“I’m going to come, Damian. And I want you to come with me.”
The words seemed to cut something loose in him. He grabbed hold of her hips and drove up into her in a frenzy. She was at the end of the rope that was still tethering her to reality, and she threw her head back, let the spinning sky full of stars carry her away as she tipped into space, her body exploding around the thrust of his cock.
He groaned, his heat spilling into her as she clamped down on him, her body not wanting to let him go any more than her heart did. He didn’t stop moving until she was draped over his body, dropping kisses on his damp skin, the only way she knew how to show him how she felt about what was happening between them.
Reverence.
It was the only word she had for it.
28
He was drifting between sleep and wakefulness as Aria used her fingertip to trace an abstract path across his skin. An unfamiliar feeling had sunk into his body, something deep-seated and heavy but not at all unpleasant.
Contentment, he realized.
Well-being.
It didn’t make sense. He was at war with Primo Fiore. Would have to see Nico Vitale about protecting Aria in Italy while he went back to New York. Had no way of knowing how he and Aria would make it out of this mess together and alive.
Yet she was here in his arms for the moment. He knew it wasn’t enough. Already knew he wanted her for far longer than a moment.
But it was more than he’d ever had before. He was inclined to appreciate it.
He’d closed his eyes, finally giving his body over to the gentle rocking of the boat, the soft lapping of water against the hull when she spoke.
“Why is the shelter one of your pet projects?”
“Hmmm?”
“You said the Franklin Street shelter was one of your pet projects. I got the feeling there was something personal about it,” she said.
He opened his eyes, looked up at the sky, littered with diamonds. He’d never spoken aloud to anyone about his father.
Had never wanted to.
But that was before Aria, and he was surprised to find he wanted to tell her everything. Wanted her to really know him when all his life he'd worked to make sure no one did.
“My father was a wife beater. There’s no nice way to say it. He used to beat up my mom.”
She lay her hand flat against his chest. “Did he hurt you?”
His body tensed with the question, and he forced himself to relax. “Not as much,” he said. “She usually stepped in before he could do too much damage.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You and your mom deserved better.”
He looked down at her as he stroked her hair. “Like you.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Primo took good care of me after my parents died.”
He pulled her on top of him, held her face as he looked into her eyes. “Maybe so, but you deserved safety and peace and security. You still do.”
She lay her head down on his chest. “Did you believe you deserved those things when your father was alive?”
“I don’t know.” It was as honest an answer as he had.
“Do you believe you deserve them now?” she asked.
He thought about it, about the luck of holding her in his arms, or finding his way to her against all odds. “I’m starting to think I must. I have you.”
There were things left unsaid. That he didn’t know how long he would have her, if she even wanted to stay with him when it meant betraying her brother. That he didn’t know what waited for them back in New York or how he would reconcile Primo’s life with the one he was beginning to think he wanted with Aria.
He didn’t want to think about those things now. He’d never been a man for dreams. He’d found his peace in the cold, harsh light of day.
In the reality his father had tried to hide behind money and power.
Now he just wanted a moment to dream of a world where Aria Fiore could really be his. Where she would wander barefoot through the tiled halls of the house in Capri and swim naked with him in the aquamarine waters off its shore. Where he would find her in the greenhouse in Westchester, smelling of soil and life, when he came home from work.
“Is there anything else you want?” she asked, her voice sleepy. “Anything you would rather be doing?”
There was no judgement in her voice. Just an honest question.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never really thought about it. The truth is I enjoy financial strategy like my father. I just never wanted to give him the satisfaction of going into his business. My work is a way to combine it with something more honest.”
She laughed a little. “What you and Primo do isn’t honest.”
“It’s as honest as anything my father did, manipulating people and their money. As honest as half the things businesses do today.”
“I never really thought about it like that,” she said.
“What about you?” he asked, kissing her head. “What would you do if you weren’t tiptoeing around Primo?”
“I think I’d like to counsel children,” she said. “Use my degree to help kids who are as messed up as I was after my parents died.”
He tightened his arms around her. “You’d be wonderful with kids.”
He could picture it, not just Aria talking to children she didn’t know, but Aria holding the hand of a child with his wavy hair, her big eyes.
Was it a dream?
Maybe, but right now, with her in his arms, it felt almost close enough to touch.
Close enough to hurt.
29
Aria held onto the side of the helicopter as it banked to the left over Rome. She hadn’t even known the house on Capri had a helipad until the rotors whomp-whomped onto the roof and Damian led her up a steep flight of stairs.
Now he reached for her free hand and squeezed. She was still getting used to the warmth that flooded her body when he looked at her. Still getting used to what it felt like to be so treasured. She saw it in his eyes when he looked at her, felt it in the tender way he treated her even when he was occupying her body, owning her for what felt like the hundredth time.
They’d had three blissful days in Capri before he told her about the meeting in Rome. She’d almost managed to forget why they were on the island as they wandered the village, inspecting the handmade goods, eating in little restaurants by the water. They’d spent hours side by side in the sun on the terrace, had swam in the crystal waters below the house at every hour of the day and night, had made love with the ocean breeze blowing back the curtains in the big bedroom, had whispered secrets urgently like they might never get another chance to say everything they had to say.
He’d disappeared every so often to check in with Cole, but she’d tried to ignore it. He would have told her if anything had happened to Primo. Beyond that, she didn’t want to know what was going on in New York.
The helicopter had traveled to the outskirts of the city and was slowly descending over what looked like a massive villa surrounded by old fortress walls on one side, a forest of trees on the other. This must be Nico Vitale’s compound.
Damian had glossed over the details, telling her only that Vitale and his partners were trying to recruit him to take over the New York territory and that they had pledged to help him. She couldn’t help the fear that coursed though her body with the new information. If the Syndicate were even half as powerful as they had been and they were working with Damian, her brother was doomed. She forced herself to set it aside. Primo had rejected Damian’s offer of a buyout. He wouldn’t reconsider as a matter of pride.
She watched out the window as the building grew closer, two suited men standing to one side of the roof. She didn’t know much about Nico Vitale, only the little she’d overheard Primo and Malcolm say when they’d been doing their land-grab on the New York territory after the fall of the Syndicate. She was still trying to process how she’d gone from working in the community garden with Mrs. O’Rourke to being
flown into the private compound of a notorious mob boss in the company of the man who was her lover.
There was a slight jolt as the helicopter touched down and Damian reached over her to open the door. She was still surprised by the desire that rippled outward from his touch, something that happened whether he touched her face tenderly, traced a path down her body, or simply brushed up against her reaching for something. She wondered if it would ever fade.
Wondered if she’d have the chance to find out.
He crawled over her and leapt onto the concrete, then lifted her out of the helicopter. The rotors slowly powered down as they ducked under them and made their way toward the two men in suits.
Damian shook their hands but didn’t introduce himself, something that didn’t surprise Aria. Damian couldn’t guarantee his identity had been kept a secret from Vitale’s men, but he didn’t have to make it easy for them to spread the word if they chose to be disloyal.
The men led them down an open staircase with a sweeping view of the city, Saint Peter’s duomo shimmering under the sun. They emerged onto a sprawling stone courtyard with several seating areas, one of which was shaded from the afternoon sun by a pergola covered with grape vines. Beyond the courtyard a pool shimmered like a mirage.
“I see you’ve made it.”
She turned with Damian toward the sound of the voice and found herself looking at a tall, dark-haired man with the watchful eyes of a jungle cat. He was wearing gray trousers and a perfectly tailored white shirt. Next to him, a willowy blonde woman held an adorable little girl with a riot of curls.
“I did,” Damian said, shaking his hand. “Thanks for the lift.”
The other man turned to Aria. “You must be Aria Fiore.” He took her hand. “I’m Nico and this is my wife, Angel.”
His expression changed when he looked at his wife and daughter. It was only there for a split second, but his love for them was so naked, so raw, that Aria had the urge to look away, like she’d seen something she shouldn’t.
They introduced the little girl as Stella and Nico looked at Damian. “Why don’t we talk inside. I’m sure Angel can keep Aria company for a bit.”
“Let’s get out of this sun,” Angel said, taking her hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Aria looked back at Damian as Angel led her into the house. He smiled reassuringly, and she focused her attention on Angel as they stepped into the cool confines of a kitchen off the courtyard.
“I’m sorry to play the part of old-fashioned wife,” Angel said, setting the little girl down and opening a massive refrigerator. “You know how these men can be. It’s easier to let them think we’re playing along.”
There was a twinkle in her eye when she turned around with three glasses. She was one of those women who seemed lit from within either with wellness or happiness.
Maybe both.
“Lemonade?”
“Yes, please,” Aria said.
She got ice from the fridge and filled two glasses, stopping halfway to the top on the third glass, which she handed to Stella. The little girl tipped it to her mouth, most of her face disappearing behind the glass as she surveyed Aria with curious eyes that reminded her of Nico.
Angel bent down, kissed Stella’s forehead. “Why don’t you take your lemonade and read a book to your dolls, my darling?”
“Can we have cookies?” the little girl asked.
“Oh, now you’re just working me in front of company!” She walked to a pantry and reached inside, pulled out a glass jar with a lid and held it down for Stella. “I think two will be enough for you and the dolls to share, don’t you?”
Stella took two and walked to a little breakfast nook off the kitchen where a stack of books was spread out, three dolls propped up on the bench.
“Please, sit,” Angel said, gesturing to one of the chairs next to the counter. “I hope you don’t mind the informality. We don’t have company often these days.”
“Not at all.” Aria slid onto one of the chairs as she sipped from her glass. “This is good.”
“We grow the lemons here, if you can believe it,” Angel laughed.
Aria smiled. “I believe it.”
It seemed like a charmed existence — the villa in Rome, the obvious adoration with which Nico looked at his wife and daughter, the American woman who somehow ended up the wife of a notorious crime lord in Italy. She tried to remember what she’d heard about Angel, thought it had something to do with her father being a rival of Nico’s, but couldn’t quite pull up the details.
Angel traced a pattern on the counter, running a fingertip through the condensation from her glass. “I don’t mean to pry, but I think I know a little bit about where you’re coming from right now.”
“Is it that obvious?” Aria asked.
“We belong to a select club.” Angel touched her glass to Aria’s in a mock toast.
Aria raised an eyebrow. “Family members of organized crime?”
“For lack of a better word,” Angel said. “I didn’t know about my dad at all until I met Nico.”
“You didn’t know?” Aria asked. “Or you pretended not to know?”
“Believe it or not, I was really naive enough not to know,” she said. “I was shuffled off to boarding schools, had a different last name from my father… I thought he was a real estate developer.”
“I’m sure he was,” Aria said drily.
Angel laughed. “Exactly.”
“How did you deal with it when you found out?”
“Not well,” Angel said. “But by then I was already in deep with Nico, even if I didn’t know it yet. I just…” She took a deep breath. “I couldn’t be without him, you know?”
Aria nodded.
Angel shrugged. “So I found a way to live with it. We have a charitable foundation. I get a lot of satisfaction out of the work we do. I don’t try to pretend it makes everything else okay, but somehow it feels like I’m living the life I was meant to live.”
Aria looked around the sun-drenched kitchen, the smell of lemons and rosemary drifting in from the courtyard. “It looks like it worked out alright.”
“It wasn’t always that way,” Angel said. “But we got here.”
“Was it worth it?” Aria asked. “All the times when it wasn’t working out alright?”
Angel reached across the counter, rested her hand on Aria’s arm as she looked in her eyes. “Without question.”
30
Damian followed Nico down a long tiled hall open on one side to the courtyard where they’d arrived. He wasn’t entirely comfortable with having Aria out of his sight, but Angel Vitale seemed harmless enough, and Damian doubted Nico was going to make a hit on him in front of his own wife and child.
They’d passed several sets of glass doors before Nico turned into a room lined with bookshelves, several rugs covering the floor. An impressive desk dominated one side of the room next to several computer monitors and flat-screen TVs.
“Drink?” Nico asked, closing the doors and crossing the room to a bar.
“Whiskey,” Damian said, taking in the fine art on the wall mixed with crayon drawings he could only assume had been done by the little girl named Stella.
Nico handed him a glass and indicated the Chesterfield sofa at the center of the room. Damian sat and waited for Nico to do the same, his ankle crossed over one knee in a gesture of total relaxation Damian couldn’t mimic.
“I need some of your men,” Damian said.
“You have some of my men,” Nico said, taking a drink from his glass.
“I need some of your men here in Italy. Capri, to be exact.”
“I take it this has something to do with Aria Fiore.” There was no question in the statement.
“She’s not safe in New York, and I have to go back now that things are cooling off,” Damian said.
Nico tapped his finger against his glass. “Some would say trying to protect your enemy’s sister is the mark of a foolish man.”
&n
bsp; “Some would way falling in love with your enemy’s daughter is just as foolish.”
Nico’s eyes hardened. “Careful, Damian.”
Damian held his gaze, let the silence stretch between them. He had the sense that Nico was taking his measure. Had the sense Nico would favor boldness over ass-kissing.
Nico leaned forward, set his glass on the coffee table. “Does Fiore know you have his sister?”
“It’s possible,” Damian said. “Although I assume if he does he knows she’s with me voluntarily.”
“Can he track you?”
Damian shook his head. “But I don’t want to take any chances. Fiore is a loose cannon — and Malcolm Gatti is even more dangerous. My men are tied up in New York. Yours are headquartered here. I figured you might be able to spare a few.”
“And does Aria know she’ll be waiting here while you tend to business in New York?” Nico asked.
“Not yet,” Damian said.
Nico chuckled, shook his head.
“I must be missing the joke,” Damian said.
“You won’t be missing it for long.” Nico ran a hand over his face. “You think she’ll stay quietly while you deal with her brother?”
Damian was under no delusion that Aria wouldn’t kick up a fight, but taking her back to New York wasn’t an option. “That’s my problem.”
Nico nodded. “My men say your strategy was well executed. Minimal fallout with law enforcement, no loss of life, territory slowly coming under control.”
“That meshes with the reports I’m getting.”
“And have you come to a decision about our offer?” Nico asked.
“Not officially,” Damian said. “But let’s just say I’m beginning to see the merit in having additional resources.”
Nico stared at him for a long moment, then stood, walked over to his desk where he tapped on one of the computers.
“I can give you four men tomorrow morning,” Nico said. “You can have them for a week. After that, Aria Fiore is your problem, and I’ll make no more allowances for you — or for her.”
Fire with Fire (New York Syndicate Book 1) Page 15
