by Amaya Black
His hands went to my shoulders first and then eased down my arms while he slowly pressed into my body. My only reaction was to let out a soft moan and push back into him. I felt him use one hand undo his pants and then next ease my tights down. My teeth bit into my plump lips as I awaited his every touch.
“Or maybe just taking you here and now up against the counter is what we both want and need.”
“Maybe,” I managed to get out. I was already getting slick between my legs.
He pushed me even further forward until my hands were splayed out on the cool granite, the coolness nipping at the underside flesh of my arms. Yup, right here and now he was going to take me and make me his in only a way that he could. I was going to take every single inch and I was going to enjoy it.
“Allanah, you didn’t answer me…” Darien state as he massaged my ass cheeks.
“Huh?” I had silently let my mind wander and had drifted off into another world. I was in anticipation of him pushing inside of me and filling me up to my core.
“Are you mines?”
I took a deep breath. I wasn’t about to go promising myself to some man. Me and Darien had been doing this dance for well over ten months. We still hardly knew anything about each other.
“Stop,” I managed to spit out just as his tongue darted in between my legs and bumped against my clit. The way he was palming my body, I don’t even know how I managed to get that out.
“I don’t want to,” he replied.
I felt him stand up though and the feel of his cock sent shudders through me. I wanted him so much. It was that type of want that made you ache all over until you finally got what you needed. If I wasn’t careful, I could become a fiend for Darien. I would want him at all hours of the day and night and I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.
“Why do you want me to be yours?” I asked suddenly.
“Because I do. You will always be mine, Allanah.”
He was still behind me and slowly moved my head to the side to gain access to my neck. He kissed the tender parts of me there and I fell back against him as his arm encircled me.
“I’m still your mistress?” I asked.
I couldn’t stop myself from asking the question, but I told myself I needed to hear the answer. I needed to make sure the line we had drawn in the sand all those many months ago, was still in place.
“Yes.”
Something went through me. It was a sharp shattering pain and it caused me to wince. There was the strong possibility that my heart was hurting a little bit at the sting of his words. I choked them down though. I had agreed to Darien’s terms. I had known from the very beginning what my role was in his life.
“We need to discuss an end date on that,” I replied and then tried to move away from him.
He stood looking extremely confused.
“But why?”
“This deal isn’t working for me any longer,” I replied. “I refuse to be a prisoner in this situation any longer.”
Darien pulled up his pants and shoved his still hard cock back inside. “Where in the hell is this coming from?”
I adjusted my clothes, briefly wondering was this about to term into an unneeded argument. Turning to go and sit down on the couch, I watched as he fiddled through the cabinets. He found a bottle of bourbon and poured himself a glass. I had rarely seen Darien go straight for a bottle.
“It’s not coming from anywhere, really,” I stated and fiddled with my cellphone.
“It’s not?”
“No.”
He drank the small amount of liquid that he had poured and then gave a huff. “Then why even say it?”
“You can’t expect me not to want to find someone else. I want to have my own family someday.”
I heard him growl, and the slam of the bourbon bottle rang in my ears. “You will fulfill the contract we had set in place Allanah. Alexander needs a mother and you are that. I am his father now as well. You will know no other lover but me. That is the end of the story.”
I took a deep breath. “Yeah okay, boy bye.”
“Don’t fucking boy bye, me, Allanah. I hate the American slang you use. You do it on purpose to confuse me and upset me. In fact, this entire exchange has opened a wound. The only thing that will soothe is your pretty mouth wrapped around my cock.”
I purposely avoided looking at him once he said that. I already could tell that he was still hard. The sound of his footsteps told me that he was on his way over and that we would be headed to the bedroom.
“I think it’s time, we introduced using a safe word, Lana. What do you think?”
Chapter 5
I lay there breathless and listened to the water from the shower beat down on Darien’s naked body. We had just finished having what had to be the kinkiest sex we’d ever had and a safe word had indeed been introduced. “Rose petal,” had been the words we had chosen but I can tell you that it hadn’t been used.
I might never use it.
Sex with Darien was more different than anything I had ever known or had wanted to know. He pushed me only a little bit at a time. Even though every moment was a little different, we both wound up completely satisfied.
Darien’s phone began to vibrate on the nightstand. Rolling over and reaching across to his side, I saw Cassie’s monkey ass texting. I still hadn’t learned my lesson about snooping because the last time I had, I wound up finding out that he had hooked up with her years ago.
The switch of curiosity flipped on in my head and I opened up the messages. I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled finding nothing but innocent chatter about business. Apparently, she had really screwed up the deal and she was super close to being fired it seemed. Earlier up, the conversation had turned to talk of me.
My eyes almost popped out my head and I watched the doorway to the bathroom to see what Darien was doing. It sounded like he was about start shampooing his hair from the splat sound the bottle had made. I swear, white folks really shampooed their hair a lot.
With the phone in my possession, I skimmed the conversation quietly. Cassie had gotten it in her head that I needed to be a better mother to Alex. That I shouldn’t have been waltzing around New York looking for secrets about Dana.
“Oh, this raggedy-ass bitch. Spread ya legs for everything but a quarter. Make me sick,” I muttered but it must have been loud.
“You okay?” Darien called from the shower and almost gave me a damn heart attack.
“Talking to myself,” I hollered back and that must have been enough to satisfy him because he didn’t say anything else.
Rolling my eyes, I exited the messages and put the phone back on the nightstand. I twisted it around until I felt like it was back in exactly the right spot. Pulling the covers up and around me, I got back to being comfortable. Darien joined me a few minutes later with a towel clutching at his hips. The man was a walking wet dream.
I licked my lips. “After dinner, I want to go and investigate Dana’s old apartment.”
“Is it wise to stir up old ghost, Lana?”
“It isn’t old to me. I just….I just want to find out what happened to her during the last year of her life. My sister is dead and she’s just as big of a mystery now as she was then.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed and watched me. I know I sounded crazy but I was running out of time. We would be going back to Greece in a few days and the apartment was going to be cleaned out soon. I looked away, feeling childish.
“Allanaaah…” he dragged my name out and turned my face to meet him. “Hey, look. If it’s that important to you, we’ll do it.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I want you to be happy. Let’s figure out what she was up to,” he leaned over and kissed me deep and hard on the lips.
“Tonight?”
He groaned inwardly, and I knew he was tired but I didn’t care. He would have to suck it up. Evidence could be disappearing as we spoke.
“Okay, let’s do it,” he replied but I was already on the
other side of the room getting dressed.
“All black,” I said. “But comfortable.”
“We’re not staging a heist,” he declared but I knew he would go along with the plan.
Forty-five minutes later, Darien’s driver had driven us to my sister’s secret lair. I made him drop us a block away, just in case Lawyer Boy hadn’t been paranoid for no reason. Darien and I gripped each other’s hands and made our way to the brownstone. I fiddled for the key in my back pocket and tried to get it into the lock. I think it was nerves because I couldn’t get the damn key into the lock to save my life. Finally, Darien took pity and snatched the key.
“For someone who wanted to get over here so bad,” he yawned and the door popped open.
The woosh of air from inside the house covered both of us. It smelled like no one had been inside in a long time and I suspected that they hadn’t. I felt for the light switch inside and everything became illuminated. There was a staircase leading upwards and from where we stood I could see a living room and kitchen area. Looking over my shoulder at Darien, he gave me a reassuring smile and we ventured forward.
“I’ll take the upstairs,” I said. “You check down here. Holler if you find anything. We should probably be quick.”
Darien agreed and I jogged the steps. My stomach was rolling, and I was almost scared I was about to let my bowels go. I now knew how Smokey felt when Big Worm had tried to kill him. My anxiety was going through the roof. I took a deep breath and surveyed everything. It was just a bathroom and two bedrooms, one of which was empty.
Starting with the bathroom, I surveyed the checkered pattern tile. It was ugly and I know Dana had probably hated it. She had loved gold, not black and white. She had barely decorated the bathroom; a simple plain shower curtain hung and that was about it. I went through the medicine cabinet and found nothing but birth control pills. I rolled my eyes at that shit. Clearly, her ass hadn’t used them as they had never been opened.
“I’ma get myself trapped by one of these ballers,” I mimicked her in the mirror and came out of the bathroom.
Ever since we had been kids, Dana had wanted a rich husband or boyfriend. She didn’t care if the money was legal or not. Whatever she could do to get from point A to point B and made her life easier, she didn’t care. Now she was dead and I was caring for the best parts of her. I wish her ass was alive…I would have kicked her in her goddamn throat.
I was getting angry at my dead sister.
Again.
I made my way into her master bedroom, flipping on the light switch, and found it more to her style. Everything looked lavish. Like I said, gold everything down to the nightstands and the dresser drawers. The bed was a mess probably from the last time she had slept in it. Crashing down onto it like a ton of bricks, I tried to muster up some tears, but I couldn’t. I wished we hadn’t lost touch for the year and it still bothered me that I couldn’t remember why we’d fallen out.
A picture on her nightstand caught my eye. It was one I hadn’t seen in years and those tears that I hadn’t been able to find. They surfaced and they came bubbling up hard. By the time I took the photo in my hands and took a breath, I slid to the floor.
The photo was of my mother holding me as an infant, and Dana around age three, standing beside her. It was my first snow and my mother had looked so proud and loving. It had been before the drugs had taken their toll on her life.
“Lana,” came a whisper from the doorway.
I dried my eyes quickly. “I’m okay. Just found this.”
I waved the photograph in the air and Darien came to sit beside me. It seemed that he had found his own photo downstairs. My sister and a man sitting side by side at a dinner table with a man. She was of course dressed in a gold bodysuit, with big gold hoops and her lashes had been styled along with her natural hair. She looked beautiful. And then his eyes caught me.
“Mikos,” Darien said and then wrapped an arm around me.
We sat that way for a while, looking at the photos of our dead siblings. We were their polar opposites. Where they had been reckless, we were steadfast in being steady human beings.
“Find anything else?”
“Some coke,” he stated. “I through it out. It was probably his,” Darien shrugged. “I get the feeling they were maybe more in love than I had thought at first.”
“Well, at least we can give this photo to Alex when he asks about his real parents.”
“Someday, maybe.”
Darien kissed my forehead and then got to his feet. He helped me up. I dusted off myself and took one last look at the room. The nightstand again caught my eye and I realized I hadn’t searched the drawers.
“Let me check this nightstand and then we can go. I’m getting sleepy.”
“Same.”
Darien hung back and let me do my snooping thing. The nightstand drawer glided open at my touch. Inside, I found some more old photographs, her passport and a check stub that said Dana had made fifty thousand dollars over a year ago.
“Who in the fuck was she was working for?” I gathered the stuff and then showed Darien the stub.
His eyes grew wide with shock. And then, his face creased with anger. “Kobiyashi. Dana was working for the company that I’m in talks with buying.”
This didn’t mean a whole lot to me. “I’m a little lost.”
“There have been murmurs about this company being into darker things.”
He paused for a moment, unsure of how to proceed. “Things like prostitution.”
My eyebrow shot into my hairline. Some of the pieces of the puzzle weren’t exactly connecting but I knew I didn’t want to be in the house any longer. I was started to get the creeps as though me and Darien were being watched. Immediately, my eyes swung around the room causing everything to look suspect as hell. Anything could be a camera these days.
“Let’s go,” I said.
The walk back to the waiting car was brisk as our feet pounded into the pavement. Once, we had left out of the apartment with the few mementos we had of our siblings, I never looked back. What would be the need? I knew that it would probably all be gone in the morning or maybe the next day.
When we arrived back at Darien’s penthouse, I felt just a little lighter. He went into the kitchen and started fixing himself some coffee. I watched from the couch and fiddle on my phone. I had messages from Helena saying Alex was doing fine, although he was teething and fussing. I had no need to stay in New York any longer. I was ready to go home.
Then I caught myself.
Greece was now home.
“Helena says that Alex is teething pretty hard,” I said out loud.
Darien only mumbled from the kitchen. I could hear silverware being moved around, and then finally the pouring of coffee. The aroma filled the air.
“What’d you say?” I asked.
“I said, Andrew said he wants to have dinner. He just texted me.”
Darien came over with his coffee in hand. I realized he looked exhausted and I was sorry I had dragged him out on an adventure. He took a long drink of the hot elixir and then settled back onto the couch and pulled my feet into his lap.
“I’m sorry Alex isn’t well. We’ll be back before he knows it.”
“It’s already been too long…ooo,” I murmured as he hit a spot on my foot with his caressing. It felt so damn good to have his strong hands on my feet.
“Feels good?” The way he asked gave me chills. They traveled straight to the tips of my toes.
“Yes,” I said enjoying and wishing he’d never stop.
“Now, would you like to go to dinner with me and Andrew?”
I was thoughtful, Alex’s old babysitter had wanted to meet up. She had been keeping up with me here and there from a few Facebook posts. She had messaged me the day before about getting together before I left. I loved when people made an effort.
“Sounds like a plan, mind if I invite someone?”
“Sure, who?”
“Cindy…you know t
he girl you scared half to death when you tried to steal my nephew?”
Darien cut his eyes at me and I laughed so hard that he stopped massaging my feet. I shook them at him to get him to continue.
“I was an ass, Allanah,” Darien’s words were soft but sincere.
“Eh,” I replied. “You still are. We just like each other a little bit more now.”
That was when he surprised me, and lifted a toe to his mouth. Ever so gently he began to kiss inside the left side of my ankle. The flesh there almost seemed to blush.
“I more than like you….”
Chapter 6
We rolled up to the bar in Tribeca, and the thumping of salsa music was already coming from outside. I had no idea where in the hell Andrew had googled this fucking place but we’d let him pick. Darien shot me an annoyed look and I could tell he was about to be in a mood. He just needed a shot. Today hadn’t gone well in negotiations with the company he was trying to buy.
There wasn’t much of a line and then I saw Cindy standing there looking as lost as we felt. I took her in: black ankle jeans, Converse sneakers, and a shimmery gold top. She looked really cute with her thick winding curls pulled into a loose braid over her shoulder. Cindy was mixed like Alex, which is a reason why I think she had liked babysitting him as much as she had.
“Cindy!” I called out getting her attention as Darien clutched my hand in his.
“Allanah,” she returned and came over to see me.
Letting go of Darien’s hand, I hugged her tightly. It was crazy how much I had missed her because I didn’t have any friends. I hadn’t really thought about forming bonds with people because I was content with being lonely.
We stepped back from one another and then I decided to introduce her to Darien. He had a scowl planted so deeply on his face that I thought he’d scare her off. Cindy looked in between both me and Darien and smiled widely.
“Mr. Kiriakis, I remember you,” she came over and hugged him too. He looked shocked as he peered down on her; Cindy was a short petite female.
“Ahhh, yes, the baby sitter,” he said and she stepped away.