Fever Dream (21 page)

“Ah. Yes. Is better. But somewhere else is hurting.” With a mischievous grin he pumped his rigid cock. “Could use some kisses to make it all better.”

She grinned. “Just kisses?”

With a grunt, he manipulated her until her face was in his crotch and her ass was stuck in the air. “Ah, that’s right,” he said, stroking fingertips down her thigh. “Arch your back. Make it pretty for me.”

Petra licked her lips, feeling loose and sensual at his softly spoken words. She kissed the tip of his cock, reveling in his halting intake of breath.

“Is good?” she teased, looking up at him.

He gave her ass a lazy slap. “Yes, is good.” He reached lower to tangle his fingers through her hair and push her lips down onto his length. “Get busy. Suck me, you hungry little slut.”

There was a time when “you hungry little slut” would have infuriated her. When she would have punched someone in the face over it. Now, it excited her. It made her feel sexy and submissive. His fingers tightened, gripping the back of her neck.

“Deeper,” he said. “Open that mouth.”

She strained to draw him farther into her throat. They’d done some experimenting with deep throating but she wasn’t great at it yet. She always gagged like crazy, which Rubio openly enjoyed. At least they didn’t have to use condoms anymore, except for vaginal sex, as a backup method.

“Yes, good girl,” he said when she coughed and sputtered. “I love when you choke on it.”

The “love” was guttural, vicious and forceful. She’d come to live for these Rubio endearments.
I love when you choke on it. I want to hurt you. I love how you cry when I hurt you.

You’re so beautiful when you come.

His fingers trailed over her ass cheeks, then down to probe between her legs. “Open,” he said. “Let me look at your pussy.”

The old Petra never, ever would have obeyed such an order. The new Petra squirmed sideways to comply. In the last few weeks he’d explored every inch of her, inside and out. Not just explored it. Taken possession of it. His fingers toyed through the moisture between her legs as she licked around his erection. Every so often he’d flick her clit just to make her buck.

“You know,” he said in a low voice, “under my bed at home, I keep a pretty Plexiglas cane. It hurts so much. Maybe someday I’ll use it to mark you right here.”

He pressed his palm against her pussy and she moaned. A pretty Plexiglas cane sounded agonizing, especially between her legs. He slapped her and then drove two fingers inside her wet sheath, forcing her to arch her ass up.

His cock was so solid, so velvety and thick. She sucked the tip like a lollipop and then opened her throat for him to slide deep. She gagged a moment later, hacked out a cough and pulled back for air. With a chuckle, he fisted his balls and nudged her head down to lick them. “Into your mouth,” he prompted. “Suck them nice.”

She burrowed her face between his legs, breathing in his musky male scent. As she tongued and teased him, his laptop chirped on the table across the room. “Jesus,” he groaned. “Bad timing.”

A moment later, a ring-notification sounded. He sighed. “Is my mother calling. I told her to call today.” He squeezed Petra’s shoulder, drawing her away from her task. “Don’t go anywhere. We’ll finish this very soon.”

He slid off the bed and loped over to the table. He slid a finger over his touchpad. “
Mãe, um momento
.” He walked back to Petra with an apologetic look. “I haven’t been calling home,” he said, pulling on a pair of shorts. “Too busy with other things.”

“Like dancing?” Petra asked, deadpan.

He tugged a black tee over his head. “Dancing and fucking you,” he said softly, in his throaty lilt.

His voice alone could take her halfway to orgasm. Something of her thoughts must have shown in her face because he said, “Don’t look at me like that. Not right before I talk to my mother.” He kissed her forehead, then went back over to his laptop. It was angled away from the bed, toward the window, so it was safe for Petra to get up and get dressed. She pulled faces at Rubio across the room, doing an impromptu bump-and-grind. He wagged a finger at her, talking all the while to his mother in rapid-fire syllables she couldn’t understand.

She shouldn’t hover around and distract him. She didn’t know how much his mother knew about his personal life, or whether she knew about her. Did she know they slept together every night? She probably knew they danced together. Petra went into the bathroom to brush her teeth, listening to Rubio chatter in Portuguese. It sounded impossibly sexy, his native tongue. He went from animated to quiet and back to animated, sometimes asking his mom questions. She didn’t know the words but she could sense his fondness for his mother, and his concern.

He was a good son. She’d read something once in some women’s magazine, about how to tell a good man from a bad one. One of the indicators was how well a man treated his mother. She knew his mother had had a hard life and that he tried to take care of her now. She knew that he sent her money so his mother never had to go without, and he’d bought her a new house and a new life.
She deserves it
, he told her once.
She went through so much.

Petra understood the subtext, that Rubio had been through so much too. Petra drifted back into the bedroom to eavesdrop and watch his face, his exaggerated expressions and animated smiles. He looked over and beckoned her with a wave of his hand.

“Come here. Say hi to my mom.”

Petra didn’t want to think too hard about the sentimental thrill she felt at his words. Meeting the parents. Wasn’t that a big relationship step? But they weren’t in that kind of relationship...

She went over by the laptop and Ruby pulled her into his lap so she’d show up on the video chat screen. His mother gave a delighted whoop when she saw her.

“Wave hi,” said Ruby in her ear. “She’s been learning English.”

Petra waved to his mom. “Hi, Mrs. Rubio.” The dark-haired woman looked so much like her son. “How are you?” Petra asked politely.

“Oh, my dear,” said his mom with a heavy accent. “You are dance with my son? Very good, yes?”

Petra nodded. “Yes, he’s a very good dancer. Excellent.”

“He send me pictures,” said Mrs. Rubio, fluttering her fingers. “Very pretty.”

“Thank you. We have fun.”

“Yes, all kinds of fun,” he said, smiling at her in agreement. Petra knew exactly what kind of fun he meant, but she didn’t want to give that away in front of his mother. He turned back to his mom and said some more stuff in Portuguese, and his mom smiled and laughed. Were they talking about her? His mother chattered for some time in response, then Ruby snorted and made some “Aw, mom” kind of sound.

“
Nando
,” his mother chided. “
Juízo, meu filho
.
” She looked at Petra. “Is good, for love? Yes? To be in love?”

Petra stared at the screen, at the thumbnail of Ruby’s face beside hers. He was blushing all the way through his bronze complexion. “
Chega, mãe
,” he said sharply.

Mrs. Rubio and her son launched into another rat-a-tat conversation. It ended with his mom speaking English again. “Mar-ried, you two?” she asked, nodding at Petra. “You get mar-ried, if you in love. Is God’s plan.”

“Okay,” said Ruby, making a face at Petra. “Go. Escape now. Go downstairs, okay? I’ll find you later.” He raised an eyebrow.
You can finish that blowjob
, he meant.

He nudged her off his lap and she fled the room. It was okay. She shouldn’t freak out. All moms were like that, weren’t they? Encouraging their kids to fall in love and marry? Except for her mom, who had decried love and marriage as the world’s biggest crock of shit. Petra took the stairs down to the living room and then turned to go to the kitchen. Liam sat at the counter on his laptop, a notebook and briefcase beside him. When he saw her, he closed the notebook and slid it into his bag. He looked suave, dressed for work in a button-up shirt and tie.

“You’re up early, aren’t you?” he asked. “For a day off?” He was being a little too bright.

She crossed the room to join him. “Rubio says I dance in my sleep. I guess I kicked him and woke him up. He’s upstairs talking with his mom.”

“Can I get you some coffee? Something for breakfast?”

“Coffee sounds great. Thanks.”

She resisted the urge to look at his computer screen when he rose to pour her a steaming cup from their super luxury coffee machine. Everything in their house was luxurious. She’d miss this place when she left it. If she ever left it.

“So...” she said, trying to sound casual. “What’s the latest news on Scary Gary?”

He was silent for a moment. The only sound was the ting of her spoon against the china coffee cup. “It’s not great news,” he finally said. “But it’s nothing we didn’t expect. He’s losing patience with the status quo. He’s making more threats.”

“What kind of threats?”

Again, Liam paused before he spoke. “Unpleasant threats. Just know that we’re doing everything in our power to keep you two safe.”

You two.
“He’s making threats against Ruby?”

“I would say he’s mainly angry with Ruby. He blames all this on him.”

Petra stared down into her cup, thinking of the smiling man upstairs talking to his mom, a woman who depended on him for her well-being and livelihood. She thought of his talent, all the joy he brought to the world of dance. Then she pictured his beautiful body broken, stabbed or shot, bleeding in the street. She squeezed her eyes shut against the image.

“Nothing’s going to happen,” Liam said, touching the back of her hand. “It’ll be okay.”

“But what if it’s not? If anything happens to him because—because of me—”

“Petra—”

“I’m kind of in love with him,” she burst out. She stared at Liam, shocked that she’d said it.

He made a soft sound. “We kind of suspected.”

Petra looked down at her lap, twisting her fingers into knots.
In love.
It sounded so hackneyed. “I don’t know if I love him,” she said, backtracking. “I don’t know what I feel. I can’t figure out if we have a future, if we belong together.”

She fell silent and considered the man beside her. Liam was soft-spoken, kind, obviously protective. He was the typical woman’s idea of perfection: long gold-brown hair, gorgeous eyes, and a ridiculously hot body. On top of all that, he was rich as King Midas. This guy was paying her salary just so his friend could have a great partner onstage. This was the kind of man she ought to be falling for, not Fernando Rubio. Even so, she didn’t feel the slightest attraction to Liam and her heart ached so badly for Rubio and...and what?
Damn it.

She put her head in her hands and groaned. “He’s my partner,” she said. “We work together.”

“I can see that throwing a wrench in things.”

“My mother...” Oh, this again. When was she going to stop obsessing about her mother’s mistakes? “When my mother hooked up with her partner, it ended up in a big shitload of suck.”

He made another faint sound, of doubt or perhaps denial. “It ended up with you, didn’t it? I don’t think you’re a big shitload of suck.”

She was going to start crying in a minute, if he didn’t stop using that voice. “Everything is so screwed up,” she said, and then she did start crying. “If he gets hurt— If Paulsen attacks him or k-kills him—”

“Nothing’s going to happen to him.”

“Maybe I should stop dancing. Retire early and move somewhere and just...just live in some cottage by the sea.”

He studied her. “Is that what you want to do? Retire?”

More tears slipped out, not that they helped anything. She swiped them away. “I don’t want to retire, but I don’t want Ruby to get hurt either. I would stop dancing if it would keep him safe. If it would just—just make all this end and go away.”

“If you do that, Paulsen wins,” Liam pointed out. “And you’ve lost everything that makes you happy in life. I don’t think you should retire or go back to New York. Give the system time to work. Paulsen’s threats will expedite things, but it still has to move through the international legal system. It’s slow. I’m sorry.”

“No, please. Don’t be sorry. I know you’re doing everything you can.” She forced herself to stop crying. This guy was busting his ass to help her, putting time in every day. The least she could do was keep her shit together. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all you’re doing. I don’t know how I can ever thank you.”

“You can keep dancing. That would be thanks enough.”

She forced a smile, and found as she met Liam’s gaze that it was genuine. His eyes flicked over her shoulder and she turned to see Rubio standing at the bottom of the stairs. He gestured to her, the merest flick of a finger, but it communicated exactly what he wanted it to communicate.
I want.
Liam, Paulsen, everything was forgotten except for the command of that beckoning finger.

I want. I want you. I want you, here, now.

She looked back at Liam, who winked and nodded in Ruby’s direction. “Go on. Have fun, you crazy kids. But Ash is sleeping, so try not to make too much noise.”

*** *** ***

Petra sat at dinner the following night, with Ruby, and Liam and Ashleigh, and a contemplative Mem. She couldn’t stop feeling contemplative herself.
You get mar-ried, if you in love. Is God’s plan.

Was it in the plan? Did you have to marry someone you loved? Or was it enough to dance with them, and make art, and enjoy the special moments while they lasted? What was more important to her? The increasing devotion she felt for Rubio, or her career?

She glanced at him over her wine glass. He smiled back at her. It wasn’t his bedroom smile, the sadistic smile that made her quake inside, or his stage smile, which was always a bit fake. It was his happy, natural smile that made him look so charming.

Conversation dropped off by the end of the meal. Liam was uncharacteristically quiet, and Mem lingered even though it was his habit to leave the table once he finished. Ashleigh groaned, easing back in her chair. “I ate too much. This baby doesn’t give me enough space.”