He wants me sexy for him.
I want to give it to him.
“Noooooooo,” I whisper. “You’re not doing this to yourself, and you’re not doing this to him.”
I set the lingerie down and toss a pillow over my head. That’s how it’s always been with him. As much as I want to push him away and do my own thing, he always finds a way to suck me back in. He always tries to bribe me. I can’t let nostalgia cloud my mission.
I can’t forget about who he is.
More importantly, I can’t let him forget who I am.
9
Serafin:
I wait in my study, watching on my surveillance camera as she walks down the steps behind Maria.
It looks like she’s floating, her hair tucked in a bun high up on her head, almost like a halo. My perfect angel. The dress fits her perfectly, managing to somehow cover every sacred inch of her flesh but accentuate her curves at the same time. I get hard thinking about what she has on underneath there.
I laugh at the clunky combat boots on her feet, and I probably should’ve had a pair of shoes for her, but I like her this way. It’s who she’s always been, perfect with a hint of rebellion. Kept, but untamed. I’m not even hungry for the five course meal I picked out for us. The only thing I want to taste is her lips, her flesh, her pussy. I’ve been craving her since the day I met her, and now, after all these years I’m completely starved.
I roll up the sleeves on my black button down and take a glance in the mirror. She hasn’t said anything about my eye yet, but maybe she’s just being polite. My parents spent a ton of money on plastic surgery trying to preserve my looks after the attack, but every day of my life since then, I’ve lived with the scars. Learning to see with one fake eye was difficult, but not impossible. It cost a fortune ensuring my new eye looks and moves just like my old one, but I can’t help but feel like a disfigured freak every time I look at myself.
She still hasn’t seen the mangled flesh of my ankle and calf, she still doesn’t know I only have seven toes. Even with dim lights and a couple glasses of wine, it’s still clear as day I’m damaged.
Maybe that’s why she left and never looked back. Nobody had any faith that I’d be able to pull through the attack, especially not without a lot of long term damage.
Maybe she left because she was afraid that something bad was going to happen to her, too. This life isn’t for everyone, and if I can’t even keep myself safe, how could she expect me to protect her?
Hypotheticals aren’t what I’m after anymore. I’ve had twelve long years to play out every maybe that popped into my mind. Tonight, I want answers.
I watch as she nervously wanders through the dining room, her brow furrowing as she runs her fingers over the pictures of my late father and mother on the mantel. They never liked her, but they never had the chance to know her like I did. They were never willing to give her a chance. I wonder if my mom would change her mind about Mia if she saw her incredible painting hanging from the wall. The woman has an eye for art, her talent obvious. There’s something about that painting that makes me feel both sad and in awe at the same time, kind of like the way I feel when I’m with Mia.
Except that painting is permanent.
Mia could slip away at any minute.
She slaps her hand over her mouth and gasps, jumping back a few feet when she sees it framed and hanging in the corner, a light shining down over it. That smile on her face is something I would spend every last dime I had to see forever. Knowing it’s my fault in the first place makes me feel human for a minute.
I straighten my tie and walk down the long hallway, standing outside the room for a moment just so I can soak in her beauty. It overwhelms me. It catches me off guard.
“Wow,” she says before doing a flirty catcall when she spots me. “You clean up nice, Serafin.”
I walk over to her, taking her elbows in my hands and she shivers at my touch.
“Are you cold?” I ask, knowing those aren’t goosebumps from the temperature. They’re mine. I gave them to her.
She bats her long eyelashes. “Thank you for the beautiful dress. You really didn’t have to.”
I guide her to the chair by the table, placing my hand on the small of her back. The way the dress hugs her ass, accentuating her every step makes my skin hot all over. I pull out her chair for her and she sits down.
“I have been trying to buy you that dress for twelve years,” I say. “You wouldn’t let me back then. Now, you don’t have a choice.” I sit down at the table across from her and she leans in, her eyes getting thinner. She twists her lips into a smug grin.
“So that’s how you get what you want? You take away people’s choices?”
I uncork a bottle of red wine. I’m not a fan of the stuff, I’m more of a vodka guy myself, but the chef says this is the best pairing for the feast he made for us tonight. I slowly pour her a glass.
“You have plenty of choices, misiu. Nobody locked you in that bedroom. You could walk out the door any minute. You could leave right now and you know it.” I bite my lip and smile, and she picks up her glass of wine and puts it to her lips, her eyes never leaving mine.
“I’d only be exchanging one prison for another if I did that,” she says with a shrug. “At least this one has a private bathroom.”
I chug down my glass of wine and stare at the ground. I know I haven’t exactly been around the last few days, but I’ve been trying to clean up the mess she made with Jakub and doing extra favors to make sure the cops stay off her trail.
Plus, I was trying to save myself the heartache of her inevitable rejection, which she obviously is about to deliver on a silver platter.
“I’m kidding, Serafin,” she says. “I appreciate what you’re doing for me. I don’t know why you’d want to after everything I put you through, but I appreciate it. I swear I’ll do whatever it takes to pay Jakub back. And you, too. For your kindness.”
She reaches across the table and grabs my hand, and it all comes washing over me again. Her touch has always been a special sort of magic. It’s like when her fingers are on my flesh, she turns me into a better person, a kinder person, like being wrapped in a security blanket where the evils of the world just melt away. It’s fucking goofy, but even twelve years hasn’t been able to change that feeling.
I squeeze her hand back, and I can’t help but imagine what it would look like with a giant rock on her ring finger. Mine. My leg travels under the table and I graze the inside of her calve with my foot.
“You like my boots?” she asks with a chuckle.
“They were an appropriate choice. If you knew what was going on in my mind right now, you’d probably want to kick my ass,” I say, licking my lips.
It’s like a lifetime has gone by, but no time has gone by at all. Everything feels exactly the same as it did, but everything is different. There’s a whole world between us, but in this moment I feel closer to her than ever. She’s a totally different person, and so I am I, but the familiarity, the lust, the pure love in my heart I have for her is exactly the same.
“Maybe not,” she says, raising her eyebrows. “The night is young.”