Speak Low

by Melanie Harlow

  “What are you talking about? It was a great idea!” I bounced around some more and sniffed the inside of his shirt again.

  “I didn’t think so at the time. I wanted to throttle you for getting me so worked up and thinking it was all a big joke.”

  “I didn’t think that at all.” Coming up behind him, I wrapped my arms around his waist and laid my head on his back.

  “I didn’t know that at the time. Move for just a second, OK, baby?”

  I let go of him and watched as he added more butter, sugar and cinnamon atop the bread and poured the hot water around the edges of the pan. He stuck the whole thing in the oven, closed the oven door and took me in his arms again.

  “I figured you’d only asked me to make Rosie mad. But even then, I couldn’t resist the chance to get that close to you.”

  I snuggled into his chest. “I’m glad you couldn’t. But I didn’t ask you only to make Rosie mad—although that was an added benefit, I’ll admit. I asked you because suddenly the thought of you leaving the club was unbearable to me.”

  He kissed the top of my head. “Well, I’m glad you asked, although keeping my hands to myself during that song was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. No—I take it back. Leaving your house last night was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

  Squeezing him tighter, I shivered. “I can’t believe I let you go. After you walked out the door, I cried myself to sleep.”

  “You slept?”

  I looked up at him and smiled. “Maybe just a little.”

  He swatted my backside and I yelped in protest. “Hey!” I said, scooting backward with my hands on my butt. “You were the one out with someone else. What went on with Rosie after you left the club? And why were you out with her again last night?”

  Joey’s eyes lit up. “Jealous?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe a little.”

  “You’ve got nothing to worry about. I took her straight home both nights, and dancing at the club was the closest I got to her.”

  “It was close, all right.” I sniffed, crossing my arms in front of me. “I thought I’d have to peel her off you.”

  “Well, you didn’t. And you’re here now, not her. In fact, you’re the only girl I’ve ever had here.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “But there were…other girls before me?” It was the kind of question no girl should ask, but I had to torture myself a little.

  Joey shrugged. “No one like you.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means no, you’re not the first girl I’ve ever been with, but you are definitely the first girl I’ve ever loved.”

  I took a deep breath. I’d assumed I wasn’t his first—and I hadn’t been a virgin before seven o’clock tonight, either—but it was still hard to hear. I didn’t want to think about his hands or lips or any other body part on any other girl. And I didn’t want to be with anyone else again either. Ever.

  Suddenly Bridget’s scheme to marry Vince made perfect sense to me. Now that I knew what it was like to love someone this way, I understood the desperation they’d felt to be together. And Joey is planning to move away. We hadn’t even talked about that yet. But before I could bring it up, he took me in his arms and kissed me, slow and deep and sweet.

  “I promise you,” he said, resting his forehead on mine. “I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you. I never will.”

  And then my throat closed up too tightly to talk anyway.

  When the pudding was ready, we sat at the table and ate right from the pan with one spoon. The combination of apples and butter and sugar and cinnamon and shirtless Joey was enough to make any girl moan.

  As we neared the bottom of the pan, Joey began smearing it on my lips and licking it off. Then he got more creative, unbuttoned my shirt, and dripped some on my neck, down my chest and onto my stomach, all of which he ate off my body with great relish. He was just licking some from my inner thigh when we heard the front door open and slam.

  “Which rosary, Ma? There’s more than one here. Well, I don’t know, so you might as well come up and get it. Cripes, Joey didn’t even turn off all the lights before he left. Is he still here?”

  Joey and I exchanged a panicked look. His mother and Marie were here, and we were stuck in the kitchen, nearly naked, and I was covered in sticky Brown Betty sauce! If they caught us, there was no possible way to explain ourselves, and we couldn’t get to the bedroom without coming out of the kitchen.

  “Come here!” he whispered. Grabbing my hand, he pulled me into the pantry and shut the door silently. I saw nothing but blackness and heard nothing but the gunfire of my heart.

  “I’m scared,” I whispered.

  “It’s OK.” Joey put his arms around me from behind. “She just forgot her rosaries and made Marie bring her back to get them.”

  “This late at night?”

  “She’s religious. Something must have been keeping her up. They’ll be gone soon.”

  I hoped he was right. We heard nothing for a few minutes, and I began to relax.

  So did Joey. “Your neck is sticky,” he said. “Mmmmmm.” He began licking the back of my neck, and within seconds, I felt him hard against my lower back. A quickening in my stomach made me close my eyes and squeeze my thighs together.

  “Joey, no.”

  “Yes.” He took his arms from me for a moment and I heard him unbutton his pants. Then he lifted the bottom of the shirt I wore. I had nothing on underneath it.

  “Spread your legs,” he said in my ear. My resolve splintered.

  I widened my legs and he pushed up into me from behind, lifting me onto my toes and nearly off the floor. Gasping, I had to bite down on my lip to keep from crying out. My hands braced against a shelf.

  I would never look at a pantry the same way again. Ever.

  Leaning forward slightly, I whimpered softly as he began to move in and out of me, slow and rhythmic. I moved my hands to a higher shelf and my right fingers brushed something cool and metal—the pistol. Oh my God, sex and guns in the pantry. This is my life now. Somehow the thought of it spiked my desire even more.

  Then he reached around and rubbed me from the front with wet fingers, and I forgot about everything else but his magic hands.

  “Does it feel good, baby?” he whispered.

  I nodded, unable to speak and terrified I was going to scream with pleasure before we were through. The way Joey moved, it was as if he could read my mind, or at least my body. He knew exactly where I wanted to be touched and how. He knew the perfect way to angle himself inside me and how fast or slow I wanted him to go. He knew just what words to whisper in my ear to rattle my insides and make me clench around him. Grabbing the shelf harder, I sucked in my breath and willed myself not to yell or moan or even squeak.

  Suddenly we heard voices in the kitchen.

  Joey put his other hand over my mouth.

  “What is all this mess? Dear God, Ma, don’t even come in here.”

  Oh my God oh my God oh my God. This it is. This is my punishment, isn’t it? This is the consequence of all my awful behavior, my sins, my criminal activities. I’ll be caught fucking Joey in the pantry by his mother and she’ll faint from the shock and never let us be together again and Joey will hear her call me all sorts of names and oh God he’s still hard, how is that possible and why don’t they just leave, I’m so hot and tight and tingly and yes, yes, yes—just like that…

  At the slam of the front door, Joey started moving again. “They’re gone,” he said. But he kept the hand over my mouth, and I sucked two fingers between my teeth and ran my tongue along them. He groaned, shoving into me deep and hard and driving me to insanity with his other hand. “God, you’re so wet,” he breathed. “And so tight, and so hot, and I never want to stop fucking you, ever…”

  Neither of us lasted another ten seconds.

  #

  “You have perfect toes,” Joey said. We were in the bathtub, leaning back against opposite en
ds, and Joey held my foot up near his face. We’d locked the heavy wooden bathroom door, of course, but we’d also been smart enough to throw the deadbolt on the apartment’s front door as well. No need to invite further calamity.

  “Thank you.” I bowed my head graciously, and rubbed my hands along the backs of his calves, which were alongside my hips. We’d already soaped and rinsed each other, and now we lingered in the warm water, pruney and damp-haired but happy.

  “And your feet are so small,” he went on, holding up his hand to compare the size. “Do you have to shop for shoes at a children’s store?”

  I pulled my foot from his hands and kicked water at him. “Still with the jokes about my size? Are you ever going to let me be?”

  Joey laughed deep and loud, the sound echoing off the black and white tiles. “I’m sorry, I’ll be nice.” He fished underwater for my foot again. “Let me have it back.”

  I let him, and he brought it to his lips and kissed it. “I love your toes.” He sucked on each one, sending a frisson of delight up my leg. “I love every perfect part of you. Except maybe your temper.”

  I sat up and pushed a huge wall of water at him, which soaked his face and splashed over the edge of the tub. Sputtering with laughter, he wiped his eyes and grabbed for me. “You got water in my mouth!”

  “Serves you right.”

  Grinning, he got me by the arms and traded places with me, pulling me against him, stomach to stomach. His skin on mine felt so warm, so good, it melted every other feeling but contentment. I kissed his collarbone and rested my head there, tracing the letters of my name on his chest with one finger. His arms wrapped around me, and I closed my eyes. We were back to our comfortable silences.

  But in a moment, icy fingers of fear crept beneath the warmth. How could I let him do something I knew might get him arrested or killed?

  “Joey, please don’t do it.” The words slipped out before I had an argument prepared.

  He said nothing.

  “Don’t. Please. I’m scared.”

  “I have to, Tiny. I have to do it—I promised myself.”

  “But things are different now.”

  “Between you and me they are. But that situation hasn’t changed.” His voice had a harder edge to it than I’d heard all night.

  “If you kill that man, Joey—”

  “When I kill him.”

  I picked my head up. He looked at me, but his eyes were cool. “You’re scaring me.”

  “This is who I am, Tiny. This is part of me.”

  “That’s not true—what you are is not what you do. You’re so much more than that.”

  He was silent a moment, staring into the water. “If you think I can let this go, you don’t know me very well.”

  “But I do! I do know you well.” Agitated, I got to my knees between his legs. “I know you love your family more than anything in the world, and I know you would do anything for them. I love that about you.” Taking his hands in mine, I squeezed them tight. “And I know you were hurt when your father died, but—”

  “I was in the car. Did you know that?”

  Confused, I just looked at him.

  “I was in the car waiting when my father came out of the station.”

  “Oh, honey.” My heart broke for him.

  “I heard those bastards come around the corner and start firing. I heard my pop yell for me to get down, and you know what I did? I fucking ducked. I covered my head and ducked down below the window like a frightened kid.”

  “You were scared! Anyone would’ve been scared. And you did what your father wanted you to do—you stayed safe!”

  He shook his head, his jaw protruding. “His gun was on the seat. I could’ve grabbed it then. I could’ve shot back. I could’ve done something. But I didn’t.”

  “You might have been killed yourself, Joey!” Slamming my eyes shut, I lowered my chin, my lower lip trembling. “Is this how it’s always going to be?”

  “I promised myself. I promised myself that day that I would never be a coward again. That I would stand up for myself and my family the way he would have. I can’t let it go.”

  “Not even for me?”

  He met my eyes, and I saw how hard it would be for him to actually say it. “I love you. You know I do.”

  “But not enough.”

  “Don’t say it like that.”

  Sighing, I toppled forward onto him again, fitting myself against his body as tightly as possible. “I love you too. But I don’t know if I can live like this…I’ll be constantly worried about your safety, wondering if today’s the day your luck will run out.” I snaked my arms behind his lower back and ran my palms along his solid muscles.

  His arms locked around me, and he brought his lips to my head as he squeezed me close. “Don’t give up on me. Please.”

  I didn’t want to. Bridget said love was work, and I was willing to work hard at loving him. And I’d never felt as cherished as I did lying there in Joey’s arms—I knew he loved me too. But the fear that he could be taken from me at any moment on any average day was enough to give me pause. “Are you still going to work for Sam Scarfone?”

  Joey’s body stiffened. “I don’t want to. But I have to tread carefully. I didn’t get a chance to talk to Angelo today, but he’s gonna be looking for me. If he goes to Sam—”

  My eyes flew open. “I thought you said he wouldn’t!”

  “I said I didn’t see how it would do him any good—but I don’t put anything past anyone, and you shouldn’t either.”

  Biting my lip, I kept rubbing Joey’s back. Between Sam, Angelo, and Enzo, there were going to be a whole hell of a lot of gangsters unhappy with us. “And after that? Are you still going to Chicago?”

  “I was planning on it. But that was before.”

  “Before what?”

  He kissed my head again. “Before I got your note.”

  I couldn’t help smiling at the memory of that. “I’ll never forget the look on your face when you turned around.”

  “I’ll bet it was something else.”

  “It was.”

  I felt him swallow. “Come with me. To Chicago.”

  “I thought you said you wouldn’t ask me again,” I teased, but my heart was pounding.

  “This is different. That was a stupid thing to do that night. I should have told you how I felt but I was mad and jealous and I didn’t know what to do. But now I do.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes.” He took me by the shoulders and held me away from away from him slightly. “Marry me, Tiny.”

  My jaw fell open. “What?”

  “Marry me. I love you, and I want us to live together.”

  I stared at him with wide eyes. His hair was wet and disheveled, and his jaw was shadowed with whiskers, but his eyes were serious and I saw no sign of a teasing smile on his lips. But still, this was Joey. “Is this a joke?”

  That brought a smile. “No! I’m serious. I’ve never been more serious. Will you marry me? Please?”

  “Oh my God, Joey.” All I could do was stare at him in disbelief. He was proposing to me? In the tub?

  He shimmied my shoulders lightly. “You’re starting to make me nervous here. I’ve asked three times now.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m just so surprised—I never imagined—I mean, I love you, but—”

  “But what? You think that will change?”

  “No, but—”

  “You want to keep living with your father and sisters?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “You didn’t enjoy yourself in the pantry—I’m sorry, pantries?”

  My cheeks flushed. “I did, but—”

  “Then say yes! You’re killing me.” The look in his eyes was equal parts love and torture. God, he was so handsome. And strong and sexy and loyal and hard-working and funny and sweet and smart.

  He adored me. I adored him.

  I chewed my lip. “I want to, Joey. I want to say yes.”

  “Then say yes.
Vince always said we’d end up together.”

  A rueful smile stretched my lips. “I heard.”

  Yes was on the tip of my tongue.

  He’d be a great father someday.

  Our own apartment.

  And the cooking. My God, the cooking.

  But then I thought about other things. Guns. Bullets. Coffins.

  Vince was hardly older than Joey was now when he was killed.

  I took a breath. “I have to think about it.” At his devastated face, my heart ached. “It’s not that I don’t want to marry you, Joey.” The words marry you made my stomach flip.

  “But you’re not ready? You think you’re too young?”

  “Not exactly. I mean, yes, we’re young, but my parents were young. Bridget and Vince were young.”

  “Then what? You think I don’t love you enough?” he went on, getting more worked up. “Because I do—I love that you’ve spent your life taking care of your family. I love that you were willing to risk your life to keep them safe. I love how smart you are, how brave you are, how beautiful you are. I love that you want to get out and see the world—I do too. You want to go to school? I’ll find a way to pay for it. I love that you want to be a nurse.”

  “Joey—”

  “Let me finish. I love that you can’t reach the high shelf in the pantry. I love that you can’t cook worth a damn. I love the expression on your face when I catch you staring at me. And I love the way you came here tonight, ready to fight for me. Now I’ll fight for you.” He kissed my lips. “Say yes.”

  My throat was so full. “I can’t.”

  His face fell. It hurt me not to give him the answer he wanted, but I didn’t want to end up like my sister, widowed at twenty-three with three children.

  “Look at Bridget, Joey,” I said softly. “She asked Vince to do something else with his life, but he wouldn’t. He said nothing would happen to him.”

  “When you came here tonight, you knew all this about me,” he said sadly. “And yet you still came.”

  “I couldn’t stay away.” Of that I was positive.