Chapter 22
Emma
L uke led me to our room. He was quiet, but I didn’t think he was choosing to stay mute because of the news that he’d learned, that Marlo raped Nina and he was the product of such a terrible crime. Hearing that poor woman’s fate, I let my respect grow for her. She’d endured the unspeakable, and she defied the mafia man who’d knocked her up, keeping her baby. I couldn’t help but feel closer to her for that reason. I had been defying my father and the Marchese men, and knowing that she’d done it and survived gave me hope that I would too.
Then again, maybe he is upset about this. He’d already had such a wretched day and night of ups and downs. First the worry that his mother had been taken, then a fight by my father’s men challenging him, and now this news about his past.
“Are you doing all right?” I asked as we reached the door to the room we’d been staying in. the suite needed updating, big time, but I didn’t care about the details. All I wanted was privacy with my man, and this place delivered it.
“Yeah. I am now that I’ve got you in my arms again.” He said it as he closed the door and hugged me.
I sighed, leaning on his familiar hard body. Reveling in the heat he exuded, I smiled and wished I never had to let him go.
“It’s a lot to take in.”
He grunted in disagreement. “Not really. I’ve wondered many times if she was raped. When I was young and asked about my dad, I tried to rationalize why she couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me who he was. My mind went there, more than once, and I started to hate the idea of whoever the asshole was. With time, I sort of convinced myself that she had been raped, because why else would she go to such extremes to never utter a word about him?”
Speaking as he maneuvered me toward the bed, he looked down into my eyes. I didn’t see any pain there, nothing new at least. Just resignation and sorrow.
“And now that you know who he is?”
He raised his brows. “What about it?”
“Do you hate him still?”
He scoffed. “How could I not? He raped my mother.”
“You’re not happy that such an influential and wealthy man is your father?” I asked, curious.
“No.” He smiled as he gently urged me to sit on the bed. With a long, satisfied look, he raked his gaze over me. “I wouldn’t care if a man with the influence of a president and the riches of a gazillionaire was my father.” Leaning down, he set his hands on the bed at either side of my hips. “You want to know what makes me feel like a fucking king among men?”
I smiled, enjoying his smoldering stare and raspy words. “Hmm?”
“You.” He pressed his lips to mine, kissing me deeply. “Having your love.” He slanted into me, kissing me harder. “And knowing I have the exclusive privilege to love you too.”
I framed his face and sighed, pecking one last kiss on his lips.
“Because I have this exclusive privilege to you,” he added as he pushed against me at the same time he wrapped his arm around me, rolling onto the bed and taking me with him, “I want to know why you’re acting so different.”
I squealed in surprise with his twist and roll. Straddling him now, I looked down at him and knew I couldn’t bottle this all in. He lay back, comfortable with me sitting on him. After he folded his hands behind his head as a pillow, he cleared his throat. “Talk to me, Emmalina. I’m here for you. Always.”
I couldn’t resist. I leaned down to kiss him but sat right back up. “I killed one of the Marchese guards when I snuck in to get Krista. Well, Justin had already taken her away to safety. When I was trying to get your mom out.”
He didn’t react, watching me calmly. “He was your first kill, right?”
“Yes.” I frowned, letting my lips tug down. “Now that I’ve had a little time to process it, to accept what happened and what I had to do, I feel guilty. But not. Then I try to tell myself that I should feel guilty, and I do. But then I don’t. My mind is running in circles.”
He exhaled a long but patient breath, almost like he was relieved that I opened up. This was only half of what was tugging on my mind. The worry about missing my period was taking over my thoughts too. I had to get a test before I drove myself insane.
“I’ve always known how hard the mafia life is. I know all these guards are just rent-a-cops and bodyguards. They’re killers. The power the mafia bosses wield is because they aren’t afraid to soak their hands in violence. It’s just never affected me so personally before. I’ve never been a part of it.”
“Is that the hardest part to accept? That you chose to participate?”
“Maybe?” I shrugged one shoulder, tracing circles on his pecs. “It was self-defense, but still...”
“No but , Emma. Self-defense is just that. My first kill was also in defense. I came upon a young woman being raped, and I attacked that man until I punched him to death.”
I furrowed my brow. “How old were you?” Jimmy made it sound like he’d been fighting for a long time.
“Thirteen.”
I opened my eyes wide. “Whoa.”
He nodded. “I saved her. Then a couple of years later, I found a young boy about to be sodomized. I killed that man too. That was my first fight when I was actually scared. He pulled a gun on me and slashed me with a knife.” He paused to lift his shirt and point out the long line of a scar on his abdomen.
I traced it, distracted when his abs tensed under my touch.
He caught my hand, massaging my fingers. “We’re not bad to defend, Emma. We are not wrong to see that justice is served to people like that.”
I smiled, loving how confident he sounded. “You’re talking like a mafia boss already.”
He smirked. “I’m not living by my own laws. Defending others is part of human nature.”
He could explain it how he saw fit, but I heard the leader in him, the strong man who wanted to serve and do people right. Even though he was new to the mafia, I was certain that he’d fit right in. That he’d excel with many soldiers and capos relying on him.
“Is that all that’s bothering you?” he asked as he rubbed his hands up and down my thighs that bracketed him.
No. “Yeah.” I wouldn’t complicate his life any further by telling him that I feared I was pregnant.
Wait. What? Fear? I hid a smile, knowing that I’d chosen the wrong word there. I wasn’t afraid of having a baby with him. It would fill me with utter joy and love. Hearing about how Nina had almost been forced to abort Luke, I was touched with a stronger protective sense. I would defend this child, if I was carrying one. I would never, ever let anyone suggest that I not keep it.
Luke would be a wonderful father too. It was a fact that I could only treat as an assumption right now, but I was convinced that I wouldn’t be wrong about him. I hadn’t been wrong yet.
“All I need is you,” I told him. “And I feel better.”
“Oh, really?” He smiled, a sly, sexy grin that aroused me in a snap. “Want to feel even better?”
I shivered under the warm caress of his hand higher up my thighs.
“With you? Always.” I reached down to stroke over his dick hidden beneath his pants. The bulge was already harder than before, as though the proximity to me and my position of sitting on him was all that it took to start turning him on.
He patted my thighs. “Lift up and get these clothes off.”
I stood, excited to distract him with sex. Or maybe that was his intention, to distract me with it. I bet it wasn’t normal for couples to veer from confessions about killing people straight to physical intimacy. This was us, though. A mafia princess used to a life of criminals and killers, and a secret mafia prince needing to find his way.
I stood, thrilled with how dark his eyes got as he watched me strip. At this angle, he saw all of me. My bottom, my pussy, everything. Keeping my feet on either side of him, I stayed standing until I removed all of my clothes. He wasn’t idle. Lying down and watching me with that hungry stare, he lifted his hips up to get his pants and boxers off, then he teased me with the show of his muscles flexing as he lifted his shirt up off his body too.
“Let me see about making you feel better,” he growled as he held his hands up to help me lower down on him.
I was dripping already. Just seeing him naked aroused me to the brink of throbbing and aching for him. My breasts felt heavy, so tender and needy for his touch. With how ready I was to slip down on the stiff mast of his cock, I got clumsy, too hurried to be flush with him.
Worries would no longer matter. My thoughts and questions would fade. As soon as I sucked him deep into my wetness, all I would focus on was him.
“No.” He gripped my legs, guiding me to sit further up. Not on his cock, but—
“Whoa!” I flung my arms out, slapping my hands on the headboard as I straddled his face. He’d tugged me upward so I’d sat over his mouth. It was new. It was different. He’d given me oral and I’d found that I loved sucking him off too, even if he refused to come down my throat.
Oh, my—dammit.
Maybe he was trying to knock me up. He didn’t seem opposed to getting me pregnant. We never got condoms, but I was upfront when I told him that I was likely not protected by my shot anymore. And he always wanted to come in me.
Has he been trying to get me pregnant all along?
I tuned out that thought. If he was eager to have a baby with me, fine. He wasn’t forcing me to have unprotected sex. I could insist on protection, but I didn’t want to. I relished the feeling of him skin to skin, without any layers between us. Besides, we would be married one day. It wasn’t wrong to want a family with a spouse.
It’s too soon... If we were to have a baby soon, it’d be out of wedlock. It didn’t bother me. There would be absolutely no chance of an abortion whatsoever.
Still, as he laved his tongue back and forth over me, stroking the velvety touch over my entrance, I felt my concentration fall apart. Closing my eyes, I focused on what he’d set out to do—make me feel good. And damn, was he an expert at it.
“Stop thinking,” he ordered playfully before flicking the tip of his tongue at my clit
I gasped, that much closer to coming.
“Just stay with me,” he said. “Right here. It’s just the two of us.”
Maybe... I smiled, watching as he gripped my thighs and mashed his mouth to my pussy again.
Maybe it’s not just the two of us. Maybe we’ll soon be three.