Lady and the Champ (36 page)

“I’m not sure the Department of Health would approve of this,” she says, but at the same time she arches back against me.

“Considering we already did it once…” I let that trail off, and she chuckles. Her hands move back, reaching behind her to cup my head as I lean into the curve between her neck and her shoulder. She smells like sugar, honey, cinnamon. Honest to God, I may never be able to walk into a bakery again—any bakery—without getting a massive hard-on.

Speaking of which… I press my current massive hard-on against the small of her back, and she wiggles against it. I hear her soft chuckle and suddenly I want
inside
. Want nothing but to fuck her until she screams my name, until she can’t move. And, yes, to mark her again with my seed deep inside her.

“We should go home,” she says. “Do this in a more appropriate place.”

“No. I want you now. Right now.” I bite at her neck, and she lets out a soft noise.

Breathless, she says, “Not on the counter. Okay?”

“Where, then?” I don’t really expect her to answer. Don’t really want her to. Regardless of her concerns, I’m ready to take her right here. I reach around her and pull at her shirt, the buttons popping free from the buttonholes. I hear at least one hit the floor. She’s braless under it, her breasts full and plump and falling right into the curves of my hands. They’re warm—almost hot. I wonder how big they’ll be when she’s pregnant. When they’re full of milk, overflowing.

God. Never in my life have I thought about a woman this way. They’ve been little more than something pretty to have on my arm for a few hours, something warm to put my dick in for a few minutes. This is something else entirely.

This deal we’ve made means Sarah’s going to be with me for a long time. I’ll be taking care of her, protecting her. She’ll be depending on me, and it’ll be my duty as a man to be sure I don’t let her down.

I don’t know why the thought makes me want her so badly. Some primitive instinct demands that I mark her over and over again, be sure my smell covers every possible inch of her skin. I pull the shirt down from her shoulders, off her arms, let it drop to the floor. It’ll be covered in flour; I don’t care. I spin her around so she’s facing me, and I close my mouth over her breast.

She’s small enough it’s a bit uncomfortable to dip my head, so I pick her up and set her on the counter in spite of her small sound of protest. Fuck it. We can clean the counter. That’s what disinfectant is for. I dive between her tits and start biting.

Her hands go to my hair, but she’s pulling me closer, not dragging me away. I draw back a little to look at the red crescents my teeth have left behind on the tender skin of her breast. I lick the mark and then set my teeth to her nipple.

She gives a little gasp. I can tell I’m hurting her, but I can also tell she’s into it. Big-time. I push a hand down the front of her jeans until I find the wet crotch of her panties. She’s soaked. And she’s not pulling back and not telling me no, so I tighten my teeth a little more before I ease back and start to suckle.

Drawing my hand back out of her jeans, I pop the button and slide the zipper down, pushing the pants down her hips. She’s still got her panties on, but they’re not much of a barrier. I can slide my fingers under the hem next to her thigh and have sufficient access. I do that, three fingers going immediately into her, shoving upward. She grabs at my shoulders as I thrust my hand into her hard enough to bring her partially off her butt.

Opening her mouth, she starts to say something, but I stop her with my mouth on hers. Her grip tightens on my shoulders, her nails digging in through my shirt. I keep thrusting into her with my hand—four fingers now—and she writhes on me, pushing back down with every upward movement.

It’s not gentle. I’m not sure I’ve ever been gentle with her. She doesn’t seem to want it. I press my fingers up, curl them, and with the next thrust she falls apart around my hand.

She doesn’t scream, which is a shame, but she shakes, and I can feel a torrent of wetness pouring down to my wrist. I’m still kissing her, plundering her mouth while she gives as good as she gets, her teeth scraping my tongue, biting my lips. Her body clenches on me, pulsing. Between us, she starts to grab at my button and my fly.

I let her. As soon as she’s got them both open, I cup my hands under her ass and pick her up off the counter. By the time I slam her back into the nearest refrigerator, she’s got my dick out and is scraping it with her fingernails.

“Shit, shit,” I mutter. It hurts, and I almost drop her, but at the same time the pain makes a tight knot of lust at the small of my back. “Let go.”

She does, and I’m both relieved and bereft at the loss of her small, painful hands. In the next second, though, I’m inside her, slamming her into the refrigerator, holding her there more with the force of my hips thrusting between her legs than with my hands that still clutch her ass.

I take her hard, just as I did with my fingers, pounding her with everything I’ve got. It can’t be comfortable, but she just folds her legs around my waist and holds on. She bites my earlobes, yanks at my hair. I growl and fuck her harder.

She’s dragging her nails down my back, probably leaving marks even through the shirt I’m still wearing, when I come so hard my vision goes black for a few seconds. It’s a screaming maelstrom of an orgasm, ripping up my back to the base of my neck, clenching my balls in a tight fist, moving in waves down the insides of my thighs. The growl that comes out of me doesn’t sound human. I keep shoving into her all the way through it, until my arms start to shake and I have to ease back a little. As the orgasm fades into slow, intermittent pulses, I let her slide down until her feet touch the floor. My dick’s still a little hard, and sticky as it brushes over the softness of her belly.

She looks up at me, pupils blown, her hair a mussed black cloud around her face.

“Take me home,” she says, her voice breathy. “Do it to me again.”

 
Y
et another morning
awakening in Nick’s bed, in his arms. He’s still asleep, his breathing slow and even, and his body is warm against mine. I hold still; for the moment I’m not ready for him to wake up. I know he’ll probably want sex. Not that I wouldn’t be willing, but I’d rather just lie here for a while. Maybe actually rest for a change.

The sex is good—there’s no questioning that—but I’m still not sure if he has any actual feelings for me. I wonder if it matters in the long run. Especially since I’m not sure I have any actual feelings for him.

He’s using me—I know that much. But I’m using him, too. For now it’s what we both need. Once he’s gotten the position he wants in Spada’s organization, and once I’m safely away from Sal…who knows?

But then there’s the question of the baby. If I do get pregnant, I can’t imagine leaving my child behind, even if it means staying with Nick. Once there’s a baby, everything changes.

Would that be so bad, though? Nick’s good to me, at least so far, whether he loves me or not. And he’ll be invested in keeping his child safe, protecting me and the baby. I’ll be guaranteed a place to live and a relatively affluent lifestyle. He’s promised me that. More, I’ll get to be a mother, raising his child—maybe even more than one, if I stay with him—running his household. And running my business, which is the only thing I ever really wanted in the first place. Maybe, in time, we’ll work out a kind of truce. Maybe, in time, we might even develop some affection for each other.

I lay a hand on my stomach, wondering. Yes, it could take months for me to get pregnant, but what if it’s already happened? That might make it harder for me to get away, but it would certainly make Nick happy. Which, in turn, could make my life easier while I stay with him.

I take a long breath, lost in the circle of questions that have no answers. Nick stirs next to me, and I finally give up and roll out of bed to go to the bathroom. When I come back, Nick’s half sitting up against his pillows, watching me as I return to the bed. He gives me a slow smile, and I get back under the blankets next to him.

To my surprise, he just wraps his arms around me and kisses my neck, not making any effort to initiate sex. At least not yet. I lay a hand on his, content just to lie there for now, enjoying the warmth and the way he feels wrapped around me.

After a while, though, everything that happened yesterday starts to creep up on me. I can’t just let it rest; I’m worried about what’s going to happen to the bakery. How can I keep any momentum going if I’m not there to keep the doors open?

Nick strokes my hair, his fingers combing into it. “What’s wrong?”

My shoulders stiffen. Sometimes I think he can read my mind, but then again I guess I make it pretty obvious when I’m stressing over something. “I’m just thinking about the bakery.”

“It’ll take care of itself.” He keeps stroking my hair, the touch soothing.

“No, it won’t. That’s the problem. If I’m going to stay even close to solvent, I need to be there.”

He sighs and draws his hand away from me. I almost regret bringing anything up at all, because his caresses were soothing. Now he’s just holding me loosely, not even quite touching my back with his chest anymore.

“At this point, there’s no way you can ever be close to solvent.”

I turn to face him. I want to see his expression. “What do you mean?”

“You owe too much on that damn loan.” He doesn’t look particularly angry about it, but the words still send my hackles up.

“Can’t you take care of that?” I thought that was part of our deal, but maybe I was wrong.

He shakes his head a little. “Spada told me to pay it off, but I don’t have the funds. Not right now, anyway. The smart thing to do would probably be to sell and start over from scratch.”

“No.” I press my lips together hard, stubborn. “No way. No way in hell.”

“You’ve got to be realistic here, hon.” His conciliatory tone just makes me angrier. “If I’m going to get you out from under Sal, it needs to be all the way out from under. And that includes the loan.”

“I’ve worked so hard on that business. All I need is a little more time, some new equipment, and I’ll have things rolling. I know it.”

“And that takes money.”

I pull back away from him even farther, pulling a sheet up to cover myself. “You said you’d protect my legacy.”

“I will, but it has to be on my terms.”

“No.” What the hell is he pulling? This isn’t the way it was supposed to go. “No. It’s my business, and I want to run it on my terms. Not Sal’s. Not yours. Mine.”

“I’m sorry, Sarah, but that just might not be possible. Not for a while. If we sell—”

“No! I won’t sell.”

“Sarah. You have to look at this logically. I know you’re proud of what you’ve done there, but is that more important than your life? It might come down to that.”

“Goddammit,” I mutter, and fling myself onto my back. I’m so angry, and I know I have to keep it under control. Lashing out at Nick won’t help anything, and in spite of the way he’s treated me so far, I’m still afraid he might snap and hit me. God, I hate feeling that way.

We’re both quiet for a few seconds and then Nick moves a little closer. “Hey,” he says, and his voice is gentle. I turn to meet his gaze. He smiles a little at me. “We’ll work it out. I promise. And I won’t do anything right away. We can talk later. Maybe tonight after I get back home.”

“You’re leaving?”

“Yeah. I need to go to work.”

“So you’re not okay with me being alone at the bakery, but you’re okay with me being alone at home?”

“I’ve got a couple guys watching the place. They’ll be by from time to time. You might not see them, but they’re under orders to check on you. Plus I trust the security system here a lot more than I trust whatever security system you have at the bakery.”

I’m not sure if this makes me feel safer or more hemmed in. Either way, I’m going to have to deal with it.

“Okay. Any chance I can go buy some new clothes?”

He looks vaguely surprised, as if he forgot all about that. “I’ll send Chris around later—he’ll take you shopping.”

It’s better than nothing. I nod and offer him a conciliatory smile. “Thanks. Have a good day.”

“You too,” he says, and heads for the bathroom.

* * *

P
oking
around in Nick’s closet, I realize he’s gathered some clothes for me and put them in the front of the closet where I can find them. They all look to be roughly the right size. That’s handy—at least I won’t have to wear the same clothes every day until I can manage to go shopping. I’m not sure I want to go with Chris, either. I’d rather go by myself, or even with Nick.

I pick out a top and some jeans, still not entirely comfortable with wearing some other anonymous woman’s clothes. I’d so much rather have my own wardrobe back, but Nick’s right. It’s too dangerous at the moment to go back to Sal’s. I might get a chance to later, but not any time soon.

I shake my head at myself. It’s not like I didn’t know already what it was going to be like to be a kept woman. At least Nick’s mostly a decent guy.
It’ll all work out,
I tell myself, but I’m not sure I believe it.

Finally I feel a bit more myself, hair combed, face washed, bare feet. I head down to the kitchen to see what I can find for breakfast. I might as well make the most of the day, I figure, so I grab a piece of paper and a pencil from next to the phone and jot down some notes—a rough to-do list to keep me productive for the next few hours. If I can’t actually go to the bakery, I can at least make some plans and crunch some numbers for when Nick does let me get back to business.

Trouble is, when I finish breakfast, I can’t find my laptop. What the hell did I do with it? I know I had it when I first came over to Nick’s place; I was working on it just yesterday.

But I don’t remember taking it home. Mostly I just remember Nick coming by and me getting, well, distracted. I left with him without grabbing the laptop. Or anything else I really wanted to grab so I can do some additional work while Nick insists on keeping me under house arrest.

Shit. I want to smack myself. I’ve got to go back to the bakery. I’m getting panicky just thinking about the laptop and all my paperwork being there. What if Sal shows up and cleans the place out, takes the computer, takes all the work I’ve done, my spreadsheets, my projections, my supplier information, all my contacts? Add to that the laptop is one of the only things I have that’s my own, since it was at the bakery, in the office, when I left with Nick after the engagement party.

I realize I’m actually starting to hyperventilate. God. I can’t let all that go down the drain. It’d be nearly as bad as letting Sal burn the place down and collect the insurance, which I’m positive was in his plans.

I take a slow, deep breath, trying to get my emotions back under control. Fine. I’ll go see if I can find one of Nick’s guys, the ones he said he’d leave to watch me. If I can’t get in touch with one in the next five minutes, I’ll take the car again and go myself. I know exactly where the laptop is—it won’t take me long. In and out. Nothing more. I know Nick won’t like it, but I don’t have a choice.

I don’t see anybody outside. Wherever these supposed protectors are, they aren’t making their presence known. I guess that’s a good thing in some ways, but just at the moment it’s doing me no good. I walk around the front yard for a few minutes just to see if I can scare anybody up. No joy.

The car it is, then. I head for the garage and, five minutes later, I’m on the road.

I don’t see anything suspicious on the street outside the bakery, but I know chances are good that Sal’s either watching the place himself or has one of him men doing it. In fact, the chances are excellent. My panic ratchets up again, this time focused on my own safety rather than that of the bakery. Maybe it’s about time my instincts for self-preservation kicked in. Or maybe not. I waffle for a split second—is it really worth the risk?

Yes. Yes, it is. I get out of the car.

I feel like there’s a giant target painted in the middle of my back as I unlock the door. Reaching inside, I flip the light switches.

Nothing happens. What the fuck? Everything was fine just yesterday. I flip them a couple more times, but the room remains stubbornly dark.

I step inside, and the silence strikes me. None of the refrigerators are working. None of the freezers. Goddammit! Nothing I made yesterday and tossed into the freezer to work with later is going to last. It could be trashed already. The dough I made yesterday, the eggs and milk and cream and…

The trembling anxiety turns into full-fledged panic. I rush into the shop, damn near leap over the counter to get into the back room. Sure enough, everything’s shut down. No electricity anywhere. I open one of the fridges and stick my hand in. It’s almost room temperature—it’s been off for a while. I don’t even want to look into any of the freezers.

Fighting tears, I try to work out my best course of action. Call the electric company? Try to salvage what I can from the storage areas? Call Nick?

Then I realize the silence isn’t the only thing that’s wrong. I smell gas.

Oh my God. With the electricity off, the gas stoves can be turned on and left that way, gas just pouring out into the air, because there’s no igniter to start a flame. Somebody’s done exactly that; the knobs on the stove are turned to
On
.

This place is a death trap.

I freeze, completely taken over by terror, but only for a split second. I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to call Nick. I’ve got to do something—open the windows, let the gas out, let air in to dissipate it before the whole store goes up in flames.

First I grab my phone. A split second before I hit the call button, I realize there’s a chance it could ignite the gas I can now smell thick around me and getting thicker. I shove the phone back into my pocket.

Okay, fine. Get the hell out of here, then. But first I go to the office and grab the laptop. Stupid, probably, but I’m not going to leave it.

Laptop clutched close, I finally do the smart thing and leave the bakery. Out on the sidewalk, I pull my phone out again and call Nick.

He answers almost right away. “Sarah. What’s up?”

“The bakery. It’s…there’s gas…I think Sal’s been here. The stoves are all on, there’s no electricity—” I’m rambling, and I’m actually vaguely surprised when Nick manages to make some kind of sense out of what I’m saying. He starts screaming in my ear.

“Get away from there, Sarah! Right the fuck now! Get out of the bakery and just fucking run!”

I head for the car. I suppose there’s a slight chance if I start the car, it could ignite the gas coming from the bakery, but surely there’s not enough of it out here for that to happen. And I need to get away as fast as possible—

A hand grabs my arm from behind, spinning me around harshly. I recognize that hand just from the way the fingers dig into me.

Shit. It’s Sal. His face is twisted into a mask of pure rage; I’ve never seen him look so utterly furious. He barely looks human, his face gone red and purple.