14. Salvatore
14
SALVATORE
She’s hooked by the first four seconds of footage, completely pressed up against me as we watch Junior saw into the leg of a sobbing man in a cage. We also see several clips of him scooping out a person’s eye while they scream. By the twelfth clip, I figure she’s had enough. She’ll understand now.
“You’re not going to let him catch you, are you?” I ask carefully.
Marisol clutches my forearm while she stares straight ahead at the reflection of us on the dead TV. I have to resist the teenage urge to flex into her hands.
“Why haven’t you shown this to the police?” she asks.
“There are hundreds of years of history to explain why the Family doesn’t trust the police. And there’s also the risk that if Junior were caught—by one of the very few officers that aren’t in our pocket—he might rat us out. Some of our own men ordered him to do the things you saw. Others he did just because he wanted to. If there’s a problem, we handle it internally. But seeing as how Junior’s the underboss and the only son of the don… no one’s stuck their neck out yet.” At the way she worries her bottom lip, I desperately want to tuck her into me and fill her ear with all the promises I could offer. I settle with taking her hand in mine. “There’s one other thing I need to tell you.”
“I’m not sure my heart can take any more of your show and tells,” she says with a forced laugh that teases at the corners of my own mouth.
I wish there was a better time for this. A beach somewhere with a sunset and her warm, tanned legs stretched over mine. “The night you ran away, I told Junior I was going to marry you.”
Marisol rips her hand out of mine and shoves me away from her as she throws herself off the couch. “ What did you just say to me?”
“We’re engaged.”
“ No.” Her ponytail whips across her back with the force of her negation. “We can’t be engaged, because I never agreed to that. You can’t just spring that on someone. What the fuck, Salvatore? Who says I even want to be married?”
“You were willing to marry that ex of yours. You want to be a wife. I want to be your husband. We would be good together?—”
I move to stand, but she pushes me back into the couch. Or, tries to, and I let her manhandle me, because I’m so far gone for this woman that even her fury is a harsh light I could bask under.
She glares daggers at me and speaks in a low voice that pumps all the blood straight to my dick. “We are not going down that alley again. This is what’s going to happen. You are going to figure out where Junior is, and you are going to tell him I’m nothing to you because if you don’t, you’ve painted a giant red bullseye on my back.”
“I’m not going to tell Junior that. If he touches you, then by code, I’ll have the right to do the same to him.”
Her jaw drops, and for a few moments, I can see the gears turning in her head. I brace myself for violence.
“You complete and utter dickhead .” She pronounces each word with a lethal measure of venom. “Not only did you make me your property in this ass-backward world of yours, but your consolation prize for me is that you’ll get to shoot Junior after he saws off my legs and gouges out my eyes. You…”—Marisol rubs her temples in quick, jerky movements—“ vile , pathetic piece of shit. You did this so I couldn’t leave. So I’d be forced to stay here and be your… shitty little way of getting under Junior’s skin. Fuck and I … god, I’m such a fucking idiot.”
She stomps to her front door and swings it wide open. “It’s time you got the fuck out.”
I stalk toward her, using the same cold expression that’s made weaker men piss their pants and rat out their own mothers, but my Marisol hardly blinks. I remove her hand, which balls into a fist, and then gently close and lock the door. I keep hold of her wrist.
“I thought this would be the best way to protect you.” My heart’s pounding, but my voice is composed. At least I can control my body like this—a steady, calm tone while staring down the barrel of a gun—even as I’m starting to realize I can’t control the majority of my reactions to her.
“ You —” she starts, and her hand flexes while she takes a deep breath before continuing in an icy tone. “You found a solution that would benefit you . You’d get me—because of your ‘obsession’ for me, or whatever—or you’d get the chance to take down Junior, someone who you clearly have problems with.”
“By code, I’m also not supposed to attack a higher-up, so Junior hurting you doesn’t give me a clear-cut path to killing him. It’s just insurance.”
“Insurance for your property.”
“You are not property. I don’t think anyone could hope to own you.”
At that, her fist releases into a limp arrangement of fingers. Exhaustion shadows her face, and guilt stabs at my chest with a dull blade. I bring her hand up to my mouth to kiss the base of her wrist before releasing her. “Tell me how I can fix this for you.”
Her sharp inhale tugs at my dick.
“How you can fix the mess you—and only you—made?”
She discovered Beta’s identity in the first place, but I’m not about to mention that right now.
“Yes.”
“I want a car. A clean, nondescript car that I can use. And cash. And I want you to find Junior and figure out some loophole in your stupid little code that lets you confine him for as long as you can so that I have the barest chance of escaping.”
“Done.” I take out my phone and send a text to Dom telling him everything Marisol’s asked for while she reads over my shoulder. He responds immediately that he’ll have the car and cash delivered to her apartment within the hour and that he’s sending men out to search for Junior.
“And tell him to end Camillo’s punishment and bring him back.”
“That’s not?—”
“Salvatore.”
I consider her for a long moment. There’s no compromise in her sweet face. Fine. I could use the extra manpower anyway.
I type out another text. Dom responds immediately.
Dom
Someone’s whipped. He’ll be home asap.
Marisol hides a smirk.
“You’re not going to argue about that?” she says, gesturing at my pocket.
“About what?” I circle her in one step.
“That you’re whipped .”
“What’s there to argue?”
Marisol bumps her back against the door. We’re close. I can smell my shampoo in her hair and fuck , if that doesn’t make me feral. My cock’s uncomfortably hard and straining in my jeans, but I don’t want to adjust myself when she’s right there, and all I can think about is touching her thick hair or her soft tits or her lovely face.
“If you’re so whipped, why don’t you do what I say?”
My chest brushes against hers. “What else do you want me to do?”
Her eyes flicker between mine. She could ask for anything at all right now, and I’d do it without question, without care to the consequences. Her mouth firms, and my gut sinks.
“Suffocate.”
I freeze. Suffocate? What is she…
I’d cut those jeans off and suffocate between your thighs right now if you’d let me.
One of her eyebrows ticks up as if to say, I knew you wouldn’t. Coward. “Don’t turn saint on me now, Salvatore. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve had someone’s mouth on me—but you probably already knew that. I should go into this with a clear head, don’t you think?”
Of course I agree with her. She shouldn’t have any distractions whatsoever while she’s on the road.
I drop to my knees with a heavy thud.
“Just say stop, and I will.”
I scan her face for regret, but her eyes are bright and alive, and her rosy lips part on an exhale. One edge of her mouth tilts up, transforming her face from innocent to impish. My little succubus.
I hook two fingers into her waistband, dragging her leggings and panties down her rich curves. Her chest rises and falls in quick succession, and her eyelashes flutter like she’s warring between keeping them open or squeezing them closed. I slip her shoes off, and it’s a shock to be able to leave them on the floor like the castings they are because now I have Marisol, the real Marisol in between my fingers, and I can shuck her panties and leggings off as well, and there’s no overwhelming, burning need to hoard them. Her shirt skims the top of her thighs, just barely covering her pussy and making it all the more tempting by suggesting sex, but not baring it.
I slip her shirt up to bare her to me anyway. My cock presses painfully into my jeans, but I don’t dare stop touching her even for a second. I’m going to make this so good for her that she won’t think twice about staying here with me.
“Take the rest off,” I say in a husky voice before I crush my lips to her inner thigh and suck hard.
Marisol cries out and jerks in my arms, but I’ve got her. She won’t fall. She works to get her shirt and bra off while I coat her inner thighs with kisses and nips and lovebites.
Distantly, I’m aware of her clothes falling to the floor with a rustle. I drag one fingertip along her seam to guide the collected nectar into my mouth. Her flavor explodes on my tongue, sharp and carnal, and I lick along her thigh to seek access against the dark curls there, groaning into her entrance while she writhes above me. She fists one hand into my hair, better than any dream or fantasy.
I cast my gaze over her heavy breasts and her supple belly, and then I’m snagged in her sharp-eyed look. She might be naked, trembling in my arms, but she’s the one dissecting me, like a scientist about to cut into an amoeba.
“Is this what you wanted?” she asks. She manages to sound breathless and teasing at the same time.
“No,” I groan. I rub my face into her thatch of curls and inhale shamelessly. “But it’s a start.”
Her playful laugh turns into a moan as I dig into her slit with my tongue. I turn her thighs out so that I can drive my face deeper, but it’s not enough. I want more of her taste.
She squeals and balances on the balls of her feet, tugging my hair to a painful degree, and that’s good too, because it’s part of her punishment for me. She can do anything she wants to me as long as it’s her doing it to me. I throw one of her thighs over my shoulder.
“Need more,” I gasp out and throw her other leg around my shoulder and there . Her back strikes against the door with an obscene thud, and while I hope all her neighbors hear, she’s past caring. Her heels dig into my back and her nails drive into my scalp and I have Marisol Vasquez balanced on my tongue.
Her sexy little moans and breathless Salvatore, right there, yes, yes drive me into a frenzy. There’s nothing else in this moment—no jobs, no assignments, no rats, no schemes, no cameras, no leaving, just a woman and a man blending into the sublime.
I crawl a hand up her torso to squeeze one of her perfect tits. It’s a greedy, selfish touch, but all the same, she rewards me with a gush of wetness that I lap up.
“Sal…” she chokes out, her thighs clenching around me.
My free hand snakes to her entrance and just manages to squeeze in two fingers. Fuck, she’s tight. How is she going to fit —I can’t worry about that now. I jerk my mouth away just as she begins to flutter around my fingers, and she cries out in frustration.
“Tell me,” I start.
She bursts out with, “Yes, yes! Anything! I’m so close . P-please.”
“Say you’re mine.” I pinch her nipple hard enough to make her gasp.
Her eyelids fly open, but her gaze is hazy and unfocused. “What? Sal?—”
I force another finger into her and piston my arm underneath her. My biceps are burning, but I grit my teeth and don’t stop. I need her to say it. She can’t leave. She bounces up with each thrust, and her hips chase my mouth, but still, I deny her, and I hope it hurts as badly as the ache in my cock.
“ Say it .”
“I’m yours , Sal.”
I suck her clit into my mouth and pull hard and in seconds, she’s chanting I’m yours I’m yours I’m yours, and I pray it sticks into her brain because it’s searing into mine.
As she sags down the door, I ease her onto the ground and stand over her body.
It feels like the first time I killed a man. There was the weight of the knowledge that my old life was behind me, and I would never be able to return—except this time, I don’t ever want to go back. My new life starts now.
As the seconds pass, Marisol seems to become conscious of her nakedness because she covers one breast and twists toward her t-shirt. Before she can reach it, I lift her back up in my arms.
“Sal,” she starts warningly.
“It’s okay.”
She studies me as I walk the short distance down the hallway to ease her on her bed. In her bathroom, I find a rag to soak in warm water, wipe my face, and then return to Marisol so I can clean her.
Her gaze is cautious. “Sal.”
“Let me take care of you,” I say gently.
Despite her reluctance, she melts into my hand as I cup her through the rag. Once I’m finished, I toss it onto her dresser and sit with her on the bed, pulling her onto my lap. She’s taken down her ponytail, letting her long hair spill over her shoulders, and with her post-sex glow, she looks like a goddess.
“Don’t leave,” I say, after a long pause. “Come back home with me. You can set the terms.”
Marisol strokes my jaw with her hand and stretches up to kiss me, long and deep. When she pulls away—too quickly—she steps off of me in one fluid motion.
She walks out of the room.
I wait.
She doesn’t come back.
A minute later, I find her in the living room, dressed, and considering the bookcase. She’s searching for my camera.
Looking at her makes my chest hurt.
“If you can find it in ten minutes,” I say, instead of a hundred other things. “I’ll double your reward.”
Her gaze flicks to me, dark eyes bright and delighted. “Start the timer.”