Bad Boy Rich
I could feel her pulling away, slowly. Painfully.
I’m about to lose my mind.
Desperation intensifies my irrational and self-destructive thoughts.
Mind games.
Carnage.
No good could come of me in my own company.
I’ve always done whatever I could to avoid facing my own soul, but she made me do it. She placed us in front of each other, spotlight shining above, in the ring fighting a battle that was imminent. She may not have known she was doing it, stripping me to pieces in order for me to bare my soul.
I was covered in sins and she was my holy water.
She was the only person left who could save me.
My head tells me to get my shit together. Stakes are high. But my heart is the ultimate decider. And what do they have in common? They both want to shield her from the pain.
Then, stupidly, I realize—I’m the pain.
Inside—deep in the troughs of my dark soul—the coldness brought on only hate. I despised everything and everyone. But Milana Milenov—a name so angelic and pure—found a way to let the warmth inside.
I felt the sun.
The warmth and its presence every time her body was next to mine.
And, slowly but surely—it’s all beginning to fall apart.
Troy was a goddamn imbecile for showing up at my house and demanding that I owed him. Perhaps I did, but I didn’t trust him—not for one second. He fucked shit up wherever he went and there was no chance in hell he was getting anywhere near Milana. I made sure of that; I gave him the stash he wanted, a bonus amount on top and warned him never to set foot on my property again.
I needed out of that game.
The high was no longer worth the pain. I should probably stop using, and it’s not like I did it every fucking day. The second she became mine, I slowed it down. I used when she wasn’t around. It’s why I made it my fucking mission to make sure she was always around.
She had become my addiction.
The morphine to my pain.
It was obvious the next morning that things were different. When I fucked her, she tensed, her mind elsewhere and distant. Her body was this sacred temple—one that I couldn’t get enough of. She wasn’t like other women I had been with. She wasn’t trying out to be the next biggest porn star. What she did was from pure pleasure. She tested her boundaries on me. I saw it, I watched it with an easing curiosity.
And that had become an addiction that remained incurable.
She is beautiful; beauty that cannot be captured in words. And that’s fine—I don’t want anyone else seeing what I see. She’s mine and I had to keep it that way. Not let that scum of a hillbilly ex promise her this rainbow-colored life with a ring and three kids.
No, fuck that. I would give it all—if only she would let me. If only she didn’t switch the subject each time I brought up anything to do with commitment. It confused the fuck out of me. Women wanted this. Babies, marriage…fuck, I get offers on a daily basis for this shit.
But not her.
She was different.
And it irritated me in ways that I couldn’t identify. Her hot-and-cold personality. One minute she would stare at me with her big brown eyes and equally beautiful smile and the next—it was almost an expression of fear.
She often gave excuses, telling me she was tired and normally, I would crowd her. Not give her space for the fear of losing her.
But not this time.
I walked.
She was in New York and I was here—holed up in a penthouse suite in Vegas surrounded by lines of coke though my appetite is non-existent.
Farrah was riding my tail. Texting me non-stop with empty threats. I needed to cut this bitch loose once and for all. Her name, and mine, in the same tabloid was not what I needed Milana to stew over. She already questioned me, though not forcefully and I said the bare minimum. Farrah didn’t deserve an explanation—her train-wreck of a life said it all.
I sat here, on this fancy king-sized bed—scrolling through my phone. Image, after image of Milana…shots that she never knew I took. My favorite ones are of her sleeping, sprawled naked across my bed. This woman was so deliciously beautiful that it fucking hurt.
My grip tightens on the bedspread; the temptation all around me. Gerry—head of penthouse suites—hooked the room up with my usual stash and some girls on tap if I wanted. I didn’t care for it, any of it.
I craved the taste of her skin on my tongue.
Distance didn’t make the heart grow fonder, it made the heart craft its own tragedy. My sickening desperation in the pits of my loneliness had me calling her non-stop. Each unanswered call only feeding my insecurities. Did she not understand how my mind worked? Did she know that avoiding me would only hurt herself?
I envied those around me; the ones that found their happiness within themselves. They didn’t need anyone to survive, nor bring them happiness. My switch was jammed on self-destruct; and nothing could change that. There was a certain satisfaction in bitterness but this time—I’m left unsatisfied.
It’s because my heart is beating erratically. Pumped full of adrenalin every time I picture her face and imagine myself inside her. I once felt something similar with Em, but not like this. Not to the extent that I struggled to breathe and everything hurt like fucking hell.
I clutch my chest, in a state of panic when my cell rings—blasting its annoying sound all over the large room. Farrah.
“What do you want?” I grit, impatiently.
“Always the nicest of greetings, Wesley. So, when are you coming to visit your son?” She laughs, and I know that laugh…she’s high on coke. Fucking whore doesn’t know how to control herself.
“Quit the fucking daddy talk. Seriously, what the fuck do you want?”
“So, tell me about this girlfriend of yours? Aside from the fact that she’s a nobody, and from Alaska. C’mon Wesley, Alaska? What are you doing? You can do better than that.”
I clenched my jaw, the stubble sharp and wildly grown. She got to me—in the worse possible way. Talking smack about the woman I love.
“Leave her alone, what I do is my business.”
“Sweetie,” she sings, annoyingly, “you should know that I like to make other people’s business my business. I will say, her brother is a dud in the bedroom.”
“You fucked Flynn?”
“I didn’t fuck him. Please, give me some credit. I gave him what he wanted…he’s cute but argh…I would have preferred you.”
I was void of any emotion towards Farrah. She played the game, and never by the rules.
“We’re so done, Farrah. Leave Milana alone, leave Flynn alone and go back to Marsh. Shouldn’t you be riding his alimony train by now?”
“Don’t worry, I have Marsh covered. You, on the other hand, how can I get you in my bed again? We had some great times, you can’t deny that.”
The thought alone disgusted me. Farrah was that disease you just couldn’t get rid of—no matter how hard you tried. A parasite that crawled under your skin.
“Nothing you say, or do, would get me anywhere near you,” I state, adamantly.
“Not even when I tell you that I have my email ready to go Entertainment News with pictures of you and Milana? There’s a nice one of her leaving your place wearing your shirt. The media will love this story. Can you imagine Emerson’s reaction? Her assistant banging her ex fiancé. Where’s the trust?” She laughs again, the edge of insanity in her tone.
“Why would you do that? Honestly, you’ve got no gain.”
“Why? Because it would hurt everyone you loved, then they will leave you and you will have no choice but to crawl back to me because I’m all you’ll have.”
“You’re fucked. I don’t care what you do, Milana won’t care. As for Em, she’ll get over it. We’re tighter than you think.” I grin, remembering how to get to Farrah and expose her insecurity. “I know how much you hate that. Gorgeous Emerson with her perfect life, natural body, fiancé you can’t seem to get your hands on and wait…everybody wants Emerson. Didn’t she just get the cover of Vogue? It’s like she has the whole package…and once upon a time I loved her. Not you…but her.”
The pleasure from hurting Farrah was far too much fun. I lick my lips, listening to her heavy breathing that follows with her hysteric scream and glass smashing against the wall.
“Are you done?” she cries, dramatically.
“Why yes, sweetheart.”
“Goodbye Wesley. Oops…click.”