by Mary Madison
Okay, so let's say that a family with one-fifth the resources of ours was dumb enough to decide to make a play for our operations... unlikely, but not wholly outside the realm of possibility if, as Junior had previously theorized, they'd seen Crazy's Joe worsening illness—and the rumors that he was planning to pass the family business on to me—as a sign of vulnerability. And let's say their opening move was to take a shot at our father. Okay. Ballsier than I would have given the Azzarellos credit for, perhaps, but again, not impossible. Like the saying goes, “Kill the head and the body will die”... the best way to destabilize an organization like ours would be to take out the top guy, creating confusion among everyone beneath him as we scrambled to fill the gap in leadership.
So why would their very next move have been to try to kill Chelsea?
She'd barely been in town for twenty-four hours at that point. She wasn't integral to our operations, not even the legitimate ones—if something had happened to her, her firm would have simply sent someone else to complete the merger with Stavros. And yeah, she and I had become lovers... but it had happened so quickly and unexpectedly that no one would have had a chance to find out about that before the attempt on her life had happened.
Why her, then? Why not Junior, or Peter... hell, why not me? Even Whitey would have been a more suitable target.
Yes, the guards who had been assigned to Dad at the hospital—the ones who had clearly allowed the assassin to enter his room unimpeded and finish the job—had told Junior that one of the men on the Azzarellos' payroll was the killer. That evidence was difficult to dispute.
But even so, there was something wrong. Something I couldn't readily identify, something that left a bad taste in my mouth.
Something that had me speeding home to check on Chelsea after all.
I had found her after all these years, and I'd come so close to losing her again. Right then, all I wanted—all I needed—was to make sure she was safe and to bury myself in her utterly and never let her go.
I pulled up in front of my apartment building and hopped out, running to the door. Before I got there, I realized that by coming in so fast, I might accidentally spook her. Our nerves had been stripped down to the copper wiring for days, and the last thing I wanted was to make her think I was her would-be killer coming to finish her off.
Still, as I walked up the front steps and unlocked the door with trembling hands, the images of Chelsea's corpse—splayed, broken, spattered with blood—kept flashing through my mind, still images flicking by so quickly they almost seemed to move, like a spinning zoetrope. What if I never got to hold her again? What if I'd never have another chance to see the light sparkling in her eyes, to feel the warmth and comfort of her hands on my body?
I couldn't bear that thought. The idea of it made my entire world seem endlessly black and cold, as though the sun had been snuffed out forever.
I threw the door open, and Chelsea was on the other side, staring at me with wide eyes. “What happened? How did it...?”
But before she could finish, I embraced her and stopped her mouth with a kiss.
Chapter Three
Chapter Three—Chelsea
Desmond practically tumbled into me, slamming the door behind him and locking it without even looking as he kissed me hungrily. I sensed his sadness behind it, his desperation, his absolute burning need for me—and I allowed myself to willingly be consumed by the flames of it, smoldering and crackling in the impossible heat of his desire.
I didn't know what had happened between him and his brothers—nothing good, I assumed. I knew I'd find out, but that would be later... after I had comforted him, given him what he needed.
We staggered and stumbled over to the couch, wrapped in each other's arms, our lips locked together so tightly that it seemed like we were breathing with a single set of lungs. Our chests heaved together, and the solid muscles of his chiseled pecs and abs pressed against my body so tightly that they made me ache fiercely for him.
As we collapsed onto the couch, his thigh slid between my legs, pressing against the sudden dampness of my crotch so hard that I felt all the blood in my body travel there at once like a rushing river.
I was delirious, as though I'd unexpectedly found myself in the middle of a beautiful yet surreal dream—one I never wanted to wake up from since something deeper inside me insisted that only pain and terror waited for me on the other side of my all-too-thin eyelids.
So I squeezed them shut as hard as I could, shutting out my vision so I could shamelessly wallow in my other four senses. His scent was so musky and manly, like raw sandalwood, clouded with the heady aroma of lust and tinged with the faintest hint of sour adrenaline. His hands were firm on my body, traveling the length of it and back again... sliding over my waist, my hips, my buttocks, then briefly coming to rest on my face and neck before fluttering away again like restless butterflies. I could feel him sliding off my clothes one article at a time until I was fully naked—the cool, slightly stale air of the apartment resting on my exposed skin.
The sound of him was oddly tender—a series of faint moans, muffled by his mouth as he kept kissing my lips and body passionately. His voice vibrated gently against my flesh, sending sharp spasms of excitement all through me. I found myself answering each moan with one of my own, like something in the wild eagerly answering a mating call on a sultry summer evening.
And his taste on my lips was sublime, earthy and sweet and all mine.
He lowered his head between my legs, and then his hot breath tickled my labia just before his tongue began to lap at me... smoothly, top to bottom, covering every inch of my sensitive folds like a brush painting a masterpiece. A tingling sensation bubbled up inside me, spreading through me, filling every corner and crevice in me until my entire self felt as though it was on pins and needles.
The intensity of it was almost too much for me to bear, and I cried out—gasping for breath, wondering if it were possible to die from an overdose of pure pleasure.
It seemed like I was about to find out.
As he licked me, two of his fingers entered me slowly, pushing as far inside as they could and then keeping them perfectly still until my ears were ringing and it seemed like the entire world was holding its breath. The moment felt as though it was preserved in amber, distorted and frozen in place from that point until the end of time. Then he started moving again, slowly, rhythmically... his fingers sliding in and out, over and over, each new entry seeming to burrow into me more deeply until I started to wonder if he would ever reach the end or if his love had somehow made me sublimely infinite.
My nipples were hard enough to hurt, and with his other hand, he reached up and took one of them between his thumb and forefinger—twisting it sharply, tearing a ragged and intoxicated scream from the back of my throat. I wanted him to do it again, but the prospect somehow frightened me too. When he did, I cried out more loudly, the discordant sounds folding themselves into improbable shapes like origami until they formed the syllables of his name.
Please, fuck me, Des, please, take me, claim me, make me yours. Was I begging with my voice or just my thoughts? I couldn't tell anymore. The inside and outside of me felt like they had switched places. I was open and raw and vulnerable, and I wanted more than anything for him to take advantage of that, to touch the parts of me that had never been touched by anyone before.
He spread my legs, and I heard him unzip his fly. I pictured his cock, and then it was plunging into me with the force and insistence of a battering ram—smashing and splintering my defenses, unstoppable, so hard and fast and fervent that I felt my bones rattling in my body with every thrust.
Just when I thought he couldn't go any deeper, he grabbed my calves and lifted my legs as high as they'd go, his pulsing cock rubbing hard against my G-spot every time it went in and out. My shrieks rose in pitch, and there were lights dancing and glittering in the darkness behind my eyelids, like a sharp and sudden cascade of spilled jewels.
His mouth hovered
inches away from mine, his hot breath washing over my lips as he moaned my name. My climax came crashing through me like a thundering stampede, and I gave myself over to it, letting it trample everything that was jagged or uneven within me into a single flat surface. There were no more thoughts, no more feelings other than rapture and relief.
His orgasm came on the heels of mine, shooting into me and exploding like a rocket fired into a clear night sky. His lower back arched as he drove every inch of himself into my core, until it felt like he might tear me in half.
We spent a long time after that in sweaty silence, holding each other with all of our strength as though we could cling to the moment and make it last forever. Neither of us wanted to be the first to talk and break the spell—to open the door and let callous reality tromp all over our happiness with its big, muddy steel-toed boots.
But eventually, Desmond sighed and then spoke.
He told me about his argument with his brothers and how disappointed and hurt he'd been when he had left the estate. He told me how scared he was at the prospect of being unable to protect us both against the storm that was coming for us—a cold and vicious deluge that might wash away his entire family by the time it was over. He told me that he was unconvinced the Azzarellos were the true villains of this strange story and that he was worried that while Junior and Peter were busy hunting down the members of that gang, the real enemy might strike again. And again, and again, taking advantage of Junior's mule-headed myopia as they dismantled the entire Biros empire piece by piece.
I listened to his words and considered them carefully. We stayed there, curled up on the couch, and I stared at the ceiling while planning what to say next:
“We could leave.”
He lifted his head and looked at me. His mussed hair was going in so many directions at once that it was hard for me not to laugh, despite how serious the situation was. “Leave? Where? What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “Anywhere. Someplace far away from all this.”
Desmond frowned, confused. “When I brought that up as a possibility, you fought me pretty hard on it. More than once, as I recall. Remember? You said there was no place far enough where the people behind all this couldn't find you if they wanted to? So what changed your mind?”
“Nothing,” I said, sitting up on the couch. I hated prying myself out of Desmond’s strong arms, but this discussion seemed too serious to have while locked in each other's dreamy embrace. “That was completely different. You were talking about sending me away alone. I'm talking about both of us leaving together. Let your brothers fight it out with the Azzarellos, or whoever is really targeting your family. They win, they lose, whatever. We can be miles and miles from all of that. We can be safe and happy, like both of us always wanted to be, ever since we were kids.”
“And if they come after us?” Desmond asked. He was challenging my idea, but it sounded like he was also giving it real thought. “What then?”
“Think about it,” I replied. “They haven't come after you yet. God knows why they came after me. But if both of us subtracted ourselves completely from this equation—if we just washed our hands of the whole damn thing—why would whoever-it-is bother spending the time, money, and resources to find us, when they can just keep hammering away at Junior and Peter here instead? What would chasing us down buy them, when you come right down to it? Especially once word's gotten out that your brothers don't consider you part of the family anymore, so it's not like these people could use you to get to them, any more than they could use me to get to you.”
“Yeah, but there are too many unknown factors at play here to try to guess what their real motives are,” Desmond said. “There could be something we're missing. What if they try to get at us anyway?”
“Then you'll be there to protect me,” I answered, giving him a playful kiss on the nose. “The odds of you being able to do that would be improved, right? They might have a whole army of guys here for all we know, but even if they find out where we are and try to get to us, they'd probably only send one or two at a time.”
He considered this. “Okay, you might have a point there... though again, we wouldn't really know for sure. What about the Stavros merger? What about EEM&M?”
I shrugged again. “What about them? I'd walk away from my law career in a second if it meant we could start a new life together.” I paused, then added, “Don't you feel the same?”
Desmond stood up from the couch and started pacing the room. I could see the wheels turning in his head, examining all the angles to determine whether this could be a truly viable plan for us. His lithe nude body was magnificent in the moonlight, and it made me wish we could fast-forward through this conversation so we could agree escape was the best plan and make love one more time before leaving Chicago behind for good.
Finally, he sighed, turning to look at me again. “I want to. You don't know how much I want that with you.”
My heart sank. “But...?”
He sat down next to me again, taking my hand in his and looking into my eyes earnestly. “Maybe they'd send people after us, and maybe they wouldn't. We don't know. But the one thing we would know is that we'd be looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives. We'd go to sleep every night, never sure of whether we'd wake up to find them standing over us with guns. We'd end up moving from place to place just to stay off their radar, never able to relax or put down any roots.”
“So? I lived like that once before, remember? With my dad? I can totally do it again.”
He raised an eyebrow ruefully. “Yeah, you did live like that. For a few years, as I recall. How did it make you feel?”
That question stopped me in my tracks.
How had it made me feel? Like I was spending every waking moment existing in the horrible split second before the bullet hits the bone. Like I could never enjoy anyplace we stayed too much, I could never get too attached to anything or anyone because that night I could easily wake up to my father’s shaking me and telling me we needed to pack our bags again. Like I didn't even know who I really was because I was too preoccupied with making sure no one else knew who I really was.
I remembered the years of nausea and anxiety, the feeling of being so hyper-aware and vigilant all the time that my brain felt like a light bulb filament that had burned out.
Desmond must have seen those thoughts behind my eyes because he nodded. “Yeah. That's what I thought. And I know that despite all that, Chels, you'd still do it all over again... for me, for us. But I don't want you to. We deserve better than that. We deserve a real chance to be together and be unafraid, instead of spending the rest of our years as a couple creeping and skulking and running and hiding.”
I sighed. “You're right. I know you're right. But if we stay here, our odds of survival are drastically lower. So what can we do?”
He rubbed his temples as though he were starting to get a headache. “I don't know. But I have to settle this. I have to put an end to this madness once and for all so we can have a life together. I refuse to believe that things are hopeless, that our only option is to cut and run.”
I rested my head on his shoulder, closing my eyes. “I hope you're right, Des.”
“Yeah,” he replied wearily. “Me too.”
Chapter Four
Chapter Four—Desmond
We were just starting to doze off, huddled together on the couch, when I saw a shape pass by the window and snapped awake.
“What?” Chelsea mumbled blearily. “What's wrong?”
“Nothing's wrong.” I squinted at the window, shaking my head. “It's just that for a moment, I thought I saw...”
She straightened up, yawning and extending her arms over her head. She was adorable when she did that, like a cat stretching after an afternoon nap. “Saw what?”
I got up and grabbed a blanket that was draped on a chair, wrapping it around my naked body. Then I went to the window, cupping my hand above my eyes and peering outside.
Sure enough...
“Son of a bitch,” I grumbled.
“Des, what's going on?” Chelsea's eyes were wide, and her voice was starting to rise with alarm. “You're scaring me.”
“No, hey, it's nothing to be scared of,” I assured her, thinking, Annoyed, though... that's another story. “You remember Whitey, right?”
She tilted her head, sleepily. “The big guy from the house? The one who played cards with me when you went to the warehouse with Junior and Peter? Kind of hard to forget a guy that size, wouldn't you say?”
I snickered. “You've got a point there.”
“What about him?”
“He's outside,” I told her. “Hanging around on the sidewalk. From the look of it, he's trying to appear inconspicuous, God help us.”
I couldn't help but laugh. The sight was quite comical—that giant slab of a man was just loitering nonchalantly a few doors down, casting the odd glance toward my apartment and studying his nails as if to say, Nope, not up to anything suspicious, folks, nothing to see here, go about your business.
“'Inconspicuous?'” Chelsea repeated, giggling. “The Titanic would have a better chance of going unnoticed out there. What do you suppose he's up to?”
“Oh, that's an easy one,” I sighed. “Junior must have felt bad about the way things went between us earlier, all that stuff he said about not protecting me anymore, and... No, wait, it was probably Peter, actually. Yeah. He must have sent Whitey to watch over us after all, make sure we were safe.”
Chelsea raised her eyebrows. “Huh! Well, that's good, right? It means we don't have to fend for ourselves anymore. We have a better shot of making it through all this.”
“Yeah,” I conceded, “except that it's kind of silly for Whitey just to stand around out there, you know? He sticks out like a sore thumb.”
