Owned: A Mafia Menage Romance (28 page)

Nuzzling under his stubbled, square jaw, I flicked my tongue lightly over the hollow behind his ear. My hand found the hem of his t-shirt and slipped inside, stroking the warm swell of his belly. He sighed and rolled over slightly in his sleep.

Was he dreaming of me too? I reached to the front of his boxers and found his cock half-hard, curling sideways on its journey to lay upright against his taut belly. That encouraged me. Stroking him through the fabric, he went erect right away and his hips pushed gently against me.

I threw my leg over him and rose, straddling his hips and moving against him in circles. I wanted to come so badly but I wanted him awake too. His eyelids fluttered and his hands slid along my thighs, gripping them lightly.

“Margot?” he sighed.

Flipping my hair to one side, I let the heavy, dark strands trail against his chest. His sensitive nipples stood out in relief against the fabric.

“Shhh, baby,” I whispered.

“Margot... what time is it?”

I didn’t answer and his hands gripped me tighter as I circled my crotch against his.

“Margot, honey…” he groaned. “I gotta get up.”

“Shhh it’s early, baby,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” he grunted, holding my hips harder until they were immobile and finally opening his eyes. He raised his eyebrows at me.

“What,” I said, trying to control my irritation. He was just going to stop me?

“Margot...” he started, his voice all impatient apologies. He pursed his lips and looked at me and I saw myself through his eyes: still wearing my dress, makeup smudged and drastic, marks along my forearms from the bangles I hadn’t removed when I fell into bed beside him last night.

So nothing’s changed,
 I thought.

“I just thought a quick hello, as friends...” I trailed off, letting the words wither in the air.

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” he said tersely, lifting me off him and rolling away. I stared at his back as he turned, stretched for a few seconds, and got out of bed.

Looking around, I saw the evidence from last night and pieced it back together with the bleary memories that remained. His trousers were next to the bed where they had fallen in a heap. His shirt was on the chair next to the folded pajama bottoms he probably would have been wearing if he’d been sober when he went to bed. His shoes were yards apart, capsized like boats.

I wondered if I was supposed to disappear. Was he hoping I would magically transform into a skinny latte and Greek yogurt before he was done brushing his teeth? The sound of the tap floated through the room, then his masculine, ropy pee in the bowl, then the flush.

“It was awesome to see you,” he called from the bathroom. I bit back a half dozen snappy, hungover retorts.

He came out pushing his dark blonde hair back from his forehead. The thick muscles of his arms filled me with longing. I wanted so much to feel those arms around me.

“Just come back to bed,” I said as sweetly as I could, patting the mattress. “You can spare a few minutes, can’t you? For your best friend and former housemate?” I flipped my hair over my shoulder and practically batted my eyes.

He hung his hands on his hips and stared at me, shaking his head and smirking. “I really wish I could, Mar,” he said. “I totally forgot I have showings all afternoon. A new listing to check out…”

“Right, right,” I said gamely, tugging my dress into shape and rearranging my legs primly. He looked at me uncomfortably, obviously wishing I had left already and not sure how far he would need to go to make it happen.

He went to his dresser and started opening drawers, selecting neatly folded summer-wear from the well-organized piles. Hope crumbled like a sand castle under the tide and I began to feel my stomach clenching as though maybe I could curl into a ball, roll right up and disappear.

“Your phone,” he muttered, picking his head up.

“What?”

“Your phone,” he repeated, looking around. “It’s ringing.”

“Where?” I said, quickly rummaging through the sheets, flinging aside the duvet and diving to the floor to look for the light or something. Kevin prowled around the perimeter with his head cocked like a Labrador and his hands out, ready to pounce.

He shoved his fingers under my open and half-emptied purse on the small side table and pulled it out, still jangling merrily.

“You should keep better track of your stuff,” he lectured as he held it out to me.

“Yeah thanks,” I mumbled and grabbed it on my way to the bathroom. I thumbed the face to connect the call and turned on the tap for noise.

“I fucking hate fucking interns and want them all to fucking die!”

“Morning, Bridget, baby,” I sighed sweetly and then stared, dumbfounded, at my reflection in the wide mirror. One eye had gone all raccoon with mascara and liner. Even my eyebrow hairs were pushed the wrong way and bristled out in all directions. The other eye looked almost normal, with merely a dusting of black flakes on my cheek.

“If you see Melissa, I want you to run her over with your car.”

“What did she do?” I muttered as I plucked a facial cleansing wipe from the small box. Scents of cucumber and aloe wafted up my nose and my stomach gurgled ominously.

“The usual fucking intern bullshit! She was picking up collectors for tonight only she is NOT picking up collectors because she is NOT anywhere. Not answering her phone, not hanging the show, not living at her shitty Venice Beach hash house anymore either!”

“You shouldn’t hire artists as interns,” I said distractedly as I opened drawers, hunting for toothpaste. Where was my toothbrush? Had he thrown it away already? “We’re notoriously flaky.”

“Yeah, no shit, Margot!” she bawled on the other end of the line. I heard her breath hitch as she probably lit her twentieth cigarette of the day. “I do not have time for this shit. Can you come in and hang this show?”

I closed my eyes tightly and prayed for toothbrush clairvoyance. He must have extras, but I didn’t want to leave the bathroom to ask. After scouring the small linen closet, I picked his up from the rack and stared at it.

“Which collectors?” I asked, squeezing a pile of toothpaste onto his brush.

“The Burkes. She was catching a Greyhound or some shit to get up to San Francisco yesterday, and guess what, fucking incommuni-fucking-cado after I gave her the fucking fare. Right?”

“San Francisco?” I echoed dumbly through a mouth full of foam.

“Probably fucking smoked it immediately.”

Spit
. “You should pay your interns enough to buy their own drugs,” I said.

“Margot, march your ass in here and hang your paintings!”

“No way,” I answered automatically. I pulled another makeup wipe out and tried to sculpt the black rings into something that looked fresh and presentable without removing them entirely. “I’m no good with a hammer, and you should have had that done days ago.”

“Margot!”

“I could maybe help with the collectors.”

I heard her grunt. Was she in the gallery? I tried to imagine her stepping onto a small ladder in Louboutin’s with the phone in one hand and a hammer in the other, a gold-tipped cigarette dangling from the corner of her ruby-red lips.

“What do you mean?”

“I could be… uh... in San Francisco,” I shrugged, wincing. Her silence was barometric. I swear I could feel the room go colder.

“
Are you
 in San Francisco?” she growled.

“I don’t know,” I lied. My hand fluttered out and found the shower tap and flipped it on, full steam.

There was a loud knock on the bathroom door. “Margot, I have to get going!” Kevin bawled through the door. “I really need to get on the road.”

“What the
fuuuuuuck
 are you doing!” Bridget growled through the phone line.

“I’m not doing anything, OK?” I whispered hurriedly as I stepped out of my dress.

“I hope that was the best sex you ever had!”

Don’t I wish!
I thought ruefully.

“We didn’t even have sex.”

“Oh my god!” she yelled, full-throated. “That douchebag can’t even do a bootie call right!”

“I’m not a bootie call,” I answered automatically.

“Obviously not,” she sneered.

“There was a work thing, and people there didn’t know we weren’t together, and he just thought it would be easier if I went. That’s all,” I explained rapidly as I knotted my hair on my head and pulled a fluffy white towel from the closet.

“And you did not have sex with him,” she asserted.

“No,” I agreed

“
At all
,” she persisted. “Your pretty pink lips did not so much as tickle his furry little chipmunk nutsack.”

“Ew, Bridge? I gotta go,” I answered.

“Because that has got to be over,” she insisted.

“Yes! Over. Completely,” I agreed. “And out. And I really do have to get going.”

“Jesus, you’re a mess,” she moaned.

“Whatever, I love you. So where are the collectors?”

Bridget promised to text me the location, some private airfield on the bay. I hopped into the shower and cleaned off quickly, then got out and slapped some aromatic oils up and down my limbs. A glance in the mirror told me I looked presentable, if slightly trashy and wrung out. Just a glance, though. I wouldn’t be able to withstand close inspection.

Gathering my dignity and holding myself as tall as possible, I breezed out of the bathroom and through the bedroom, scooping up my shoes by the straps and refilling my purse.

“Listen I really have to get going…” I sighed casually as I swept out into the kitchen, then stopped. Kevin was gone. There was a yellow sticky note on the fridge.

Nice to see you. Doorman will lock up. Take care.

“Nice to see me,” I echoed quietly, deflating as I looked around at what was intended to be temporary housing: the rustic loft on the bay with the sweeping views. It was supposed to be our weekend getaway, our cosmopolitan, city-hopping, hipster pied-a-terre. It was not supposed to be the far end of a tin can telephone line. It was definitely not supposed to be that.

I saluted the city view and the exposed beams and slid my feet back into the garish heels that looked so cute when I hopped onto the commuter flight yesterday afternoon, all blooming with possibilities.

“Over and out,” I muttered under my breath and yanked open the carved mahogany door, letting it close solidly behind me.

I HANDED THE cab driver my last twenty and wobbled briskly through the sliding glass doors to the airfield terminal, looking all around for the “buffest mofos you ever saw,” as Bridget had described them to me. After a few aimless turns in a circle, I headed for a small bank of benches and hoped she had given them a more accurate description so they could find me, rather than me standing there like a hooker looking for a ride back to LA.

My dress was an embarrassing glare of cantaloupe-colored shame and I wished desperately that I had thought to pack an overnight bag before heading up to see Kevin yesterday. What was I thinking? Was not bringing a bag supposed to be somehow demure?

You didn’t even book a return flight,
 I reminded myself.
That’s just how not-demure you are.

Sighing, I dumped myself onto an empty bench and reached down to fiddle with the strap of my shoe. Something was wrong with it; it kept coming loose but my head throbbed dangerously every time I tried to get a better look. Finally I gave up and sat up straight, tucking my hair behind my ears with my fingers and grinning apologetically as the man across from me glanced up at me over the screen of his notebook.

“It’s, uh… broken or something,” I explained pointlessly. He nodded with a small smile, his eyes flickering over my cleavage, disheveled hair, and trashy, half-wrecked shoes. My belly churned with shame. I wanted to swaddle myself in a beach towel or muumuu or something dignified like that.

“You look like a woman in need of reading material,” he suggested. His blue eyes danced with genuine mirth and I found myself feeling not quite as shy under his gaze. Some voice in the back of my mind reminded me how trampy I looked as I tried to sit in a way that said
Yes I dress like this because I’m an artist, not a desperately clingy ex-girlfriend.

It’s amazing what “artist” will let you get away with.

“Do I?” I answered, not sure what else to say but curious if he was playing out a comedic bit. For that square jaw and those wide, strong hands I figured I was willing to play his straight man.

“Well, that’s my guess,” he said affably, snapping his notebook closed and zippering open a beautiful mocha-colored crocodile bag.

Geez, Hermes,
 I noted with awe.
That bag costs more than my car.

“OK, I’ve got… let’s see,” he murmured as he rummaged through the bag contents. I watched his eyes crinkle and couldn’t help but smile as well. He was enjoying himself and the feeling was contagious.

“You like espionage thrillers?” He glanced back at me. I stared at him like a deer in headlights, afraid to shake my head too quickly during the opening gambit of his bit.