Saving Toby (17 page)

24. Claudia

“Toby, stop it. It’s happening too fast.” The plea was not
much more than a whimper. My body was taut, gripped by heady waves of
contractions spiraling through me. Even as I tried to regain my bearings, I
struggled against his hold of my wrists.

“I need this. Now. Tonight.” The heat of his tone was fused
with determination. With his free hand, he pushed at my thigh so he could wedge
himself between my legs. Kissing my chest, he moved his mouth over me, his
tongue soothing what his teeth nipped. My body burned for him, betraying me by
responding to his sexual onslaught without my consent.

I didn’t want it to be like this. It was too rushed, too
rough, and nothing like how I imagined it would be. I watched, helpless as he
pushed the front of his shorts down and pressed his erection against my thigh.
Any closer and I would be forever changed.

Looking at his face, there was no trace of love in his
eyes—only a single-minded need. The absence of emotion shattered the last of my
excitement and brought me crashing down. It would not be like this.

With his weight heavy on top of me, I steeled myself,
becoming absolutely rigid.

“Is this is how you want me to remember my first time?” I
asked through gritted teeth.

He was silent for a heavy moment, a profusion of emotions
rolling over his face.

“Oh, fuck,” he muttered. Letting go of my wrists, he pushed
off me and rolled to his back on the floor next to me, banging his arm on the
edge of the workbench. He let out a feral hiss. As I adjusted my underwear and
skirt back into their rightful place, he rubbed at his elbow.

My heart was pounding.

“You were being so rough.”

“You seemed to like it.”

“You think holding my hands and forcing me to have sex is
what I want?”

He slammed his fist on the leg of the worktable, and I
flinched. “You make it sound like I was about to rape you!”

“Well, you were holding me against my will,” I snipped.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Jesus, Claude, it’s just sex. We’ve been dating for almost
two months. How long are you going to make me wait?”

“It's not just sex to me. I’ll make you wait as long as it
takes me to feel ready. And besides,” I said, eyeing our surroundings, “I don’t
want my first time to be next to a tool bench, on the dirty floor of an old
garage.”

Toby raised himself up onto his elbow and leisurely watched
me as I got up and dusted myself off. “If all it takes is a bed, then I’ll take
you to the motel up on the highway, the one with hourly rates.”

His cavalier attitude was infuriating. “It takes more than a
bed, you asshole.” I felt my composure start to crumple. “I thought I wanted to
be with you,” I said, blinking back tears. “But after this, I don’t want you to
ever touch me again.”

“Huh?” His expression finally registered some emotion. It
looked akin to fear.

I didn’t take any joy in being able to get him to react
because the whole ordeal had sent me over the edge. Even as my tears began to
fall, I felt an angry determination to get away from him. Focusing on that, I
ran for the door. Behind me, I heard Toby scrambling to his feet. “Claude,
wait,” he called after me.

I bolted out the door and ran, but I didn’t manage to get
out of the backyard before he caught my arm and spun me around.

We were breathing hard, and I thought I might just hate him
right then.

“I’m sorry,” he said as he tried to get closer and touch my
face.

I shoved his hand away. “Leave me alone,” I cried.

“That’s part of the problem. I can’t seem to do that.”

I was shaking, but my voice remained static. “Maybe your
other girlfriends let you treat them like that, but I won’t.”

“I know. I’m sorry, baby.” He moved forward and wrapped his
arms around me. I stood stiffly at first, but it took too much effort to stay
away from him when what I really wanted was for him to comfort me—to make me
feel as if being with him wasn’t all a big mistake.

He pressed his face into my hair. “You didn’t deserve that.
You’re right. I am an asshole. I don’t know why you put up with me sometimes.”

Holding me tight, he rubbed my back, slow and gentle. I
closed my eyes and accepted his penitent caresses.

“You’ve never been so rough with me before.”

“I’m sorry. I was in a crappy mood earlier. Touching you
like that took my mind off of it.” He stroked my hair and pressed his lips to
my jaw line, just below my ear. “But I swear, even though I wasn’t being
gentle, I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” he whispered. He slid his hands to my
waist and kneaded my hips. I flushed warmly as he pulled his face away and his
darkened eyes met mine.

“Claude, I got worked up—I forgot about the virginity thing.
Christ, I wanted to give it to you hard.” He gave me a cocky, lopsided grin and
then brushed his lips against mine. “Baby, if you weren’t so inexperienced, I
would have made you lose your mind. You would have loved it.”

I shook my head. I had never had a guy talk to me the way he
did. His words were always so erotic, explicit. And disturbing. Although,
around me, he had curbed his ‘vocabulary,’ I knew from the first time I’d met
him that this was how he expressed himself. I was still upset at the callous
motel remark, but his words—a hint at a pleasure I wasn’t yet acquainted
with—affected me. As the air conditioner unit in Mrs. Faye’s bedroom window
above us hummed, so did my body.

“Maybe I will like that kind of rough stuff someday, but,” I
said grabbing two fistfuls of the front of his black tee shirt and twisting it
taut. “If you ever treat me so disrespectfully again, it’ll be the last time.
Understand me?”

“Yes!
Comprendo
,” he said biting back a smile as he
gave me an exaggerated nod. “Are you going to hurt me? ‘Cause I’m kind of
afraid of you right now.”

Still frustrated, but anger abated, I let out a pent-up
laugh and released him. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Be with me.”

“Toby—” I started to object.

“Claude, all I want is to get closer to you. If you just
trust me, we could connect on a whole other level,” he said softly.

I knew his words were not meant to hustle me into bed. Toby
genuinely believed sex would unite us as nothing else would. I sensed he was
right. The emotional side of our relationship had grown, and the physical side
was speeding alongside it. Increasingly, the unsatisfying end even frustrated
me.

I rested my head on his shoulder. “I know it’s not easy for
you to be so patient and wait for me. I want to be with you, too, but it’s
going to be more planned out. I don’t want it to be rushed or just a release of
frustration.” I touched his face. “I want it to be out of love.”

“That’s right. That was part of the deal.” He tipped his
head against mine and rubbed up and down my arms. “Don’t expect me to use that
word, but I hope you know, I’m pretty crazy about you, Chiametti.” He kissed my
neck, and very quietly he asked, “Forgive me?”

Wrapping my arms around his neck, I held him tight to me.
“Yes,” I murmured. I almost told him I loved him, but I held it back. I wasn’t
ready to admit it, especially after tonight’s drama.

“Can we go inside and relax for a while?”

“Can’t,” he said drawing away from me. “You should go home.
I have a few things I need to do.”

He walked me to my car. At the curb, I hugged him goodnight.
“We never even got to talk about USC,” I said.

“I think after what just happened, we should talk about it
another night. Okay?”

I nodded knowing it would be best. Pulling out my keys, I
turned towards the car, and I noticed that something wasn’t right. The car had
an odd ‘settled’ appearance. I bent over and saw the back tire flared out on
the pavement as if it had melted. Flat. Toby squatted to examine the front
tire.

“You got a flat,” he said. “Open the trunk. I’ll change it.”

Curious, I walked around to the driver’s side, and,
unbelievably, they were both flat on that side as well. I shook my head in
confusion. “Toby, they’re all flat.”

“All of them?” His eyes narrowed, and he came around to look
for himself. I heard him mutter a string of curses.

Clenching his fists and swearing more, he stepped into the
middle of the road. I followed, and we both looked up the street.

Suddenly, from behind us, a car engine gunned loudly. I saw
Toby’s head jerk backwards in surprise, and two headlights were speeding at us.
I screamed, and Toby pushed me back and away. I stumbled and fell in front of
my car. As the other vehicle careened towards him, Toby sprang onto the roof of
the Camry.

It missed him, but narrowly. The car tires squealed on the
pavement as it spun in a perfect one hundred eighty-degree turn and skidded to
a halt. Now in the middle of the road, facing the way it had come, it sat
idling. The tinted driver’s window was up, and we couldn’t see the driver. But
I knew it was Devlin’s car. I sat stunned, shaken, and a little more than
scared.

Unable to move, I asked, “What’s he doing?”

Toby slid off the hood of my car and cautiously approached
Devlin’s car. As soon as he got within a few feet, the engine revved, and the
car lurched forward. It raced down the road, and out of sight until, finally,
the street was dark and quiet again.

My heart was drumming in my ears. “Why did he do that?”

“He’s a lunatic,” Toby said darkly. Reaching for my hand, he
pulled me up from the road. “Are you okay?”

I scraped my hands on the fall, but I was more concerned
with him and began checking him over. “Are
you
okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said, pushing my hands away.

“I’m going to report this,” I snapped, going for my cell.
“My father won’t let him get away with it.”

Toby grabbed my arm. “Claude, you can’t tell your father
about this. Tell him someone gave you flats, but he can’t know what Dev just
did.”

“But why?”

“Just because. I need you to trust me on this,” he said and
then added, “Please.”

My father was on shift and came within minutes of my call.
He arrived by cruiser with emergency lights flashing, and when he stepped out
onto the street, I could tell by his stance he was in full authority mode. With
the briefest of glances at Toby and me, he snapped on his department-issued
flashlight and bent to inspect the tires. Mortified at the display of theatrics
over mere flattened tires, I wondered if calling him had been the right thing
to do.

“Your tires were slashed,” he noted as he examined them and
the road around the car. He scribbled down some information and came back to us
at the curb. “Neither of you heard or saw anything?”

We shook our heads.

My father asked Toby, “Where’s your mother?”

Toby shrugged. “Probably sleeping.”

“You don’t know if she’s sleeping?”

“I haven’t been up to her room for a while, but she’s
usually asleep by now.”

“Is that right?” My father hooked his thumbs in his belt
loops and eyed us severely. “So where have you been?”

I’m sure he noticed my disheveled clothes and was at that
very moment forming an opinion on what Toby and I had been doing while my tires
were being flattened. Though I couldn’t tell him we’d narrowly avoided being
hit by a speeding car, I was anxious to put him back on track.

“Dad,” I said, my face tight as I grimaced. “My tires were
slashed. Are you here to help with this or investigate us?”

Dad scowled at me. Without replying, he stepped a few feet
away from us and spoke into his police radio. He listened, barked a few more
commands, and then came back to us. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard the latest
about Ricardo Velerio?” he asked Toby.

Knowing the name, I looked from Dad to Toby. Toby didn’t
reply leaving me to believe whatever the latest on the Dominican immigrant was,
he had heard.

Cautious, I asked, “What happened to him?”

My father’s answer was rapid. “He died tonight. The charges
have been increased to manslaughter.”

I covered my mouth glancing up at Toby. While I felt
terrible about the news, I understood instinctively that Devlin’s actions were
somehow related to this information.

“It doesn’t look like a random act. There are several other
cars on the block, and none of them appear to be damaged. Maybe someone is
trying to send Toby here a message?” My father gave Toby one of his
intimidating cop looks. “Maybe you know something or did something that might
cause someone to strike out at you?”

Toby met his eyes, shook his head, but said nothing. My
father was clearly not convinced.

“Just to give you a head’s up, son. With Velerio’s death,
this will get worse before it gets better. I guarantee it.”

Toby looked so uncomfortable, I reached over and held his
hand. My father saw this and frowned. Narrowing his eyes, he set himself
squarely before Toby.

“With your family’s history, I don’t have a lot of
confidence that you’ll handle this properly. If it was my choice, and I could
talk some sense into Claudia, I’d keep her far away from you. I don’t like this
situation, and since you’ve decided to keep your mouth shut, I can only assume
you are more involved in this than you let on.” Despite his obvious anger, my
father’s voice remained trained and even. “I wouldn’t normally care what the
hell you’re doing, but you’re keeping company with my daughter and I’ll be damned
if any of this bullshit puts her safety at risk. 'Cause if it does, I swear
I’ll put your ass in prison, right next to your brother’s. Do you understand
me?”

“Dad!” I gasped. I couldn’t believe he’d go so low as to
throw that in Toby’s face.

Toby eyed him, his hand clammy in mine. The tenseness in his
body was palpable—my father’s words had hit their intended mark.

“Yes, sir. I would never let anything bad happen to
Claudia,” Toby said through gritted teeth, the hard edge of resentment in his
tone.