by Celia Crown
Thunderous footsteps come tumbling into the kitchen, and I swallow the fear of looking up from the shoes that shine under the natural sunlight through the window. I have always wondered how many pairs of shoes Simone has and I think he has more than a shopaholic woman.
Over the year, I have seen him dressed in beautiful suits and fitting casual clothing. Even his daily watches switch and I can’t keep up with all the new designs. “I leave you alone for five minutes,” he says, pushing the heaviness in my tummy further down with his long sigh.
He doesn’t have to finish that sentence for me to know that he wants to say he shouldn’t have left me alone. That’s putting it nicely, and knowing his personality, I would hazard a guess that he would say something along the lines of me being incapable of doing the littlest thing.
“Did I not tell you to fucking stay?”
I have no words to argue with him as he snatches me off the ground, lifting me up over his shoulder and pressing down on the throbbing side of my butt. When I wince pitifully, he doesn’t show me an ounce of mercy when he drops me down on the crusty couch that comes with this apartment.
Amenities aren’t the best here, and they are definitely not up to his standards when he frowns at the state of my home. He had dropped me into my home to pack and say goodbye to this place because he had forced me to take the room beside his master bedroom in his multimillion-dollar home.
“You told me to pack,” I bravely and foolishly try to argue back.
It’s useless when he shoots me a sneer, curling his big hand under my chin and tipping my head up to him.
“To pack,” he emphasized with a squeeze. “Not to hurt yourself.”
I don’t know how long I would be staying with Simone, but I figure that I shouldn't leave any belonging behind and that can of beans is not going to escape my clutches. After I had finished with my room, I realized how little I have, and I feel inadequate to put my cheap stuff in his homes that exude elegance and riches.
I would be under the eyes of pity if I bring my can of beans, but this can have been with me since the beginning of this apartment; it’s the longest standing thing besides me. I don’t eat it out of sentimental values, and it’s heartbreaking when Simone chucks that can into the garbage.
He dares me to go dig through the trash with that threatening hue of obsidian when he stares at me.
A brute, a tyrant, and a possessive man who rules over everything in my life. He dominates my work life, and now he’s invading my personal life. I wonder when he will stop putting his fingers into places that don’t belong to him.
“This place is trash,” he hisses, taking in the small space of the living room.
I feel an itch in my chest when I frown at his words. “It’s not.”
I’m shy, and I’m meek, but this burst of courage in me flares when someone talks bad about something that I had worked hard to gain. This is my first apartment, and I had used my hard-earned money to get this place.
It might be a bit old and rundown; the gas sometimes doesn’t work on the stove, and the refrigerator has the most temperamental cooling system, but it’s still a place that I have grown fond of because it’s my home.
“There’s nothing wrong with it.” I cross my arms over my chest, standing up to face him.
He quirks an eyebrow, glancing down at me as if I’m a little mouse compared to this colossal size. Simone’s lips turn, and a smirk plays over his pearly whites. A haunting whisper in my head steps on the line of prey reels me back to be a self-conscious girl when facing a problem too big for me to handle.
Just like that, the sense of courage shrivels up and poofs out of existence.
“Everything is wrong with it,” he begins, leaning down until our breaths mingle.
“There are faulty wires coming out of the damn walls, and you could have been electrocuted. And the nail sticking out of the floorboard?” Simone’s expression darkens with anger.
“You could have been hurt, little girl.” He trails his hand from my hair to the base of my neck, holding me with a hint of urgency.
“If you can’t keep yourself alive, then I will take over that responsibility.”
I imagine a kiss under the rain, on the sunny day of a picnic date, or under the starry skies where he would romantically cup my cheek and lean down while I meet him halfway. However, this isn’t those novels that I have been secretly reading about the heroine experiencing every cliché with the hero.
Simone tugs me forward, slanting his lips over mine with the hunger of a man deprived of what is his and muffling the shocked hiccup that spills over my lips. He’s not kind or gentle when he kisses me; our first kiss is of urgency and desperate feelings.
He has me calling him Daddy, and I’m here overanalyzing a kiss when our relationship is going through different phases. I thought that a relationship starts with a date or sometimes a one-night stand, and then it progresses from there.
Simone and I started out as employee and boss, turning into mentor and student, and down to the dirty Daddy and little girl before he is kissing me senseless. Somewhere between the last one, it should have something else since there feels like a big part is missing.
Simone has never been a conventional man. He doesn’t use shortcuts, but he doesn’t follow the rules either. He has the intelligence to remove himself from the box and categorize himself as something special, unique even.
“W-what are you doing?” my voice shrieks; I am flustered.
I can’t believe this most eligible bachelor just kissed me out of nowhere and has the audacity to look offended.
“What does it look like?” he asks, crushing my body to his.
Being flushed to his hard, muscular body does weird things to me. I’m hot and weak to the knees when he captures my lips again, his tongue rolling through my teeth and curling with mine. It’s dirty, odd, and surprisingly addicting when his taste flows through me.
That sounds absolutely disgusting; it’s grosser than how the books have described kissing a very handsome man.
“We can’t!” I press my palms to his chest, unable to go through with what I thought I could while his warmth burns through his clothes to my fingers.
The heat sends shivers down my spine with my blood pounding in my ears. I’m surrounded by him; his arms cage me with the strength of ten men, lips stealing the precious air that I need, and his scent seeping into my skin to take place as the dominate smell.
I don’t mind smelling like him, especially when he had not given me regular, fitting clothes to me during the two weeks of her living together.
One can only imagine the uproar of rumors flying and sparking every gossip girl near the vicinity. Vultures come out of the bushes with their cameras and boatload of questions about our relationship.
I want to answer that we’re coworkers, but that seems to be the wrong thing since he’s my boss.
Not wearing normal clothes to work and donned with the biggest shirts and loosest pants that can only fit Simone, I have had people giving me the nastiest glares as if I had a say in what I wear.
It was either this or walking out naked. The weird thing is that he has sets of panties and bras of my size, but he doesn’t have one pair of clothing that would fit me.
Some braver souls, usually reporters, would ask me if I was sleeping with my boss in front of Simone when we’re walking into his company headquarter in the morning.
The reporters were camped outside as if they had nothing to do, but Simone doesn’t let that disrespect go over his head as I do. He has his security make a wide perimeter as he deems it necessary. It grows wider and wider every day, and I swear it’s going to be a block of securities if the reporters don’t stop.
I wish this whole thing is old news, so they don’t try to ambush me in the ladies’ room. I have had one female reporter tricking me into thinking she was an employee, but then I grasped that her line of questioning was too strategic.
“We can,” Simone breathes on my lips. “We can do whatev
er we want.”
He cradles my blushing cheeks and nuzzles me to let a moment of silence fill my ears.
“I—why?” I want to know. I want to know why this man suddenly have an interest in me when he wouldn’t spare me a second glance before the day my ex-boyfriend became unfaithful.
He keeps his eyes intensely on mine. “Daddy’s waited too long. I can’t stand aside and watch my little girl be hurt.”
There has been something going on with me. All the bad luck seems to come at once after being cheated, and maybe it’s what triggered it.
“That bastard doesn’t know what he had lost,” Simone sneers to himself, and my ex-boyfriend comes to mind for this type of anger to show on the typically callous man’s face.
“You were never his,” he scowls, “You’re mine. Always and forever. I wasn’t careful to keep that imbecile away.”
Simone speaks as if he had done a horrible crime, and he is thinking of a way to atone for his sins. He and my ex-boyfriend had never met before until two weeks ago. I don’t see how this type of anger would become more apparent at the thought of that drunken man.
“What do you mean?”
A desperate part of me wants this man to tell me in words that what he wants is what I want. I’m scared of what I want. I have always been a terrible person in love; no one stays long enough to let me be comfortable with them, and I don’t have the experience to hold on to him.
“I want you, little girl.” Simone presses a determined kiss to my lips.
“I want you. I want you to come live with me, sleep next to me, and wake up together.”
This has to be a dream. No man can sound this perfect and say the right thing to me. He’s either a master manipulator or he’s on a string of luck to be able to sink his poisonous words into my mind. This addicting feeling of being wanted is new, and it’s scary. I don’t know how to handle my heart wanting someone so badly that I’m willing to get on my knees to beg for him to not lie to me.
I guess it wouldn’t be hard for someone to slide into my life with a few sweet words and kind gestures for me to be smitten with them. This is the side effect of having no one to love me.
Needy, I silently think to myself. I’m needy and a bad girl for wanting to keep this perfection of a man to myself.
If he lets me, the other part of me whispers.
“That sounds like a one-night stand,” I murmur; a flash of disappointment kicks me in the gut.
My hair pulls my head back when he fists his fingers together and glares down at me. The height difference overthrows me as I yield to his rough ministration and suck up the fright of the monster in front of me.
Weak and spineless, I wait for the verbal berating that would definitely come because everything seems to be going back to that man. My ex-boyfriend tells me that being timid is good because it’s what I am, a stepping stool for him when he feels like it because he’s the one that wears the pants in the relationship.
In hindsight, I should have left him before I caught him cheating. Thinking of that, it doesn’t hurt as I thought it would and maybe it’s because of time healing the wound or the fact that Simone had never let me fall into a pit of self-deprecation.
“You are not some fuck,” he snaps, glowering with obsidian heat.
“Daddy’s little girl is beautiful, strong, and brilliant. I do not want you to even think of one ill-spoken word about yourself. Do you understand?”
I couldn’t protest, not when my heart skips and skips like a fairy in a field of flowers. He makes me believe in his words that I’m beautiful, strong, and brilliant despite growing up with no specialties when everyone around me flourishes in their skills.
“Yes, Daddy, I understand.”
“Good.” He nods, loosening the grip on my hair as I feel a few strands pinch more painfully. “Leave everything here. You don’t need any of it; I will buy your new clothes.”
I curl my toes on the hardwood floor. Shyness comes like an old friend greeting me as I duck my flustered face down to stare at his chest. The black button-up shirt stretches over his chest, and I watch longer to see if a button would pop open to show me what’s inside.
Treasure, my mind unhelpfully supplies with cheekiness.
I don’t know how far his tattoos extend, but I want to find out as my mouth dries at the possibility that it extends down below his belt.
“Eyes, little girl,” Simone warns with a heated growl. “You don’t want Daddy to do something he’ll regret, do you?”
Nothing he can do would accumulate to regret. I’d let him indulge in whatever he's thinking, and I would welcome his darkest wishes with open arms because he’s the one that opened this gate in my heart to let himself in as if it has always been his rightful place.
A part of me doesn’t deny it.
“Do you regret me?” I ask, voice just a touch too soft.
“No.” His chest rumbles. “No, Daddy would never regret his little girl.”
“What if I did something bad? Would Daddy regret me then?” My eyes are wide, curious, and expecting for his answer.
“I have my forms of punishment for you,” he purrs. “I will never regret loving you.”
“You love me?” I gasp, heart throbbing in thrilling beats.
Hope fills up space in my blood, pushing for maximum speed as it rushes to my heart to protect the organ that’s beating out of control. My focus zeroes in on the sincerity and honesty in his black eyes, opening the gate to his emotions for me to probe around.
He doesn’t protest when I simply look at him, to gauge if he’s telling me the truth about loving me.
He loves me.
Simone loves me.
My cheeks hurt so much from the blush and the contained smile. This is the first time someone had told me they love me, and my parents don’t count, but this man is willing to put down his pride and tell me he loves me in this dingy apartment when he should be dancing with a princess in his massive mansion under a chandelier.
“Take your time, little girl,” he mutters to the side of my head as he locks me in a hug.
I wound my hands over his waist, familiar with his embrace and his scent that I feel at home with him.
I need time to know if I love him and I want to say that I do, but what is stopping me from thinking that this is just sweet words throwing sand into my eyes until I realize it down the road.
I’m ashamed to say that I thought I was in love with all of my relationships before Simone, and it’s not fair to Simone to be compared to inadequate excuses of a relationship.
He deserves more. He deserves an answer that will never change.
I can give him that, but I need time. I need time to sort out this cloud of affection around me to see him clearly. I’m one foot in the pool of love, and I just have to decide that if I’m afraid of the water or want to embrace it with a headfirst dive.
I want to drown in his love.
“Don’t take too long,” he amends his words. “Daddy isn’t that patient.”
Chapter Six
Simone
“Y-you said you’d wait!”
I have said that. Exactly eight hours ago. It’s late at night now. After dinner and freshening up, I had come into the room that I had assigned her like a damn pervert.
Now that she understood my motives and what I want, it was the matter of getting her used to my touch before I lose all of my patience in myself.
I don’t want to hurt her. It’s the last thing I want to do, and if the world counts on me hurting her to survive, then it can rot in Hell.
“I am waiting,” I remind her with a small tap to her quivering lips.
I have her in my home, surrounded by the four walls of my bedroom, with a measuring tape resembling the fine thread of my self-control.
She purses her lips; teary blue eyes peer at me with dismay. “You’re not.”
If I wasn’t waiting, she would have been naked and stretched around my fat cock without care to this world. Her vir
ginity would coat my cock, and she would be crying from the pain of me being too big for her.
Good things come to those who wait. I know that motto like the back of my hands because it’s what I have been doing for the last year, and it’s that shitty concept that had cost me twelve months with her.
During that time, she had fallen into the grasp of that man who had the balls to call her his girlfriend. How I wish to wrap my hands around his neck and make sure he never breathes even a little air again.
“I’m working,” I correct her while lifting my finger that’s been hooked to the bottom of her shirt.
My shirt. The same shirt that she wears to sleep after I had barged into her room and practically kidnapped her into mine for work-related business.
What a load of shit.
I just want her in my room and let the course of fate take the wheel. I don’t trust myself to not pounce on her, but I try my best to behave. That doesn’t mean I can’t indulge in a little fun with her since she so willingly stayed instead of bolting out of the door.
“Just working…” she murmurs with slow conviction as she lets me drag my fingers over her nipples as an excuse to wrap the tape around her round tits.
“Don’t believe me?” I tease. “Only amateurs use one point as reference.”
She cocks her head down at my kneeling form, but I still come up to her collarbone, and that’s when I remember just how small she is. She takes less space and less fabric than other models, but I don’t work with them as I have a team of designers putting their work on them.
I make designs and clothes for my clients after they had paid half of the price. I only meet with my clients during measurements, which is twice in the process as my contract has stated that they need to maintain the marked weight and I will not take responsibility for the clothes not fitting.
“The best way to be perfect,” I say as I breathe in her sweet scent, “is to measure under unusual times.”
Interest fills her blue eyes, and her cheeks puff in amazement at this new information. It’s not exactly bullshit, but it’s not wrong either. Albeit controversial and nonconventional, but Aria doesn’t need to know that.
