10. Dex
10
DEX
Our wedding night is torture.
Well, for me it is. Sophia seems to enjoy it. I make her come multiple times, and she takes my cock in almost every way except for me on top of her. I don’t think I have the self-restraint to have her beneath me, all wet and pliant and hazy eyed from orgasm, and not blow my load.
I have control, but I’m not a man without appetites.
I manage to tire her out enough that she doesn’t wake, and we remain joined like that, her body a perfectly fitting sheath.
The days crawl by.
I circle the date in my agenda, and tick off the days that pass like I’m a prisoner. But instead of being held by the Camden mafia and my blood flowing, the issue is the lack of outlets for bodily fluids.
Ten, nine, eight.
The time until Sophia will be fertile feels to be getting longer, not shorter.
Seven, six.
I can’t concentrate.
I fuck up a message to the Tiptree, the Essex kingpin I’m arranging to enact a coup with, and only just prevent the whole plan from being sent to our enemies. Sophia catches my mistake, clever creature that she is. She’s blooming, but there’s a shadow behind her eyes when she thinks I’m not looking. It bothers me that there’s something she’s sad about, and that she’s hiding it from me.
I do what I can to please her. I spoil her with new books. I use the excuse of teaching her about sex to fuck her slow and thoroughly with her on top in the evening, use her pussy to keep my cock warm overnight, and have her from behind in the morning.
I’ve edged myself so hard over the days since our bargain that I’m constantly in danger of falling over. After six months of nothing but Sophia’s face in my imagination as I paint my hand or the shower white when I’ve longed for her, the change to having my wife whenever I want, but being unable to release is sheer irony.
Five, four.
Being married helps, to an extent. I shamelessly use the excuse of making our relationship seem genuine to kiss her, hold her close, and generally be much more handsy than a man sixteen years older than her should be.
I said I’d endure anything to have her, and I will. I just didn’t realise it would be so hard .
But it’ll be worthwhile, I tell myself as my cock attempts to spring up—again—whenever I look at Sophia.
There are still three twenty-nine-thousand-hour days until I can claim my wife fully. But at least this evening I have the ideal excuse for pretending to be as pathetically in love as I really am.
“Do they know you’re married?” Sophia asks, smoothing down her dress as we enter the hotel where the London Maths Club are having a social dinner event.
“Yes.” I put an announcement of our marriage in The Times , The Evening Standard , and all the local newspapers too, as well as having some of the most flattering candid shots from the wedding leaked to the gossip magazines. I assume it will have filtered through to Snap Tick Book or whatever online thing is fashionable now.
“Right. Good. That’s good.” She takes a deep breath. “What if they don’t like me?”
“Then I’ll kill them.” Her hand is so small in mine.
“Dex!” she chides, but there’s laughter in her voice. “Gaining the approval of these people is the reason you married me. Murder isn’t going to achieve that.”
“If anyone disrespects you in the slightest, they’ll be fertilising the roses on Streatham Common,” I mutter, and I’m saved from responding to Sophia about what I mean by a deferential young man taking our coats. Bone meal and blood are excellent for roses, and Streatham has won best-kept part of London since my grandfather’s time. My father even contributed personally .
At the entrance to the private dining room, I pause and tighten my grip on Sophia’s hand. We’re only a few minutes late, but everyone is already sitting around a long table set with pristine white cloths and tableware.
Westminster notices us first, almost immediately, as he does nearly everything going on in the London Mafia Syndicate. He stands up, smirks, and claps. Within seconds they’re all on their feet, smiling and offering congratulations.
“Fuck’s sake, not another marriage,” grumbles Richmond. “It’s like bloody Vegas around here.”
The fury is fast and hot. Sophia is nothing so crass as a Vegas bride, and I’m about to put him right when there’s a tug from Sophia on my arm. When I look down at her, she has that “What are you doing?” expression. It’s cool water over my temper.
None of this matters. Only her.
“This is my wife, Sophia Streatham.” I love the ownership that has her name paired with mine. “Darling, this is the London Mafia Syndicate.”
There are nods and hellos, and a dizzying array of introductions and we take our seats between Westminster and Canary Wharf. I’ve never much cared for the way couples are seated beside each other with the men and women paired, but I see the sense of it now. It means there isn’t a man next to my wife, and I can relax a bit.
“I’m so glad you two have a love match!” The wife of the Canary Wharf kingpin, Adi Cavendish, beams at Sophia. I think only I would recognise that Sophia’s returned smile is underlaid with horror.
Because it’s not a love match, is it? Sophia thinks we’re fooling them all for my sake. When in fact, I’m pretending to love her, whilst pretending not to love her, and using them as an excuse.
A complete mess.
“Do you like to read?” Adi asks with a smile once the food is being served and the worst of the small talk is done. “You’re welcome to join the London Maths Club, also known as our little reading group?”
“Oh, there’s a book club?” Sophia pauses.
“Look, this is a problem,” Lina leans across the table, and says in a tone that suggests this is not the first time she’s made this point, “It’s the London Mafia Smut Club. No one will join if they think it has to do with maths.”
“Maths isn’t that bad,” Cassie, who is one of the Blackwood triplets’ wives, interjects from the other end of the table.
“Clearly we’re doing fine for recruitment, because Sophia is going to join,” Adi replies.
Lina rolls her eyes. “You’re just protecting your husband?—”
“So, there’s no maths club?” Sophia asks.
Westminster and Mayfair share a look.
Canary Wharf folds his arms. “I’m not taking responsibility for the continued shitshow about the maths club.”
“What is the London Maths Club?” Sophia asks quietly.
And honestly, I’m glad she’s asked, because I’ve never inquired why a mafia syndicate loves maths-themed jokes.
“It stands for Mobsters And Thugs Hate Spaghetti,” says Angel, straight-faced.
“Hey!” Marco Brent bangs the table. “I love spaghetti.”
Jessa smirks. “The Maths Club refers to the obsession of this lot with comparing the size of their magic numbers …”
“Nothing wrong with a large… Number of kills,” adds her husband, Grant Lambeth.
“One of the babies had a lisp,” says Anwyn, Westminster’s wife, blinking innocently. “Couldn’t say mafia and it caught on.”
Mayfair folds his arms, sighing. “Just an innocent misunderstanding. Right.”
“My husband thought I didn’t know he was a mafia boss.” Adi smiles and looks up nostalgically. “He accidentally started to say Mafia Syndicate, got halfway through, and ‘Maths Club’ was the best he came up with. Everyone played along. It was hilarious.”
“Don’t be silly, no one would believe that.” Canary Wharf has a glint in his eyes as he pulls his wife in for a kiss.
“You know, it could refer to the precision of the Syndicate’s work and our adherence to balancing the equation of justice,” Westminster says thoughtfully.
There’s a pause when everyone looks at the best-known face of the London mafias.
“That really is ridiculous,” Mayfair drawls, his Russian accent coming out.
“Fine.” Westminster shakes his head. “We’re the Mobsters And Thugs who Hate Spinach though, not spaghetti. Italian food is well loved around here.”
“I wouldn’t have made it through any of my pregnancies without pizza and spaghetti,” agrees Jessa, exchanging nods with Anwyn.
The conversation diverges to babies, and Sophia listens, eyes sparkling, to the other women’s tales of their children’s births.
Soon , I promise her. That will be us, very soon, little one .
“How is Operation Calculus going?” Westminster asks from across the table. “I’m still not sure we can trust Tiptree.”
“We can.” I level a look at the kingpin who thinks he runs London. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. “Tiptree is not the problem.” I’m still not certain I did the right thing letting them live, but Sophia doesn’t like too much death. Thank god she doesn’t know about the man I dispatched on our wedding day. “I think he’s okay, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t got problems elsewhere.”
Over the next few hours, my body is a combat zone between pride in my wife making friends with the mafia wives and the instinct to take her home and have the relief and agony of her on my cock and under my mouth. Dessert is particularly taxing, as Sophia decadently licks her poached peach and raspberries with whipped cream. Cream. Whole mouthfuls of it. Is my girl trying to kill me from lack of blood supply to any organ other than my cock?
“They seem nice,” Sophia comments as we eventually arrive home. “Not cliquey in the way you suggested. Was it better being married?”
And there’s only one possible answer. I breathe in the fragrant night air and help her out of the car, utterly focused on Sophia. None of my mafia work matters by comparison.
She’s the axis upon which my world spins.
“Yes. It was easier with you.” I draw her to me, and whisper in her ear. “Everything is better now that you’re mine.”
Our gazes meet and confusion shadows her pretty, speckled eyes.
“Because I’m your wife, you mean?”
She’s so much more than that. She’s my obsession, my life, my darling. She’s the only reason I have any internal organs or feelings. She’s the start of everything, and the longing to see her swollen with my baby is an almost unbearable ache in my chest.
My sweet, good girl. I need to get inside her. I drag in a breath, and, her hand in mine, guide her towards Streatham House.
The only way I can truly feel at peace is when she’s coming, that’s the truth.
There’s a glint of silver from the side, and I act on instinct.
I throw myself over Sophia, falling to the ground and not even able to turn us in time so I cushion her fall.
A bullet yanks me aside, away from her, and pain tears through me. Then it’s black.