Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
ALISON
Present day
“ O h my God, Jackson. This is so good!” I moaned in pleasure, Jackson’s cheeks tinting a deep shade of pale as he looked around to make sure no one had heard me.
“Alison! What are you doing?” He whisper-shouted, grabbing my arm and pulling me closer to him.
Looking up into his dark brown eyes, I licked my lips again, taking my time to appreciate just how panicked or embarrassed he was.
“I’m enjoying the best Italian gelato I’ve ever had and embarrassing you in the process.” I teased, taking another generous lick off the triple cioccolato delight while my eyes bore into his. Chocolate .
It was so easy to get to him and so much fun watching him squirm, I just couldn’t resist.
“So. Good,” I whispered, closing my eyes for effect while a wicked smirk spread across my face. With the pad of my thumb, I cleaned the corner of my mouth, stroking my bottom lip before slowly taking my finger into my mouth, hollowing my cheeks while I sucked off the ice cream.
Despite his apparent embarrassment, Jackson didn’t dare to take his eyes off me, following my movement and showing me I had him exactly where I wanted.
“Come on, Alison! I’m a police officer. Do you know how many people can see me here and recognize me?” Jackson said in a faintly annoyed tone, but I could see the heat building as his torn eyes shone brighter while he unconsciously licked his lips, too.
“Oh, please… you are hardly a police officer . Besides, it’s not my fault you made terrible career choices and even made an effort to be more than just a police officer. Maybe you should be more worried about someone recognizing me . Now, that could bring you much more trouble than my fake moaning.”
He rolled his eyes at my remark. “You know that can’t happen. You know your rules and how much into the deep end our little fling can shove you. Besides, someone from the force recognizing you would be much less of a problem than your brother finding out, right?”
Jackson was right. Even though I wasn’t part of my family’s business, I was threading a thin line here. But my brother was already onto us, yet something told me it suited his agenda to have Jackson around.
“Is that a threat, Officer ?”
“Not at all, Miss Battaglia. It’s a warning. Just behave so we can fly under the radar as much as possible. Deal?”
Behave. Oh, how I loved it when people tried to tame me! I closed my eyes, trying to ignore that thought, and brought the conversation back to where I wanted it to be.
“You should know better than to be trying to cut a deal with the Mafia, Sir. I think we need to take this conversation somewhere more private, so we can negotiate our terms properly. Besides, vanilla and chocolate toppings aren’t quite cutting it for me right now. I’m suddenly craving Japanese.” I bluntly flirted.
It was more than time to leave. Socializing wasn’t really ever our thing. We didn’t do dates, and this was already too much of an exception. Dinner and ice cream started to feel too much like a romance. No, thank you.
“I might have just the thing, Princess.”
The first time we hooked up was a while back already, but things at work were so out of control that I figured I needed a distraction or I would never get out of the office. So, I found that Jax was a good enough reason to get myself unburied from the pile of work that never ceased to grow.
There were other reasons, but I couldn’t admit to those.
We were understaffed right now and just landed a huge project on top of everything. So, yeah, saying I was overworked, overloaded, and overtired was the understatement of the century. Jax helped take off the edge, so I decided to booty call him again.
This was nothing serious. Nothing ever was.
I wondered why I had chosen him, of all people, to be my new fuck buddy. Jackson fucking Naoki, as my oldest brother Matt would so politely put it.
Jackson and Matt used to be best friends. Inseparable best friends. If I hadn’t seen all the beautiful girls they both always had hanging on their arms, I would have assumed they were both gay. I was relieved to know they weren’t because I had an immediate crush on Jackson ever since I laid eyes on him for the first time, arriving at my house with Matt for the holidays.
I could still clearly remember that day as if it had just happened. I was mesmerized, in a complete trance as he confidently strutted into our house in a leather jacket with a bunch of patches on it. He had jet black hair that matched his torn, alluring eyes, a gift from his Japanese father, sunkissed skin he had inherited from his Brazilian mother, with a height and build that could make anybody cower away from a fight. He wasn’t excessively muscular. He was lean but toned to perfection. I could see it even through his thick winter clothes.
‘ You must be the little Italian princess Matt is always bragging about. Alison, right?’ Those were his condescending, cliché first words to me, toned down specifically to address a thirteen-year-old. But even then, the feist and spark I had today were lying beneath my skin, rising to boil in seconds, as his condescending words wiped away the drool that had formed in my mouth.
I was a hormonal new teen with feelings and reactions racing from eight to eighty in fractions of a second.
‘ Yes, Alison. I’m not a princess. Funny enough, my brother never spoke about you. Who is he, again?’ I knew fairly well, just desperately needed to land my own blow, hopefully showing him that I was no baby.
‘ Jackson Naoki, at your service, Miss Battaglia. You are Italian royalty in a way, so of course, you are a princess. From what I know, you are perfectly aware of that and always get what you want.’ The glint in his eyes and the sparkle of his smirk sent shivers down my spine, and I was completely caught, even though that was not his intention. He bent down and placed a kiss on each of my cheeks, Italian style, my skin immediately erupting into millions of small goosebumps where his lips had touched me.
‘Down, tiger. She’s thirteen, AND my sister. Completely OFF LIMITS,’ Matt grunted from the door, knocking my amusement straight out of me again .
‘Meant nothing by it. She will forever be your baby sister!’ Jackson had cleared, his hands held up in surrender, leaving the bitter taste of his words in my mouth. Little did he know…
That was the first memory I had of Jax. He was my first crush and, for a few years, the figure that reigned in all my fantasies. He was the thought that ran wildly through my mind. The perfect vision before my eyes when I first masturbated at sixteen, and the name I cried when that overwhelming feeling washed over me like rain in a desert.
But ultimately, the bad history between the families spilled onto the two of them, staining their friendship with rivalries and betrayal. I still had no idea what exactly had happened between my grandfather and Hiro, but it was a tale as old as time.
Before history could steal the moment, I wrapped my hand in his and led the way out of the little gelateria and into an Uber, heading to my place.
Soon enough, we were stumbling out of the car and racing up the stairs to my apartment. My shirt was already unbuttoned, revealing my almost bare breasts, while Jackson kissed his way down between them.
I couldn’t care less about being caught by one of my neighbors. My moral perception of decency was too clouded by lust. I melted into his ravishing kisses, Jackson’s hand traveling up my skirt and the other down my chest. My mind was already in a blurry haze as my eyes saw nothing but this hot, hungry man trailing wet kisses on my exposed neck before returning to my mouth and teasing my tongue.
His hair was already disheveled, and I couldn’t stop my hand from pulling and grabbing to have him closer and everywhere I directed him to. I could feel my core burning, a tingling sensation arousing me with each stroke of his tongue, each squeeze of his strong hand, each bite on my swollen, wet lips. I couldn’t wait for him to get to the other pair. Those were more than already soaking.
Almost there!
Between raging kisses, roaming hands, and grinding hips, we had finally made it to the top floor. I was already barely keeping myself from telling him to fuck me right in the hall. That’s how much I needed this fix.
Jackson held me against the wall, a couple of feet away from my front door, pulling my bra down, exposing my right hardened nipple, gently biting on it before completely taking it into his mouth. My head fell back in bliss as he pushed his erection into my aching pussy at the same time. His hard cock already delivering pleasure, even with my clothes still on.
“Ahem!” I heard someone fake-clearing their throat down the hall, just outside my door. My head immediately snapped to the right while my eyes flew open. My cheeks blushed hotter than before just from seeing that dirty blonde tower looking at us, his face placid and stoic.
Max
“Any news?” I barked over the phone, waiting for Jimmy to tell me they’d found Alison. I’d been avoiding her as much as I could these last few years, and yet, lately, it seemed like fate had other ideas.
“No. Nothing yet. You?”
“Just getting into her apartment building right now.”
It was nine p.m., and Alison’s car was parked at her father’s company, AD Architects, but she was nowhere to be found. Her phone had been dead for the better part of the afternoon, and when one of her colleagues told Liam she’d rushed out earlier than normal, all alarms went off, of course .
I knocked on the door a couple of times, keeping my silence after so I could make out any sound coming from the other side of the door.
Nothing.
“No answer. Let me know if you get any info,” I told Jimmy before hanging up and stashing my phone back into my suit.
Times were dark and dangerous. And the first thing that came to Matt’s mind was that she’d been taken. Hence the frenzy of having all his soldati scattered around the scene looking for his little sister.
Don Matteo Battaglia had set out on a manhunt ever since their grandfather was killed by Hiro Naoki, the New York Yakuza boss, a few months ago. They’d be just as eager to get their hands on one of us.
I opened the door to her apartment with the extra keys I’d snagged from Matt’s office and quickly swiped through each room with my gun ready to go off. There was absolutely nothing that indicated a struggle.
Once I finally stopped and inhaled with relief, her scent hit me like a ton of bricks.
“Fuck. I shouldn’t have been the one coming here.”
It felt like I’d drawn the short straw. Coming into Alison’s apartment was too intimate, too personal. Everything I’d tried to stay away from since I tasted her lips three fucking years ago.
In a mix of anger and worry, my blood boiled in my veins.
She should have been wiser. After all, the men who killed her grandfather in an execution-style murder in the middle of New York’s streets were still alive.
Hiro Naoki surely wasn’t done bestowing his own revenge on the Battaglias. Alison was an easy target .
Her recklessness came from both her own rebellious nature and the lack of understanding about what this life entailed. Her brothers had purposely left her out of this mafiosi life, protecting her from its hazards. That was my mission, too. To the very end.
Only, it seemed like, in some cases, ignorance wasn’t as much of a blessing as one could hope for.
We were all too busy running after the enemy and never stopped to think that they just might come for us. Too thirsty for revenge from watching Don Giancarlo Battaglia being lowered into his eternal address. The dirt hadn’t even settled, and we had taken out enough Japanese soldiers to fill a common grave these last few months.
That was our mistake. Tending to wounds that no revenge could heal instead of mourning with the people we loved. I mean, Matt and Liam loved.
We’d left Alison entirely alone. So, now that her car was abandoned at AD and she was nowhere to be found, we feared the worst.
The Yakuza had gotten to her, and fuck me if that wasn’t raising the need for a redo on our killing spree from myself, too.
There was something about her that had blindsided me ever since I first met her when I got here three years ago. Besides the kiss that almost ended my life and watching her sleep in my bed, I’d used all my strength to get back on track and lock those memories under layers of duty and honor.
My business was strictly professional, and despite my best efforts, my goal got hazy. As murky as muddy waters, and that was all her fault.
But, for the sake of her safety, I had to keep my distance. My demons would always follow me and choose to torment the ones I loved. That was their preference of coin and how I’d pay my debt. A life for a life.
It’s the norm in the criminal world.
While the entire Battaglia cosca searched for her from Dea Tacita to her father’s company, AD, I waited by her door, pacing the hall like a tiger locked in his cage. Suddenly, I stopped.
Giggles and low moans filled the halls, and there was no mistaking who they belonged to. And here I was thinking that the Yakuza getting their filthy hands on her was the worst fucking scenario I could encounter.
Wrong!
I was so fucking wrong.
Spilling from the staircase, Alison and Jackson Naoki stumbled into the hall where I’d been waiting for her for the last three fucking hours while she had her damn tonsils rearranged by that DEA agent Yakuza boss’s son. Fucking fraud, in my opinion.
It was just a matter of time before he turned and fucked us up. But decisions about who we trusted were up to the Don.
I watched in silence as he slammed her against the wall, pulling her blouse open and her bra down.
I should look away, and yet, I was trying to bait myself into putting a damn bullet into his skull and call it a night.
Jackson wrapped his lips around her nipple and I’d had enough.
She was caught by the enemy alright.
“Ahem!” I fake-cleared my throat, catching their attention.
Alison’s eyes went as wide as saucers as they landed on me. Immediately, she struggled to cover herself, taming her hair and clothes back into their designated spots.
“What the hell are you doing here, Max?” She asked in disbelief, covering herself as much as possible, but I’d already seen it all. I’d seen it three damn years ago, and it’s been burned into my soul ever since.
If I ever fantasized about seeing her like that again, it sure wasn’t this exact picture I saw. It was my tongue shoved down her throat. My hands roaming her skin. My cock standing tall and ready to fuck every moan out of her chest.
I kept my face stoic and my twitching hand behind my back, not showing just how bothered I was with their little display.
“I came to speak with you.”
“Then speak,” Alison said, standing taller and getting a grip back on her altered state.
I let my eyes roam from her feet back up to her face before turning to fuck-face and barking, “Alone.”