Chapter Twenty-Two #2
“Right,” I said slowly. “Why wouldn’t she want a custom design? Do you think my wife should travel in a generic jet? Something bland and boring? Like a peasant?”
I was fucking with him, knowing he’d gladly surrender every hole in his body to me in exchange for managing a portfolio like mine. Usually, I derived endless pleasure from taunting people.
Row, Rhyland, and Kieran slowly spun their heads to stare at me, looking like I just shat in their cereal bowls.
I didn’t usually have a one-track mind, but I couldn’t stop thinking about her. The way she bit my finger too hard, threatened me with knives, and tried to elbow me off my own galloping horse.
Her mouth. Her tits. Her cunt. Her ass. Her legs. Her laugh …
She never laughed for me, but whenever she did laugh, life ceased to be an endless torture of medieval fucking proportions.
“Certainly not! But the custom tail lettering…uh…” Hans paused. Gulped. “It reads My Husband Is a Knobhead across the empennage.”
A long silence strained between us before I let loose a joyous burst of laughter. It was, to my knowledge, the first time I laughed in my entire life. I was not a laugher.
I was barely a smirker.
Row, Rhyland, and Kieran stopped their conversation again, shifting their stunned gazes to me.
“Think he’s going through some kind of a nervous breakdown?” Row murmured.
“Looks it.” Rhyland fumbled with his pocket, tugging out his phone. “Shit, get your phones out. We can extort him with the evidence.” He pointed it at me.
“Where’s your humanity?” Kieran chided, turning Rhyland’s phone from vertical to horizontal. “Nobody can pull off vertical videos.” He took his own phone out. “I’m sending this to Gia. Maybe it’s her way out.”
“Hans,” I addressed my financier, who was likely unconscious from mortification at this point. “Make it My Husband Has a BIG Knob and approve the transaction.”
“As I always say, sir, you have excellent taste. Understated elegance. I shall do that immed—”
I killed the call.
It was half past midnight when Gia texted me that she was heading home. Even though I’d already showered and dressed for bed, I summoned Iven to usher me to La Grande Boucherie to pick her up. I wanted to see for myself she was alive and in one piece.
Purely for capital reasons, of course.
She stood at the curb surrounded by huge, scary-looking security detail and Enzo, and for the first time in my life, something that resembled guilt speared me. I’d snatched away whatever little normalcy she had left.
One of the Ferrante soldiers opened the back door for her, and she poured inside, all smooth legs and breathless giggles.
She wore a velvet burgundy dress with gold buttons.
Sophisticated, rich, and demure. I was glad she’d outgrown the phase of wearing skimpy clothes to piss me off.
While I was certain I could get away with three murders, killing the entire male population of Manhattan seemed like a stretch, even for a savant like me.
Her long legs folded nimbly beneath her pert ass, and she flung her head back in a fit of uncharacteristic snickers. Beneath her normal scent of sensual oils and Tom Ford perfume was a hint of daiquiri.
“Are you drunk?” I asked deprecatingly.
“Positively plastered. Is my bottom on your crotch?” She wiggled in her seat before I managed to buckle her up.
“No.” I hoped I didn’t look as flustered as I felt, seeing her dangled in front of me like bait, decadent and alluring, knowing I couldn’t bury my dick in her even after putting a ring and—more recently tonight—a fucking thirteen-million-dollar private island on it.
“What do you reckon I’m sitting on then?” She twisted back and pulled something from beneath her. “Oh!” She snorted. “It’s the liquor I bought earlier tonight.”
A Bhakta 1990 Jamaican rum.
“Flattered you’d mix the two up.” I scanned the 750-milliliter bottle. My dick was ramrod straight and deserved its own zip code at this point.
“Are you cross?” She sobered, rotating toward me as the vehicle slid back into traffic, the dregs of amusement clearing from her delicate features.
“Why would I be?” I asked evenly.
“For, you know, spending all your money?” Her pearly upper teeth dragged over her bottom lip.
“First of all, it wasn’t all my money. It wasn’t even point two percent of my money.” I reached to release her lip from her teeth with my thumb, appalled by her words. “Second, it was the only entertaining thing about my evening. Did you have fun with your friends?”
Her mouth dropped in shock.
“What?” I scowled.
I thought she liked small talk. Would she make up her mind already?
“You’ve never asked me a thoughtful question. You never ask anyone how their day is going.”
“Never truly cared.”
“And you do now?”
Fuck, no. But you seem to care an awful lot about social niceties, and I’d love to skip to the part where your thighs are pressed so hard against my ears I’ll be able to hear the ocean.
Before I had time to answer, she started blabbing, “It was great. Always good to catch up with Cal and Dyl. After the third cocktail, Enzo’s reinforcement came along, and I got a bit upset.
Cal and Dylan challenged me to take the piss by running your Amex through every available PIN card machine.
We waited for you to stop us. But…you never did. ”
She sighed dreamily, allowing her head to plop on my shoulder.
My heart hammered violently in my chest. Sickening desire and a heady sense of danger swirled inside my gut.
I wanted to push her off and jerk her closer.
To ruin her and save her from me. Each sexual encounter we had ended with me spiraling into an attack of rituals.
Equations. Counting. Rereading soothing paragraphs.
Still, it was worth it.
Life had been hell from the moment I was born. But for the first time, I was enjoying the dancing flames.
She began nuzzling my neck. My blood roared in my veins, pulse pumping, quicker, harder. I balled my fists to stop myself from pouncing on her.
“Someone’s in an agreeable mood,” I croaked, my muscles bunching painfully. “If spending a few million is what it takes to make you putty in my arms, I’m happy to make it a daily occurrence.”
She sighed contently, her sweet breath fanning my face. Her lips moved down my neck, robbing me of the little sanity I still possessed.
To make matters worse for my cock, I had a conference call in ten minutes. One where I actually needed to speak.
“Apricity.” I fumbled for the button to lift the partition divider between us and Iven. “I—”
“Stop the car!” she yelped.
The Rolls-Royce screeched to a halt.
Gia bolted out the door. I followed after her out of instinct. Her heels pounded the pavement, rushing toward a Duane Reade. Unless this was about her buying condoms so we could fuck our way into next month, I was not happy about this recent development.
Also—I had a huge stack of those extra-thin Japanese condoms at home.
Gia stopped next to an elderly woman in a cleaning company uniform and a tattered coat. She was holding an unholy number of bags.
“May I help you to your car with those?” my wife inquired in her crisp English accent. “They seem quite heavy.”
The woman tilted her head dazedly. Her nose was red, and she looked exhausted. “Are you talking to me?”
“Yes,” Gia said, her voice earnest, snatching some of the bags. “Which way?”
“I’m taking the subway.”
“No, no. It’s too late and cold for that,” Gia insisted. “Where are you off to?”
“Yonkers.”
“We’ll take you th—”
“I’m calling her a cab right now.” I embraced my wife’s shoulders, physically removing her from the stranger before she started massaging her feet. “I’m sure this lady wouldn’t want to spend an entire car ride with complete strangers.”
Gia nodded thoughtfully. “Right. I hadn’t thought of that.”
I signaled Iven with my hand to call a cab. A taxi appeared less than two minutes later. I took the bags from Gia and the lady and settled them into the back seat of the cab. I ushered my wife back to our car and used enough hand sanitizer to drown a child.
Gia started thumbing through her phone, like the last ten minutes didn’t happen.
“Are you going to explain yourself?” I asked.
“What?” She pouted, then shrugged. “I care, okay?”
“Care about a random stranger?” I pressed.
“The invisible people.”
“Invisible people?”
“I mean people whose job is to take out the rubbish. Stock the shelves at the supermarket. Trim the bushes. The people society trained us to look past. Through . I refuse to do that. I always make eye contact. Smile. Ask them how their day is going.” She fell silent.
“I remember once in college, I bumped into a cleaning lady in the dorms. I asked her how she was doing, and she started laughing uncontrollably, covering her mouth. I was puzzled. I didn’t think it was that odd for me to ask.
Then she explained, ‘This is the first time in twelve years on the job that I forgot to put my dentures in before leaving the house. And the first time in twelve years on the job that someone has actually noticed I exist.’ It fills my cup, being kind to others.
” She gnawed on her lip again. “It makes me feel…powerful.”
I studied her, in awe.
She was far too hot to be that sweet too.
“What about you?” She scooted toward me again. “Is there anything that holds meaning for you? Anything that you love?”
I thought about it, desperately wanting to care about something so I could look humane in her eyes.
“I do enjoy higher categories and operads.”
She blinked. “Anything that’s not math-related?”
“Not right now, but I’m optimistic that something is going to be your cunt.”
“I’m warming up to the idea of allowing you to test that theory.” She unbuckled and climbed over my lap, bracketing me with her thighs.
This time, I did hit the partition button, but not before barking at Iven to drive in circles until further notice.
“Wasting fuel isn’t good for the environment.” She wrapped her arms around my neck.