Page 16 of Wanting What’s Wrong

Thirteen

Kat

I open my eyes, feeling heavy and relaxed with sleep. My body is sore, my pussy aches. My feet are sticking out from under the sheets and I smile looking at my purple toe nails.

Trent painted them. After another rather brutal round of fucking me six ways to Sunday, he gave me a bath and brushed my hair as I rambled on about anything and everything.

He dried me off, set me in the upholstered chair in the bathroom then, from the bathroom cabinet he pulled out this rolling cart full of nail polish in forty colors and everything you’d need for a proper mani-pedi.

He looked so awkward but so sweet, fumbling with the little brush, getting as much of the polish on my skin as on my nails. He was swearing up a blue streak all through my little pampering session and it took all my willpower to not giggle.

I shift onto my side and all the good feelings drain away as I focus on the words in front of my face. The note standing against the clock on the nightstand. And my heart drops.

Meeting movers at your apartment. Edward told me where he took you. That was not some up and coming, gated, hipster bullshit. We’re going to have words about not telling me you were living in a place like that. Get some rest. You’re going to need it.

Trent

The reality of what is happening hits me like a slap to the face. “Shit!” I spring from the bed and tear down to the kitchen, frantically searching for Trent.

But the place is silent. No car, no limo, and no way to reach him. I still haven’t persuaded him to get a cell yet. I plant my face in my hands, standing naked in the kitchen, feeling like I’m in a nightmare and I can’t wake up.

If he gets to my apartment, there’s a good chance he’s going to see things he doesn’t want to see—even the place itself might make him go ballistic but I guess that ship has sailed. Edward. I thought he was supposed to be my limo driver, not Trent’s spy.

But there’s nothing I can do. Nothing. And the minutes feel like hours as the microwave clock seems to stop completely.

I pace around, my heart in my throat, waiting for the sound of a car pulling down the long drive.

But there is nothing and no one.

I open the refrigerator and for a second, all my other worries evaporate. Inside, there’s a stuffed Hello, Kitty staring back at me. I pull the stuffie out and squeeze it to my chest taking a long breath.

I set it on the counter and force myself to eat part of an apple and drink a glass of water and then go upstairs.

At the top of the landing, I see something I hadn’t noticed earlier.

Trent must have sent the driver or someone out shopping, because there are two huge bags of clothes and a big laundry basket of folded, clean panties, bras, shorts and tank tops. He has thought of almost everything.

Everything he’s bought me, or had bought for me, is cute and sweet. At first glance I assumed the basket would be full of sexy lacy things, but it isn’t. It’s all comfy, and practical, and cozy. Like he knows I love.

I choose a few items to dress, then as I pick up the basket of clothes, I feel a deep throb of soreness radiating out from my pussy. And then I freeze, realizing that in the heat of the moment, in all that lust and need, we didn’t use any protection.

Oh god.

If I make a baby with him, it’s going to be…

Insane. Absolutely insane. That is the word.

But not nearly as insane, honestly, as what’s going to happen if Trent shows up at my apartment with a U-Haul to pack me up, only to find that scumbag Romanovski waiting for me.

I can see it now. I’ll be pregnant and he’ll be in jail for murder.

A perfect romance, really. Just one big happy family.

Shit.

The anxiety of waiting for Trent triggers old thoughts, terrible thoughts. Memories of the night my parents died. I was coming home from classes. The sun was down, the air was cool. The first frost was close. I remember that.

I came around Davidson Avenue just in time to see a black Mercedes scream past me, swerving, nearly hitting me.

The right side of the car was smashed in, then the driver tossed out a liquor bottle and I saw the white streaks of paint on the crunched-in door.

I slammed on my brakes and then, up ahead, I saw it.

My parents’ mini-van spinning on its top in the middle of the road.

I sped forward, I think. I must have, but I don’t remember.

A second took an hour. And however long later, a heartbeat or twenty, I was at their van.

My frantic call to 911 was answered by a recording.

And I was on hold and on hold, while blood poured from my dad’s forehead, and Mom hung limp and upside down, suspended like a parachuter from her seatbelt.

Tick-tick-tick went the van’s engine. The smell of gas, of rubber. The street was dark, one overhanging streetlamp flickering as I looked frantically in circles. Searching for help.

“911. What’s your emergency?” The voice was mechanical, robotic. Indifferent.

“ My parents , they’ve been in an accident on the corner of Davidson and…” I had to crane my neck around to see a street sign. “Linwood! Davidson and Linwood. Please, hurry, they’re bleeding. Please!”

Just as the operator put me on hold to call dispatch, the whirring sound of an engine filled the air. In the darkness, I turned, hoping for a savior but it was the black Mercedes. It approached slowly, coming tentatively around the corner. Shiny wheels sounding sticky on the asphalt.

It slowed to a menacing stop. The window slid down and a barrel-chested, ruddy-faced man glared at me and somehow I knew, it wasn’t from here. It was a face from another time. Another place.

“You saw nothing, little girl,” he growled with a thick Russian accent. “You never saw me here.”

My chest clenched. He wasn’t here to help. He was here to threaten.

But then it started to come together. The white paint on the side of his Mercedes. The white paint of their van. “Did you do this?”

His eyes were red rimmed as he brought a crystal glass to his lips, drinking down the last of an amber liquid, then throwing it out the window to shatter beside me.

He looked blank, dead somehow. Unfeeling.

Unbothered. He adjusted his jacket, flashing the glint of a gun in a holster near his shoulder.

“I will remember your face. I will find out who you are and where you live. Trust me.”

I blinked, trying to understand what was happening here. I felt the color drain from my face.

“Mouth shut, you live. Mouth open, you die,” he said. And then rolled up the window, and sped away.

As the Mercedes rounded the corner out of view, I knew I would never forget that face, nor that voice. One glittering gold tooth between yellow and brown teeth. A scar under his right eye. And that voice. I’d never be able to forget that voice.

The blood from my dad’s head dripped down onto my hand as I held onto him through the van’s broken window.

And from there, it’s just a blur. A blur of sirens and lights. Of loss and doctor’s coats, of kindly nurses and orderlies and forms. Then the sinking, sinking, sinking realization of what had happened.

Still and cold in my memory.

Death certificates and an empty house. The best coffin I could afford. The funeral, and me weeping over a stupid typo in the program of services. Sad about everything. Devastated and lost.

The nightmare did not end with the funerals.

The black Mercedes continued to drive past the house on Pacific Avenue for weeks, circling and circling.

A knife in my mailbox. A dead crow on the back step.

It was so terrifying, so constant, that I didn’t dare reach out to Trent’s unit liaison at the base.

There was no way in the world I could ask him to come home and keep him safe, because if he knew about the man in the Mercedes, I’d lose him, too.

I was able to figure out who my stalker was in time. Corsicov Rominovski was a bad guy of the old school variety. Russian mob in Detroit. No joke at all. They dealt in death and pain like penny candy .

But Rominovski was good at keeping up a front. He’d occasionally be on the news, and always when I googled him there were new hits, brimming with good news—funding new foster programs, donating to good causes. Shaking hands with local police chiefs. The mayor. The governor himself.

After the house was taken by the bank, I hid myself in the most dangerous part of town where I became invisible sure.

But he found me all the same and if he sees the moving van today, he’ll find Trent, too.

I have to tell Trent.

But what if I don’t?

Just as my thoughts are about turn toward thinking about real danger, real threats, not just to me but to Trent as well, I hear the sound of the garage door rumbling up its track. I run through the kitchen, into the back hallway to meet Trent as he comes through the mudroom door.

“Are you okay?” I ask, more urgency in my voice than I’d planned. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

Trent looks cocky. And sexier than ever. “You’re welcome, Kitty Kat. You’re right—moving is a pain in the ass. But anything for you.”

I swallow hard, not sure if I like the anger in the voice. Or fear it. Or both. “Sorry. Thank you. For doing that for me.”

Trent walks past me. His gray shirt is dark with sweat and he smells like cologne. My pussy clenches in almost unwilling response.

“Was… was everything okay?”

“No, everything was not fucking okay. You told me you’d rented somewhere nice, but that you weren’t sure how long you could stay. You fucking lied, Kitty Kat.”

“I know, I—”

He cracks his neck side to side. “Never lie to me again. I mean it. Got that shithole of yours all emptied out. No thanks to that dickhead landlord of yours. Like doing business with some fucking Pablo Escobar complex. And what the fuck is with him calling you Margaret Hoover?”

Oh no. My ears buzz, my brain racing between telling the truth and coming up with a solidly believable lie.

But as he walks over to wash his hands in the kitchen sink, he seems pretty unbothered.

“I couldn’t afford anywhere better. Mom and Dad, they had some debts when they died.

Things you didn’t know about. There was this investment thing.

Someone they must have trusted but they had nothing in the end.

I didn’t want you worrying, being distracted.

I pay cash because that’s how I get paid, and called myself Margaret Hoover because I didn’t want anyone there knowing my name and they didn’t seem to care as long as you paid your rent.

I didn’t want you to worry about me.” I shrug, trying to be as nonchalant about it as I can.

And the thing is, it’s not a complete lie. So that’s good. Hopefully.

“You’re never going back there again, so I don’t care if he thinks you’re called Kim Fucking Kardashian. It makes shit for difference now.” He smiles that brilliant white smile, and I take my first deep breath in over four hours.

Trent dries his hands on a fresh dishcloth and pulls me close.

He leans down to take me into a deep, passionate kiss, wrapping his bulging arms around me, pressing my breasts against his t-shirt.

His tongue opens my mouth, and our breathing intensifies, as I pull back, taking a deep breath.

Still so shocked that this is happening.

“You should have told me though about it all and I want more details but right now, how about you help me with these bandages, Nurse Ratchet.”

“Shower first. You stink, ” I push his chest, but it’s cemented in place. A flea pushing an elephant.

He narrows his eyes and his expression darkens. “Careful, little girl. Your ass has to be screaming for mercy today. You sure you want to push me? ”

I look up at him, feeling wide-eyed. Innocent. Just like a kid again. “No,” I whisper. “I don’t.”

He pinches my face possessively in one of his big hands. “I bet your ass isn’t the only thing that’s sore, either.”

He’s right about that. The screaming pain deep inside me ricochets through my body with every step I take. Between that and the throbbing fire on my ass, there’s not much that could entice me into another sparking right now.

“I’ll be good,” I whisper. “Promise.”

And Trent answers with one more greedy, dark kiss before striding out of the kitchen, leaving me there. Panties soaked. Head spinning.