Chapter 14

Chrissy

The second night in Tony’s home was comfortable. He fixed us lunch, did the dishes and just generally wouldn’t let me do anything to help saying there would be plenty of time for that when I was more healed. When I got through about half of that first meal, he produced an orange pill bottle out of his pocket and twisted off the top. He took out a single tablet and set it on the edge of my plate.

“Pain pill,” he’d said. “I picked up your prescription.”

I hated taking them, but I hurt and I needed it. I took it, finished my meal, and he told me to go back in the living room while he cleaned up. He joined me and his cat there and cuddled me on the couch, while I snuggled Roscoe, who was adorable and funny. Tony threw a blanket over the both of us before turning on the TV and I couldn’t remember a time in recent memory where I’d been so relaxed. I drifted, falling asleep under the influence of the narcotic painkiller to the sounds of Roscoe purring, revving engines in a chase scene, and the ticking echo of Tony’s heart where my head rested on his chest.

He let me, and it was nice. Warm and safe, and lord knows, I needed those things badly lately, finding them to be in short supply.

He’d gone into work the next day and my occupational and physical therapist had come in the afternoon. I’d worked hard, and it hurt, and I’d sweated unbearably. I’d managed to dress myself in workout appropriate clothing, but before either of us knew it, Tony was walking through the door.

“Good, you did good!” Penny, my physical therapist was all smiles, while me? I felt like I’d been through the wringer.

“I like the sound of that,” Tony said, shutting the garage door. I stood trembling in the living room where Penny had shoved some things aside to make room for us to do what needed to be done.

“Shoot, I lost track of time. I don’t have any time left to help you get a shower. I have to get back to the city, my next client…”

“Its fine, Penny. I’ll manage,” I said even though I wasn’t sure how I would, given all of my hair, there was so much of it and nearly impossible with two hands, forget about one.

“I’ll help you load up, save you some time,” Tony offered and she smiled.

“That would be great, and I mean it, Chrissy, you did really well.”

“Thank you,” I murmured and blotted my chest with the towel sitting over my shoulders. My left one screamed at me and I stubbornly refused to take any pain medicine for it. Tomorrow was the big day for me, and since I had learned he had been caught, I refused any and all pain medicine save for that one after lunch, realizing a bit belatedly that narcotics in my system could taint the identification. I wanted to make absolutely certain any ID I made was free of any taint because I needed to know. I knew it was too late and pretty much a fruitless endeavor from a legal standpoint, however.

I’d done my homework, and to be completely rid of the pain medicine they had me on, I would have to wait four whole days for it not to show on any urinalysis. Believe me, I had asked if we could wait. Then again, were I the defendant’s lawyer in this case, whether there were drugs in the eyewitness’s system or not; I would have played both sides. Drugs present, the ID was tainted because the witness was impaired by their pain medication. Drugs not present? Well then a witness suffering my injuries was impaired by the pain they suffered. It was a no-win situation, and honestly, eye witnesses made false identifications all of the time, and I was scared that now, when it really mattered, more karma would come calling and I would do the same.

I was a nervous wreck on the inside, more nervous than I had ever been walking into a courtroom, and that was saying something. Still, I didn’t show one iota of those nerves on the outside. I couldn’t afford to. I’d been sure of myself the previous afternoon, but the more I thought about it, the more time dragged by, the more I started doubting and second-guessing myself. In short, I was a hot mess.

I hugged Penny goodbye which was a little lean in, and a light touch on my good shoulder from her, and Tony grabbed up some of her gear. She picked up her big round inflated rubber ball she’d had me sit on while we’d done the exercises for my arm and Tony followed her out the front door and out to her car. I went into the kitchen and got myself a glass of water from the tap.

Tony came back in from outside and I listened to the heavy tread of his boots cross the hardwood floor. He stopped in the kitchen and I felt his eyes on my back, belatedly realizing that the workout tank I was wearing only covered half of the ugly scars on my shoulder. I immediately pulled my hair out of my ponytail and let it cover, my face burning with… I don’t know. I couldn’t quite quantify the emotion but I guess if I had to, I would liken it to shame.

I heard Tony’s jacket hit the back of the chair he usually hung it on, and those heavy footfalls come my way, his shadow looming over me at the sink. He started to move my hair aside and I turned, whirling on my sneaker and backed up against the counter.

“Don’t… please?”

His blue eyes penetrated mine and he nodded carefully, leaning in none the less to kiss me. My eyes fluttered shut as his mouth moved carefully over mine. I kissed him back, and it was just as magical and as beautiful as the kiss the day before. I blindly set my glass aside on the counter and went to reach for him, but dammit, I’d misjudged and it slipped off the counter’s edge and shattered on the floor.

The crash of breaking glass made me jump and cry out, and I stuffed my hand against my mouth and squeezed my eyes shut. Cringing from my memories.

“It’s okay; it’s totally okay…” he murmured soothingly, and smoothed some of my hair out of the way of my face so he could see me. “It’s just water and just glass, I’ve got it… no big deal.” He gently moved me the opposite direction of the mess around the kitchen island and said, “Go grab a stool, sit down.”

I swallowed hard, on the verge of tears, my heart racing, pulse jumping painfully out of the side of my neck, chest crushed as I struggled to breathe normally, in through my nose hold for a few seconds, and out.

The first panic attack had happened in the hospital, Pasquale had recognized it instantly and had helped me through some exercises. I knew what they were now. I am in control. I told myself. Tony went about cleaning up, letting me have some space, and by the time he was done, I felt better. Still rattled, but better.

“You alright?” he asked, and I nodded.

I knew in the front of my mind that it didn’t matter, that Tony was the last person who would judge, that any number of medical personnel had seen the scars, but for some irrational reason Tony was different. He wasn’t someone I wanted to see the ugliness… He just… wasn’t.

He came around to me and I twisted on my seat to face him, looking up at him and biting my bottom lip. He looked like he was going to give me a pep talk but the words died on his lips. He searched my face and stepped in close, between my knees and lowered his face to mine. I closed my eyes, and let him kiss me, kissing him back and sighing out with relief. I wanted so badly to feel something good and Tony’s kiss was like heaven.

His hands smoothed over my hips and up to my ribs and he gathered the hem of my fitted work-out tank with his fingers, slipping his hand underneath and putting it against my skin. My desire for him shot through the roof at the same time my anxiety rose. I broke the kiss and pulled back and said breathlessly, “I can’t… my scars.”

He growled low and intense and said, “Baby, you’re gonna be on your back; no way I’m even going to see your scars.”

His words, even more than the intensity behind them, stole my breath. I found some, just enough to say, “Okay.” I couldn’t believe this; that he wanted me with how broken, and damaged, and well, soggy I’d been. I felt like my emotional state held the consistency of wet cardboard and I knew for a fact that that was totally unattractive, yet here we were, and here he was, arms around me, tongue tracing the seam of my lips, begging for access which I gave to him, and gratefully.

His hands went to the outsides of my thighs, rubbing my legs, up and down through the skin tight material. I toed off my sneakers and pressed myself to him, my left arm tucked into the side of my body, protecting it. My free hand was cradling the back of his head, thumb lying along the side of his face, the stubble of his five o’clock shadow rough against it.

He pulled my body tight to his and I could feel him, hot and hard, straining at the zipper of his jeans. I moaned into his mouth, wanting the barrier of clothing between us gone, but still off my game enough, unsure enough, that I didn’t know how to ask for it.

He put his arms around me and I held tightly to him with my good arm, my bad one curving around his ribs as he lifted me and took me over to the dining room table. He kicked the chair at the end aside, hooking it with his boot and sweeping it out of the way and set my ass on the edge of the solid, polished wood rectangle.

“Lie back,” he ordered and I did, carefully, trailing my fingertips down the front of my body, between my breasts, to rest my hand on my stomach. He watched the movement, his gaze full of heat and pulled at the back of his tee shirt, dragging it off his body, over the top of his head.

Oh god, the body that it revealed… fit and rippling with corded muscle, he looked like someone that belonged on the cover of a magazine in his jockeys. Not standing in front of me, hooking his fingertips into the waistband of my yoga pants and dragging them off my hips. I arched and winced at the pulling pain in my shoulder and lower back on the opposite side, but he had them down far enough that I didn’t have to hold the awful posture for very long.

He went for me, curving his arms beneath my body and helping me into a sitting position. I dragged my good arm into the fitted tank top, and he lifted on it carefully, pulling it over my head and slipping my bad arm out of it. I was sitting nude on his dining room table and I couldn’t find it in me to be the least bit sorry about it. I wanted this, I needed him, and with every heated rake of his gaze, I loved how I felt beautiful again. Desired. Desirable.

He ordered me to lie back again and I did, body clenching with want and need as his blunt fingers worked the leather tongue of his belt through the buckle. It gave with a little sigh and he cursed, unholstering his gun so it wouldn’t fall, setting it on the table up near my head as he bent over my body to kiss the side of my neck and nibble at that sweet spot that made my toes curl. I touched him, ran the fingers of my good hand through his hair; caressed his body with the hand of my bad arm where I could reach him without pain.

He moaned, uttering a breathy, “Oh god, Chrissy,” into the side of my neck, his breath warm, his body warmer, skin heated and near scorching against my own. I reveled in the heat and the closeness and found my body wet and ready when I reached between us to tease myself. He took his hands off me just long enough to push his pants and shorts off his hips, the thick length of him bobbing free and slapping him in the stomach. My eyes widened, the head of his cock was resting just below his belly button and he was far larger than I’d ever considered. The man was a dream come true.

He smiled and planted one of his palms flat against the wood next to my shoulder, leaning in, stroking the head of himself up and down my pussy, slapping my labia with it and it was incredibly hot. God, I wanted him and I moaned, whimpering out a breathy, “Please?”

He pressed himself at my opening and pushed inside me slowly, letting my body adjust; not rushing, even though I could tell by the strain and concentration on his face that it cost him dearly and that he hadn’t wanted to be patient. He eased his entire length inside me and I arched slightly, moaning, clenching around him, wanting more of him. He bent over me and brushed my hair from my face, smoothing it aside gently, carefully, and I realized that our similarity in height did us one favor, it made it so missionary would put us face to face, incredibly intimate, however, he was slightly lower than that for now, his standing putting him slightly beyond being able to kiss me comfortably.

I couldn’t complain, he felt so good, so real, so alive, and I needed all of those things just now.

“Please don’t make me beg,” I whimpered and he smiled, straightening.

“Wouldn’t think of it, baby.” He drew back and carefully surged forward, moving gently in and out of me, careful of me, and it was both beautiful and frustrating. I wanted more, I wanted deep penetration and a punishing rhythm, but he was right. What I wanted and what I needed were two different things.

He eased his way in and out of me, steel blue eyes never leaving mine, and was so careful, so gentle, that the roaring inferno of want and desire slowly burned down to embers until just a warm, comfortable glow was left behind. A torturously slow build was beginning between us. He was going to make me come, but on his own terms, in his own time, and all I needed to do was relax and enjoy the ride.

He bent over my body, mouth closing warm and soft over the stiff peak of one nipple, his hand closing warm and firm over my other breast and I let out a throaty moan. God, yes, oh yes… just like that.

I couldn’t be sure if I spoke the words out loud or not, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but his body sheathed in mine, the warmth and the vitality of him pressed against me and surrounding me.

My breath came in deep, luxurious, waves, slow and even with every long, slow thrust of his body into mine and I couldn’t ever remember a time a man had made so much of it about me. He hunched up to allow me to get my hand between us and growled against my breast, “Touch yourself for me, make it happen.”

I pressed my fingers to my clit and rubbed in firm but gentle little circles and it was all I could do to contain myself. The feel of him inside me, on top of me, the warmth of his body, the tender mercies he bestowed upon my breasts… it wasn’t long before I shattered over his tabletop much like the glass had shattered on his floor, only when I broke? He didn’t just sweep me up and discard me. He swept me up, put me back together and made me a stronger whole through his care.