I had no idea how we went from fucking in my office in every position known to man to me holding her bag while I escorted her from the subway to her shitty apartment every night, but it happened. I asked her if she wanted to move in with me, along with Rosie, back to their old apartment in Manhattan, the one I occupied now. I had more than enough space for the three of us, but after she said no, I never brought the subject up again.
We were going to do things her way. I got it. Her way sucked, but I needed to start learning how to play other people’s games if I ever wanted something meaningful.
We didn’t explicitly say out loud that we were dating, but we certainly weren’t fucking, and still, we saw each other every day. It went without saying that our weekends were booked, and we spent them together. Rosie tagged along more often than I would have liked, but I bit the bullet. We went to museums and to the movies. We took walks and even went to Coney Island once. Rosie brought a date along when that happened—a greasy guy named Hal—so I had a few hours to smuggle Emilia behind a building and make out with her until she had concrete burns all over her back from when I grinded against her.
Rosie kept teasing me about the Hamptons, asking what kind of rich person I was if I didn’t have a house there, until finally I caved and rented a place for the weekend, but not before I ran the idea past Emilia’s baby sister and told her that if she was not bringing Hal along, I’d be dumping her sorry ass on the road on the way to the beach house I’d leased.
The week before the beach trip, we visited the cherry blossom tree again. The flowers had long died by then, which was kind of depressing to think about, I guess. Worse, spring was almost over, and I knew I was running out of time.
That night we finally got into bed again, and it was nothing like our first times.
Rosie needed the apartment in the Bronx because her boyfriend was sleeping over at theirs. A perfect opportunity for me. I asked Emilia if she wanted to sleep at my place and she said yes. I didn’t arrange a fancy candlelit dinner or get her flowers because that would’ve been lying, and I promised myself I wasn’t gonna lie to her. But I did order us some Vietnamese from that place she liked and bought some booze. She came over after work and kicked off her high heels—lemon yellow with green dots—muttering something about how she was five seconds from caving and pairing sneakers with dresses like the rest of the female lawyers and accountants of NYC.
I grinned and poured her a glass of wine. I was already in my jeans and T-shirt. “Mmm, women in suits and sneakers. The antidote to an erection.”
She laughed and threw one of the heels at me playfully, purposely missing me by a few feet. I cocked an eyebrow, striding over to her and handing her one of the full glasses of wine.
“You’re aggressive lately. Must be all that sexual tension.” Without giving her the option for a comeback, I turned around and started opening takeout boxes, fixing us our plates.
She took a sip of the wine and I felt her eyes on my body. “How are you sleeping these days, Vic?” Her tone was sweet and seductive.
“Like a fucking baby. Thanks for asking.”
I’d somehow managed to snag some more planned sleep recently, mainly because I no longer had to worry about everything. Jo was my only loose end, and I was going to deal with her soon enough. Everything else was running smoothly. I slept every other night, which was huge progress. I don’t know how it’d happened. Maybe it was the fact that I had someone by my side now.
She tilted her head slightly and stared at me almost dreamily, and I loved her for it.
Shit. I did.
She untangled my fingers from my glass of wine and placed it on the kitchen island as she linked her arms around my neck, and that’s when I realized that all this time, all this fucking time I was chasing her, I was actually loving her.
I loved her when I hated her.
And I loved her when I didn’t want anything to do with her.
I was so crazy about her, the lines had blurred together. Feelings were mixed, emotions twisted together.
I was stealing her pens and pencils, when actually, I was desperate for her words.
All of them. Every letter and syllable. Every silly doodle.
It was clear to me then, in a generic white kitchen I didn’t particularly like, in a city I hated, in an apartment I was supposed to vacate in three weeks’ time, that I was in love.
A love that was worn and old, but still burning.
“Ask me what I want again,” I said softly, and she grinned, pressing her lips to my chest through my tee.
“What do you want?” she murmured. Her hair smelled fantastic. Like flowers and how my fucking pillow was going to smell tonight.
“Nothing. I’m done wanting things. I have everything I need now. Ask me how I feel.”
“How do you feel?”
“In love.” I breathed hard, burying my face in her hair. “I feel in love, and it’s you that I love. So fucking much.”
We didn’t eat our dinner. Instead, I carried her to my new bed, one that Dean had never slept in, and placed her on the mattress, on her stomach, watching her heart-shaped naked ass, and all that purple hair fanning her back and my pillows. I leaned forward, kissing her tattoo and dipping my hand between her legs, running a finger over her slit. She shivered in pleasure, but waited, motionless.
I purposely waited this time. Waited for it to feel right. To show her this wasn’t a fling.
I licked my way slowly from her neck to her tailbone, where I stopped and propped her ass up by raising her knees. She was on all fours now, twisting her head behind her shoulder to see what I was doing. I stole a desperate kiss and guided her face so she was facing the headboard again.
“Don’t you trust me?”
“I’m just starting to.” She laughed breathlessly, and I sank my fingers into her again, feeling her grow wetter.
I borrowed some of that heat and swirled it around her nub, my finger pads stroking smoothly, and felt her pussy rubbing into my hand desperately. I placed one hand on the small of her back, nailing her down.
“Don’t move.”
“You’re always so bossy,” she moaned, but complied. This time I didn’t forget to put on a condom. Hell, this time I didn’t forget anything. Slowly, I sank into her from behind while still working her clit. It felt good to be inside her again, but it felt even better to know that this time, it meant something.
At first, I went in slow. Desperately slow. Teasing her. Frustrating her purposely.
“Vicious,” she begged, her head falling to the pillow as she let out a sigh. “Please.”
“Please what?”
“Please don’t torture me.”
I picked up speed inside her, still not giving it to her the way she wanted it. Emilia liked to be pounded. She liked it rough and angry. Which is why we were so compatible in the first place.
“I think you like to be tortured.” I leaned forward, whispering into her ear. “I think you always liked it. Very much.”
The first wave of pleasure slammed into her, and her knees and elbows gave in. She collapsed, lying on the bed now, but I still pumped into her hard, my fingers still working her clit. I was relentless. And after depriving myself of her for so long, I had good reason to be.
“Up,” I instructed. My voice held its usual cold tone.
“I don’t think I can.” She sounded just about ready to pass out.
I tugged her up so her back met my torso, cupping one of her bouncy breasts as I fucked her from behind, brushing her nipple with my thumb over and over, rubbing it in circles while sucking on her tattoo.
“Do you know how you feel?” I growled into her neck. I was going to come any second now. I knew it, and some orgasms, you knew it was same old, same old. But this one? It felt like a first. A once-in-a-few-years epic peak.
“Good?” she asked.
“That too.” I smirked into her hot, sweaty flesh, licking it to taste her again. I was riding her so hard I knew she burned everywhere, but it was for me, so I didn’t care.
I used one of my hands to support her while playing with her tits, and the other to grab her knee and spread her leg to the side for better access, then pounded harder. She yelled louder. Everything between us throbbed.
“You feel like redemption. And do you know what that’s like?”
I flipped her over, but I was still at it, and she was shaking with what might’ve been her third orgasm.
“No. Tell me.”
I came inside her hard, feeling my release inside her warm, tight pussy.
“It’s perfection, like you.”
I fucked Emilia so hard my back looked like I’d fought a fucking grizzly bear by the time we were done.
When we collapsed back on bed, she rolled over on top of me and whimpered, “I love you.”
“I know,” I said. Because I did. Because who else would ever put up with my bullshit if they didn’t love me?
“It scares me,” she added.
“Don’t let it. I promise I’ll protect you from anything. Even from myself.”
An hour later, I was already dragging her out to the balcony—hey, it was a hot day outside, almost summer—sitting her naked ass on the dining set and pushing her legs wide with my shoulders. I ran my tongue along her slit teasingly, hardening in my briefs again. I slid my hand between her legs and pinched her clit. It was good to feel her flesh against mine again. And at least now I knew that the vacation I had booked in the Hamptons would be a fuck-fest
“People can see us,” she told me, and not for the first time. She was right, of course. We were on the twentieth floor, but so was pretty much the rest of Manhattan.
“Fuck ’em,” I said, eating her out, filling her with my tongue and fingers at the same time.
She cried my name, and I loved it on her lips so much, I nearly burst. Her mouth hung open for the rest of the time as I plunged into her with my tongue. After she came once more, I stood up and lowered her body so she was flat against the table and fucked her raw, the dining set dancing under her ass, until we both found our releases.
When we ate our cold dinner at the dining table inside, I decided I was going to use my new trait of being honest and just give it to her straight.
“I sold ten percent of my shares in Fiscal Heights Holdings to Dean in exchange for six months in New York.”
Silverware clattered on the table and silence filled the air.
I continued. “That was back in January. I have three more weeks before I need to pack a bag and move back to Los Angeles. I’m not going to ask you for shit, because I know you have your life here and that you love your job, but…I’m just letting you know.”
Her eyes shot up, and she choked on her dim sum. They glittered with different emotions, which I was still too much of a dick to recognize. But I was fairly sure she wasn’t pissed off at me this time.
“Three weeks?” she repeated.
I nodded, solemn. “I can try and sell ten percent more of my shares, but there’s no way Trent and Jaime will let that happen. It’ll put their asses at risk, too.”
She drank more wine, probably to buy herself some time. After polishing the whole glass, she winced. “Thanks for telling me.”
I didn’t know what I was expecting. Actually, I did. I expected her to say that her job could go fuck itself, she was moving with me.
But then, why would she give up on her career just so I could chase mine?
“Sure. Are you gonna eat that last dim sum?” I pointed my chopsticks to her plate. She shook her head, suddenly looking sad. I picked it up and stuck it in my mouth, chewing so I wouldn’t have to talk anymore. “Good stuff.”
CHAPTER 28
EMILIA
“AND AGAIN, I’M SO SORRY,” I parroted my own words for the twelve hundredth time, twisting my fingers together as I stood like a punished kid in Brent’s office. It was all white, other than the paintings hung on each wall of the room. They were beautiful.
One of a strawberry field.
One of naked men wearing fancy dress shoes.
One of a gun crying.
And one of a cherry blossom tree.
He stared at my painting and sighed, pushing his reading glasses up his nose.
“I’m not sure what to tell you, Millie, other than the obvious. You’re making a huge mistake.”
I would have argued, but there was no point. He was probably right. How many girls would have left everything they knew and loved—their city, their dream job, their sister, for a guy who kicked them out when they were eighteen? Not many. Yet I was that girl.
I was everything illogical and reckless, everything stupid and irrational…because I was his.
So I continued standing there, tapping my foot nervously. Brent got up from his seat, pushing from his white desk, and strode over to me. It was different than standing in front of Vicious when he was my boss.
Because now I wasn’t scared, just sad. Sacrifices were like vices. You made them, gave up something good, in order to get something better.
“What will Rosie do?” he asked. He didn’t know my sister all that much, but he’d met her a couple of times and knew our story. I shrugged. That was the most painful part. The part that made me feel like a traitor.
“She met a guy. Hal. She’s staying here in New York. Wants to enroll back in nursing school, anyway.”
Brent gave me a look—that look that said, See? You should stay here too—but I dismissed it by fixing my eyes on the naked-men painting.
“I’m so sorry I disappointed you,” I said. Which was true.
“You didn’t.” Brent leaned into my face, sighing. “I’m just hoping you’re not going to disappoint you.”