| |
––––––––
“HERE WE GO,” NIKITA told me, an arm draped around my shoulders as he steered me into the safehouse. I wanted to shrug him off, but I was far too exhausted to think about putting up a fight right now. I just wanted him gone, and I didn’t know what it was going to take to convince him that I didn’t need him here with me.
“You’ll be safe here,” he assured me, as though I needed it. The only reason that I was with him was because I knew he would be able to look after me, and honestly, I was starting to wonder if it was actually worth it. The way he had been talking to me, looking at me all this time, I wanted to claw off my skin – it made me sick to see him acting that way, as though he had any business treating me like I was his.
“Thank you,” I muttered. I still had to be pleasant to him. I had to make sure I kept him placated, even if that meant swallowing down some of the anger that was coursing through my system in that moment. I hated having to give him any kindness, especially with the way he had been treating me, but it was better to keep him on our side for now and deal with the consequences later.
We had touched down wherever we were about an hour ago, and a car had been waiting for us as soon as we stepped off the aircraft; Nikita had assured me that we would be going to see my father, and honestly, I was so looking forward to laying eyes on him again. I needed to know he was okay. He was the reason I had done this in the first place, and there was no way I was going to be able to follow through if something had happened to him.
The safehouse that we had been brought to wasn’t much to look at from the outside, but inside, it was all right – not much in the way of electronics, apart from a stove and a few lights, but I supposed that was their way of making sure nobody found out that we were here. Fine. If that’s what it took, I would go along with it for now. I just wanted to see my father.
“Your dad is in the first room on the left, up the stairs,” Nikita told me, as though aware that there was only one thing on my mind right now. I hurried up the stairs towards him, my heart beating hard in my chest – I just needed to be sure that he was okay. I needed to see him again, and tell him I had made the call I needed to in order to ensure that we were both safe here.
Sure enough, behind the door that Nikita had pointed me towards, there he was. He was asleep, and I didn’t want to wake him, but I slipped into the darkened room and knelt down beside his bed.
“Hey, Dad,” I murmured softly. “I – I’m here.”
He didn’t stir. He was out for the count – that had to be a good thing, right? He was probably exhausted after everything that had happened, and I was pleased to see that he seemed to be getting some rest.
“I’m here,” I continued. “I – I’m not going anywhere. If you need me...”
I trailed off. I felt ridiculous, talking to him like this, but I needed to speak with someone right now – someone who I could trust. With Andreas so far from me, I didn’t have any other choice but to rely on my father. I hoped he would wake up soon, so I could talk to him, tell him how glad I was that he was here with me. That we were safe, and he had nothing left to worry about anymore, not if I could help it.
I squeezed his hand lightly, and he let out a small grunt and shuffled in his spot. Okay, so he was still alive, that was something – that was why I had come here in the first place. I straightened up again, and headed for the door, where I found Nikita waiting for me. He had been trailing me like a dog since he had gotten me on that plane, and I didn’t exactly like what he was doing. What did he want from me? I got the horrible feeling that I knew all too well.
“It’s good to see you with him again,” he remarked, smiling at me. His smiles never seemed to reach his eyes, and I had no idea if he was aware of that. Had he ever really felt joy in his life? Ever really felt something close to happiness? I wanted to ask him, but that would have extended our conversation further than it needed to go, and I didn’t want that.
“Yes, it is,” I replied, keeping my voice as neutral as possible. “Where am I staying?”
“My room, of course,” Nikita replied – and then he laughed. He must have seen how white my face had gone at the suggestion.
“Just kidding,” he assured me. “We have a room for you, down the hall. This way...”
I followed him, my heart still thudding at the thought of having to share a room with him. Was he hoping I would give him a more welcoming response than that? I had no idea. I wanted to get as far away from him as I could, but I was sure he would do whatever he could to pull me back. He had plans for me, whether I liked it or not, and I didn’t even want to think what they might be.
“Here you go,” he told me, pushing open the door. I nodded to him in thanks and stepped into the room, pushing the door shut behind me. It had a bolt on it, thank goodness, and I shoved it over at once. It was slightly rusted and probably wouldn’t hold up to much pressure, but at least it was there.
There was a bathroom attached to my room, and that was about all it had going for it – a small, old-fashioned radio was plugged into the wall, and a pile of clothes sat at the end of the bed. I doubted that any of them would actually fit me, but I didn’t care, I just wanted to change out of the clothes that I had been in all this time.
I stepped into the bathroom, flicked on the slightly dim light, and started to run a bath. The taps spluttered a couple of times before they came to life, but after a moment or two, they began to fill the old clawfoot tub with water. I went to put on the radio, needing some sound in the room, something that would keep me busy.
Some tinny song started to play, one I didn’t even recognize, but I didn’t care. I was just glad to have something in there that wasn’t the sound of my own thoughts, running through my head over and over again. I felt like I was going to lose it, lose my mind if I kept it up any longer, this attempt to run away, but I had to stick it out, at least for now.
Mauro had said there might be some chance for me to see Andreas again in the future. I had to pray that he had been telling me the truth, not just feeding me shit to try and get me to go along with what he was saying. I had no doubt that he was glad that I was out of the city, but I had no idea how Andreas felt about it.
What if what Nikita had said to me had been true? What if there was a long string of girls behind him, girls who’d had their hearts broken by that man? I had no idea if I could find the truth, one way or another, if there really had been women before me, but the way that Andreas had treated me, it was hard to believe that there could have been. He cared for me, really cared for me, in a way that nobody else had before. And I was sure that wasn’t just something he could apply to some other woman now that I was gone.
I undressed, my eyes flicking back and forth to make sure that there weren’t any cameras watching me – the last thing I needed right now was for Nikita to get an eyeful of my naked body, though it wasn’t like I could go anywhere else even if he was. Thankfully, I was pretty sure this place was too low-tech for that.
Slipping beneath the water, I closed my eyes and tried to relax. I had no idea how I was going to pull that off, given that I was staying with a mob boss who I hated, who seemed to have designs on me for something a little more serious than just a safe-house stay, but I needed to try. I had been on for hours now, I needed to rest...
I couldn’t stop thinking about Andreas. How safe I had felt when I was staying with him, how easy it had seemed when we were together. Damn, I wanted to go back in time to his apartment, lying in his arms, dozing and knowing that I had nothing at all to worry about as long as he was close to me. He was the one I knew I didn’t have to worry about, the one I was certain would have protected me against anything the world threw at me – he was the one I wanted to be with right now.
Mauro had told me that Andreas wasn’t going to be able to handle what came next, and that scared the shit out of me. What if something happened to him? What if he got hurt? I wished that I could be with him, show him how much I missed him and how sure I was that I could stand by his side – but it was too much danger, for me, for my father, and I knew I couldn’t risk that kind of shit right now.
I closed my eyes and let my head sink back against the cool tile of the bath behind me. I could almost imagine that I was back in Andreas’ luxurious bathroom. With him sitting there next to me, telling me that everything was going to be okay, that he would have done anything to take care of me. And dammit, I had wanted to believe him, more than anything in the world.
The way he looked at me, it was like he would have done anything in the world to make sure I believed him, and hell, I wished that I could. I could remember how he felt when he pulled me into his arms, when he kissed me, when he brushed his nose against mine and held me so close it was like he never wanted to let me go...
I felt my hand drifting down between my legs, almost of its own accord, and I didn’t stop myself. If there was one way that I could get out of the stress in my head right now, it was with the memory of him, with the memory of the two of us together, and I intended to do just that. I focused on my fingers as they reached my clit, trying to imagine that they belonged to him instead of me, and I could picture him, behind me, hand between my legs as he played with me and kissed my neck.
“Mmm,” I sighed to myself as I began to move my hand against my aching pussy. I wanted to feel the graze of his stubble against my skin, the intensity of his touch as he pulled me against him. His strong body, his breath, the way that he panted into my ear when he was as aroused as I was at that moment.
His fingers between my legs. Caressing my clit, moving in soft, slow circles around my pussy until I couldn’t hold back. I squeezed my thighs tight around his imaginary hand, and felt his fingers move inside of me, pushing into my pussy so that I could feel him connect with me on that deeper level. I could almost picture his face, the way his brow would furrow slightly as he felt me pushing back against him, the way he would pant with want as he felt me grinding against his hand.
I moaned softly, biting my lip to try to hold it in, but I didn’t know how the hell I could. I was thrusting back against my own hand now, picturing Andreas holding me, and it was all that I needed to get close to the edge. My entire body was starting to tense and the pleasure was beginning to build inside of me, so fast and so hard that I couldn’t control it. I didn’t want to – it was like all the tension that had been building this entire time was finally bursting out of me, and I wanted nothing more than to let it go, release the pressure I had been holding in.
I groaned as I felt the orgasm finally take control of me, my body trembling beneath the warm water as I came. The sound I made was nothing compared to the intensity of the orgasm that came coursing through my body as I thought of him, thought of Andreas, thought of the way that he had held me and kissed me and touched me when we had been together...
And when I came back down to Earth, it was with the blinding shock that he wasn’t here anymore.
As I pulled my fingers from between my legs, the reality hit me like a ton of fucking bricks. He wasn’t here. And I didn’t know if he was ever going to be again.
I got myself out of the bath before I could spend much more time thinking about it. I knew that I couldn’t handle the enormity of being away from him, not right now, not after everything else that had happened. Heaven only knew how hard it had been already, and I didn’t want to focus on how much I had lost, how much I had left behind back in New York. How much of my life I would have to live without him, if what Mauro said had been anything close to true.
I washed my hair and climbed out of the bath quickly, pulling on the clothes that had been left out for me – they barely fit, but that didn’t matter; as long as I was covered, I would be okay.
I checked to make sure that the bolt was still pushed across the door. It was, thank goodness – I didn’t have to worry about someone busting in during the night to wake me. For now, all I had to do was get some sleep – and hope to hell that the memories of Andreas would start fading sooner rather than later.
