Meeting her lips, he kissed her slowly, as she unfastened his black silk tie. She moved on to his shirt next, her hands trembling as she worked on the buttons.
Fear? Was she afraid?
Pulling back, he opened his eyes and scanned her face, trying to find any sign of distress, but he there was none. Excitement, he realized as she opened her eyes and bit down on her bottom lip, as if she were fighting to contain it all inside of her.
The blood furiously pumping through his system cleansed away every ounce of hesitation. Despite what he'd said to her, despite his warnings about what type of man he truly was, she offered herself to him. She was giving herself to him, all of her, and it was a gift he was more than happy to receive.
'Everything,' he'd said. He wanted everything.
And now he would take it.
Smashing his lips to hers again, he moved her hands out of the way and tore the rest of his shirt open before dropping it to the floor. He kicked his shoes off, discarding them, before fumbling with his belt. He had it unfastened, his pants unzipped and down around his ankles in a matter of seconds. Kicking them away, he pushed Celia onto the bed.
She broke the kiss, breathing heavily as she scooted back on it. He followed, hovering over her in his black boxers, and found her lips once more when she reached the pillows. Her body sunk into the comfortable bed, dwarfed by his six-foot-one broad frame.
Corrado grunted when her hand snaked into his boxers. She gripped him firmly, stroking a few times, as her other hand shoved down the material. He reached to help her, pushing his boxers away and kicking them onto the floor with the rest of their clothes.
There was no talking, no contemplating. He kissed and caressed every inch of her, tasting her sensitive flesh, bringing her to the edge and shoving her over with nothing more than the tip of his tongue. Fingers tangled in his hair, she gripped tightly, tugging, as she arched her back and cried out. The sound of his name catching in her throat, the breathy, broken "Corrado" that escaped her lips, ignited a fire way down deep inside of him.
A fire he never knew always burned…
The first thrust, deep and hard, elicited another loud cry from Celia. He stilled, mid-stroke, and shattered his silence. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"
Her eyes, squeezed shut, never opened. "No more than I want you to."
"Are you sure?"
"Jesus," she panted, shifting her hips toward him to take more of him inside. "Don't stop. Please."
"Please?" he whispered, leaning down to pepper kisses along her chest. He captured one of her nipples in his mouth and sucked on it.
"Please," she pleaded again, hands roaming his back, nails scraping his skin. "More."
He pushed into her slowly, sinking every inch of himself inside again. "Like that?"
"Harder," she demanded. "Fuck me, Corrado."
Those words were a lightning strike surging through his bones.
Pulling back, he thrust again hard, his hips slamming against her, and she gasped loudly, as if he'd knocked the breath right from her lungs. He did it again, and again, and again, finding her lips once more. She giggled into his mouth, gripping the back of his head. "Naughty boy, who knew you liked dirty talk?"
Apparently he did.
Celia continued teasing him, spurring him on as he gave her himself. He ravaged her body, pounding into her, every ounce of anger and frustration that had ever settled inside of him, making itself at home in the deep crevices of his soul, expelled through the force of his thrusts. Every time he thought he went too far, every time he tried to pull back, to reign it in, Celia would grip him tighter and claw at his skin, whispering words in his ear that could make a man as cold as steel turn to mush.
The sensation of being inside of her, their bodies connected, sent a chill down Corrado's spine that rivaled only the thrill he got from hearing her whimper and moan. He did that. He caused that. His hands—hands that roamed her flushed skin, hands that cupped her warm cheeks as he kissed her deeply—didn't just cause pain. Those hands didn't just brutalize. They were capable of pleasure, too, pleasure reserved for her.
His climax hit hard and ferocious. He lost his ability to speak, lost his ability to think, as he spilled inside of her. Grunting, he thrust a few more times before slowing to a stop, his weight pressing on her. She didn't protest as she held him, softly stroking his sweaty back.
Drawing back, Corrado stared down at her. His pointer finger—his trigger finger—gently glided across her bottom lip, pausing at the corner of her mouth, his thumb tilting her chin as he leaned down to kiss her. It was sweet, and innocent, and everything he never realized he was capable of being.
His nose rubbed against her jawline as he pulled away, breathing her in. She glowed from sweat, her body smelling like pure sex.
She smelled like him.
"No Sinatra," she mused when he rolled over in bed beside her. "Guess it wasn't Summer Wind, after all."
He pulled her into his arms. "No, you're the only music I need."
Corrado stood in the dark upstairs hall, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, and watched Celia fix her hair in his small bathroom mirror. The curls had loosened, tendrils falling around her face as she tried to pin it in place. Her dress was back on, situated perfectly, shoes again strapped to her feet.
He, on the other hand, was slightly worse for wear. His wrinkled shirt was half tucked in, the top few buttons undone, exposing a hint of his chest. His hair was disheveled, wild from her fingers running through it.
There wasn't enough energy left in him to fix it.
"I'm ready," Celia said, shutting off the light and joining him.
Corrado motioned toward the stairs, grabbing his jacket before following behind her. They stepped outside into the cool Chicago night air as Corrado pulled out his keys. "I'll drive you."
"No, let's walk."
He glanced at his watch: a quarter till midnight.
Shrugging, he stepped off the porch, draping his jacket over her shoulders when she shivered. She shoved her arms in the holes to put it on, drowning in the oversized fabric.
Reaching over, she grabbed his hand, linking their fingers together as they strolled down the sidewalk in the direction of her house.
"Tonight was wonderful," she said. "Thank you."
His voice was quiet. "You don't have to thank me."
"Yes, I do. A few times, actually. I mean... wow."
"The pleasure was all mine."
She scoffed. "Hardly. Half of it was mine."
He squeezed her hand in lieu of a response.
They walked in silence as Corrado's thoughts drifted to the previous few hours, the night's events in a continuous loop in mind. Now that it was over, emotions tempered, common sense seeping back in, guilt nagged him, fueling the nervousness once again. He replayed it over and over, his stomach twisting.
About a block away, Celia stopped abruptly. Corrado only realized it when he met resistance from her hand. Footsteps faltering, he glanced back at her. "Everything okay?"
"I could ask you the same."
"What do you mean?"
"You're being quiet."
"Aren't I usually?"
"Yes, but not like this. You're usually quiet because you're so busy assessing your surroundings. But right now, you're so stuck in your head that you wouldn't notice a plane if it dropped out of the sky."
"I think I'd notice that."
"I don't know," she said. "You sure didn't notice the guy who whistled at me."
Brow furrowing, Corrado glanced past Celia, seeing a vague figure retreating down the block. A flurry of anger flared inside of him. What kind of man disrespected a woman like that?
What kind of idiot disrespected him?
"Corrado." Celia snapped her finger to hone his attention. "Seriously, what's gotten into you?"
He pulled his hand from hers and ran it anxiously through his hair. "I made a mistake."
"What kind of mistake?"
&nbs
p; "I didn't use any protection."
Lost in the whirlwind, stunned by the sight of her naked in his bedroom, he hadn't given any thought to condoms. The subject had never come up between them.
She frowned. "I told you I've only been with two others. You don't have to worry... I don't have any..."
"It's not that," he interjected. "I trust you."
"Then what?" Her eyes widened when it seemed to strike her what he meant. "Oh."
"Yeah."
He expected shock. He expected terror. But he certainly didn't expect her to laugh.
"That's what's bothering you? The thought of having a baby?"
He flinched at her words, recoiling as if she'd struck him with a fist. The laughter died instantly, Celia's shock surfacing. "It really bothers you. Like, really bothers you."
He attempted to turn away, but she grabbed his arm.
"Corrado, relax, it's okay. I'm not going to get pregnant."
"You can't know that."
"I can," she said. "I'm on the pill."
His anxiety eased as disbelief set in. "You're taking birth control?"
"Yeah."
"You're Catholic, Celia."
"So are you."
"Your father would never approve of that."
She scoffed. "Like that man can talk with as much as he sins."
Corrado could only stare at her. He wasn't the perfect Catholic by any means. He sinned more than most others and never asked for forgiveness. He believed in God, of course, but he often wondered if God believed in him. It surprised him, though, that Celia would so blatantly ignore her beliefs for something so seedy.
He shouldn't have been surprised, given she had no qualms with premarital sex.
"Look, I'm no idiot," she said. "Better safe than sorry, right?"
He hesitated. "Right."
"And it's my body, right?"
No hesitation this time. "Right."
"Then no problem, right?"
"Right," he said. "No problem."
She linked their fingers once more and yanked on his arm. "Come on, I'm going to miss curfew."
They walked again, silence nearly taking over, but Celia's playful giggle kept him in the moment.
"What's so funny?" he asked.
"Just thinking about, well, you know." She blushed, nudging him with her arm. "There's no way you're a virgin."
"I am." He paused. "Or I was."
"Then how did you learn to do all that?" she whispered. "You made my toes curl."
"Uh, I don't know." He laughed awkwardly. "Just because I hadn't done it didn't mean I hadn't thought about it." And thought about it... and thought about it some more.
"I knew you'd be a natural, but wow."
"You knew I'd be a natural?"
"Like I said—you're always attentive to your surroundings," she said. "Makes sense that you'd be the same way with a woman."
Raising her hand in his, he pressed a soft kiss on the back of it. "Only with you, Bellissima."
Corrado led Celia straight to her front door, letting go of her hand when they stepped on to the porch. He started to speak when the door swung open. Antonio stood there, a grim expression marring his face as he blocked the doorway. "You're late."
Corrado looked at his watch: eight minutes past midnight.
Celia rolled her eyes. "Give me a break. It's only a few minutes."
"A few? More like fifteen."
Corrado refrained from correcting the man, knowing it wouldn't make a difference. Even one minute late was equivalent to a lifetime.
"What are you going to do, ground me?"
Antonio stared at her for a moment before his eyes shifted to Corrado. The answer lay in his expression. He wouldn't ground her, but he had every intention of punishing him.
A slight sinister smile twisted the Boss's lips. "You seem to have lost your tie, Corrado."
Corrado glanced down at his disheveled appearance and wished he had spent more time tidying himself. "It got a bit suffocating."
"I bet it did." Antonio's eyes studied him. "Your socks seem to be missing, too."
"Yeah, my feet were, uh..." He eyed his ankles. "...suffocating."
"Well then," Antonio said. "I'm just glad you kept on the rest of your clothes."
"Daddy!" Celia hissed. "Can you not?"
"I haven't done anything."
"Can you give us some privacy?" she asked. "Please?"
It seemed even the Boss of La Cosa Nostra wasn't immune to the charms of Celia DeMarco. With the bat of her eyelashes, she could bring any man to his knees.
"Yeah, sure," he conceded, his eyes still focused on Corrado. "I'll be seeing you tomorrow."
"Yes, sir."
Antonio went back inside, and Corrado let out a sharp exhale. "Suffocating," he grumbled, feeling like an idiot. "He's going to suffocate me for that."
Smiling, Celia leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed him. She pulled back, pressing her hand flat against his chest. His heart thumped erratically against her palm.
"You're wrong about yourself," she said seriously. "You said you were heartless, but that's not true. I can feel it, Corrado. It's in there. And as long as it's beating, I know it's there, working overtime, and you'll never convince me otherwise."
After one last kiss, she stepped away, wrapping his jacket tightly around her. "I'm keeping the coat."
"Okay."
"I'm going to wear it to bed."
"Okay."
"With nothing on underneath it."
Winking, she slipped inside, leaving him on the porch with that mental image ringing through his head.
Corrado's punishment swiftly came the next morning in the form of a phone call from the Boss. He had just gotten to sleep, too wound tightly to relax right away, when the phone started incessantly ringing.
"Moretti speaking," he muttered, groggily plopping down on the couch in the living room.
"Breakfast."
The Boss's voice woke him up. "Excuse me, sir?"
"I want breakfast."
He hesitated. "Do you want me to meet you?"
"No, I want you to deliver it to me."
And Corrado did just that an hour later, showing up at the DeMarco residence juggling half a dozen containers of food from as many different restaurants. Antonio had rattled off an extensive list, from pancakes at a popular nearby diner to scrambled tofu from an obscure place outside the city limits. It was enough food to feed more than one family, but Antonio was the only one awake when Corrado arrived.
"Took you long enough," Antonio said, showing him inside. Corrado set the containers on the kitchen counter and stood back, waiting to be dismissed. Antonio opened them all, surveying the contents, before hastily throwing every last one right in the trashcan. "I'm not hungry anymore."
Contrary to his words, Antonio picked up an apple and bit into it, noisily chewing. "Since you're awake, Corrado, I got some errands that need ran."
"Errands?"
"Yeah, you know... dry cleaning to pick up, mail to deliver, bills to pay. Menial things that even someone like you could handle. Got a problem with that?"
Someone like you. Corrado grimaced. "No, sir."
Antonio fetched a sprawling list from his office desk and handed it to Corrado. "Off you go."
Corrado was out until after midnight handling everything, having barely had time to sit down and take a break all day. He collapsed on his couch, utterly exhausted, but by the time he dozed off his phone rang again.
It happened the next day. And the next day. And every day after that for the next two weeks. Antonio ran him ragged, treating him like he was dog shit on the bottom of his shoe—shit he wanted nothing more than to scrape away on the filthy sidewalk. Corrado blew through every penny he'd managed to save, always picking up the tab wherever he was sent, even being pushed so far as to having to pay the Boss's goomah's rent.
The Boss… the man he respected more than anyone… had a mistress. That fact floored Corrado.
He only e
ncountered Celia in passing during that time, sharing a few stray phone calls when she caught him at home. It tortured him, being forced to keep his distance after the intimate night they shared.
That was the point, Corrado realized.
Fifteen days of punishment for being fifteen minutes late.
Corrado still didn't tell him it was only eight.
Day fifteen finally came, and Corrado was awake and dressed by five in the morning. He'd no sooner sat down with the Sunday paper when his phone rang. "Moretti speaking."
"Good morning."
"Morning, sir."
"I'd like you to meet me at the church."
Before Corrado could even ask when, the line went dead.
Saint Mary's Catholic Church appeared deserted at that hour, even on a Sunday, the holiest day of the week. The Boss's car was already parked front and center when Corrado arrived, right in front of the large set of stairs leading to the wooden ornamental doors. Corrado parked his Mercedes behind the familiar DeVille and climbed out, taking a deep calming breath before heading inside.
The church was dim, only subtle lighting throughout the massive space, as the sun hadn't yet taken its rightful place in the sky. Corrado glanced around, trying to adjust his eyes, and spotted Antonio sitting in his usual spot in the front pew. Slowly, Corrado approached, his footsteps magnified in the silent building. Antonio didn't look at him, no visible acknowledgement as Corrado slid into the pew. His head remained bowed, his eyes closed, almost as if the man were fast asleep.
Out of respect, Corrado bowed his head as he waited.
It took a few minutes before Antonio even made a noise—a faintly audible sigh. Corrado peered over at the man, realizing he now stared straight ahead at the cross behind the pulpit.
"This is the only time I feel at peace," Antonio said. "Every day, my head is full of all these thoughts—who's doing what, who's doing who, where, when, how... I gotta worry about all these different people, all these different schemes, making sure everybody's happy so they don't go killing each other. But Sunday morning, when I step in here, I have nobody to worry about for a while but me."
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