Once I’m naked, he swoops me in his arms and gently lies me down on the table. The vinyl is cold against my skin. My nipples instantly perk up. Knox notices this and he brushes his thumb over my right nipple.
“This belongs to me.” He squeezes it gently and the pulsing need between my leg intensifies.
He pulls two armrests out of the table. Then he covers my wrists in plush sheepskin before he ties my arms down. I shiver as he traces his finger down my belly, over my thigh, and down to my ankle.
How is he going to tie down my ankles?
This question is answered quickly when he pulls out two metal stirrups from the table. He places my feet in the stirrups and ties down my ankles.
“Are you comfortable?” he asks, his voice isn’t as gruff as it normally is. There’s a soft, reassuring quality to it. He wants me to know that I’m safe.
“Yes.”
“Good. Close your eyes.”
I do as I’m told and the darkness is both soothing and exciting. I wait for what feels like an eternity before I finally feel his touch. It feels like the soft tassels of a leather whip being lightly dragged over the skin between my breasts. I want to open my eyes, but I know this won’t go over well with Knox.
He drags the tassels over my belly and down between my legs. He lands a swift whack against the inside of my thigh and I cry out.
“Holy shit!”
Immediately he holds his hand over the spot where he whipped me and the warmth of his hand makes the pain melt away. He doesn’t give me any time to breath before he whips the inside of my other thigh. He takes the pain away with his hand and I brace myself for the next lashing.
The next two land on my butt, one on each cheek. Each time I cry out just as loudly as the last time.
“Does that hurt?”
“Yes!”
He whips my ass again, but this time he gets a piece of my engorged lips. I shriek just as a soft blow lands on my clit. This knocks the breath out of me. Immediately, his mouth is on my swollen nub, soothing me, licking my wounds.
My shrieks turn to cries of pleasure and my legs begin to tremble. He sucks on my clit and kisses every inch of my flesh. But he stops just short of making me come. This sweet torture lasts for at least an hour. Finally, he ends this torment by giving me three successive orgasms.
He has to carry me to the dance room when he’s done with me. My limbs are like limp spaghetti in his arms. He lies me down on one of the sofas, then he kneels next to me.
He cups his hand over my sensitive mound and growls in my ear. “Who does this belong to?”
“You,” I breathe, completely spent, but I manage to reach out for him. I wrap my arms around his neck and pull myself up so I can hold him close. “I’m yours. Only yours.”
10
Waking up in Knox’s plush bed, with his lush body lying next to me, is beyond dreamlike. This must be heaven.
I scoot closer to him and he begins to stir. I drape my right arm and leg over his warm body and he pulls me flush against him.
“Good morning, gorgeous,” he murmurs.
He lays a soft kiss on my forehead and I return the gesture with a lingering kiss on his scruffy jaw.
“Good morning.”
“I have to go to work soon.”
“On Sunday!”
He chuckles and the sound is so warm, I want to wrap myself in it. “I work every day. But I’ll be back in a few hours. Make yourself at home. The staff will get you anything you need.”
I trace my finger down the middle of his solid chest, then I kiss his nipple. “I love … being in your house.”
I pull my head back a little to watch his reaction. He’s wearing a soft smile as he looks out the window. I grab his chin and turn his head so he’s looking at me.
“But I still feel like we’re hiding.”
His smile disappears. “Of course we’re hiding. There’s a lot at stake here. No one can know my true identity. Your father doesn’t even know.”
“But I just want to do something normal. I want you to take me to dinner or a movie or something. Isn’t that what you want? To feel free for a little while?”
“Rebecca, I’ll never be free until this mission is complete. Once Tony’s out of the picture, you and I can go to any restaurant or movie theater in Manhattan. We’ll dance naked in fucking Times Square if that’s what you want. But right now, it’s not possible.”
I lie back on my pillow and stare at the ceiling feeling utterly defeated. Knox turns onto his side and lays his hand on my belly.
“Okay, listen. I’m finding out today if everything is set up for you to meet your father on Thursday. If I get the green light, I’ll take you on a date tonight. Deal?”
“A date? Like a real human date?”
“A real human date. I’ll even bring you some flowers if you want.”
I turn onto my side to face him again and he immediately reaches around to rest his hand on my ass. “It’s a deal.”
He lands a soft swat on my behind, then he slides out of bed. “How are you feeling today? Sore?”
I gather the comforter between my legs to fill the void left by his absence. “I feel great.” I slide my hand between my legs to check how sensitive I am after last night’s lesson.
He tilts his head at me. “Are you touching yourself?”
“Just checking to make sure everything’s okay down there.”
I squeal as he pulls the covers off me and tosses them to the floor. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
11
I decide not to hang around Knox’s house. I’m not one to lounge around and do nothing unless I’m with someone. So I ask one of his driver’s to take me to my apartment, then I change into my workout clothes and head for the gym. I need to make sure I’m in pique physical condition for whatever Knox has planned for tonight — and for many nights to come.
I get lucky and find an empty elliptical machine right when I arrive at 11:30 a.m. I drape my towel over the display so I can’t see the number of minutes I’ve been on the machine. This helps because it allows me to keep going past a set time of thirty or forty-five minutes. I just keep going until I can’t take it anymore.
It also helps when someone accuses me of hogging the machine. I can say, “Whoops! My towel was covering the timer. Sorry.”
I’m only on the machine a few minutes before someone calls my name from somewhere behind me.
“Rebecca? Is that you?”
I glance over my shoulder and find Lenny Pastore. Lenny worked for my dad until the shake-up in 2004 when Tony Angelo and a few of his guys went rogue. Lenny was about the same age as Marco when Marco’s mom, Melissa Leone, was killed by Tony in a bad deal. Tony was trying to get some information from Melissa. I never found out what kind of information he was gunning for, but he killed her in May 2004.
The weird part was that he didn’t try to get away with it at first. He beat the crap out of her and stayed put until the cops got there to arrest him. He was covered in her blood. There was no denying he did it. But he tried to use my dad’s name in his statement to the police, saying that my father ordered the hit.
Lenny Pastore was one of the few guys my father ordered to leave the neighborhood after Tony escaped from the courthouse. Lenny spent a lot of time with Tony before the murder and my father didn’t want anyone around if he didn’t trust them one-hundred percent.
I stop pedaling and step off the machine. “Hey, Lenny. How are you doing?”
He looks way too excited to see me. His thinning brown hair is slick with sweat. His brown eyes are wide with anticipation.
“Hey, you look great!” he says. “I heard you were in Manhattan now, but I didn’t know you were right here in midtown. Where are you staying?”
“Hell’s Kitchen. Where are you staying these days?”
“Oh, you know. Here and there. I just got back from the Bahamas. My wife wanted a summer vacation. You know how it is. You’re married, right?”
I g
rab my towel off the machine and drape it over my neck. “No, I’m not.”
“Really? I could have sworn I heard you were with some hotshot guy … Knox … Knox Savage?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Oh, just around. I heard his company was handling the security detail for your dad’s bond.”
I squint at him, unsure if I’m hearing him correctly. “I don’t know anything about the conditions of my dad’s case or his bail. I haven’t spoken to him in years. And I don’t know anything about Knox Security.”
“But I didn’t say anything about Knox Security.”
Shit.
“Well, I don’t know anything about them, but I’ve heard of Knox Savage. I mean, everyone has, right?”
He cocks an eyebrow as if he’s caught me in a lie. “Yeah, right. Well, it was good seeing you. Hope I’ll see you around again.”
I nod as he walks away, cursing myself for making such a stupid mistake. What if Lenny is still in contact with Tony? What if that whole conversation was just Tony fishing for information on Knox?
I’ll have to tell Knox about this conversation during our date tonight. Somehow, I don’t think this will elicit the good kind of punishment.
12
“Where are you taking me? I’m beginning to wonder if I should be afraid of that devious smile.”
“You have nothing to fear tonight,” Knox replies as the car whisks us across Manhattan. “I’m taking you to Coney Island.”
“Coney Island? But — should you be anywhere near Brooklyn?”
“Relax. There’s a reason you didn’t recognize me when you saw me in that garage four weeks ago. I’ve had some work done.”
“Yeah, but your eyes give you away.”
“To who? Do you think any of the guys from the neighborhood spent hours dreaming about my eyes the way you have?”
He smirks and I smack his arm. “You think that’s funny?”
“No. I think it’s beautiful.” He leans across the backseat and holds my chin as he lays a soft kiss on my jaw. “But not as beautiful as you.”
I press my lips together to hide my stupid grin. By the time we get to Coney Island, I’m on hyper-alert for any of our old friends and neighbors. Most of them are married with kids now. So Sunday night is probably not the most popular night for them to come to Coney Island. But I’m still very nervous.
The instant the car pulls into the parking lot at the Brooklyn Cyclones ballpark, my nerves subside. This was one of my favorite places to go as a kid. My dad would always take me to a couple of games in the summer. Until the shakeup in 2004. But I don’t ever remember Marco coming with us.
Knox helps me out of the car and keeps a hold of my hand as we walk toward the park entrance. “You once told me about how your dad used to bring you here. You said it was your favorite place in all of Brooklyn.”
“I did?”
He laughs. “Yeah, the time I came to the shop and you were stealing some soda cans out of the cooler. You held the cans against your cheeks. You were all sunburned. I asked you what you were doing and you said you were cooling off.”
“I remember. That was the day we met.”
“Yeah. I was seventeen and you were twelve. Always off limits.”
“Until now.”
He chuckles then nods at the guy at the ticket counter. “No, you’re still off limits. But I’ve worked my way around that tonight.”
The guy behind the counter nods toward the entrance and we enter without showing any tickets.
“You don’t even need tickets here, huh?”
“You’ll see why.”
He holds tightly to my hand as he leads me past the gates and through the maze of people making their way to the stands. Eventually, we end up on the Brooklyn Rooftop at the top of the stadium overlooking left field. This space is usually packed with summer partiers, hence the nickname “the party deck.” But we’re the only one’s up here.
There’s a slight breeze in the air now that it’s almost seven p.m. With the smell of the ballpark and the sounds of the crowd below us. Something about this night feels magical.
We walk to the edge of the rooftop and I grab the guardrail to look down at the people below us, jostling each other to get to their seats. “This is the best date I’ve ever been on.”
“It’s only just begun, baby.”
We spend most of the game standing next to each other. Until the seventh inning, when it starts to get nippy. Knox stands behind me with his arms wrapped around my waist. Occasionally nibbling my ear or brushing his lips over my neck. I feel like a lovesick teenager. And I’ve never felt better.
The Cyclones win and we leave the stadium in great spirits amongst a crowd of people, half of them cheering rowdily and half of them looking like the walking dead. Dying to get home and get to bed before they start their workweek tomorrow morning. Like me.
“I have to get home,” I say as we head out of the stadium.
“Just one more place.” He smiles and his eyes twinkle in the moonlight. “I promise it will be quick.”
He leads me down the path toward the boardwalk. It’s almost ten p.m. Most of the shops on the boardwalk will be closed right now, even though it’s summer. They’re only open late on Fridays and Saturdays.
I don’t mention this. I let him take me on a long walk down the boardwalk from the stadium toward 10th Street. The crowds thin out the farther we get from the stadium. Then they get denser the closer we get to 10th.
We pass Luna Park and 10th Street and he smiles when I sigh. “We’re almost there.”
Finally, we arrive at the aquarium and I’m not surprised to find that it’s closed. He moves up close to the decorative metal cutouts. Reefs, fish, seals, and sea plants all cut out of sheets of metal and painted a beautiful sea green adorn the entrance to the aquarium.
Knox looks behind a coral reef cutout on the left and smiles. “Come here.”
I squeeze in next to him and he hoists me up onto the rail that surrounds the park. It’s at least a twenty-foot drop to the park floor below, but I know Knox won’t let me fall. Right there on the backside of the coral reef are the following words written in black permanent marker: Wait for me. ML 04-18-06.
Tears well up in my eyes. Even though he never told me about this, I feel slightly ashamed that I never knew it was here.
“I wrote this here eight years ago after I left your house.” He sets me down on the boardwalk then reaches up to brush a tear off my cheek. “I never did see your father that day, but I think it worked out for the best. He might have convinced me to stay.”
I smile at this. “Yeah, he could be very convincing.”
“Rebecca, the last time I saw you, you promised you’d wait to give yourself to someone who deserved you. I hoped that you’d see this message a long time ago, or that this mission would be done years ago. And I could come back to you before you belonged to someone else.” He cradles my face in his hands and plants a gentle kiss on the tip of my nose. “I wanted to be your first. But now I realize that it doesn’t matter, as long as I’m your last.”
He gazes into my eyes, waiting for me to confirm this. And I can think of no better way to do that than with the kind of kiss we shared eight years ago.
Despite the fact that I have to get up at the crack of dawn to be at work the next day, I can’t let Knox go home without showing him how much I appreciate everything he did for me tonight. When we enter my apartment, I almost expect to find August or Lenny waiting for me. I never told Knox about my conversation with Lenny. I’ll tell him tomorrow.
13
It’s a few days late, but I decide to take Lita to brunch on Tuesday. I ask for a personal day and head down to the Financial District. Lita works for an investment firm where she makes in her words, “pretty decent money.” She doesn’t have to take a day off when she wants to take a three-hour lunch.
We meet at the only place I know in this neighborhood with good brunch. It’s the same place where
I met August and his mother for brunch about seven months ago. The food was fantastic, though the company was a bit stiff.
After sitting at my table for more than ten minutes, I call Lita to see where she is. I get her voicemail, but I don’t bother leaving a message. Instead, I send her a text.
I set my phone on the table and pull out my face powder to do a touchup. The sound of August’s voice makes my shoulders lock up.
“Rebecca, what are you doing here? I thought you were working today.”
Rebecca?
“I have the day off,” I say, standing up. “So nice to see you again, Mimi.”
August’s mother, Mimi, is standing next to him in a baby-blue Chanel pantsuit. His right eye is twitching, almost winking at me. I take that to mean that his mother doesn’t know we’re broken up yet. And he doesn’t want me to tell her.
Mimi reaches her bony arms toward me and bumps her cheekbone against mine. Even her flowing blonde hair smells like Chanel No. 5. She steps back and looks down her nose at me with the usual phony smile.
“This isn’t your usual hangout. Is it, Becky?”
I smile and pause for effect. “No, actually I’m meeting a friend.”
August’s eyes flash with horror. He’s expecting me to say that I’m meeting Knox.
“Well, don’t be rude, August.” Mimi elbows him in the arm. “Offer to pick up their tab or something. Whatever it is you kids with blogs do these days.”
I cover my mouth as I chuckle and August rolls his eyes.
“I’m just meeting my friend Lita,” I clarify for August’s sake. “But she’s late. I think I may just head on out. I have errands to run.”
“Oh, nonsense. Join us in the garden room,” Mimi insists.
“I really can’t. But thank you for the offer. You two have a beautiful brunch.”
I take one last sip of my iced water and I’m suddenly overcome with a wave of nausea. I lean over kiss to August on the cheek.