Chapter 11
Damiano
Antonio might not make it through the night. I’ll never forget Francesco’s face as they wheeled his son into surgery. The accusation in his eyes. The way he couldn’t even look at me before following the gurney through those swinging doors.
This is all your fault, his silence said.
My heart doesn’t stop pounding, even when we’re safe within the high iron gates of the Barone mansion.
The house is quiet and dark as Lucy and I come into the kitchen through the garage.
It seems like there’s no one else home. Antonio’s blood is still under my fingernails.
Still soaked into Lucy’s dress. As I raise my hand to push it through my curls, she captures my wrist gently.
“Damiano, you’re bleeding. Let me see your injury.”
She helps me out of my jacket and rolls up the bloody sleeve of my shirt. A bullet has grazed my flesh close to my viper tattoo. So what if I’m bleeding? A bullet might have hit Lucy. She could have died.
“Fuck, I need a drink.” I pull a bottle of vodka out of the freezer, slosh a hefty serving into a tumbler, and knock half of it back. It burns down my throat like fire and ice.
“Please let me take care of you,” Lucy says, with big, worried eyes.
I take another mouthful of vodka, wishing I could forget the sight of Antonio bleeding profusely in the back of the car. It could have been Lucy, bullets tearing through her because I wasn’t able to protect her.
“Damiano, say something.”
“That was a disaster from start to finish.”
Lucy nods in somber agreement. She takes the glass from me and swallows a pensive sip.
“Being ambushed like that was terrible timing. Vincenzo is going to have difficulty believing we had nothing to do with this. Cristiano is going to be suspicious. He already doesn’t trust us.
But Rafiel has known us for years. Surely he won’t believe that you knowingly risked putting me in the path of a Sokoli bullet for the sake of killing men who would be better off as our allies.
Let’s reach out to him first when the dust settles. ”
Lucy’s talking about tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. About salvaging the alliance we just formed, but I’m still trapped in the back of that car, watching Antonio struggle to stay conscious.
Blood drips down my arm and splashes on the tiles.
Lucy puts the glass down and gently takes my hand. “Damiano, you’re bleeding worse than ever. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
I let her tug me along the hall and into the downstairs bathroom, where she sits me on an upholstered chair next to the sink and pulls a first aid kit from the lower cabinet.
Kneeling before me, she cleans and applies antiseptic to my wound.
Her touch is tender. She’s the only person in the world who cares about me. Who truly loves me.
Like a wife.
I take a ragged breath as my eyes rove over her beautiful face. “Why do you keep letting me do this to you?”
“Do what?” she asks, smoothing antiseptic cream across my cut with a pinkie finger.
“Putting you in danger.”
“I don’t let you do anything, you silly man. I choose things for myself, and don’t you dare panic and change your mind about us now.”
“I’ll never forgive myself if something happens to you. If you get hurt by the Sokolis, if Dad finds out that we’re not related like we’ve been pretending to be, he’ll do something terrible. We can’t—”
Lucy stops my words with a kiss. “Stop catastrophizing, Damiano. Do you want me or not? Do you love me with your whole heart?”
The scent of gunpowder and blood clings to us, and the vodka burns in my belly. “Of course I do. To the ends of the earth.”
I wince as the antiseptic stings my wound. Lucy notices my breathing change, and she caresses my cheek apologetically. “I’m sorry I’m hurting you. I’m nearly finished.”
“You could drive hot spikes under my nails, and I’d say thank you, my love.”
She smiles, wrapping a bandage around my forearm and securing it firmly.
Then she sits back on her heels with her hands on my thighs, gazing up at me.
“I know it was difficult for you to take me with you tonight. I know you’re afraid for me, but I worry about you just as much.
Remember, this is what I want. To be by your side and die by your side if it comes to that. ”
“Do not speak of dying,” I order her sharply, seizing her shoulders.
“I’m not afraid of anything when I’m by your side.”
“Well, I’m fucking terrified of losing you.”
“Walking into that room on your arm tonight, as your equal, I felt prouder than I ever have in my life. Closer to you than I have in our whole lives. Proud, and powerful as well. I’m not letting anything come between us. Not fire. Not bullets. Not anything.”
I take her face in my hands with a groan and press my forehead to hers. She’s so fierce that I can’t help but love her.
We just survived another ambush. Antonio is fighting for his life in surgery. The alliances I tried to build tonight have already crumbled. Francesco no doubt has already called Dad. Dad is going to rage at us for what we’ve done.
But none of that matters right now. Not when she’s looking at me like this.
“The whole world can go to hell. You and me. That’s all that matters.”
I tilt her chin up and press my lips to hers. Lucy kisses me back and deepens the kiss. Her hands caress my chest and slide down my body.
“We can have whatever we want,” she whispers, unthreading my belt.
My heart is pounding again, but for a very different reason.
With gentle hands, she pushes me so I’m sitting back in the chair, and she pulls out my rapidly hardening cock.
Her slender fingers, with their wine-red nails, stroke my girth, the veins standing out along my length.
She always makes me feel loved. Always makes me feel desired.
I cup her cheek and caress her softness.
She’s just the same as she was the first day I found her. Fierce and beautiful, huddled on the edge of life-ending consequences. She didn’t see the danger she was in that day, and she still won’t see it now. Is it my curse, always to sense the danger around us while she shrugs it off?
How many more times can I pull her back from the brink before something terrible happens?
Lucy runs her tongue along my length, and my head falls back with a groan. She sucks on the tip and then takes me deeper in her mouth. She presses a kiss to the underside of my cock and then licks it. “You’ll have to help me. I’ve never done this before.”
“You’re doing amazing,” I breathe, gazing down at her, my hand lost in her curls. “So fucking beautiful with my cock in your mouth.”
Lucy parts her lips and pushes me into her mouth, sucking slowly up. Deeper still, and then slowly up again, her cheeks hollowing. She moves at a leisurely pace, and I’m totally enraptured.
“That’s perfect, my love,” I groan, cradling her head in my hands. “Just like that. Take your time with me.”
She starts to move faster, and heat and pleasure spiral through me. I want to let her control this, but when I feel myself hit the back of her throat, my self-control snaps.
I stand up and move forward so I can brace my hands on the wall, and Lucy eases herself back until she’s pressed against it. I plunge my hand into her hair and thrust with my hips.
“Look at me,” I command. She opens her eyes and gazes up at me, and the look she gives me sends pure desire flooding through me as I fuck her face. “You’re mine. All mine. No one else gets to see you like this.”
I can never stop wanting her. Loving her. Needing her. Her hands clench and caress my belly as my cock moves in and out of her mouth.
“That’s it, my love. Take all of me. You’re so good for me.”
I don’t want to come down her throat. I want to see myself coating her tongue before she swallows me down.
I take myself in my hand, fisting my length furiously. “Open your mouth. Stick out your tongue.”
Panting, she opens her reddened mouth and shows me her tongue. I jerk my cock in my hand several times, and then come with an animalistic growl, hot spurts of cum spilling into her mouth.
“Swallow it. Every drop. That’s my good girl.”
Lucy’s eyes lock with mine as she closes her mouth and swallows, her throat working. When she opens her mouth again to show me it’s empty, I groan at the sight.
I should hear it. The sound of a car pulling up outside. The garage door opening. Footsteps.
But I’m too lost in Lucy. Too caught up in the taste of her, the feel of her, the desperate need to claim her after nearly losing her tonight.
We should stop. We’re not in my bedroom. We’re in the downstairs bathroom where anyone could walk in.
But I can’t stop. Not when she’s looking at me like that.
The bathroom door flies open.
“Damiano, there’s blood out here. Francesco called me and said—”
Dad freezes in the doorway. Mom is right behind him, her hand flying to her mouth.
Time stops.
I’m standing over Lucy, my cock still in my hand, cum on her lips. She’s on her knees before me, her dress stained with Antonio’s blood, her eyes wide with horror.
There’s no explanation. No excuse. No way to pretend this is anything other than what it is.
Mom takes a deep breath and screams. A bloodcurdling, hair-raising scream that echoes in the small, tiled bathroom and spears through my skull.
I’ve witnessed Dad calmly smoke cigars as men have been tortured in front of him, their bones broken and bodies mutilated.
Now, the color drains from his face until his complexion turns gray, and his mouth sags open.
He tries to speak, but his voice is hoarse.
The bottom falls out of my stomach as he screws his eyes up, curls into himself with a fist pressed over his chest, and groans in pain.
Lucy shoots to her feet with a cry of alarm. “Dad, are you all right? What’s wrong?”
I shove myself back into my pants, zip up, and grasp Dad’s arm. “Dad? Can you hear me?”