by Naomi West
“I guess you never had a girl who had so much trouble following her around that you had to hide her out here.”
We break through a little line of shrubs and my cottage comes into view. One story, thatched roof, set about fifty feet back from a small cliff overlooking the ocean. The shrub roses grow up the side and all through the front yard. A clothesline strings along the side of the house and the linens my mother washed yesterday hang out and dance in the breeze. Alessia’s breath gasps as she takes it in.
“I love it,” she whispers. I’m glad that I can bring her somewhere like this. Someplace she likes and feels safe. Still, I have to clear something up with her right away.
I bound up onto the porch and pull her with me. “Alessia,” I say as I take her hands. Her fingers are cold and I wrap them up in my hands. “I would have brought you to meet them anyways, trouble or not.”
Her eyes narrow and her head cocks to one side. “What do you mean?”
I drop her hands and pace to one side of the porch and back to her. I throw my hands in the air in frustration. “What do you think I mean? I mean that I love you.”
She freezes and stares at me as if she doesn’t understand what I’ve just said. “What did you just say?”
“I said I love you.” I take a step closer to her and bring my hand to her cheek, so pink in the crisp air.
Suddenly her eyes are snapping with anger and she slaps my hand away. “How could you say that to me? How could you even think that after what you accused me of? How could you possibly love the person you claim that I am?” A panic rises in my chest and I start to speak but she cuts me off, pointing a finger at me. “You said that I was deceitful. Selfish. You accused me of being two-faced. You said I treated you the same way I treated my father. That I hid parts of myself from everyone.” Angry tears fall down her cheeks and she dashes them away.
“And you know what, Dare? The irony in that is absolutely laughable considering you’re the only person who’s ever seen the real me. You’re the only person I’ve never hidden from and the only person who’s ever bothered to look close enough. And even when I’ve never lied to you. When I’ve never deceived you. Never hidden who I really am from you, you still believe that I’ve done all those things. The Patrizzio curse, huh? Nobody ever knows when we’re lying but nobody ever knows when we’re telling the truth either.”
I try to take her in my arms but she bats my hands away. “I know what you think you heard. But you don’t know shit. You have no idea that you heard me learning about that dumb ass plan at basically the same second that you did. You heard me learning that my own brothers set up my father so that he’d get arrested and sent to prison. You heard me learning that my brothers fucked that plan up and that one of them was severely concussed and the other one was missing. Is still missing, for all I know.” She drags her hands through her hair in a panicky motion. “And then you accused me, without waiting for answers. I watched my father get arrested on national television.”
She paces back and forth in front of me. Too fired up to stop now. “And did I have the support of my boyfriend through all of this? A man I’ve come to trust and rely on? No. He’d turned away from me. Accused me of being just like my father. A lying, worthless mobster.”
She rounds on me again and there’s fire in her eyes. “You know what I needed right then, Dare? I needed the man who held me and protected me. The one who looked at me like I was everything he ever needed. The one who listened and offered ideas and guidance. But instead I got the man that my father hired to watch over me. I got a great big black hole. Somebody who didn’t even act like he knew me.”
She sags with her back against the front door and she slides down to sit on the porch. Like her legs can’t support her anymore. I instantly fall to my knees to be on her level.
“You said you’d take care of my needs,” she says as she wipes her eyes on her sleeve. “Well, I needed you to support me after my father got arrested and my brother and my best friend disappeared. But you were gone. Just a shell. You had no feeling for me.”
She puts her head on her knees and it almost seems like she’s talking to herself. “And now you tell me you love me? It’s not fair. I don’t get it. And just when I think I can protect myself against the way you make me feel, your father calls you Adair.”
“What?” I ask, confused for the first time in her whole speech.
She looks up at me and I brush away some of the hair that’s gotten caught in the wetness from her tears.
“I didn’t know your real name was Adair. Your parents call you that. And it’s so cute. And you look so good with your shirt off. And your father loves you so much. And you barely fit in that tiny bed last night. But you jammed yourself in it just to be next to me. And I don’t get it. I can’t hold all of this feeling at once. It’s breaking my heart.”
As soon as the words are out of her mouth I gather her up in my arms and kick the door open. I can’t hear anymore. My heart is breaking too. I’ve never been more ashamed of myself in my life. I stride through the tiny kitchen and back into the only bedroom. The queen-sized bed is made with an old white and blue quilt and the curtains are drawn back to let in the cloudy sun and the breathtaking view of the ocean.
I lay her down on the bed and tug her boots off and then my own. I lay myself down next to her and gather up her hands.
“I’ve never loved someone like this before,” I say and her eyes snap up to mine for the first time in what feels like forever. “I don’t really know how. I feel like I’m walking blind out here. I made a mistake when I reacted like that. The worst mistake of my life.”
I pull the hat off her head and stroke her hair. “My whole life I’ve been able to trust my instincts. To know what’s real and what’s not. It’s kept me alive through some of the most dangerous situations a person could be in.”
I flop onto my back and am hugely relieved to see that she goes up onto an elbow, listening hard to what I’m saying. I haven’t lost her.
“When I heard you talking to Dante, I was ready to believe the worst. Not because of what I knew about you. But because of what I know about the world. I’ve seen the bad in the world, Alessia. And I hate to say it, but a lot of that bad was when I was working with your father.”
She winces, but doesn’t refute it. She knows I’m not trying to hurt her. I’m just trying to tell the truth.
“You’re completely right that I shouldn’t have assumed the worst. I should have used what I know about you to try to understand. That you’re good. And kind. And honest. And I think I did know that, because I couldn’t stop caring about you. If you were anyone else, I would have automatically put you in a different category after hearing that phone conversation. I would have been wary of you. Stopped trusting you. Stopped caring about you.” I want to reach up and kiss her but I don’t quite yet. “But I couldn’t put you in a different category. You were firmly stuck where you were. In my heart. I couldn’t stop loving you.”
I pull her in close and nuzzle my face against her neck for just a second. I can’t help myself. She’s just so warm. So soft. So Alessia. I bring my eyes back to her face and she freezes. I remember what she said once about my eyes. That they’re penetrating. That they have the power to hold her in place. I hope they do, for my sake.
“I won’t stop loving you, Alessia.”
She squeezes her eyes closed for a minute, shutting me out of her world. My gut tenses. If she opens her eyes and looks at me like I’m nothing to her, just some bodyguard, I don’t know what I’ll do.
But her dark eyes come open and they’re not distant or neutral. They’re soft and vulnerable and looking right at me. She’s falling into my gaze, I can see it in the way she looks back and forth between my eyes. She looks so small, so lost. I realize in that moment what I have to do. I have to make this easy for her. No choices, no decisions, just pleasure. Just receiving. I have to turn her brain off for a little while, remind her what it feels like to be taken care of,
to be adored. I have to anchor her. I have to tie her to me.
I clench my jaw. I want to tell her that I love her, but that’s just me being selfish. But now I need her to know that I’ll never leave her again. That I’ll take care of her. That she’s mine.
My gaze skips down her body, obscured by the sweater and scarf and baggy jeans. I’d thought she looked so cute standing in my mother’s kitchen an hour ago, but suddenly, I hate these clothes, obscuring my woman. I start ripping and dragging them away and her eyes heat further with each piece of clothing I toss to the floor.
I stroke one hand up her side. “I can see you’re overwhelmed, Alessia. You’re lost. You’re confused.” I stand up and tug my sweater off over my head. “So I’m gonna make this real simple for you, gorgeous.” I shuck off one boot and then the other, never breaking eye contact. “You are a goddess. Plain and simple. You deserve love and worship and faith.” I undo my jeans. “And I’m gonna give all of that to you.”
I kick off my jeans and gesture around to the cottage. “See this house? This is yours now. This is your home as much as it is mine. My parents? They’re your parents now too. And me?” I tuck my fingers in the waistband of my underwear. “I’m yours as much as you’re mine.”
I step out of my underwear and crawl across the bed to her. Her eyes are wide and her entire body has started trembling. She’s overwhelmed. Thinking fast, I reach down to the side of the bed and drag my belt out of my pants.
Gently, I take her arms up over her head and loop the belt through the rungs of the headboard. I fasten it around her wrists, anchoring them above her head. She gasps and tilts her hips up into me.
I kiss her lips and gently drag my hand down her smooth side. “Gorgeous, if you want me to stop, you say the word. But otherwise, I’m about to tie you up and fuck you silly.”
She reaches up to me with her mouth, shoving her tongue into my mouth and grabbing me around the waist with her legs. But that won’t do. I reach back and undo her legs from around me. I spread her thighs and drag each foot out to the corner of the bed. I use my sweater to tie one ankle down and my pants to tie the other. She could tug out of the loose knots if she wanted to, but I can tell she doesn’t want to. Her eyes are dark with lust as her breaths come out choppier and choppier. Her hips make small, insistent movements like she can’t help but grind against the air.
I stand next to the bed and survey my work. My cock could pound nails watching her all spread out for me on the bed. Her body rises and falls with her breaths and her hair tumbles across the bed. The golden sun filters across her and then my eyes fall to her pussy, spread and wet for me.
Her hips rock back and forth and her arms and legs work gently against the restraints. “I need you,” she murmurs. “Oh, God. I need you.”
I’m on her in a second, caging her in with my arms and thrusting my cock deep inside her. Normally, I would have gone down on her or made her come with my hands first but this isn’t a normal occasion. No man could resist her begging like that. And she didn’t just need to come. She needed me. She needed me inside her.
The second I’m inside her, Alessia’s body rises up off the bed, her eyes are wide and unseeing, her mouth making a perfect syllable. Her arms and legs pull at the restraints in her passion, but they hold and she remains completely spread for me.
“Dare!” she screams and her body clenches me from the inside, so tight I see stars. I pull almost all the way out and thrust back all the way to the base. I need to see her. I rear back on my heels and tip up her hips to take me. I start up a punishing rhythm, gripping her ass and pounding into her. A flush works its way over her breasts and up her neck, her head whips from one side to the other. Suddenly, without warning, her back arches up off the bed and her entire body tenses. I burn the image into my brain. I want it to be the last thing I see before I die. It’s proof that I’ve done something right in this world.
When her body goes lax, I fall down over her, nipping at her neck and ear. I nuzzle her back to life, holding myself still inside her. She moans, whipping her head from one side to the next and moving her hips against me as much as she can even though she’s tied up and pinned underneath me.
Finally, I move, pressing into her and relishing the feel of our skin sliding against each other. I let some of my weight come down on her and I take her mouth in a kiss.
‘Yes,” she whispers into my mouth and her head falls back, her eyes rolling upward. I’m moving slowly, agonizingly slowly, but it’s allowing me to move deeper than I’ve ever been before. Her legs are spread and open for me. There is nothing between us. We’ve never been this close before.
I start to gain speed as the urge rises in me and I can feel her tightening around me once again. I push and push into her, losing my mind in her soft, wet heat. She takes me, her moans and the creak of the bed underneath us filling the room. I’m close and so is she.
On an impulse I kiss her again and gently wrap one of my hands around her throat. A flood of wetness flows out of her and slicks our skin. I apply the slightest pressure with my hand as I pound into her and she tenses around me. Her pussy squeezing the life out of my cock as she screams into my mouth. Her body pulls tight as I lose myself in her. I’m lost in her as I explode over and over again.
As the feeling subsides, I want to collapse onto her but I know that it’s time to let her free. I immediately reach up and undo her arms and legs and gather her against me.
Her breaths are coming out in jagged sobs, but when I search her face I see satisfaction, relaxation, and something else.
“That. Was. Incredible,” she says, stretching and reaching out a hand to trace some invisible line across my stubble.
There are no words for how beautiful she looks. The sun streams in over her and her skin is rosy and damp, her chest rising and falling with her breath.
“Yes, it was,” I agree, dragging my hand over her bottom.
“I’ve never felt that way before,” she whispers, her eyes big and round.
“Which way?”
“It’s hard to explain,” she pushes the hair out of her face and flops onto her back, her eyes searching the ceiling for answers, “out of control but protected, I guess. You were directing the whole thing so all I could do was accept it. But there was something really freeing in that. My only job was to feel pleasure.” She turns to me and grins. “It’s a real stress reliever.”
I grin at her and laugh. “Good. That’s kind of what I was going for.”
She looks up at me with just a touch of nervousness in her eyes. “Any chance that was as good for you as it was for me?”
My mind goes completely blank. What the fuck does she have to be nervous about? “Excuse me?”
“I mean, I didn’t really do anything to add to the experience, all I did was lie there.”
“Alessia,” I say as I take her by the chin. “That was the single most incredible experience of my life. I’ve never come harder than that. I’ve never felt anything like that.”
She bites at her smile and presses her face into my shoulder for a second. “Was it a stress reliever for you too?”
“Better than a day at the beach,” I say.
“Better than chamomile tea.”
“Better than a cold beer at the end of the night.”
She grins back at me and I’m relieved to see none of her earlier worries lining her face. “Better than hot yoga.”
“What the hell is hot yoga?” I ask.
“It’s yoga in a really hot room.”
“That literally sounds like hell to me.”
She laughs and swats at me. “No! It’s really great. The heat makes you super flexible and you leave feeling really limber and relaxed.”
“Isn’t it miserably hot in all those flowy yoga clothes?”
She shakes her head. “No, you just take them off. By the end, I’m pretty much in some hot pants and a sports bra.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“No, I’m serious. That
’s what everybody is wearing by the end.”
“You do the sweaty splits in your underwear when you go to yoga? Maybe I’ll come next time.”
She laughs and it’s music to my ears. “Trust me, it’s not really quite like you’re picturing.”
I drag her to me and stroke a hand over her hair. The two of us fall silent and look out the bedroom window toward the ocean. I think of all the horrible things I’ve seen Patrizzio do. All the awful rooms I’ve been in. The murder. The lies. The deceit and fear. I’ve seen the worst that humanity has to offer. And I know, without a doubt, that I would do it a million more times as long as it would mean that I’d wind up in this room with this woman by my side.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Alessia
I race out of the reach of the surf but I get tugged back immediately into Dare’s chest. We are walking along the rocky shore, the midafternoon wind biting at my cheeks.
