on my neck and her whole body goes rigid. “Is that…?” Her voice gives out on her. It stings more than I expect it to. I look at her face, but now it looks like she’s struggling to even breathe properly. My weight on top of her, normally tolerable, seems to be crushing her.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, smoothly.
Drawing in a shaky breath, staring at my collar, undoubtedly assaulted by a cloud of cheap perfume, Mia suddenly brings her hands up and shoves against my chest. “Get off me.”
I don’t, so she shoves harder. It’s hard to look at her right now, at the betrayal on her face, at the pain in her eyes—I should have expected pain. I was braced for anger. I didn’t expect her to look this desperate though, to shove this hard.
“I said, get off me. Get the fuck off me.” When I still don’t, she hits me in the chest, as hard as she can. She tries to bring her legs into the mix, attempting to wedge her knees between us so she can push me off.
“Now, now, calm down,” I tell her.
“Get the fuck off me. Please.” Her plea comes out desperately angry, like it’s the last word she wants to give me, but she’s desperate enough to bring it out on this occasion.
“You don’t have to feel threatened,” I assure her, squeezing her right breast. “Your pussy is still my favorite.”
Fury flashes through her eyes and she shoves me again, shoves me in the chest as hard as she can. Still, she can’t get me off her. “I hate you,” she spits, as mean as she can manage.
“That’s all right,” I reply, easily.
“You did this to hurt me, didn’t you? This is because you told me so much. Now you have to push me away.”
There it is. I knew that would be her first stop. She still shoves against my chest like it’s killing her to have my weight on top of her, but now tears swim in her eyes. Every droplet of moisture that gathers in her eyes hurts. I wish I could count them all and put them on the tab I’ll repay later.
She can’t even look me in the face. “Just get off me. Please. I need to be away from you right now.”
“That’s not how this works,” I tell her, catching her wrists and pinning them on the bed.
Pain and rage fuel her, giving her more power as she bucks against me. This is how she fought me that first morning when she realized what I’d done and I brought her into this room. She may actually be fighting harder right now.
“People don’t hurt you for no reason,” she flings, slamming her whole forearm against my chest as she continues to push desperately. “Love isn’t weakness, and it’s not strength to do shit like this to try to chase people off. This is weakness. This is weakness. You’re weak.”
That vaguely annoys me. I didn’t actually fuck anyone and I don’t care what most people think of me, but I realize if she actually thinks that for even a second, I hate it. I do care what she thinks. A lot of people say things in anger they don’t mean though, maybe she’s one of them. Maybe this is coming from a place of hurt feelings, not a place of truth.
“I suppose you think it’s a strength to be loving,” I tell her, neatly pinning her to the bed again. “Do you feel strong right now, Mia?”
She glares up at me. “You can’t make me feel a goddamn thing. You think it matters if you pin me down, if you force me to do things I don’t want to do? You’re wrong. You can put your hands all over me, but you can’t touch me. Why don’t you get the fuck off me and run back to your friend Jessica? You can touch her all you want, apparently.”
“Oh, I can touch you, Mia.” I have to release one of her hands and she brings it up immediately and grabs my hair, yanking, trying to hurt me. I use my free hand to push her knees apart. She tries to squeeze them together, but I get a knee between her legs.
“Don’t you dare,” she shrieks, trying with all her might to twist her hips away, but I have her pinned down too well. “I don’t want you. Get off me. Get your filthy hands off me.”
Since I cover her pussy with one of my filthy hands instead, she cries out in frustration and claws my neck with her fingernails.
Fuck, that actually stung.
“If you’re trying to turn me off, you’re doing a very poor job,” I inform her.
“You didn’t get enough of that other whore?” she asks, glaring up at me.
“It’s never enough until I have you.”
“You could have had me,” she states, hurt filling her eyes again. “Now you can’t.”
“Sure I can,” I reply, caressing the warm entrance of her pussy. “If you don’t give it to me, I’ll just take it. Remember?”
“I forgave you,” she says, shaking her head at me. “I forgave you for everything and you just… you can’t stop hurting me, can you?”
That one lodges in my gut. I intended on doing more talking than this, on tossing more cruelty her way, but I’m actually feeling every bit of hurt I inflict upon her. It feels like I’m punishing myself as much as her. Ordinarily I dole it out and remain unaffected, but it’s hard as hell maintaining this lie. I feel… I feel sort of terrible.
Shaking it off, I reach down and grab her thighs hard, pulling them apart. I had to release her arms so now a flurry of angry fists rain down on my head. Damn, she is pissed.
She utters a chorus of denials, each “no” more aggressive, more desperate than the one before it. “Don’t you dare,” she finally says, as I free my cock and rub it against her entrance. “Don’t you dare,” she cries again. “I won’t forgive you this time. I won’t forgive you.”
I hope that’s a lie, because I shove my cock inside her regardless of her words. She’s spitting mad, but now she bursts into tears. That’s mildly alarming. Her arms fly at me again so I restrain them, locking my hands around them and holding them down as I ease back and drive into her harder.
She screams her frustration so loudly that I’m thankful we have a whole wing to ourselves. She cries and her tearstains burn my soul. She flings angry words at me, telling me she hates me and she’ll never forgive me. Each time she says the same thing over and over, it makes my heart sink with fear that she might mean it.
This is so much worse for me than the first time I took her. This is horrible. This isn’t fun at all.
What if I took it too far?
No, I didn’t take it too far. I took it exactly as far as I had to take it. I needed her to hate me. I needed it fresh. Given a week, I can turn it back around, I know I can. I just have to make this feeling last until Monday. If she feels like this when my guys talk to her… well, that’s not a fun thought, but it is what needs to happen. I need her to feel exactly like this. I need her to tell me I’m going to burn in Hell, that I’m a bastard, that she hates me. She literally wanted my blood; she scratched the fuck out of my neck.
Monday she will press her soft lips against those scratches she made and apologize. Once she knows I didn’t do the one thing that apparently will make her hate me.
It doesn’t make it any easier right now though. She wears herself out sobbing and cursing at me. I don’t make her kiss me this time. I’d like this to be a clear-cut as possible. I’d like this to be the memory she thinks of on Monday when they ask her if she knows anything that could lead to the arrest of Mateo Morelli.
She’s worn out by the time I finish. The anger and pain she needed to vent seem to have run their course, but now she just looks… heartbroken.
I need to step outside for a breather, but I don’t deserve one, so I don’t.
I pull out of her body and roll over to my side of the body. I try hard not to take to heart all the “I hate yous” she lobbed my way.
She’s silent now, but as soon a
s I move off of her, she rolls away from me and curls up in a ball. She yanks the blankets up around her like they can protect her from me.
I can’t remember the last time I felt this low. Has there ever been a time? I can’t think of one. Maybe when I killed Beth. When I cradled her limp body in my arms and looked down at the destruction I had wrought.
This wasn’t worth it. I shouldn’t have done this. I should’ve found another way. I shouldn’t have listened to Dante. He was right, but I shouldn’t have listened anyway.
This life is fucking expensive.
Look what it costs to maintain.
Everything. It costs everything.
Ironically, I feel like I need Mia right now, and I can’t have her. She’s right here in this room with me, and the loneliness is coming back, but she’s not going to chase it away.
One more day.
We only have to get through one more day. I’ll give her anything she wants, I’ll do anything to make it all up to her. I just have to know I can trust her first. Even when I’ve hurt her, I need to know she’ll remain loyal. I’m sure I’ll hurt her again in time. Not like this—this is terrible, I never want to experience this again—but in some way.
All I’ve done weighs me down as I strip off my clothes. Mia still hasn’t moved. I want to shower the stench of this evening off me, but I’m a little afraid to leave her in here alone. I don’t feel great about it, but I text Adrian and tell him I need him to come keep an eye on her. It’s bad enough I fucked her smelling of some nameless sex worker, but I’m not going to curl up and go to sleep with the scent still on me.
He comes inside the bedroom, per my directions. Mia glares at me wordlessly, like I’m doing this purely to humiliate her. She pulls the blanket more snugly around her neck and closes her eyes, like that can block us out.
Adrian wants to kill me. His fists clench at his sides as I explain that I just need him to watch her while I shower. He doesn’t speak, just nods curtly and stands by the door.