Touch (The Pagano Family Book 2)

by Susan Fanetti

  He laughed. She was such a little freak. He was going to have to make sure they always had a room she could fill with crap. Just a room, though. He couldn’t live totally surrounded in this kind of chaos.

  And now he was apparently planning their future. He did an internal eyeroll at himself and focused on the more immediate problem of Manny.

  “Okay, sugar.” He tried to set her down again, but she still wouldn’t let go, so he gently pried her loose and put her on her bed.

  She was wearing a huge pair of boots, fishnet stockings, and a skintight little skirt. He couldn’t put her to bed dressed like that. But fuck, to undress her, to finally undress her, and then walk away? Luca wasn’t sure he could do it.

  But he tried. As he lifted one of her feet and propped it on his thigh, she lay back on the bed, stretching like a cat. Focusing on her shoes and not the eyeball-sizzling image of her arching her back, touching herself, offering herself to him, he started to untie the lace at the top of her boot.

  She laughed and kicked gently at him. “Silly. There’s a zipper.”

  “Oh.” He found the zipper. When he had her small foot in his hand, he couldn’t resist taking just one second to press his thumbs into her arch and caress it. She moaned and writhed. His cock throbbed.

  He got her other boot off, and then was confronted with the task of taking her stockings off. And her skirt. How the fuck was he supposed to do that, get that close to her?

  “You gotta help me out, bit. Can you get your stockings off?”

  She smiled and put her feet on her bed. Then she did a backbend, arching high up onto her head and feet, and wiggled her tiny ass out of the tights. “Whoa. Head rush,” she said, and giggled. Manny giggling—a definite first. Luca grinned. She was adorable.

  Then she relaxed back down, and he helped her free her legs. He decided that that was as far as he could help her get undressed and still maintain any kind of sanity.

  But when he tried to get her under her comforter, she sat up and grabbed him. Leaning over her, his balance was off, and she’d used surprising strength. She pulled him down on top of her.

  “Fuck me, Luca. I want to know what it’s like.”

  Straining against his own need, his own damn nature, he gritted, “We fuck all the time, bit. You know what it’s like.”

  “No. I want to feel you on me. Please. Please.”

  She was writhing under him, and her hands were at his jeans. Everything he wanted was right here. Right here and begging for him. Then she lifted her head and caught his mouth with hers, and he just couldn’t fight it anymore.

  He filled his hands with her, clutching her close, and took over the kiss. When she spread her legs, he moved a hand between them and pushed her underwear to the side. Fuck, she was scalding hot and soaking wet, her bare skin so damn smooth, and when his fingers touched her clit she trembled—but not in the usual way. She trembled with want and need.

  She had his jeans open and his cock out, and he had a slender leg hooked over his arm, before one last, little niggling scrap of sense and honor, love and respect caught in the filter of his swirling brain.

  She had not made this choice. This was something that had been done to her. If he took advantage of that, then he was the worst kind of lowlife.

  With a groaning gasp, he pulled away. “No, Manny. Come on. You need to sleep this off.”

  “Luca, please. I finally feel like a person. Please.”

  He got loose of her grasping body and stood, then wrangled her under the comforter. “We’ll get there. We will. We’ll do it right.”

  “Don’t leave me. I want you to hold me.”

  His fucking heart was breaking while he stood there. “I’m not leaving, bit. I’ll be on the sofa. You won’t want me in your bed when you wake up in the morning. But I’ll be right out there. I promise.”

  She finally settled, and he bent down and kissed her, holding her head in his hands. He didn’t know when he’d next get the chance. “I love you, Manny.”

  She smiled. “I love you, Luca.”

  It was the first time he’d said it straight out like that. He wondered if she’d remember in the morning.

  It was the first time she’d said it to him at all. He wondered if she’d mean it in the morning.

  oOo

  It was nearly ten o’clock in the morning before she finally came out of her room. Luca hadn’t slept, and he’d gone in to check on her about a dozen times. By the time she rose, he was deeply concerned; the last couple of hours of her sleep had seemed unsettled and unpleasant. He hadn’t woken her, though, because he hadn’t known what to expect, and he hadn’t wanted to scare her.

  At some point during her deepest sleep, her phone had rung, and he’d run into her room and dug it out of her skirt without waking her. Her brother. He’d answered it, and they’d had a pointed conversation about what the fuck had happened and how. Dmitri had said he didn’t know, but he’d look into it.

  When she came out, she looked awful, and she first reeled to her bathroom to puke, which she did rather spectacularly. He didn’t go in, because he didn’t want to frighten her. She hadn’t acknowledged him yet. He wasn’t sure she even knew he was there.

  She came out of the bathroom and reeled into her kitchen, squeezing her head like she was expecting it to explode if she let it go. He’d forgotten to take her jewelry off, and her wrists were layered with leather and metal, pressing against the side of her head. She managed to pour herself a glass of juice, and then she opened her pill cabinet.

  He had to say something, so, as calmly as he could, he said, “Manny?”

  She jumped clear off the floor and screamed. A flail of her arms upset her dish drainer, which had been full of clean dishes. They crashed and clattered to the floor, and she screamed again and grabbed her head. Then she went to her knees, collapsing onto herself in pain or fear or confusion—or all of it.

  “What did you do to me? What did you do? What did you do?”

  Oh, God. She thought he’d done this? “No, bit, no. I didn’t—” He stepped into the room, and she threw herself backwards against the wall. A butcher knife had been cast from the drainer when it had upended and was now lying near her foot; she grabbed it and held it out at him.

  “Stay the fuck away! What did you do to me?” Her face pulled into a mask of pain. “Ow, ow, ow! What is it?”

  “Manny, I didn’t do this. Let me help you.” He took another step, and she swiped wildly with the knife.

  “No! Get away! God, I’m so stupid. I’m so stupid.” Then a dark look closed over her face, and she turned the knife in her grip. Downward.

  Luca saw what was going to happen half a second before it happened, and he got out one syllable—“Man—!”—before she brought the knife down with real power into her own leg.

  She yanked it out, not seeming to feel the pain of it. “Stupid!” She stabbed again. “Stupid!”

  He went for her, but she yanked the bloody knife out of her leg and swung it wildly at him again, forcing him back. And then she stabbed herself again, and again, punctuating each downward blow with the word “Stupid!”

  “Manny, stop!”

  On the sixth blow, or maybe the seventh, she hit her femoral artery. Blood poured out with terrifying velocity. Knowing that she could be dead within minutes, Luca dove at her, now heedless of the knife, wrenching his belt out of his jeans as he landed on the bloody floor.

  Before he could get the knife away from her, she slashed his arm, and his bicep went hot and wet. But he couldn’t have cared less. He tossed the knife away and grabbed her. She went into a full, psychotic panic—thrashing, screaming at the absolute top of her voice, blood gushing from her leg—until he finally forced her into a hold and got his belt around her thigh. He pulled it taut, fisting the leather, and tried to find a way to hold her without hurting her as she fought and screamed and clawed and scratched.

  She’d lost a lot of blood. Even with the tourniquet, it might have been too much. Her
fight faded, her pale skin went dull, and she sagged into his arms, unconscious.

  Luca sat, cradling her, in the middle of her kitchen floor, bathed in her blood. He struggled to get his phone out of his pocket and called 911.

  When help was on the way, he leaned back against the wall and wept.

  oOo

  Six hours later, with Manny’s blood still crusted on his skin and clothes, and a wholly insufficient length of bloody gauze wrapped around his arm, Luca signed a form on a clipboard and was handed an envelope with his personal effects.

  Because, obviously, the cops and paramedics had found him sitting in an ocean of her blood, holding her limp body. As a bonus, her neighbor had heard the screaming and had also called 911.

  So Luca had been thrown face down onto the floor, cuffed, and dragged away from Manny before the paramedics had even called it in.

  He’d demanded his lawyer, but that demand had not been met yet, so he had no idea how he was being released. He guessed the Uncles had found out. Maybe Chief Lumley had called. Not all that interested in where the gift horse came from, he took his envelope, and they buzzed him out. He needed to get to the hospital.

  Adam Timko stood waiting. He looked aged and exhausted.

  “Is she okay?” Luca asked before her father could say anything.

  “She will be. She’ll be okay. Jesus, boy. Look at you. Is that all Manny’s?”

  He didn’t need to look; he could feel her blood everywhere. “Yes, sir. Most of it. But I swear. I swear on my mother’s grave, I didn’t hurt her.”

  “I believe you. That’s why I sprung you. Come on. I’ll take you to the hospital. You’ll tell me what happened on the way.”

  oOo

  Luca told him almost everything. He left out her wild need and how it had broken his heart to turn her away. He left out the way he felt now, like there was nothing but a flattened hunk of lead left in his chest. Otherwise, he told her father everything.

  “She said it would fuck with her meds, but last night she seemed like she was on a pretty normal high. Maybe not quite as blissed out as people get, but otherwise, it seemed normal. This morning, though, no. I’ve never seen that.”

  “You do shit like this often?”

  “I told you, sir. I didn’t do this. Fuck, I swear it.”

  “No, boy. I mean drugs. You do the drugs?”

  “I do not. I tried some when I was younger, but I hate that crap. Booze is my vice, and it’s not a problem. I didn’t even do pain pills when I was fighting. Didn’t like what they did to my head or my body. And Manny doesn’t do any of it. I guess she drinks sometimes, but I’ve never seen her with a drink, not since we got together.” An image of her with her juice rose up in his head, and he laughed sadly, his eyes blurring. “Orange juice is her vice.”

  Adam laughed, too. “She likes her juice.”

  “She’s gonna be okay?”

  “Yeah. She’s still out, but that’s because she’s sedated. They gave her some blood and sewed her up. Dottie’s there now, trying to keep them from putting her in Psych. I guess she came to in the ER and went right back into a rage, so… Her labs weren’t back yet when I came for you. Hopefully, between whatever’s still in her system and your story of what happened, we can get her home and not committed.”

  He drove quietly for several seconds. “I don’t know if she can come back from another commitment.” He turned to Luca. “Who did this to her?”

  “I don’t know. But sir, I am going to find out. And I’m gonna tear the fucker apart.”

  Looking back at the road, Manny’s father said, “I should tell you not to. That’s the thing I should say. I should say not to hurt whoever hurt my girl.”

  He didn’t say more.

  oOo

  When she woke, he’d been holding her hand, but he let it go as her eyes opened. Her mom and dad were in the room, too, and they both stood and came to the bed.

  He’d gotten cleaned up and had his arm seen to. He didn’t want her first sight of him to be like something out of an Evil Dead movie.

  She was confused, searching the room, searching their faces, her head turning back and forth. Then she moved her arm and realized she was restrained. Panic overtook her features, and her eyes went to Luca—not her mother or father. Him.

  He didn’t know what to do. So he smiled and said, “Hey, little bit. It’s gonna be okay.”

  She raised her arms until the restraints went taut, and she screamed.

  ~ 14 ~

  Luca opened the passenger door of his testoster-truck, and Manny turned in the seat and put her legs out. Then she stopped. The stupid truck was too high. Normally, she’d climb down, but she didn’t think her sore leg would do that. So she sat there and glared at the ground, stuck.

  “Here, bit. Try this.” Luca held his arm out at an angle, presenting his forearm as a support. That would do. It was still going to hurt like a motherfucker, but she could get out of his truck. Getting in had hurt, too, but she’d seen right away how she could climb up without using her sore leg too much.

  She put her hands on the taut muscles of his arm and silently fumbled her way to stand on the ground. She couldn’t ignore the pain, but she could keep quiet about it. She’d done it to herself. No whining allowed.

  “I’m gonna let you do this the way you want, but if you need help, I’m here, right?”

  She nodded. Before she could take a step toward her apartment building, her parents pulled up in her father’s truck, parking behind Luca. She and Luca turned and waited.

  Dottie got out first. “Wow. Luca drives a lot faster than your dad.”

  Luca chuckled. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

  Dottie waved him off and opened the back door on the extended-cab truck. She handed a couple of potted plants to Manny’s dad and picked up a large vase of cut flowers for herself. Luca had her backpack.

  Luca smiled down at her. “You ready for the mountain trek?”

  Manny faced the building. Eight steps up to the front door, eighteen more steps to her apartment. Fuck.

  Dottie and her dad had wanted her to come home with them, but Manny didn’t have to look far into the future to see her losing everything that she’d made hers if she got herself ensconced again in the house she’d grown up in. She needed to stay independent. She needed her place. She needed to come home to Quiet Cove.

  She kept her hands around Luca’s arm and headed toward her home.

  It was slow going, and it hurt like crazy, but she made it into her apartment and to her sofa. She sat and lifted her sore leg onto it. Luca was hovering, and she could tell that he was fighting constant urges to want to help her, but he kept his hands to himself.

  That was good. She’d lost some ground with touch since the day she’d woken up in restraints. Again.

  That had only been three days ago. Somehow, she’d managed not to get committed, even though they’d kept her on Thorazine for at least a day. A lot of the hospital was foggy. In fact, the whole reason she’d been there, the whole reason her right thigh was a black and blue horror covered in gruesome railroad tracks of stitched wounds, was foggy.

  And she’d hurt Luca. He had a long, stitched gash across his arm, just under the barbed wire.

  Stab and slash. That was her thing.

  She knew what had happened, because they’d told her. She’d been dosed at the gig. When, how, or why, nobody knew. She’d come out of it and gone crazy, and now here she was. Hobbled, and everybody hovering around her, trying to care for her without touching her.

  She was supersensitive to touch now. Hospitals did that to her. So many people traipsing through all the time, all of them different, all of them touching, all the time. All the time. Under the best of circumstances, she needed a guard up to deal with that kind of touching. Being tied to a bed was not the best of circumstances. Being dopey and confused was not the best of circumstances. By the time she’d been released, she felt stuffed full of spiders.

  They’d removed the restra
ints on the second day, shortly after they’d stopped the Thorazine and she hadn’t lost it again. She thought maybe that was why she’d gotten to come home. When she’d woken in restraints, she’d been sure she was going away. In her experience, waking up in restraints meant a vacation in Hotel Psychosis.

  She didn’t actually know why they’d released her. Maybe her parents had worked some magic. She didn’t care. She was home. Dr. Thompson, her shrink, wanted to start seeing her weekly again, ‘just for a while, to take stock.’ They’d been down to monthly sessions for almost a year. Manny had been proud of that. But weekly sessions was a price she’d pay for her freedom now.