by Cherise West
“Tony,” I repeat firmly my voice raising.
“Why should I listen to you? Why should I even give you a second fucking thought, Mara? I’m a scumbag to you. And maybe you’re right, I am—”
“Tony!” I squeak.
“I am a scumbag, the scumbag you want me to be. You hate me, but you can’t get away from me. You like that. You like that. That’s twisted. That’s twisted, Mara—”
“Tony, I’m pregnant!” I shout, immediately silencing him. He swallows hard. We look at each other in awe. No more words said.
He flees. With a storm in his step he leaves the booth; leaves the diner, the bell ringing wildly as he nearly throws the door from its hinges. I tell him.
He runs away.
Chapter 15
“Tony! Come back,” I plead, the diner door jingling open behind me. Pacing the pavement, realizing I brought him here and he’s stuck with me, at least for the moment, Tony breathes heavy, anxiety creeping into his expression, those strong tattooed arms flexing, a hand raking through his hair, looking for any sort of relief he can from the turmoil welling inside of him.
“Tony,” I plead again, rushing down the stairs to the dinner so fast I almost trip. “Please, listen, I need your… I need you, somehow, I need to know what—”
“You need to know? You need to know?!” He exclaims, looking at me with an expression I haven’t seen on his face since our night together. The same face he flashed when he fell into the side of my car, confused; both of us, scared, not knowing where to go or what the other’s thoughts could be. “You come to the courthouse, you pull me out of the most harrowing day of my life, Mara, and now you make it worse! You make it worse, after spending your entire career trying to throw my brothers in jail,” he howls.
“I made it worse? Don’t tell me that,” I hiss, “I made it worse?! Was I the one solely responsible for what happened between us weeks ago? Was that all my fault? You had no part in it, took no joy in it? Is that what you’re saying?” I accuse, tears of frustrated anger staining my cheeks red.
“That’s… that’s not what I meant, and you know it,” he huffs. “You know— Mara, you’re a district attorney, you’re working to destroy my entire life. My family, the Wardogs, the only family I have, run scared in the streets because of you and that detective. You hate me, and now you say you’re pregnant? You threw me in jail, you,” he rages, “you want to put me away, and now you’ve found another way to throw my life into a spin? What do you expect me to do?!”
“I didn’t put you in jail, Tony,” I protest, “I had nothing to do with that— with whatever—”
“Was that your way of trying to get me to talk to you, after that night? To concoct some kind of bogus sting? All so you could tell me his?” he rumbles.
“What— no! Do you really think I’d use my position, compromise my ethics, for that?!” I exclaim, exasperated.
“You made compromises that night to be with me, didn’t you?” he says.
“No,” I quiver, “I didn’t— I didn’t want, didn’t think of it that way. Tony, that night, things went crazy, but it’s because— it’s not because I have some kind of fetish, it’s not because I hate you, it’s not— it’s because I… you’re gorgeous, you’re special, there’s something about you—”
“Now you’re going to lie to my face? And you said I was the dishonest one!” he shouts. The wind blows down the cramped roadway, the lunch crowd beginning to shuffle out of their holes for the afternoon to dip into the diners and stroll to the street-carts.
“Lying? What makes you think I’m lying?” I quake weakly, tears flowing.
“To you, I’m just another criminal. You don’t know anything about me, Mara, but to you, I’m just a scumbag, one of those Wardogs hoodlums rolling down the street, making trouble for everyone. I’ve seen your interviews, I’ve heard the stories; from Lisa Marino, from my boys.”
“You’d trust Lisa Marino over me?” I scoff, pained.
“I don’t trust either of you, but Lisa Marino hasn’t spent the better part of her professional life defaming me and my boys in the press without even knowing who I am, or what my goals are,” he fires back.
“You don’t know what I’m thinking! You don’t know what’s happened to me in my life!” I scream through the sobs.
“You’re right, I don’t! I don’t know you, and you don’t know me, so where does that get us? Two idiots, not trusting the other? Oh, but we let our guards down, for one night, but still, that wasn’t enough to show you I’m more than a leather jacket, was it?” Tony protests.
“I just, I want to know, Tony, why,” I beg. “Why? The pregnancy - both of us, are responsible. Both of us, together, on that night. Why did you do it? We kissed, and we kissed again, and I dreamed… I dreamed about you, every night, after that, but you wouldn’t even speak to me the next morning. Why? I saw it in your eyes, Tony. It wasn’t just nothing.”
“We drank together, Mara. Things happen, when… when people drink, don’t you get it? I’m from the west side. Dingy bars and dirty garages. Guys with no futures; guys with nothing to lose. The Wardogs are my family. I might hate some of them sometimes, often times, but they’re all I’ve got. You’re a prosecutor. You’ve never known need; you’ve never known what it is to be alone, without family. Without love,” he breathes out deeply; the conflict rings in every word he speaks, and I can see his eyes, trying so hard not to look into mine, hiding his hurt beneath an armor of leather and muscle.
“I do know, actually,” I sniffle out, withering beneath his words. “I know very well what it is to lose. The Wardogs made sure of that. And now I don’t know how to feel about that because there’s a Wardog who says he’s different from the pack, and I’m pregnant with his child, and I’m slowly starting—”
“Don’t say it,” he demands, fists balled up, face cast askew. “Don’t say it, Mara.”
“Since that night, it’s all I’ve wanted to say. Since the first time we talked, I hated you, but I knew,” I warble. “I knew, somehow, I wanted to kiss you. I wanted to, because I—”
“I told you not to say it,” he shakes, gritting his teeth.
“I’m starting to fall in love with you,” I admit, shivering in the cold wind.
“I told you not to say it,” he bites back. “I told you, and you did anyway. What do you expect, Mara? I’m a Wardog. You’re a girl from the right side of the tracks. You can’t love me. How could you? And I can’t love you. It’s how we’re made, Mara.”
“I want to love you, a man I should hate so much,” I sob, falling back against the door of my car, the emotions starting to take me. “I’m going to have your baby, and I just don’t know what to do.” The tears blind me, lights of the diner and of murky noontime just a smeared blur of smoggy darkness and graying light. I shrink back, begging for something to take me weeks back, to that first kiss. I cry in the wind, meek and blinded; the strong lawyer, the commanding prosecutor who’d never back down in the face of organized crime, melting away in a diner parking lot.
“Jesus,” he exhales sharply, rubbing his temples. “Mara…”
“I’m pregnant, and I’m so confused, and I just don’t know what to do,” I murmur through the tears.
“Fucking… I can’t…” Tony struggles to find words to speak. When they fail him, he strides to me with a fury I’ve never seen. I recoil, fearing the Wardog will strike out at me; instead, I feel his arms wrap around my waist and his lips press against mine; smudged with tears and spit, he doesn’t take any notice, kissing me deep, his eyes closed, his muscles shaking against me. I hesitate at first, fearful this will end up the same as the night we spent together - but when I feel his tongue roll across my lips, I crumble to bits at that perfect taste of him, firm in my mouth again. I weakly grasp at his waist, pulling him tight; his abs press against me, rock-hard and sculpted and so perfect. He takes me completely, moaning into my lips, nibbling at my cheek, letting me feel the sensation of his bites, the marks I’ve mi
ssed so much since that night with him.
“I don’t know what to do, either,” he breathes deeply against my skin, hugging me tight, my head cradled in his hands. “I have no fucking idea what to do. But we can’t both keep living lives full of built on misunderstandings and lies. We let the lies go that night, Mara, and it did something special to both of us. I’m sorry.”
“I’m in pain,” I whimper weakly, “my legs hurt. I don’t want to cry anymore.”
“Come with me,” he holds his hand out to me. “I’ll drive.”
“Where are we going?” I ask warily, my entire body unsteady as I try to clack my way to the passenger’s seat.
“Somewhere we can talk, without the lies. Somewhere we can feel safe.”
“I trust you,” I shakily admit.
“I’m glad,” he responds.
Chapter 16
A metallic door clangs shut behind us; I stray ahead, but he holds onto my wrist, leading me back to an embrace against his chest. He kisses me deeply, passionately; he kisses me with emotions I didn’t think a man like this, much less a Wardog, could ever feel. Red bricks for walls, archways of brick constructed over black ceilings, candles hung from wrought-iron chandeliers make the corner penthouse he leads me into something more like an ancient castle than the modern, suburban rows of crackerboxes along my street. Stainless steel surfaces gleam from his kitchen; leading me beneath another archway I find a living room styled in black leather, the walls decorated with license plates, spare chromed motorcycle parts; leather jackets hung up for posterity, each covered in patched letters and symbols. A fireplace roars in front of an old-fashioned, overstuffed love seat, tilted to bask in the glow of its blazing yellow flames. We linger in front of the flash and lick of the fire, kissing with each step we take across the black rug, adorned with red rose patterns. Since his body met mine in the heat of that parking lot, we haven’t been able to separate ourselves from one another. We haven’t wanted to.
“Is this where you live?” I gasp against his lips.
“No,” he smirks, “I just like the way it looks. I break in here once in a while to bring my favorite ladies over, so they can bask in the fireplace.”
“Are you always so sarcastic?” I purr; he answers with a kiss, slowly pulling me along with him, falling into the embrace of the freshly-upholstered love seat, pulling me into his lap. Strong arms exploring my back, pulling me close so that our lips never lose one another, he feels the heat throbbing from my heart; it races faster than I can breathe, both terrified and turned on and so confused, but knowing that something about this arrangement feels so right.
“I meant it… when I said it,” I whisper against his lips, bracing myself against the back of the love seat. “I… I do, feel, that something— something has me, feeling so right here, with you— that I’ve dreamed about you, since the night we spent together. I think that I’m falling in love with you, Tony.”
“Do you have to think?” he huffs hard, pressing his hips up against mine. I feel his thickening bulge press between my legs, throbbing at my pant leg; I swallow hard, but not without a moan escaping from between my lips. “Or do you just know?” he demands darkly.
“I don’t have to guess, or to think,” I exhale, both lust and love beginning to take my body completely. “I know. I know that I want you, so badly,” my voice shakes, “now, and every night.”
“It’s not even night yet,” he snarks rudely, his hand rolling down the small of my back, until both palms firmly grip my rear.
“Shut up,” I exhale, rolling my eyes before our lips meet, silencing the both of us save the symphony of starved, muffled moans, pent up over weeks of our bodies wordlessly begging for each other. The heat of the fire against my back, our dark and twisted little corner of the world closed away from a city that has hurt us both, I bury my troubles in his lips and his strong embrace, letting myself forget about how wrong this is; how dangerous it is, sleeping with the man I swore to catch, telling him I love him. Fear looms on the horizon - fear about his charges, about him, about my pregnancy, our baby, caught between law and the lawless, but all of that washes away so effortlessly when he holds my hips and pushes against them with his strong fingers caressing my skin. I pull my loose blouse over my head, my bra black as the leather on his walls, and his kisses rain immediately at my chest, leaving me marked with those little, reddened nibbles that bring me back immediately to that hot night with him. Kisses across my neck, his hands keeping my back warm and searching every inch of me, memorizing all I have to offer him, he throws his tanktop aside, letting me feel his rippling abs, his broad chest; my fingers trace his thatchwork of tattoos, enamored with each one as he smirks through his kisses.
“You like my ink?” he asks with a hot kiss to my earlobe.
“I want to know what it means,” I exhale deeply, breath shuddering. “Symbols, and symbols, and more…” I trace each one; his arm shivers under my touch, anticipating me as hungrily as I had anticipated him.
“Some of them are memorials for fallen brothers,” he kisses me along my neck with each word. “Some, memories of past girlfriends, most of them rotten… one for Quentin, one for me. One for my parents,” he explains, his kisses meeting my lips.
“Am I going to be another rotten memory you stitch into yourself?” I tease, stroking his biceps. He grips the sides of my face and pulls me in to a steaming hot kiss, his hips rolling against mine, each push of his growing bulge against my legs heating me up harder.
“What do you think?” he asks, pulling me tighter to the rhythmic flex of his masculinity against my hot folds. His fingers slither down to my beltline, unlatching the button and pulling free the zipper of my slacks, the sound of the zipper flexing open making me quiver. I grasp his wrist, stroking it gently, a warm concern in my eyes.
“Tony,” I whisper, “I’m pregnant… with your child. I have… I have to know,” I whisper cautiously, “…that… that you won’t regret me again. That you won’t leave me on the couch, questioning, with that look in your eye. That I won’t be a rotten memory, written into your skin, never forgotten but always lamented.”
“I don’t want to lie anymore, Mara. Not to you, the way I did that morning,” he exhales in regret. “Not again.”
“You didn’t say anything to me that morning,” I frown, perplexed.
“That was the lie,” he exhales, kissing along my neck, until I can hear his every breath in my ear. “I lied in pretending I didn’t care… I lied in my silence, in the look in my eye,” he admits, impassioned. “I lied to you, Mara, for weeks… I lied to you about that night. And I’m not going to anymore. I can’t stand to lie about this love any longer.”
“Tony,” I exhale, relief and adrenaline surging through me, “th-there’s so much, so much I want to know, so much I need to say, to ask. I want to… to help you, I want to help with this, but—” he hushes me with a finger to my lips, his kisses flowing along my skin, his teeth between my bra. I swallow, eyelids fluttering in ecstasy as he unhooks the garment, my breasts spilling free, his hands groping and squeezing the soft and sensitive flesh and pert, pink nipples as I feel his bulge press against my blossoming, hot feminine folds, begging to feel him inside of me again. “Ple— pleasssseee, Tony,” I moan, nibbling the end of his finger; he pulls me close with his hand to my back, my stiff peaks pressing against his strong chest, his arms peeling my pants down my thighs, my legs straightening to free myself from their confines, my fingers working furiously to do the same to him, his jeans unbuckled and hanging loosely at his waist. My hands slip down his strong, toned pelvis, feeling the tip of him; I feel so alive again, like I haven’t since the last fiery night we spent together, and without the fear of the morning after or the specter of alcohol looming over the both of us it feels so much more pure that pleasure like lightning arcs through every nerve and leaves me crying his name before he has even given me what I want.
My damp petals exposed and my body flushed rosy with enraptured desire I tug his
pants past his lap, letting the full, quaking, thick girth of him spring free from below, his hands firmly handling my hips, guiding me towards all of his stiff, steamy inches. Riding him gently, I tease him at first, rolling my drenched lips and opening against his head, reddened and so taken with me. I press against him as he feels my breasts, squeezing my nipples, each perky in his hand. His fingers pluck at each, the sensation like nothing I’ve ever felt before, a pleasurable little prick of pain that drives my thighs against his shaft. I nestle him inside of me and, breath halting and hot, I plunge myself onto his full size, letting him push deep into me, a rain of emotion flowing from between my lips.
“G— good, oh,” I gasp, only broken pieces of words escaping as that sensation returns to me clearer and sweeter than even our first night together. The fireplace glinting on my exposed flesh, my hands bracing against the cushions, my hips rock back and forth, taking him into me over and over again, my voice shaking with each sugary plea I pour wantingly into Tony’s ear. He holds onto my hips, his moans ringing loud as his head rolls back on the couch, watching my eyes, glassy desire glossing over his gaze. Something about it feels so much fuller, so, so much better than our first time together; maybe the warmth, the strength of his touch, or everything feeling so colorful and so bright and so loud, something more than a tinny drunken memory. I can see every detail of his tattoos, skulls and fire wrapped across his rippling olive skin, sweat pouring from his brow as he begins to piston his hips hard against my bouncing, succulent thighs.
“Tony, I never— hhhnng, never want it to end!” I cry out, squeezing my fingers against the couch, holding on for dear life amid his feral grunts and shouts, riding him down against the couch with all the strength my weakened limbs can muster. He gives me a soft thwap against my rear, spurring me on; through the intense, enrapturing feelings I smirk, burying my face against his neck and kissing roughly, even peppering a cheeky little bite into his neck.
