by Crimson Syn
“Did you do a background check on me?” I frowned.
“Not really, more like I did a bit of snooping around. I have a lot of connections.”
“I don’t know if I should be angry or amazed at your impertinent skills.” I sat up, but he immediately tugged me back down to him.
“Don’t be angry with me, angel. I was just curious about you, about your past.”
“You could have asked me,” I struggled against his arms, but he just chuckled and held me closer.
“I know, I just needed to know something.”
“What?” I stared up at him.
He closed his eyes and swept his hands through his dark locks. “It’s stupid.”
“Tell me,” I insisted.
He looked down at me and sighed. “I wanted to know if you were taken.”
“Why?”
“Because I wasn’t sure that you could be this perfect and still be alone.”
My breath caught in my throat. I never felt alone, but I knew that I didn’t have anyone to share things with all the time. I mean, Sam was there, but she wasn’t always around. I usually went out to eat and to the moves by myself. I even went out to bars to have a drink on my own. Him knowing this private side of me made me feel vulnerable. I knew I should be angry, but something told me that knowing this part of me was important to him.
“I don’t have anyone. Although I wouldn’t consider myself alone.”
He smiled and drew me down to kiss me.
I smacked his arm lightly and pouted. “I should be mad at you.”
He pouted along with me and his expression nearly made me laugh. “Are you?”
“No,” I frowned up at him. “But now you know more about me than I do about you, mystery race car driver. All I know is what your daughter has told me.”
“And what has my little girl told you?”
“That she loves you and you love her. That you’re the best and most handsome daddy ever.”
“She told you that?”
I nodded. “She also mentioned your wife doesn’t think very highly of you.”
“My ex-wife can go to hell!”
I stroked his chest slowly. “That bad, huh?”
“Worse,” a flicker of hurt appeared and just as quickly disappeared from his eyes.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. Divorcing her was the best thing that could’ve happened in my life. It gave me the chance to meet you and to see what truly matters in life.”
He stroked my chin and I melted a little. We gazed at each other for a little while and then I smiled teasingly. “So what kind of ice cream flavor is your favorite, Mr. Reed?” I teased, wanting to lighten the moment.
“Strawberry, like the taste of your pussy.”
“Oh my God!” I whispered in shock. “You just can’t say things like that.”
“Why not, it’s true. You taste like wild strawberries on a spring day,” he kissed my forehead.
I sighed and got comfortable on his broad chest. “Can I ask you something?”
“You could ask me anything you want, angel. I have nothing to hide.”
“Where do we go from here?”
He stroked my back and stayed quiet for a few seconds. When he did speak, his answer was the sweetest words I’d ever heard. “Wherever you want to go, angel. I’m not planning on letting you go anywhere alone anymore.”
In that one tiny moment, I felt loved and wanted and it was a feeling so sweet, I almost cried.
6
ANA
Anthony made love to me all weekend, sending me soaring through the most pleasurable moments of my life. The man was insatiable, and I was a willing participant in allowing myself to get completely lost in him. On Sunday afternoon, we picked up Laura and took her to the park. She had been so excited to see me my heart fluttered at her display of affection.
Everything seemed absolutely perfect, until Monday morning, when reality came tumbling down over me. I knew being with Anthony was a dream come true, I just didn’t expect my dream to become a nightmare so quickly.
“What the hell is this, Miss Collins?”
Principal Garrison slammed a magazine down onto her desk. I stared down at it and the image that stared back at me made me squeeze my eyes shut in embarrassment. It was of Anthony beating up that guy at the bar, the next was a picture of him with me over his shoulder. My face looked up right as the photo was shot, and there was no denying that it was me.
“You are seen with your butt in the air in the arms of one of St. Teresa’s parents.”
“I can explain. He was actually saving me.”
“For whom? Himself?”
“Principal Garrison!” I stated sharply, shocked that she’d say something so improper, so personal.
She narrowed her eyes on me and leaned over her desk. “I knew I shouldn’t have hired you, but Dr. Rollins had been adamant. I should have expected that you’d drag my school’s name through the mud!”
“I would never…”
She barely let me say a word in before she was accusing me again. “You are young and you are inexperienced, but the last thing I thought was that you’d be so unprofessional.”
“Principal Garrison, if you would just listen…”
“I don’t need to listen, Miss Collins! You took advantage of this job, you took advantage of your student, and you took advantage of what we offered you.”
“I would never do such a thing!”
“I’m sorry to say this, Miss Collins, but you have left me no choice.”
“Please Principal Garrison, please.”
“You’re fired! You don’t need to finish the day, or say goodbye. You’re done. Just leave the premises without doing any further damage to yourself or this school.”
I sat there in complete and utter shock. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She didn’t even let me defend myself. I swallowed my tears as I watched her sit back, looking smug as she was perched on her throne. She stared at me with a satisfied glint in her eyes.
“Did you hear me, Miss Collins?”
I looked down at my shaking hands and finally a tear escaped me. In a daze, I stood up and made my way to the door. Before I could reach it, her voice froze me in place.
“I hope you enjoyed my husband’s cock, Miss Collins. I doubt it will be able to save you this time.”
My breath caught in my throat and as I turned to her she smiled evilly at me. The last thing I expected in my life was that Principal Garrison would be Anthony’s wife.
But he had told me he was divorced. Did he lie to me? Was his disappearance a way to hide the fact that he was still married?
I shook my head remembering her words when I first started. She, herself, had told me that Laura’s father didn’t live here. I let out a sob, feeling utterly confused. Why would she call him her husband if they were divorced? If he was still married, what had I done? It was the biggest slap in the face I could have received, and my heart twisted as I made my way out of the school. Tears poured down my cheeks, but before I gave anyone the satisfaction of seeing my heartbreak, I ran.
An hour later I was lying on Sam’s lap, crying my eyes out. My phone lit up showing a picture of Anthony and I laughing. I had taken it at the park when we were with Laura. I shut the phone off and flung it across the room hearing it thud against the cushions of the seat in front of us.
“Honey, why don’t you talk to him?”
“What for? So he could tell me more lies?” I sat up and brushed my tears away angrily.
“That’s the tenth time he’s called. If you don’t answer, he’s going to come looking for you.”
“Let him come, but I’m not answering.”
“There has to be an explanation for all this.”
“Yeah. That he’s still married. That he’s a liar. A liar who ruined my life.”
“Oh honey,” she leaned over and hugged me as I fell into another series of sobs.
The sound of pounding on the
door made us both jump. We looked at each other and I pressed my finger to my lips silencing her. We were trying to remain quiet, but the sound came again followed by a familiar voice.
“Open the door, Ana. What’s wrong? I know that you’re at home.”
“Of course, he does,” I murmured angrily.
“Wait here,” Sam patted my knee as she got up to answer the door.
“I’m not here,” I whispered.
She opened her eyes wide, telling me how I was pointing out the obvious, and yanked the door open. “She doesn’t want to see you.”
“What? Why? What did I do, angel?”
His nickname for me made my heart melt, but I managed to hide the feeling away.
“She was fired from her job by your wife.” Sam’s tone was both unfriendly and accusing and I held my breath waiting to see what he would say.
“I’m not married. You have to believe me. I haven’t been married for a long time.”
Sam looked over at me, but I shook my head.
“She still doesn’t want to see you.”
“Move aside Samantha, please.”
“I don’t think…”
“Please.”
I heard the desperation in his voice and my weak, so-called friend opened the door and stepped aside, letting him in. I stared at him angrily and then at her. She shrugged, her expression let me know that there wasn’t much she could do. Although I knew it was true, I still gave her the evil eye.
“I’ll be in my room if you need me,” she scurried off leaving me alone with the devil.
“What happened?” he asked, traces of worry in his sad eyes.
“What happened was that your wife fired me!”
“She’s not my wife!”
“That’s not what she said,” I folded my hands across my chest.
“Well she’s a liar! She always has been,” he whispered.
I looked up at him, wanting to believe him. He saw it in my eyes and took the few strides towards me, kneeling beside me and taking my hand in his. “You have to believe me, Ana. I would never betray you. I know too well what that feels like.”
He pressed my hand to his heart and a tear escaped down my cheek. He leaned up and brushed it away.
“Then why would she say that?”
“Because she wants to get back at me. Because she wants everyone around her to be miserable, since she’s miserable.”
I leaned into his hand and sought out the comfort he was offering me. “She fired me for the photos taken of us. She said I blemished the school with my actions.”
“I promise you, you’ll have your job back by tomorrow if it’s the last thing I do.”
“It’s impossible. She’ll never give it back.”
“It’s not about what she wants. I have a lot of pull in this town, angel. I lot more than you think.”
“I don’t want you getting involved.”
He sat down beside me and slid me onto his lap. “I’m already involved.”
He brushed away another tear and kissed my cheek. “I’m sorry that you went through that. I’m sorry that my past has touched your life in such an awful way.”
I shook my head. “It’s not your fault. I fell for you, Anthony Reed, past and all.”
He smiled. “You fell for me?” he teased.
I bit my lip. “Maybe.”
“No, you just said you did,” he tickled me, making me squirm on his lap.
“God, you make me feel so fucking alive,” he laughed.
I stilled and stared up at this handsome man. “You make me feel so many things, Anthony. I’m almost afraid that what I feel is too much, too fast.”
He stroked my cheek. “All that matters is that it feels right, angel. What you make me feel, is pure and simple happiness.”
7
ANTHONY
I stormed through the hallways of St. Teresa, anger leading my path. I slammed Cassidy’s office door open, startling her in mid-sentence.
“You evil bitch!” I roared, disrupting her as she spoke with another teacher.
She barely blinked at my presence. Instead, she looked down at the stout man and signaled for him to leave us. He simply stared at me as he made his way to the door and I made sure to slam the door shut firmly as soon as he stepped out.
“How dare you?” I seethed at her.
She smirked. “You didn’t think I would actually keep your little whore here, where I work, where your daughter goes to school, did you?”
“You had no right!”
“I have every right! This is my goddamn school!”
“The only reason you still run this school is because of me, and you damn well know it!” I roared in anger. “You give Ana her job back or I swear to God I will have you banned from being able to work in any school district, in any part of the nation.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” she narrowed her eyes on me.
“Try me,” I seethed.
We stood there, glaring at each other, each with a challenge in our eye. I was done submitting to her threats, done playing her games. The last thing I expected was that she’d harm the most innocent person in this whole world. The one good thing I had found in all these years of solitude, she wanted to tear it apart. She was always trying to ruin me, and I had more than enough.
“I will not hire her back! She’ll have to find another school.”
“She will work here! You will not take anything away from that girl and blemish her reputation or I swear to God, I will fight to the death to ruin you and I’ll get Laura along the way.”
Cassidy’s eyes widened in horror. “You’d use your own daughter?”
“Oh please,” I snarled in disgust. “It’s not like she matters much to you anyway. If she did you wouldn’t push her away like you do. Don’t think my little girl doesn’t tell me what you do on your off time.” Cassidy’s eyes widened and satisfaction sourced through me. “Hire Ana back or I’ll make you pay, Cassidy. I will ruin your reputation and I’ll start by taking away my support from the foundation I funded.”
The scholarship I had created under Laura’s name was what kept this school alive. That, and the children’s foundation that I had established, had given the school its reputation. I could tell that the mention of taking away the money was getting to her, it always did. If she lost my support, this school would struggle and she’d look like a failure in front of the whole school board. I had friends in very high places, and my threats were not idle.
She finally gave in and slumped down in her chair. “Why? Why does it have to be this way?”
“You should’ve asked yourself that before you screwed half the race car drivers in Florida.”
“That’s not fair,” she whispered hoarsely.
“And what is? Continuing to ruin my life? Ruining an innocent girl’s life? Don’t be cruel, Cassidy. You know as well as I do that what you did was wrong and cruel.”
I softened my voice and sighed. “I don’t want to fight with you anymore, I just want to have peace in my life. I fucking deserve it!”
She looked up at me and held my gaze for a long time. “Fine. I’ll give her fucking job back to her, but I don’t want to see her! She is to stay out of my way, Tony!”
I scowled at her. “I should say the same to you.”
As I turned to walk out, her words stopped me in my tracks. “Were you ever happy with me, Tony?”
I looked at the doorknob for a long moment and then answered her without looking back. “Yes. I was very happy…once.”
With those words, I turned the knob and walked out, slamming the door and locking Cassidy out of my life for the last time.
“I don’t want my job back.”
I stared at her in shock. “Are you kidding me?”
“I don’t want to work for her, Anthony. I don’t want to have anything to do with her.”
“I-I don’t understand. So, what can I do for you?”
“I want a letter of recommendation so I can work somewhere el
se. There’s absolutely no way I’m going back to work under your ex-wife.”
I sat back, shocked. We were seated in a secluded corner of the Top of the Tower restaurant at the Beekman Hotel in the city. When I picked her up for our first official date she had remembered what I had requested of her. She was wearing a deep blue mini dress. A long sheer fabric enclosed the dress and fell down to the floor, parted in the middle. The mini skirt underneath had my cock yearning to be inside her.
As soon as she wrapped her arms around me, pressing her plump body against mine in greeting, I couldn’t control my impulses. I had her bent over the couch in a heartbeat. Her whimpers of protest only fueled my lust for her and I hurriedly lifted her skirt up around her waist. She surprised me by not wearing any underwear, and her pussy lay bare for my touch. Without hesitating I unzipped my pants and in one swift thrust I was buried deep inside of her. She moaned as I penetrated her tight pussy, showing her how much I wanted her and pulling her with me to the brink of ecstasy. Her orgasm swept through us both and by the time we were done we had worked up an appetite.
Now, here we were, with New York City as our backdrop and candlelight highlighting the flush of her cheeks from our recent fucking. She sighed and pushed her chair back. Making her way over to me, she slid onto my lap and wrapped her arms around me. I couldn’t help but slip my hand through the sheer fabric of her dress and slide it up her thigh.
“You are amazing,” she sighed, giving me a lingering kiss. “I never thought you would do that for me, but I can’t accept it. I have my dignity, baby. There’s no way I would ever let her get the upper hand. I want her far away from you, and if I continue in that school she’ll always be around us.”
Her words held so much truth in them and I wanted to yell out how unfair this was, but she soothed me. My angel always soothed me. “I want to be with you, you mean so much to me. I want you to be happy and we both won’t be happy if I work there. Trust me, I can find a better job.”
I stared at her and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re the one who’s amazing, angel. I can’t believe you’d let your dream go for me.”
