Three Loving Words (9 page)

“Enzo,” I spoke his name calmly as I had done several times before when we passed each other in the house as two neighbors would.

His lips twisted as he fought to contain himself, but this was Enzo; there was no containing him.

“What the fuck is this?” He geared the question toward me but spun toward Luke immediately.  “And who the fuck are you?”

“I’m Luke,” he responded, his cheery disposition not wavering any.

“I don’t give a fuck if you were the pope.  What are you doing here?”  Luke opened his mouth to reply, but Enzo swung back to me and spoke again. “You’re bringing your boyfriends to my house?  To my house?  I don’t keep track of your movements, I don’t keep you on a leash as I probably should, and this is how you repay me?  You bring some fucking douchebag to my home for a daytime fuck session?”  He was seething and I tried to interrupt to explain, to stop his tirade, but he was on a roll.  “You,” he pointed at Luke, “get the fuck out of my house.  I never want to see you here again.”

“No,” I yelled over Enzo’s voice.  “He’s my guest, and if he leaves or goes is our decision, not yours.  I don’t tell you not to bring your whores around; you don’t tell me who I can invite here.”

“This is my house!” Enzo roared and stepped into me.  Luke moved closer as well.  Enzo’s eyes swung toward him, and he eyed how closely Luke was standing next to me with contempt.

“The deed says differently,” I retorted very calmly.  I had gotten him there; I knew it, and by the way his eyes practically bugged out of his head, he knew it, too.

“Fine, little girl.  You want to be a slut in your own home, you go do that.  See if I fucking care.”  He got in Luke’s face and I could see Luke trying hard to keep it together.  “You had better watch yourself.”

He stormed past us after having the last word, bumping into us on purpose.

“I … uh … I think you should get out of the house,” Luke responded calmly while rubbing the back of his neck with his hand.  “I have no clue what the hell that was, but I think we both need some time to process.  Let’s get out of here, yeah?”

I nodded to keep from blurting out the truth about everything.

“Right, well, let’s go to my place.  I’m sure Chandra would love to hear about this.”

I followed him to his place, and it was tiny like he had said, but it was cozy, homey even.  I ended up hanging out a lot.

After Luke had recalled the events to Chandra, and she gasped at appropriate times, I cried.

“I’m so sorry!” I repeated.  “I’m so sorry you had to witness that!”

“Chandra used to make me watch her cheesy soaps all the time, Paige.  This was nothing.”  I laughed through my tears and then proceeded to explain all the details about Enzo and my relationship, minus the wedding night.

“Interesting,” mused Chandra.  “Sounds to me like someone was jealous,” she added.

“No … well … hmm.”  Enzo’s reaction did seem a bit like someone had a touch of the green-eyed monster.  I knew it wasn’t because he wanted me and couldn’t have me; it was because he wasn’t the center of someone’s universe.  It also probably had to do with the fact that he didn’t have that ultimate claim on me like a true husband.

“I think I like that look.” Chandra smiled.  “You’re up to something, aren’t you?”

“You might not like it after I tell you my idea.”

“Try me.”

“I’m going to continue to make Enzo jealous and I’m going to use your boyfriend to do it.  That is if you both are okay with it,” I added meekly.

“That’s a fantastic idea!” Chandra exclaimed.

“It is?” Luke asked.  “It sounds pretty bad to me.”

“Oh, hush you.  You’re going to help our girl, and that’s the end of it.”

“Do I get a say?” he asked.

“No,” answered Chandra just as I said, “Yes.”

“What does this jealousy thing entail?” he asked me.

“Not much, I don’t think.  You’ll have to come to my house when Enzo’s there, but that shouldn’t be an issue since we’re studying together.  We might have to hang out a few times, but we do that anyway.”

“Hmm,” he pretended to ponder.  “Sold.  Luke Duzay, fake boyfriend extraordinaire.”

That was the beginning of Operation: Make Enzo Jealous.

Enzo

“That stupid … fuck … she … goddamn slut …” I was alone in my room, throwing things and couldn’t even form a coherent thought after seeing Paige with her boy toy.  I had also realized I was stuttering out loud when I passed the mirror and caught a glimpse of my mouth moving.  Great.  Paige was making me go crazy.  If I hadn’t known better, I’d say I was jealous. But I didn’t get jealous and I certainly didn’t get jealous over Paige.  It was a matter of principal.  It had to be because I didn’t know another reason I was reacting this way.

I was her husband, dammit!  I knew she hated me almost as much as I hated her.  The first and only time she had said it was a punch in the gut.  It was one thing to know it and another to hear it.  I don’t even know why it tore me up so much.  Maybe because no one hated me, well, other than my father.  And even then, I didn’t think he hated me; he was just disappointed in me.  I definitely hated him.  This whole ordeal was actually more his fault than Paige’s, but she had been the one to agree to it, so it was her final cherry on the icing that sealed this crap deal.  I didn’t care what Paige thought of me; I didn’t care if she liked me or hated me.  She was just a thing in my way, an object I had to deal with.  But when she had said the words, something inside me snapped.  It didn’t feel good or right or even warranted, even though I’d done and said plenty of things to justify her hate.  It just … it wasn’t good.

Either way, she was still mine.  Mine.  She might not want to be in this marriage, and God only knew why—she was the one who had signed up for it.  She might not like me, but the fact remained that she was indeed my wife.  She was legally bound to me.  And if a secret part of me wanted to admit it, I expected her to look at me with adoration, to check out my ass as I walked by her and ogle my body when she thought I wasn’t looking.  I got that a few times, sure, but it was nothing like I was used to, nothing as I had anticipated from my wife.  I never really thought about having a wife, especially one I was forced to marry, but if I had one, I’d want her to see me and only me.  What I did was my business.  Yeah, I sounded like a hypocrite, but tough, that was who I was.

So take the fact that Paige didn’t admire me the way I deserved and couple that with the fact that she had an independent streak that I both hated and respected, and it was enough to send me over the edge.  But no, she didn’t stop there; she brought her little boyfriend to our place.  My first glimpse of him was while she was wrapped tightly around his body.  I hated the fact that she was touching another man; I hated the fact another man was touching her even more.  I hated the ease with which her body flowed around him.  I hated the way they seemed familiar with each other.  I hated everything about that situation.  I saw red only seconds after my mind went into a slideshow of all the positions they had probably been in just moments before … in my own home … under my nose.

I wanted so desperately to punch a hole in his face, but I didn’t.  I was not sure how or why I contained myself. I wanted to rip Paige away from him and take her to my room where I would lock her in the closet so no one else would touch her.  She had creamy skin and smooth curves, a wet dream, a sexy dessert, but I didn’t want her.  I just didn’t want anyone else to want her, either.

The asshole had moved toward her at one point as if she needed protection from me.  That pissed me off even more.  And then she had the audacity to stand up for him as if he meant something to her. Who the fuck was he?  He was probably nothing more than some peasant she used to warm her bed.  He wouldn’t even be back there again.  I stormed away before I did any real damage.  I heard the door close, but I didn’t hear Paige in the house, not that I would have over the roaring in my head, but that just got me even more.  She left with him.

She was mine!  My property, my possession, my wife, and he was getting her.  It took two hours of raging against my room, a cold shower, and then a good, hard fuck from one of my usuals to calm me down.

Things were tense between us for the next week; even our typical terse level of civility seemed strained.  It went back to our normal about a day or two later, and then I saw the motherfucker again.  I saw him in his car driving away from my home as I was coming back. He didn’t see me and when I came home, I didn’t see Paige, so I went out that night and got trashed and ended up with a cute blonde.  That wasn’t the last I’d seen of that asshole either.

I didn’t know why I would have rather had Paige screwing a new guy every night than seeing this guy a few times a month.  My wife was a cheating slut either way, but something about her having a steady guy bothered me more than if she had multiple guys a day.  I ended up seeing this Luke guy more times than I could count.  I’d like to say it got easier watching her parade with her boyfriend, but it didn’t.  I just got better at handling my emotions and finding an outlet.  I figured, hell, if she was getting some that night, I might as well be, too.  And if she was having sex in our home, I sure as hell would too; not that I hadn’t done that plenty of times before, but somehow, it seemed that much more apropos.

The more I saw him, though, the more I hated him and the more I hated Paige.  I was an asshole to her, to him; I made snide remarks about her whore-ish ways. I did a lot more things than I cared to admit to get her to stop seeing him, but nothing worked.  I tried everything short of beating the shit out of Luke to get him to stay away from her, but the douche wasn’t going anywhere.  I loved my pseudo-freedom and my no-strings sex lifestyle, but I did get a bit jealous of the relationship they had because it seemed that nothing could get them to break up whatever it was they were doing.  And the fact that I was covetous of that infuriated me even more than the fact that this asshole was all over my property.  I wasn’t jealous.  I would never be jealous.  Just upset.  Seemed like that was all Paige was good at – getting me upset.

*****

I’m not one hundred percent sure when it happened, or even how or why, but instead of just covering Paige with a blanket every time I found her sprawled on the couch, I started carrying her to her bed.  I remembered being hesitant the first time that I lifted her in my arms.  I had vowed never to touch her again, and although I doubted this would count, it still felt wrong.  Yet something about her in my arms, so vulnerable and so peaceful, felt downright good.  When she was asleep, when I didn’t have to stare into those mesmerizing deep blue eyes, when I didn’t remember she was a burden to me, it felt nice.

Part of me had initially moved her to her bed because she looked uncomfortable, which she normally didn’t.  A part of me wanted to feel her skin pressed against mine, something I never truly got to enjoy.  And a third part wanted her to know I wasn’t the complete asshole she thought I was, which was ironic because I spent my waking moments making sure she knew what kind of jerk I was.  I didn’t want her to wake up yet I did.  She didn’t stir.  Her breathing stayed even, her lips slightly parted, and she even curled into me as if I was her safety net, like a big cuddly bear that would protect her.  I wasn’t her savior, though; I was her enemy.  But in those moments, I felt like someone else, someone who wasn’t me.  Maybe that was why I really carried her to bed each time I saw her.  Maybe I liked being a different person and I couldn’t be that at any other time.  When she was awake, she spurned me on just by being in the same room, but this was different.

I was a bit worried after the first night.  She’d wake in her bed not knowing how she got there.  What would she think?  I waited for some kind of confrontation all day.  I figured she’d rage at me, wondering if I took advantage of her in her sleepy state.  I couldn’t blame her if she thought that way.  I wouldn’t … I couldn’t.  But I had …

I thought she’d threaten me with everything in the book and I actually wondered whether I’d let her; maybe let my guilt finally surface.  Yet I knew the minute she’d open her mouth, I’d feel nothing but rage.  I couldn’t help it around her.  She did that to me. She pissed me off.  She pushed me to the edge.  She made me feel and do things that I didn’t want to.  Yet another reason I hated her. She made me the monster she thought I was.  I was aloof, selfish, not altogether caring about anyone or anything, but I wasn’t the asshole until I was around her. She brought it out of me.

She never confronted me.  I waited for the day either she’d wake up as I carried her or she’d argue with me the next day when she found herself in her own bed.  It never came.  It became natural for me to take her to bed, tuck her in, and leave to my own room as if nothing happened.  I always wondered what she thought about waking up in bed, but I never asked.

Paige

The first time I woke up in my own bed after I slept on the couch after another “Oh, Enzo” night, I thought I had imagined everything and had never gone downstairs after all.  The second time, I was a little freaked, and by the third, I thought I had gone bat shit crazy.

“Nora, I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me,” I cried through the phone.

“P, you used to sleepwalk when you were a kid.”

Hallelujah!  I had forgotten that tiny little tidbit of my life.  “But I haven’t done that in years and the doctors told Mom and Dad that I’d grow out of it,” I whined.

“You did, for a while, I guess.  But stress will do crazy things to your body.  And if anyone is under stress, it’s you.  Take it easy, P.  You need to relax and stop letting this situation get to you.”

“I know.”

“What you really need is to leave altogether, but I know you’re not going to do that, so I simply say that you need to tell that asshole to leave you alone.  That or maybe rat poison.” She laughed.  “But seriously, you’re roommates and nothing more.  Don’t let him get to you.  Go do whatever you need to do to make your life better.”

That exact conversation had me deciding that I was going to cave on Chandra’s requests for me to join girls’ night out.  It actually wasn’t so much a request as a demand, and it wasn’t so much me caving as her dragging me out, although I didn’t protest as much as I would have prior to Nora telling me that I needed to loosen up.  That was how I ended up at a club.  My first one.

I went over to Chandra and Luke’s place to get ready there.

“How am I going to get in?” I asked since I was underage.  Actually, so was Chandra, but I knew she and her friends had been to plenty of clubs before.

“With these,” she spoke as she pushed up my boobs.

“What?” I sputtered.

“Paige, you’re beautiful with a knockout body, and once I’m done with you, the bouncers won’t be able to take their eyes off you long enough to ask for an ID.”

“Seriously?”

“Okay, so it also helps that this place is pretty lenient and doesn’t check IDs as long as you look good.”

I might not have had much experience with going out and dressing up, but I hadn’t lived under a rock. I had a skimpy dress or two that I held onto for absolutely no reason since I never wore them … until now.

My hair always had a natural wave to it, with curls that fell over my shoulders.  I never really styled it much, just either put some of it up or left it down.

“Straight or emphasize the curls? Hmm.” Chandra was talking to herself as she held up a curling iron and a flat iron and stared at my face.  Her face suddenly lit up as she squealed, “Both!”

She ended up straightening my hair and then curling the very bottoms.  Then came the makeup.  I had never seemed to have a problem with doing makeup.  However, the way Chandra made my eyes up and had my lips looking plump had me doubting my skills.  I’d have to get lessons from her.  With the whole package, I looked like a different person, an older woman.  I felt sexier than I ever had before.

“What’s Luke doing tonight?” I asked after we finished getting ready.

“Boys’ night, but don’t worry, he’s not going to crash our night.  He and his buddies are doing an all-night marathon of video games.”  Chandra laughed as if she had some secret.  I wanted that.  And it hit me yet again that I’d never have that closeness with anyone.

We picked up Chandra’s friend, Lynn, who I had met only twice before, but she later became a good friend of mine as well, and then we headed to the club.  It was exactly what I had expected.  Loud music vibrated through the walls, the beat pumping through you, forcing you to want to dance even if you didn’t like the song.  Everyone was done up as if they were waiting to be discovered for the next best porno, myself included apparently.  Bodies moved in sync with each other, having dry sex on the dance floor.  I was sure I saw a few people who might have been getting close to losing the “dry” part of dry sex.

“This is insane!” I yelled over the music.

“It’s a bit much.” Chandra leaned into my ear.  “But there’s something about it.  The ability to lose yourself and just feel the music with everyone else around you doing the same; it’s worth it.”

“What about the guys?” I asked pointing to a guy inching toward a girl dancing near him.

“I shoo them away on account of Luke, but Lynn sometimes dances with them. Sometimes, she pushes them away, too.  Sometimes, she doesn’t come home with me, if you know what I mean.” She winked.  “It’s all fun, Paige.  You don’t have to go home with them or anything.  You don’t even have to dance with them.  If they’re persistent, just shove them.” She laughed.  “Live a little.  Have fun.”  She sounded like Nora.  And they were both right.  I was going to enjoy my night.

And enjoy, I did.  I drank, probably too much, but Chandra swore if I drank some Alka Seltzer before going to bed, I’d be fine the next day.  I danced as if no one was watching.  So yep, I probably danced like a freak, but I didn’t care.  I was actually having a blast.  I even danced with a few guys, but once they got too handsy, I let them know it was a no-go.

It was after a few hours when I felt hands slide down my sides and a body press into my back.  It had been happening all night, but the way this guy caressed my body with his hands with sensual yet gentle.  It felt nice.  It felt more than nice.  I put my hands on top of his and moved them both down my legs as I dipped.  His body followed mine.  I felt like I had just joined the dry sex community.  I looked at Chandra so she could give me a nod if he was cute or a shake if he wasn’t.  She was turned, telling some guy to back off, so I turned toward Lynn.  She had a very attractive guy at her back, too.  I caught her eye and gave her a nod just as she gave me one, too.  I smiled wide.  I knew it shouldn’t matter if the guy I was dancing with was good looking, as long as I was having fun, but it sort of did matter.  I wasn’t sure why, but knowing he was a looker made me feel sexier.  Like if I could get a hot guy interested in me, then it must mean I was pretty hot myself, too.

He moved his head down to my neck so his breath tickled my ear.  I felt like a character in a romance book, realizing and feeling every detail about the moment.  He breathed in and out, letting the coolness and then heat mix and cause a shiver to run through my body.  I could feel his satisfied chuckle at that.

Then his mouth moved to my ear, his lips just a hair away from brushing it.   “I want you.”

Oh God no, I thought to myself.  That voice.  It was low and hoarse, sexy and rough, a promise of what could be, and I knew he could deliver.  I’d heard it plenty of times.  I hated that my traitorous body loved the way his fingers continued to stroke me as his simple but seductive words washed over me.  I barely even recognized the gravelly voice.  He’d never used it on me.  But I knew who it belonged to.  I didn’t want it to, but there was no denying it.

“I want you,” he whispered again, and although my body hadn’t been silent at all, my mouth could no longer stay quiet.

I turned and pushed away at the same time. “Enzo.”  It was a statement.

“Paige?” His was a question.