“Sage.” I put my hand on his arm, and he flings it off, hitting me in the boob. “Fuck.” I can’t help the curse that leaves my lips, but it’s enough to wake him.
“Tori?” He sounds confused.
I rub my boob and sit down on the bed, using my other hand to push his hair back off his face. His curls are all flattened with sweat. “Babe, you were dreaming. I heard you. Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?” I can see in the dim light that his cheeks are wet.
He shudders and turns his head so he’s not looking at me. “Not really.” He sighs and rolls away from me.
Making a decision, I slide in behind him and curl my body around his, draping my arm around him and tangling my legs with his. He holds his breath for a moment before putting a hand over the one I have on his chest.
“Thank you,” he whispers.
We lie here for a little while. I’ve never slept with anyone before, and it feels a little weird, but at least my mind is off everything else. Now, it’s fully focused on how my body feels wrapped around Sage’s. His legs are hairy against my smooth ones, and it’s all I can do to stop my thumb from running across his nipple. My breath blows a curl on the nape of his neck with every exhale. Slowly but surely, he relaxes until I feel his deep and even breathing, telling me he’s gone to sleep, but now I don’t want to leave. I’m cozy and warm, and to be honest, this feels really nice, so I allow myself to relax and enjoy the feeling, even if it’s only for a brief moment.
ChapterTwenty-Two
Over the next few months, I learn so many new things they are hard to keep track of, but one thing’s for sure—my life’s so different than I thought it would be at this stage. I’ve been keeping up with my studies online. My grades aren’t spectacular, but I think they’ll be enough to get me into college if I want to, and if not, I’m sure Dad will grease a few palms and I’ll be fine.
Turns out he’s got a lot of people in his back pocket—businessmen, politicians, and law enforcement officials all with something to hide or some bad habit that Dad takes full advantage of. It was glorious the day I found out that Nikki Steel’s dad, Mayor Steel, regularly makes use of our brothels. He likes to be pegged, so it was no surprise that when I suggested we add male whores to our lineup, he instantly jumped aboard. He also likes to be spanked, according to Charles, his favorite whore. The reason it’s such a secret is because Nikki’s mom is the one with the fortune and the reason he was able to run for mayor in the first place. And while Dad doesn’t have anything on the dean of the college, they did grow up together and he is an associate of the organization, hence Gio’s fancy schmancy room.
After shadowing Gio for six months and learning everything I could about our business, Dad finally let me drop the guard who has been accompanying me everywhere. I took over Aunt Carla’s responsibility with the strip clubs and dealt with all the shady managers. I know she tried, but with her responsibilities with the casino, it was just too much, and they slipped through the cracks. By making women and former strippers managers, we no longer have any problems.
Sage also got a crash course on being a mobster, and now he carries a gun and has triple the responsibilities. Not only is he the chemist, but he’s my arm candy and bodyguard. While I conduct business during the day, he stays home and cooks his chemicals, but when we have to attend anything at night, he’s right by my side.
After that night in his bed, our relationship changed. He eventually told me what he had been through with his foster family, and I talked some more about what happened between Stacey and me, and how confused I am about my sexuality. It built a tentative trust, and although we still banter with pithy insults and sleazy remarks, we’ve grown close. I hesitate to call him my best friend, because of what happened with the last one, but I guess he’s the closest thing I have apart from Gio. Sure, there’s plenty of sexual tension there, but I refuse to do anything about it. Denial is not just a river in Egypt, but something I hold onto with both hands like it’s a life preserver.
Though some days I really would like to put a bullet in his knee like I did to Ed.
When Dad told Gio to include Sage in the mafia bootcamp, I had no clue that I would be stuck being his partner in just about everything, but it turns out we both have our strengths and weaknesses. Sage is bright as fuck and remembers everything and everyone, but he failed miserably at interrogation. He threw up the first time I pulled someone’s fingernails out and plain passed out when I broke someone’s kneecap with my trusty hammer. Gio and I made the decision then and there not to ever let him in the room while torture is going on.
Funnily enough, though, he didn’t hesitate to put a bullet in someone’s brain. It helped that the first people we offered him were his foster parents. When Dad said he’d taken care of them, I thought he’d killed them. Instead, he told them he “wanted” Sage and paid them off. I’m not actually sure why he didn’t end them. I think deep down he was saving them for Sage. They lived happily on the money Dad gave them, but just recently, it had run out, and they were back to fostering children. It was time for them to be dealt with properly, and Dad decided that Sage needed to be the one who dealt with them.
After all, it was Sage they put through so much. He was the one they sold to their skeevy friends when they didn’t have enough money for drugs. Then, when he was old enough and his foster parents figured out how smart he was in chemistry, they would hold a gun to his head and threaten to kill him if he didn’t make meth. He told me he had been a late bloomer physically, so up until he was seventeen, his foster father had been able to dominate him and beat him into submission. It was only after that when they used a gun instead to keep him compliant. Making and selling drugs also got them to lay off him as long as all of the profits went back to them. He had a good system worked out until he fucked up and tried to sell his meth in my dad’s club and it brought Sage to his attention. But my dad was smart enough to see the desperation in Sage’s eyes, and the rest is history.
Though Dad insisted that he didn’t have to continue to make drugs when Sage came to live at the fortress, that he could do whatever he wanted, Sage wanted to pay Dad back for his kindness. Not to mention he’s kind of a mad scientist genius and geeked out when Dad bought him all the equipment he requested. Dad made him promise to stay away from meth, and Sage, being the smart man he is, never touched the product himself.
Still, I thought he would hesitate, and he did balk at the torture part, but after I cut them up a little for him, taking slices of flesh and maybe a pair of testicles, listening to the sounds of their screams and watching as they bled all over the pristine white torture chamber, he’d blown their brains out and then pissed on their corpses.
In the aftermath of that, his emotions were running high, and we had gotten drunk and stoned together. He kissed me, and I kissed him back. It wasn’t horrible, but it didn’t go any further than a little groping, and the next morning we both pretended it didn’t happen. I was okay with that.
Defensive driving, on the other hand, is a whole other situation. While I can now drive like a badass, Sage drives like the Ghost Rider is on his tail and his life is on the line. It just clicked, and today is our last day and a test of his skills.
“Sage, fuck,” I scream, grabbing hold of the door handle, trying to keep myself from falling into his lap as the car tears around the racetrack, almost going up on two wheels. He laughs maniacally and swings back the other way, accelerating into the straight before pulling the hand brake and drifting around another corner.
We agreed that he’s the better driver when the two of us are in the car together, and after going around the racetrack once, we are supposed to head out into the warehouse district that’s been cleared out so we can play evade the bad guys, complete with paintball pistols and pellets. Of course Dad doesn’t actually want us to kill any of our own guys and fuck up two of his cars, but it’s good to get a feel for how we would react in a real-life situation. A practical exam, if you wish.
I have my paintball pistol in my lap and a couple of spare magazines within reach, and Sage has his pedal to the metal. Sage and I are green and yellow, and the cars in pursuit are different colors.
“For fuck’s sake, man, how am I supposed to shoot if I can’t even stay upright?” I snap at him as we leave the track and head out onto the road with two blacked out SUVs in pursuit. Before he can even respond, though, he whips the car around another corner, and this time I’m not quick enough—my face ends up in his lap. I’m tangled in my belt and struggling to get up when I feel something harden beneath my face.
“Seriously?” I growl, using both hands to shove off his thighs.
“Well, your breath was all hot and you were thrashing around, and have you looked at yourself? It’s practically a permanent state when you’re around.” He grits his jaw as a couple of thunking sounds hit our car, and I spin around to see one of the cars has gotten closer. “Don’t just sit there, shoot back,” he demands.
Growling, I unfasten my seat belt and press the button for the sunroof. “If you kill me, I will come back and haunt your ass,” I tell him as I stand up, stick my body out of the sunroof, and take aim.
I fire off a few rounds, hitting the cars, but not in any vital spot that might take out the driver. I eject the magazine and slam in another, but then Sage swerves again, and I go tumbling back into the car. This time, however, I end up on top of him with my boobs in his face. I have no idea how the fuck that happened. How did I end up straddling him? He’s basically motorboating my cleavage while trying to see over my shoulder.
“This is fun, isn’t it?” He grins and winks as I push against both of his shoulders, trying to get off him. Just as I’m about to swing my leg over, he brakes, and his face connects with my core. “Sorry, there was a cat,” he mumbles when I shriek and throw myself to the side. I feel my face heat up, but he doesn’t look at me, so I straighten up and take a deep breath. He quickly accelerates, but the cars are much closer now. One of them taps our bumper, and he struggles to stop the car from careening out of control.
