Misty Reigenborn Romance Boxed Set (89 page)

"Because you always had a man Angel and two or three waiting in the wings already."

They were right outside the door.  Ami moved back from the window and sat down on the loveseat.  She started to change her mind, thinking that she didn't want to sit by Nick, but the door opened then.  She sat back.

Angela was laughing.  She said something to Nick that Ami couldn't hear.

The woman kicked off her shoes and curled up in the armchair across from her.  She seemed quite comfortable in Nick's apartment.  Ami wondered what exactly had gone on between them.

Nick said "Angela, this is Ami.  Ami, this is my friend Angela."

"You can call me Angel honey.  Everyone else does."

"It's nice to meet you Angel."

"You, too." Angela was sizing her up.  She could feel it.

Nick headed towards the kitchen.  "I hope you two are hungry."

"Starving," Angela said.

Ami wasn't sure how much the skinny woman could eat.  She started to get up and help Nick.  "I can help you."

Nick brushed her off.  "I'll get it." He gave them both a smile.  "If you don't like it just tell me.  I've got the pizza place on speed dial."

Angela laughed, and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her purse.  She lit one, her eyes still on Ami.  The woman was starting to make her uncomfortable.

Nick was soon back, balancing two plates of spaghetti with garlic bread covered in cheese on the side.

He returned with his own plate and sat next to Ami, forgoing the other comfortable looking easy chair.

The food was fine and she told him so.  She wasn't much for spaghetti since she'd eaten way too much of it in the past few years but it was filling.

When the plates were empty, Angela the only one having had seconds, Nick put the dishes in the sink and came back to the loveseat.  His arm was across the back.  When Ami moved, it brushed lightly against her hair.  She didn't mind, but Nick quickly dropped his hand, reaching for a cigarette.

Angela looked amused.  "Hey, if ya'll are together you don't need to be shy in front of me."

Her eyes were on Ami when she added "I gave up on catchin' one as good as Nicky a while ago."

Ami shook her head.  "We're not together."

"Uh huh," Angela said.  "So you wanted to hear about me and Gabe, huh?"

Ami wasn't sure she did anymore.  The woman's face looked even harder.  "If it's too personal, that's okay."

"You need to know what you're up against girly.  Oh, where to start." She lit a cigarette and blew a smoke ring at the ceiling before speaking again.  "Before I ended up at Gabe’s Place, I had to make money and quick so I applied everywhere.  Nick had told me that he’d put me to work at the alley, but Bobby thought I was too hard for his squeaky clean image.   Most places were the same as the alley.  When you look like a stripper or a whore, everyone thinks you are one.  I was about to drag the gutters and go apply at the lounge.  But my old man at the time, Ray, say I should try Gabe's.  So I did.  I thought I'd died and gone to heaven when I walked in the place.  There's this God behind the bar.  The bartender told me he was the owner.  I talk to him and he's smooth as hell.  Took one look at my tits and then went right back to my face.  Now that's sayin’ something about a man when you're as skinny as me and got tits like mine.”

She leaned over and put her cigarette out.  "I'm thinking that I met a real gentleman.  He hires me on the spot and takes me back to his office.  I fill out the application, nothing but a single page, unlike some places that want your whole life story.  He wants me to start two days later, says he'll even spot me an advance if I need it.  I was tweakin’ then so I always needed it, but I didn't want to start off on the wrong foot.  He said he'd start me out at $8.50 and with tips; that was cool for me.  I thanked him and started to get up to go.  He's right beside me then, and his hand is on my ass and he's in my ear telling me that if I blow him he'll pay me $10 an hour.  I liked my Ray.  He was one of the best men I ever had-but he wasn't the best at keeping a job.  I had to keep a roof over my head and I needed my smoke.  Besides this guy is one of the finest mother fuckers I've ever seen.  So I gave Gabe a blowjob in his office on the day he hired me.  He made sure he turned over the pictures of his kids, but kept his wife's out, said she liked to watch.  It was kinda weird but I didn't give a shit.  I probably woulda done it for nothing."

She turned back to Ami then.  "You fuck him yet?"

Her face was on fire and she was very conscious of Nick sitting next to her.  He stiffened.  It wasn't that he didn't already know, but her voice was barely above a whisper when she said "Yes."

Angela nodded.  "Yeah, I figured as much when Nicky called me up out of nowhere.  You have to understand the kind of man that Gabe is.  When he wants a woman, he doesn't care about anything else.  The first time, he'll make you feel like you're the only woman in the world.  Then he sweet talks you, buys you shit, says he'll give you the whole damned world so he can get what he wants from you.  I figured he'd be itching to get another girl since Rick won't let him get his hands on Candy."

Ami's cell phone chimed a text message from her purse.  She almost ignored it.  But they were both looking at her so she pulled it out.  It was Gabe.  It said ‘I know you said to back off but I can't help myself.  I miss you Ami.  I need you so much.  I hope you're having a good night.  I won't be in tomorrow but I will dream of you tonight, the way your body felt when it was wrapped around mine.  I get hard just thinking about it.  Until I can have you in my arms again, Gabe.’

She thought that Nick must have seen the look on her face before she tried to hide it because he said "What is it?"

"It's just.  .  ." She wanted to tell him that it was Alicia but she couldn't do it.  "It's Gabe."

"Let me see it.”

"No.” The last thing she wanted was for Nick to read a text from Gabe that was practically x-rated.

She tried to delete it, but before she knew it his hand was over hers.

"I don't care if it's dirty."

She didn't want him to take his hand away but she was aware that Angela was watching them, a slight smile on her face.  Finally she sighed and handed the phone to him.

He read it, a scowl darkening his face.  "Prick," he muttered.  She started to protest when he handed it to Angela but just sat back on the couch.

Angela chuckled, handing the phone back to Ami.  "You'd better answer him.  He doesn't care if you've got a man at home, but if you don't answer him, he'll keep bugging you until you do.  He'll start calling you all hours of the night, show up at your house, and show up at your new job if you've got the guts to get one.  You don't tell that man no."

"Let me answer him," Nick said.

"Oh Nicky," Angela said.  "Let her do it."

Her hands were shaking as she typed out the message.  She told him that she was fine and that she'd see him at work, hoping that that would be enough for him.

Nick covered her hand with his again briefly.  She squeezed his hand and let him pull away again though what she really wanted was to feel his arms around her.  She really hadn't wanted to hear what Angela had to tell her.

She lit a cigarette, turning her phone off before she shoved it back into her purse.

"So where were we?  I'm working for Gabe, my Ray gets fired again.  We're already pretty hot and heavy by then.  Gabe likes sex.  He likes it hard and fast and he likes it a lot.  There wasn't a place in that bar that we didn't do somethin' nasty.  All the booths, the desk in his office, the couch, the bathrooms, that fucker even convinced me to do it in the walk in cooler.  I think the best was on top of the bar.  It made me laugh to think of all the fat drunks sitting on their bar stools not knowin’ what me and Gabe had done the night before right there.  This was about two, three months after I started there.  I'm not great with dates and I was flyin’ high most of the time."

She paused then and a scowl crossed her pretty face.  "He did it on purpose.  I know he did.  He knew my man wasn't working because I'd been bitching about it.  Why else would the fucker send a bunch of roses to my house with some fancy necklace when I'm standing right there beside him in the bar?  My Ray was a good man, a patient man.  He knew I slipped up now and then but that was too much for him.  He handed me the shit when I walked in the door, didn't say a word.  I tried to go after him but he wouldn't listen.  And that cock sucker was sitting across the street watching.  I saw his fancy ass car pull away when Ray got into that piece of shit car of his.  I was livid.  I called his house and tried to tell that cunt wife of his what we'd been up to.  But she just laughed at me.  She told me she knew exactly what her husband was about and she liked it.  I hung up on the bitch and went in the bedroom and smoked my whole stash.  I didn't bother to go into work the next day.  I wasn't going to deal with that asshole anymore.  I'd told him that me and Ray were it.  It's not like I never thought that before, but I was gonna go back to school, get a better job.  Quit smoking meth and tone shit down so people don't think I'm a hoe just by lookin’ at me.  It probably sounds real dumb for me to be tellin’ the guy I'm fucking around on my man with that my man's the one, but Gabe wants inside your head.  He looks at you like he knows what's goin’ on in your brain.  He wants to know every little thing about you and I'm not just talking about how you like it in bed.  If you don't like what he's doin’ to you in the sack, he'll twist it until he makes you like it.  He's got the biggest ego of anyone I've ever met.  Besides that wife of his of course.  He'd walk up behind me while I was working and put his hands down my pants.  There'd be customers right there at the bar and he's nonchalant because he was always smart about it.  He never did it when I wasn't working alone and he never did it when the idiot I was serving drinks to had half a brain.  He'd be chatting up the sack of shit on the other side of the bar and I'd be trying to pretend like I was paying attention while he's fingering me.  He had this habit of bringing me right to the edge and then pulling back, pretending like he was busy all of a sudden, making sure
that I knew he was rock hard when he walked away.  I hated myself.  I've been with a lot of men, done a hell of a lot of shit that I'm not proud of, but Gabe has this way of making you feel like he's your lifeline.  He was gonna get me away from the bar, put me up somewhere else, give me some cushy job at one of his other places, pay me some ridiculous amount.  And of course he was going to divorce that cunt.  But he didn't get it.  I didn't want to marry him.  I never wanted to marry him.  Ray was the closest I ever got to even thinking about marriage at that point.  Gabe was never anything but a fuck.  A damn good fuck, don't get me wrong, and it was nice to be able to get money off him when I needed it.  But that's all it ever was.  I was his whore and you can't turn a whore into a wife.  It just don't work that way.  He knew it.  I knew it.  It was a week after Ray left when I went back to that place.  He must have called me a thousand times.  I hardly left my apartment because I knew if I did, he'd be there waiting.  I'd look out my window, and no matter what time of the day it was he'd be sitting there.  I'm surprised those kids know they have a father.  I called the cops but those fucks just laughed at me too.  Said that it was a public street and if Gabe wanted to park there he could.  Asked me if he'd ever threatened me or done anything he shouldn't have.  Now you can't exactly tell the police that your boss had his hand down your pants when you were supposed to be working can you?  I told him I was quitting, that I wanted him to stay the fuck away from me, that I'd rather work at the lounge or the titty bar up in South than for him.  He laughed at me and threw a bunch of cash at me.  It was twice what my normal check was and I'd only worked three days but I didn't care.  Couple days before he was sending my flowers, telling me that he wanted me to marry him, wanted me to have his babies.  Then he's laughing at me and treating me like a piece of shit.  I knew why when I walked out of the office.  She was behind the bar.  Young, pretty and stupid.  Gabe had ruined the best chance that I'd had to settle down with a man, and change my ways and he'd already moved on.  I was last week's news.  But don't get me wrong, Ami.  The only way you're gonna get rid of Gabe is when he decides he's done with you.  When he's done you go back to being another piece of trash like the rest of the girls he's tossed on the side of the road.  But until then, you're his.  Don't matter if you tell him no, if you try to stay away from him.  He'll fuck up your life until you need him.  Spread lies until you can't get a job anywhere else.  Tell your man what color your panties were that day and what you sound like when you come, even if you ain't been with him in weeks.  I don't know how he does it, but he knows.  He always knows."

Angela sighed and sat back in the chair, bringing her knees up and resting her chin on them.  She suddenly looked very young and Ami wondered how old she really was.  She smiled then, sitting back up and reaching for a cigarette.  "Have I scared the crap out of you yet?"

She certainly had Ami thought.  Gabe sounded much worse than she'd ever thought possible.  Nick looked tense, like he was ready to spring up from the couch and go out and hunt Gabe down.  She wanted to reach out and touch him because she knew it would bring them both comfort, but she didn't.

"You did."

She reached for a cigarette.  Nick's hand brushed hers as he put his cigarette out.