Not into anal? I can adapt or lube you well or charm you.
Only come by touching your clit? I got a tongue. Sticks it out.
Long make-out sessions in the back of my truck with you wearing my hoodie? I am down, so down…Sign-up today!
I need a number ticker…1…2…3…4…
Why am I doing this?
BECAUSE I’M FUCKING BROKEN.
I’m the doll that got played with too much and was tossed in the toy box with its hands and dick missing for forty years only to be found and discarded. Actually, dolls don’t have dicks. They have lumps. And mine may as well be.
My hands hurt.
My dick is pointless…except for urination…but we can reroute that. Meanwhile, my boy Cruz is getting fucking sixty-nine ways a fucking day.
Just make me a eunuch. Take this penis from me. I don’t want it anymore.
I AM IN LOVE WITH…fill-in-the-blank because I don’t know.
Welcome to being a Master.
I thought about letting Massimiliano do a hit on one of them, but which one? Hmm.
That’s right, kids. I can’t decide if I am more upset that Cruz is fucking my girl, or Nakamura is fucking my boy. Either way…and the only thing I know…I’m not getting fucked by anyone.
I’m alone.
I hate everybody.
And they all hate me.
… Wait…that’s probably inaccurate…considering they keep coming to “check” on me. If Mierne shows up, I am moving to Siberia.
Maybe I haven’t met her…or him yet…
Or maybe I have.
I hate not knowing, and I’m going to drive everyone close to me crazy until I figure this out.
I need a pussy…warm, wet, welcoming…it will purr at me…make me come, Raniero…make me scream your name…
SALVATORE.
She can be such a bitch.
Soft and sensual, she breathlessly whispers…”Deacon…” Yet, I handle her vamp like a madman, and she yells, “Salvatore!”
Maybe I’m not broken.
Maybe everyone else is.
I could have had at least two girls swallow me. I know Rowan would too. Problem is…I don’t want any of them.
I don’t want any of them.
Can she show up soon…please?
Sexy grin.
Rowan and I sit in the restaurant for hours, just talking. I wish I had more of a sexual fire because she is utterly fascinating. Unfortunately, every time I look at her, I see Kaci, but with more spunk. Think Kaci minus cancer.
Rowan is slow torture.
And that alone—kinda feels good.
“Are you having a nice time here?”
I would love this girl hard. I would do things for her. Bad things—bad drugs—one I can never control, unlike Amber, who is fine being my remote-control robot, if she has access and things. Like a new Porsche. Whore.
“I am,” I say. “We’re going to the Lotus Palace next week.”
“Hell,” she replies, enjoying her multicolored dango on a stick. They’re tri-colored mochiko—rice flour—dumplings as opposed to mochi—glutinous rice. I have a peach daifuku—filled mochi—because I am a glutton for punishment and back on a diet of peach everything. “That is going to be miserable for you.”
“Ya,” I reply. “That’s the idea.”
She rubs her lips together. “You always into the self-infliction of gross quantities of pain?”
See? She’s got it.
“If it gets my head out of it…”
“I understand the drug problem now,” she sympathizes. “How long have you been using?”
“Too long.” I wipe my face and gulp my second whiskey. “Coping skills.”
“I understand,” she says. “Sorry if I hit a nerve.”
“It’s not constant.”
“It never is,” she comments from an unusual neutral territory. “We go along, doing everything we can to stay sober, and then one tiny trigger.” She snaps her fingers. “We’ll never stop fighting it.”
“My wife started it,” I confide. “Here have a pill! Come smoke with me!”
“And it turned into a coke habit?” she asks, and I nod. “Loved ones can have a lot of influence. You’re clean now, though.”
This girl has seen some fucking shit.
She knows too much about the inner workings of the addict grid not to.
I take a deep breath. “Clean is a hard word. My veins are toxin-free except for…” I ping the glass with my finger. “But my mind is a dirty fucking mess, and I don’t mean that in a salacious way.”
“Just don’t let it go too far,” she encourages. “Don’t get to the point where you are doing this…” She pulls up her sleeves and shows the multitude of scars on her wrists. “Four times.”
“How did you know I was counting?”
“Because you are an OCD motherfucker.”
I laugh because I cannot escape her assessment. It is nervousness in me when I meet someone I know that can read me like a book—Dom. Trudy. And at one point, Iris.
“Things got muddy for me,” I confess as she reaches across the table to hold my hand. “Shit went bad at the church.”
“People died.”
“I felt guilty,” I whisper, biting my lip hard. “Hell, I still do.”
“But that wasn’t everything,” she argues. “You need to look at the whole picture.”
“You not only had the shooting and the loss of your fiancée but the revelation of new parents. Life-altering mistakes are being made by you giving up on Iris so soon.”
I furrow my brow. “Did you come to Tokyo as an ambassador for Iris?”
“Only if I’m her invisible one because that bitch hits hard,” she admits as I cackle. That’s my girl. That was my girl. Fuck. “You had a pretty hefty case of trauma, gave up on your relationship with Iris too soon, and in light of what is happening between them now, you’re starting to question—did I even want her to begin with?”
God, this girl.
“Don’t forget, I promised The Chairman that I would protect his Lotus.”
She lifts her arm at the elbow with a determined, fierce shrug. Fucking Irish bitch is fighting for me. “… Then why are you here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You ran away because you didn’t want to see that love—if that’s what it is—right in front of your face.”
Stroking my chin, I ask, “You don’t think it’s love?”
“You consented for your submissives to have an affair.”
“She took her collar off,” I inform, attempting to keep my emotions in check. “She is done.”
“It doesn’t mean you are.”
“If I fight for her, I lose Deacon. If I fight for him, I lose Iris. This is a no-win situation. I am out. They are in. Deacon and Iris are a couple.” I hold up two fingers. “Two. Not three. I’ll take the loss and let them be happy. Let me be fucking sad in my bachelorhood.”
“No,” she maintains. “You are a fucking idiot…not a passive idiot.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Yes!” She leans forward. “You need to do something insane.”
“I’d love to, but I’m broke.”
“What would you do if you could?” she asks, playing deranged genie out of Irish whiskey bottle. “Be careful what you ask me for…”
I lift a brow. “Who is bringing this on?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “Consider it a free turn. What is your move?”
“Houston so I can protect Cruz,” I quickly answer.
“Don’t think,” she warns. “You can only save one, Iris, or Deacon?”
“Iris,” I mutter.
“… Really?”
“Ya, you want to know why?”
“Yes,” she says. “I do.”
“Because she is a glass cannon and it’s going to blow-up on her at some point. She doesn’t have the resilience of Cruz.” She smirks as I play her game. “More?”
“You can only stay in love with one,” she says. “Who do you choose?”
“Saint fucking Cruz.”
“… Are you gay?”
“No, I am in fucking love,” I clearly state. “No label needed.”
“I’ll bill you,” she says, wiping her mouth and getting up. Her finger tucks beneath my jaw, and she kisses me. “Make it black or white.”
“There is no way you will get Brethren to release Houston.”
“It was never about what I can do…it’s about what you can do…use your fucking resources, you dumb fucking idiot.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You have Anna, Vinny, Serene, Nico, Dom…use them.”
“Borrow more money?”
“You do what you got to do,” she says. “And as an absolute last resort, you have The Commission, Nero, and Sanctum’s attention. Make your fucking point. Sneak over the parapet and storm the citadel. Take the goddamned reins, Raniero. Make a fucking move. Now.”
Not going gray.
“Fuck! Yes!” I tap the riding crop against her ass. “Suck my dick, baby!”
With a hard thrust, I glance down at her in the black leather, properly displaying her plentiful breasts. I tug the silver chain threaded between her perky nipples. Aftercare will involve suckling them…painstakingly good. She runs her teeth over my shaft. Be a brave bitch, bite me, baby.
I am her last resort.
“I can’t do that,” I said, talking to myself—it’s a sign of intelligence, not mental distress. Okay, maybe both in this case.
Arriving alone at my hotel suite, I pulled my phone from the safe. I noticed the one hundred and eighty-four messages: Deacon, Dom, Nico, Vega, Charlotte, Lula, Tai, Jaid, Madeline, Ella, Serene, Chelle, Anna, Ma, Mom, Lucilla, and Mierne.
Remind me to book that ticket for the icy oblivion.
I stripped off my suit, not bothering to hang it up, and flopped on the sofa. I was going to masturbate. Jerk off the old chain. Warm it up for the ready. Wank. Fap with thoughts of…
I barely got hard.
Maybe I had sexual dysfunction.
My phone lit up again with a video of them—smiling against a snowy backdrop. A labored sigh fell from my lips.
“We miss you, Nero. And we just wanted to say we love you and hope you are having a great time!” Deacon blew a kiss; Iris waved. And the phone dropped, showing a picture of the snow when I heard, “I love you, Sal.”
Tears puddled in my eyes. “Goddammit…No!”
I sat up, head in my hands, rocking like I was going somewhere. I needed a blade. I needed pain. I needed it now.
Shit was spinning out of control.
Drugs only worked for so long.
I just wanted someone to hold me like a straitjacket. Make it go away. Make it all go the fuck away. Wake me up from the nightmare. Wake me up…
…because I am suffocating.
I thought about the contents of my luggage, wondering if I had a blade sharp enough to make a few nicks. Just a hit of blood. One would do.
“I can’t do that,” I repeated, considering why I went so far away. I knew neither one of them would follow me. No one wanted the brutal training Masa offered. I did because I am a hardcore masochist who was seriously considering Massimiliano’s offer of Nero so that I could be a hardcore sadist.
Brilliant balance, beautiful.
Carefully, I laid back down on the sofa, putting the remote control in one hand and my dick snugly in the palm of the other.
And I cried, praying she would come in my dreams.
Because it was all I had.
In the early hours of a pitch-black, gloomy as fuck morning, with fog rolling over debris cluttered streets, and gales of swooping force blustering through my mind, the orgasm comes on like a bloodthirsty rumbling, growing louder until all I can do is permit myself to be swallowed in the upsurge of shallow intimacy.
I loudly grunt and quietly sob.
With my shorts covered in cum, I light a smoke and grab my phone. I spot the coffee service that delivers every morning at 5 AM. I pour a cup and walk to the windows.
The layering fog is ominous like a nefarious beast awakening from the chamber below the earth. I shake my head, thinking about what all Rowan said.
Swigging back the contents of the cup and hitting the button, I am selling my soul to the devil.
I am out of personal options.
I will die this way.
Here lies Lucas Salvatore Raniero.
He was the prick who quit.
I can rebuild through the three peaks of Juliet, H2, and Thread, but that is going to take time.
I need to pull the bandage off.
I need to rip the stitches out.
I need to make it bleed.
“Yes,” he suggestively says. “What can I do for you, Salvatore?”
“Blow. Blow-job. And blowing up the game?”
He laughs. “What do you need, you gorgeous as fuck man?”
“I just told you, Fink,” I reply, cracking my knuckles. “Tell Cris I need to be saved.”
“Oh, hell…” he boasts like my asking for help is full of tragic fabulousness. “You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
He whispers, “How much you need?”
With a smug grin, I flirt, “How much you got, sexy?”
His voice lowers, “Where are you?”
“Tokyo.”
“I’m headed to the airport now.”
72
A Saint's Confession
His Butterfly
“Are you sure you want to leave tonight?” Deacon asks as we walk through the rehab center the next morning.
I stop and turn to him in my dark blue suit, looking every bit business against his bad boy biker. “I need to be someplace familiar, Deacon.”
“Okay,” he says with a nod. “We’ll go, baby girl.” He plants a reassuring kiss on my lips and embraces me in his arms. “I’m going to go find Dale. Cat is in room #507. I’ll catch up with you soon. I love you.”
“I love you,” I say, sneaking in one more kiss before he walks off. “Be safe.”
“You be safe!” He spins back with a grin. “We’re gonna be okay.”
I nod, uncertain. I don’t bother to tell him that I would rather visit with Dale than Cat or stick together. I rub my lips together, take a deep breath, and head for the door. I stop just shy of opening it.
“You’re missing the point here, Sal,” I overhear. “You need to control your two submissives; they’re fucking like rabbits, according to Dale.”
“How does he know?”
I cover my mouth, hearing his heavy Italian-Boston-Gone-Texan, which is far more Italian and Boston than ever before. A shiver runs through me as my eyes begin to water.
“Because one of the guys from the club...Seven or Nine...”
“Ten, goes by a Roman numeral, X,” he corrects, and I try not to giggle.
“Yeah, that guy,” Cat says. “He came to see Dale about the warehouses you and Cruz went in on.”
What warehouses?
“After Dale recovers, he’ll be overseeing that project.”
“Do I want to know?” she asks. “Because if it involves you and Cruz, it can’t be good.”
“It’s fine,” he says, cackling. I know that laugh—he is up to something. “If one more bitch shows up, I swear…”
“They need to leave my bachelor brother alone on his birthday…”
“I’m not really a bachelor, and it’s not my birthday yet,” he quickly remarks. “Besides, I’m very committed to one.”
Hannah Cruz.
I fume as Cat questions, “Who showed up after Amber?”
“Rowan.”
I start coughing and walk away. I don’t want to hear about his sexcapades.
Once a manwhore, always a manwhore.
I’m better off with Deacon. I just need to find a way to rebound back from Sal. It’s harder—so much harder—than I thought it would b
e.
Wandering the hospital, I wind up in the cafeteria with a cup of coffee in my hand. I take a seat by the window as I scroll through our old text messages. The last one from Sal reads, “I love you so much, Angel.”
Tears warm my eyes, and even though I know this is unhealthy behavior, and in no way suitable for getting over a guy, I do it anyway. I don’t care. And then, I hit the private photo album we share. There are pictures from 2014 to the day after the text message was sent. It was February 16. He snuck in behind me and peered over my shoulder. Shirtless. Sexhat. That grin. I love that photo.
I flip back through the times, traveling in his truck, dressed up, dressed down, a shot of the tub in Maine, to the funeral procession. Grabbing my headphones out of my purse, I hit play, knowing this may as well be a cardinal sin against my recovery from the romance of a lifetime.
With the wind blowing, I unclipped my hair and handed the red rose to Deacon. He smelled the petals and smiled.
I originally bought Les Pétales for the trinity until I thought they were dicking me over.
“Save it,” I whispered as he held my legs tightly. We were so close, but what I never expected was with the loss of Sal, I would lose my playmate and companion in Deacon. We weren’t the same.
“I would never dream of throwing it away.”
In his white dress shirt with his hair blowing wild, Sal’s sexy mug filled the screen as I break down and sob.
“We’re all just ghosts lining up to pass through to the next realm. But I don’t want to spend my time in the waiting room with anyone else, Sal.”
“You don’t have to,” he promised, holding me close. “You never have to be alone.”
“What are you saying?”
“If someone takes an easy shot, then don’t forget who all is on your team. Don’t lose sight of them or what is important,” he preached, praying I would heed the lesson. His eyes were so green that day as his enviably long lashes were wet with tears. God, I love this man. “Fight for love. Hold steadfast to your dreams. And don’t let go.”
Diary of a Submissive (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 4) Page 60
