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2021-08-21 02:11:51“What?” Everything in me halts to some weird frozen moment, suspended in time and my manic panic calms instantly to surreal numbness. One questioning word jerked out of me in response to his statement.
Standing in the lift facing him while he holds the doors wide, only feet apart and so close to escaping I can almost taste it.
Tears stop and my body stills. I openly stare at him in complete shock. Brain stuttering on his words and unable to react whilst in a state of disbelief.
I stop my noisy breakdown and hold very still, breath paused, emotion idling while I wait. The hysteria of a moment ago fades to this eerie silence between us as I pause for an explanation, an expansion of his sentence. Of a meaning to him saying the word love, to me, of all people.
He can’t love me. It makes no sense. He hates me. He hurts me, he always has.
But he just told me he loves me, and he will do anything to keep me.
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Suspicious of this behaviour, I keep one eye on him as I look around for my discarded items, but he stays put and watches me in that silent predator way of his. Seeming more like the man of the last few months than the sadist of pre-shooting myself in the face days.I know it’s been there all along and I was oblivious to how far it went. The little niggles that something had changed were all dismissed, and now looking at him silently observing me, I can see the uncertainty in his demeanour is very real.If he isn’t lying, if he means what he says, it explains a lot from the past few weeks—about the change in him. I just don’t understand why though.
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“I want you. That’s all there is to it. I want to show you that you don’t have to fear me and maybe prove you can trust me.” Alexi gets straight to the point, lifting my hand into his and slides his fingers between mine to hold me tenderly. I stare at our entwined digits, feeling his heat flow into my cold, smaller one and gaze at it, disconnected. The space around me is surreal as though I’m dreaming. I should lie down. I’m verging on passing out at this rate.“I didn’t know what love was, what was staring me in the face. I haven’t exactly had anything to compare it to.” Alexi sounds incredibly young once more, flitting between his normal cocky self and these glimpses of an unsure teen that are throwing me off. This is a side I doubt anyone ever sees in him and yet it's softening me to him a little.Warning signs and neon flashing lights in my brain are telling me to proceed with caution. Half my senses
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Shame washing over me as all the little bricks of my persona crumble to the ground. He will never look at me the way he did. It’s no wonder he changed.“I thought maybe if we started at where you came from then we would have an idea of where you would go.” Alexi comes and sits beside me, slowly, carefully, as though he can sense how fragile I am feeling. So many things in my head drowning him out. I don’t care where he sits anymore. The real danger is facing me in a cardboard box that he has positioned back on the table. The past catching up to me once more, and I’m so terrified if I touch even one of those cruddy, mouldy covers that everything will turn to dust and I will never recover. I don’t want those memories back.
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I put my glass down and stand up slowly, eyes on his tall, strong back as he messes with the ice cannister, fidgeting to get his excessive energy under control and I walk forward. Growing in determination and confidence, knowing this is what I should do.Watching him as I close the gap between us and sensing his own quiet despair that me knowing about what he did will send me running for the door twice as fast. I can feel his tension from afar. That scared little boy awaiting the inevitable rejection from another woman deeming him unworthy of love because of the things he was programmed to do.Who could love someone who kills so brutally, so cruelly?Me.I could.Because I understand why.No hesitation, nothing else in my head except this overwhelming feeling that I want to do this. I need to do this. I owe him this.I walk up right behind him, slide my arms around his waist and push my head against
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That gets me blinking up at him and catch that weird half smile he does that has a crazy softness to it. My insides flip flop all over, warning me how dangerously close I am to falling right back under his spell. I need to be smarter. He has so much power over me and exerts so little effort to use it.There is so much more weight on this now, I have to be stronger.“Why are you being so smug and annoyingly confident right now? You weren’t so self-assured last night, so what is it that’s got you smiling and acting like I’m a done deal today?” I snap at him, not so much in anger but irritated that he is making me crazily nervous and awkward, making assumptions, and I’m making an idiot of myself. I hate that I’m not in control of me. Alexi just grins at me.“You’re still here. My odds went up massively when you stopped trying to escape via the elevator. And you haven’t stopped blushing since you came out h
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“I like a little danger, it’s good for the heart.” He winks this time, and that gets him a second flat handed smack of ‘not amused’ and a cushion swung at his face which he catches and yanks forward, so I’m pulled into his face with mine.I cough on the fast intake of breath it causes and as he catches me and rights me; we come so close we are almost nose to nose and there it is again; the feeling he wants to kiss me and the weaker side of me knows she would probably let him.“If you didn’t care then it wouldn’t be upsetting you. Seventy-five percent, give or take a few.” He winks, and that makes me lose my shit all over again and forget anything about fucking kissing. I grab another cushion to smother him, swinging it at his head, so not impressed with this. This percentage crap will get him maimed and if I find his gun, I will shoot him my fucking self. He just bats it away and smiles at me devilishly
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I venture down to the club, wearing a simple back fitted shift dress over black flats with my hair up in a sleek ponytail. Understated glam today and simple with natural makeup, which isn’t my normal forte. I feel like a change, and to blend in a little, rather than my bold and brassy self. Low key to match my fragile mood, I guess.I don’t know if he is still in the building, but I’m hoping we don’t cross paths for a little while. I need some normal to get my flow back and settle down after the past hugely traumatic and crazy twenty-four hours. I can almost feel the calm and serene emanating from the club as staff work to put it to rights for tonight. The drama of
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I throw my third sexy dress on the bed and slump down in a deflated heap, annoyed with myself that I’m doing exactly what I said I wouldn’t do. Prettying myself up for him and stressing over how to dress and what to wear like some sad little teenage idiot on a first date. I can’t believe myself sometimes. He texted me and told me to be ready for six and to dress casually. Whatever that means. Ironic really, as that was my original plan; to show a lack of effort and now, here I am with a bed full of dresses and he is the one telling me to dress down. I don’t know if he means casual pretty for somewhere like his Italian restaurant or if he means jeans and sweater cas
Last Updated : 2021-08-21
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I’m standing staring at myself in the mirror, nerves eating away at me and fidgeting with my dress a little obsessively. It’s long, fitted, ivory, and very classy. A sleek, full-length, fishtailed number that looks great on my body, with my toned-down neutral face and minimal jewellery. Stomach in knots and anally checking my appearance like my life depends on it. Despite knowing, I look flawless. Déjà vu from the morning I met his mother and yet this is way worse. I’m terrified. “You look gorgeous, stop fretting.” Alexi’s voice comes from behind me and he sways to the side of me as he approaches. I stop him mid-step and lean my body against him gently. Backing myself against him. This is something I have been working on for a while now. Letting Alexi get behind me, touch me when standing there and leaning against him. He doesn’t object, just stands still recognising my attempt and lets me fall back against him gently. It’s stupid and weird, I guess, that it’
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Soon as we get out the door Mico flanks me on one side with Alexi on the other and we are instantly surrounded by more Carrero security. Like a black wall that’s impenetrable and offers instant calm to my frazzled brain. Guiding us efficiently and shielding us from all angles. Overkill, but I guess I’m thankful for it.“What about the rest of her outfit?” Alexi asks as we walk briskly out of the building, the first to leave, but I can already hear chairs scraping as others depart, now we have. Some of them eager to walk away now they've found a resolution to this debacle.It’s weird how something that hung over us for months is tied up with a bow in one very brief sitting. I can’t get my head around the fact the threat is gone, and I no longer need to live under house arrest for any reason. A sudden lightness to my mood as the heavy weight of burden is lifted.“Most departed as soon as they heard their source of income w
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They lead us to a large, carved, ugly wooden door depicting nude women mid-orgy, and I eye roll at the crassness. Suits Santagato to a T. Mico slides in front of us quickly, knocks on it several times in a coded bang while we wait silently and patiently. Tension making the air so thick I can almost cut it with a knife. I have to still my trembling body, clinging onto him for dear life, focusing on his warm hand encasing mine snugly as a form of grounding and I repeat the mantra ‘he will always protect me’ inside my head.It’s opened immediately and two men move aside as we are let into a dark, smoky room where several men are sitting at a long table. I cannot count how many there are, eyes scanning the crowded scene quickly as my focus tries to adjust rapidly. I swallow my breath, my heart plummets and I just let him take the lead.Alexi walks us in behind two of his men and Mico. I can tell at a glance which ones are the bosses, by their suits and gr
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“Please,” I whisper it so quietly, begging him to stop questioning, to just take what I’m offering him. He surely understands my reasons. I close my eyes when he finally leans up and pulls one end of the strap and tugs it off my wrist slowly. The material sliding coldly and making me shiver. Eyes on what he’s doing, and I exhale, appeased that we are still going ahead even if a part of me dies a little inside. Like an idiot because I started this.I wait with bated breath for the dreaded feel of leather on my skin, but nothing happens. Anticipation makes me tetchy, heightening my senses to alarming levels and I notice every noise and sensation. I'm antsy and I can’t stand it anymore.Instead, the slide of the one around my neck startles me and I gulp in air, jumping slightly, realising he might start with leashing me and tying me after he gets a makeshift collar on me. A lot of men like Alexi like to have you leashed and tied up for full c
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Teeth, tongues, lips, coming together of a rather aggressive game of tonsil tennis as his hands slide up my body and I wrap my legs around his waist. Moaning quietly with the way he ignites every nerve ending in me. Body tingling and on fire within seconds as I rub myself against the button and rough zip on his trousers, pushing myself into a fevered frenzy of longing.There is no real foreplay, just a sudden need to consummate our passion right here and now and I reach down and unbutton him so he can spring free from the confines of fabric. Alexi feels me out, probing my warmth with his fingers, finding me wet and willing and doesn’t waste time on formalities.He slides into me soon as he leans back over me and presses down on me as he does so, so our bodies fit snugly and muffle my moans of pleasure as they overtake me. Snug as a hand in a glove, he fills me up in the best kind of way, spreading that pulsating, gorgeously good feeling up through my pelvis and i
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These are things people figure out before they marry someone, and here we are, already invested and now I’m thinking about the fact I should have told him this already.Babies! Not a fucking chance in hell. He won’t know, unless he did read all my journals, but even then. I wouldn’t say it was obvious from those diary excerpts that my inability to have kids was permanent or even a blessing. I went over the abortion and such and the after-effects and recovery, but I don’t think I ever spelt it out, in black and white, that my body no longer produces eggs for any chance of fertilisation.How do you tell the man cradling a newborn like he was born to do so if that’s where his hopes lie then it won’t happen with me?How do I tell him that I can’t give him this and wouldn’t want to even if I could? Is this what he wants?The happy 2.4 children, family home a
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It’s not the expected outcome; grown woman turning to childish puppy dog mush, pawing at her angry husband like a devious minx; I find myself eye rolling at the lamest form of female manipulation there is.“You knew? You met her?” Accusatory tone as she tries to regain some footing. Alexi sighs loudly and I glance his way to see him turn and butt himself against the table, throwing me an unreadable look before he downs another drink and I try not to count how many that is. By the look of his sudden lack of trying, I guess he has been prone to scenes like this before, where his father had to steamroll in to defend him, and Alexi mentally goes off on a cruise and leaves him to it. I just stand here like an idiot, a third wheel and in no way wanting to witness this shit.“He’s my son. He has no secrets from me, he never did. Unlike you, he confides in me and comes to me often!” It’s putting her in her place and any other mother mi
The Carrero Contract (series book 3) 183
The house is huge and beautiful like some sort of movie set for the lifestyle of the rich and famous. A towering white mansion set in a beautiful green manicured garden like some modern painting. Set in the sunny Hamptons, near the coast in a very picturesque area that comprises of nothing but huge grand houses, that just spew wealth. I can see why the Carreros reign supreme here. It’s like the real housewives of Orange County.Their home a show house for sure, completely devoid of lived in family life and we are let in by a maid who ushers us into a sitting room in what appears to be a deserted house until she runs off to find our host. Marble entranceway not dissimilar to that of Alexi’s nearby abode, huge sweeping staircase in a flawless neutral palette. It’s glossy magazine worthy with massive professional vases of floral arrangements dotted at key points on expensive furniture around the edges of the room.I find it odd that Alexi is being treate
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“I can’t do this, Lexi.” My heart is hammering through my chest and I have checked my appearance three dozen times in the full-length mirror of the bedroom we stayed in for the rest of the night. Obsessed with my appearance as anxiety strangles the life out of me. Trying to focus on something I can control and getting a little preoccupied with its importance.We were busy most of last night, making up for our strained day with lots of gentle lovemaking, kissing and caresses, and I’m aglow with his attention today. Cheeks flushed, skin dewy, and a twinkling happiness in my eyes I’ve never seen before. I felt completely chilled when I got up this morning, well almost completely. That was until he dumped this little announcement on me that we’re having a cosy family brunch at Mummy’s house.Ugh. Last night was a repeat of the night he first made love to me, after the failed kidnapping at the club. Only without him
