“Jesus, what the hell’s gotten into you?” Paul snapped.
“You two assholes!” she threw back at him as she flung open the bathroom door.
“Whoah, and hello to you too, beautiful,” Michael laughed from behind the shower curtain.
“Don’t give me that shit! Do you want to tell me what you thought you were doing last night, barging into my house and being a total dick?!” Natalie yelled at Michael over the running water.
“I didn’t barge in, I was invited. I was supposed to be there,” he answered as he rinsed the shampoo from his hair.
“Really? And the whole, ‘I’m here to take you to Formal’ thing was all part of that invitation?” Natalie stood there, hands on her hips, daring him to argue.
“That part I threw in for kicks, just to let the playboy know who I was,” he admitted unabashedly.
The shower curtain was clear. She could see the white bubbles travel down Michael’s deliciously tan frame, and the image of his sculpted body shot heat through her.
“And just who in the hell do you think you are, Michael?” she asked him, as the blurry sight of him through the plastic was enough to begin to melt her anger.
Michael ripped the curtain aside. He stood under the cascade of water as it ran over the contours and dips of his body. Natalie was speechless as she stared at him, glorious, and naked, and wet in front of her. He was starting to get hard and she couldn’t tear her eyes from him, as she watched it grow tall and thick in front of her. Her body reacted to him instinctually, pulsing and clenching with her growing desire.
“You know who the fuck I am, Natalie,” he yelled back.
Michael took one step out of the shower and grabbed her, pulling her under the water with him. He pressed her against the wall, his wet bare body against her still clothed one, as the water began to drench her. His mouth possessed hers with such ferocity and such primal need, she couldn’t breathe. He began to rip the clothes from her body, peeling them off her piece by piece. Each inch of her flesh that was bared, he marked with his mouth and his teeth, leaving a trail of love bites across her hot skin. She pulled his hair and raked her nails down his wet back, answering the animal inside him.
“You’re mine, Natalie,” he growled. “I don’t give a fuck where we are, you will always be mine.”
“That’s not fair,” she choked out. Drops ran down her cheeks. She didn’t know if they were tears or water, because the depth of what was overcoming her was so strong.
“It fucking sucks, but that’s the truth, and you know it,” he whispered huskily against her neck as his teeth gently pulled the tendon between it.
“I hate you,” Natalie moaned as she pulled his lip with her teeth and sucked it into her mouth.
“I know,” he gritted out, pushing her hard against the tiled wall, her now naked body pushing back into his.
His finger plunged deep inside her, and he began to fuck her furiously, as the jealousy he was filled with the night before took over, pouring it into her. He rubbed the heel of his palm against her clit as her walls began to grab at him tightly. His mouth pulled her hard nipple in, sucking, flicking, nibbling it furiously. Her breasts were covered with his mark, evidence of his possession.
Natalie rode the freight train of Michael’s lustful fury, taking her to the edge of insanity. She ground herself into his fingers and palm, and pushed her breast deeper into his mouth. He took all of her savagely, thrusting them into oblivion.
“I hate you so fucking much,” she whispered, pulling his mouth to hers, sucking the air from him, needing to fill herself with all of him.
“Oh God, baby, I know,” he murmured tormented, his voice laced with anguish. His mouth ravaged hers as his hand fucked her without abandon.
She came in a violent rush, as she screamed her love for him in words of hate. He swallowed it, and took everything from inside her with it.
He plunged his cock into her depths, hard and deep, as he wrapped her legs around his waist, and grabbed hold of her ass. He pounded into her like a man starved, crazed and maniacal.
Another orgasm exploded inside her as she rode the waves of Michael’s fury.
Michael never needed to own anyone like he needed to own Natalie at that moment. He needed to bury himself so far, so deeply, inside her, that a piece of him would always be there. She was his, for the rest of his life, even though he knew he would never have her.
He was a selfish man. But he didn’t care.
All that mattered was that she knew it.
Everything inside him exploded, bursting into a million beautiful pieces, screaming and spiraling and joining with her.
Her soul rocked with the force of it, as the sobs racked her body.
He had succeeded in embedding himself in her soul…forever.
He didn’t stop, he couldn’t stop. His touch grew gentle and tender as he made love to her, this time with all of the love, all of the need he had inside.
And when they spiraled into that sweet toxic bliss, they were one.
For that moment.
13 CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Damn, Mike, this coke is so pure, you’d die if you snort it like this!” Paul laughed excitedly.
“Let me see,” Michael told him.
Michael sat on the couch, Paul was on the floor in front of it with a small pile of the Mexican cocaine on the old coffee table they’d inherited from Mrs. Murphy. He had a tester kit with a solution he dripped onto a small portion of the blow that registered its purity. It was almost 100% pure uncut cocaine.
Which meant they had to cut it enough, more than twice as much as they normally would, to get it to street quality. And their investment was bringing them a much better return than they could have hoped for, possibly $500,000 each kilo.
“Look at that, I’ve never seen blow that color before, it’s beautiful!” Michael said with his eyes wide.
They’d sold all of one of the kilos already, now Paul was starting to cut the second.
“Everybody fucking loved it, man,” Paul laughed. “Too bad we can’t get more.”
“I am never going back to Tijuana,” Michael held back a shiver as a hint of the fear he had when he was pulling Sylvia through the bar went through him.
“Come on, yes you will,” Paul laughed, turning back to the white powder on the table.
“Never-a-fucking-gain!”
Ring! Ring! Ring!
“Fucking phone scared the shit out of me!” Paul said, as his eyes darted back and forth, and his jaw slid from side to side as his teeth ground together.
“If you weren’t jacked up on the shit you wouldn’t be so damn jumpy, you need to take it easy Paulsky,” Michael commented as he got up to answer the phone.
“Hello?” Michael said into the receiver.
“Mike, man, you need to hide the shit...,” Johnny was talking a mile a minute, and his nervousness was felt through the phone-line.
“Yo, slow down and be careful. Now tell me what happened,” Michael said quickly, interrupting him.
“I just got out of a Student Judiciary Board meeting. Man, someone ratted on me. But because I’ve got good grades, they let me off with a warning. But, Mike...,” Johnny let the words trail off.
“Would you fucking spit it out!?” Michael snapped at him.
“They mentioned you two,” Johnny replied quietly.
There was a long pause.
Michael wanted to interrogate him to find out exactly what had been said.
“How much?” Michael finally asked hesitantly, hoping to get as much information as he could without being specific.
Michael could hear Johnny take in a deep breath on the other end of the line, “All of it.”
“What the fuck is going?” Paul shouted from where he still sat.
“Ok, thanks, and I’m sorry bro,” Michael told his old friend. “Don’t come here, you hear me?”
“Mike, man,” Michael could feel how torn Johnny was, and he could hear the anguish lacing his
voice.
“Listen, everything’s fine, don’t worry,” Michael said, trying to reassure his friend. But inside, Michael was scared shitless as he felt the walls starting to close in on him.
After hanging up the phone, he turned and looked at Paul. Michael thought, ‘He’s fucking high, again, in the middle of the day.’
“You’ve got to get out of here until you come down, and you’ve got to take your shit with you,” Michael ground out.
“What the hell is going on?” Paul demanded.
“Someone ratted on Johnny on campus for the weed. He went in front of some fucking board. They gave him a slap on the wrist, but they said something about us, goddammit!”
“That’s just a bunch of college kids, Mike, a jury of their peers,” Paul informed him.
“Yeah, but it involved drugs, not booze. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. It’s better to be safe, man. If they say something to the cops, maybe in exchange for something, and the cops come here, we would go to prison for the rest of our fucking lives, especially because of the job you did. We would be so fucked, Paul. We DO NOT need them even knowing our name. Do you understand?!” Michael was almost shouting at Paul by this point. He was so overcome with emotion, he wanted to grab Paul by his neck and choke the shit out of him.
“Ok, calm the fuck down, let me clean this up, and…,” Paul began as he stood up.
“No,” Michael cut in. “I’ll clean it up, you get your ass in the shower, splash some cold water on your face or something, get yourself presentable,” Michael barked.
“Fine!” Paul said shortly, as he made his way to the bathroom.
Michael crammed everything he could that belonged to Paul into a suitcase, wrapped the other kilo in his clothes, and packed the money from the jewelry store heist in another. There was a cab outside waiting to take Paul to the bus station within fifteen minutes.
An hour later, Paul was on a bus to the city. He had half the Mexican blow and all his money, what he had from the jewelry store job and his half from the drug sales. Michael stayed behind to make sure there was nothing left that would incriminate them.
He packed his bag with the scale, the sifter, the cut, and his portion of the money from the sales.
Michael’s conscience yelled at him as he knocked on old Mrs. Murphy’s door upstairs, the nice old lady who’d taken a liking to him when they’d moved in.
He was stuck here, without a car, and he couldn’t call anyone to come over. He couldn’t risk pulling his friends in any more than they already were. He had no choice.
“Michael what a nice surprise. Please come in, have a cup of coffee with a lonely old lady,” she greeted him as her smile brightened up her wrinkled face.
“Mrs. Murphy, you are always such a ray of sunshine,” and there was truth to that. She seemed to glow whenever she saw him.
Mrs. Murphy closed the door behind Michael as he entered her little apartment carrying his gym bag. “Go and make yourself comfortable at the table while I put the coffee pot on”
As Mrs. Murphy filled the strainer full of coffee grounds, then measured water in the stainless steel pot, Michael’s frayed nerves began to settle as the calm from Mrs. Murphy’s home enveloped him. She was exactly what he’d want for a grandmother, if he had one. And maybe he allowed himself to feel that comfort whenever he was near her.
“I have to ask a favor of you, Mrs. Murphy. If you don’t want to do it, please tell me honestly,” Michael began.
“Don’t be silly, my boy, just ask,” she chuckled at him as she placed the matching service set on the table.
“I’ll be alone for a few days, Paul had to go out of town. These are some things I don’t like to leave unattended. I was hoping I could leave this bag with you until he comes back. Would that be alright?” Michael asked as plainly, and as honestly, as he could.
“Oh, is that all? Of course, just go and place it in the closet in my room, somewhere it won’t fall on my head,” she teased him.
Michael entered Mrs. Murphy’s immaculately decorated bedroom and opened her closet door. He shuffled around the boxes containing her hats and moments of her long life, until he made a spot for the bag containing over $500,000 in paraphernalia and drug money.
‘Don’t get caught doing anything stupid,’ the words rang in his head as a new pang of guilt shot through him as he joined her back at the table. She was pouring the dark brown liquid into the porcelain antique cups as she held to the top of the coffee pot with her finger, bent from years of arthritis.
When Michael left Mrs. Murphy’s apartment, he didn’t go back to his. Instead he made his way down Main Street and to the Greek diner across from the movie theater. The first call he made was to Vinnie, telling him not come over until he called him. Vinnie was confused, he wanted to help him. But Michael told him everything was ok, just wait for his call. The next calls were to Alex, then Tony. Finally, he placed the call Paul had asked him to make to Susan. Michael insisted no other calls were to be made from the apartment, especially if the people they contacted could be used to set a case against them.
“Hello?” the female voice answered the phone.
“Hey, is this Susan?” Michael asked.
“No, this is Angela,” she answered him.
He felt no reaction at the mention of her name, no beating of his heart, no sweaty palms, not even a twitch to his dick.
“Hi Angela, its Mike. Is Susan there?” he asked. He didn’t have time to make small-talk.
“Hi Mike,” he could hear the affectionate change in the tone of her voice. “No she’s not, but I’m glad you called. I can give her a message if you’d like.”
“Tell her Paul’s going to be there in a few hours, he’s on his way down now, or he would have called himself,” Michael told her quickly, wanting to get off the phone.
“Sure, I’ll tell her, you’re not coming?” Angela sounded disappointed.
“No. I don’t know when I’ll be back in the city,” Michael was getting impatient.
“Why aren’t you coming? I haven’t seen you in a while,” Angela said on the phone, her tone clipped and demanding.
Michael was taken aback by Angela’s attitude.
“I don’t live in Brooklyn,” he answered, measuring his words carefully, attempting to ignore what his instincts were telling him she was saying.
“I don’t care. I’ve been expecting you for weeks. My mother has been waiting to meet you,” she snapped.
‘Who the hell does this woman think she is?’ he thought. Michael had to clench his teeth together to suppress the burst of laughter that almost escaped him.
“Angela, I have to go,” he said simply. If he’d stayed on the phone any longer, he knew he’d say something he would have regretted.
“Michael, don’t you dare hang-up on me…,” she threatened.
“Bye Angela, and don’t forget to tell Susan.”
Michael hung-up the phone and breathed heavily.
‘Could this day get any fucking worse?’ he thought.
When Michael got home a couple of hours later, the glare of the setting sun reflected off the windshield of a car blinded him as he started to unlock the front door.
“What’s up my man?” came the shockingly familiar soothing voice of the armed goon from Harlem.
Panic flooded Michael. Every instinct inside yelled at him to run. His heart slammed against his chest and he started to sweat. He knew this was going to be bad, very, very bad.
“Hey man!” Michael answered, his voice two octaves too high from his surprise.
‘Holy fucking shit! What the hell is he doing here?!’ the words shouted in Michael’s brain as he turned to face the man.
What was walking towards him were two of the men from the shithole Antoine had taken them to. He was glad he hadn’t been back there since. Up until right now, as they walked menacingly towards him, looking totally out of place in the Colonial Arms parking lot.
A multitude of emotions surged through Michae
l. The fear and anxiety that had gripped him while he hid in the closet washed over him. But a sense of dread and foreboding overpowered everything else. He kept his face and actions calm, while inside caution, trepidation, and instinct raged.
Mr. Smooth Talker grasped Michael by the back of the neck and took his keys from him.
“I’m looking forward to a little tour of your little country apartment, brother, I hear you guys have it good up here. I’m thinking about making a move here myself. Which key is it, Mike my man?” the big man asked as his grip tightened and he gave Michael a shake.
The second goon was standing directly behind them at the front door, blocking anyone’s view of Michael’s smaller frame.
“The one with the holes,” Michael choked out.
Once inside, the man’s fingers gave Michael another vice-like grip, momentarily immobilizing him.
“Downstairs,” he gritted out.
“Good, I knew you wouldn’t be difficult.”
The man’s hand never left Michael’s neck, keeping his grip on Michael’s pressure points as they walked.
“Number 107,” he told them tightly as they descended the short flight of stairs.
When they approached the door to apartment #107, as there were only two keys on the key ring, and one of them opened the front door, the man knew the remaining one must be for this door. Michael stood quietly as the big man opened the wood panel in front of them and the three of them stepped inside. When the door closed behind them, Michael was shoved across the room to the sofa.
“We gonna have a little chat first, Mike, just to see if you’re gonna try to bullshit us, understand?” he was saying as he took a step closer to where Michael had landed.
“No problem, whatever you want to know,” Michael kept his voice even and his head clear. The last thing Michael needed was to panic, he wouldn’t have a chance at saving his ass if he had. A familiar calm settled over Michael, the same one he’d always gotten before a fight in the ring. The warrior inside him instinctually rose up and clothed him, preparing him for the battle that was about to begin.
“Now, I hear you guys took a little trip out west, is that right?” he asked him, as he cocked his head to the side.
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