27. On the way home
CORRADO
27
It’s difficult to think about how to best handle the situation with her mother when Michela’s pacing instead of packing.
I hand her the two frames. “Pack these with you in a small backpack so we can take the bike.”
Michela sits next to me. “Please understand that I cannot leave my mother.”
“I understand.”
“Okay,” she says, seemingly excited. “Great. This is great.”
“I have a question for you. What do you think will happen to her if you leave?”
“I think the worst.”
“Me too,” I say. “What can you do about preventing the worst from happening to your mother, and by worst, I mean she has an accident and dies?”
Michela nods, confirming that she’s thinking along the same lines. “I can be here with her. Make sure she sobers up.”
“That makes me think that when you signed our arrangement, you knew you’d stay here.”
Michela’s shoulders droop. “Not all the time like before, but yes. After I signed, I came to pack some of my stuff. I would’ve moved between Manhattan and here. You know, make this work fluidly.”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
She uses her hand to make waves, I think. “Like the river. Fluid. Take it day by day, live in both places.”
“You must’ve known I wouldn’t have accepted this fluidity.” A fancy way of telling me no. She’s creative about it.
“I thought you might after I explained. Like now. You’re accepting now.” She bites her lip. “Aren’t you?”
“Your mother needs care.” And I want my wife as she was promised to me. On a silver fucking platter.
She throws up her hands. “Yes, I agree she needs it. I’m the caregiver, which is why I can’t leave.”
“What if I told you you could?”
“This isn’t one of those cannot or will not situations, Corrado. I really can’t.”
“I know of a place.”
She leans in. “What kind of a place?”
“The kind your mother needs.”
“A rehab?”
“More or less. A private community. Surrounded by nature.”
“The kind of a place we can’t afford.”
“We can.”
“Oh no.” Michela shakes her head. “I can’t ask you to take care of my mom. I won’t.”
“Yet what you’ve been doing up until now isn’t working, because if it was, her life would’ve improved already. Instead, it’s deteriorating.”
She gapes at me. “Are you saying her problems are my fault?”
“I’m not, but you’re admitting as much when you take on her faults as your responsibility. When you give up your life for hers.”
“I haven’t given up anything.
“You would if I let you.”
I give her a minute and expect she’ll fidget with her hair as she often does when she’s nervous or trying to come up with solutions, but this time, almost absentmindedly, she reaches for the sleeve of my leather jacket and tugs. “You’re saying you won’t let me? That I’ll end up doing whatever you want?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
She runs a hand over the leather. “Nice riding jacket.” Michela looks up, biting her bottom lip. “What do you have in mind?”
“I’ll make a phone call, have the staff from that place come here, and take your mother to the private facility that will take care of both her injuries and addictions.”
“She won’t agree.”
“But you just did. She will if you approach her with the solution the way you came to me asking for a job instead of money.”
“She won’t. She doesn’t think she has a problem.”
“Then I’ll make her see she has one.”
“She’s tired and sleepy. Won’t even know what you’re saying.”
I’ve reasoned with people in much worse condition than tired and sleepy. The bullshit clears out of people’s heads when they hear things they want to hear, namely, when they hear a promise of a better future. “I have a way of getting what I want.”
Michela shakes her head. “Gordon tried. Got her into rehab. She lasted two weeks, and after she came home, she started right back up and ended up worse than before she went in. I’m afraid of that happening again.”
“Let me talk to her.”
“I don’t know, Corrado. She doesn’t even know you.”
“Ten minutes.”
I would’ve spoken with the mother anyway, but getting Michela’s approval makes it easier. It also helps that she’ll get back to packing while her mom and I chat.
An hour later, Denise is awake and as sober as she’ll get near midnight. With shaking hands, she walks out of the apartment and into the back of a luxury van, where three nurses tend to her as she lies on a stretcher. Her doctor shakes my hand and promises she’ll keep me in the loop and update me often via an app.
After the van departs, my wife and I stand on the sidewalk. She’s holding the kind of duffel bag they hand out in the military and suppressing tears.
It’ll be all right, I want to tell her, but instead, I say, “We’re taking the bike.”
“I can drive.” She points at the car.
I smile. “You like the car?”
Michela nods. “Drives nice. Looks great.”
“It’ll be waiting for you in the garage in the morning.” I mount the bike.
Michela’s eyes light up with lust the likes of which make me want to bend her over. She secures the duffel and puts on her helmet, then straddles the bike. I rev the engine, then reach behind me and grab her ass cheeks. I pull her toward me so that her front leans on my back.
“Arms,” I yell.
She interlocks her arms around my waist and then does something totally unexpected. She squeezes my sack.
Shocked, I whip my head around, but all she does is bump my helmet with hers and give me a thumbs-up.
I’ll be damned.
Michela
Mom’ll be fine. She will be. I have to believe that, or I’ll drive myself crazy with worry that’ll keep me up all night, which will do me no good since I must get up in the morning for work.
For work!
On the back of Corrado’s bike, I squeal and want to squeeze him everywhere, but barely contain myself and don’t. I think groping him was enough. I probably shouldn’t have done that, but the flame of desire ignited inside me when I sat behind him on the motorcycle, coupled with the joy that my mom will get the help she needs, overrode my good judgment.
I lean into Corrado and rest my head on his back as he navigates the streets with an uncanny speed and precision I hadn’t expected from a guy who wears a tailored suit under the leather biker jacket. But that same man also blew up a junkyard, so there’s more to him than a suit, and apparently, I want to get to know all his versions.
Especially the version of him that’s generous with me and my mom. I have a feeling it’s a side of this man many never experience at all. Too bad, because it’s also the part of him that makes him more approachable. Perhaps that’s precisely why he won’t let people see it. He likes keeping everyone at a comfortable distance.
At the stoplight, I feel his phone vibrate. I lift my head, wondering if he feels it.
It keeps vibrating, and I remove my hands so he can reach for it if he wants to while we’re still stopped. He catches my hands and puts them back, not giving his vibrating phone a glance.
Perhaps he should since whoever is calling him keeps calling all the way home. Inside the parking garage, once Corrado parks the bike, I remove my helmet and fix my hair a bit before dismounting.
Corrado turns and flips up his visor.
His hazel eyes narrow. “What was that?”
“Which that?”
He snatches my wrist and pulls me into him, then puts my hand between his legs where he’s hard and ready. He’s always hard, not to mention ready for anything. Oh God, I must stop thinking about this version of him, or I’ll claw at him like a kitten on a scratching post.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I try to take my arm back.
Corrado lets it go, but hooks a gloved hand into the waistband of my jeans and pulls. The top button unhooks, and Corrado yanks down the zipper and then forces his hand inside and between my legs.
I’m trying to move away, but he catches the back of my neck and holds me in place. His helmet touches my forehead at the same time that he touches my entrance with a leather-clad finger. The tight jeans I’m wearing start ripping as Corrado fingers my clit, creating generous friction that makes me close my eyes and bite my lip.
“You like that?” he asks.
I nod and spread my legs as much as I can.
“Answer me.”
“Yes, Corrado.”
“You say my name like a prayer. One of these days, I’ll force you onto your knees and let you worship me.”
I swallow and enjoy the attention he’s giving my needy pussy, which hasn’t felt another person’s fingers in a long time. And Corrado is skilled. Oh, so skilled, moving two fingers over my clit, but also over my entrance that’s pulsing with need. I rock with his rhythm until we start matching our movements, and the heat in my lower belly is just about to release. Yes, a little more.
I bite my lip so I don’t start panting or, worse, beg him to get me off. But he removes his hand.
Whaaaa…
He’s made me dizzy with lust, and it takes me a moment to come to and blink open my eyes.
Corrado’s already taken off his helmet and is reaching for his still-buzzing phone. He spares it a glance, then picks it up and gives me a once-over.
“Hold on,” he says to whoever is on the phone, then mutes the line that’s colored the entire screen red. “Now you know what blue balls feel like,” he says to me and squeezes his sac. “My brother’s turned on the emergency line, which means this call is important, so unless you want him to hear you making sucking noises while you’re on your knees as I chat with him, I suggest you get upstairs. And go to your room. Lock the door.”
“You wouldn’t.” Would he?
Corrado holds the phone against his ear and unzips his zipper.
I scramble up the stairs, his laughter following me all the way…home.