CHAPTER ELEVEN
Achilles
“Yo, Scarface.” Jeremie fell into the seat next to mine.
“Sup, Vodka Breath,” I replied.
“It’s your father again.” He slid my vibrating phone across the table.
Not a shocking development. He would call, wouldn’t he?
I’d killed two of Stefano’s soldiers, ran off with his bride, and was currently restructuring every single border he and Sangue Blu had agreed upon in their meeting, breaking all of our clans’ promises.
I’d barged into Sangue Blu neighborhoods, taken over the areas his dealers worked, and threatened every motherfucker in my territory who dared pay Stefano protection money at gunpoint.
I spent the past twenty-four hours reminding the Camorra that the Ferrantes ruled all of Naples.
No exceptions. I was making healthy progress setting things back in order here in Naples, but my mind wasn’t in the game.
Not fully, anyway. Instead it was affixed to a long-legged redhead with emerald eyes and a husky voice who had managed to burn through sixty thousand euros on my credit card in less than twelve hours.
Tierney was revenge-spending, while I was out here tempting fate and starting wars for her freedom.
Last night she made a show of slathering the 3K-La Prairie eye cream she’d purchased all over her feet, explaining that walking all over me had given her blisters.
She didn’t let our weekend arrangement douse her flame—on the contrary, after our exchange at the cliff, she was extra sassy, extra poisonous, and I’d even let her steal one of my guns without saying anything.
I trusted her with a pistol more than I did all my soldiers combined, anyway.
I made sure to visit her every three hours on the dot wherever she was—a mall, a restaurant, our hotel—to fuck her.
I wasn’t missing out on any of my hard-earned pussy, especially when it was this fucking good.
I even woke her up in the middle of the night every three hours for a feeding.
Sleep was for the weak and could wait until I returned to New York.
The first two times since getting to the hotel, I didn’t even bother with my climax. I was so fucking laser-focused on making it good for her that I forgot all about myself. Only my shitty lies afterward made me claim some of my pride back. Hopefully, she didn’t notice I didn’t finish.
What was I supposed to say? Hey, Tierney, sorry I couldn’t make you come. Next time I’ll try not to cream my pants the minute you look my way?
So, yeah. The first couple times, I used her degradation kink as an excuse for my poor bedroom skills. Guilty as charged.
Now, I made her come, plenty. Never went as far as going down on her again—she wasn’t going to see me on my knees on a regular basis—but I did make sure she was purring like a cat, humming with a satisfied smile before I found my release.
“Leave it,” I told Jeremie, standing up from my seat at the coffee shop and shoving my wallet into my pocket. The call went to voicemail. “Where’s Tierney?”
“Via Toledo.” Nico flicked his cigarette to the sidewalk.
I grabbed my phone and pocketed it. “Text her that I’ll be there in fifteen minutes and to wait for me on her knees in a changing room.”
I didn’t communicate with her directly when we weren’t together. That would require unblocking her number, and I wasn’t going that route, no matter how many times my dick was inside her.
“Now your brother’s calling me.” Jeremie arched an eyebrow at his phone as we exited the coffee shop and headed toward my Porsche.
Speaking of people I blocked. But that was a recent development. I’d blocked my entire family for the weekend.
“Which one?”
“Luca.”
“Enzo’s calling me,” Fabio said. “Shit’s hitting the fan. You gotta sort it out.”
And I was going to. I’d face it all once I got home.
But for now, I was going to drown in her.
She wasn’t waiting on her knees or in a changing room when I walked into the high-street boutique twenty minutes later.
I was surprised she was even on the same continent, with the level of her defiance.
She was wearing some sort of black corset minidress that made me want to kill everyone in the store for seeing her in it and the designer just for funsies.
“Oh, good. My errand boy’s here.” She shoved two sequined dresses into my hands with a scarlet smirk. Everyone at the store stared in shock, well aware I was Don Vello’s son and one nasty son of a bitch. “Dark green or purple?”
She’d look good in a fucking trash bag, but I’d die before admitting it out loud.
“Sweetheart, the only thing I want to see you in is a coffin.”
“Hmm.” She trailed a pointy, black fingernail along my chest. “The fact you admitted to being obsessed with me kinda takes the sting out of the joke.”
The only joke in the room was me, who kept talking a big game and still cleaning up her mess on the reg.
“Take ’em both,” I said dryly, trying to push the realization I’d probably never get to see her in them to the back of my conscience. Far, far back. She was moving away and dropping off the face of the earth after this. I’d personally make sure of it. For her safety—and my own.
“If you insist.” She tossed a third dress into my hands, reaching for a fourth on a rack laden with gauche frocks.
It was time I shoved something into that smart mouth to shut it up, and one of my organs was more than happy to volunteer as tribute.
I tossed the gowns into a passing saleswoman’s arms and muttered to her in Italian to have the eyesores waiting at the cashier, crowding Tierney toward the changing rooms wordlessly.
I wasn’t mad at her. She was just doing what she did best—looking like sex on legs and acting like a teenager to piss people off. I was mad at myself for shitting all over the Camorra’s entire operation for a taste of forbidden pussy.
Now, that’s not to say I wouldn’t do it all over again given the choice, but a man could acknowledge the sin he was committing and still fucking do it.
“Has it been three hours yet?” Tierney purred, refusing to cower. My big frame inched her slowly into a dressing room.
“And two minutes and thirty-seven seconds,” I confirmed, flashing her my phone screen, where a countdown started every time I zipped myself up and stepped away from her.
She let loose a throaty laugh. “You’re pathetic.”
“I know.” Hey, at least I had self-awareness going for me.
“And you don’t care?” She elevated an eyebrow, taking another step backward.
“Not enough to stop this, no.” I ate the space between us. Her back collided with the changing room’s door. “I told you to wait for me on your knees.”
“Did you, now?” She grabbed the collar of my shirt, yanking me closer with a provocative grin. “I try my best to block out the noise of men speaking to me.”
No other woman ever gave me shit like Tierney did.
No other woman ever defied me, fought me, dragged me out of my comfort zone.
And no other woman ever would. I’d have to make peace with the fact my future wife, whoever she was, would bore me to death.
And that every time I’d sink into her, I’d think of Tierney Callaghan. Until the day I died.
I raised my arm past her shoulder and pushed the door open. She collapsed backward, and I caught her by the waist before she fell, locking the door behind me simultaneously. She pressed her palms to my chest, gasping. “Nice instincts.”
“Probably should’ve thought of that the time you tried to kill me.”
“Can’t blame a girl for trying.” She hitched a shoulder up, pressing her back to the wall and arching her core against my ramrod-straight cock.
“How much is the dress?” I ran a finger along the velvet fabric between her tits.
“Eight thousand euros.” Her smile was like a loaded gun. “Why? Are you starting to regret our littl—”
I bunched the material in my fist, ripping it from her body in one go. She gasped in shock as the flimsy thing fell at her feet. “On your knees.”
She complied. Not because she was submissive, but because she knew she held all the power whenever she and my cock were in the same room.
Tierney unzipped my charcoal slacks, laughing derisively when my cock sprang out like a jack-in-a-box, a pearl of precum glistening the slit.
She grabbed the base and took me into her mouth, swirling her hot, sweet tongue around the crown, squeezing the tip into a slit to scoop my precum, teasing me mercilessly.
Was there anything this woman didn’t do mercilessly? I doubted it.
She palmed my balls—scraping them with her pointy fingernails, half-teasing, half-threatening, flattening her tongue against the underside of my cock and gliding it all the way down until she sucked my balls. I curled my fist, driving it to the wall with a low moan.
Of course she was good at sucking cock. Of fucking course. I was starting to see the error of my ways. Breaking up with her for trying to kill me was a disproportionate overreaction on my part.
I mean, was it really warranted? She only did it once. Everybody deserved a second chance.
If you give her another chance, she will kill you and probably use your skin to make herself a new Birkin.
That little stroll down memory lane doused the fire in my loins. Not enough to make my dick shrivel up in distaste—that would require some level of logic I didn’t possess when it came to this woman—but enough to piss me off.
“That’s enough,” I growled, angling her head down and pushing my entire length into her mouth, making her choke and gag on it so that everyone in the store knew what we were doing. “Now take it like the good girl you’ll never be.”
She grinned through the discomfort, her red-rimmed, emerald gaze clashing with mine defiantly. Even on her knees, she was a fighter. She was always beautiful but especially when she cried.
Tierney bobbed her head back and forth, sucking the living fuck out of my cock, and I knew I wouldn’t last more than a few seconds. More ammo for her to taunt me with, no doubt.
I still remembered the days when a single tear shed from her would send me tearing through the streets, rearranging faces and setting shit on fire.
A part of me missed those days. Caring about something, someone, definitely helped my psyche since my day job included killing people left and right.
Ramming my shaft past her stretched lips angrily while fucking her face, I felt the edge of her throat closing in, her gag reflex trying to pump me back out of her mouth.
I wondered if she knew what she looked like when she had sex.
How lifeless her eyes became. How unmoved her expression was.
No matter how hard I made her scream, no matter how good I fucked her through the mattress, an inherent hollowness lived in her features when we were together that reminded me we were screwing, not making love.
I only had twenty-four hours left before this trip came to an end and one more thing I wanted to do before we said goodbye.
I wanted to remind her of everything she’d lost and make her choke on much more than my dick—on regret. For everything that could’ve been if she wasn’t so goddamn cruel and stupid.
Because I wanted much more than her body. Always had.
I wanted every piece of her heart and every last crumb of her soul.