by Sam Mariano
Once we’ve finished our drinks, we all head to the dining room for dinner. I love Sunday dinners the most anyway, but now I have the side mission of keeping an eye on Vince throughout dinner. Since Meg will be serving, I expect he’ll be paying attention.
Here I am thinking tonight is shaping up to be fun when I enter the dining room and meet an exceedingly unpleasant sight. Mia is glowering directly at me. Not accidentally, either. She stands there for a moment, long enough to let me know I’ve pissed her off, then she turns and storms into the kitchen.
What did I do this time?
I’m fucking flummoxed. I frown at her back as she disappears, then turn my attention on the only other person in the room—Meg. She shrugs as if to say she doesn’t know what Mia’s problem is, but that smells strongly of bullshit.
Without pausing to consider the potential blowback, I go to a place I never go myself at dinnertime—the kitchen.
Francesca glances up as I storm in. She does a double take, her brown eyes widening. “What are you doing in here?”
Elise is similarly confused. “Is there a fire?”
I ignore them both and head for Mia. Her back is to me and the kitchen seems too fucking long—why is it so goddamn long?—but I finally get to her. I don’t know if she’s angry or upset and the damn girl won’t turn, so I grab her arm and spin her around to look at me.
Surprise flashes across her features. She doesn’t even pull her arm away immediately, she’s so surprised to see me in the kitchen. Or chasing after her, I’m not sure which.
Damn, I just chased after her right in front of Vince, didn’t I?
Fuck.
Oh well.
“What’s wrong?” I demand.
“Nothing.” She says it so angrily it’s clearly not nothing. Mia and I have obviously had some low points in our relationship, but she’s never openly hostile to me at this stage.
“Did Meg say something to upset you?”
This makes her angrier, verifying it was, in fact, Meg. I stifle a sigh. She was helping me out with Vince, but she doesn’t seem to be having the same effect with Mia. It doesn’t do me much good to calm Vince down if the result is that Mia wants to shove me facedown onto the hot stovetop. Right now as she desperately claws at my hand and throws it off her arm, I’m pretty sure she would like to give me a good facial sear.
I hear the door open and the sound of Meg’s footsteps as she slows to a stop in the kitchen. Her presence vaguely irritates me now—if she intentionally upset Mia, I’m going to be pissed, but I don’t even know how she would know to. I suppose it’s not impossible Elise has been gossiping.
Clutching Mia’s forearm again, I drag her little ass out the kitchen’s rear exit for some much-needed privacy.
“Let me go,” she complains, tugging at her arm.
I ignore her until we’re halfway down the hall, then I rotate her until her back is to the wall and I crowd her. Instantly, the majority of the fight drains out of her and she gazes up at me with big, wary blue eyes. I’m too close; she doesn’t know what I’m going to do. She never knows what I’m going to do.
God, I want to gather her loose curls into a fist, shove her to her knees, and feel the warm wetness of her sweet mouth around my cock.
Since I can’t do that, I ask, “Why are you mad at me?”
She’s still gazing up at me with fuck-me eyes, but her tone is lightly irritable as she states, “I’m not mad at you.” I quirk an eyebrow. She finally looks away from me to roll her eyes. “I didn’t know you were banging your maid. I definitely didn’t expect her to ask me for tips.”
I don’t show an outward expression, but I’m inwardly a little amused.
She’s jealous. Not shocking since Mia is one of the most jealous females I’ve encountered, but she’s been strictly friendly with me for months now.
Now that she’s spilled more than she intended, she’s shuffling her weight awkwardly and avoiding my gaze. Meg must have just said something before I walked in and Mia didn’t have enough time to pull it together. She already looks like she’s starting to regret the outburst.
I don’t regret it, though. I like to know what she’s really feeling. I don’t allow myself to get too pleased, though. Mia is a jealous person and this is the first time she’s encountered the possibility of me with someone else since our involvement. It’s only natural, given her disposition, she would be put off by the idea.
“I haven’t banged the maid,” I tell her. “Why would she ask you for tips, anyway?”
Mia shrugs, her gaze a little shuttered now with aggravation. “I don’t know. She thought I was your ex.” Barely missing a beat, she adds, “Are you going to bang the maid?”
I don’t bother stifling a little smirk at that question.
She immediately gets huffy. “I’m not asking because—” She doesn’t know how to finish the sentence. Well, she does, but she can’t say it. She wants me to rush to assure her that even though she doesn’t want me, I won’t bang the maid, I would never bang the maid; I’m going to sit alone at dinner and keep my dick away from other women for all eternity.
Obviously I’m not going to do that, but I can’t pass up the rare opportunity for a status report. Instead of yanking my heart out, dropping it on a silver platter, and offering it to her, I ask simply, “Is there some reason I shouldn’t bang the maid?”
Her gaze locks with mine. “Do you want to?”
What I want to do is pin Mia against the wall and fuck her like a savage. I want to drag her up to my bedroom and keep her there forever. I want to fall asleep holding her tonight and spend tomorrow morning doing work from my bed while she paints her nails and attempts to draw more intimate details and personal anecdotes out of me.
Since I can’t say any of that, either, I ask, “How are things with Vince these days?”
Her blue eyes glisten with feelings until I ask that. Now she dims visibly, right before my eyes. My hands clench into fists at my sides. I don’t want her to dim. The whole reason I let her go with him instead of making her stay with me was so that I wouldn’t dim her; I’ll be damned if I let him do it.
“Are you unhappy?” I ask, more quietly. This isn’t about petty jealousy or idiotic pride. If Vince isn’t making her happy, I need to know that.
Mia shakes her head, her gaze dropping to my chest. “No. Things are fine with Vince.”
Before I can ask anything else, Francesca emerges from the kitchen. Her eyebrows rise at the sight of us halfway down the hall. I realize I’m right on top of Mia, but I can’t bring myself to care so I don’t step back.
“We’re fine,” I clip, displeased by the interruption.
“We’re done,” Mia states. My heart stalls briefly and my gaze darts to hers. Since the movement is so immediate, I catch her gaze. Her eyes soften, but she looks down. After a second, she looks back up at me, offering a forced smile. “If Meg makes you happy, you should be with her.”
With that, she slides along the wall to get away from me and heads down the hall toward Francesca.
“If you need another minute, I can…” Francesca trails off, pointing back to the kitchen. “I was just checking in. There was the whole dragging, and the…”
Mia doesn’t pause, so I start down the hall myself. I get a little more aggravated with every goddamn step. Somehow in the space of five minutes this night went from brimming with promise to “we’re done, bang the maid” and I’m not fucking happy about it.
Immediately upon entering the kitchen I seek out the troublesome newcomer, grabbing her arm now and dragging her back out into the hall. I don’t take her as far as I took Mia since I don’t especially care about privacy with her.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demand, planting her against the wall so I can stare at her.
Feigning guilelessness, she stumbles her way through an explanation. “I thought she was—I didn’t—”
I don’t have patience for this right now, so I skip to the first point. “Who
told you Mia was my ex?”
Her mouth opens and I expect an answer to my question, another thing I need to deal with, but what spills out instead is, “Why won’t you have sex with me?”
That effectively shuts me up.
I’m not really sure how to answer that. I didn’t expect her to ask.
“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” she says, her gaze imploring. “I shouldn’t have said anything, I guess, but… I just wanted to know how to please you, because nothing I’m doing seems to be working.”
I watch her through narrowed eyes, searching for answers. I don’t trust her, obviously. She came here to kill me, after all. I don’t consider her a remote threat, especially cut off from any outside contact, but I’m still wary. I’ve kept careful watch and she hasn’t even tried to reach out. It’s almost like she didn’t give half a damn about the life she left behind, like the one I offered her was just as good as the one she was already leading. That’s sort of sad, frankly, but it’s easy and I like easy.
I don’t at all trust the way she’s pursuing me though. Granted, if I remember who her husband was correctly, her standards aren’t terribly high. If she stayed with that colossal train wreck in their tiny little house, I probably seem like a massive upgrade—homicidal tendencies and potential for disaster and all. He was a disaster and he didn’t even come with amenities.
I’m not sure it’s a good idea, though. I need more information. I need more time to figure things out.
“Why are you trying so hard?” I ask, on the off chance she’ll tell the truth.
She shrugs, disappointing me with her cool, collected demeanor. “I’m gonna be stuck here, we might as well enjoy it.”
Bullshit.
“Just to pass the time?”
Now she averts her gaze toward the floor, then looks back up at me. It’s the same coy eye movement Mia did in this same scenario several moments ago, but it feels false on this woman. She doesn’t have Mia’s transparency. I like Mia’s transparency.
“Well… and I like you,” she says. “And it seemed like you liked me.”
Because I let her put my dick in her mouth?
“But now I’m not so sure,” she adds, lightly shrugging, trying to play it off.
I frown slightly, because the last part actually did sound sincere. Of course her uncertainty probably is sincere. Outright confusion would be understandable. I could’ve fucked her fifty times by now and I haven’t.
“I do like you,” I tell her, eager to set this conversation to rest. If she thinks I’m the sort of man who will constantly reassure her of his interest, she’s going to be profoundly disappointed.
“Then why aren’t we having sex?” she fires back.
Mia floats to the surface of my mind. Ordinarily Mia is a pleasant thought—always a pleasant thought. Right now a little less. Right now I have “we’re done” replaying in my head on a torturous loop. Between the words and her tone, I didn’t like it. With the follow-up assurance that I should fuck someone else, I like it even less. Mia is too territorial to tell a man she still wants to fuck someone else.
After all I put her through, I know it’s unrealistic to expect her to actually want to be with me, though. If I did lure her back, I would just break her. That would be the worst thing I could possibly do. That would be something I’m not sure I could forgive myself for—and I’m quite lenient with myself, obviously.
I forgave myself for killing a woman I loved, but I’m not sure I could forgive myself for ruining Mia.
The uncomfortable implications of that make me even less at ease.
Meg is still standing here waiting for me to explain why I won’t have sex with her, and while any portion of the stream of thoughts that just moved through my brain could adequately answer that question, I am not ready to make a decision yet.
I need more data.
So, instead of answering her, I leave her there by herself and head back to the dining room so dinner can start and I can hopefully acquire the information I need.
---
Vince and Mia do not linger after dinner tonight.
I’m itching with impatience, wishing I’d put a listening device in his car. I have one in hers, just as an added precaution. I don’t even monitor it all that much unless I’m in a shitty mood and I feel like listening to her sing terrible music at the top of her lungs. The thought makes me smile. I almost consider heading to the surveillance room early and pulling something up while I wait.
Before I can do that, my new maid peeks her head into the study. I raise a questioning eyebrow and she takes it as an invitation, stepping inside. I glance at my watch.
“Do you need something?” I ask her.
Shaking her head, she says, “Nope. I was just—” She gestures back toward the kitchen. “Everything is put away or cleaned or in the process of being cleaned, so I think I’m done for the night. Did you need anything else from me tonight?”
I shake my head. “If Francesca said you’re done, you’re done.”
“Cool. I’m gonna head back to my room then.”
“Enjoy the rest of your night.”
She lingers for a few seconds, waiting for me to say or do something. When I don’t, she nods once and turns to leave the room.
I finish my drink alone, then I head to the security room. They’re probably not home yet, but I can still pull up the feed. Their house isn’t on my regular feed, but with a few clicks I have their living room on my main monitor. It’s pitch black since no one is home, so I wait.
Eventually the light switches on. I grab my noise-canceling headphones and slip them on, adjusting the volume. No one is speaking yet. As is the case with most Sunday nights, they have the look of soldiers returning to camp after a long, hard battle. They’re both so dramatic.
Vince hangs his keys up on a hook while Mia steps out of her heels.
“They’re pretty, but they hurt,” she states.
Vince spins back to look at her. “What?”
“My new shoes. They’re death on the top of my heel. I think they’re made of vengeance and my feet wronged them in a past life.”
I crack a smile.
Vince rolls his eyes. “I don’t know why you needed new shoes anyway, you have a million pairs.”
As if he just insulted her child, she gapes at him. “How dare you, sir.”
“Tell me I’m wrong,” he shoots back.
“You are wrong. I do not own one million pairs. We wouldn’t have room for that many shoes. And these ones were on sale—how was I supposed to say no?”
“Oh, well, if they were on sale,” he says, sarcastically.
Smiling faintly, Mia shoves him in the arm. “You just don’t understand.”
He catches her around the waist and tugs her close, dropping a kiss on her lips. “I don’t care,” he states.
“I had a twenty percent off coupon and they were already—”
He still doesn’t care, so he cuts her off with another kiss. She’s smiling when he pulls back. “Speaking of the store,” Vince says, letting her go and heading for the kitchen, “we are pretty much out of food.”
“I’m going to the grocery store tomorrow,” she tells him. “What should we do for dinner?”
“I don’t know.”
She sighs, locking the front door and flipping the deadbolt. I know she’s used to everyday drudgery, but I still dislike that she has to do it. She shouldn’t have to go grocery shopping and plan his meals. She should be enjoying her life and letting other people take care of those kinds of menial tasks.
After a few minutes, Mia heads down the hall. I don’t know if she’s heading for the bedroom or bathroom, but on the off chance it’s the bedroom, I pull up that camera.
She steps inside, reaching behind her back to drag down her zipper and pull off her dress. She steps out of it, then bends to pick it up and gives me a lovely view of her ass. I do miss that ass. I’d much prefer watching her undress here in front of me, but I work with
what I have.
Now she’s in just a tiny pair of lilac-colored panties and a matching bra. I want her to turn around, but she keeps her back to me as she reaches back and unclasps her bra.
Blood rushes to my dick, anticipation coursing through me.
As if startled, she does turn around. I get only a brief glimpse of cleavage though, then Vince blocks the fucking camera.
“I was just putting some PJs on,” she tells him, as he moves closer. Of course now the little bastard sees her mostly naked and wants to fuck her. One of his hands massaging her breast, the other around her waist, he walks her back toward the bed.
I fully expect this to lead directly to sex—why wouldn’t it? Before he can get her panties off, though, Mia gently pushes him away with an intentionally light smile. “I need to grab pajamas.”
“I have a better idea,” he informs her.
Laughing lightly, she nonetheless scoots away from the bed, going to the dresser and retrieving the least sexy sleep shirt I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s somehow sexy when she slips it on—but only because it’s on her. Mia could make anything sexy, I’ve determined.
Now she keeps enough distance from Vince and the bed that he can’t reach out and grab her to pull her back, then slips out of the bedroom.
I don’t normally even look at him if she’s not in a room, but he’s astute enough to figure out that Mia just rejected him, however lightly and playfully she tried to package it. I watch and savor that for a second. Little bastard.
I leave Vince frowning as he sits on the edge of the bed and scan the other screens to see if she’s in the kitchen or living room. She’s in the kitchen, so I switch to that camera.
Mia rinses off dishes in the sink before placing them in the dishwasher, quietly occupied. As she nears the end of her task, Vince comes back down the hall. He changed into black shorts and a T-shirt, but now he stops and leans in the doorway, arms crossed, watching Mia.
“Pressing chores?” he asks.
Glancing up, she offers a smile. “One less thing to do tomorrow.”
“Are you going to talk to that guidance counselor about classes?”