Chapter 26
LUNA
I wake up in bed with Priest, wrapped in his arms, my head on his chest.
The steady thud of his heart is under my ear.
I’m naked, but last night wasn’t about sex.
In fact, we didn’t even bother with fucking, content to just be.
Instead, he carried me to the oversized jet tub in his bathroom, and we soaked in it together.
He let me cry my heart out. He listened to me talk about Leo, about how close we were growing up.
About our silly inside jokes and how I pleaded with him to go off to college rather than staying here in the city, learning from our father.
But Leo chose this world. And it ended him.
A shiver goes through me, chased by the knife’s edge of sadness.
I miss my brother. Since the day I learned he was gone, I never stopped.
Last night, learning the truth about what happened to him brought everything back.
Suddenly, it was five and a half years ago, and I was eighteen, about to graduate from high school, attending my big brother’s funeral.
He was twenty-one when that bastard Amedeo the Animal ordered him to be killed.
Twenty-one when a bullet lodged in his brain and left him on life support for three days—just long enough for us to say our goodbyes.
For me to sit at his bedside and hold his hand.
There had been so many lines protruding from him.
But he’d still somehow looked like himself, like the brother I’d always looked up to. Like he was sleeping.
Only, he never woke up.
A sob works its way out of me, and I try to swallow it quickly down. To hold my breath. I don’t want to wake Priest any more than I want this day to begin. Because I know what’s at the end of it.
“Hey.” The deep, sleepy rumble of my husband’s voice vibrates in his chest.
His warmth radiates into me like a furnace, and his muscled strength feels far more reassuring than it should. I don’t want to leave this bed or his arms.
I inhale deeply, bringing Priest’s scent into my lungs. I don’t know what will come of this day, of his plan to kill Amedeo, of our marriage. But what I do know is that I’ll never forget the way it feels to lie here like this with him.
“You okay, amore mio ?” Priest asks.
“No,” I whisper. “I’m not okay.”
In truth, I don’t know if I ever will be again.
Everything I thought I knew about my life, my world, has been shaken.
Family has proven to be the enemy. My father gave me away.
My future has been paused. Everything that’s happened since my return has proven to me that no matter how far I go and regardless of how much time passes, I’ll never truly be able to outrun this place, this world.
The stain of the Mafia will forever mark me.
“How can I make it better?”
His hand is on my head now, gently stroking my hair.
We started yesterday at odds, but somehow, last night’s revelations brought us closer again. It terrifies me to think that he’s become my rock. That I need him.
That I want him.
But I do.
And maybe this will be the last time I ever get to have him.
I press a kiss to his chest, desire stirring deep inside me. I need it. I need him. Need the distraction to keep me from falling apart.
“Make me forget,” I whisper.
His fingers tighten in my hair, and he tips my head back. His blue eyes burn into me, seeing me in a way no one else ever has. He’s so beautiful, it hurts.
“Kiss me, baby.”
He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I drag myself up his chest and take his mouth.
We stay that way for a long time, bodies pressed together, lips ravishing.
I devour him like I’m starving. Like these are the kisses that will have to sustain me forever.
He fists my hair and holds me to him, his lips hot and demanding, his tongue tangling with mine as we exchange long, deep, drugging kisses.
Kisses that fill up the cracks and voids in me that were left by the past. Kisses that make me feel whole.
Kisses that taste like salt.
Vaguely, I realize I’m crying. I don’t even know why. It’s like I’m purging the contents of my soul and Priest is consuming it, drinking it down like an elixir. Maybe, in this weird, fucked-up way, we both need each other.
He slips his hand between us, cupping my breast, plucking at my nipple.
“Don’t cry, baby,” he rasps against my lips. “I hate it when you’re sad.”
In response, I kiss him harder. He groans and feeds me his tongue, and I suck on it.
That’s when I realize what I want and tear my mouth from his.
I drag kisses down his neck, over his chest. I lick one of his flat nipples, and then I go lower, across the tense muscles of his abs all the way to where his cock juts, erect and thick and ready for me.
I wrap my fingers around the base, stroking him.
He makes a strangled sound. “Fuck, Luna.”
There’s a bead of pre-come leaking from the tip. Dipping my head, I lick it up, savoring the tang of him on my tongue. His fingers go into my hair, sifting the strands. I flatten my tongue over the slit in his crown, teasing him before I take him into my mouth.
His dick is big. There’s no way I’ll get all of him the way I want. But I do my best, breathing out, gliding my lips along until I feel him hit the back of my throat. My gag reflex is instant, but he cups my head.
“Fuck, baby. You look so perfect, sucking my cock like this.”
Fresh tears gather at the corners of my eyes, but I want this. I want him. We start a slow rhythm. I focus on my breathing. On relaxing my throat. On making this powerful, gorgeous man lose control.
It doesn’t take long.
We work together, his big body straining under me, hips flexing as he fucks my mouth. I’m a mess, tears on my cheeks, saliva dribbling down my chin, and my pussy is soaked. He wraps my hair around his fist and holds me tightly, guiding me in the rhythm he wants as he takes control.
“I’m going to come. You want it in your mouth or on your tits, baby?”
I glance up, holding his stare as I keep sucking. I know what I want.
His eyes darken. “Fuck, amore mio ,” he growls, his thrusts growing less measured and careful.
He shoves his cock deeper into my throat, and then he explodes. I swallow convulsively, taking everything he has to give me. Loving it.
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
Loving him .
The realization hits me as Priest gently pries me off his dick and rolls me to my back.
“Your turn, baby.”
He hooks my legs over his shoulders, palms my ass, and brings me to his mouth with a low sound of appreciation.
I’m already dripping and ready for him, and when he sucks hard on my clit, I almost come out of my skin.
I’m hyperaware of everything, the smoothness of the sheets against my back, his musky, woodsy scent, his hold on me, the rumble of his moan as he licks into me.
Then his fingers replace his tongue, thrusting deep and curling while he goes back to sucking and nipping my clit.
My orgasm is fast and ferocious, rocking through me as I dig my heels into his back and ride his face.
I throw my head back on the pillow, black stars edging my vision and my ears ringing as I cry out his name.
I’m still coming down from the high when he flips me onto my belly and drags me to my knees.
“That’s the second time you’ve called me by my name,” he says, drawing my hair over my shoulder so that he can dot kisses up my spine. “I like hearing you scream it when you come.”
I moan, ass in the air, on all fours.
He gives my cheek a light slap that doesn’t even sting.
“Going to fuck you now, baby.”
“Yes,” I hiss as he drags his bare cock up and down my pussy, coating himself in my wetness.
I want him inside me, filling me. I want him to fuck me so hard that I’ll still feel it next week.
Next year.
For the rest of my life.
I never want to forget what it feels like to be his.
He aligns himself with my entrance, and then he grabs my hips and thrusts, his cock buried deep.
We both moan. I’m so wet that it’s almost embarrassing.
It’s coating my thighs, probably running down his dick as he fucks me.
But it only seems to turn him on more. He thrusts into me faster, holding me where he wants me.
One hand slides from my hip to my pussy. He circles my aching clit.
It’s too much.
I clench down on him as my next orgasm hits.
“That’s it, amore mio ,” he praises. “Come for me. Come all over my cock.”
My pussy flutters around him, and Priest growls and fucks me harder until he finally withdraws and I hear him groan as he reaches his release, my name on his lips.
I’m at the desk in the office Priest set up for me, revising a poem, when I hear a distant noise that catches my attention.
He left for the restaurant where we’ll be hosting tonight’s dinner about an hour ago, with the promise that he’ll be back as soon as possible.
I know why he went. Everything must go according to plan tonight.
There’s no wiggle room in this scenario, or the wrong people will die.
The stakes are high and so is the danger.
He wants to make certain security is in place and so are his men.
But I still wish he hadn’t gone.
Ever since the door closed behind him, I’ve been doing my best to soothe my frayed nerves by distracting myself with writing. It’s not working. I’m on edge without him here.
I’m worried about tonight.
Worried about Priest.
About losing him.
Amedeo has already taken my brother and my father from me. What if he takes my husband too? Panic grips me at the thought. I don’t know how I’ll be able to cope with another loss.
I stare at the screen, telling myself my imagination is getting the best of me. That whatever sound I think I heard must have been city noise. Maybe someone in another apartment.
With a sigh, I delete two lines on the poem.