Chapter 11 Morris
MORRIS
Kissing Alice is nothing like I expect. Kissing Alice is everything. She feels like hope and light, tastes like sex and sin, and sounds like laughter and home. All wrapped in one tiny, terrified package.
When I was hooking up with Jessica, the way her body seemed to crave my touch, how she rose up to meet me and gave every bit back in return, that was good.
But compared to this?
With Alice, shit… This is just more.
In the tiny bedroom of the apartment I rarely use, she shakes, trembling as I rest my forehead against hers.
“Baby, I want you to listen,” I say, my voice low so Zoey can’t hear. “We’re in something now, me and you. You get that?”
Alice pulls her head away from mine so quickly, I feel a chill replace her sugar-scented warmth.
“What do you mean?” Her cheeks are stained pink, but the soft purple shadows under her eyes remind me she’s still scared—and possibly in danger. “You and I are in what?” she asks, looking insecure and uncertain.
I motion to her with a finger. “Come here.”
She does as I ask, so when she’s close enough, I take her again in a kiss. But this time, I’m not going to leave room for any questions.
I hook a hand under her hair and the other under her ass and hoist her up so quickly, she wraps her legs around my waist on instinct.
I move us out of the line of sight of the open bedroom door and press her against the bedroom wall so I can support her weight.
I lean against her body, letting her feel the full weight of what I’m feeling for her against her.
My cock strains against the zipper of my jeans, begging for release.
Just one kiss from the woman and my body is on fire, ravenous for the kind of satisfaction only Alice can bring.
Only Alice.
I consume her mouth with mine, shredding her delicate chin with mine.
She gasps against me, but her body opens, softens, her desire for me meeting mine for her.
She tightens her legs around my waist and claws at my back, my shoulders.
My biceps are so huge beneath her hands, but I can still feel the way she explores my skin.
She’s a wild one, this Alice. She nips at my lower lip, taking the lead and showing me how rough she likes it. I copy her movements, nibbling her lips and tasting the sugary tongue until we’re both panting and breathless.
“Fuck,” she says as I lower her to the floor.
“Can you stand?” I tease, a shit-eating smirk on my face.
“I can stand,” she says, shaking her head in what looks like an erotic daze.
I lower my head to look in her eyes. “That,” I say, motioning toward her. “On the bed, on the floor, against the wall. We’re in this now. Feel me?”
Alice blinks and then laughs. “Oh, I felt you, all right.” Her eyes fall to my waistband, and I can’t help but adjust the rather inconvenient problem she’s left me with.
“Darlin’, just you wait.”
Her eyes blaze dark brown then, the light-caramel color burned away by a husky, wanton fire.
“So…now what?” she asks. “I can’t… You can’t…” She falls quiet again and gets that worried, panicked look.
I’m gonna put a stop to that kind of thinking right fucking now. “I can,” I say. “And you can, so we will.”
I take her hand and lead her to the bed.
“Sit,” I say. “Real talk.”
Alice sits on the edge of my bed and tosses her sandy hair over a shoulder. “Morris, you don’t want to get mixed up with me. You don’t know…”
I give a look, and she clamps her lips closed. “All right now,” I say. “Let’s get a few things straight. Your marriage. You love him?”
Her eyes widen, and she immediately shakes her head, a hard, rapid no. “Morris, I don’t think I ever loved him. He was convenient. He was capable. But love…” She sighs and looks down at her hands. “Let’s just say, if I ever did, I haven’t for a very, very long time.”
“All right, then. Two more questions. Are you planning to divorce him?”
She nods. “The second, and I mean the very second, I can afford to serve him.”
I nod at that and urge her on. “Last question. I’m in this. I don’t know why, and I can’t say for how long, but…” I toss a look toward the living room, where Zoey is laughing quietly along with the princess movie. “I’m in it. Are you?”
Alice follows my gaze and looks toward the living room. She flutters her eyes closed and takes a few shallow breaths. “I am,” she says quietly.
“All right. That’s all I need to know. Now, let’s get into it. Who is this asshole husband, and what was on those messages that’s got you so worked up?”
By the time Alice has explained the basics, I am ready to jump in anything I can find that moves and go kill that Jerry bastard myself.
Alice had spent more than two months putting together an escape. From her life. From her home. From her own goddamned husband.
She explained everything. About the beater car she bought because the SUV she drove was in the name of the dealership Jerry owned.
“If he called the police on me for stealing that car…” she said.
So, she bought a beater and a used kid’s booster seat. Disabled location services on all of her devices. Left her daughter’s iPad back in Miami on the floor of the SUV, and she came up with a plan to fake a spring break trip to visit her sister in Denver with Zoey.
“My sister knew we were never going to come, but she got a new puppy last week. She was planning on adopting one anyway, and she went ahead with it a little sooner. Zoey has always wanted a dog, but I could never swing the responsibility when Zoey was young. And then after Jerry… Well, let’s just say I didn’t think any animal deserved to be treated the way Jerry treated me. ”
Her words cut me to my core. The fact that Alice wouldn’t put a dog through what she was going through at home made me want to take an electronic training collar and shock dear old Jerry’s balls until he learned once and for all how to treat his old lady.
“What was your plan beyond getting away?” I ask. “Place to stay? Job?”
Alice meets my eyes. “Hotel for a night or two. Short-term rental. I figured I’d get a job waitressing pretty quick.
Get Zoey in school. My sister promised to fly in and help me once we got through the first couple days.
She’s got some cash hidden for me that she was going to send later.
The plan was for her to hold on to it for a week or so. Just in case.”
“Just in case.” I repeat that, and my blood boils under my skin.
My fingers start itching, like I wanna claw right through the eyeballs of this Jerry motherfucker.
But I’m not going to focus on that right now.
I’ll save what I want to do to this asshole for when I see him.
Because if what Alice has told me is true—and I absolutely believe every word—I will be meeting this son of bitch sooner rather than later.
Alice and I are at the kitchen table, talking. Zoey fell asleep not long after the princess movie ended, and given how early she’d woken up for her spring break trip, Alice figured it would be better to let her sleep.
I liked that idea, so little ears wouldn’t be as aware of our plans.
“So, you’ll stay here,” I tell her. “At least until your car is ready. Where did you plan on landing? Were you headed to Daytona?”
Alice pinches her brows between two fingers. “Morris, I—”
I interrupt her by taking her hand away from her forehead and giving her a look. “In it,” I remind her. “Now, go on. Where were you headed?”
She shakes her head. “Nowhere specific. My sister moved to Denver not long after our mom died, and I’ve been in Miami for most of my life.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “About your mother.”
Alice smiles, and it seems like the first real smile I’ve seen from her. “Thank you,” she says. “I miss her. She died of breast cancer very, very young. She was only fifty-four.”
“Fuuuuck,” I hiss. “That is young. How long has it been?”
“Seven years,” Alice says sadly. “She never knew I was pregnant with ZoZo.” She worries a strand of her hair between her fingers.
“In a way, I’m so, so glad. In fact, oddly, Zoey has a weird connection to my mom.
I was waiting tables at the diner across from the car dealership.
I’d finished my associate’s degree, but I was trying to save up enough money to get a BA from a local college. Nothing crazy.”
She meets my eyes and shrugs. “I was never one of those people who knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. My younger sister was the opposite. She was always so driven. She always had plans.”
“What does she do in Denver?” I wonder.
“Technical writer,” she explains. “She works for herself, lives on a small ranch out in kind of the middle of nowhere outside of Denver. Has a really small barn and a horse, a couple of cats. And, of course, the brand-new puppy.”
I nod. “She on her own? No old man, no kids?”
“No.” Alice grabs her phone and opens to the camera roll.
“She was in a long-term relationship until about a year before Mom died. He lived in Denver. They met on a project. He worked at a pharmaceutical company in Denver and was project lead on an assignment. His company hired Rayne to work on the compliance manuals, and they fell for each other really fast. She lived here and he was in Denver, and she flew back and forth as often as she needed to for the project. But eventually, she ended up spending more and more time out there. They weren’t going to go public with their relationship until the project ended, but…
” Alice pressed her lips into a sad smile. “He passed away.”
“What? What happened?”
“Terrible accident,” she explained. “It was one of those weird cases where he went missing for a couple days. No one heard from him, he didn’t show up to work.
Nobody knew he and my sister were dating, so she was worried when she didn’t hear from him, but she didn’t know who else to call, what to do without outing their relationship.
It all came out anyway. They found his body on the fourth day after he’d gone missing.
Hiking accident. Seems like he went out alone and tumbled off a cliff. ”
“Fuck. Rotten luck.”
Alice nodded. “And it gets even worse. She bought that small place outside of Denver right after Robert died. I don’t know if she wanted to be close to the place he loved or what…
Maybe she thought she’d keep it as a vacation home someday, but then Mom got sick and passed within just a few months.
They found the cancer too late to do much. ”
“Alice…” I can’t stand that this is my baby’s story. So much pain. So much heartache. “So, your grieving sister moves away, you lose your mom, and then you get pregnant?”
Alice laughs, a harsh sound empty of any humor.
“Exactly. I was careless for a while, dated around, drowned my sorrows in anything that masked the pain for a night. When I found out I was pregnant, the guy didn’t even want to see me in person.
He’d gotten a scholarship out of state, and the last thing he planned to do was support a family. ”
“You fight him for support?” I probably don’t even need to ask. I can guess the answer.
Alice shakes her head slowly. “He knew he was the father. He knew what he was supposed to do. And he also knew that I was alone. My sister had moved away, Mom had passed. I was trying to stay sober long enough to wait tables and escape from the shitshow of my day-to-day life. How was I going to pursue him?”
“All right,” I say, standing up. “I’ve heard enough about douchebag men. Make me a promise, yeah?” I lean over Alice and raise her chin with a finger.
“What’s the promise?” she asks in a whisper.
My fingers itch to draw her close, to take her to my bedroom and fuck her senseless, worship her body until that look of sadness is replaced by absolute and utter bliss. But I can hear rustling on the couch that means Princess Zoey is waking up.
“Mama?” a sleepy, tiny voice calls.
“I’m in the kitchen, honey. I’m right here.” Alice moves to stand, but I hold her arm and whisper in her ear as she heads out toward her daughter.
“Promise me,” I hiss.
She waits for me to say the words. “Morris?” She looks at me with such trust, such blind, raw faith, it makes my chest ache.
“You’re going to let me take care of you. At least until you can stand on your own feet.”
The sweet trust collapses on her face, and those caramel eyes turn to stone. “I’m sorry, Morris. I just…can’t.” And then she turns away and heads toward her daughter.