____________

Drake

 

 

 

A few nights later I slammed open my front door before Loretta could open it for me.

Her crinkled eyes widened before drawing to concern. “Drake, are you alright?”

No. I wasn’t fucking alright. My head felt swollen. It buzzed as if someone had thrown in a whole hive of bees. My gut churned with hunger. I ignored it, a greater need overriding it. “Where is she?”

“In her bedroom.” Loretta knew I meant Noriko. “What’s wrong?”

I strode past Loretta without another word. A tiny part of me chastised myself for being curt with the woman who practically raised me. But I could barely think through the poison in my blood.

I needed Noriko. I needed her now.

I shoved open her bedroom door, causing her to jolt from her chair and the book in her hand to fall to the floor. My periphery narrowed on her as I advanced. She would make things better. She would make this noise in my head stop. I needed her. My drug. My Valium.

Her mouth moved but I didn’t hear what she was saying.

I grabbed her, my body surging with adrenaline, all of the pent-up anger from today crashing around inside me, rattling around like steel balls.

Her face. She was near tears and terrified. I couldn’t stand to see her looking at me like that. I just…I needed this. I needed her. Then it would all be okay.

I needed to be inside her. Now.

I tore at her clothes, her wretched clothes preventing me from feeling the warmth of her body on mine. My fingers were shaking from frustration. I couldn’t get the buttons running up the front of this yellow dress undone. “Fucking things.” I grabbed the material and tore it apart, buttons scattering like scared ladybugs. I’d buy her another one. Fuck it. I’d buy her a dozen. One in each color.

I pushed the ruined dress off her slim shoulders.

“Drake.”

“Don’t talk.” I gripped her as tightly as I could, despite her feeble attempts to push me away. I picked her up and pulled her legs around my waist, almost losing my mind when her warm core pressed up against my hardness. Her ass felt firm and tight under my hands as I carried her to the thin mattress on her floor.

I kneeled, dropping her down on it, grabbed her ankle and flipped her onto her front so she was on all fours. I tugged her underwear down, revealing her beautiful pink entrance. The sweet-musky smell of her sex hit my nose. I swear to God, I salivated. Holding her hips I pushed into her tight little body.

Oh damn. So wet. So warm. My little refuge.

As I poured my aggression into her, she tightened around me, and in turn I began to soften. My mind began to let go, the knots inside my gut untwisting. She was like warm balm on a screaming burn.

Inside of this beautiful woman, I was free. No pressure, no requirement to achieve anything. There was no end-of-year financial, no shareholders’ report to justify my every action. With her, right now, I was unburdened, unshackled by anyone else’s expectations.

I tried to hold back as I thrust into her. I could barely maintain grip on myself, on reality. She pushed back with her hips, urging me to speed up, her breath coming out in short bursts as I slammed against her body, fragile like a vase. I felt the pressure building quickly inside me. I tried to hold off. I tried.

Noriko cried out, shuddering underneath me. Thank fuck. My orgasm surged through my body, my fingers clawing into her bucking hips.

Just as quickly, the energy seeped out of my limbs. I half-fell on top of her.

She was a drug. My drug.

I rolled to her side so I didn’t crush her. My breathing had calmed down and my tension slipped to a bearable level.

She remained still, limp.

Dear God. I broke her. You fucking animal.

“Noriko?” My fingers touched her hair and her bare shoulder. I wanted to roll her towards me but I was terrified of what I might find on her face.

“Did I hurt you?” Please tell me I didn’t hurt you. “I don’t know what came over me.” What the fuck was wrong with me?

You’re turning into him, a dark voice whispered.

I almost shoved her away in horror. Her soft voice cut through. “You didn’t hurt me. I was scared at first…”

I stiffened.

“…because I didn’t know what you were going to do. But…I liked it. More than liked it.” She turned towards me, her eyes hooded, cheeks flushed from sex, a smile playing at her cherry lips.

I exhaled. Thank God.

I should go. I still had business to take care of, phone calls to make…

I couldn’t bring myself to leave. I didn’t want to yet.

I pulled her against my chest and wrapped my arms around her, making sure her hair wasn’t caught under my arm or that I wasn’t putting too much pressure on any part of her.

After a few moments I felt her relax, and I too, settled.

This was fucking blissful, having this gorgeous creature in my arms, sated, in our own cocoon. I could get used to this.

I suddenly became aware of how much this woman seemed to affect me. No one had affected me like this. Ever.

I didn’t like that. I should go. I shouldn’t stay… The longer I stayed like this the more complicated things would get.

She pulled back and her gaze locked on mine. The reasons why I had to leave were relegated to a blurry spot in the back of my mind.

She patted my arm. “Sit up.”

“What?”

“Sit up facing away from me.”

Did she give me an order? “Why?”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re not very good at taking orders, are you?”

“That’s because I give the orders.”

She nudged me. “Just do it. Please?” she added with a smile. That smile. That Mona Lisa smile. I’d do anything for that smile.

I did as she asked, partly wondering if I would regret it. Perhaps she would stab me in my back now that I had it turned to her.

She kneaded my shoulders, pleasurable pain spreading out from her hands. God, they’re stiff. So much tension in them.

I let out a low growl. “Oh God, that’s exactly what I need.”

“You’ve had a very bad day at work.”

I didn't reply. She’s too perceptive. Perhaps I should have guessed that by the sharp intensity of her eyes, those very eyes that first drew me in. I felt myself relaxing as her fingers worked my muscles.

When she finished I grabbed her arm and pulled her down to sit next to me. Her shoulder was pressed against mine, this small touch comforting me. “You’re right,” I admitted. “It was a very bad day.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You don’t want to hear about it.”

“I want to hear about the things that trouble you.”

I wanted to tell her. I wanted to unload my day to her. Perhaps in sharing it with her, I could share the burden. “You really want to know?”

She nodded.

“Okay.” The knot of guilt still sat deep in my belly, a poisoned tree in a cursed garden. “I recently bought a company. It’s been a…challenging task. They’re more inefficient with their resources than I first thought. There’s a lot of ‘dead wood’ I have to get rid of.”

Mick O'Connor's crumpled face flashed in my mind. He had been the first that I had personally let go.

“Mr. Blackwell, I’ve been with this company for twenty years. I don’t know anything else. Please, don’t do this.”

I had done it anyway. I had done it with an icy façade, showing no hesitancy, no regret, knowing if I showed any weakness, they would attack it. I remained like marble as I reduced grown men to tears.

Noriko squeezed my hand, pulling my mind back to the bedroom with her.

“Today I had to fire some people.” I rubbed my tired eyes. “Two hundred employees lost their jobs today because of me. Two hundred families…” All their faces flashed in front of my mind, all still haunting me. I couldn’t get them to stop looking at me with their pleading, accusing eyes.

“You said the company you bought was inefficient with resources?”

“They would have gone under in less than six months if we hadn’t bought them out.”

“How many employees are in that company?”

“After the two hundred I let go today, only around two hundred left.”

“So perhaps it’s not that you took away two hundred jobs today, but that you saved two hundred. You yourself said that the entire company would have gone under if you hadn’t bought them out.”

I stared at her, feeling like she had flicked on a light switch, chasing these ghosts away. I didn’t ruin two hundred lives. I… “Saved two hundred… Do you really believe that?”

“I do. But it’s more important that you believe it.”

Something inside me shifted. Perhaps it wasn’t a shifting as much as it was an opening. Something inside me opened, just a crack.

I brushed my fingers across her cheek and tucked a stray lock of her hair behind her ears. “You are…so much more than I expected.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What did you expect?”

A demure, obliging bride. Now the mere idea made me uncomfortable. A nervous laugh escaped me. “I’m afraid to say.”

“Afraid to say because you…think I might be insulted?”

Dear God. I can’t hide from her.

“Yes,” she had me admitting.

Once again, I was filled with the need to be inside her. I grabbed her, pulling her across me to straddle my lap. I rocked my erection against her wetness. “You’ve seen through me again. How do you do that?”

“You are easy to see.”

I let out a curt laugh. “I should hope not,” I muttered.

She smiled as she slid her tight, wet pussy down onto me with a small moan. “Drake, I like what I see.”

Do you? Really? I wanted to ask. Her words filled my lungs with something lighter than air.

We fuck again as we were, her straddled across me, her fingers alternating between grabbing my hair or gripping my shoulders like talons. For the first time in a long time I let a woman take control.

She wasn’t just any woman.

She was my wife.

I let her find her rhythm. I let her control the pace. Let her slide her hips up and down my length as I leaned back on my hands, gripping the sheets so I wouldn’t grab her and force her movements.

I fucking loved it.

This time, as she moved me to orgasm, I didn’t possess her. She possessed me.

 

 

 

Afterwards, she lay against my side, our skin damp, bodies like puzzle pieces, Noriko tracing my chest with her dainty finger. We didn’t speak. We didn’t have to. The sated silence was enough.

I couldn’t believe I always left right after sex. This…this was even better. Well, maybe not better. Sex with her was fucking incredible. But this, lying with her like this, made my body loosen, my muscles relax. My mind slowed and something akin to bliss seeped into my bones.

Slow down. Spend time with someone you love. This was what Dr. Tao had meant.

I flinched.

Spend time with someone you love.

Of course, Noriko noticed. “What is it?”

I stared at her, her delicate eyebrows pulling down over her almond eyes, those spear-tipped irises that went straight through me and saw everything. Did she know what I had realized?

That I loved her.

Holy fuck. I loved my wife.

“I love you,” I blurted out before I could stop it, those words like wild horses, desperate to run free.

Shit. Had I really let those words out of my mouth? I was so new at this, I was like a bumbling fool. I had no shields, no strategies. I wasn’t prepared for her.

She started, shock flashing across her face.

Shock.

“I…” her voice was quiet, “I don’t know what to say.”

I shoved her away and leapt to my feet, grabbing my clothes and tugging them on.

She sat up. I could feel her eyes following me around her room. “Drake, please don’t—”

“I just remembered something. Important. Work.” I couldn’t even look at her. I practically ran out of her bedroom, shirt hanging over my arm, slamming the door shut behind me.

I sagged against it. I couldn’t breathe.

She didn’t say it back.

She didn’t say it back.

She didn’t love me.

Panic clawed at my throat. Fix it. I had to fix it. How would I fix it?

For the first time in my life, I don’t fucking know.

 

 

 

Late that night, I was in my home office. I couldn’t sleep. I was trying to distract my whirring mind by looking over management reports, the black text blurring so I couldn’t read any of it.

I heard a knock at my door. Loretta appeared with a small tray of steaming tea. “You weren’t in your bedroom. I assumed you were in here.”

“Thanks, Loretta.”

She walked in and placed the tray at my side. “You’re working late.”

Trying to work. Trying to ignore the hole ripped across my heart that made it hard to breathe. I inhaled and exhaled. “Yes.”

“Is…is everything alright?”

Of course Loretta would notice. She practically raised me.

I shrugged.

She let out a sigh. “Oh, my dear boy, you work so hard. Try not to stay up too late, okay?” She patted my shoulder and turned to leave.

“What does it mean, to love someone?”

She turned back towards me and I caught the fleeting surprise in her eyes. “To…love someone?”

“How do you love someone?”

“Well,” she spoke slowly, her head tilting as she weighed up her words, “love is selfless. It means that their happiness means more to you than your own.”

I frowned. “No, I mean, how do you make—” I stopped, cleared my throat, a knot suddenly developing. “Never mind.” I turned back to my desk, effectively dismissing her. “Forget I said anything.”

She didn’t move.

“You can go now,” I snapped.

“You don’t have to go through everything alone, you know?”

“Did you not hear me? Get out.” I glared at the innocent papers in front of me because I couldn’t stand to meet Loretta’s eyes. I didn’t want to see the pity on her face that was so clear in her tone. I didn’t want her to see the turmoil inside me that I wasn’t sure I could hide.

By the grace of God, she left, the door clicking shut behind her.

I sank into my chair, already berating myself for how I had treated her.

What had I been about to ask?

How do you make a woman love you?