The Secrets That We Keep (8 page)

After getting him undressed from the waist down
, I wrap my right hand around the base of his hard length and stroke him slowly. My mouth is so close to the tip of him, but I make sure not to have it come in contact. I just continue stroking and decide to peek up at his face. He’s staring down at me with his eyes full of lust. I bite down on my lip and squeeze my legs together because just looking at him when he’s this turned on, by me no less, causes my pussy to clench.

I drop my hand from him and lean in closer and rest my hands on the taut muscles in his thighs. I
begin kissing and licking his lower stomach, his hips, and thighs and then I run the tip of my tongue from the top of the right “V” line he has and follow it all the way down. Julian’s breathing is heavier and he now has his hands on my shoulders.

“Fuck,
Annabella. You’re killing me,” he huffs out.

I make a moaning noise and let my tongue graze his shaft from base to tip,
and then I run it back up the other side. I continue to lick him without actually taking him into my mouth and I can feel him tense up and grip my shoulders tighter. Deciding to put him out of his misery, I grab a hold of him and bring him to my mouth and slowly put the head of his dick in my mouth. I twirl my tongue around him then take him to the back of my throat.

“
Oh God,” he growls and puts his hands in my hair and grips it into a makeshift ponytail. I make a throaty noise and continue to suck him into my mouth. I ease him out and twirl my tongue around the tip then lick down his shaft and back up to the head. My hand begins stroking him while only his head is in my mouth. He lets out a growl and pushes my head closer to him, trying to get me to take him fully into my mouth. I do and he begins to thrust into my mouth, no longer willing to let me tease him anymore, and I’m just fine with that.

“God, you suck my dick so
good,” he moans.

“
Mmm,” I moan around the thickness of his dick.

I begin to squirm in front of him, getting more and more turned on by having his dick thrust into my mouth. He notices my movements and hears my continuous moans and groans and pulls out of my mouth and pulls me up to my feet. He pulls my shirt up and over my head and throws it off to the side before moving to the clasp of my bra. Once it’s undone
, he slowly pulls the straps down off of my shoulders and lets it drop to the floor in front of us. He lays me down on the couch and pulls my leggings and panties off together in one quick motion. His eyes move over my body in what I can only describe as longing. He’s ravenous, and I’m willing to let him do anything he wants to me at this point.

He swiftly
lifts me and flips me over and now my knees are on the cushions and my hands are gripping the back of the couch. His hands spread my legs farther apart and he leans over my back, his breath on my shoulder.

“Are y
ou ready for this?” he asks in a voice barely above a whisper.

“Oh God, yes!”
I cry out.

He positions himself behind me and I can feel his dick between my legs, teasing me by rubbing himself up and down through my wetness.

“Are you sure?” he asks, knowing damn well I’m sure.

“Yes, Julian, please!”
I beg.

I hear him let out a grunt and then he thrusts into me hard and deep. I cry out in pleasure.

“Fuck! Yes Julian, God you feel so good.”

“Yeah?
You like that baby?”

“Yes baby, I love it. I love the way you fuck me.”

He grunts again and continues his vigorous thrusts deep into my pussy. He has hands on my waist and is pulling me towards him as he slams into me. He maneuvers his body in such a way that his left leg is now in between my legs and he is leaning over and gripping the back of the couch as well. I grind myself onto his thigh and this causes me to have friction on my swollen clit, so I continue to grind down on him as he thrusts into me and before I know it I am coming undone. I let out a scream and drop my head into the cushion as he continues thrusting as I contract around him.

“Yes, baby. Come all over me,” he growls. Julian continues his
vigorous movements and he moves one leg to the floor and the other is positioned on the cushion next to me, rubbing against my side. He drives himself into me harder and faster, his breathing heavy and his body slick with sweat. I feel him slow down a little then tense up and I know he’s about to come. He lets out a guttural sound and I can feel him pulsating inside me. He thrusts a few more times, nice and slow and then his body collapses on top of mine. We lay there, breathing heavy and I realize my throat hurts from screaming so loud earlier.

Julian pulls out and we just let our bodies flop down on the couch, too tired to do anything else.
We sit there for a little while until we hear the doorbell go off. I jump up quickly, scrambling to gather my clothes off the floor. Thank God there were no windows open for them to be able see in and see us in here lounging around naked. I look up at the clock on the wall and notice it’s almost eight o’clock at night. Who the hell would be coming over at this time?

Julian is up and pulling on his jeans and putting his undershirt back on.

“I’m gonna run upstairs and get dressed up there,” I say to him as I’m already hurrying towards the stairs with my clothes clutched in front of me.

He laughs as he watches my naked ass run up the stairs. I turn back and playfully glare at him.

“You better not me laughing at my jiggles,” I say, which only makes him laugh more.

“Your ass is the only thing jiggling and I’m quite enjoying it,” he says with a smirk.

I roll my eyes and continue upstairs. He doesn’t open the front door until he sees that I’m hidden from view.

I quickly use the bathroom and freshen up and throw on some comfy clothes so I can get back downstairs and see who’s here. I’m pulling my hair into a ponytail as I’m descending the stairs and I can hear Julian talking with someone quietly. I can see him from the stairs but he hasn’t noticed me yet and I continue down the stairs quietly. I can’t make out what he’s saying but he’s speaking in a stern yet quiet voice. As I get closer I can hear the other voice, it’s a man’s voi
ce and he sounds a little anxious. I hear him say, “I know, I tried calling you to let you know.” That must have been who called earlier when Julian said it was probably work. I wondered if it was somebody from work why Julian hadn’t invited him inside.

“Well, did you tell them
what I said would happen if they didn’t back the fuck off?” Julian asked angrily.

“Of course I told the
m!” the other guy snapped. “But you know those types,” he finished.

I didn’t realize that I was still slowly walking closer to them until
I was able to see part of the guy that was standing outside. Julian’s wide and tall body was pretty much covering him but I saw part of the guys black leather jacket. I decided to step back so he wouldn’t be able to see me over Julian’s shoulder. I don’t know why, but I felt the need to eavesdrop. Clearly Julian didn’t want to invite him in for a reason, and once again he was whispering so it was something he didn’t want me to hear, and I was determined to hear what they were discussing. Julian clearly didn’t know I was there because he continued talking.

“
Walker, she can’t find out, do you hear me? I’m gonna have to talk to these guys again and figure out what the fuck is going on. I can barely look at her without thinking about what they said…what they want…” he trailed off and I had heard enough. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on here. What the hell was he talking about? He can barely look at me but yet he just fucked me? I tiptoe back up the stairs deciding I wouldn’t let him know what I had heard. He isn’t the only one who can do investigative work. I plan on doing whatever I need to do to figure out what is going on with him and I plan on starting by getting in touch with Lucas. I go to the computer room and lock the door when I get inside. He’s not the only one who can be secretive.

C
yrus threw his beer bottle across the small kitchen and it shattered as it hit the wall right next to where Gage was standing.

“Why don’t you watch where the fuck you’re throwing
things!” Gage yelled, wiping some of the liquid that had splashed onto his sleeve. “Calm the fuck down.”

“Calm down? Did you just say calm down? How the fuck can I
be calm right now?” Cyrus seethed. “That fuckin’ douchebag just came in here acting all high and mighty, trying to tell us what to do and you expect me to be calm? Why aren’t you pissed off?”

“What do you expect me to do, huh?” Gage asked, pulling a beer out of the fridge. “I told you we had to be more careful but you didn’t want to
fuckin’ listen to me.” Gage opened his beer and took a long swig and stared at his friend.

“Whatever, man. I was just doing what we were told to do, and now we’re doing it
wrong? Get the fuck outta here. He can go choke on a dick, fuck him,” Cyrus spit out angrily. “Let’s just do this shit ourselves, that way it gets done quicker and cheaper.”

Gage stiffened and looked at
Cyrus in disbelief. “You’re kidding right? We can’t do that, I won’t do that!”

Cyrus
tilted his head and examined his friend, the guy he’s known for so many years and couldn’t understand what had come over him. “What do you mean you won’t do that? Now your morals kick in?” he scoffed. “Should I remind you of all the fucked up shit you’ve done? How about let’s start with what happened six years ago? What do you think about that?” he asked with a smirk on his face.

Without a second thought, Gage dropped his beer and rushed at
Cyrus, slamming into him and pinning him to the wall. He pressed his forearm into Cyrus’s throat and stared him straight in the eye. “Don’t you dare bring that shit up, do you hear me? He pressed into his throat a bit harder with his forearm and Cyrus nodded as much as he could. Gage continued to hold him there against the wall, still angry that he had brought up his past. He knew what happened and why Gage was forced to do what he did. It’s not like he really had a choice. Gage regretted recently telling Cyrus the truth about his connection to this case.

Gage slowly released him and took a couple steps back, still watching
Cyrus carefully because he knew he couldn’t trust him completely. Cyrus brought his hand up to his throat and looked at his friend. “Did you think about killing me?” he asked. Gage hesitated momentarily and then nodded. Cyrus let a small smile creep across his face. “Good,” he replied.

“
Look, I’m not here to talk about some stupid shit,” Gage snarled. “What do you wanna do now?”

Cyrus
thought about it momentarily. “Well it’s obvious Michael isn’t going to do what we want him to. I don’t know what the fuck is up with him, he’s bullshitting us and I’m sick of it. So I’ll let him or that other douche who works with him know that we changed our minds. We’re done and we made a mistake.”

“We did?” Gage asked, taken by surprise.

Cyrus looked at his friend like he was an idiot. “No. That’s just what we’re gonna make them believe. We’re gonna do this shit ourselves. I told you that. You can play that pansy ass “I have morals” shit if you want to, but I know better and we have to get this shit handled or it’s our asses that are gonna get handled. You understand?” he asked.

Gage wished he didn’t understand, but
he knew his friend was right. This could turn ugly fast and he needed to stay focused on the task at hand. He nodded his head at his friend and went to get another beer.

Cyrus
clapped his hands once and then rubbed them together like he was plotting something evil. “So, you ready to go out this weekend?” he said with a conniving grin. “We’re gonna hit that same club up so make sure you look…appropriate,” he finished with a look that let Gage know to change his appearance up as much as possible.

“Yeah, alright,” Gage responded. “So,
you hopin’ to run into that chick again?”

“Oh I’ll make sure she’s there,” he said as he took out his pho
ne. “If we’re lucky, they’ll both be there.”

Gage took a long swig of his beer again and stared at the wall. “Yeah, well I’m all about being lucky,” he said halfheartedly.

I
wake up and notice the sun is shining pretty brightly through the closed blinds and I know that I must have slept in. I look over at the clock and it reads 10:42am. Yep, definitely slept in. In my defense, I didn’t go to sleep until after three in the morning. I had stayed up doing some research, also known as stalking, on the internet trying to track down Lucas. I did everything from Google him to Facebook stalk him. I can’t believe I didn’t find him on Facebook, I thought everybody was on there, but apparently not him. I did find his brother and went through his friend’s list thinking they’d definitely be friends. I was wrong. There was no Lucas Smith on Nick Smith’s friend’s list, so unless he had his Facebook name set to something different, he wasn’t on there.

Julian had tried coming into the computer room after he was done with his little covert conversation, completely unaware that I ha
d heard part of it. I wish I would have stayed a little longer to see what else might have been said, but I didn’t want to get caught listening. He jiggled the doorknob and knocked on the door when he realized it was locked.

“
Annabella?”

I rolled my eyes and changed the webpage I was on to some photography website and then went to the door and opened it for him. Plastering a fake smile on my face I said, “Oh sorry, I didn’t realize I had locked it.”

He studied me carefully and then walked in and sat down in the chair in front of the computer. My heart started pounding in my chest, I didn’t want him to hit the back button or go through the history, because if he did he would find Lucas Smith’s name all over the place and I wasn’t sure how I’d explain why I was looking up my ex-boyfriend.

“
Uhh, I was looking up some photography stuff, you know, for work,” I said, gesturing towards the computer.

“Oh, sorry,” h
e said and moved out of the chair. I breathed a sigh of relief and sat back down and started pretending like I was looking up some shit about exposure and shutter speed. I never looked in his direction because I didn’t think I could look at him without breaking down. My amazing, beautiful husband said he didn’t want me to find out about something. He said he could barely look at me and now, I could barely look at him. My life was fucked up.

Julian shifted on his feet next to me. “Uh, well I think I’m
gonna head to bed, you comin?”

“No, I’m
gonna be in here for a while, I just want to look up some stuff, I’ll meet ya in there soon though.” I chance a glance up at him. He looks a little sad and I give him a forced, tight smile. He nods his head and leans down and kisses me on my forehead.

“Okay then, I
love you. Good night.”

“Love you too, night.” I said emotionless.

I had continued my stalking after he went to bed and didn’t come up with much of anything. It’s like Lucas had just fell of the face of the Earth. Well, at least until he decided to pop up and follow me around. I guess I would just have to wait for him to pop up again and then confront him.

When I was done with my failed attempt at doing some investigating I decided to check my email. I clicked the little messenger icon at the bottom of the screen and hit the inbox button but when it p
opped up I noticed it wasn’t me that was signed in. You would think that would mean it was Julian who was signed in, but his email address wasn’t on there either. Instead it said signed in as MiFlor@hotmail. What the fuck was a miflor? Why would he have some different email address? So naturally, I clicked on it hoping to get some answers. What came up was a small box that said I was signed in as miflor and had a little news box on the right and the emails on the left. I could see the titles of the emails and who they were from, but when I clicked on them it asked for the password to the miflor account. I had no clue on what the password could be and I tried several different combinations but nothing worked. So I’d have to make do with what I could see.

The first email said it was from Walk78, the subject was
, Important Info. The second email was from The_Virus and the subject on that one was, This Enough? The third and fourth ones were obviously some spam type emails about Viagra and credit scores.

With almost n
o information on Lucas, and more questions about Julian and his secret email address and cryptic emails, I had no idea what to do. I decided I couldn’t do much else and went to sleep, when I had looked at the clock it was 3:10am.

I guess I was completely knocked out when it was time for Julian to go to work because I don’t recall hearing him moving around the room at all. I usually wake up at least briefly because I hear him going in and out of the bathroom or the closet, but I was completely dead to the world today. I also realized he decided not to wake me up and say goodbye, this is only strange because every morning he leans over me and says bye and that he loves me and gives me a quick kiss. I guess he was mad that I stayed out of the bed all night. Oh well.

I make the decision that today I will go out and drive around town, maybe go into the city and find something to do like window shop or have lunch. Anything that could possibly lure out my stalkers. I am determined to confront Lucas, it’s time to confront my past.

***

Driving through Highland Park didn’t bring out my stalkers, unfortunately. I drove around town for an hour just acting like I had errands to run but never did I see any suspicious vehicles. At first, I was only looking for dark colored SUV’s but then I figured they might be smart enough to use a different vehicle, but I never noticed any particular vehicle following me. So I decided to drive into Chicago.

I
park my car and start walking along Clark Street, the same street that housed the coffee shop I met Jade at and where I had seen them parked half a block away from me. I know it’s a long shot coming here and hoping they’d be here but, I’m desperate. I need to figure out what the hell is going on.

I make a stop inside the coffee shop and make sure to sit next to the window so I can keep an eye on any suspicious activity outside. I slowly drink my coffee while I sit there and people watch. I watch couples walking hand in hand, seemingly happy and in love. I
remember thinking that Julian and I were one of those blissfully happy couples. I don’t know anymore.

When I’m done with my coffee, I head outside and take my sunglasses off the top of my head and shield my eyes from the bright sun. I decide to just start walking and see where I end
up. Clark is a pretty long street so I’m glad that I wore flats instead of the high heels I usually favor.

After popping into a few stores to look around, and stopping
to grab a bite to eat, I conclude that I’m just not going to get anywhere by aimlessly walking the streets of Chicago. I’m already getting annoyed at the amount of people that are flooding the street. I hate being in large crowds, large groups of people make me nervous and I get antsy, so I can only stand it for so long.

I turn back around and start heading toward my car thinking I’ll just go home and see if I can do more internet searches for Lucas or perhaps more snooping around for emails and messages that Julian has kept hidden. I hate turning into a crazy, insecure and paranoid wife, bu
t I don’t know how else I am supposed to be with the way Julian has been acting and obviously keeping things from me. I’m not going to lie and say that I never thought he might be cheating on me, it did cross my mind. I mean, Julian is gorgeous and like Michelle said, women would be lined up ready to take him from me. He could have anybody he wanted. I just don’t see Julian doing something like that. I still consider us newlyweds, it’s not like we don’t have sex often because we do, and it’s good sex! I guess that doesn’t matter. If somebody wants to cheat, they’re going to and there’s nothing you can do to prevent that from happening.

He did tell his mystery friend that I couldn’t find out. Find out what? That could be anything. He also said that he could barely look at me after what
they
said and what
they
wanted. Who are they? None of this makes sense. Who would say anything about me to Julian? We don’t have many friends, but the ones we do have are mutual and I don’t think they have anything negative to say about me, at least I’d hope not.

I’m aimlessly walking down the street, caught up in my own jumbled thoughts when a guy catches my attention. He’s walking into a
little bar and grill that’s not too far ahead of where I am and I can only see his profile but he’s tall and has a baseball cap on and when he reaches for the door to open it, I think I see a brightly colored tattoo on his arm. I realize that there are a lot of tall guys who wear baseball caps and have tattoos on their arms, but this one makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I decide to wait a minute or two to make sure he gets settled somewhere, and then I walk in with my heart pounding in my chest.

When I walk in
, I’m relieved to see that there are quite a few people in here for me to blend in with. I slink back towards a small table, furthest from the bar, in a corner next to a pool table because I’m pretty positive that Lucas, or the guy I’m hoping is Lucas, will be sitting at the bar. I take a seat and get the attention of the waitress walking by, and ask her for a drink so I won’t just be sitting here staring at some guy at the bar like a weird-o. Even though that’s exactly what I’m doing. Dammit.

She brings me my drink and gives me a sad smile l
ike she feels sorry for me because I’m in here alone and drinking. Oh well. I pick up my drink, take a sip, and look up at one of the TVs, pretending I’m interested in the game that’s on. I keep my eye on the bar, hoping to get a glimpse of the guy I saw walk in here. After a few minutes, a group of people move from the bar after getting a tray full of shots and I see him, I see Lucas. It’s without a doubt him, and I’m suddenly not sure I can confront him. I don’t even know what I would say first.
Oh hey, remember me? The girl you left high and dry after promising me forever?
Or maybe,
Hey, I know you were following me the other day so I decided to try to lure you out and instead followed you in here, how’s it goin?
Ugh, I have no idea what I’m doing.

I make sure to keep
looking around the bar so I’m not so obvious with my stalker eyes stuck on the back of Lucas’s head. I need some time to figure out how I’m going to approach this situation.

I watch a group of four people play pool,
it seems to be girls versus boys and it’s quite obvious that they are on a double date. There’s lots of flirting and laughing. The guys are playfully giving the girls a hard time when they miss a shot, and the girls try to distract the boys by putting their cleavage right by the pocket the guys are trying to sink the ball into. It’s cute and I’m momentarily taken back to a time when Lucas and I were young and in love.

“There you go baby
, you’re getting it,” Lucas said after I threw the bowling ball down the lane and it didn’t go into the gutter right away.

“Ye
ah whatever, I only hit one pin. I told you I suck at this,” I said, pouting at him.

He walked over and wrapped
his arms around me. “It’s okay baby, you’ll get better. Just watch.”

I look
ed up at his beautiful baby blue eyes and smiled at him. “Yeah, but it might take a year so don’t plan on getting me to join any leagues anytime soon.”

He laughed and gave
me a kiss on the forehead. “Okay, no leagues this year, but next year, I’m holding you to it.” He gave me a wink then walked off to go bowl, and of course bowled a perfect strike. When he turned around, he had a goofy grin on his face and I put my hands on my hips and playfully scowled at him.

“You could miss sometimes
ya know?”

“I could, but then I wouldn’t be challenging you to be better.”

“Whatever,” I scoffed and I heard him let out a chuckle. I walked behind us to go try to find another ball. “I think it’s because my ball is too light. If I find one that’s a little heavier, I think I’ll knock more down,” I said to him.

After retrieving what I thought was a fairly good size ball, I mad
e my way to the lane and sashayed past Lucas and looked at him over my shoulder. “You’re about to see me get a strike, just you see.”

He smiled and nodded and I tried
to line myself up right like I’ve seen Lucas do.

Right as I was
about to start walking to the line on the lane, the bumper rails popped up and I turned to glare at Lucas who was obviously amused with himself because he was curled up in his seat laughing.

“Very funny, Lucas.
”

“
Aww, come on babe, I just wanted you to be able to hit more than one pin,” he said, still laughing.

I ignore
d him and rolled my ball down the lane. I started leaning my body over like somehow that was going to make the ball go the same way. When it finally reached the pins, I heard the loud crash, and then I watched them fall. Strike! I turned and walked back towards Lucas and gave him a smug look and said, “See, told ya I’d get a strike.”

Lucas threw his head back and laughed
. “You’re right babe, you did say that. Good job.” Then he pulled me into his body and gave me a long hug and I snuggled into him. “I love you so much, Annabella,” he said above my head.