Tia
I woke up alone in my Vegas hotel room in the fancy six bedroom hotel suite overlooking The Strip. I woke to the curtains drawn tight, which they weren’t when we’d gone to sleep. Tommy must’ve closed them. I could almost pretend I wasn’t here. Almost.
Wait. No, I couldn’t forget it because of how I’d been the previous night. What a night. What an awful night. I took a shower, hoping to wash the ugliness it felt like I was coated with down the drain.
It didn’t work. I didn’t know what to expect from Tommy today.
When I emerged from the bedroom, I was dressed in a pink fitted tracksuit, hair up in a ponytail, and I had a coffee cup filled with decaf café au lait in my hand.
Someone had to have heard me in the shower, likely Sarah, or maybe Tommy and had deposited it on the dressing table in the bedroom. I sipped it. It was probably Sarah. It tasted like it had no sugar at all and Tommy rarely brought me a coffee but when he did, he always put sugar in it. I’d taken to putting sugar in my one daily decaf since becoming pregnant. If I had to give up caffeine for my pregnancy, I would take back sugar.
The suite was beyond nice, open plan, with a dining area, wet bar kitchenette area, large living space with that 12-seater white leather sectional, and two hallways that each had three bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms.
Tessa’s boys were on the floor, Antonio huddled with an iPad, Lucas, with his eyes on big 70 inch or larger TV, a hackey sack that looked like a baseball in his little fist held against his mouth. Sarah and Tessa were on one end of the couch, Sarah playing something on her phone and Tessa with her eyes on the boys. Go, Diego, Go was on television. Tommy was at the head of a table that was big enough to seat a dozen.
He had a plate of half-eaten food in front of him and I spied several chafing dishes lined up along the serving table behind him. That serving table was on a wall of windows that overlooked the Vegas strip. He was on the phone, looking like he was listening to someone, but his eyes swept over me and then he looked the way of the window and kept talking. I couldn’t hear him over the television.
Tessa gave me a tight smile.
“Lots of breakfast there, Chiquita,” Sarah said.
“Auntie!” Antonio said.
“Tee!” Lucas chimed in. He was not even two, Antonio three, and Lucas had one syllable names for most of us. I was Tee and Tommy was “Me”. Sarah was “Sah”. Antonio was “Toe” and Tess was “Ma”.
“G’morning everyone,” I greeted sunnily. Tommy stood and pulled the window blind cord to close the drapes, blocking The Strip from my view. I walked right to him. He kept the phone to his ear but his eyes hit mine.
I got up on my tiptoes and put my arms around his neck. He bent so I kissed him on the mouth quick and went to move away. My mannerism was sunny but he’d know different.
He grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze but his eyes were hard. He was angry but he was still giving me affection, likely a reward for my going right to him. We definitely had stuff to work out.
I gave him a tight smile and moved to the table filled with food and put my cup down as I lifted the lids off chafing dishes to see what was there. I made up a plate of fruit and pancakes. By the tall stack of dirty plates and cutlery, evidently I was the last person to eat breakfast. It was after ten o’clock. After that long and rough night, I could’ve stayed in bed longer but thought of Tessa out here with the boys and just wanted to lessen her burden in any way I could.
Tommy ended his call with, “Right, later.” And put his phone down. I’d felt his eyes on me the whole time I served myself.
“Gotta go deal with some stuff so girls, there’s a lady named Suzette coming with dresses for you girls to try on,” he said.
I looked at him.
“She’s the one who you saw last time we were here. She’ll be up here in about two hours with some racks and she’s having someone come with her for hair and all that shit. I’ll be back in time for dinner. Sarah’s talking to room service to arrange dinner for before we leave, around eight thirty. Baby, I’ll be in our room making a couple more calls. Come in when you’re done breakfast. Gotta talk to you.”
“Kay,” I said.
He got up and disappeared back into the bedroom with the phone. Tessa turned her attention back to the television.
His demeanor was all business. I knew that was partly because of me and partly or probably mostly because he was getting geared up for revenge.
My eyes moved to Tess as I forked up some cantaloupe.
She had her eyes aimed at the television but it was clear to me that she was staring off into nothing, lost in unpleasant thoughts.
I took a few bites and, without much of an appetite, I moved to her. I sat down and touched her shoulder and she jumped about three feet.
“Sorry,” I jumped back, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Sorry, Tia. Miles away.” She gave her head a shake.
“Tee!” Lucas climbed up onto me and I cuddled him on my lap and blew a raspberry on his chubby cheek. He squealed with delight and grabbed my face and tried to do the same. A raspberry sound came from his throat instead of his lips and because he didn’t get it quite right, I wound up with baby slobber on my cheek.
Tessa gave us a bit of a watery-eyed smile while I tickled her son. He climbed back off me so I put my hand on her shoulder and gave her a squeeze but didn’t say anything. She swallowed painfully and blew out a slow breath.
Tommy’s head popped out the door of the bedroom we were using and he crooked his finger at me. He wasn’t smiling. Tess reached for her son and I moved to the bedroom and closed the door behind me.
He sat on the edge of the bed and crossed his arms, “Didn’t I tell you to come here after you were done?”
“I wasn’t done. I was just speaking with Tessa,” I returned, crossing my arms.
“Get over here,” he ordered.
My scalp prickled but I moved toward him, wiping my still wet cheek on my shoulder . He pulled me onto his lap and had my ponytail. He pulled it a little so that my mouth was an inch from his. But his eyes weren’t angry, they were searching mine.
“Your head still fucked up?” he asked.
Emotion surged through me. I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his neck.
His arms came up around me and he held me tight. After a minute, he let out a little sigh.
“I’m sorry, Tommy.”
“Forget all of it for today, okay? Can you try?”
How could I forget all that crap? I was a horrible witch to him the night before. And then I turned into a psycho. I was living in the past, letting it drag me down, drag him down when he had so much to figure out for us.
He rubbed my back sweetly and said, “Today, we got a serious pest problem and I’m exterminating it. You and me have shit to talk through after last night but baby, I need my head in the game today so let’s just draw a line under all that ‘till we get home. It was too late to arrange another stylist so I hope Suzette won’t trigger you again.”
I lifted my head and kissed his soft lips, “I’m so sorry, baby. That was really shitty of me to lay on you last night with everything you’re---”
In my defense, he made me talk about it. He pushed until I did. I couldn’t hide my emotions from him; he read me so well.
“Shhh. Stop.” he hushed me and kissed my lips while he cradled my jaw in one hand. “That’s not drawing a line, Tia. Let it go today. I don’t wanna fight with you when I got all this shit to deal with. I love you. More than anything. Let me sort this shit out, okay? Be here for me. Just be my girl, taking care of me like you usually do. We’ll figure this out after. Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“We have shit to sort and I should not have brought you here amid all the stress we’re under, you were right about that, and I take responsibility for that setting you off, but that said, I meant what I said last night. Counseling for you, too. Maybe even both of us together, too.”
“You want that after finding out Oliver was scheming?”
“I never would’ve said it six months ago but yeah. I think you and me need a little help. Maybe we’ll never get completely over our problems but last night was no way to deal. Agree?”
I nodded, “That’s probably a good idea. I was having flashbacks yesterday and it screwed with me.”
“Flashbacks of what?”
“Mexico flashbacks. And of stuff between you and me that was… rough. From the beginning. From when we were here.”
“I get it. Right now, we go forward and I don’t want you fucking stressing. You just grow our baby.” He put his hand on my belly, “Don’t know much about that part but doubt stress helps.”
“I’m sure it doesn’t.”
He caressed my belly some more. Whenever he touched my belly, it made me melt.
“Tonight, dress to the nines for me. I want you and Tess to pull out all the stops.”
“I’ll do my best,” I smiled, a little misty-eyed.
He kissed me and pulled us to standing and then swatted my butt. “Go. Eat breakfast.”
I got up on my tippy toes and put my arms around his neck, “I’m so sorry.”
I really was. I was so twisted up about it, even still, but I hated that I’d hurt him last night, that I’d added to his stress when he already had so much to deal with.
“Tell me you’re mine,” he ordered.
“I am.”
“Always.” He flexed his jaw.
“Forever, baby.” I kissed him on the jawline and then kissed his neck.
“Take care of Tess today.”
I nodded. He backed up and moved to the closet and grabbed his jacket, “She’s in her head but I talked to her before you got up and gave her the rundown for tonight. She sees that slimy fuck, she’s liable to flip but I talked to her. Keep a close eye. I’ll have Dex and Nino watching her closely, too.”
“That could be… real hard on her. Maybe it’s not the best idea in light of what he did.”
“I know.” He flexed his jaw angrily, “I thought about what you said so I gave her the out. She’s a Ferrano. She’s gonna look at him not looking beaten or broken. She wants that.”
I nodded.
“You’re a Ferrano now, too. You hang in there with me. We’ll get to the other side of this shit and my goal is that you’ll live easy. You, our baby. I mean that. Somehow.”
I nodded again. God, I really hoped so.
He kissed me slow and sweet and then swatted my butt again, “Breakfast. Go.”
***
I was wearing a little black ribboned dress with thin strips of black crepe material and strategically placed strips that were black and sheer. It fit me like a glove. It was off the shoulder and my belly wasn’t yet showing but I’d pigged out all day long so I figured it wouldn’t be long before I popped. Who knew what this baby would do to my body so this might be the last time I’d feel this foxy in a little black dress.
Tommy didn’t make back in time for dinner but the rest of us ate heartily with a huge spread brought by room service that was again put in chafing dishes so that the bodyguards could eat whenever, which they were doing in shifts.
I wore very high black metallic heels with crisscross straps and emerald cut jade studs and a simple choker with a matching teardrop shaped gem that dipped into my cleavage.
Said cleavage was serious. With my pregnancy, my boobs looked extra big, like all the food I was eating was going straight there.
My hair was silky straight, hanging straight down my back, my usual longish side-swept bangs pulled back away from my face in a couple of little twists held in place with black sparkly jeweled bobby pins.
I’d had my make-up done in dramatic red lips and smoky eyes.
Tess dressed in a red floor-length fitted dress with a plunging neckline, a very high front slit, and long and loose flowy sleeves to hide her bandaged arm. Suzette took one look at her arm and picked the right dress just as she’d done when she’d seen my bruised neck when she dressed me for that night we were here last time. She had a knack for it. God knew what she thought of us, though. She remembered me and was very nice and didn’t act like anything was odd. She was cordial and professional.
Tess had on strappy silver sandals and a gorgeous up-do with some curly pieces loose. We both tried to paint smiles on but it was probably obvious that we weren’t feeling it.
A sex club. A sex club with that asshole there. Tess hadn’t talked about what’d happened, except for one very troubling thing she said to me in the bedroom. I had the feeling she was trying to push it away so I didn’t push for any information.
When she got dressed and inspected herself in the mirror, she had a different look in her eyes. Steeled, hard. I think she’d started getting angry. She was going to be facing her rapist and she was digging deep to find her fire.
“One good thing. At least he raped me from behind so I don’t really have his face burned in my memory.”
That made my belly churn. “You’ll recognize him, though?”
“Yeah. Big ears, bad clothes. Beady eyes. I’ll never smell Polo cologne again in my life without hurling.”
“That’s Leo Denarda. I met him once. He looked at me with this awful sleazy look. I don’t look forward to seeing him again.”
“I do.” She blotted her lipstick on a tissue.
“Yeah?” I was a little, no a lot, shocked.
“Yep. When I see him and meet his eyes, I’ll see fear. He won’t see fear from me. He’ll see a confident smirk on my face, because we’ll both know my brother is going to fucking annihilate him. You gotta be pretty fuckin’ stupid to fuck with Tommy Ferrano. That moron is dead meat and he deserves it.”
She reached for the glass of wine she’d brought in to drink while the girl was doing her hair and downed the rest of it, heading out of the room.
Tommy came in as she was leaving the room. He pulled her into the hall and was saying something in a low voice. He kissed her forehead and whatever he said, I caught the look on her face before she turned and left my line of sight. He’d given her something that made that fire burn even hotter.
He turned and was taking me in and another sort of fire was burning in his whisky-colored eyes as they swept over me from head to candy-apple red toes and then back up to my candy-apple red lips again. He bit his lip and gave me a carnal look. He crooked his finger at me and my feet moved to obey.
He shut the door.
I said, “Did you eat? You wanna grab a shower while I make you up a plate?”
He grabbed me by the hips and pulled me to him. Even though he wasn’t all dressed up yet, he still looked as hot as always. He was wearing a dark button down shirt, dark jeans, and a blazer.
He touched my face with his left hand and I turned into his touch and kissed his wedding ring. His wedding ring seemed to ratchet up his hotness factor for me multi-fold. Despite how I’d felt the night before, how I was still toiling a little bit with my emotions, that ring just did it for me. It always set off emotions deep in my belly.
He kissed me passionately, giving me a little tease of his tongue and then backed away an inch and looked deep into my eyes.
“Mmm. I’ll be the envy of every man in the joint.”
I smiled and wiped lipstick off his bottom lip with my thumb. He kissed the pad of my thumb.
“I am always the envy of every woman when I’m on your arm.”
“You good?” he asked.
I nodded, “You need me tonight, I’m there for you. I’m pushing the other stuff out of reach. It’s out there. Way out there.” I gestured with a wave of my hand.
“Good girl.”
“I love you.”
“Love you so much, baby girl.” His fingers tightened on my hips, “And I am fucking you in that dress later. Fuck,” he eyed me appreciatively, “Can’t wait to bend you over and peel this up to your stomach. I hope you’ve got a treat for me under there.” His eyes moved to my cleavage, “Damn.” He let go of my hips to grab my boobs into both hands and squeezed while making a hungry sound.
“I do. Very sexy lace undies and bra that match.”
“Your undies and bra always match,” he gave me a big smile.
“It’s one of my things.” It was. I would stay home and cancel before wearing mismatching bra and underwear for a night out.
“And I love it. Gotta get my shower. Fix your lipstick. Put lots on. I’m gonna smear it real good later.”
He winked at me and then as he hit the ensuite bathroom door, I said, “Tommy. Don’t shave.”
He was just barely stubbled and it was very very smokin’ hot.
He smiled and raised his brows.
“I wanna feel those whiskers on my inner thighs later,” I told him.
“Your wish is my command, wife.” He winked and shut the bathroom door behind himself.
More mortification washed over me. Me and my behavior the night before? I had acted like a lunatic. I couldn’t say I felt much better. I hated all that we were in the midst of, but I was feeling terrible about dragging it all up given all that Tommy had going on.
I’d adapted his habit of using sex as a frustration outlet. I guess he’d taught me that. I’d started doing that even before we got married but it was becoming more and more of a concern.
I needed to fix it.
But how could I do that when I was in the middle of this mess that was our lives? I felt like the frog in Frogger, trying to get across the road without getting squished to being unrecognizable in the process. And now it wasn’t just me crossing that road. It was me with my little tadpole.
I closed my eyes and listened to the shower running, thinking that no matter what, no matter how much I loved my husband, no matter how much our situation tried to screw with my head, this little tadpole would come first. I had to get my shit together.
***
We were taken, in a huge pearl white stretch SUV limo, to the Fete opening, which was on a gated property a little bit of a drive outside of the Vegas city limits.
Tommy put Tessa on Dex’s arm and Nino and another guard named Will shadowed us. The guards were as dressed up as we were so no one would really know who was and wasn’t a guard in our group.
The place was crawling with press from the adult entertainment industry and when we got out of our limo and found ourselves on a red carpet, camera flashes went off and nearly blinded us.
Outside, it looked like a medieval cathedral. Inside, it was lavish. The front lobby was sumptuous with a large marble reception desk. We were greeted by Ben and Olive Goldberg.
Olive gave Tess air kisses after being introduced and hugged me and it was definitely lingering too long for my comfort level but I tried to go with the flow.
John Lewis and his wife Kate (aka: Katie Cupcake) were there, too, looking as put together as Posh and Becks, as always. Ben gave a quick tour for the benefit of me, Tess, and Kate. The place was very much like what I’d imagine a boutique hotel somewhere in Paris would be like. But there was a whole lot more than guest rooms.
There was a large auditorium for theater type shows and a smaller one as well. There was a restaurant and a gorgeous rooftop patio with Olympic sized swimming pool and gardens. There were a few dozen overnight rooms as well as experience rooms, too, and Ben explained that he would show us a few, as there were some done alike.
One of the rooms he took us into was set up like a replica of the Fifty Shades of Grey red room but it was done in purple. There was another room with a big canopy bed as the centerpiece but there was a swing hanging from the top of the canopy.
“Each room offers privacy or options for voyeurs,” Ben explained, “You can see those who are watching you, you can have utter privacy, or you could have a two way mirror where you are left to wonder if you are being watched.” He said all this professionally and nonchalantly, as if he were giving an ordinary tour of a regular old hotel.
Another room was a big wooden room that looked, at first like a sauna but with small and larger portholes on the walls. It didn’t take long for me to realize that porthole was not the right name for these holes. These were actually glory holes. There were holes in the wall with clipboards above each hole, where Olive explained a photograph or other information would be hung. She opened a sliding door to reveal the other side. Some holes had benches with straps and it didn’t take much to figure out that women or men could be positioned or even strapped against those holes in any potential direction / position.
Katie Cupcake fake-clutched her not-fake pearls and laughed and bumped shoulders with me. Tess was wide-eyed and Tommy was stoic. It couldn’t have been comfortable to take this tour with his sister.
Another room was a big bed, in essence. A bed for about twenty. It was clearly an orgy room.
A room was designed like outer space where you could role play in an alien scenario.
There were costumes for the guests or costumes for cast members employed by the club that could create scenarios. Sex with a werewolf, sex with a sexy vampire, whatever scenario you wanted, they would try to make it happen for you. I saw a room with racks and racks of costumes.
I got the impression our tour was provided with much less information than potential customers or the media. We were family of the investors. Tours would happen throughout the evening, first for the press, and then for invited VIP guests. A theatre production would be put on afterwards with a cocktail party and then some of the rooms would be open to whomever might want to partake.
“This tour is for you but the next rounds will have staff posing and role-playing in these rooms during the tour for effect. Tommy asked that we leave that out of this tour. Some people are voyeurs. Some like to watch. We cater to those who want to be a submissive, those who want to be dominant. We offer training courses for potential Doms and subs alike.
We have shows. We have parties. You can hire someone to fuck you. You can apply to be fucked. You can simply watch. We cater to all fetishes. This is another toy room.” He opened a door.
“What’s that?” Tessa asked me, pointing at a Sybian. I only knew what it was due to my bit of research around BDSM when Tommy and I got back from Mexico.
Kate started to answer, “You sit on it and…”
“Never mind,” she said, round-eyed. She’d figured it out.
“That’s a Sybian and that’s the flogging area. You can be flogged or watch someone be flogged. You can even ride the Sybian while swings are lowered around you with others on them,” Ben explained.
The tour went on and Tess was quiet but wide-eyed and pink-cheeked. She was having trouble hiding her reactions, but I couldn’t read whether she was embarrassed, intrigued, or just trying very hard to not show what she was thinking.
The place was set up as the ultimate fantasy place. You could describe your fantasy to a fantasy planner to find out what might be possible. And it probably would be!
I was kind of wishing we’d seen the tour with the actors but I got how that’d be weird to see with Tommy’s sister in tow. Still… I felt a little bit of a whoosh of dampness between my thighs at one point and squeezed his hand, making his eyes hit mine and some sort of promise twinkled deep in there. I returned the look with my version of the same. I didn’t know if my eyes twinkled or not too, but judging by his reaction, I think I got my point across.
As our tour ended, Ben and Olive excused themselves and left us to go walk through the next group, which consisted of the others in the group of investors accompanied by dates.
Myself, Tommy, Tess, Dex, Nino, and Will, plus John and Kate were in a large but very classy bar area where waiters circulated with champagne and fancy nibbles. The room began to fill with others as groups who’d gotten their tours trickled in. Cocktail hour would be followed by the theatre production, followed by more cocktails before we’d leave. Others would stay for festivities but we were definitely not staying for that part.
Tommy assured me we’d leave as early as possible. We’d see the show and it’d be risqué. I’d told Tess that day about the show I’d seen here last time and figured it’d be along those same lines. Where Tess and I would typically giggle through an uber-sexy description of an event, she was quiet and stoic as I awkwardly explained.
A waiter moved to us, knowing who we were as the others were given champagne and I was given a virgin Bellini.
Tommy was at my side, his arm protectively over the back of my chair, and to some he might seem casual. To me, I could see that he was alert, actively watching our surroundings. He positioned himself in a way that protected me and allowed him to see both exits in this bar.
Tessa sat beside me and she finished her glass of wine before any of us had barely made a dent in our beverages. She looked a bit flipped out. It was a lot to take. Sex club opening where she might see the guy who she had to be having nightmares about.
Nino and John Lewis were keeping the conversation going. Nino was good at it, too. He kept things moving so that anyone with eyes on us would see us as behaving no differently than the other groups that were in the room, not as if we were watching for a specific person and not that our group contained armed bodyguards. Katie was charming and flirty with everyone and kept engaging me in conversation about my pregnancy, regaling me with stories of her five pregnancies, one being twins.
God, I hoped I could keep my shape after one baby. She looked amazing for having pushed six humans out.
After Ben and Olive escorted in the second group of investors, John Lewis and his wife moved to join them at another table and ordered drinks. I got the impression that Kate would’ve preferred to sit with us but I’d seen Tommy and John exchange pointed looks so had the feeling things were choreographed a certain way.
The room filled with more and more people as tour groups entered and well into our second drink, close to when we were to attend the theater show, I felt Tommy straighten. I looked at him and saw his eyes aimed at the door. Tessa got up from her chair and said, “I need the ladies room. Tia?”
“Wait,” Tommy said, his eyes not leaving the door. I glanced in that direction and saw Leo Denarda moving into the room with a very pretty blonde on his arm.
His eyes moved in our direction and he snickered as his eyes hit Tommy and then purposefully moved to Tommy’s sister. Leo’s eyes traveled the length of Tessa’s body and he licked his lips in an oily and perverted way. Tessa saw him and her body locked tight. She glared. He jerked his chin casually at her and then his expression made my skin crawl.
Tommy’s demeanor would seem cold but impassive to anyone around, but I could feel the energy in the room change, to a level I could only think of as “Danger.”
Other than his eyes looking hard and stone cold, the rest of him was completely still. He took a sip of his drink and put it down and he stared at Leo Denarda.
Tessa stared at Leo as if he was something she’d wiped off her shoe and then leaned over and put her mouth to my ear and whispered, “Look at him, look right at his crotch, and then laugh.”
I didn’t feel good about it, because I didn’t want to do anything to antagonize this situation but I did what Tess had asked. She bumped my shoulder with hers and then Tommy said, “G’head. Dex? Show the girls to the ladies’ room. Staff one, to the right of the bar.”
I kissed Tommy’s jaw and he squeezed my hand but his eyes never left where Leo stood with his date, getting served champagne. His lip was curling just a little and then his face transformed. He gave Leo the heart-stoppingly gorgeous Ice Cream Parlor Hottie smile and my heart skipped a beat at that.
He was going to kill that guy. Murder. Cold blood. Lots of blood.
My heartbeat was in my ears and I felt a little light-headed. I moved behind Tess, who’d grabbed my hand, Dex behind me, and he steered us toward the employee’s ladies room, which was not far away from our table. I suspected that this was intentional so that we wouldn’t have to pass Leo.
Once we were inside the bathroom she grabbed me and held me tight. I hugged her. She was shaking.
“It’s okay. You did good. No, you did great, Tessa. We’re almost through this,” I told her.
She started to hyperventilate. I rubbed her back and when she seemed to be settling down a bit, I let her go. She started breathing harder so I dashed into the stall finding what I’d hoped would be there. In the stall there was a dispenser of small brown paper bags. I grabbed one.
“Wanna try to breathe into this?” I held it out.
She shook her head and grabbed the counter edge at the sink with both hands and stared into the mirror at her own reflection and hunched, blowing air out.