7. Damiano
“All right, my guy,” Paige’s lyrical voice gets louder as she reenters the room. “Your turn.”
She got home about thirty minutes ago and took my vitals, or her version of them at least. After that, she fed the entire petting zoo she keeps, cleaned their cages, then disappeared into her kitchen.
All while wearing the tiniest, snuggest shorts known to man that don’t even come close to covering the longest, sexiest, legs I’ve seen outside of the Cat and cradling the most perfect peach of an ass.
Now she’s heading my way again, so I’m back to eyes closed, which is a shame because I’m dying to check out the front view of my angel. My ears were still ringing last night, and my vision was a little blurry in her car from sweat and blood and dirt in my eyes. No way she’s as hot as the glimpses I thought I caught.
“You, my dirty boy, need a bath.”
I do. But really ? Is she planning to drag me into the bathroom herself? Whip out the luggage cart of bumpy death rides again?
She doesn’t even have a tub. Just the standup shower I was jonesing to step into. I don’t think we’d fit in together, but we can try. I’m down for that, especially if she tries to fireman carry me in there. It’ll hurt my shoulder like a bitch, but getting pressed up against her tight body seems worth it.
With barely open eyes, I catch her face in the light. Fuck me , I wasn’t imaging it or conjuring her up in my passed-out, drugged-up mind. Shimmering eyes, thin nose, high cheekbones, and lips lips lips lips lips.
I almost always go for brunettes, the darker the better to get my Italian blood pumping. But blondie here, with those legs and that ass and those sex doll lips, could become a man’s obsession. Easy.
“Shit. Fuck. I’m spilling.” There’s a clatter of dishes being placed on the coffee table, disappearing footsteps. “Dammit.”
I peek, barely opening one eye. Two bowls of water, a fat sponge on a tray, and a folded towel. This should be interesting.
I’ll be thrilled if this works. The caked-on blood and dirt are itchy as fuck, which sucks when I’m trying to play half-dead. If she does even a halfway decent job, then I can take a real shower next time she leaves the apartment.
She lifts my left hand up, lays it across my stomach, sighing. She sits on the edge of the couch, pressing against my hip. Coconut . She smells like sunscreen and vacations and no worries.
“Okay, YouTube gods. Do your thing.”
A televised voice starts explaining how to give a sponge bath. It sounds like a nursing tutorial, very clinical. The voice is droning on and on, explaining what supplies one should gather. A sponge, a basin of water, an empty basin. Please tell me this isn’t how she learned to suture, though that would explain a lot.
“Oh, come on. It can’t be this complicated. Enough from you.” The video stops. “We’ll just try it my way and see how it goes.”
I feel the wet of the sponge against my forehead a split second before I feel its warmth. A trickle runs down the side of my face, wetting my neck. She applies the slightest pressure, swiping across my forehead. Re-dipping the sponge, running it across my right cheek. Then left. Down to my neck.
She scrubs back and forth a bit in a few places. Even then, she’s gentle. Timid. My angel is bold enough to give me a bath but skittish as she touches me.
And I like it. I might even love this. I never let the Cat girls hang all over me or touch me when we’re not fucking around. They’re constantly sitting on Rob’s or Salvo’s laps, giving them massages, cuddling. But they respect that I don’t want that.
Right now though? With Paige’s hands on me, I’m struggling to remember why.
She gently turns my head to the side to sponge my neck, dragging the sponge up to behind my ear. Her body heat warms my lips as she leans over me. Soft puffs of her sweet breath are cool against my wet skin as she exhales.
My brain starts sending dangerous signals south. My nipples tighten, my balls pull up.
I open my eyes and sneak a peek to watch her. Her tits are right here . Perfect tits barely contained in a tiny tank top. No bra. Big gumdrop nipples in full glory. It’s not cold in here, not at all, so can’t blame the temperature for the tents she’s pitching.
She tips my head down, so I shut my eyes again, sorry to lose the view.
I could stick my tongue out and taste her. I’m half-hard and growing. Fuck.
With her touching me like this, I’m not sure I can do anything to stop my dick from growing. Not without ‘waking up’ to ask her to stop the bath, something I have less than zero interest in doing.
My eyes are closed, but the image of her nips poking through her tank top and her luscious ass in those tiny shorts is burned into my retinas. And she’s still touching me, stroking the sponge across my neck now.
I’m losing control. The skin on my cock tightens, my balls draw up closer. With every sweep of her sponge, my cock gets longer, thicker.
He’s alive and strong and powerful. Wants to rear up and buck like the stallion he is. But I’m supposed to be immobilized. Incapacitated. My dick and brain are in a tug-of-war, fighting to go in opposite directions of pulling this girl fully onto my lap and staying perfectly still.
Her hand cups the back of my neck as she holds my head in place, her warm thigh pressing against my side as she leans in. The soft cotton of her tiny shorts brushes against the fingers on my left hand. They’re itching to trace the white hot line along the edge of her shorts, trace it down the sides, run along the back, teasing a trail below each round cheek. Barely grazing against her skin, back and forth.
Lying here with my eyes closed, her touching me on purpose in some places and touching me where she might not even realize it in other places, is throwing my brain into overdrive, making my cock swell more.
I need to get him under control.
Think disgusting thoughts. The time Rob accidentally stepped on that guy’s eyeball after I popped it out of the socket. The way it smeared deep into the tread of his shoe. Rob was right that I shouldn’t have left an eye on the floor, but he should know better than to step without looking in my workshop. Even I felt bad for the guy who watched it happen with his good eye.
Yeah, that’s doing the trick. My dick’s settling back down to half-mast.
Paige slowly pulls the sheet back, exposing my chest and abs. “You’re a work of art, you know that, right?” She pauses as if I’m going to answer her. “Seriously. Why would anyone want to shoot at this?” She lays a warm hand on my abs and sighs. “I can’t believe I’m totally perving out to a half-dead guy.” She rubs the sponge in a circle around my hard and tight nip.
It’s fucking good. So fucking good that I have to wipe the smile off my face, hoping she hasn’t noticed it.
But seems her attention is focused on my chest. Another circle around my nip.
Rotting garbage. Gli Azzurri losing in the finals. Scraping that eyeball gel off the floor of my workroom after it dried. Thank fucking god for floor drains. And not just floor drains. Floor drains with built-in industrial garbage disposals. Fucking brilliant addition to my workshop.
She’s moving down to wash the happy trail below my belly button. That’s my weak spot. Right there. Right fucking there , Paige. You keep touching me there, angel, and no telling what happens next.
Actually, what would happen next is crystal fucking clear. I’d cup the back of your neck, guide those lips down to my chest, for starters. Let you lick that nipple you just made squeaky clean. Guide your hand down to my throbbing cock. Over my boxers at first so you can tease me a while longer. Then you can free him and grab him tight down at the base while you nuzzle your cheek against him.
Fingernails trace a line up and down right there. I’m going to lose my shit if she keeps going.
Slow strokes up and down my happy trail. Captivatingly close. But still way too fucking far from where I need her.
Up and down, right fucking there . Setting me on fire from the inside out.
The need to slide my hand into her hair, to grab hold of the back of her head. Steer her exactly where I need her. Control her. Pull her on top of me. I don’t even care where she lands. On my lap, on my cock, pull her up to sit on my face. Doesn’t fucking matter. My fingers ache with need to feel her, to meld into her. It’s fucking torture keeping my hands still.
The only sounds in the room are her soft breaths, the dripping of water when she squeezes the sponge, and the rabbit in the corner tugging on his water bottle, clanging it against the wire cage. If he’s planning to clang that all night, I’ll have to do something about him.
“This is getting gross.”
I open my eyes to see Paige carrying the bowl of water away. Jesus Christ, those tiny blue shorts. Teeny-tiny, hugging that ass, framing each plump cheek.
I take a second to adjust my dick and give him a hard ‘down, boy’ squeeze while she’s out of the room, but quickly get back to how she left me. Except I leave my left hand where she was sitting, hoping that she sits right on it when she comes back. Maybe a finger accidentally slips inside her shorts.
No way we’re making it through this sponge bath without her noticing my steel rod. He’s still covered by the blanket, but at the rate she’s going, he won’t be for long.
She comes back in, holding a bowl with both hands. I want to watch her, watch what she does, look at her face. Her tits. Those thighs. I want to stare at them. But I dutifully close my eyes so she doesn’t catch me.
“Let me know if the water’s too hot.” She giggles like she thinks it’s hilarious that she’s talking to an unconscious guy.
Seems she switched to a washcloth now instead of the sponge. It’s even better because I can feel her fingers through it as she rubs my abs, moves lower. Every so often, she must be re-dipping it, because it’s a fresh burst of hot, wet heaven.
“Dammit, everything’s getting soaked.” She presses a dry towel along my side, her hand against my hip.
“You owe me a new couch, by the way. And not another one from Goodwill. Pottery Barn, at least.”
I’ll buy you a new couch. For hiding me, I’ll buy you a new apartment, angel. But not in a shitty Bagliateri Famiglia neighborhood like this one.
“So. . . what do I do. . . down here ?” She tugs the blanket down toward my feet. “Oh. . . oh my.”
Yeah, ‘oh my.’ My rock-solid dick is pressing up hard against my boxers, dying to get out.
“Well, that part of you definitely still works. Do I. . .”
Yes.
Whatever you’re thinking, yes.
Please, yes.
Something.
Anything.
Everything you’re thinking about doing, yes.
Please.
“I mean, you need to be clean everywhere , right?”
Right. Yes. Absolutely. Make me clean.
Please, angel.
“Maybe I should. . . take a peek? Medically speaking, I mean.” She’s silent and not touching me for a long minute. “How about this, if you don’t want me to peek, say ‘stop’ and I won’t look.” She waits a full ten seconds that feels like ten minutes. “Last chance.”
Her warm finger tucks under the waistband of my boxers, lifting an inch, letting a cool burst of air in.
She gasps. A pleased gasp.
Oh, angel.
“Maybe warn a girl first, huh, big guy?”
She likes my dick. She thinks it’s the best dick ever. She probably wants to lick it.
I’m going to lose it. I’m going to fucking lose it.
The need to push my hips up toward her, to thrust in her direction to get her and my needy cock closer together is killing me. Thrust him up or pull her down. Either. Both.
“I mean, I should wash him too, right? It’s medical. If there’s blood or dirt on him, I should definitely wash it off.” She tugs my boxers the rest of the way down, shimmying them from under me. As subtly as possible, I lift my hips so she can pull them down.
I can’t help but watch her. She’s entirely focused on my rod standing straight up at attention. She’s so focused on him that she doesn’t seem to notice me watching her.
She shifts so she’s kneeling on the floor. Kneeling right next to my junk. Perfect profile view of her little torture shorts, her flimsy tank top, her tiny waist. Exactly the hot, tight body I thought I saw in the park. All of that, right within reach.
“My god, you have a nice dick. I mean. . . It’s. . . I. . .”
Say it looks delicious. Say you’ve never seen such a perfect dick. Say you need it in your mouth.
“And uncut? Jesus take the wheel.” She sits back on her heels for a second, lets out a long breath, then leans forward again. “Just because I can’t see any dirt or mess down here doesn’t mean there isn’t any, right?”
She turns toward my face, and I slam my eyes closed, hoping she didn’t catch me watching her.
Then, there it is.
The rough texture of her washcloth.
The heat from the water.
Wet fingers grab hold through the cotton.
One long, slow, warm stroke from base to tip. A slight swirl at the top.
Fuuuuuck me.
I groan.
Not just a little groan, but a full-on unstoppable moan.
Paige shrieks and launches herself backward, her bowl clattering to the floor. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Are you awake?”
Cazzo. Fuck.
I keep playing dead. No way she’s going to buy it, but I’m going to try. My dick is starting to play dead, too, scared soft by her scream.
“Hello?” She pokes the left side of my chest. “Are you in there? Can you hear me?” She pauses, waiting for me to answer. “Was that just, like, a reflex? Or are you waking up? Hola?”
After a minute, during which I’m pretty sure she’s hovering over my face, staring at me, she continues the bath, rubbing down my thighs, my shins. She gives me an exceptionally pleasant foot rub.
But no happy ending.
Then she cleans up, disappears into her room. Now I hear the shower on.
And she’s in there. Alone. Naked. Probably still thinking about how perfect my dick is.
“Pronto.” Salvo answers his phone on the first ring.
“Sono io.” It’s me , I whisper into Paige’s iPad. It’s awkward as fuck to hold this with one hand, but I can’t risk using the speakerphone option. Even though Paige went to bed an hour ago, there’s only a thin door between us, so I need to be quiet.
“About fucking time. Hold on.” There’s rustling in the background, a door clicking shut. The roaring background noise disappears. “Where the fuck are you, man?”
“Bridgeport.”
He blows out a puff of air. “ That’s complicated. You got an address for me? I can be there in twenty-five, thirty minutes. I’ll get in without drawing attention.” Salvo knows it’s risky to come into Bagliateri territory without permission from Joey Bags. We don’t let them in our neighborhoods, and they don’t let us in theirs.
“No, man. Not yet.” I trust Salvo with everything, but I don’t know why the fuck Paulie shot me. I don’t know if he was acting alone or on orders from someone. “I’m better off laying low a while longer.”
“Yeah? You alright? The amount of blood at the park, I was expecting to find your corpse, not your phone.”
Salvo and I have a system for when I need to lay low, which happens every so often, being the enforcer for one of the most powerful Famiglie in the country.
When I don’t show up somewhere I’m supposed to be—like the Cat last night—he tracks my phone and heads there. If he finds the phone stashed on top of my wallet, it means ‘meet me at the safe house at noon the next day.’ Wallet on top means ‘wait for me to call you.’ Phone tucked inside the wallet means ‘I’m not going to make it, avenge the fuck out of me.’
He knew to wait for my call.
Salvo gives me shit that if I have the wherewithal to stash my wallet and phone in a safe place, then I could just text him instead. But then he’d know I’m in a fucked-up situation hours sooner. No question that he’d drop whatever he’s doing and hightail it to me right away, probably bringing Rob along too. I respect the intention, but if I’m already deep in shit, the last thing I need is to have to protect them while they’re trying to rescue me. So I don’t send a text, I throw up smoke signals with my wallet/phone stack.
“I’ll live. Took one in the shoulder, it went straight through. Another grazed my side. I’ve had worse.”
“You know Paulie’s dead?”
I pause to make sure there’s no sound coming from Paige’s room. Just the noisy as fuck rabbit still clanging away with his water bottle. “That’s what happens when I shoot someone in the throat.”
He huffs. “Fuck you, Dom. You just cost me a fucking grand.”
“How’s that?”
“Rob took one look at Paulie and said that had you written all over it. I said no fucking way. No fucking way you shot one of our own . But Rob called it. What the fuck, man?”
“He shot me first. In my fucking back, that piece of shit.”
“Cazzo.”
“He was aiming for my head, but he fucking sucks, so he ended up hitting my shoulder. Alla cazzo di cane.” Really shitty attempt.
“Why the fuck would he shoot you?”
“No clue. He was acting super fucking cagey when I picked him up, sweating bullets, wouldn’t look me in the eye. Tried to get me to stop somewhere to talk before we met up with Joey’s guy. Whined like a little bitch when I wouldn’t pull over.”
Something about Paulie set off all sorts of alarms for me.
“When he missed his kill shot, I popped one off straight in his throat before Joey’s guy lit it up. I got a couple shots off after that. I clipped Joey’s guy in the leg.”
“Aww, you miss your gut shot?”
Salvo knows I love a good gut shot. Some people prefer a headshot square in the T-box to ensure flaccid paralysis. That’s precisely what I was trained to do in the Gruppo Operativo Incursori. You hit a specific section of a person’s face—the T-box—and they drop without even flinching first.
There’s a time and a place for a T-box shot, like when my GOI team was activated to deal with hostages being held at gunpoint and I needed to neutralize the gunman without so much as a twitch of his trigger finger.
But when I can play, I go for the gut. Not because it’s a bigger, easier target, even though it is. But because of the look on the prick’s face, watching that red circle grow on their abdomen, knowing they can’t do shit about it. Intense pain with a high likelihood of death, but not necessarily a quick one. You miss out on that with a kill shot to the T-box.
So, yeah, I prefer a gut shot when the guy deserves to suffer. But Joey’s guy probably didn’t.
“I don’t think Joey’s guy was in on Paulie’s move. Maybe he was. And if that’s the case, his days are numbered. But Paulie didn’t set up that meet. He didn’t know anything about that meeting until the drive over. There’s a good chance Joey’s guy heard Paulie’s shot and reacted. I can’t fault him for that.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. So. . .” I hate asking this. I fucking hate asking it. “You have any idea why Rob wanted me to meet with Paulie last night?”
“What are you asking, man?”
“Just asking what I’m asking. Rob’s never asked me to take a ride-along before. Wondering why he suddenly wanted me to take Paulie on one.”
Salvo’s voice is slightly muffled. “Why did you tell Damiano to talk to Paulie last night?”
“That Dom on the phone? Tell him if he’s not dead to get his ass back here already.”
“What was the deal with Paulie?” Salvo asks him again.
“There was no deal. Paulie was nagging the fuck out of me to be put on Dom’s crew. It was annoying as shit. Easiest way to get him off my dick was to make Damiano deal with him.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Why? Dom asking you about this?”
“Don’t worry about it.” His voice returns to full volume. “Did you hear all that? You satisfied?”
“Yup.” For now. “People think I’m dead?”
“Naah. They did for a minute, but the Cat girls were freaking out and weren’t going to be able to perform. I almost had to close for the night.”
“Aww, they care.”
“I finally said fuck it and told the girls you were fine.”
“If the girls know I’m alive, everyone knows by now.” The girls are great at many, many things. But keeping their mouths shut isn’t one of them.
He lets out a long breath. “Paulie, huh? I didn’t see that coming. I figured shit went sideways with Joey’s guy. Why the fuck would Paulie turn?”
“No clue. And I have no fucking clue if he was on his own or if he was working with someone. And I don’t know if he turned on me or on the whole Famiglia.”
More fucking clanging as the rabbit grabs the end of his water bottle, pulls, then releases it. Again and again. No way I can sleep with this racket. I walk over to its cage.
“It’s always fucking something, isn’t it? How are you still breathing without a hospital? There was a shit ton of blood everywhere.”
I reach in and pick up the rabbit. He struggles and kicks at first but calms down when I pet low behind his ears. The same way Batuffolo liked to be scratched when I was a kid.
“Most of that was Paulie’s. He burst open like a fucking water balloon. I didn’t bleed much. He used a shitty little .22, that stupid fuck. Joey’s guy had a 9mm. But I pulled Paulie on top of me when Joey’s guy started shooting. He bled all the fuck over me.”
“Sounds like he was more useful dead than alive.” Salvo pauses for a minute, then gets all serious. “So where are you, man? And don’t tell me Bridgeport again without giving me an address. Who do you even know in Bridgeport?”
I’ll give him some details, but not enough for him to come get me. “This girl in the park found me. She brought me home and patched me up. I’m at her place.”
He laughs out loud. “Only fucking you would pick up some girl while you’re bleeding out.”
“Come on, if it was you getting shot at, two of the Cat girls would have thrown themselves in front of the bullets to keep you from getting hit.”
“They do take good care of me.”
I can hear the smile in his voice.
“Or more like, they would have thrown each other in front of the bullets.”
“What can I say? I have a magic cock.”
“Anyway, I thought this girl was a nurse, but now I think she’s like, a secretary or something.”
“A secretary patched you up?”
“Seems like it.”
“The fucking balls on her. What was she going to do if you died on her kitchen table?”
I wasn’t worried about that. I’d already stopped the bleeding. I would have gone to the hospital if this were life-threatening. I don’t have a death wish. “I haven’t figured her out yet.”
“She hot?”
“She is.”
“You hit that yet?”
“Naah. I’m stuck here for a few days, I think.”
“Perfect excuse to forget all about your no-sleepover rule.”
“No can do, man. This girl, though. . . She’s temptation personified. Fucking stunning. But rules are rules for a reason.”
“Rules about not fucking hot girls are stupid rules. And wait a minute. Are you telling me you finally found a girl that could gaze into your baby greens and not drop to her knees at ‘ciao, bella’?”
“There has been no eye-gazing.”
“What? How’s that possible? The Look—that’s your move. Your eyes fucked up or something?”
In the background I hear, “His eyes better not be fucked up, Salvo. Tell him his eyes better not be fucked and to get his ass back here already.”
“My eyes are fine. I only got to look at her for a minute when she first found me at the park. I’ve either been actually passed out or pretending I’m passed out since she found me. When she’s in the room, I keep my eyes closed. She thinks I’m in a coma or some shit.”
“Come on. How long is she going to buy that shit?”
“No clue. But she seems to dig taking care of me.” And I’m into it too. “I’m going to ride it out as long as I can. I don’t want her asking me any questions. I don’t think she’s connected, but I’m about as deep in Bagliateri territory as it gets. Don’t know if she knows people or if she gets scared, kicks me out onto the street. Pretty sure she’s past calling the police, but I can’t be positive.”
“And she’s buying your sleepy-time act?”
“Seems so. I’m telling you, man, I can’t figure this girl out.”
“How so?”
“First off, she’s in the woods all alone at night. Then, she’s got all these fucked up animals in her apartment, a rabbit missing its lucky foot, a deformed turtle. And tons of medical supplies, but she works in an office. She wasn’t freaked out by all the blood and she brought me back to her place like she was on a mission. Crazy as this sounds, I think she might be, like, my guardian angel or something?”
“I don’t know, man. Sounds like she might be the exact opposite of that. She sounds like she’s a fucking witch.”
“What? No.”
“Hear me out. The chick is alone in the woods, probably dancing in circles and chanting some voodoo shit. She sacrificed that poor rabbit’s foot. She’s probably going to cut off your dick and grind it up into some witchy dick powder. I have no fucking clue.”
“Stop. She’s not a witch.”
“I’m picking you up, man. No fucking way I’m leaving you there. Give me the address, or I’ll trace this phone number.”
“Relax with that superstitious bullshit.”
“How do you know she’s not a witch?”
“Because she’s not a fucking witch.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I need to get some sleep.” I grab a carrot from Paige’s fridge and hold it for the rabbit.
“Seriously man, grattarsi le palle.” Scratch your balls (for good luck) . “You’re going to need it.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow, asshole.”
I delete the call from the call log, then put Paige’s iPad back where it was. Since I saw her enter her passcode when she was loading the sponge bath video, I’ll be able to use that whenever she’s not around.
I lie back down on the couch with the rabbit almost asleep on my chest. Paige didn’t retie my wrist after the sponge bath. Not sure if she forgot, or if she changed her mind about needing it. Either way, I’m definitely not redoing it on my own.
I close my eyes. Salvo is crazy with all that Old World superstitious bullshit. Paige is totally normal. There’s an explanation for all that other shit.
I’m sure of it.
I quickly rub the cornicello hanging on a chain around my neck just in case.