unForgivable (An inCapable World Novel Book 2) (12 page)

* * *

I
wake up covered
in sweat. Damien’s arms are around me, his leg hiked up and dangling over my hip. His body is like a furnace and his heat surrounds me. It’s comforting, and yet stifling at the same time. I wiggle away from him, stopping momentarily when I feel his cock stir against my back. Wow. It feels like he has another leg pressed up against me and I have to look over my shoulder to make sure but no, his other leg is straight and it reaches past the arm at the other end of the couch.

If I wasn’t so hot right now, I might wake him up with morning sex. I sit up and smile to myself, my gaze traveling from his middle to his face. His eyelids flutter and his full lips blow out small puffs of air. His chest rises and the sparse hair that covers it tickles my thigh.

He’s peaceful like this. Handsome. The more I’m near him, the more he grabs a hold of me. The me from a week ago would have stripped bare and climbed on top of him, using him to satisfy myself and my hunger. The me from today still wants that, but considers what will happen if I do. We’ve had sex and it was amazing. One time and I think I could walk away. Maybe he could, too. But more than that…I think we’re in danger of finding something more.

Ah, who am I kidding? He’s made it clear he wants as much as I can give, which is why I need to be so careful.

I won’t hurt him like others have hurt me. I don’t want to. If I fuck this up, he might never forgive me. He’ll never look at me the same and that thought stings a little.

His eyes slowly open and now it’s his turn to smile. His sleepy, doe-eyed smile has my stomach dancing. He reaches out and his hand touches my shoulder while his other takes my hand. “Come here,” he says.

I lay down, this time facing him as he caresses my cheek. “Can’t sleep?” he asks.

“I have a lot on my mind.”

“Such as?”

I let out a breath. “You.”

“My favorite topic,” he says with a grin.

I bury my head into the crook of his neck and lightly shake my head. He excels in relaxing me and making me forget about everyone and everything else. “Don’t go anywhere,” I say. “Give me time.”

He grips my hip and pulls me close, my leg resting on top of his. His cock twitches and rests between my legs. I close my eyes and sigh.

“I’ve been into you since you were fourteen. Do you really think I’ll get bored so easily?”

“Maybe. Everyone else has before you.”

“Then they were morons.”

Lightly, I hit his chest. “When it happens constantly, I have to face the facts. It must be me.”

“Or the guys you pick.”

“Funny, that’s what my aunt said.”

With a lazy finger, he strokes up and down my leg and over the curve of my ass. He detours and moves through the short hair between my legs, sending chills through me. I lose my breath and let out a moan. I can’t have a serious conversation with him while he continues to touch me like this.

“The guys you dated in high school were pricks. I hated the way I’d hear them talk about you.”

This stills me. He’s not telling me anything I don’t know. I’d see some of it in writing under the bleachers or as graffiti in the girl’s bathroom. Popular, yep. With girls, I suppose. But not like I was with boys. Chad took my virginity without a second thought for my feelings, knowing he didn’t want anything more from me. But before that, I never said no to other things. To any boy who wanted attention. I might have refused sex a lot, but I’m sure the guys who used me for other things talked about it, and maybe embellished. It’s probably why Chad thought he could treat me like that. Because when I told him I was a virgin, he laughed at me.

“Why did you let them treat you like that?” he asks.

“I don’t know.”

His hands move to my back, tracing a line down my spine, and I tense from the delicious feeling deep within. “My mother was the same. She’d have boyfriends at the house all the time. She didn’t care if I was there or if I could see. I guess that’s what I knew. That’s how men treated girls like her and me.

“That’s when Mona stepped in. We came to visit and Mona paid for everything. Mom had a bad relationship and she’d been beaten pretty badly, but when we came, she just fell into the same pattern and took up with a guy that was no better. Mona came home one night to my mother naked with a boyfriend in the living room. Mona lost her mind. I was in my room, with headphones on, trying to drown them out. Mona told Sasha—my mother—she had to go back and she agreed after a long fight that thankfully Ralph wasn’t there for. I can’t even imagine if he’d been involved or saw my mother having sex in his house.” I shudder at the thought. “She left and Mona asked me if I wanted to stay. I said yes. My mother’s not a bad person, I think she was just lonely. I know that now because…”

“That’s how you feel?” he asks.

“Sometimes,” I say quietly. “I never meant to be like her; it just kind of happened.”

“You’re not like her. I don’t think you would do what she did. You wouldn’t ignore your child to get off. I just don’t see that about you.”

“I think your opinion of me is skewed. If I let myself be with you, you’ll see everything. And I kind of like knowing that someone sees me as you do right now.”

He wraps his arms around my shoulder and pulls me in close. I find it hard to breathe against the heat of his chest but I turn my head and let him hold me. I love every minute of it. When he tries to pull away, I resist and he gives me my way. Soon, it’s not enough. I want more, and I tilt my head up and search for his lips. The moment our mouths touch, my whole body relaxes and I feel as if I’m falling. Only he’s waiting to catch me.

I lower my hand to his boxers, slide my hand underneath the waistband, and encircle his long, thick cock. His breath hitches as I stroke the length of him faster, moving from the base to the tip and covering him with his wetness. It gets me hot and I pull down his boxers while he fumbles to pull down my panties. After tossing them to the floor the barrier between us is gone. He grips me and rolls me onto my back. I open my legs wide for him to settle in tight against me. His dog tags dangle in my face and he tosses them over his shoulder. “You’re so beautiful,” he says, his voice husky.

I look away and he takes my chin in his hand, forcing me to look back at him. He tells me again and this time I can’t look away. “I’m going to keep saying it until you believe it.” He captures my lip between his, nibbles lightly before kissing me deeply, his tongue diving in to dance with mine. He presses his cock against me and pushes in tight to reach the sweet spot between my lips. I let out a moan. He moves back and forward to give me delicious tingles between my legs. I want more. I want everything. I grip him and guide him to my swollen entrance.

“Condom?” I ask.

He presses against me again, the tip rimming my entrance and I want desperately for him to dive in, but it’s not smart and I can’t create any more drama in my life. I’ve had my fill.

He kisses me quickly and rolls off me, strutting over to the counter in the kitchen and pulling out a roll of condoms. The sight of his naked back and tight ass makes me impatient. Then he turns and I see the thickness of his cock as he stands at full attention. It’s enough for me to tell him to hurry the hell up.

He smiles at me as the roll of condoms fall. There must be at least ten. “You’re optimistic,” I say with a small smile.

“Power of positive thinking.”

He stands over me, his cock inches from my face and I move to a sitting position. I take one of the condoms and open it with my teeth before rolling it snugly down his shaft. I lick the tip for good measure and it’s enough for him to push me down and crawl on top of me with impatience. He reaches in between us to grip my shirt and I wiggle as he pulls it over my head. He drives inside of me and I call out his name in pleasure as he pauses to pay attention to my breasts. His tongue circles my nipples. He sucks and flicks them until they’re hard and erect and I’m almost embarrassed to say I’ve left a wet spot on his couch.

“Damien, this is all I can give for right now. Until I figure some things out.”

“This is enough,” he says, breathless. “But I don’t share.”

“Damien,” I say softly.

“I mean it.” He holds my face in his hands. His face and eyes are serious and his voice is firm. “I won’t share you. But I won’t push you into anything either.”

“I have nothing to give you.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” He pushes into me, thrusts to the hilt, and I gasp as he pulls out and drives in again. He rocks on top of me, alternating speeds between fast and slow and shallow and deep and I’ve come more than once but I swear he’s not even close. When I feel as if I might pass out, I beg him, “Please, I can’t take anymore. It’s too much.”

“No, I want you to remember what this feels like. I want you to crave it. And when you think about sex I want you to think of only me.” He slams into me again.

I gasp. “Only you,” I agree as I come again and scream out his name.

I
stand
, stretching up on my tiptoes as I yawn. It’s freezing in here and my toes are cold. I search the floor for my clothes and slide into my panties and shirt, the floorboards creaking slightly under my weight. The noise makes him stir and he rolls forward, cuddling deeper into the crevice of the old faded couch. His face is relaxed; his lips open just an inch as he breathes deeply.

I cover my face with my hands. What the hell am I doing? Letting myself live in the moment, as always? What I should really be doing is planning a funeral and getting my shit together. I chastise myself for this, telling myself I’m avoiding responsibility—as usual. Though this time I feel like it’s different. Last night with Damien doesn’t feel self-destructive. He’s perhaps the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I thought our timing was off, but maybe it’s exactly right. Maybe he’s what I need to help me get through all of this.

After a quiet sigh, I creep to the kitchen and pour myself a glass of tepid water. The pipes groan and rattle as water falls out, first a leak and then a stream. I cringe from the sound and look over my shoulder to make sure I didn’t wake him.

He’s still sleeping soundly, only now with lines of worry on his forehead as he makes the smallest of movements with his nose.

The water goes down smoothly, but it’s not enough to fill my growling stomach. That will have to wait, though. I don’t want to disturb him. I wash up in the bathroom, helping myself to another one of his T-shirts and some massive jogging pants—which I suspect are even too big for him—that I find in one of his drawers.

When I open his bedroom door, he’s in the hallway, hair messy, his cheeks wrinkled from sleep. And shirtless. He shouldn’t be allowed to wear nothing on his chest, because it hits me in all the right places and I have to say over and over in my mind how little time I have for throwing him down right now. He makes it worse by scratching the small patch of hair trailing from his navel to below his underwear. He has that amazing v-shaped cut of muscles by his pelvis that makes me want to fan myself. Couple that with the definition in his tatted arms and legs and I feel like I have to wipe the drool off my chin.

“Everything okay?” he asks, as he stares at me with his sleepy, bedroom eyes.

I almost forget who I am and look away to distract myself.

“I’m fine,” I say, a little too quickly. My voice sounds squeaky and it brings a smile to his delicious face.

So I think about clowns—I fucking hate those scary bastards. And wrinkled old penises on old men. And getting a pap test or an enema. “I’m fine. I just have a lot to do and I need to get going. I’ve got to meet with Mona’s lawyer, plan her funeral, and figure out what I’m going to do with the pub, and…yeah—a bunch of other shit. I’m fine. I just…I need to go. There is so much I need to do.”

“Okay,” he says. “Let me get dressed. I’ll take you wherever you need to go.”

“Damien, you’ve done enough. More than enough.”

“And your point?”

I chuckle, partly from his sense of humor and partly from frustration. “Can you take me home? I need some new clothes. I can’t really go out in these.”

He approaches me, his hands reaching out to touch my waist, but I take a step back and his hands return to his sides. If he touches me again I’ll be naked on my back before he can count to three.

He frowns and I feel as if I’ve offended him. I punch his chest to get his attention. Not hard, just enough for him to break free from whatever he’s thinking.

“I’m not running. I just need to get back to life. You’re…distracting,” I say with a smile.

He reaches out to grab the drawstring of my pants and pulls on it slowly so the bow comes undone and my pants fall to my ankles. “Whoops,” he says, deadpan.

Sighing, I pull them back up. I don’t just want him, I like him. As a person. I can just relax around him and let the real me out. Usually, I act confident and in control even when I don’t feel like I am. But with him, I feel like a silly girl with a crush. I’m all blushing cheeks and butterflies.

“Why are you single?” I ask, shaking my head. “How has no girl dug her hooks into you so deep that you can’t get them out?”

“Well, one girl did a few years ago.”

I remember Mona telling me about a bad breakup. “What happened? You break up with her? Maybe you lost interest while you were deployed?”

He frowns at me. “Why do you want so badly to find something wrong with me?”

“I don’t…I just think that everyone has flaws. I have yet to find yours.”

“You’ve only just met me. I’m far from perfect.” After he takes my hand in his, he leads me to his bed where we sit down next to one another. He’s so close our arms are touching. He’s warm, like a well-lit fire and, without meaning to, I find myself leaning against him.

“I thought I was in love with my ex. She was the first girl I felt any sort of emotional connection to. She laughed at my jokes—and I never found myself particularly funny. And we had a lot of the same interests. I gave her all I had and I thought she felt the same. When I was in Afghanistan the last time, she told me she was pregnant. I was so excited. I couldn’t wait to get back to her, but then I did the math when a buddy asked me how far along she was. “Kid wasn’t mine.”

“Wow. I’m sorry.”

He forces a smile. “I got leave, went back to our apartment and I thought I’d surprise her. I needed to confront her...I don’t know...maybe see if there was anything worth saving. But she was gone.” He squeezes my hand just enough for me to notice. “She left a note. She was eloping with some other guy.”

“Here I thought all guys were jerks. Turns out us females can be just as wicked.”

“Not all.”

“She didn’t deserve you. And it’s a good thing that happened so you were able to get away from her.”

“Maybe.”

“You need a nice girl…with an easy life. Have kids and get a fucking white house with an even whiter fence.”

He chuckles. “My mother is Jocelyn Dante. I have cousins and aunts that make her look like mother of the year. I’ve dated the kind of girls you’re describing and they’re nice…for a while. But I need a little sass in my life, and I need a girl who can keep my attention. Someone strong and sweet all at once.”

“That’s a tall order,” I say.

“It is,” he agrees. Shaking his head, he sighs. “I could get hooked on you again, Beth. It would be so easy.”

It would be easy
. For me, too. But I don’t say this, instead I tell him his ex was a moron, earning me a wide smile. Then wordlessly I tell him I’ll try my hardest not to hurt him, too.

He takes a quick shower while I sit and wait in the living room. It doesn’t take him long to get dressed and for us to be out of the door. In the car I am surrounded by his fresh, clean scent and I want him again. Will I never be satisfied? I’ve only just had him.

In ten minutes, we’re outside my apartment complex and the car is in park, idling by the curb. I linger in my seat, staring at the tall, brick building. It surprises me to find I don’t want to get out—leaving him is like trying to pull duct tape off my skin. I fear it will hurt. And I fear that he and I will be over after I get out. That somehow the magic between us will be gone.

How can I be equally scared of losing and keeping him? I’m more fucked up than I thought.

“I’ll see you,” I say quietly, before jumping out and running to my building. As I reach the doors, I slow and look over my shoulder. He’s staring at me, a confused expression etched on his face. Why couldn’t I have asked for his number? Or given him mine. No. I just ran away like a frightened dog.

He pulls away and I tip my head back and stifle a scream. Good one, Beth. Smooth, real smooth. But there is nothing I can do about it now and I’ll only feel pathetic if I try. I’ll see him again. I know it. Even if I have to orchestrate something. Because I want to see him again.

Soon.

I pull open the double doors in front of me and am hit with a gust of warm air. They always keep the lobby warm and it makes coming home really welcoming. Fresh roses and carnations sit on the desk by the doorman. Carl, I think his name is. He smiles when he sees me, stands, and nods.

“Morning,” he says, his voice garbled as he chews on something.

I return his sentiment and approach the elevator. Two shrubs in tall clay pots stand on either side of the doors. Their scent cuts through the sweet scent of the flowers.

My eyes grow heavy from lack of sleep while I wait for the elevator to sound off. I close them, giving them a minute to rest, though I fear I might fall asleep on my feet. I almost think I have when Carl’s voice startles me. Only then do I notice he now stands beside me.

“Ms. Bilski?” he says. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“That’s okay. I’m just a little tired.”

“I thought you might want to know some people were around here, looking for you.”

My pulse kicks up a notch and my lethargy dissipates. What if Frankie really didn’t mean what he said?

“The police were here again yesterday….and I wasn’t supposed to tell you about the other visitors. They said…they’d…it doesn’t matter what they said. I just wanted you to know some people were looking for you. I wouldn’t forgive myself if something happened to you. You’ve always been so nice to me. And I know you’re probably going through a tough time right now.”

I raise my hand and set it on his shoulder, squeezing ever so slightly. He’s shorter than me, but much rounder and as I look down at his serious, sweating face, I feel thankful to have someone else left in this world who seems to give a shit about me. I bend at the waist and give him a little peck on the cheek.

“Who were the other visitors?”

He clears his throat and glances all around like he worries they might be watching.

“Big guys. And they had guns. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought maybe they work for you know who.”

“Hmm. Okay. Thanks, Carl. I really appreciate you telling me.”

The elevator dings and the doors slide open. I step inside but then as the doors begin to close, I jut my hand out to stop them. The doors rattle before opening wide again and the alarm sounds for a beat, like a ringing bell.

“Hey, Carl?”

He stops, turning to face me.

“When did those
other
visitors come by?”

“Yesterday morning and then one was across the street in a truck all afternoon. He must have left in the evening sometime. I didn’t see him go. I was trying my best not to look like I was watching him.”

I nod and drop my hands, offering him another sincere thank you until the doors block him from my view.

This is good. Or, better than I feared. They left before I had my chat with Frankie. If they’d stayed after that, I would have had to change my plans because I would know Frankie wasn’t completely committed to our deal. But this small detail gives me confidence that I’m safe—at least for now.

My body aches to shower and sleep but I don’t let myself right now. I have too many things to do. After going through a dozen or so voice mail messages on my home phone, I start to do callbacks. Most of the calls are from the police so after a heavy sigh I elect to call them last. They want to speak to me in person—big surprise there. I really don’t want to be seen going into the police station, so I’ll get Detective Russell to meet me outside of the city, where people won’t recognize me.

Mona’s lawyer is first on my list of people to call. Thankfully, he left a message for me so I copy his number down quickly and call him back. It’s early, probably before business hours, but he did say on his message that this number is his cell and I could call him at any hour.

“At your convenience,” he says when I ask to meet him.

“How about now?”

He cancels another appointment to fit me in and I’m amazed at how accommodating he is. But then, my aunt just died and she was my guardian for a long while.

I call the cops next, but thankfully I get voicemail and I hang up. I have no intention of leaving a message. I don’t want to talk to them in the first place. They’re part of the reason my aunt is dead. And if she went to them, she must have felt that they would protect her. Clearly, they didn’t do their job. They’re as high up on my hit list as Jimmy right now. I have no doubt if they want to get a hold of me that badly they’ll track me down.

Mona’s lawyer, Fitch Moby, asks me to meet him at his favorite coffee shop. The bell above the door startles me when I walk inside. I keep waiting for someone to point a gun at me and tell me that Frankie lied and he’d rather get rid of me than risk me avenging my family. But then, deep down I believe what I said: he’s a man of his word. Besides, what kind of threat do I pose to him? I’m sure he sees me as this short blonde girl who relies on her looks a little too much. He has to know I’ve called on Declan and Mickey and Mona more times than I count because of my ability to get myself in sticky situations that I can’t get out of. I look weak to him, even if I tried to be like Mona when I went to his house. He had to see through me. See that it was an act and I was about to fall apart at any moment. Didn’t he?

Of course he did. I don’t believe I’m strong, so why should he? And Mickey thinks I can do what he couldn’t? I could kill the Dantes and everyone responsible for Mona’s death? God, I don’t even know if I have it in me. But I’ll try.

I shake off the thought as I enter the coffee shop and search for Mr. Moby. It’s afternoon and the crowd is small. Maybe a half dozen people, drinking or talking. Their voices mix with a Muse song playing quietly on the speakers tucked into the ceiling.

Mr. Moby stands when our eyes meet and his solemn face hits me harder than I expect. He cared for Mona and that common bond between us chokes me up. I wade through the tables and chairs and stumble as my foot connects with a heavy purse sitting on the ground.

“I’m sorry,” the woman says, pulling it away and hanging it on the back of her chair.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say politely.

Mr. Moby opens his arms when I reach him. He locks them around my back and holds me tight, like I imagine a father would. “It’s really good to see you.”