“And whenever you’d like to drop by for a cup of coffee, you’d certainly be more than welcome.”
“I would?”
“Yes,” she said. “I think it’s time for us to call a truce, don’t you?”
“Definitely.”
“And by the way, I hear Marco is spending a lot of time there now.”
Shit, I thought. Could I befriend Cassie and risk placing Marco right in front of her like a tempting snack?
“Well?”
“I wouldn’t say a lot,” I said cautiously. “We’ve spent a few hours together.”
“That’s good, Suzy,” she said. “I’m very happy for you. From what I’ve heard, Marco is top notch.”
At least now she didn’t have to worry about Mark whenever he stopped by to hand over my alimony check.
“Anyway, I wanted to call you back. I agree with you. In this business, everyone still wants a happy ending, and those are hard to come by. I hope you get yours, Suzy.”
Dallas had the ball on the five yard line when I returned my focus to the game. “Well,” I said. “Let’s watch our Rascals.”
“Take care and come see us soon,” she said with finality in her voice.
“Night, Cassie.”
I replaced the phone and studied the television screen. I held my breath during a replay, and then the cameras went right back to the live game action.
“Touchdown, Dallas Rascals!” One of the retired football players covering the game seemed as excited as any Rascals fan sitting in the stands. “And it looks like Marco Giovanni took the ball right in for the first score tonight.”
I couldn’t help but smile, dance around the room and wiggle my little tail all over the place. I focused on the television and watched Marco strut his stuff. Good Lord, he was one hell of a man and right then and there another thought crossed my mind, too.
Marco Giovanni was also my man, or at least seemed very interested in claiming me as his woman. I sure as hell didn’t object. In fact, I kind of liked the idea.
* * * *
After the game, the doorbell rang around midnight. I peered outside, and a man in a chauffer’s cap handed me an envelope.
He stood on my front porch with his arms crossed in front of him, waiting patiently for me to read the letter. An older fellow, he had white hair and a thin little mustache. His gentle green eyes followed mine as I dropped by gaze in order to read the instructions carefully.
If you’re reading this then you know we won. I’ve left the driver with a key to my place. I hope you’ll go there and wait for me. I’m flying home after the game and should be home around two o’clock. If you don’t show, I’ll know you made other plans and I’ll call you tomorrow, but I would like to come home and find you in my bed tonight. I miss you.
“Wait here,” I said, rushing up the stairs. Seconds later, I was dragging my suitcase out from under my bed. I tossed in thongs and bikini underwear, lingerie and shorts, pants and blouses and a ton of other clothing items I might need over the next couple of days. I’d show Marco what it meant to miss me. Hell, he might be careful about what he wished for in the future because right now, I planned to haul half my wardrobe over to his house.
Rushing down the hall and into the guest bedroom, also known as Antonio’s room since everyone teased me about keeping him there most of the time, I opened the walk-in closet and pulled out all sorts of toys and lubricants.
“Sorry, Antonio. You have to stay here,” I said, patting his lifelike form.
Giggling because I spent so much money on a damn doll, I eyed Antonio’s cock. Excited, I almost dropped my pants and rode out an orgasm just for good measure. His vibrating cock did the trick at times like these.
No, I thought. I wanted the real man, the hard thrusts of a living and breathing alpha male who captured my attention and apparently wanted my heart, too.
Loading my arms down with sex toys, I rushed back to my bedroom and unloaded everything in the top of my luggage. Zipping it securely, I rounded the corner and rushed down the stairs with the little wheels on my luggage bouncing up and down across the hardwood floors, scratching the surface as the piece flopped around behind me.
“Will you need assistance?” the chauffer asked.
I stared at the limousine and studied the driver. Then I looked toward the driveway. I had three cars, all of them parked in my expansive garage with a full tank of gasoline in each. I could drive myself to Marco’s place.
Uh-huh, I thought. I gave up booze, I thumbed my nose up at the football owner’s suites, and now a limo, one of my favorite modes of transportation waited to haul me across town. Maybe this was a test.
Shaking my head and stepping outside, I said, “Don’t be ridiculous.” I stuck the key in the lock and secured the house before facing the driver again.
The old man shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Shit! I thought.
Now I talked to myself so much I even cut my nose off by not paying attention to what I said and to whom. Dragging the luggage toward the curb, the driver at least held the door open for me and I said, “On second thought, if you will, please place the suitcase in the trunk.”
“Sure thing,” he said, grabbing the handle. “Sit back and relax. Help yourself to the drinks in the ice chest.”
And that’s when I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life.
Chapter Ten
When I drank, I didn’t take a sip or two. At some point during the pouring and chugging, I developed a goal, the one many alcoholics often have. I wanted to get drunk, fucked up, high as all hell and enjoy a long-overdue good old fashioned liquor buzz.
After we passed Highland Park, I was well on my way. By the time we reached the downtown area, and my driver made a stop by the liquor store, I was drunk. When I tripped into Marco’s house, I barely knew why I decided to go there in the first place.
Stepping inside the dimly lit cottage, I immediately placed the vodka and apple mixer in the refrigerator. Stocked with fruits, veggies, a lot of bottled water, and three gallons of milk, Marco’s fridge didn’t offer a lot of space so I rearranged everything. The liquor gained the best placement on the top shelf.
Frantically going through the cupboards, I found a nice crystal glass and mixed up the first drink. Then, I stumbled around Marco’s renovated home.
I liked what he’d done with the place but preferred my house ten to one over the closet-sized cottage. Taking another gulp of the martini, I stuck my head into his bedroom. There, I spotted his king-sized bed and a large screen television. But outside of two dressers, the large room appeared empty with solid white walls, untouched by framed prints or football memorabilia.
He needed me to come in and spruce up the place. Good thing I came prepared.
Since I planned to stay a while, I’d help Marco find an interior designer who wouldn’t mind showing him how to spend some of his hard earned cash.
Unpacking my clothes and strategically placing my toys and accessory items next to the bed, I fantasized about the immediate future. Eyeing the dildo I retrieved first from my luggage, I considered play time, but the vodka called to me, inspired me to stay on my feet rather than spread my legs and get busy.
Making another pass through the kitchen, I replenished my drink and continued into the living room. On the coffee table, I prowled through an open box and found some baby pictures, team photographs showcasing a much younger Marco, and a scrapbook.
When I opened up the thick book, on the very first page, an adorable couple smiled back at me. The girl had braces and the boy looked like he needed them. Grinning as I flipped through the pages, one after another, a truth unfolded. A sad story Marco never offered to share.
Apparently the girl wearing the train-tracks must’ve been his high school sweetheart. Her parents wouldn’t let them date, or so I gathered from the countless love letters. He settled for seeing her in the stadium stands and taking the rare snapshot with her at school.
Then, tragedy struck
.
According to the notes, the young woman was permitted to go to the senior prom with Marco. The news clippings that followed letters of enduring love added to the heart-wrenching tale. The articles stated Marco and his date had been driving toward their local high school when they were struck by a utility vehicle driven by a drunk driver. T-boned, they were hit it at a very high rate of speed. The passenger in Marco’s car, his girlfriend, died on impact.
“Oh, my God,” I said, turning through the book once more, trying to piece together what happened.
I heard the back door open and close. With too many of the once boxed items scattered around me, I didn’t have time to return the book to its original packaging, so I looked up and waited with Marco’s memories spread across my lap.
He didn’t look angry when he first spotted me. In fact, for a second, I didn’t think he even acknowledge my snooping. Instead, he was more concerned with the apple drink next to the box where he stored his childhood memorabilia.
“I’m…sorry. I had no right.”
“No,” he said. “You didn’t.”
I closed the scrapbook and noticed he still stared at my glass. After an uncomfortable silence, Marco walked around the coffee table and kissed me on the cheek.
“Marco, I—”
“Her name was Francine Alberto, and she was from a wealthy Italian family with too much money and too many relatives around to keep a close eye on her. A lot of folks, well you know how rumors are, used to say her father had connections to the mafia.” His tone turned bitter. “His connections sure as hell didn’t save us when a drunk driver struck my car and claimed her life.”
“Marco, you don’t have to talk about this,” I said, trying to stop the magnetic pull the apple martini possessed. I really needed that drink, just another sip, and I’d face this conversation head-on.
Marco’s legs parted, and he dropped his clasped hands between his legs. “You wanted to know why I was a nineteen-year-old virgin, and now you have my legitimate answer.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
I could see his pain, and I couldn’t imagine the brutality of the young girl’s fate, the cruel hand that stopped two lovers from consummating their affection. After reading the news clips and seeing the love letters, it wasn’t all that hard to piece together.
“We weren’t allowed to see each other until her eighteenth birthday. She turned eighteen the day before the prom. Her mother and father asked to meet me the day before I picked her up. Her father—quite the brute—explained to me how he’d crush my nuts if anything happened to his little girl, and her mother made sure I believed him.
“So I picked her up, we went out to eat at a nice local restaurant and then headed for the school to take our prom pictures. We were only going to stay for a couple of hours because she had a twelve o’clock curfew and we…” His voice broke and then he continued. “Well, as you can imagine, we had mighty big plans for the evening and a hotel room rented a few blocks from the school.”
Tears came into his eyes, and he swiped them away. “I believed she was the love of my life. I waited four years to hold her, four long years to make her completely mine, and one second she’s sitting beside me laughing and the very next,” he dropped his voice and his head, “and the next minute, she’s gurgling blood and taking the last breath she’d ever take.”
“Oh, Marco,” I said, reaching for him. “I really am sorry.”
He stared at the drink. “Maybe now you can understand why I can’t be with you, Suzy.”
“You what?” I asked, totally caught off guard.
“If you’re choosing to pursue me, then choose me. But don’t you bring alcohol into my home and disrespect me by drinking booze here. I won’t allow it, and you should’ve known better after I went to all this trouble to fly home tonight. I did not want to come home to the smell of whiskey.”
Well, it was actually vodka and sour apple, but I didn’t correct him. “Marco, I did quit drinking.”
“Did you? When? Because right now, the only thing I see is a beautiful woman with red-streaked eyes and a smell so strong you’d go up in flames if I lit a match in here.”
“Marco,” I began. “How was I sup…posed to know…you’d been through something like this?” I was dry toast, completely wasted.
“You weren’t supposed to know. I would’ve eventually told you when the time was right, but the time isn’t right. We’re still new, working out quirks. I want to be with you because of you and not because of the strong resemblance you hold to Francine.”
Do what? I must’ve missed something. I quickly opened the scrapbook again and flipped to the back. I studied her senior picture and then the earlier photographs, too.
“I don’t see a resemblance.”
“You look like her,” he said, twirling my hair around his finger. “But that’s not why I care about you.”
“Oh, really,” I said. “Then why did you bring it up?”
“I don’t know,” he said, rubbing his palms across his blue jeans. “Because I’m pissed off that you had to bring alcohol here and fuck up my plans.”
“Marco, I can make this up to you,” I said, wrapping my body around his.
“No, you can’t,” he stated flatly. “But I can certainly teach you a lesson and then you’ll understand. And so help me, you better never try something like this again.”
* * * *
I should’ve paid closer attention to what he had in mind when he implied a punishment was in order. I should’ve adamantly refused when he cuffed my hands behind my back and placed my nude ass in the corner.
“Thank God there aren’t spider webs in your rooms,” I remarked, a twinge of resentment in my voice. I was indeed pissed.
“There may be cobwebs somewhere else by the time I let you leave the corner,” he said, lust thick in his voice.
“Are you staring at my ass?” I asked, turning my cheek.
“Don’t look over here,” he said. “I’ll blindfold you if I have to and place a ball gag between your lips.
Apparently, Marco had a few toys I didn’t know about.
“You will mind me, Suzy. I have to know I can trust you, and you have to understand there are consequences when I can’t.”
“Here we go with the role play again.”
“Not role play, Suzy. I’m serious here,” he said, flogging me with a leather crop across the hips.
“Ouch!”
“When I said I didn’t want you to drink, I meant you don’t drink alone, with others, in social situations, or at any given time. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” he asked, slapping that damn crop across my bottom until he almost smacked me straight into sobriety.
“I’m sorry?” I hoped the apology worked. Hell, if I could remember what I said to Cassie during my thoughtful moment a few hours earlier, I’d quote him an apology verbatim. It worked with Cassie. I’d try it with him.
“Sorry is what you say to a man when you spit and don’t swallow. It’s not what you say to a lover who makes certain requests and expects you to abide by them out of respect.”
His hand touched my burning bottom, and he stroked the globes with his palms, all the while his fingers propelled over my ass and hips. I was so hot for more—more of him, more of his attention and sensitizing caresses. I wanted his lips on my lips, his tongue gliding across my tongue, and yet he wanted role play, this Dom-sub bit. And I, too, wanted more of this. I needed him to punish me and then soothe the pain away.
Stroking me everywhere now, he leaned over my back and tweaked my nipples, nuzzling my hair while inhaling the berry shampoo.
“You smell so damn good, baby,” he said, reaching lower, his fingers dipping in and out of my vagina. “Tell me you’ll do what I want you to do,” he whispered, twirling those devastating fingers even higher.
My legs parted. My stance changed.
“Did I tell you to move?�
�� he asked, damn near biting rather than nipping my earlobe.
“No, but I wanted to so you—”
“You wanted to see if you could shift around until my fingers went deeper, stroked with more precision. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it, baby?”
“Something like that.”
“It’s not going to happen, Suzy,” he said. “I want you wet.”
I was drenched.
“I’m going to make you want me.”
Need was more like it.
“You’ll be hungry.”
Starving, famished. Ready to sit down to a hearty meal.
“I’ll drive you crazy for several hours.”
I was at the brink of madness right then.
“I’ll leave you begging.”
I’d crawl at this point.
Spanking my ass with his bare hand, he allowed the crop to fall from his free hand. The leather dangled at my knee, the folded flap-style end ran back and forth across my skin when he moved into me.
“I want you to kneel down and kiss my pecker,” he said. I quickly turned around and he said, “Did I ask you to face me?”
No, he didn’t, but how could I kiss anything with my chin pointed at a damn dark corner? I heard his zipper and then he held on to my shoulder, gripping it tightly while he stepped out of his jeans and tossed them where I could see them. Then he lost the boxers, and finally the shirt.
Stepping to my side, he held himself at the base of his pretty penis and extended the hard length like a true wicked temptation. I licked the slit, savoring his masculine taste.
With a sexual moan, he said, “I said kiss, not lick.”
I licked again.
“Damn it, Suzy,” he said, grabbing me and holding me at arm’s length. “What is wrong with you that you refuse to mind?”
I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, I staggered, the alcohol still pumping its way through my veins and refusing to leave my equilibrium out of the equation.
“Suzy, kiss it, don’t lick.”
I wrapped my hand around his cock and pumped. Up and down, I started a slow hand job, and he didn’t ask me to stop. We stared at one another. I saw his expression change. His eye color lightened as the lust burned brighter and brighter while his self-discipline diminished.
Damaged Goods Page 7
