Chapter 32
Bianca
I blink up at Leo.
Something inside me isn’t sure what he’s asking. There’s compulsion in the word he’s just spoken, yet I also heard something else. It sounded like need, like yearning, and dare I say it, vulnerability.
Leo Pellegrini is such a strong and powerful man. Even now, after two weeks spent in a hospital bed, he looks and seems fitter than most men who frequent a gym three times a week. Being injured and on the brink of death didn’t take away anything from him physically, and I know he has a mind as tough as the most durable of alloys. My brother told me all about how he took down the other Dons at the syndicate’s table. Leo used his cunning to defeat his opponents, without having to lift a single finger. Such a man is formidable, indeed.
But here he is with me, begging me to stay. Where? With him? I’ve already agreed to this.
There’s gravity in this moment, yet I also know I need to bring some levity to it. I’m the counter-balance to Leo’s depth and darkness. I know this inside just as much as I know I love him and will never love another man like I do him.
“You’ve already proposed, remember?” I chide with a small smile.
He closes his eyes and sighs. “I know, but I mean…”
My hand sneaks up to clasp his cheek. His palm comes up and covers mine, his large hand warm and solid on top of mine.
“What is it?” I ask gently.
“If it were up to me, we’d elope. You know we can go for license today itself in New York and get married tomorrow, after twenty-four hours. If we go to Vegas, we don’t even need to wait a whole day.”
So why aren’t we doing it? I keep this thought in my mind. A part of me is running away with trepidation. I’m suddenly wondering why he asked me to marry him. Was it a precipitated move on his part, in order to keep me with him? Did he jump the gun?
Then why would he have been carrying his family’s engagement ring with him? I know this is an heirloom—it’s right there on his grandmother’s old pictures, on her ring finger.
“I don’t want you to leave,” he says, bringing me back into this moment with him.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I tell him softly.
His hand presses my palm even more into his face. “I know, but…I can’t, Bianca. I can’t—”
My heart accelerates in my chest. “Can’t what, Leo?”
His gaze finds mine. Fire is burning in them, and in their depths, I can see it again, the vulnerability I detected in his tone.
“I can’t live without you,” he finishes in a whisper.
My chest clenches as overwhelming love for this man engulfs me. I breach the space between us and press my lips to his. It’s a chaste kiss as he lets me peck him gently before breaking away.
“Nor can I, my love,” I tell him, my forehead touching his, my eyes closing as his exhaled breath fans over my nose and face.
“I want you to move in,” he says. “Right now. You and Enzo.”
I can’t help the laugh that trickles out of me. “Leo—”
“No, listen to me. You can do it. Let me show you.”
He pulls away and takes my hand. As we’re walking farther inside the house, he gets his phone and starts to type something with just one hand. I shrug. It’s probably business, and I won’t be one of those nagging women who needs to monitor her man’s every move.
He takes me on a tour of the house, showing me without words how the whole place has been child-proofed. Enzo wouldn’t run into any safety issue here.
The doorbell rings, surprising me. Leo gives me a little wink as he goes to the front door. I’m following a few paces behind when I hear a sound I didn’t expect today.
“ Papa !” Enzo exclaims when Leo opens the door.
I rush to find our son lurching from Mattia’s arms into Leo’s. Leo laughs and huffs as Enzo lands into him like a small missile. Careful , I want to chide the boy, because his father is still recovering from extensive surgery and internal injuries. But the joy on both Pellegrinis’ faces is obvious to the naked eye, and I don’t disturb their reunion.
I’m reminded of the text he sent. He must’ve been asking Mattia to swing by with our son.
Leo steps back, clutching Enzo to him, speaking softly to the boy. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but the love is palpable. As long as I shall live, I’ll never let anything come between these two again.
Enzo’s completely enthralled by his dad, not even noticing me today. I don’t mind. I love seeing father and son bonding, their relationship so easy and comfortable already. Enzo looks tiny in his father’s bulging arms and against his massive frame, where I know he’ll always be safe. This man, he would give his life for us. This is what makes him the man I love. It also doesn’t hurt how sexy he looks, especially when being the doting dad. I’m hoping we’ll get to be alone later, so we can continue what he started earlier in the foyer.
We reach the second floor landing, and Leo starts down a long corridor, stopping in front of a door he pushes open. I hear Enzo gasp, and I also gasp when I enter it.
This room, it’s the exact replica of our boy’s bedroom in our apartment in Tokyo. Even down to the last stuffed animal—and Enzo has a horde of them—nothing is missing.
“How did you…” I ask, awe making me unable to complete the question.
Leo puts Enzo down, and the kid goes running into his room, babbling away in a string of Japanese as he re-acquaints himself with his toys.
Leo turns to me and shrugs. “I had it all brought over.”
I go still as his words sink in. “You had it brought over ?”
He shrugs again. “Yeah.”
“How…?” It’s my turn to shrug. “Never mind.”
He nods at the next door down the hallway. “Your stuff’s in there.”
I blink and shake my head, trying to clear away the stupor. “When did you — How did you ever?”
“Arranged it all from the hospital,” he says with a sheepish smile. “Hana helped.”
I glance at the stairs. “The sneaky little thing.”
“I wanted it to be a surprise,” he says.
“And she’s very good at keeping secrets.”
He nods. “So, you can move in.”
I’m reminded of where and how this conversation started. Leo’s done all he can to prepare this house for us, for our family.
“Tristan’s still here,” he starts. “But he’s in the basement studio which has its own private access. He won’t disturb us while he’s here.”
The trepidation with which he says this makes me smile. He’s really thought of everything regarding our future. I smile and kiss him quickly on his lips.
“He’s welcome to stay with us,” I say.
Leo grimaces. “No. I want you all to myself.”
I nod at our son happily bouncing around his room. “You think you’ll get me alone with this one around?”
“He won’t be here tonight,” he replies huskily.
“Really?” Impatience is making me yearn to be with him, my core aching for him to fill it. “What do you have planned?”
He winks at me. “Watch this. Enzo? Auntie Hana’s going to get pizza.”
When he hears pizza , Enzo rushes to the door. Leo catches then we all go down.
“Brunch at our place tomorrow?” Mattia asks.
I exchange a glance with Leo, and we both nod.
When the door closes, it’s Leo and me alone in this big place, and I’m thinking of the night ahead, where, come what may, I will sleep in Leo’s bed.
He walks to me with such a fiery glint in his eyes, I lose my breath. As I backtrack as he approaches, my back hits a wall, and he covers my front with his broad body, caging me between his tense arms. He dips his head and claims my mouth with his, and I melt into his kiss.
I know Leo has just proposed, but tonight, it feels like our wedding night. There’s something in the air and in the energy between us that’s spelling out it’s the first night of the rest of our lives. I know Leo feels it, too, because the reverence with which he touches my cheek with his knuckles almost undoes me with the tenderness in his touch. This is how a groom approaches his virgin bride on their first night, the care he takes with her as they join for the first time as man and wife.
Except, I want passion from my man tonight. The same kind as when he took me for the first time. Without missing a beat, I flow into his arms and claim his mouth with mine, opening my lips to slip my tongue between his.
Leo also doesn’t miss a beat or a cue. He crushes me to his hard body, his mouth slanting over mine as he takes over, as he tongue plunges in to explore my mouth, to stroke my tongue.
My hands are frantic on his shirt, buttons popping as I pull the two sides apart. I’m furiously tugging at the waistband of his jeans when he’s undoing the zip on my dress and pushing it off my frame. His hands are frantic on my skin, hot and slightly rough, his touch awakening fire along all my nerves wherever he brushes them.
But I’ve got something else on my mind, and when my hand closes on his thick, throbbing cock, I sigh as he hisses in a breath, sinking to my knees so I can take his hard member into my mouth.
God, I’ve dreamed of doing this for so long! Leo groans as I lick the silky-smooth head. His hand closes in my hair, tugging just sharp enough for a flare of pain along my scalp that just highlights the power I’m exerting over him right now as I close my lips fully on the head of his cock and suck on it with my tongue running along the seam on the underside.
Less than a minute of this and my jaw is already hurting. He’s a big man and he is big everywhere. I can’t say I mind, though, because this cock is going to be plundering me very soon and I know the pleasure it can trigger in me. I remember the orgasm he gave me during our first time, and I can’t wait to experience that again. There’s something about spending around a thick cock in your pussy that doesn’t compare to fingers or lips and tongue on the clit.
“Bianca,” he moans.
I can feel him stiffening in my mouth, his legs tensing up. Despite the tiredness in my jaw, I suck on him harder, my hand closing around the rest of him I didn’t manage to fit inside my mouth.
Leo groans and forcefully pulls out of me. But not before his orgasm rips through him. A stream of his come has already coated my tongue when he pulls out, the rest spurting on my chin and on my breasts as he takes a couple steps back.
“Fuck,” he curses as he opens his eyes and stares at me covered in his ejaculation.
I’m watching him, the pleasure that’s darkened his eyes and slackened his features at the same time I’m familiarizing myself with the taste of his seed on my tongue. It’s not unpleasant, I have to say, warm and salty with a strong whiff of musk.
“Damn, you’re so sexy like this,” he says, voice hoarse with passion.
I smile as satisfaction bursts inside my every cell. This powerful, overwhelmingly strong man, I’m the one who’s made putty out of him right now by wringing such pleasure from his body.
Leo’s hands clasp the sides of my ribcage, and he pulls me up, my legs dragging on the carpet as he swiftly tugs me to the bed and pushes me down on it, my butt on the edge of the mattress.
“So sexy,” he mutters again as his gaze roves over me.
His pupils are almost entirely dilated when he meets my eyes again, and I can feel the same burning passion in him jumping to me and igniting my desire all over again. His hands caress up the sides of my breasts, his palms closing on the sensitive globes as he flicks my erect nipples with his thumbs. A moan purrs out of me as the urge to clamp my thighs together to ease the ache between them takes over me.
But I’ve barely moved when Leo steps between my legs and pushes them wide open with his knees. His hands are now kneading my breasts, almost like he’s working his come into my skin. Strangely, I find this immensely hot and arousing, like he’s branding me with his seed, making me irrevocably his.
My pussy is throbbing now, and even I can smell my arousal over the musk of his come in the air. Leo doesn’t take his hands off my breasts as he goes down on his knees at the foot of the bed and places his hungry mouth over my wet pussy again. His lips are nipping me, his tongue licking and stroking, eating me up and out as his thumb and index pinch my nipples hard as he rolls them between his fingers.
Suddenly, his mouth is gone, and he is slamming his hard-again cock inside me. One push and he’s into the hilt. I gasp at his talking. It’s so rough, every thrust is pushing me up on the bed. At some point, without losing the rhythm, he climbs onto the bed. My head is hitting the pillows soon after.
“Grab the headboard,” he murmurs to me in a raspy, passion-heavy voice.
I sneak one arm up and do as told. With the resistance my hold now provides, I feel him slamming into me even harder, like instead of slipping back, I’m pushing forward and meeting him thrust for thrust now.
It’s not long before the strongest orgasm I’ve ever had in my life is tearing me apart as Leo surges inside me with one strong push and I come, shattering around him and in turn triggering his own release. He groans out my name as our foreheads touch, rapid breaths mingling.
“We need a shower,” I say on a giggle when we’ve come down from our high to find our bodies sticking together with sweat and come.
Leo agrees, which is how we find ourselves a short while later in the gigantic enclave of his shower cabin with water flowing down on us from the rainwater shower head near the ceiling. I don’t know how I find myself holding onto the marble wall under the spray while Leo takes me from behind with the strength I wouldn’t have credited a man who’d been in surgery just two weeks prior and a stamina belying the fact one of his lungs had recently collapsed. I can’t say I mind, though, because the pleasure he brings me, it’s out of this world, and I can’t get enough of it.
He finally seems the slightest bit tired when he makes it to the bed. He tucks me into his arms, and after a soft kiss to the top of my head, I can hear his breathing steadying and going longer between inhales. He’s asleep before me, and I take my cue from him to close my eyes and let go, too.
He’s awake before me, though. I wake up to the feel of soft hair tickling my cheek and a sharper rasp against the sensitive skin of my collarbone. At the first sound I make, Leo pushes me onto my back and kisses me. I’m still half-groggy from sleep, but I know there’s no better way to wake up. Well, maybe there is something else…
It’s as if Leo has read my mind. When I turn fully onto my back and part my legs, he positions himself on me and slips his legs between mine, our hips aligned, my lower body lifting to meet his as he seeks my slit with his hard cock, sinking into me with no issue given how wet I already am. All this without breaking our kiss. It’s like our bodies have done this so many times, it’s muscle memory now, something we do unconsciously.
I have to break the kiss as heat grows inside me as he rolls his hips against me, pushing and pulling inside. My breath is coming in little pants while he doesn’t seem affected at all. Again, I can’t believe this man was in an induced coma just a week ago.
I’m on the brink when he slips a hand between our bodies and rubs the pad of his thumb against my clit.
“Come for me, baby,” he murmurs.
I need no further prodding. I explode around him. Leo is still taking me when I come down from my high. I realize now he was keeping the rhythm long and slow all this time. With me having come, he picks up the pace, his thrusts harder and deeper now as his orgasm builds. At this pace, he’s stroking somewhere inside me, and it feels like a delicious burn I’ve never experienced before.
I come again, this time a whole other level of sensation, as I feel his cock growing ever so much bigger inside me and he then comes with a muffled roar.
***
And that’s how our first night goes. At one point, we have dinner, then we’re back in bed, in each other’s arms. A honeymoon before the actual wedding.
The next morning, when we get to my brother’s house, it’s to find the deck overflowing with people already. Leo’s three brothers and his grandmother are here, as is my father. Enzo is jumping around between the adults, seeming particularly taken with his Uncles Sergio and Emilio—he’s never met two people who are identical before.
He runs into our arms when he sees us. His little arms close around my legs as he looks up adoringly at me, then he’s moved and is climbing on his father like a little spider. Leo laughs and pulls him up, though I do catch a soft wince as the boy was tugging. Right, he had surgery just two weeks ago.
“That’s Mom’s ring,” Tristan exclaims happily. All eyes turn to us.
“Yes,” Leo confirms. “I asked Bianca to marry me, and she said yes.”
Congratulations fuse all around as everyone comes to hug us in their joy.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Leo typing something on his phone.
“I just made it public,” he says in my ear as he draws close. “Luigi will apprise the other enforcers.”
In our world, enforcers also carry out the job of town crier. They’re the real networks of Dons. Before the hour is out, the news of our engagement will have made the entire circuit of the Italian-American Mafia of the New York tri-state area.
Everyone sits down at the big table inside for brunch. Dishes are passed around, carafes of coffee and juice emptied, a little one going around the table being fed by each person here who he now has wrapped around his little finger.
Most of us adults are having Mimosas. Not Hana, though. Something tells me she’s gone off alcohol as a woman needs to spend a whole month off alcohol and restricting caffeine and refined sugar before going for egg harvesting. Looks like she and Mattia will give IVF a chance. [1]
Halfway into our meal, Leo receives a text message. He frowns as he reads it, and my chest clenches. I’m sure it’s bad news.
Without a word, he turns the screen to me. I peruse it, my worry giving way to confusion and then clarity.
It’s an invitation for lunch this Sunday, at Mr. Daku’s house. He and his wife want to congratulate us on our engagement.
I know what Leo did at the syndicate’s table, how he fought for his rightful place there. But this, it means no one will dare come against him now. He’s a Don breaking bread with the head of the Albanian mob council. In the face of this kind of close relationship, a peace treaty means nothing. Leo Pellegrini? He’s now untouchable, on both the Italian and Albanian side, because in going to find Mr. Daku before going after Jasir Abrashi, he built a bridge no one can burn now. Peace has been won by his hand, and this, it’s priceless.
I look back up at him, and in his gaze, I read the same conclusion I just reached. We are safe moving forward. We can be a family in all tranquility now.
Someone tinkles a spoon against a glass. We all turn to my father who has stood up.
“A toast,” he proposes. We all raise our glasses. “To Leo and Bianca, on their engagement. To family, and I’m sure there’s no luckiest man than me here at this table. My daughter has been returned to me, and in so doing, I was granted a grandson and also earned another son in the process. Let us drink to this!”
We all chorus our cheers.
Leo glances at me then dips his head to my ear.
“He’s wrong. I’m the luckiest man here.”
I smile. We’ll let my dad have his moment, but what Leo just said, he’s right. We’re the luckiest ones here—me, him, and our son.
The End.
[1] In Chapter 25, Hana said it was a "dead end".
(“What about IVF?” I ask, trying to bring in a semblance of hope.
“Dead end.”
“Why?”
“I had myself checked in Tokyo. I went to their best clinic, and they told me in no uncertain terms I have very few eggs to even extract for the procedure.”)