Smoke: The Carelli Family Saga, Book One

by Eden Butler

  “I can do that,” I told her, claiming her mouth, tasting every inch. My breath coming in panting bursts when Maggie curled around me, giving back every lunge I made with her hands and mouth over me.

  She didn’t seem surprised when I picked her up and twisted her around to carry her to my desk. Laying her back, I tugged off her shirt, pulled down her skirt, and kissed her neck, smoothing my hands over those sweet, perfect breasts.

  “Smoke, ah… hurry…”

  She went still, resting on her hands when I pushed back, head shaking as I unbuttoned my shirt, loving how she watched me and the soft noises she made with each inch of skin I revealed. When the shirt was on the floor, I grabbed Maggie’s hands, pulling her to me, moving her palms down my chest to my stomach.

  “Don’t take your hands off me.” I grabbed her face again, taking those lips because I wanted them. “Tonight, I want you everywhere too.”

  We moved down and Maggie obliged—her nails scraping over my shoulders, her small feet rubbing over the back of my thighs. She touched me as I hovered over her, loving the open, half-dazed with lust look on her pretty face.

  Then, her eyes rolled up and the small noises she made became sweet whines that had my dick hard.

  I slipped my hand underneath the front of her black panties. “Ah… baby. Fuck.”

  She was slick and so damn hot, soaking my skin just with the brush of my fingertips against the slick folds.

  “You’re going to milk me dry tonight, aren’t you?”

  “Yes…” she started, her nails digging deeper into my arms when I fingered her. “Ah…”

  “Good. That’s what I want to hear.”

  She watched me, that dazed, eager look sharpening.

  I took my hand from her, wanting her too badly, seeing she wanted me too, and stuck my finger in my mouth, tasting how sweet she was. Then, I leaned down, resting on one hand, smiling as she unzipped me, wincing and twisting my head against the sensation of her cupping me between her fingers. I bunched her panties in one hand and ripped them from that beautiful body.

  “Smoke…now,” she said, the grip on my cock almost aching.

  She rubbed the head, teasing me as I climbed on top of the desk with her. Looking down at Maggie, I took her leg in one hand, breathing hard, and jerked her toward me so she slipped right onto my cock.

  Every time I had her, it was the same—new and tantalizing. I didn’t think I’d ever get enough of the taste or the feel of her perfect body.

  Maggie squeezed against me as I drove inside her, moving her legs apart, her hands on my ass, gripping, pushing me further in.

  I took her mouth, blinded by the need to spill everything I was into her. I didn’t know what this was. Knew I should be scared by this, but wanted all of it—this woman, the scorching heat of her body, her tightness, her sweetness wrapped around me always. I’d think about what this new feeling was later. When I wasn’t so caught up by what just being inside of her was doing to my rational thoughts.

  “Bella…” I panted, my fingers in her hair, holding her head still as I kissed her. I slowed, trying to be as deep inside her as I could be.

  She fit me everywhere and clenched around me so securely when I leaned back, still moving inside. I kept my rhythm slow, methodical, taking in the beautiful, soft features of her face and the thick pout of her luscious mouth.

  “Smoke…this…ah, this is good…”

  And it was.

  It was better than I’d ever had it and like usual with Maggie, I wasn’t thinking of how to be done with this and on to what was next in my night.

  I wanted to be here, with her and never let this end.

  Moving my hips faster, increasing my speed when she clenched harder, Maggie’s breath got labored and she scratched at my back, arching toward me.

  She came around me, taking my cock between her warm walls. I was helpless to do anything but give in, holding onto her face, my moans moving into her mouth between lips and tongues and teeth as I kissed her.

  We collapsed together, turning so Maggie lay on my chest, boneless. I held her there, keeping her close, loving how she felt against me. Loving how it had come to seem so natural to me; this woman here, against me. Like she belonged to me. Like she was made to be boneless in my arms, sated and sleepy from how I’d taken her body.

  “I’m sorry about your bad day,” I told her, kissing her forehead, but there was no response.

  She’d already drifted off, her even breaths moving the hair against my bare chest.

  The grin on my face came easy and that sensation I’d felt earlier only intensified as I pulled her closer. I still didn’t know what it was, but let it root and stretch until I thought I might like what it could be.

  Then, my cell buzzed, and I stretched an arm over my head, gripping the damn thing before it woke Maggie, spotting Rickey’s name and number pop up on my screen.

  “Rick?” I said, keeping my voice low. I didn’t want Maggie awake yet, but he only called when Dino couldn’t and the man had been gone too long.

  “Boss, we got a problem with Dino…”

  My stomach tightened and I tried to inhale, keeping my breaths even and my pulse from getting too fast. “Tell me.”

  “We don’t know who hit the West docks, but they got Dino. Those fuckers tried to take him out.”

  Eyes squeezed shut, I wanted to jerk away from the desk and throw the phone through the window. I wanted to scream and beat on something to make it bloody. But Maggie had never seen that side of me.

  If I had my way, she never would.

  “How…” I cleared my throat when my voice cracked and held the phone away, needing a second to calm myself before I brought it back to my ear. “How bad?”

  “We’re following the ambulance. He went to check on Will. Looks like they got the kid and Dino tried cleaning up the docks. He took two to the chest as far as I could tell when we got there. Passed out but was still breathing by the time the paramedics showed.”

  Maggie stirred and lifted her head. The smile on her face lowering when she watched me. There were tears burning the back of my throat and I guessed my eyes had already gotten red.

  She went to move off of me, but I held her to my chest, finally realizing what that sensation inside had been, hating that I recognized fear for what it was.

  I shook my head and she moved back down, snuggling closer, her fingers smoothing over the crucifix in the center of my chest.

  “I’ll meet you in half an hour.”

  “Yeah, boss.”

  Maggie looked up at me, touching my forehead, rubbing her thumb between my eyebrows.

  “And Rickey?” I said, taking Maggie’s hand from my face to kiss the center of her palm. “Watch your back.”

  He hung up and she opened her mouth, readying a million questions for me she knew I wouldn’t answer.

  When I shook my head, Maggie smiled, like she expected an excuse from me and was already fine with whatever it would be.

  I hoped she’d be just as fine with what came next.

  “Maggie, you and me, we’re gonna need to have a conversation…”

  This is what came of my gray business. This is what happens when you have something to lose.

  “Yeah?” she said, sitting up.

  She wasn’t mine. Neither was Mateo, but soon, I’d make sure they both were.

  8

  Maggie

  “No, asshole…give that to me!”

  “I can manage. I’m not a fucking idiot…”

  “Yeah? Then why the hell are you trying to put a metal pin in that shit when the instructions say a wooden dowel?” Dante waved the paper at his brother, top lip curled up and nose flaring. “You big chooch, see?”

  “Give me that!” The paper ripped, the corner falling to the floor as Dario grabbed it, then held it in front of his face, his big eyes moving as he focused on the instructions.

  The mess the two Carelli brothers had made of my living room was ridiculous. There were slats
of wood spread out across the floor, some only half-secured to a metal frame. Others still piled in a haphazard stack against the sofa. It killed me to ask these knuckleheads for help, but since Smoke was keeping a low profile—worried about everyone’s safety since Dino had been shot—there had been no one, other than his brothers to help with things I, begrudgingly, had to admit were beyond my physical control. Like lugging in the massive box Mateo’s new toddler bed had come in into our apartment.

  Despite my vow to only outfit my kid’s life with things I’d purchased myself, Vi had ordered the bed a week ago when my boy had figured out he could shimmy from his crib by kicking his leg over the railing and slipping down the side. It had nearly given the poor woman a heart attack to find him mid-slide two weekends ago when she went in to check on him during his nap.

  “He’s a wild child,” she’d proclaimed when I came home after my shift. “We have to prepare.”

  But preparing for whatever Mateo had in store for us meant more than buying a new bed. It meant we’d have to figure out how to put it together. We were capable. But when that box came and we couldn’t even manage to push it from the hallway into our apartment, Vi reasoned we had to admit our limitations.

  “We can do a lot of things for ourselves, sugar, but picking that up? No way. We need some muscle.”

  But the muscle I wanted, if I was honest, was attached to the one man who wasn’t around. Not since Dino had been shot two weeks ago and Smoke took him from the Cuoricino hospital, which he claimed wasn’t fit to help his man, to the hospital in Edgemont, an hour away. But Smoke hadn’t gone silent.

  In fact, I felt more protected now than I had in the last seven months.

  “I hate this,” Smoke had promised, his voice low over the phone. “I’m sending some of my boys to help you with the bed.”

  “No, you’re not. We can manage.”

  There’d been three of his boys roaming the halls of our apartments and two outside Carelli’s since the night Dino was shot. Unmarked SUVs were camped out near the restaurant and at his parent’s building. Two were parked in front and at the back of mine and two more sat in the park on the edge of town.

  The protection, Smoke reasoned, was necessary, though he wouldn’t say why. Still, that didn’t mean I wanted his men inside my home.

  “You stay with Dino,” I’d told him, on the verge of asking him what he’d wanted to talk to me about. That conversation had never happened after we had sex on his desk and there hadn’t been time since, but everything about Smoke had changed from how often he called to the tone of his voice.

  I had no idea why.

  “I can help with the bed when I get back,” he said through a yawn. His cadence was raspy, like he hadn’t had anything to drink in a while.

  A quick laugh moved from my throat, nearly waking Mateo as he slept next to me on the bed. “Vi’s nerves can’t handle the wait. I’ll get your brothers to help.”

  “You’re a brave woman, bella…” Another yawn and Smoke cleared his throat. “And beautiful.”

  “Now I know you’re sleep deprived.”

  “Just honest and…hell. I miss you.”

  “Fuck you, it is a dowel, asshole.”

  The loud, obnoxious bickering brought me out of my thoughts, and I dropped my shoulders, glaring at the two Carelli brothers as they fought over the mess in the center of my living room.

  “Who the hell paints a wooden dowel black? The shit is this?” Dante picked up the offending piece and glared at it.

  The two men ignored me when I shushed them, pointing to my back bedroom where Mateo lay sleeping.

  “Whatever jackass built this thing…I swear to Madonna…”

  “Hey!” I told Dante, snapping my fingers… “Keep your voice down.” Grabbing the instructions from Dario, I sat in the middle of the mess, jerking the piece from his hand before he could stop me. “If it’s such a drama, forget about the whole thing. I’ll figure this out myself.”

  Dario’s long, amazed whistle sent a wave of irritation up my spine and I jerked a glare at him, ignoring the grin that broke across his face as he and Dante leaned back against the sofa. They were silent, letting me scan the instructions, but I still spotted the glances they gave each other out of the corner of my eye.

  “If you’re gonna talk about me,” I told Dante, when he gestured at me, his shoulders shaking at something Dante mouthed back, “then be a man and say it out loud.”

  “Okay. Sorry,” he said, his tone amused. He pointed to the metal pin near my foot, jerking his hands back up in surrender when I glared at him. “Just trying to be helpful. Jesus…you still…you know? All moony and sad over our big brother? Jesus, he’ll be back on Saturday. Pathetic.”

  That earned him a slug to the shoulder from Dario and a frown from me. “Mind your business,” I warned him. Then, realizing what I might have inadvertently admitted, regrouped. “And I don’t moon over anybody.”

  “No? Okay…okay, I know you don’t.”

  They went on in silence, letting me work, separating the dowels—which were gray, not black, from the pins, and organizing the mess they’d made of the bed parts before I could figure out in what order to start. The chirps and clicks from Dario’s phone irritated me as the man busied himself on his cell, same as always, but not as much as the exaggerated yawning noises Dante made as he stretched out, ignoring his brother while he kicked his foot away from him.

  “Oh…” Dante finally said, distracting me as I squinted at the confusing instructions. The man nudged me with his elbow, and I swatted him away. But, that idiot was persistent. “I get you now…” He smiled as he nodded to the mantel above my electric fireplace. “That’s why you’re not mooning. Look at that, D,” he told Dario and the man followed the jerk of his brother’s chin to the bouquet of flowers in the vase next to the framed picture of Mateo and me from Easter. “You already got a replacement?”

  They’d come yesterday. Glass vase with a pink bow wrapped around the center and the thickest, largest red roses I’d ever seen. No card. No professions of missing me. Just beautiful red roses in an elegant vase.

  I guessed he was being subtle.

  When Smoke didn’t mention the flowers in his calls, I decided not to either. Despite how different he’d acted in the past two weeks, I still wasn’t sure what had changed for him. My being sick, maybe? Both of us admitting we mattered to each other? With Smoke, who knew, and because I wasn’t sure how the conversation he wanted to have would go, I decided to let him take the lead.

  “You are nosey bastards, aren’t you?” I said, feeling my face heat.

  “Shit…look at her cheeks,” Dario said, pulling his attention away from his phone to grin at me. “Maggie, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you blush before. It looks good on you.”

  “Chooch,” Dante told his brother, slapping his arm. “That’s our brother’s…woman…”

  “I’m not anyone’s property, pendejo,” I interrupted, dropping the instructions. I waved Dante off, moving from the floor to grab a bottle of water from the fridge.

  “She’s not wrong.” Dario’s voice was low, quiet, but I could make out every word and see how he moved, standing in front of his brother, how he dusted off his jeans and tucked his cell into his pocket.

  The counter was at my back as I drank, and all those thoughts I’d had the second I found the roses resting in front of my door converged. There was too much hope and stupid damn wonder wrapped up in what they could mean. But something like this? A romantic gesture? That wasn’t Smoke’s style. He was smooth. He was dominate. Dios, he was sexy as hell, but he wasn’t romantic. Not out in the open. Not when anyone could see.

  “He needs to make a move,” Dario told his brother, and from the reflection of the microwave, I spotted the man standing in front of the vase, his head tilted as he looked over the flowers.

  “Well that shit will never happen,” Dante said, shaking his head, and I turned, shooting him a frown.

  “Why?”
/>   Dante wasn’t as beautiful as Smoke. Neither of them was, but, at least Dario could still have any woman he wanted. There was a lot he kept to himself, but those eyes—dark and haunted, spoke volumes. And when he gave me that sad, reluctant smile, half-regret, half-pity, I realized he likely used the sad, vulnerable look to his advantage.

  When I focused on his face, irritated when Dante wouldn’t answer me, Dario exhaled, rubbing his neck before he spoke. “It’s not my place,” he finally said, shrugging like he would keep whatever he thought to himself.

  “Say what you’re thinking,” I told him, moving away from the counter.

  That sad grin dropped to nothing, beccoming an expression that reminded me of a man analyzing his next step. Dario had spent years playing a game of natural selection. Only the strongest survived prison. Each step, each thought had to be considered. Each move had to be rationalized. He hadn’t lost that nature. I doubted he ever would.

  “Senior year. Smoke dated this girl we called Miss Gimmee.”

  “Christ, that bitch,” Dante said, resting back on his elbow as he looked up at his brother.

  “This chick was…” Dario glanced at me, likely wondering how much he could say before I’d get offended. Working at Carelli’s, being around this family for as long as I had, I’d learned no one ever meant anything they said seriously. Not insults. Not crude compliments unless you’d done something truly offensive. I hadn’t. Nothing he told me was meant to offend me personally.

  “Speak your mind,” I told him, waving a hand for him to continue.

  “Alright then, Maggie. She was… stacked as fuck.” He turned moving toward the window, gesturing as he spoke, something all the Carelli’s did. Dario, I noticed, hadn’t gestured at all when he first came home. But the past few months, I suppose as he became more comfortable, more like his old self, as Toni called it, he was more animated when he spoke. “She had an incredible body. Huge…” He glanced at me and caught the head tilt I gave him, then held up his hands, interrupting his story before he sat on the window seat. “Let’s just say, Smoke was a little sprung and that was saying something, because Smoke was never sprung over anything except maybe boxing.”