Nothing to Blue could ever or would ever beat the feeling of waking up, sun warm through large, ocean-facing windows, sheets twisted up and duvet fallen to the floor, stark naked, with the male embodiment of sex sound asleep beside her, one arm around her and the other thrown over his eyes. With a small, subdued smile, Blue rolled over, lifting a delicate hand to rest against his steadily heaving chest. She watched as he stirred, arm falling from his eyes and head rolling to face her — to her dismay, still very much asleep.
She had dreamt
Blue cursed the fact she didn't have the mind to lather on sunscreen the second she had stepped into the street. Summer was underway, and though not as hot as it could be, just as unforgiving. And although she wasn't showing per se, the steadying gain of weight meant that she was just too big to fit into her old clothes and just too small to size up without looking like a Mormon. Vincent's clothes were always a safe bet—big enough to look deliberately oversized—but she found that, while denim shorts and one of his many white button-ups looked trendy enough to blend into the LA crowd, its ability to advertise her sweat was uncanny.It was a task in itself to hold at bay the vomiting which forced her to bring a pillow to rest on into the bathroom for the better part of an hour—but by ten o'clock, feeling so vile and exhausted, she made the decision so grave in necessity she felt it appropriate to break a promise. And so, the ten-minute walk to the pharmacy began. She was painfully aware
For summer, New York hadn’t quite gotten as warm as Blue had expected.She found that, even with an additional blanket, there was nothing she wanted quite as much as the strong embrace of a particular man—warm enough to make her sweat stark naked with the windows open and the air conditioning in overdrive. And yet her pride made good work of keeping him away.Truthfully, they hadn’t said much to one another since their quick return from their “holiday”. Blue would be lying if she said she wasn’t reeling from all the possibilities that filled the spaces of explanations Vincent kept from her. Was he a government agent? Was Richard involved in a child trafficking ring? It wouldn’t surprise her, that was for sure. Blue was rather confident in the fact that Richard wasn’t guided by ethics nor influenced by what was right or wrong. The only thing then, she feared, was that her father was somehow involved. Sure, they didn’t see eye-to-eye, nor were they all too close—or at least as close as t
“Lovely, isn’t it? That your parents would go through all this effort for us,” Blue forced a bitter smile to Richard, the man who had the meat of her thigh in his hand in a way he’d be able to squeeze warningly when her tongue got a bit loose.She feared, after one too many witty remarks and cold stares in his direction, that the print of his hand would begin to show. Even then, she was sure that Marian would not mind one bit. She seemed perfectly content watching her only daughter be violated by the man
Richard leaned in with an intent Blue couldn’t quite determine—as he inched close enough she could taste the food on his breath, she considered the value of her life. There was a certain cruelty, she found, in her sentence. Was she really to spend the rest of her life with the one person she somehow hated more and more by the day? To be a servant to a powerful man with a disproportionate ego. No self-determination. No purpose outside of attending events by his side and giving him as many children as he desired. And as she sucked in an involuntary breath, she received a vivid reminder of the repulsiveness that shrouded Richard rather exclusively.
Blue found it rather hard to engage with anyone at the dinner table, though her input hadn’t been missed. Richard had been chatting happily for a time she didn’t care to note about his cars and the new house he bought on the suburbs. The suggestive nod towards its family appeal was lost on Blue. Just as the comment on his Porsche SUV and all its passenger capacity fell on deaf ears. She was rather distracted by the fact that Richard was sat by her side in the very seat that had been Vincent’s at the fateful brunch. And if not by Richard’s presence alone, by the rampant questions and confusion that had arisen from Vincent’s detective work in a way that translated directly into anger… and hurt.
The most Vincent had done in the ten hours since Blue had told him to leave was pour himself a drink, pour it straight down the drain, sit on the couch in near darkness and wish he had done more to protest.By the time the front door finally opened, he found himself struggling against fatigue as he was torn so carelessly from a surface level dream of Blue asleep on the couch next to him; curled in a ball between the corner of the sofa and himself—knees in his lap, head on his shoulder, arms tucked into his chest
Blue’s toes curled as the man’s breath shot out along her thigh and the absence as he drew away forced a shiver. With furrowed brows, her eyes met his, met with a twisted smile, narrowed eyes and fingers flexing on her knees. “What are you doing?”“What do you want me to do?” the murmur alone kindled her longing to the point she was sure she could beg, watching restlessly, goosebumps rising from the cold.
Untangling his arm with the woman asleep beside him, Vincent sat up slowly. Breathed the greyed midday sun wafting through tumbling curtains. Followed their lilt and roll, caught steadily on the breeze. Rain filling the silence where her deep breaths paused, the man had one simple thought. They’d slept in. Far too long. But somehow, the sight of the woman eased any stress. He was rather unsure of the last time he had done nothing so late in the day. She lay with an arm stretched above her head; hand twisted in her own hair. Bare breasts peering from beneath the sheets. Nipples large and swollen. Duvet tangled at her stomach. Other hand tucked in a fist beneath her cheek. And as she stirred, he could see a shyly pink handprint where it had been. In the same way he had and more frequently by the day, he wondered what would rebuff the woman quicker; the truth, or another lie? Though she lay bare faced with golden hair in tangles and skin unclothed, he couldn’t