“No. Talk to me right fucking now. Tessa tell you something else? Something I don’t know? Don’t lie to me, Tia. I need to know everything. Don’t worry about me getting arrested or hurt, I’m not that stupid. Just spill whatever you’re hiding.”
“I’m not hiding anyth---”
“Bullshit.”
“She went to bed when you left. She didn’t say anything else.”
“Should I wake her and ask?”
“Don’t wake her, she was exhausted. She…”
“Fucking spill or I will and if you think I won’t be pissed at you…”
Tia took a big breath and the look in her eyes, it was an admission of something.
I raised my eyebrows. She had to know I was low on patience tonight.
“Don’t test me, Athena. Talk.”
“I’m just having a bad time being here. Just leave me to stew on it and then when we get home I’ll be fine. I just wanna go to sleep.”
I stared at her. She looked away.
“Come here.”
She tensed up.
I grabbed her and pulled her closer. I got her face into both hands, “I’m sorry if I scared you tonight when I lost it. The fucking bastard raped my sister and carved his initials in her arm. To get back at me, Tia. Me. It’s my fault that happened to her.”
“It’s not, Tommy. The only person responsible for their actions is the person who did the action.”
I massaged my temples and adjusted the blankets over us.
She tried to roll away after a minute and everything was all fucking wrong.
My girl was always there for me, she was soothing, always giving me her touch when I needed it. In the short time we’d been together it was as if she’d started sensing what I needed so that she could give it to me. It was like her secret power or something whacked like that.
But this shit with Tess must be hitting her hard. The news of Angel’s sister added to that? News of Angel and Dare being in Thailand maybe? She and Angel had gotten close. And the pregnancy. Was it all overload for her?
I reached for her jaw and she flinched.
“Stop pulling away. I need you. You don’t wanna fuck, I get it but come the fuck here.”
She settled in beside me but she was holding herself stiff.
“What the fuck, baby? For the love of Christ, I need you right now and you’re acting like I’m a stranger you’re stuck in an elevator with.”
She started to sob, bawl her eyes out hard.
“Athena?” I took her face into my hands again and kissed her on the lips, “Please, baby girl, what? What aren’t you telling me? You don’t have to be scared to tell me whatever it is…”
“You were so fucking mad at someone raping your sister. So enraged. What if I had a big brother to come after you when you did that shit to me?”
My world stopped. Tilted.
She stared at me and I saw what looked like regret wash across her features.
“You just said that to me?” My voice was rough.
She swallowed.
“Our vows, Tia. All the time we spent, trying to fix what I fucked up and you promised to love me unconditionally. But yet you throw my fuck ups in my face like this? At a time like this? Good this came out now, huh? How badly has this been festering while you pretend to love me?”
“I haven’t been pretending.”
“Then what is this?”
“I…”
“What the fuck is this?”
She sniffed, “I dunno. Maybe this is just me, amped up on pregnancy hormones, reacting to the shit show around us right now. You’ve stopped seeing Oliver, you’re all broody and angry. It feels like we’ve gone backwards so maybe that’s why my brain has gone back there. And now I’m here, staring at the same spot on the stupid Las Vegas strip as when we were here last time and you’re out there, pissed off, coming back and taking off that belt and my brain, it just…” she stopped talking.
There was a lot there, some of it made no fucking sense to me. Some of it, too much sense. So much sense that it made me feel really fucking sour.
“Know why I stopped seeing Oliver?” I snapped.
“No. I don’t. Because you haven’t said anything.”
“Did you ask me?”
She stared at me a second, then said, “I saw the rejected Skype calls and he left two voicemails on our landline.”
“Did you fucking ask me?” I asked, my voice nearly guttural.
“No. Did you fucking tell me?” she challenged, full of sass.
I fought the urge to throw her over my knee.
“He’s a fed, Athena. He was planted. He’s wrapped up in all this shit with Zack and the place Dare’s wife came from. We sent Lisa to his fucking victim’s retreat to help her and they interviewed her to get all sorts of shit about the Ferrano family are using her to testify now, too. I’m in the line of fire in multiple directions, baby, not knowing if the bad guys in Thailand are gonna order hits on all of us or if we’re gonna have to change our names and live in hiding. I haven’t even decided what to do about Lisa, whether it’s safe to ask her what she told them or not. I’m in front of multiple firing squads here, this little fuck screwing with our family and raping Tess, but fuck, I didn’t think I was in your sights, too.”
She looked away.
I grabbed her by the chin and made her look at me, “This is bullshit what you’re doing to me right now, and once you think about it you’ll realize it. The way me and you started out was painful, I know I fucked up. You know I was fucked in the head and I’ve been trying very hard to get unfucked. I find out the counselor has been using me. I have good reasons to have trust issues. I thought the one thing I fucking had in the bullshit that is my fucked up life was you. Now this?”
She had the decency to look remorseful. But she still wasn’t talking to me.
“What do you want from me?” I asked.
She shrugged.
“I can’t believe this shit,” I let go of her. She wiped her eyes.
I shut the lamp back off.
“You didn’t tell me any of that, Tommy. You were vague about Angel’s past, about the Feds thing. I ask questions and you are vague or you change the subject. You think I haven’t noticed? What kind of life is our baby going to live in, Tommy? When we went to Costa Rica…”
“Wait a fucking second. Is this about the shit swirling around us now or about how you and me started?”
“Both, I guess. I don’t know.”
“Unfuckingbelieveable. Keep piling the shit on me, Tia. That’s real helpful.”
She didn’t respond so I kept going,
“And you know what I wanted when we went to Costa Rica but clearly, I couldn’t leave my brother chin deep in this shit Pop left us with.”
“Forget it. Let’s just sleep.” She rolled away. I grabbed her and yanked her back to me.
“What do you want?” I asked her.
“I want this trip over.”
“I need you at my side at that opening. I won’t focus unless I see you’re safe while shit gets done. For Tessa. For all of us. You think that little fuck wouldn’t have wanted to get his hands on you instead? I know he did. I’ve had you under protection so he went after her. That was my sister and that’s not fucking okay and baby, it was almost you. You pregnant with my baby and he could’ve taken you instead. Or as well.”
She put her palms over her eyes.
“I won’t let anyone fucking take you from me. You hear me? Never.”
“So, I get to live in a prison for the rest of my life because of your father’s bullshit. I get it.”
“Maybe we’re both stuck in that prison my Pop built, yeah. But I’ll do anything to keep you safe.”
She didn’t take her hands off her eyes.
“Shit someone else has pulled has you deciding to blame me for shit you told me we were getting past. Get out of your head until this shit is over. I fucking need you, damn it.”
She made a sobbing sound.
“Maybe I’m not the only one that needs counseling, baby. You getting tied up in knots like this? You haven’t forgiven me. You’ve just buried it. And all this shit has dug it up. Find us both a new counselor when all this shit is behind us. I don’t want this shit getting thrown in my face the next fifty years. For now, understand that I’ve gotta deal with shit and the way I deal with it ain’t gonna be wearing that white hat you want for me. Find a way to deal. Yeah?”
She didn’t say anything.
“Tell me you get me,” I demanded, an inch from her face.
“I know what I want from you,” she said and I felt a pang in my chest at the softness in her voice.
“You asked what I wanted from you?”
“What?” I snapped, feeling a twinge of pain in my chest.
“Right now, I need you to fuck me,” she said, her voice hoarse. I was startled.
“I need you to fuck me rough.”
I stared at her.
“Now. You asked me what I wanted from you and I’ve decided I want that.”
“What the fuck?”
“Are you gonna do it or not?”
“Go the fuck to sleep.” I sneered and went to turn over but she grabbed for me and then she was straddling me, yanking at her crotch, pulling her panties to the side. I wasn’t hard. But she was wet enough that I felt it through my boxers. She was soaked, actually.
“I’m not fucking you. Get off me. You’ve pissed me off and now you’ve gone from being a mean bitch to a crazy bitch. Get off. I need space.”
She leaned over me, “I need you. I need you to pound me into this mattress.”
I took her shoulders and with as much control as I could, I gently set her off me, pinning her to the bed.
“Stop it. Go the fuck to sleep.”
I turned my back on her.
She rolled into me and reached for my cock.
“Tia, fuck off.” I pulled her hand away.
“Spank me,” she said and then she bit into my shoulder.
I clenched my jaw and ignored that.
“Tommy? You tell me what you want and need from me but I don’t get the same consideration? Nice. I thought our marriage was a two-way street.”
I didn’t answer. I laid there, half seething, half feeling sick to my gut with guilt. Were we ever gonna be past this? Me and my fucking demons. Not only were they ruining me, they were taking her out, as well.
“Guess I’ll take matters into my own hands, then…” She said like it was all the same to her.
She was shuffling beside me and then I heard the distinct sound of wet pussy being rubbed. She wasn’t…
Fuck, she was. She was playing with herself.
I rolled over and looked at her. She was beside me, only her head outside of the blankets and the blankets were tented with her knees being up and open.
Her eyes were on me and her lips were parted. She let out a sweet little breathy moan and I was gone.
I pushed her leg down so I could cross over and get between her thighs and then I attacked her pussy with my mouth. She was soaked, panting for me.
I ravished her pussy like a man in an eating contest. She went off like a bottle rocket, coming in under thirty seconds and then I moved up and freed my cock from my underwear and rammed it inside her, glaring at her.
She raked her nails up my back and it fucking stung, making me arch.
“Your cock. I want it harder. Fuck me harder,” she demanded and dug her nails in.
“Don’t,” I gritted my teeth and slowed my pace. I went to pull out.
“Don’t stop. Fuck me harder. I need it rough. Take me, make me blank out. Give me what I fucking need.” She slapped my face, full force and I was startled. I pinned her hands above her head.
“The fuck did you just do?” I pulled back and asked redundantly because we both knew that she just smacked me in the fucking face.
She struggled, “Fuck me!”
“Tia, shut up, you’ll wake everyone.” I was right in her face.
“Make me shut up,” she challenged and then she bit my lip.
She’d gone wild. This was like Costa Rica. She’d get pissed at me or she’d sense I needed a release and turn it into a sex game to get her aggression out, to let me get mine out. She told me she liked that when her head got fucked up, I could help. She said that submitting during rough sex would let her let go of whatever was pent up.
But, I hadn’t been aggressive lately. She was pregnant, for fuck sakes. And we’d had a few close calls in Costa Rica where I’d nearly lost it. The last time, the time I went too far, she’d also slapped me in the face.
“You gotta stop fucking pushing me,” I demanded, covering her mouth with my hand, “And shut up. You wanna wake the kids?”
She clamped her legs around my thighs and rocked against my cock, which was against her stomach. I glared at her. I took my hand away from her mouth and pointed my index finger at her, about to warn her.
“Are you still hard?” she whispered.
I glared. Was she fucking shitting me? Of course I wasn’t.
“Let me get you hard again. Take me hard, baby. If you can’t, I’ll use my fingers.”
I stared, seething. Breathing hard, shaking my head in absolute astonishment.
She squirmed out from under me and then turned over on her belly, tipping her ass up in the air for me. I spun her back to her back.
“Stop this shit, Athena. Right fucking now.”
“Are you hard or do I gotta get myself off? I need it rough, Tommy. So rough I feel it for days.”
Why that made me hard, I didn’t know. But it fucking did. I lifted her legs up and drove my hips forward, my cock hitting home to the root. I was gritting my teeth but she had me worked up.
Her head rolled back, “Yesss.”
I grabbed her by the back of the head and crushed my lips to hers.
And I fucked her hard, kissing her hard, pulling roughly on her hair. And she fucking loved it. I bit down on her nipple and she broke the skin on my ass cheeks with her nails.
She began struggling to flip me back over. I let her. She rode me, pulling my hand between her legs and then I worked her clit until she came again, hard, so hard that I covered her mouth again because this was a big hotel suite and the sleeping family were on the other side of the place but she was being really fucking loud.
She rode that wave a minute and then collapsed onto my chest. I was breathless but I was also close to coming. I raked my hands through my hair and looked down at the top of her head. Her body started to shake. She was crying; her whole body was shuddering.
I flipped her back onto her back and slowed my pace, taking it from rough fucking to sweetly making love. I was touching her face, raining kisses on her face.
I whispered,
“I love you. You’re mine. No one is gonna take you from me. You’re not gonna take you from me, you hear me?”
“I won’t.”
“You sure? Feels like you’re trying.”
She shook her head, sniffled, and tried to hide her face in my shoulder. I tipped her chin up so she had no choice but to pay attention.
“I’ll try to give you whatever the fuck you need but baby, this shit tonight? That’s what it sounds like, you pulling back from me? Then the shit you’re saying? We’re forever, Tia. And don’t you fucking dare pull away from me like that.”
“I w-won’t. I’m s-sorry.” She was bawling.
My eyes were a little wet, too.
“I love you so fucking much. Please baby, know that, know that I want to be what you need. When I’m inside you, I know I don’t deserve you, you’re a gift I didn’t have the karma to earn. I should never have earned your love and I know I started taking you against your will but when you started to give, you healed so much in me. I’m not all fixed. But I’m trying and I can’t do it if you’re broken. I need your strength, baby. Don’t take it away.”
She nodded and buried her face into my neck, “Hurry. Harder. Fuck me harder so we can just sleep and please forget all the stupidity, all that word vomit that came out of my mouth tonight.”
I stopped, looking at her, feeling so much pain at what I’d done to her.
“Tommy. Hurry baby. Harder.”
I went harder. Her head rolled back. I re-positioned her, hauling her ankles up over my shoulders, and pounded hard, again working her clit, until she whimpered,
“I can’t. I can’t come again. Just you.”
But, I didn’t stop until she did. It took a long time and she tried to fake it but I knew it wasn’t real so I kept at her until I got her there.
I pulled her to me. We were sweaty, exhausted, and both of our heads were fucked right up.
We were both broken, worse than broken. What a fucking pair.
I pulled her hand to my lips and kissed her palm.
“Tommy? I’m sorry for what I said---”
“Shh, sleep baby.” I couldn’t talk it over any more tonight. I cradled her head to my chest.
She cried herself to sleep on my chest while I stroked her hair. Just like the first night she came to me.
Why the fuck did I bring her back to Vegas? She warned me, she was completely open about how she felt about coming here, and I didn’t fucking listen.
***
When she was finally asleep, I got out of bed pulling my underwear up. I went to the john and then out to the mini bar and poured a drink. Dex was there, watching TV. He was on-guard from inside the suite, taking three hour shifts with Nino and Will, a recent hire who was the brother of one of our former bookies.
Dex gave me a chin jerk and it had just a slight bit of “you the man” to it. He’d heard us. He couldn’t not. But I didn’t feel like “the man”. I gave him a nod and downed my drink and then went back to bed.
I had nightmares of that bloody fucking wedding dress again. Tia was wearing it, limp and lying on the bed. Her eyes open and dead. Her belly huge, the dress cut out around it, the letters
TF jr
carved on her pregnant stomach.