by Abby Gale
He has a power to control my body. It’s scary, but also the only thing that excites me since the days my whole life was about the dark closet and loneliness.
I loved him before I knew what love was.
I loved him so intensely that all my thoughts rolled around him.
Nick was my gravity during my childhood and my adolescence. He was the anchor who kept me in a life I wasn’t happy with. Now, he’s in front of me as a man, totally at my mercy to pay the debt of sins that aren’t his. And he still wants me, now more sinfully than ever. He’s still pulling me toward him like a magnetic pull, a power beyond my control and the walls around me.
Now, Nick is more dangerous for my heart, and I want him more than I ever have.
Chapter 31
Present
When I catch my breath, and my body stops shaking, I stand up from the chair and straddle him.
“Did you like my show?” I whisper, kissing and licking the strong line of his jaw. He tries to move closer to me, but without using his hands to keep me in a place he can’t get any closer.
“Yes. Untie my hands, and I’ll make you come better than you’ve ever done,” he growls into my face.
I smirk and get off his lap to prepare the best position for me. “You will, Nicky boy. You’ll make me come. Be patient.”
Opening the drawer, I choose handcuffs to attach to the bed frame.
“Move back on the bed,” I say, and to my surprise, he doesn’t make me repeat myself.
I take my time to attach the handcuffs to the bed, before getting on the bed to remove his collar. It’s then I notice his hands aren’t cuffed. I look at him with confusion.
He smiles. “When you spend as many years in the jail as I did, you learn a few tricks.”
This has caught me off guard. He’s been free all this time, he didn’t have to obey me and let me control him. But, he let me. He let me have control over him.
He looks at me with a soft glimpse in his eyes. Soft and almost mischief. Before I can understand the meaning on his look, I find myself on my back, and my wrists are cuffed with the handcuffs I’ve attached.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I shout at him.
He chuckles and looks back at my feet. “Do you have more of these handcuffs or something to tie your feet, too?”
“Don’t you fucking dare! You can’t do this to me,” I yell. I’m getting desperate and scared. Every haunting memory from my past where I don’t have control hits my body and puts me into a panicked mode, where I can’t decide if I should fight or give up.
I hardly realize when Nick comes back with leather cuffs to tie my ankles. I’m thrashing, screaming on the bed, trying to get free, but he’s fucking strong, and he ties my ankles one by one, and he straddles my hips. Now, I’m lying on the bed with tears in my eyes and fear in my heart.
“Stop moving. You’ll hurt yourself, just keep still. I won’t hurt you. I’ll never hurt you, Nikki. You know it, you know me.”
“I don’t fucking know you. I knew the teenager, not the man in front of me.”
He leans down, peppering my face with kisses. “The teenager Nick wasn’t strong enough to keep you safe. He was a useless kid who let bad things happen to you,” he whispers. Sitting up on his knees, he motions his body. “But this man is strong enough to keep you from everything that will hurt you. This man will do anything to make you happy. This man, Nikki, will move the Earth from its axis to make you forget everything you’ve been through.”
“I don’t want to forget.”
He snorts. “Of course, you do. You’re just too scared of letting your pain go. Let me make it up to you. Let me please you.”
I glare at him. “Do I have a fucking choice?”
“Nope.” He grins.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Not as much as you did. At least, not yet.”
“I don’t want you,” I grit out.
He quirks his eyebrow and leaves the room. After a few minutes, he comes back with a cloth in his hand.
“What are you doing?”
“I’ll clean you up. Such a gentleman I am, right? Oh, and I fed Night.”
“How do you know his name is Night?”
“I know more about you than you think.”
I glare. That’s the only thing I can do right now anyway. “Right, your creepy stalking hobby.”
He winks and cleans between my legs with utmost care. When he’s done, he leans into my face and whispers, “You said you didn’t want me, right?”
Gritting my teeth, I nod.
“Good. Then, don’t let me find you wet when I reach your pussy.”
“Do your worst,” I grit out, but I know he’ll find me wet. Fuck, I’m already getting wet with just seeing him above me.
He pulls down the zipper of my bustier slowly, revealing my skin inch by inch to his eyes, and his eyes get hungrier with every inch. Finally, he pulls off the leather around my body. His gaze zeroed in on my tattoo. He touches my stomach with his knuckles, caressing the angry scar tissue under the ink.
“Don’t. Please,” I choke out. This is the only thing I can’t get used to. I can live with everything that has happened to me, but this is the only thing that hurts like the first day, maybe even more with the knowledge that motherhood was ripped away from my hands. I’ll never be a mother, and this is something I didn’t even have a chance to consider let alone want, but it’s taken away from me. Along with the little angel who was growing inside me.
“Look at me,” he whispers, and I didn’t even realize I’ve closed my eyes until he tells that.
Opening my eyes, I look at him with blurry vision. The blur fades when he wipes away my tears.
He places his hand under his chest.
“Can you see the scar here?” he whispers.
I didn’t notice it before, but now that he mentions it I can see the white line there. It doesn’t look straight and smooth.
“I’ve been stabbed in jail, just because I didn’t let one of the mob leaders fuck me,” he says in a matter-of-fact voice and continues, “And this one on my thigh? I’ve been stabbed with a handmade weapon in a jail fight. There’s no right or wrong side at those things, if you’re in the middle you’ll always end up bleeding. There’s a scar under my hair, it happened when a guard pushed me head first into a brick wall.”
Turning his back to me, he points his lower back, so close to his ass. There’s a strangely shaped scar, something I can’t make up.
“I managed to ditch most of the guys who wanted to fuck me over, but when you’re just a young silly kid who trusts everyone it finally fucks you in the ass,” he stops to chuckle without humor before adding, “A calamity makes you wiser, stronger, right?”
I swallow the lump in my throat that is caused by his confession. Pushing away the tears, I nod. “I’m sorry. They’re all because of me.”
He snorts. “Don’t be stupid. It’s all because of the fucking assholes all around the world. This world is a horrible place, Nikki, but we have each other and why are you trying to push me away? Especially when I made it my goal to find you?”
Frowning, I think about his words. Finally, a small smile appears on my face. “How can I push you away when my hands are tied up?”
He laughs and leans down to kiss me. I’m panting when he leans back to look down at me. His hands move over my breasts and to my stomach before finally gripping the fabric of my thong. He rips it off my body and takes his place between my legs.
“You have no idea how much I dreamed of this, having you under me, while you look at me like this.”
“How am I looking at you?”
He smirks. “Like you want me.”
Chuckling, I bite my lip. “Talk less, fuck more.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says and kisses me with enough power to take my breath away.
His lips move over my jawline to my neck, sucking, biting, licking the sensitive skin until I’m a panting mess under hi
s body. As I try to pull my hands free to touch him, he moves his attention to my breasts, sucking my nipples into his mouth like he’s a starving man.
“Let my hands go,” I order.
“Why? So, you can run away?”
“Didn’t you say you were strong now? The big, bad wolf? Will you let me slip away from your hands?” I taunt him.
He reaches for the key and uncuffs me, his eyes daring me to run away.
“I’ve lost you once, I won’t lose you ever again,” he whispers, and as soon as my hands are free, I pull him closer to me, so I can kiss him with everything I have.
His mouth goes hungrier as he desperately nibbles my skin until he lies down between my legs.
“Fuck, baby. You’re soaking,” he groans and latches his mouth on my pussy in a heated kiss.
He flats his tongue over my folds from my entry to my clit before digging his magical tongue inside me. My legs shake with the need to wrap them around his head, but the tricky bastard didn’t untie my ankles. My anger dissipates as soon as his mouth wraps around my clit. I swear I see stars when his teeth graze over my nerve bundle.
“Inside. Your cock. Put your fucking cock inside me,” I pant. Every sentence punctuated with the pull on his hair.
Chuckling at my eagerness, he hovers over me. It’s like fireworks explode in my body when he enters me. For the first time in my thirty-five fucking miserable years, I’ve felt whole.
Chapter 32
Past
Age 28
Do you ever feel like no matter how much you want or how hard you hope, your life won’t get any better? That maybe you’re cursed? Cursed to fail, cursed to be sad, and cursed to not die even though you want to?
At the age of 28, where everyone seems to get their shit together and know what they’re doing with their life, I’m sitting on a park bench, watching kids play like a pathetic excuse of a woman.
Since my name was miraculously cleared and I got out of jail, I work in every kind of job I found. I tried to hold on to every chance, every opportunity I could get to pull myself from the swamp my life felt like. But nothing works. Everything ends up the same way as it always does. I find myself where I used to be, in the dark, miserable, not knowing what to do, and alone.
I don’t realize I’m crying until the world blurs in front of me, the kids who play games turn to abstract images. Wiping away the tears, I see a guy stand next to me and look at me. As my body shakes with sobs, I don’t care who he is or what he wants from me. What shocks me is, he sits next to me without a word and places my head on his shoulder.
“No one should cry without a shoulder to lean on,” he whispers.
His words make me cry even harder. He doesn’t talk again until my tears dry, and my sobs stop. Only then do I lift my head from his shoulder to look at him. He looks younger than me, probably in his early twenties. His eyes are as clear as a sky, and his smile is friendly. A few tattoos peek out under the sleeve of his t-shirt.
“I’m Channing Paxton, but people always call me Pax,” he says.
I know this is where I should tell him my name, but I don’t even know what to tell him. My name, Veronica is too tainted I don’t want to hear it. Nikki reminds me of all the good moments that hurt to remember. And my nickname, Cher, hasn’t brought me any peace since I got out of jail.
“I’m Sage,” I tell him finally.
His eyes roam over my face like he can see through me, but he doesn’t comment on it, only nods. My eyes move back to his tattoos.
He must notice me looking. “They say tattoos can heal a soul or make you stronger. Think of it as a talisman.”
I lift my gaze to his eyes. “Maybe I should get one, then.”
Standing to his feet, he outstretches his hand for me to take. “You’re lucky you’ve just met a tattoo artist,” he says, grinning.
Every fear in my head screams at me not to trust him, but a soft whisper in my heart coaxes me to take a chance. And I do. I take the chance and place my hand in his palm.
We walk the short distance from the park to a tattoo shop.
“I’m working here. The owner comes only when he wants another tattoo. It’s like my own shop. When I have the money, I’ll open up my own tattoo parlor.”
I smile at his eagerness and passion.
When we get inside, he brings me a cup of coffee before sitting in front of me.
“Look, these are the designs we have in our portfolio, but I can custom design something for you.”
Checking out the designs on the folder, I get even more overwhelmed. “I don’t know what I even want to have.”
“Do you want something with meaning?”
I nod.
He rubs the back of his head, looking at me unsure before finally saying, “You can tell me if you want. There’s no better listener than a stranger.”
I take a sip of my coffee, before finally saying fuck it. I’m already at my lowest, what else can I lose? Placing the coffee cup on the table next to my chair, I take a deep breath and start telling him my story.
He listens to everything without giving me pitiful or judgmental eyes. He only shows anger from time to time, and I know that isn’t directed at me. Once I’m done telling him everything, he exhales like my story has exhausted him.
“Phew. No wonder you were crying,” is the only thing he says.
“I want to have a tattoo that will remind me of all this, so I can be healed and stronger like you said.”
He nods, a thoughtful expression on his face. “I think I have an idea what you can have. Do you have a few hours, so I can design one and show you? Or you can come back tomorrow again if you’re not busy?”
I look outside the floor to ceiling window, everyone moves with a rush, with purpose, but I don’t have any purpose or a place I rather be.
“I’ll wait. I don’t have better things to do anyway,” I say and watch him as he starts sketching.
***
“How do you think it is?” he says after two hours of sketching. This is the only draft he’s let me see, even though he’s tossed a dozen papers aside because he wasn’t happy with them that are still on the floor.
I grab the paper and realize I’m so excited that my hands are shaking.
I gasp with the intensity and rawness of the design he created.
There is a little girl in a cage that reminds me of myself with her jet-black hair and slouched shoulders. She looks as sad, lonely, and scared of her life as I feel. Her eyes are focused on somewhere above her head, and I can see what she’s looking at. A baby angel. A choking sound breaks out of my throat as I caress the baby angel who is trying to rescue the little girl. I know she won’t rescue her. No one will be rescued in this scenario. The scene has a break with a splash of ink that looks like crows. In the next scene, there is an apple tree and a woman who reaches for an apple. She has the same black hair, same haunted look, and she looks more like me now. I know what that apple represents, it’s the hope Nick has given me. The hope of love and happily ever after I’ll never have. I swallow the fear of the long black snake that is wrapped around the woman’s, my ankles. The snake must be all my fears and everything that’s in my past. And just like my past, the snake is surrounded by barbed wire, because my past is full of thorns and blood.
“I want this.”
Pax smiles sadly at me. “Where do you want me to tattoo it?”
My answer comes out without hesitation. “On my stomach, right under my belly button. To where they have taken away my angel.”
Chapter 33
Present
We’re lying in each other’s arms with a comfortable familiarity. His fingers move over my tattoo, and I listen to his heartbeat like we do this every day.
“It’s been years, Nick. Why didn’t you give up on me or forget about me? Why did you put yourself in trouble to find me?”
He turns to face me. “I had to. Because when your first love is taken away from you, you have no other choice but to pursue it u
ntil you get it back.”
“It sounds a little bit obsessive,” I whisper, can’t keep the smile away from my lips.
He shrugs. “Who cares?”
Before I can make another remark, his lips find mine for a heated kiss. He caresses my body like he worships me, without any urgency. His kisses follow the path of his hands, showing utmost attention to every inch of skin that’s bare to his eyes. My body is on fire as he kisses, bites, licks, and sucks my breasts without breaking our intense eye-contact. Finally, he reaches my belly. He licks my tattoo like he’s redrawing it on my skin with his tongue. When he goes over every little detail with his tongue, he starts from the beginning this time with his kisses.
My eyes well up with tears, my ribcage gets tight around my heart.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
I nod, and my answer comes out as a sob, “Me too.”
He looks at me, not knowing what to do. Just when he’s about to move up, I put my hand on his shoulder to keep him where he is.
“Make me forget,” I whisper. It’s a request, a plea, and a desperate call from my heart I never let be heard. For years, I’ve carried my past around me the way Atlas carries the world. Now, I just want to be free from it all. And I want him to be the one who frees me.
***
After a shower and getting dressed, we leave my apartment. Nick doesn’t say where we’re going, but he looks so smug about it.
It feels strange walking on the street, hand in hand with him. We must look like a happy couple from outside, no one can guess what we’ve been through, and no one can understand how we can get together after years apart.
I've pulled away from my reverie when I see where we are.
“Ice-cream shop? Is this what you were excited about?” I laugh at him.
He looks at me like I’m being ridiculous and pulls me into the shop. It’s a vintage looking place, the décor, the old television on the corner, and Jukebox give the place a homey feeling with nostalgia. Even the stuff wears vintage clothes, I feel like I jumped into an old movie I saw on tv.
