“Enough.” Alessandro pulls me off his length. Hooking his arms under mine, he hauls me to my feet. His hands are back to gripping the hair at the nape of my neck, and around my throat, as he backs me up until the back of my legs hit the mattress.
Alessandro licks up the side of my face, a growl reverberating through his chest when he nips at my bottom lip. “You’re mine, Angel.”
My eyes roll back when his mouth finds the secret spot under my ear. My fingers dig into his hips, anchoring me to the here and now. If I let him, Alessandro would consume me; mind, body, and soul.
I need control in my life. Without it, I’m just a trained killer who could go off at any minute. Control is something that I could never give up if I want any semblance of a normal life. But in the bedroom, with Alessandro, I know that I can let go, and he will always be there to catch me. This is one area where I can give up all control to him, and I can be free to just feel.
But what happens when that no longer becomes an option? What happens when there is no more Alessandro? That’s not something that I can allow myself to dwell on right now. For now, I can breathe a little easier knowing that Alessandro is here, and I’ll gladly surrender all my control… to him.
As my back hits the soft sheets of the bed, the only thing on my mind is how unbelievably good his lips feel on my torso as he kisses his way down my middle, dragging my shorts lower with each kiss until he’s pulling them free of my legs and tossing them on the floor.
Alessandro stands, kicking out of his own pants and underwear. His fingers gently wrap around my ankle and lift my leg. Lips trailing soft kisses and nips from the inside of my ankle and all the down until he’s kneeling in front of me.
“Mine,” he growls right before he licks up my slit, sucking my clit between his lips.
My back arches, fingers gripping the sheets at my side.
Alessandro said I was his and that night he claimed me, body and soul, in ways that only existed in my dreams and dark romance novels. He was dangerously close to claiming my heart too, but I refused to acknowledge just how close.
That night instead of kicking him out, I fall asleep with my head on his chest and our legs intertwined.
ALESSANDRO
“TELL ME ABOUT your family.”
I had planned on sneaking out in the middle of the night but I must have been more tired than I thought because the next thing I knew I was waking up with Jessika practically wrapped around me like she was afraid I would disappear, and morning light was streaming through the gaps between the curtains in her bedroom.
We’ve both been awake for a while. I heard the slight change in her breathing several minutes after I woke up. Neither one of us wanted to be the first to move.
“My family?” she asks, her voice still heavy with sleep.
“I want to know more about you, Angel, including where you come from.”
She blows out a frustrated breath. I was expecting her to clam up and kick me out with the excuse that this was nothing more than a fuck buddy arrangement. So, I was surprised when she answered.
“The short version? My mother was a drunk until she died when I was five. My father was… barely around, always choosing work and his business dealings over us, and my sister… well, we were close. You could almost say that we were inseparable until her thirteenth birthday.”
“What happened on her thirteenth birthday?”
“Our father began training her so that one day she could work in the family business. She became meaner, always pushing me around, yelling at me that I was worthless. I never understood why. Until the day I turned thirteen.”
When I look down at her with her head on my chest, hand sprawled over my heart, there’s a faraway look in her eyes but then she blinks and it’s gone.
“Anyway, after that day our entire lives became one big competition. Who could get the better grades, the hotter boys, who could run faster, jump higher? Who could win our father’s affection more? It was exhausting. Then one day I realized that it wasn’t the way a family was supposed to be so after I graduated high school I left.”
“Thirteen seems a little young for him to already be grooming you to work in the family business.”
“There’s no such thing to my father. If it were up to him he would’ve started us sooner, but I guess he made some sort of promise to our mother that he would wait until we were teenagers.” She scoffs, moving to sit up and I instantly miss the feel of her soft body against mine. “Thirteen is barely a teenager.”
“What is the family business?”
Jessika’s entire body stiffens. She swallows hard, avoiding my gaze but she doesn’t answer my question. Instead, she reaches for my dress shirt on the floor and slips it on. It’s about several sizes too big and on anyone else it would look ridiculous, but she looks fucking edible.
“Coffee?” she asks when she’s halfway across the room.
It’s glaring obvious there’s more to her story but I won’t force her to tell me. Not yet.
***
JESSIKA
I wish I can say that I regret giving Alessandro pieces of the puzzle to my past but I don’t. That in itself should scare me. This wasn’t supposed to go beyond a fun time between the sheets but I found that I want him to know me. I want to share who I am with him. And that’s more dangerous to me than getting caught with cold blood on my hands. I can’t seem to stop this growing thing between us though and I’m not entirely sure that I want to.
“Come to dinner with me this weekend,” Alessandro says as he rounds the corner into the kitchen, wrapping his arms around my middle and pulling me into his chest. His chin resting on the top of my head. “Braxton hosts a family dinner every Sunday night. Come with me this weekend.”
“You want me to meet your friends?” I ask against his chest.
“Yes.” His hands start roaming my body, over the dip of my lower back and down to squeeze my ass.
“Why?”
Alessandro nips and licks along my neck and I tilt my head to give him better access. His hands massage the cheeks of my ass. If he were to dip under the shorts I’m wearing he would find me already wet for him.
“Just say yes,” his breath coasts over my skin and I shiver in sensation overload with his lips, tongue, teeth, and hands all getting in on the action.
“Yes,” I moan. His skilled fingers slipping between my legs and thrusting into my pussy.
JESSIKA
I’M NERVOUS AS I stand in front of the full-length mirror in my bedroom. I’ve never met a boyfriend’s friends before. Boyfriend. Is that what Alessandro and I are now? Boyfriend and girlfriend? Ugh, it sounds so juvenile. After Alessandro cornered me in the kitchen and I agreed to dinner there was no further discussion on why he wanted me to meet his friends so soon when we hadn’t even discussed what this thing between us was.
“Mmm, if those jeans were any tighter I’d have to peel you out of them, Angel,” Alessandro whispers in my ear from behind me, his hands on my hips pulling me against him so I can feel the outline of his hardening cock against my ass. “Might have to peel you out of them anyway.”
I shiver when his fingers brush against the exposed skin between my shirt and the waistband of my jeans. Alessandro smirks at our reflections in the mirror, his hands roaming up my front to cup my breasts under my shirt. I moan, leaning my head back against his chest.
“We’ll never make it out of here if you continue doing what you’re doing,” I breathe.
“And what am I doing, Angel?”
“Making me forget that we have dinner plans with your friends and want to just stay holed up here while we do dirty, dirty things to each other.” I wiggle my ass against his growing length and grin when it twitches.
“Christ, that mouth. I can’t wait to fuck that pretty mouth when we get home tonight.”
My shirt falls back into place against my heated skin when Alessandro removes his hands. I whimper at the sudden loss of heat at my back.
“You c
ould fuck it now,” I say, running my tongue along my bottom lip and pulling it between my teeth, my gaze trailing down until they land on the bulge behind his zipper.
“Jessika,” Alessandro warns, the dark look he levels at me leaves no room for argument. As much as I want to bait him some more until he unleashes the beast I can see stewing under the surface, I know me meeting Braxton, Klara, and Antonio means more to him than he wants to let on.
“Fine.” I stick out my bottom lip in a pout and go about choosing a sweater in case the temperature dips down.
Alessandro ushers me out of my apartment and down the stairs into the guest underground parking stall where his big-ass SUV is parked. Seriously, the thing is like a boat. While he maneuvers us through city traffic I take the time to really admire him. He looks relaxed sitting back in the leather seat, elbow resting on the console between the seat and his right hand draped over the gearshift. His other arm casually draped over the steering wheel. Alessandro is a big guy, but it’s his presence that makes him feel larger than life. I can see why Braxton chose him as his Capo. Alessandro demands attention and respect wherever he goes. When you first meet him, he emits this don’t fuck with me attitude, and anyone would be wise to heed the warning. He keeps his hair trimmed short to his scalp and that only lends to the badass image. That and the leather jacket he’s currently wearing.
Twenty minutes later, Alessandro drives up a long, narrow lane lined with trees decorated with small, white flowers. The lane then opens up to reveal a looming mansion with a circular driveway. A mansion is probably describing it mildly. It’s a fucking castle. It looks like someone chose a castle in Italy and decided to just pick it up and move it. It puts the three-story house I grew up in to shame. It’s gorgeous. And just another reminder that I’m so far beneath these people. I could never measure up to this with my tiny one-bedroom apartment in the city and live off daddy’s money. At least for now.
The front door opens just as I’m stepping out of the vehicle and Klara walks out with a huge smile on her face. She doesn’t look anything like the girl I got to know in the hospital. The same girl who was held in the room next to mine. She looks healthy… happy. Her ash blonde hair falls in soft waves around her heart-shaped face, her blue eyes glowing with excitement when Alessandro and I make our way over to her and she engulfs me in a bear hug.
“I’m so happy you’re here, Jessika,” she whispers in my ear before she pulls away then pulls Alessandro into his own hug.
In the car on the way here, he had warned me that Klara was a hugger and that if I wasn’t okay with it I should tell her. Honestly, I didn’t mind it. I loved it in fact. There were never any signs of affection in my childhood home after my mother died. Frankly, I stopped thinking of it as home that day too. It became a building where I ate, rested my head at night and had to put up with my father and sister. Home it was not.
Klara ushers us inside and I have to stop and stare at the entrance way. A marble staircase winds its way up on one side, a chandelier hangs from a high ceiling right above us. Seriously, if that thing falls, there’s no hope for either Alessandro or me. I don’t care if he is built like the incredible Hulk, we’re both going down. Alessandro holds my hand as Klara leads us down open hallway, passed a kitchen that must be every chef’s wet dream, and into what I’m assuming is the family room.
There’s a man hunched forward on the couch with his elbows resting on his knees as he stares intently at whatever is on the screen. A woman sits next to him, one leg crossed under the other as she smirks at whatever has him riled up. Tattoos decorate her right arm, from her wrists until it disappears beneath the short sleeves of her white t-shirt. A mandala piece peeks out from the hem of her jean shorts too. She’s beautiful with her dirty blonde hair thrown up in a haphazard bun atop her head and steel grey-blue eyes outlined in black.
They both notice us standing watching them at the same time, and when the man turns his full attention on me I feel like I’ve been hit by a mac truck. His stare is so intense I feel like I can’t breathe like every inhale and exhale is a challenge. They get to their feet at the same time, like a choreographed routine.
“I’m Sofia, Braxton’s cousin.” Her painted red lips tip in a smile as she shakes my hand and I instantly know that we’ll be good friends. Plus, I want the number of her tattoo artist. The artwork is amazing.
“Jessika,” I manage to squeak out in between drooling over the different pieces of art along her arm.
“Don’t even think about it,” Alessandro growls sensing where my thoughts have gone.
“What?” I ask, batting my lashes up at him.
Alessandro drops my hand, snaking it around my waist and pulling me in closer to his side as he drops his head to whisper in my ear. “The only mark this skin will bear will be my handprint on your ass, Angel.” He nips at my earlobe before straightening back up to his full height.
I immediately start cataloging all the places in this mansion where I can drag Alessandro to so that he can carry out his threat. I think I saw an office or a library somewhere along the hallway.
“Have you already forgotten about the little piece on my thigh?” I whisper back and Alessandro growls low so that only I can hear. He’s already asked me multiple times what the dagger represents, and each time I’ve shrugged it off and acted like it was nothing special, just some random design I picked out at the tattoo studio. I hoped he would never pay close attention to the markings though because then I can kiss everything I’ve worked towards goodbye.
All dirty thoughts of corrupting Alessandro in his best friend’s home flee when the mystery man takes my hand in his but instead of shaking it brings my knuckles up to his lips so that he can kiss it.
“Pleasure to meet you.” Eyes the bluest I’ve ever seen stare up at me, I’m momentarily lost in a sea of blue. He only pulls away when I hear a feral growl sounding from my right. Mystery man smirks like he knows exactly what he did to elicit that kind of reaction from Alessandro. “Antonio,” he says in a slight Italian accent.
His inky black hair falls over his eyes but he brushes it back, running a hand through the silky strands. He’s a couple inches shorter than Alessandro, and definitely built like a brick shithouse, but my man could take him in a fight hands down.
“Antonio,” Alessandro growls. “Drop her hand or I’ll remove yours.”
My eyes round in realization that Antonio had my hand clasped in his the entire time we’ve been talking… which hasn’t been long but from Alessandro reaction you’d think it’s been hours.
“I would listen to him, Toni. Alex looks like he’s ready for a fight to the death,” a voice says from the hall when a man walks toward us, one hand in the pocket of his dress pants, the other wrapped around a glass of amber liquid. I’m assuming this is the Braxton De Luca. Don of the Famiglia. I’ve heard stories about him, and despite my father’s intense hatred of the man, I have never seen a picture of him. He’s not as tall as Alessandro or Antonio, or as built but with the air of authority swirling around him I guess he doesn’t have to be. With one look into his dark eyes and I know exactly why everyone cowers to him.
With one look, it feels like he’s seeing straight to the depths of who you are. Like he’s seeing all your fears, all your faults, your darkest secrets, and your darkest desires. He sees it all. At least, it feels like he does. It’s disarming. I’m not entirely sure why it doesn’t surprise me that Braxton De Luca is the only one here in dress pants and dress shirt, but it doesn’t. He seems like the type of person who needs to be in control of all things and maybe the suit allows him that.
“Why don’t you guys go out back and get the grill started. The girls can help me with the drinks and sides,” Klara says, interrupting the tense stare down between Antonio and Alessandro.
“Grill? Since when do you grill?” Alessandro teases Braxton. All tension is gone.
“Since-fucking-now apparently,” he mumbles under his breath, stealing a glance at Klara who just sm
iles at him innocently.
“Don’t burn the meat!” she hollers after their retreating back.
Before I know it, I’m stuck inside with two pairs of curious eyes glued to me like a child’s arts and crafts project.
“Drinks? You said there were drinks?” is the first thing out of my mouth before I can stop myself.
Klara and Sofia giggle while each of them loops an arm through one of my own and they lead me into the gorgeous kitchen I caught a glimpse of earlier when Alessandro and I entered the house.
“So… Jessika, tell us about yourself,” Sofia says, grabbing a celery stick from a plate of cut vegetables on the island and plopping herself down on a bar height stool.
“Finally decided to use that number, huh?” Klara asks before I can answer Sofia’s question.
“Number? What number?” Sofia asks, looking between Klara and me.
“I gave her Alessandro’s number two years ago. Guess she never used it until now,” Klara shrugs, going about gathering bottles of wine and bourbon then setting the bottles on the counter in front of Sofia.
“Oh, shit,” Sofia’s grey-blue widen in alarm. “Does Alex know that?”
Klara shrugs again as she lines up three wine glasses and three glass tumblers. She stares at the tumblers, biting her lip as she thinks and then takes one away before filling the remaining ones. “Braxton already has a drink out there,” she says by way of explanation.
When she’s done pouring everyone’s drinks, and placing the wine bottle back on the counter and locks eyes with me. It’s then I realize that their back and forth volleying of questions has stopped and they’re both looking at me expectantly.
Dark Betrayal (Famiglia Book 2) Page 6
