12. Amara
CHAPTER 12
AMARA
“Are you okay after last night?” Gianna asked.
I shrugged. “I guess so. He didn’t do any worse than what you saw at dinner.”
“Thank fuck. I was worried. I never know where exactly the men in the compound lie when it comes to their treatment of women. Marco said we can trust Elio, but Enzo feels like a wild card.”
“They’re all playing a fucking dangerous game. I feel like a total anarchist at the compound because I think their hierarchy is stupid.”
Gianna laughed as she guided me through the kitchen of her restaurant and up to the office she worked from. “I feel the same. From monarchies down to mafia bosses. I’m just like…why the fuck does everyone listen to you?”
“Right?”
“Anyhoo, you’ll work here with me. The office will be a little bit cramped with two of us, but we’ll get you your own desk and your own computer. Hopefully we can get this place to make enough money that we don’t get watched so hard. I hate that it’s out of the family right now.”
“That’s because Bianca is a cuntasaurus rex. I wouldn’t want her to have a hold on anything.”
Gianna sighed and settled in her chair. “Right? It’s a shame she has so much power over our mates. Do you think it would be out of line for me to ask you to cook more than one set of books?”
“How so?”
She hesitated for a moment before ushering me closer. “I feel like you and I can be friends and have a certain level of trust.”
“Agreed.”
“In a few years this place will be mine again, and I would like to be able to show Bianca we’re making money, but not all the money. I need legitimate books to submit for taxation and I need books for Bianca, but I need the actual truth to be hidden from everyone.”
“Oh, fuck yes. We’ll turn this into the best fucking money laundering front the world has ever seen and I will hide as much as I can get away with.”
Gianna let out a squeak of excitement and pulled me into a hug. “I know the compound sucks, but I’m so excited to have you around.”
I was certainly glad to have an ally that I hoped to call a friend soon enough. I couldn’t exactly go back to my old friend group, not with how much danger it would put them in. Building up a new network wasn’t ideal, but it was necessary. At least Gianna was making an easy start for me.
I spent the day going over some of the existing books for the last year and making a plan of attack. This place wasn’t as profitable as it needed to be for Gianna’s plan to work, but it would be doable. At the very least, it would be something worthwhile to occupy our days with.
When the day was over and we went to leave, we found Elio seated downstairs, waiting. “Ready?”
“What are you doing here? Gianna was going to drive us back.”
“I want some time with you before we go back.”
Gianna squeezed her cheeks, an absolutely delighted expression on her face.
“What are you so happy about?” I asked.
“It’s just so cute. I never expect it out of mafia men.”
“Go home, Gianna,” Elio ordered. "We’re going to borrow your office for a while.”
Lust rippled through me.
“Have fun.” Gianna waved. “Don’t fuck up my filing system, and sanitize the desk when you’re done.”
Elio gave her a small smile and nodded, passing her to collect me and usher me right back into the office on the far side of the kitchen. The moment the door was closed, his mouth was on mine and he pressed me up against the wall.
Excitement zipped up my spine, slick pooling between my thighs to have his body against mine. Allspice and amaretto bathed my tongue and filled my senses, my own lemon tart scent saturating the air around us. When his fingers slipped down the front of my leggings, I couldn’t stop the desperate sound that left me.
“So fucking wet for me already.” His other hand wrapped around my throat, holding just tight enough to keep my attention while he teased my clit.
I whined, rocking my hips against him, desperate for him to go deeper, to strip me down and fuck me against the wall. The bond was still new enough that my body was ready for him the hot second he decided he wanted me, and honestly I was pretty fucking on board for that. I knew without a doubt that whenever he took me to bed, I was going to have a good time, and after all the shit I had been through, that was what I wanted. “Less teasing, more fucking.”
Elio laughed and captured my mouth, slipping his fingers inside me and curling until lightning burst from his fingertips, finding that sweet spot that wrecked me every time. “I’ll fuck you after you come.”
I grabbed the lapels of his leather jacket and bucked my hips, riding the heel of his hand to grind my clit, chasing my way to the peak of pleasure until I broke apart in his arms with a cry that had his scent bursting.
He turned me quickly, shucking my leggings down to my knees and bending me over. The exquisite pressure of him pushing in had me moaning and gripping the sides of the desk. With my legs trapped together, it was a whole new experience of tension, my thighs squeezing, my cunt yielding, and Elio fucking me through all of it. The angle was too good, his cock hitting where his fingers had before, each thrust sending a skittering of electricity through my nerves until I was a delirious mess, a full-body orgasm seizing my muscles and making me twitch, my throat raw from panting.
“Desperate little slut. Who do you belong to?”
I whined, gasping when he wound his hand into my hair and pulled back. “You.”
“Good girl. And who does this cunt belong to?” He fucked in hard.
My eyes rolled back. “Y-you. Fuck. It belongs to you.”
“Exactly. Mine to fuck, and fill, and use.”
I groaned. “Yes, yes, yes.”
The second he touched my clit I fell off the edge, my pussy spasming while he continued to ride me until I was spent and slack across the hard surface. Elio buried deep with his own groan, and heat blossomed from the tip of his cock. He lingered there, brushing my hair to the side so he could bow over me and tease my throat, moaning softly each time I clenched when he found a good spot.
“How do you feel about Scotland?”
“That’s a unique question to ask while you’re balls deep.”
Elio laughed in my ear and gave me a playful bite. “I’m just trying to get through the day imagining you somewhere safe.”
“Well, I’m not going to Scotland unless you’re coming too. You can fuck me on the moors like a slutty Jane Eyre.”
“Pretty sure that’s set in England, not Scotland.”
“Shush. It’s all the UK.
I squeaked when he tucked his arms beneath me and hugged me so tightly I could barely breathe. “I think I might love you.”
The words did more to freeze my breath than his embrace. My chest tightened, my emotions rapid-firing from panic to excitement, all of them circling one another and ready to fight. At least my body recovered a bit faster than my mind, my purr rumbling, delight curling in my belly.
“That’s a hell of a phrase to spring on a girl.” I laughed, craning my head to look back at him, which he was not making easy, considering he remained tight against my back.
“Figured I’d say it before it’s too late. If I’m willing to die for you and we’re having a family together, there’s only so many words to describe what I’m feeling.”
“Sir, you need to stop being so fatalistic.”
“Sir, huh?”
“ Focus .”
“Fine,” he sighed. “I would love to stop being fatalistic. I think I’m just being pragmatic. Did you know there’s not a single male member of my family still alive in Italy?”
“Well, that’s depressing.”
“I have to have a seize-the-day mentality. I can plan for your future, but I don’t know how to do that for myself.”
I reached back and cupped his head, drawing him down to kiss me. “Fucking practice, then. Because I want to say those words to you with no thinking or wondering in front of them. I just need to know you want to be around for a future with me.”
His sigh was long and deep, and he let his weight rest on me, his purr crackling. I loved that sound. It was honestly a pathetic purr, but that just told me it didn’t get a lot of use, but he purred for me, to comfort me, to let me know he was there.
“Tell me you want it,” I pleaded. “That you want this, me, us.”
His palm settled against my stomach.
“Tell me, but don’t lie to me.”
“Of course I want you. Every day since we’ve met, I’ve thought about a future we could have. It feels like I’m looking at it through smoke. I think I’ve been living in a fog, only seeing what Bianca wanted me to see. I can’t ever wash away the blood on my hands; I can’t pretend to be something that I’m not. Fuck me, I’ve never wanted to pretend as much as I have with you.”
“I’m not going to act like I understand how stuck you are in this life, but if you want help digging out, I’m here. Because I think I love you too and I also think I’d be setting myself up for a fucking broken heart if you’re so intent on me surviving without you. I want all those days and years with you, seeing the sweetness come out when there’s not a world steeped in blood keeping it pressed down.”
“What if there is no sweetness?”
“I think you might have a fundamental misunderstanding of who you are as a person if you think there’s no sweetness in you. I’d also like to ask that if we’re going to continue this conversation we not do it mid-fuck.”
“Technically, we were at the end of the fuck,” he pointed out.
“Well, if you want to continue the fucking, you’re gonna have to pick a different conversation topic.”
He flexed his hips and ghosted his hands over my skin. “I’ll ruin you back at the compound. For now I’m going to get you some dinner and you can walk around with my cum dripping out of you.”
Elio slipped free of me and I shuddered as he pulled my pants back up and cupped me through them before pulling my limp body up to face him. He cradled the back of my head and kissed me until I was dizzy, my hands clenched on his jacket to stay upright. I felt everything in his kiss, in the way that he held me. If I could get him out of here, maybe we would have a chance at a long life together, and if we were stuck under Bianca’s thumb, then fuck if I wasn’t going to drag every ounce of happiness out of the situation that I could. If Elio was so convinced life had nothing ahead for him, I was determined to give him what peace I could in his present.
Because really, I did love him, but it was safer to pretend I was still uncertain about it. And if this was all we had together, it would have to be enough.
Eventually Elio pulled away, the warmth in his eyes filling me with desire for him and hatred for the woman who ran her fucking empire with him on a leash.
“We should sanitize the desk,” he said quietly, a small smile curving his mouth. “I don’t want Gianna to kick our asses. I’ve seen her flip Marco in training; I’d rather the same not happen to either of us.”
“The only ass getting kicked is yours if you don’t take me home and fuck me stupid.”
He kissed me again and I felt it down to my toes. “An order I’m happy to comply with.”