Chapter 8 #2
“They’re getting bolder.” Her hands rest on my chest, and I can feel my heart pounding beneath her palms. “This isn’t just about territory anymore, Damiano. They’re trying to kill us one by one. They nearly killed you.”
She’s right. The realization sits heavy in my gut.
Lucy leans back to look at me properly. In the firelight, I can see the determination in her eyes, the fierce intelligence that’s always drawn me to her. “We need to be smarter. Stronger.”
“That’s why I want to build alliances with Vincenzo, Rafiel, and Cristiano.”
“Let me help you.” She takes my hand, lacing our fingers together. “With everything. Two sets of eyes, two minds working together. We’re stronger together than apart.”
I start to shake my head, ready to tell her it’s too dangerous, but she cuts me off.
“I just killed two men to save your life. Don’t tell me I can’t handle the danger. Don’t protect me from the world we live in. Let me stand beside you.”
I stare at her, this woman who’s been by my side since we were children. Who followed me into danger tonight without hesitation. Who killed for me without flinching.
She’s right. We are stronger together.
“All right,” I say finally. “But we do this carefully. Dad can’t know you’re involved in family business beyond what he approves.
He can’t know you’re armed or that you followed me here.
” I pause, my thumb brushing over her swollen lips.
“That we kissed. When I make you mine, it won’t be in hiding like this,” I repeat.
She nods, though I can see the reluctance in her eyes. Hiding what we are to each other is the hardest thing I’m asking of her.
I pull her close again, needing to feel her against me. “Then we work together against the Sokolis. Against anyone who threatens us. But we also work toward finding a way for us to be together.”
Her smile is small but fierce. “I’ve been waiting for you my whole life, Damiano. I can wait a little longer. As long as I know you’re working toward us.”
“Always. But we have to be careful. If Dad suspects there’s more than brotherly and sisterly love between us—” I begin urgently.
“I understand, Damiano. But that doesn’t change what you promised me.”
I press my lips to her forehead, breathing in her scent beneath the smoke. “Then we have a pact. Together against the world.”
“Together,” she echoes, her arms tightening around me. “Always.”
The sirens are very close now. I help Lucy off my lap and we both stand. My legs aren’t quite steady. In the distance, red and blue lights are starting to flash against the buildings.
We pull apart reluctantly. I open the passenger door for her, and she slides inside. As I drive us away from the burning warehouse, away from the sirens and the dead men, I reach over and take her hand, threading our fingers together on the center console.
Everything has changed tonight, and we’ve crossed a line we can never uncross. Despite the danger we’re in, or maybe because of it, I’ve never felt more certain of anything in my life.
This woman is mine. And I’m hers.
I moan softly as I awaken. My bed smells like Lucy. She came to me after another nightmare, just like she did when we were children.
I shift on the mattress, and the sheets drag against my hard cock.
I linger over the memory of Lucy’s delectable body in my lap as she let me squeeze her ass and press my face into her soft breasts.
The way she kissed me back with desperate hunger, surrounded by fire and death.
The way she looked at me when I promised her we’d find a way to be together. Really together.
With my eyes still closed, I push the sheet down and wrap my hand around my morning erection.
I squeeze and stroke myself, groaning softly, remembering Lucy’s lips on mine as she whispered that we can have whatever we want.
I stroke my hot, hard flesh, imagining that Lucy’s mouth is wrapped around my shaft as she sucks me.
Something moves in my bed that’s not me.
I freeze and open my eyes. Not one foot from me, Lucy is laying on her side facing me. I’ve dragged the sheet from her body as well, and she’s dressed in one of my T-shirts that’s as long as a dress on her, and her legs are bare.
Her eyes are wide open, without a hint of embarrassment that she’s caught me jerking off.
A smile tugs at her lips. “Don’t stop. Pretend I’m not here.”
“Fuck. What are you doing?” I hiss in a whisper. “I can’t pretend you’re not here.”
“Then enjoy that I’m here.”
I’m frozen with my hand wrapped around the head of my swollen cock.
She openly watches me, not one trace of embarrassment or shame on her beautiful face.
Blood pounds in my ears and throbs in my dick.
She looks so beautiful with her golden curls spread out on my pillow.
She’s so close that I can feel the heat from her body.
“I dare you to keep going,” she whispers.
“You should be in your own bed,” I seethe, trying to pretend I’m angry to mask the rapid beating of my heart.
“That’s the thanks I get for comforting you in the middle of the night? It’s not my fault that you fell asleep with your arms locked around me.”
The sleepy memory of my darkened bedroom and Lucy in my arms comes back to me. She woke me from a fiery nightmare, which was worse than usual after the warehouse explosion, and soothed me with kisses on my brow. I clung to her. I never wanted to let her go.
Lucy nestles closer to me and threads her fingers through my hair. Her touch sends golden sparks through me. “You’re so hard, Damiano. You must need to come very badly.”
Her touch makes me want to give in and take what I was just fantasizing about. It would take one second to tug her underwear down her legs, if she’s even wearing any, roll her beneath me, and then I’d be between her thighs.
I scramble to remember what I said last night about being patient and careful.
Lucy trails her fingers down my chest, sending warm shivers through my body. I squeeze my cock without thinking.
“Damiano, you’re a capo in the Barone crime family. One of the most powerful men in the city. You can have whatever you want.”
That would be utterly reckless, but right now I can’t think straight. Her fingers wrap around mine on my shaft, and a pleasurable shudder goes through me. “Lucy,” I breathe. “You shouldn’t do that.”
“And you shouldn’t stare at my mouth like you want to fuck it.”
My breath catches. “I do not.”
Lucy’s lips brush mine—just like last night, that teasing almost-kiss—and heat explodes through me. “Liar. You’re not subtle when you’re horny, Damiano.”
With her hand over mine, I stroke my hand down my cock and then up again with a twist. A soft groan escapes my throat. I’m always horny around Lucy. “You can’t fucking talk.”
Lucy laughs softly. She strokes my cock with me, our hands moving slowly, our breathing synchronizing as a tight, pleasurable ache spreads through my lower belly. I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her closer to me.
I’m not having sex with Lucy, I tell myself. She just happens to be here while I’m getting closer and closer to bursting all over her.
“Damiano,” she pants. “Kiss me.”
Her lips are mine to claim. I vividly remember how good it feels to kiss Lucy. When I’m not having nightmares about fire, it’s all I dream about. The way she tastes. The desperate relief and hunger.
When I make you mine, it won’t be in hiding like this.
My whole body tenses and cold sweat breaks out on my back. We promised to be careful. To be patient, to find a way to be together properly. And here I am, less than twelve hours later, about to throw it all away.
Is this how little she means to me, that I would risk her safety and happiness for the sake of getting off?
“Hey, come back to me,” Lucy says, touching my face.
I release her and roll onto my back, grinding the heels of my hands against my eyes.
I’m crazy if I think I can sneak around this house with Lucy without our parents finding out.
Dad has eyes and ears everywhere, and if he finds out the brother and sister he adopted are screwing each other and have been lying to him, he will…
God, I don’t know what he’d do, and that’s what scares me.
“Lucy—” I start to say, and she must hear the refusal in my voice, because she speaks over me.
“I hope my boyfriend doesn’t find out about this. He’ll be so jealous.”
My eyes snap open, and I glare at her. Lucy is casually examining her manicure.
“Boyfriend?” I ask.
She frowns in puzzlement. “Yes, my boyfriend. I told you about him.”
I sit up on my elbow. “No, you didn’t. What boyfriend? Who is he?”
She shrugs. “You must have forgotten about him because of all the Jessicas and Faiths you’re screwing. You go on dates just about every weekend. Do you think I’ve been a nun all this time?”
“I go on dates for the sake of appearances. Do you know how strange it would seem if I didn’t?”
I know she’s provoking me on purpose, but knowing that doesn’t stop me from being incandescently jealous that someone else might be enjoying what I can’t have. Last night she killed for me. She kissed me like I was her whole world. She promised to wait for me.
And now she’s talking about another man?
She tries to get out of my bed, but I grab her and pull her back. She again tries to leave, so I roll on top of her and trap her in my bed with my hands either side of her head. My still hard cock is pressed against her bare inner thigh.
“Admit that you’re pretending about the boyfriend, and I’ll let you up.”
She smooths her hands up my biceps and gently drags her nails across my shoulder muscles. It feels so incredible I have to stifle a groan.
“Why would I pretend about having a boyfriend?”
Damn it, what if she’s not pretending? She’s beautiful, she’s twenty, and even though we made a pact last night, I haven’t claimed her. Maybe she thinks our promises mean nothing. “Who is he? The son of one of the capos? It had better not be Antonio or Giovanni. I’ll murder them.”