The Dominator (31 page)

He parked the jeep and motioned for me to follow him. It was a pretty place. Big barn, little stone farmhouse, a bit overgrown but wildflowers everywhere, and no visible neighbors. He opened a set of double barn doors on the big powder blue barn and inside there was a path down the center and horse stalls all the way down on either side. I heard no noise and smelled nothing that resembled animals but then when he opened a stall door and revealed a very shiny-looking candy apple red and chrome Harley Davidson motorcycle. Ah, a hog.

“Care to put something exciting between your legs?” he asked, suggestively, smiling at me.

I looked down at my clothes, “I’m wearing a skirt,” I said.

He shrugged, “You’ll be against my back. No one’ll see your cute little baby blue panties,” he winked.

“Obviously you saw them,” I wondered how he knew.

“But I’m allowed to. Let’s do this.”

He walked the bike out and then got into the jeep and backed into the barn, closed the doors and locked them.

Then he passed me a metallic candy apple red helmet and put a black one on his head and then we got on the road and he vroomed out of the driveway.

I held him tight, loving the feel of his muscular back and enjoying the scenery. It was a beautiful day. We drove about half an hour through the countryside, up and down winding country roads, and finally stopped at a little riverside park. There were picnickers, cyclists, fisherman, and hikers, and it looked really picturesque. He parked the bike and took my hand, helping me off, blocking the view of my undies as I was getting off the bike and ensuring my leg didn’t touch the hot exhaust pipe.

He walked me up to a snack bar beside the river and said, “What kind of ice cream?” His eyes were sparkling with mischief.

I blushed and looked up at a big whiteboard with a few dozen choices written in alternating orange and blue marker, “Blackjack Berry Thunder,” I said, with conviction.

He chuckled, “Two please,” he said to the older woman manning the stand and whispered into my ear, “That’s got to be the polar opposite of vanilla,” he kissed me behind the earlobe.

“Let’s just say my palate has gotten accustomed to more, err, flavor these days,” I flushed red but stared at him challengingly.

He looked tickled pink, his eyes sparkled with mischief, “You ain’t tasted nothin’ yet,” he told me while kissing my knuckles. Then the lady passed us our ice cream and Tommy paid and we strolled away, hand in hand.

“And maybe if I pick non-boring ice cream, maybe my life will stop being so darn exciting,” I added as we got to the riverbank and then Tommy sat on a large smooth rock big enough to be carved into a bench and with some comfy grooves that’d serve well to sit on.  I sat beside him.  The ice cream was remarkably good. I stared at the water, deep in thought.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he asked.

I looked at him. He was smiling at me, licking his ice cream, looking gorgeous and carefree.

“How come you seem so calm and carefree?” I asked, then whispered, “We could’ve been killed this morning.”

He shrugged, “My life has been one long game of chess and almost never boring, Tia. When I give myself a chance to breathe, I breathe. That’s what today is about. Us taking a minute to breathe.”

I frowned. It sounded awful, “Your life always been like this? Your Dad never sheltered you?”

He looked thoughtful for a second, “My Pop’s company has evolved over the years. I guess I evolved with it. I’ve been working for my father since I was 14. I’ve seen a lot, even before I started working for him. I’ve learned a lot. My sisters are a little sheltered, they know about Pop’s business but they know much less, but us boys…” he shook his head, “Constant chess game. I just make one move at a time and try to be as strategic as I can be.”

Clearly it’d affected him. He had huge anger issues. He had to know this had something to do with it. I felt disdain for his father. What would Tommy be like if he’d had a normal upbringing?

“I’m sure your life experiences have taught you a lot, too,” he said.

I nodded.

“You haven’t had the easiest life,” he added.

“Yeah, true, but nothing like yours. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the constant threat, the violence.”

“It’s not always this amped. And I have plans so that when I take over things will transition and eventually most of the risky stuff will be phased out.”

I felt a spark of hope but it quickly extinguished as I recalled a scene in the Godfather when Michael Corleone’s wife talked about how the more legitimate he’d become, the more dangerous he’d become. I’d seen the movies so many times.

What’d been apparent so far was that Tommy Ferrano did, definitely, have demons and that he had major mood swings. He was violent but he was also fiercely protective.

“You threw yourself on top of me this morning,” I said, “to protect me from the gunfire.”

“Of course I did.” He was staring at the river.

“You came to Mexico yourself. You rescued me and then avenged me, well avenged yourself but I think me, too.”

“Yeah.” He looked across the river at kids skipping stones directly across from us, “I’ll always protect you. I won’t let anyone hurt you ever again.” He glanced at me quickly and I saw something flash in his eyes, pain, maybe.

“With everything so far, that you covered me this morning surprised me. You keep surprising me. You’re not very predictable.”

“I’m a bit like this ice cream,” he said, twirling the cone and assessing it, “A lot going on here with the berries and the chunks of white chocolate and dark chocolate each bite is different from the last.”

I giggled, “And I’m all vanilla, every lick exactly the same as the last?”

“No way,” he tugged my ponytail playfully, “You’re exactly the flavor I want. You’re delicious.”

I blushed.

“I’m serious,” he said, “I’m new to the whole relationship thing. I never bothered with the whole dating or relationship thing and to go from not doing them to being engaged sounds huge, it
is
huge, but I’m ready. I never had time for that. But now I know it’s because I’ve been biding time waiting for you, baby. I just didn’t know it until I laid eyes on you.” He reached for me, about to kiss me but I stopped him and blurted, “Tommy, I need my friends. I need Rose and Cal to know I’m okay. I need…”

He cut me off, “All in time.” His lips touched mine gently, sweetly.

“Really?” I felt something twist in my gut.

“I’ll give you everything you need.” He let that sink in for a beat, and then continued, “Let’s get a few things cleared up and it’ll have to be handled delicately but you can invite them to the wedding. In fact, if you do, I’m sure it’ll settle them down.”

“The wedding?”

“We’d might as well start planning it. Pop offered to let us do it at his house. The girls can help you. We can have whatever you want. Sky’s the limit. It’d be good to be there for security reasons. How about a month away? Tomorrow you and I can stop by the Crenshaws’ place and talk to them. Together. Think about where you want to honeymoon. Sky’s the limit there, too. But you won’t be able to tell anyone. We will need to keep the location quiet until we’re back,” He leaned over and kissed me quickly.

I gulped, “We’re still there? This is fast, it’s ---”

He cut me off, “Your ice cream is melting.”

I licked all the way around the cone quickly.

“Oh my god.” He said under his breath.

I looked over at him and he was looking at me, his eyes filled with fiery lust.

I licked the ice cream off my upper lip with the tip of my tongue, “We’re having a serious conversation, here, Mister.” I poked his chest playfully.

He chewed his lower lip, “Lick it again.”

I did. I twirled the cone slowly and lavishly licked the circumference and then slowly licked my lips.

He shook his head, “Mmm.”

“What were we saying?” I asked and he let out a little laugh. I felt my belly dip but a simultaneous internal wince as I wondered if I could do that to him without remembering that horrible man.

“You were saying this was fast and then distracting me with that tongue. I know it’s fast but it’s right. I feel it. I’ll protect you; no one will hurt you ever again. I’ll give you everything. I’m a lot to take on, my family, all of that, I know, but I need you to be mine in every way. You’re already mine. You know you are. Let’s just make it legal.”

“Legal? You care about the law? Really?”

He winked, “Selectively. Lick, baby. Your ice cream is melting.”

“It’s not, you perv. But…” I turned serious, “about all that. The thing with my father, I…”

He waited for me to finish but his jaw tightened.

“I don’t know why all this happened and he promised me an explanation. I called him from that mall that day and he said he would give me answers. I’d like to hear what he has to say. Does he know I’m okay? Does he know all about Mexico and everything? He was supposed to meet me at that food court in the mall when I took off and then you found me first, and…”

“No,” he interrupted me. He got up and tossed his ice cream into the trash bin about 5 feet away. I was pretty much done, too. I passed mine to him and he threw it in the bin. He came back over and crouched in front of me. He put his palms on my face and rubbed my cheeks with his thumbs, then said, “Your father told me where you were.” he stopped talking, maybe letting it sink in, and then continued, “That’s how I found you. He had no intentions of coming to meet you and give you answers. None, Tia. You should have zero guilt where he’s concerned. He should not be at our wedding. He doesn’t deserve to be in your life. Your father is a fucking douchebag.”

I winced. I hadn’t even considered how Tommy had found me that day. The whole Mexico thing sort of made all of that evaporate.

He raised his hands, “Sorry but it’s true. I called him when you took off and he called me a few minutes later to tell me you’d called and then he gave me your location. He sold you out; he’s done it more than once. He’s already given you away. He doesn’t get to hand you to me at our wedding because he already gave you away. You’re already mine. I still don’t know what went down with him and my Pop as women as a debt payment ain’t his thing but I’ve got a PI on it. A good PI. That’s between you and me, Tia. You and me only. My father won’t tell and I need to know.”

I thrust my hands through my hair, the revelation about my dad ratting me out to Tommy sinking in. He picked up on it. I felt totally rattled.

“I didn’t want your father to ruin today.” He got back up and threw a rock across the river. It skipped about 8 or 10 times and the boys across the river were jumping up and down. Tommy held another flat rock up in their direction and then did this wrist flicking thing a few times to show them his technique and the boys mimicked him and then Tommy threw the rock and it skipped about a dozen times. The one boy’s rock skipped 6 times and the other older boy’s rock only skipped twice.  The kid whose rock had done better looked thrilled and then flicked another and it skipped quite a few more times. The other kid was jumping up and down.

I turned my attention to Tommy who now had his back to the river and was concentrating on me.

“He’s not worthy of you. He didn’t fight for you. Didn’t try to protect you from my family. Now it’s up to me to protect you. From him, if necessary.”

I was lightheaded, numb, with a sensation of tiny pins and needles rattling around inside my body. I wanted to curl up and close my eyes and hide from the world.

Tommy leaned back down and took my chin into his grasp, “Don’t. Don’t internalize that. This is his fault.
He’s
the loser. You’re worth way more than the $25K he sold you for. You are precious, priceless. Do you understand me? I’ll find out the truth for you and then we can put this to bed once and for all.”

“I’m supposed to just let you take over my whole life.” my voice was barely above a whisper.

“Yeah,” he answered simply.

Twenty five thousand? Was that all? I knew it was a lot of money to most but was that all I was worth?  Anger rose up in me. He saw it.

“You’re mad at your father so you’re going to take it out on me. Go ahead. I can take it.” He waved his fingers at himself, giving me a ‘give me all you’ve got’ gesture.

“Mad at him? Sure, I’m mad at him but why shouldn’t I be mad at you, too? You’re mad at him for letting you have me. But yet you took me. You. Took me. Do you realize how fucked up that is?”

“Lower your voice,” he warned.

I got up and stomped off down a trail. He followed me. I walked for a good five minutes until we were deep in the bush. Finally, I spun around to face him, almost colliding with him; he was so hot on my heels.

“You’ve played numerous mind games with me, you’ve been controlling, abusive, you’ve raped me, you have me under lock, key, and guard to keep me from escaping, you’ve threatened me with a gun, hit me with a belt, shall I go on? You hardly know me. You’re letting your father bribe you, I don’t know, into marrying someone you don’t even love. Someone you hardly know. You’ve never even had a serious relationship and you’re a sexual deviant, by your own admission, and I’ve got the welts to prove it and now I have to … I have to… argh!” I wanted to kick a tree but I had flimsy flip flops on and it would hurt. He folded his arms over his chest.