Chapter Eight
ART
Iroll my body in the sheets until I’m unable to move. “Only available for a very short time, the Art Enzino burrito,” I announce to…nobody.
The bedroom is empty. Luca is taking a shower while I’m trying to put my thoughts in order. Something I do to calm myself when anxiety threatens to overwhelm me.
Fly was prohibited from coming to see me after our trip to the club, but Luca allowed a phone call—too short for my liking.
I was also successful in moving my phone from my clutch to the bathroom; it is now residing under the toilet lid.
I know, very detective-TV-show cliché, but I didn’t have much time.
I really needed it to disappear, and with it Rami’s text.
Which is the root of my anxiety. Mario has disappeared.
Is he already here? I should’ve told Luca about Boston straight away; or maybe he already knew and telling him wouldn’t have made any difference—he would have discovered about my secret cell, though.
But did he know? He just said that Mario wasn’t there.
Then he fucked me into oblivion, and I completely forgot about…
anything—I mean, my hole still feels loose after the sex marathon he put me through.
I need to calm down. I breathe inside his sheet burrito and sway back and forth.
Breathe and sway. Sway and breathe. Giving myself a mental shake.
Even if Mario is here he doesn’t know where to find me—yet.
And if he does, Luca will kill him. This is good, then.
It’s what I wanted. Luca can’t get rid of him if he doesn’t come out of his hiding place. Right?
Ugh. My mind still feels groggy from a long, incredibly uninterrupted sleep.
It’s so unlike me. Anxiety and horny thoughts have a race inside my head as soon as I lie in bed, and it takes a long time to doze off.
All the sex must have helped with my disturbed sleep pattern.
I was too exhausted to wake up. Also, stroking his hair felt soothing.
I remember feeling a big scar among his locks on his scalp—a continuation of the cut on his forehead.
Did my brother do that? I find it too coincidental that he wants to kill Mario—whose hobby is cutting people—while sporting those knife-like scars on his face.
But why didn’t Luca kill him already? Those cuts look very old and he’s a powerful mobster. What stopped him?
The ajar bedroom door is pushed open, and here comes my Nacho.
All fuzzy fur, bulging eyes, and short, skinny legs.
He lived in an alley near my building, and more times than I can count when I came back home, there he was, looking for food near the front door.
His wiggling tail is pointing up as he checks his surroundings.
Fly kept him while Luca and I were busy canoodling.
One of Marco’s men brought him here this morning, with a vicious message from him about roasting Nacho on a spit.
Apparently—and I quote—the horny four-legged creature molested their cat.
I think he’s a mix between a Chihuahua, a poodle, and a raunchy rabbit. Is there an ancestry DNA test for dogs? I can’t check that because I don’t have internet!
I unwrap myself and call his name. He quickly scampers my way, and the sound of his little nails on the floor makes me smile.
I stretch my arms and grab his tiny body off the floor to place it on my lap.
He licks at my hand, then spins a couple of times and lies down, seemingly finding the best spot between my crossed thighs.
Luca makes his way inside the room—butt naked.
Holy purr! How is that thing still standing half-stiff after all the sex we had yesterday?
He sends a quick look my way—always nice to be so quickly dismissed—then lowers a glare to Nacho before moving, swinging balls and dick, toward the walk-in closet door.
Those globes of firm ass, I really do want to use them as a cushion.
“Seriously, what did you eat for it to be so ginormous? Potatoes and pasta? Rocks and iron?”
It annoys the fucking bejesus out of me how his side profile looks so fucking good. All sharp lines and strong angles, with his perfect fucking hair and bitable lips. Ugh.
I still don’t like the guy. He’s hot, a fucking genius in the orgasm department, I can’t get his dick off my brain—especially when he swings it at me like this.
But he irritates the hell out of me, and it gives me great joy to piss him off.
I have to admit, though, that he isn’t the complete asshole I thought he was.
There are more layers to his wacko mind.
He seems to have locked his emotions in a hard chocolate shell, or a layer cake.
I need to lick the frosting off the top first, taste, and then bite down on a thick layer before reaching the dark bitter core.
And then what? Exercise a purification ritual better known as an exorcism?
He has already slipped on a pair of black pants when he comes out of the closet. Still shirtless, showing that smattering of hair covering his chest that I like so much. The necklace with the small round pendant is still around his thick neck. A religious mobster. Figures.
I tuck my hand behind my head against the headboard and keep watching the show he is so generously giving me.
Even after a shower, I can still detect the slightest hint of cigar underlying the smell of lavender, and beneath that, his musky scent.
Each smell individually wouldn’t be all that great, but on Luca, it makes me want to permanently let my nose reside on a patch of his skin.
“Your horny dog is humping my pillow.” His tone is indifferent, but his eyes have already plotted a gory way to make Nacho disappear.
“He’s pent up, cuddle bug.” I detach his rocking body from the pillow and place it on the floor.
“Since when? The origin of life?” He growls down at an excited Nacho jumping up and down at his feet. “Sit!” The dog quickly follows his order and pushes his ass down, looking at him adoringly.
Funnily enough, my dog loves Luca. He follows him everywhere, obeys every order, and is not afraid of him whatsoever.
“He was a stray, so he learned to enjoy whenever he could.” I shrug and then turn a sweet voice at Nacho. “Didn’t you, my love? Yes, you did.”
He turns to me, wiggling his tail for a moment, but then there is only Luca for him again. I should feel betrayed, but it’s actually entertaining.
“Why is your fucking dog here, Enzino?” he asks, while putting a black shirt on.
I slide down the bed, my legs feeling like jelly, but I manage to reach his closet.
“The real question is, why can’t I hang my clothes here?
There’s space. They are getting all wrinkled in that duffel bag,” I say with as much contempt as I dare while pointing at the one on the floor I brought from my apartment, to the club, to… here.
“Because I said so,” he says obnoxiously.
Because I said so, I mouth his words. What a load of crap. “That doesn’t work for me unless your dick is ready to fuck me.”
I close the drawer and walk back into the room. Nacho is lying at Luca’s feet, belly up, waiting. My poor baby is relentless and super cute. Luca is about to put on a blue tie, which I slide off his neck as I plant myself in front of him.
“You won’t stay here long enough for your clothes to wrinkle.” His cold statement makes my hands halt for a brief moment, but just as quickly, they resume working on the white necktie I chose for him.
Yep, I have a wedding to go to in fifteen days, or a grave.
Not much difference between them, is there?
I remind myself that people are tools. I use them and move on.
And I do it so that I can avoid as much as possible finding myself in a position of powerlessness.
But the truth is that I am in such a position all the time.
I’d be far away already if it weren’t for Mario and my father and Coretti and him.
Focusing on the tie knot, I don’t look at his face once—not hard to do since he’s a hundred feet taller. But I feel his eyes sliding down me, over his t-shirt covering my upper body, and my naked legs.
“They are already wrinkled. Why do you think I keep wearing your t-shirts?” Not because I love how they smell and feel on my skin. Nope.
“To drive me fucking crazy!” he abruptly snaps, cupping my ass with his large, calloused hands. A hard squeeze and then he presses my belly against his rigid dick, almost lifting me off my feet.
His eyes are firing lust at me, his jaw ticking. My mouth starts salivating, and I can’t stop staring at his lips, willing them to come down on mine. But just as I’m about to climb him like a devil tree, his phone starts ringing.
He lets me go like I’ve suddenly turned into a blazing piece of ember and turns to the chair where his phone is.
“What?” he barks into it. “No, be there in thirty. Did you get any news?”
He walks out of the bedroom—followed by Nacho’s little tushy—and while still within earshot, I hear him saying the words carved cross and little gold horn pendant.
My body freezes as dread fills my chest like a swarm of bees.
A flash of memory appears in front of my eyes, gold horn charms dangling down, a cross carved on each one of them.
The clinking sound echoes inside my head.
I have to shake the shivering sensation off as I squeeze my eyes, willing the memory to go away.
I silently move closer to the threshold to catch more of the phone call, keeping myself back so as not to be seen by him.
“I’ll get the information out of that fucker,” Luca is saying. “No, I won’t tell him it’s related to the dead boy.”