Chapter 8
When I’d gotten home at 4:40 AM, my brother was still up, looking like shit and a bit flipped out since I walked into my own house with my gun drawn.
I’d gotten smuggled across the border, taken a multi-leg commercial flight home, and then hopped a cab to my storage unit, grabbed a gun, then cabbed it home and greeted Nino at the front gate with my gun drawn. I had to make sure all was okay at home. He’d let me in and tried to convince me that all was well to get me to put the gun away, but I didn’t until I saw Dario. When I saw my brother sitting at the island in the kitchen, I knew all was okay. For the moment, at least.
I’d wanted no one to know when I’d arrive, what flight I was on, when I was on my way. No one got to know anything until I got there. I wasn’t just being paranoid; I was being smart. Who knew who else in our organization had flipped to the enemy’s side and who would seek retribution for what I’d done at Castillo’s? I’d done the job I needed to do, and it was done so now I could come home to her and to my empire.
If I hadn’t felt like I’d earned this before, which I knew I’d already done, I certainly felt it’d be uncontested now. I saluted him; he put his phone down with a look of relief. I put my gun back into my waistband and I said, “Gotta go to bed, man. Tomorrow, okay?”
He nodded, and smiled. “Welcome home, bro. She’s been anxious for you to get back.”
I’d smiled back and climbed the stairs.
Now it was morning, no hang on, afternoon – I’d slept eleven hours, and I had to brief and debrief some people, including Dare, my father, and then get to work to ensure that our own housekeeping was in order, that there weren’t any other traitors around, and that Tia would be safe. Then there was some business to organize based on new developments down south. I also needed to talk to my PI about Earl.
But, I wasn’t ready to get outta bed – not yet. Not until I felt her body wrapped around me again, her beautiful green eyes looking at me without fear or contempt. I rolled over and surprisingly found her still here beside me, still asleep. I kissed from her collarbone downwards. She opened her legs for me before her eyes even opened, making my groin and my chest ache. She was so fucking perfect and there was no way I’d allow anyone to take her from me again.
What a reunion. And what a morning after. Ho boy; he was all over me, waking me up with his tongue just like that first morning. What a way to wake up! I had a fleeting thought about the fact that he’d eventually want me to reciprocate.
I’d never had a problem doing that with Nick or with the few other guys I’d been with. But now? After what had happened with that guy in Mexico? I didn’t even know his name. I didn’t want to know. I wanted to forget. There was so much I wanted to forget, but so much I didn’t think I could ever put out of my mind completely.
“Baby?” He was looking up at me.
I hadn’t realized it, but I was crying while he was doing that to me. He settled beside me and pulled me to his chest. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Sorry,” I said softly and wiped my eyes with my fingertips.
“What?” He gave me a squeeze.
“So much,” I whispered into his chest.
“Tell me.” He kissed my forehead.
I was surprised that he had stopped. I was surprised that he was looking at me with so much tenderness.
“It’s a lot to get into five seconds after waking up.” And I don’t know if I can even say these things to you.
“Talk. Start somewhere.”
“I’m still a bit shell shocked, I guess, after what happened. After everything.” I swept my hand back and forth in front of me.
“Understandable,” he said.
“I’m overwhelmed and I want… need… answers. Answers about this debt and how it originated and I need to know what’ll happen next. With my dad, with my life. With… you.”
“Uh huh.”
“And you. I want to ask you what happened in Mexico, but I don’t. I don’t know if you want to talk about it or if I even want to know. It feels like you went to hell and back.”
“I did.”
“My head is just full.” And I didn’t know how I felt about him, about us… but I didn’t know how to articulate that.
He nodded again. “I’m gonna go get us some coffee, okay? But first I need to do something?”
“What?”
“Need to fuck you, baby.” His words sounded harsh but then his mouth turned up in the beginnings of a smile.
I laughed. “Romance is officially dead.”
He smiled at me and then raised his brows. “Yeah, isn’t it? For instance, I’ll try not to let it ding my ego too much that my going down on you just drove you to tears. Just let me, like super-fast, if you don’t mind? I promise not to be super-fast too often but this time, I think I just need to...” He pushed his fist forward in the air.
I laughed harder. He was being so playful. His eyes were filled with light. He looked totally adorable. He was beautiful. Before I knew what I was doing, I reached to put my palm on his cheek. He needed a shave.
He pounced on top of me, his eyes full of amusement.
“Feel free,” I said, “Since you’re here anyway.” I scrubbed my fingers along the stubble at his jaw.
“Are you giving me permission?” he asked, his eyes darkening and face turning serious. Very serious. I took a deep breath. “I don’t need permission to take what’s mine, do I?” He kissed the palm of my hand and then ran a finger from my elbow up to my throat and then he put his hand over my throat. I swallowed against the space between his thumb and index finger.
“I’m all about control but baby, I don’t just want it. I need it,” he said, and then waited, hand looser on my throat.
I nodded slightly, not sure how to process how I felt.
“I feel out of control right now,” he said, studying me. He had pain in his eyes.
I swallowed hard and then the silence between us was almost deafening.
“Then take it,” I finally whispered, and he studied my face for a minute, then he let go of my throat and kissed me hard, whispering, “You’re perfect.”
Then he was inside of me.
A few thrusts in and he started to pound harder and faster and I just closed my eyes and absorbed the feel of him. It was exquisite. I let go, let go of emotions, inhibitions, I just opened up and let him take what he wanted, and it felt so…so freeing.
He pulled out, flipped me onto my side and pounded into me from behind while then he grabbed my throat again and held it. He didn’t hurt my throat, he didn’t squeeze, but it was possessive. I started to feel that quickening and then he slowed, culling it. I grabbed the headboard with both hands and held on.
“Do you want to come?” he whispered in my ear softly, tickling me.
“Mm.” I felt goose bumps rise all over my back.
“Do you?” His voice got huskier and his rhythm slowed.
“Yeah.”
“Who do you belong to, Athena?” He drove in deep, grazing my nipple with his thumbnail, making it feel like it sparked. And then his hand slid up to hold my throat again in a softer hold. His other hand snaked over my hip, then his fingers were circling between my legs.
“Who do you belong to? Do you belong to that punk, Nick?”
“No,” I breathed.
He rotated his hips while he was inside me, eliciting a groan from me, then twisted my nipple ever so slightly. “Then who?”
Shivers ran up my body. He had the ridge of my ear in between his teeth.
“Who?”
I rocked against him with an, “Ah!”
He pulled out most of the way and then pushed back in hard and I gasped again.
“Tell me who you belong to,” he demanded with my hair in his hand again. He tugged, just a smidgeon past gently.
“I don’t,” I whispered.
He let out a little growl, his mouth at my ear again. “You don’t?” There was warning in his voice.
“I don’t belong to anyone,” I answered softly, feeling a little rush at the idea of this game. Then I bit my lip, swallowed, then added, “Do I?” as innocently as I could muster, though I was feeling far from innocent right now. If I played the game right along with him, maybe it wouldn’t be so scary.
He took a deep breath and tightened his hold on me. “You’re mine. You belong to me, and you were made for me,” he said, low in his throat, then was pushing deep and slow and deliberately, kissing me all over the back of my neck, my shoulders. “Let me show you.”
I felt that quickening again and I started circling my hips back against him, loving how deep he was. One of his hands now gripped my hip and his other hand moved in a pattern that caressed up and down my chest, then up to my throat and each time he got to my throat he gave a little squeeze, not painful, possessive, I guess. I tipped my head back and soaked in the symphony of his fingers, his cock, his lips, even the way one of his legs had locked around me. I was melting into a puddle of sensation, goosebumps on every square inch of my body. When he started to circle around and around my clit, I started to come.
He growled, “Who, Athena, who do you belong to?”
“Ah!” I held my breath and then let out a long “Ohh” and then slowly floated back to earth.
He slapped my ass, making me jolt.
“You’re a naughty girl,” he murmured into my ear, still driving in deep. “You’re lucky I let you come when you’re so fucking naughty.”
It felt as if goosebumps rose on top of goosebumps, if that was even possible. He took me from my side to my stomach and I felt him rise up. He grabbed my hip with one hand and my two wrists into his other palm, which was used to pin me while also bracing himself.
“Ooh, let me wipe that smirk off your face,” he grunted through gritted teeth. I gasped as he slammed hard into me. His free hand moved up and down my back sweetly while he rotated his hips, pushing hard. He pushed in, then slapped my ass, making me jolt, which I could tell he liked a lot because of the way he grunted. Then it was a succession of caresses, slams and slaps with grunts from him and for me, jolts, and moans.
Super quick? This wasn’t quick at all. It had been going on for a long time and I was getting super-exhausted. My legs were still shaky from the orgasm, and I was breathless and sweaty, my hair plastered to my cheek. My ass felt like it was on fire.
“You like this?” he whispered, still pounding into me and tightened his grip around my wrists.
“Mm,” I moaned into the pillow.
“You feel so good,” he told me. “I’m going to fuck your sweet pussy over and over, as much as I want to, and you know why?”
I groaned.
“Because you’re mine,” he whispered, then he turned me and we were doing it missionary style.
He let go of a wrist and wiped my hair from my face and held it back then found my lips with his and kissed me tenderly for a second before it turned rough.
He was grunting with every thrust, pulling tighter on my hair. It went on and on and on. I wanted, no needed, to be done. I was sore and exhausted, and thirsty. My ass was on fire. Finally, I whispered, “Tommy.”
“Baby,” he hummed against my mouth.
“Come inside me,” I whispered into his mouth.
He let go of my lips and then his mouth opened and he slowed his pace and then I heard him gasp, I started to tongue and nibble on his throat, digging my nails into his back. He had a full-body shudder as he came inside me.
He collapsed on top of me and stayed like that for the longest time. I could feel his heartbeat pounding against me, his breath tickling my shoulder. I twisted, feeling a bit crushed, and he rolled off me onto his side so I rolled into him, wrapped my arms around him, and gently trailed my nails up and down his back, just enjoying this closeness, this intimacy. I’d never had anything like this with anyone else. No basking in the afterglow, no dirty talk, nothing even close to this and here I was lying against an insanely beautiful and dangerous man who had killed to avenge my abduction. It was crazy of me but it was an insane turn-on.
I felt guilt underneath desire, but there was something so hot about that little game. He liked games, as I could tell from the start, and I was figuring out that maybe if I played along, they weren’t so scary; they were just games.
“You little vixen,” he murmured against my ear and then bit my earlobe, “You don’t tell me when to come.”
“Really? Then how come I just did?” I whispered against his pectoral, and he slapped my ass hard.
For a split-second I thought I was in big trouble, but then caught the smile on his face and the twinkle in his eyes. I had a face-splitting grin on my face that I couldn’t hide. I looked up at him and he rubbed my bottom where he’d just spanked me. He was looking at me so tenderly I thought my heart might burst.
After what felt like forever, locked in one another’s gaze, he rolled onto his back a few inches away from me, still looking at me, though now his expression was unreadable. I flushed under his scrutiny.
He looked up at the ceiling, finally, and I studied the black tribal tattoo pattern that worked its way from his wrist up to his shoulder. Points, curls, swirls. I looked back at his face. His eyes were still fixed on the ceiling.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked.
“They tried to take you from me and I had to make them pay. They paid. Anyone who tries to take you from me will pay.” He was silent for a moment. I snuggled into him, chewing my cheek, and started to trace the patterns on his shoulder with my finger.
Then he continued. “You need to know that life with me won’t be all ice cream with a cherry on top and walks on the beach at sunset. It can’t be. You need to know that sometimes you’re gonna hate my guts because of my need to control everything and because I might take my frustrations out on you in here.”
I let out a long slow breath.
He went on, “I’m depraved, Tia, and I have a bad temper. I want to own you and control you and I wanted that the minute I was told it was mine, but now that you are, you surprised me; I surprised me. I want to make you feel good, too, make you feel safe with me, safe enough to give yourself to me, to wanna be mine. I’ve never wanted that. I want it so much.”
“I feel safe right now and you just made me feel very good,” I whispered, my admission sending chills across my whole body.
He gave me a squeeze.
“I know you didn’t choose this, but I can’t give you up. I won’t. Don’t ever, ever ask me to. After things settle down, I’ll give you everything, give you a life you’ll want, but with me. But baby, you have to take all of me and there are parts of me you won’t want. Know that other than that, I’ll give you everything you want, everything. Everything except freedom from me.”
Wow. It was beautiful and awful and fucked up all at the same time. Kind of like him. I was speechless.
He leaned over me, looking at my face, seeing that I was absorbing what he was saying to me. He looked like he wanted me to say something, or like he wanted to say more, I wasn’t sure.
Finally, he said, “I have to go. I have to deal with the fall out of Mexico and everything else. Please be a good girl; don’t give me any extra stress today. I need to deal with this and then tomorrow I’ll take the day for us and we’ll go do something together, okay? I have a special place I wanna take you.” He tucked hair behind my ear.
I poked the tip of his nose. “You don’t have to worry about me getting into any trouble. I don’t think I can even walk after that, super-fast…” I thrust my fist into the air the way that he’d done before we had sex “thing that took at least an hour there.”
He laughed a hearty big-smiled laugh that made him so beautiful to behold I felt it in my stomach like a little pang of something between butterflies and pain. I gently tapped his cheek with my palm and closed my eyes and yawned.
“Hmm, now I know what I’ve gotta do daily to keep my girl in line. Good to know. I’ll bring you some coffee and food since I’ve rendered you crippled and then I‘ve gotta go. Take a long bath and soak those muscles, sweet baby girl. I’ll be back for more later and I can guarantee I won’t be as quick as this time.” He winked again, squeezed my rear end lightly, and got out of bed.
I smiled as he left and then my heart sank. It sank painfully, like a weighed down cloud that wanted to float but couldn’t. I felt pretty darn conflicted right now.
He took a shower and left the room dressed in a charcoal gray suit. He was clean shaven. Damn, he was beautiful. Beautiful and complicated and scary-intense.
He returned a few minutes later with a mug of coffee and a toasted bagel with cream cheese plus an orange cut into wedges. “Have a good day,” he said into my hair after he kissed me.
“You, too,” I said and smiled shyly at him as he left.
* * *
I think I stared off into space for what might’ve been hours. Thinking about my family, about Mexico, about the terrifying car ride with him before I was kidnapped, about the many layers of Tommy Ferrano. And… about my participation in the little sex games this morning. My coffee and bagel were both tepid by the time I snapped back to the here and now.
Not only was everyone in the Castillo cartel compound dead, thanks to me and my guys, but the compound was also burnt to the ground, the fire started by me striking the match after pouring gasoline on that bed in that room in the sick fuck’s basement after I’d taken my time with vengeance against Castillo as well as Earl.
If I’d found the corpse of the motherfucker who’d laid his hands on my girl, I’d have fed Earl that corpse’s cock before I shot him.
Beyond that, I’d secured a deal with another cartel who helped me orchestrate the downfall, handing them the Castillo business and fortifying a deal that would nearly triple our profits from Mexico.
Part of that deal included an exit strategy in a year’s time, which the cartel was more than happy to agree to because it meant 100% of the profits for them from that point on and it meant a lot to me because I didn’t want to be in the drug business. A smooth transition was important, though. I couldn’t just make an instant break.
Earl had said some things, made some accusations that I was troubled about. And a few comments from Castillo in the minutes before he died were either enlightening or designed to plant the seeds of doubt about some of what I knew about Pop. I had some legwork to do to see if it held any truth. At the moment I was taking all that’d been said with a grain of salt. He was gone now, they both were, so I couldn’t go back to either of them for more information.
My Pop didn’t even ask what made Earl defect, which made me think that maybe Earl spoke the truth. Why wouldn’t he at least wonder why a trusted employee would suddenly steal his future daughter-in-law and shoot a colleague in the head in cold blood?
It was pretty telling to me that Pop was impressed, however, with the way things turned out. He didn’t know about the exit strategy, but then again he didn’t need to know. I’d be in charge long before that would take place.
Thankfully he didn’t commend me on my lemonade-making skills. He’d taught me a long time ago to take opportunities wherever you could get them, even in the face of tragedy. But I think he knew better. The lemons I’d just been served had a pretty profound effect on me. I was pushing away thoughts that this shit was all Pop’s fault. I needed more info first.
But damn, the way she wrapped herself around me in the shower when I got home and tried to take care of me and then handed me control this morning…it did something to me, fortified me. Today I felt like I could rule the fucking world. But I didn’t really want to, for once. I just wanted to go back and climb in bed with her, smell her, feel her, touch her. Make up for lost time. Try to make up for the tears I’d caused her.
When I walked into the office, my father handed me a brass skeleton key that was about a foot long.
“What’s this?” I jerked my chin up.
“Key to the city. Symbolic, my boy. When is the wedding?”
I laid it on his desk and smiled a little. “I’ll keep you posted.”
“A month? Do it at my house. I’ll tell Lisa. She and your sisters can help. We’ll call that planner that put my and Lisa’s wedding together.”
I shrugged. “That could work. Let me talk to her before you get the girls involved.”
He clapped his hands together. “Good. Now that that’s settled, on to other business.”
“One sec,” I told him and reached into the inside pocket of my suit jacket and slapped an envelope on the desk.
Pop raised his chin. “What’s that?”
“$35K. I’m clearing O’Connor’s debt. Twenty-five for the debt, ten for the juice.”
“Huh?”
“You heard; payment with interest.”
“I gave her to you as a gift, my boy, and even if I didn’t, the vig didn’t run that high.”
I shook my head. “I’d rather clear it.”
“I’m not taking the gift back, son.”
I nodded and shoved the envelope closer to him and looked him in the eye. “Now you can’t.”
“And you’re marrying her. That makes her even more yours.”
“Take the money.”
Pop stroked his chin and looked at me, perplexed.
“The business between you and O’Connor, whatever it was, is done now. If anything further needs to be done about him, I do it,” I told him.
He sighed, looking a bit defeated. “Fine,” he agreed and put the envelope of money into the inside pocket of his blazer.
“You gonna fill me in?” I asked.
“Why? You’re already digging around. I know you; you’ll find all the answers eventually. Why spoil your moment of triumph?”
“That’s what I thought.”
Yeah, we both knew where I got my tendency for mind fucking from.
I lounged in bed for the biggest part of what was left of the day, despite sleeping at least fourteen hours the night he came home. He really had worn me out. The last week and a half had worn me out emotionally and I guessed it had manifested itself physically despite the fact I’d done not much other than lie around.
At around dusk, I decided to get some proper exercise and do some laps in the pool and then I spent a few hours reading the novel that Sarah had lent me. I had trouble losing myself in it. Why did I need escape into another world when my own world felt like another world? While it was a pretty stress-free evening, all things considered, my wheels just wouldn’t stop turning. I thought about possible scenarios regarding my father and this whole debt thing. I thought about Tommy’s words after we woke up that day, about the fact that I could look at this thing two ways.
1: He’d taken ownership of me and given me a life sentence to be with him, regardless of what I’d be put through and regardless of how I felt. I had no choice, no out.
2: He was making a lifelong commitment to me and I’d have to take him for better or for worse. There could be a lot worse than being with him, as I’d seen down in Mexico. He promised to protect me. No one had ever offered me that before. Not my father, not anyone.
If I chose to look at it positively, it sounded like all he was doing was articulating some marriage vows. Promising to provide for me and protect me but with an underlying threat that I couldn’t leave even if I wanted to despite the fact that it’d be rough at times. And that freaked me out. A lot.
How much would be forbetter and how much would be for worse? Ice cream parlor guy vs. gangster guy with the dark hunger for control – the dominator. ‘Till death do us part was something people promised all the time, but I had no choice but to honor and obey. I was going to be taken literally in promising to obey him and to spend my life with him, only I hadn’t promised that. I’d been told that this was the deal; like it or lump it.
What was next for me, for us? Did I try to find a way to accept this, or did I keep looking for a way out? The way he looked at me made me feel wanted. He was gorgeous, he was protective, he knew how to light my body on fire. He could be charming. He also scared the crap out of me.
Tommy wasn’t here for dinner. I ate a late meal with Sarah. We cooked together and had barbequed chicken burgers and salads on the patio and we both floated around on tubes in the pool after dinner. Then I went up to bed early, exhausted physically and exhausted emotionally although I’d certainly slept a lot the night before.
I woke up to him climbing in bed with me in the dark. I didn’t know what time it was, but he didn’t initiate sex. He just curled up against me, wrapped his arms around me protectively, and kissed under my earlobe, and was snoring softly into my hair a few breaths later.
I crawled in bed fully prepared to yank her night clothes off her and remind her of rule number three, but the minute my nose caught a whiff of her hair and warm skin, which smelled like oats, honey, and vanilla, I nuzzled in and slept like a log beside her. The last few days had been long and painful. In the morning I’d be taking her out and trying to show her a change of scenery, maybe some romance.
* * *
She’d be spending a lot of time alone at home for the next few weeks while I took care of some business that might mean even more security because I was probably going to have to show disrespect publicly to a scumbag that didn’t deserve my time. Today, I’d take her out for some fun and then broach the subject of our wedding with her. That’d keep her busy with my sisters.
I woke up first and found her with her head on my stomach. She was sleeping on her belly using my belly as a pillow, face toward my crotch. Her legs were hanging off the bed and she was flat out, sound asleep, hair fanned out across my torso.
I looked down and ran my fingers through her hair and then my thumb skimmed across her lower lip. She sucked in my thumb and actually sucked on it, still asleep. She must’ve been a thumb sucker as a kid. The sensation went straight to my groin, which was already awake. I then swept my hand down her back and cupped her ass.
She was wearing a tiny pair of lacy pale pink, almost flesh-toned shorts that were pretty well transparent and barely covered her cheeks. She also had on a matching lacy tank top that had ridden up. She looked edible, fuckable. If she was going to break my sleepwear rule and wear something like this I could probably overlook the infraction. She nuzzled into me and then as I reached my middle finger to stroke between her cheeks and downward, her legs magically parted. I smiled. The way she did that for me every morning so far hadn’t ceased amazing me. All I had to do was get anywhere near her pussy or her ass while she slept and she would instantly spread wide for me while she was sound asleep.
I had a feeling that morning sex would become as normal for me as my morning coffee. I never had women sleep at my place or even visit so I often found a fuck somewhere in my travels, usually in the evenings in a motel, at the club (it had rooms), or their place and then went home alone. I’d always thought I’d preferred that but who knew that finding a woman in my bed when I climbed in at night and waking up to her spreading her legs for me every morning would be so fucking amazing? Time to cancel my club membership.