Chapter 41
Matteo
Anna sits on the kitchen island, swinging her bare legs as she watches me make breakfast.
“Do we really have to go back today?” she asks, a frown tugging at her lips. “Can’t we stay a little longer?”
If I could, I would stay here for the rest of my life. But reality is calling us back, and I’ve already delayed it long enough.
“We spent the whole weekend in bed, sweetheart. There are plenty of beds back home, too.”
“No lies, husband,” she grumbles. “You know as well as I do that once we return to the city, you won’t have time for me.”
“Hey,” I say, grabbing her chin and pulling her to me. “I will always have time for you. No one is more important than you, vita mia. No one.” Her cheeks pink before she leans in to steal a kiss.
Since that night on the beach where we first made love, Anna’s been taking more initiative. Kissing me when she wants, how she wants. And I, for one, am more than happy to let her take advantage of me in any way she pleases.
“I’m going to hold you to that,” she threatens, drawing a smile to my lips. Her gaze lingers on my mouth as she traces her fingers over my bottom lip. “I like it when you smile. It makes you look softer.”
“Only for you, wife. All my smiles are yours,” I say, giving her lips another passionate kiss.
My cock hardens at the little moans Anna makes, and when her tongue sweeps the bottom of my lip, it’s hard as steel. I pull away from our kiss, her eyes already heady with desire. It doesn’t matter how many times I fuck my wife every which way till Sunday. She’s always needy for more. Fuck.
Now I’m the one who isn’t looking forward to saying goodbye to this place. I like seeing my Anna like this. Free from all her burdens, with only sex on the brain.
It’s not only that. Here she can roam, walk on the beach, go into town, feel the sun on her face.
That won’t be a possibility when we go back to Manhattan.
She’ll have to be holed up in our apartment again, with only my mother to keep her company.
Is this really the life I want to give her? Doesn’t my Anna deserve more?
“Your eggs are burning, husband,” she taunts, wiggling her brows, far too pleased with herself.
“I wonder who’s to blame for that,” I force a chuckle, turning off the stove and pushing the pan aside so I can grab my wife by the waist. “You distracted me.”
“Did I?” she mocks with a feigned innocence that isn’t fooling anyone.
“I know what you’re doing,” I say when she wraps her arms around my neck.
“Me? I’m not doing anything.”
“Yes, you are. You’re distracting me so that we don’t leave on time.” She shrugs unapologetically.
“And what if I am? What’s really waiting for us back home anyway?”
“Your piano for one. My mother for another,” I say, running my knuckles over her cheeks. “She’s grown quite attached to you.” Anna’s eyes soften.
“I love her too.” My heart swells ten sizes at her words. “Has Paolina ever gone on a vacation? Maybe next time we could bring her?”
“You want us to bring my mother on a vacation?” I arch a brow.
“I don’t see why not? She’s had a hard life, Matteo. A little normalcy would do her some good.”
This woman. This extraordinary, beautiful woman.
“Fuck it. We can be a little late,” I growl, pushing my woman on her back against the island and pulling her ass to the edge.
“What are you doing?” she asks breathlessly.
“You can’t be all sweet and shit and include my mother in our future plans and not get rewarded, sweetheart. That’s just not the man that you married.”
“And what kind of man did I marry?” she taunts, placing her feet on the edge and spreading her legs wide, exposing the fact that she’s not wearing anything beneath her summer dress.
“A voracious one.”
Anna’s little giggle meets a quick death when my tongue takes its first lick.
My eyes squint shut at her sweetness, my hard cock straining in its confinements.
Her pussy always tastes like warm honey on the tongue.
It’s enough to drive any man insane. I make sure to eat her out, slowly at first, just to enjoy listening to the little moans she lets out.
But when my teeth graze her sensitive clit, and then suck it into my mouth, her soft moans always morph into loud wails.
Here in the Hamptons, I don’t mind my wife screaming out her pleasure, but when we get home, I have to make sure that no one hears her cries. Those are only for my ears and mine alone.
“Matteo,” she says on a broken sob, arching her body just to look down on me.
I look at her through my lashes, seeing the agony she’s in.
It’s too much for me to bear and still not enough.
I grab her by the hips, lift her up in the air, and then plant her feet on the ground, kicking her legs wide apart.
I snake a hand around her, cupping her breast in my hand and giving it a good squeeze, while my other hand fondles her ass.
“Hmm,” she moans.
“I can’t get enough of you, wife,” I whisper in her ear. “It’s not fair how you like using such a weakness against me.”
She rubs her ass on my cock and smiles sweetly at me. “You’re the one who created this monster, husband. Now live with your consequences.” She winks at me. Winks. At. Me.
If all the blood wasn’t already shooting to my cock, I’d laugh. But as it stands, I’m too far gone. So I do the next best thing. I slap her ass cheek, making her gasp at the sensation, her whole face turning bright red at how a little slap just got her even wetter.
“I love you more than life itself, vita mia. But you’re going to pay for that.”
“M’kay,” she nods expectantly.
I use my fingers on her clit, while I position myself at her entrance. My woman is already dripping, her juices running down her thighs. My Anna is so responsive to my touch, to my voice, to my kiss, that when I thrust deep inside of her, it feels like she’s welcoming me home.
“Fuck. I’ll never get enough of you,” I say, biting down on her shoulder as she throws her head back on mine.
“You won’t have to,” she says, and I’m not sure she realizes what those small words do to me.
Anna hasn’t told me she loves me yet, though her actions and the way her body responds to me say it for her. I don’t mind waiting. I’ve already waited an eternity for her. What’s a few more days, weeks, or months?
“Matteo,” she breathes out my name, grabbing onto the edge of the kitchen island, fearing her knees might buckle with each punishing thrust.
“Fuck, baby. This pussy is going to destroy me one day,” I groan when I feel her walls clench around me, strangling my cock for all its worth.
“Don’t stop. Please don’t stop,” she wails, letting her head fall down, depriving me of seeing her face.
However, I don’t like that. I don’t like that one bit. I grab her short hair and push her head back.
“Eyes on me, wife. Eyes always on me.”
Anna’s baby blue eyes plead with mine, her swollen lips begging to be claimed.
My lips drop to hers in a hungry kiss, my tongue thrashing with hers as her pussy continues to pulse around me.
Her tongue surrenders to mine, letting me suck and tease and bite.
And when she starts whimpering, her body trembling, announcing that she’s close to the precipice, I use my fingers to draw out her orgasm in tandem with each punishing thrust. Her tight pussy clasps around my cock in a vise grip, causing me to go blind for a second.
Fuuuuuck!
“MATTEO!” she wails, shattering into a million tiny pieces in my arms.
My heart feels like it’s about to explode in my chest with so much happiness, it’s physically impossible to withstand. Still, it’s the way her heavy eyes look at me with so much love swimming in her serene ocean that really undoes me.
Mine. All mine. Forever… mine.
It took us six hours to leave the Hamptons, as neither one of us was really eager to go home. As I drive us back into the city, Anna’s head rests on my shoulder, her eyes closed, and my hand always on her thigh.
“Matteo,” she whispers, alerting me that she’s awake.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Do you think that we would have found each other if we weren’t born into our families?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, if you weren’t a Donato and I weren’t a Romano, do you think we would still have met?”
I don’t remind her that she’s a Donato too, since I know what she’s implying.
“You’re nineteen, wife. If you had lived any other life but this one, you would probably have been studying at a fancy music school like Juilliard. Too young and talented to be tied down to anyone.”
“And what would you have been doing?” My brows furrow.
“This life is all I know.”
“But what if it weren’t. What if we were normals?”
“Normals?” I chuckle.
“You know? Regular civilians.”
“Hmm. Maybe I’d be in business. I like numbers and problem solving, so maybe I’d be one of those assholes you see on Wall Street.”
“No,” she says, shaking her head before resting her chin on my shoulder, her fingers ruffling my hair. “You would have been a chef. Maybe working in some high-end Michelin-star restaurant.” I smile at her statement.
“You think so?” She nods.
“And one day someone would tell me all about this amazing restaurant with the most decadent dishes, and I would book a table months in advance just so that I could have my graduation dinner there. And as I was waiting for my friends to arrive, our eyes would catch from across the room and that would be all she wrote. I would have been older, wiser, and maybe a little more worldly. And you would have been playful and easy going. The kind of man who could recite poetry by heart and light up every room with his incandescent smile.”
“Is that how I’d win your heart?” I ask quietly. “With a poem and a smile?”
“I think so,” she murmurs, resting her head on my shoulder again. “That’s how you did it the first time.”
It’s not an I love you, but fuck if it doesn’t feel like one.
“If I had seen you walk into my restaurant, I’d have been too struck by lightning to remember my own name, much less any poetry, sweetheart.”
“No. You’d remember. You’d sweep me off my feet, and we’d live happily ever after.”
“We will live happily ever after. In this life.” She smiles, even if she looks a little sad.
“I just wish we had another. That’s all. This one… is too hard. Too filled with death and carnage. Too much blood… just too much.”
“It’s the life that we have, vita mia,” I frown, kissing her knuckles.
“I know. I just wish… things were different. That’s all.” My heart drops at how defeated she sounds.
“I’ll make you happy in this one. I promise you.”
Anna raises her head and places a tender kiss on my cheek. “You already have.”
I know she means it, but there’s still too much sadness in her voice for me to take any comfort in it.
We drive the rest of the way in silence, both troubled by our own thoughts. Unfortunately for me, when we finally get home, that happily-ever-after I promised my wife takes a serious detour.
“Glad you finally decided to show up,” Niccolò greets, arms crossed over his chest.
Instead of answering that poor greeting, I turn to my wife and place a gentle kiss on her forehead.
“Sweetheart, why don’t you go look for my mother in the kitchen? I’m sure she’s missed you terribly.” She nods, throwing a wary glance at Niccolò before bypassing him in search of my mother.
When she’s no longer in sight, I turn my attention to my pissed-off brother.
“I hope getting your dick wet was fucking worth it,” he says, but before I have time to set him straight about talking like that about my wife, he shoves a tablet in my hands. “These are the names of every soldier we lost while you were away. The Cosa Nostra is officially at war with the Outfit.”
“When?” I ask, my eyes scanning the tablet.
“Two days ago. They used the holiday to make their first attack,” he says, somberly. “And this arrived at Moretti’s this morning,” he says, pulling an envelope from his back pocket.
I rip the envelope open and find a small note addressed to me.
Return Annamaria home, and the lives of those you love will be spared.
Yours, however, will not. You forfeited it the moment you took our daughter.
Vincent Romano
And so it begins.