Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
DARIA
I ndecision rattled the hollow in my chest. My heart thumped and beat in the pulse of my neck. I stood frozen in the kitchen while, in my mind, I’d walked the route between the kitchen and the bedroom a thousand times.
A strange thing had happened. Something I would have never believed had someone told me a year or even a day before. The Don of New York had strolled from one college to another with me in tow. I hadn’t believed a word he’d promised. Until we pulled up at that first college. Even then, there was a chance, a very big one, that he was taunting me. He could have changed his mind. Told me it was too dangerous as his wife. He could have told any of the normal shit they tell the women in the Cosa Nostra to keep us locked and inside. But there was none of it. The moment my feet touched the soil of that first college, it all became a reality, as tangible as the breath heaving out of my lungs.
I had thought I would sneak in with my bodyguards in my backpack. But all those ideas vanished, like the smoke from my husband’s cigarettes, into thin air. How could I hide when we’d sat with deans who personally explained the programs to me, like I was some Hollywood star? How could I hide when I’d be the exception to the rule, the student joining mid-semester with a cluster of men clad in black on my back?
I wasn’t sure how my husband had achieved this. The only thing I knew was he hadn’t walked the moral line to do it, and I didn’t care enough to be bothered by it. In fact, tingles of pleasure rode my skin because he’d cleared the path for me to do something I never thought I could. In two weeks, I was going to walk into a college. Me! Daria! Just a girl in the Cosa Nostra. So what if I had some black suits draping my skin, following me closer than my own shadow?
Shivers of pleasure stroked the edges of my chest at the memory of the dominant way he had taken care of everything. Everyone I knew had heard me say I would never fall for the arrogance of a made man. Couldn’t understand the charm of it. But damn if it didn’t leave me breathless, panting for more with a lick of wetness in between my legs. When we had signed the paperwork, my eyes had caught on his, and I could have jumped him right there in the dean’s office. He’d wiped his lips with the back of his hand and a dark glint in his eyes like he’d read my mind. Yet he had done nothing. Except to go all boring on me. Almost shockingly gentlemanly. He had held my hands while I had wanted more. He hadn’t kissed me nor slicked his fingers into me like I yearned for. His hand had lain between us in the back seat of the car in a tightly clenched fist but nowhere near me.
Yes, I wanted to feel him. Ever since I felt his thickness rubbing against my back this morning, my imagination had been running wild. Pictures of possibilities clicked into place like a slideshow. I wanted to know. Craved it. To know what it would be like to have him inside me. The last time had been brief and painful, and it wasn’t him. I wanted him like I wanted my next breath. Or even more. If his fingers felt so mind-blowingly good, wouldn’t his thickness feel even better?
Or was it gratitude that made me want to go to him and offer myself to his pleasure, and hopefully mine? I wanted to beg him to put me out of my misery. It was only sex. It wasn’t like I was giving him my heart or something. He would never get that from me, even if he had broken so many unwritten rules in the Cosa Nostra by allowing me to study. It was just that I was delusional from the high I had reached. Now that I knew what it felt like, I wanted it again. Needed it, really.
A huff of my breath, and I found myself outside our bedroom door. Again . The faint hum of the shower running in the bathroom pulled me in.
I didn’t know shit about seduction. My heartbeat thumped in my ribcage, like I was running a marathon. I paced the bed. Should I join him in the shower? Wait in the bedroom? Undress or not? Go on my knees and beg him? Lie spread-eagled on the bed? My head swam with too many possibilities.
I forced my jittery hands to run the zip on the back of my dress down. It fell off my back and to my feet in a soft pink puddle of silk. I stepped out of it to my bare feet with my neon pink toes winking at me. Should I be naked or undressed? I glared at my flimsy, pink, matching bra and panty set. He’d probably think I was candy floss and walk right past me. The thought alone made my heart drop to the soft, beige carpet. Clearly, I had not thought this through. What was I even doing? I wasn’t going to be Mamma. I wasn’t going to give him the power. How had I put myself in this position? I snatched my dress to my chest just as the door clicked open.
Medda! I squeezed my eyes shut in shame. Had I paid attention, I would have noticed when the flow of the running water had stopped.
Footsteps on the floor. Thick and heavy. My gaze pulled up to him. He strolled in with a towel draped around his hip and another rubbing his wet hair. A line of water dripped along a path down south. He had almost walked into me before he skidded to a stop. His eyes jerked up from the floor and rushed up my skin. His hot gaze flickered and sparked. It touched me and trailed along my pink toenails up my legs to the front of the dress I clutched from my chest to my neck.
His jaw ticked, and a pulse throbbed on his forehead. I had imagined so many things. But not this. Rage, thick and strong, floods his face. Courage deserted me, crawled out of the room, and ran screaming out the front door. Shallow defeat lingered in its wake, and the sound of our harsh breaths filled the hollow of the silent room.
“What’s this?” His voice grated like sandpaper on my soft skin and left me with a trail of red hot slits. Heat rushed up my skin.
Tell him something snarky. Tell him I was undressing, and he caught me. But my brain was raving. I got enrolled in college, and already I was losing my head. My trembling hand released the dress, and it glided to the floor. Like it was a flimsy piece of silk hindering his view, rather than my armor against his defiance.
His eyes darkened. He glared at me like I shouldn’t have done it. Like I should have known better than to do it. But there was insanity inside me and it made me reach back and unhook my bra. It dropped to the floor to join my dress and my dignity.
Thump.
The wet towel he had in his hand fell to the floor. His hand curled into a fist next to him. “Is this gratitude?” he said gruffly, like he had scraped the words out of a bed of nails.
I shook my head. Slowly.
I s it? Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. All I knew was that I wanted him. I wanted to feel him inside me. Wanted to know what it was like to lie beneath a man like him. An ache pulsed inside me for him, like it was a need rather than a want. Like I would die if he didn’t touch me now or, worse, rejected me.
I hadn’t thought about that possibility, but once it entered my mind, I couldn’t rid myself of it. What if he didn’t want this? My hands crossed my chest in defeat.
“Out.”
I blinked. My eyes burned with unshed tears. But his glare burned my hands. I took a chance and dropped them back to my sides. His gaze heated my skin like a ray of hot sun. I had lived all my life in Sicily, but the sun had never burned me like he did with his eyes.
“Off.” He jerked towards my panties.
Hesitation pulled at the nerve strings that held my heart, but my hands didn’t have any problem shimmering out of my slip in front of him.
A low, lustful growl left his body, hot fire danced in the depth of his irises. I think he liked this. I could feel a wet trail on the seams of my thighs.
“Bed.” He ran his tongue along his teeth as I walked past him on legs made of jelly, my shoulder almost brushing his. The moment the back of my knees touched the bed, I collapsed on it. Hot awareness burned me. I was fully naked while he wasn’t.
“Up.” The rough tinge of his voice sparked me. That was the reason I pulled myself along the bed.
Two steps, and he was at the foot of the bed before me. Tension hung high in the air. Sexual. It slithered on the floor, cracked the plaster, and crept on the walls.
His eyes sparked. “Spread.” Insanity. His one-word commands. I won’t give him the power he demanded. I dropped my legs, thighs spread wide to his voracious glare. His eyes fluttered closed as if he couldn’t bear the sight. When they opened a split second later, black flashed in the depths of them. What had I done? I shrank away from him. No good could come out of the lustful intentions in them. My gaze flicked to the door. Escape for my sanity, a priority.
He crawled onto the bed, his eyes on my core like it was victory. One heartbeat passed. Unease made me shift as his eyes remained fixed. I followed the lazy swallow of his Adam’s apple, and a shallow breath, all hot and jerky, escaped me.
His eyes rolled back to the ceiling, and a muffled “Jesus” fell out. Then he dropped his gaze to my core, wrapped his big rough palms on my ass, and yanked me to his mouth.
A surprised yelp left my body when I fell and was dragged along the bed. He ignored me and inhaled me right there like a favorite fragrance of his. His thick lips hovered a breath above my swollen lips. When he spoke, his callous words vibrated against my lips. “Knew your pussy would smell sweet.”