ROMANCE: Mr. Mystery: (New Adult Bad Boy Romance) (Contemporary Mystery Short Stories)
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Authors: Viva Fox
Copyright 2016 by Viva Fox- All rights reserved.
In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.
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Mr. Mystery
By: Viva Fox
Everyone liked to party a bit on Saint Patrick’s Day. New Yorkers had turned out for the parade, and were hitting up the local bars late into the evening. It had been a busy night on Staten Island as well. Kevin Reed and Patricia Sullivan had gone out for the Saint Patrick’s Day festivities. They were in their forties, and both had children from previous relationships, but they were musicians and accustomed to that lifestyle.
Patti and Kevin had been touring together for years. When they originally met, they were both married to others. Now they were single, and free to be together. That was how they liked it. They-ran with a circle of former musicians-all of whom liked to party.
Kevin still looked good even though he was the closest to fifty. Occasionally he wore his contacts, but usually he left his glasses to cover his brown eyes. His sandy brown hair hadn’t even started to streak yet, and his smile won his fans over every time.
Patti was still well built for her age. She could still pull off leather and mini-skirts on the stage. She kept her thick black curls in long tangles down her back. Everyone thought she was gorgeous. In fact, she’d had her share offers from their crowd of friends. But at the end of the night, she always went home with Kevin.
They caught a cab home. It was late, and they were both heavily intoxicated. Patti was a bit glad that her nineteen-year old daughter Gianna had her own plans for the night. She and Gianna already had a strained relationship. She didn’t want to make it any worse by allowing the girl to see her mother drunk.
But those thoughts left her mind as Kevin pushed her against the living room wall. He’d had his hands on her all night. He usually did. That was kind of the whole thing of their relationship. After Patti’s husband had died, Kevin had begun pursuing her.
It had started out as heated sex after concerts. Then they’d decided that they actually cared about each other-to a point. That didn’t stop the regular fights and breakups their friends were now used to. Finally, they’d bitten the bullet. They’d bought themselves a Staten Island home near Kevin’s children, and Patti had moved Gianna in. Now they were forced to work out their problems, and not stomp away like sixteen-year-olds.
Kevin’s lips were hot on her throat. Patti wanted him. She knew it was partially alcohol fueled. That was ok. She liked that type of sex with him.
Somehow, she found herself on the bed. When they’d made it to the master bedroom it was a total loss to her.
Patti sat up, pulling her shirt over her head. Her bra was green in the Saint Patrick’s Day spirit. Kevin had cared when she told him in the bar, but that was several beers ago. Now he was so highly intoxicated that it didn’t seem to make any difference to him. He simply ripped the garment aside and threw it onto the floor.
His shirt was gone, and then her jeans. Her thong underwear was white, trimmed in green lace and sprinkled with shamrocks. Kevin had seen that in the bar, and he didn’t care now. He was simply ripping off clothes. He needed her. She couldn’t complain, she needed him too.
Patti cried out as Kevin drove himself into her with one thrust. She dug her hands into the blankets as he began pounding into her.
“Yes…that’s it…. just like that.” She gasped. “Oh yeah Kevin…so close.”
She wanted to tell herself that the sex was only this needy and rough because of the alcohol, but it wasn’t. They both liked their sex, they liked it hot and they liked it fast. They had sex against walls in the green room after concerts. They weren’t exactly the wait for the moment type.
Kevin’s mouth was moving against her throat. Patti clutched him, holding him against her as she moved with him. Her orgasm wasn’t as intense thanks to the alcohol. It was the one downfall to drinking as heavily as they had. But it felt good nonetheless.
Kevin groaned, coming inside of her. Patti lay back, looking up at the ceiling. The bedroom was spinning. She was going to be horribly hung over in the morning. Oh well. That was how most of New York would feel on March 18
th
.
The next thing she knew she was conscious of was the ringing phone. Patti sat up, looking for her cell phone. She still felt drunk. Not as drunk as when she’d fallen asleep, but drunk nonetheless. Then it occurred to her that it couldn’t be her cell phone ringing-she’d left that in her purse in the car.
“Why is the phone ringing?” Kevin mumbled from under the blankets beside her. It wasn’t her cell phone-or his. It was the rarely used landline. Sighing, Patti reached for it. She clicked the button on the handset, turning it on.
“Hello?” She tried not to sound drunk. She had no idea what time it was.
“Is this Mrs. Sullivan?” A woman’s voice from the other end asked.
“Yes.” If this was a telemarketer, Patti was going to flip out. Her eyes sough the clock. 6:01AM.
“Mrs. Sullivan, I’m from New York Medical Clinic. It’s about your daughter.”
That sobered her up quickly.
“Gianna?” Patti asked, suddenly frightened. “What happened to Gianna?” Kevin was sitting up beside her. His concern was written on his face.
“No, no, not Gianna.” The woman continued. “Bianca. Your daughter Bianca.”
The phone fell out of Patti’s hand. She was vaguely aware of Kevin asking her what was wrong. What had someone said to upset her like this?
“It can’t be Bianca.” She murmured. “It’s not possible.”
******
She had opened her eyes in the early morning light. Bianca Madison Sullivan blinked, taking in the room in which she was currently residing. A hospital. But why?
She tried to move and found that it hurt. Her muscles did not want to cooperate. Her mouth and lips were dry. What the hell had happened to her?
There was a call button laying on the bed beside her. Bianca managed to get her right hand to work. She stabbed at the button. A moment later, a nurse was peeking hesitantly into the room.
“Oh my…” She whispered. “Bianca, you’re awake. Can you hear me?” Bianca forced her head to nod. It felt heavy, and didn’t want to cooperate either. “Ok, honey let me call you parents. Just stay still. A doctor will be right in.”
******
Patti and Kevin made it to the hospital in record time. There was not much traffic out in the city at this time on a Saturday morning. Patti was half running ahead of him. Kevin let her go. He was not about to come between a mother and her child.
“What’s happened?” Patti ran up to the nurse’s station. “What happened to Bianca?”
“Mrs. Sullivan-.” The nurse began, but Patti shook her head.
“What happened to my daughter?” The nurse turned to look down the hallway. A doctor in a white coat was coming towards them.
“Mrs. Sullivan? I’m Dr. Regan. Let’s talk, ok?” He guided both she and Kevin down the hallway.
“You can’t just call me and act like nothing has happened!” Patti exclaimed. Her Italian temper was taking over. Kevin did not make an attempt to calm her down. “What’s going on with my daughter?”
“Mrs. Sullivan, its good news: Bianca woke up.”
Patti was momentarily stunned to silence. It had been more than a year since the car accident which had killed two of Bianca’s friends and sent Bianca into a coma with serious head injuries. Originally, the doctors had not expected her to ever wake up. If she ever did, she would never be the same.
Bianca was the family’s middle child, but she had no Middle Child Syndrome. She was their shining star. Everyone knew it. Bianca’s older and younger sister knew it full well too. She was so full of life that no one had ever met and disliked Bianca. Plus, she was smart. Bianca was a wiz with numbers. She was so good, her parents allowed her to balance their checkbook at fifteen. After she’d graduated high school, she’d gone to a nearby Upstate New York college for accounting after high school. She planned to eventually get a master’s in taxation. One day she would work in Manhattan’s Financial District. Absolutely no one in the family had doubted that.
But that had all changed one fateful night during Bianca’s freshman year in college. Bianca and her friends had gone to a basketball game. Her friend Brian was driving. His girlfriend Emma-also a friend of Bianca’s-had been riding in the front seat. The car had hit ice. It skidded out of control and into the path of an oncoming truck. Brian and Emma were killed instantly. Bianca had survived, but the beautiful life she had planned was going to be no more.
Patti’s husband, Stephen, had been so distraught over his daughter’s injuries that he had shot himself a month after the accident. His daughter, Bianca’s half-sister Mia, had been so upset with her grief that she had left college and disappeared with her boyfriend. Patti and Gianna’s life had fallen apart. That was when Kevin had come into her life full time, and Patti had taken the steps to start over again in Staten Island with Gianna.
“They said she would probably never wake up.” Patti was conscious of Kevin’s hands stroking her arms.
“Well, they were wrong.” Dr. Regan smiled. “Bianca not only woke up, but she’s trying to function. It really is miraculous.”
“Honey, this is good.” Kevin rubbed her arm. “Can we see her?”
“I don’t see why not. She’s still struggling to speak, but I’m optimistic.” He turned, motioning them down the hallway. When he stopped outside of a room, Kevin caught Patti’s arm.
“Why don’t I wait outside?” He rubbed her arm. “Bianca should see her mother first.” Patti nodded. She still looked like she was in shock.
“Ok.” She turned, stepping into the room.
As soon as she was inside, Patti’s dark eyes fell on her daughter. Bianca and Gianna both had their mother’s dark eyes. Their hair was a shade of brown and straight rather than Patti’s mass of black ringlets, but the resemblance was still uncanny.
“Bianca?” Her daughter’s hair had grown out and was much longer than she always kept it. Patti tried to remember when she had last visited. It had become so hard that she’d stopped, finding it too hard to see her once life of the party baby in that state. It probably made her a terrible mother-she had left her daughter alone in a hospital. Worse yet, she had left her daughter to wake up alone in a hospital.
“Mm?” Bianca’s voice was raspy, like she was suffering from a serious case of laryngitis. Patti smiled, tears rushing to her eyes.
“Hi baby!” She dropped down on the bed beside her. Her fingers wrapped around Bianca’s hand, squeezing tightly. “Just relax, ok? I know you’re not feeling great yet.”
She wasn’t, that was for sure. But Bianca was glad to see her mother nonetheless. She didn’t see anyone else though, and that was what confused her.
Her parents had known each other for years before they married. Stephen had taken her in like she was one of his own, and Bianca had loved him as her daddy since she was a child. The fact that he wasn’t here…now…was weird.
“Da-?” She whispered weakly. Patti drew a deep breath. She didn’t want to try and explain this now-not after what Bianca had gone through.
“I’m sorry baby.” Patti rubbed her daughter’s hand. “Dad’s not here. And he can’t be here. Something…bad happened to him.”
Bianca was stunned. She knew what her mother was implying, but she couldn’t handle it. She didn’t want to process the thought that her father was dead. She’d been through so much right now that she didn’t want to think that her whole life was gone.
“W-?” Her words broke off as she stared at her mother. Patti squeezed her hand.
“Later, baby. Later. I’ll tell you everything later.”
Bianca could not really grasp much more-not today at least. She bit her tongue, fighting back any more questions. Apparently, more time than she realized had passed.
******
Gianna Michalena Sullivan had never expected her big sister to wake up. While some middle children were lost in the shuffle, Bianca had the ability to outshine both of her sisters. Gianna had always felt that if it was she who was in a car accident, her family wouldn’t really have missed her.
She’d come home from her St. Patrick’s festivities tired. The house was silent. She figured that her mother and Kevin were both passed out somewhere. She was eighteen, and her friends weren’t supposed to be drinking, but they always managed to get alcohol. Her mother never asked. Patti was either drinking in bars with Kevin and her friends, or out trying to make her music career work. She had little time for Gianna.
Stephen had always been the stay at home dad type of person. He had worked nights and weekends in technology in the Broadway theaters. When he wasn’t at home, Mia was in charge. It hadn’t really mattered. Bianca always had the personality to overtake her. Gianna had loved her sister, and had looked up to her, but Bianca had also driven her insane. There was no way that Gianna would ever be as perfect as Bianca. She supposed that was the type of relationship sisters were supposed to have.
Since Bianca had gone into her coma, Gianna had mostly raised herself. Her mother signed the necessary checks, and nodded mutely if she needed something. Patti was good about handing out a credit card whenever it was required. Come fall, Gianna was going to live on campus at NYU. She didn’t plan to see much of her mother.