20
Bea
The whole deception was much easier than expected. So much so that I couldn’t help wonder if there were hidden powers at work that were making temptation too easy in order to manufacture such a scenario that would bring my world crashing down.
Not that I paused to consider whether to take the risk.
The obvious choice of resource was Claire. I’d stayed over at her place a couple of times in the past for some ‘intense study and revision’ (wine, take-out and Netflix), so it was a request I could bring up to my father without arousing suspicion. At the same time, the question of surveillance now made everything more complicated, but the half-hearted way that I went about bringing up the subject served me in good stead when it came to the unlikely scenario of being able to manipulate my parents.
“Bea, how are your studies going?” my mother asked at the breakfast table one morning.
Now was my chance.
“Claire asked me to spend a weekend at hers in order to work on some of our college assignments,” I replied. “But I know there are logistics involved with all the agents watching us.”
“What weekend?” Dad asked.
“Next weekend, I think she was suggesting.”
“Hm…I don’t see why that should be a problem. An agent can safeguard you at Claire’s as well as here as long as she’s happy to have one present. They had Claire checked out pretty much as soon as this was set up and there are no concerns about her.”
“I just didn’t know whether you’d want me complicating the situation.”
“If studying with your friend is going to help your studies, then do it. Remember, the agents are here to help us live safely but normally—or as normally as possible taking out any risks they advise us against.”
The campaign must have been going well for my father to be acting so reasonably. I knew he was still holding back a few choice words for me for whenever a more private time occurred, but I was overlooking how supportive he was of my future career. Again, this had more to do with his own reputation than what I wanted; he was looking to be very proud of the fact that he had a daughter who was a qualified lawyer and so was willing to be more versatile than usual in allowing me to meet the grade.
Not because it was what I wanted at all.
First problem answered, I still thought that the complication of organizing the right agent at the right time would stand in our way but, after texting Damon, I’d received a reply saying ‘Leave that to me’ and then been astonished by how quickly he was able to confirm it would be him. I didn’t ask how he was succeeding in calling the shots without raising suspicion, and so the date was set, with Damon due to pick me up on Saturday morning so he could take me to whatever getaway it was he had planned.
I soon found out…and where else in Florida but one of the many coastal resorts to choose from?
Sure, the lake had proven a surprise and an overlooked place to unwind, but who in their right mind, though they might look out on the blue every day of their life, every really got tired of seeing the ocean? This time Damon wasn’t taking me on the water. That would’ve been too complicated on this occasion when every moment together was precious. Instead, he’d booked us a vacation apartment, not only with amazing sea views, but also of the inland lakes that dotted the Florida coastline. Somewhere in the distance was our own lake, although it was hidden from view. This time we would be getting wet, however, with a pool being nearby, but that was a little too public for our tastes on arrival, especially as there was both a Jacuzzi and a sauna to enjoy within the apartment itself.
It didn’t take us too long to find our way into that bubbling water…
“I’m so wet,” I said, wringing out my long hair as we reclined in the tub.
“In more than one way…?” Damon said, his tone tinged with mischievous humor.
“Oh, ha-ha,” I replied, although to tell the truth, looking at him shirtless and dripping with water was really turning me on.
I boldly slid my bikini off, and Damon’s eyes widened as my nipples puckered into stiff points. A raging fire burned through my blood, and I smiled. “Want me to take the rest off?” I asked, reaching under the water and fingering the side-straps of my bikini bottom.
“Yes,” he growled, reaching over and grabbing my hips in his strong hands. “And then I want you to ride me.”
I wasn’t going to say no to that.
I waited for him to stand up and slide a condom on, and when he returned to the tub, I straddled him, reaching down and grasping his cock with one hand. He reached up and groped at my breasts, squeezing and kneading the soft flesh. I moaned, pushing myself into his hands, and he pinched my nipples as my eyes glazed over with wanton need.
“Come on, Bea…ride me,” he whispered as I rubbed myself on his groin.
I nodded. Then I lifted my hips and placed the head of his cock right at my entrance, and the swollen heat from my core begged him to enter. To claim what was his. Damon’s fingers curled around my waist and pulled me down at the same time as he lifted his hips again, impaling me on his shaft. He grabbed my ass and moved me up and down, hard and fast, not even giving me time for my body to adjust to the thrilling invasion.
“Fuck, you’re so sexy,” he growled, and I cried out for him as my hips rocked back and forth.
Moving my head down a little, I nipped at his chest, and his hard cock jerked inside me. I smiled and moved back again, looking down and watching as his cock disappeared from tip to base into my pussy. Damon groaned, and I gasped at the same time as my muscles began to contract around him. I was getting closer and closer to the edge, and when he reached a hand down and began to rub his thumb over my clit, my body shook with spasms. It was too hard for me to keep bouncing up and down on him as the pleasure seared every nerve in my body, but he held me steady against his chest.
“Oh god…oh god. Damon!” My head dropped forward, my nails digging into his shoulders as I clung to him. “I’m going to…”
His thrusts turned rougher, slamming harder into me, and my entire body tensed as my muscles locked around him. So close now. One more hard thrust and I felt like screaming the apartment down as I rode out the waves of my orgasm, arms and legs twitching and shuddering beneath the gorgeous man above me. He leaned forward, closer and closer, and he sucked one of my stiff nipples into his mouth. A long moan of bliss escaped my mouth, and he slammed back into me and nipped gently at the tiny tip as he did so.
Hot wetness soaked me as my muscles clenched hard around his cock, and he made one final push inside me before a loud growl rushed up his throat. Gasping for air, I watched as his own pleasure overtook him, and there was no longer any doubt in my mind that I’d fallen for this man.
We broke apart and reclined in the water again, gasping as we caught our breath.
“I’m kinda hungry now,” I said, glancing over at him.
“Same. Room service?”
“Definitely.”
It was time to get something to settle into our little vacation in a non-sexual way. We both ordered from the Italian room service menu and, though we didn’t talk too much as we basked in our post-coital bliss, we continued to glow with a silent satisfaction over the next lazy hour.
It was only as we finished our tiramisu dessert that I realized Damon was acting a bit strangely. A couple of times over the next few hours, I caught him looking pensively out at the ocean, but when I asked him if something was wrong he merely shook his head and looked to shake off the idea. That would have been fine if he’d snapped out of it, but the curious mood remained and began to feel very weird.
“Damon, is there something wrong?” I asked at last. “It kind of feels like you’re somewhere else at the moment.
“I think the drive made me tired, that’s all,” he replied, but just then his phone buzzed. I was put off from enquiring further after seeing the strange face he pulled on reading his text.
“Is something wrong?” I asked, and I grew more concerned when for a few moments, Damon made no response.
Suddenly he backtracked and tried to look more casual, telling me, “It’s nothing, baby, I just have a headache. I’m going to have a shower. That will clear it.”
He got up and kissed me on the cheek. I wanted to say something else but couldn’t decide what and, because he was so quick in leaving me behind and closing the bathroom door, I felt like I’d been left hanging.
It didn’t make sense that he would be so enigmatic all of a sudden. I sat with my brow creased for a minute, and then I noticed that Damon had left his phone on the table. Not only that, but the screen hadn’t auto-locked yet. Surprising myself by how quickly I took up the opportunity, I reached over and tapped the phone so that the screen stayed unlocked for now.
Curiosity gnawed at me, and I tried to tell myself not to do it. I wasn’t the type of girl to go through a guy’s phone….or was I? He’d been acting so strangely, and that last text message he’d received had obviously been something bad. Call it women’s intuition, but I knew that if I looked at his messages, I’d find something he didn’t want me to see…and that only made me more determined to find out what on earth he was hiding from me.
I flicked over to the message screen and saw that there were three messages since the last one I’d sent him—one from Felicia, one from a contact called ‘Maurizio Office’ and one from a contact called ‘G’.
The most recent was from G—whatever that stood for—and, upon glancing at it, I saw that it read: ‘You have to move things along. The family is waiting for your actions.’
Family? What family?
Whoever this G was, there were no historic texts showing, which made the message seem even stranger. It was definitely suspicious, but not enough to ask him about unless he carried on acting weirdly. So far he’d given me no reason not to trust him, and I felt like an invasive bitch for having looked at his phone at all.
But I’d learned my lesson—I wasn’t going to do it again.
***
As our weekend passed by and the same old sense of contentment returned, I remained true to my vow to trust him, not mentioning the text I’d sneakily read or even prodding Damon about his reaction. His good mood had finally returned and, if he seemed a bit more mysterious now, I supposed that had something to do with my own imagination.
In spite of that, the moment lingered. Whenever I wasn’t distracted by his company, the strange text played on my mind and, when Monday came and I was speaking with Felicia again, the urge to pry returned. I tried to hide my curiosity, but as we spoke—having a discussion about a client who might prove the solution to my thesis issues—Felicia was perceptive enough to assess that there was something unspoken in the air.
“Is there something you want to ask, Bea?” she asked. “I’m not easy to offend, in case you were worried.”
“Oh, I know. It’s not that,” I replied, nervously chewing on my lower lip. “It’s just that it’s about Damon and…I’m a bit confused about something, but didn’t know how to ask him.”
“I figured it was about my brother…what’s he done now?” she asked with a rueful smile.
“I was wondering if you know of anything that Damon might be involved with, concerning some sort of ‘family’?” I asked.
The smile vanished. “What do you mean?”
“We went away on the weekend, and I saw a message on his phone that said something about him needing to move things along, and the ‘family’ is waiting. I know I shouldn’t have looked, but he was acting so weirdly, and the message just seemed so strange.”
“I see.” Felicia’s face turned stony, and she pushed away her laptop, sat back and circled her palms. “This is exactly what I wanted him to avoid. Shut the door, please.”
I did as she asked, suddenly alarmed by what revelation was about to be revealed.
“Sit down,” Felicia said after I’d shut the door. “Bea, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you this sooner…I wanted to, because I didn’t want to see you get hurt, but I had no idea how, and I suppose part of me thought Damon might actually do the right thing and tell you himself.”
“Tell me what?” I asked, my heart racing.
“I’m sorry, this really won’t be easy to hear,” Felicia said, “but let’s get it out of the way once and for all. Damon works for a mafia family; the Caruso family to be exact. He has for a long time.”
My eyebrows shot up as her words sank in. “The Carusos?”
Surely it couldn’t be true. I knew he’d been involved in shady things in the past, but he was on the straight and narrow now, with a real job….wasn’t he?
“I believe he’s sincere that he’s wanted out for some time, but that doesn’t make it okay,” Felicia continued. “And honestly, I’m tired of covering for him.”
“Covering for what, exactly?”
She sighed heavily. “I’m pretty sure—Damon hasn’t specifically told me this, by the way—that he’s been asked to get close to your family by posing undercover. He’s not a real Secret Service agent, Bea.”
My heart plummeted into my stomach. What the hell?
“He lied to me?” I said, tears forming in my eyes. They weren’t just tears of hurt, but of anger and betrayal.
Thankfully, my back was to the office doors so no one outside could see me, but my dreamland had come crashing down and I didn’t know how I was going to bottle this one up inside like I did with everything else. My parents could hurt me time and time again, and I’d take hardly any rebellious actions against them, but this wasn’t supposed to happen from someone I’d loved, trusted and given everything to.
“I’m sorry, Bea,” Felicia said. “I know this is painful for you. Believe me, it is for me too. I’ve always wanted him to get out of that life and meet someone decent, and this time I thought he really had….but I’m starting to think he has no intention of leaving the Carusos.”
“I….I don’t know even what to say,” I mumbled.
“Please take the rest of the day off. And if you need anything else, just give me a call.”
Choked up as I was, I couldn’t even manage enough poise to nod in response, and I turned around and headed back to my desk. It was handy to be able to time my call to the security detail car while I was on the way out of the offices so that I didn’t have to speak to any colleagues, otherwise there would have been some kind of wailing scene that would’ve demanded an explanation. I’d have to wait until the next time I came into work to find out whether I’d gotten away with it, but right now I didn’t care, heading straight outside and into the back of the vehicle that sat waiting.
It’d been years since I’d last run to my room, slammed the door shut and cried into my pillow, but that was exactly what I pictured doing now, if I could just hold my breath until then. That was until I looked up, with the vehicle underway, and realized that in my shaken state I’d failed to recognize who was on duty to pick me up today.
He was the last person I wanted to see right now.
“Another beautiful coincidence,” Damon said, smiling up at the rear-view mirror with a glint in his eye, though I knew that cheeky face well enough to know that the smile was wiped off instantly as soon as he saw my own expression.
“Something wrong?” he asked, and by the way I held his gaze and allowed him to quiver under it this time, I knew that the question had been answered without any words being said.
Having been on the verge of uncontrollable weeping, the discovery of finding him in the front of the car was probably the only thing that could have kept the waterworks at bay. Hurt was replaced by fury, and I was able to maintain my poise, while saying nothing for the entire journey as I decided what my next course of action would be.
Once we pulled up outside my house, Damon turned the engine off and then endeavored to be the one to bring an end to the awkwardness. “I was hoping to tell you…” he began, but I wasn’t going to listen to any explanation.
It was too late.
“I don’t want to hear it,” I said, speaking in a tone I’d never exercised before. Could it be that, for the first time ever, there was an echo of my father’s voice there? “I trusted you!”
“Bea…”
I cut him off again. “But you’ve been getting to know me in order to spy on my father for the mafia. Leading me on this whole time. I should’ve known; let’s have a bit of fun with the Governor’s daughter as we try to dig up something on him.”
“Bea, I…”
“If you were anyone else, I would be reporting you straight away,” I said, cutting him off again. “And if I ever see you here again, I won’t hesitate. That will be the end of you; don’t think my father won’t find a way of helping them to throw away the key.”
After saying my piece, I got out of the car, slammed the door and didn’t look back.
I couldn’t.
I should’ve blown his cover there and then of course, had been trying to talk myself into doing so all the way back, but there was no fooling the heartbreak that told me I couldn’t live with such a course of action. It was almost galling considering what he’d done, but my feelings for him still ran deep, even as I disappeared into the house and hoped to never see him again. I hated him for lying, and I hated him for what he’d done to me.
I really hated him.
But god, I still loved him…