by Bethany-Kris
Joel tipped his chin up, flashing his teeth in a sneer. “I get it.”
“Make sure of it.”
Abriella tipped her wine glass up for another drink as her sister slid in beside her in the far corner of the room. She had been trying to stay out of view as her brother made the rounds with his false smile plastered on, and his passive-aggressive congratulations following right behind.
She was not going to be a part of his mess.
Abriella didn’t want to be connected to him tonight.
“You could have given us a heads-up,” Alessa said.
Abriella’s back straightened. “Well, I would have, except Joel took away all methods of my communication.”
Alessa blinked, her mouth falling open. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed. It was just that Lily and I thought it would be nice for Eve to be able to celebrate with Theo a little. They didn’t even tell anyone until after. We didn’t want them to feel like they had to hide their marriage. They adore each other.”
“I can tell,” Abriella said softly, finding Evelina in the crowd dancing with her new husband. “She looks happy.”
Evelina wore a short, flared white dress with matching pumps and a crown of small roses in her hair. With her eyes darkened by kohl, and her lips painted red, Evelina looked like a sexy young woman ready for her life. Her skin was flushed from laughing and moving so much, but her eyes were only on Theo. The couple rarely stopped touching one another.
Now that was love.
Abriella was so filled with envy, it stung.
She wanted to be able to do that with Tommas, too. She wanted people to see how happy and radiant Tommas made her when they were together. She wanted to smile for just him in a crowd of people. She wanted to celebrate what they had.
It killed her that she couldn’t do any of those things.
“I do have a burner phone,” Abriella said, needing to get away from the sadness in her mind. “Tommas gave it to me to use, but I can’t let Joel see it. Joel didn’t give me a chance to call you or anyone else before we left the house.”
“You’re wearing a dress,” Alessa said, looking Abriella over.
“Yes, one I put on while Joel waited outside the bedroom and banged on the door to tell me to hurry the fuck up. I’m sorry, Lissa. Honestly.”
“I believe you. So … Tommas, you said?”
Abriella tried to find her lover in the crowd, but failed. Maybe he had moved into the kitchen. Adriano didn’t seem to be in view, either.
“What about it?”
“He met up with you?”
“Pulled some strings,” Abriella clarified, keeping her voice down.
“You’re messing with him again?”
Abriella laughed weakly. “I couldn’t stay away.”
“Yeah, love sucks like that.”
“Tell me about it.”
“What is Joel even hoping to gain by coming here tonight?” Alessa asked.
“I don’t know,” Abriella admitted.
That was the scariest part. Joel was unstable on his best days. He thought life was a game. Those who played it with him usually lost. Abriella didn’t want her friends to be one of them.
Needing a breather, Abriella took the chance to escape from the immediate sights of the guests and her wandering brother by entering a hallway that led to the back of the house. In the darkness, she rested her back to the wall, closed her eyes, and tried to relax for a second.
It didn’t really help.
“God, he’s really got you on pins and needles,” came a whisper in her ear.
Abriella shivered, smiling slightly. She’d felt Tommas’ presence before she had even heard his voice. His familiar cologne, a woodsy and spicy mix, alerted her the moment he rested beside her.
“What are you doing?” Abriella asked. “You’re going to get me into trouble.”
“Joel is occupied with Adriano currently. I’m taking the chance to make sure you’re all right, Ella.”
“I’m not.”
“I figured. You looked disgusted out there. You weren’t even trying to hide it.”
“He had no business coming here, Tommy, and doing this to them.”
Tommas scoffed. “I know, but tell that to your brother. Joel believes he has every right, because he thinks of himself as the boss of the Outfit. We all know he isn’t, and that the seat is still open, but to Joel, it’s his.”
“It doesn’t matter. This wasn’t about him. Eve and Theo are just trying to start their lives.”
“And they will,” Tommas said. “I’ll make sure of it. Don’t worry about that.”
But what about Abriella and Tommas?
Would they get their start, too?
Tommas’ hand found Abriella’s in the darkness. He wove their fingers together a second before he tugged her into his side. Abriella put her head on his shoulder, soaked in his familiar comfort, and let her worries bleed away.
“You care about these people, right?” she asked.
“Of course, Ella.”
“Why?”
“Because most of the men—Damian, Theo, Adriano, and even others—are good people doing what they can to provide for their families in the only way they were taught. They should be given a safe chance to do that, not have to worry about picking sides or being killed. That’s not what the Outfit is supposed to be about. I believe in this life, and I have faith that it can be better.”
Tommas would make a damn good boss.
She wondered if he knew that.
“Joel is probably going to come looking for me,” Abriella said, stepping away from Tommas’ side.
Just as fast, he pulled her back in, only that time, he spun her around and brought her into his chest. Without a word, Tommas grabbed Abriella’s jaw, made her stand on her tiptoes, and pressed a fast, searing kiss to her lips. Abriella fisted his suit jacket, wanting him closer the moment his mouth touched hers. A quiet moan escaped from her chest, letting her lips part. Tommas deepened the kiss, allowing Abriella a taste of the whiskey that he’d been sipping on earlier in the night. He didn’t pull away, and he held tight, refusing to let her move as he kissed her like he owned her with hard strikes of his tongue and scrapes of his teeth to her lips.
It was fucking wonderful.
For a moment, Abriella forgot about where they were. Despite the murmurs of people just twenty feet away, she only heard the ragged breaths from Tommas panting in her ear. She released his jacket to tangle her hands up into his hair. Tommas grabbed her thigh and lifted her leg to curl it around his own.
With nothing but her thin black dress and satin panties, and his slacks between them, she was able to feel the thick, hard ridge of his erection driving into her pelvis. Abriella couldn’t help herself, she lifted her hips the best she could, rubbing against his cock. The little bit of friction sent sparks of shivers running down her spine.
Tommas answered her quiet gasp by grabbing her hips, lifting her a little more so that she was standing on her tiptoes, and then grinding his cock against her center.
“I bet your fucking soaked,” Tommas mumbled against her lips. “Fuck, what I wouldn’t give just to taste you right now, or slip my cock in and let you ride me against this wall. Wouldn’t you like that, Ella? We’re so close to those people, someone’s bound to hear or see something. Does that feel good for you, baby, rubbing on me like that?”
Abriella whined softly, the sound muted by Tommas’ mouth. It felt damn good. Her body was overheating with every stroke of her satin covered sex on his pants. The outline of his erection was more than enough to stimulate her throbbing clit, and the ache between her thighs from their earlier fucking reminded her of his cock pounding into her.
“Goddamn,” Tommas muttered heavily. “You want a little help?”
Abriella nodded, still chasing that high rushing her veins.
She felt his hand untangle hers from his hair. Quickly, Tommas stuck her ha
nd between their bodies.
“Get your fingers into that sweet pussy, Ella. I want to see the marks of your come on my pants when I take this jacket off later. Make sure your fingers are good and wet so I can clean them off before you go.”
Abriella had all she could do to keep quiet. She did what he said, slipping her fingers into her panties and driving two hard into her clenching, slippery sex. Her inner walls hugged her digits tightly as Tommas drove his tongue into her mouth to hide all her sounds. With his hips still rotating against hers, forcing her wrist to rub over and over into her clit, Abriella was close to falling off the precipice.
“Holy hell,” Tommas breathed in her ear. “You’re fucking shaking, baby. Let it go for me. Hurry, before someone walks into this hallway and sees what a fucking little slut you are rubbing yourself on my cock with your fingers stuffed up your pussy. Is that what you want, Ella, for them to see that?”
God.
He knew just what to say to make her hotter than ever and teetering on the brink of her own personal insanity.
It was debasing.
He degraded her.
Being caught would be humiliating.
Dirty.
Fucking awful.
She loved it
Abriella just couldn’t find it in herself to care that it was all true, too. She finger-fucked her way to an orgasm with Tommas grinding against her body and whispering the dirtiest things in her ear. She shivered and buried her face into his neck, biting down hard on his pulse point to keep from screaming out.
Why did he always make it so bad?
Why was it always so fucking good?
It was moments like this that reminded Abriella how well Tommas knew her. He’d given her a distraction, but he’d handed over much more, too. Stolen moments like these were marked all over their relationship. She loved how Tommas used her for this, and that he took great pleasure in making her run back for more.
“There you go,” Tommas whispered, his lips brushing against her temple. “You’re going to need to go back out.”
Abriella ignored the stinging in her eyes. “Yeah, okay.”
“First, though …”
Tommas snagged her hand, pulled it from her panties, and let her drop to the floor. With a sinful grin, he stuck her two fingers in his mouth and cleaned them with a hum.
Abriella’s throat went dry.
“Sweet like candy,” Tommas murmured when he released her digits. “And as filthy as fucking sin. You good, baby?”
She nodded.
What in the hell else was she supposed to do?
Stepping out of the shadows of the hallway, Abriella was met by two familiar faces. Alessa and Lily both crowded the entryway to the hall with their fronts turned to the people. To anyone else, it might have seemed normal, like the girls were just chatting, but Abriella could see the truth.
One of them must have noticed she’d taken off down the hall, and that Tommas followed. Her heart swelled at the fact her friend and sister helped to hide her secrets. Embarrassment quickly followed at the thought of what they might have seen.
Alessa laughed at Abriella’s red cheeks. “Hey, we didn’t spy.”
“Not even a little bit,” Lily confirmed.
Abriella smiled. “Thank you. Where did Joel disappear to?”
“I’ve been wondering that myself,” Lily muttered.
Alessa frowned. “I think he went outside to talk to Adriano in private. When their voices started getting louder, Theo made them go outside.”
Oh, shit.
“Did Joel even say hello to you?” Abriella asked her sister.
“No,” Alessa replied. “But he did tell me that I was dead to him.”
Abriella’s heart hurt for her sister. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. Joel is what he is.”
“A fucking asshole,” Lily said under her breath as she rubbed her rounded stomach with her hand. “The baby is giving my insides hell because of all the noise, so I’m going to go find Damian and let him know I need to rest.”
“You’ll be at Alessa’s baby shower in a couple of weeks, right?” Abriella asked her friend.
“Yes. But will you?”
“She’s my sister.”
Alessa sighed. “Joel might not—”
“I’ll be there,” Abriella said quickly. “No matter what.”
Fuck Joel.
“Rebel,” Alessa teased.
“You know it.”
“I would like to leave the hall,” came a voice inside the darkness from behind Abriella.
She had forgotten about Tommas waiting to come back out.
Laughing, Abriella waved her sister and friend off, and disappeared into the crowd. She made a point of not looking back over her shoulder as she walked through the throng of people toward the front of the house. Chances were, if Joel had gone outside with Adriano, then her brother was ready to leave. She grabbed her jacket and tossed it on as she passed the lines of hooks in the entrance.
Unsurprisingly, she found Joel and Adriano in an intense stare down in the middle of the driveway. The younger man didn’t look like he planned on backing down, and Joel’s glare was fiery enough to melt ice.
“You screwed up this time,” Joel said.
“I gave you no guarantees,” Adriano replied. “My father’s dealings were not mine. If you thought for even one second that I would marry my sister off to a man like you, then you are much stupider than I realized. Evelina is a grown woman who made her choice. It’s over.”
Joel barked out a laugh. “You’re right, we’re certainly fucking over here. Don’t come looking to me for someone to back you when you need it, Adriano, because it won’t happen. Run to another man’s crew.”
“I never came to you, anyway.”
“Don’t forget whose sister you knocked up and turned into a whore-made-wife, asshole.”
Adriano’s jaw ticked. “You know what, that’s the last time you’re ever going to say a bad word about Alessa. She doesn’t deserve it, and I am sick and fucking tired of playing nice with you for the benefit of others. Stay the hell away from my wife, Joel. She doesn’t need or want your kind of family love, trust that. If you try to cause me problems, you’ll find a hell of a lot more for yourself waiting there in the mess.”
With those very obvious threats said, Adriano turned on his heel and stalked toward the house. He offered Abriella a sad smile and a nod as he passed.
“What are you waiting for?” Joel snapped from the driveway.
Abriella hugged her jacket tighter to her frame. “Did you get what you came for?”
“Mind your damned business.”
Story of my life, Abriella thought.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Tommas! Tommas, where are you?”
Tommas nearly dropped the glass of water he held at the shrill shriek of his mother echoing through his house. There was nothing like the voice of Serena Rossi to put a man on edge first thing in the morning. Setting his cup down to the counter, Tommas rubbed at his forehead with his free hand to soothe the sudden headache he had.
“Tommas!”
Jesus.
“In the kitchen, Ma,” Tommas said, sighing heavily.
Serena stomped into the kitchen looking like she’d just rolled out of bed not too long ago. Crumpled clothes, haphazardly done hair, and smeared makeup topped off her morning drunk ensemble. Tommas tried to pull forth some kind of sympathy for his mother, but he couldn’t.
He had none left.
“How come—” Serena swayed, her words stopping abruptly as she grabbed onto the edge of the table. “I’m fine.”
Tommas lifted a brow high. “I never said a word.”
“You were thinking it.”
Perfect.
This was exactly how he wanted to spend his morning.
“How did you get here?” Tommas asked.
He’d taken away her car and his father’s old Cadillac. Serena had no way to drive around drunk
with nothing to use to do it with. It was one of the smaller ways Tommas was trying to help the world. And his mother, too.
In a way …
“I took a fucking cab,” Serena spat. “It’s not like you make any effort to come to my home, thank you very much.”
Tommas cleared his throat, trying to keep his cool. “Ma, I came over yesterday when the housecleaning lady said she found you in the hallway in a pool of vomit. Her job is to clean the house, not you. Who do you think cleaned you, got you in bed, and left the water and Tylenol for you this morning?”
Serena’s gaze narrowed. “Oh, that little bitch. Yeah, about her. I want her to stop coming to the house. She moves things, and I don’t like that I can’t find something when I need it.”
Unappreciative, as always. His mother didn’t even mention a thing about the fact he had been there to take care of her.
Tommas wasn’t surprised.
“You mean when you’re sober enough to need something other than liquor?” he asked quietly.
“You little—”
“Bastard? Try something new, Ma. You’ve been calling me a bastard since I fell out from between your legs.”
Serena’s eyes widened, a false sadness coloring her still-drunk features. “I would never, Tommas.”
Manipulation was a game Serena was terribly good at. Tommas had simply gotten better at recognizing it over the years. Instead of urging his mother on in whatever nonsense she had planned, he decided to go a different route.
“What do you want, Ma?” he asked.
Putting a fist to her hip, and using the table to balance her weight, Serena replied, “The Conti baby shower is in a few days. Why wasn’t I invited?”
“You were.”
“Nobody thought to tell me.”
“I tossed your invitation in the trash,” Tommas explained.
Serena’s mouth tightened a second before she said, “Well, then …”
“You’re not sober, Ma. You have a bad habit of causing problems at these events. The upcoming party is about Alessa and Adriano celebrating their unborn baby, not your issues. It should be a happy, quiet day for them and nothing more. So yeah, I threw it in the trash.”
