January Whitehall
The air outside is clean and fresh with a hint of damp. It seems extra pure after the dark stories Bobby told me in the car. I watch as he lifts a baseball bat, a picnic rug, and a huge red cooler out of the back of the truck.
“Can I carry anything?” I ask.
“Sure.”
He tosses me a leather glove. It looks brand new and when I put it on my left hand it fits perfectly.
Bobby smiles. “Come on, beautiful. Let’s play.”
The stadium’s metal gate is unlocked, though there’s no one around. Has he rented out the whole field? Inside, Bobby puts the cooler down and leads me onto the diamond. “Have you ever played before?”
“I’ve watched ‘A League of Her Own’?”
“Close enough.” He picks up the bat and a huge white grapefruit of a ball. “Head to the home base and I’ll show you how to swing.”
I’m nervous as Bobby strips off my leather glove and arranges me over the plate with the bat. “Shouldn’t I wear a helmet?”
“It’s okay, I’ll pitch slow.”
Bobby’s a good teacher. He got me to understand math, kind of, and baseball’s even easier. I miss the first two times he throws the ball but on the third, I hit it with a satisfying ‘thwack!’
Bobby jogs after it and I notice how nice his butt looks in his jeans.
“You’ve got strong arms,” he tells me. “Let’s try it again but this time turn your hips more when you swing.”
He pitches to me again and again and soon I’m hitting every ball and they’re going all over the place. “I feel like I should be aiming more,” I tell him, breathing hard. “But it’s so fun!”
“Good.” Bobby tosses the ball in the air. He looks relaxed, sweat shining on his freckled brow. This is where he should have been. Playing baseball. Maybe professionally, maybe just for fun with his friends. If he’d gone to UCLA like he was supposed to, he’d now live in California, in a house with huge sunshiny windows and he’d hike and surf and never be interested in a girl like me.
My mind flashes back to Bobby’s proposal in the cage. He might say that he wants to share me with his brothers. But once upon a time, all he wanted was to marry me. Does he not see me as worthy of him the same way anymore?
“What’s on your mind?” Bobby asks.
I press the end of the baseball bat into the ground. “I don’t know, I guess I was just thinking about how different things could have been if Mr. Parker wasn’t around.”
Bobby frowns. “Different in what way?”
“Well, you probably wouldn’t be in something like Velvet House. You’d probably be working for Google.”
He gives me a small smile. “You don’t need to feel sorry for me, JJ.”
“But if you’d never lost your Dad, you wouldn’t have stayed in New York, right?”
“Maybe not, but I take responsibility for staying.”
“But—”
“There aren’t any ‘buts.’ I wanted in on the deal with Orchard. I agreed we shouldn’t sell to Parker. And after my father died, I went to Italy with Eli and Doc and Adri and I worked for Eli’s Nonno. I did that willingly.”
I stare at him. “You guys went to Italy?”
“Naples. Right after Parker did what he did. It was the safest place we could think to go.” Bobby has a faraway look on his face. I imagine the four of them landing in Italy as teenagers. Handsome and totally out of their depth.
“Were you safe in Naples?” I ask.
“Yeah. Eli’s Nonno had ties to the Camorra. Even Parker wasn’t stupid enough to fuck with them.”
I don’t know what the Camorra is, but I can guess. “Could you speak Italian?”
“Not a word. That was the first thing we did. Or I did, anyway. Learn the language.”
“So you speak Italian, too?”
“Sì, faccio una ragazza sexy.” Yes I do, sexy girl.
I flush and for a second Bobby holds my gaze. Then he ducks his head, embarrassed by his own sleazy comment. I remember the night in Eli’s bed, how it felt to have Bobby behind me, spanking my ass as his cock slid between my thighs, rubbing me to orgasm. I stare at the grass. Bobby has so many sides to him. He’s wholesome and filthy; stern and silly. A million different things. I like all of them.
“What were the others doing while you were learning Italian?”
Bobby looks up, smile gone. “Drinking. Plotting.”
I almost ask what, but the answer is obvious. Revenge. The revenge that led to me being kidnapped. The revenge they will have to give up to keep me safe.
“Is everyone really mad about the contract?”
“I really don’t want to talk about this, JJ.”
“I know, but it feels better out here than in the car. Like nothing can really hurt us.”
“I guess.”
I study his handsome, clean-cut face. “You don’t seem like the others. You don’t want to be like this… dangerous, criminal guy, right?”
Bobby throws the baseball into his glove then pulls it out and does it again. “There’s a part of me that still wants you to see me the way you used to. As someone normal. But when you were abducted by Parker, there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have done to bring you back. It’s only because of the Baskerville twins that I didn’t kill every man that stood between me and you.”
He says it lightly, as though he might be joking, but his chocolate brown eyes are steady. A shiver goes down my spine. He’s so much stronger than I thought when he taught me math, but scarier too.
“So that’s the truth. Every man has a dark side. Maybe if I’d gone to UCLA, I wouldn’t have met mine, or lived in it as long as I have. But I’m not sorry. I’ve hurt men, I’ve ruined lives and I’ve killed, but I’ve also built a billion-dollar company with men I love, men who are closer to me than any blood brothers could be.”
“Even Doc?”
Bobby doesn’t smile. “Even Doc. It’s rare to meet people who are willing to sacrifice everything they have to keep a person safe, JJ. But I’ve found three. Until you, I’ve had few regrets.”
The morning seems to grow colder, the sky dimming though there are no clouds. I think about the bullet Bobby put in Kurt’s brain the night Velvet House abducted me. “Do you regret killing Kurt?”
“I regret scaring you. I regret you seeing him die, but he was a selfish incompetent asshole.”
“He wasn’t!”
Bobby gives me a stern look. “He let you get abducted then sold you out to save his own skin.”
“I don’t blame him for that.”
“I do,” Bobby’s voice is hard. “I would die before I let something like that happen to you. And I would kill before I let something like that happen to you. Kurt did neither, and I’m glad he’s gone.”
My heart twists. It feels wrong to find such a terrifying promise romantic, but I do.
“January?” Bobby’s voice is rougher than usual. “Have I scared you?”
“No. I guess I just want to believe you’re still a good guy.”
He takes a step toward me. “I can’t tell you whether I’m a good guy. But I wish I hadn’t betrayed your trust. If I could go back and change anything, it would be that.”
I can smell his clean cologne scent, the same one that made me swoon when we were together in the library. I touch my lips, they’re swollen and sensitive. I want to kiss him, but how am I supposed to act on it? Bobby’s so grown up and handsome and I don’t have wine pulsing through my blood the way I did last night with Eli…
“JJ,” Bobby says in his new rough voice. “I know you said no sex, but can I kiss you?”
The bat slips through my fingers, falling with a dull thunk on the grass.
“Do you want that?” he asks. “Because if you don’t, we can just eat and—”
“I want you to kiss me. I want that so badly.”
Bobby tosses away his ball and glove and strides toward me. He puts his hands to my face and kisses me, soft and sweet. His stubble brushes my jaw, a sharp contrast to the tenderness of his lips. My breath hitches as his tongue sweeps my mouth and I press myself against him. He’s already rock-hard beneath his jeans.
“Bobby…” He understands my plea, laying me down so my back is in the grass. He braces his big body over mine. “No one’s around. It’s just you and me.”
That’s all the encouragement I need to wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him. We grind together on the grass. I rub against him shamelessly, torturing my body with his.
“January,” he pants. “You’re gonna make me take this too far.”
My muscles vibrate in response. I don’t care. I rub harder against him, the chafe of his jeans making me ache. When his hands slide under my T-shirt, I gasp. His fingers are blunt and callused, and I imagine them buried inside me, stroking my pussy the way his erection is stroking between my thighs. “Bobby? Can you…?”
His mouth finds my ear. “You want me to get you there, JJ?”
“Yes. Yes, please.”
He unbuttons my jeans. “You want me to do it with my fingers?”
“Yes!”
He slides his hand down the front of my panties and the restriction of the cotton and my jeans makes it a hundred times hotter. His rough fingerpads brush my pussy, hovering just above my clit. I press my head back against the grass. “Bobby…?”
“That’s it. Say my name.” His fingers move downward, stroking against my soaking entrance. “Jesus, January.”
I whimper, half-proud and half-embarrassed at how wet I am. “Sorry. Is it… too much?”
He drags my wetness upward, spreading it across my clit in tight circles. “It’s taking everything I have not to tear off your jeans, and bury myself inside you.”
Liquid fire surges through me. “Oh.”
“Yeah. ‘Oh.’” He dips his rough fingertips inside me. “I want—I need—to be a good guy and respect your boundaries, JJ. So please just lie still and let me make you come like the decent man I pretend to be.”
The desperation in his voice practically pins me to the grass. I lie still as he curls his fingers inside me, sliding in and out with soft, swishing noises. It feels so good I could scream. Being with a man is strange. Almost disgusting in some ways, but overwhelmingly perfect in others. A cool breeze ruffles my hair and all at once I’m terrified someone might see me riding Bobby’s hand on a baseball diamond. Yet, the thought of him stopping hurts. If someone wandered in, there’s every chance I’d grab Bobby’s wrist and beg him to let me finish. I might still be a virgin on paper, but my innocence has burned up in the heat of the four men pursuing me.
“God, you’re tight,” Bobby mutters. “I can hardly pull my fingers out of you, you’re so tight.”
I whimper as my body hurtles toward orgasm. When I do this to myself, it takes so long that my hand hurts. But with Bobby, I’m already there. There’s so much power in sex. In being taught what someone else can do to your body. Maybe that’s why men like Mr. Parker want virgins, so they have nothing to compare them to.
I stare at Bobby, at his boyish face and wide muscular shoulders, and something sparks in me. A naughty instinct I don’t want to fight. “Did you ever get turned on when you tutored me?”
A frustrated huff of laughter. “Did I? It almost fucking killed me.”
“Did you hate me?”
“Never.” He pumps faster, fingers pulsing deep within me. “I knew you weren’t cockteasing. You just have no idea how gorgeous you were, did you?”
My climax swells, gold tendrils curling around me like vines. “I… I don’t know.”
“You are. You’re fucking sexy. I used to imagine you sitting in my lap while I taught you fractions.” His teeth scrape my neck and the sensation shimmers down my body. “I wanted to slide my hand under your little school skirt and stroke your pussy. Keep my other hand over your mouth so the librarians wouldn’t hear it when you came. I was infatuated with you.”
I squirm against the grass, delighted and seconds from orgasm. “I thought it was just me. I thought you were too grown up for me.”
“And I thought you were the most delicious thing in the whole world.” Bobby slides his free hand over my mouth now, as though we’re back there, in the library. “It killed me that you were engaged to another man, let alone someone so fucking vile. It killed me, January. I just wanted to wrap you up and take you somewhere safe. But you’re mine now.”
His fingers plunge, curving into some rough place inside me that I didn’t know existed. “Oh my God!”
Bobby’s mouth latches onto mine, absorbing my cries. The pressure between my legs rolls, contracting at my clit like a point of light.
“Focus,” he says as though this is a trigonometry equation. “Think about how deep I am in your virgin pussy.”
I contract. He is deep. Deeper than any man has been inside me so far. And his fingers feel good. Too good. My thighs twitch, clamping and unclamping. I’m enclosed in my jeans, and I still have shoes on, but I’m so, so exposed. I look into Bobby’s brown eyes and something in his strained, brutal expression sends me to the edge. My toes curl, my eyes screw shut, and my mind is blank except for one thought—my math tutor is inside me.
And then.
A murderer is making me come again.
And because I’m all wrong inside, that’s the thought that sends me over. I come hard, bucking so forcefully against Bobby that the waistband of my jeans cuts into my spine.
“Fuck,” Bobby pants, his hand sliding from my mouth. “Fucking hell.”
“I know, I know…”
“You don’t know.” He withdraws from my body and pulls his hand from my jeans. “It’s been ages. Fucking months of torture. I used to have to sit there, smelling your perfume, watching you chew your lip while we talked about math. I got hard under that table ten times an hour. Afterward I used to…” His face goes tomato red and I know exactly what he means. “…just so I could fucking think.”
It shouldn’t be sexy, picturing Bobby in the stalls at Trinity Grammar, stroking himself. But it is. I imagine him pressed against the door, his thick cock in his hand, rubbing and pulling until he…
“Show me? Bobby, please show me?”
“Show you what?”
“What you did after our tutoring sessions. I want to see.”
Swearing, Bobby sits back on his knees and unbuckles his belt. He flicks open his jeans, pulling his flushed erection into his hand.
I stare greedily at his cock. The thick shaft, the round purplish head, the patch of neat dark hair at the base.
“Sometimes I’d beat off before and after I saw you,” he mutters, fisting himself. “That’s what you reduced me to. Jacking off in the bathroom like I was fifteen.”
He gives his cock a slow stroke and heat flushes from my nipples down the line of my stomach and into my clit. A place Bobby licked the night I had Orchard, bringing me to a grinding orgasm while Doc and I kissed…
“Look at me,” he commands, and I obey, relieved to have orders. He moves his hand along his shaft and I watch, my insides fluttering. How would that huge thing feel inside me? Would it hurt, or would I go so slippery he slid into me like a knife through butter?
I’ve wondered it before, but now it’s a tangible ache. I want Bobby to press inside me and tear my virginity apart. To complete my transformation from the sheltered girl I was into something shiny-new.
“Watch,” Bobby says, his breathing ragged. “Watch me come, January. Imagine me doing it a hundred times while I pictured fucking you against every shelf in that goddamn library.”
A mewling cry splits the air. It’s me. I’m kneeling on all fours on the grass, staring at Bobby and moaning. And I know I could come closer, take him in my mouth…
“Stay,” he warns, reading my mind like always. He lifts his T-shirt and his tight abdomen flexes. But I can’t take it anymore. I bend and suck the head of his cock into my mouth.
“January! Fuck, January…”
Bobby’s hand comes into my hair, but his tug is half-hearted. I look up as I draw him deep, trying to seem as innocent and eager as possible.
“Jesus, look at you taking that dick.” He groans. “I’m gonna finish in your mouth, JJ. I’ve got no choice.”
Good, I think as he surges into me. He isn’t as big as Eli or Doc but he’s so much wider. I let him push to the back of my throat and try not to choke.
“You’re such a good girl,” he chants. “Suck it deep. Suck it nice and… fuck!”
He comes in my mouth. I swallow then keep sucking, cleaning his shaft, making him all smooth and wet…
“No, baby, you have to stop!”
I continue, smiling wickedly until Bobby gently pushes my forehead away. “Fuck me, you’re a bad girl…”
I sit back, wiping my mouth. “Was that okay?”
“Christ, yes.” He gives me a dazzling smile as he rezips his jeans. “You almost sucked the life out of me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You little liar. C’mere.” He wraps his arm around me and tumbles us both onto the grass. I put my head on his chest and listen to the rapid thump of his heart. I’m alive. Bobby’s alive and it’s a lovely day.
We lie side by side for a while looking up at the sky, then I feel Bobby shift. My skin prickles and I somehow know he’s going to say something scary.
“January, I’m in love with you.”
I open my mouth to say… I don’t know what, but Bobby presses a finger to my lips. “I don’t need you to say it back. I don’t want you to feel any pressure, I just need you to know I worship the ground you walk on and I want to be in your life, any way you’ll have me. Is that okay?”
I feel like reality is slipping away from me, pulling me up into the clouds. I nod.
“Great,” he says with relief. “Let’s eat.”
Bobby retrieves the picnic rug, unfurling it in the middle of the baseball diamond before unpacking the cooler. He’s brought a huge amount of food—crusty bread rolls with tomato and bocconcini, cold egg and chive frittata, potato salad, pesto arancini, and a thick slab of chocolate cake. Bobby drinks beer but he brought me a bottle of pink lemonade. I like that he got me sugary soda. I like that he knows me so well.
“This is all vegetarian,” I say, opening a tub of roast pumpkin and rocket salad.
Bobby winces. “I… Yeah”
“Are you a vegetarian?”
“Sometimes. Most of the time, really.” He gives me a mortified look. “Please don’t make a thing of it with the guys?”
“Of course not.” My mind races with things I can feed him. “I’ll cook vegetarian for you from now on.”
“No, you don’t have to. I know it’s annoying.”
“It isn’t! There are so many Italian dishes that are vegetarian. Pasta e lenticchie, polenta with mushroom ragu and puttanesca without the anchovies—”
Bobby practically launches himself across the picnic blanket and kisses me until my lips hurt.
“Wow,” I say when he pulls away. “You haven’t even had my Parmigiana di Melanzane.”
Bobby shakes his head. “I never even dreamed a girl like you existed.”
I’m so flattered I can’t speak.
As we eat, I find myself imagining a future with Bobby. Unlike the future I dreamed up when he was my tutor, this one is realistic. He would still do a dangerous criminal job and there would still be nights when I worried about him, but we’d also have romantic picnics and long talks and amazing sex. I could work as a barista and Bobby would come visit and compliment my coffee and be nice to my co-workers.
The problem, I think, as I try to eat the sticky cake without spilling it down my front, is that I can’t separate Bobby from the other guys. I can’t imagine living with him and not having Doc bursting in, teasing both of us and trying to smoke indoors. I can’t imagine making love to Bobby without Eli showing up and directing us like his perverted puppets. And I would always be wondering where Adriano was and if he still thought about me dancing. If he ever watched us through our bedroom windows…
There’s an easy solution—just be with all of them, and yet that feels utterly impossible and—no matter what Eli says—slutty.
I swallow my mouthful of cake. “Are you going to tell the other guys about what we did?”
Bobby shifts awkwardly.
“Oh my God, you are! You’re all so perverted!”
“It’s not like that. We’re not trying to be assholes. We just have this group chat that’s been going since we were teenagers and we… talk about things.” Bobby’s cheeks flame. “Sorry, it’s just how things have been for a really long time.”
“I guess I understand, I can see how close you all are. It’s just a little uncomfortable to be a part of it the way I am.”
Bobby takes my hand. “You’re special to all of us. No one wants you to feel uncomfortable.”
Looking at him, it’s easy to believe it, but I’ve also met Domenico Valente and Eli Morelli. Neither of them has any problem with me feeling uncomfortable. They seem to like it.
After the picnic is done, Bobby and I clean up and walk back to the truck. My muscles are sore from the exercise and the orgasm, and my mind is sore from all the new information.
“I have a present for you,” Bobby says when we’re seated in the truck.
“Another present?”
He opens the driver’s side compartment and hands me a smooth rectangular box. It’s a new iPhone. I make a squeaky mouse sound. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. You can watch videos and play games but don’t get on social media or call your friends for a little while. You have to wait until the contract’s drawn up and signed.”
I pull open the box and stare at the black screen in awe. “What will happen once the contract’s signed? Where will I tell everyone I’ve been?”
“Our current plan is for you to say you were abducted by a gang who ransomed you back to your stepmother.”
I let out a breath. “I don’t know if my uncles will believe my stepmom had the money to pay a ransom.”
Or that she would give it up for me, even if she did.
“That doesn’t matter. Parker will be forced to back you up, which will give you credibility. Then he’ll tell everyone he ended your engagement so you could focus on school.”
I trace my finger across my new phone. It’s such a simple, pretty lie. I want to believe it will work, but it feels too easy, like a Halloween prank or something.
“Hey,” Bobby says, sliding his hand over mine. “You can trust us, JJ. We’ll look after you.”
I force a smile. I do feel like I can trust Bobby, but as my stepmom and Mr. Parker showed, I’ve never been good at trusting the right people. All I can do is put one foot in front of the other and have faith everything will work out okay.
I slide my new phone into my Chanel bag and try to enjoy the ride home. When we arrive at Velvet House, Bobby walks me to my room.
“Take a nap,” he suggests. “It’s been a big day.”
“What about you?”
“I’m off to work.” He kisses my cheek. “I’ll be thinking of you, baby.”
Feeling a bit lost, I push open the door to my bedroom, examining my new phone as I go. The camera looks really good. I now have a designer purse and a new phone. What the hell is Doc going to give me for our date?
I don’t have to wait to find out.
There’s a strange collection of items on my bed. A pink wand I’m sure is a vibrator, a bottle of French perfume, a box of truffles, and a bundle of what looks like cash. I pick it up, sure it’s fake and Doc has somehow managed to print money with his face on it or something. Instead, Benjamin Franklin’s eyes stare back at me. It’s real. I drop the money like it’s a hairy spider and spot the torn piece of yellow note paper lying on my bed.
Dear Tits,
Sorry if these gifts suck. I don’t know what girls like. You make me feel like my head is on fire. See you tomorrow.
Doc. Nico. Whoever.
Ps. I’m going to destroy your pussy.