I Love My Man (Nicole's Erotic Romance) (3 page)

One corner of my mouth turns upward in an
evil little smirk. My eyes travel to his parted, surprised lips. “Want
another?”

His expression changes to unadulterated
lust. He reaches fast and pulls me to him, grabbing me by the back of my head,
crushing his mouth to mine. I double his intensity by pulling him so close he
nearly passes right through me. Unchained, we grope each other. We careen
around the room, lost in a hot fever and finally free. I strip off his jacket
as fast as I can and run my hands down his flexed, tensing back, over his arms,
down the sinewy lines of his chest. These are the same muscles I’ve watched so
many times paint masterpieces with only me as their infatuated audience. His
hands are all over me, gliding and pressing and squeezing and grabbing. When we
spin toward the table, he releases me just long enough to push everything from
it onto the floor with a single sweep of his arm. Candles and wine bottles
crash into a heap of beautiful wet and broken glass full of ashes. He latches
our lips back together and lifts me onto the table with an enthusiastic grunt.
I hook my legs around his hips. I yank apart from his mouth and lean back to
slap his face again. He growls, face stinging, and pulls my arms behind me,
holding me down. I snarl in his face. He reaches under my dress, jerks my
panties down my legs and off, staring for a hot second at my exposed bare skin,
my tiny tuft of dark, moist hair. He unzips his pants and pulls out the cock
I’ve always imagined. It’s just like how I knew it must be – dark and
full and shockingly huge. No man is as sure of himself as Michael, as quiet and
self-possessed, without being well endowed. You’ve got nothing to prove to
anyone when you’ve got this piece of meat hanging from you. I raise my eyes to
his. My mouth is open, my body’s open – all of me is ready.

“I want to slap you again,” I whisper and
bite his lips.

“If there was ever a woman I wanted to hit,
it’s you.”

This isn’t gentle lovemaking or anything
close. We are going to fuck.

I leap onto him. He grabs hold of me,
clasping me hard. With my legs locked around his hips, my feet smashing his ass
and gripping him, my fingers digging into his taught olive skin, we spin. I
pull at his t-shirt as my hands climb beneath it, ripping its already busted
hem even more. He angles his body to kick off his pants. While he’s distracted,
I bite hard into his neck. He yells out in pain and grabs my mouth with his to
stop me from doing it again. I bite his bottom lip, tugging at it. His fingers
dig into the soft flesh of my ass, pushing my cheeks together, my skin molded
like dark mahogany clay. He maneuvers his body so he can enter me, gets in the
right position and shoves his cock smoothly inside, groaning loudly as the
slickness of my moisture envelopes him so sweetly. I cry out as I ride him, as
he pushes in deeply. This is Michael inside me.
Michael
, finally. Our tongues probe. Our fingers dig deep. The
strength of his arms lifts me up and down over and over on his massive cock.

Suddenly my mind splits in two. It fragments
– whipping off course, flashing to Mark – to
his
kisses,
his
touch,
the way
he
felt. How whole I felt
with him. How happy. How hopeful and how poetically complete.

I don’t feel any of those things now.

With each pounding thrust that Michael rams
into my body, my heart begins to collapse. Even as my body betrays me and
answers the call of Michael’s skill, loving every thrust, my heart fills with
shame like I’m betraying it. Y
ou shouldn’t
be doing this. This isn’t right.
It’s getting louder. My brain reels until
soon I don’t know where I am.
But
it’s too late. My body – so human – is taken past the point of
return. Pulled in two directions, I’m ripped down the center by an orgasm I can’t
stop, even though I want to. He dives into me again and again, his lips on
mine. But I unlatch my mouth from his, gasping as the unwanted pulsing
continues. Tears slide down my cheeks. I clutch onto his back with my legs and
my arms, disgusted with myself as the waves of ecstasy come long and hard. With
each unavoidable contraction, I cringe and begin to sob. Michael thinks I’m
releasing joy. He continues to thrust deeply into me. He’s not done.

My heart is screaming so loudly, it finally
seeps out my mouth. “Get out,” I whisper. But he doesn’t hear me. He’s in his
own world. I say it again, whimpering louder, “Get out.” He can’t hear me. He’s
lost in the feelings. Or is it that he doesn’t want to hear me? Oh God. The
idea of that makes me lose my mind, pounding on his back and shoulders with my
limbs. “GET OUT! GET OUT OF ME!” Yanking myself up in one painful jerk, he
falls out of my body, slaps against his thigh in an ugly thump of wet skin on
skin.

Stunned, he reels back as I jump off of him.
Clumsily falling to the ground, I leap up, pulling my dress to cover myself as
I run for a wall to lean on. I stare at the floor, but I’m not seeing it. I’m
seeing Mark standing in my home, earnestly telling me,
the way you look at me, the way you feel in my arms. These eyes of
yours, Nicole. They kill me. I look into them and I think of…

“Possibilities,” I whisper, staring at the
studio floor.

Michael explodes with angry confusion,
pacing and walking to me. “Possibilities? What are you talking about? What the fuck
is going on?”

My head jerks up and I stare at him,
remembering where I am. I push myself into the wall, away from him. He drops
his hand to his side, shuts his mouth, nostrils flared again. He must think I’m
insane. How can I explain what’s happening, why I did that? I shouldn’t have
come. I’ve made a horrible mistake.

“Give me a second,” I whisper, holding my
hand up. Michael watches me in silence as I scan the room for my panties.
Spotting them lying in a little heap on the floor, I walk to them. Looking down
to where they’re lying stained with red wine amid broken wet glass and ashes, I
shake my head. The sight is a perfect metaphor for this night.

“Why the fuck are you acting like a crazy
bitch?!”

My head turns on a swivel and I glare at
him. “A crazy what?” I straighten up and hold my head high. “And here I was
feeling bad. Well, that’s done. You can fuck right off, now.” His jaw sets. If
he wants to take back what he said, I can’t see it in his eyes. I shake my head
at us. I leave my shattered panties where they are and head for the stairs.
“You can keep those… as a souvenir.”

“Hey,” He walks quickly to me and reaches
for my arm again. This time he makes contact, wrapping the strength of his
fingers around me and gripping hard. I turn my head again, looking at his grip.
From underneath my brow, I look up and lock eyes with him. The familiar rage
that always waits just beneath the surface of my psyche, boils hot. On the
outside, I am eerily calm.

“Let go.”

He doesn’t. He wants answers. “You can’t walk
out on me again. We’re going to talk about this. I can’t go through what I went
through last time.”

Every muscle in my body is tight. Very, very
slowly I tell him, “I can leave if I want to, Michael. You can’t make me do
anything. And your manhandling me isn’t going to get me to listen to you. Let
go of my arm. You’re stronger than I am, and you’re hurting me.”

His eyes soften and his grip follows. He’s
not the type of man who is inclined to hurt a woman physically. He may not even
be the kind who’s inclined to hurt her heart. I was just that lucky. Well, I
don’t want to be the lucky first punch, too. But he releases me, his hands
flying up like he’s showing me he’s not armed. I take a deep breath, feeling
safer as he crumbles. “Nicole. I’m sorry. Look, please don’t leave until we
talk. I can see you’re angry with me for everything I’ve done. I wish you could
feel how much that hurts me.” He touches his chest where his heart rests
inside.

His vulnerability surprises me, makes me
relax. I look at him from the corner of my eye. “Is there something you feel
you’ve gotta say?”

 
A huff of air expels from him, and he
nods. He stares back at me, open and childlike. “Yes.”

I feel something shift inside me.
Compassion? “Okay. I’m listening.” I adjust my legs to face him. I was
positioned to escape.

He takes a deep breath, looks away and runs
one hand down the length of his hair before he looks at me again. He’s still
wearing only his t-shirt and his socks which makes him look even more
vulnerable, like a young boy rather than a man. “The truth is, I didn’t know
how to tell you I was married. I wanted you, but I didn’t want to be unfaithful
to her. I’m sure you figured that part out. What you don’t know is, she helped
me get my green card. I owed her, and what she wanted was fidelity.” He looks
down to the floor and blinks twice. “There is no love between us. Not like...”

My eyes narrow and it occurs to me that if
he’d told me these things before I’d met Mark, I would have bent over backwards
to find a way to make us fit and be happy. I would have run into his arms and
maybe even cried. But now that I know what happiness feels like, I know that
Michael and I could never be happy. We have that tortured kind of connection
that makes for a great emotional rollercoaster. We would tear each other to
shreds.

I sigh and wait for him to meet my eyes
again. “Michael, even if I believed you have no love for her – which I
don’t, because you couldn’t look at me when you said it – I know that she
loves you. I saw it. Why don’t you go do the right thing and open up with
her
? I don’t want you anymore.”

I didn’t say it to be mean, but as soon as
it falls off my tongue, he blanches. Hate is not the opposite of love –
indifference is. And we both heard my indifference. He stares at me from behind
the pain of heartbreak. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be cruel.”

He gives a small, distracted nod as he looks
around the room and back to me, saying, “You’re just mad. Give me some time to
earn your forgiveness.” He bites his lips, struggling. “I love you, Nic.”

“Oh Michael.” I reach up and touch his
cheek. “I’m so sorry for coming here tonight. The kindest thing I can do is not
give you any hope.”

He scoffs. “How is that kind?”

My hand falls. “Because hoping for something
that will never happen is worse than seeing the truth, and walking through the
pain so you can let it go. I want you to be happy, but that’s not going to be
with me. I’m in love with someone else.”

His eyes flash. “That guy.”

At the mention of Mark, my heart pulls.
“Yes.”

He backs away, looking at me like he doesn’t
know me. Shockwaves flow through him as he realizes I’m not going to change my
mind. He turns to his easel and walks to it, touches the side of the frame and
looks at the image that I can’t see from where I stand. The way he looks at the
canvas, I can’t help but wonder. He motions for me to come. I’m reticent
though. I want to leave, but curiosity is tugging at me because Michael’s work
has always moved me so much. I want to see what’s in that painting.

“Come,” he whispers, looking at it. “Give me
one more minute of you. I need to show you this.”
 

I walk slowly and turn to face his latest
work. My breath catches in my throat. Staring back from the fabric is me. But
not the me from the other painting before; not dark and tortured. This is the
me he must have seen when he was trailing us, the night Mark and I walked all
over the East Village and came back to my apartment. There are pinks, magentas,
oranges, reds and yellows. The essence of me in this is tranquil, happy beauty
and it’s by far the most sensually optimistic painting he’s ever created, so
soft and bright.
 

Amazed, I breathe, “It’s gorgeous.”

Beside me, his eyes are locked on the gentle
flowing strokes. “Yes.
You are
.”
 

I glance sideways to his profile. His jaw is
set and firm. “Thank you for showing me this, Michael.”

He
doesn’t nod. He doesn’t even move.

Out of compassion, I step away from him. I
break the connection we have, for the final time. Slowly I walk to the stairs
thinking,
I’ll never come back here.
I said that before, but for once I know it’s true. I hesitate at the top of the
stairs and touch the wall again, like I’d touched it before. He’s frozen where
I left him and the light from the outside lamppost drifts in to outline his
hair, the skin on his bare legs, the cotton of his torn t-shirt. There in the
lamplight is a beautiful silhouette of a man I used to love.

“I want you to know you helped me. I’m proud
of my work now. That’s because of you.” I pause, feeling a lump form in my
throat. My voice lowers as I say, “You changed my life, Michael.” I wait, but
receive no response from him. I drop my hand from the wall and pull my gaze
away, walking slowly down the stairs.

A deep sadness washes over me as I pick up
my things. A chapter of my life is closing. Where I go from here, I don’t know.
I’m so tired. I push open the door that feels extra heavy tonight. Just as I’m
about to walk through it, he speaks. I freeze and listen to his deep voice,
thick with his beautiful accent, echoing off the walls as it travels down to
lick my ears for the very last time.

“You changed my life, too, Nic.”

I pause and soak it in. Blinking away tears,
I step out into the cold night air and don’t look back.

The Next Day

Staring at my phone as though I can telepathically
will Mark to text me, I’m sitting on the red bench outside Prodigy Coffee on
Carmine St. I’m early, waiting for Amber who was kind enough to leave work when
I called her and asked her to meet me here. She’s normally right on time, but
I’m not normally anything. Sometimes I’m late, sometimes early. Like with my
housecleaning, I really don’t give it much thought. Today, I couldn’t sit at
home a moment longer. I need my girlfriends. And since only one has a face I
can stand, only one will have to do.