by Sienna Mynx
“He is more than mean. For the people in my village he is like a god. Children pray to the saints for him to be blessed before they pray for their own famiglia’s well-being. Men offer their daughters to him no matter how young just to show honor and respect. The town officials all seek his council before any law or decision is passed.”
Harmony’s hand went to his back. She stepped closer to him, staring at the detailing in the sculpture. “And your mother? Is this her?”
“Yes, her name was Rena.”
“Was?”
“She died giving birth to Antonio.”
“Must have been hard losing her?”
He gave a single nod. “I remember the peaceful smile on her face when we buried her. She was happy to be free of him.”
“That’s awful. Why is your father so important?”
“He just is, and so was his father and his father before him. He owns the land, the creeks, the air everyone breathes. But he doesn’t own me.” Romano stepped away. He set the lantern down on the tiny wood dresser. She walked up to him and put her arms around his waist blocking his ability to turn. Her hands went up his chest with her palms flat. She nuzzled her nose to the center of his spine and it felt heavenly. Romano closed his eyes thankful for the serenity he found in her embrace. The intimacy surprised him. Yes, he’d made love to her body, but she never willingly touched him.
“You are no different than most men, full of regret and pride, but unable to see your blessings.”
“I’ve never been blessed.”
“Not true. You’re alive, you survived whatever happened with you and your father and started again. You found a life and name of your own. You didn’t do these things alone. I think it’s courageous.”
“I’m no saint Songbird.”
“Well, maybe not. But you’re no devil either Vinnie Romano.” She pressed her face to his back. He stood silent for a minute staring through another sculpture, one he did of Antonio when he was a small boy. She withdrew and the separation was a disappointment. “What was that for? The hug?” he asked casting his gaze back at her from over his shoulder.
Again she smiled. “Because sometimes a girl needs a hug.”
“I can take you up to the main house. You’ll be more comfortable there, more rooms and space, until we work our agreement out.”
Harmony shrugged. “I kind of like it in here.” She spun then pointed at the small carving. “What is that, a schoolhouse or church?”
“Schoolhouse.” Romano nodded. “We all attended together, me, Antonio, and then my mother. She wanted to learn to read and write her name. That was until my father discovered she had been and was angered. The school was burned to the ground.”
“Jeesh. Why would he be angry that she wanted to be educated?”
Romano yawned. “I don’t remember. Look Doll, I’m tired, you have to be. Like I said, let’s go to the main house. Do you have something to change into?” he swept his gaze over her ripped ruby red dress. Though she zipped it up in the back, it hung on her now like a rag with the bodice stretched revealing more of her bosom, and the split to her right torn all the way up to the bend of her hip. He didn’t want to march her up through the fields and his men to see her disheveled state. Hell he didn’t want any man looking upon her treasures, ever again.
“Can we stay here? Tonight. This room?”
“Why?” he struggled to keep the discomfort from his voice.
She didn’t flinch. She walked over to the bed that slept two barely, “Because I’m comfortable here, and so are you. If I have to stay out in the woods with a bunch of mob boys I’d prefer to do it in a place they can’t reach me.”
“You think you’re safe with me?” Romano smirked.
Harmony let go a sweet peal of laughter. “I think this is the one room none of those bad boys come into. So yes, I’m safe.”
“I wouldn’t hurt you Harmony. You do believe me, don’t you?”
She blinked and didn’t answer. He understood her reluctance to accept his good intentions. At best they were half-ass to this point. His promise to her was true. Dame had a way of making him at ease. He’d never shared the story of his parents with a female. Annie though a sweet tempered woman, preferred the city and rarely visited.
“This room is you Vinnie. I’d like to know a little more about you.”
“And why is that?” he pressed, his gaze narrowing her into his single line of vision.
Harmony rose again. She batted her lashes at him and he knew he was in trouble. The tables had turned. He felt vulnerable, trapped by the gleam in her eyes and the sexy curve of her smile. She slowly lowered the zipper to let the dress drop away. She stood before him in her stocking and round toe shoes. The melting softness of her body was evident in the golden brown flawless skin covering her flat tummy, round hips, thick thighs and slender legs. Her bush lay over her sex like black velvet. Her up tilted breasts were absent of age, or the weight of suckling babies, and were large enough to fill his hands.
She extended her arm with an upward turned palm. “You’re not going to leave me here by myself are ya?”
His lips drew away from his teeth in a tight smile as he approached her. His hand cupped her gently behind the neck and her lashes lowered until her eyes closed. “Are you playing with me Songbird?”
She nodded slowly and breathed lightly through her soft lips. “Maybe.”
“Before the night is over your answer will be yes.” He dropped her back to the bed. Memories of home, good and bad, would normally render him incapable of the emotions she drove through him now. Tonight he felt charged, exhilarated, a bit of happiness to have her so willing to be his without his threat of harming her brother. Yes, they had a bargain. Her body and a bit of her soul for her brother’s life was fair trade according to her, for him he’d need more, much more.
The tension drained from his body as he eased over her. He lifted on his elbow, positioned with his erection pressed into the mattress and her thighs closed around his hips. With his free hand, he framed her face, and placed his thumb under her jaw while his fingers pressed to her cheek. “I’m having a hard time keeping things straight Doll. You… you do this to me.”
Her dark lashes lowered but her gaze never broke from his.
“The first moment I heard you sing I thought of home, what I’ve lost, what I miss.”
“Why? There are other singers, other girls.”
Why indeed? He refused to voice the answer. He’d had another woman, a lovely woman, and when she rejected him it did burn in his gut. But in his most intimate moments with Annie he never felt the fire that he felt through his loins whenever Harmony was near. He never felt free to be who he was with anyone but his Songbird tonight. The truth was, he never felt much of anything but bitter regrets until she slipped in his arms.
“Let’s just say you’re the tops kid.”
She ran her hands up and down his arms. He winced at the sting slicking up to his left shoulder.
“Does it hurt?” she asked touching him there.
“It doesn’t hurt anymore.” He answered. His head lowered to press his lips against hers. He found them soft and giving, molding to his. She moaned softly, her hands reaching between them to lower his zipper and push his trousers down off his hips. Romano didn’t have the patience to fully undress. He needed to be in her now. She was so warm and soft beneath him. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to suck her nipples or lick her pussy dry. He reached and grabbed his shaft giving it a long stroke between them while devouring her mouth with a hungry kiss. He centered the head of his cock on her slick entrance. He found her opening tight with heat and nicely swollen before he took the plunge.
Harmony released a muffled cry into his mouth and he kissed her harder. She clutched his undershirt drawing it up higher across his back as he flexed to drive himself deeper, again and again. His arousal sharpened under the clenching constricting spasms of her inner walls.
The currents of pleasure were so strong he
cursed in his language and shuddered. The slippery heat of her channel caused him to sink deeper and he felt his cock expand until the skin stretched and his balls were hard as stones. She swirled her hips beneath him and clung to him refusing any release. Romano dropped his face in her neck and pumped his clenched ass cheeks harder and harder until he was groaning and jerking his seed into her. She cried out in that beautiful voice and they were both done.
For a long breathless moment they couldn’t speak, and even when he managed to he couldn’t bring himself to move off her. Romano blinked, beads of sweat clinging to his lashes from his eyes. She grabbed both sides of his face and forced him to look at her. There was no judgment, and no pity in her expression. Only the quietly intense stare of hers that captured him from day one. Her legs cinched higher around his waist and kept his waning erection firmly planted in her core. “You are a strange man Vinnie Romano.” She drew his face down to hers and kissed him. He knew it then. He knew the truth one hundred percent. He was lost, and it was all for a dame named Harmony.
***
“What is it?” Willie shot up from his cot. “I know something is going on. Where have you been?”
“Shhh, keep your voice down. The nuns will hear you.”
“I could hear people on the streets.” Willie pointed to the windows above them that reached the sidewalks before St. Mary’s. “They’re saying there’s going to be a war. And then you didn’t show today, I got worried. What the hell is going on?”
“He took her, he has your sister.”
The news hit him like a brick to his heart. The mere idea of his sister being dragged into his mess shattered his control. He lunged and swung, connecting his fist with the target. His companion fell back a bit stunned, but recovered enough for the next blow. He grabbed Willie’s arm and pinned it behind his back. Willie roared in pain and anger until his attacker’s forearm went chokingly tight around his throat.
“Calm down! Now!”
He nodded he would. After a painful second he was thrown free and landed on his hands and knees. He quickly rose and turned on the man equal to him in height. His hands clenched to fists but he didn’t try another swing at the bastard. “You swore she would not be part of this. You swore it! You said we’d take down Collins and make him pay for Lewis’s death. Now he has my sister!”
“Not Collins. Vinnie took her.”
“No. No fucking way. That’s not what we agreed…”
“I’ll get her away from him.” The shadow advanced on him, covering him in the dimly lit basement. “I’ll make sure we get everything we want, revenge, justice, power. You have to trust me to let it play out. Mickey Collins and Vinnie will kill each other. And when it’s done we’re free.”
The soft kiss of his lover’s lips to his cheek did calm him. Willie pushed at his chest forcing him away. “Don’t do that. It’s sacrilegious. We’re in a church.”
His lover gripped his groin and Willie blushed at the erection he felt forming. “You’re mine. Nothing we do can be wrong…”
Seven
Lies and Broken Promises…
Harmony turned over to her side and found herself face to face with a sleeping Vinnie Romano. Soft breath escaped his nostrils fanning her face. He slept with his leg thrown across her thigh. She stared up at him in the pitch-black darkness. The lantern had long gone out. But even in the shadows she could see his handsome features. The man was full of surprises. She didn’t think Lewis had one single mystery to him. His needs were simple, and his dreams big, but there was never anything as mysterious and complicated as the man before her now. Vinnie Romano was unlike anyone she’d ever known. And she could feel her heart softening toward him.
She closed her eyes and tried not to think of Willie. But alone in her new lover’s arms the sadness crept in. What had her brother done to these men? Why would he be so foolish? Lewis had taught him better. Now they were in hell and she had no real answers. Willie was always secretive. But he was her brother and she needed him. Maybe the bond between her and Vinnie would help his plight. Maybe?
“Stay awake.” The low growling texture of his voice made her stomach flutter. He hooked his arm around her waist and pulled her closer so that their noses touched. She blinked in the darkness and focused on what she could see of his face.
“I thought you were asleep.” Harmony whispered.
“Why aren’t you?” He whispered back.
“I don’t know.”
“Mmm, come closer.”
She eased her arms around his waist and he lowered his leg from her thigh, his palm slid down the curve of her hip and lifted her leg to bring over his. The maneuver allowed his erection to slip between the folds of her sex.
“Talk to me Harmony. I love the sound of your voice.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” She gave a nervous chuckle, then soft sigh when the thick head of his shaft nudged her and nearly slipped in.
“You do know. I want to know why you would risk your life, everything for a brother who ran from you without a word.”
The answer was something she hadn’t considered. Why did she do any of the things she’d done since Grams died? “I love him, he my blood. It’s that simple.”
“It can be Songbird. A woman’s love flows deeper than what we men can understand. Isn’t that so?” He brushed his knuckles across her face. Her sight adjusted to the cave black darkness and saw more of him. A kiss landed on her nose and it was so comforting.
She cleared her throat. “Yeah. I suppose.”
“Where’s your fella? Someone as beautiful as you shouldn’t be alone. Do you have a man?”
“Not anymore.” Harmony said, her voice cracking with emotion. It felt as if he were peeling away skin from her bones. She didn’t want to talk about her feelings, or her loneliness. He kept her close.
“What happened to him? The guy, you said his name was Lewis.”
“Why do you think something happened to him?” she asked softly.
He brushed his lips across hers. “I get the feeling it had to. I know I would have never gotten this close to you if any man loving you were alive.”
Was he serious? Did he mean the sweet words he said in the dark? She wished she could see more of his eyes to be sure. Harmony’s gaze fell then her lids closed. Her voice was tight when she spoke of Lewis. “He was murdered. I don’t know why or by whom. The night he died Willie come to get me out of bed. He was in tears. He said someone had shot him. He’d dragged Lewis to our steps but couldn’t bring him no further. I got downstairs and…” Tears filled her eyes, and she didn’t bother to keep a few from falling. “I got downstairs and he was bleeding so bad. There was blood everywhere. He… he told me he was sorry. He broke his promise. He said he loved me. And he died.”
Romano pulled her head down to his chest and held her. She released her grief and sadness in a staggered sob that pitched high and fell to a low whimper when she was all cried out. She hadn’t cried since the night she washed blood from her clothes and fingernails as they carried a dead Lewis away. She saved her tears and did what was expected of her. Even when Willie disappeared she didn’t cry. Tears never gave her comfort until now.
He stroked the back of her head and held her through the last of it. “What are we doing? Why did you ask me about Lewis?” She wanted to put all the pieces together regarding the tough-guy who many men feared, created life-like sculptures from wood when he was alone, and now had started seeking the embrace of a colored woman. Why? Ceaseless inward questions hammered at her.
Two fingers pinched her chin and lifted her face. In the darkness she could see the earnestness in his eyes. He rolled on top of her. She felt his hand slip away to take hold of her wrists and pin them above her head. She could sense the shadow of him hovering close. “Do you have anyone else in the world? A mother, father? Anyone besides your brother?”
“No,” she said.
“Is it wrong of me to say I’d be jealous if you did?”
“Wrong?
Yes. Why would you be jealous?”
“Because. The idea of you belonging to any man makes me that way.”
“That makes no sense, we… we aren’t anything, really.”
“Your happiness is a new priority for me Doll. I care about Harmony Jones… I’ve had this thing for…you… you make me…” Romano dropped his forehead to hers and started to breathe shallowly.
She waited.
When he couldn’t finish and his grip tightened on her wrist revealing his restraint she moved under him to soften his heart again. Passion for him radiated from the soft core of her body where his erection once again pressed down. She felt the slight shudder of his chest pressed to hers. He had said as much as he could. Like most men, pride cometh before the fall. “You don’t owe me anything, Vinnie. I’m here now, and right where I want to be. You hear me? This here is a bargain between us. I know the rules. I’m okay with them.”
