Page 17 of Inside the Maelstrom: Part Two
I wouldn’t let that happen.
Chapter10
Sampson
Iswear, Hendrick was testing me already this morning. Last night, he must have given Good Girl six orgasms, which got progressively louder and louder, until I had to shower just so I could jerk off and block out some of the noise.
Now he was sitting across the breakfast table from me, looking smug as fuck. Was it too soon to punch him in the face? I sucked down my coffee and glared.
“What’s wrong, Sam? Have trouble sleeping?”
I pointed a bagel at him. “Don’t make me choke you out, asshole.” The fucker had the audacity to laugh as he chowed down on his own bagel.
As if summoned by my dirty thoughts, Aviva drifted into the room, looking thoroughly fucked and content. When she sat down next to me, her face lit up in a gentle smile, and suddenly I could forgive Hendrick for being such a fucking showoff.
“Good morning,” she murmured, looking out the open balcony doors. “Damn, the view from up here is gorgeous.”
She was right. I’d had the dining table positioned in front of the large open windows so we could look out at Central Park as we ate. We were so close, you could almost count it as a picnic.
I wanted to pull her into my lap and hold her while she ate, so she could just exist in my space. But I kept my hands to myself as I sipped my coffee, and tried to just appreciate that she was here. Evan’s words from last night kept rolling around in my head, and the more I thought about it, the more right it felt. But I wasn’t ready to throw myself in the deep end yet. I’d hurt Aviva enough, and starting something with her again while I was still figuring out my own shit was an asshole move.
All this played through my brain as I pretended to read the finance section of the newspaper and drank the coffee that’d been delivered this morning with the pastries.
Grabbing a bear claw, she nibbled the edges. “Where are Otto and Evan?”
“Evan had to go into the office, and then to his place to grab some clothes since he’s going to stay here for a while,” I said nonchalantly, like Evan moving in was no big deal. Which, I mean, it wouldn’t have been six weeks ago. But now he was fucking the girl I might actually L-word, and it was giving me all sorts of feelings. “Otto is still asleep. Guess he isn’t used to the night noise.” I raised an eyebrow at her pink cheeks. “Like the traffic, you know.”
Hendrick laughed, and it was a light, joyous sound that made my heart happy. “You know, I might get you all white noise machines for Christmas. Our girl is a screamer.”
“Hendrick!” Aviva gasped, turning even pinker, and I gave into the urge riding me. I reached out, plucked her from her chair beside me, and settled her onto my lap. She barely breathed for a moment, her eyes too wide as they looked at me.
“Eat your breakfast, Good Girl.”
She looked at me a little longer, then her whole body melted into mine. I wrapped an arm around her waist, holding her tight to my torso as I continued to read the newspaper.
“How’d it go with Nemo?”
She sighed heavily. “Dead end in Hong Kong. Evan says he’s going to get a private detective friend on the case, see if he can’t track him down.”
I nodded, but Hendrick looked pissed. “After all this, you still want to find him? Can’t we make you happy?”
She frowned, going to move off my lap, but I held her closer. No, she wasn’t allowed to run. She gave me a peevish look, but settled back down. “You don’t understand, Hendrick. This wasn’t about finding and fucking Nemo. It was about the search, about finding someone who thinks like me, suffers like me. Walking in someone else's footsteps to see where it all might end.”
It was about finding herself. I knew it, but Hendrick and Aviva were the same in their obsessive natures. Avivaneededto find Nemo, not just because she’d romanticized him—which she definitely had—but because he was someone she related to. She saw herself in those inscriptions, and like the impatient person she was, she wanted to skip to the end of the story and see if there was a happily ever after.
“So you’ll leave again?” Hendrick looked more vulnerable than I’d ever seen him in a long time.
“Yes.” She paused. “When you can come with me. It’s not the same when you guys aren’t there.”
I tried to work out if that warmth spreading through my chest was happiness or heartburn. “Evan has excellent contacts, Good Girl. You’ll have your answers soon enough.”
Hendrick’s phone rang, and the way he froze told me everything I needed to know about who was calling. His father made him act like prey, terrified and still, in a way no other person could.
I held up a finger, grabbing my phone and turning on the voice recorder. Nodding at Hendrick, I watched as his hand shook when he answered. I hated it. Fucking hated it with everything in me.
“Father.”
“Hendrick,” came the cool voice at the other end of the line. “I hear congratulations are in order.” Hendrick was silent, but that didn’t dissuade Ted Kenley. “What did you hope to achieve with this, Hendrick? Marrying some girl you plucked from a mental institution doesn’t make you seem more sane.”
