by Bethany-Kris
Valeria stiffened beside her. It took a few seconds before her friend finally answered with, “He didn’t know until I was already gone, I imagine. It wasn’t the country I was running from, Haven. That was kind of the point.”
Oh.
Then, her friend glanced over at her, smiling softly. “Enough about this. What are your plans for tonight since you’re lucky enough to get out of seeing that godawful movie again?”
Haven grinned. “I promised to go over and see Andino tonight at his place after I finish up the paperwork at the club.”
All it took was a mention of Andino, and Valeria’s amused expression was quick to flit away. Haven didn’t know when that had started—around the time she told her friend Andino’s last name, she supposed.
Valeria never outright said anything bad about Andino, or Haven’s involvement with him. In fact, she didn’t mind prying information out of Haven just for the hell of it, but she could tell something was off with her friend whenever he came up in their conversations. Something that made Valeria uncomfortable.
“You’re being careful, right?” Valeria asked.
“With Andino?” Haven laughed. “What’s to be careful about, Val? I would think if he meant to do me harm, it would have happened already.”
“No, I just mean … you do know what people say about the Marcello family, right? Their name is pretty well-known in New York.”
Haven’s amusement was quick to fade away, then, too. She did know what people said about the Marcellos—she didn’t have her head stuck in the sand, and she wasn’t deaf. She heard the whispers whenever Andino showed up at the club to see her.
There were stories.
People said things.
Rumors.
The Marcello family was not just an elite, rich family owning half of New York and living in beautiful homes on tucked away estates just outside of the city limits. No, apparently they were a much bigger, and darker, legacy hiding in plain sight.
Organized crime.
Mafia, people said.
She heard all the rumors.
She ignored them, too.
Haven didn’t know if they were true—did the mafia even exist anymore in their day and age?—but also, she wasn’t sure that she wanted to know the truth, either. All it would take was a simple internet search, she was sure of it, and she would have her answers. Yet, she stayed far away from that.
She refused to indulge people who talked, or even asked her about Andino. She didn’t really want to know if those were the kinds of secrets he was hiding from her. And if she didn’t ask, then she didn’t have to know. She wouldn’t have to deal with it.
Simple.
“Andino’s not like that,” Haven said to her friend.
Valeria openly frowned. “Maybe not with you. Sometimes, that’s the problem, Haven. You don’t see the bad shit until it’s too late, and you’re already too deep. Then, how are you supposed to get the fuck out and save your own skin?”
“Is that what happened to you?”
Her friend glanced away. “Something like that, yeah.”
“Sorry—I shouldn’t have asked that.”
“It’s all right.” Valeria blew out a steady stream of air, and searched for her daughter on the playground once more. Quickly, she found Maria, and relaxed again into the bench, but not by much. “Just … be careful, okay? We can’t always see the monsters lurking. They never look like monsters, Haven.”
“He’s not like that.”
Valeria glanced over at her. “But you know he’s something. You’ve said that to me yourself. You’ve said that you know he’s not all that he seems, and some of his business is a little sketchy. What kind of something is too much for you, Haven?”
That was a good question.
And not one she was ready to answer.
“Listen,” Valeria murmured, “I don’t mean to shit on your guy, okay. It’s just that I was lucky—my daughter was lucky, too. And if something puts our safety in jeopardy—something like him, even if you don’t think he’s that kind of bad news—then, I’m going to have to make a choice.”
“What kind of choice is that?”
“Well, that’s the thing. I won’t be able to tell you.” Valeria shrugged, and smiled kindly. “Luck tends to run out, then.”
Did it?
Haven wouldn’t know.
• • •
“Holy fuck, yeah.”
Haven grinned, but she wasn’t sure Andino could see it properly given her lips were wrapped around his dick. His fingers tightened in her hair just enough to make her release the hard suction she had on his length, so she could gasp in a sharp breath. His gaze darted down to find hers, and she swore she saw the promise of sin staring back at her.
“Get that mouth of yours back on my cock, Haven.”
“So demanding,” she whispered.
“You started this.”
She had, too.
Damn near from the second she walked into his house.
Frankly, Haven blamed Andino for that. How did he expect to just go around wearing three-piece suits all the time and looking like every woman’s walking wet dream? Did he think nobody wanted to fuck him when he looked like that?
She had news for him.
“Suck my dick,” he uttered again, “and I’ll give you something good, baby.”
Oh.
She so wanted to know what that would be.
Andino always kept his promises.
The second Haven took Andino back in her mouth again, his hips flexed upward hard. Hard, and soft, and hot on her tongue—his cock pulsed with each beat of his heart through the vein on the underside of his shaft.
He liked it best when she teased him.
Licked his shaft.
Used her teeth.
Took him slow.
He made the sexiest sounds when Haven sucked him hard, and used her hands to work him faster while her mouth kept him hot and wet. It was those sounds that were her undoing—those fucking sounds that made her wet when he reached behind her to stuff two fingers into her pussy while she sucked him off.
“Christ, just like that,” Andino groaned. “Fuck, you’re soaked, girl. You like sucking my dick, huh? Shit, yeah.”
She knew he was going to come as soon as his dick jerked in her mouth, and his balls became tight in her palm. His body tensed, and those hands in her hair pulled just a little bit harder before a thick moan fell from his lips.
Haven looked up just in time to watch the show.
And good God, what a beautiful show it was.
Andino’s head fell back, his teeth cut into his bottom lip, and his handsome features contorted in a mix of bliss and satisfaction. Nothing looked better—nothing sounded better than her name on his mouth when he came.
He spilled onto her tongue, and she swallowed back every last drop. He was probably still leaking a bit of come when he yanked her off his cock, and pulled her up for a bruising kiss. It was his kiss that drove her the craziest—she was sure of it.
A dominating, wanting kiss that took away her breath, and made her heart race. His kiss was enough to make her wet all over again, and ready to get on her knees to please him however the fuck he wanted her to.
“Roll over,” he grunted in her ear.
Haven was quick to comply with a breathless laugh. Those warm hands of his trailed down her spine, and over her ass before they grabbed onto the backs of her thighs roughly. She liked that bite of pain—it only added to the pleasure that was soon to come.
She waited for it.
Needed it.
Andino’s hesitation made Haven perk her head up from the mound of pillows on his bed. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, just—”
Ah, there it was.
She heard it.
In the background of their fun, someone was knocking on Andino’s door. Snaps had been put into the fenced backyard to play because he was nosy as hell every time they went into Andino’s bedroom, and no
body wanted a dog looking at them while they were rolling around naked in bed.
“Just ignore it,” Andino muttered, bending over her to kiss the back of her neck. “They’ll go away.”
She was willing to agree.
Except the knocking continued.
“It’s a little distracting,” she said.
Andino groaned, but not the good kind like before. No, this one was filled with his annoyance. “Don’t fucking move. Don’t get dressed. Don’t do anything but stay right where you are ready for me to crawl back between your thighs. Got it?”
Haven laughed. “Whatever you want, Andino.”
She was fine to stay in the bed and wait for him even as he took a minute to pull on something to make his lower half suitable for guests—although he didn’t bother with a shirt. She ogled him the entire time, even when he gave her a look for staring.
“What?” she asked innocently.
Andino laughed. “Nothing—remember what I said.”
“Stay here and be ready for you to fuck me.”
“I didn’t say it like that.”
“But?”
“Yes, do exactly that.”
He gave her a wink, and then he was gone. Haven rolled over to her back in the bed, and stared up at the ceiling as she listened to Andino’s quick footsteps pad down the stairs. With the house being as quiet as it was, she could hear practically everything.
Including the way he opened the front door with a nasty, “What the fuck, you can’t call or something?”
Haven stiffened when a female voice replied, “You … you fucking asshole.”
Yikes.
They had a deal—her and Andino. He wasn’t to be fucking anyone else, but she didn’t like the sound of a woman rushing into his home at night, and calling him names. That didn’t bode well at all for their agreement.
“Hey, don’t come here to my home calling me names, Catty,” Andino snapped. And then, a second later, Andino asked, “You told her, then?”
A new, male voice answered this time. “Guess so.”
“Don’t even pay him any attention. It’s me you need to be talking to, Andino,” the female said, her tone thick with anger. “How dare you?”
Yeah, okay …
Haven had been fine to wait in bed for Andino, but now not so much. She didn’t like the way the conversation was going downstairs, and if this was another woman who he was involved with, Haven wasn’t going to be quiet about it. Getting out the bed, she wrapped a sheet around her body to make herself less naked—nothing else, though. She headed into the hallway as the voices continued downstairs.
“I beg your pardon?” Andino asked.
“You know why I’m here. You know what you did … what you’ve been doing!”
“Catherine, it’s not even a big deal. So your parents know you’ve been hustling for me, whatever.”
Wait.
Haven’s footsteps hesitated at the top of the stairs.
Hustling?
Like … drugs?
Dealing drugs?
Andino continued on, and his voice brought her out of her thoughts again. “Who gives a shit? They clearly don’t. They just kept quiet because they wanted you to tell them. I went along with it, all right. That’s it.”
“No, that’s not it,” the woman hissed. “That’s not even close to being it, you prick.”
Yeah, she sounded pissed.
Haven was just … concerned.
About what she heard.
What it might mean.
What it did mean.
It was sadly amusing to her—and incredibly ironic, as she wasn’t so stupid that she couldn’t see that, too—how she had been entirely willing to overlook the fact that she knew Andino was probably involved with some sort of shady business. So much so, that she actively refused to seek out any information about him lest she stumble on something that would make her drop him like a hot rock.
Instead, it found her.
She wasn’t ready.
She didn’t want to know.
And yet, she knew something now.
“You’ve listened to me say over and over again how anxious it made me to even think my parents would find out that I was hustling drugs,” the woman—hadn’t he called her Catty?—said as Haven started coming down the stairs with soft footsteps. “You played along with that, Andino, you joked with me about it, and fed those fears to get a rise out of me. Or, that’s what I thought. Because we’re family, right, so you didn’t mean me any harm. You couldn’t, but you did. You did that shit not because you knew how I felt, but because of what you wanted.”
“I—”
“Money,” the woman barked. Haven came just far enough down the staircase that she caught sight of the beautiful, dark-haired woman thrusting her finger into Andino’s chest hard enough to make him back up a step or two. “That’s what this was about for you. Not the fact that telling me could have saved me a lot of unnecessary worrying and work hiding what I was doing all these years. No, you didn’t tell me because you liked the money I was making.”
“Exactly that,” Andino stated.
Haven, like the woman, stiffened and blinked.
He said it so coldly.
So … uncaringly.
That was not the Andino she knew.
The woman dropped her hand. “You’re not even ashamed of it.”
Andino shrugged. “Nope. You’re fucking predictable, Catherine. All you would need was the slightest idea that your daddy didn’t like what you were doing, and you would fuck off somewhere else. Or even better yet, you’d run to your mother and get in on her shit. Here’s the thing, I wasn’t letting that happen. So yeah, I played along. Yeah, I worked your fears a bit to make sure you kept your business with me separated far away from your parents. And fuck yeah, I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
Andino smirked, adding, “This is my crew, Catherine, and my money we’re talking about. It’s business. I supply you. I keep you going. You make me money. That’s how it works, and I want it to keep working. There’s nothing else to be said about it.”
Catherine nodded, and stepped back. “Well, fuck you, Andino. I’ve got news for you. I’ll never deal for you again. Not after this. I promise you that.”
“Catty, you don’t get it. That’s not how it works in this business. You don’t get to just drop the person that’s kept you above water and helped you make a name. You owe me for getting you where you are, sweetheart. You can be pissed off about it all you want. Still, when next month rolls around, make sure you’ve got my money, and you’re picking up your next package to run.”
“Hey,” the man who had been mostly quiet said as he stepped in between the woman and Andino. “If she’s done, man, then that’s the fucking end of it. Let her be done if that’s what she wants.”
“That’s not how it works, Cross, and you know it.”
“It’s going to work that way this time,” Cross replied.
“No, I don’t—”
Haven was done—she had enough. “Andino, is something wrong?”
At her quiet question, all eyes turned on her in an instant. Haven might have felt uncomfortable about it, but she was still reeling about the conversation and the things she just learned.
She was dating a drug dealer … at the least. She was fucking a man who handled drugs. Again, at the least, her mind taunted. Because it probably wasn’t only drugs, Haven knew. Andino was a Marcello, and even while she didn’t entertain the rumors and whispers, she still heard them.
She had been listening.
A little …
“Who are you?” Catherine asked, staring right at Haven.
Haven glanced at Andino, unsure if he wanted to take this one, or she should “Um …”
“None of your business,” Andino snapped at the woman before glancing back at her on the stairs. “Haven, head upstairs, all right?”
Haven scowled openly at Andino, hoping to all hell he could see just how pissed off she w
as in those seconds. She didn’t want to be dismissed—she also didn’t want to stand there when she had other things to handle, either. Flicking a hand over her shoulder, she headed back up the stairs even as the conversation continued behind her. She could hear their talk even when she disappeared back into the bedroom.
“Who was that?” Catherine asked.
“I told you—”
“Yeah, yeah, mind my business. Who is she?”
“A woman,” Andino snapped.
Haven dropped the sheet, and started gathering her clothes. She already had her shirt tossed over her head when she heard the next statement from downstairs.
“She just shows up to your place wearing a sheet or something? Since when did you start seeing someone?”
“My personal life is not up for discussion,” Andino said sharply. “There’s enough fucking people in this family who seem to think it is. Now, get the fuck out. The next time you come to my house, make sure you call first.”
“Fuck you,” Catherine spat.
“Remember what I said, too. This is business, Catherine. You don’t get to walk away from business just because you want to.”
“And you hear me—I won’t ever deal for you again, cousin.”
Cousin.
That should have made Haven feel better—in one way. At least, this … Catherine wasn’t some woman Andino was fucking, too.
Instead, she was just lost.
Confused.
Concerned.
Haven heard the front door slam shut with a loud bang, but she was already dressed and slipping back down the stairs before Andino had even turned around. Yeah, she was fast like that when she just needed to get the fuck out.
“Haven,” Andino murmured.
She shook her head, and passed him by as she moved down the last few steps. “I need to head out.”
“Haven, wait.”
“I heard everything, by the way. Sounds travel when a house is silent.”
She caught sight of his flinch out of the corner of her eye.
“Listen, it’s not a big deal.”
“It is kind of a big deal to me.” Pulling her ballet flats away from the wall, she slipped her feet into the shoes. “But at the moment, there’s nothing to talk about, Andino.”
“Then, why are you running out of here like—”
