Chapter Twenty-three – Angela
Chapter Twenty-three
Angela
If there was one thing Paco and I could agree on, it was silence.
He drove the car, looking at all the mirrors frequently, to make sure we weren’t being followed, and to check on me in the back seat.
I was tangled in a ball, my knees up under my chin, my skirt wrapped around them, my sandals on the nice leather interior without thinking, hugging one hand around my midriff, the other playing mindlessly with the zippers on the duffle.
My stomach hurt. I’d never taken so much silver before at once—but she’d never been so close to coming out of me, either.
I was worried about her—and worried about me.
Would she come back? Had I poisoned her—and in doing so, poisoned myself?
I didn’t know. And it was hard to muster the strength to care because of my mom.
What the fuck had Gray been thinking? Was killing my mother intentional? Meant to send a message to me about how far they’d go? Or was she just a tragic accident, just another casualty in our family-sized war?
The bloody rabbit…now that was a message. They wanted him, and they were tired of waiting for me. Either behave—or it’ll be your blood up on the wall, and you’ll still lose him.
It was time for us to do the only thing we could—the thing we should’ve done months, no years, ago—run.
And I wouldn’t go back for my tattoo guns, this time.
The car pulled us into the circular driveway at Mark’s, past two armed guards at the door. Mark’s home was an eight bedroom palace almost half-an-hour out of town built to highlight dramatic views through bulletproof glass.
The men nodded to me as I got out of the car and went in.
Vaulted ceilings, amazing staircases—my mother’s death had solved the problem of how Mark would manage to make a scooter-mover look tasteful, at least. I ran a hand through my hair, cursing my dark sense of humor, and struggling not to cry.
This was the kind of life my mother had dreamed of for me and now—
“Momma?” Rabbit’s voice echoed from somewhere up above. “Momma!”
I raced toward him, instinctively.
He was three rooms in on the second floor, in a guest bedroom done up in swags of deep maroon and army green. I burst in on him, finding him tangled in his sheets, in the throes of a nightmare. “Momma!” he shouted out.
I sank onto the bed beside him. “Shh. It’s okay, I’m here now, shh.”
He struggled a little, made a puppy-whine, and then relented.
How long had it been since I’d given him silver?
Who would know to give him silver if anything happened to me?
I smoothed his brow with one hand, and reached into my bag with the other.
Just sticking my finger into the colloidal silver bottle burned—but my fingertip retrieved a drop, and with my other hand, I opened up his mouth a little and let it fall—burning him same as it’d burned me.
“This is all my fault,” I said, kissing him on his cheeks and forehead. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
“You’re wrong,” said a voice from the doorway. I turned and saw Mark, standing there with crossed arms.
“What?”
“It’s not your fault. It only feels that way right now.
” He put his hand out for me, and I ignored it, choosing instead to straighten Rabbit’s covers, pulling him a toy out of the duffle bag to snuggle near.
Then and only then, I stood—and carefully walked through the doorway without touching him.
There were three cars in the driveway, surely Mark didn’t carry around three sets of keys—or maybe I should get a rental—no—I’d take one of Mark’s cars, drive to Barstow, and then get a rental—distance first, distance was imperative—
“Angela, please don’t shut me out.”
“It’s your house, I could hardly manage to.
” The last time I’d seen car keys here they’d been on his desk—I started walking fiercely down the hall, with him close behind.
I turned and went into his office—it was twice the size of his one at work, in almost every respect—bigger desk, bigger couch, even more certificates on the wall proclaiming he was a respectable citizen.
“I know you’re hurting Angie, but please,” he said, more firmly blocking the door, as I went through the papers on his desk, searching for keys I couldn’t find.
I whirled on him. “I know you love me—but I don’t love you.”
He looked gravely wounded at that. “Angela,” he groaned.
“I was only fucking you so that you would kill Gray.”
“That’s a lie and you know it.”
I reached the last stack on his desk and swiped it off, papers fluttering to the ground. “If he were dead already, this wouldn’t be happening, but he’s not, because you can’t, because no one can—and now Rabbit and I need to get the fuck away. Give me keys!”
Mark took one step in and then another, hands held high. “You’re acting crazy Angie—stop that.”
“You’re the crazy one! Thinking you can love me!” I shoved a paperweight off his desk and it dropped putting a solid ding in the undoubtedly expensive reclaimed barnwood floor. “You don’t even know me!”
“Yes, I do.”
“No! You don’t!” I shouted at him, at full force.
I was tired of pretending—I was tired of everything—I grabbed the top of my shirt with both my hands and ripped it open.
“See?” I said, dropping every wall I had, waiting for her to race out and frighten him.
Only she wasn’t there right now, after all the silver I’d chugged to send her away.
I couldn’t even get that right. I fell to my knees, sobbing.
Mark squatted on his heels not that far away. “Angela,” he said, much more kindly than I deserved. “You’ve had a long day and a shittier night. Let’s pretend this didn’t happen, all right?”
“I’m a werewolf, Mark. And so is Gray. And if you don’t let me leave right now with Rabbit, he’s going to come and kill you.”
Mark gave me a pitying look, and scooped me up. “Come on. I’ve got some sleeping pills in my bedroom.”
I let Mark put me on his bed, undress me, and then put me underneath the sheets, all with infinite care. “You’re tiny, so,” he explained as he snapped a pill in half, before sticking it in my mouth. I only had a moment to taste the bitterness, before he offered me a swig of water and relief.
I doubted twelve of anything could put me under right now—but within minutes I felt the urge to sleep come on me like a wave and take me out.
I woke three hours later, because the clock on the nightstand said it was only midnight. I stirred, feeling Mark’s high thread count sheets hold me, and then I heard him.
“You were supposed to sleep longer,” he said, looking down and over. He was mostly clothed—his shoes and suit jacket were off, and he was propped up against a pile of pillows, reading a tablet. He had reading glasses on, ones I’d never seen him wear before.
“Was I?”
“Only because you needed it.” He reached over and pressed a hand to my forehead like a concerned mom. “You’ve had a long day.”
The safe envelope of sleep burst, and everything that’d happened—my mother, the blood, our fight—settled back down, pressing the life from me. “Yeah,” I agreed, softly.
His thumb stroked the furrows of my brow. “Are you feeling any better?”
I shook my head no.
“You said some crazy things. Still think you’re a werewolf?”
I searched inside myself. She was nowhere to be found. “No.” Me getting committed to an insane asylum would make it a hundred times easier for the Pack to steal Rabbit.
“K.” He returned his hand to his tablet and used it to stroke a page aside.
“What’re you reading?”
“Complicated women and how to love them,” he said dryly. I snorted. “It’s a New Yorker.”
“Of course it is,” I said, and rolled over, showing him my back.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That we’re from different worlds. Even if you work with mobsters now—you work with high class mobsters. It’s different.”
There was utter and extreme silence from his half of the bed. I knew he was getting ready to lawyerize at me. “I’m sick to death of this ‘I don’t deserve you bullshit,’ Angela. You’re the only one who thinks you’re stuck in a fairytale.”
“If I were stuck in a fairytale, my mom wouldn’t have died.”
That shut him up. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” I curled into a ball.
I heard him set the tablet down and felt the bed move as he came to lay beside me, wrapping himself around me on top of the covers like a big spoon. “You should go back to sleep.”
“Why? It doesn’t fix anything.”
“It might help, if you let it.” His free hand brushed through my hair. “I’ll be here, watching over you all night.”
“Gray is going to come after me and Rabbit.”
He worried his chin against the back of my head. “There’s ten guys out there, in between us and him.
“That’s not enough.”
“How many will it take to make you feel safe? Twenty? Thirty? A hundred?” He wrapped his arm around me and held me tight. “Only if they have silver knives?” he teased.
“It’s not me. It’s you. I can’t have anything happen to you, too.” I put a sheet-wrapped knuckle into my mouth at the thought of losing him.
“And you said you didn’t love me.” I could hear his tone—droll, but hopeful.
“I lied,” I confessed.
I heard him swallow softly. “I know these are shitty circumstances…but can I hear you say it?”
I twisted my head up to look at him, largely shadowed by his jaw. “I love you, Mark. I probably have for a while now, I just didn’t want to….” My voice faded as I lost strength.
“To what?” he asked.
“Let you know. Not because I was worried about giving away the upper-hand or any rom-com stuff—but because of stuff like this. And because I wanted you to say it first.”
He bent his head and took my chin and made our lips align. “I love you, Angela,” he breathed into me, looking down, and kissed me gently.
My body instantly warmed. Everything that’d happened—just like sleep could make you forget for a moment, sex could too, if you let it, if you did it right. I spun in the sheets to face him, and as he leaned in, I started pushing them down.
He intuited my purpose quickly. “You’re sure?” he breathed.
“Yes. Please. I love you,” I said, and started working at the buttons at his throat. He leaned back and went for his waistband, pushing his boxers and slacks clear but not all the way off—then he grabbed my wrists and pushed me back, laying on top of me, still with half his clothes on.
“Say it again.”
“I love you,” I whispered. I could feel him hard against me, and I tilted my hips up to catch him.
He kissed me deeply, then, “Again.”
“I love you,” I whispered breathlessly, as he reached down to push my underwear aside and then push in.
I put one leg over him and gave myself over to the moment, as his kisses ravished my mouth and neck, as we rocked.
All the movements were small, but amplified by the care both of us took with each other.
We were now two people in love, and both of us knew it.
He let go of my wrists and I found his hair with one hand and went down his back with the other to pull up his shirt.
Still kissing me, we turned, so that I was on top, riding and rubbing myself against him.
“God, I love you, Angela,” he repeated, looking up at me, reaching up to hold my hair back so that he could see more of me as I straddled him.
I wanted to touch more of his still clothed skin, but I knew there wasn’t time—the release of emotions made it so intense—I grabbed hold of his shirt and clawed it into my hands.
“Mark,” I warned him.
“Keep going,” he growled. “I want to see the woman I love come.”
I held onto his shirt to keep me upright and then rode his cock, hard and fast, rubbing myself more into him each time, feeling the need for release scrape up from deep inside, ready to wring me out, as I used my lover’s cock to screw me to oblivion—
“Oh my God—Mark!” I shouted, helplessly, as the first wave hit me and took me down. I fell forward with the force of it, but that didn’t stop the next wave from slamming close behind. “Mark—Mark—Mark,” I said and kept rocking my hips against him.
“Yes,” he purred beneath me, feeling my pussy squeeze him tight. I wound up flat and panting on his chest like a shipwreck survivor who’d just found land—then his hands reached for my waist, and I looked up.
“Oh fuck me Mark, please,” I breathed—because I knew he wanted to hear it, and because the longer we were here the longer I could keep reality at bay.
He braced his feet on his bed and had his way with me, holding my hips down while he pounded up or making me fuck him in turn.
My breasts were going to have rug burn from his shirt, and a line of bruises from his buttons, but I didn’t mind—I needed to be wanted, brutally, just like this.
I reached back to spread myself wider, to take more of him in—I arched my hips up, to give all of myself to him, and he moaned at getting such perfect and eager submission.
It made him harder, knowing that I was ceding myself and—his hands holding my ass clenched as I heard him gasp and then his hips thrust into me fully, another perfect ten times and—he groaned deeply, wildly, as I felt his entire cock twitch and bob inside me, his load surely shooting out.
“Angela,” he breathed, when next he could. I lay atop him, dizzy. If I truly loved him, I had to leave—but if I truly loved him, I couldn’t break his heart like that, not even for his own good. No, the second she came back I would—
“Angela,” he murmured, moving to cradle me, holding me in his arms against his chest. “I love you so much.”
I moved to softly kiss his jaw. “I love you too,” I whispered.
Even if it’s going to be the death of us.