I didn’t cry anymore. There wasn’t a point. If I cried, he would’ve made it worse. I stared at the ground as the blood trickled out of my nose, feeling…numb.
Lupita never cashed her severance check. Two days later, it was all over the neighborhood—she was found hanging by a belt in her closet.
GETTING OUT OF bed, I clutched my ribcage. Felt like my heart was damn near beating out of my chest. Since I couldn’t stop thinking about having a kid with Nikki, I couldn’t stop thinking about the family I’d rather forget.
I glanced over my shoulder, swearing the woman could’ve slept through a World War. She slept the entire ride from Manhattan back to Rochester and hadn’t woken up since. Might’ve fucked her a little too much and a little too hard on the weekend trip.
I studied the bedroom of my house. Even in the dark, it all looked grimy. Everything looked so goddamned dirty. The second I ejected out of bed Kifo took my place, laying almost on top of Nikki.
I headed two floors down to my work-out room in the basement; it was repurposed into my space when I moved into the house in early April of last year. I needed a place to stay before Mrs. Givens used her connections to get me into the house next door to Nikki.
Starting with metabolic resistance training and ending with high intensity interval training, I finished my daily two-hour routine. With my body completely shredded, I was finally calm enough to clean. After hitting the shower upstairs, I started with the bathroom.
“What are you doing?”
I looked up from my sitting position on the edge of the tub to Nikki standing in the doorframe. She peered at me through hazy eyes and yawned. She was wearing a white second skin T-shirt and a pair of panties; both were sheer. I could see the dark tuft of her pubic hair and the lips of her cunt through her underwear. Her hard nipples poked through her shirt. The perfect curve of her natural tits were easy to see. Her perfect skin. Her hourglass shape. The pouty pink lips that melted like sugar between my teeth and felt insane when they surrounded my cock. I’m very choosy about women, but I’d never seen a more flawless woman in my life. To me, the pain etched into her arms and thighs made her my ideal counterpart.
I was almost ready to do one more hour—or three—of cardio with her. I couldn’t stop looking fixedly at her tits. Her dark brown nipples were easy to see and were pretty much begging to be stared at, or bit into. I dipped my teeth into my bottom lip, wondering why I couldn’t get the fuck up from the floor and take her down on the bathroom floor like I wanted to.
She suddenly grimaced and held her stomach.
A speck of dirt I missed in the corner caught my attention. The mess surrounding me was messing with my head, and my libido. “Get back in bed, Nik.”
“I knew I’d catch you one of these days,” she said with a yawn. “You weren’t as quiet this time.”
I tossed the sponge in the tub and rubbed my forehead with the back of my hand. “No louder than usual.”
“Eric?” She scanned the bathroom before settling her eyes back on me, and looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Yeah, that was only a touch fucking annoying. “Why are you cleaning a pristine bathroom? Didn’t you clean it last night?”
“News of the day…you have to clean everyday, Nik, instead of once every leap year.”
She slanted her body against the doorframe and folded her arms, covering the part of her that had every bit of my attention. “I’ve been thinking…I want to move back into my mother’s house.”
“I’ll think about it,” I shot her down.
“That’s been your stock response since you stuck me here. The Wi-Fi leaves much to be desired. I can’t work this way. Stop thinking about it and give me an answer.”
“I’d love to give you an answer, Nik. Here it is: I’m still thinking about it.”
“Eric, can you make a decision about it soon?” Suddenly, her face turned sour and she gagged.
Lifting up to my feet, I acted quickly and flipped up the toilet lid. She raced over and slipped down to her knees to vomit inside the bowl.
It was absolutely fucking perfect and picked up my mood right away. Nikki wasn’t sick in the conventional sense, no…she was something else. With a smile I tried to hide, I grabbed a glass from the bathroom counter and filled it with water from the tap.
She might get her wish to move back into her mother’s house after all. We were going to need the extra space.
“Here.” I handed her the glass from over her shoulder.
She sat back on her heels, flushed the toilet, and grabbed the glass. After she swallowed it down, I helped her to stand.
“First day of your last period?”
Her brown doll-eyes widened as she peered up at me with a look that said what I knew was very possible, was impossible. Or maybe it was her issues with doctors. For some reason, she hated it when I showed the clinical side of me. It didn’t make a shit of sense. I hadn’t the slightest idea what she had against doctors. Who was I kidding? I might’ve had something to do with that. The last two doctors charged with her care were acquaintances of mine who broke an oath to make sure I got my way.
People who owed me favors were invaluable resources. My manipulation probably didn’t help to restore her faith in all the doctors she encountered before. Good. None of them deserved her respect, especially if they told her they could fix what didn’t need to be fixed, and of course, were unsuccessful.
“I’m on birth control, Eric,” she finally admitted, turning up the dramatics.
“What?” I feigned shock, because I knew the exact moment she got back on the pill. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you want a baby and I don’t.”
“Again…first day of your last period?”
She sat on the closed lid of the toilet seat. I intently watched the varied expressions on her face as she tried to figure it all out. She didn’t need to tell me. I already knew. I knew everything she knew, plus quite a few more things she didn’t.
“I-I don’t remember,” she admitted.
“Breasts soreness or tenderness?”
She groped her breasts, and for a minute, I’d forgotten where the discussion was supposed to lead.
She slowly nodded.
I reached under the sink and placed the pregnancy test on the edge of the counter. “Take it.”
Stunned, she glanced from the test to me. I knew she was wondering how or when it got there; it wasn’t important. “I’m on birth control.”
Correction, Nik. You think you are, but you’ve been taking multi-colored placebos for several months. It took a large amount of self-control not to crack a smirk and gloat. I definitely didn’t feel bad about it. In fact, I was downright giddy.
But I felt slightly pissed because she committed infraction number one—I hated being lied to. “Just take it for my peace of mind, okay?”
“Are you going to stand there and watch me do it?”
Curving a brow, I asked through a sneer, “Nikki?…Really?”
“That was different,” she shot back, hastily.
“Don’t be so shy about it, Nik. You liked it. I know you did.” I winked at her, making her wiggle uneasily.
Fuck, we are the kinkiest couple I know. I liked it that way. Kept married life very interesting. She was always so open and willing to do whatever I wanted her to do. I wanted her to be mine with all it entailed. She lived to please every sexual whim I had. It was epic. It was a sweeter accomplishment because I was never the guy who thought a knock-down drag out fight for one woman would be worth the reward; she changed my mind.
“I’m glad you think this is so humorous,” she snapped.
I didn’t realize I was smiling and bit into the corner of my grin to tame it. “Pissing on my cock in the shower while I fucked you was hot, not humorous.”
“It was an accident…can we not—yeah…”
“If it makes you feel better, baby, keep telling yourself that.”
Becoming a klutz, she tottered around
the bathroom, doing what she was told to do.
After doing her business and setting it on the counter, she washed her hands while going through a three-minute diatribe about how it was impossible for her to be pregnant.
I tuned her out during the last minute. She could’ve been talking about anything. My eyes were glued to the immunoassay strip with a steady concentration. Her hCG levels must’ve been pretty high, because two pink lines appeared almost immediately. “Nik…check the test.”
The instant she did, her dark skin went on the gray side. “I-I need to t-take another one.”
“It’s rare to get a false positive.”
Her bottom lip quivered like she wanted to cry. It made me feel guilty for all of a second—half a second—shit, who am I kidding? I didn’t feel a single iota of guilt. Not at all. I should’ve at least received points for trying to exhibit an emotion I didn’t normally have.
“How can that happen?” she questioned in wonderment. “I take my pill every day at the same time.”
“A pill that has a nine-percent failure rate.” Since she didn’t throw the nearest thing she could find at me, there was no doubt she believed me despite the fact I was purposely misleading her—not really lying.
She glanced at her stomach and grimaced. “I should’ve known with the way I’ve been feeling. Lately, it’s like I’m someone other than who I am. Emotional. So emotional. It’s because there’s a parasite growing inside of me.”
“Parasite?” I broadened my shoulders, making good use of my facial muscles. “Did you call my daughter a parasite?”
“Not a girl or boy yet. Even if—I’d want a boy. If I wanted it, that is. Eric…” Her eyes turned glossy as she looked up at me. “We need to talk about alternatives.”
My blood is…boiling. “There are no alternatives,” I pressed with bitterness and tried my damnedest not to yell at her. “You don’t always get what you want.”
She bit her lip and shook her head. I knew what she wanted to say—what she was holding back from saying. She didn’t want to have the baby. Her lack of enthusiasm was very clear the moment I made her pee on the strip.
“Parasite is the correct word. It steals my nutrients, my energy…has been fucking up my mood. It’s a parasite. If you don’t like the word, maybe you shouldn’t have gotten me pregnant.”
As I stared at her hard nipples, protruding from her paper-thin shirt, another fantasy flashed inside my mind. Her wet cunt swallowing my cock, clenching around the shaft as I made her come…again…and again, making her scream an apology every time I dove into her. I closed my eyes to shut it out, because I wasn’t going to use my dick as a weapon anymore. First trimesters were too fragile. Nikki didn’t exactly take the best care of herself before she was forced to. I needed to be sure her pregnancy wasn’t at risk.
It was very hard to hold back when I never had to before. The desire to flex her over the sink, spank the shit out of her while diving my cock into her sweet, wet pussy until I bottomed out was very, very strong.
Goddamn it. I’m getting harder.
“Say something.” Her eyes floated down to my gift and abruptly up to my face. Slowing her blinking, she began to lick her lips.
Fuck, Nikki, way to make it harder for me to practice restraint. She wanted it just as badly as I wanted to give it to her, but her bullshit was pulling her somewhere else.
“Why don’t you just say what you’re thinking. You always have an opinion about everything I say or do. Especially lately. Please, Eric. Make the situation worse than it already is. Fuck me with your words.”
“Say fuck or any derivative of it one more time,” I warned her.
She stuck out her fingers, counting every time she said fuck. When she got to twenty-three, she stopped.
I cranked my neck as my fingers flexed, ready to make her sexy round ass pay for the trouble her mouth got her into.
“Do something.” She threw her hands up in the air like she was preparing to go toe-to-toe with me.
Was she serious? It would’ve been slightly cute if she wasn’t pissing me off. “Nikki? You’re a monumental pain in my ass.”
“I was fine before. Matter-of-fact, I recall you telling me I was perfect this way. Seems that lately you insist on telling me how imperfect I am. As if I’m not reminded every time I look in the mirror, or go out in the world. If I’m not mostly a social reject, which I’m fine with, I’m the person evil individuals always want to manipulate. Present company not excluded.
“I’ve heard it all. I know what I am. I’m weak, because I can’t move past every tragedy in my life, and pretend they never happened and pretend to be happy. How can I forget the memories of every tragic thing that’s ever happened to me, and pretend they never did? As if…” She trailed off as her doll-eyes began to water. “If being human makes me weak, so fucking be it.”
I stepped forward, lifting her chin. Watching her sink into a mood I didn’t like her being in—didn’t want her to be in—shoved my rage back where it belonged. “What the fuck are you talking about, Nik?”
She stared into space for so long, I had to grab her and lightly shake her to pull her out of it.
“Where did you just go?” I asked her, moving a piece of hair from her eye to fall behind her ear. Honestly, she didn’t need to tell me. When I pressed her about her past, she told me about a nameless girl who fucked with her for years in high school. If I ever found out the bitch’s name, I would find her and do things to her to make her wish I granted her the mercy of killing her. The nameless bitch wasn’t the only one who I held responsible. Her father was number two and Nikki was number three. Too often Nikki became a victim of her own prison—her mind.
“The answer doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “None of it does.”
“When it comes to you, everything matters.”
She peered up at me with her eyes welling up with tears. “Do you agree? Am I not perfect anymore?”
“You still are, my twisted angel,” I assured her, changing my mood into the one that made her wet and compliant—sometimes not in that order.
Clearly, she didn’t hear me. She blinked at me with a blank expression on her face.
I stared at her breasts, imagining something that would make her scream and beg for clemency. Nipples. Knife. Blood. Screams. Torture. I ran my hands down my face and took in a few deep breaths. It wasn’t the first time the thought had crossed my mind. Usually, I’d fuck her, making her come so hard, so many times my harsher fantasies featuring her became diluted, and eventually, pushed out of my thoughts. There was something about the look in her eyes when her pussy flooded my cock or when she came in my mouth that blocked out the torture fantasies I usually had no problems indulging in, or watching others indulge in due to my adept ability at being a puppet-master.
I felt the sudden urge to shove my cock inside every hole she had. Sure, her mouth was a free-zone, but in fucked-up situation number one thousand and one, I couldn’t do it.
My current state reared its ugly head when I’d gone too long without having someone’s death or life in my hands. I needed more of every part of her in every way I could have her when the addiction fits hit me a little too hard.
Turning her toward the door, I pushed her out of the bathroom and slapped her ass. “Get out, so I can finish cleaning.”
“Here’s number twenty-four. Fuck you, Ethan.”
Infraction number two: I hated being disrespected. Infraction number three: I told her more than once to stop calling me Ethan. My fist balled and fell shy of punching a crack into the bathroom mirror.
Taking in a deep breath, I met Nikki in the adjoining bedroom. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she had a wild look in her eyes that stopped me cold. I was mistaken. Not wild. No. She was scared shitless. Mindlessly, she pinched the skin on her inner thigh. I knew what she was aching for. Sitting next to her, I took her hand away from screwing with her inner thigh.
“In what part of the universe do two fucked up people equal
a good start to raising another human being? I’m not better because I became your wife. I never will be right enough in my head to become a good mother. Even if I wished it, I know what’s going to happen if I tried to be a mother, and it’s…” She looked at me, her hand trembling in mine. “Nothing you do will make what’s false become true.” She darted her hand out, signaling toward the bathroom. “And why are you such a compulsive cleaner?”
All my tools to make her forget what was in her head were on hold. My dick, my seductive words…the look. It was taking everything in me not to do to her what I fantasized about. So much so my fingers twitched.
“Right”—she sighed—“you don’t want to talk about it. You never want to talk about it.” She bolted up and got back into bed.
I took a moment to pause and smile before finishing what I’d started in the bathroom. After a few months of trying…I was finally going to be a father, ensuring Nikki would be connected to me for the rest of her life. She’d come around to being a mother…eventually.
I WISHED I could say I was ecstatically happy about my pregnancy, but I wasn’t. I didn’t think I would ever be the kind of woman who would ever be completely satisfied with anything. Eric gave me what I needed and something else I didn’t need. I spent one week since I’d found out I was pregnant trying to figure out how I could become a good mother. In trying to become a parent, I would only succeed in doing what our parents did to us. It couldn’t be any other way.
Things were already slightly altered between us since I found out I was with child. My mind ran through the gambit of reasons for the shift. It was quite possible that my delusions were clouding my thought process, thinking things had changed when nothing had. Perhaps it was the issue. We, as a couple, hadn’t exactly evolved.
The Starkest Truth (A Breaking Insanity Novel Book 2) Page 7
