Grieved Loss: A Dark Mafia Romance (Bellandi Crime Syndicate Book 3)

by Adelaide Forrest

  When she finally finished reading Ines her story, she tucked her in even though I could see it took more energy than she had. Reaching into my Princess's bed wasn't always a simple task for me given my size, but Calla usually had no trouble. "Goodnight, Princess," I murmured, squeezing my way into the nook that her bed frame created and pressing a kiss to her forehead. "Dream of all the unicorns," I whispered, and she murmured in her half-asleep state with her arms wrapped tight around her stuffed wolf.

  Calla closed the door behind us as we made our way into Axel's room. Our boy was freshly showered, waiting in bed with one of his books on his lap. Calla perched her ass on his bed next to him, snuggling in next to her son as she opened the book and started reading. Watching her read to the kids was one of my favorite moments of the day. There had been a time when I'd been forced to experience it through the window where I couldn't hear the delicate cadence of Calla's sweet, exuberant voice as she detailed the characters in the stories and tried to put on voices where appropriate. I'd never put cameras inside the kids' bedrooms for obvious reasons, so I'd never experienced hearing story time until the first night after I moved them in with me.

  By the time Calla finished the story, Axel too was half-asleep. They were both their mother's children, sleep coming easily and quickly to them in a way I'd probably never understand. Above all else, I was happy they had that.

  That their sleep was undisturbed by the horrors of the world.

  "Goodnight, Axe," Calla murmured, kissing the top of his head sweetly.

  "Goodnight, Little Man," I said, running a hand over his head and pushing his hair back from his face. One day soon, we’d cut it, but I had to proceed carefully and not step on his toes where his father was concerned. Axe would come to see me as his father soon enough, if he didn't already.

  "Wanna be just like you when I grow up," he whispered, his eyes drifting closed as he spoke the words.

  "I'm glad," I said. Warmth filled me, the confession hitting me straight in the feels as his father. Axel being like me, a man who took no shit and protected his family, would be nothing to be ashamed of. I'd teach him everything he needed to know to protect himself and the ones he loved as soon as he was old enough. I felt Calla go solid at my side, and I knew she probably had different thoughts on the subject. But discussing them in front of Axel was not an option, so she kept her mouth shut as we crept from the room.

  I grinned at her, loving it when she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me. I knew she expected me to go to our bedroom so she could reprimand me, but I wasn't having that. When she'd come into the garage a few nights before, I’d had the Chevelle jacked up, so as much as I’d wanted to finally fuck her on the hood, it hadn't been possible at the moment. But given the fact that I knew we had a conversation coming, I knew exactly where I wanted to be when I fucked the Hellcat right out of my Sunshine.

  Near that goddamn Chevelle. That was where.

  "Ryker!" she whispered, stalking after me as I turned and strode down the hallway in the opposite direction than she wanted me to go. She wouldn't risk waking up the kids, she valued their sleep even more than they did, but she stormed after me. I hurried down the steps, glancing back at her with a grin on my face that only made her scowl deepen. "Would you stop?"

  I didn't, not until I made it to the garage. By the time she made it down there, she was fuming, and all I could think was that it was adding more fuel for when I fucked her. That she could work herself into a tizzy all she wanted. I hit the switch on the wall for the audio monitors to play and then turned to cross my arms over my chest with a smirk. "Did you need something, Sunshine?"

  "What the fuck is wrong with you? Why would you make me chase you just to talk to you?" Her chest heaved with her frustration, and I wanted nothing more than to strip her shirt off so I could watch it happen with nothing to obstruct my view. I could picture the way her chest flushed, the way her nipples would pebble in the cool air.

  "I have work to do," I shrugged, a smile teasing at my lips as she stared at me incredulously. I could see the gears turning in her pretty head, trying to figure out what kind of game I was playing with her. I didn't walk away from her. Ever. There was only one exception to that, the night she'd asked about my nightmare, and I didn't intend to repeat it. But I was already on edge after the meeting with Tiernan, and from knowing that I needed to tell Calla about the conflict so she could understand just how important it was that she and the kids stick to their personal security. I also knew that would terrify my woman, and I didn't relish the thought.

  So I needed to fuck her, needed to reassure myself that she was there, and she was stronger than most gave her credit for. She'd survived her shithead husband, she would thrive with me, and nothing Tiernan Murphy could do would ever touch her.

  But I also knew she wasn't quite at the point where I could take what I wanted just yet. "You need to set a good example for him. You're his step-father," she reminded me.

  "Father," I corrected her, but she ignored it like she normally did. There would come a day when I pressed Calla to be more understanding of what I was to those kids, too. It just wasn't that day.

  "The last thing he needs is to grow up looking up to you and having you teach him bad things," she pressed on.

  "Name one time I haven't been a good influence on him," I said, leaning my ass against the desk as I looked at her. She blanked, her head jerking back as she tried to think of something. But I knew what she quickly realized.

  While I might have been a bad influence in a lot of ways, I never exposed the kids to those things. I'd taken her. They didn't know that. They didn't know I'd given Calla no choice but to marry me, or forced her to get a tattoo for me. They didn't know about any of the qualities that would have made me a less than satisfactory role model, so while Calla might protest my parenting on principle, I was actually a pretty fucking spectacular role model, if I said so myself. I watched her flounder for a response, getting more and more frustrated when she realized there wasn't one that would prove her point.

  “Listen up, Meatball,” she growled. “Just because they don’t know you’re a poor influence doesn’t make you a good one. I know, and if you ever think to expose my kids to that part of your life, I’ll beat you over the head with a ball-peen hammer the next time you look in that engine bay.”

  Grinning at her, I couldn’t help but love when she threatened me and went all violent mama bear on my meatball ass, but that she was angry that I presented myself to our kids well annoyed me. She still wanted to be the primary parent, and while I could appreciate that, it seemed ridiculous that she didn't want to share more of that burden with me. I was her husband, after all. Instead of feeding the beast that wanted to be let out of its cage, I picked up a paperweight from the desk and tossed it in the air and caught it as I shifted the conversation. "That’s sweet, Hellcat. How was your day?" I asked her when she rolled her neck again.

  "You already asked," she pointed out, glaring at me from a few steps away. Like the distance would protect her from me if I got grand ideas. Which I'd had long before I lured her into the garage.

  "And I'm asking again. We both know you're less likely to go into details when the kids are there."

  She smiled at me, rolling her eyes for a moment. "I had a couple new students sign up while I was gone, so it was nice to meet them. This one girl, she was so awkward. I felt sorry for her, because she was sweet and genuinely funny if she could just own her personality. I think it was that she was so young though. I know I was a lot less sure of who I was when I was her age. But she signed up with a friend apparently, so hopefully he can help her get more confident. He looked older," she said.

  "Men do yoga?" I asked, feeling my body go solid at the declaration. I hadn't spent a ton of time watching her at the studio, since seeing her bent in all positions when I couldn't touch her had been torturous at best. I'd also never imagined there would be men in her classes. Fuck.

  "Some do," she shrugged. "It takes
all kinds, Ryker," she scolded me. "And no, as far as I know they aren't all gay, before you go there with your stereotypical macho man shit, Meatball." I smirked at her, but even her attempt at humor couldn't quell the rising beast. A man had watched my woman fold herself up like a pretzel in tight spandex clothes.

  That didn't make me feel warm and fuzzy.

  "Maybe you should quit," I said, and she laughed in a hysterical giggle that took my breath away. It was rare she was so open to showing how thoroughly I entertained her.

  I just wished it had come when I was actually trying to be funny. Not when I was making a suggestion in all seriousness. The blank stare on my face must have alerted her to the fact that I meant business. "That's not going to happen. You only just let me go back to work."

  "You stayed home when you were married to Chad. Why wouldn't you want to be a stay-at-home mom now?" I asked her, rising to stand on my feet fully. She shook her head at me, as if warning me to keep my distance, but the time rapidly approached where we were past that.

  I was nearly done talking.

  "Because that was my choice. In order for me to be willing to do that, let me come to that decision on my own. Don’t pressure me into it, because that will only make me want to work more out of spite," she admitted.

  I growled at her, closing the distance. "Do you enjoy making me crazy?" I asked, grabbing a handful of her ass in each palm as I lifted her up into my arms.

  "It's very possible," she admitted. "But I would argue that you were crazy long before I knew you. You know, stalker and all."

  I huffed a laugh, but I still strode to the Chevelle and set her on the hood gently. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever stalked, Sunshine.” She looked at the car beneath her ass, pursing her lips in thought for a moment before her eyes came back to me when I hooked my fingers into the waistband of her shorts and gave her a look that communicated exactly what I wanted from her.

  With a huff, she lifted her ass up off the hood of the car so I could slide the shorts down her thighs. "I know you're sore already," I murmured, tossing them to the side as I spread her legs and tugged her to the very end of the hood. "But unless you give me what I want, we both know that will get worse."

  She glared up at me, her mouth parting in disbelief. "Are you threatening me if I don't quit my job?" she asked.

  "No, Tesoro," I growled, reaching behind her head to grab her hair in my fist and tug her head back. I slid my other hand between her thighs, slipping a finger inside her tight heat as she whimpered. "I'm telling you that if you don't quit, I'll fuck you so hard you physically can't go do yoga tomorrow." Thrusting my finger in and out of her at a leisurely pace, I waited for her to decide.

  I knew which she'd choose, knew she would never give in to my demands through sexual blackmail.

  Luckily for me, I won either way.

  "You're an asshole," she hissed, and I smirked as I touched another finger to her pussy and slid it in alongside the first. She clenched down on me as she tried to fight the arousal flooding my hand, tried to deny that she craved me, craved this, just as much. She needed me, even if she tried to fight it and deny it.

  I saw it. Just like I saw her for exactly who she was.

  Mine.

  "Wrong answer, Sunshine," I told her, slipping my fingers free of her so I could reach for the fly of my jeans. Once I had them undone, I tugged her down the hood of the car further and wasted no time filling the void my fingers had left. She moaned, trying to toss her head back, but I held her still with my grip on her hair, keeping her back arched as I shoved inside her. Her pussy spasmed around me, sucking me as deep as I could go.

  Ever helpful once she took my cock, Calla lifted her legs high and spread them, letting me maneuver myself with more agility, but with the way frustration ate at me, I didn't want her compliant. I let go of her hair, lowering her upper body until it dropped to the hood and laid her out like a buffet, and then I tore her shirt down the center so that her tits spilled free. She gasped, staring up at me in surprise.

  She even winced, no doubt from soreness, when I pressed her legs back together and put her ankles on my shoulders.

  The position only made her pussy grip my cock tighter as I shoved deep, making Calla cry out beneath me as I leaned my upper body over her and bent her in half. With my hips grinding into her, I slid through every inch of her pussy in hard drives that made her gasp. I couldn't kiss her, not with the angle of my body on the hood of the car, but I stared at her as I fucked her. I willed her to feel that I wouldn't ever tolerate another man having designs on her.

  That the only cock she would ever know was mine and the way I filled her so fully.

  She whimpered when her orgasm neared, her fingers clenching and unclenching as she tried to find something to hold on to. My only regret was that she couldn't dig them into my ass where my jeans slid down. "Do you want to come?" I asked her, letting her thighs fall to the side so that I could stare down at where I pounded in and out of her perfect, pink little pussy. I pressed a thumb to her clit, just applying steady pressure as I took and took from her without letting her fall over that edge.

  If she wanted to disobey me, then the least she could do was ask me to let her come.

  She whimpered, thrusting her hips up to grind that naughty little clit on my thumb, but I chuckled and shook my head. "Please," she begged finally. "Let me come."

  "If I ever see another man touch you, I'll kill him while you watch, Tesoro. Got it?" I asked her, and she widened her eyes at me. It wasn't often I referred to just how violent my nature could be, but I needed her to understand that there were hard limits for me. Things that would push me too far and make me expose to her just how much of a monster I was.

  "Ryker!" she gasped, her lips parting as she tried to object.

  "I mean it," I told her, bumping the end of her with every one of the hard drives that I made her take. Made her accept.

  Just like I'd made her love me.

  I was ruthless, giving her no reprieve until she gave me what I wanted. "Yes. I get it!" she cried finally, whimpering when I circled her clit in the way she needed and her back arched in her orgasm.

  There were only a few more thrusts on my part before I spilled inside her with a roar. Everything went white, all of me centered on the spot where I connected with my woman. I hated immediately having to lift her off the car when I came down from my orgasm, but I couldn't let my cum leak on the paint job. Calla glared at me in an attempt to scold me as I sat her down on the desk where I'd fucked her a few days before, but I wasn’t bothered by her anger. I understood it, even if I didn't agree.

  Because I'd neglected a condom again.

  And I couldn't lie and say it was an accident.

  Forty-Three

  Calla

  I smiled through my tears, staring at my son as he let me cut his hair. It wasn’t like we hadn’t done it since Chad died, but the previous cuts had been somber events.

  This time he smiled and laughed with Ryker as I snipped away bits of his dark hair. Like he didn’t have a care in the world.

  It was not lost on me that Ryker gave him that. Gave me that.

  Ines played with her stuffed wolf happily in the living room, watching her brother’s hair fall to the floor in clumps as the boys talked, and I tried to soak up the happiness around me. It felt like every piece of hair that fell was the last piece of our lives floating away, leaving nothing but the new ones we could have.

  That we already had, willingly or not.

  When I finished with Axel’s hair, my hand rubbed over his head gently as I went around to look down at him. “Go ahead and shower, my sweet boy,” I whispered. He nodded, scurrying off to take a shower before bed. Ines had already fallen asleep on the couch, uninterested in the process of hair cuts. She wanted hers to grow to be longer than her waist, and she had a long way to go.

  “My turn,” Ryker grunted, taking the seat Axel had occupied. I smiled at him as he tugged me into his lap. Letting my feet dangl
e over the side as I straddled his thighs, I reached up, measuring out the length I wanted for his hair and making the first snip. “What’s wrong, Sunshine?” he asked.

  I sighed, continuing to cut as I tried not to make eye contact with him. I shook my head, because if Ryker had made one thing obvious in our weeks together, it was that he hated when I talked about Chad. I even understood it on some level, but I couldn’t erase my worry for the kids.

  “Calla,” he warned.

  I smiled at him. “I’m afraid you’ll be angry with me. You don’t like when I talk about him.”

  “You’re sitting in my lap and thinking of another man?” he growled, making my lungs heave with a frustrated breath.

  “It’s not like that, I swear. I don’t—” I paused, glancing into the living room to be sure Ines was still asleep. My voice dropped to a whisper when I finished the thought. “I don’t miss him.”

  “Good,” Ryker said with a smile.

  “Ryker!” I slapped his chest, shaking my head at his infuriating jealousy. “He was my husband.”

  “And now I am, Tesoro,” he said, bringing a hand up to cup my cheek as he forced me to look down at him. I abandoned my cutting, having no choice but to focus on his intent stare.

  “He was their father, and now it’s like he never existed. I don’t want them to mourn him forever. I don’t. I just—” I paused, shaking my head and trying to dislodge his focus. As always, Ryker refused, his eyes intent on my face as I tried to find the words. “I just want to do right by them, and I feel like I’m failing at that.”

  “Hey,” Ryker whispered as his other hand caught my face and cradled it. “Don’t think that.”