We walked on, the smell of croissants, eggs and bacon drifting through the space. My stomach grumbled.
At the end of the corridor stood a white door, I swiped my card on the card reader and pushed it as it beeped.
It opened up to a thin, private corridor.
“Still know the code?” Salvatore jibbed at me as we approached the private elevator shaft.
It only stopped on two floors, penthouse and ground, “Fuck off, why don’t you? Go earn your pay.”
“Sure thing boss,” he chuckled and turned away, pushing through a second door.
“Where does that go?” Mia asked, her voice dipped in wonder.
“Sin.”
“What’s that?”
“The nightclub.”
“There’s a nightclub here?”
I nodded as I punched in the code for the elevator, the numbers forever scorched into my memory.
“What sort of club?”
“The kind of club where people pay cash for services rendered.” She looked at me, letting my words sink in.
The elevator arrived. The doors pinged, flying open. We stepped inside and I pressed the penthouse button. The elevator shot up, the smooth ride took the usual ten seconds. The doors pinged and opened up into the hallway.
“After you.”
I watched as she stepped into the apartment. My eyes swept over it, just to remember what it looked like; it’d been almost ten years since I’d last set foot in this place. It all came crashing down and I swung my gaze to Mia, letting her presence anchor me.
She surveyed the wide, airy living room. The curtains on the floor to ceiling windows had been drawn, allowing morning light to spill into the space. It kissed the opulent leather furniture and marble floors. It radiated off the plush carpets and ugly overpriced artwork. Her lips twitched as she took a few tentative steps into the room.
“You can go explore, if you want.” I didn’t know why she felt the need to wait for permission but, as the words left my mouth, she squealed like a young school girl and became unstuck, skipping around from room to room. When she was done, she came back to the living room and plummeted onto the black, leather couch.
I stood by the window watching the light dance across her delighted face. My stomach constricting at the sight of her.
“Do you like it?”
“I do,” her eyes flashed.
I gave her a wry grin and turned back towards the window.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this place before? Why don’t you stay here?”
“Would you prefer that we do?”
“I mean… look at it,” she waved her hand around the room, and it felt like it shrunk a hundred times over.
“I don’t like it here.”
“Why?”
Before I could answer, the staff elevator began to flash, indicating our food was about to arrive.
Within minutes the dining room had been set with a white table cloth and an overindulgence of food items; everything from eggs and bacon, to savoury and sweet tarts, an assortment of cereals, juice and coffee.
I thanked the service staff and once they left, I gestured for Mia to join me for breakfast.
“How many people are you expecting?”
“I don’t like letting anyone be hungry.”
At my tone, her smile fell away a little.
I watched her eat as I pushed the food around my plate, my appetite gone. I could sense the questions as they formed in her head, I knew what would be coming. I steeled myself for it, for her reactions.
For the end.
When she was done, I left the table and sank into the leather couch. Mia stood at the window, admiring the view from the fiftieth floor.
“Gabriel, why don’t you like staying here?” I turned towards her, her eyes solemn as she studied my face.
I sipped the last of my coffee and looked at the bottom of the cup, knowing none of the answers were hidden there, “This place, it’s a monument of my past life; it represents everything I want to forget. It’s a place that’s built on broken things.”
I sucked in a long breath, “The garage, I know it’s not much but it feels like home. It’s where I can take something broken and ugly and fix it, bring it back to life with my hands.” I shrugged. Maybe somewhere in my mind I felt that bringing machines back to life as atonement for the lives I’ve taken.
“I need to fix things,” it came out as a whisper.
Mia was suddenly at my side. “Gabriel,” she took my hand in hers, but I pulled it away. I was feeling too vulnerable, and touching her stirred too many things inside me. I would lose control, I would let myself have her. “Who’s going to fix you?”
I pushed away but she slid closer again, breaking down my walls, exhausting my resolve. “How did you even get this place?”
“That’s a long story Mia,” I chewed my inner lip, considering my words, “This place is how I cleaned Tony’s money. It’s amazing what money and the right attitude can achieve. I tore down the old skeleton of the building that used to stand here, and I rebuilt. It’s a beautiful thing, seeing something so broken come alive.” My lip twitched with a melancholy smile.
“The worksite itself managed to launder almost a third of Tony’s money. No one looked, no one cared. And if they did, all they would have found was Kevin Brown’s shell company, which just so happened to manufacture and deliver building supplies and appliances. Just because a bill said a hundred and fifty air condition units were delivered, no one checked to see that only a hundred and twenty arrived, or two thirds of the carpeting or building supplies made it to the site,” my heart rushed at the memory.
“Laundering was easy, and it paid off. Quickly. I watched the zeros accumulate in my bank account, and I built this place. I made it so that anyone that comes here would want for nothing. It’s luxurious and exclusive.”
“How exclusive?” She inched towards me.
“Exclusive enough that the likes of us shouldn’t be allowed inside,” I growled.
“The likes of us?”
“Filthy.”
“As in rich?”
I shook my head, “As in right down dirty.”
Her eyes flickered and her mouth parted. I scolded myself. I needed control, but being around her made me want to lose control, lose all my senses. I inhaled trying to regain my balance. “But like I’ve told you before, all that is behind me now. No more dirty deeds.”
“None?” Mia’s gaze pinned me and burned through me. Her hazel eyes hooded, her voice dripped honey and wickedness. Heat rushed through me and my entire body hardened, tightened, wanted.
I was undone. Without thinking, I allowed my hand to fall on her bare knee. Mia let out a sharp gasp as my fingers slithered along her soft flesh, stroking the skin up and down—small, measured movements. My fingers roamed the length of her thigh, finding refuge beneath the fabric of her skirt. They skimmed her cotton underwear where heat radiated. I slipped my fingers beyond the fabric barrier and her breath stalled. It was a beautiful thing; the crimson rushing to her face, the clenching of her thighs against me, the clamping of her hands against my wrist as her eyes widened and her wetness spilled from her.
She pulled at my wrists, but I ignored her silent struggle. My fingers roamed her softness, gliding over, around, beneath the one place I knew she needed me too. Her hands fell away from mine as her chest heaved, and her breath became shallow. Sweat erupted along her hairline, and she bit her lip while my fingers kept her on the edge—a delightful torture, a sweet torment. My fingers worshiped and swirled, swept and glided around her.
“Gabriel,” she whispered, her breathy voice strangled and tortured. My entire body tightened at the sight of her. So needy. So desperate.
So.
Fucking.
Splendid.
She bit her lip, fighting the sensation while her hips began to move, seeking relief. I denied her again and again. She wanted dirty deeds, and I was going to play as dirty as could be. Her face crea
sed with frustration, her body tensed with desperate aching. She looked wild and feral.
I pulled my hand away, and she moaned. Desperation and frustration leaked from her face as I sucked at my fingers, tasting her, needing her, aching for her. But we would both wait; we would both suffer. I should have never touched her.
I stood up and stepped away from the couch, admiring her, fighting the urge to finish what I started. It was almost too much, seeing her that way, “I have to work.”
“You don’t play fair,” she scowled, her face fiery and furious, needy and desperate.
“Just dirty,” I growled as I wrenched myself away from the room and into the office, slamming the door behind me.
I was agitated and needy, and was barely paying attention to my bank manager who prattled on and on, on the other end of the line. He was still talking when Mia burst into the room. She tripped over her words and fell silent as I held my hand up. Mia strolled over to the desk and sat on the edge, her legs slightly apart. My eyes zeroed at the apex of her legs. She had removed her underwear. Whatever resolve I had to stay away, to keep her safe, evaporated at the sight of the curly black hair and glistening lips.
I cleared my throat and asked the voice on the other end to repeat himself. I nodded, trying to concentrate on the words, trying to make sense of the strings of sentences coming through the receiver. Instead, I found myself rolling the chair over to Mia, my hands roaming the flesh of her thighs. Her scent calling to me, tormenting me. She was playing dirty, but I could play dirtier.
My hand slipped under her singlet, pushing up through the bra. I captured a nipple between my thumb and finger and rolled the hardening peak. She gasped at the touch. Her hips pushed towards me, and I ignored her. My fingers pinched and flicked the puckered tips, which swelled and tightened with each flick. She moaned and I coughed into the phone, covering the sound. Her face reddened and I flashed her a satisfied grin. She frowned at my game, shoving her hips closer to my face, the musky smell of her need overpowering.
“Thank you, I’ll be waiting for your confirmation.” I nodded at the phone and hung up.
My eyes shot to Mia, whose eyes burned with greedy need, “What are you doing, Mia?” I hissed and pulled her nipple, twisting the swollen bud, “I told you we can’t be together.”
“You can’t just leave me like this.”
“No?” My fingers pinched again, she shivered.
“Please Gabriel.” Her husky voice whispered want and need.
“I like it when you call my name.”
“Gabriel.” She bit her lower lip, and my resolve collapsed to the floor. There was no more fighting, no more denial. I needed the comfort of her, the feel of her beneath my fingers. I stood up, unbuckled my belt, and released my erection from my boxers, sighing in relief. I grabbed a condom from my top drawer and rolled it on, and yanked Mia to the edge of the desk. I was acutely aware of her; her heat, her smell, her soft, wielding flesh, her searing breath and burning eyes.
I plunged into her, a gentle, lengthy stroke. Her body clenched around me. Mia caught her breath in a startled gasp of pleasure. The reaction shooting pleasure to my core. I repeated the action, indulging in her warmth, the narcotic pleasure of her moans and body. Moulding myself to her, above her, inside her. Her hips relentlessly moved against mine, her rhythm forcing mine. My restraint liquifying in the potency of her touch.
My hips pistoned and forced as she moaned into my chest. I pressed her body into my desk, not caring about the pens and papers and obstacles that pushed into her back, that forced her to twist and arch and buck. I clasped her hips and buried myself into her, pounding against her. She writhed and shivered beneath me, her rasping breath shattering as she violently splintered around me. Her body closed around mine, pulling, clutching, screaming. I slammed into her and fell into the void.
I collapsed above her, breathless. Sucking in her smell, kissing the moans from her lips, finding air in her lungs. “Mia…” I crumpled around her, “There are things I need to tell you,” I plunged a finger into her hair and found her mouth. I kissed her deeply, hungrily—feeding on her, needing her, desperate. “And after I do, I don’t know if you’ll ever look at me like this again.”
Mia wrapped her arms around me, and we rose from the table. She cradled my head in her palms and found my eyes, “No matter what it is…”
“Don’t say it.”
“Gabriel—” I cut her off with my lips crashing against hers. My hand pulled her in, my body ached with desire, with fear and with want. I released her and stood back admiring her quiet sensuality, her splendid beauty.
I pulled her off the desk, her long legs wrapped around my hips as I stumbled through the living area, and I walked us over to the bedroom. If this was the last time I would get to have her, I needed to do it right.
I lay her on the freshly made bed and kissed her jaw, grazing the slender column of her throat, kissing the hollow of her neck. She wriggled at the sensation as I rained kisses across her silky, scratched shoulders.
I rolled off her and, in one fluid motion, gripped her bruised wrists, pinning her hands above her head. She groaned at the touch, her body writhing against my hold. I didn’t loosen my grip.
Her nipples danced and beckoned me. I taunted the pink buds, sucking them into my mouth. My tongue swirled and tasted as I licked and kissed and sucked and bit. With each swift flick of my tongue, her body quivered. My tongue provoking cries of agonised need that pierced though my skin, forcing me more rigid and engorged. I savoured her taste, spending time unravelling her sanity as she had unravelled mine.
I released her hands and made my way along her body, now salty from sweat and steeped in desire. I tasted every inch of her skin, grazing, savouring; taking a long, slow ride of culinary delight.
I devoured the long expanse of her legs, her meaty inner thighs, until I arrived at the apex of her legs. My tongue teased her lips apart and tormented the hidden morsel relishing in her slick heat. The need to torment her defied all reason. I punished her with leisurely lashes of my tongue, as it brushed and skimmed her wetness. Her low, incoherent mews ignited a hunger within me. Her white knuckles clutched at the sheet. I needed to gorge and feed and sate myself with her. Her breathing grew ragged, desperate pleas burned in her eyes.
She was ravishing.
I climbed above her.
Loomed over her.
My tongue skimmed her trembling lips.
“Gabriel.” Her voice not entirely steady.
My heart strained at the torment etched across her face, and I allowed myself to kiss her. Our lips fused and held, a long, liquid kiss that rushed lust and fire through my veins.
I broke away, flipped Mia onto her stomach, and pushed her knees in, forcing her exquisite ass into the air. My cock waited at her entrance. Her heat a maddening invitation, all my nerves stretched taut.
I waited.
Held.
Inhaled.
Anticipated.
Until…
At last, Mia pushed back against my cock, her hot, wet grip closing tightly around me. Reason tumbled into oblivion as I grabbed at her hips and pushed myself the rest of the way in. I wasn’t gentle, I wasn’t kind; but rough and savage, forcing all of myself into her. A desperate, keening sound escaped her as she threw her head back, and I knew she had lost her senses as I had lost mine. I plunged myself deeper, exalting in the spasms of her wet, silky heat, and with a final, brutal stroke, I unravelled.
We lay wasted, bathed in sweat and sex and lust—drenched in elation.
“I want you to be mine Mia,” I whispered in her ear, the anguish leaching from my insides.
“I am yours.”
I pushed away from her and stood at the edge of the bed, admiring her, noting every detail, taking her all in.
“I’ll go clean up and then we need to talk.” I grabbed my boxers as I turned towards the door.
“Gabriel…” she reached for me, but I took another step back.
&nbs
p; “Tell me after.” I gave her a dry, wistful smile and left the bedroom.
The coffee steamed between us, but I felt the chill in the air. It hovered around me, suffocating, waiting for me to fall, to stay down. The aloneness gripping its hooks into me, willing me to join it in the dark. I dismissed the feeling and looked to the light in Mia’s face, the hope, my future.
I sucked in a galvanising breath, “I’m going to tell you everything. I should have told you before I put you in danger, before you became so vital to me.” My eyes fell to the floor, “It would have been easier to let you go.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” She clutched to the sheet she had wrapped around herself.
I snickered, “That’s because you don’t know anything.”
PART XIII
If I was smart, I would’ve left all of Tony’s secrets piled up on his desk and let someone else pick up the burden of his sins. Fear would still be saturating the streets; puppet masters would be pulling the strings of those in power, and the truth would’ve been buried with the victims.
Maybe that’s why I couldn’t let it go. They were my redemption, my salvation. Although, I never felt that I deserved either.
I’d been agitated all day. Joe’s appearance lolled me out of my comfort zone. Tony was dead and someone had to take his place, but that someone needed access to what they thought I had, and it was time for me to learn Tony’s deepest, darkest secrets.
I waited until midnight. I must’ve checked that the car wash was locked at least three times. I checked every corner, every empty space for an intruder, made sure no one was hiding. The shadow over my shoulder kept growing, the paranoia gnawed at me.
I slunk upstairs to my room, locked the door, and pushed my bed over, sealing the entrance.
I pulled the closed curtains tighter and switched off all the lights. In the darkness, I felt for the wall cavity I created. I pulled at the wood and exposed my treasure—Tony’s collection of books and photographs, my get away money, and my grab bag.
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