Revere: A Legacy Novel (Cross + Catherine Book 2)

by Bethany-Kris

“It’s really not.”

  “You feel the way you feel, and for good reason. You were right, anyway. I did what you said. I left when I said I would be there.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Reasons are excuses, Catherine. I made a choice because of a circumstance, but the choice was still made at the end of the day.”

  A choice that hurt her.

  Catherine heard what he left unsaid loud and clear. It was what she wished her father would understand, too. He had made a choice, and it hurt her. It was not as simple as getting an explanation, an apology, and then she would be okay.

  Not at all.

  “I was so fragile,” Catherine said, watching the first drops of rain fall after another boom of thunder. “Back then, I mean. I worked for months to be clean, okay mentally, and strong physically. I worked hard. All it took was one single day—you being gone—and I was reminded that I was still nothing more than a china doll.”

  “What did that make you feel like?”

  “Fragile. Breakable. Pretty on a shelf. Painted on smile. Dusty …”

  “And?”

  “Forgotten,” Catherine whispered.

  Cross’s arm tightened around her waist, while his hand stilled in her hair. She felt his lips press to the back of her neck as he said, “You are none of those things, Catty.”

  “I was,” she countered. “Even when I was good, I had to learn I was still fragile. Now I’m not, though, because I learned to put myself back together. I fell hard, and for once, no one was there to catch me. No one patched me up. I did it alone. I don’t ever want to go back to being that fragile doll again. I won’t let anyone make me feel like that again.”

  Cross rested his chin on her shoulder. “You shouldn’t.”

  “Except I feel like I might be her again with you. Or I’m scared that’s how it’ll be. Do you know what I mean?”

  “You know I won’t do that to you, right?”

  “Consider it like … a warning.”

  Cross smile grew against her skin. “Oh?”

  “I don’t mean to be difficult, but I’m always fighting the idea that someone might think I’m going to break apart. Or worse, if someone makes me feel that way. I just might make this hard sometimes while I’m still trying to figure it all out.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Okay?”

  “Okay, Catty.”

  “And also, I don’t know what I’m doing. Or what I want to do about you, us, and the rest. So, there’s that.”

  Cross’s breath puffed against her skin with his chuckle. “But it’s easy, right?”

  “We were always easy, Cross.”

  Like breathing.

  That kind of scared her, too.

  It was easy with him.

  Harder without.

  She didn’t want to be so dependent on Cross that she couldn’t even keep herself happy, yet she knew exactly what it felt like to be without him.

  Terrifying.

  All at once, the rain turned from a few fat drops to a heavy sheet with another boom of thunder echoing. The only thing saving them from getting wet was the open hatch door that acted like a roof of sorts. Water fell from all around the hatch like thin walls.

  “There goes that,” Catherine muttered.

  “Yeah, but here goes this, babe.”

  Cross’s hand snaked up from her waist to her jaw. He grabbed tight and turned her head to catch her lips in a kiss. Catherine figured he had been holding back on kissing her considering he made no attempt to be soft or sweet. He wanted to taste. She didn’t mind letting him. His tongue snaked between her parted lips to war with hers. Their familiar dance of teeth, and tongue, and lips moving in perfect sync took over, and Catherine turned in his lap.

  Straddling him, Catherine felt the blanket fall from their bodies. She wasn’t really feeling the cold anymore, anyway. She didn’t feel anything except Cross’s kiss and his hands skimming over her ass. His fingers dug into the denim covering her ass as she cupped his jaw. She didn’t want him moving an inch.

  Catherine wanted to stay just like that in one perfect moment where nothing else mattered except her and Cross.

  She could pretend things weren’t a mess.

  The world didn’t exist.

  Pain was a distant memory.

  Life on pause.

  Right there, with him.

  Catherine couldn’t even be surprised when it didn’t take long before they were shedding clothes. The rain kept falling, and their clothes piled into a corner in the hatch. All she heard was the heavy sheets of rain coming down, and their breaths as she sat naked in Cross’s lap. His hot hands roved over her cool skin as she rolled a condom down his length.

  Cross kissed her mouth once more, and then his teeth found her bottom lip. One of his hands palmed her ass while his other dipped between her thighs. His fingers skimmed her pussy, stroking softly and smearing her juices with every touch. His fingers sunk in deep as her hand wrapped around his already hard cock.

  Catherine stroked his dick, he fucked her with three fingers, and they kept kissing until her fucking lungs burned.

  “I want you inside me right now,” she told him.

  Still, he fucked her with his fingers. Cross’s dark eyes never left hers, and his grin turned wicked when his fingers curled against the right spot to make her soaked and shaking.

  “Fuck,” Catherine breathed. “Come on, don’t you want to fuck me?”

  “More than you know, Catty.”

  “Then fuck me.”

  “When you come like this, I will. Don’t you know? You get so fucking tight after you come, my girl. So tight I feel like I can’t breathe when you’re squeezing my dick. So you fucking come, and then you’ll ride my cock. Not before.”

  A shiver raced over her skin.

  Cross’s lips chased the sensation, kissing her jaw, down her neck, and her breasts. Her hand shuddered on stroking his cock, but only because she could feel that orgasm starting to build.

  Catherine’s eyes fluttered shut as she focused on letting that cliff form so she could fall off it. She grinded her lips into his hand, riding his rhythm and getting closer by the second. Cross’s murmurs, and his lips ghosting over her neck only made it that much better.

  “Come on, Catty,” he taunted darkly in her ear, “come for me. I’ll let you climb on my dick while I get these fingers deep in your ass, huh? Won’t you like that, my girl? You can ride my cock while I fill up your ass, too.”

  Jesus Christ.

  His mouth was something else.

  To make his point, the hand palming her ass slapped hard against her backside. Heat bloomed from the smack. Catherine’s orgasm came raging through like an out-of-control wave she couldn’t possibly spot.

  Cross laughed huskily in her ear. His fingers deep in her pussy massaged her G-spot through the orgasm with just enough force to make her eyes roll back. It took her breath away and made her arousal run down his hand.

  “Holy shit, yeah, babe. You’re fucking soaked now,” he told her. “Get on me, Catherine. Fuck, get on me.”

  She lifted just high enough to reach between them and get his cock fitted against her sex. She didn’t take her time coming down on his length, either. All she wanted was to feel him filling her up, and stretching her open.

  She loved that.

  No one fucked her like he did.

  No one had ever owned her like he did.

  Once Catherine had herself fully seated on Cross’s cock, she circled her hips just to feel.

  “So full,” she told him.

  Cross grinned against her mouth. “You like that so much, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fucking ride me, babe.”

  He kissed her hard as she rode him fast. Never once did he break their kiss, not even when she couldn’t hold back her sounds. His kiss swallowed each and every one of them. His lips urged and teased and taunted.

  “Take my cock, Catty.”

  And …


  “You better fucking soak me again, babe.”

  She loved his mouth, too.

  Just like he promised, those fingers he had used to fuck her pussy slid around to her ass. He worked one in the tight ring of muscles, and the burn made her shake. It felt like every single one of her nerves were suddenly tuned in and turned on. She could feel more, and it drove her crazy. The second still-slick finger slid into her ass easier.

  Cross worked her ass while she rode his cock.

  “You better come for me,” he taunted.

  Catherine whined. “I wanna. I wanna come so bad.”

  “You better fucking give it to me, Catty.”

  That third finger stretching her ass did it. She didn’t even feel the orgasm coming until it was already there. Cross’s other hand lifted to tangle into her hair. He grabbed a handful, and yanked to bring her ear to his mouth.

  “There it is, there is it,” he soothed in her ear as she shuddered her way through the orgasm. “Next time it’s going to be my fucking cock in your ass, Catherine.”

  His fingers came out of her ass and his hand let go of her hair. He grabbed her hips and worked her into him harder, driving his cock impossibly deeper. It ached, but it felt so fucking good, too.

  Catherine could barely breathe, but she didn’t care. Cross’s teeth cut into his lower lip as his gaze focused on his cock and her cunt. Catherine leaned back and used the floor of the hatch as a support, so she could watch, too. The sight of his length, hard, the veins pulsing, and slipping into her over and over was intoxicating.

  So beautiful.

  She didn’t realize she was panting until her air caught altogether, and a third orgasm slipped through her nervous system. It wasn’t as strong, but it still made her high as hell.

  “Oh, my God,” Catherine mumbled, letting her head fall back.

  “Shit, get up,” Cross grunted.

  He lifted her up so that his cock slipped out of her clenching pussy. He ripped the condom off, tugged on his length with two hard strokes, and then painted her stomach with white ropes of warm, sticky cum.

  “Jesus Christ,” Cross said through clenched teeth. He pulled her back into his lap, and she felt his cock throb as he smeared his cum over her skin with the head of his cock. “Way better than coming in a goddamn condom, babe.”

  Catherine laughed. “Yeah, but you made a mess.”

  His thumb swiped the fluid, and he lifted it up to her. She didn’t even hesitate to take his thumb in her mouth and suck it clean. The distinct taste of him was unmistakable.

  It only made her hotter.

  “Yeah, fuck that’s hot,” he breathed out.

  Catherine grinned around his thumb before he pulled it out.

  “Stay here with me for a bit, babe.”

  “I have to go sometime.”

  “Not yet,” he urged. “You’re going to go, and get all stuck in your head for a while. I know it, and I won’t see you. So stay.”

  Catherine looked away. “You don’t know that.”

  “I do. You might make this hard for us, remember? Your words, Catty, not mine. Stay.”

  How could she say no?

  Cross stepped out of the Porsche, and stuffed his hands into the pockets of the leather jacket. He stood at the driver’s door of the Porsche as he watched a black SUV crawl on by. The same inconspicuous SUV that had been following him wherever he went for two hours today. They’d been following him for a couple of days on and off.

  The idiots probably thought they were being sneaky.

  Or … not.

  As the SUV passed, the passenger side window rolled down just enough to showcase a man Cross didn’t recognize. The guy had his fingers pointed at Cross in the shape of a gun. He pulled an imaginary trigger as he winked.

  Then, tires squealed and the car was gone.

  What the fuck was going on?

  Whatever it was, Cross didn’t like it.

  His gaze darted up and down the street, checking for anymore fuckers that might be on his tail. When he didn’t see any vehicles coming, and none parked that looked suspicious, he headed across the road to his parents’ home.

  Inside, his mother had a coffee already waiting for him. Cross kissed Emma’s forehead as she handed it over. “How was your day, Ma?”

  “Quiet,” she said.

  Cross smiled, and took a drink of the coffee. He couldn’t tell if she was unhappy about that or not. His mother had always been quiet when it came to everything. She didn’t have a lot of friends, she didn’t fill her house full of guests constantly, and she had practically lived life for her children and husband. She was the best mother, though. Cross would never forget to remind her of that.

  “That a good thing, or no?”

  “A quiet day in this life is always a good day, my boy.”

  Truth.

  “Your father—Cal,” Emma quickly corrected at Cross’s frown, “is in his office.”

  “Thanks, Ma.”

  Emma looked at up him with sad eyes. “Are you ever going to sit down and have a proper conversation about … what happened years ago?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I don’t like your fighting with Calisto,” she said quietly. “You never fight with him, Cross. Not now. It makes me sad. And he is your father, but wasn’t he always, anyway? Didn’t he always love you, regardless of the rest? These are details, Cross.”

  Details weren’t supposed to matter.

  Even he said it.

  “Details someone forgot to mention to me,” he pointed out gently.

  “You know,” Emma said, looking down at her twisting hands, “I named you for Calisto.”

  “What?”

  “Your name—Cross. Calisto had a bad accident; we’ve talked about it and the head trauma it caused.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “We’ve never talked about what really happened to him, though. He had amnesia for a long while,” Emma admitted. “Long enough that you were a newborn before he regained his memories. He didn’t remember me, or us, and he didn’t even know about you before. I never got the chance to tell him I was pregnant with you before his accident happened, you see. It was only after he remembered that he put dates and other things together, and figured it out.”

  Cross glanced away. “What does this have to do with my name, Ma?”

  “I’m getting there. Calisto gave me a rosary with a cross on it once to help me. He thought it might help me get over a difficult time in my life—when I lost my second child. After his accident, I gave him one that was similar, thinking it may help him remember. He was always touching it, and having it nearby. So when it came time to pick your name, I chose Cross. The Cross. My Cross. And his Cross.”

  “To give him another clue,” Cross assumed.

  “And because it held meaning for me.” Emma gave him a small smile and sighed. “I know maybe we were wrong not to tell you, but he’s always been your dad, Cross. Just like I’m your mother. How can you be angry when the only thing we did was love you?”

  “I’m not angry, Ma. I’m … fuck. For my whole life, every man in this family had to remind me that I came from a man who betrayed us. You, me, Calisto, and famiglia. They said it again and again, like he was a stain I had to wear, and so I did. I worked twice as hard. I proved my worth over and over, just so that even one of them would stop using Affonso’s name alongside mine. Yet, even now, there are men in other families who refer to the Donati principe as “Affonso’s son” and not actually the man who raised me.”

  “Oh, Cross.”

  “So maybe you can understand why I need some time to settle things. I don’t want to come into that conversation still bitter because I don’t want to hurt him or you. Can’t you understand?”

  “I can,” she said softly.

  “I will get it settled, Ma, eventually. One thing at a time, okay?”

  “What else do you have on your mind?”

  Maybe … if he gave his mother something else to focus on whe
re he was concerned, she would leave the whole paternity thing alone for a bit.

  “Catherine,” he murmured.

  Emma’s gaze lit up. “The Catherine?”

  “There’s only ever been one in my life, right?”

  “How long? Why didn’t you tell me?” His mother grabbed his face and stood up on her tiptoes to look him right in the eyes. “This is good. This is good, right?”

  Cross laughed. “Yeah, Ma, it’s good.”

  “You didn’t answer anything else, Cross.”

  “She’s figuring shit out, that’s all. There’s not much to tell.”

  Emma’s smile faded. “It has been a long time, I suppose.”

  “Still feels like yesterday,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.

  Happiness lit up his mother all over again.

  Cross counted that as a battle won. He would much rather Emma pry into his private life with Catherine, something he didn’t mind indulging his mother with, than his issues with them. Besides, when he did sit down and have that chat, it was going to hurt. He did not want to hurt his mother.

  “Tell her hello for me?” Emma asked.

  “I will when I see her again,” he promised.

  “When did you see her last?”

  “Nosy, nosy.”

  “Cross.”

  “A couple of days ago,” he said with a laugh. “We grabbed coffee, and … hung out at the beach.”

  Emma raised a brow. “You know that you’re a terrible liar when it comes to me, right?”

  So be it.

  “I’m not getting into those kind of details with you.”

  She grinned and patted his jaw with her hands. “I’m so happy.”

  “That makes one of you,” he murmured.

  “Pardon?”

  “Nothing, Ma.” Cross kissed her cheek. “And thanks for the coffee.”

  Emma shooed him off with a flick of her wrists and another brilliant smile.

  Cross found Calisto in his office, as his mother had said. His father didn’t look up as Cross entered the space and took a seat on the leather couch. He sipped on the coffee and watched his father. Calisto rubbed at his temples with his fingers, and then massaged back through his scalp. He tilted his head side to side, as though he meant to stretch out the muscles.

  Like a stiff neck.