Chapter 13 Natalie
NATALIE
Iam fuming. It’s late and I’m sitting on the bus and can’t even see straight, I’m so mad.
My phone rings. It’s Sergio again. He’s been calling me for the last half hour. This time, I switch it off altogether.
I didn’t get a look at Professor Dayton myself because he was gone by the time I got to the office, but the looks I got from everyone else told me his spur of the moment vacation plans had something to do with me.
I’d gone in to let him know I was no longer interested in the internship.
That I was withdrawing my application and no longer would be available to volunteer. But that didn’t happen.
Lisa, the airhead receptionist, told me two men had come in to see Professor Dayton.
That they’d been wearing suits and were good looking in a bad-boy, dirty kind of way.
She’d sighed after saying it. She’d actually sighed.
Of course, she couldn’t remember their names.
I’m surprised she remembers her own some days.
I knew exactly who she was talking about and texted Sergio that dinner was off. Told him I knew what he did.
I should never have mentioned the internship or the professor. I just didn’t think it was a possibility he’d hurt him. But he must have had it on his mind all that time because he went behind my back and did what he wanted anyway completely ignoring what I said.
The bus pulls up to my stop about thirty minutes later.
I get out, cursing the high heels I’m wearing.
I had a presentation at school today, but I’d much rather be in an old pair of jeans, a huge sweater and comfy boots.
Carrying my large, cumbersome portfolio along with my backpack and the few things I’d left at the office in a plastic bag, I walk the six blocks home.
The streets are busy, it’s the dinner hour, but for some reason, I find myself looking over my shoulder more than once, unable to shake the feeling I’m being followed.
That’s got to be Sergio’s influence on my life.
He’s a mobster. What he does he proved tonight.
He beats people up. Hurts them. It’s what he knows.
Is it all he knows? With me, he’s been so gentle. So generous.
I shake my head. Trying to reconcile these two sides of him is giving me a headache.
Elftreth’s Alley is empty. No reason to be here unless you live here.
The tourists usually come by during the day, not at night, at least not during the winter months.
I dig my new key out of my pocket. The fact that I have these new locks—courtesy of Sergio who steamrolls to get his way—irritates me.
I unlock the door and step inside. The first thing I do is slip off my shoes, leaving them as I walk to the kitchen table to set down the portfolio.
I realize it’s strange Pepper didn’t greet me tonight.
I’m later than usual and she’s probably hungry.
“Pepper, I’m home. Sorry I’m late. You wouldn’t believe my day.” I walk around the table to open the cabinet under the sink and get her food. “Come on, honey. Dinner.”
Nothing. Not even when she must hear the sound of food filling her bowl.
I stop. “Pepper?” My heart races. Shit. She’s so old. What if…
I straighten, thinking the worst, and turn to head into the living room. I switch on the light and let out a scream because I’m not alone.
Sergio’s here. Sitting in the middle of the couch, arms spread wide, eyes hard.
And right now, he looks like a fucking Godfather.
Pepper’s on the floor, her head on his shoe, sleeping.
“I fed her.” He’s pissed, I can hear it in his voice, feel it coming off him. There’s a half empty bottle of whiskey on the coffee table.
“What are you doing here? How did you get in?”
“She was hungry.”
“How did you get inside?” I repeat. I can match his anger.
“I told you I had a key.”
Fuck. That’s what he’d meant last night. “You can’t have a key. I never gave you one.”
“You switched off your phone.”
I walk over to Pepper, squat down to pet her. I don’t look at him when I answer. “Because I didn’t want to talk to you.”
“When I call you, you answer.”
“Doesn’t work that way.” I say, standing, spinning on my heel.
I’m about to walk away when he captures my wrist, his grip firm, more firm than he’s ever been with me.
I make a sound, try to pull free, but he tugs on my arm, kicks my feet out from under me so I fall face down onto his lap. “What are you—”
He slaps my ass hard ten times in succession.
I’m gasping, instinctively reaching back to cover the spot. He captures my wrist, so he has both now, and holds them in one of his hands. I crane my neck to look up at him. He keeps his eyes locked on mine and rubs one hand over my ass, then spanks it again, ten more times on the other cheek.
“Stop!” It fucking hurts.
“When I call you, you answer, Natalie.”
I tug at my arms, but his grip is vice-like.
“Do you understand?” he asks.
“Let me go.”
“Do you fucking understand?”
“Yes!”
He gives me one more hard smack before releasing me, and I stumble to my feet. I feel hot, embarrassed, and I’m clutching my ass.
“I just want you safe.” He gets to his feet.
I step backward.
He’s wearing a suit, the jacket of which is hanging over the back of a chair. He gently moves Pepper’s head off his foot before he walks toward me.
I’m mute as he approaches. There’s a darkness to Sergio Benedetti. It clings to him, like a shadow. It’s the one thing that scares me about him because I trust that he won’t hurt me. And I believe that he wants me safe. I may not understand it, but I believe it.
But this shadow, it’s not one he casts. The opposite. It seems to cast itself over him. To have a claim on him. Some strange, powerful hold over him.
“You shouldn’t have hurt him,” I say when my back’s against the wall and he’s standing inches from me.
“You couldn’t protect yourself so I did it for you. Besides, this isn’t important. That idiot isn’t important.”
“No, it doesn’t work that way. I didn’t want—”
“How does it work?” he asks, one corner of his mouth curling upward. He looks me over, leans his forearms against the wall on either side of my head. “Huh?” He dips his head closer, inhales, touches the scruff of his jaw against my cheek. “Explain to me how it works.”
I look up at him, at his midnight eyes. I smell his aftershave, remember what we did last night. My body remembers too.
“How does it work, Nat?”
I hate the nickname. Always have.
“Huh?” he continues. “I stand back while some asshole intimidates you into his bed?”
“I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I’m not fucking stupid. And I don’t need someone to protect me. I don’t need some knight in shining armor and I’m not looking for a hero.” Tears warm my eyes. I hate them, hate the weakness. But what I’ve said has made him stop. Confused him almost.
Then he laughs. “You think I’m trying to be the hero?” A moment later, he drops his head. His forehead creases and he’s looking down for a long time before he shifts his gaze back up to mine, searching mine as if it holds the answers. “I’m not the hero, sweetheart. I’m the fucking monster.”
When I don’t reply, he grins. It’s a sad, one sided thing.
“What do you think of that? Makes more sense, right?”
I push against him, but it’s like trying to move a wall, and the look in his eyes, the dark desperation in his words, his voice, it scares me. “Let me go.”
“No.” He takes my wrists in one of his hands, draws them over my head, pins them to the wall.
His other hand grips my skirt, yanks it up.
“You’re good. You’re the only good in my life, you know that?
” His eyes skim my bared legs, the stockings that reach mid-thigh.
“And I want what I want,” he finishes, dragging his gaze back to mine.
“I should let you go. It’s the right thing to do, I know. ”
I can’t process what he’s saying—it’s almost like he’s not talking to me but to himself. Like he’s been thinking and thinking and he’s just saying it out loud now.
He touches my face, my cheek. His thumb presses against my lower lip, forces my mouth open. “But I can’t,” he says finally.
“You have a key to my house.” It’s all I can say and fuck, he’s so close and when he presses against me, against my clit, it takes all I have to not wrap my legs around him.
Rub myself against him. Hump him like some animal.
Because I do want this. Want him. It’s not just that part of me, either.
It’s all of me. Even though I know my heart will shatter when it’s finished. When he’s gone.
He kisses me hard, not waiting for me to kiss him back. His fingers curl into the crotch of my panties, push them aside, roughly rub my clit.
“You’re wet.”
“This is too fast. We don’t even know each other. Don’t you see how strange this is? How not normal?” I’m just talking though. I don’t want him to go. To walk away. Even if it is wrong.
Keeping me pinned to the wall, he undoes his belt, the buttons of his pants. He pushes them down and the smooth skin of his cock makes me moan as he rubs against my clit, between my folds.
“You should make me stop,” he whispers into my ear, then bites my earlobe. It’s like neither of us is listening to the other, though, because we’re saying the same thing but we’re both powerless to do it.
When he puts his mouth to mine, I open for him, our kiss wet, his tongue dipping inside my mouth as he sets my hands on his shoulders and lifts me up by my hips.
“Say no and I’ll stop,” he says, biting my lip, making me taste the metal of blood. “Say no, Natalie. Make me go. Make me walk away.” He pauses, looks at me. “I’ll let you in on a little secret.” He whispers the next part: “It’s better for you if you do.”