Chapter 2 #2
Where were the Bridgerton men, the Jane Austen-style gentlemen, and rugged back-forest heartthrobs when you needed one?
Not that I was any kind of damsel in distress, or debutante in need of saving, but would it hurt?
I needed someone competent, someone so consumed by desire for me that they’d be unable to resist. Why couldn’t a man just sweep me off my feet and solve all my problems for a change?
I was sick and tired of being the stalwart modern woman.
It was easy to act like a tough-ass motherfucker, but the toughest girls need the most love and attention.
Our batteries required recharging, preferably in the form of cuddles and venereous men making pasta in the kitchen.
I couldn’t help it. I was raised in a household of males who honored and loved their women. Anything less was paltry in comparison.
I pushed my fingers to my sternum, closing my eyes. Gray was safe; he was out there somewhere. I had to believe that. The look on his face when I’d left him in that warehouse five months ago preyed upon me. He didn’t seem like someone about to quit.
I knew little about Gray outside of the few things he’d told me on our night together. When I’d met him on the internet, his name had been ‘TheRatMan’, befitting his love for causing mischief amongst the mafia. I remember having a good laugh about his name with Clementine.
Who willingly names themselves after vermin?
It was obvious he enjoyed antagonizing the wonderful world of organized crime. I wasn’t entirely sure why, though he’d given me a few clues. He seemed to have a connection to the mafia somehow, maybe even family, judging by his Italian good looks. It added up.
If so, that placed him in a precarious situation. According to my research, people didn’t escape the mafia. Some stories detailed people entering witness protection, yet they often ended up being found and killed anyway. I saw a lot of dead bodies. I’d swiftly abandoned my search after that.
The night we spent together was a blockbuster romance, and I could still recall it fondly.
His body was a roadmap of scars and burns, with a disturbingly mangled area opposite his heart.
Even without tattoos, his life’s experiences were etched onto his very being.
My kisses traced the aftermath of his pain, following its path across every inch of his skin.
He’d reciprocated my languorous petting in kind, pouring me the best bowl of Betty O’s I’d ever had.
It ruined me. Nothing else could truly capture it, save for the memory, though even that was slipping away.
I was already winded halfway up the stairs. An elevator was definitely needed, or maybe a new place altogether. Something small and cozy. I saw now how Nash maintained those impressive calves.
With a final push of effort, I reached the master suite. Shuffling in, I shut the door behind me and locked it.
On the doorframe beside the knob, I let my fingers skate over a few sticky notes I’d pinned there. I lovingly traced the edges as I read what was on them, as I did every day.
When Gray returned last fall and stole the PERLs, it took a few weeks for Nash and me to track him down.
In that time, he’d stalked me in the most infuriating, yet delicious way.
Gray broke into our house almost every night to taunt me, leaving notes on my pillow, the bathroom mirror, anywhere he knew it would drive me mad.
Most of the notes were naughty recollections of our night together.
I had to admit, there came a point when I actively searched out the notes, excited to find the next naughty letter. They made my toes curl. I’d kept each one on the wall as a reminder, the paper worn from the number of times I'd touched them.
I grinned, turned, and shuffled to the giant king bed in the middle of the room, lined all around with bookshelves.
Nash stripped every shelf clean of his boring history books when he left, and I was currently working my way through styling them in my fashion and taste.
I enjoyed a mix of things: a lot of Victorian touches and vintage flair. I liked textural variety.
The master bedroom had a historic fireplace, as many of the rooms did.
One of the first things I changed when Sybil and Nash moved out was getting many of the fireplaces refitted with gas logs.
Nash had never used the firebox for its intended purpose.
He treated it like a storage cubby for all his old baseball gear.
There was a remote on my bedside, and I flicked the gas logs on.
It was chilly enough at night to still warrant the warm glow of the fire.
I loved it. Something about it transformed the space into a home, shifting me through time to a past that was simple.
It almost made me want to start humming the theme song for Outlander.
While I’d always grown up in large townhouses, I preferred cozy spaces most. My mother had been great at creating warm little corners to curl up and read a book. I yearned for simplicity; it calmed my obsessive-compulsive need for order in all things.
I snuggled down under my covers, finding the TV remote hidden beneath the pillows. I un-paused the episode of Bridgerton, then huddled down for a long day of bed-rot.