Pierce
Waking up was difficult. Pierce wanted to hold onto that wonderful, sexy dream where he’d had Felice on her living room floor for a little longer. Once he opened his eyes, the dream would start to fade around the edges and reality would take back over.
For now, he wanted to remember everything about that dream and not think of anything else.
But after a long moment of trying to keep the dream in his grasp, he had an odd thought. “The light is wrong.” And it was true; the light from his bedroom in Felice’s home usually came from the other side, assaulting his left side with the too-bright desert sun.
Conclusion: Pierce wasn’t in his room.
Chocolate eyes, swollen with sleep and red with lack of it, opened reluctantly. A mix of dread and delight filled his belly as he looked around, realizing that he was sleeping in Felice’s room. “I’m also naked.”
Fuck. Last night wasn’t a dream.
The overwhelming desire to stay with Felice hadn’t abated either, and that wasn’t a good thing. Pulling back the piles of sheets, blankets, and pillows, Pierce got out of the bed and glanced around for his clothing. He didn’t really want to walk through the house naked, but it looked like Felice hadn’t left him much choice. He took a deep breath and walked out into the hallway.
Lucky for him, no one was there. Felice wasn’t even around, which filled him with all sorts of mixed emotions he refused to sort through.
So he showered, returned to “his” room, and dressed before heading down the stairs. He wanted to see Felice again, see what it is that she thought of their exploits the night before.
But as he started down the stairs, he heard voices. One was definitely Felice’s and the other was distorted by the speaker phone of Felice’s cell, Pierce couldn’t even properly identify the gender of the person speaking. He shuffled the rest of the way down the stairs, his eyes automatically searching for Felice.
As usual, he found her in her kitchen, brewing coffee. Sometimes she didn’t even drink whatever she made; Felice simply really seemed to love the scent of coffee. “I should buy her a coffee-scented candle so she stops wasting perfectly good brew.”
Felice’s glittering, emerald eyes met his, and her mouth shifted into a shy smile as Pierce came into the kitchen. Without a sound, he grabbed a mug from the counter and poured himself some coffee, inhaling the sweet fumes before taking a big, burning sip of it.
“Yes, Mother, I told you. We’re going to Gala as a couple. It will work; I’m sure of it.”
“I don’t think you being seen in public, proclaiming that some nobody is your new boyfriend will do anything for your standing in society, Kitten,” said the scratchy, distorted voice from the other side of the phone.
Felice held her sleek little phone too hard between her fingers, keeping it flat in front of her perfect mouth. There was a kind of tension in her that Pierce only noticed when her mother was around. It radiated out from every inch of her body, the tension making her look like a bow string ready to snap.
“I mean, he’s very handsome, Felice, but he’s not anybody,” her mother was still talking, and it was starting to make Pierce angry. And not just because she was insulting him.
“I’m not sure anyone here really cares about your opinion, Mrs. Domiano,” Pierce snapped, his anger lashing out. Felice looked up at him like he’d kicked a puppy, and her mother became silent for a long time. Pierce could literally feel the anger seeping out through the phone.
As though he had never spoken, Mrs. Domiano continued her conversation with her daughter. “He should come to the Gala as your very sexy bodyguard. You two can dance and have a good time; Clay will be back with you in no time.”
Felice was still silent, her mouth opened in a horrified expression. Pierce could feel his stomach dropping down into his feet. “Yes, Mother,” she whispered, her voice weak and submissive.
Frowning, Pierce sat down a little too hard on the kitchen’s barstools grumbling under his breath. He couldn’t be ordered around by people like Mrs. Domiano, but obviously, Felice would.
Despite telling himself over and over again not to hope, Pierce found himself aching, knowing that Felice still wanted back with her ex. Everything that happened last night was just lust after all, and Pierce was going to have to learn to accept that fact. And quickly.
# # #
Felice
“I don’t suppose you have any better ideas, you muscle-bound asshole.” Her mother didn’t actually seem to be in a foul mood, she seemed to enjoy insulting Pierce. Perhaps she enjoyed riling her “bodyguard” up, or maybe she wanted to see if Felice would get defensive.
All sorts of emotions boiled under the surface of her, but Felice kept all of them to herself, fighting to keep her face as neutral as Pierce’s. If he could act so cool after their passionate night together last night, then so could she.
Pierce managed to keep the anger out of his voice, but his mouth gave him away, twisting into an unconscious frown. He was livid, not wanting to make even a single compromise with her mother. Felice was nearly speechless. Dolores Domiano never compromised with anyone. She was a Steel Dom in every sense of the word.
“We need to go as a couple. Clay is a man that will be distracted easily, and if he latches on to some other pretty girl at the party, you’ll lose him for good. And it would be good riddance in my opinion, too.” Pierce crossed his arms over his chest, keeping close enough to Felice to make sure her mother could hear him over the phone. Felice felt a little awkward standing there, having two people argue over her. Her opinions didn’t seem like they would be welcome, so she kept her mouth shut, feeling utterly alone.
“Fine then, go as a couple. But you damn well better back away if Clay shows any interest. I won’t have you fucking this up for my daughter, understand?”
Pierce made a noise under his breath. Not quite an answer, but Dolores took it as an affirmation. “If you try and keep Clay away from Felice, I will throw you out of Felice’s house and life so fast, you won’t even know what hit you.” Without a goodbye or anything, Felice’s mother hung up the phone.
Pierce didn’t look happy with the outcome of their conversation, but Felice was dumbstruck by it.
In Felice’s memory, Dolores never bowed to anyone. Not to her kids or any of her three husbands. She never even given in to her own mother, when she was still alive. Felice was pretty sure the day Dolores was born, she crawled out of her mother’s womb and ordered the doctor and the nurses to bring her a martini, and they did it.
Without a word, Pierce left the kitchen, going to sit down on the couch in front of the TV. He seemed unable to meet her eyes for a second, like he knew all of this deciding things for her upset her. But he seemed unable to keep himself from arguing with her mother.
“He’s so rebellious. Why can’t he just accept the way things are and move on?” Felice, who had woken up high on happiness wrapped in Pierce’s strong arms was starting to question if that was all just silliness. “Pierce doesn’t belong in my world. And I doubt I would even belong in whatever world he came from.”
It was so strange all of a sudden. She’d shared a house with this man and once shared a bed, but Felice didn’t know a thing about him. Where did he come from? What were his hobbies? What sort of work did he do before he ended up in her home? What was he running from?
But the answers to those questions weren’t important; Pierce didn’t belong here. And as soon as Clay was back in Felice’s life, he would disappear, never to return.
And she had to be okay with that.