Salvatore: a Dark Mafia Romance (23 page)

W
e did it
. We drove to Florida. We drove as far as we could from New Jersey and ended up on the very tip of Key West. We bought a modest old house with a strip of private beach and started again.

The renovations on the house would probably take us over a year to complete, but I liked it. It was built in the 70s, and the seller was the son of the sole owners of the place who had done zero updates since its build. It needed a lot of work, but work was a good thing. It kept us occupied, kept our minds busy, especially Salvatore’s.

It was strange at first, as though he didn’t know how to be without the Benedetti mafia behind him. Around him. Taking up all of his energy. Defining him. There was no one to take care of here besides us. Natalie and Jacob had settled in California. Roman took care of the family business with few questions for Salvatore. He’d been so involved when Franco had been boss that he was a natural fit. I didn’t think Salvatore regretted handing everything over, but this life was very different than the one he’d had.

My sister and Luke lived south of Miami, which was just shy of a four-hour drive to Key West. At first, the tension between Luke and Salvatore had been high, but both men had something in common. They’d both nearly died. They both realized what was important, and that was family. I wished they lived closer. I wanted to be around my sister and Effie after having missed out on so many years, but this worked, and it was better than what I’d had for five years.

As happy as Salvatore and I were with the simplicity of things here, there was one thing that bothered him. Dominic’s absence.

He’d hired several investigators but came up short at every turn. Dominic had vanished, and Salvatore struggled to come to terms with that.

I stood outside of our little house at the barbecue looking out at the beach, startling when I heard him.

“You smell like a steak,” Salvatore said, suddenly behind me, his mouth on the back of my neck.

“Christ! How do you always sneak up on me?”

He’d walked around back where I was grilling two steaks. He’d been gone most of the day, picking up supplies.

He laughed and held out a bouquet of sunflowers. “You’re too involved in your head, that’s how.”

I was too involved for a reason.

“I missed you.” His mouth found mine.

“Me too.” I kissed him back and took them. “These are pretty. Thanks.”

“I’m glad you like them.” He looked at the grill. “Early for dinner, isn’t it?”

“I’m just hungry.”

“Well, I’m not hungry for food just yet,” he said sliding his hands down and into the back of my shorts. He squeezed my ass, kissing me deeply, his big body bigger, even more muscular since we’d started working on the house. His skin had darkened in the Florida sunshine. He seemed to smile more, and his face looked more relaxed. I didn’t think it would be possible for him to be even sexier than before, but he was.

“I’ve been thinking about this all day.”

He picked me up. I wrapped my legs around his hips and my arms around his neck.

“I haven’t fucked you on the picnic table yet,” he said, pushing my shirt aside and taking a nipple into his mouth.

“You are a dirty, dirty man, Salvatore.”

“I think you like it, Lucia.”

He set me on the table and continued to kiss me before pulling the peasant shirt over my head.

“Do you remember,” he started, stripping his T-shirt off, “when we were in my study, and I fucked your ass for the first time?”

I felt my face blush as he pushed my knees apart and stood between them, his grin evil and his eyes dancing while he unbuttoned my shorts and pulled the zipper down.

I leaned in close. He thought he was embarrassing me, did he? Taking his hair in my hands, I tugged, turning his head to the side and licking his ear. “I remember I liked it. But who says I’m giving you permission to fuck my ass again?”

One hand raked up my back, pulled the tie out of my messy bun, and gripped a handful of hair.

“I need to ask permission?” he asked, closing his mouth over mine.

This kiss had a hunger to it.

“Don’t you remember what I said you’d do the next time I wanted to fuck your ass?”

I shook my head, although I remembered perfectly. My hands moved to explore his chest. “Refresh my memory.”

“Something about you bending over my desk and spreading yourself open. Something about begging me to do it.”

“You think I’ll beg you to fuck me?” I chuckled and slid my fingernails down his back to push my hands into his shorts and cup his tight ass.

“I do,” he said, tugging my shorts off and dipping his head down. “I think I’ll have you begging to be fucked in no time.”

“Do you?” I asked as I leaned back.

He gave me a cocky grin and slid the crotch of my panties aside. Sparing one glance at my pussy, he returned his eyes to mine.

“Judging from this dripping cunt, yes.”

He dove in, making me suck in a sharp breath, only taking breaks to taunt me.

“I think I’ll make you wait too.”

He tickled my clit.

“Make you bend over and spread yourself open while I watch. Hell, maybe I’ll make a couple more steaks while you’re begging.”

I pushed his head into my pussy. “You talk too much.”

Fuck, he could work his tongue. He could make me come in a minute or an hour, depending on how evil he felt. And today, Satan himself feasted on me.

“You’re killing me,” I finally said, refusing to beg, to ask him to make me come, but trying to drag his mouth back to me.

“Stay,” he said, straightening. “Just like that, legs wide. And hold your panties aside. I want to see your cunt.”

“I hate you,” I said to his back but pulled the string of my panties aside, feeling all the more exposed for it.

“You love me,” he answered, disappearing into the house.

I stayed as I was, liking it, out in the open, exposed for him. The backyard was completely private, but it thrilled me to think someone could walk around the house at any moment and find me like this.

He was back a few moments later, and I saw what he carried with him. A tube of lube.

“Good girl.”

He was happy to see that I was still in position. He lifted me to stand, turned me around, and pushed me to bend over before sliding my panties down to midthigh and stopping.

“What are you doing?” I asked, glancing back at him as he stepped away.

“Reach back and spread your ass open.”

“I won’t beg you,” I said and slid my hands back to my ass and did what he wanted. The expression on his face was worth my own embarrassment. I slipped the panties off to spread my legs wider.

“Fuck.”

“What?” I taunted, wanting him but wanting him to be the one to beg. “You want?”

He rubbed himself over his jeans and approached me. He unzipped his jeans, took out his cock, and stroked it.

“You okay there, Salvatore?” I asked, arching my back and wiggling my hips before sliding a finger inside myself, then smearing the moisture up and around my back hole.

With a groan, he slid into my pussy. I put my hands back on the table when he gripped my hips, his eyes going dark as he watched himself fuck me.

It felt so fucking good, him slowly sliding in and out of me, thinking of him seeing me as I opened for him making me wetter.

But then he stopped moving, kept his cock in my pussy, and picked up the lube.

I groaned, and he grinned, uncapping it and squeezing out a generous amount before rubbing it onto me. That was when he started to move again, his cock in my cunt, his fingers in my ass.

“This is not fair,” I managed.

“Just ask for it, and I’ll give it to you good and hard just like you like it.”

“Fuck you.”

He withdrew his cock and rubbed it through my folds instead, his fingers still working in my ass.

“I won’t,” I grunted, fisting my hands. “I…”

He leaned over me and tickled my ear with this tongue. “Just say please. Just once.”

“Never!”

“Feels good and tight, Lucia. You’re ready for a good, hard, ass fucking. You want it. I just need the word,”

“You’ll never let me forget it.”

“Think of it, of me pounding into that tight little hole. Think of how sensitive it is, how you’re already so close.” He pulled his cock away from my clit and withdrew his fingers. “But if you don’t want it—”

“Please!”

“Please, what?” he whispered, cock ready at my ass.

“Please fuck my ass.”

I swear I heard him smile.

“I told you you’d do it.”

He kissed my cheek before straightening. He pulled apart my ass cheeks with one hand, smeared lube on his length with the other. How I loved watching him grip his cock. I could just look at that all day long. He grinned and slid the other hand beneath me.

“And you call me dirty.”

I arched my back. “Fuck me already.”

“Up on your elbows. It’s going to be hard and fast.”

I braced myself but couldn’t have been ready for that.

“Good girls get rewarded, Lucia, remember that?”

“Fuck, yes!” His fingers worked my clit roughly while his cock thrust in and out, movements deep, slow at first but increasing in pace as I came, my first orgasm making me cry out, making him thicken inside me until, on the heels of my second orgasm, he thrust one final time and fell over my back, his cock throbbing as he came. He breathed hard against my ear and bit the edge of it just a little too hard, but that nip drew one final, smaller shudder from me.

We clung to each other, neither of us speaking as our breathing slowed. I don’t think either of us took our time together for granted. I knew I never would, and I knew it would never be enough.

We showered afterward before sitting down to eat. I plated the steaks and carried the dish over to the table where Salvatore had just put two beers down. I took a seat across from him.

“You’re really going to eat two steaks now?”

I nodded, ravenous, unsure how to tell him, happy myself but uncertain how he’d feel. We’d only been living together for half a year if I didn’t count the time in New Jersey.

He watched me for a long minute, sipping his beer while I devoured the food. He pushed my untouched beer toward me. I met his gaze but popped another bite of meat into my mouth instead of going for the beer.

“Lucia?”

He could always read me like a book.

“I’m pregnant.”

I
married
Lucia on the beach in our backyard. Lucia walking toward me barefoot, her belly swollen, wearing a simple, flowing white dress bound by golden thread just beneath her breasts and a crown of flowers in her hair, was probably the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

I’d never been so happy in my life.

We wrote our own vows, and she blamed hormones when she wept throughout the ceremony. Luke and Isabella were our witnesses and Effie our flower girl. That was all. No other guests apart from the priest who married us. Afterward, we barbecued and swam and talked about baby names and about Isabella and Luke moving closer. Effie spoke more to her little cousin inside Lucia’s belly than to anyone else. She may have been as excited as Lucia and I were.

They spent the night and drove back home the next afternoon. We didn’t have a honeymoon. There was nowhere either of us wanted to be but here. Together.

“We have everything,” she said as we lay on lounge chairs, watching the night sky.

We did, and neither of us took a moment of it for granted.

“Will you tell your father?” she asked.

“In time.”

“What’s on your mind?”

I looked over at her and tugged the thin blanket over her shoulder. She’d filled out a little with the pregnancy, and she couldn’t be more beautiful to me.

“Dominic. I’m worried.”

“He’ll turn up. He has a lot to process, and probably feels awful for what he did.”

“He’d know by now that I’m fine. He’d know where we live. He just disappeared, and that worries me.”

She touched my hand and brought it to her belly. I faced her to kiss her lips and rub the warm mound.

“He’ll turn up when he’s ready. Give him space.”

“What if he’s…hurt himself?”

“He’s not the type. It’s far more effective to torture yourself while living, Salvatore. You and your brother both—guilt is like a second skin to you. It’s like you have to learn how to live, how to breathe, without it. You’re learning, but you’ve got a good teacher,” she finished with a wink.

“How did I end up so lucky?”

“You signed a contract, remember?”

She rolled onto her side, her back to me, and I pulled her in, holding her tight.

“Smart-ass.”

“Don’t forget pigheaded.”

“Oh, no, you prove that on a daily basis.”

She jabbed her elbow into my gut.

“Apart from my brother, my life couldn’t be more perfect. It scares me a little.” It scared me more than a little. “What if… I’ve done bad things, Lucia. I don’t know if I deserve all of this.”

“You’ve done good things too, Salvatore. You deserve all of this and more. We’re making up for lost time, you and I. It’s time for us to be happy and carefree and walk in the sun with sand between our toes. It’s past due, in fact.”

She squeezed my hand, pulled it up to her heart.

“Don’t be scared of losing this. Just be happy and grateful. That’s what I’ve learned. I think that’s what we’re supposed to learn. It’s so simple, but we make it all so complicated.”

“My oracle.”

“I am wiser than you, that’s true.”

“And not at all arrogant.” I heard her smile.

“Good night, husband.”

“Good night, wife.” I kissed her neck and held her as she fell asleep, her body relaxing, her breathing soft and even. I looked up at the night sky, at all the stars, and listened to the sound of the ocean, knowing I held everything that mattered right here in my arms. Knowing she was right about Dominic, that he needed space, that he needed to figure this out for himself. She was also right about the guilt. I was very good at wrapping it over my shoulders, weighing myself down with it. Maybe I needed to learn that some of that didn’t belong to me.

Lucia was wise and strong. I’d given her what I’d promised, a peaceful life, happiness. And while doing so, I had given the same to myself.

I may not be able to save my brother, but maybe it wasn’t up to me to save him.

I squeezed Lucia tighter and closed my eyes, nuzzling my nose in her hair. Life was both crazy and beautiful, and out of the ugliness and hate, we’d made love. I would not forget to cherish that, to cherish her, forever.