Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (131 page)

Nicole nodded her head and tried to
accept her mother’s words at face value, while still allowing herself to feel
what she felt.
 
She didn’t want to
start feeling guilty about being sad on top of everything else she was going
through.

And then Red stepped in.
 
“Barb, I think I can speak for both of
us when I tell you that we truly appreciate your wisdom.
 
I respect the fact that you went through
your own difficult moment, and you came through it stronger than before.”

“I just did what had to be done.
 
I still got up and went about my
life.
 
I had to work full-time, even
back then.
 
I went to work and did
my job and nobody would have known that I’d been through a miscarriage.”

Red smiled with patient
understanding.
 
“At the same time,
Nicole is a different person and she’s sad right now.
 
It’s okay with me if she’s sad for as
long as she needs to be.”

“I never said she shouldn’t be sad.”

“Okay, then,” Red smiled.
 
“So we all agree.
 
Nicole’s going to take whatever time she
needs to recover from this.
 
We’re
all sad, and we support Nicole one hundred percent.”

 
“I never said anything to the contrary.”

Nicole took a deep breath.
 
“It’s fine.
 
Everything’s fine.”

“I’m being supportive of you and
Red.
 
Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Yes, and it means a lot to me.”

“Well, I just don’t see why everyone is
so doom and gloom around here.
 
It’s
not healthy.”

“Nobody’s doom and gloom.
 
We just need a little time.”

“Well you’ve got only so much time.
 
I thought you were planning a wedding.”

“I was, and I will be again.
 
When I feel up to it.”

“Maybe it’s not always the best thing to
have so much time and money that you can afford to be depressed.
 
I couldn’t afford to be depressed.”

Red clapped his hands.
 
“What say I have Chef Roland wrangle us
up something to eat, huh?”

Nicole’s mother nodded unhappily and
Nicole took a deep breath.
 
She
didn’t know if she’d ever make it through her mother’s visit.
 
She wanted nothing more than to crawl
back into bed and close her eyes—make everything go away.

But she pushed through the way her mother
would have wanted her to.
 

Chef Roland was at the ready, and he came
to the kitchen and cooked them a wonderful lunch of lemon chicken over
linguine.
 
Nicole mostly picked at
her food, but Red and Barb ate every last bite of theirs.
 

Despite her protests to the contrary,
Barb seemed to love being waited on and catered to, as if it were her secret
birthright to have been a queen or a member of the aristocracy.
 
By the end of the day she was drinking
wine and talking about art and laughing at every word that came out of Red’s
mouth.

And then night fell and she said she was
going to drive home, even though it would be a long drive back.
 
“I want to go to sleep in my own bed,”
she told them.

Red made her a huge mug of coffee, extra
strong, and she took it with her.
 
She hugged Nicole once before leaving—a strong, vice like grip
that revealed she still had plenty of strength left, however much she might
have aged.
 
“I love you so much,”
she whispered into Nicole’s ear.

“I love you too, Mom.
 
Thanks for coming.”

“Bye, darling.”
 
She waved at Red and then she was gone.

“Thank God that’s over with,” Red said,
as he closed the door and walked with Nicole towards the stairs to the master
bedroom.

“You finally won her over,” Nicole
said.
 
“I didn’t think it was
possible.”

“I don’t think I won her over.
 
I think she decided she was going to
prove that she could like me.”

Nicole smiled.
 
“Yeah, that’s probably true.”

Red put a hand on her lower back.
 
“Are you okay?”

“Not really.”

“I love you, Nicole.
 
And I’m sad too.
 
Not a second goes by that I don’t think
of the baby.
 
But she is loved.
 
Isn’t that all anyone wants, at the end
of the day—to be loved and remembered?”

“I guess.”
 
Nicole felt the tears in her eyes yet
again.
 
“I just wish we’d had a
little bit of time with her.
 
I can
still feel her, you know?”
 
She
pressed a hand to her heart.
 
“I can
feel her little soul calling out to me.
 
She wanted to be hugged and held and sang to, and we never got a
chance.”

Red’s eyes were wet now.
 
“I know.
 
I know.”

They went upstairs together and climbed into
bed, and Red held her in his arms.
 
He was stronger than ever, she realized.
 
He held her close and she smelled his
scent, she felt his breath against her hair and her cheek.
 
She was taken care of.

It wasn’t what she wanted right now.
 
Right now, what she wanted was her baby.

But it was enough.
 
It had to be enough.

***

Nicole woke up very early the next
morning.

It was just after five a.m. and the idea
hit her like a thunderbolt.
 
It was
so simple, so perfect.
 
It had to be
right.

She put a hand on Red’s shoulder and
shook him slightly.

He opened his eyes and lifted his
head.
 
“Huh?
 
What is it---are you okay?”

“Yes.
 
I just woke up and I had to tell you
something.”

“Okay, I’m listening.”
 
He wiped the sleep from his eyes.

“I want to elope.”

Red turned to face her in the
semi-darkness.
 
“You want to
elope?
 
Why?”

“I just woke up and it was the first
thing I thought.
 
It feels
right.
 
I don’t want to worry about
guest lists and tablecloths and what food to serve and the venue and sending
out the perfect invitations.
 
I just
want to be with you.”

He blinked at her.
 
“Are you sure?
 
Because you always said—“

“I know what I said,” she
interrupted.
 
“But everything’s
different now.”

“Because of the baby?”

“I don’t know.
 
Yes.
 
I suppose so.”

“I think we just need some more time
before we make any decisions.
 
You’re in a certain frame of mind right now,” he said tiredly.

“This isn’t just a frame of mind.
 
I want to elope, Red.”

“Of course I’ll do whatever you
want.
 
But honestly?
 
I don’t think that’s what you really
want, Nicole.”

Now she felt angry with him.
 
She sat up in bed and folded her
arms.
 
“What do you mean, it’s not
what I really want?
 
You think you
know what I want better than I do?”

Red sighed.
 
“No, Nicole.
 
I don’t.”

“Don’t take that tone with me.”

“What tone?”

“Like I’m crazy.”

“Nicole, it’s five a.m.
 
You woke me out of a deep sleep to tell
me you want to completely change our wedding plans because of some random
thought that popped into your head.”

“It wasn’t some random thought.”
 
She glared at him.
 
“I don’t care about all those other
people, Red.
 
I care about me and
you.”

Suddenly, he reached across the bed and
grabbed her arm and pulled her towards him.
 
“And what do you think I care about?”

His touch, even now in her depressed
state, still brought heat to her entire body.
 
She looked into his dark eyes.
 
His curly hair fell across his forehead
in that way that she found totally sexy.
 

But now there was something else,
too.
 
She felt angry, she felt
wild—she felt unpredictable.
 
In the past, whenever they’d had sex, it was always because of Red that
Nicole engaged in the kind of ritualistic game playing that he so enjoyed.
 
Yes, she liked it too, but mostly
because of what it did for him.

For the first time, though, Nicole wanted
to do it as much or more for herself as she did for Red.

“I don’t know what you care about,” she
said.
 
“Maybe you need to show me.”

She looked at him and he looked back at
her.
 
In the early morning gloom,
she could see the whites of his eyes and the black pits of his pupils and he
almost had the look of a wolf about him.

“Don’t ask if you aren’t ready to
receive.”

“Who says I’m not ready?”

“Either way,” he growled.
 
“You know what this means.”

“I’m not a total idiot,” Nicole replied,
writhing in his grasp.
 
He gripped
her arm more tightly.
  

“You’re being very bad right now,” he
rasped.

“So?
 
Who’s going to punish me?”

“Keep talking and it will be worse.”

“Maybe I want it to be worse.”

He turned her onto her stomach, so she
was lying in his lap across the bed.
 
He was hard, so she knew she’d excited him.
 
Nicole was wearing nothing but her bra
and panties, and she wiggled her ass at him, knowing what was coming.

He slapped her butt.
 
There was a slight sting, but nothing
near what she wanted to feel right now.
 
“More,” she demanded.

“Well all right then,” he said.
 
His hand came down harder on her
ass.
 
He spanked her butt again and
again.

“I need to be bare,” she said.
 
“My bare ass needs a spanking.”

Red exhaled heavily.
  
Suddenly he’d ripped the panties right
off her, ripped them clean in half like they were some kind of special break
away Velcro panties.
 
“Okay,” he
said.
 
“So now your ass is bare.”

“Yeah, that’s more like it.”
 
She wiggled it at him again.
 
“Now spank me like you mean it.”

He started to spank her ass, moving from
one cheek to the other, paddling her flesh with real vigor.
 
It stung and there was the requisite
heat.
 
She was getting wet.
 
Her pussy ached for him.
 
And yet…somehow there needed to be more.

She wasn’t satisfied with the level of
pain.
 
She needed more.
 
“Come on,” she whined.
 
“Do it harder.”

“You want harder?”

“Come on.
 
You heard me.”

And then he stopped entirely.
 
Nicole looked up at him from over her
shoulder.
 
“Why are you
stopping?
 
I need to be punished.”

Red stared down at her.
 
“You know this isn’t how it goes.”

“Stop being so rigid.
 
Come on.
 
I’m aching to be spanked and fucked.”

“You need to calm down.
 
You’re out of control.”

“This isn’t out of control,” she said,
sitting up.
 
She looked at him.
 
Her nipples were hard and tight.
 
She was wet for him but she didn’t want
it like this.
 
She wanted it angry
and hard and fast.
 
She wanted to
forget who she was.

“Nicole, you need to slow down,” he told
her.
 
“This isn’t a free for all.”

“Bullshit.
 
Come on,” she dared him.
 
“Afraid of a little tiny girl?”