Cut & Blow: Book 1 Read online

  Her ass looks like I’d like to slap it in those jeans, and her hair is down and straight today. The thing about hairdressers, they have different hair every day. I am just happy she is over the bright pink and purple phase; it looked like she had candy floss on her head for months. I like her naturally dark hair, it makes her look like a woman, not a child, and I also like it long.

  I was devastated when she once chopped it all off. Girls are meant to have long hair, call me old fashioned but to me short hair isn’t attractive at all.

  I stay here all day, hopping from empty chair to empty chair as Ailee works on her regular Saturday clients and they prepare an entire wedding party. I send the lady who was appalled by the fact I don’t eat sushi to buy me lunch from the deli further down the street. She only does it because I tell her to keep the change.

  Once they lock the front doors I watch as the whole hairdresser group, with him now accepted as one of them, gets ready to go out. Leaving before them, I go directly to the club and take up my usual seat in the VIP area, although tonight I am actually afraid of what I might witness.

  Vic joins me, he has a few business issues that need my focus, but the only thing that has had my attention lately is Ailee. They file inside; the bouncers never stop them at the door, it’s like they are part of the crew here. This way they keep coming back and I don’t have to actually worry about where the fuck she is.

  “Are you listening?” Vic asks me louder than before.

  “Not really, start again.” I look at him now, knowing she’s here, inside, I can focus again.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he asks, annoyed. “Are you drinking again?”

  “I am not drinking, or doing anything else I shouldn’t do, Vic.” I glare at him, as he’s gone straight for my last nerve. “Ailee is dating someone, not a fling or a quick screw in the bathroom, she’s dating him. Like go out together, kissing and hand holding dating.”

  He looks down through the glass. “That guy?” Vic points, “Shall we fetch him?” He starts to call the bouncer over.

  “No, leave it alone. This is different. I don’t know what I am supposed to do.” He waves the man back to his post at the door and sits in the chair. “Vic, you’ve known me all my life, tell me why this is so fucking hard? I want her, but I don’t want to hurt her to get her. Does that make sense?”

  “Not really. You aren’t exactly known for being sensitive, Rain. She’s your wife. It’s simple. You pick her up and take her home.”

  “She’ll run, she hates me.”

  “Tie her up.” I just frown at him, not even bothering to answer that. “Okay, maybe that’s an extreme solution.”

  “What if she falls in love with him?” It’s official, I sound like a fool.

  “Then we have him whacked.” Vic shrugs like it’s a simple solution, and we are gangsters from the seventies just having people murdered for fun.

  “Vic, are you high?” I have to ask, because this conversation is very strange right now.

  “No, I’m not high. I just don’t understand why all of a sudden you care more than your normal creepy, stalker self usually does?” He glances down at them. “This isn’t like you, Rain. You keep an eye on her, but you usually don’t give two shits what, or who, she does.”

  He’s going to laugh at me. “I’m jealous. She’s mine, even if she hates me.” I take a long drink of water before I finish saying what I haven’t even admitted to myself yet. “She’s not a child anymore, and I think … if you laugh I’m going to kick you in the nuts … I think I love her.”

  He does laugh, and I kick him right in the crown jewels under the table. A whistle-like squeal escapes his clenched lips. I warned him.

  When he’s recovered and manages to draw a breath, he answers my statement without the laughter.

  “We all fall in love eventually, Rain, but it won’t work if you’re sitting up here and she never knows. She’ll fall in love with someone who’s there – like him.”

  I trust him with this stuff. He has a wife he adores and two children who make his face light up. Vic didn’t have the same pressures placed on him that I did.

  “I don’t know how to approach her. I let her go then, and it’s created this independent, defiant, stubborn, fucking monster who doesn’t even make her own bed. Nothing is going to be easy with her. It’s not easy now, I’m just a shadow in her life. Imagine when I have to tell what to do. Look at her, she’s everything I am not.”

  We both watch them dancing. In the lights their bodies glisten with sweat. They move closer together, touching, and the sensual movements are enough to make me want to have him whacked – or just strangle him with my bare hands.

  “Yeah, sorry, you’re fucked.” Vic offers one last useless gem of wisdom before he starts talking about work again, but my mind isn’t in it as I watch Ailee and him touch each other in ways I can only dream of connecting with her.

  When I see her moving like that, with the curves of her body swaying with the music, then the child of five years ago is gone and a woman I would do terrible things to remains to tempt me.

  Then I catch her smile and she’s a little girl again. The guilt of that throttles the lust and buries it in a lead casket. My wife is a contradiction, a temptation and a curse.

  She’s become the thing I desire most, but is also the biggest regret I have to carry in my sullied heart. Ailee is a problem, and I need to solve it soon.

  They are kissing up against the back wall of the club, out of sight of others, but I can see. His fingers are pressing into her firm ass and she hikes her leg up around him, causing her skirt to ride right up. Her hands are in his long hair when he pulls her back so he can bite and lick her neck. Intoxicated, they have no inhibitions stopping them, they lose themselves in lust. Spinning around he pins her against the wall and I can now see her face as she reacts to his touch. Fuck this.

  “I’m going. Text me when they leave here.”

  I shove my chair back, and without another word disappear out the staff door and through the back of the house. I appear out of a door close enough to them that I startle them when it flies open.

  He drops her down to her feet. She has an embarrassed, shy smile on her face, but his eyes are hungry for more and he holds her still until I’ve stormed past. One last glance back and I know for certain that guy is going to be trouble for my marriage.

  * * *

  I exit the club through the front door for a change, and after shoving my way through the sweaty bodies of the gyrating dancers and drunken patrons, the fresh air of outside is a welcome relief.

  Turning my car radio off I enjoy the silence on the drive home to my empty house – it was a wedding gift from my father, a home for me and Ailee, only she never moved in.

  The man with my wife is on my mind – who is he? What does he have that I don’t?

  The familiar jealousy eats me, turning my sour mood into a rage that needs to be taken out on something, or someone.

  I quickly park my car and switch keys for my motorcycle ones, and hope that a long ride, going stupidly fast, will clear my head and calm me down. I don’t want to lose my carefully kept restraint now.

  Long breaths in and out, and the speed and pure adrenalin of a ride slowly calm me back down, allowing my mind to find something to focus on. Ailee.

  Hours later I stop a block away from her apartment. The air is crisp. Even though we are a distance from the shore, the night breeze carries the smell of sea air inland when the weather is clear, like tonight. I lock my helmet and start walking to where I usually watch her from. I know she was wasted, so the drapes will still be open and she won’t have closed the blinds in her bedroom either.

  Her messy nature is rather predictable. Her habits have become ingrained in my mind as I walk up the back end of her building and around to sit on the neighbor’s grand bench, where I can see inside her bedroom and living room windows from one spot. Her bed is on the far wall and I see her when she sleeps, and if she’s watching
TV I have a perfect view of her on the couch, including her expressions and when she chews her nails during a scary movie.

  Tonight her friend is lying on the couch, not in her bed where they usually pass out together. She seems almost asleep but not quite, and I stay very still in my spot, hidden by shadows.

  I glance over my shoulder to the street and notice his Toyota parked there. The same one he got out of at the salon this morning; he is in there. In her bedroom. He’s in my wife’s bed right now. I want to turn and look but my body freezes, stopping me, instead I look at her friend who is now curled into an uncomfortable ball.

  I stare. The blinds are open, and through the horizontal slits, bathed in the dim yellow light from her bedside light, Ailee is straddling him where he lies in the middle of her bed. Her dress is lifted up so that I can see the black lace of her underwear.

  When he lifts her dress, to pull it up over her head, the delicate line of her spine is bared to me and I know she’s not wearing a bra. My wife’s breasts are exposed to another man, and my jealousy and anger is quickly replaced with a hard-on, and a morbid fascination to see what they are going to do.

  She gyrates her hips, teasing him as his hands glide down her sides to hold her still against him. She uses those delicate fingers to undo his belt and open the button of his pants.

  He lifts her off him, rolling them over so he can remove his clothes. He’s not built like the men in the gym, but has muscles where they should be, and a long, lean build, more like a runner or swimmer, not her normal type.

  Ailee scoots herself up the bed so she is half-sitting up on the pillows, her head resting on the upholstered headboard, and I can see her nipples are hard and pink. Even in the dim glow they look delicious. He thinks so too, taking one into his mouth and making her back arch into him. His fingers roll the other between them, torturing her and me with absolute pleasure.

  I imagine how soft they are in the palm of his hand, as he moves to kiss her neck and whisper something in her ear, making her bite her lower lip. She lifts her tush, allowing him to remove the scrap of black lace that covers what should only be mine; even from here I can see how it glistens with desire.

  He is on his side beside her, murmuring to her. He taps her on her knee and she allows her legs to fall wide open. All the air leaves my lungs in one sudden expulsion, and then her fingers slide down between her legs, with his eyes following their every stroke. Her head droops back and her chest rises and falls with rapid breathing, her nipples hard, pointing upwards as she arches against her own touch.

  His cock is as hard as mine, exposed to me, standing to attention against his abdomen. It’s impressive, and even more so when he chokes it in his hand, turning the tip a dark red while he battles his own arousal.

  Ailee’s fingers slip in and out of her slickness as she pleasures herself, and gives him and me a show. Her legs try to close and I know her orgasm is right there, but he pulls against her thigh, forcing her to keep them open, talking to her again.

  She stops moving her fingers and they are replaced with his, first one, then two slammed hard inside her, and I hear the scream as it comes out of her mouth, startling her friend in the lounge and almost making me cum in my jeans.

  I watch as my wife squirts all over his hand then she turns bright crimson in embarrassment. But he kisses her quickly, making her forget that she’s ashamed of how her body responds to him.

  I open my pants, and grab my own throbbing penis in my hand as he lies so that she climbs on top, and slides her tight pussy down on his hard dick. Before she’s all the way down he lifts up and slams himself into her as hard as his fingers did before. Keeping my movements as subtle as I can, not to get caught, I stroke with their movements and imagine it is me inside her. My hands on her body and my name on her lips as they cum together. He didn’t last long, but neither did I, and I was just watching them.

  I stay here, watching as they cuddle and kiss before eventually curling into each other and falling asleep. When I know they are all in slumber, including her friend who was listening as much as I was watching, I wait a little longer and then take that small key that teases me and sneak in quietly.

  Freezing as I close the door, making sure the squatter on the couch hasn’t woken, I soon presume that she’s now in a vodka induced coma that won’t wear off until nearly lunchtime tomorrow. Moving quietly I go to the bedroom, opening the door as silently as I can.

  The first thing that hits me is the smell of her floral perfume mixed with sex and his aftershave. Only soft moonlight from outside filters in. They lie on their sides, spooning.

  Ailee is the big spoon in the arrangement and I’m fascinated by it, and strangely want to climb in beside them and protect her exposed back from the nothing that threatens them. Their legs are entwined and her arm is over his side, her face nestled into his back. Each breath in rhythm, they are joined together, their connection felt even as they sleep.

  On his side of the bed now I open his wallet, and remove his social security card. I need to know who he is. He’s my competition and I can’t beat him if I don’t know what I’m up against. I put it back where it belongs and something shiny on the floor catches my eye. I see her ring against the wall by the door. My reminder obviously upset her enough that she flung them across the room.

  Ailee moves and I hold my breath, sure I’m going to get caught. When she doesn’t wake up and scream, I pick up the diamond ring and contemplate what I want to do. She has rolled over onto her back, obviously hot from the bodily contact. Her left hand is outstretched and I take the risk.

  Sliding it very carefully onto her finger, I pray she doesn’t wake. As I get it on she flaps her hand as if swatting a fly, before rolling back to her lover and draping her arm over him. I leave before I am caught. The television is still blaring in the living room and it hides the noise of the door closing behind me as I leave.

  Walking to my bike I think about what I just watched, but my thoughts are of them, not just her. I feel strange.

  My stomach is tight with unease and the drive home takes too long.

  Seven

  Shampoo

  AILEE

  That morning-after feeling, that ‘good lord what have I done’ moment. I’m having that moment right now.

  The naked, and I mean very naked, sporting a morning wood naked man, sprawled out next to me on my bed is a reminder that I might have gone a little overboard last night.

  Fuck me he’s hot, now that I am looking at all of him on display like this. He snores. Not loud chainsaw-snoring, but a soft sound that’s sort of comforting more than irritating, and he has some chest hair, unlike the waxed gym bunnies I’ve been with before. Rolling over so I can touch him, I stop a second. Before my hand makes contact I see the same diamond ring I hurled against the wall – on my finger.

  Overcome with nausea I look around the room, trying to see if someone is here … the room door is open. Chelsey? It can only be her. She’s in the next room and we closed the door.

  But how does she know? Is she the one messing with me?

  Hurling myself off the bed I make a mad dash for the bathroom, locking the door to make sure I have a few moments to myself so I can calm the fuck down. I’m shaking my hand like I burned it by the time I’m inside the small room, with a barrier protecting me from them.

  Turning the water on to drown out any sound, I jump in the shower. My hands are swollen from the way I slept and the ring is stuck – I can’t pull it off.

  I want it off. I need it off.

  I’m starting to panic, visions of going somewhere to get it cut off flash through my mind as tears sting my eyes. Explaining this to Trent, after last night, will kill him. We have a connection. Something amazing happened between us and it wasn’t just sex.

  I grab my expensive salon-shampoo and sink to the cold tiles. Using the shampoo to lather my finger, I force the ring over my swollen knuckle. The cold water and soapy white foam eventually work to get it off.

 
; My teeth chatter and my pulse slowly comes down to a rate that won’t induce a heart attack. I turn the warm water on and put the ring down in the soap dish bolted to the wall. As my body warms up it starts to shake. These shudders are fear. I’m afraid of losing what I’ve only just found, and someone obviously wants Trent to find out about Rainieri.

  After I am certain my tears have washed away, my legs are shaved and my teeth brushed, I hide the ring it the medicine cabinet and emerge from the bathroom to a still naked Trent sitting on the edge of my bed. Mussed up morning hair frames his handsome face, stubble a few days old darkens his jaw, and his erection is still very obvious. He gets up quickly, puts his arms around me and holds my wet body against his naked one.

  “Are you okay?” he asks. “I’m sorry if last night was too much, we drank and I got carried away in the moment. I didn’t mean to push you into this.”

  “I’m fine. I’m better than fine. You didn’t push me. Last night was… ” I look up to him and those hazel eyes are full of regret. “It was amazing, Trent.”

  The butterflies in my stomach flutter to life again as he cups my cheek and gives me a soft kiss.

  “I woke up and you were gone, I was worried.” He hugs me hard, holding on like I might run away. “Can we have a proper talk this morning? I want to talk to you about this, about everything.”

  The tone of his voice worries me and I fight another wave of tears. I nod and bury my head in his chest.

  “Let’s go get breakfast, and when Chelsey goes we can talk.” I say it without looking him in the eye. ‘I want to talk’ is never anything good, so I prepare myself for the worst.

  “Can I grab a shower? I feel like I bathed in caramel vodka.”

  I smile, he smells sweet from where Cleo spilled her drink on him. “Sure, it’s all yours.”

  I step out of the way so he can go past into the bathroom. I get dressed quickly in my usual Sunday slouchy-clothes and messy hair. He can love it or leave it at this point; I’m not fighting my hangover for a boy. I go to the couch and wake Chels.