Chapter 7
DAMIAN
This is wrong. Was wrong the first two times I did it too. Doesn’t make this any better though.
I’m in the shower, water gliding down my taut body, my muscles aching like they’re fixing to explode out of my skin. The memory of the kiss hasn’t left me since it happened. The soft warmth of her lips. The press of her curvy body. The moaning hunger as she pressed against me.
My hand glides down to my manhood, gripping my base. Already solid, aching with desire for my best friend’s sister, my tip leaking precome, and my head swimming with visions I can’t control.
She’s bent over in the entranceway where we kissed, looking at me over her shoulder. Her thick ass is naked. Her creamy flesh marked red from where I’ve spanked and owned her. Biting her lip as she waits for me to drive my cock into her oh-so patient slit.
I should stop. I need to stop.
“Argh,” I groan, as my hand moves faster, sizzling flames shimmering up my rock-solid cock.
I close my eyes tighter, as if the more stubbornly I sink into the fantasy, the longer I can ignore reality. Ignore how fucked-up this is.
I imagine the feel of her warm wetness as I push inside of her, imagine the crush of her ass against my stomach. I hear her moans, savor them.
“We can’t do this…”
I know we can’t. But right now, I don’t give a fuck.
I lean against the shower, moving my arm so fast my forearm is getting sore. It’s like I can feel her tight, hot pussy gripping me harder.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I erupt all over the shower wall, thick ropes of come making my tip hum and ache.
When it’s over, just like the other times, I quickly shower myself off and promise that was the last time. I’ve made the same promise twice before.
And broken it both times. I rarely break promises, especially to myself.
If I tell myself I’ll work out, or read a book, or shatter a man’s teeth, I do it.
But when I tell myself, I won’t think about Celine and her perfect body, I fail. Every damn time.
Maybe the fourth time’s the charm.
After the shower, I check my cell. What the hell?
Nine missed calls from Julian. I sit on the edge of my bed and call him back.
“Has anyone seen you?” he snaps.
“What? Slow down. Explain.”
“Are you home?”
I laugh without humor. “Where else would I be?”
“That’s my goddamn point. I’m coming by. Unlock the back door.”
“Don’t let anyone follow you.”
Now, it’s his turn to laugh. “If there was a one percent chance of that happening, I wouldn’t come by. You know that.”
Something climbed up his ass and died, clearly. He hangs up before I can ask what happened. I head downstairs and crack the back door. Check the front. No cars, no tails, nothing unusual.
He arrives ten minutes later, ignoring my offer of a coffee and pacing up and down the kitchen.
“You need to be honest with me,” he snaps, staring into my eyes. For a brief moment, I see him as a boy, before he became neat and nondescript. Long wild hair, rosy cheeks, big grin stuck to his face before life wiped it away.
I spread my hands, waiting.
“Did anyone see you?”
“Not by anyone still alive,” I tell him.
He doesn’t stop pacing. “Rico visited Celine at work.”
I bite down. Hard. Teeth feeling like they could shatter. It’s difficult not to let it show. I need to pretend my reaction is based on something other than protective fire.
“Oh,” I say.
He stops pacing, tilts his head. “Oh? This is a goddamn problem.”
“What did that little rat say?”
Rico is a low-level fixer. Not an enforcer, not an earner, a bastard who never graduated from running errands and takes out his resentment on anyone who gets in his way.
Julian hesitates. A flicker of… something.
If he were anyone else, that would make me suspicious, but this is Julian, the man who saved my life.
“A bunch of vague and threatening shit. But the headline is, Celine now knows I work for organized crime. I think she’s known for years, honestly.
It’s been like this big thing hovering between us all the damn time, no matter what we’re doing. It’s always there.”
“He threatened Celine?” I snarl, trembling, hands curling into fists, ready to wreak havoc.
Julian looks at me oddly. Fuck.
“He’s got no right to bring a civilian into this,” I snap. “I thought even a lowlife like Rico would understand that.”
“He didn’t come right out and threaten her, didn’t need to. Him just being there was enough.”
“How is she?” I ask, trying to make it sound casual. It’s anything but.
“Shaken up,” he says. “We had an argument… She demanded to know what was going on. I couldn’t tell her for obvious reasons. How can I?”
“If she already knows, maybe more specifics would help.”
“What?” The bluntness turns it into a statement, not a question. He leans forward. “What?”
“She’s not a kid anymore.”
“You want me to tell her I work for the fucking mob?”
I shrug. “I’m just trying to help.”
“You can help. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I wanted to visit in person.” He takes a breath, steadying himself. “You need to leave.”
I shake my head. “Not this again.”
“Yes–this again,” he snaps.
“You know I can’t do that.”
“You should’ve left the night of the attack. You were lucky to get away with a flesh wound and a scar.”
“They were lucky I only managed to put two of them in the ground,” I snarl, thinking of the alleyway, the setup. The masked men thought they could take me unaware.
Julian groans. “Staying here isn’t an option anymore. You need to get off the East Coast. Go to California and buy a house by the sea and build a new life, man. You deserve it. You’ve worked long and hard.”
“Ride off into the sunset and pretend none of this happened? Pretend Don Salvatore isn’t a twisted fuck who’s taken things too fucking far?
” I hammer my fist against my chest, then point to my scar.
“Pretend I wasn’t this close to losing an eye?
Pretend they didn’t scar me for life? Pretend they didn’t turn me into a monster?
They wanted the Beast, Julian. They’re going to get the goddamn Beast.”
Julian’s mouth falls open. He’s my best friend. Hell, my only friend. And even he looks frightened of me.
“What’s the alternative?” Julian asks somberly. “Eventually, someone will see you.”
“I don’t understand why you think this has anything to do with me.”
“Huh?”
“Rico visits Celine at work.” Just saying the words makes my blood boil. I calm myself down. Just. “And you automatically assume it has something to do with me being seen? I don’t get it.”
Julian opens his mouth, closes it. Furrows his eyebrows. There’s something he’s not telling me. I know it. But I hope I’m just being paranoid.
He was there for me, always there, after my parents. I was an orphan with no other family, and Julian became my brother.
“You’re the only thing that’s changed,” he says after a too-long pause. “Years, and no one’s ever messed with my family. Then you get hit and suddenly they’re all over her.”
Hmm.
“I can’t let anything happen to Celine,” Julian whispers.
“But she’s pissed at me. Won’t stay with me.
And if I tail her to make sure Rico tries nothing again, the Family will catch on.
They’ll say I’m acting suspicious. Why do I feel the need to follow her?
Don’t I trust them? You know how they get. ”
“I can do it,” I tell him. “I won’t be seen. I’ll keep her safe.”
Julian’s eyebrows shoot up to his forehead. “You’d do that?”
“You don’t even need to ask me that,” I say fiercely.
“I’ll do it…” For her. If anyone touches her, I’ll wring their necks and shatter every bone in their bodies.
“For you, Julian. Come on, man.” I lower my gaze.
Emotional confessions aren’t exactly my strong suit. “I’d do anything for you, brother.”
He claps me on the arm. “Thanks, man.”
He won’t meet my eyes.
Perhaps Celine told him something else as well. About the kiss. Is that why he’s acting so weird?