The Token 5 (New Adult Dark Romance) Read online

  “Shush,” I say, reveling in the control, the power I possess over him.

  I surge forward with him still locked inside me. Gripping his shoulders, I pull myself upright and press my breasts against his chest.

  I bounce on him once, twice.

  Shoving him in deeply from the new angle.

  Mick groans as I ride him.

  “God.” His chin moves to my shoulder, and his breath scalds my neck.

  I use his strong shoulders to position my heels on the sides of the couch and slam down. I grunt at the primitive sensation of being filled.

  Mick shakes his head, the muscles of his neck straining against his release. I come down again, his balls pressing against my ass.

  My core pulses hard, and I know I'm close.

  I reach behind me, cup his testes, and gently squeeze as I move my hips.

  The breath leaks out of him.

  “I can't...”

  Mick’s release pours out of him, his arms convulsing around me as the wall crumbles against my orgasm.

  He hardens as he dumps into me, and I throb against him, our arms locked around each other in a tightness reserved for what’s happening in this moment.

  I don't pull away, and neither does he.

  Minutes pass. When he slips out of me, he takes me onto his lap.

  He chuckles. “Legs were falling asleep.”

  I rest my head on his broad shoulder, one arm around his neck.

  “Wish I could stay like that forever,” he admits.

  “Like a naked pretzel?” My smile widens against the heartbeat that slows beneath his chest.

  There's the barest pause as he considers what I've said.

  “Yes.”

  His hand moves to my head, and he strokes my damp hair. Mick lies down on the cramped confines of the couch and tucks me against him, wrapping the excess blanket around us both.

  Our breathing syncs in the silence. Words are unnecessary.

  I fight sleep, but in the end, safety comes in many forms.

  Mick makes me feel as though I'm home.

  He is my home.

  ~ 7 ~

  “My secretary has left several messages.”

  My doodling pauses at his words then resumes. I'm not sure how to respond. Yeah, Dr. Matthews, I allowed myself to become pregnant after being diagnosed with a brain tumor.

  It doesn't matter that it was unintentional, an accident of drug-mixing in just the right coincidence of circumstance.

  I'm dying.

  I'm pregnant.

  I sigh. “I'm sorry, things have been...” Suicidal and surreal.

  Dr. Matthews says, “I understand you're accounting for your time differently now.”

  Yeah.

  “However, your care is still important. We need to see how the tumor is progressing.”

  I blow a strand of hair out of my face and put the finishing touches on my stick family. I bite my lip as I fill in their faces.

  I'm telling Mick today.

  He's not flying me to Paris like Kiki theorized, but when he mentioned New York City for a long lunch, I declined, feigning morning sickness. I need to be closer to home if things go sideways.

  I still think it's possible he'll let me go when he discovers my biggest deceit of all.

  “Miss Mitchell?” Dr. Matthews asks.

  “Yes, I'll come.”

  “It's not urgent unless you're manifesting more symptoms. However, your care cannot be ignored.” His voice rises at the end of his statement, a hidden question buried in there.

  I feel myself frown. “Actually, all those symptoms have gone away.”

  There's pause in the open connection between my cell and his land line.

  “While that's unusual,” he begins slowly, “it's not unheard of. Remember, we discussed the possibility of a euphoric period, where all symptoms would seem to be in stasis?”

  I remembered; I hate the falsehood of feeling well when I know the opposite is true.

  “Yes.”

  “We'll do a marker test and administer another CAT when you come in...”

  He rustles some papers.

  “Friday at 4:00?”

  It's Monday now, so I say yes automatically. That will give Mick plenty of time to figure out what he wants to do with me.

  Or doesn't.

  *

  “This is too much food!” I say, the catered spread goes on for miles.

  Mick's eyes are hoods of lust as he maintains silence. “Open up,” He dangles a fat strawberry by a short stem over my mouth.

  I shake my head but can't keep the grin off my face.

  “I'll tickle you until you pee your pants,” he threatens.

  “Not fair.” I cross my arms underneath my naked, tender breasts. “I have to pee all the time anyway.”

  “Oooh.” Mick crawls across the bed, dishes of every order strewn across the floor, dressers, and empty spots on the huge mattress. “A challenge.”

  I lay back, my legs opening to allow him between them. The strawberry is lifted high above him as he moves in for the kill.

  “Open,” he whispers.

  My legs spread farther, and he groans.

  My lips thin into a firm line, and he smiles. He dangles the berry in front of my opening, and I feel my eyes widen.

  “I'm going to eat you now,” Mick says, waggling his eyebrows.

  He moves the strawberry back and forth, clit to entrance, and the nubby texture teases my soft flesh.

  I moan. I know he'll stay true to his word. He tears the stem and top off with his teeth, spitting it onto a plate, and presses just the pointy tip inside me.

  His lips circle the fruit, and he nibbles it little by little as his thumb moves to my clit.

  “Oh my god,” I whisper.

  “You wouldn't be an obedient girl and eat the berry. Now I will eat the berry.”

  Mick licks and nibbles. I feel his slight stubble as his mouth works the succulent morsel, consuming it.

  Eating me.

  “All done,” he says softly, landing on top of me gently.

  My thighs quiver, and my pussy begs for more of his sweet attention. But his mouth is on mine, and I taste myself and the tart sweetness of the berry.

  I suck on his tongue as he enters me with his hardness.

  “I'm going to be sore,” I say, my legs spreading wider as he pushes deeper for a second round.

  “A good kind,” he answers.

  I nod, smiling against his kisses. He glides in and out of me in a deep press of wet flesh.

  Mick's pace is slightly desperate and needy, and my hips match what he offers.

  He grunts against me as I meet him viciously, expectantly.

  His eyes move to mine with the ferocity of our coupling.

  Mick is so in tune with my needs that he doesn't question me but gives what I silently ask.

  When our pace is at its most frenzied, he pauses, pulsing into me as I milk him of everything he spills.

  We're frozen together, and I love it.

  Love him.

  When the tears come, he wipes them away.

  When he asks what's wrong—I tell him.

  *

  “Jesus, you're not joking?” Mick asks, his shocked expression partially buried underneath his forearm.

  I lean over him, still naked, and lift his arm off his head so I can see his eyes. The windows of the soul.

  When his wasted expression is revealed, I almost wish I hadn't.

  I shake my head. “I wouldn't after all that's happened.”

  He doesn't say anything for a long time.

  Mick dislodges from me, and I let him go.

  I've always been willing to release him. I never had a choice.

  He paces, his limp penis looking sad and spent against his tense body. I sit up on my knees and watch him.

  Mick turns, his anger riding him like a layer of fire. “This isn't fair, Faren.”

  I nod. I always thought so, but I never have enough time for
a proper pity party. Too much rode on what I needed to do for my mom.

  Now there's the baby.

  “No.” His eyes flash, and I frown. “I mean, this is worse than Rose.”

  I didn’t expect that.

  “Rose died senselessly.” His eyes move off into a distant spot before that penetrating stare moves back to me. “There's no way when she woke up that morning, she thought 'I'm going to die today.'

  But you, you always knew that you could not engage anyone permanently. Unlike the rest of us, you knew your time was almost up.”

  I shrug. That's all true. He's reiterating all the points I've turned over in my mind a dozen times.

  He rakes a hand through his hair. “I can't do this.”

  My stomach flops over like an undercooked pancake. Doughy and soft. Unready.

  I'm robbed of speech as I watch his expression harden.

  His eyes roam my body and his Adam's apple bobs in a hard plow of flesh. “What are you going to do about the baby?”

  I sink against my heels, staring at him.

  My own anger boils to the surface, colliding with his.

  “Do?”

  I suddenly feel naked before him. Before, I'd only felt nude. Now it's as though my soul is laid bare under a microscope he controls.

  “You can't think you'll go through with the pregnancy?” Mick's expression is incredulous.

  My gorge rises, and I swallow down my emotions. “Yes, actually, I thought I might have enough time to get the baby to term before I...”

  “Die?”

  I nod miserably, my arm covering my belly.

  His eyes track it, then rise to meet mine. They’re black with his rage, my betrayal the ultimate lie by omission. “No. I'll do what I said I would do: Take care of your mom until she's well enough to function. I'll... see to your care until the end. But don't think for a second there's anything more between us.”

  I hang my head.

  There's a smudge of strawberry juice on the inside of my thigh. It mocks me with the proof of my reality.

  “You can't show me heaven, then toss me in hell, Faren Mitchell. It doesn't work that way.”

  I get up and walk past Mick. I collect my scattered clothes, dress, and gather my handbag.

  Tears shatter my vision like broken gems as I smack the elevator button with my good hand. Great gulping inhales are the only sound in the hall.

  I realize they're coming from me.

  The doors mercifully whisper apart.

  I don't look back.

  Mick doesn't call me back, say he's sorry... or come after me.

  This is more final than my impending death.

  I feel as though I've already died.

  ~ 8 ~

  “Oh my God. What. The. Fuck?” Kiki asks as I stand at her door in a numb stupor. Kiki pulls me inside her condo and closes the door.

  She leads me to her kitchen table. A place where I've told my secrets, shared my joy—my sadness.

  “You—sit,” she says. She races to the front door, throws the latch, and jogs to me, taking my hands.

  Her hands feel so warm.

  “Okay, do I need to go cut off a dick?”

  My face crumples, and my stomach churns. I’m not nauseated because of the little one in my womb. I’m nauseated because the father hates me for leaving him. I hate me for leaving too. I'd do nearly anything not to go.

  “Or two?” Kiki asks, stroking my palms, her fingers rough against my scar.

  I shake my head, my hair sliding over the thin nylon shirt I put on.

  Inside out and backward.

  “Okay, let me think.” Kiki taps a bright nail on her lip. Leaning forward, she pegs me with her all-knowing gaze.

  “You told him.”

  “I did,” I croak.

  “And... he rejected you.”

  My tears answer her.

  “Well, that bastard.”

  We're quiet for a second.

  “Okay, I know ya love him, but why do you look like you've been run over by another motorcycle?”

  My laugh sounds like a sob.

  “Oh honey,” Kiki says, kissing my hand, “Kiki's here, baby. I don't care if you have two months or two hundred years—I love ya.”

  I inhale sharply. “I know.”

  She waits. A miracle for Kiki.

  “He said that I brought heaven to him... then sent him straight to hell.”

  Kiki's face scrunches up. “Okay, so he's mad.”

  “Yeah,” I answer softly.

  “Well I'm steaming fucking pissed too!”

  My face jerks up in surprise.

  Her eyes search mine. “I dig you. You’re my go-to girlfriend. You’re steady, Faren. You've seen shit and survived. You’re level-headed and put up with my shiny-thing problem.”

  I smile despite how awful I feel.

  “I'd rather have you die and have known you for five minutes then to have never known you and not have this hole in my heart. The pain is real”—the devotion in her eyes is a balm to my shredded emotions—“but so is the love.”

  Kiki puts her fist to her heart, her eyes shining with tears.

  Her hand slowly falls. “But this isn't about my anger. It's about how I love ya. And that's what Mick's problem is. He thinks it'll feel better to cut you off. Then he won't feel the pain.”

  Maybe... but she didn't see his face when he let me go.

  “But the pain's going to follow his rich ass no matter what.”

  Kiki cocks her head. “Off -topic.”

  My head spins. “Huh? Okay.”

  “Why do you have red stains all over your mouth?”

  I bawl then. Unglamorous, wrenching sobs that suck the fluid and snot right out of me.

  I don't think I'll ever eat another strawberry again.

  *

  I sleep like the dead.

  I have absolutely fallen into the early pregnancy lethargy. Vaguely, I notice Kiki come in and check on me, but I don't wake until I hear her arguing.

  “Listen, asshole, she's not going to want to see you.”

  I sit up in her guest bedroom, barely more than a glorified closet.

  My cheek feels hot from lying on the pillow for hours. Pale sunlight streams around the edges of the drawn curtains. My hair is tangled like a silken spider web.

  “I don't care. I need to see her, to know that she's okay.”

  “What part of fuck off don't you understand?” Kiki says in a voice that means business.

  I unwrap myself from the covers and pad out in a huge nightshirt.

  A haggard Mick fills her front entrance.

  “Faren.”

  I just stare, unresponsive.

  He gives a loud exhale. “I'm sorry about what I said.”

  I don't reply.

  I feel as if I'm having an out-of-body experience.

  Kiki huffs and begins to shut the door.

  Mick's foot wedges between the closing door and jamb. “Don't make me break your door down.”

  I do what I have to. “Mick...”

  He looks at me. He’s still angry.

  Well, I am too.

  I'm the one who’s dying. I'm the one who danced on guys' laps so I could save my mom.

  Now I'm the one who's pregnant. He can be all kinds of mad if he wants, but it's a luxury I can't afford.

  I smooth back my tangled hair. “Thanks for checking on me, but I don't need anything.”

  His face imperceptibly hardens.

  “Fine.”

  “Good, that's settled then, douche. Now skedaddle.” Kiki moves to close the door.

  “Wait,” Mick says, frustration leaking through his pores. “What are you doing with the baby?”

  I feel my sarcastic smile fill my face. “I'm not going to murder it.”

  Mick's chin jerks back as if I’d hit him. “I didn't suggest that.”

  Whatever.

  I ignore Kiki rolling her eyes.

  “We made it together. You can have him or her a
fter... I deliver.”

  Mick licks his lips. “You know I... wouldn't want it any other way.”

  I look at my feet.

  That was before, when I wasn't dying.

  “Right,” I say to my feet.

  “Faren.”

  I look up. “I mean it,” he says.

  “I know.” I know he'll take care of the child, even if he won't take care of me.

  “Let me help with the prenatal.”

  “Can you help with all my care, Mick?” I slice into him with my stare.

  He doesn't flinch.

  He clears his throat. “You know I would do anything to take this away.”

  “Not everything,” Kiki says. “Like toeing the fucking mark when my girl needs you.”

  Mick's knuckles turn white on the door's edge.

  “I can't do that.”

  “Yeah, we got that, ya turd.”

  “Kiki, it's okay.” My chin kicks up. “I've got this. Yes, I'll take your money to make sure our baby is born healthy. But stay away from me.”

  I hold my breath then let it out. “It's what you want.”

  Mick nods.

  I manage to look in his eyes as little as possible. I can't stand his indifference staring back.

  “Take care,” he says and retreats.

  I hate him.

  I feel every painful beat of my heart.

  I love him so much, this agonizing weight in my chest causes each breath to catch on the next.

  *

  “That was swell,” Kiki says, putting hot tea in front of me. “Decaf for you, baby mama.”

  A lone tear rolls down my flushed cheek.

  “What?” Kiki asks, concern straining her tone.

  “That's what Mick called me before.”

  Everything now is Before Mick Knew and After.

  “Oh.” Her voice is small.

  I fling a hand. “Don't worry about it.”

  We're silent for a space of heartbeats.

  “So Mick the Prick will pay for the baby.”

  I don't deny her charge. “Yeah.”

  “And he's still gonna come through for Tannin?” Uncertainty taints her voice.

  I nod.

  A breath of relief escapes her.

  “So... you just have to...” Kiki rolls her bottom lip into her teeth.

  I say the words she doesn’t want to. “Stay alive long enough to have my little peanut.”