White & Black (16 page)

“Ella… I just loved your sexy dancing.”

“So did I, it got me just what I wanted…”

“What’s that…” As if he didn’t know.

“On the bed and smoochy with you… and now I can tell you I love you over and over while we get all passionate with each other… would you like that?” She suddenly had a wildly fluttering heart again.

“I think I just might. Get started then.” His insides twisted with a mixture of longing and desire and some other things… expectation and excitement.

She kissed him all over his face. She’d make him wait for it. For quite a while in fact.

They started to make love. The atmosphere between them was electrifying. Lots of delicious eye contact was going on. It was very intense and sublime shivers were running up and down his spine. His mind was filled with her. But he was waiting for her to say it. Why the hell was she keeping him hanging so long…?

“Fucking hell Ella, I’m going to die with all this waiting. Just tell me already…”

“What’s that Dev…?”

“You were going to tell me something nice…?”

“Was I? Oh sorry I forgot…”

“The fuck you did…”

“Stop swearing at me… it’s ruining the moment. You’ll have to wait while I get myself back in the mood now”

“For fuck’s sake… I really
am
going to die…”

“I might die waiting as well…” It didn’t hurt to remind him this was supposed to be a two way affair.

She’d made her point and made him wait long enough. She held his face in her hands and gave him a lovely soft kiss… all sweeping loving lip action. She looked into his beautiful expectant brown eyes with her heart blazing for him… “Baby… please don’t die… because I really do love you so very much Devy.”

He lay very still as her wonderful words washed through him like a wave of pure heaven. Every inch of him was thrilled to hear it. He kissed her once more, sinking deep into her. He loved the way she called him Devy, no one else in the world called him that. He sighed deeply and stroked the hair back from her face, looking into her blue eyes. His heart was almost completely in her hands.

She could feel it coming up from deep inside him, just like the sun rising after the darkness of the longest ever night… this was the moment she was waiting for. Her heart was hammering like crazy, her stomach was twisted in the tightest knot, waiting to be released.

“You’ve changed my life forever. I can’t tell you how much. I love you too Ells.” His heart opened for the first time ever and it left him breathless as he looked at her. She’d slipped past his barriers effortlessly… and opened the door to his soul. He couldn’t quite believe any of this had happened to him at all, let alone in a couple of days.

She was crying real tears of happiness. She kissed him softly again… murmuring against his mouth…“Love you… love you… love you… ” Her voice caught with emotion.

“love you too…” His eyes were misting up very badly all of a sudden. He was a hopeless over emotional lovestruck case. Where had all his self control gone?

Frantic hands and lips touched and kissed. Their bodies entwined, heated and beyond the realms of passion. They were both far away in their own private little love heaven that no one else could ever enter.

Chapter 23

Monday morning arrived much too soon for Ella. Her truck had been repaired and was now in working order, surprisingly cheaply. After a very long and difficult process of transport and arrival, her father and herself finally made their way into the consultant, Mr Ford’s office at the hospital. She was feeling very guilty this morning for a number of reasons. Firstly she had been enjoying herself with Dev rather excessively over the weekend, prior to this very serious event in her father’s life and secondly, she felt guilty for not telling him what it was about beforehand. But she genuinely felt the news was better coming directly from the consultant. That eased her guilt a little.

Ella helped her father sit down and then sat next to him.

“Have you read the summary diagnosis we sent you last week Mr White?” the consultant asked him kindly.

“No we haven’t received that.” Ella lied. Blame it on the mail… “What does it say Mr Ford?”

He began to explain, looking from Ella to her father in turn.

“The electrical shock you received has caused some areas of brain tissue to be permanently damaged Mr White.”

Her father was looking anxious and confused.

“Am I going to die?” He whispered, fear showing clearly on his face.

Ella’s eyes welled up and she put her hand on his shaking one, giving it a squeeze.

“Oh no no… Mr White, nothing like that I can assure you. But you are not going to improve on your current mobility, speech and brain functions. Your memory could deteriorate a little more perhaps. That remains to be seen. It doesn’t necessarily follow.”

“I’m not g..g..going to get b..b..b..better ever?” He tried to absorb what the rest of his life was going to be like. He was only 47 years old.

“The worst case scenario is no, I’m very sorry. We do not have any conventional treatment or surgery which can help you. But we do have other things which you can try, so don’t give up hope just yet. We like to provide every possible avenue of therapy to patients. There are many alternative, natural therapies which could be very beneficial to you Mr White. We have a range of Hydro, Physio and dietary therapies and even acupuncture available, if you wish to try them. They can improve mobility quite substantially, I can assure you. They are optional of course, but I would recommend trying them all, you just never know. I’ve seen amazing successes with patients on these programs.”

“How often would my dad need these treatments and how often?” Ella wanted the details.

“Here is a booklet for you to read, it explains it all. It depends on the treatment, but once a week minimum, twice a week is better. The contact numbers are in there if you wish to pursue that line of therapy” He handed Ella a booklet and she put it in her bag to read later.

“Also, Mr Ford… I need some help. I’m only 21 and I have a job and a brother to look after too. I need 24 hour nursing a few days a week. Where do I find someone who could provide my dad with the proper care?”

“I have three companies I recommend. I am not involved with them at all personally, but I have heard good reports from other people in similar situations to you.” He looked in his drawer and produced three business cards. “They all do round the clock care” He fumbled around in his drawer again. “… and there is a support group and a friends group. Your father could get out and meet people a few times a month.” He handed Ella another two cards.

Ella was starting to feel a lot more positive as they left the consultants office. There were things her dad could try and she could get help for him. She had been already been looking for a housekeeper. Someone to do laundry, cleaning, yard tidying. It was all too much for her to fit in on a regular basis and things were slipping. That was before her new boyfriend was added to the mix as well. Now that she had money, she could afford all this. Her dad would have the stimulation of other people being around and she could have a little life herself. Yes, things were looking much better. Money made the world a better place.

She needed to read the booklet and make a few calls this afternoon and get the best arrangements in place for them all.

She also had a pile of stuff to do around the house, plus some groceries to buy. She had to call in and tell Benny and Gill that she didn’t need her job at the diner any more. Then she was going to burn her accountancy text books in a ceremonial pyre in the yard… Actually, that was just a little fantasy. In reality she was going to lock them in a cupboard somewhere, just in case her Archangel job went up in holy smoke sometime soon.

Then finally she was going to the gym for a workout and to tell Rob all about her amazing good fortune. It was all down to him, pushing her to go along to that audition. She just couldn’t thank him enough.

Chapter 24

It was 5 pm Tuesday evening and Devlin was on his long drive back from LA where he had been at a martial arts exhibition. As he drove home he was almost too desperate to see her, to take her back to his place and love her like crazy. She was all he thought about, he was up in the clouds ecstatic, and this worried him deeply.

He felt so vulnerable. He was obsessed. But maybe that was what love was like. He had nothing to compare his experience to. He’d never loved anyone before. It wasn’t like he could discuss it with any one. Men didn’t talk about things like this. If they discussed women it was in quite a different way.

It was so all consuming and almost painful. He couldn’t get over the way his stomach was constantly churning and his head felt light.

She had only to cross his mind for a few seconds and he had a hard on. The last two days had been so difficult for him.

His mind turned to the nightmare dreams he’d been having. They’d started just a few weeks before he’d met her. He thought about why the girl had left him. Perhaps it could be a warning. His subconscious mind telling him not to get too involved with anyone. Too late for that though, he was in way too deep to stop now.

Funny though, he hadn’t had his dream since he’d been seeing Ella. Not once.

Maybe that was the end of it.

Perhaps he shouldn’t read too much into it anyway.

Dreams can just be dreams, can’t they?

They don’t have to mean anything much at all…

Chapter 25

Ella dropped off her signed contract to Lucy and Tony and made her way down to dressing. She was a little late for her first official day on the job as the Arena Archangel. Her dad had needed some attention just before she came out and it made her twenty minutes late. She felt a little trepidation as she knocked on the door to be let inside the dressing room. The door was opened by Coral, she’d only spoken to her once before.

“Hey look, the Archangel has finally flown in…” quipped Sonia, “…maybe we can all start getting ready now?”

She looked around the room. Everyone was in here tonight and all eyes were upon her. Sara was sitting up the far end, texting on her cell as usual.

“Hi Ella” She called out, beaming at her.

“Hi Sara” She replied beaming back. She was so glad she had at least one girl friend in here. “So everyone, how’s things?” She thought she should try and be a little leader like, even if that wasn’t exactly her role. She wasn’t their superior, but it didn’t hurt to create some team spirit.

“Completely fine with me” Tori smiled widely at her. “Couldn’t be better.” They had all been given a generous pay increase and some beautiful clothes to wear. Things were A-OK with her. Dev and Ella news aside anyway… She couldn’t quite get her head round or past that shocking new development.

Lucy had given them all a pep talk on Saturday about working the crowd more and being social
like Ella, blah, blah, blah.
But in truth, they should have been doing that anyway, so it was no big deal. She was quite happy with what was going on. Much happier now that Marcia the bitch was gone too.

Kim guided Ella to the chair for her make up session. “So how’s our hot ‘n sexy couple getting on? All lovey dovey are we?” He asked with a grin.

“Well you know… kind of” She replied in surprise. Well, news obviously travels fast round here… how did he know? She looked around. All eyes were on her. There were some very obvious hostile ones too. Sally-Ann was looking positively hateful. She had thought she was quite a nice girl before, now she looked quite Marcia’ish. There was obviously a big undercurrent here about Dev.

“Ella bella love, you be careful with that man. Don’t go getting in too deep. Just have some fun, eh” Kim continued as he worked on her hair putting it up in a messy looped up-do and sticking a big decorative black pin through it and another silver one at right angles to it.

“I’ll try Kim,” she lied. It was way too late for any of that. She couldn’t get any deeper. She was in so deep she was already at the bottom of the bottomless pit of deepness. But one thing was for sure, she was definitely having a lot of fun with Dev. She’d never had so much scorching hot bedroom fun in her entire life!

Kim quickly plastered on a layer of make up. This was much stronger than usual. She looked so different. Huge black and white made up eyes stared back at her. Long eyelashes with twinkly bits on the ends and deep red lipstick. She never wore this type of thing but it looked so good. She looked at herself in amazement. He held out a black outfit and high rise cutout black and diamante sandals for her. She got up and quickly changed into the stretchy clothes and did up her shoes. She looked in the mirror at his black two piece creation. It was brief and very sexy indeed. What a shame Dev wasn’t here to see her sensational dark archangel look, she was pretty sure he’d love it.

“Kim, you have completely surpassed yourself. I thought the blue dresses were fantastic. This dark angel look is something else!” It seemed everyone liked it based on all the ‘ooh’ and ‘wow’ comments she was hearing.

“Kim, do me next, that is just so hot!” Sonia was positively hyper and jumping up and down next to him with excitement to get herself dark angeled up.

“I know… I have a hot artistic soul… you are all dark angels tonight and on Thursday, we’re going all white and virginal girls…” Kim was grinning from ear to ear with pride, his little diamond tooth flashing like a heavenly star.

The master of ring style worked through them all quickly and less than an hour later nine beautiful black dressed angels made their way out to the three arenas in hot and sexy style.

“Don’t mind if I tag along, do you?” asked Kim falling in step behind them. He wanted to see at first hand what kind of a reaction his artistic soul produced in the outside world. Besides, he was trying to go cold turkey with his dope. He couldn’t stay in that room on his own or he’d get fidgety and probably end up getting himself all high on his dress success.

Chapter 26

Marcia was waiting inside her car for Ginger to come out of the Arena back door. After what seemed like forever she finally spotted her leaving the building and walking across the lot, making her way through the remaining parked vehicles. She quickly got out of her car and followed her, bending down low so as not to be seen. Ginger got into her black truck and Marcia ran around the back and hopped in the passenger seat next to her quickly. As she got in she dropped the drugs and a roll of cash, which she was holding behind her back with a tissue, so that her fingerprints weren’t on any of it, into the door storage compartment just as she closed the door