Chapter 9: Lovely Beast: Chapter 9

Sara unpacks her stuff in the bedroom. I call down to room service for a bottle of whiskey and some dinner. She takes a long shower and I’m so fucking tempted to kick down that door and burst into the bathroom with her and kiss her soaking wet skin and feel her shiver under my hands again.

But something’s between us now. Something big and tall. Fences, doors, walls.

The night of the wedding was pure. It was simple, it was animal. I wanted her and she wanted me. We flirted, we laughed, we danced. We ended up fucking, and that sex still lingers with me, floats through my mind, the taste of her still on my tongue.

But the more I get to know her, the deeper her mystery goes.

I want to peel her apart. I want to see what makes her work.

I wasn’t fair to her earlier today at Sheila’s place. I acted like she could never understand the struggle someone like Sheila goes through, but maybe that isn’t true, maybe she understands in her own way. Not quite the same thing, but pain in its own way. I keep catching glimpses of that pain, little hints of whatever she went through with her parents. The crying, the sorrow. It was like she’s mortified of what happened at her apartment, but sobbing about it is somehow even worse.

That’s not a normal fucking reaction.

Most people would feel okay crying over something like their apartment getting violated.

And yet Sara’s pissed at herself. She’s pissed at me. She’s angry at the world, and I’m not totally sure why.

But I want to find out.

I’m sipping a whiskey when she comes out of the bedroom. Her hair’s wet and she’s in sweats. “You’re a prince,” she says and sighs as she grabs a plate of chicken fingers and fries. “The perfect comfort food.”

“I’ve got drinks too if you want one.”

“No, thanks.” She curls up on the couch with her plate and picks at it. “Can I ask you something?”

“Might as well since we’ll be roommates for the foreseeable future.”

She winces and holds up a hand. “For one night, you mean.”

“Right. Sure. One night.” I grin at the look on her face. “Go ahead and ask me whatever you want.”

“How’d you meet Carmine?”

“That’s a boring story.” I take a drink, ice clinking against the glass. “And telling it might implicate me in a few crimes.”

“Pretend I’m not a lawyer for a little while.” She laughs, and the anxiety is practically sparkling across her skin. “I just need a distraction.”

I look at her, at her still-damp skin, and I have some ideas on how I can distract her. “I got in to trouble when I was a kid,” I say and stare at my drink, at the liquid sloshing around from side to side. “That’s all I had really. I dropped out of school in ninth grade and got a job to help my grandmom with rent, but working minimum wage didn’t go very far. So I started getting involved in other shit.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“You can imagine. Selling weed, panhandling, even learned how to pickpocket and that was fun until a cop saw me do it on the blue line and the fuckers chased me halfway across the city. Barely got away that time.”

Her smile seems genuine. “You picked pockets? Like an old-timey criminal?”

“I was good at it too. Except, you know, that one time I got caught.”

“Sounds like you were amazing.”

“Guys like Carmine and his family, they’re always watching the city. They’ve got their ears to the ground listening for all the shit, you know what I mean? After a year or two of petty crime, I started making a little bit of money and started working with a pretty solid crew of guys I met. We built a reputation for ourselves. We were honest, didn’t fuck people over, didn’t steal from clients, but we were ruthless. Broke knees, got into fights over territory, that sort of shit.” I smile to myself, remembering the good old days. Things were simple back then. Dangerous and there wasn’t all that much cash to go around, but simple.

“You were a petty thug,” Sara says, prompting me to go on.

“I was a very talented petty thug,” I say and she laughs gently. “Carmine approached me one day a few weeks after we made a big score. We knocked over his liquor store that had a protection deal with the Scavo Famiglia. The store owner was holding extra cash for the Scavos and laundering it through his register, and in exchange, they were supposed to make sure nothing bad happened to him, except I found out about the arrangement.”

“You stole from Carmine?”

I grin and nod. “I should be dead, but he made me an offer. Return the money, get down on my knees and apologize to the capo I embarrassed, and come to work for him personally. Guess what I did?”

“You apologized.”

“Fuck no. Told Carmine I’d rather die than kneel. He liked that and let me keep some of the money. We’ve been together ever since.”

She jabs a fry into ketchup and plops it in her mouth. “Nice story. Sounds fake though.”

“It’s true,” I say and look across the room toward the window. “More or less.”

“What about the rest of your crew?” she asks. “Did Carmine bring them on too?”

My smile fades away. “No. He didn’t.”

“What happened to them?”

I give her a long look. The silence grows between us. “I learned a long time ago that sometimes the choice is stand and die or run and live. I learned how to fucking run. I learned how to survive. Not everyone in my crew did back then.”

“I see,” she whispers and looks down at her plate. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“But you’re loyal to Carmine now? You two seem close.”

“Turns out he’s not so bad.”

“And you think he’s telling the truth? About Nicolas and the dead guys. There’s no way he’s playing some game?”

“The only game is whatever you’re doing right now, my frigid little princess.”

She glares at me. “Don’t do that.”

“You got a question. Now I want to ask one.”

“I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed.” She puts her plate aside and stands up. “Thanks for talking to me.”

“No, you don’t.” I step close and grab her wrist before she can escape into the bedroom. She glares at me, expression hard, and her nearness fills me with a sudden and intense longing. It’s a feeling I haven’t experienced before but I want her like I’ve never wanted someone, like if I can’t taste her right now, I might break apart, like I might crumble on the spot.

“You shouldn’t do that,” she says. “I might get the wrong idea. I might start thinking you want to hurt me.”

“No, princess. I wouldn’t hurt you.”

“Then let me go.”

“Why aren’t you drinking around me?”

Her mouth drops open. I study her lips, her tongue, her teeth. I want that mouth on mine, I want to taste her tongue and her lips. I want to hear her moan and whimper, and I want to make her curse and scream and pant and drool and, fuck, I want her, every inch of her.

“I’m not drinking.”

“You’re nervous, aren’t you? Afraid you’ll lose control. Afraid you’ll do something stupid.”

Her mouth closes and she looks away. “Yeah. That’s it.”

“Good.” I release her wrist. “I like that you’re thinking about it.”

“Goodnight, Angelo.”

“Sleep tight. We’ll clean up your apartment tomorrow and see if we can’t learn something from the mess.”

She disappears back into the bedroom.

The temptation to follow is strong, but I have a long and gory history of controlling my worst impulses, right up until I can’t anymore.