Touch (The Pagano Family Book 2)

by Susan Fanetti

  “Manny, no.” She flexed strongly on him, and he rocked up with a harsh groan, unable not to. Fuck, it was intense. She felt incredible, and every nerve ending in his treacherous cock was there to party. “Sugar, this is a bad idea. I don’t ride bareback. It’s been years. I’m not gonna have the stam—oh Jesus, girl, stop.” He jerked his arms forward, making the chain of the cuffs rattle noisily on the steel headboard.

  She didn’t stop. If anything, she rode him harder, and there was nothing he could do but try not to come. He tried to dislodge her by shifting his lower body, and he probably could have, but his writhing drove him deeper into her, and he was going to lose it. He had to focus on trying to tamp down the sensations coursing through him. She was playing with the rings in her tits, and that was a sight for the ages, so he closed his eyes.

  Then she leaned forward and ran her studded tongue over his chest, paying maddening attention to his nipples. All the sensory receptors in his body had hardwired themselves to his cock, which was nested naked inside the searing, white hot heat of this girl. He had no idea what she was about, but he was furious, and also turned on just about beyond the limits of his endurance.

  He was going to come inside her. She wouldn’t stop, and he couldn’t stop her. “Manny, please. What the fuck are you doing?”

  She put her hand between her legs, touching herself, and him, too, moving very fast now, and he felt her pussy clenching as she went over her edge. He bit his lip bloody and held on, while she milked him and wet him and drove him around the damn bend. But no. He was not going to come. NO. NO.

  Still rocking on him, she reached back and cupped his balls, lightly scratching, and he lost the battle. Just that fast, he was swallowing back a roar of rage and ecstasy and shooting everything he had into her.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  When it was over, while he was still inside her, she leaned forward and tried to kiss him, but he turned away. He was so angry he thought it was a not totally bad thing he was cuffed.

  She whispered in his ear, “I have an IUD in. And I get tested. Unless you have some crud and gave it to me, we’re good.” Then she released a cuff, lifted off of him, and climbed off the bed. The town fireworks display began at that moment, and his bedroom lit up with flashes of colored light.

  His head reeling with the new information and what it meant about why she’d done what she’d done, he sat up and rid himself of the other cuff as quickly as he could, then hurled them across the room. They crashed hard into the wall and dropped with a clatter to the floor. He had a hundred questions and demands—but if he started, he’d shout. Maybe more than shout.

  He’d given her a lot, and she’d just shat all over it.

  So he stood and said only, “Get dressed. I’m taking you home.” Then he stormed to his bathroom to clean himself up.

  When he came out, she was gone.

  10

  “Manny, open the fucking door!”

  Manny stood in the kitchen, against the far wall, and listened to Luca pounding on her door and shouting.

  It was after midnight. He hadn’t followed her right away. Apparently, he’d taken the time to get drunk first.

  She’d walked home and showered before it had really sunk in how shitty she’d been to him. She wasn’t sure why she had acted like that, and she was too worn out from the weird day to attempt to sort things through.

  She’d figured whatever they’d tried to do together was over, anyway, so there was no big rush to work out why. But now he was out there, and his words were fuzzy, and she didn’t know what to do.

  “MANNY!” His fists hit the door like thunder.

  Then her neighbor across the hall was yelling, and Luca was yelling, and a door slammed.

  Manny sat on the floor and wrapped her arms around her knees. She began to rock back and forth.

  “MANNY! I can break this fucker down. Cheap ass piece of shit hollow core door in your fucking slum apartment! Not even to code!” With that, there was a crash so loud that she knew he’d kicked her door hard enough to put his foot in it. But it held.

  Drunk Luca couldn’t come in here. She had no clue what he was like drunk, but he was big and powerful and angry, and she was afraid.

  And then the point was moot. The door crashed open, slamming against the wall so hard that the apartment shook and something glass crashed to the floor.

  “Manny!”

  And then he was standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

  He just stood there, weaving a little, and she sat where she was, rocking faster and faster without finding comfort.

  “Why the fuck would you do that? Why? How did I deserve that?”

  She didn’t answer, just rocked and whimpered and worried.

  With a sudden thud, he was sitting on her kitchen floor, too. “Manny, come on. I’m trying so hard.”

  She hated his saying that. She’d hated it before, and she hated it more now. Like he was supposed to get a fucking medal? “And that sucks! I’m like a charity case! Why are you trying? What are you trying to do? Fix me? Wait for a better version of me?”

  “No!”

  “Bullshit! You’re a fucking LIAR. You don’t like me the way I am. You like this little fantasy in your head of me. You’re just trying to tolerate me until that fantasy version magically appears. Well, SHE’S A FANTASY.”

  “I’m so FUCKING SICK of you calling me a liar!” His voice was loud, and his face was red, but Manny was calming as they fought. She was finding the right cubbies for the thoughts in her head.

  Her own voice quieted a little. “You lie all the time. You lied earlier, at your place!”

  “Forget about it! What the FUCK are you talking about?”

  “You said I could cuff you and do whatever I wanted. I did what I wanted, and you’re pissed.”

  He didn’t have a ready comeback to that. He sat there in the doorway, looking tired and bleary—looking suddenly deflated. Manny was feeling in control of herself now. They were only arguing. Since she’d been half afraid he’d come to beat her to death, an argument seemed like a best-case scenario. Even if it was a break-up argument.

  “Why would that be what you wanted? If you’d told me about the IUD, I’d’ve been so into it. It would’ve been awesome. But you made it ugly. Why?”

  “I told you. That’s what I do. I’m the girl who ruins everything. You won’t fucking see it! I tell you I’m crazy, and you say I’m wrong. I tell you I can’t be fixed, and you say you don’t believe it. You say you’re trying so hard, but what the fuck are you even trying to do?”

  “I’m trying to love you, you crazy little bitch!” He punched the nearest cabinet door. Her cabinets were old and metal, and he dented it deeply, bending it out of true. Shaking his hand out, he muttered, “I think I’m in love with you.” He went still and faced her. “Please…just don’t shit on that right now. Just shut up and don’t shit on it.”

  Manny’s heart was pounding again, but now it felt different. Tight and weird. “Luca…”

  “Shut UP, Manny.”

  She didn’t need to peruse her mental flashcards to know that the look on his face was sad. More than sad. Heartbroken. She crawled across the floor and stopped in front of him, sitting back on her heels. “Luca.”

  He sighed. “What.”

  There was a war going on inside Manny’s head. If she just sent him away she could go back to the life she had finally begun to understand—her work, her little apartment, the band, her family who didn’t make demands on her, her treasures. If she made him leave, she could get control back and be okay.

  But she didn’t want him to leave. She wanted to be able to let him touch her. She wanted to want that, to be able to feel what other people felt. She wanted to know what it was like to relax into another person’s body and have it give her strength, not sap it from her. Her whole life, she’d just wanted a goddamn hug.

  It sucked beyond her capacity for description to want something so badly that she hated so much. Maybe t
hat was why she’d done what she’d done to him. Because he didn’t understand what it was to live in a body and mind that turned the thing you craved into the thing you feared. Nobody understood.

  “I don’t know how to love. That’s my whole problem. I don’t know how to do it.”

  “You love your brother. Your mom and dad.”

  “That took my whole life. And it’s different from what you want. I can love them from the distance I need. What you want from me is different.”

  “I just want to touch you.”

  “I know. I told you I could try to learn to deal with it.”

  He scoffed. “I don’t know if you can hear how that sounds, but it doesn’t help.” He stood, and he was steadier on his feet now.

  She stayed where she was. “Are we done, then?”

  For a long time, he said nothing, just stared down at her.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I thought you were stubborn.”

  “Yeah, well. That was before you—that was before.”

  He turned and stopped in the doorway, looking toward the front. “I can’t leave you here alone. I fucked up your door.”

  “I’ll be okay.”

  “No. I’m not leaving you here with an open door. I’ll…I’ll just camp on your sofa for the rest of the night. I’ll go first thing and get you a new one, put it in. Sorry.”

  “Okay. You want some juice or something?” She didn’t know what to do or say.

  He smiled a smile that didn’t seem much like a smile at all. “No, thanks. Go to bed. I’ll take care of the door as early as I can.”

  “Okay.”

  She went back to her room and sat in the middle of her bed, rocking, until the sun was up. Shortly after that, he left. He was back within about half an hour. It took him another half hour to fix the door, and then he really left.

  Manny stayed in her room until she heard him call out, “Bye, Manny.”

  He’d never even come to her bedroom door, which was covered only by a bead curtain. She was pretty sure that meant they were done.

  She felt empty inside.

  oOo

  Her day was too full to spend it feeling empty and sad, though. There was a ton of shit to do for the band. So she showered, took her meds, packed enough extra meds for emergencies, and tried to shove all the bad crap roiling around in her head into her new ‘Luca’ cubby. That one needed a whole set of mini-cubbies.

  Her new door was a big upgrade from the old one: heavy, with bevels and shiny brass fixtures. A heavy deadbolt, too. He’d left the new keys on the nearest bookcase. She needed to remember to give her landlord a set.

  The shattered shards of her new blown-glass dolphin were still on the floor. Before she left for the day, she swept them up.

  And then she got in her car and headed toward Providence.

  oOo

  She dropped the box on the table with a thud and looked around the room, where the members of Fierce Ferret were draped over the broken-down, alley-found furniture, stoned out of their heads.

  Seth’s iPad was hooked to the stereo and playing the Stooges’ “Search and Destroy” at full volume. Kevin had his hand and most of his face in a bag of Funyuns. Seth was packing a bowl.

  And Gigi was wrapped around Dmitri, and they were eating each other’s faces off like fucking zombies. Her hand was in his jeans, and his hand was way up in her dirty bitch snatch.

  Gross, gross, gross, gross, GROSS.

  “HEY!” She shouted as loudly as she could, then yanked the plug from the wall, silencing Iggy Pop. “HEY!”

  Seth looked up first. “Hey yourself, shorty. What’s up?”

  “What’s UP is that we’re supposed to have a FUCKING BUSINESS MEETING. And look at you assholes. Did you even practice? You have two Battle rounds this week. IF you don’t get fucking eliminated because you’re loser druggie assholes.”

  Seth laughed and lifted the bong. “You need to chill, girl. Come over here, take a hit. Got some tabs, too, if you want.”

  “Fuck you, Seth. You know that all shit fucks with my meds.”

  “That’s right. Little Miss Psycho in the HOUSE.” Gigi had unwound herself from Manny’s brother and was standing up. Dmitri just sat there, looking stoned and happy.

  Gigi pointed to the box Manny had brought in. “Is that the flyers?”

  Manny glared at Gigi and directed her answer to her brother. “Got five hundred new flyers. If we each take a hundred, we can get them up this afternoon. I also have gigs penciled in through September, but I can’t confirm until we all fucking talk. It would be great if you people would return texts.”

  Dmitri smiled dopily at her. “Chill, Manny. It’s cool. We had a great practice. We’re just taking a beat. Okay?”

  Gigi flounced back to sit on Dmitri. He put his arm around her, his other hand pushing up under her t-shirt. Gigi simpered at him, “Shouldn’t that be the manager’s job, running errands and putting up flyers? We’re the talent, right? The ones people care about? She should do the flyers.”

  Dmitri looked at Gigi, and then at Manny. Manny felt like there was something happening that she was missing. Something was changing. Gigi had been getting increasingly bold and nasty around her, and there was something going on with Dmitri. She scurried around in her head and tried to figure it out.

  “Not cool, Geej. Do you ever take a break from being a bitch?” That was Kevin, muttering through a mouthful of Funyuns. “I’ll take her stack if the Queen Bee won’t do it.”

  “Fuck that, Kev.” Manny stomped to the couch and grabbed her nemesis by her hair and her throat. “Bitch, you’re putting up flyers or I’m feeding your stack to you the hard way. You don’t run this show. You are a dime a dozen little cooze. And you will back the fuck off me or I will cut you down. Deal with that or take your little slanty-eyed cunt someplace else.”

  “Manny! Jesus!”

  Dmitri was on his feet, pulling Manny away. Gigi was crying. Manny felt lost.

  Her brother pushed her into the bathroom—which really needed to be cleaned—and slammed the door shut. Once he let her go, her body did a full spasm, shaking off his touch. Dmitri had never touched her like that before, and she hated it.

  “What the fuck, sis? That was some racist bullshit. You can’t say shit like that! You can’t do shit like that!”

  “Why not?! Why does she get to call me a psycho and everybody just rolls their eyes, but I insult her and I get thrown into the fucking bathroom?! Why was that so much worse?!”

  “I don’t know. It just is. I’m sorry. But it’s always Gigi who ends up hurt when you two go at it. Ever notice that?”

  She was hurt, too. It was just that nobody noticed because she didn’t blubber all over the fucking place. “Whatever. I gotta get away from you assholes. Put up your own flyers. I’ll email you about everything else.” He was in her way, leaning on the door, but she couldn’t touch him to make him move. “Get out of my way.”

  “Manny, come on.” He took a step toward her, his arms coming out like he wanted to hug her. She stepped back.

  “No. Just get out of my way.”

  He dropped his arms and got out of her way, and she ran.

  oOo

  Her parents were in the dining room, working a huge jigsaw puzzle together, both wearing reading glasses perched on their noses. God, they were so normal.

  They both looked up and smiled as she came into the house.

  “Hey, princess. Didn’t expect to see you today. Everything good?”

  “Hi. Dad, can I talk to Dottie?”

  “No secrets in this house, Manny.”

  “I know. Dottie can tell you later, if you want. But this is…sex stuff, I think.”

  Her father’s whole head went white, and he cleared his throat and took his glasses off. “Ah. Okay. I think I’ll go out back to the garage, tinker with the Ford for a while.” He stood, kissed his wife, winked at Manny, and headed through the kitchen to the back door.

  Dottie’s col
or wasn’t much better than his had been. “Have a seat, babe. You can help me find pieces of the house while we talk.”

  “Okay.” Manny sat where her father had been sitting and began scanning the hundreds, maybe thousands of small pieces for what might be house.

  “You need a sex talk? Sex with Luca? Did he hurt you?”

  “No. I think I hurt him.” She looked up quickly. “Not, like, physically. I didn’t stab him or anything.” Stabbing was her thing. Somehow, when she raged out, she always went for and found something to pierce and slash. Always. Herself or somebody else, the target didn’t matter as much as the action itself.