Epilogue
Valentino
Two months later
Naomi’s skin is hot under my roving hands. My palms close on her heavy, full breasts, though I keep my touch light as they’re sensitive to anything now, even the graze of her bra sometimes, she says. Still, I relish their weight, the feel of this pliant flesh under my fingers. I flick my thumbs against her nipples, but that’s all I do before shifting my focus elsewhere.
There’s the soft curve of her neck begging for nips and little kisses. The swell of her hips now more defined from her smaller waist. Her thicker thighs and round ass I can’t get enough of. What’s hidden between her legs. And her mouth.
God almighty, her glorious mouth. My gattina has come a long way with how she tortures me with her mouth. It’s currently wrapped around my cock, and though it feels like heaven inside that warm depth sucking me to completion, that’s not where I want to finish. So, I wrap my hand gently in her hair and pull her away from my erect member. She whimpers her displeasure, which I quell by slamming my mouth onto hers and plunging my tongue into it, stroking hers, caressing, sucking on it a little.
It takes just a flick of my body to roll her over and have her on her back. Without breaking the kiss, I nudge her thighs apart with my knee, then I’m on top of her, coaxing her legs to wrap around my hips—not that it takes much persuasion for her to follow this lead—then I’m sinking my steele hard cock into her. Dio, this feeling of plunging into her hot depths, of getting to take her to the edge of reason as I ride her rough and hard or slow and sweet, it’s my drug of choice, one I never want to be weaned off of.
Her legs are closing tighter around me. She’s close to coming. I jack into her harder, faster, longer strokes that slam in quick and strong.
“Val,” she moans just before she rips apart in my arms, under me, around me.
Seeing her and feeling her take her pleasure from me so unabashedly is always a one-way express ticket to tip me over the edge of the wave I crest every time I’m with her, and I let myself fall, knowing she’s here to catch me, knowing she’ll always be there. Just like I will be for her.
Our breaths are coming in hot and heavy, rapid pants as we return to earth, certain this moment of respite won’t last. Not that long, anyway. We take what we can when we can get it now, all because of…
As in on cue, the wailing starts. It sounds like an angry little animal who has it in for the world.
Naomi laughs against my shoulder, triggering my chuckle, too.
“Gabriela,” I mutter, still smiling.
“Gabriela,” she confirms.
The sound from the baby monitor grows crescendo, and we extricate ourselves from our embrace to throw on a pair of boxers for me and a nightgown for her. We pad barefoot to the room next door, where the sound is louder.
“Okay, little princess,” Naomi says as she reaches into a cot to retrieve our crying daughter. “Let’s feed you.”
On the dot, every three hours, this little one needs to be fed. I shake my head as I approach the other cot. Serafina, on the other hand, is a quiet, gentle, almost placid baby. I swear she’s smiling at me every time we come check on her like this at night, as if shrugging at her sister’s antics and going, What can you do?
I take her out of the cot and cradle her in my arms, tucking her softly against me. I head to the recliner next to Naomi’s and lie down, opening Serafina’s onesie and placing her on me, chest to chest.
This bonding contact, it’s the only thing I’ve loved from the three weeks the girls spent in the NICU. Well, aside from the fact there was a whole dedicated team looking after them to make sure they were in the best of health at all stages.
That day when I woke up in the hospital, it dawned on us Naomi was expecting twins. A scan the next day confirmed it. Both babies were doing fine, albeit a bit cramped in there. It was a miracle they hadn’t been otherwise affected by all their mother had been through during their gestation.
My beautiful, strong wife held on until thirty-two weeks, when her waters broke, and the girls decided to make their appearance. They spent a little over three weeks in the NICU. They’ve been home for four days now, and we’re only now figuring out their wake and sleep patterns and getting used to taking care of two babies when we didn’t even know we’d be parents when the summer started.
Thankfully, we have just one little diva to contend with. Gabriela. I still remember clear as day when I saw her before she was born. It sounds crazy, so it’s a story I shared only with Naomi, who had her own visit by Serafina. They tell me I coded on the operating table—I was clinically dead for two minutes. In that span of time, my daughter reached out to me and told me her mother needed me, that I should go back, it wasn’t my time yet. I remember being stunned, then like I was being sucked by a vortex behind me.
That’s not the only time I’d felt at death’s doorstep. Back in that townhouse, as I handed Naomi over to Victor, I’d almost felt the presence of the Grim Reaper near me. I really thought I was a goner. Waking up to a choking sensation, something blocking my throat, I thought that was my time, until the tube was removed, and I could breathe again, even if it hurt. Then the people around me moved aside, and I saw her. Naomi. My angel of life, not of death.
I came out of that hospital two weeks later. A few days after, I was meeting with the Albanian mob council. Not much was said, but there is peace between our factions, which is what we all wanted.
And Joel Smith… My brothers told me what Naomi has done, how she went all avenging goddess on his ass after what he did to me and the children.
I never underestimated Naomi, but now, I see with every day that passes what an exceptional woman I’ve been lucky enough to marry.
As if she can feel my gaze on her, she looks up and turns to me, Gabriela still suckling greedily on her breast.
“What?” she asks with a small smile.
I smile back. “I love you.”
I’ll never tire of telling her that.
She giggles softly. “I love you, too.”
We both let one hand reach out so our fingers can interlace, not afraid anymore we’ll break one of the babies if we’re not holding on to them for dear life with both our hands and all ten fingers engaged.
Serafina has fallen asleep on my chest, and I relish the small puffs of air she’s breathing out onto my skin. She takes the equivalent of a full bottle in one go, and her schedule is already every five to six hours, unlike her sister who takes half that in one feeding. Gabriela is finally sated, the nipple falling from her still-open mouth. Naomi turns her on her belly and pats her back, eliciting a juicy burp out of our sweet faced baby. Then we both get up and place the babies in their cots.
We’ll have another run like this in three hours—no, actually, two hours and thirty-four minutes, as Gabriela wakes up exactly three hours after she last awoke, not after her last feed. Serafina will take her next feeding then, too.
I open my arm to Naomi, and she burrows into my side as I pull her close. We watch our daughters sleeping for a moment, then of a silent accord, we walk back into our bedroom and get into bed. My wife tucks her back and delectable backside against my front, and we both fall asleep with a soft sigh.
It’s six in the morning when we next hear the babies crying. I throw on a T-shirt and head to the adjoining nursery, relieved to find Marlena, Marco’s sister who’s helping us with the babies, already here and changing Serafina’s diaper.
“Good morning, Don Valentino,” she says quietly in her sing-song voice.
“It’s just Valentino,” I start, then reckon I’m fighting a losing battle and it’s best I cut my losses. This title, I earned it, yes, but most of all, no one will ever let me forget I carry it. I’m still getting used to that, though.
I nod at the small fridge in the room. “Bottles in there.”
She smiles back. “Great. I’ll feed them next.”
“Get to Gabriela first,” I tell her. “Or she’ll shout the roof down in her impatience.”
“I still don’t get it how you can tell them apart.”
Our twins are identical. Gabriela has a pair of lungs on her, but when she’s not screaming the place down, you’d be hard pressed to differentiate her from her sister. Yet, to Naomi and me, they’re very different people, already unique and easily identifiable.
“Instinct,” I tell her, half joking. No one knows each one of us met one of them four weeks before they were born.
I return to the master bedroom, my mind at ease knowing the children are being looked after. Ina will be up a soon to commandeer the nursery as she’s been doing ever since the girls came home. I shower, hoping it will wake me up a bit more. After changing into jeans and a soft white T-shirt, I drop a soft kiss on Naomi’s cheek before exiting our bedroom. I’m going to let her sleep. She needs all the rest she can get, seeing how she spends all her waking time with the babies and half of it expressing breast milk so we can feed both at the same time.
Carlito serves me breakfast in the dining room, and I’m downing my third espresso after a plate of bacon and eggs, waiting for the caffeine to clear my mind from a sleep-deprived haze. That’s when Luciano walks into the room.
He guffaws when he sees me and shakes his head.
“I know that look. I sported it for roughly the entire first year of Luka’s life,” he says as he pours himself a coffee.
“You’re saying this is what my life will be like for the coming year?” I grunt.
He sits and takes a sip. “You have twins, so maybe two years? And you have girls, which means probably never?”
“Stronzo,” I curse, narrowing my eyes onto him.
This makes him laugh even more. Finally, after he gathers himself, he says softly, “It’s the best feeling in the world, isn’t it?”
My heart clenches. Whenever my eyes land on my daughters now, I marvel at their perfection, at their fragile beauty, their resilient strength already visible at so young an age. It’s a miracle they survived everything that was thrown at Naomi, that they came into this world as late as they did given the circumstances.
“It is,” I choke out.
He nods in understanding. “Where are they?”
I nod toward the stairs. “In the nursery.”
“I won’t say no to baby cuddles,” he says.
“You’re sounding like Franco.” I chuckle and almost choke on a sip of coffee. “You’re not going to believe this, but I think Victor was singing to them yesterday.”
Luciano actually sputters his coffee, thankfully not on me. “What?!”
“I know.”
“That big lug, singing?”
“Uh huh. He’s a big softie,” I say. One who can break a man’s neck with a snap of his bare hands, I remind myself. He’s also the one who condoned Naomi’s plan to end Joel Smith. I must not forget who my little brother really is. All of them, actually.
My gaze alights on Luciano, and I narrow my eyes.
“What?” He cocks his head.
“Luka’s not with you?” It’s Saturday. The kid should’ve been around. He was a little ball of excitement on the day he met his baby cousins, keeps pestering his dad to bring him over to see them.
“Trying out a new daycare. They have an open morning just for the kids today.”
I nod. He doesn’t sound worried about his son being in a new place, so we can have this talk I’ve been meaning to put on the table between us for weeks now. Life hasn’t been really conducive to that, first with my recovery from surgery, then Naomi going into labor and the twins being born premature.
“How do you feel about taking on a new job?” I ask him.
I originally planned to take on this matter when I first laid my hands on it. Making it to Don changed this plan, as I’ve got my hands in more pies at the macro level of our organization now.
“I’m a numbers guy, Val,” he says as he places his cup carefully on the table. “You really want to move me from the loans business?”
“Franco’s taking over there.”
“Does he know this?”
“Not yet. I needed to speak with you first.”
He contemplates me with assessing eyes for a long moment, then nods. “Okay, hit me.”
He won’t like this, but I’m hoping there’s an ember of dark emotion in him that will throw off necessary sparks when he hears me.
“The Benedict Hospital,” I say quietly. “I need you to take over running it.”
His face blanches for a second or two. Then he turns red.
“After what those fuckers did to Eliza—”
“Exactly because of what those cazzos did to your wife.”
His face is thunderous, though he isn’t sputtering in outrage anymore. I can see the gears turning in his head, see the levers of revenge throwing wrenches in the game, stirring him up, ramping up his simmering rage.
“Take some time to think about it,” I tell him.
To my relief, he nods.
I nod toward the stairs. “Want to see the girls?”
“Hell, yeah. I have nieces to spoil now.”
I chuckle softly. Franco says the same thing. Victor becomes human around them. Francesca, I’m pretty sure, is going to be sleeping over regularly now. More so than me making it to Don and making it safe for my siblings to all be together in the same town, these babies have brought my family close in ways we never dared dream of.
We take the stairs, and Luciano’s lucky to find two freshly cleaned and sweet-smelling little bundles he wastes no time falling over. I’m still smiling when I enter my bedroom, closing the door quickly behind me when I see Naomi is pumping milk into small bottles.
“Almost done,” she tells me.
“I wanted to let you sleep.”
“Believe me, my love, my breasts were so full and hurting so much, I had to get up.”
"Oh? Let me help you with that." I walk over and bending my head, I suckle on her nipple. getting a little taste of the sweet nectar she provides to our daughters.
"Val!" She half gasps and laugh, pushing my face away. "That's not for you. That's baby food!"
I grin at getting her flustered. My favorite sport. "I'm sure they won't mind sharing."
Shaking her head with a laughing snort, she stops the pump, closes the bottle, and goes to place it in the small fridge we’ve had installed here, too.
My gaze trails over her as she gets up, the satin of her nightgown hugging her lush curves. I won’t stop her if she wants to return to her pre-baby shape and weight, but Naomi with such a ripe, voluptuous body? I can’t say I mind. At all. My cock agrees, already growing hot and hard in my pants.
“Luciano’s with the girls,” I tell her, cupping a hand over my growing erection. “Can I tempt you?”
She nods as she licks her lips, holding my gaze with a needy look in her eyes.
Next, I’m pulling her in my arms, nuzzling her neck, pressing my front against her ass.
She makes a throaty sound and pushes her bottom into me. Naomi’s standing right in front of our bed. I waste no time bending her over, spreading her legs wide with my foot, lifting up her gown to her waist, tearing off her lace panties, then dropping my jeans and slamming my hungry cock into her already dripping wet pussy from behind.
Dio, it’s such a joy to take her anytime, anywhere I want. Abstaining while she was recovering from delivering the babies had been utter torture. Because her post-partum bleeding was so light, we were having sex barely three weeks after she’d given birth, after we got the go-ahead from her doctor. She had another IUD put in right after she delivered, the doctor assuring us that this one had a better record for preventing pregnancy.
Uh, right. We'll see how that goes. My swimmers proved the last one wrong.
Naomi is meeting me thrust for thrust even in this position, and she’s milking me with her tight channel. I won’t last long like this. Fuck.
“Come for me, baby,” she emplores. “I need you to fill me up with your cum. You know you want to.”
For a man who never liked quickies, she’s made me a total convert. She’s also made me hers, irrevocably.
I let out a loud groan when my orgasm soars out of me. I do what she asks by filling her full of thick streams of my cum. My left hand reaches below her and finds the folds of her slippery sex, my fingers pressing and rubbing her engorged clit until she orgasms with a cry, the ripples of her pussy on my cock giving me another wave of pleasure.
“I love you, wife,” I mumble against her ear, dropping a kiss on her shoulder.
Naomi twists a little so our mouths can meet. “And I you, my husband.”
Our cheeks press together, and I revel in this moment.
I have my beautiful brave wife in my arms, my daughters are in the next room, my siblings are here in the same town. If this is what my life will look like for the rest of the time I have to live, then I don’t want to change a thing.
The End