Page 4 of Lustfully Yours
I knew when we met he was well connected, but I never could have imagined at the time how well. I should’ve known. I mean, for shit’s sake, I grew up in the underworld. But Oliver was different, or at least I thought he was. Turns out I suck as much at reading people as I do at finishing a project.
I tilt my head back, rinsing out the shampoo, and get lost in the memory that sent me running home to finish my degree closer to Nashville and the protection I knew I needed. Even if my family didn’t know it.
I come through my apartment door, chuckling at the snap one of my friends just sent me, kicking off my flip-flops as I drop my beach bag on the counter. I’ve about an hour before Oliver will be here to pick me up for our anniversary dinner. I just know he is going to ask me to marry him, and I couldn’t be more thrilled at the idea of being with him forever.
The sound of someone moving around the living room brings me out of my daydreams. I scream when I feel a hand cover my mouth and Oliver’s scent engulfs me. The sight before me is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The guy who hit on me at the beach earlier today is sitting in one of my dining room chairs. His face is so swollen, and there are so many cuts and bruises that if it wasn’t for the tattoo on his shin, I wouldn’t recognize him. Once I stop screaming, Oliver lets go of my mouth and pulls me back into him with a hand on my belly. The feel of his breath on my skin just before he kissed me causes me to shiver.
“Well, hello, my doll. Do you like my present?” Oliver asks between kisses and nips on my neck.
“Ollie baby, what’s going on here?” I ask him, not believing what I’m seeing.
“You see, my sweet doll, I can’t very well allow someone to hit on and or touch what’s mine, can I?” he asks me, like having to explain himself is unheard of.
I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I don’t know the man behind me at all. How could I have been this fucking stupid? My mother and father have spent countless years teaching me how to tell the differences in people and which side of the line they walk on. How the hell could I’ve been so wrong about this man?
“Oh, and why is that?” I ask, needing to hear him say it. To say that he is in the underworld and not just that, but he is the kind of evil that Daddy warned me about.
What happened next was, to this day, the most horrifying night of my life. Instead of getting the proposal of a lifetime, I got to see the monster behind the shiny exterior. Oliver spins me around so fast that he must catch me so I don’t fall on my ass. Before I get my bearings, the sting of his hand across my cheek shocks me so deep that I’m pretty sure I stop breathing for a full minute. When the black spots swirl around me, I take in a lung full of precious oxygen.
“Don’t play dumb with me, Malia. We both know what my family does. Don’t you, sweet doll?” he asks as he rubs his thumb over the mark he just left on my cheek. I just stand there, staring at him, begging with my eyes for him to be wrong.
“Your family is in the Mob?” I ask, and it’s like a light bulb goes off in my brain. Putting all the pieces together that it’s been trying to tell me, I’ve been ignoring it because I wanted him to be different. Now I know that’s not the case.
“Nothing happened, I swear; he just handed me my hat when the breeze blew it off my head. Ollie, please don’t do this,” I beg. As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I know I’ve fucked up because the monster is back.
“If he is nothing, why are you begging for his life? It’s because you wanted something to happen? You wanted him, didn’t you, sweet doll?” he growls, backing me closer to the guy in the chair.
Once my feet are on the plastic covering the floor, he punches me in the stomach, causing me to go to my knees as I try to breathe. Why is he doing this? I’ve never given him any reason to believe I could do something like he is accusing me of doing.
I’ll go back to Nashville and never come back to this god-forsaken state. I will live through this one way or another.
“That’s right! You are where you should be, on your knees for your master. You better get used to being in this position if you plan to defy me like you did today. For your defiance, this man will lose his life, and you’ll be punished. When I’m satisfied, we’ll talk about our future. Do I make myself clear?” he asks.
I know I’ve got to bide my time if I want to get out of this with my life. I’ll never forget the young man who is about to lose his life just for being nice to me, but tonight I can only save one of us. It breaks something in me, knowing I can’t save us both.
I must take too long to answer him because he wraps his hand in my long blonde hair. I only dyed it this way because he said it would make me look more grown-up and classy. When I think back on it, I realize it was because he only dated blondes. He pulls it so hard that I know I’ll be missing a good amount of it.
“Do I make myself clear?” he hisses in my face. I go to nod my head, but the pain from the grip on my hair makes me cry out.
“Words. You will always answer me with words. Do I make myself clear?” he asks with a slap to the face with every word.
“Yes, sir,” I say through gritted teeth.
“That’s a good, sweet doll,” he says, slamming his mouth to mine so hard that I taste blood from my teeth cutting into my mouth. Oliver uses his grip on my hair to hold me there, and when the gunshot goes off, I blackout.
I wake up two days later, so battered and bruised, that my heart beating in my chest causes me to cry out in pain. An in-house doctor has gone over the injuries that I received in a drunk driving incident. I can tell the nurse that is brought in to take care of me doesn’t believe the lie. It takes only two days and the promise of my family’s protection to convince her to help me escape from this monster.
Lawson and I have been inseparable since that day. It took two weeks to make it back to Nashville because I had to be healed and looking normal before I got back, or my dad would have started a war with another family for what Oliver did. I would not risk my family for my stupidity.
The sound of Theo’s voice brings me back to the here and now, making me realize the water has run cold, and I’m shivering.
“Come on, angel, let’s get you out and dried off. We have some things to talk about,” Theo starts, and I go to say something, but he places a finger on my lips and gives me a look. I give him a nod and stay quiet.
“Good girl!” he tells me. I can’t stop the small smile those two words cause and the thrill that pleasing him brings. “We all know that when you came home, a few years back with Lawson, that you weren’t telling us the whole story. Now is the time to tell us everything so that we can get her back and make sure that you and she are safe from here on out,” he says as he rubs a towel through my hair.
“Theo, I can’t! The trouble and chaos that will cause… I just can’t do that to you, bubba, or Poppa. Please believe that I would tell you if I could, but I just can’t,” I beg, dropping my eyes so he can’t see the fear.
Theo uses just one knuckle to lift my chin, so we are once again looking each other in the eye. Like the last time, that one small touch causes all the stress and turmoil to melt away, and I can breathe for the first time in what seems like years. It’s like I’m safe and looked after.
