Chapter 31
“The mechanic and spare parts are already en route.” Nathan’s voice is washed out a bit by the slight static on the line. “I don’t have an explanation, sir. Every priority vehicle was thoroughly inspected before it was dispatched.”
“Where is the truck now?” I ask.
“Still at the gas station, about thirty miles from New York.”
“I want an update as soon as it is fixed and on the move again. And I want to know what caused this fuckup. Or who.” I cut the call before he has a chance to reply and throw the phone on my desk.
For a brief moment, I worry that the rhymey bastard is behind this.
The fucker has been silent for weeks, since the day his text sent me charging into my mother-in-law’s apartment, which was almost a month ago.
But, considering that his latest threats have all been focused on my wife, a more logical explanation prevails.
The malfunction with one of my trucks—specifically the vehicle transporting a drug shipment to DeVille in New York—must be just that. A malfunction.
I take off my glasses and squeeze my temples.
The bloody migraine has once again set in and gotten progressively worse over the last hour.
Ever since the smell of freshly baked cookies reached my home office.
It was faint at first. Sugary sweet with a distinct hint of vanilla. My Little Iris is baking again.
In hopes of keeping the scent out, along with thoughts of her, I shut the door earlier.
But that didn’t help. I can’t stop obsessing over how, very shortly, she will walk out the door, heading to spend the night at her mother’s.
Like she does every Saturday. And tomorrow morning, when I ask how her night was at Mrs. Fabbri’s, she’ll look me in the eye and lie.
Christ. She must think I’m an idiot. I’ve made it so easy for her.
Never questioned why she always picks Saturday nights to spend with her mom, or why she needs to stay there the entire night at all.
As far as Iris knows, her security detail departs once she is safely inside her mother’s apartment, so she doesn’t need to sneak around when the Annex car picks her up and drops her off.
It’s all smooth sailing for her to secretly meet with the man who is not her husband.
The worst part? None of this makes her any less desirable or pure in my eyes.
Jesus fuck, I’ve seriously lost my mind.
Even with the door tightly shut, the decadent scent of vanilla permeates the air. I can’t escape it. It’s in my every breath. Even if I wanted to flee, I can’t. I can’t escape her.
The sweet aroma lures me out of my home office and to its source. The kitchen. As I draw nearer, notes of a creepy melody, something that seems utterly at odds with the warm, earthy smell, float to me from the same direction.
“Oh, no.” Iris’s worry-filled voice rings out just as I round the corner. “No…no…no.”
Instantly on alert, I rush into the kitchen and grab the chef’s knife out of the block on my right.
Two steps later, I’m reaching to pull my wife away from the island and the expanse of open windows, ready to shove her behind my back and meet the oncoming threat.
My hand is almost wrapped around her biceps when I hear the pop of a muffled gunshot.
“Damn.” Iris exhales a breath and pushes away a stray strand of hair. “I knew she was the killer. Too obvious.”
Heart still jackhammering against my rib cage, I look down over my wife’s shoulder to the phone propped up against a bag of flour on the counter. On the screen, a gray-haired lady is stuffing a grocery bag with wads of money from a wall safe.
“Multitalented, that one,” I say.
Iris yelps and spins around, a frantic expression on her face. “Good God, Adriano. You almost gave me a heart attack!”
As if to point out my guilt, loud barking explodes from the threshold of the walk-in pantry.
I ignore Taffy, focusing on my wife’s face instead. There’s a smear of icing, I’m guessing, on her cheek, and my fingers itch to wipe it away. Or maybe I can lick it off? Is it sweeter than the taste of her skin?
“Sorry,” I say, shaking off the haze of arousal.
“It’s okay. Um…” She points at the knife still in my hand. “Is everything alright? You look like you might be ready to…kill someone.”
I open the nearest drawer and shove the knife inside. “Not today.”
She tenses.
I grit my teeth. She never tenses with him.
It takes everything in me not to throw her down and fuck her on the flour-dusted kitchen island.
To make her moan and whimper for me while I lap at her pretty pussy.
To make her pant when I slam balls-deep into her wet heat.
To make her scream in pleasure. Just as she does at the Annex.
Just like she will do again a couple of hours from now. For a man who doesn’t exist.
“Um, did you need something then?”
Yes. You. I need you. You’re the only thing I need in my life. “Nope.”
“Are you hungry? Want me to get you something to eat?”
Only if it’s you. I want to eat you, Little Iris. “No.”
That stray strand of hair is still over her face, and I’m dying to touch it, to sweep it away. My hand rises, almost of its own accord—
“It’s really no bother. I can fix you a plate before I go.”
Her words are like a gut punch, leaving me winded. Right. For a second there, I forgot…
My hand falls back to my side, curling into a fist, hard enough to make my knuckles ache.
“Say hello to your mother for me.” I turn on my heel and storm out of the kitchen. Out of the house. Leaving behind the sweet vanilla scent.
A huge palm, skin rough with calluses, slowly glides down my naked back as I lie, spent, on top of my husband.
Even after all this time, his barest touch sets me on fire, warmth spreading from the lightest contact.
The throbbing between my legs has abated, but only slightly.
Adriano all but destroyed my pussy this time.
I was hardly inside the room when he swooped in, claiming me like a magnificent, ferocious fiend by fucking me senseless right there against the door.
I don’t exactly remember how we ended up in the bed afterward, just that it’s where he made me come with his mouth before he took me from behind.
I stretch my hand out, feeling the shape of his tightly clenched jaw, then trace his sensual, hard lips.
He’s furious, as furious as he was when I first stepped into our room at the Annex, and that anger in him hasn’t diminished even a little.
It’s strange how I know that without being able to see him or hear even a single sound from him. He is fuming. Seething.
“I made vanilla sugar cookies today,” I say as I stroke the line of his lower lip with my thumb.
“They turned out fine, even though I might’ve added a smidge more sugar than the recipe called for.
I meant to bring you some as a treat, but my husband came into the kitchen while I was finishing up and distracted me. ”
His body freezes under mine. It’s the only indication that he’s not happy with what I said. That my words have aggravated him further.
I sigh.
For nearly three months now, I’ve been trying to goad him into reacting.
To push him into some kind of response. Any kind.
I’ve hoped that he would do something…say something to reveal himself to me.
But I got nothing. Other than those few growled words the first night we had sex, he’s been silent as a tomb. Keeping his identity hidden.
At home, it’s more of the same. He never questions or objects to my “sleepovers at Mom’s.
” Believes that his wife is cheating on him, but pretends it’s not happening.
Persists with this insane delusion. With each day that passes, I understand it less and less.
Instead of solving the enigma that is my husband, I feel the fog of confusion between us grow more and more dense.
“I really liked the book,” I say, moving my thumb over the ridge of his nose. “Thank you for making sure it doesn’t have any bugs. It was nice to read the story without worrying.”
As before our relationship turned physical, he continues to leave small gifts for me in the car that takes me back to Mom’s from the Annex.
Last Saturday, I received the next book in the cozy mystery series I’ve been reading.
With it came another note, once more written on a page torn out of his daily planner.
Letting me know in that messy scrawl of his that there are no creepy-crawlies involved.
The other day, Mario delivered a few documents for Adriano that he forgot to bring home from Ruffo Enterprises HQ.
I happened to see my husband make a few notations and sign the papers before sending them back to the office.
His handwriting was a neat, meticulous cursive, matching the prolific entries throughout the rest of the journal I found in his car.
So different from when he is this Adriano.
So different from the notes he scribbles for me.
Even his penmanship suffers from duality.
Nothing public-facing is ever out of line.
Not the way he talks, not even the way he writes. A living, breathing Janus.
Why does he continue to hide? Which side of himself is he hiding from me?
Every new answer I uncover spurs another question.
My fingers keep up the exploration on his face, outlining his eyebrows. “The free clinic in my old neighborhood—the one I told you about last month—got a new ultrasound machine after all. Someone anonymously donated top-of-the-line equipment. It arrived on Wednesday.”
Not a sound, of course.
Leaning forward, I press my lips to his. “I know it was you.”
A grunt. Not even one that could be taken as an admission. No matter how hard I try or what I say, he doesn’t drop the veil, doesn’t lift his mask. Keeps me in the dark. Trapped behind the blindfold, both real and metaphorical.
I want to scream in frustration. The urge to shake him until he comes clean is driving me crazy. I want to yell into his face. Demand the truth. Tell me why? Why, to a million other questions. On the other hand, though, I’m too afraid of what his answer would be.
“I wish my husband were more like you,” I whisper. That’s my last-ditch effort, the only thing I’ve learned that will make him snap.
Adriano’s arm wraps around my waist, and he rolls us over.
In one powerful, lightning-fast move, he’s above me, his body trapping my own beneath his weight.
His breathing is shallow and rapid, a clear sign of his rage.
Drawing any sort of comparisons between him and my husband is the one thing that will always trigger a response.
He drives into me, thrusting and filling me completely, making me gasp for air.
He’s huge, and my pussy is still tender from the last round, but there isn’t a better feeling than having him inside me.
His mouth collides with mine, seizing it in a fierce kiss.
As our tongues battle, he pulls out, only to slam into me again.
Hard. Harder. Again and again. His pace doesn’t let up.
My nails sink into Adriano’s shoulders as I open my legs wider, needing more of him.
Wanting him closer. He pounds into me like a man possessed.
My pussy throbs with every thrust, my walls spasm around his cock.
I tear my mouth away only long enough to gulp a breath of air, then pull him down for another kiss.
Imagining I’m with the real him. All of him.
Not the silent guest he wants me to believe he is.
Not the ruthless man who is my husband. But the man who seems unfeeling yet is also capable of doing wonderful, amazing things.
For me. And for others. I don’t want just one side of him or another.
He is both. Both are him. I want that man.
The true Adriano. I want him to claim my body and soul.
Because he—both versions of him—already has my heart.
The coil in me winds and winds, and in a moment of dazzling fury, I detonate. Soaring to new heights. Rendered boneless. I can barely hold on. Utterly consumed by him. I gasp for breath while he pummels me without mercy. Drives me to another peak.
Threading my hands through his hair, I can no longer contain the words that have been trying to escape past my lips. And I whisper…
Pain tears through my chest. Twisting and burning, yet freezing me to the marrow. A corkscrew slowly plunged into my heart would’ve hurt less.
My eyes are locked on my wife’s radiant face, on her lips parted in pleasure, as I piston my hips, unable to stop. Each thrust harder, more punishing. Trying to erase the words she just said.
As if I could ever forget.
As if I could unhear them.
I’ve faced many enemies in my life. Fought many foes.
Any rival who dared attempt to steal my power, who reached too close, was erased before they could even comprehend their mistake.
Anyone reckless enough to come after me didn’t simply disappear.
They were dismantled, reduced to a few meager blood stains—the only proof they existed at all.
I’ve feared nothing. Thought myself invincible.
Believed no force on earth could bring me to my knees.
As it turns out, it was three simple, whispered words.
Three words that sliced through my arteries with more precision than any weapon ever could.
Three words.
A confession that shattered me so completely, I will never piece myself together again.
My wife screams in rapture; her voice more than a little shaky as she comes.
I revel in the sound, let my lips drift down along the column of her neck, cherish every beat of her rushing pulse.
She trembles in my arms, racked by the aftershocks of her orgasm as I drag my mouth across her perfect breasts, swirl my tongue around each nipple, then head lower, to her sweet center.
She’s still shaking when I slide my palms under her ass, lifting her to bury my face in her wet warmth.
Shuddering moans echo through the room as soon as my tongue slides inside her pussy. I inhale her intoxicating scent, surrendering to it. My wife’s essence. Her joy. Her pleasure. I lick her sweet honey. Brutishly. Savagely even.
I need to punish her for her words. The urge is overwhelming, but I can’t bring myself to hurt my Little Iris in any way. So I make her pay by making her come again. And again. And again. With my mouth. Then with my fingers. And, finally, with my cock once more.
I keep her soaring until she is so spent, so exhausted, that she sags onto the white satin sheets. Until she forgets the words she whispered. Until I can pretend to forget.
Then, as I watch her sleep, sitting on the edge of the bed for what feels like days, I wait for that soft knock on the door. The sound that breaks the silence. Fractures my ability to pretend.
The death knell for my make-believe.