She looks up and flinches.
She’s nervous.
After all, we’ve done?
After all, we’ve shared?
“Tell me,” I go on when I can see that she’s going to start some hesitating game. “Whatever it is, you seemed pretty damn keen on telling me forty-five minutes ago. What is it, Aida?”
“It’s …”
She sighs and turns to my estate, looking over the red-sun-dappled miles of it.
“Even when you sigh, you sound musical,” I snarl without meaning to. “Your voice is beautiful. Its angelic. It’s—”
I stop myself just in time.
It’s the sort of voice made for singing to newborn children, my children.
“You really like it?” she says sweetly, her cheeks burning as red as the sun.
They burn red like she’s somehow anxious like she hasn’t proved yesterday and today that she’s a spunky sassy woman who’s more than capable of holding her own with me.
“It’s incredible,” I snap. “Like I said before, you need to start getting some self-esteem. Your voice is ten times better than anything on the radio. Have you recorded anything?”
“No, not yet,” she murmurs. “I’ve never really had the chance, I guess.”
“Franco has money,” I say.
“Yes, but … Okay, not the chance. If I went to Dad and asked him, I’m sure he’d let me. I suppose what I mean is that I’m waiting until I’m good enough. That’s the chance I need, you know—the chance to take a chance.”
She pauses and our meet eyes, and then her smile spreads heavenly across her cheeks.
She bursts into sweet laughter, and I can’t help but chuckle along with her, even as the monster inside of me chastises me and tells me I’m not built for laughter.
“I think I know what you mean,” I say once the laughter has passed. “But you’re wrong. Your voice is amazing.”
She beams.
She’s going to make an amazing mother.
“Thank you, Arturo. See, I knew you could be nice when you put your mind to it.”
“Nah,” I smirk. “It’s just because you’re wearing that fuck-me-hard dress. It puts me in a good mood.”
She glows an even deeper shade of red, making me think of her needy and well-worked pussy, a pussy I could play with for a generation and still never get tired of.
“But enough compliments,” I say, growing stern. “You wanted to tell me something. So tell me.”
“I wanted to …”
She pauses, she hesitates.
“I wanted to ask you why you were moaning in your sleep this morning,” she blurts.
I lean in close, letting my eyes move over her, into her.
“You’re lying,” I say. “That’s not what you wanted to say at all.”
She flinches. “How can you read me so well, Arturo?”
“Because I own you,” I snap. “Now tell me.”
Most people would flinch at the thunder in my voice, but not the future mother of my children. She sits up – giving me an even better look at those made-for-tit-fucking breasts of hers – and shoots me a brave look. Her eyes flare.
“We’ll make a deal,” she snaps, just as fiercely as me. “You tell me why you were moaning in your sleep, and I’ll tell you what I was going to say.”
I laugh darkly. “You’re my prisoner. You’re hardly in a position to wager.”
She folds her arms and glares at me. “Is that really all I am? Your prisoner?”
“Sassy in the bedroom and sassy at the dinner table,” I smirk. “You’re the whole package, aren’t you?”
“Don’t do that, Arturo. I’m not a joke.”
“I know that,” I snarl. “You’re …”
Everything to me.
“Fine,” I grumble after a pause. “If I was moaning in my sleep, it probably has something to do with the fact that I was in the car with my parents and Franco’s parents – your grandparents – when they died, alright? I was in the backseat and I survived and they didn’t, and every time I go to sleep, I think of it, I think of that night. Are you happy now? Fuck.”
I bolt to my feet and pace over to the balcony railing, gripping it firmly and staring at the blood-red sun, my chest quivering with the suddenness of the confession.
I’ve never talked to anyone about that before, not even Franco back when we were still friends.
But somehow, I feel like I can be honest with this woman, even if that makes no damn sense.
If I have a soul, it belongs to her.
“Arturo,” she whispers, walking up behind me, her heels click-clicking.
I keep facing forward, my mind flooded with blood and pain and screams.
But when she wraps her arms around my body, clasping her hands against my abs and pressing the maternal softness of her body against mine, I feel all of that drifting away, as though the wind is blowing through the smoke of my memory, dissipating it. I feel myself relax against her.
The tension, miraculously, leaves me.
“We had a deal,” I murmur, reaching down and pressing my hands against hers, feeling the heat of her through my shirt. “Now. Tell me.”
“You’ll think I’m crazy,” she whispers.
“Let me be the judge of that,” I tell her.
“Okay, but you can’t look at me.”
I chuckle grimly, shaking my head.
“I’m serious,” she snaps, her voice unexpectedly ferocious. “I can’t watch you as I say it, as I tell you. I can’t see the laughter in your eyes, Arturo. Because you will laugh at me, even if you fight it. And you’ll hate me. And resent me. And—”
“Stop telling me what I’ll do,” I growl. “And just tell me.”
She shivers against me, resting her cheek against my back. Every part of her is hot and full of life, as though our children are already inside her, running hotly through her body, roaring at me that they’re here, they’re ready to come into the world.
“That first time I saw you,” she murmurs, “in the cellar, and afterward… when you came to me in the bedroom. Those first moments, I started having these really weird, crazy thoughts. I can’t explain them. But I started to imagine that we were going to have a family together. I saw myself as the mother of your children. I imagined us laughing, loving, really being together. I thought it would go away. But it didn’t. It hasn’t. I know it makes no sense. But …”
“But you want it, even now,” I say.
“Yes,” she whimpers. “I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s like there’s this force inside my body, screaming at me, every second we’re together – heck, every second we’re not – and it’s telling me to get pregnant by you, to have your children.”
A series of shattering sensations move through me, compelling and primal, a savage howling echoing her words around me.
My heartbeat drums and my balls throb, as if my seed is writhing, hungrily, ready to be shot inside of her again.
“Are you going to let me turn around now, you bossy girl?” I tease.
“Yes,” she says, smiling for a moment against my back. “But please don’t laugh at me.”
I turn and take her face in my hands, leaning close and kissing her softer than I have yet, carefully parting her lips and then tasting her tongue, her saliva, all of her. I want every juice she has to offer. Sweat, come, spit, I don’t care.
Every single part of her belongs to me.
I want every scent, every sound.
She. Is. Mine.
I break it off, keeping my face close to hers.
“You’re so damn cute,” I tell her, kissing the edge of her mouth, causing her to smile. “Aida, did you really think this would make me angry? Goddamn, I feel the same.”
She flinches, gasps. “What?”
“I feel the same,” I growl, firmer. “The second I saw you, I knew that you were going to be the mother of my children. I’m not messing around when I say that I own you. Every part of you belongs to me—your
tits, your cunt, your ass, your lips. Every. Single. Part. But most of all, I own your womb. I never wanted children before I met you, but now I have to have them. You’re going to give them to me, aren’t you, Aida? Say it. Say it now.”
A shiver moves through her, but her smiling lips tell me how much she’s enjoying this.
“I’ll give you all the babies my body will let me, Arturo,” she moans. “Oh, God, do you really mean it? I thought I was going crazy.”
“Maybe you are,” I tell her. “Maybe we both are. But I don’t give a damn. If this is crazy, I wouldn’t be sane for all the money in the world.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Aida
I pick up my cheeseburger, the scents wafting around me and up my nose. My mouth waters, and then I take a bite. I chew and make moaning noises, unable to stop myself, feeling as though I’m floating atop the world.
The sun has almost set now, the world tinged the most surreal shade of purple.
But more than that, it’s the way Arturo looked at me when he told me the crazy fact that he’s had the same fantasies as me.
I thought I was going to be met with laughter, or scorn, or some other terrible thing.
When he took my face in his hands and kissed me like his life depended on it, everything inside of me soared.
I felt like I was flying toward heaven.
But the heaven was here, made just for us.
It’s crazy.
But if this is crazy, I wouldn’t be sane for all the money in the world.
“Why are you smiling so much, eh?” he teases lightly, the shadow of a genuine smile on his face.
I freeze his image in my mind, wanting to savor it forever, wanting to glue it into place and make it so I’ll never forget him. His shadowed smile is almost difficult to believe, it’s so brimming with genuine, untarnished happiness.
But it’s gone as quickly as it appears, his characteristic smirk taking its place, making me wonder if I imagined it.
“The burger that good?” he goes on.
“Maybe,” I say, after a satisfying mouthful. “But mostly it’s the fact that you haven’t thrown me off the balcony.”
He narrows his intense eyes. “Aida, did you really think I was going to react that badly?”
I toss him the sassiest look I can muster.
“Have you met yourself, Arturo?” I counter. “You’re pretty intense, not to mention bossy.”
“Well, I’m a boss,” he banters. “What do you expect?”
I pause, picking up a gourmet French fry and plopping it into my mouth, chewing, staring down at my plate.
Something whirs around my mind, but tonight is too special for me to ruin it.
But my man – my heart sings at the phrase, my man – can see through me too easily.
“Aida, what is it?” he growls.
“What?” I shoot back.
He tilts his head perceptively. “Are we really going to play games? Now? After what we just admitted to each other?”
I sigh. “It’s just the whole mafia thing,” I murmur. “You told me Dad killed two men and—”
“He most likely didn’t kill them himself,” Arturo cuts in.
“Oh, because that makes all the difference,” I retort sarcastically. “Fine, he ordered two men killed. It could’ve been Snaps or any of the men I’ve known my whole life who carried out the actual act. How am I supposed to be okay with that? And—and it’s got me thinking, do you kill people, Arturo?”
He looks at me plainly.
“I’ve killed people,” he says.
A cord of panic runs through me.
“Who? Why?”
“Rapists, pedophiles, evil men … I’ve killed bastards like that, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. The rest – the men who owe the Family money, the men who step out of line – they’re either blackmailed or exiled.”
“And if they still don’t stop?” I murmur, my voice like a shadow, raspy, croaky.
“Then I’d be forced to kill them,” Arturo sighs. “But that hasn’t happened yet. The Amato name holds too much weight for that. Our network is too vast. We work with politicians, law enforcement, everybody. Usually, the dirt we have on people is far too bad for them to risk crossing us. Those who are exiled count themselves lucky to escape with their lives. We seed fear through the city by spreading rumors about the men we’ve killed—lies, but effective lies. We keep the streets clean. If we’re attacked, we fight back, and sometimes when bullets are flying, men die. But we don’t go out of our way to kill people. That’s one of the things I made sure of when I started this family.”
“How?” I ask, voice sharper than I meant it to be.
He cocks his head at me. “You don’t believe me?”
“I’m curious,” I say.
He takes a bite of his burger and washes it down with some non-alcoholic champagne.
“When I started my Family, I put the word out there that any bastard who had a problem with me could challenge me to a one-on-one fight down in the Pits. The Pits are these old fighting networks that used to operate down at the Docks. In the first month, I fought and beat a dozen men. The second month, I beat three men. Nobody challenged me on the third. I made speeches after every victory, and I had plants in the crowd to get them going. Word spread. Fear spread. It was – it is – effective. And it means I don’t have to resort to blood as often as the men who used to rule this city did.”
I reach across the table and place my hand on his lapel, feeling the firmness of his muscle beneath.
“You wouldn’t lie to me about this, Arturo, would you?” I murmur.
He looks me right in the eye, dead serious.
“You’re going to be the mother of my children, my singing princess,” he says. “I’ll never lie to you about anything.”
I blush and turn my face, gazing down at the sunset-red estate.
“I’m not a singing princess,” I laugh.
“You are,” he growls fiercely. “Self-esteem, Aida, you fucking need it. It’s time you accepted that you’re the sexiest, curviest, most talented woman in the city, in the country, in the world. You’re my woman. You’re an Amato princess. And that means a lot. You’re too fuckable and sexy and beautiful and talented and gorgeous and—hell, and a million other things I lack the vocabulary to articulate, you’re too you not to have confidence in yourself.”
“I always thought I was fat,” I murmur, tears pricking my eyes.
“Fat is an ugly word,” Arturo snarls. “It makes no sense. You’re full figured and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ll accept you for who you are, always. But you need to listen when I tell you to have self-esteem. I’m getting sick and tired of repeating myself. You belong to me and you need to do what I say.”
“I’ll try,” I whimper, cringing away from the fire that moves through him, every part of him tense and focused.
“Good,” he snaps. “I don’t want to hear any more of that self-hating shit. Are we clear? You’re too beautiful for that.”
“Okay, I’m sorry,” I say.
He nods and we turn back to our food. I take another bite, a tear sliding down my cheek, warm and happy.
After a minute of silent eating, I ask, “Arturo, what about Dad, then?”
“What about him?”
“You don’t kill, but does he? Or does he order people killed?”
Arturo sighs darkly. “I honestly don’t know, Aida,” he says. “Like I said, he refuses to meet with me. I hope he hasn’t crossed that line, though. The men he ordered killed, they were decent men. They never did anything to deserve that fate. They never hurt innocents, women, or children.”
A shiver moves through me.
“Why won’t he meet with you?” I murmur. “We need to know.”
“We?” Arturo says, with a slight smirk. “Aida, as far as he knows, you’re my prisoner. He has no idea what’s happened between us. If I told him—”
“Will you?” I interject.
“I’ll have to at some point,” Arturo says passionately. “You’re probably already carrying my child right now, you dirty little minx.”
I squeeze my legs together under the table at the intensity of his words, my bare lips still sore from the library, and yet more wetness gushes from me and smears my thighs. I’m sure I can still feel his come inside of me, a steady drip-drip of it.
“Arturo,” I chide, unable to keep the moan from my voice. “This is serious. It’s not about … that.”
He darts his hand across the table and grips my face, softly, in his hand. Then he strokes his thumb along my lips, first my lower and then my upper. He keeps the burning darkness of his gaze fixated on me.
“Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, I’ll never stop fantasizing about fucking you,” he growls. “Now suck, Aida. Prove to me that you’ll always be my obedient girl. Just mine. Just. Mine.”
He slips his thumb into my mouth. It tastes of him, musky, consuming. I grab his wrist and suck, keeping my eyes wide open, staring at him as I bob my mouth up and down.
The corners of his mouth twitch and then he withdraws his hand.
“See,” he taunts. “You’re too horny to say no.”
“Okay,” I gasp, squeezing my thighs, torturing my pussy. “But we still need to figure this thing out. What if I contact Dad and ask him to meet with us? He’ll have to agree to that, won’t he?”
He pauses, considering.
“Yes, I think he would,” he says. “But if you tell him I’m going to be there, he might refuse—”
“No,” I say. “He won’t. He can’t. Whatever else he is, he’s a good father, Arturo. I just hope he’s …”
“A good man, too?” he finishes for me.
I nod, biting my lip. “Yeah, exactly.”
“So do I, Aida,” he says. “We were so close growing up. It seems we’ve got a couple of difficult conversations to have. First, we’ve got to figure out just what the hell is going on between our Families, and then I’m going to drop the bombshell on him that I’ve claimed his daughter, and that you want to be claimed, that, actually, you’re gagging for me every second of every day.”
I giggle, loving how he can do that, make me go from anxious and scared to carefree and light-feeling in a heartbeat.
His To Claim: An Instalove Possessive Age Gap Romance Page 9
