22
Austin
I’ve been having trouble fucking sleeping since Mistress Strokes told Destiny her story. The horrified look in her face told me something I really needed to realize: Lester has to be fucking stopped.
There has to be a way to do it.
Somehow.
“Austin…?” I hear Destiny’s voice coming from the bed, and I see her head peeking from under the covers. Her hair is disheveled and she has no makeup on but, somehow, I think that seeing her like this just makes me love her even more. Fantasies and mirrors are fun, but I think that the simple things are the ones most worthy of our attention.
And that’s right.
I fucking love her. I’m sure of it by now.
I mean, I’ve been telling you for a few chapters now.
And regardless of what I do next, there’s one thing I need to do first.
I need to fucking tell her.
“Yeah, babe, I’m here,” I reply to her query.
I’m standing against the wall-to-ceiling windows in my (or should I say our?) bedroom, wearing nothing but boxer briefs. We fucked like crazy when we got home tonight, Strokes coming clean about everything drawing us even closer, but I just couldn’t fall asleep.
Even when Destiny drifted off, I remained awake, staring at the ceiling and counting the minutes. Eventually, I just got out of the bed as quietly as I could and came here to the window so that I could watch the city outside.
There’s something about New York that calms me down. Which is kinda fucking ironic, don’t you think?
This city which really doesn’t fucking sleep, it just has a soothing effect on me. Whenever I need to think, New York and its bright tall skyscrapers are what I turn to. Just like that tonight.
“What are you doing over there? Come back to bed,” she tells me in a lazy tone, still half-asleep.
“I can’t sleep. I’m thinking,” I admit. My brain has been working non-stop since I came to the realization that I couldn’t postpone a showdown any longer. The game between Lester and me and Strokes might have been a chess match, but now it’s time to just kick the board and turn this into a boxing fight.
“Thinking?” she asks, and I roll my eyes. It’s not like I don’t fucking think. “About what?” She sits up on the bed, staring me. My eyes dart to her naked breasts, and I remember how it felt to feel them under my hands a while ago. My cock twitches inside my boxer briefs, but now isn’t the time to be thinking of sex. I’m far too worried for that, which is another first for me, that’s for sure.
I drag my feet back to the bed and sit next to her, holding her hand. “I’m trying to think of a way out of all this.” I smile faintly but, to be honest, I don’t have the slightest fucking clue about what we can do.
Even though we know what Lester is involved in, we have no evidence. Zero fucking proof. He might be a bastard, but he’s a cunning bastard. He always does his dealings through someone else, and even his financials are handled through a fucking patsy.
As far as I can make out, the Commissioner is immune to whatever we do. And now he’s closing in on us… He even gave Destiny an ultimatum. He wants her back on her side or he’s going to go fucking berserk on us.
But there’s no way I’m ever going to let go for that talk he wants to have. Unless…
Oh, fuck!
Why didn’t I think of this before?
It’s so fucking obvious!
“Babe, I fucking got it. We can fight him!” She looks at me with a pale smile, and that isn’t exactly the reaction I was expecting. I was looking for some enthusiasm, even some excitement, but all she manages to present me with is a weak smile. What’s going on here? “Babe, what is it? We can end him fucking once and for all.”
Then, she says something that just hits me out of nowhere. “Austin… Why don’t we just leave?” she whispers, lowering her voice so much that I can barely hear her words.
“Leave?” I ask, shocked.
“Yeah. Somewhere else… Somewhere far away from here,” she says to me. “Away from all of this. I… I don’t know what might happen if we go up against Lester. It’s too dangerous for you, for me and for…” She stops, hesitating, and runs her tongue between her lips. “Austin, there’s something I need to tell you.”