In a bold move, she reaches to the hem of her shirt, letting go of the support of my shoulders for a moment. She pulls it up over her head, but she manages to keep balance on my cock, even though I don’t stop rocking and bucking up into her. It takes her a few moments, but she gets it off and shakes her gorgeous locks of golden hair out before tossing it to the side. Instinct kicks in, and I reach up to unhook her bra, which comes off next.
She exposes her breasts to me and rests her arms around my shoulders again. It brings her close enough that I reach behind her with one hand and put my teeth to her breast. She leans her chin against my head as I lick her nipple until it’s soaked, then suck it between my teeth and toy with it more. I give both her breasts attention, never breaking pace for a moment, and her whole body begins to coil up in ecstatic tension once again.
“Bruno...oh, Bruno,” she murmurs, almost chanting as I rock her into a trance-like pace, pumping up and rocking with her, my cock getting stiffer as pressure mounts in me, too. I feel her nails dig into my back, and I know it’s time.
I pick up the pace, pounding up into her, any hope of finesse or precision getting thrown to the wind. My pounding gets savage, relentless, and I hold one hand in her hair in a fist while the other grips her hips, pulling her into me.
She breathes in sharply, and she starts losing control of her body as the pleasure wells up into an unstoppable flood. Just as she reaches the peak of the cliff, I let myself go. The incredible tension in my cock unlocks, floodgates opening as my seed bursts up into her at the same time as she lets out a scream of ecstasy, her whole pussy tightening and pulsing around me as I throb into her.
It isn’t until the second pulse of hot seed that I realize a loud groan is escaping my lips too, and as we finish together, we melt into each other, soaking-wet sexes locked into each other, and the tide of bliss rocks us into a daze as I bring the rocking rhythm slower, slower, until we’re just sitting there, sweating on the counter of her shop, seed spilling out her pussy onto my balls.
It’s a mess, but god, I wouldn’t trade that moment for the world.
Finally, she pushes herself up, shivering as my still-stiff cock twitches inside her, and her glowing face looks down at me like an angel. We’re both at a loss for words. Smiles play across our faces, and we finally start laughing, bringing our foreheads together to rest on each other until we settle down and kiss playfully.
“So, do all knife-fights end like this?” she asks.
“Of course,” I joke, grinning. “At least, the ones with us will.”
“I might have to get more serious about this, then,” she says, and I brush a lock of hair out of her eyes as I smile up at her before picking her up off my cock and setting her down gently. She wobbles a moment, but keeps her balance, putting her hands on her hips proudly.
I wet my lips as I button my pants back up. “You’d better get your clothes back on unless you want round two to be sooner than you think.”
She raises her eyebrows and tilts her head to the side. “Oh yeah? Maybe we should take it back to my place.”
I smile wickedly, but I put up a hand for her to wait as I move to the back room. “Hold that thought. I have something for you.”
She blinks, confused, and calls after me, “Uh, seriously though, if gun practice is next then I might need a breather.”
“Later,” I say as I pull out my bag and dig through it to get two little black boxes. One is a long rectangle, the other is a square. I carry them back into the main room to find Serena pulling her leggings back on. She peers at the little boxes curiously.
“What are those?”
“A couple of things I want you to have,” I say, setting them down on the counter. “You know, gifts. One of them I didn’t want to give you until later, but I think you’re ready.”
Serena’s eyes are wide with surprise, and she’s even more surprised when I pick her up to set her on the edge of the counter and hold out the rectangular box first. In my massive palms, it looks a lot smaller than it actually is.
“Oh! Is there an occasion?” she asks. She looks at the box shyly, but I know my girl—she likes presents, and I like to spoil her.
“You want me to say something cheesy like ‘every day is an occasion with you?’ I mean, it is, but…”
“Stop!” she giggles, kicking playfully at my leg before she bites her lip. “Kinda.” She takes the thing and sets it on her lap to open it carefully, sliding an inner compartment out, and her eyes shine at what she sees inside. “Oh my god, Bruno, is this-”
“Yours,” I say proudly. Inside the box in a foam casing is an ornate switchblade, its handle jet-black. “Be careful, it’s brand-new and sharper than just about anything I’ve handled.”
Her careful fingers reach in and take it out, holding it up to the light with round, wondrous eyes. “Woah, it’s...a step up from the one I had. Bruno, I don’t know what to say!”
“Open it,” I urge her, and she points the blade away from us to push its switch. With a click, the blade pops out.
“It looks sharp,” she says, experimentally holding the thing in her hand, and that’s when she notices something on the base of the blade. She brings it closer to her eyes to squint at and read. When she reads it, I see tears start to well up in her eyes.
I start to say, “It says-”
“Passerotta,” she finishes, smiling and looking up at me.
“A passerotta for my passerotta,” I say, taking the blade from her hand and sheathing it again. “My sparrow. I had it made specially for you.”
She throws her arms around me, and I chuckle as I hug her tightly. “That’s the most dangerous and romantic gift I’ve ever gotten, Bruno.”
“I thought it was fitting,” I say, kissing her on the forehead, “but that’s not all.”
“Oh, the square box!” she says, reaching over and taking it as I stow the switchblade. She opens the next box, and her face lights up—this one needs no explanation.
“Oh my God, Bruno!”
She reaches in and draws out a necklace, silver glittering in the lights above us down to the set topaz pendant. “It’s beautiful,” she breathes.
“Serena, you deserve nothing but the best in life,” I say, reaching out and sliding my hand around the back of her neck. She looks up at me, tears still welled up in her eyes, and when she blinks, they roll down her cheeks as she smiles, still glowing. “We’re going through hell, but I wouldn’t want to go through it with anyone but you. And if we’re going through hell, I’ll treat you like we’re going to die tomorrow. And if we pull through this, I’ll treat you like the princess you are, every day of our lives.”
“Bruno, I-I don’t know what to say,” she says softly. She sniffs, and I wipe away a tear, which makes her smile. “Thank you. For everything.”
“Come on,” I say, nodding to the door. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Let’s? Are we going back to my place?” she asks, hopping down from the counter and finishing getting her shirt on.
“As much as I’d love to, not tonight,” I say. “Rafaela agreed to let you stay at her place tonight. I messaged her earlier. Things are a little hot right now, and I don’t want to make us easy to find until we can get a better grip on the situation.”
“I’ll text my mom and let her know. And… maybe suggest she stay in a hotel for the evening. Treat herself.”
I’m about to say something when I hear my phone buzzing in the other room. I stride over to it and pick it up. Nico.
“What’s up?” I answer the phone, my brow knit.
“Bruno, where are you tonight?” he asks, sounding urgent.
“Why? What’s the matter?” Serena is looking over at me with concern on her face.
“We got a tip, Bruno.”
“I’m not walking into another trap, Nico,” I say.
“If we got any more bad informants on our radar, you can take my kidneys,” Nico says. “This one’s good, so good most of the Cleaners don’t ev
en know about it. Comes from someone we got among the Irish.”
“The Irish? What the fuck do they want?” We’ve had a long history with the Irish—a lot of ups and downs, but things have been quiet from their end for a long time. The last thing we need is another front in this war.
“There’s a meeting going down tonight, Bruno,” Nico says. “The Cleaners are reaching out to some of the higher-up Paddies. Probably want to sweet-talk them into an alliance if they can persuade them we’re weak enough to take a shot at.”
“Fucking hell,” I hiss, pacing around the back room, and Serena comes to lean on the side of the door, biting her lip. “Tell me you’ve got something else.”
“I do, and you’re gonna owe me for this one,” Nico says.
“Not if you keep me waiting, Nico.”
“I got where the meeting’s happening,” Nico says in a low voice, and my eyes widen. “Some of the biggest names from both sides showing up to parley. Probably a drug handoff, as a show of good faith. Something that shows the Irish that the Cleaners are worth their time.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“There’s more, Bruno,” Nico says. “The Cleaners aren’t even telling a lot of their own men—Bruno, Lorenzo’s gonna be there to oversee the handoff personally.”
SERENA
F rom the expression darkening Bruno’s face, I can tell he’s reading bad news on his phone screen. He heaves a sigh, slips the phone into his back pocket, and looks over at Giovanni, who is clearly waiting for some kind of order. He shakes his head and Giovanni’s face settles into a stony look of resignation, his eyes narrowing. This wordless exchange is enough to throw my anxiety into high gear. I may not be in tune with how the mafia operates these days, but I am certainly in tune with Bruno’s body language, and I know this is not good.
He strides over to me and gently takes my face in his huge hands, staring into my eyes for a moment before kissing me. There’s a sort of quiet desperation in his kiss, the way his fingers press against my cheeks as he leans close to me. I can tell something is wrong. Very wrong, from the way things feel right now. A knot of worry balls up in my stomach.
“I have to go,” Bruno tells me softly, those bright green eyes burning into mine. Somehow, I knew exactly what he was going to say before he even opened his mouth. But there’s no use in fighting it. Bruno is a mafioso and he does exactly what he has to do, whether I like it or not.
So I give him a quick nod. “You have to promise me that you’ll come back safe, okay? I-I don’t have a good feeling about any of this, Bruno. I can’t— I won’t lose you again.”
“Mia passerotta,” he says, tracing his thumb over my chin fondly, “I will never leave you for long. You can trust in that. I will be careful. I have something very important to live for.”
It’s almost as if there’s a silent now missing at the end of his sentence, and it breaks my heart to think that before he found me again, he didn’t think he had any real reason to keep going. I vow to myself to make his life beautiful again, to bring him the kind of joy that will make him happy to be alive. I want to give him everything.
But he has to survive this first. We both do.
Bruno kisses me one more time and then slips out of the apartment, leaving me here with Rafaela and Giovanni, the two most unlikely companions for this situation. Rafaela comes up behind me and takes my arm, giving it an encouraging squeeze.
“Come on, chica. Let’s have some of that cocoa and try to just relax,” she suggests, holding up the box of fancy dark chocolate cocoa I brought as a sort of weak apology for getting Rafaela tangled up in this mess. Though, to be honest, her involvement with Nico probably would have made her a target at one point or another anyway. For such a big metropolitan city, New York is starting to feel like a claustrophobic little town. And we’re all snagged in the same dangerous web.
“Giovanni, you want some?” Rafaela asks. He looks stoically amused for a moment, and then gives a shrug.
“Sure,” he answers flatly.
“Claro,” she replies, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth as we go into the kitchen. She heats up some milk on the stove while I stare blankly at the tile floor, trying to remain as calm as possible despite the nervous energy bubbling in my veins.
“Ugh, I wish I could just turn my brain off for a while,” I murmur, closing my eyes.
“I know what you mean,” she says. “It’s hard not to think of the worst-case scenario. But jumping to conclusions when you don’t know anything for sure only adds unnecessary stress.”
“Are you counseling me right now?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.
She smiles. “If that’s what you need. But if I were your real therapist, I wouldn’t do this.”
She reaches up to take down a bottle of whiskey from a cabinet, pouring about half a shot into the cocoa mug before mixing in the hot milk and cocoa mix. Then she hands it to me.
“Wow, if I could get boozy cocoa at the therapist I might actually go,” I tease, blowing gently on the mug to cool it down.
“Well, whatever it takes, I guess,” Rafaela says. Then she calls out, “Giovanni, do you want some super special deluxe cocoa?”
Giovanni walks into the kitchen with a curious look on his face, having to tilt his head slightly walking through the doorway because he’s so tall. When he sees the bottle of whiskey on the counter his face breaks into a surprisingly pleasant smile. He nods. “Si, a little bit.”
“You got it,” she answers, pouring his concoction and handing it over. She turns to me and says, “Okay. So, let’s play therapist. Tell me what you’re feeling right now.”
I roll my eyes. “Oh, I don’t know, Raf. I don’t think I want to talk right now.”
She shakes her head and puts a hand on her hip. “Dale, ahora. It’ll help, I promise.”
“Fine,” I sigh, gently swirling the contents of my mug. “Well, first of all, I’m terrified that something bad is going to happen to Bruno. I know this is some deep shit we’re all in, and I’m afraid that it’s at least partly my fault.”
“Mhm, and why is that?”
“Well, because of the stuff with my dad. And the shop. And now Bruno is back and we found each other but once again I’m in trouble and he has to save me and— ugh, I really hate this,” I confess.
“And you’re feeling worried about him, why?”
“Geez, you’re relentless, you know that?” I groan. Rafaela shrugs, waiting patiently for me to keep going. “Okay. I’m upset because I care about him. A lot. In fact, I think I might be falling in love with him all over again. And you know me—that’s totally not normal for me. I don’t just fall head over heels and lose my mind like this. I’m ambitious. I have a lot of responsibilities to take care of and I don’t usually let my feelings get in the way. But with Bruno, it’s impossible. I can’t just ignore how I feel. It’s too real and at the same time it feels like a dream, and now with everything going on, I’m just so afraid that I’ll lose it all.”
“I feel the same way about Nico,” Rafaela agrees, taking a sip of her cocoa. “Here I was, fresh out of Harlem and ready to make something of myself. I’m gonna be a doctor. I’m gonna help people. I have to get perfect grades and work so hard and I can’t lose focus but there he is: the man I can’t help but fall in love with. And he’s a distraction. He takes up all the space in my mind where I should be keeping information for my exams and my dissertation and stuff. Instead of just dreaming about having my own clinic and my own fancy office with a skyscraper view, I’m thinking about how cool it’ll be to grow old with him. I’m thinking about marriage and babies and seeing the world together. I want all of it, my career and my love, and it looked like I was gonna make it happen. But now… I don’t know anything. I’m scared, too, Serena.”
“It is impossible to turn away from love when it burns so brightly and beautifully that it nearly hurts to look with your own eyes upon it. We are eternally trying to get as close to the fire as we can in the hopes of war
ming our hearts, but the closer we step, the more dangerous the flames become. Love will always be a dance between too close and not close enough, but it is a dance that makes life worth living. ‘If good, why this effect: bitter, mortal? If bad, then why is every suffering sweet?’” Giovanni says suddenly, his deep voice thick with emotion.
Rafaela and I stare at him wide-eyed, surprised at such a lyrical outburst from the most unsuspecting of speakers. “Whoa,” she murmurs.
Giovanni shrugs and downs the rest of his spiked cocoa in one go. “I read a lot of Petrarch. These security jobs get very boring sometimes. The mind needs stimulation.”
“You’re going to make some girl very happy someday,” I comment, shaking my head in awe.
Giovanni grins, almost looking bashful for a moment. “Someday maybe, but for now my heart belongs to the most beautiful one of all: Italia.”
“Speaking of Italy, I could really go for some pasta right now,” Rafaela says, patting her stomach with a pitiful expression. “Serena, you want to help me get some dinner started? We may be on lockdown here but we still gotta eat.”
“Sure,” I answer, and the two of us start taking out ingredients for spaghetti while Giovanni pulls a small book from his jacket pocket and sits on a bar stool reading silently. “Raf, do you have a pasta strainer anywhere?” I ask.
“Oh yeah, we got a new one the other day. It’s still in the foyer in a shopping bag if you want to go grab it,” she says, chopping tomatoes at the counter.
I walk into the entranceway of the apartment to look for the bag, glancing at the door to make triple-sure it’s locked and deadbolted while I’m at it. Just as I look over at the door, something dark passes by the peephole and my blood runs cold.
Surely it’s just one of Raf’s neighbors coming home from work or something. Or just a trick of the eye. Nothing to worry about. But just in case, I step closer and look through the peephole. There’s another flash of black and then the door rattles with a loud thump from the other side. I fall backward with a cry, and Giovanni comes running.
Bound for Life (Bound to the Bad Boy Book 1) Page 19
