“Iris Amarie, this is your future husband, where the fuck are you? I have your letters, but some shit is going down here. I need to talk to you, baby. Please for the love of God, call me the hell back.”
Grabbing the box, I dump them in my empty backpack, chuck the box in her trashcan, and mumble, “She fucking hates me.”
The trees sway over the road like a foliage tunnel as I leisurely ride to the only real loving home I’ve ever known. I stop at the lush, beautifully landscaped entrance, pull out my phone, and snap a picture of the sign.
The JULIET Academy
Sugargrove, Texas
Est. 1976
I swipe my card through the reader, and the gates swing open freely. I blow a kiss to the sign as I speed along the brick driveway to the woman whose heart I’m about to break. Stopping the bike, I pull off my long sleeve shirt and walk around to take it all in.
From the detailed old architecture of the dorms to the lavish gardens I helped plant, so much of me is here—the enormous fountain of a naked woman surrounded by her little butterflies splashes with an enticement to surrender.
“Old Poppa put this here,” I whisper, crouching low with reverence. “This is my home.”
“It is,” Anna whispers, brushing her hand over my shoulder. She looks like she’s been crying as fear washes over my face. “Serene called; I know you’re leaving.”
“I had to say goodbye,” I confess, feeling like a naughty boy. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, don’t be sorry!” she says, embracing me. “I know why you’re here, but you’re having a cup of coffee and a scone. They’re fresh out of the oven. Blueberry!”
“I’ll have some tea,” I reply with a smirk as I try to hold back my tears. This is breaking me in a thousand pieces. “I’ve given up coffee.”
“Alright, I have a lovely raspberry,” she says as I offer my arm to her. “Or peach if you prefer.”
“The grounds look beautiful,” I compliment. “The colors and textures are amazing. Dev is doing an awesome job! The roses are getting huge.”
“Yes, they are,” she agrees with a grin. “And so are you, my Salvatore.”
I laugh, blinking a few times to stop the pain from showing.
“You boys and those noisy bikes always let me know you’re here,” she remarks, giggling. She’s so happy, and I’m the asshole about to destroy her. “Not to mention the mufflers on those big trucks! Whew!”
I give her a wide smile as we turn the corner, and I spot my Raptor in the driveway. With a bewildered look, I stutter, “Wh—Why is my truck here?”
“Because Salvatore, there are times when a woman keeps secrets to preserve the future.”
“Holy shit!” I shout, seeing Iris step out of the side door. Her long espresso hair holds a few highlights of auburn and blonde. It’s full and poofy with a light spiral wave, and oh my, lord have mercy… She’s getting tiny on me. I run faster than I ever have as she jumps—just right—into my arms and we spin round and round. God, how we practiced that…
Tears stream over our cheeks as I excitedly bellow, “What the fuck are you doing here, baby?”
“Florida scared me, so I ran somewhere safe,” she whispers, high in my arms. She skims her eyes to my ink as her hands slip over my guns. “What the hell happened to you?”
“I’m growing a pair.” I wink.
“They look good on you,” she marvels, grinning. “I know you can’t stay long.”
“I can fucking stay as long as I want.”
“Don’t ruin it,” she urges, “I can’t lose both of you. I know you promised to go home for a bit to save Deacon from the rape charges.”
That’s not all I promised, but okay—let’s go with that for now.
I am not a good guy.
“You’re not losing either of us,” I mumble, kissing her heart-shaped lips with all the passion I have. Her hair drifts over my forearms as I latch my hands under her bottom.
“Do you kids need a room?”
“Yes!” We say in unison, laughing.
“I kept calling and leaving you messages. I was like where the fuck is she…”
“I’m right here with Anna, but I’m flying out tomorrow with Aimee.” Setting her down, I nod. She clings to my arm, tracing the art on my skin with the pad of her finger. She’s enthralled. “Let me see your hands.”
“More than…” she mutters, rubbing the letters and examining my incisions.
“Oh babe, that’s not the best part,” I rave, tugging off my tank top, throwing it into the bed of my truck, and turning around. Glancing over my shoulder, I give a priceless wide grin.
I hear her gasp as her fingers brush over my skin. “My name is a damn billboard on your back.”
“Yes,” I chuckle, smiling. “Do you like it, Mrs. Raniero?”
“I fucking love it!” She smiles, and I pick her up again. “I’m so madly fucking crazy in love with you.”
“And I’m madly fucking crazy in love with you!”
“Let’s go have some tea!” Anna suggests, leading our way inside.
We pass through her mudroom with the framed poster-sized Juliet ads with my oiled and harnessed self-splashed across all four. Anna’s got a shrine going on in here because the Italian flag I wore is folded and hanging in a box frame, too. I look in the built-in drawer and grab one of my many white t-shirts she’s kept. I pull the taut fabric over my skin.
I am her lover’s grandson.
“Iris made these, so if they suck, don’t blame me!” Anna says, getting the plates. I grab glasses for the pitcher of sweet peach tea—I cannot stand the swill, but I’m drinking every last fucking drop—and Iris pulls a few forks for us. We sit in her overly decorated breakfast nook, quietly grinning and giggling with our secret love. “You two are so in love with one another. I want you to get married!”
She nailed it, and I smirk with a laugh. “I do, too. But I can’t go deal with my father and have Iris anywhere near me; it’s too dangerous.”
They chat and eat, but I cannot take my eyes off of Iris. I keep questioning myself if I’m doing the right thing. I don’t know. My mind and heart are so conflicted. I know the risk, but my heart wants her. Iris blinks up with those sapphire eyes, and I melt. We haven’t stopped touching, and I refuse to let her have her hand.
“By the way, I got a bone to pick with you,” I say, taking a sip of the tea. Damn, that’s sweet. “What was with all the letters?”
“I wasn’t sure where to send them,” she admits, smirking. “You’re possessive as hell, and I figured you’d check my house eventually. Surprise!”
Surprise, indeed.
56
POS (Pieces of Sal)
We’re strolling the gardens of Scarlet House like a normal couple in love. In her loose purple poet shirt and black cotton shorts, she walks barefoot and leaves me feeling so much taller than her. “What happened in Florida?”
Taking a seat on one of the benches, she rubs her lips together. “… Do we have to do this?”
“I think you know the answer to that.”
“Where is your harness?” She asks. “Where are your guns?”
I shake my head. “I don’t have them. I left them at Serene’s.”
Watching the birds in the path, she asks, “Why? You’re about to go into hell with your father, and you’re not packing? What gives?”
“I went to see the shrink, and he wants me to leave this world.”
I’m playing with her hair when she says, “What world?”
“Juliet.”
“… You?” she booms in disbelief. “Did you tell the doctor you’re a kinky son-of-a-bitch?”
“I’m sick, babe. My brain is fucked, so I’m continuing my leave of absence from Sibyl for a little bit longer.”
“How long is that?”
“Probably six weeks,” I say, scratching my neck as a butterfly flutters in the breeze. “Maybe longer, I don’t know. You’ve evaded the question long enough.”
“I don’t know if you need to know.”
“Because I don’t have my guns?”
“No,” she says, “Because I may derail your getting better.”
“Baby…”
“Don’t baby me, babe,” she says, pulling a pack of smokes from her pocket.
“When did you start smoking?”
“When the shit went south,” she replies as I flick my lighter. “He fucking got me.”
Popping my jaw, I ask the hardest question ever, “He raped you?”
“Not with his dick,” she says, picking at her nail polish. “He wrestled me onto the bed and shoved a syringe up me.”
“It’s rape,” I allege, stealing a smoke. “I don’t give a shit what anyone says.”
We’re quiet for a few minutes, smoking and thinking until she asks, “How bad have you been?”
“What exactly do you mean?” I lift a brow.
“How many girls have you stuck my dick in?” Sprawling out, I grip the bridge of my nose. “That many, huh? For what it’s worth, Dom’s been calling me every day.”
“You fucking him?” I angrily bark out, believing one Dom could obliterate any of my indiscretions.
Getting up, she walks to the middle of the path. Her arms are crossed as she stares at the blue sky and few white, fluffy clouds. She confesses, “Yes.”
I lower my head, temptation searing through my veins. It burns badly. I drop the smoke and step it out as I stand up and rip off my shirt. I’m trying so hard to be good, but failing miserably at all of it.
Striding over to her, I hoist her up on my shoulder as she screams, “What are you doing?”
“Remittance.”
With her arms and legs flailing about wildly, I march the quarter-mile to the rundown shack and plop her ass on the rickety table in the middle of the space. I pace back and forth as she sits up straight with her shoulders up and her bosom out.
I’m so fucking pissed.
About everything.
Quickly, I dart in front of her and rip her shirt apart at the buttons. With urgency, I dive my nose between her tits and inhale. I take the weight of both her breasts in my hands and relish in my moment of prayer, hoping to find forgiveness in our sins.
She’s so good.
We are so good.
Her fingers twirl through my hair as I pull back her lace bra and bite her nipple. She gasps, peering down at me. “You’re not supposed to be doing this, Sir.”
“Do I look like I care?”
“You’re going to overload your hard drive.”
I give her a sexy glare. “Wrong, baby girl. I’m unloading the hard drive in you.”
“If you’re still interested in being an assassin,” she sasses, through gritted teeth. “Your…guns…are…in…your…truck. Your truck I drove from La Chiesa.”
I know exactly where she is going with this as I lay my lips on her for a Raniero-tongue-lashing she won’t soon forget. My tongue demands her attention as her greedy hands are all over my chest. We’re falling prey to our ravenous hunger. “You love it.”
“You have no idea,” she mutters, undoing my belt.
“If you take it off, it’s grazing your ass.”
“Pity, Sally.” She winks, ripping it out of the loops and handing it to me, “Your belt, Master.”
Rolling over onto all fours, she imparts a frightening glance at the stability of the table. It creaks and wobbles as her curvaceous ass taunts in front of my face.
Dear fuck.
“I will not let you fall.”
“Better not,” she warns as I pull down her shorts only to find matching panties, which is arguably hot but shocking.
“Whoa!” I muse. “That’s new.”
“I wasn’t sure if you were coming, and I’ve been wearing them since the attack.” Crossing an arm over my chest, I prop the other one on it and rest my chin on my knuckles as I blatantly stare at her fine flesh wrapped in lace and silk. She meekly asks, “Are you mad?”
“No, baby…just realizing something,” I mention, stroking my goatee. My hands tremble. My knees bend. “I’m not mad at you at all. I’m just assimilating something.”
“Concerning my ass?”
I chuckle. “Kind of.”
“Care to share?”
Keeping my feelings hidden, I say, “Not really.”
“Trust me enough to tell me,” she encourages, wiggling her bottom with an invitation. I softly smile, refusing to show my teeth. “Trust me even though we both treat each other like shit. Trust me because, in the end, we both know it will be you and I.”
Something in the way she says it warms my cold heart. “I’ve been fucking Amber for years.”
“I know this,” she mumbles. “She’s your mistress.”
“Hush,” I say, flattening my shaking hand to her. “Let me get this out or I never will. I’ve been fucking Amber for years, spending tons of money on her, wrapping her up in lace because it turns me on, and she screwed me over.”
“… What?” she veers back, almost lowering onto her bottom. “What happened?”
“Get back on all fours.”
“Sorry, Sir.”
“It’s okay,” I acknowledge. “But I want you to know. I’m done with Amber. I don’t have a mistress. She’s been removed from The Unholy and fired from her job as my practice slut.”
With a snark I no doubt deserve, she curtly remarks, “So who is the new one?”
“I screwed the Warden,” I confide. “Amber. Allie. Trudy. Jaid. Came in my pants with a punk girl grinding on me because I was high as fuck on some coke.”
Her blue eyes open wide. “What the hell?”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, no…I don’t care who you were with. We agreed, in the beginning, three years of monogamy was an impossibility. I banged Amber, Jaid, and Dom a dozen times before I left for California and had a three-day sex-fest with Deacon when he showed up with a broken heart,” she informs as I frown.
Say what?
“Sal Raniero doesn’t confess his affairs…”
“I do now.”
“Did you fuck Mierne?”
I glower at her with an astonished look. “Really? All those and Miemie is still the one that gets under your skin? Must be the accent.”
“Fuck you, Raniero,” she huffs, teasingly. “Hard limit.”
“Dom. Hard limit. I don’t trust his ass right now.”
“Punk, girl? Pierced? Multi-colored hair?” she quizzed as I nod, fully understanding the resemblance Riesling had to my wife. “Hard limit.”
“Deacon in your ass?”
She quickly shakes her head. “That’s yours unless it’s taken without my consent. I heard Bertrand is back, are you going there?”
“Not a chance in hell, she got married and had a kid,” I volunteer, wondering my eyes over her smooth porcelain skin where the lace edge tucks between her legs. God, I want to be inside of her. “I’m many things, but I won’t mess with someone who is happy.”
And so, we begin communicating with her sexy lace wrapped ass up in the air and under my scrutiny. It may well be the first time we’ve done this—real intimacy thing. I’m nervous as fuck. But I’m trying. I don’t tell her about Raine or the marriage I have to figure out how to get out of—which I will—because it’s too painful to admit these weaknesses of mine. Baby steps.
“Any guys in prison?”
“There is only one guy,” I proudly profess. “Very fucking hard limit.”
She grins. “I love my boys together.”
“… How is he?”
“Fucking hurt, but he won’t talk to me. I flew into Houston, X drove me to La Chiesa, and then I went to Little Bee to stay with Trudy.”
Lighting a smoke, I ask, “She already moved in?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you have your sex-fe…”
“At her house,” she interjects, smiling. I’m more turned on by Deacon fucking my girl or my girl fucking Deacon than anything. I’m hap
py she was here to catch him. “I helped them unpack all week.”
Her lovely ass is calling my name. I want to whip her with the belt and fuck her until she screams my name. “Dale Archer. Hard Limit.”
“Kate Capri,” she counters.
“Dev would fucking kill me.”
“Cassidy Hope—for both of us—”
“No fucking way,” I state as we go through the list. “Jack. Hard limit. How bad was the bachelor party?”
“Nastier than anything really, I don’t think Mierne is marrying Jack.”
“I know she’s not,” I confide as she gives a jealous glare. “I’m sorry about your mother.”
“I didn’t know the woman,” she painfully whispers.
I offer her a drag off the smoke. “Who told you?”
“Anna.” Okay, I cannot be mad. “I called her from Florida as soon as Mitch and Cas left. I told her I needed to come home, but I didn’t tell anyone else. Deacon didn’t even know I was here. I don’t want you to fire Mock, and it wasn’t his fault. He’s a nice, decent guy, and he has no desire to fuck me, which I’m sure pleases you greatly.”
“Are you taking him and Aimee to Europe?”
She smiles. “Mock is ready and waiting.”
With a nervous stutter, I confide, “The…the doc thinks I’m bipolar with anxiety and PTSD.” Her sapphires fog with a veil of panic.
God, I cannot do this real shit very well.
My chest rapidly undulates as I take a breath and bravely attempt to finish, “He has me on a bunch of scripts. Says my fetish addiction needs to be curtailed until I’m more stable and responsible. I have self-harm issues and addictions on the horizon if I don’t get my crap together.”
Her eyes flick over the scabs on my forearms. “Don’t kill yourself. Hard limit.”
I’m humbled and gracious as tears flow over my cheeks. “You’re willing to stay knowing what is ahead of us?”
“As long as there is an us,” she whispers, crying. “I’ll walk through hell with you.”
I’m overwhelmed with emotion. It is all too much for me to process as I burst out, “Marry me when this is all over?”
Famous Last Words (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 2) Page 45
