7. Gianna
CHAPTER 7
GIANNA
I emerged from the heat spike sweaty and exhausted. Marco’s weight draped across me was better than the weighted blankets I slept with at home. I stared up at the ceiling, unmoving and unwilling to wake him. I felt the bond deep into my bones. Sorting through what was me and what was him was more difficult than I had anticipated. The echoes of myself merged with him so seamlessly. Anger and panic and aching sadness hovered like a specter within both of us. The only difference between the unbridled nature of mine and his was that he’d had more years to learn how to temper the expression. Beyond that shared negativity, a placid calmness stretched out before me. The bond was there forever now. With that irreparable step taken, this asshole was mine. It was difficult to summon up the same hatred as before when so much of him mirrored me.
When the ache in my belly and the dryness of my throat became too much, I shoved at his shoulders.
Marco woke instantly. He looked exhausted, the purple shadowing beneath his eyes making the black eye I’d given him even more prominent. His body stiffened into a defensive position, gaze scanning the room for threats. When he encountered none, he settled back down on me until I shoved him again.
“Get off.”
With a groan, he obeyed.
I slipped into the bathroom to relieve myself, and after I washed my hands, I shoved my mouth into the flow from the tap, chugging down until I no longer felt like I might keel over.
Marco was on the phone when I emerged and he set down the receiver when he noticed me. “I ordered more food.”
I stood in the doorway, arms crossed over my chest. Who the hell was the man I had been tied to for life? “Tell me everything.”
“About?”
“You.”
“I’m not that interesting,” he replied.
“Tell me anyway. I don’t even know your last name or how old you are.”
“Vero, and I’m thirty-nine.”
“Keep going,” I insisted.
He huffed a laugh and stretched out atop the sheets, linking his fingers and setting them beneath his head. Part of me was a bit offended he didn’t view me as a threat anymore. He wouldn’t expose himself like that to someone he was worried about. “I grew up in a shit-ass family, even lower on the totem pole than yours is. Poverty and violence were the bread and butter of my childhood, until I got big enough to fight back and earn money. Bianca saw a spark of something in me when she was rising up the ranks under her father and dragged me up with her. It’s a pretty similar story for the others in her inner circle. None of us were in any position to rank high enough to matter until she decided we were important, and once we had her favor, our families gained resources and properly established themselves in the city under her.”
“I thought you didn’t like Bianca?”
“The gratitude of a young man only extends so far. I’ve spilled plenty of blood on Bianca’s behalf, debased myself, bowed when I should have stood. Bianca gave me power and money, but it comes with a steep price.”
“That sounds like everything in this life. We all pay prices for things we never asked for, for people who couldn’t be bothered to pay themselves.” I sat down on the opposite edge of the bed from him, only because my legs were struggling to keep me upright and not because I wanted to be near him, though I couldn’t ignore the quiet thrill of the bond when I reached out my toes to make contact with his skin.
“You’re not wrong,” he said quietly. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you were born into it.”
I let out a puff of air and settled more comfortably. “You and me both.”
The food arrived, and I held my breath as the door swung open, revealing all of the writhing bodies on the other side of it. When we were closed off from that world again, I scarfed down the freshly filled cannoli. I didn’t miss the soft curve of Marco’s mouth as he looked at me, but I chose not to address it.
I ate my way through a platter of fresh fruit and cheesy garlic bread before chugging down a protein drink followed by an electrolyte solution. “I’m going to explode.”
Marco looked barely better than I felt as he settled against the headboard after inhaling every crumb he could reach.
“What now?” I asked.
“Your heat isn’t over yet.”
“But when it is.”
“Then you’ll move into the Gallo compound with me. You’ll meet Bianca, Santo, Elio, and Enzo. You’re the first mate of the inner circle so I’m not sure what expectations will be.”
“They won’t…” I swallowed hard. “They won’t share me, will they?”
He let out a sharp laugh. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”
“And what if you don’t? What if Bianca wants me?”
Marco chewed his lip, looking thoughtfully at the ceiling. “That’s not an easy question to answer. Everything I have, everything you’ll have, is because of her.”
Ice settled in my stomach. “So I’ll never be safe?”
“I won’t let her hurt you.” A muscle in his jaw flexed. “My first instinct when you asked was that I would rip her head off her body, but I think we both know the reality of the situation. Bianca is a do?a. Her network is wide, and her power is absolute in her territory. If she tries to come for you and I stop her, assuming we get out of anything alive, our only recourse is to run far and fast, become someone she wouldn’t want to chase.”
I curled onto my side and let my fingertips trace down his arm. “Is she as bad as they say?”
“Worse. I would expect nothing else from the daughter of Darius Gallo.”
I lapsed into silence, trying to figure out some way to bridge the gaping maw between us. I never wanted to be part of this life. I had always figured I would be forced into something eventually, but being thrust so close to where the wolf could see me, I felt more like a frightened rabbit every day. I hadn’t realized before how many in the Gallo upper echelon might also be rabbits, fearing the day Bianca would turn her feral jaws on them instead of her enemies.
“I changed my mind,” Marco said after a few beats of silence. “Maybe I will rip her head off if she comes for you. I’ve lived a long time under her power, and if saving my mate is what gets me taken out, so be it.”
The words were sinking in bit by bit. He would fight for me, even knowing how unlikely it was he would win. No one had fought for me a day in my fucking life. I scooted closer and let my cheek rest on his shoulder, setting a tentative hand on his chest.
My reward was the soft rumbling of his purr that melted every ounce of stress from my body. He curled his fingers into mine, not daring to look over at me as if he knew it might break the quiet spell we had woven.
Eventually the silence felt like too much. “Would you ever want to be the boss?”
Marco let out a bitter laugh. “There’s a lot of bloodshed between me and the top spot.”
“I never said it was practical.”
“Certain securities would be nice, but I don’t have the same thirst for blood that Bianca does. The Gallo Empire would crumble and then we would all be at the mercy of the Rossis. I’ll follow Bianca until she does something unforgivable.”
That unforgivable line could be anywhere for a mafioso. I wanted to ask, but we were still too early in the heat to waste much time on anything that wasn’t eating or sleeping between spikes. So I gave in to the pull of exhaustion.
The next couple of days passed similarly. We fucked, stuffed our faces, and slept for however long the heat allowed.
By the end of my fourth day here, I actually felt like a person again. I learned more things about him when I had the wherewithal to ask. His parents were dead but his brothers ran the Vero businesses along with countless cousins while he served under Bianca. I told him about my family, how I was the only child, but had seen many of my cousins sold off to pay debts. My father had never been violent so much as negligent. We had been poor, but because he ran the restaurant, there had always been food, even if there were days we had to pick off the leftovers of other plates. No one in his territory went hungry if he could help it.
“Where did you learn to fight?” he asked while I worked my way through a BLT and minestrone soup.
“One of my cousins was a street fighter. He taught any of us who wanted to learn.”
The black eye I had given Marco at the warehouse was almost healed, but I didn’t dare remind him it was there.
When the next spike came, I climbed straight into his lap, the tendril of silent joy he felt at the movement sneaking through the bond to me.
I rode him with as much strength as I could manage before he flipped me, fucking into me while I braced my arms above my head and he balanced on the headboard so I could see every glimmer of light play across his muscles while he ruined me.
When I emerged from the tail end of that spike, I was face down across his legs, his knot buried deep, and his hands resting on my ass while he leaned against the headboard. I squirmed, finding myself entirely unable to move.
“You’re awake?” he asked, stroking my skin with his thumbs.
“Barely.”
“That’s plenty. You’re far enough through the heat that you should be able to take your punishment now.”
I craned my neck to look back at him. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Your behavior at the warehouse could’ve gotten us both killed. I warned you that there would be consequences.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I am.” He traced his fingers up my spine and back down again. “If you behave like that at the compound, you won’t like what happens. Better for you to learn the consequences now before you get yourself into real trouble.”
I swallowed hard, unsure what his plans were. “I’ll be good.”
Marco offered me an amused smile. “I think we both know your personal history with reacting inappropriately. If I punish you, that will be in the back of your mind the next time you want to do something stupid.”
Sweat prickled on my skin, nervousness churning my belly. I tested again to see if I could move away from him, but the tug and zero give on his knot meant I was stuck right where I was. “That was totally different circumstances.”
“I was saving your life,” he deadpanned.
“And I had no idea if you were just another trafficker coming to steal me. Now I know you’re not.”
“And yet that doesn’t give me any confidence that you’re not going to haul off and punch me in the face, or that you’re not going to get physical with anyone on the compound.”
“Can’t you just trust me?”
“Do you trust me ?” he countered.
I growled low, flexing my fingers against the sheets. “Fair fucking point.”
“How much do you think you can take?” He moved his palm in a smooth circle over my ass cheek. “I’ll be going until you cry so I can be sure the lesson hits home, but I’m curious how much you’ll endure.”
“Are you seriously going to spank me?” I had never played like that before, and had never suffered through the indignity of it being a punishment.
“A spanking is mild if we’re comparing the fact that you flipped me onto concrete and punched me in the face.”
I turned away from him, grumbling. “And I’m not regretting that for a single fucking second right now.”
“All the more reason we need to take a little bit of your satisfaction out of those actions. I’ve told you you’ll have to control yourself at the compound. I can promise you Bianca won’t be as nice as I will, and I would prefer to not be put into a position where we need to test how far I’m willing to go to protect you.”
“Just get it over with.” I closed my eyes and curled my fingers around his ankles. If he was going to do this, he was going to feel my response with my nails in his skin.
The first crack of his hand against my ass had all the air rushing out of my lungs with an embarrassing squeaky yelp, followed by a pathetically desperate moan that matched his from the surprised squeeze my cunt had done on his knot. I was barely ready for the second impact. I managed to stifle the sounds, but I couldn’t stop that squeeze.
“This shade of pink right here,” he said, caressing the warm flesh of my ass, “is my new favorite color.”
His hands came down on both cheeks at once and I didn’t keep silent for that one.
“That counts as two,” I gritted out.
“What do the numbers matter?” he asked. “We’re going until tears, not a certain amount of hits.”
His palms pressed into my hips and pulled me back as his hips flexed and my breath stuttered at the increase of pressure, his knot already buried achingly deep and trying for more. I bit my lip until I tasted copper to stifle the whine that tried to crawl out of my throat. The sound unleashed in full with another strike. The stinging warmth wasn’t completely unfamiliar except that it was focused in one spot instead of through my entire body like when my heat rolled in.
Marco kept up an erratic pattern, never letting me get used to it, and mixing up those spanks with the delicious rocking of his hips. Every time my pussy contracted around his knot meant he was going to be rooted there for a little longer. It was a distracting comfort.
I squirmed while spread out across him, cursing his name as the warmth bloomed into a sharp stinging that warred with a throbbing ache before spilling entirely into a pain that had my cheeks soaked and my muscles trembling. My pussy didn’t get the memo the rest of me didn’t like this. There was so much slick trapped inside me that I could tell by the scent it was starting to slide free as the pressure overwhelmed the seal.
“That’s it. Let all those tears out.” His hand cracked against my ass one more time and I broke into a racking sob. He leaned forward, pressing his stomach against my tender ass and wedged his fingers beneath me to stroke my clit. I jolted at the first contact but I was so fucking overwhelmed I didn’t even try to fight. My whole body was alight with warmth. It was different from my heat, but no less potent.
I shifted to give him a better angle even as I couldn’t keep control of my sobbing. All that pain had scooped out everything inside me, leaving me hollow. Desire and pleasure rushed in to fill the vacuum of my emptiness. I let myself scream when Marco wrung my orgasm from me and gripped my ass cheek just as I hit the high.
“You’re giving me so many new favorites today, hellcat. That sound is going to haunt my dreams.”
I couldn’t make my brain work enough to formulate a response. Marco’s fingers kept up their wicked work, unraveling every thread that kept me tethered to reality. I felt like I was going to float away and the only thing keeping me attached to the ground was Marco’s knot buried inside me.
After the next orgasm swept through me, Marco finally took pity on me. I melted against his legs, breathing like I had been through a marathon. Every inch of me was covered in sweat, my nerves so confused about whether I was in pain or steeped in pleasure. My brain was pretty confused about that too. I clung to Marco, using my grip on his ankles to ground myself just like the knot in my cunt, until my breathing smoothed out and his knot finally went down enough that he could push at my ass to slide me off him. I hissed at the contact but was too exhausted to protest much more than that.
“Come here.”
I didn’t move.
“Come. Here. Or I’ll have to remind you what happens if you’re going to be disobedient.” His palm pressed slowly against my ass cheek and I summoned up just enough energy to pull away.
The task of turning around to face him was gargantuan. Every bit of me was depleted.
Once I had succeeded in rolling off him, he gathered me up, saving me the effort of moving further. I shivered, clutching him to me and burying my face against his throat. Bourbon and smoke filled my lungs and my peach tea responded in kind, floating off my skin like a cloud.
My omega instincts didn’t care that he had hurt me. They cared that he had given me pleasure and that he was holding me now. My purr rumbled like thunder and I fell into the black void to the sound of his heartbeat.