The rising sun casts a long shadow over my desk as Lorenzo sits in silence, occasionally nodding his head to let me know he is listening. Maximo is beside him as I tell my older brother about Leo Evanson and everything I’ve learned in the past two days. I stop short of telling him that I shot our own father in the head.
He knows.
“So, when will they find his body?” he asks quietly.
“In a few hours probably. As soon as his housekeeper arrives and realizes he hasn’t got up for his nine a.m. cigar and coffee.”
Lorenzo rubs a hand over his beard. “And we will start a war, brother? To avenge our father’s death?” He snickers, but there is no humor in it — only menace.
“We’ll avenge his death, of course.”
“By taking out the Russians?”
“By taking out Dominik Pushkin for the murder of our beloved father and supporting Dmitri Varkov to be Dominik’s successor,” I say, leaning forward in my chair. “Dmitri has been priming his small army for a takeover for the past year. The Russians are about to have a civil war anyway. We’re simply helping them along. And we’ll have Dmitri’s loyalty when he’s the new head of the Bratva.”
“But we are going to war?” Lorenzo asks.
“I take it you’re on board, then?”
“When have I ever not been by your side, brother?”
“Oh, I’ve missed you two hellraisers,” Maximo says with a grin as he leans back in his seat and looks between my eldest brother and me. “It’s been far too quiet around here lately.”
Lorenzo gives Maximo a sideways eye roll before turning his attention back to me. “It shouldn’t be a shock that he was involved in it, but it still is.”
“I know.”
“Not a shock to me,” Maximo says with a shake of his head.
“Really?” I ask with a frown.
“The way he treated you both and tried to turn you against each other. After what he did to Nicci. He was planning to marry off his own daughter to a sick fuck just to appease the men who were making him a fuckload of money, even though he knew the depraved, twisted shit they were into. His own little girl?” Maximo snarls. His hatred for my father is profound, but I’ve never seen him talk so openly or with such vitriol.
Joey is a sore point for him. For all of us. I suppose she’s like a little sister to him too. It was my father’s plans to marry her off to Dominik Pushkin’s eldest son, which forced Lorenzo and I to send her away to school in Italy — a crime for which I think she’ll never forgive us.
“Well, he’s gone. No more arranged marriages for anyone,” Lorenzo says gruffly.
“What? Really? I can’t imagine anyone actually wanting to put up with Joey for more than a few days, so it looks like we’re all stuck with her forever then.”
Maximo scowls at me, but Lorenzo snorts.
“If that’s all, I’m going back to bed to do unspeakable things to my wife before the shit hits the fan,” Lorenzo says as he stands.
“Sounds like a good plan,” I agree. I’ve barely slept in the last two days and the thought of spending the next few hours curled up next to the softest, most beautiful body I have ever known feels like heaven. I’ll tell her the truth about my father too once it’s safe for her to know everything.
“I guess I’ll just go chat to Sophia then,” Maximo says with a sigh. “See if she’s willing to knock me up some pancakes while we wait for the bomb to drop.”
Lorenzo pats him on the back. “We can arrange a marriage for you if you want, Max?”
“Fuck you, Loz!” he snaps. “I have no intention of ever getting married and ending up pussy-whipped like you pair of disappointments.”
“Says the man who’s about to go eat pancakes while we’ll be eating some of that pussy we’re supposedly whipped by,” I say with a grin.
“Fuck both of you.” With that, he storms out of the room.
Lorenzo laughs again and turns to look at me as I stand from the worn leather wingback chair. He looks at the chair and then at me with a sadness on his face that looks like regret.
“It’s yours if you want it, Lorenzo. It always has been.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “It’s yours, little brother. That’s always the way it was meant to be. I’m honored to stand by your side.”
I walk around the desk and wrap my arm around his shoulder. “By my side. Not beneath or above. Now that truly is the way it was meant to be.”
“There are hard times coming,” he says quietly.
“I know,” I agree, aware that he isn’t just talking about the fact that our father is about to be found murdered in his bed and we’re going to pin it on the Russians, but also because of his own Russian princess and the fact that the cancer has returned. “But we’re in this together, right?”
“Always.”
When I crawl back into bed a few minutes later, Kat’s eyelids flutter open. “You were up early.”
“I had to talk to Lorenzo,” I say as I slide my hand over her hip and onto her ass, pulling her toward me.
“About Leo?” she whispers.
“Yeah, and some other stuff.”
“What stuff?”
I kiss her forehead. “Nothing for you to be concerned about right now, kitten. Go back to sleep.”
“I don’t want to go back to sleep,” she purrs, trailing her fingertips over my chest and down to the waistband of my boxers. “Unless you’re too tired?”
I’m fucking exhausted, but I am never too tired for what she’s offering. “Not tired at all.”
“I thought maybe we could lay that one last demon to rest?” she says softly.
I run my nose along the column of her throat. “Kat, are you asking me to fuck your ass?”
“Will you be gentle?”
“As gentle as I can be, but it’s probably going to hurt a little at first. We can wait.”
“I don’t want to wait. I want you to be the only one I ever think of,” she says, her voice thick with emotion.
“Is this about your nightmare?”
“I guess. I was thinking about what Leo did and how he could hurt someone he was supposed to love. It was on my mind before I fell asleep.” She trails her fingertips over my cheek. “I know you would never hurt me, Dante. Make me some new memories I can dream about.”
My cock is already hard just thinking about taking her tight little ass. I press my lips against her ear and slide my hand between her thighs. “I’ll have to make you nice and wet and relaxed first.”
“Oh yes, please.”
I made her come twice — once with my mouth and once with my fingers and now she’s on her knees, head pressed against the pillow and her cum dripping from her pussy as I coat my cock with lube.
She shivers when I run a hand over her ass, but it’s in anticipation and not terror. The fact that I get this with her, particularly given where our story began, is a fucking honor. I have never been so proud of anyone in my entire life as I am of her.
“You still okay there, kitten?” I hold my cock in one hand and grab her hip with the other.
“Yes,” she pants breathlessly, still high from her orgasms.
I press my cock against the seam of her ass, and she sighs, relaxing her muscles as I push the tip inside her. “Good girl,” I soothe as I rub a hand over her skin. “You’re taking me so well.”
“You feel so big,” she groans.
“If you’re trying to massage my ego so I’ll take it easy on you, it won’t work,” I tell her, and she laughs softly. “You can take me. I promise.”
I ease a little further inside and the soft mewl that escapes her mouth while the muscles of her ass squeeze and ripple around my cock, almost tips me over the edge.
“Oh fuck, Dante,” she moans, pushing back so that I slip a little deeper inside.
“If it’s any consolation, I’m not going to last long in your tight little ass,” I grunt as I work my cock in deeper.
When I slip my hand between her thighs and drive two fingers into her pussy, her back bows, and she lets out a scream that’s muffled by the pillow. As I finger-fuck her pussy, her muscles relax, allowing me to push almost all the way inside her. I’ll have to work her up to taking my entire cock because I’m stretching her so wide I’m worried I’d tear her in half. And I need her to love me fucking her ass, because I want to do all the goddamn time.
“I feel so full,” she moans, pushing back, grinding herself on me, demanding more.
“You are full of me, kitten. My cock in your ass, my fingers in your pussy, and my baby in your belly. And you’ve never looked more fucking beautiful.”
“Holy fuck,” she gasps as her pussy coats me in a rush of her heat, and I know she’s so close to the edge, which is a good thing because I’m seconds away from emptying my balls inside her.
“Come for me, Kat,” I grunt as I thrust inside her while I finger fuck her, and like my good little kitten, she does exactly that, whimpering my name as her climax makes her shudder. I grind my own release into her as I cling onto her hips and pump every last drop into her juicy ass.
“Fuck!” I gasp when we’re done, pulling out of her and collapsing onto the bed. Wrapping my arm around her, I pull her close. “You okay?”
“Yes, that was…” She bites on her lip.
“Incredible?” I offer.
“I was going to say epic, but incredible works too.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it because I want to do it again.” I nuzzle her neck. “And maybe next time I can get all the way inside you?”
“That wasn’t all the way? Goddamn.” She giggles softly.
I kiss her neck, inhaling her sweet scent as she snuggles closer to me.
“I love you,” she whispers.
“I love you too, kitten.”
