I step out of the shower just as my phone starts to ring the next evening. I wrap a towel around myself, check the display. It’s Rafa.
Taking a deep breath in, I sit on the edge of the tub to answer.
“It’s done,” Rafa says.
“He’s moved?”
“Yes. With the nurse you wanted.”
“Where are they?”
“I’m just texting you their location. You can call her to confirm.”
“I will,” I say. I’d feel better if Rafa had given me the money to do it myself, but he wouldn’t do that. Said he’d take care of the transfer. That I had to trust him. I just hope I’m not wrong about this because if I am, Gabe will be the one to pay.
“If you need anything else—”
“I’m trusting you. I probably shouldn’t.”
I hear him sigh. “I understand that you don’t trust me. But hearing your father and you talk, fuck, Gabriela, I shouldn’t have taken you to him. I shouldn’t—”
“He told me the truth, at least.”
“Only to hurt you.”
“No. Well, that too, probably. But that’s not all. He’s losing to Stefan and he’ll do whatever he needs to do, hurt whomever he needs to hurt, to change that.”
“Fathers are…difficult.”
“Understatement.”
“Your brother’s safe at least.”
“You won’t tell Stefan where he is?”
“No.”
“You won’t tell anyone else?”
“No. I swear it.”
“Why are you helping me, Rafa?”
“I don’t know. This whole thing is a fucking shit show. It’s not what I wanted. Not how I wanted it.”
“What do you mean?”
Silence. “It’s complicated.”
“The birds died,” I say out of the blue.
“What?”
“The birds in the cage. They were both dead when I came into my room yesterday.”
“Both?”
I nod even though I know he can’t see me.
“I’m sorry.”
“Do you think Stefan…I mean, I don’t understand anymore. I can’t wrap my head around any of this.”
“I don’t think Stefan did anything to your birds, Gabriela.”
I know it’s stupid to even think it. I mean, why would he? How would he?
“What are you going to do now?” Rafa asks, interrupting my thoughts.
“What can I do? I have no money. I’m in Sicily in a heavily guarded house and I’m married to the man who holds the keys. And if that’s not enough, I’m trusting the man who is betraying his best friend.”
“That friend is your jailor,” Rafa says.
But it doesn’t feel right. I can’t just forget the tender moments. The good things Stefan has done. The way he’s cared for me.
“You just promise me, Rafa, please, that you’ll keep Gabe safe.”
“You have my word.”
I hear the bedroom door open and I startle.
“Gabriela?” it’s Stefan.
“Just a minute,” I call out. “I have to go,” I whisper to Rafa.
“Let me know if you need anything else.”
I disconnect the call, take a moment to calm myself before opening the door.
Stefan is at the balcony doors. “Why did you close these?” he asks. They stand open now.
“No reason.”
He looks me over and I tuck the towel closer. “Have a drink with me before dinner.”
“Dinner already?” I ask, simultaneously looking at the clock to find it’s almost eight. I’m trying to avoid the drink invitation because I’m having a hard time looking at him.
He raises his eyebrows.
“I’m not actually hungry,” I say.
“A drink first. That’ll get your appetite going.”
“Why?”
“Why will it get your appetite going?”
“Why do we need to have a drink.”
“Because we need to talk.”
“About what?”
“Christ.” He walks back to the still open bedroom door and pushes it closed. “I’m trying to be civilized,” he says, stalking toward me.
“A civilized mobster.”
His face hardens.
“I don’t want to have a drink with you.”
“That’s too bad.”
I step backward, turning to go into the closet to put on a dress.
“No,” he says, catching my arm.
“Let me go. I’ll get dressed.”
“No.”
“Fine. Christ. You want a drink? I’ll have a drink.”
“What happened, Gabriela?” he asks.
“Nothing. Let me go. I’ll get dressed.”
“No,” he says, tugging me toward him, looking down at where I’m clutching the towel. “Drop it.”
“Why?”
“You told me you wanted to trust me. Trust me.”
I don’t move. So much has happened since I said that. Too much.
“Or do your wants change with the wind? I don’t believe that. I think you’re too complicated for that.”
“Leave me alone, Stefan.”
“No, Gabriela.”
“What do you want from me?”
He comes closer still. Taking my face in his hands, he makes me look at him. “I want all of you.”
I’m taken aback, trying to make sense of his words. I don’t move when he undoes the towel and it drops to the floor. I watch him, try to understand the scope of emotion in his hazel eyes.
He walks backward to the bed, taking me with him. He sits on the edge of it, pulls me to stand between his legs.
From here I can already see the outline of his erection and my body responds.
“You know what the problem is?”
“There’s no problem. I—”
“Problem is you don’t yet know that you’re mine,” he pauses, letting me take in his words. His meaning. “You need to be fucked before we can talk. You need to know it. Feel it. It’s the only way you’ll hear me.”
He traps me with his thighs as he releases my wrists to pull off his T-shirt and undo his belt. His jeans. He doesn’t take himself out yet though. Just sits there like that and I look at him, at all that muscle and power and man.
And I want him.
He softens his hold on me, starts to run the tips of his fingers over the insides of my arms, leaving goosebumps in his wake. His touch is so gentle, so light and soft, so opposite who he is and all the while, he watches me and I watch him, and he’s right. Maybe I’m stupid but he’s right. I do want to trust him. And more than that. I want him, too. I want all of him.
“There’s something wrong with me,” I say.
“There’s nothing wrong with you. You’ve just been mistreated. But I see you, Gabriela. I see you. And I won’t hurt you.”
I tug to free myself. This is too much. He’s too much.
He pulls me down onto his lap, one hand cupping the back of my head and bringing me to him to kiss me.
I don’t kiss him back, twisting to free myself instead, but he easily keeps hold of me. I’m straddling him, my legs wide. He slides one hand between them, and my body prepares to betray me.
“I can’t do this.” I have to protect myself. I can’t give myself to him. Hasn’t he proven that?
He tugs my head backward, his fingers working, his mouth on my throat, on my mouth. It’s like my body goes into auto-pilot when he touches me. Like I have no control over it. Like he owns it.
Isn’t that what he’s saying though? That he owns me?
“Stefan.”
He pulls back, and his eyes are dark when I look at them and I forget what I want to say. What I was trying to say.
It’s like he knows it and he grins. A moment later we’re on our knees and he’s still holding me, one hand in my hair, the other cupping my sex.
“Take me out,” he says.
I lick my lips, my gaze dropping to the bulge in his pants. My hands move without my brain’s permission and I take him out, cupping his cock like it’s the Holy Grail. I feel the smooth length of it, smear pre-cum in my palm as I lick my lips again and return my gaze to his.
He watches me and a moment later, I feel pressure on the back of my head as he guides me down to him and I take the steel rod of his cock in my mouth and I’m greedy when it comes to this.
He moans as he moves me along his length and when he pulls me off, there’s a pop when the suction is broken. His eyes are black when he brings my face to his and kisses me before turning me so I’m facing away from him. He pulls me into him, and my back is against his front. One of his hands is between my legs and the other is kneading a nipple while he trails kisses along my neck, my throat.
He pushes me forward, down on my belly and his hands move to my hips. He lifts them, tilts my hips upward and I look back to look at him look at me as he spreads me open. Eyes on mine, he slides all the way inside me, stretching me, seating himself fully.
I’m unprepared. I make a sound of protest, his cock too big, my passage too tight. But when I try to move, he holds me down.
“Are you scared?” he asks, cock still buried inside me.
I shake my head.
“Because you trust me not to hurt you.”
Trust.
Is it true what he says? Do I trust him? On some level, I do. Or I want to. But do I have any choice?
What I feel though, the fact that I’m not scared he’ll hurt me, that’s not a choice. It’s what I know.
But then he draws out slowly and slides his cock up to my other hole.
“Stefan, no. You’re too big. I can’t—”
“Shh. Trust me. I told you I won’t hurt you.”
“I—”
“You’re going to give me this. And you’re going to know that you’re mine. And I don’t hurt what’s mine.”
One hand slides around to my clit and as he closes his fingers around it he pushes against the tight ring. I feel him, his big cock lubricated with my juices. It’s slippery and as he plays with my clit, I open to him and even though it hurts, I want this. I want him to have me like this.
He moves slowly, carefully, all the while playing with me, talking to me and feeling him like this, inside me there. It’s different, intense. Like all the sensations are multiplied by a thousand. There’s pain and pleasure and they take turns, one giving way to the other, again and again and I come more than once before he’s fully inside me and all I can do is feel. Like I become sensation and it’s just him and me and us like this. Close. So close.
Stefan inside me.
Stefan closer than ever inside me and maybe it’s that I want to forget. Maybe it’s my escape, however momentary, but I give myself over to it. My body relaxes and I just feel and trust and when he’s fully in me, I hear him, hear his breathing shorten, feel him thicken even more and he’s saying my name too, telling me I’m beautiful. Telling me I’m his.
And when he begins to fuck me, I lose all conscious thought.
I am a ball of nerves. Of pleasure. Of us.
I don’t know where one orgasm ends and the other begins. I don’t know where he ends, and I begin.
And when he stills inside me and I feel him filling me up, I squeeze around him, and I want more of him. All of him. Every part of him.
It’s all I can think as I go limp and my vision goes dark. And his name on my lips is all I hear.
I don’t feel him slide out of me.
I don’t feel him lift me up and carry me to the bed.
When I open my eyes, it’s like I’m floating and he’s there and smiling and he cleans me so gently, so tenderly before tucking me into bed.
And I just lie there, spent.
When he’s dressed, he sits on the edge of the bed and smiles down at me, brushes hair gently back from my face.
“Now you’re mine. Every part of you.”
How does he look the way he does? Didn’t what we just did cost him as much as it did me? He seems the opposite of me. Revitalized.
He leans down to kiss my mouth.
“Get dressed when you’re ready. Come downstairs. We’ll have that drink before dinner.”
I turn my head to watch him walk to the door.
He stops there, looks back at me and I must be a sight because he just grins and walks out the door.