Dark Heart Volume 1: A Star-Crossed Mafia Romance (Dark Heart Duet)

by Ella James

  He rubs his forehead, and I think I see him smiling in the dark. “I don’t know what you want.”

  Maybe not. His voice is kind of achy. I say, “Me either,” which is a lie. I summon all my courage, but I still can barely breathe as I say, “I want…you to kiss me again.”

  He’s on me in a single stride, kneeling by the love seat, leaning over so his breath is warm on my cheek. His hands rove through my hair and his lips brush mine. Then he deepens the kiss—slowly.

  I grip his shoulder and lick at the corner of his lips until he invades my mouth with his tongue. I shiver and wrap myself around him. My arm goes around his back, tugging so he rises up on his knees.

  “Do you want me up there with you?”

  “Yes.”

  He crawls atop me, one knee settling between my legs…and then he leans down, sliding his hand into my hair, cupping my nape before he kisses me again—soft at first, and then it’s deep and hard and hungry. A moan slips from my lips and my back arches as all my cells riot with sensation.

  “Che cosa vuoi, la mia dolce rosa?”

  I find his mouth again with mine, kissing hard then breaking away. “Say it again.”

  “Che cosa vuoi?” he whispers.

  “The whole thing.”

  “La mia dolce rosa. That means…my sweet rose.” His words are groans; his body trembles just like mine does. I wrap my arm around his back, pulling his chest down on mine.

  “Elise.” He shudders.

  “Sorry.” My voice quivers. “I want to feel you. Do you think that’s bad?”

  “Non lo so. Anche io voglio quello.”

  Then he presses his hips to my thigh. I can feel him, and he’s long and hard and stiff and…perfect. My hips lift. I want to press myself against him. I do, and he moans.

  “Luca.” I hook a leg around his flank and shiver.

  His eyes burn into mine. “Are you okay?”

  I nod, thrusting my hips a little so I’m rocking against him. Oh my God, it feels incredible. My body flushes like a firework. I feel desperate…so, so hungry. Every time we rub together, he groans like it hurts.

  He starts thrusting against me. I roll my hips, and the thrusts…I push up against him and he groans. His body tenses, and I feel him shudder. Then he’s panting, moving off me. I’m shocked as he stands and turns away from me.

  “Oh fuck.” He’s holding his head.

  “Did I—did something hurt?”

  He groans, “No.” He turns back around to face me, one hand on his forehead. “Elise…you made me—”

  His hand spreads over his pants, fingertips smoothing the fabric down around the outline of his erection.

  As understanding settles in me, my cheeks burn too hot, and I’m almost too flustered to speak.

  “So you…” I swallow. “Um, was it okay?” My head feels dizzy, all of me still dizzy. My brain isn’t working, but my body knows what it wants, and I long for him to climb back on the couch with me.

  “Yes.” His tone is flat, almost angry. He crouches beside me, close enough so I can see his wide eyes. “Are you okay?”

  I thought he seemed mad, but I realize he’s frustrated. With himself, I think. And worried about me. “Was it—it didn’t bother you or anything, did it?”

  “No. No. It was…it felt good. I felt…good.” And now I feel embarrassed. By how shaky my voice is. By how my heart pounds, my body throbs and trembles. And because I’m too ashamed to tell him it feels like a flame I swallowed that’s slipped down between my thighs.

  He breaks our eye contact to settle on his knees beside the couch. He leans down over me, presses his lips to mine. I can feel him waiting for me. He wants me to deepen the kiss, and I do. Every time he exhales, every time his chest pumps on a deep breath— I’m addicted to him. I need more of him; I need him closer.

  I sink a hand into his dark locks, tugging so he’ll come closer. When he doesn’t—he doesn’t get up on the couch—I whisper, “Please. Get up here.”

  He complies with his head lowered, crawling over me with care. He gives a soft, shy sort of smile before kissing me again, this time with open mouths and hot tongues. I can feel him try to keep his hips away from mine, but I don’t want that.

  “I want to feel you,” I whisper.

  We kiss, hard and frenzied, till we have to stop to breathe. I feel molten on the inside, everything swollen and heavy. Some fire in me rages, and I have this need to feel him like I did before. I want to rub against him.

  Both of us are breathing heavy. Suddenly I’m so ashamed. I cover my face, and he takes my hand.

  “You okay, la mia rosa?”

  I nod. “I’ve never felt like this before.” I look up at him through my tears.

  “Like what?”

  “Like…” I can’t say, so I squeeze my eyes shut.

  “Don’t be embarrassed. You’re fucking beautiful and perfect, Elise. I just want to make you feel good.”

  I wrap my hands around his arms, rubbing gently up and down as he props himself over me. “Could you…rub on me like before?”

  Understanding flickers through his features. Then he shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath.

  “You don’t have to.”

  “No.” He lowers himself over me, his entire body. I can feel him right away—he’s hard against my thigh. He’s hard again.

  I hug his head against my chest and lift my hips toward him. I groan—just a sound my body makes without me—and he lifts his head and kisses my jaw.

  “Elise, never worry. With me…just don’t be worried. Okay?”

  I nod, and he kisses my mouth.

  Everything feels different this time. Both of us are groaning, sweating, shaking as we press against each other. I rub and he thrusts and we tremble. He drags against me, and I moan.

  “You okay?”

  His hand cups the side of my face, his thumb rubbing as his eyes sear mine. I tip my head back and he kisses my throat. He rests his head beside mine, then lifts it to look at me again.

  “Do you trust me?”

  I nod.

  “Close your eyes, la mia rosa. I want to try something I think you’ll like…”

  Chapter Eight

  Luca

  I look at her and try to sear the image of her into my memory. Elise with her hair in waves around her face. The cat-like smile, a little smug. The way her cheeks redden when I pull her underwear back up and fix her pants and snap the button on them. She curls over on her side. I run my hand lightly over her leg.

  “That was…perfect,” she whispers. Her hand reaches for me, fingers brushing my forearm as her eyes hold mine. She traces down to my wrist, running a gentle fingertip around the round bone that protrudes a little.

  “I like your hands.”

  “Thanks.” A sound comes from my throat that’s kind of like a laugh, but raspy because I get awkward around her sometimes. “I like your everything.”

  She’s peering up at me, a little owlish, but she’s still in shy mode. I can tell. Something with her mouth.“Do you really?” she asks.

  I lie behind her, wrapping one arm over her chest and pulling her against me. “Do you really need to ask?”

  “How did we not know each other?”

  “Before the last week?”

  I feel her nod.

  “I don’t know.” I trail my fingers over her shoulder, then pause. “We kind of did. Or, we met and talked and stuff, at least.”

  She frowns over her shoulder. “What? When?”

  I grin. “Can you not think of any place you might have seen me?”

  “No.” She turns to face me, looking amused. I run my fingertip over her pretty lower lip. Her lashes lower like she’s too shy to look at me.

  “Think hard, mio angelo.” She was dressed as an angel that night.

  I watch as her face transforms in shock. “What! That was you?”

  I chuckle, holding my finger over her mouth so she’ll remember we should whisper.

  “That wa
s you?” she hisses.

  “It was.”

  “The one in the bandana?”

  I grin.

  “Wow, so that was you. Of course it was.”

  “Why of course?” I’m holding her, and we’re face to face. Something warm moves through me—something that feels sort of like satisfaction, but it’s heavier and…better.

  She shuts her eyes, smiling brightly. “Because I liked him.”

  I kiss her cheek. “What did you like about him?”

  She closes her eyes again and I hug her closer. “I liked how you seemed non-threatening in the room. I liked your eyes. And I liked how you were when you were behind me, when we hid. You made me feel safe.”

  “Good.”

  “Did you know I was me?”

  “I didn’t. Not until we came back to school. It just hit me once, the other day. Probably because I smelled your perfume that morning.”

  “So it was my smell.” She giggles.

  “Yeah, I kinda scented you out or whatever.”

  “That’s awfully animalistic, Galante.”

  I wink. “I’m an animal.”

  “I am too,” she whispers, widening her eyes.

  She bows her head in mock shame, and I thump her chin. “Think we know who couldn’t even get through kissing without…” I can’t say it, so I just shake my head, grinning into her hair.

  “It’s okay.” Her hands smooth my hair back off my forehead. “I love that you liked it.”

  “Liked it.” I almost blew again when I was going down on her. Not coming has me hurting right now. Nothing’s ever felt as good as rubbing up against her softness, but I don’t want to sound too intense, so I just say, “It was the best thing I’ve ever felt.” Way better than anything I’ve done with anyone else—not that I’m going to say that.

  “Really?” She looks amazed, which makes me laugh. The sound comes out choked. “Uhh…yeah.”

  “I felt that way, too.” She tilts her head back, looking into my eyes. “Do you think I’m terrible?” she whispers.

  “Because of what we did?”

  She nods.

  “Hell no.” I kiss her forehead—because I can’t keep my mouth and hands off her. Then I lean my head against hers. “You liked it, right?”

  I’m worried. Maybe she regrets it.

  “Of course,” she says, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

  We’re both quiet, rocked by the boat, and I think this is all someone can ask for. It’s times like this that make the other shit more worth it.

  I’m rubbing her hair when her cheek brushes mine. “Let’s never not know each other again,” she says.

  I smile, even as my chest and throat ache. “Again? When did it happen before?”

  “Maybe in another life.”

  I wrap her closer up against me, and she sighs like she’s content, and I feel so good. Really, really good.

  Her lips brush the bruise around my eye, and for a second, I can’t breathe.

  “You’re a good guy for sure.” Her soft lips feather kisses over my temple. “You know that, don’t you?”

  I don’t, but I’m too content to argue, so I shut my eyes, and she kisses them too.

  “My sweet Luca.”

  I open my eyes and I kiss her mouth, a really hard kiss so she won’t say that. A hard kiss that turns tender because I don’t want to hurt her.

  Afterward, when all the air is gone from my lungs and my head is spinning, her fingers stroke into my hair, and she laughs softly. “What time do you think it is?”

  I open my eyes. “I don’t know.”

  She bites her lip. “I bet my friends left and now no one can find me. Dani has a mobile phone, but I don’t know how I would call her. I left mine at home tonight.”

  “I can help you find them.” I kiss her lips lightly.

  “Do you think we’ll get caught if we climb out?”

  “I bet we’ve been in here about an hour. They’re probably gone.”

  “Hmmm. Maybe. I kind of don’t want to leave.” She smiles.

  I don’t either, but we need to, so I get up, and I help her up. I smooth her clothes down, and she kisses my chin.

  We open the hatch above the bed, and I climb out, then pull Elise onto the deck. A cool breeze wraps around us as we stand there on the boat’s front, looking at the dark, deserted lawn.

  She giggles. “That’s a lot of Solo cups.”

  I take her hand. “Yeah, I hope Jace has a cleaning crew.”

  She snorts. “I wouldn’t bet on that.”

  We walk slowly around the house, onto the vast side lawn, where we can see the street through a grove of trees at the end of a long driveway.

  “Where do you need to be right now, la mia rosa?”

  “With you.” She gives me a shy smile. “But I’m supposed to be spending the night at Dani’s house…so I guess there?”

  I squeeze her hand. “I’ll get you to Dani’s. We can walk to Kings Point Park and get a cab there, maybe.”

  “Thank you. If you’re sure it’s okay.”

  “Of course.” Dad doesn’t care when I come home. Not that he knows what time it is after five o’clock anyway.

  We walk through the trees, over the damp grass, toward the lamp-lit road, which is a little two-lane lined with ostentatious houses, leading to a larger two-lane that leads to a parkway that would eventually lead to Throgs Neck Bridge. I looked it all up after school, from a café computer, just in case I couldn’t get home on the chopper.

  “I really like it here,” I hear myself tell her. “It’s quiet.”

  She nods. “We have a place upstate—a bigger kind of place that’s on a lake, but it has these two little cabins on the property. One time my mom let my friends and me stay in one for a night. It was so quiet. I felt like you could hear the leaves falling.”

  “That sounds pretty cool.”

  I can feel her hesitate a moment as we near the curb that marks the lawn’s edge. Her hand in mine tenses.

  “What’s the matter?”

  I notice the car at the moment I ask. There’s this dark car parked by the curb, with one door open. She stops walking, lets my hand go. My eyes focus, and I realize a man is standing by the car—someone tall, wearing dark clothes.

  Elise makes a little gasp sound. “Oh shit. That’s my dad.”

  Chapter Nine

  Elise

  “We’re going to have a conversation, Elise. Sit down.” My father pats a wing-backed chair in his study, and again when I don’t immediately follow instructions.

  I clamp my minty gum between my molars and sit, waiting while he steps behind his large oak desk and settles in his high-backed leather chair. He tugs the pull cord on a Tiffany lamp, splashing amber light over the papers on his desk and lighting his face. It looks pitted with shadows from the angle of the light.

  “This won’t take long,” he says slowly. “But I need to make you understand.”

  I rub my tongue over the bumpy piece of gum. During the car ride home—which took around two hours—my dad didn’t speak. Not one word about how he found out where I was or why he showed up. Or about who I was with. Zip, nada, zilch.

  I nod now, fixing my gaze on his face because I know if I don’t, he’ll think I’m a liar. That’s the way my father’s mind works.

  “Do you know why I came to get you?” There’s a pause so I can guess. I don’t, and he says, “Your sister had two severe seizures.”

  “What?”

  “She’s in the PICU. Your mother is there with her.”

  “Oh my God.” Something cool slips through me—terror. “How is she?”

  He shakes his head, pressing his lips flat. My eyes well and my throat aches awfully. Please don’t let this be the night…

  “First, we’re going to talk about this insubordination.” His eyes are hard on mine as he asks, “Why were you at the Banetti home?”

  My stomach sinks like a stone in water. When your father is a cutthr
oat lawyer and the questions start, you know you’re in trouble. I tell myself I’ll keep it casual; don’t act defensive.

  “Everyone went there after the game.” As soon as I say it, my jaw drops—because I wasn’t supposed to be at the game! “We weren’t going to go to the game,” I add, “but we did at the last minute. Dani had to work concessions.”

  “Concessions,” he says, frowning like the word is foreign to him. “Why is that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Some club she’s involved in.” My heart beats harder.

  “So you were there with Dani, at the game. And the boy—what was his name?—was he playing?”

  “No. I mean, well, yes. But that’s not why we went.”

  “I didn’t imply that it was, Elise. But maybe it was, since you offered that it wasn’t.” My father looks down at his hand, curled in a half fist on his desk. My throat aches again as I think about the times I used to sit in that chair, playing with his briefcase, calling myself Elise O’Hara, Esquire. Before Becca got worse and he…changed.

  His flat, hard gaze returns to mine. “Did you go so you could watch him?”

  “No way. Of course not. I don’t even know him.” Liar. “Not well.”

  “You were never a good liar, were you? That comes from your mother. She’s not good at hiding her feelings, either.”

  She just disappears, I want to say—but I don’t. Because my dad would never stand for that, no matter what a coward she is.

  “I’m not lying. He’s a really nice guy, but we aren’t like…close or anything.”

  “So you are distantly friends.”

  “No, Dad.” Tears gleam in my eyes, accompanied by a swell of dismay at myself for sounding so plaintive. If there’s one thing my father hates, it’s weakness. I blink quickly, willing my tears not to fall.

  “Why are you having this reaction, Elise?”

  “I’m upset about Becca!” My voice shakes with fury, and my father lifts his dark brows.

  “Would you like to tell me how you ended up leaving this party more than an hour after police were summoned? And why you were in a dark yard with a boy you don’t know well and aren’t close to?”