by Abbi Cook
Leaning back, I nod. She wants the truth, and I want to give it to her. “Yes. I know every fact there is to know about you. I know your birthday, your family members’ names, their husbands’ names, what they do for a living, how long your mother has owned her house, and a thousand other things that make up your life.”
She frowns and looks down at that button on my shirt again. “Was that all I was? A laundry list of details and facts that say nothing about the person I am?”
“Yes. But that’s not all you are to me now.”
“How can you say you love me if that’s all you know of me?” she asks with pain in her eyes.
I cradle her face in my hands and shake my head. “That’s not all I know about you. I know you’re beautiful and kind. You’re also sweet. And too trusting, in my opinion.”
But none of my compliments succeed in making her happy again.
“That’s all I’ve ever supposed to be. Beautiful and kind, Natalie. Sweet and trusting, Natalie, who shouldn’t upset anyone by saying the wrong thing or making anyone feel bad. The perfect woman to catch a man and then the perfect wife to keep him.”
As she turns all the parts of her I love into faults, I see I’m just as bad as everyone else in her world. I wanted her at first because she was beautiful. Then I began to feel something for her because she was sweet. I’m not different from her husband in that way.
I kiss the top of her head and whisper against her soft hair, “Which do you like better for breakfast, pancakes or eggs?”
Confused, she looks up at me and narrows her eyes. “It’s not breakfast time, Alexei. It’s already after lunch.”
“Answer the question,” I order with a smile.
“Pancakes. I never eat eggs alone.”
“What’s your favorite thing to drink?”
Without hesitating this time, she answers, “Lemonade. It always reminds me of summer.”
“Where would you go if you could go anywhere in the world?”
With a smile, she says, “Italy. Tuscany specifically. I want to see if it’s just as beautiful as it is in that movie I watched years ago.”
What was too trusting before makes me happy now. I want to know everything about her.
“What’s your favorite color?” I ask as I drag my thumb along her jaw.
“Pink. What’s yours?”
“Blue. Like your eyes.”
Natalie runs her hands over my nearly week old beard and smiles. “What’s your favorite thing to eat? Mine’s lobster ravioli.”
I mentally add that to the catalogue of facts I know about her before answering, “Steak.”
“Let me guess. You love it rare,” she says, giving my jaw a tug.
“How did you know?”
“You look like a man who likes his meat rare. In case you’re wondering, I can’t even look at steak if there’s any blood coming out of it. I guess we’ll just have to never eat steak around one another.”
“I’ll make a note of that. No steak with Natalie. Okay, it’s written in stone now, so I’m glad we handled that.”
She falls silent, and in the space between us, I feel like she has more questions she wants answered. I’m happy to give her those answers. Whatever she wants.
“How can you be such a nice person like this and still be what you are?” she asks in a soft voice so full of innocence.
Still can’t or won’t say it.
“I told you I’m not nice, little bird.”
Her fingers trail down over my neck. “But you’re nice to me.”
I shake my head at her characterization of me. “No, I’m not. Nice means nothing. It’s tepid. It’s forgettable. It’s common. What I feel for you is none of those. I don’t want to be someone nice in your life.”
“You act like being nice is a bad thing.”
“It’s nothing, little bird. Worse than bad. We’re never going to be just nice together. I’m not a nice man. I’m a killer, Natalie. One of the best in the world. I know how precious life is because I spend my time taking others’ lives. There’s nothing nice about me.”
“I don’t know what to do about how I feel when you’re next to me, Alexei. I keep trying to tell myself this is wrong because I’m married. I try to convince myself you couldn’t truly care about me because you were hired to kill me.”
With every word, I know what I have to do. I’ve known for days what has to be done, and I’m the one who needs to do it.
Adam Anchoff must die.
I force a smile to hide what I’ve decided to do. “I don’t care if this is wrong. All I care about is you. As for you not believing I could care about you, I’ll just have to keep proving I’m crazy about you.”
She winces like what I said hurts. “Crazy about a crazy woman.”
“You’re not crazy. Just tell me you’re not drinking anything he’s giving you anymore. I need you to promise me that because I don’t know what it is he puts in your drinks, but he says it helps you to refocus.”
“Refocus?”
“That’s what he said.”
“I’ve heard that before somewhere. Where have I heard that? I feel like it had something to do with my mother.”
“It may have. It comes from the Church of Genesis. He claims husbands use it on difficult wives all the time.”
Another grimace. “Difficult. So that’s what I am?”
I kiss her softly on the lips and smile. “No. You’re sweet and sexy and beautiful and you eat your steak all wrong, but you’re not difficult, Natalie. And even if you were, I’d still love you.”
Closing her eyes, she whispers, “I did everything I could to be what he wanted. It wasn’t my fault I can’t do that one thing.”
She hangs her head, and I pull her to me. “Don’t. You shouldn’t do this to yourself.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for, Natalie,” I whisper against the top of her head as she sighs against my chest.
“Thank you for saying that.”
When she moves away from me, she wipes under her eyes and forces a smile. “And thank you for answering all of my questions. I feel like I need to know about the people in my life these days.”
“As I said, I’m an open book for you, little bird.”
“Just for me?” she asks with a quizzical look that tells me she still doesn’t understand how special she is in my world.
“Only for you.”
She takes a deep breath and lets it out in a rush. “I have something for you.”
“Really?”
Nodding, she takes another deep breath but doesn’t answer my question before I watch her lower to the floor, crouching in front of me. Her trembling fingers slowly unzip my pants, and I look down in stunned surprise.
With more than a little hesitation, she reaches in and takes out my cock, already rock hard after the mere thought of her going down on me tore through my brain. Her touch is featherlight, almost as if she’s afraid.
Holy fuck. She’s never done this before.
When she tilts her head back to look up at me, I can’t imagine her ever looking more beautiful than at this moment when her mouth is mere inches from my cock.
Her eyes wide and more innocent than I think I can deal with, she says, “I asked Pilar how to do this at the country club the other day. She said to make sure I watch my teeth, unless you’re a man who likes teeth. Are you a man who likes to feel teeth during it?”
Jesus, I might come just from the feel of her hand lightly holding my cock and her asking me that question. No woman I’ve been with in my entire life has ever asked me that.
“No, but don’t worry. It won’t matter.”
Uncertainty clouds her expression. “No?”
Reaching down, I caress her cheek as I shake my head. “Trust me. No.”
I can barely stand the anticipation as I wait for her take me into her mouth, but unlike with other women, I don’t grab her head and push her down on my cock. I don’t want to frighten
her. But fuck, it’s like asking a tiger to change his goddamned stripes.
The first touch of her mouth sends a rush of need through me that feels like a freight train tearing through my veins. She moves tentatively, wrapping her lips around the head so softly, and all I want to do is ram my cock all the way to the back of her throat.
Her hand grips the base, but even that’s far too fucking light.
Slowly, her mouth slides down my shaft a few inches, and then she backs off. This is dangerous for her because another couple seconds of this and I’m going to be fucking her face. I’m already struggling to stop my hips from thrusting forward to bury every last inch inside her.
I stuff my hand into her hair and tighten my hold. She whimpers against my cock, only making things worse. If I can control myself long enough to just get her at a good pace, I won’t scare the hell out of her on her first blowjob.
“Tighten your hand, little bird,” I groan out as I gently push her head down just a little further.
She does as I order, and I add, “Now move up and down just as tight.”
Obedient as she naturally always is, Natalie begins to jerk me off while my hand on her head eases her mouth down to meet her hand. She’s naïve as to how to really do this, but it doesn’t matter.
I remember back to the moment I decided I would take her away from Adam Anchoff. He left his beautiful wife with the perfect mouth vulnerable, and I swooped in and claimed her. Now she crouches in front of me sucking my cock, a gift she’s giving me after daring to ask one of those country club bitches how to go down on a man.
Even I couldn’t have imagined things would have unfolded like this.
Lost in my memories, I begin thrusting into her mouth far too hard as my nature takes over, overpowering her. She gags, and the sound tears me out of my thoughts.
I look down and see her mascara running under her eyes, mixing with her tears. Quickly, I pull her up to her feet.
Dragging the pads of my thumbs over the tops of her cheeks, I wipe away the mess I’ve made of her. “I’m sorry.”
A pained look settles into her face. “I didn’t do it right?”
I cup her cheeks in my hands and kiss her softly. “You were perfect. I just can’t promise I’ll be as gentle as I should with you right now.”
“What if I don’t want you to be gentle?”
“Then we need to move this to the bedroom,” I say before lifting her into my arms.
As I carry her through the apartment, she buries her face in my neck and asks, “So it was okay?”
“It was perfect, little bird. Perfect.”
And not a syllable of that is a lie.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Natalie
By three o’clock, I've been sitting in my car in front of my mother's house for ten minutes deliberating on whether or not to go in and if I should tell her what's happened with Adam. No matter what Claire believes, my mother loves Adam like the son she never had. As much as she likes Albert and Tess's husband, Adam was her first son-in-law, and that distinction seems to give him special status in her mind.
Or that's what it feels like. I can't be certain of much of anything lately, though, it seems.
After a few more minutes of mental tug-of-war, I turn the car off and walk in, still unsure what I plan to tell her. Maybe I won't tell her anything.
God, I wish I was back at the apartment with Alexei.
Stopping just inside the front door, I adjust my scarf on my neck to make sure none of the marks are visible. It would probably be easier to just let the evidence of Adam's behavior speak for itself, but I don't like the shame that comes along with that.
The house feels emptier than usual as I walk through the living room to the kitchen. It's a beautiful day out with not a cloud in the sky, so I don't have to guess where I can find her. I look out the window to the backyard and there she is, tending to her garden, as usual.
I still don't know what I'm going to say as I walk down the steps. I'll let her reaction to my visit dictate what I bring up. Definitely have to read the room with her. Always have.
"Natalie, what are you doing here?" she calls out from behind the red rose bush.
Not the most auspicious beginning, to say the least. I force a smile and walk over to where she stands trimming the branches to make the rose bush look perfect. She certainly does love pruning those flower bushes.
"I wanted to come see you. I'm sorry I didn't call. I haven't gotten my new phone yet. Adam took ours to trade them in, but he hasn't given me mine yet."
It's a half-truth, of course, but one spoken in the right tone with the required smile to make it utterly believable. She doesn’t need to know about my burner phone.
My mother twists her face into a momentary grimace before snipping off a just budding blood red rose and setting it into a basket at her feet. "What is he thinking? These days, people need their phones twenty-four seven. I don't like the idea of you driving around without a phone, Natalie. He better get his priorities straightened out tout suite."
"Don't worry. I'm okay. I don't go many places, and there's always a phone nearby if I need it."
Another half-truth, but at least this one hides something good instead of something bad.
"It seems silly to me that he doesn't understand it's simply not safe to drive around without a phone today. The world isn't like it was even twenty years ago. Then you could be disconnected from the world for entire days and no one would have reason to worry. Now we don't have home phones, so a cell phone is a must."
My mother's fixation on the necessity of my having a phone goes on for another few minutes while I listen and nod like I agree. I don't disagree, mind you, but my problem with what my husband's done on this subject goes far past not having a phone while I'm driving.
I don't want her broaching the subject with him, however. That could lead to more problems I definitely don't want to have to deal with. It's bad enough dealing with him. The two of them against me would be ten times worse.
"Trust me, Mom. It's really okay. I rarely call anyone while I'm in the car anyway. I'll be fine. I'm sure he'll get me my phone by tonight."
Despite my reassurances, she still goes on for a few more minutes about the dangers of a woman without a phone before I take advantage of a break in her lecture to begin a new topic. "I really like how your roses are coming along."
Tossing her pruning shears onto the chair across from me, she shakes her head while she removes her gloves. "Adam should be taking better care of you, Natalie. I don't like it, and if it continues, I'm going to let him know just how much I disapprove."
My mouth falls open in shock at my mother's negative comments about Adam. She never says anything that isn't a completely glowing compliment when it comes to him. He can do no wrong in her eyes. And now she says he's not taking good care of me and she plans to tell him she doesn't approve?
I don't utter a word because I don't know what to say. My mother, though, keeps talking, and I slowly realize I might have been wrong about how much she thinks of Adam.
"What’s happening with this phone issue is plain disrespect. Pure and simple. Absolutely unacceptable. You’re his wife. He needs to remember that. I won't have one of my daughters treated like this. I don't care who the man is."
I make a feeble attempt to defend him because I know it’s expected, but I barely get a few tepid words out before she sits down in the chair near me and shakes her head angrily. "Don't bother, Natalie. I know you love him, but this kind of behavior must be nipped in the bud. If it's not, I can tell you he'll think he can treat you badly in even worse ways. That's simply not acceptable for a husband to behave that way toward his wife."
"Mom, I have something I want to show you."
My hands tremble as I untie the knot in my scarf and reveal the marks from where Adam's hand angrily pressed against my skin. I have to close my eyes because I can't stand to see pity in another person's eyes when they look at what my life has become.
I hate the way she says that. What happened to me. As if I'm the reason for everything occurring. Wouldn't the correct question be what did Adam do to you, Natalie? She can't truly imagine another human on Earth could ever put their hands on me without me telling her that news first.
Retying the scarf into a loose knot, I answer the way it should be stated. "Adam choked me last night."
Oddly enough, she doesn't let herself miss a beat out of surprise. "Why? What would make him do that?"
"I assume he was angry."
I can't keep my face from twisting into an expression of disgust. Her question makes it sound like I forced him to choke me. Like I grabbed his hand and brought it to my neck as he tried unsuccessfully to pull away and then somehow found a way to make him tighten his fingers until I couldn't breathe. Yes, that's how it happened. I was the one who made him do that.
My mother's expression morphs into a similar one to match mine. "I meant why was he so upset he laid his hands on you like that?"
I don't dare tell her the truth. She can never know there’s been any infidelity in my marriage. Period. On top of that, her dislike for anything even remotely related to psychology is well-known by anyone who's been around her for more than a few minutes. My mother has been known to go off on a tangent in the middle of a party about how all psychiatrists are charlatans and quacks skilled in stealing money away from people.
It's a throwback to her time in the Church of Genesis, I think. I only know what I heard and saw as a child involved in the church, and if there was one guiding principle, it was that science of any sort was an enemy of religion.
At least that religion.
I've never asked her if that's why she has such dislike for therapists. If I've learned anything from her, it's that choosing your battles wisely is an important part of a woman's life. Arguing with my mother about this subject was never a battle worth choosing.
So I tell another half-truth and hope she doesn't confront him about his behavior. "He thought I was cheating on him," I say flatly, making the very idea sound as ridiculous as she would think it is.