I dip two fingers inside of me to steal my wetness and drag them to my throbbing clit before returning my fingers inside of me. I thrust the fingers in and out of me, fucking them as I use the base of my palms to rub roughly at my clit.
I’ve read the novel enough to know what Remington says, “I picture you touching me like this almost every night. And in class. It’s all I ever think about.” The stolen words slip past my lips, barely distinguishable between breathy moans.
“I stand and walk toward him,” Niccolaio reads, betraying his eagerness by skipping to the part where I bare myself to him completely. “When I’m standing next to the table in front of him, I slide my underwear down my legs, letting them fall to the floor.”
I stand on shaky legs, approaching him slowly, and when I’m a foot away from him, I turn around and slide my panties down my legs, giving him a view of my bare ass before I straighten and step out of my panties.
I wish it was my name on his tongue, but instead, Niccolaio reads, “‘Remington,’ he warns, his voice still hard and gruff. It’s the same stern voice that tells me to stop touching myself. To go to the headmaster’s office. To behave. Only tonight, I will misbehave until I break him.
“Before he has the chance to object, I sit on the corner of the table, swinging one leg around him so he’s in between my thighs.”
When Niccolaio grabs my waist, helping me onto the kitchen counter, I falter, taken aback by the burning sensation his touch leaves on my body. I want him to touch me lower. To trail his hands down my waist and see how wet I am for himself.
My lips part, ready to beg him for his touch, but I don’t say a thing. I don’t want to break this seductive trance we’re in, where he isn’t the guy I’m supposed to hate, to stay away from, and I’m not the girl that conned my way into his life. So instead, I put my legs on either side of him, opening myself up in front of him like I’m serving myself up to him for dinner.
“I prop myself up on one elbow, while my other hand snakes its way back down. His eyes are glued to where my fingers slowly work their way in and out. In and out.”
I follow his directive before slipping a third finger into my pussy with ease, allowing the foreign sensation to build in me. I say the words before he does, meaning every single one of them, “I wonder what you taste like… Your lips. Your cock. Do you ever wonder what I taste like?”
“What do you think?” he says, and I wish to know if he means those words.
If he’s just saying them because they’re in the book or because he wants me as much as I want him—a lot. With shaky hands, I take the tablet away from him and set it behind me on the island, not wanting him to read the next scene. Because when he tastes me, I want to know if it’s because he wants to and not because it’s in a book.
I lean back onto my elbows, allowing my right hand to return to my pussy. Staring him right in the eye, I let out a long, soft moan, picturing his cock as I begin to finger fuck myself with renewed vigor.
“Niccolaio,” I moan out his name, so he knows it’s him and not Mr. James I’m thinking about when I bring myself even closer to an edge I’ve never before leapt off of.
I startle when he uses his knee to nudge my calf, spreading my legs wider for him. I press my leg harder against his, savoring the contact. I’m chanting his name, riding my fingers and rubbing my clit against the heel of my palm. Desperate for him, I lower my body, so my ass is only halfway on the island and my pussy is closer to his face.
And when I feel his breath travel across my pussy, caressing my clit with its warmth, I come hard, screaming his name out like a prayer and jerking so hard off the ledge that his hands reflexively reach out for my upper thighs to steady me. The contact only causes me to come harder, until my wetness is dripping past my lips and making a mess on the cold marble below me.
When I’m finally able to open my eyes again, I see him leaning forward. I tense, thinking he’s going to lick me down there, but instead I feel the coldness of the glass rim of his beer bottle swiping upward along the length of my pussy, collecting my wetness.
Sitting up, I watch with bated breath as he raises the bottle to his lips, my walls clenching in renewed arousal as his full lips make contact with the wet rim of the bottle. He looks me in the eyes, his gaze unwavering as he downs the rest of the beer, swiping his tongue around the rim when he’s done.
There’s a painful second when I wonder if he did that because of the book or because he wanted to taste me. But then, he leans forward against me—his clothed chest brushing against the hardened peaks of my nipples and the hardness of his massive cock pressed against my clit through the expensive fabric of his pants—and says into my ear, “The next time you serve yourself up to me like that, you won’t be thinking about a damn book. It’ll be my fucking orders you take. It’ll be my words that have you gushing onto my waiting fingers. It’ll be my cock pounding inside of your tight, wet pussy, not these pretty little fingers.”
Leaning back a little, he reaches for my hands, bunching them together and pressing a light kiss on the tips of each finger until he reaches the three that were inside of me. He inhales, groaning at the scent before brushing the residual wetness across his lips and briefly pressing them lightly against mine.
And then, not for the first time since I met him, the jerk steps away from me and leaves.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Dumbledore says people find
it far easier to forgive other for
being wrong than being right.
J.K. Rowling
“Hit me,” Jax says, his voice raspy from all of his muffled moaning and groaning.
About an hour ago, he agreed to shut up if I took the nectarine out of his mouth. He’s kept his word, and we’ve been playing blackjack ever since. Of course, his hands and legs are still bound by Niccolaio’s heavy duty rope, which makes playing… interesting.
It means that I’ve been able to see all of his cards as I handle them on his behalf and deal the cards to the both of us. To even out the advantage, I should be playing with both of my cards up instead of just one, but I’ve never been one to fight fairly.
My lips curve upwards as I deal another card to Jax. It’s a bust, causing him to groan. I lean back a little in my seat, disgusted by the radius of his odious breath. I make a mental reminder to ask Niccolaio to bring Jax a toothbrush.
Behind me, the tablet rings, indicating a call from Mina.
Jax’s eyes widen, and he pleads, “No, no, no, n—,” as I shove the nectarine back into his mouth.
I help him out of the chair and onto the floor in his designated corner. Sometime within the last week since Niccolaio invited me to Lucy’s wedding as his date, I insisted that he lay sheets down for Jax, and for some reason, he actually agreed with me.
Now, there’s a makeshift bed down there for Jax. I push him onto it, face him toward the wall for some extra privacy and hurry back to the tablet. Pressing the bright green button, I accept the call, smiling brightly as soon as I see Mina’s beautiful face.
“Hi, Minka!”
“Hey, pretty girl.” I look at the clock. “Shouldn’t you be in class?”
“It was a half day,” she says dismissively. “Guess what!” She’s visibly jumping in her seat, unable to contain her excitement.
I think about the last time she was this excited and guess, “It was lasagna day in the cafeteria?”
“No.”
“Fried chicken?”
“No, they don’t have fried food at school anymore.”
“Right. I forgot… There was a food fight?”
She frowns and sighs. “No… Why are all your guesses about food?”
“I’m hungry.”
“Then, eat!”
I flush, remembering what happened in the kitchen yesterday. Niccolaio still hasn’t returned since then, and I’m not sure if I should be worried or angry. Either way, I haven’t been able to bring myself to step into the kitchen, the memo
When I get up to eat, Mina shouts, “But not yet! Guess what!”
I sit back down. “Barbecue chicken pizz—”
“I get to play Juliet in the school play!”
I mash my teeth together, so my jaw doesn’t drop in shock. I’m not disillusioned. I realize that people can be cruel when it comes to kids in wheelchairs. Even theater teachers. And that’s why I know this may be a once in a lifetime opportunity given Mina’s condition.
“That’s… that’s amazing, Mina,” I say, and I mean it.
But inside, my heart is pounding, and my mind is running through a million possible scenarios that would allow me to attend her play without putting her in danger, all less likely than the last. Ten minutes ago, I didn’t mind hiding out in a safe house. In fact, I was thankful to be in this situation.
Growing up broke meant that, every second of every day, I wondered if I’d have a place to sleep, food to eat, and water to drink and clean myself with. It meant rationing a single scoop of peanut butter from the Dollar Store for breakfast and dinner so that Mina could have a decent, balanced meal.
Instant ramen was a luxury I was rarely able to afford, and the best meal I had each day was the free school lunches I more than qualified for. If there was food in the kitchen cupboards, I ate it all—even if it was expired, though that rarely happened, because I seldom had enough food to reach an expiration date.
But now?
If the pantry in the safe house isn’t fully stocked, one of the guards stops by to grocery shop for me and Niccolaio or drop off some takeout from restaurants that I would never be able to afford on my own. Heck, I haven’t even thought about a bill in weeks.
And the showers? I have to force myself to cut them short—not because I’m too broke to pay for the water bill, but because I care about the environment.
But I would give all of that up to go to Mina’s play.
There’s no way I’m missing out on this.
No matter what I have to do to get there.
“Can you go?” Mina asks me. “It’s three Saturdays from now! Please, please, please, please, please!”
I quickly do the math. By that time, I’ll have lived with Niccolaio for almost two months now. There has to be some progress by then.
“Of course, I will,” I promise.
Mina squeals in delight and quickly shouts her goodbye to me when one of her friends from the group home calls out her name in the background. After I hang up, there’s a large pit weighing heavily in my stomach. There’s no way I’m missing Mina’s play, but I have to consider the safety risks of attending.
“You’re not going out,” Niccolaio says from behind me.
I jump, startled. I didn’t even hear him come in, though that doesn’t surprise me, since he moves like a darn ghost. I didn’t hear him come in yesterday either, which led to things that must not be named. What does surprise me is that I haven’t seen him since he watched me come yesterday and left shortly after, and now that he’s here, he’s not even addressing what happened. I eye him up and down. He’s wearing another outfit, though, which tells me he went somewhere he could change.
Despite my curiosity, I don’t ask him where he went. I’m too focused on stifling the burn of my cheeks at the memory of what happened and the anger simmering inside me at being left without a word.
I’m usually never so bashful after a hookup. Then again, it doesn’t help that he left me sitting on the island, naked and wet, without even a goodbye. Plus, I’ve been with my fair share of men, but none of them have been like Niccolaio.
There’s always been an agenda for me, but yesterday was purely about pleasure.
My pleasure.
So, I suppose that makes this my first real morning after, as unconventional as it is. And that, along with my anger at being left, is why it takes some time for me to register his words, but when I finally do, my discomfiture and anger quickly turns into an all-encompassing fury. Who the heck does he think he is, bossing me around like that?
I scowl at him, and my voice is mocking when I say, “Oh, sorry, Dad. I must have missed it when you became my caretaker. Did you sign some adoption papers and everything? Am I grounded? Shall I call you Daddy, too?”
“Is that another fantasy of yours?” he asks, obviously referring to the student-teacher roleplay from yesterday. The edges of his lips tilt upward and his voice dips lower into a seductive lull. “You can call me Daddy whenever you want.”
I ignore his words and change the subject, because I pretty much asked for that. “You can’t tell me what to do. Don’t bother trying.”
He studies me, his intense eyes on my face, looking for I’m not sure what. “You’re free to do whatever you’d like. I’m not telling you what to do, Minka. I’m reminding you that your actions have risks and consequences.” When I open my mouth to speak, he cuts me off, “You know I’m right. What happens when you go to Mina, and you’re followed? Is it really worth it?”
He’s right, of course.
But that doesn’t mean I like what he’s saying.
Or that he’s the voice of reason right now.
I shouldn’t have made any promises to Mina, but this is huge. She’s auditioned for school plays several times before, but other than a few roles as an extra, she’s never had an opportunity like this.
If I’m not there for her when she needs me, then what’s the point of working so hard to be in her life?
But deep down, I know I can’t go.
Not unless something about our situation changes.
I run my fingers through my hair, trying to reign in my anger. It doesn’t work. “Gosh. How socially inept are you? It’s not okay for you to give me unsolicited advice on my personal life without an invitation. Do you see me sifting through your life, demanding to know why there’s a hit out on you?”
He’s quiet for a moment, his brown eyes glaring at me before they’re overcome with a look of resignation. “I killed someone I loved.”
“What?” I say, taken by surprise. “I-I… How does this end?” I ask him, finally settling on an appropriate reaction to such a revelation—one where I ignore what he just said because I’m not quite ready for him to confide in me. “How do we end the hit on you?”
For the first time since I met him, he looks uncomfortable. “We can’t.”
I shake my head adamantly. “No. There has to be a way.”
He sighs heavily, and I can almost picture the weight of the world on his shoulders. “There are two ways. One is impossible, and the other involves bloodshed.”
I think about it, a sick part of me entertaining the idea if it means I’d get to see Mina play Juliet. “Tell me about them.”
“The first way—the impossible way—is for the person who called the hit or someone higher than the person who called the hit to call it off.”
“Why is that impossible?”
“Because there’s no way the person who called the hit is going to call it off. And there’s no Andretti higher than the one who called the hit.”
My jaw drops. “How in the world did you piss off the head of the Andretti family? How do you even know the head of the Andretti family?”
From what I know about the Romano family, they’re a massive organization, and with massive organizations, the big fish don’t know the little fish. Just like I doubt the CEO of Starbucks knows all of his employees, I doubt the head of the Romano family knows all of his.
I don’t know much about the Andretti family, but I assume the same logic applies. And for some reason, I thought Niccolaio was small game. Yeah, he’s intimidating as heck and obviously wealthy enough to be at the top.
But at the same time… it just didn’t make sense in my head for him to be a big dog from the Andretti family. After all, he’s an Andretti in Romano territory. If he’s truly important, wouldn’t he be living in Andretti territory rather than on enemy turf?
“He’s my little brother.”
My jaw drops, and I reel at the information, which is a lot to take in. If the head of the Andretti family is Niccolaio’s little brother, then Niccolaio isn’t just affiliated with the mafia. He’s the mafia royalty. And something tells me that if whatever went down didn’t happen, I would be living with the head of the Andretti family. Not a disgraced heir-in-hiding. I can’t even begin to wrap my head around that, so I push the thought aside and focus on the other ridiculous implication of his statement.
“Your little brother called a hit on you?!” I nearly shout. “Wait… If he’s your younger brother, shouldn’t you outrank him? Can’t you call off the hit yourself?”
He sighs and takes a seat beside me on the couch. “He called a hit on me, because he hasn’t forgiven me for killing my uncle.”
At his words, I’m speechless. I can’t even imagine hurting a hair on Mina’s head, but if push came to shove and I was threatened, I suppose I wouldn’t think twice about hurting either one of my “parents.”
He continues, “And because I killed my uncle, I was excommunicated, which means I forfeited my spot as the future capo bastone—the underboss—and, eventually, when my dad died, the capo famiglia—the boss.”
“And your brother took your place,” I finish and hesitate before adding, “Why did you kill your uncle?”
“Because Asher was going to do it, and it wouldn’t have been a merciful death.”
My heart weeps for Niccolaio. I couldn’t even imagine being put in a situation where I have to kill Mina to protect her from a horrible death. A part of me feels like I’d be too weak to do it.
“Why would Asher want to kill your uncle?” I ask.
“Retaliation. Four days before Asher came to Florida, my dad ordered a hit on Vincent Romano. It failed, and the Romano family sent Asher to retaliate.”
“Why did he order a hit on Vincent Romano?”
“Because the Romanos and Andrettis were—are—at war.”
“Why?”
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