35. Liana
LIANA
“Oh, my God,” I manage as I come again, for the third time? Maybe fourth. Hell, maybe fifth. Dario’s insatiable, pulling out of me and sliding down my body to lap at my clit.
“That’s it, belissima. Come for me again. You can do it, baby.”
“I can’t,” I gasp, and he hums against my inner thigh before going back to his task.
I can make him stop, if I want to, but fuck, it feels so good. And anything that feels good is preferable to how I’ve been feeling lately.
I come again, whimpering, going stiff before going limp and boneless.
Dario huffs out a breath, lying next to me with his erection still bobbing up against his stomach, precum beading at the tip.
I try to breathe slowly through my nose but my breath is coming harsh and short.
“You didn’t finish.”
He smirks. “Worried I’ll get blue balls, baby?”
I roll my eyes. “That isn’t even a thing.”
“Kind of is.”
“What do you mean, kind of?”
“I mean, I’ll be sore if I don’t get off, but it’s not the big deal guys make it out to be in high school.”
I can’t move, my legs shaking. I bite my lip.
“You can finish inside me, if you want.”
His eyes light up. “Oh, belissima. I plan to. Just taking a breather.”
A breather? We’ve been at this for hours.
Not that I’m complaining. I do worry a little about Sonny, but I’m sure Marie has taken him down for lunch by now.
“Big talker,” I mutter, grinning at him, and he grunts and covers me with his body again.
He guides himself into me, thrusts hard and fast with no real rhythm. He’s just chasing his orgasm, but it makes heat spool in my lower stomach all the same.
There’s something about how his hips stutter, how his breath goes ragged, little whining moans coming out of his mouth. He nearly shouts against my neck before biting me there when he thrusts deep and spills inside me.
Being overstimulated and having him pulse inside me has me going over the edge, too, and I come with him, gasping out little breaths of his name.
“What a way to spend the day,” I say when I’m able to speak again, and Dario chuckles.
“Could spend a week in bed with you and not get tired of you, Li.”
“Only a week?” I sit up and pout, my stomach growling.
“Are you hungry?”
I pout more. “Yeah, but I don’t want to leave this room.”
“Who says you have to?” He hops up, adjusting himself back into his slacks. “I’ll go get us some lunch.”
“Check on Sonny, too, will you?”
The words sound strange coming out of my mouth. I’m actively asking him to spend time with my son. Our son.
God, I wish I could tell him. After all the sweet things he said to me, I want to give him something, some part of me. But I can’t risk it. If I’m right and he did kill my father... I can’t allow Sonny to know he belongs to him.
I wish I could just ask him. I wish I could trust that he’d tell me the truth.
He says he loves me... but can he?
Dario leaves the room briefly and when he returns, he’s carrying a plate of sausages, eggs, and a biscuit.
I sit up, my stomach growling even louder.
“Sofia really shines at breakfast.”
“She does,” Dario agrees, smiling softly at me.
I look away. I can’t get used to how he looks at me now, like I’m something precious. Like I need to be protected.
My father taught me how to protect myself, but I’d never thought I’d have to against Beth of all people. My best friend.
The very thought of her makes me tired, and I curl up on the bed, putting my head on the pillow.
Dario brushes my hair back from my face.
“Just want to stay in bed all day, baby?”
I nod slowly, looking up at him with a small pout.
“Where are you going?” My words sound whiny and pathetic but I can’t bring myself to care.
“Sonny asked me to play in the pool with him,” he explains, opening his closet and pulling out his swim trunks. He pauses in the action, looking back at me. “If that’s okay with you.”
“Of course it’s okay.”
But it’s not. What if he gets to looking at Sonny and sees how much they really are alike?
I need to get off my ass and take my son to the pool.
But my limbs won’t work. I feel still drugged by Beth somehow, even though it’s been over a week.
“Don’t push yourself,” Dario says, as if he’s heard my thoughts. “Stay in bed if that’s what you want, Li. No one expects you to bounce back from this right away.”
Tears prick at the backs of my eyes and I nod, pulling the covers around my shoulders.
He disappears again, and I float in and out of consciousness with the tv on in the background, playing some sitcom I used to love as a teenager.
My sleep is dreamless, and it’s actually nice, lying there, having no responsibilities.
But something niggles at the back of my head.
My father is still dead. Dario still might have killed him. Have I given up on wanting revenge?
I set my jaw. No. I want my father’s killer in the ground but...
God help me, I’m crazy about him. I can’t imagine the man who said all those things to me yesterday is the same man who killed my father.
My phone starts to buzz on the nightstand and I ignore it. It’s probably just telemarketers, anyway, no one calls me. Not anymore. I’m always with Dario and Beth is dead.
It keeps buzzing, though, ringing over and over and finally I snatch it up.
“What?” I bark.
“You have to come home.” Felicia’s voice, shaky and frightened, comes through the line.
“Felicia? What?”
“Just come home, Liana, I’m serious.” Her voice pitches up almost into a screech. “You have to come home.”
I frown and sit up, but by then she’s hung up.
I stare at the phone for a long time, my brow still crinkled, before I get up. I dress in a simple shift dress that fits a bit tight across the ass. I must have gained weight from just laying around in Dario’s bed for a week.
I’m still frowning when I head downstairs and out the back door. Sonny is on Dario’s shoulders and they’re playing some half-ass game of chicken.
“I think you need more people for that game.”
Dario spins around and Sonny giggles, holding onto his shoulders for dear life.
“Hey Mama!” Sonny calls, and I smile at him.
“Dario, when you get a minute, I need to talk to you.”
Dario’s face instantly goes from smiling to dead serious.
“Let me see you swim a few laps, big boy,” he says to Sonny, clapping him on the thigh.
Sonny wiggles off him, splashing into the water, and takes off to swim laps.
Dario comes toward me, dripping wet, grabbing a beach towel and drying off his hair.
“What's up?”
I take in a deep breath. “Felicia called me.”
“What? What does that bitch want?”
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t say. But she sounded... scared.”
Dario stiffens. “Scared? You can’t go back there, Li. Not alone. Me and Sonny will come with you.”
“Dario—”
“No, it’s right. Sonny will be a good buffer, she won’t freak out on you while he’s there, and I can be there to protect you in case things go south.”
I hesitate. “You really don’t mind?”
“Of course not. I keep telling you, Li, you’re my wife.”
On paper, I think but don’t say. He did tell me yesterday he wanted it to be real, and maybe he does. But can I forgive him for cheating? For potentially killing my father?
I just don’t know.
We wrangle Sonny out of the pool.
Dario heads upstairs to the shower and this time, I join him.
“Thought we had to hurry,” he says with a grin, wiping soap from his face as I step in behind him.
“I needed to shower too.”
“Huh. Weird. Almost like there’s a bunch of other bathrooms in this house.”
I pout. “I’ll get out, if you want me to.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He grasps me around the waist, pulling me to him and under the spray. As my hair gets wet he kisses along my throat.
“We’re never going to get there if you keep doing that,” I moan, and step away from him.
He nods, half-hard, but he ignores it, washing his hair and helping me wash mine.
I feel like I needed this, like I needed another moment alone with him before whatever hell Felicia is about to unleash.
In another twenty minutes, everyone’s dressed and ready.
“Where are we goin’?” Sonny chirps.
“To see your grandma.”
He wrinkles his nose. “I don’t like Grandma. She wants me to call her Mimi and that doesn’t make any sense.”
Dario laughs. “She probably doesn’t feel old enough to be a grandmother.”
“Well, she is.”
The matter-of-fact way he says it has me and Dario both cracking up. It feels good to laugh, like it opened something up inside me.
I feel a little more like myself today, and I can’t deny that I have Dario to thank for it.
I buckle Sonny into his seat in the back and then get into the passenger side.
Dario drives the forty-five minutes to my father’s house quietly, just chatting idly with Sonny while my mind races.
What could Felicia be calling about? Did they find…. Oh, God. What if they found Papa?
My face feels like all the blood has drained from it and Dario notices.
He takes my hand, glancing at me and then back at the road.
“It’s going to be okay, Li. I promise.”
I nod, but I start to tremble all the same.
We pull in behind a beat-up sportscar that I don’t recognize, and I frown. She’s got a visitor? Surely not a new boyfriend already.
Not that I’d put it past her.
Sonny’s trying to get out of his seat and I reach back to help him, unbuckling him.
He barrels out of the car, running full tilt toward the porch, where a man is standing.
I squint but I can’t see his features through the sun. Sonny recognizes him somehow, though, because he’s running into his arms.
The man lifts him up, laughing. When he turns, Sonny blocks the sun and I see my father’s features—gray eyes, just like mine, salt-and pepper beard. He’s thinner, tanner.
But he’s alive.
My throat goes tight and I grip Dario’s hand for dear life.
“What is it? Li?” He looks concerned, squeezing my hand. He hasn’t realized what’s happening.
“Papa!” Sonny cries out as my father swings him around.
I feel like I’m going to be sick. All this time, I’ve been worried that Dario killed my father. All this time, I’ve grieved him, wanted him back.
I thought Dario took him from me.
God, how wrong I was.
What else am I wrong about?