Chapter 31
Isabella
Iwas plunking at the piano keys when Amalia came hurtling into the room, looking both elated and exasperated. “What’s wrong?”
She picked up the remote and turned on the massive television that was mounted to the wall and quickly found the local news. Check here for updates on what local police are calling a possible terrorist attack…
Amalia turned to me. “Your fiancé is lucky that he has friends in the FBI,” she said with a tsk. “That dumbass knows better.”
I stared at the footage of a blazing inferno in the warehouse district in the Bronx. “Lorenzo did that?”
“That’s Alfie’s work, I’m sure of it.”
“Alfie?” Most days, I was glad that I didn’t grow up in the Cosa Nostra, but sometimes, like now, it was a pain in the ass.
“He’s insane,” Amalia said, as if that explained everything.
I stood, frustration driving me. “What does all of this mean?” I demanded. “Is Lorenzo?”
“Dolcezza.”
I turned. He was standing in the doorway, arms outstretched.
With a yelp, I ran for him and wrapped my body around him, squeezing hard.
It had only been a handful of hours, but it had felt like days.
“You’re back,” I said against his mouth.
Almost just as quickly, I pushed him away.
“Are you okay?” I demanded, eyes sweeping his face and body for any obvious injuries.
There was blood on his shirt, but I quickly realized that it wasn’t his.
Lorenzo smiled at me, cupping my face and drawing me back in for another kiss. “I’m fine,” he said.
“Did you find—?” I couldn’t say Santino’s name out loud, but Lorenzo understood me regardless. He shook his head, and my heart plummeted into my feet.
“But I did find someone else,” he said, and he gestured behind him.
A man covered in prison tattoos came around Lorenzo, carrying my sister.
She was unconscious, but otherwise, she didn’t look hurt.
“Amalia, go get a guest room ready for me?” I heard her quick footsteps as she hurried from the room, but I couldn’t stop staring at my sister.
She looked even younger right now, face slack like it was.
“Gemma,” I said, touching her arm. She didn’t move a muscle. “You gave her a sedative,” I guessed.
“We found her in a room with your mother,” Lorenzo said gently.
I winced. “Was she?”
He nodded. “I don’t think she made it through the beating.”
I expected as much, but my stomach still tried to turn in on itself.
I couldn’t say that I mourned my mother’s passing.
I didn’t really know the woman and hadn’t thought extensively about her in years.
But I ached knowing that Gemma had watched the person she loved most die like that.
I could only imagine the kind of pain she would experience when she was conscious again.
But she was here, and she was safe, and it was all because of Lorenzo. He didn’t have to do this; Gemma wasn’t anything to him, and he wasn’t an altruistic man by nature. He had done this, rescued her, and committed an act of domestic fucking terrorism for me.
I should have been horrified. Terrified. Except, I had never felt more loved in my entire life.
I was so impossibly turned on right now, and from the look on Lorenzo’s face, he knew.
Sonofabitch read me better than anyone ever had, and fuck, if that didn’t make me even wetter than I already was.
Lorenzo took Gemma from the tattooed man.
“Don’t go home right away,” he told him.
“Go to the house in Brooklyn for the next few days. Let things cool down. Have Vincent and Matt do the same.”
He nodded. “Sure, boss.”
I followed Lorenzo up the stairs. “Should you have come home?” I asked his broad back. My eyes traced over the muscles of his shoulders and down his spine. Had he always had such a nice ass? I didn’t appreciate it enough.
Amalia had the blue room ready by the time we got to it. Lorenzo laid Gemma on the bed, and I worked her shoes from her feet. “What kind of sedative did you give her?” I asked.
“It came out of a pill bottle with a Russian label.”
“Helpful,” I groused. She could be out of it for four hours or four days.
“I’ll watch over her,” Amalia said with a knowing smile curling at the corner of her mouth. “The second she starts coming around, I’ll let you know.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, unable to keep the desperation out of my voice. Beside me, Lorenzo snorted, and I swatted at him.
“Go,” Amalia said, dismissing us. “I’ve played nursemaid more times than I can count. I can handle it.”
With a grateful smile aimed at her, and one last look at my sister, I all but dragged Lorenzo out of the blue room and down the hall. His laughter chased after me, but when I turned at our bedroom door, he was there to sweep me into his arms as he walked us over the threshold.
“Touch me,” I begged into his mouth, uninterested in being teased today. “Don’t stop touching me.”
Lorenzo plunged his tongue into my mouth, swirling it with mine, finding all of the places that drove soft sounds from my throat.
Our hands wandered, tugged at clothes, and dropped them to the ground.
I yanked his shirt over his head, and he hissed when I started kissing at his neck and down his pecs, sinking my teeth into his skin and sucking marks into his chest. “Are you trying to eat me, dolcezza?” he asked, a touch breathless.
I lifted my head. “What if I was?”
He let out a sound like a growl and crashed our mouths together again. He walked us backwards, toward the bed, and when the back of my knees hit the mattress, he guided me onto my back. I winced, and he paused. “What’s wrong?”
It felt like the baby was lying on my intestines. “I don’t think I can be on my back anymore,” I said. “The baby.”
Recognition sparked on his face, and he helped me to turn on my side before curling behind me.
One hand cupped my breast, tugging at the nipple and sending shivers across my skin.
“Is this okay?” he asked, breath ticking the back of my neck.
His lips nibbled at my nape, and I sighed, pressing my head back against his shoulder, arching my body into his touch.
“It’s good.”
He made a soft, offended noise. “Just good?” he asked. “I think we can do better than that.” He skated his hand down my body and reached between my thighs. I whimpered and tried to open for him, hooking my knee over his legs, and he chuckled. “Someone is acting like a needy slut.”
I hated when he said things like that. I hated how it turned me into a shivering mess, and I had to stop myself from begging him to take me. Lorenzo’s fingers circled my clit, and I panted as he stoked the fire that was roaring through my veins. It felt good, but I needed him lower, inside.
I grabbed his wrist and tried to guide him where I wanted, but of course, Lorenzo wasn’t going to let that stand. “What, dolcezza?” he murmured, nipping at my earlobe.
“You know,” I said.
“But I like hearing how much you need me,” he said, and while he was still teasing, there was a thread of sincerity in his voice.
I pressed my ass back into where he was hard and straining. “I need you,” I said, twisting my head so that I could kiss him. “I feel so goddamn empty.”
Lorenzo groaned, and his control evaporated. He wrapped his hands behind my knee and held me open. “Put me in,” he commanded.
I reached between us and took him in my hand, chuckling when he shuddered. “Are you okay, Enzo?” I practically trilled at him.
“Isabella.” His voice was a warning, and I pressed the spongy head of his cock against where I was wet and waiting.
“Do it.”
With a push of his hips, he sank inside of me, and the feel of him stretching me stole the air from my lungs. I whimpered pitifully. “I’ll never get used to that.” I groaned and worked my hips back until he was fully seated.
“Same,” he whispered and stilled for a moment.
I wanted to hurry him along, eager to chase the pleasure that I knew he could bring to me, but having him this close was grounding.
I could feel his chest against my back, his arms around me, the way he was tucked up inside of me.
I was completely surrounded by him, and it made me shake in his arms. “Dolcezza?”
I reached back and slid my fingers into his hair, holding him as closely as I could. “Move,” I begged him. “Make us feel good.”
Lorenzo tucked his face against my neck and snapped his hips against mine. Pleasure burst over me, and I did what I could to move back, to meet his thrusts, until we were both panting and gripping onto each other like the world might shake apart if we let go.
“Touch yourself,” Lorenzo said, and I complied. I moaned when my fingers brushed over where I was swollen and sensitive. “Slowly, dolcezza,” he murmured against my hair. I followed his instructions; my touch was in direct opposition to the hard and heavy way he was fucking me.
“You risked your life for my sister,” I said, quickening the way I circled my clit. “You set half of the fucking Bronx on fire.”
He laughed, breathless and a touch cruel. “Bombs will do that.”
My fingers paused for a split-second before I had to start again, desperate for the heady pleasure that we were creating together. “You set off a bomb?”
His hips went faster, and I cried out. “I would do anything for you,” he said, and it sounded so much like a promise. And a threat. And I was going to come so hard. “Give it to me,” he commanded. “I can feel you squeezing down on me. Come on my cock, dolcezza.”
I did, flung into the kind of pleasure that bordered on pain. On a feeling so good that it made your heart skip a beat and tightened your lungs. Lorenzo groaned as he followed me over the edge, and I felt it when he filled me.
“Don’t move,” I said before he could pull away. “Don’t leave me, not yet.”
Lorenzo kissed my shoulder and adjusted just enough that we could lay tangled up in each other. His hand cupped my belly, and he jerked when the baby fluttered beneath his touch. “What the?”
I grinned and put my hand over his, guiding him where I felt movement. From the look on his face, I could tell he was feeling it now. “Say hi to Daddy, baby,” I murmured.
Lorenzo took a shuddering breath, and I watched as the pregnancy became real to him for the first time.
He had been worried over it because of me, but I watched as he realized that there was an actual baby growing inside my belly.
I felt him slip away from me, and while I mourned the loss, watching him as he lowered himself so that he was eye-level with my baby bump mattered more.
He pressed his lips against the spot where he first felt the movement, soft and reverent. “Hi, baby,” he said. “It’s Daddy.”
More flutters, and I giggled wetly, tears brimming. “He likes your voice.”
Lorenzo met my eyes. “He?”
I shrugged. “It’s just a guess.” I carded my fingers through his hair. “We’re going to need some name options.”
He hummed and kissed my belly again. “I’ll think about it.”