Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
RAFE
I almost forgot how to breathe as Adelina stood in her wedding dress in the dressing room of the Guardian Angel Cathedral. The floor-to-ceiling mirrors reflected her image back to me at every angle. Her mother and sister flitted around like hummingbirds, plucking at her dress and hair the same way the stylists had done before Neomi shooed them out.
This was a family day, and the staff were no longer necessary. I was surprised Neomi didn’t send me away too, but she had likely forgotten I was in the room. Silently, I stood in the shadows, half hidden in the corner.
I wish I could thank the military for teaching me that tactic, but I learned to hide and remain quiet as a kid, owed to my bone-deep fear of Adelina’s Nonna Petra. At least she wouldn’t be at the wedding today. I honed the skill of being present but not really there after my discharge by accompanying Adelina and Caterina to several clubs around Vegas, serving as their bodyguard.
The assignment had been as much my choice as Mass’s. The need to keep Adelina safe drove me and then stayed with me, even on the day she would marry into the MC.
“You may feel nervous walking down the aisle with everyone’s eyes on you,” said Neomi, yapping without saying much. Perhaps she felt it would fill the tense void in this room. “You may feel like your head’s swimming and your heart will explode; maybe like you’ll fall?—”
“Oh please fall,” said Caterina, examining her nails by the window. “It would be hilarious and break up the stuffy affair.”
“Caterina!” snapped Neomi. “Do not make me kick you out of here.”
“Please...” Caterina stood and curtseyed. “Let me do that for you, Mamà.”
Caterina stood, and her bridesmaid dress fell around her ankles. She clearly hated the length, especially for how many times she had already hiked the hem up around the capos.
She rolled it up again, revealing a slit up her thigh that was not appropriate for a minor. Neomi chased her to the doorway, torn between chasing her wanton teenage daughter or helping her secretly wanton elder daughter.
Finally, Adelina’s mother stopped and looked at her daughter then spread her arms for a hug.
Despite any differences they may have had, Adelina moved into her mother’s embrace.
“We’ll be out there, Adelina,” Neomi said. “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.” She turned and rushed after Cat, and the door closed.
Adelina didn’t even look over her shoulder as her mother left.
Neomi often had to chase Caterina when she wasn’t being Massimo’s perfect wife or doing one of her many charitable duties. Of course she didn’t have to work, because money from the family businesses kept her more than comfortable. She spent hours praying and tithing, anything to repent of both her sins and my brother’s. I guess it’s hard to earn your keys to heaven when living the life of a mobster’s wife. Caterina would have the same fate one day.
Adelina could have had that life too, if Mass hadn’t sold her off to Sas. Not that she seemed to mind.
“Did you ever think about getting married?” Adelina picked at one of the silk flowers on her ample skirt.
Her voice had been so quiet I didn’t realize it was her speaking. The haunted tone could have been a ghost living in the church. I’d never been a religious man, and churches seemed like they would be prime targets for all those trapped in purgatory.
I swallowed the saliva building in my mouth. Nausea had been twisting my guts over the late morning and afternoon while Adelina readied herself, and especially when her mother pushed up her skirts to slide the garter up her thigh.
My eyes lingered now on the skirt, at about the spot where the garter would be hidden. The images before my eyes flashed like a strobe. One image of her modestly covered by the white, fluffy material, and the next of her bare calf and thigh. And finally, the vision of her tied to the table. Rinse, wash, repeat.
Flash. Flash. Flash.
These flashes were the reason I had to leave the Marines. The military couldn’t tolerate a soldier who left reality on occasion.
“Rafe?” she asked. “Did you hear me?”
I blinked furiously. Flash. Flash. Flash.
The reel was fading; I was coming back. This was a problem with me, and probably another good reason I would never find “the one.” Since that one raid and my resulting discharge, these kinds of visions stopped me cold, like wires were crossed in my brain and putting me into fritz mode.
“Rafe?” Adelina repeated.
“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “No. I never thought about getting married. It wouldn’t work.”
“Why?”
My mother made me a bastard. The war made me a freak. “I never thought about it. Besides, who’d want to be with me for eternity?” I tried for a smile, but likely failed.
“Why would that be so bad?” She tilted her head.
Genuinely shocked, I asked. “Really?”
But she changed the subject. “Do you think it would be hard to be with just one person?”
I wasn’t sure what game she was playing or what Sas had whispered in her ear. Or Graff. I couldn’t even ask as someone knocked on the dressing room door. Instinct had me twitching for my gun behind my back. Adelina moved toward the door, but I held her off.
“Who’s there?” I demanded.
“Graff,” called the man from the other side of the door, and I recognized his voice.
I dropped my hand to my side, walked over, and opened the door. “I’m surprised you didn’t just walk in.”
“Nah, man. You got me confused with the Veep.” He grinned easily. “Besides, I didn’t want to see anyone indecent.”
Graff stepped inside the dressing room, and I checked the hallway, taking inventory of the guards.
“Speaking of Sas”—I closed the door—“I thought you would be with him.”
“I’m bringing something from him.” Graff extended a box to Adelina, and her eyes lit up.
I hated that look on her face when she thought of Sas. How the fuck had that asshole won her over? He’d never been anything but a blundering jackass with her. And rough... with the whole tied up thing and then pulling her out of the rehearsal dinner last night by her arm.
His cock? Maybe? No.
It didn’t matter because I shouldn’t have these feelings. Nor should I have witnessed Sas fucking her or Graff fingering her, all the while wishing I had been in their boots.
The connection I felt to her was a flat-out sin. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was the only woman in the world who had enough patience to deal with me. She was the only one who could pull me out of my own head, and I needed to protect that.
Somehow.
There had to be a way to not give that up while repressing this sick temptation. While allowing her to get married to another man. I didn’t have a choice. I would remain an officer in the MC, close enough to her, but I had to create space too.
“I’ll let you two speak in private.” I turned to leave.
But Graff caught me by the shoulder. “Don’t go.”
I glanced back, first at Adelina standing on the platform surrounded by mirrors, then down at Graff’s hand on my shoulder, and finally up to meet his intense gray eyes.
“Gonna need you to admit it,” whispered Graff so only I heard.
I cleared my throat. “Admit what?”
“You don’t hide your desire well,” he said. “I knew the moment I met you and Adelina. And every time I’ve seen you with her since.”
She stepped to the edge of the dais in front of the mirrors. “What are you saying about me?”
“Don’t,” I warned Graff.
But he shifted his focus to her. “I want Rafe to admit what he feels for you. He liked watching us the other night.”
“I know,” said Adelina in a soft voice.
My cheeks burned, and I refused to turn around and show off the bulge in my slacks. The same hardon I’d had since this morning when Adelina arrived in that silky white robe. “It’s wrong, tesoro.”
“I know,” she repeated. “But this thing between us has been there forever, Rafe.”
I flinched. She was right, but... “That’s more reason for me to go.”
“And what if I don’t want you to leave?” The tone in her voice then reminded me of what she’d said one day long ago—the day I left for Quantico for the ten-week commissioning program.
My intent had been to separate myself, not only from the fear of Nonna Petra, but the deepening connection with Adelina. In the Marines, I could focus on being a good captain. On creating a rockstar team. On anything except her gentle touch, the way she always knew when I felt like an outcast, or the way her hand trembled when she would touch me. When she was that young, barely in high school, she hadn’t known what she was doing to me or how she gave me the family and the promises of acceptance I had longed for.
I dropped my head back, took a deep breath, and let out a low groan. Her words were smudging the line I tried to draw, but for once, I needed to be strong about this.
“You’re getting married.”
“I am, but?—”
“There is no but, Adelina!” I whirled and pinned her with a hard stare.
“There’s always a but.” Graff shrugged.
Without looking at him, I snapped again, “Don’t act like this is fucking normal.”
“None of this is normal , Rafe,” said Adelina, placing her hands on her hips. “Our lives have never been normal. How many times did we sit in the living room long after Papà and Mamà went to bed and wish for the lives others lived?”
“That was different.” It was a weak argument, but she was tearing down my wall brick by brick.
“It wasn’t.” She walked off the platform, moving toward where Graff and I stood. “We have more experiences under our belts now, but we aren’t different people than we were then. Only I’m an adult now.”
My wall crumpled, but I had to throw out a last-ditch effort. “And that makes fucking your family okay?!”
Adelina didn’t flinch at my outburst. Instead, she remained the calm eye in the center of Hurricane Rafaele.
She countered, “It wouldn’t be anything new.” Then she started ticking off her fingers. “The Bourbons of France. The Habsburgs. Cleopatra—though I couldn’t imagine marrying a sibling.”
“I’m not your sibling,” I grumbled.
But she still came right back at me with more history. “In Rome, the emperor, Claudius married his niece. Even the late Queen Elizabeth and the now Prince Phillip are related. Third cousins, I think.”
Leave it to her to have done research.
Adelina sighed and crossed to stand beside Graff and me. “I’m not saying we should have kids; I’ve read the science on that too. All I’m saying is that our attraction is not ab normal.”
“Tesoro, this is?—”
She placed a finger across my lips, cutting off my objection. “Without the Mafia and the MC, this is us. It’s never been normal, and I don’t care anymore. I don’t want normal. I want....” Her chest rose and fell as she searched for words. “I want you, Rafe. And Graff. And Sas.”
A pain jolted through my chest.
Something breaking and being remade by her words.
Graff had been watching us from the corner of his eye—there, but not present, like I’d been all my life. But no longer, thanks to the one and only person who has ever seen into my soul.
Frozen, in place and in awe of how much Adelina was changing me in this moment, I basked in her light. Her acceptance. The one thing that would give me purpose for the remainder of my days.
Graff stepped forward. “ This is why I came.”
Adelina leaned up and gave me a small kiss on the corner of my mouth, then turned to Graff. “Is that my gift from Sas?”
She tried to take the box from his hand, but he snatched it away.
“That’s for later.” He winked at me.
She pouted. “But we’re doing the wedding thing later.”
“We have some time now.” Graff picked her up by the waist and stood her in front of me, her back to my front and so close I could feel the heat rolling off her body.
As her guard for now, I should’ve set her behind me and slammed Graff to the ground. Instead, my cock hardened.
Graff backed Adelina up, in turn pushing me backward until the back of my knees hit the guest chair by the door. I fell into the seat.
“This, what’s about to happen here, is from Sas.” Graff ducked under the skirt of her wedding dress.
She stumbled, and I caught her before she crumpled to the floor, lowering her into my lap. The back of her head fit into the crook of my neck, and her clean scent curled around my throat, holding me hostage. I couldn’t inhale without breathing her in. She was in my arms, but I was the one trapped. A doll on strings, controlled by a mixed bag of longing, lust, and another L-word I didn’t even want to think.
Her lower back pressed against my cock, trapping it between her and my stomach as her hips rested on my thighs. The thick layers of her wedding dress were her only safety. My control had snapped, and if I could maneuver enough, I would bury my cock to the hilt inside her.
I couldn’t see what Graff was doing, but by the way she bit her lip and moaned, it hit her in all the right places. I watched her in the reflection of the mirrors, and the pressure in my groin burned and sparked. The bulge of Graff’s head rose under her skirt. Surely, he was moving his mouth across her pussy, licking all the spots that would give her pleasure.
I could imagine it too well and forced my eyes open even as I trapped my mouth shut.
My imagination was a dangerous place, trading visions of car bombs and how badly my body wanted to explode when we touched. Adelina hissed, her head falling back. Her chest rose and fell quickly, her cleavage plunging like canyons and heaving like cliffs.
Graff’s black shoes peeked out from under her dress, the soles dusty and worn. She panted, and I thought, So much for her purity.
Although, I already knew she had tastes for the impure.
He fucked her with his tongue, and her hips rolled on my lap. She threw one hand up around the back of my head and held on. At the same time, she grabbed onto the frill of her dress. Her feet lifted from the ground so that I had to support all her weight in my lap—something I gladly did. The bumps where her knees tented the skirt fell wider to the sides as Adelina squealed in orgasm.
Graff slowed his movements under her skirt, letting her come down from the high but not immediately removing himself. When her body started to let go of the tension, he rocked out from under her dress.
Adelina gasped, stars in her eyes as she looked at Graff and then me. Red tinged her cheeks.
“Enjoy that little gift?” he asked.
“It was a nice present from my fiancé,” she said breathlessly, the queen she was becoming trying desperately to keep that breeziness. It didn’t work.
Graff pushed to his feet, wearing a broad grin, and wiped her juices from his chin. “I’ll share your compliments.”
“Do that,” she said, cocking back her head.
She tried to pull away—fuck, I didn’t want to let her go—but Graff put his hand flat against her chest. “Now I’ve got a little wedding present for you too.”
She stiffened against me. “Really?”
Keeping his palm flat against her chest, Graff undid the belt and the button of his pants. This, I didn’t expect. Not after how I had seen Sas act with them the other night. But Sas wasn’t here. Based on Graff and Sas’s closeness, it was possible the VP ordered this.
But then again, it would still be a gift from Sas if that were true. Maybe he just approved of it?
Graff didn’t have enough hands to keep one on her chest, one on his cock, and lift the many layers of wedding dress fabric. So I grabbed her skirt and pulled it up. Adelina squirmed, but she couldn’t move with how we now had her trapped. She was Graff’s plaything now, and he wanted her intently. A gleam lurked in his eyes, filled with excitement.
“Wait, Rafe,” said Adelina,
“I’ve got you, tesoro.” I pulled her wedding dress up until my fingers dug into her stockings, threatening to rip them.
With her pussy exposed, Graff lifted her legs and straddled mine. He grabbed her chin and kissed her hard. Her hand, still at the back of my neck, pulled, and I ran my tongue up the column of her neck, nipping on her earlobe to finish.
She tilted her head to give me more access. “Rafe,” she breathed, then, “Graff.”
Damn, she was gorgeous in her wedding dress that belonged to Sas, her pussy that right now belonged to Graff, and her neck, head, and finally mouth belonged to me.
As Graff pulled out of the kiss, he gave me a hard look. “Kiss her.”
Hearing the rip of a foil packet, I did. She tasted even better than she had before. Sweeter. More enticing. My cock throbbed against her back as Graff positioned her and rocked forward. When he seated himself inside her, she moaned into my mouth. I devoured every drop of her pleasure until she had to break the kiss to gasping for breath.
She was trembling in my arms. We were both falling in so many ways, but I kept her upright, and when Graff started to fuck her, the friction against my dick threatened to make me come.
It was slow and sensual at first. A good rhythm that left her rocking against me. He thrust deeply, rolling his hips, then drew back. The next stoke was harder and ended on a heavy grunt.
“I want you to come all over me, pretty girl,” said Graff through gritted teeth, then retreated and pressed forward again. “I want to feel how your pussy pulses against my cock.”
She was fucking getting there, but I had the sense Graff was talking to me as much as to her. He wanted to show me how good she felt, and it was sending me into a slow descent to the second circle of hell.
Adelina buzzed and swayed. Each breath came out as a wheeze. The same red that had been on her cheeks was now crawling down her neck and staining her chest.
Fuck, I wanted to feel how her pussy would spasm when she came too.
Adelina whimpered, her head falling to the side.
I bent toward her ear and ordered, “Look at him as he fucks you, mia cara.” She had always been my darling, even as a little girl.
Her eyes flashed up to me, and my cock jumped up. It was contained in my pants with nowhere to go, but it hurt. So hard that I couldn’t move. Could barely think. Each time Graff thrust into her, she was pushed back against me like they were fucking me too. I wanted her to fuck me so bad.
“Guardalo, mia cara ragazza,” I ordered. I would want her eyes on me while my cock was inside her.
She shook her head and then kissed me on the lips.
“Adelina,” I whispered against her lips, trying to jerk back, but she hooked her arm tighter around my neck, holding me there. She continued to kiss me as Graff fucked her, and then she was coming again, screaming her ecstasy into my mouth.
“That’s it, pretty princess,” said Graff, picking up his thrusts now. He held her hips and jerked forward. His thighs slapped against the backs of hers as he fucked her hard and fast. “Pretty princess, you’re milking me. You got me. I’m going to—” He hollered as he came deep inside of her.
She was leaning back into me, and I dropped one last kiss at the corner of her mouth, but her eyes were wide, watching Graff as he pulled out. The condom shone with her cum. The smell of her—not the perfume that masked her true scent but her sweet arousal—slithered off Graff.
And my mouth watered.
After dropping the condom in the trash and tucking himself away, Graff leaned over and gave her another hard kiss. Her hands roamed over him until he pulled away, leaving her in my lap still. The pressure of her on my dick was driving me crazy. I needed to go and do something about it, because my balls fucking ached. This moment felt like oncoming death.
“Such a pretty princess.” Graff slipped his fingers around her face like an artist molding clay. “Now, Adelina, you have had an orgasm from Sas. One from me. And...?” He looked up at me.
“I can’t,” I said.
“Yes, you can,” breathed Adelina, rubbing her lower back against my cock. She knew exactly what the fuck she was doing to me.
I couldn’t. At least, not today. In fact, if she didn’t stop that, I might have to run to the store to buy a new pair of pants.
A growl rolled through my chest. “Give her one more,” I ordered Graff.
“Geez, man, I don’t know how the fuck you’re holding back.” He dropped to one knee and reached up under Adelina’s skirt. “But you don’t ever have to tell me twice. I’ll eat her orgasms like candy.”
Graff reached higher under her skirt as I bent my head down to Adelina and said, “This one is mine.”
Like her.
I knew the second Graff touched her pussy because she jerked back, gasping. Her head flung into my shoulder, and I latched my arms around her center, holding her against me. Graff peeked under her skirt as he worked, sweat gleaming on his forehead.
Adelina started moaning loudly, and I kissed her, slipping my tongue inside of her mouth. She dropped her chin, allowing me further access, and I deepened the kiss. I wanted to explore every hidden place. Then again, every part of her, as this sexual creature, had always been hidden to me. Now, it was my time to conquer her, if only from a distance.
Mia cara ragazza came again, jerking forward and nearly slipping from my arms, but I gathered her back up and kept her close, flicking my tongue inside of her mouth. I swallowed every one of her moans. When Graff pulled back, I did too and then brushed her hair out of her face.
Neomi would have a field day if she saw her daughter in such a state, but I thought she was more beautiful now in this vulnerable state than I’d ever seen her before.
“How are you feeling, tesoro?” I asked.
With each labored breath, she only nodded. Her ribs expanding like she had been running a marathon. In a way, she had.
“Was it good?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said when she finally regained her voice. “Wait, Graff, what are you doing?”
Without me realizing it, he had opened the box he had brought and then had his hand under her skirt again. Adelina’s mouth dropped open, and she mewled. Graff cocked a smile, so I laughed. Fuck, her body was so fucking responsive.
“That’s the last present from Sas,” explained Graff. “For during and after the wedding.”
I arched an eyebrow as Graff held up a small plastic square and pressed a button. Adelina jerked in my arms, eyes nearly rolling into the back of her head. Each jerk flattened my cock against my body, and she ground down. Fuck, I was going to come if this continued.
Graff draped her skirt down onto the floor, and I asked, “What is it?”
“A vibrator,” said Graff, raising his eyebrows.
“Sas really is a sick bastard,” I mumbled.
Graff nodded. “He’ll be waiting at the end of the aisle for you, pretty princess.”
And then he left. As the door closed, Adelina jerked, moaned, and whined again. The door closed behind him, and she tried to push up from my lap.
“Shit, I have to get ready for the wedding.” Her hands patted her head. “I need to redo my hair. Probably my makeup. Rafe, let go.”
“I can’t,” I admitted, my hands tight to her arms.
“Why not?”
“Because if you move, I’m going to have a big mess.”
My cock twitched, and I tried to think of anything else because how good she felt. How she tasted. How she sounded.
“I can feel it,” she said, her voice husky now.
Hearing those words didn’t help; they would send me tumbling into an abyss of pleasure. “Just give me a minute before you move.”
“No.” Adelina pushed away from me and ducked down.
“Mia cara?” I began, but she already had her hands on my belt, undoing that and my pants. I wanted to stop her, but then she had her hand on my cock. All words and things I should’ve done were gone, especially as she put wrapped her lips around the head of my cock and flashed her eyes up to meet mine.