by Hart, Callie
Alex stands, shoving his hands into his pockets. He’s the picture of composure as he faces my father and gravely says, “I wouldn’t worry. Your daughter doesn’t know a lick of Italian, either. I couldn’t seduce her with it if I tried.”
I need to go back to bed. I need to go for a run. I need to get the hell out of this house. Basically, I need to be anywhere but here right now. This cannot be happening. There’s no way my father and the guy I most definitely am having sex with are discussing my seduction.
“Specifically, Dolcezza means sweetness,” Alex continues, smirking. “You really don’t have anything to worry about.”
“Sweetness?”
“Sweetness,” Alex confirms. He says the word lightly, like it’s nothing. Like it’s a saccharine way of showing the affection he feels for me. My father doesn’t know that this is the word Alex growls while his head is between my legs and his tongue is working my clit. That it’s the word Alex grinds out as he licks his fingers clean of me after he’s just fucked me with them and made me come.
“Sounds innocent enough,” Dad announces brightly, shoving away from the sink. I’m pretty sure I’ve turned crimson my face is burning so fiercely. “English for the next three days, though. Probably a good idea, don’t you think?” He slaps Alex on the shoulder, giving him his trademark that’s-an-order-not-a-request tight-lipped smile.
I’m too distracted by what my father just said to enjoy Alex’s poorly veiled awkwardness. “Uh, what do you mean, the next three days?”
Dad swipes his phone up from the counter, making his way toward his office. “Haven’t you checked the Raleigh portal? You’re off,” he says absently. “Too much snow. We’re gonna be trapped here. I’m gonna work on the book, and you two,” he says, eyes flitting from me to Alex and back again, “are going to keep your hands to yourselves. I’m seriously too young to be a grandfather. I don’t want to have to murder anyone, either, Alex. My face is just too pretty for jail.”
7
ALEX
BEN: I don’t like the thunder.
Me: Don’t worry, bud. It’ll be over soon. Did you make the fort?
Ben: Yeah, but it’s not very good. The ones you make are better.
Me: I bet it’s awesome. Why don’t you take your flashlight in there and read one of the Spiderman comics I got you? By the time you’ve finished, the storm will be over.
Sitting on the couch at Silver’s place, watching T.V. alone with her, is seriously fucking surreal. If I were Cam, I’d have left my ass to rot in that trailer and been glad of the fact that my daughter’s loser boyfriend couldn’t get to her for three whole days, but instead I’m full of the Philly cheesesteak he prepared for dinner and I’m curled up with Silver, wondering how the fuck I’m going to do the decent thing and not fuck the shit out of her the moment he goes to bed. I’m not used to all this trust. It’s weird. It’s making me feel weird.
I’ve been mistrusted and disbelieved my entire life. If something ever went missing at a foster home, I was prime suspect number one. If there was ever the slightest reason for fireworks, it was always my fault, regardless of the fact that it actually wasn’t my fault. Made things pretty simple, really. If people expected the worst, there was no real pressure to do better. Under Cameron Parisi’s roof, however, I’ve been gifted with the highest of expectations, and it’s fucking killing me. This is the first real opportunity I’ve had to not let someone down. Silver’s father’s a smart man. Smarter than most. I’m sure he knows exactly what he’s done, the sly bastard.
Ben: I can’t find my comics. I wish you were here.
I tighten my grip on my phone, huffing under my breath. The beautiful girl sitting next to me brushes the tips of her fingers lightly against the back of my neck, humming softly. She must feel the stress radiating off me. “Everything okay?” she asks. “This is the season finale. Don’t you wanna know who dies?”
“Sorry. Can’t concentrate. Ben’s freaking out. The snow hasn’t hit Bellingham properly yet. It’s raining like crazy over there. Thunder and lightning. Ben hates thunder. Always has.”
Silver sighs softly, leaning her head against my shoulder. “You’re feeling bad that you can’t get to him?”
I take a second to reply, trying to figure out what’s troubling me the most. “I’m angry at Jackie. Ben’s a super sensitive kid. Afraid of the dark. Hates being trapped in small spaces. Thunder scares the shit out of him. She knows all of this, but she doesn’t do anything about it. She makes him ride out shit like this on his own. She makes him take the elevator up to his therapy appointments every week, even though the doctor’s office is only on the third floor, and it makes Ben cry every single fucking time. It’s like she enjoys scaring him, and…” I work my jaw, attempting to come up with a way to express myself that doesn’t involve murder.
“And it makes you want to kill her,” Silver finishes for me.
“Yeah, it makes me want to fucking kill her.”
Silver’s quiet for a while. A huge battle scene plays out on the television, too dark to really see which of the show’s main characters are surviving and which of them are being cut down by the enemy. After a particularly brutal and bloody beheading, Silver whispers softly, “You’ll be eighteen in five and a half months.”
“Yeah.”
“And then Ben will probably be able to come live with you, right?” She sounds hesitant, unsure, and my palms break out into a nervous sweat. I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. Ben coming to live with me. I’ll never leave him with Jackie, it’s not an option, but it was just me before. I didn’t have anyone else in my life to consider. Things are going to change if I’m the sole caretaker of an eleven-year-old. I’ll essentially be playing the role of a father to him and that’s bound to have an effect on my relationship with Silver. It’s a lot to take on, dating a guy who has to look out for a child twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
I fidget, repeatedly winding a loose thread from the seam of my jeans around the tip of my index finger and then unravelling it again. “I get it, y’know. If it’s too much. It’s not exactly every teenager’s dream come true, being landed with a dependent. It’s not…it’s not cool,” I rush out. “If it’s too much to deal with…me taking him on…then I understand. I’m not gonna hate you if you don’t think you can hack it.”
Slowly, she turns away from the television, her posture stiff, her expression unreadable. “Would you walk away if things were different for me? If something happened to my parents and I wanted to take care of Max?”
I don’t even hesitate. “I’d never walk away. I couldn’t. No matter what was going on, I’d always be there for you.”
“So what makes you think I’m any more capable of abandoning you, Alessandro Moretti? I’ve already been through hell and back and you were the one who helped pull me out. I love Ben. He’s the sweetest kid. Helping you take care of him won’t be a burden, it’ll be a pleasure, but that’s beside the point. Whatever happens, no matter how difficult, I’m never going to bail on you just because things get hard.” She smiles softly, placing a light kiss against my mouth…and I just sit there, rigid as a post.
Goddamnit, Moretti, what the fuck is wrong with you? Get your shit together.
I eventually remember to kiss her back, but I probably do a piss-poor job of it. My head’s reeling, see. From what I’ve learned of people over the past seventeen years, people do not stick around when the going gets tough. They disappear in a puff of smoke, so quick you can’t see them for dust. My father left. The boys’ home turfed me out at the first signs I might be a ‘troubled kid.’ After that, it was a slew of foster families closing their doors on me and Ben, one after the other. Even my mother bailed on us. Yeah, she was sick, and looking back now it had been a long time coming, but she made a decision when she put that gun in her mouth. She decided that ending her own life was preferable to hanging around and taking care of her sons. Only one person remained constant for more than a six-month perio
d after my mother died, and that was Gary Quincy. Horrifying, really, since Gary put a roof over my head for one reason and one reason alone: so he could fucking break me.
And now, here’s Silver—an impossible girl, who shouldn’t even exist. Too strong. Too fierce. Too beautiful. Too perfect. And somehow, against all sense of reason, logic and justice, she’s fucking mine. She just looked into my eyes and told me she’d stay by my side, no matter what, and I damn well believed her. None of it…fuck, none of it makes sense.
Silver rests her head against my chest, snuggling into my side, and I’m overcome with a paralyzing sense of falling—a dizzying, unbalanced, nauseating sensation that has panic rising up the back of my throat in hot waves. This feels so good, being here with her. It feels like life is finally taking a turn for the better, and that’s fucking terrifying. Because real life doesn’t just do a one-eighty and suddenly everything just fucking works out. It just fucking doesn’t. Something terrible always happens. Something brutal and soul destroying, and all the good feels like it’s being sucked right out of the world.
I’ve been too bad to deserve anything this good. The universe has forgotten about the shit-kicking it decided was my birth right and appears to have gone on vacation, but it won’t be long before it remembers what a worthless piece of shit I am and sets the natural order of things back in motion.
In the meantime, I have no real choice. I’m going to choose to believe that Silver will stand by me when I get custody of Ben. I’m gonna make sure I enjoy every single goddamn second I get to spend with her. I’m going to try not to think about it, to overanalyze every passing moment. I’m going to hope. And that, perhaps, is the most dangerous thing of all.
* * *
The guest bedroom Cameron assigns to me is on the ground floor. There are two other guest rooms upstairs, but Silver’s dad is obviously keen on putting as much space between me and his daughter as possible. I get it. It makes perfect sense, and I’m happy to play by his rules. Well, maybe not happy, per se. Let’s call it grudgingly willing. It’s fucking torturous, though, knowing that Silver is in bed upstairs, less than fifty feet away, and I’m forbidden from falling asleep with her naked in my arms. That’s the crux of it—the whole forbidden thing. Fruit’s overrated, but the second someone makes it forbidden, I suddenly have a taste for that sweet sugar.
The guest room’s masculine, the walls painted slate grey with a deep maroon feature wall. The sheets on the king bed are grey to match the walls, patterned with a neat black pinstripe. Heavy brass instruments sit on top of the chest of drawers and are being used as book ends on the shelves—they look like they were designed for calibration and taking measurements. Architectural knick-knacks, most likely. On the wall above the bed, a huge gilt frame mirror dominates the room, reflecting back the space, making it appear even larger than it already is.
The Parisis aren’t just well-off, I realize, as I shrug out of my shirt, hanging it over the back of the leather armchair by the window. They’re fucking rich. The well-heeled, quiet kind of rich that makes me think there’s old money involved. New money speaks much louder than the understated luxury of Silver’s place. It screams. There’s nothing showy or over-the-top here. If it weren’t for the sheer size of the place, the colonial columns, the ostentatious length of the driveway, and the solid quality of all the furniture, you’d easily think you were in a very normal, middle-class American home.
It's late, almost one in the morning, and Cameron’s still in his office two rooms over, hammering away at his keyboard. I climb into bed, trying not to sigh out loud like a fucking loser when I feel the sheets against my bare skin. I have no idea what makes them so different to the sheets on the bed back at the trailer, but they’re cool and crisp and make me shudder with pleasure.
I’ve never been great about falling asleep quickly in new places. I’m ready to spend the next hour tossing and turning, my mind speeding at a hundred and twenty miles an hour, worrying about Ben, but then…
…I’m out fucking cold.
* * *
“Alex?”
I stir, turning over onto my back.
“Alex?”
Skimming the surface of consciousness, thoughts begin to form in my sleep-clouded head.
“Alex! Wake up, for fuck’s sake. I’m freezing my ass off here!”
My eyes snap open, and for a suspended moment I’m confused as fuck. Where the hell am I? And who the hell is grumbling at me in the dark? It takes a swift pinch to my side to jump start my brain, and I remember Cameron coming to get me at the trailer.
Silver’s standing beside the bed, framed in the moonlight that’s pouring in through the window behind her. Arms and legs bare, she’s wearing a silk camisole and tiny little red silk shorts—nothing more than scraps of fabric that leave very little the imagination. Her nipples are erect, peaked beneath the lacy detailing on the camisole, and my dick stirs, quicker to rouse than the rest of me. Her hair’s loose, hanging down past her shoulders in thick waves. Her features are cast into shadow, but I can just about make out the shape of a frustrated smile as she prods my chest through the bedsheet.
“Move over. I’m gonna catch hypothermia in a second.”
My first thought is to throw back the covers, grab hold of her by her hips, and pull her down on top of me. I’m barely awake, and my body is craving her desperately. But…
I groan, scrubbing at my face with one hand. “Silver. Fuck. Your dad’ll freak out if he knows you slept in here.”
“Who said anything about sleeping?” she whispers. “I’ll be tucked up, back in my own bed in an hour. He’ll never know.”
Oh, come on. My dick’s well past stirring now. I’m hard as fuck. All I can think about is driving myself deep into the back of Silver’s throat. “Argento. You’re killing me. I’m trying to be the good guy here.”
“Oh. Hmm.” She hums softly, as if she’s a little disappointed. “And here I was, looking for the bad boy I fell in love with. I didn’t realize he’d left in the night without saying goodbye.”
Well. Fuck. Me. Running. I shift in the bed, pulling myself up to lean my back against the mahogany headboard. My eyes have adjusted to the dark and I can see even more of her now. She knew what she was doing when she came down here in those night clothes. The clingy fabric hugs the curve and swell of the underside of her tits, accentuating their shape and fullness, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from groaning out loud.
“Are you trying to provoke me, Argento?” I rumble. “Because it’s probably not a good idea.”
She turns her head, and the moonlight paints her features silver. She grins recklessly, arching an eyebrow. “Why not? Don’t you want me?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Because I want you. I was lying there in bed, and I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I wanted your hands on my skin. I wanted my nipples in your mouth. I couldn’t stop thinking about your cock between my legs, the tip pushing slowly inside me. I got so wet I couldn’t take it anymore. I started touching myself. I couldn’t stop. And then that wasn’t enough. I had to come down here and have you touch me…”
Fuck.
Cruel. So fucking cruel.
I’ve bitten the inside of my cheek so hard my mouth is flooded with the tang of copper. “I’ll never be able to fuck you again if your father castrates me, Argento. Is that what you want?”
“No,” she says a little petulantly. “But that isn’t going to happen. I heard him snoring a minute ago. He sleeps like the dead. And we’ll be quiet.”
“Silver—”
She cuts me off, silencing my next objection before I can even say it out loud; with sure, purposeful movements, she reaches up, taking the delicate, thin straps of her camisole and sliding them over her shoulders. The entire garment slides down her torso. Moonlight bathes the porcelain perfection of her skin, bleaching it white, and it’s all I can do not to launch myself out of the bed, snatch her up in my arms, pin her to the
wall and sink my raging hard-on inside her.
Looks like all bets are off. My abysmal attempts at restraint have all been for nothing. “You really shouldn’t have done that,” I growl.
Silver tilts her head, lips parted, her eyes a little wild. Her hair falls over her shoulder, another curtain of silk, momentarily obscuring her left breast. Slowly, she reaches up, trailing her fingertips over the round swell of her flesh, brushing the hair out of the way again, revealing her nipple, and it’s almost too fucking much to bear. “Why?” she whispers. “Do you like my body, Alex? Are you hard? Do you like looking at me naked?”
Fuck. I haven’t been able to keep my hands off Silver since we started seeing each other, and she hasn’t been able to keep hers off me either, but she’s never been like this, so forward and demanding, crystal clear about what she wants and determined to get it. It’s turning me on so much, there really is no way I’ll be able to rein myself in anymore.
“Run,” I snarl, slowly sitting upright. “If you don’t want me to hold you down and fuck the shit out of you right now, I suggest you’d better run.” My hands work of their own accord, taking hold of the sheets, pulling them back, and I see the shadow of hesitation in Silver’s eyes. Is she second guessing her actions now that she’s got me on the hook? Maybe she can tell that she’s about to get a little more than she bargained for.
She swallows hard but remains standing beside the bed. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Brave, silly Argento. She came in here with a fire burning inside her, not realizing that her body was a tinder box. She had no idea what kind of inferno she’d start when she slipped out of that camisole. She had no idea how quickly she was going to get swallowed in the blaze. The floorboards are cold beneath my feet as I get out of the bed and stand in front of her.
