“Let me finish, almost done,” he says, not letting me stop him. Once he’s done, though, he doesn’t let up, but instead, forces me to sit and let him drag a t-shirt over my head.
A short while later, after another trip to the bathroom—or so I assume—he’s back and crawling under the covers and pulling me against his chest. My eyes flutter shut as his hand strokes up and down my back. My throat aches, but I also feel… relieved.
“Are you okay?” he asks, his voice nearly swallowed by the silence.
My brow pinches and I open my eyes, pushing away from his chest to look up at him. I don’t answer him.
“What?” His stroking stops. “Is it that hard of a question?”
Is it? Maybe. I’m not sure if it’s a question I can answer honestly because the fact is, I don’t know the answer.
It’s been so long since I’ve been ‘okay’ that I’ve forgotten what it feels like. But right now, in his arms, coming down off the high of that orgasm, I think I might be a little closer than I was before.
However nasty he gets, however depraved I am when we do shit like this—fucking him or his friends—no one has theauthority to tell me what is okay and what’s not. Only I can make that decision.
Dropping my head against his shoulder, I sling one leg over his hip and cuddle closer. “I’m tired,” I mumble.
Nolan doesn’t respond for several long seconds, but neither does he pressure me to answer him. When his fingers return to their ministrations as they move up and down my spine in long, languid movements, I relax even more. Even if it’s just for now, he’s letting it go.
19
GIO
When I was young, I had the idea that karma fixed all the problems of the world. It might take a little while, but eventually it would come for the bad people in the end. Then days went by, months, years, and every so often, I would come home to my mom quieter than usual and new bruises on her face or arms.
Nothing ever happened to him. Karma never showed up.
If I wanted karma to come, then I had to be the one to bring it to the party. Once I realized that, all of my other beliefs disappeared. The only thing that remained was a soul-deep hatred for my father.
I hear her crying as soon as I step into the front door. The sound is soft, as if she’s muffling her sobs to keep him from hearing her. The scent of rich, too thick cigar smoke lingers in the air. If I hadn’t already seen his shitty fucking car in the drive, I would’ve known he was home based on that smell alone.
The second the front door clicks shut, her quiet sobs cut off and the telltale sniffling starts up. I stand in front of the door and close my eyes, picturing her around the corner of the living room in the kitchen, blotting her eyes and mopping up her face. I take several slow, purposefully heavy footsteps towards the opening.I make sure to step on the creakiest floorboards so she can listen to my approach and I don’t startle her when I step across the thin barrier between rooms onto the vinyl tile.
“Mama?”
With her back turned to me, she stirs something on the stove. A big pot rests there and there’s a congealed collection of what looks like soup. I might believe she’s so focused on it that she doesn’t hear my call, save for the fact that there’s no steam rising from the pot and the stovetop light isn’t illuminated to warn anyone that it’s on and warm.
“Mama?” I try again. My chest feels heavy as I shift closer to her. “Are you okay?”
Mama sniffs and waves her hand back at me without turning around. “Oh, yes, of course,mijo,” she says. “Dinner will be ready soon. Are you hungry?”
She seems to realize the stove isn’t on and quickly leans forward, jerking the burner dial on. The red light pops up, but her shoulders don’t relax. I sigh and close the distance between us until my hands settle on her arms. The second I touch her, she goes still. Her hand stops moving the useless wooden spoon sitting in the pot.
Gently, I turn her to face me and when I see the swollen black bruise surrounding her left eye, I bite back a foul curse. “Mama.”
“I’m fine.” Her hand comes out and grips mine as if to keep me close to her.
“You’re not fine,” I argue. I pull away from her and stride over to the refrigerator. It should say something about this fucking family that I’m all too familiar with where to find the ice packs and the act of wrapping them in a thin dish towel so as not to hurt her face further.
When I return to her and set the cold cloth against her face, she flinches. “This is unacceptable, Mama,” I tell her, my voice low and cold. “He should never have hit you.”
“H-he didn’t,” she tries to lie, but I already know the truth. She takes the ice pack and holds it to her face. “I-I tripped. You know how clumsy I can be,mijo.”
The attempt she makes at a smile makes me want to put my fist through the drywall—or my father’s face. I look down at her, at the fragile bones of her wrist and fingers as she holds the ice pack against her bruised flesh, and all I can see is all of the times this has happened before. It’s not right. It’s not.Fucking.Right.
The scent of cigar smoke strengthens in the air a split second before the sound of the floorboards in the hall creak to let me know the bastard has entered the room. “You’re finally home?”
My father’s gruff, annoyed tone grates along my nerves. Mama’s hand latches on to my arm as if she can stop me from swinging on the piece of shit. It takes all of my self-control not to throw her off me and stomp him out of existence. Plans. We have fucking plans. The guys and I have plotted and schemed and done everything that fucker has asked us over the last three years, and we didn’t do it just for me to blow it all up now.
