by A. Zavarelli
She likes me, but these crazy mafia bastards are her family now. And she doesn’t have a problem letting me or anyone else know it.
“Rory’s been wicked pissy all day anyway,” Mack continues. “So I figured it fizzled out before it even began.”
“There was nothing to fizzle out,” I tell her.
“Right,” she says. “That’s what I told Lach. Exactly.”
Silence again.
Mack’s baby is making weird baby noises in the background and it still freaks me out. I never imagined her as a mother. But I guess she does a good job of it.
“You need to come by and visit with Keeva,” she says. “Let me get a picture of you two. I promise she won’t bite.”
“I’ll stop by sometime,” I lie.
Babies freak me out.
People like Mack… they can adapt. But me, no way. I wouldn’t have the first clue. I mean, you hold them and they cry. You feed them and they cry. You change their diaper and they cry.
The only thing I like to see cry is a grown man after I bring him to his knees.
“You going to the fights tonight?” Mack asks.
“I thought Crow told you not to go to those anymore.”
“Yeah right,” she huffs. “I put the kibosh on that nonsense real quick. Besides, Reaper and Saint are fighting tonight. I gotta be there to support my boys. Cheer em’ on from the sidelines.”
“I didn’t know Rory was fighting,” I say, and my mouth is stupid.
“Oh yeah,” Mack yawns through the speaker. “Mick hurt his shoulder, so Rory’s stepping in. I guess I didn’t think about that. Probably best you don’t come.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well you know…” Mack says casually. “I doubt you want to see him with another girl at the end of the night. Even if you said what you guys had was nothing. I’m just saying, if it was me…”
I know Mack, and I know when she’s baiting me. My head might be onto her, but my mouth isn’t.
“What other girl?” I blurt.
“You know, the guys have this thing where they let a few groupies from the crowd go back to take care of their guy afterwards. It’s like, a Brazilian thing.”
“Oh.” I rap my fingers against the table and stare down at the mountain of paperwork I need to sort through. “Well, it doesn’t matter to me. Like I said.”
“Right,” Mack agrees. “Like you said.”
“I have to go,” I tell her. “I’ve got shit to do.”
“Kay.” There’s a smile in her voice and it annoys me. “I’ll text you the phone number for the PI when we hang up.”
“Thanks,” I mutter.
“If you do come, I’ll be in the back left corner.”
“I’m not coming.”
“Alright then,” she sings. “See ya.”
Eighteen
Scarlett
She was beautiful - but especially she was without mercy- F. Scott Fitzgerald
Who Rory does or doesn’t spend his time with is no concern of mine.
I’m only here as a spectator, same as everyone else.
To watch him fight and to sober up and get out of my head for a minute so I can get back to work.
That’s all.
I push my way through the crowd and make it a point to avoid Mack. I wore a hat which is fucking ridiculous.
The music is loud, and the crowd is too and then the announcer makes the introductions.
The first guy is Russian, and patriotically enough, his music choice is too. We get his stats, which everyone oohs and ahs over in dramatic fashion. A guy next to me tells his buddy this guy is a fucking legend. His words.
I’m not sweating it.
Rory can handle his shit.
They introduce him next- the Saint- and his intro is Remember the Name by Fort Minor. He walks into the room the same way he always does. There is no posturing from him and I’m glad because he doesn’t need it because he’s a goddamned legend too. And I hate that I see it now, but I do.
I’m in the moment.
I’m excited like the other buffoons next to me by the blood and the sweat and the vision of Rory the predator. He’s hot, and he’s built and he’s going to beat the shit out of this motherfucker and I’m going to watch.
I nudge the girl next to me with my elbow.
“He’s mine,” I tell her, and a lie has never tasted so sweet.
She gives me a skeptical nod and then shrugs. “Good for you, honey.”
The fight begins.
It’s loud, but worth it, I decide.
You never really know someone until you’ve seen them in their element.
This is Rory’s.
His body was made for fighting.
He’s like a gladiator in there. All sweaty and primitive and raw. His instincts are good and he’s fast. I used to watch Mack fight and while I don’t know all the technicalities, I have two eyes.
He wounds his opponent with a solid punch in the first two minutes, and then he toys with him. And maybe we really aren’t so different.
When it’s over and he emerges the victor, I half expect him to drag a couple of virgins back to his cave for the night.
But he doesn’t.
Just like Mack said, his friends are handling that business for him. I watch them- purely out of curiosity- to see who will soothe all of Rory’s aches tonight.
She’s blonde… seriously, what’s with the blondes… and there’s not one remarkable thing about her that I can see.
The hoops in her ears are so big she’d fly away if they caught wind.
And a jean mini skirt? What is this, the eighties?
I stalk her down the hallway and Conor’s too busy flirting with some other blonde to notice.
When she reaches for the doorknob of Rory’s room, I tap her on the shoulder.
“What?” she snaps her gum and turns around.
“Take a hike, kid,” I tell her.
She smirks and crosses her arms. And we’re still in middle school, and this is the girl curling her lip in disgust like I’m the one who has no taste.
“You take a fucking hike.” She snaps her gum again. “Kid.”
Sigh.
They make everything so goddamn difficult. People should know when they see me coming to get the fuck out of my way.
She asks if my dress cost five dollars and I laugh because she’s too ignorant to know it’s Valentino and I’m done being nice.
I grab her by the collar and slam her against the wall.
“Get your hands off me,” she says.
I’m ready to let her scamper off until she opens her pink frosted lips again.
“They sent me back here. I’m supposed to take care of him.”
She wants crazy, and she’s going to get it.
“You couldn’t handle him. He likes it rough.”
“I think I handled him just fine the last time I was here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I say sweetly. “Did I say him? I meant me. You couldn’t handle me, sweetheart.”
I yank the knife from my sheath and dig the flat edge against her throat.
And finally… finally… the woman has some sense.
“Alright, alright… Jesus, you fucking psycho. Let me go. You can have him.”
I let her go, and she scoots away from me, tracking me over her shoulder as she trots off. There’s no fun in going after her, but I still need to make a point here.
To her and any other woman who thinks they’re going to get a piece of Rory.
He’s my toy, and I don’t fucking share.
“Come near him again and I’ll cut out your heart.”
She gives me crazy eyes and nearly trips over her own heels. But she’s gone now, and I’m happy.
Frigging amateurs.
He’s sitting in a chair, towel draped over his head as he leans forward, elbows resting on his thighs.
If I had a poetic bone in my body, I might say it’s a compelling image of him.
I move behind him and he is still and quiet and he knows someone is here, but he doesn’t ask who. The muscles of his back and shoulders are broad beneath my fingertips. He is sweaty and hard and all man.
The truth is Rory doesn’t disgust me.
Not even a little bit.
I lean down to whisper in his ear.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Saint?”
“You can dispense with the games, Scarlett.”
“How’d you know it was me?” I pout.
“For starters, that door isn’t soundproof.”
Heat spreads across my cheeks, and my fingers dig into his back. He wasn’t supposed to hear any of that.
“And what else?” I ask.
“Ye’re the only woman in the world who smells this way.”
It doesn’t sound like a compliment and his voice is odd.
He’s trying to ice me out and fuck him.
My fingers reach around his waist and down to his shorts. But he grabs my wrist and pulls it away.
“I don’t know if I want to do this anymore,” he says.
And this is not the game I wanted to play. My voice is hollow when I try to joke with him.
“Writing me off already? Thought you’d at least make it to the final inning.”
“It’s not a game to me, Scarlett,” he says. “But it is to you. And the thing is…”
He pauses for a moment, and his shoulders flex when he pulls the towel from his face, allowing me to see him.
“I could really care about you,” he says. “And I want to. But not if you can’t do the same.”
I’m prepared to lie to him.
But when I open my lips, the words don’t come out the way they usually do.
Something is tugging on that line inside of me now. Pulling me away from Rory to a place where I can be myself again. Where nothing changes and everything stays the same.
But I’m not about to let go of him without leaving claw marks first.
That’s my excuse for climbing onto his lap and kissing him.
I don’t go straight for the lips. I grab his face and pepper him all over the jaw and the throat and I taste his sweat with my tongue and he groans. When I do press my lips against his, he’s still trying to hold out on me.
But I’m soft with him, the way he likes, and then I’m hard. His lips part and they are cold and they have never tasted so good.
He gives in, just like I knew he would.
It’s a victory and I want to celebrate but it feels wrong now. The way he’s kissing me and resenting me at the same time.
I’m confused. And that fucking line is going up and down and all over the fucking place, and my moral compass is suddenly veering due north, apparently.
“She had no right to call you hers,” I tell him as I suck on his throat and yank on his hair. “Who the fuck does she think she is?”
“I never fucked her,” he murmurs against me.
“Yeah right.”
“This is the sort of bollocks I’m talking about,” he groans. “Ye don’t trust me.”
“Who needs trust when we have chemistry like this?” I reason. “I actually want to fuck you. I want you to fuck me too. And hardly half of the things that come out of your mouth annoy me. It’s right, Rory. It just is.”
“Ye really are the devil,” he says.
“But doesn’t it feel good to sin with me?”
I’ve got my hand in his shorts now, and I’m playing with him and he’s not fighting anymore because he knows I win. I always win. And he likes my hand on his cock, jacking him off beneath his shorts. His eyes shudder and then close.
I’m in control and it feels good.
But Rory never lets me have the things that I want.
He heaves me up without warning and spins me around, flattening my chest against the table in front of us. I’m ass up and face down and he’s got my dress up around my waist. He wrenches my head back with a fist of my hair and tells me to take out my goddamn tits.
I shove the top of my dress down and I’m well and truly trapped now, but I’m breathing just fine.
He grabs my fingers and shoves them into my own mouth.
“Suck.”
I suck.
He drags them down to my thong and shoves it aside.
“Play with yourself and tell me something real.”
I play with myself because he tells me to, but it isn’t good and it isn’t real until he takes over for me.
“Talk, or I take it away,” he says as I grind back onto his hand.
Rory’s fingers are magic and he could use them for torture, because I don’t withstand.
“You were so fucking hot tonight,” I say. “I like you like that.”
“And what else?”
“We don’t have to be even. You can just do this all night if you want.”
“You wouldn’t be happy with that,” he says.
“No, I wouldn’t,” I agree.
He rewards my admissions with more of what I want. His palm on my tits, groping me, the other between my legs. He’s biting down on my shoulder and fucking me with his fingers and I’m close so I give him another.
“Cuddling you isn’t the worst thing in the world.”
He lets me come. And it’s hard and messy and my ears are ringing and I want him inside of me. I tell him so.
“Why should I fuck you?” he asks.
“Because nobody else will ever feel as good as I do.”
He grabs my ass and squeezes. Bites my neck. Admits that I’m right. And this really is a victory.
He seizes my hips and plows inside of me.
“Fucking Satan.”
He fucks me with hate and reverence. One minute he tells me how good it feels and the next it’s that I don’t deserve to come and I’m not a good girl and this is for him and not me.
I pout and he does the worst thing he could do to me.
He turns me around and hoists me up into his arms. Wrapping my legs around his waist and dropping me onto his cock and telling me to hold on.
We’re at eye level now.
And it’s silly of me to think he can’t hold me up with one arm and keep fucking me, because he does when I turn my face away.
He removes one hand from my ass and grabs my jaw.
“Look at me.”
I look at him. He makes me keep looking at him.
“We aren’t playing by your rules anymore,” he tells me.
“You think you’re going to boss me around and tell me what to do?”
“Aye,” he says. “I fucking am.”
I don’t answer.
It’s different, having him inside of me and watching his face this way. I could listen to his sounds all day long. The way he grunts and groans and tells me things as he plows into me. Sometimes filthy, sometimes sweet. But watching is different.
It’s intimate and raw.
“Tell me ye want my come inside of you,” he says.
And he’s already swelling. Spasming. Gripping my ass so hard it’ll bruise.
“I want your come in me.”
He yanks my body down on his and kisses me. His cock is pulsing inside of me, emptying, and he needed this.
So did I.
Nineteen
Rory
“Let’s go to my place tonight,” Scarlett suggests from the passenger seat of my car.
It’s an odd request, considering how obsessive she is about her space. But the weight of exhaustion has settled in- the one I feel whenever I do battle with Scarlett- and I can’t be bothered to make the observation.
Her building is a hole, and the more I come around, the more I hate it. Some bloke is lurking in the hallway, seedy as fuck, and he checks Scarlett out as she walks by and I tell him to fuck off.
“That’s just Ronnie,” she says with a wave of her hand. “Every building has a resident creep. Ronnie is ours.”
&nb
sp; Ronnie isn’t the only problem I see here. The hallway smells like piss and cigarette smoke and there isn’t enough lighting and if Scarlett were being murdered, I doubt anyone would even open their door.
“I don’t like ye living here,” I tell her.
She doesn’t answer.
I want to pack her shit. I want her to come home with me and stay there. And I’ve never wanted that with anyone.
If only it were that easy with Scarlett.
I never claimed patience to be one of my virtues, but I thought I at least possessed some of it. This woman has bled it dry already.
She unlocks all six locks on her door and then looks at me because she knows I’ve got something to say about that too.
“I installed them after the butcher,” she justifies. “I don’t really need them.”
“The fuck you don’t,” I snipe.
She changes the subject.
“You were good out there tonight.”
She says this while she counts the knobs on the stove.
“You should teach me how to fight like that,” she adds.
It’s cute, how she’s so serious about it. Like it’s just that easy.
I agree anyway because I want her to start taking this seriously.
“Okay,” she says. “Want a shower?”
“Aye. Will you be joining me?”
She smiles and nods and it’s too agreeable. But again, I go with the flow… because I’m tired as fuck, and all I really want to do is bury myself between her thighs again and fuck her until my cock gives out.
Her bathroom is small, but tidy, and it smells of her perfume.
She undresses for me like a centerfold and steps beneath the hot spray.
Scarlett knows that she’s hot. But she doesn’t use it for attention. She uses it as a weapon. She’s made up of curves and softness and sex. And right now, when she’s luring me in with her eyes and her dripping wet body, I don’t even care.
I follow her to my certain doom and join her in the enclosed space. I want to pull her against me and not fuck her. I want to hold her. But she turns in my arms instead and reaches for a bottle of soap. It’s girly shit, but it doesn’t matter because she’s washing me now.
Her hands are small on my body, scrubbing me in lazy circles. She’s taking her time, and it doesn’t feel like a trick anymore, because she likes her hands on my body as much as I do. She’s possessive of me. And she tells me so in many ways.
