Remember When We

by Gray, Khardine

  Buried to the hilt I started moving inside her, loving the sight of her massive globes bouncing with each thrust.

  When she stretched her legs even further to accommodate my width and I started riding her, fucking her hard just the way she liked it. I was relentless ramming into her over and over again.

  Arching her hips, she met me thrust for thrust

  Soon we got lost together in the rhythm and the erotic sounds of our bodies slapping together. It echoed throughout the room. I was glad I got this room now, because it was designed for exactly this where she could scream as loud as she wanted and only I would hear her.

  Her orgasm took me. I felt the tension of her walls coil around my cock and then release. It made me go faster and faster. Moving harder, hammering into her, my shaft slicking in and out; then fuck, I couldn’t take anymore. Couldn’t control myself anymore even if I had wanted to I wouldn’t have been able to stop my release. The pleasure racked my body trapping me within the torment of ecstasy. I thundered into her, hot, virile, and raw, her body milking me clean as she screamed my name.

  I continued pumping until I had to slow my pace and stilled. Breathing hard I lowered next to her. I pulled her into my arms where she pressed her dainty hands on my chest and nestled her head there.

  Night time.

  Night.

  She had to go back to Matthew, but did that mean I had to say goodbye?

  “I want to come with you.”

  She lifted her head. “Do you?”

  “Lyssa, I have a son.” I still couldn’t get over it. I released her and straightened up. There was a lot to think about, but facts were facts so I would run with the truth. “That kid is mine, that means you’re mine too. I don’t expect to just step back into your life, but you fell for me once. I’ll die trying to make sure you fall for me again if I have to.”

  She looked at me like she couldn’t believe what I was saying. This was how it was going to be whether she fucking liked it or not.

  I wasn’t into this taking time shit. People who said that were wasting time, just watching life pass them by and never took risks or seized opportunities.

  There was a lot to me, but I just had to figure things out.

  She was my family, so I had to fucking figure things out and fast.

  “Do you mean it?” She asked in a small voice.

  “You know I don’t fuck around with things like that. I mean it Baby Doll. Just please don’t shut me out. Please let me be a part of your lives.” The thing was, I’d keep pushing even if she said no. Getting her to concede was just easier this way.

  I smiled and leaned down to kiss her when she nodded.

  She cupped my face. “What does this mean? You’re in Chicago and we’re here.”

  “No baby, you’re coming with me.”

  She gazed at me with disbelief. “Oh God.”

  “Lots for us to discuss though before that happens.”

  “Discuss?”

  “Tomorrow. I have to speak to both you and Paul.”

  Tomorrow, not tonight, because tonight was about us.

  I just wanted to have this time with her.

  Just enjoying her, even though we were leaving the room. It didn’t mean I couldn’t still enjoy her.

  I’d go back to her place, be there and tackle all the problems tomorrow.

  She moved up to kiss me again and savored it.

  I savored her.

  Chapter 13

  Lyssa

  “You’re looking at me weird,” Gio said planting a kiss on my forehead.

  He was borrowing my words from yesterday. Except I’d been completely absorbed in watching him while he watched me. It was nice and a little worrying all at the same time, because I didn’t know what he was thinking. I thought he might have been comparing me to his memory of my teenage body.

  While I definitely didn’t think I looked like some beauty now, I just didn’t get to take care of myself the way I used to. I didn’t have time for going to the gym or getting pampered in a salon or spa. I barely had time to eat these days. Back then no morning would pass me by without seeing me do at least fifty sit ups to keep my stomach flat and a hundred squats to keep my legs toned giving me a firm ass.

  Those types of things were so trivial now.

  “No, I’m just thinking.”

  He pulled me in for a quick kiss. I went back to staring at him as he shrugged into his t-shirt covering up that masterpiece body of his that looked even more defined than it had eight years ago.

  He had the same tattoos though. A dragon covered his whole back with the tail curving around to his stomach and then down by his happy trail. Several characters in Japanese were lining the tight ridges and valleys of his abs.

  All of them the same tattoos I’d drooled over,

  except one. There was a new one on his neck of a cross. I was going to ask about it, but something told me to wait.

  “What were you thinking about?” The corners of his lips turned up into a smooth sexy smile. “This morning or last night?” He rested his head against the counter with the granite worktop.

  The devil, he smiled at me knowing I wouldn’t have been able to get that out of my head.

  One last time at the hotel did indeed mean one last time, but only at the hotel. Not for the night.

  It was one in the morning when we got home and we headed straight to my room where we resumed the wild sex.

  It lasted all night.

  “I don’t think they heard us.” He added, a mischievous flicker in his cocky gaze. “Except maybe that time when you screamed, but I’m pretty sure I got that covered. A spider was in your room and you hate them.”

  “I do, but I’m just hoping no one heard me.” It was better to wish for that. On my sixteenth birthday Dad and Marshall rearranged the house so I could basically have the whole upper left side to myself.

  They wanted me to have my privacy. It was great, they just didn’t know they were opening the door for complete privacy and easy access for Gio to sneak into my room when everyone was asleep. All of the badness we got up to when we eventually got together was stuff I would never tell anyone. And honestly if I had a daughter, I would have gone crazy if I knew she was getting up to such craziness with a guy nine years older than her. It was funny that whole age thing didn’t feel like it even mattered now, but back then though it really did.

  “Matthew wouldn’t have known what we were getting up to. Your Dad though …” the wicked smile that washed over his face pulled at my insides in more ways than one.

  The most prominent feeling was that I noticed the tension when he spoke of Dad. It was understandable, even though he’d wanted to see him. Then tension was still there though. It just made me worry that and now the wicked look on his face.

  “My Dad what?” I raised a brow.

  “I couldn’t have given a shit if he heard us. Imagine it, him worried in his bed while I defile his little girl over, and over again. Fucking hell.” The deep chuckle that resonated from his chest seeped into me.

  I shook my head at him.

  “Gio Bianchi, you are so bad.” I swatted his hand away when he tried to reach for me. If he touched me again, we’d end up naked. Just like earlier it took us an hour to get down here. I wanted to be down here when Dad and Matthew woke up. I didn’t think it would be good for them to know Gio was in my room, or worse find me in bed with him.

  “Yes, Baby doll. I am a very bad man who can’t get enough of you. I haven’t even started to get nasty with you yet.”

  I looked at him, because this felt like a dream.

  The fact that we were standing together in the kitchen at my dad’s house didn’t feel real.

  We didn’t feel real and I didn’t realize how much I really loved and missed him. Not until he said he lied to me about not loving me and everything that came with that horrible conversation from years ago.

  Our breakup eight years ago.

  I didn’t realize how I would feel hearing that
it wasn’t true. It hit me and cut me deeply, because it signaled that everything I had gone through didn’t have to happen. It didn’t, none of it. I was so depressed when he left. Instead of being happy while pregnant like a lot of women I’d seen, I was the other kind who was depressed. It even took me awhile to bond with Matthew and when I finally did I felt guilty for not doing it sooner.

  We were standing here like it could have been years ago and we were trying to keep our relationship a secret.

  “Come here.” He crooked his finger beckoning me to come to him and I did. He caught my face and slanted his lips over mine kissing me.

  This part I wouldn’t have cared who saw. I loved the wildness we shared, but his kisses were always something more. It was like they held everything that he felt for me; everything and so much more.

  This was the same as how I felt years ago.

  It just felt like time sped up somewhat and I was here with all these options he’d laid out before me. All were amazing, but here I was too before him with more secrets and the mother of all problems.

  Frankie Santora.

  If I took him out of the equation, I might be able to just step back into the past with Gio and pick up where we left off. I might even be dancing about going to Chicago and finally having someone to take care of me and Matthew. I might even sing and do backflips, because that person was Gio. He was Matthew’s father, and not anyone else. I might be happy that I would soon give up this hard horrible life and honestly, I would be happy to see the last of Philly. I had never planned to live here forever. We lived in the suburbs, but the place held too many painful memories.

  Yes, I could have been happy about all of that, but I doubted I could contemplate happiness with the fucking two hundred grand debt over my head, the consequences of not paying it and Dad’s health.

  Dad …

  Shit, I had sensed tension when Gio spoke of Dad. I sensed it and he would most likely kill him if he found out the situation.

  I didn’t even know how I dealt with it up till now.

  My father getting into debt with the mob, me having to pay it off and if I didn’t I would have to give myself to the devil.

  The thing was if Gio knew about that, it would just be Dad who suffered his wrath.

  It all scared me.

  What scared me even more were all the decisions and questions.

  Go Chicago and what?

  What exactly was he in Chicago? What had he done for Frankie’s guys to know of him?

  What could it be that I hadn’t heard?

  I knew his father was in the Mafia. He’d told me long ago. He just never said too much. I knew that when Gio lived here he got up to all kinds of bad stuff; all sorts. Not drugs though, he didn’t do drugs like Marshall had. I’d loved him too much to ask the questions I should have asked back then.

  I pulled back a little, gazed into his eyes and ran my fingers down his neck over the tattoo. It was that mark that the guys had recognized.

  “It’s new. A cross on your neck?”

  Christians wore crosses to represent their devotion to Christ, some wore it to protect them from evil. Others saw it as a mark or some remembrance of death.

  Gio was no saint, and the look in his eyes told me it was the latter.

  “When Marshall died and I went back to Chicago, it was during a time when my friends and I had all seen the very ugly side of death. It’s always ugly, but worse when there’s no justice. It was five of us then. Now there’s only four. We got tattoos of crosses to remember our fallen ones, not just to remember them, but also to remember that we wanted justice in some form. Whether if it was to get vengeance, answers, or fulfill some personal mission. Claudius is the leader and the rest of us became the Four.” As he spoke I knew his was for Marshall. I knew who it was for and I was touched. He then gave me a pointed stare grabbing my attention even more, and as he looked at me it was almost like he could read my thoughts. “That was how those guys recognized me at the bar. They knew of me, because of the mark; the cross. I wear my cross for Marshall.”

  “Marshall.” I whispered. I thought it was beautiful that he’d done that.

  “Yeah. I can’t explain how I felt losing him Lyssa. I can’t even try. There are no words, because it doesn’t feel real. It happened so long ago and yet I still feel numb. I remember hearing the news from Paul and dropping the phone. It’s like I haven’t been the same guy since.”

  “Me too.” It was years late, but this was us getting the chance I’d always wanted to grieve together. “Me too.” I nodded.

  “A lot has happened since then. But I’m still that guy.”

  “Those men knew to be scared of you, and I … I never even thought about it” I breathed. Sure, I was busy, but I thought I’d know something like that. “They knew of you from the in between, but I … knew nothing.”

  “Different world Lyssa. Not a good one, and not bad either.” Something dark flashed in his eyes that almost scared me. “Dark, and not the kind of place a girl like you would know about.”

  “Chicago, is that what it’s like there?” Christ. He was talking about the mafia. “Are you a mobster Gio?”

  The darkness came back again. “Yes.”

  Something stilled inside me. I shouldn’t have been surprised and yet I was a little thrown off kilter. His father was one so why wouldn’t he be? All those years of going backwards and forwards, to and from Chicago was just that. It felt like it was prep for something big.

  “Don’t be scared of me Baby Doll, I won’t let anything happen to you. And don’t ask me if I haven’t thought of leaving. I already did. Still I would be sitting on my ass and watching shit happen to people I care about and not doing anything about it. Don’t ask me to be a cop either.” He chuckled. “I fucking hate cops.”

  “Can you, just be you?”

  “I definitely can be that baby. Just don’t confuse who I am and what I am. It’s not one and the same. Can you promise me that?”

  I nodded and I knew that it was like agreeing to the fact that I wanted to go there and have a life with him. Which was better, the life I had here? Or Chicago?

  The life I had here where I was under the thumb of Frankie Santora, capo to the Santora family. Here where I had to fight my own battles and not winning. Always struggling just to get by.

  I hated when that man touched me. Touching me like I was his and it made me sick.

  “I promise. I promise.” I nodded holding his gaze. I touched his face and kept my eyes trained on him. “Is Marshall why you came back?” I thought about what he had said and it was all sounding like that to me; for justice and vengeance. Did he come back for vengeance?

  It was in his eyes. Death was in his eyes.

  “Baby doll let’s save it for when your dad wakes. I appreciate you’ve been waiting. I would go nuts waiting, but this is something I need to get off my chest once. I don’t want to be worked up when my boy wakes up. I don’t want him to see me like that. Plus I want this.” He motioned from me to him and smoothed his hand across my hair and onto the back of my head. “I want this with you. I know you have questions and I owe you answers. Answers you won’t like but it has to be like that for a little longer. Do you think we could just be those people we were eight years ago? Like none of this stuff happened and we really were just sealing the gap?”

  I smiled at him wanting that too. “Yes. I want that.”

  It didn’t matter, nothing mattered. I decided that I could step over the years and fall back into the woman I was when he left.

  At the sound of shuffling feet on the stairs I kissed him, lingering on his lips for as long as I could until I heard footsteps at the door.

  Chapter 14

  Lyssa

  It was Matthew.

  We pulled apart before he opened the kitchen door and came in.

  Nerves filled me, because I didn’t know what I was going to tell him. This was a conversation I didn’t think we’d ever be having.

  The this is your
father conversation, I just always thought I’d have to make up something for when that time came.

  We’d had three Father’s Days where he was aware of what the day meant and even asked me if he had one. The one before last broke my heart when he thought he’d done something wrong and that was why he didn’t have a father. I told him that his father lived in a distant land far away and it was what I told Gio last night. I’d never thought I could be one of those women who told their kids that their father had died. I just thought it was best to leave the floor open by being vague until I had to be specific.

  It had also helped too with now, because we agreed we’d play it by ear with how today went. It should be me who would tell Matthew that Gio was his father. However, we thought we’d go with the flow and he wouldn’t find out today. Gio just wanted time with him. Time to interact with his son that was different to yesterday.

  Nerves had filled me as I watched the kitchen door open, until I saw the look on Matthew’s little face when he saw Gio.

  It was the same look he had at Christmas. I widened my eyes and wondered what had happened yesterday when they first met.

  “Hey buddy.” Gio beamed.

  “Oh my gosh, you came back.” Matthew said rushing up to us.

  “I did. Is that a good thing?” Gio tilted his head to the side and a lock of hair fell over his eyes in that bad boy James Dean way.

  “Yes. Oh please … please can I look at your motorcycle? It’s the most awesome thing ever.” Matthew was so excited his cheeks turned red. “Mom did you see it?”

  “I did?” There was no way I would tell him I’d gotten here on the back of that said bike. I had worried that my ass was exposed in my little mini skirt while Gio tore through the night like a demon without a helmet. He’d given me it to wear. “It’s pretty cool.”

  “Pretty cool? Come on Mom, it’s a Kawasaki Ninja H2R with four incline engines. Basically it’s the upgrade from the bike they used on Terminator.”