Eleni
The cool air whisks over my soaked pussy as I wait for Dante to return. During our last stay upstate, he showed me the wall of toys he keeps in the basement, and we tried out a few. Several of them still scare me, but I can take whatever he gives me tonight. I think.
The door opens and closes behind me.
“Good girl,” Dante purrs.
My body sparkles with pleasure, and I sink deeper into the space where I want nothing more than to make him smile.
He swipes a finger between my legs, gathering the wetness there, and I groan.
“Not yet.” He circles around to where I can see him. “You haven’t earned that.”
I shake my head. No, I haven’t. But I have earned dragging my gaze over his bare body. He stripped somewhere between the bathroom and here, exposing his taut stomach and the snarl of dark hair around his lengthening cock. I lick my lips. He hasn’t abandoned that cool ai
DanteThe next morning, I stir a pan of scrambled eggs—the only breakfast I ever learned how to make on the shitty hot plate I had in my dorm at Wagner—and glance over my shoulder at Eleni. She sits at the island behind me, massaging her cheeks with one hand.“What are you doing?” I ask.She blushes just a little and tucks her hand around the cup of coffee she poured herself from the pot she insisted on making first. “Nothing?”I shake my head. “I thought you were listening now.”Her blush deepens, and she shifts in her seat like she’s trying to keep weight off the flogger marks I left on her ass last night. My cock responds instantly. Maybe we’ll have a little breakfast to get our strength back and head right back upstairs.“It’s lame but”—she shrugs—“my cheeks hurt because I’ve been smiling so much.”My chest squ
EleniA few days later, I’m lazing in front of the TV and wondering when Dante’s going to get home. He’s been out a lot lately, combing the streets for any sign of Luca. According to him, his plan—which he doesn’t want to tell me about yet, in case I think I can do it my own way—works best if he already knows where Luca is. I sigh and change the channel. Without studying to occupy me, I’ve been alternating between channel-surfing and visiting Seb in the “doctor’s office” behind the hair salon a few blocks away. He’s getting better, but he broke a few ribs, so the doctor, a nice man who goes by the name Dr. Domino, won’t let him go yet. Apparently, my visits are the highlights of his days, because everybody else is too busy to check in. Though he’s also dreading getting out because his worried nonna is going to stuff him so full of food that he starts bleeding marinara.The door
EleniDante is all around me, all over me, even dangling from my neck in the form of this new tracker, and I melt into him. His breath is hot on my neck, and his fingers are hard on my nipple, under my shirt and bra.“I’m going to stop now,” he says, “and we’re going to watch some TV. A good girl wouldn’t complain. And she certainly wouldn’t try to do anything to change my mind. Do you understand?”I nod. I just have to prove I can resist him. He releases my breast, pulls his hand out of my shirt, and turns on the TV. I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. He’s breathing heavily, and his cock already tents his pants a little. Maybe this isn’t just about me. Maybe it’s a contest of wills. And that, I can win, even if Dante’s supposed to be the one in charge.I glance up at the motionless fan overhead. “It’s broken.”“Really?” Dan
Dante“What do you think?” Eleni twirls, showing off the suit she picked out for the occasion.I smile from my spot on her bed. “Perfect.”And it is. I figured, since we couldn’t do anything real about Luca yet, El could be let in on a little of the planning. After the necklace, and our rendezvous on the couch, it was harder to forget how strong she was. And she threatened to start following me in the car I bought her. So I set up a face-to-face with Thano to get them officially acquainted, and Eleni went online shopping in secret, leading to the all-black suit she’s sporting now. She’s obviously teasing me, but she looks fucking incredible. The knee-length skirt fit her like a glove, and she’s swapped out the tie I would wear for some tight, black necklace that highlights the line of her throat. She’s pulled her hair up in a bun, leaving only a few curls loose to frame her face, and the heels s
EleniI blink awake to an ache in the back of my head so intense that, for a moment, I expect to see a cheap couch and smell gas like I did in the basement of Frank Lombardi’s garage. But the surface underneath me is cheap vinyl, like a couch from the fifties, and I smell…salt? I run my hand over the back of my head and find a huge bump.Wait, I run my hand over my head? I’m not restrained. For a split second, I let myself hope I missed the fight while unconscious, that I’m already in some new safe house of Dante’s. I open my eyes a crack and peek around.No such luck. Men with guns parade through the warehouse around me. I lay on exactly the sort of couch I was picturing, which happens to be blue, against one wall. Most of the men wear T-shirts from the garage and barely ever stop touching their guns. My heart pounds. Luca has me. He…what, convinced Thano to turn on Dante? The mafia politics are too hard to fo
EleniThe door slams open, and I startle out of the fetal position I’ve been curled in since Luca left. I haven’t even buttoned my blouse.Luca sighs. “Well, I was really hoping to get a look at that pussy of yours, but your tits will have to do.”I stare up at him blankly. Don’t say anything that could hurt Mama. He sneers at me, his lower lip still matted with blood. The rage I’m tamping down flares gleefully when I see that.He rolls his eyes and hauls me to my feet by one arm. Thankfully, he doesn’t grab the one attached to the hand he stepped on. Small miracles.The men whistle and leer as he leads me through the warehouse again, to a different section. I keep my gaze on the ground as much as I can. For Mama’s sake, I do not memorize these men’s faces so I could destroy them later. I know how to behave.But when Luca leads me to a clearing in the high shelves, and I see Dante, Tony, and a bruised Seb, everything else falls away. He found me, just like I knew he would. And he’s sa
DanteMy bullet pings off a metal shelf as Luca Lombardi ducks at the last moment, dragging El down with him. She yelps and tries to disentangle his fingers from her hair. My vision narrows to her, half-dressed on this filthy warehouse floor. She looks so vulnerable, nothing like the iron woman who tried to stand up to him moments ago. How dare he expose her like that, how dare he grope her with his fucking gun like a piece of meat, how dare he threaten—Tony drags me down behind a table I didn’t realize he flipped over for cover. “Head in the game, asshole.”“Fuck off.” I reload my gun. I don’t want to miss my shot on Luca because I emptied a chamber into a fucking shelf.Tony slams me against the table. “Head in the game, or I’m dragging your ass outside and chaining you to the car until it’s over.”I grit my teeth and try to swallow down enough of the white-hot anger that filled me and made me fire that first shot. I can’t save El if I’m dead. There’s no life to share with her if I
EleniThe world slows around me. Gravel crunches under my bare feet. Oh, god, how has this happened? Everything hurts as I sprint across the warehouse parking lot to where Dante fell.Gouts of crimson blood stains the rocks in front of him. My heart hammers, drowning out voices and gunfire and anything else. I drop to my knees and skid the rest of the distance, barely noticing the pain as my skin shreds. His eyelids flutter. Not dead. Yet.“Eleni.” He reaches for me with a weak smile.My heart is in my throat. I run my hands over his chest, not bothering to be careful, until I find a patch of his suit soaked through with blood. Right in the middle of his chest. Tears fill my eyes, magnifying the shine on something a bit behind him.His gun.Luca begins laughing. “Looks like we’ve got more than one night to enjoy, Ellie.”My feet move before I know what’s going on. All I know is that Luca has taken too much from me. I’m tired of hiding, of waiting, of preparing. I snatch Dante’s gun ou
*Heidi*Two months later…Cal’s recovery wasn’t fast, but he did heal faster than the doctor thought he would. A couple of days after he was shot, he was allowed to be moved back to his apartment, which made it easier for me to take care of him. His place is close to everything, and I could come and go to grab groceries and also visit my grandparents every once in a while.Eventually, I had to tell them about Cal and that we were not only in love, but getting married, and they made me promise I’d take Cal to visit them. But Cal offered something else instead, and we all ended up going on a small trip so they could get to know each other.Needless to say, Grandma and Grandpa love him. They couldn’t stop smiling and were elated that I finally had someone to share my life with. I guess this is what they wanted the most for me.Adjusting to Cal’s apartment was also a struggle at first. I had few things to take with me since I didn’t buy a lot after the fire, but he basically forced me to
*Cal*Hearing those words from Heidi makes me wonder if I have truly died. Maybe all of this is a figment of my imagination. Maybe God is allowing me to live one last happy moment before I get to suffer for eternity in Hell.But there’s no way this perfect woman in front of me is an illusion. She looks so real. Her eyes–her beautiful eyes that I love so much–are staring at me so intently and expectantly that I couldn’t look away even if I wanted to.And she loves me.She’s willing to turn her back on everything she believes in to be with me. This is much more than I deserve. So much more.I realize I don’t want a day to go by that I don’t get to hear those words come out of her mouth.I want to spend every day telling her how much I love her, too. I don’t deserve her, but it will become my life’s mission to make sure she doesn’t regret her choice, that I shower her with love and attention, and that she knows how much she means to me. I am far from perfect, but I’ll try my best to be f
*Cal*My ears pick up murmurs around me, but I can’t force myself to open my eyes. My entire body is sore, and the pain in my abdomen feels like someone is pressing and squeezing all of my organs together. It’s hard to breathe, but I force my lungs to receive as much air as I can inhale. My back hurts, so I try to adjust myself on what feels like a bed, or maybe a couch, but the smallest movement makes me grunt with pain.“Easy there, boss. You have a hole in your stomach,” someone warns, their voice distant but somewhat playful. I groan again, frustrated at not being able to move. My eyelids seem to weigh a ton, but I need to see what’s happening around me. I need to know where I am and why. Images of the confrontation in my bar come back to me in snippets. I don’t remember the details about what happened, especially how I got shot, but I do remember seeing Milo. I have no idea how much time has passed, and I also don’t know the outcome of the fight, so I need to make sure my men a
*Heidi*I step out of the shower and put on a set of comfortable sweats. The weather in New York City has been merciless lately, and even inside the apartment, I can still feel the cold wind blowing against the windows outside, seeping through cracks in the apartment I can’t see.I blow dry my hair in an attempt to warm myself, and that’s why I don’t hear my phone ringing the first two times. It’s only when I decide to order something to eat since I don’t feel like cooking anything that I notice I missed two calls.Before I grab the phone to check who it is that called me, I can’t stop myself from hoping it was Cal. But when I spot the unknown number, I roll my eyes. Of course he wouldn’t call me. I ended that. He made it pretty clear that he doesn’t intend to change his lifestyle, and since I’m not willing to give up on my principles either, I won’t hear from him again. I should make peace with that instead of keeping my hopes up.I’m about to put my phone down again, not really int
*Cal*Leaving the basement and making sure at least one of my men stays behind to watch the cartel assholes we have tied inside, I rush upstairs with Tony, Sam, and Hunter with the rest of my men on my tail.Even though the noises upstairs are muffed by closed doors and thick walls, I don’t like what I hear as I approach the bar. Frantic screams and intermittent gunfire can never be a good thing.“Fuck,” I hiss to myself. “They seem to be heavily armed,” I inform my men over my shoulder. “Are you guys loaded?”“I have a couple of guns with me. Armando is outside with my men,” Tony informs me. I don’t want to think about the possible scenarios we’re about to encounter. The rest of my men are also upstairs, but if they were caught off guard–even though I had them keeping a close eye out for any strange movement–things might be ugly.“I’ll grab a shotgun from the safe,” Hunter tells me. “Do you need me to get you anything, Boss?”“No, I have my pistol on me,” I reply through gritted tee
*Heidi*Going after Cal was a mistake. I knew it would be, but I still did it anyway.What was I thinking? What was I even expecting to happen? That if I came and asked him to drop his entire life and career for me and he’d do it?Ha! What a joke.Even if I mean as much to him as he says I do, giving up something you’ve been building your whole life is hard. I should know better than that. I wouldn’t give up on my life and dreams either if he asked me to. So, why am I feeling so heartbroken? Why do I feel so sad, so left out?I storm out of his office with tears blurring my vision. His scent is all over me, and my lips are still tingling from our kisses. No matter how much I want to turn back and run into his arms, I know I can’t do it. This is it. This was the last straw, the confirmation I needed that we’re indeed over.For good.“Miss Heidi, is everything okay?” someone asked from behind me as I walked out of the bar. It was rude on my part to ignore whoever it was, but I couldn’
*Cal*Tony takes a little longer than I’d like with the cartel bastards the Saints captured. By the time his men haul in two guys who are, I’d say, unrecognizable, I’m basically digging a hole in the floor with all my anticipation and agitation, having spent the last hour pacing.The guy I cuffed in the basement looks up from his spot in the corner, and his eyes widen when he sees two more of his people have also been taken by us. He doesn’t have any strength in him to say anything, but he’s been pretty quiet anyway compared to some of the smart-mouthed assholes I’ve beaten the shit out before.“Hey,” Tony greets me, walking behind his guys who are now restraining the newly kidnapped men to chairs, away from the first one. “Brought you a little present.”I grunt. “After the day I just had, you have no idea how glad I am to see them,” I tell him, darting a deathly glance to the newcomers and cracking my knuckles.“I owe you already. I’m glad I could return the favor for once,” Tony say
*Cal*I consider going after Heidi. Following her upstairs, grabbing her by the arm, turning her to me and crashing my lips into hers, hoping she can feel how much I love her and how much I’m willing to fight for us.But that’d be a lie.And also unfair to her.Because if I truly was willing to do anything for her, I’d accept turning my back on the mafia and the Irish Kings without a question. I wouldn’t hesitate. I wouldn’t consider anything other than having her by my side.But I can’t.I can’t give her what she wants. I can’t promise her something I’m not ready to do. Therefore, I’d rather she hates me now, while she still has any feelings for me, then watch her fall out of love with me while we are together. That’d hurt me more than anything.Realization begins to sink in. We’re truly over now. There’s no turning back, no saving this relationship that’s barely even started. I try to convince myself that this is for the best. Heidi will finally be safe away from me. She can return
*Cal*“What does this mean?” I want to know. I need to know. “What did you come here to talk to me about?”Heidi stares at me for a bit until she inhales sharply and turns her gaze to the ceiling. She is clearly uncomfortable with my questions, but I can’t move on not knowing what’s going through her mind.Does the fact that she came here to have sex with me in my office mean that she forgives me? That she’s willing to put everything behind us and start anew? That she belongs to me completely, no questions asked?Knowing her, I doubt that's what it means.But I need to hear her say it. I need to understand what she’s thinking. Otherwise, I might misinterpret all of it and ruin everything–again.“Heidi?” I call softly when she doesn’t answer me.She looks at me again, her beautiful, big eyes watching me intently. I push her hair out of her face, and lean forward to kiss her lips. It’s a soft kiss, but I try to convey all of my feelings for her through it.“I don’t know what this means,