44. And then she is gone
MICHELA
44
My nap feels short when I wake up on top of Corrado and with him already inside me, bouncing me on his cock. With my head resting on his shoulder, I can see his profile.
His eyes are closed.
I watch him while he’s unaware I’m watching. Or perhaps he knows I’m awake now and lets me watch. His mouth opens slightly, and he starts talking as he fucks me harder. For the first time, I’m glad I don’t speak either Italian or French, because the sounds he’s making, the way he says the foreign words, excites me.
I push back against him.
Corrado’s head snaps my way, and he spanks me. “Ride me.” He spanks me again, and I kneel on the bed. Corrado pauses and takes my breasts in his hands before squeezing them, then twisting my nipples, then rubbing them between his fingers until I’m so turned on that I start to move over him.
Since he’s pushing up against me, he’s creating friction, and I rest both my hands on his chest and dig my fingernails into his muscles.
“I’m going to come again,” I tell him.
“You better.”
“Oh my God, you feel so good,” I tell him and start grinding myself over him. Corrado mumbles in Italian. I’m pretty sure he’s calling me his angel, and even though I understand nothing, I know he’s saying something important. I know this because his voice holds conviction and determination, and he’s looking at me like he owns me.
His gaze is frightening. But also, being at the center of Corrado’s attention is invigorating, terrifying, and makes me want him more.
Corrado is exactly what I feared he would be.
Addictive.
With that thought, I close my eyes and enjoy the friction between my legs, the fullness of him inside me, and the orgasm that takes us to new heights of pleasure.
After another two rounds, I collapse on the bed. I want to take another nap, but my bladder won’t let me.
I swing my legs over the bed and stand, but Corrado throws his arm over my thighs and stops me.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to pee.”
“Ah. The bathroom should be clear. Turn off the air purifier, would you?”
The thing that sounds like a fan but works like a vacuum in the bathroom ceiling is called the air purifier. Somehow, I think Corrado named it that just so he doesn’t tell me whatever it really is.
In the bathroom, I flip down the red switch and the noise stops. The ceiling closes back up. Everything is normal except for the ashes and scraps of charred clothing in the tub.
I use the bathroom, and when I come out, Corrado’s not in the bed. Since we have no clothes left to wear, I snatch a sheet and wrap it around my body before walking into the kitchen.
Corrado and Drago are speaking in hushed voices until I emerge. Then they stop talking altogether. Corrado’s wearing suit pants over shiny black leather shoes and buttoning up his crisp white shirt.
I hold the bed sheet to my chest as if it’s a shield. “What’s going on?”
Drago offers me a hanger with a black dress draped over it.
Corrado hands me a pair of black heels. “Get dressed and meet me back here once you’re done.” He tucks the weapon Drago hands him in the back of his pants.
“Okay.” I return to the bedroom, knowing this is the end for Corrado and me. It’s the end of us.
The messy sheets, the smell of sex, the memories of our bodies, and how we fit together all come crashing down on me, and I cover my mouth so that the sob doesn’t escape. I don’t want him to hear my heartbreak. I need a few minutes and take them to collect myself lest I make a fool of myself out there when I ask him why he is the way he is and why he won’t let me into his heart.
I release the sheet and put on the dress and silver platforms. Somehow, they remind me of glass slippers. I’ve always loved that fairy tale more than all the others. It’s a story of hope, and the prince chasing after the heroine makes it beautiful to me.
At the door, I pause. I don’t want to leave. The room or the house or Corrado, I don’t know which. Maybe all of the above, but I asked him to let me go. I asked him to dissolve the marriage, and if I want any semblance of a normal life, I must leave him.
If he wants a future me to have normalcy and “the mundane,” as he’d called it, he will let me go.
But do we want each other no matter what the other person brings to the table? Is ours an unconditional love? Ours is conditional. A marriage agreement in exchange for money. A tit for tat. Corrado negotiates. He negotiates with everything besides the one thing I want from him: his love.
Meanwhile, I negotiate with my heart, the one thing he prefers I keep to myself.
The shutters’ rising noise jolts me, and the light from the bathroom window casts a glow over the bedroom door as if guiding me forward and into the light. Before I walk out, I pull back my shoulders, which helps me feel as if I’m collected and can handle anything Corrado throws at me this morning.
Here goes nothing.
I step outside and move through the kitchen to find Corrado sitting on the couch in the living room. He’s dressed in the black suit and white shirt, and he looks as great as he does every day. Perhaps even better now that I’ve slept with him.
A mug of coffee on the table in front of a chair across from him tells me that’s my seat.
“Is Drago here?” I ask before I grab the coffee and sit. I sip the coffee, even though I don’t need it as much as I needed it to wake up before I met this man. Corrado has a way of waking up my morning brain from its stupor. One never needs coffee if one wakes up with him. I’ll miss that.
“I’ll miss many things about you,” I say, swallowing down my brew, hoping I don’t start crying and choke on the coffee and tears.
Corrado turns on the TV.
It shows a forested area surrounded by hundreds of police officers and dozens of their cars. The barking of the K9s competes with the loud sirens. They’re in front of what looks like the demolished end of a building complex.
Corrado turns up the volume.
“A total of four inmates escaped during the accidental gas leak and subsequent explosion of the east prison building. No casualties are reported, but the investigation is ongoing as to how it happened…”
“Which prison?” I ask, knowing Corrado is showing me this for a reason. When he simply stares at me in that way of his, I continue, “My…my brother isn’t one of those four men, is he?”
Corrado nods. “Your brother is free.”
Gordon is on the run. He’s free and on the run. Wait a minute. “Did you break him out?”
“I was never there. I’ve been with you the whole time. But I hear powerful people need him for cleanup of this one incident with the cartel and Cosa Nostra. I hear they’ll clean his record, make him disappear. I hear the feds will get something bigger in return.”
Corrado pulled strings with all the powers he knows and opened a hole in the wall, quite literally, for my brother to escape through.
“If he thinks you took me, he’ll come for you.”
“He’ll come for me only if I still have his sister. Do I?” Corrado swallows, looks away, puts his hands on his hips. He’s uncomfortable and vulnerable with me again in his twisted, twisted way. “Do I have his sister? Are you mine, hm?” He pulls out his pistol and slams it onto the table. “Because I can’t let you go. He’ll have to kill me if he wants me to let you go.”
He throws up his hands and leans back on the couch. “There you have it.” He points at the golden gun. “When he comes, here’s my piece. There it is. On the table.”
I open my mouth to say something, but the words stick in my throat. My brother is free. Corrado can’t part from me. I don’t know… I’m shocked.
Corrado gets up and walks away to stand at the window overlooking the backyard. Hands in his pockets, he says, “When my mother left me, I was only nine. I swore I would never chase after anyone because those who leave in such a way should be let go. Yet, today, when I ordered a car to come fetch you, all I could think about was how I’d sprint after it and how I wouldn’t catch up, not because I wasn’t fast enough, but because my people stay with me. My dad stayed and passed away naturally later in life. My sister stayed.” He points outside.
I hear a noise that reminds me of motorcycles, but instead, it’s a descending helicopter.
“There’s Severio.” Corrado makes a turn with his finger, indicating his brother is in the helicopter that’s landing beyond the tree line. “He’s a lifelong pain in my ass, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. And I don’t want that for you either. You shouldn’t be missing the people you love. Besides, Drago’s on a mission to end the man who once tried to hurt you. I told him to finish what Gordon started.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
Corrado turns toward me. “Say you’re my wife.”
He’s asking me instead of commanding, and I can tell, for the first time, this fierce man loves me. This whole time, he loved me, and he knew it, and it’s why he protected the wounded nine-year-old boy still somewhere inside him more fiercely than he would have if he were with someone he didn’t care about. He knew I could hurt him, in the same way I knew he could hurt me.
But I’m so glad that whenever we parted before, we found a way back to each other. I’m so glad I stuck around, because this kind of man loves only once. And it just so happens, one late New York evening, I walked into his apartment so that he could love me.
I walk over and wrap my hands around his middle, press my ear to his heart. It’s beating strongly in anticipation of what I’ll say. Will I say it?
“I’m your wife. I’m your wife till death do us part.”