Chapter 44
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
LUCA
L aying her down on the couch, I inhale every small breath of pleasure. Each muscle that relaxes under my kiss is like a compliment to my soul and my nature. She’s comfortable with me—enough to allow me to touch her again. I knew this day would come, but I never expected it. It’s like you know the wind will blow, but you can’t demand it to do so.
I pull back from her spellbinding lips to ask if she’s sure, and she scowls at me breathlessly.
“If you ask me if I’m sure one more time, I’m going to kick your ass.”
A smile bends my lips upward, and I wiggle my hardness against her center. “I don’t think I could stop if I wanted to, little dove. I was going to ask if you want to take this to the bedroom.”
She reaches between us and tugs her flowy dress up to her hips, sliding her panties to the side. “No. I want you to take me now, and fast.”
“I thought you wanted me to go slow,” I chide, fighting the urge to do as she says, sinking into her depths and letting them swallow me whole.
It’s always been this way with her, wild and hot, like a stampede of wild horses through a scorching desert.
“I changed my mind. Just…please,” she whines, skating her hand over her exposed flesh as if she’s going to do my job for me at any moment if I don’t heed her demands.
As if I’d allow that.
“As you wish,” I groan, freeing myself from my slacks and teasing the head of my cock through the slick mess of her arousal.
“God, that feels good,” she says, her head falling back and her mouth releasing an urgent whimper I’d love to bottle.
When I strike, I strike fast, sinking into her like a man who doesn’t know how to swim and has been thrust out to sea without a life vest.
I don’t want to survive her, though. If she’ll be my end, let it come.
It’ll be rapturous.
I spent my entire career chasing heaven, and I’m finally there.
I shudder out a breath, dropping over her, my face nudging into her neck as I increase my pace, feeling her body welcome me home as her moans get louder.
“I’ve dreamt of this a million times in the last few weeks,” she whispers, and I pull my head out of her neck with effort—it might as well weigh a million pounds.
I roll my hips, fucking her deeply and watching the way her eyes grow hungry for more.
“And in these dreams?” I ask her, hungry myself, if I’m honest.
“You tied me to a cross and had your wicked way with me,” she moans as I reach between us and give her clit a bit of pressure, fucking her harder. Faster.
“Me? Wicked? I’m a man of God, little dove,” I tease.
She attempts a laugh, but it ends like a stilted groan. “You’re a corrupt man, Father Russo. No longer a man of God, but marked like one of his fallen angels.”
“And this pussy did the corrupting.” I capture her lips, her tongue skimming my entire nervous system as she kisses me back.
No more words are necessary.
The moment grows more urgent, both of us dangling too close to death as our bodies build up in anticipation of the end. Her legs grip tighter around me, and I peel off her lips to watch her blissful face.
Our eyes are locked when we both come, unable to do more than scream through the toe-curling feeling of straddling hell.
“Fuck.” I shudder as the last tinges of orgasm make my spine feel as though it’s going to curl into a ball.
“So much better than my dreams,” she teases, kissing the tip of my nose.
She lays back on the couch, letting her arms fall above her head.
She looks like an angel. Her blonde hair is touseled, and her hazel eyes are alive. I wondered if I would see this look again, though I knew the bits I had of her were enough to last me a lifetime.
Enough to keep me pliant for the rest of my days.
“Was it? Even though there was no cross involved?”
She laughs, and it’s the most free I’ve heard her sound in weeks. My heart hammers as I realize she’s finally on the road to healing.
“Mmm, I wish we’d have played out that scenario of yours, Father Russo,” she says, lifting her hips and deepening our point of contact.
My cock hardens inside her again. “Sloane,” I warn.
“Mmm?”
Soon, we’re fucking again, bodies slick with sweat, the room smelling of sex as we chase explosive ends.
I don’t know what I’d done in life to deserve her, but I know she’s a reward—a gift.
Sloane’s stepping out of the shower when my phone rings. I grab it off the dresser, watching as she towels off her beautiful breasts, dragging the towel down over her navel.
She catches me and smirks. “Answer your phone, you fiend!”
I grin, hitting the green answer button on the screen. “Hello?”
I listen as if I’m out of body as Ardesia tells me he needs Sloane and me to come to him and Brynne’s apartment. My heart all but stills when he says he’s found out why Sloane was taken.
We thought all along it was a chance abduction.
“What do you mean, why she was taken?”
Sloane drops her towel, her nipples beading and her eyes filling with fear.
I fucking hate this. I want it to be over.
“Come over. We’ll talk in person.”
The line goes dead, and I pull the phone away from my face to look at it as if it’ll manifest answers on its surface.
“Who was that?” Sloane asks, even though she likely already knows deep down.
“Ardesia. He wants us to come to their place—he and Brynne’s. He says he has something to tell us about what he discovered about your abduction. It seemed like someone played a part in you getting taken.”
“I wasn’t a target just because I was out late and walking alone?”
I shake my head. “It would seem not.”
She grabs the edge of the counter as she breathes in dizzying waves. I rush her, pulling her to me.
“Hey, it’s alright, little dove. He’s dead. You’re safe.”
So much happened to her in the hands of those men that it feels pointless to pretend that it didn’t. I don’t want to belittle her experience by a long shot, but I want her to stop worrying each time the phone rings.
“But Don Adamo isn’t dead,” she says, her weary eyes finding mine as the first tears in weeks fall.
My heart feels heavy as I realize she’s right. There’s nothing I can say otherwise, either.
“Get dressed. Let’s go to Ardesia’s and figure this out. No use in worrying until we know what’s going on, alright?”
She nods.
We dress in weighted silence before we get to the street below and find a car Ardesia sent for us. Sloane is still lost in her head when we’re inside, but not too much, so she can’t reach me.
Her hand glides across the middle seat, finding mine and curling into it. Her eyes never leave the window.
I hold her tightly as if it’ll help keep her with me mentally. As if I can anchor her in a sea of churning memories.
When we get to Ardesia’s house, there are a few of Brynne’s men and a few of Ardesia’s around the kitchen table. Faces are stoic, and I try to steel my insides to the fallout of what’s coming.
One chair at the table is left empty, so I sit down, and Sloane slides into my lap. My arms wrap around her as silent strength.
Ardesia smirks, but coughs and wipes it away when Sloane’s eyes find his.
“What’s this about?” she asks, her voice wavering. She’s over not knowing. Over worrying.
The last few weeks have been hard, but they’ve been happy, and she’s been lighter than I’ve ever seen her.
I was a fool to think it would last.
“We’ve had contact with Don Adamo. I wanted to sort this out with him and Barone. I needed him to know that any further attempts to get to you or any other woman associated with mine or Brynne’s families would be met with swift retaliation.”
“Basically,” Brynne adds, “we claimed you as a family so that you were safe. It was a necessary measure.”
Sloane nods, but I can feel her racing heart through her wrist.
“After leaning on him a bit,” Ardesia says, “I found out that he wasn’t taking girls off the streets that were easy bait. He was only taking girls he was essentially given.”
“Given?” I ask, an edge to my voice that could cut glass.
“Don Adamo is like any other mafia boss in the five boroughs. His hands are in many pies. This means he has bookies and collectors for gambling, betting, etc. When people couldn’t pay, they knew about his other business...”
“Where he traded in flesh,” Sloane adds.
Ardesia nods. “It’s well known that he’ll take trades of flesh to settle debts.”
“Who would’ve… my mother?” Sloane concludes, body shaking with anger in my lap at the realization.
But Ardesia shakes his head. “Not your mother. I assumed the same at first. It was your friend, Myra.”
Sloane stills, the news washing over her, likely clobbering all she’s ever known to be true. Myra is her closest and oldest friend. The one thing she had sometimes, she told me out of her mouth.
“She… But why?” Sloane asks.
“Her father got into trouble with the feds, embezzling and many other charges. Myra was cut off from her money supply when that happened. She tried to win money in one of Adamo’s clubs. Turned out bad for her, though, and she ended up owing.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?” Sloane asks in a whisper, likely speaking to herself and not the table.
“Well, she can’t sell you if you’re aware of what’s happening,” Dante snorts unhelpfully.
Sloane pays him no mind, though.
“She came to see me the other day,” Sloane tells them, and Brynne sits up in her chair, the picture of stealth and charm.
“And?” Brynne asks her.
“Something was off. She’s come to see me twice, and I thought something was wrong both times, but Luca said it was likely nothing.”
“In this business, Sloane, we always listen to our guts,” Ardesia says as shame spills through my body.
“So she sold me to settle her debts? The entire time I was a prisoner, she was living her life free of worry because I took over her sentence?”
Brynne nods. “Essentially, yes.”
I hug her tighter, and she allows it, twining her fingers over mine splayed on her stomach.
“That fucking bitch!” Sloane says.
“Now, the question is, what do you want to do about it?” Brynne asks. “We can visit her, or you can. It’s your call.”
Silence blankets the room as she shifts on my lap. “I’ll handle this myself.”
Ardesia nods, and the men surrounding the table disperse like ants, leaving their mound to forage.
“Would you two like to stay for dinner?” Brynne asks.
Business concluded.
I open my mouth to say no, but Sloane pats my hand. “We’d love to.”