7. The Other Intimacy
seven
“Here,” Cristiano said when Felicity plopped down beside him on the couch after dinner. He was offering his phone to her, and it looked as though his contacts list was pulled up.
Felicity blinked at him, taking the device on reflex. “You already gave me a phone?”
He vibrated with a chuckle, then pointedly scrolled the list down and up again. “I don’t want another argument like we had earlier. Go through my contacts list and ask me about any name you’re curious about. If there’s still someone in there I’ve fucked before, I’ll delete them.”
She scrunched up her nose and pushed the device back at him. “Could you do that first? I didn’t like the way it felt to be jealous of names on a screen and then find out one was a child.” She didn’t like being jealous at all. It made her question how crazy she was for even getting so worked up over him and whatever they were building in the first place.
Cristiano held up his hand, refusing the phone. “I’m almost positive there aren’t any,” he said. “If I’m wrong, I want you to see me delete them.”
She wasn’t convinced. But he was obviously not going to cooperate, so she made sure her disapproval showed in her eyes and then shifted her focus to the list. Of course, she had no context for most of the names. A few she recognized, like his De Salvo cousins, and some she was almost positive were male-oriented, like Ernesto. Several could easily have been unisex, or were most likely nicknames, and she found herself asking about many names that turned out to be men of varying rank within the De Salvo family.
Yet, even then, Cristiano answered her. When she asked about the name Benny, he explained it belonged to a man named Benito who was currently assigned to Dante’s restaurant, The Dragon’s Roast. When she asked about the name Mo, he explained it was short for Mauro and that Mauro was Romeo’s right-hand-man. When she came upon the name Grace Mariner, which she thought was interesting in itself because most of the entries were only a first or last name instead of both, Cristiano calmly explained that Grace was Dante’s Personal Assistant at DS Industries. He added that he’d actually never spoken to the woman, but being close family, he was expected to have her contact information.
Felicity felt confident in the sincerity of his answers, so she scrolled back up after having gone through the entire list and asked about the entry that had most intrigued her. “And this one,” she said. “Who’s ‘Foxglove’?” It sounded more like a military codename than a person’s name.
Cristiano grinned, hooked a finger under her chin, and said, “You.”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You’re ‘Foxglove’,” he repeated. “I can’t exactly have you listed in my phone as ‘Felicity.’ Even using your initials would be risky. So I needed an alternative. I think I’m going to use this for you moving forward, too.” He leaned in and grazed his lips over hers. “My foxglove.”
Felicity closed out of his contacts app and handed back his phone. “Did you make that up? Does it mean something?”
His grin widened and he swiped his thumb over the phone a couple of times before turning it around again. “Do you know what these are?”
She dropped her gaze back to the screen and her mouth popped open, but she wasn’t sure what the right response was. He was showing her a picture of the painting on her living room wall, the one she’d purchased on a whim on discount shortly after moving into the apartment. He’d taken a picture of the painting in her apartment.
At her non-response, he tapped the screen and zoomed the image in on a portion of the flowers depicted. The clarity was so good she could even kind of make out the little white specks that dotted the inside of the blooms. “The flowers, baby. Do you know what they are? Do they mean something to you?”
Slowly, she shook her head. “I just thought they were pretty.”
“They’re foxgloves,” he said. “I looked them up.” When she snapped her gaze back up to his, he continued. “It turns out they’re highly toxic.”
Felicity gaped, not sure if she wanted to laugh or be offended. “You think I’m toxic?”
Cristiano set his phone aside and pulled her into his lap, one arm around her waist and the other curving behind her neck to cup the back and side of her jaw. “To anyone but me, baby. If someone touches you, I’ll fucking slaughter them.”
She shouldn’t have laughed. She was positive he was serious. In her defense, the laugh that escaped her wasn’t any kind of amused, entertained, lighthearted laughter. The sound that gurgled up from her chest and slipped past her slightly parted lips in the moment before she bent forward to lean against him was different. It was more of a sarcastic, even disbelieving laugh. This man…. He wasn’t strictly the first who’d ever spoken about protecting her. But he might be the first who ever meant it in a non-manipulative, non-threatening way.
Cristiano threaded his hand into her hair. “Felicity? What’s the matter?”
She shuffled closer to him. Seeking his strength, she closed her eyes, and didn’t fight the words inside her. “Are you going to kill my family?”
He pushed out a breath. “It won’t necessarily be me,” he said, “but I can’t promise to save any of them.”
She swallowed. “What if I … don’t want you to? Save them, I mean…”
The arm around her back tightened. “That’s not the first time you’ve alluded to a hard home life, baby. What do I need to know?”
Her chest tightened with a surge of undesirable memories and Felicity burrowed closer to him in an effort to escape them. “If I ever made the mistake of referring to my mother’s husband, the man who raised me, as my stepdad or anything like ‘father,’ he would pick up a belt or a switch and strike me with it. Across the face, across the butt, across my back or chest—it didn’t matter.”
Cristiano rumbled in a low growl of displeasure and she only wished she were done.
She wished that wasn’t the best of it.
“Manny hated me.” Her throat tightened. “It’s not really … a surprise. He was old enough to understand Mom had done something wrong, and he was such a daddy’s boy. Naturally I became his punching bag when his temper grew out of control, until he had to be taught—” She licked her lips, old words scratching through her mind. “He had to be taught not to hit me where teachers would see when it bruised. And not to cause major injury.”
Cristiano’s breathing had become deep and almost hard. As if he were taking controlled breaths.
Felicity wound her arms around his neck and lifted her head to press a kiss to his jaw. “I can’t say it’s a surprise he’s in prison now,” she whispered as she resettled. “But he’ll be out someday…”
“No. He won’t.” Cristiano held her head a bit tighter, pulling on her hair slightly. “I’ll make sure of it.”
She shouldn’t have smiled. She wished she could fight back the tears she knew she was about to cry. “Manny and Tristán used to get in a lot of fights, but they were never serious. Tristán just … he always…” Her voice trailed and she had to stabilize herself again. “He thought he owned me. He liked to pick on me, but he didn’t like when anyone else did, and as we got older, he got worse. He chased off any guy who talked to me at school, deliberately got us both suspended once, and then—” She didn’t know if she could do it. She’d never said the words out loud.
Cristiano rubbed his hand up her spine. “Shh. Don’t push yourself, baby. You don’t have to relive this.”
She nodded against him and held him tighter. “I do. I need to say it. I need you to know. I need you to understand, because sometimes I have nightmares and because it’s why what we did today matters so much to me.”
He went still. “Felicity. What the fuck did he do?”
“When I was seventeen,” she whispered, her own screams echoing in her memory now, “I let a boy I liked bring me home and kiss me goodnight. Tristán saw, and he lost his mind. He chased the boy off with a knife, then he turned on me. He dragged me inside, waving his knife in my face, raving about what a slut I was … and he shoved me down and h-he tried to—” Her throat constricted, choking on the words. Tears dripped from her eyes. “He said I owed him, that I b-belonged to him, and he was going to ‘stick his dick in my slut hole’ to prove it.”
This time Cristiano definitely growled, his arms tightening around her until his embrace had morphed into an almost crushing hug. But she relished it. She relished the strength and comfort and security he offered, and gave herself several long seconds to soak it in. Cristiano said nothing, simply held her, until she was ready to talk again.
“That was the only time Armando—my mother’s husband—kind of acted like a father to me,” she finally said, her voice still weak. “The whole house heard Tristán’s shouting, but Armando was the only one who came and stopped him. Not because he was doing something terrible or wrong, but because it was me. And his son deserves a nice, full-blooded Latina girl.”
Cristiano exhaled roughly. “His son’s gonna get a bullet to the eye socket, but not before I take my knife and slice it lengthwise up his shriveled dick.”
Felicity pulled in a breath, held it, and slowly released it. “After that, I avoided them as much as I could. I took a scholarship to California just to escape. I was so petrified that someday he’d finish what he started that night….”
“Where the fuck was your mother during all of that shit?” He loosened his hold enough to let her shift against him. His thumb rubbed against her scalp.
“Pretending I didn’t exist, except when it came time to make sure I was doing my schoolwork.” Familiar hurt and sadness crept up in her heart at the thought of her mother. Her mother who had refused to tell her about her biological father. Her mother who said she’d named her after a friend lost to tragedy, then later said she resented Felicity for the reminder of grief. Her mother who taught her how to apply bandages and wound treatment—in the interest of not letting Manny and Tristán, and sometimes Armando, get caught in their abuse. Her mother who had blamed her for enticing Tristán on that horrible night.
“Why did you come back?”
She let out a brief, bitter laugh. “My mother nagged me. Insisting we needed to present a strong, united family front for Manny’s trial. Like us all being there and listening to that would help him not get locked up.” She’d never get some of those visuals out of her head. Both of her half-brothers were monsters.
Cristiano grunted. “How upset will you be,” he asked, his words unusually measured, “when your family ends up dead?”
Felicity pulled her lip between her teeth. “When all of that is done, and you’re done with Tristán and whatever information it is you need from him … will you stick around? Or will I lose you, too?” It didn’t seem like her answer should depend on his.
But everything that had happened between them had been crazy, arguably since the moment she’d laid eyes on him. She should have known, from the instant he’d put hands on that teenager in the middle of the grocery store, that he was a different breed of man. Maybe she had known.
Maybe she liked it.
Cristiano turned his head and pressed a hard kiss to her hair, near her temple. “You have me, Foxglove.”
A laugh snorted out of her unexpectedly. “You’re really going to run with that, aren’t you?”
He hummed. “I think I am.” Then he stood, scooping her properly into his arms, and started walking. “Come on, let’s wash up and get ready for bed. It’s been a long day and you need to rest.”
She leaned back enough to see his face. “I feel like all I’ve done today is rest.”
He smirked down at her. “All?”
Heat rushed through her. “Okay. I feel like I’ve done a lot of resting.”
His expression softened and he kissed her forehead. “I was hoping to talk to you tonight about kinks you were curious about, things you knew you wanted to try, versus hard limits you might have.” He drew a short breath, brow furrowing. “But—”
Felicity reached up and placed her fingers over his lips. “I read a lot of sexy books,” she blurted. “So I’m curious about a lot of things. On the flip side, I cringe real hard at the idea of hard spankings with tools and that sort of stuff. Probably my childhood. So if nothing else, I’m not ready to try that yet. But things we can do with our bodies … I want you to lead me. Show me what you like, and if I don’t like it, I’ll tell you. How’s that?”
He set her down on the bathroom counter and leaned over her, crowding her against the backlit mirror. “I have some unconventional tastes, Foxglove. You may not want to give me that kind of free reign over your perfect body.”
She barely managed not to snort. “First, we both know it’s not perfect, but thank you. And second—” She reached out to hook her fingers into the collar of his shirt, despite that he was already close enough to kiss. “I’m curious. Like what?” She hadn’t seen any of those big crosses described in some of her kinkier reads, so unless he had a whole room devoted to sex play, she was betting she’d read something at least comparable.
He lifted a hand and slowly, deliberately, curled it around her throat. His thumb stroked over the skin above her jugular. “You know about breath play?”
Her lips popped open and her belly coiled. She felt a flicker of nerves, all the possible dangers of the idea rushing through her head. But Cristiano’s hand was steady. His stare unwavering. “I’ve heard of it.”
“Does it scare you?”
“Not as much as having a bounty on my head.”
His lips twitched. He gave her throat a gentle squeeze, then let his hand fall away.
Feeling bold again, Felicity tugged a little on his shirt and pitched her voice to her most seductive tone. “Got anything more scandalous?”
His eyes darkened and he tugged her forward, bringing them chest-to-chest as he wedged himself between her knees. “I’d fuck you right on this counter if I weren’t such a good guy,” he said, his voice thick and rumbly. He tilted his head and trailed his lips along her jaw. “But starting tomorrow night, if you fall asleep before me or sleep in later than me, maybe I just slide my cock inside your sweet pussy, grab hold of your fucking perfect curves, and have my way with you.”
She gasped, her body throbbing with want despite the lingering soreness that remained between her legs. That was definitely more scandalous. She licked her lips and slid her arms around his neck again. “Why don’t you just show me all your favorite things, then?”
He grunted, tugged her back by her hair, and sealed his mouth to hers. The kiss was rough and wet and had her arching against him. His other hand landed on her bare thigh and slid up, beneath the hem of her borrowed shirt, until his fingers dipped under the line of her panties to squeeze her ass. He sucked on her tongue before breaking the kiss, not easing his hold. “Then unless you tell me to stop—clearly—your body belongs to me.”
“Yes, please.”
He hadn’t expected her to be so damn eager. Nor was he an idiot. He recognized a self-distraction tactic when he saw one. Felicity was, without a doubt, overwhelmed by the emotion of the stories she’d shared with him after dinner. So she was distracting both of them the only way she could—by embracing their mutual hunger for each other. It was fucking cheating, because when she dropped to her knees in the shower, trailed her fingers over his dick, and asked him to help her learn how to give a blowjob, he was screwed. He had no choice but to comply.
Her hot little tongue teasing his length was the highest caliber torture he’d ever known. He let her set the pace when she finally parted her lips to take him into her mouth, and just the visual nearly ended him. Those plump lips, those flushed cheeks, those deceptively innocent golden amber eyes. It was all he could do not to thrust his full length past her lips and teach her what it meant to deepthroat. But she wasn’t ready for that, so he held himself in check.
With an agonizing, deliciously delirious slowness, Felicity sucked more than half his cock into her mouth. She teased the tip with her tongue, bobbed her head, and finally hollowed her cheeks on a hard suck that had him roaring his release down her throat.
Cristiano tangled one hand in her hair. “Fuck, baby, that’s it. Drink it all.”
Her tongue swirled around him one more time before she dropped back to her haunches, breathing hard. Her glorious, naked breasts heaved with each breath. She made a beautiful fucking sight, but if she stayed on her knees in front of him like that, he would lose control.
Cristiano lifted her to her feet and pulled them both under the warm spray of the shower. “Did you turn yourself on when you sucked me off, sweet Felicity?”
Her fingers danced over his chest and she nodded. “Yes.”
He turned her around, her back to his front, and walked his hand down her stomach, fingers dipping between her thighs. “How about I give you a little relief, then, without aggravating those muscles too much?”
She tried to grind against his hand, a soft whimper escaping her.
He grinned, slipped his fingers through her folds just to hear her stuttering gasp, then stroked his way up to her clit. He wanted desperately to fill her pussy, but he’d fucked her harder than he should have earlier. A few more hours’ rest would be good. Her clit, on the other hand, he could play with. So he did. And while he fingered that sensitive nub, he grabbed hold of one boob with his other hand and bent his head until he could find her skin with his lips.
She squirmed in his arms, moaning and gasping, until suddenly she let out a sharp cry and her body shuddered. With a final sigh, Felicity went limp in his arms.
Cristiano caught her and spun her around, kissing her again. “I want the sound of your orgasm for my goddamn ringtone, just so I can hear you come with my name in your mouth every fucking day.” He licked his fingers and groaned at the taste of her. She was the most addictive thing he’d ever met.
A new flush built on her cheeks. He loved the way she blushed, too. Fucking adorable.
“I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that as a ringtone,” she said. “Other people would hear it.”
He grinned, a little too wide, and squeezed her hip. “Much as I like the idea, baby, I can’t go through with it. I’d have to kill my own family.”
She let out a tired laugh, but somehow the sound was still lighter than before. Her palms slid up his chest, over his scars, and rested beside his heart. “Earlier, you said you wanted to tell me something. Tell me while we clean up, before I crash?”
Her request sobered him. It was more reasonable than she knew, and he found he was the one who suddenly wanted to distract the conversation with sex. Or perhaps that was the addiction. Either way, he pressed a kiss to her forehead and reached for the soap, belatedly remembering he’d lifted her bodywash from her apartment but then left it in the duffel. She was going to have to continue smelling like him for a while.
He could live with that, actually.
Felicity insisted on washing him first, so Cristiano absently slid his fingers through her wet hair and made a mental note to take another risk—if she was up for it—in the coming days. First, though, he had to put her through one more scare. “The reason I was late tonight,” he said, as softly as he could, “is because someone found the storehouse where I was holding Tristán.”
Felicity’s gently scrubbing hands faltered.
Cristiano caught them with his, ceasing her movement and drawing her wide-eyed gaze. “They set off some kind of small-scale EMP and fried the whole damn security network long enough to break in, bust him out of his cage, and get out. The system didn’t reboot until they were gone, so I didn’t get the alert until they were in the wind.”
She dragged in a breath. “Y-you’re saying … Tristán is … free?” The fear in her voice sliced through him.
He swept his hands up to her face, holding her gaze. Forcing her to look at him. “I’m saying he bought himself a day, maybe two. He’s not strong enough to make a break for the border or some shit like that. I will find him, Felicity, and when I do, I’ll make him pay.”
She leaned into him, squeezing the sponge against his skin. “I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to ever see him.” A single tear rolled down her cheek. “But is it bad if I … want him to hurt, before he dies?”
Cristiano offered her a sad smile and kissed her lightly, lowering his hands to her hips. “After what he’s done to all of us, that’s the only option he has left.” But now that he knew what Tristán had done to Felicity, Cristiano was going to have to cross one more line. Because Dante had already called dibs on the bastard when the time came to deliver the final blow, and for as much as Cristiano respected Dante’s reasons, Cristiano couldn’t ignore his own. On that, Dante was just going to have to understand.
When Felicity woke the next morning, she felt like she’d slept for days. It wasn’t until after she’d stretched almost to the point of inducing a muscle cramp that she realized the bed was empty, and when she sat up, she saw the door was open. The sleep haze drifted from her mind and she rolled her lip between her teeth, remembering everything she’d told Cristiano the night before. Everything she’d given him. She remembered showering with him after her emotional story, and she vaguely remembered them migrating back to bed.
She definitely remembered Cristiano curling around her, tucking her against him with an arm around her waist. She’d felt so petite and feminine in that embrace it had nearly made her cry again. She was a small woman in stature, sure, but she’d been overweight for years. She rarely felt delicate or feminine. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt treasured.
Felicity looked down at herself. She still wore the shirt she’d pilfered from his collection, the shirt he’d peeled off her to get her into the shower and eventually helped her back into. Except this time the shirt was all she wore.
The smell of coffee drifted down the hall and drew her attention outward. Is he making breakfast again? Had she managed to land herself a technically dangerous, arguably possessive, amazing lover who also cooked on a regular basis? She hurried to her feet and nearly stumbled when she spotted the phone plugged in and resting on the bedside table. Her new phone.
She tapped the screen and it lit up, fully charged and indicating it was on silent. And he’s thoughtful, too. It didn’t seem possible. She made a mental note to iron out a story so she could reach out to Taylor, then continued her intended trajectory into the kitchen. It wasn’t until she registered the faint thrum of a laundry machine that she realized he’d also taken the soiled sheets out of the bedroom.
“Just in time,” Cristiano said as he set out two steaming plates. “I made omelets and potatoes this morning.”
She barely heard him, despite the delicious smell of the food blending with the aroma of coffee. She was certain he’d slept in boxers, but apparently that wasn’t what he cooked in. He stood in front of her wearing honest-to-God gray sweatpants. She knew what was underneath those pants, and that only made the low-hanging material look sexier. Is this really my life?