Footsteps (32 page)

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Authors: Susan Fanetti

Tags: #eroticmafiaitalian americanfamily relationships

BOOK: Footsteps
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He kissed her shoulder, and she felt his
tongue tracing a circle over her skin. “What can I do?”

 

She sighed. “It’s too ugly. I can’t make it
good enough for Trey. You should go buy a cake.” As if it were
agreeing with her, the top layer finally gave up its fight and slid
all the way off its mate, landing on the granite top of the island
with a heavy
plop
. Elsa, sitting nearby and watching
intently, cocked her head and shuffled a little closer, her long,
pink tongue doing a lap around her jowls.

 

Carlo laughed hard, letting her go so that
he could clutch his belly.

 

“Don’t laugh! My failure is not funny!”

 

“Come on, baby. It’s a little funny.”

 

She had a spatula coated with chocolate
frosting in her hand. Feeling both a little hurt and a lot impish,
fighting her own smile at Carlo’s obvious enjoyment of her
disaster, she raised her arm and cocked it. Before she could fling
her ammunition at him, though, he grabbed her wrist and dragged her
close.

 

“Ah-ah-ah. What do you think you’re up to
with that?

 

“You think my cake is funny. I thought I’d
give you some more. For more laughing. Which you like so much.”

 

“You don’t want to start a food fight with
me, baby. I have five siblings. You think I haven’t been through
these wars? I will take you
down
.”

 

She relaxed and, after giving her a long,
skeptical look, he let her go. “Good choice. Now, I’ll just—”

 

She drew the spatula down his nose and over
his mouth and beard. “Oops. So clumsy.”

 

He just stood there, his eyes closed. “Oh.
You’re gonna pay. Now, you’re gonna pay.”

 

“But wait—what if I helped clean up my
mess?” Lifting up on her tiptoes, she sucked the frosting from his
chin, lapping her tongue through his beard until he shivered. When
she rested back on her heels and looked up at him, running her
tongue over her lips, his face was wearing an entirely different
expression behind his chocolate glaze. His eyes were on fire.

 

She dropped the spatula in the mess of cake
and then grabbed his head in her hands, pulling him down so that
she could reach him. She sucked the frosting off his nose, and then
moved to his mouth.

 

And then he grabbed her up and dropped her
on the counter, taking her legs in his hands and pulling her all
the way to the edge. “I want to fuck you so hard right now. Tell me
if you don’t want it, baby. Tell me now.”

 

Wondering how long the house would stay
empty, Sabina caught her legs around his hips and shook her head.
“I want it. No more talking. I would like to do something with our
mouths else than speak.” To demonstrate, she leaned in and kissed
him, sucking his lower lip into her mouth.

 

He made a rumbling sound deep in his chest,
and then his hand was under the short, flouncy skirt she was
wearing, and his fingers slid into her panties. “You’re so wet.
Does baking bad cakes always make you horny?”

 

“You should shut up, I think, now.” She
grabbed his face and kissed him again, and this time his
playfulness was truly mastered. With one hand around her waist, he
held her close while the other hand moved between them to open his
jeans. The height of the counter was perfect; he pulled her another
inch to the edge, pushed her underwear aside, and then he was deep
inside her, and she tossed her head back.

 

With his hand around her neck, he pulled her
head forward and claimed her mouth. There was still chocolate in
his beard, and she was overwhelmed by the wildness of this hot,
rough, consuming kiss that tasted like candy.

 

This was the first time that they’d coupled
like this, fast and hard and out of the blue, and Sabina found it
marvelous. So different from what she’d known before, so much
animal chaos and need. Carlo’s fingers dug into her hips and thighs
hard—hard enough to bruise, but it was a good pain, nothing like
the kind of pain sex had meant before.

 

She didn’t want to be thinking about what
had been before, so she grabbed Carlo’s hair and pulled his head
backward, then leaned in and latched onto his neck.

 

“Fuck! Bina!”

 

“Don’t mind me. I’ll just put the good stuff
in the fridge and be on my way.”

 

Carlo froze inside her. Sabina froze with
her teeth embedded in his neck. Then she pulled back, and they both
turned to Luca, who was doing as he’d said and putting two six
packs of beer in the refrigerator.

 

“Hello, Luca.”

 

He smirked at her and winked. “Hey,
gorgeous.” Then his eyes moved to Carlo. “Carry on, bro. Good form,
by the way.” And he was gone, toward the back, Elsa padding happily
after him.

 

When the back door closed, Carlo turned his
eyes to hers. “I’m so sorry. You okay?”

 

“No.”

 

“I know. I’m sorry.” He started to pull out,
but she tensed her legs around him and held him where he was.

 

“I was close, and now I’m unsatisfied. This
is why I’m not okay.”

 

His eyebrows lifted, and he grinned widely.
“Yeah? If he’s here, the others probably aren’t far behind.”

 

“We should hurry then, yes?” She clenched
around his cock and flexed her hips.

 

“I love you, Bina. God, I love you.” And
then he hurried.

 

 

~oOo~

 

 

In the end, Carlo called Carmen and asked
her to stop on her way over and pick up a cake.

 

The threatened rain was holding off, so the
family took a risk and set up outside, under the large, covered,
flagstone patio. There were too many people to keep under cover
comfortably if it did rain, but the Pagano house, a big, beautiful
old arts and crafts house, with lots of rooms and lots of heavy
woodwork, didn’t have great flow for a big party, especially not
one where a rambunctious four-year-old was the guest of honor.

 

For the most part, Trey’s guest list was
just family—his uncles and aunts, his grandfather, and Mrs. D., the
next-door neighbor. The same people as every other gathering. But
Carlo’s uncles came, too. Uncle Ben, of whom Sabina was quite fond,
and not only because he’d saved her. She wasn’t so naïve that she
didn’t know who Ben Pagano was, but the man she’d come to know a
little was not the notorious mafia don. He was a family man. He was
gentle and courtly. His wife, Angie, was a woman with regal
bearing, who’d obviously been a great beauty in her youth and
still, in perhaps her late sixties, retained a confidence and class
that had preserved her looks.

 

Carlo’s other uncle, Uncle Lorrie, and his
wife, Betty, Sabina had only met briefly, after Mass.

 

The same with their son, Nick. Nick was a
few years older than Carlo. He disquieted Sabina, though she wasn’t
sure she could have found the words to explain why. Perhaps it was
that of all these ‘mob’ men, Nick was the only one who
looked
like a mobster. He was handsome, with black, wavy
hair and piercing, grey-green eyes, but even when he smiled and
played with Trey, there seemed to be a film of menace around
him.

 

She found herself going to lengths to make
sure she was near Carlo when Nick was around.

 

The siblings were as they usually
were—Carmen kept to herself a little, not out of the party but on
its edges. She spent a lot of time talking to her father, who was
in his usual place at the grill, wearing his
Baci il Cuoco!
apron. Rosa had her phone. She was going back to Brown the next day
to start her junior year, and she’d been on her phone even more
than usual over the past week, reconnecting with friends and making
plans. Sabina imagined college for a single twenty-year-old was a
fantastical experience. Joey, still mostly silent because of his
broken jaw and clearly not in the good graces of his father, or his
uncles, or his eldest brother, pinballed around the periphery of
the yard until John and Luca, standing near the beer coolers,
pulled him into their conversation.

 

Carlo was with Trey, and with her. She felt
the strength of their threesome as a family unit more strongly
every day. She sought it out, and yet she feared it. Despite her
rational wish to go slowly, they were moving fast, and she was not
slowing things down at all. Her mind might know well that she
should take measured steps into a life with Carlo and Trey, but her
starved heart could wait no longer.

 

One other guest Sabina had never met before,
and she felt a surprising, sharp twinge of jealousy when Carlo
greeted her warmly, with a wholehearted hug, and Trey ran to her
and hugged her legs. She was a round, pretty blonde, and as she
squatted down to Trey’s level and talked with him, Sabina
discovered that she had a very wide jealous streak. The woman had
an aspect that was hard to hate—she just
looked
like a nice
person. Sabina wanted to hate her, though, and watching the three
of them, she decided she was going to try.

 

Then Carlo led the person over to her.
“Bina. Sabina, I want you to meet Natalie. Natalie is Trey’s
nanny.”

 

“Former nanny,” Natalie corrected.

 

Carlo looked abashed. “Right. Sorry.”

 

Oh. Well…oh. Sabina felt like a fool.
Appalled at herself, she focused on the happy news that at least
she hadn’t exposed her sudden insanity.

 

Carlo continued, “And Sabina is
my…she’s…she’s just
mine
.” He gave her a look that was part
apology and part question. Still contending with her misplaced
jealousy, it took Sabina a second to think about his words. Then
she smiled at him—she didn’t mind. In fact, she liked it. It was
nothing like the way words like that had been said about her in the
past.

 

Trey piped up. “She’s mine, too, Daddy!
Right?”

 

“You know it, pal.”

 

And that sealed the deal. Sabina decided
that she
loved
being theirs.

 

Natalie held out her hand. “Well, that’s
quite an introduction. I’m glad to know you.”

 

“And I, as well.”

 

The afternoon passed happily. The sky
glowered but kept its water. Trey opened his gifts. There was a
decided shark theme—Uncle Ben and Aunt Angie gave him a six-foot
long stuffed shark; Luca gave him a big, inflatable, remote-control
flying shark; Joey gave him a shark-shaped sleeping bag; there were
shark books, and shark t-shirts, and shark pajamas, and a Shark
Week DVD set. Carlo gave him a projector that would cast an
undersea world on the walls of his room at night, a world replete
with sharks of every kind.

 

Sabina felt humbled by her little gift. Andi
had taught her how to knit, and she’d made Trey a pair of shark
socks. She wasn’t very good yet, and Andi had had to help her do
the finish, but she’d thought they were a fun gift. To put them on,
the feet went to the mouth, and then the mouth went up the leg,
like the sharks were eating the legs. She hadn’t told Carlo about
the gift.

 

As Trey plowed through one shark gift more
wondrous that the one before it, over and again, nearing her small
box in the shiny blue paper, Sabina steeled herself. He was four.
He wouldn’t know to spare her feelings. They were only socks. How
could they compare? How silly had she been to think
socks
were a fitting gift for a child?

 

He unwrapped the shiny blue paper, and she
stepped back. Rosa was helping him by reading out the cards so
everyone would know who had given what. Sabina took a few more
steps backwards—far enough that Carlo noticed and turned back to
her with a little worry. She smiled, though, and he turned
back.

 

Trey had been shouting with glee with every
magical gift. Now he was quiet. She backed up more, unable to see
now what was going on. She heard Rosa say, “They’re socks,
Trey.”

 

“Socks?” Sabina could hear his
confusion.

 

“Yeah, like this, see?”

 

A pause, then a gasp. “THE SHARK IS EATING
MY FOOT? THE SHARK IS EATING MY FOOT! DADDY, THE SHARK IS EATING MY
FOOT!”

 

Carlo laughed. “Yeah, pal. I see that.”

 

“PUT THE OTHER ONE ON! AUNT ROSIE, THE OTHER
ONE.” A pause. “TWO SHARKS ARE EATING MY FEET! SEE THE TEETH! MS.
BINA!”

 

Trey came around the group of family who’d
been circled to watch him open presents. He was lifting his feet
high up with every step so he could see them as he walked.

 

“Ms. Bina! Look! Sharks!”

 

“I know! Do you like them?”

 

“Yeah! Sharks are eating me! Chomp chomp!”
He turned around, lifting his feet like a jackbooted soldier, and
returned to his little throne.

 

Sabina was again nearly overwhelmed with
emotion. Trey did that to her often.

 

Carlo came up to her, smiling warmly, and
took her hand. “Why did you hide?”

 

“They are only socks. I felt silly.”

 

“Well, I think they went over okay. Where’d
you find them?”

 

“I…made them. Andi taught me to knit so I
could make them. She…helped, though. The more difficult parts.”

 

Carlo’s expression then didn’t register as
one Sabina understood. It was deep, however. Whether she’d done
something wrong, or something right, or whether that even mattered,
she did not know.

 

“You
made
them? For Trey? You learned
to knit and made them?”

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