Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
DARIA
A tattooed hand, rough palm, and a wedding ring that glittered captured my hand. Heat tingled in my fingers as he pulled me out of the office. My hand was so tiny in his. I shook my head. Not going to be Mamma.
The dark hallway edged with cold lighting did nothing to diminish the fascination building up for my husband. My husband. Of a few weeks. A man who would most probably hurt me one day. Yet his words trailed through my skin like a lazy fire and left my skin burning in its wake. “I just want you to know where I am, Principessa .”
I had always wondered what the attraction was to a made man. They treated women like shit and killed men without repentance. So why was I falling into a dark pit he was digging for me?
I blamed it all on my upbringing. I’d never been alone with a man before. So wasn’t it normal that I was all tingly the moment his eyes fell on me?
I wasn’t going to be Mamma. But his looks were maddening. Made me forget to breathe and sent tingles up my veins. It was like, all this time, he’d been distracted, and he’d decided to finally give me his undivided attention. It burned me through to my bones and sent an electric spark down below.
I bumped into him when he came to a stop. There was a tension vibing off him that I felt along his spine. I poked my head out from behind him to find Stefano at a sink, washing his hands. Odd place for a sink. I wouldn’t have thought to place one along the dark corridor leading up to the stairs.
“Took care of him?” His voice vibrated against my breast, and I realized I had pasted myself to his back. I took a side step and came to stand next to him. I didn’t know why he always pushed me behind him. Like he was embarrassed of me or something.
“What do you think?” There was a tightness in Stefano’s jaw I’d not seen before.
I liked this brother-in-law of mine. The other one I was still undecided on. My ‘hello’ to him died on my lips at the dark tone in his voice. It shrunk away to the depths of my stomach when I saw the red colored water. I s he washing off blood? Something told me it wasn’t his.
“It wasn’t necessary, brother.” Stefano’s gruff voice echoed in the narrow hallway.
“Oh, I think it damn well was.”
My eyes flickered to my husband, but a different man stood before me. His face was dark, and venom, like I’d never seen before, spit out of his eyes.
My head felt dizzy, and my hand in his went limp.
I must have made a sound because both men’s gaze snapped to mine. Never ask questions, Daria. Mamma’s words floated right before my eyes before my mouth popped open. “Did you kill that man?”
My eyes were on Stefano, and I jerked back in shock when he actually answered it with a “Yes.”
I blinked. “Why?”
Stefano scowled at my husband. “Shall I tell her?”
My eyes flickered to his. He terrified me. There was so much fury radiating off him, it made me want to run. As far away from him as I could. As if he could read my mind, his hand gripped painfully around mine.
“My men should learn,” he said tightly, his eyes on his brother’s, darkness edging his tone and a tightness to his jaw.
“Learn, what?”
His gaze crawled to mine, and the blackness withdrew into an anthracite gray. His jaw flexed as if he’d forgotten all about me. He ran his knuckle over his mouth, and the numbers 1969 jagged across his face. “Nothing to worry about, Principessa. ” He jerked my hand. “Let’s go.”
My foot floated above the first step when Stefano called out to me, “Daria.”
I turned to find him still at the sink. “How did you come?”
I frowned. “Huh, by car. You want a ride?”
He chuckled, ignoring my question. “You’re changing, bro.”
I was not sure what he meant by it, but whatever it was loosened the grip on my hand. It made him push me into the car and lock me inside while he smoked a cigarette outside. When he joined me, he was a changed man. There was no more Principessa and no more offices. We went straight back to his cold apartment, and he locked himself inside his office.
I didn’t care. It made it so much easier. Really. I didn’t care.
Passionate Sicilian echoed around the room, blasting from the fancy Bose speakers on each corner of his perforated ceilings. The man, of course, had a media room and not a single Sicilian channel, so I had thought. Except I’d suddenly found all of them a few days ago, and since then, I’d found my new entertainment.
I lay on my back on the couch with a blanket on me as I binge-watched all the series I’d missed. Well, because I got married to the Don of New York and had to move and all.
I gave thanks for small blessings, such as entertainment, the only thing keeping me from going insane in this place. That and Benedetta. My husband had dropped off the face of the earth. He left early, and came home late. No more office tours or talks. I pursed my lips. Annoying, really. At least he was saving me from boredom. But yeah, he proved what I knew already. Made men were worse than toddlers. They got bored easily, and it was all about their battered egos and nothing about the rest of the world. I just hoped he was busy and not buried in another woman. Not that I cared. I gave my head a shake and pinned my attention to the actor on the screen. I do not care.
I’d had a secret crush on him. The actor on screen. He was pale-skinned, blond-haired, and clean. No scruff, no tattoos, and no gold chains. My type, really, I had thought. Yet as I fought off sleep, it was another annoying man that floated behind my eyeballs.
“What shit are you watching now?”
Medda! I jolted up. When had he come in? Was he checking up on me or something? “You scared the living shit out of me.”
“You might have noticed me coming in if you weren’t drooling over other men.”
He stood behind the couch dressed in all black. The man rarely wore a suit. Black dress shirt and black pants. I didn’t want to peek down to see his shoes because that would mean I was interested. I wasn’t. But my eyes caught on the chain glittering on his collar. Three buttons stood open. Had he had them undone before he was home, or was he on the way to his room? Our room. I frowned.
“Is he the type of man you like?” He nodded towards the screen, his tone dark, his mood cranky.
I followed his gaze. “What’s wrong with him?”
My peripheral view caught him moving, and he dropped on the other end of the couch. There goes my evening of binge watching.
“He’s a fucking pussy,” he muttered as he tossed the blanket off me and jerked my feet to his lap.
Heat glided through my body like warm water. His tattooed hand on my naked ankles did weird things to me. Things it had no business doing. Couldn’t say I liked it. I struggled to pull away, and his grip tightened.
“I’m cold.”
“I’ll be your blanket.”
Huh, not. But I stopped struggling. When was a girl ever going to win against a made man? Besides, my feet were touching hard things they’d rather not.
“He’s not a pussy.”
“Yeah? What is he then?”
I shrugged. “He’s not a made man.”
I shrieked when he tugged hard at my feet, pulling me further along the couch and dragging my head with it. “Didn’t I tell you there was nothing wrong with made men?”
“Right. This coming from the man who killed a boy in a hotel room?”
I could have slapped myself the moment the words barreled out of my mouth. The air warped into a thick, black ball. It clung heavy and ominous onto the perforated ceiling tiles. His jaw flexed, and a pulse thumped in his forehead.
Guilt thawed me. There wasn’t a righteous bone in my body. I’d thought not a day would pass without Aldo in my thoughts. But he’d dazed out of my memory like a childhood song. Familiar, but too distant to remember.
His eyes fell on the big screen. Sicilian rubbed all around us, but all I heard was his thick sigh. I was acutely aware of every movement of his. His gritted teeth, flexed jaw, and his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. One heart beat. Two. Three…. A lazy trail of heat spread along my seams. His jaw was relaxed, and he had a hot edge to his look that I couldn’t place. I felt good. Warm. Hot. Like I had a light fever coasting through my veins.
My gaze dropped to his arm, and my body stiffened instantly at the sight before my eyes. His hand was crawling all over me. When had he pulled me in further? My lower legs were on his lap, and he was painting them with his large rough hand. Gliding them inch by inch along my inside seams. Higher and higher it came. I jerked my eyes to his face, but only bored interest was visible in his.
I opened my mouth to utter something. Anything. To stop this man.
“Whatever it is you're going to say, shove it back up your mouth.”
How did he even know I was going to say something?
My eyes jerked to his hand again, and I realized this was the fuzziness I was feeling. A shallow breath escaped me as his big hand rested on my thigh, right under my dress. It stroked so softly it felt as if it didn’t move at all. But it must have, because he was sending all kinds of electrons up my legs to the core that lay between them. I pushed my hip against the couch and away from him. But in all honesty it was to give me relief to clench my core against the heat that was building up.
His fingers edged along my slip. A hitch in my throat when he lightly ran his index finger along the middle. I bit my lip when he traced a path along the wetness sweeping through it. The rough veins of sandpaper on the fine threads of silk.
This was not the plan. Stop him. I opened my mouth, and he instantly stilled. Say it. Just one single word was all it took. Stop.
All that huffed out was hot air. A deep sigh rumbled out of him, that traveled to each pore in my body and pulled at my burning core. A heartbeat later, his fingers flipped my panties aside to touch me right inside. Where no man had touched me before. Hell, I hadn’t touched myself before because Mamma told us hell would suck us in if we did. I didn’t think hell was what he was thinking about as he swallowed thickly, his eyes still on the damn TV.
He traced my slick lips. Up and down. Split them apart and traced in between.
A moan grated out of me like I’d pulled it out of the hot fire burning in the depths of hell, and it rode the palpable warm air riding between us.
His other hand on my ankle tightened, and his finger faltered.
Medda! Was he going to stop? Now? I didn’t even realize I’d done it, but I jerked my hips against his fingers like I was born to do it. When had I learned to do that? But it did the job because his finger was moving again.
My heartbeat pounded in my ears as the slickness of wetness swept through me. I was rocking my hips to his fingers, and I couldn’t get myself to stop, even if I wanted to. Then he pushed it further and pushed his finger inside me.
Oh my god!
My head rolled, my hair static on the couch and I bit my lip to cage that moan, but it slipped out of me with no control and no limit. He pushed like he was coming home from a long trip, and I welcomed him like I had missed his touch for innumerable years. One finger turned into two. He split me wide, and I didn’t care anymore about the sounds throttling out of me. Then he put a third finger in, and delusion overtook me. The fact that he looked like this was his lazy Sunday, and he was about to fall asleep on his afternoon nap, and I humped his fingers like a whore pitching for a bonus, upped the thrill of it.
My vision blurred like I was delirious from a fever. My body certainly burned from it. Trying to reach something, I didn’t know what. Sweat pooled underneath my breasts, and my nipples tightened in heat. My fingers gripped the white leather of his couch, and my eyes rolled back and, just like that, I fell into a place I’d never fallen before. M edda, it felt like paradise and I rode it out like I was riding a flying dragon.
My breath steamed, and my heartbeat slowed. Slowly I came back to earth as warm heat bristled on my skin. When my eyes popped open, Sicilian was still hanging in the air even though I knew I’d never hear it the same again.
His gaze was still on the screen as he slipped his hand out to the sound of my panties snapping back into place. It echoed as loud as a thick door closing. Worse was what he did next. He had to be vulgar about it. He put his fingers in his mouth, all three of them, and grated his lips along the veins in his fingers like he was having his favorite gelato on a hot summer night.
If that wasn’t the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.
I didn’t know what I expected him to do. But it wasn’t to get up without a word and walk out of the room.
I sighed as I lazily stretched on the couch. Fulfilment like I’d never known before warmed my skin. I pulled the blanket over me and tossed and turned and somehow, over the course of the night, fell asleep.
But he must have come back for me later, because when I woke in the morning, I was back in his bed, and I knew I’d never sleep walked in my life.