And it was just her and I.
No one else.
The way it was always meant to be.
My lips parted and my breathing hitched as I stood in front of her, staring deep into a pair of beautiful brown eyes. For the first time since I left her bed, I felt a sense of calm taking over me.
She had no idea how much power she had over me. She never did.
I swear I saw my whole life flashing before her eyes as I reached over, caressing the side of her face. “Muñeca,” I breathed out against her lips. An endearment I hadn’t spoken in years, seemed so foreign coming from my mouth.
“How are—”
“En español, háblame en español,” I interrupted, “In Spanish, talk to me in Spanish.” I didn’t want her to act like someone else. To pretend to be a whore when I knew she was anything but that. “Perdóname, Muñeca. Perdóname por todo,” I added, “Forgive me, doll. Forgive me for everything.”
I always thought if I ever saw her again, I would feel uncomfortable in her presence, vulnerable and exposed. I didn’t. It felt right, she felt right.
We felt right.
Because deep down we were both broken. We had always been broken beyond repair, seeking solace in one another was the only way we knew how to live.
I pulled her closer by the nook of her neck, and she came effortlessly like she always had. It was like we both needed and relied on each other. Needing to hold her as much as she needed to be held.
“Te amo,” I whispered, “I love you,” in her ear. Unable to tell the difference between reality and a dream anymore.
The drugs had completely taken over my entire body. I had zero control of anything, especially my thoughts and feelings. So, I simply held onto the illusion that she was real, it wasn’t just a dream manifested by the drugs running rampant in my mind. I wanted to believe the best part of me was standing right in front of me at that very moment in the same way she always had. My mind didn’t question how any of this was even possible because it no longer mattered.
We were together.
I just held her closer, inhaling her sweet and tantalizing smell of vanilla that felt like home as I fell deeper in between the spaces of my drug-induced haze and the woman in my arms. Feeling her run through my veins, my bloodstream, mixing with the demons that had taken over my body. She was breathing inside of me, etched so far into my soul that we were one.
A single tear fell down the side of my face as I rasped, “I want to feel my heartbeat inside of you.”
Breathing heavily, heart pounding, mind battling, fighting all my thoughts, all my emotions. Every last sentiment pulling me deeper and deeper until I didn’t know which way was up or down. Knowing the difference between what was right and what was wrong never mattered. All of it consumed me as if I was drowning in the anguish, deep in the depths of my purgatory.
Taking me further down the path of my own destruction.
I couldn’t take it any longer, it was too much and it was too fucking real. We locked eyes again with nothing but love, devotion, and adoration.
With my goddamn respect for her.
In one swift movement, I grabbed ahold of her thighs and wrapped them around my waist. Stepping in over the threshold, I kicked the door shut behind us, carrying her back to her room. Making sure to shut her drapes before I softly laid her down on her bed. Relentlessly trying to block out the images of her in this bed with other men.
“Fuck… Amira… what did I do?” I said out loud, kissing the skin on her bare chest.
I wanted this in my reality, in daily life. Going to bed together, waking up together, the fights, the make-ups, the good and bad. I wanted it all with her.
The future.
All those thoughts were quickly replaced with the present. Where the world stopped spinning just for us.
Where we were an us.
She closed her eyes, lifting her chin for me to kiss her neck. I didn't. I pulled her lips to mine instead and kissed her for what felt like the first fucking time. Kissing her as if I was never going to see her again. It wasn’t the drugs this time. I knew it wasn’t the drugs. It was us. It had always been us.
She reached for the waist of my jeans and lowered them to pull out my cock. The slow torturous rhythm of her hands starting to go up and down my shaft had me barely being able to breathe. The warmth of her hands felt like nothing I had ever experienced in my life. She moaned the most delicious sound when I bit her bottom lip while she continued to make love to me with her movements. I wasn’t just getting off on the act she was performing on me, the movements and the noises she was making intensified it all. My body was on sensory overload.
I could fucking smell her arousal, breathing her in until I couldn’t take it anymore. Needing to be inside of her, knowing the inevitable conversation we still needed to have would have to wait. The sensation of Amira’s pussy sliding down my cock was ecstasy in itself. I spent hours inside of my girl, telling her how much I loved her, how sorry I was, how much I needed this, and how alone I’d been without her by my side. The last thing I remember was pulling my loves tiny frame into my arms while still inside her. Staring up at the ceiling fan as it went around and around in a hypnotic dance until there was nothing but darkness.
When I woke up, I was more dazed and fucking confused than ever in my life. My head was pounding and my mouth was dry.
“Muñeca?” I groaned, immediately reaching for her, patting the empty space beside me. She wasn’t there. My heart dropped, and panic set in. My eyes instantly opened, sitting up looking around the small, unfamiliar space for her. Everything seemed different in broad daylight. “Amira!” I could hear the desperation in my voice.
“My name isn’t Amira,” she replied, bringing my attention over to the corner of the room. She was sitting in an armchair, wearing nothing but a white silk robe and a grin. “Jesus, I’ve been with my fair share of fucked up men, but last night you were so far gone, there was no bringing you back,” she purred in a thick Russian accent.
I couldn’t tear my stunned gaze away from her eyes, her mouth, her face. We sat there for a few moments, neither one of us saying a word. My mind was racing with the realization that she wasn’t Amira. She was just a whore who resembled her.
“I gave you what you obviously needed. I’m not trying to be a bitch here, but you got to go. I have to get back to work. She must have done quite a number on you, this Amira, but the night’s over. I’m done playing your little game of charades. Our play time is over lover boy. You owe me eight-hundred dollars.”
I flipped the covers off my naked body, abruptly standing up. “Don’t talk about things you know nothing about.” Reaching aggressively for my jeans, I stepped into them.
“Trust me, after last night, I know plenty. All you kept doing was pleading for my forgiveness. You told me how much you fucking loved me. Mentioned something about looking up at the stars and wishing I was too. Something else about constellations? Oh, and don’t worry, I slipped a condom on you during your Muñeca haze.”
“I’m warning you, back off and shut your mouth! I’m not the man you want to fuck with!” I advised, putting on my shirt.
“Who’s Andromeda?”
I ignored her as best as I could, going about the room collecting my things, but my patience was wearing very fucking thin. I was mostly pissed off at myself. I didn’t make love to random women, only ever Amira. And this one was a goddamn whore.
“Oh, come on! You can’t leave me hanging like this. I didn’t say a word last night. I let you believe what you wanted, playing your little role of Muñeca, whatever the hell that means. By the way, what the fuck is a Yuly?”
She stepped toward me and I lost it. I grabbed her by the throat and shoved her against the adjacent wall, knocking over a bottle of whiskey and some glasses. I placed her where I wanted her, tightening my hold against her windpipe. I didn’t want to hear her mousey voice any longer. It made everything worse, which I didn’t think was possible. Her eyes widen
ed and her breathing hitched. I felt it on my fingers and fuck did it make my cock hard.
I was calm and collected in an eerie way. The same way Amira always hated but secretly loved and made her sweet pussy wet. I leaned in close to her face until we were only about an inch apart. “Do I look like the man who would answer any of your goddamn questions?”
She swallowed hard.
“I said I don’t want to hear another word come out of your pretty fucking mouth.”
My other hand moved to the side of her face, angling my head to take her in. I softly touched her cheeks that were still rosy and flushed from being fucked six ways from Sunday. I stood there staring at my prey, moving my fingers up to place some of the damp pieces of hair that had fallen behind her ear. She remained still the entire time, not saying a word. Her arms dangling at her sides, and her back against the wall. She didn’t even try to move or speak, not that I would have let her. Blush radiated all over her naked skin as I slowly made my way down to the tie of her robe, allowing my fingertips to linger at the knot for a few seconds before unwrapping her completely. The silk fell open effortlessly.
Leaning in further, I caressed her cheek with mine, grazing my fingers along the crevice of her pussy. “You don’t tell me when to leave. Not when I’m paying for the pretty pussy in between your fucking legs,” I growled, slightly rubbing her clit.
Her breathing hitched again, which only enticed me to tighten my grasp harder against her throat. She seemed so fragile, so vulnerable in my hold, but her composure was solid.
I looked her dead in the eyes and spoke with conviction, “So, what were you saying? Hmmm…” I taunted, rubbing her clit a little firmer with the palm of my hand. “Something about wanting me to leave, right?”
She knew what I was going to do. She wanted it. Which was probably why she was provoking me. Women like her knew exactly what kind of man I was, but pleasure was a powerful thing. Women like her meant nothing.
Her breathing labored when I reached the opening of her pussy as I roughly bit the soft, tender area on the side of her neck. Causing her to whimper in response.
“That feel good?” I provoked, sliding my fingers into her warm, wet cunt.
She moaned, letting her head fall back.
I silently laughed as she gyrated her hips against my fingers, a silent plea to keep going.
“Fucking, beg me. I want to hear you beg me to make you come,” I demanded, pressing against her G-spot.
“Please…” she panted with my hold around her throat, seizing.
I finger fucked her sweet spot and her pussy pulsated with every thrust of my hand. “Please, what?”
“Please make me come,” she let out in one breath.
“Open your eyes, look at me.”
She hazily did.
“Now, I’m going to leave you here, wanting, craving, needing this fucked up man’s cock.”
Her hooded eyes widened, understanding my choice of words.
“Exactly like the whore you are.” And with that I released her and turned away, throwing her money on the counter and leaving her there, not wasting one more second of my time thinking about her again.
Later, when darkness had once again taken over the night’s sky and my mind, I ended up at Anne Frank’s house to torture myself a little more. It was simply the only way I knew how to continue to live. Leaving a single rose on her doorstep.
“From one lost soul to another,” I muttered out loud, silently hoping Amira was somewhere in Cuba sensing I just did this…
For her.
Although, it nearly killed me.
FOUR
DAMIEN
One year later
“That was quite the performance you put on today in my courtroom, Damien,” Judge McClain professed, signaling me to take a seat in one of the chairs in front of his desk. Not allowing me to rest for one second before getting right down to business.
I was used to his “debriefings” as he called them, that always took place in his personal home office. The man was all work and no play, had been for the last four years I’d been in the United States. Nobody would ever believe the beloved family man and father of three children was as corrupt as they came. He got paid millions by the families of high-profile criminals to overturn the jury’s convictions. Letting murderers, drug dealers, and every villain in between walk away free and clear.
It wasn’t about the money though, at least not for him. See, everyone thinks money is the root of all evil, but it isn’t. It was the power, and this motherfucker got off on knowing he was un-fucking-touchable. Continuously getting away with his corruption because no one, except the victims, truly knew what was going down in his courtroom. People feared for their lives. Prosecutors and their families would be murdered in the middle of the night if they ran their mouths. Trust me, he made sure of it.
Then you had attorneys, like myself, who wouldn’t dare breathe a word. My silence was a far greater reward in the long run. It only benefited me, receiving all the recognition I strived for with winning the cases for every defendant I had represented. I was everywhere—in the papers, on the news. Time magazine even ran an exclusive interview with me. Titling it, “Cuban attorney and refugee, Damien Montero, comes to America and conquers the courtrooms.” Labeling me El Santo, The Saint, for all the good I was doing around the world.
Like the sayings go, “You are what you gravitate toward. A good attorney knows the law, a better attorney knows the judge, and the best attorney knows the judge’s mistress.” I had her number on speed dial.
This was a cut-throat business, literally, and I loved every fucking thing it stood for. It was all part of a vicious cycle that made the judicial world turn.
Just another day at the office.
“I’m only doing my job. The state no longer has a case. I made sure of it.”
“Who’d have thought their prime witness would have kilos of cocaine stacked away in his home. Hiding up in the attic of all places, where his children could have found it. What kind of reputable source is that? I mean, can you imagine? What if the cops weren’t tipped off, and I didn’t serve a mandatory search warrant? We never would have thought this law-abiding citizen was trying to traffic drugs. I swear, these days you just don’t know who you can trust anymore. It’s really quite sad, in my opinion.”
I grinned, stifling a chuckle.
“Tampering with the evidence was a nice touch. Who did you use?”
“I don’t understand the question. Are you implying I was responsible for the murder weapon to suddenly have unidentifiable fingerprints?”
He smiled, big and wide. “That’s what I like about you, Damien. Always on your toes. It’s why you’re the best attorney around and the only man I trust. You never let your guard down, not even for a second.”
“What can I say? I want to be just like you when I grow up, McClain.”
He laughed, leaning back into his leather chair. “It’s only been a year since you opened your own firm and already there’s talk about putting your name on the ballot. District Attorney Damien Montero does have a nice ring to it. You think you could handle that?”
I spent the last four years in America working my ass off with one thing or another. Traveling around the world on my downtime, only having a few more destinations to stamp in my passport. Work became my salvation, courtrooms became my bitch, dominating every trial with my goddamn eyes closed. I lived and breathed the triumph that came along with the wins. It was much easier to drown out noise in the back of my mind with the legal and mostly the illegal shit I involved myself in.
“I don’t think, I know,” I sternly stated the truth, cocking my head to the side. “Insecurities and doubts are for pussies, and we both know I possess none of those qualities.”
“Then it’s safe to assume your pitiful pro bono cases are your only innocent clients,” he mocked in a condescending tone.
“You know what they say about people who assume shit.”
He laugh
ed again. “I also appreciate your smartass mouth. Makes for lighter conversation.”
I leaned forward, placing my elbows on his desk. “You know what I appreciate? A good glass of fucking whiskey.”
It was a tradition to have a drink together after we talked business, especially meetings that swayed in our favor. He stood, turning his back to me, making his way over to the wet bar at the other end of the room. He quickly poured two glasses of amber liquid.
“I have to ask, why are you taking on those pro bono cases? Are you trying to look better for the public? You already own their hearts, Damien. They have named you El Santo for fuck’s sake. Not only is it a waste of your time, it’s a waste of money. We both know you like to live the good life. With your penthouse condo in downtown Miami and the Audi R8 you drive. I mean look at the Armani suit you’re wearing, and the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak watch around your wrist. That set you back like what? Three, four million?”
I took in his questions as he turned with our drinks in hand, walking back over to me. He handed me a glass before taking a seat behind his desk, once again. I lifted my drink, nodding my chin toward him, a silent toast prior to sipping the contents. He followed my lead.
“Why does it matter to you? You’re still getting paid regardless.”
“Call it genuine curiosity. You take on the same type of pro bono cases every time. Always a rape victim or someone who has lost a loved one through justice delivered on the streets. Not to mention, the orphans you take upon yourself to place in good homes. Why always those cases?”
“Not everyone is born with a silver spoon in their mouth, McClain.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, setting his elbows on his desk. “No, don’t give me that communist, political prisoner bullshit you tell the press. It’s something more than that, almost like it’s a personal vendetta for you. Why?”
I took another sip of my drink. “You answered your own question. There’s nothing anyone can do to me that Emilio Salazar hasn’t already done.”
“We’ve never talked about any of this.”