I’m annoyed.
I’ve had the best night of my life and woke up to the taste of my wife coming on my tongue. I’ve been the only man inside her, the only man to be given the privilege of knowing what she feels like, the way she sounds, gasps, and moans with every slide of my cock.
Or my tongue.
Or my hands.
I’m the only man who knows how soft her skin is or how wicked her tongue can be when she’s protecting herself.
It’s all mine.
Her rage, her pain, her confusion, her pleasure, her happiness.
It all belongs to me.
Power like that can be dangerous in the hands of a man like me, but it’s also very addicting and very rewarding.
I’m annoyed because while I was experiencing all these wonderful emotions, my brother interrupted everything, and I nearly blew his head off without thinking. My ears are still ringing from being in such a small room and a gunshot going off.
But the idea of anyone seeing my wife naked makes me murderous.
She’s all mine and she proved that last night. No one has else the privilege.
I turn off the shower and step out first, snagging a towel from the heated rack before wrapping it around her first. I dry her off, taking my time to enjoy her body, taking in every mark and bruise I left on her last night.
Rosie is magnificent when she’s marked.
My attention falls to her hand, the plain gold band sparking possessiveness and rage. The ring shows she’s mine, but there’s no engagement ring, no beautiful big diamond that’s too big for her finger that she can flash around, daring any man to come near her because they won’t be able to give her better.
I’ll need to remedy that.
My feelings for Rosie have grown fast and hard, but I’m not surprised. I was always the Milazzo who felt quickly which is why I’m quick to joke and humor. It’s easy to cover up feelings that way so no one mistakes the ability to feel so deeply as a weakness.
But god, I’m already consumed by Rosie. She’s maddening and daring, challenging me to levels of insanity only an enemy would threaten.
She’s my reckoning, the one person to bring me to my fucking knees.
“How do you feel?” I ask her, tucking the end of the towel in so it’s secured around her.
“Good. Sleepy. A little sore,” she muses, snagging another towel to dry her hair.
A grumble of delight escapes me and knowing she’s sore because of me has me pinning her against the wall, stealing her lips in another kiss and robbing her lungs of every bit of air they hold.
“And I’ll make sure you stay that way.” I nip at her bottom lip, brushing my thumb across the swollen flesh. Fuck. I want her.
“Ari,” she whispers when she feels how hard I am as I press against her thigh.
She’s right.
I’m insatiable for her.
She reaches and wraps her hand around my cock, giving it a good squeeze before she strokes me from root to tip.
I hiss with pleasure, tilting my head down to watch.
“We don’t have time,” she says weakly, stroking me faster. “We have to go down. They are expecting you.”
“Whoever is dead, is dead. They aren’t coming back. They can fucking wait. Oh, fuck, Tesoro. You’re a quick learner,” I praise, my eyes rolling to the back of my head.
“I have the best teacher,” she flirts, giving my cock another firm squeeze by tightening her fist.
I smirk, digging my teeth into my bottom lip while I watch as she touches me exactly how I like. “Is that so?”
“Oh yeah,” she pouts, falling to her knees. She jerks the towel away from her body, giving me the view of her tits. From the downward view of looking at her, I can tell her nipples are hard. They are red and a bit irritated from all my affection last night, so I won’t touch them, but god, I will admire them. “Maybe you can grade me, Mr. Milazzo,” she purrs, guiding my cock between her lips while she role plays.
“You’re fucking perfect for me, aren’t you?” I groan as she sucks my cock, gently playing with the tip first.
She hums and all I can hope is that she is agreeing with me about the question I just asked her.
“Goddamn it, you’re too good at this already. How am I supposed to keep my hands off you when you’re so good with your mouth? Hmm?” I push her hair back, tangling my fingers in the curly strands and hold onto the coils while she deep throats me. “Fuuuuck,” I groan, hearing the wet sounds of her trying to take me to the back of her throat.
I fall onto one arm, holding myself up against the wall while I look down, her head bobbing faster.
“That’s it, Tesoro. Just like that.” I lick my lips and release a sexual sigh. “I love seeing your lips stretch while you suck me. You have no idea how good you look right now.”
Her free hand comes to cradle my sack and gently rolls the orbs in her palm at the same time as she sucks me to the back of her throat only to cause herself to gag.
“Rosie!” I slam my fist against the wall, my knees buckle when she begins to pay attention to a certain spot under the crown of my cock. “Fuck, oh fuck, yes, don’t stop. Don’t stop. What the fuck,” I groan in confusion and euphoria. No one has ever found that spot. No one has ever focused on it so much, that If they did, they would have known it would make me come. “Rosie, don’t stop,” I repeat again, my lungs searching for air as my orgasm creeps closer.
I tighten my grip so hard on her scalp, she whimpers, and the small vibration travels done the length of my cock. Taking her face in my hands, I fuck her throat once, twice, three times before flooding her mouth.
“Mmm,” she moans, swallowing me greedily.
“God, Rosie.” My head spins from the rush before I collapse against the wall.
I slip from her mouth, and she peers up at me. Those blue eyes full of pride and her lips shining and red from accommodating me.
Reaching down, I wrap my hand around her throat and lift her to her feet. “I’ll never you buy you a necklace when you look so much better wearing my hand.” I smash my lips against hers, tasting her, tasting myself, and I’m about to spread her legs to slide home when another knock pounds on the front door.
“I won’t have men to lead when I kill them all,” I say low so only she can hear me.
Rosie giggles as I bend down and snag the towel off the ground to wrap around my waist.
“I’m not done with you, Tesoro. Far from it.” I point at her, then stomp my way to the door. I yank it open, only this time it’s Gianni standing in front of me. “What?”
“I was making sure everything is okay. Everyone is getting restless.”
“Oh?” I lean against the wall and cross my arms. “Is the body still dead?”
“Yes, Ari, but you know the sooner you deal with this, the better. Every second wasted is a second the enemy has that we don’t. I understand you are wanting to celebrate you progress with Rosie—”
I slam the door behind me, so Rosie doesn’t have to see me like this and pin Gianni against the wall across the hall. “No, you don’t get to use her against me. Do you understand? You don’t get to decide how I spend time with my wife. I am prioritizing her. Our relationship. The body is not going anywhere, and the enemy isn’t doing anything today or they wouldn’t have left a body for us to figure out what to do with. You don’t get to speak to me about the choices I make regarding my wife and my fucking time. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Mr. Milazzo,” he concedes.
I exhale, placing my hands on my hips. I’m never angry enough to correct him. I don’t like being called by my title. “It’s Ari, Gianni. We’ll be down in five minutes. Have coffee ready, please.”
“Coffee over a dead body?”
“If I waited to have my coffee in peace overlooking the gardens, I’d never get it.” I head back into the room to see Rosie already dressed.
She’s wearing skinny jeans and one of those baggy college T-shirts I got her. Her curls are messy and wet, thrown in a bun on top of her head that should be considered a catastrophe. Her hair is too pretty to be trapped in a hair tie.
“You look beautiful,” I say, loving her just like this, just like how I met her.
I love that out of everything I’ve gotten her, all the expensive dresses and blouses, she chooses what makes her comfortable.
She rolls her eyes at me, and I yank the towel from my waist, throwing it at her. It catches her off guard and it smacks her in the face. Rosie tosses it back at me and I spin it around until it’s nice and tight.
“Don’t you dare. Ari…don’t do it. Don’t—Ah!” she jumps out of the way as I let the towel fly, the end snapping in the air right next to her ass. “You are a child!” she laughs.
“You make me feel lighter than I have in a long time,” I admit without thinking, ruining the moment with something serious. I clear my throat and disappear into the closet to get dressed.
“I’m glad,” she says from behind me, following me into the closet.
I slip on my slacks. “Of?”
She hands me a dark blue button-up shirt. “That you’re lighter. I am too. With you. I feel lighter with you too,” she explains, leaving me smiling like I don’t have the weight of the world on my shoulders.
We fall silent, staring at one another but it is only a little awkward because we are both grinning and I’m man enough to admit when I’m blushing.
I take the shirt from her, making sure to brush our fingers together and bend down to kiss her cheek. “You don’t know how happy that makes me,” I tell her, wincing when I put on my shirt as the skin pinches on each wound I have.
“Are you okay? Maybe you should take it easy. You just got new stitches. I can…I can…”
I watch her, waiting for her to finish her sentence when I notice the beautiful flush disappear from her skin. She seems pale.
“Rosie? Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m just saying if you want to relax because you’ve done a lot with your shoulder—”
“—Yes, I have,” I interrupt, making her fluster.
“—I’ll take care of the body. You relax and I’ll…go dig a grave or something. Isn’t that what you do? No, you don’t. You’d do something darker, right? Like feed them to the fish. I’ll do that.”
I tug her close to me. “You’d do that?”
“If it means that nurse won’t come back, yes,” she grumbles, shifting her weight.
Ah, she doesn’t want me to tear my stitches again. “I really do love jealousy on you, Tesoro.” I kiss her lips gently. “And it means the world you’d get rid of a body for me. Even if you look physically ill at the thought of it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t ever apologize. The day you don’t get sick at the thought of seeing a dead body, is a day I need to worry. I don’t want you to see it. I’d rather you stay here.”
“No. I’ll be fine. It’s your job, right? It’s what you do. If I’m going to be here, I should learn some things, right?”
She’s right. She does need to learn. “If anything bothers you, you leave. Okay?”
“Okay,” she agrees.
“Come on. Let’s go before they send in the cavalry and it’s me you have to feed to the fishes.”
She laughs and slaps her hand in mine while I pull her out of the room. I’m wondering when the shift in us changed but I wouldn’t change it for the world. It’s so much easier being with her like this than fighting constantly.
When we get downstairs, I head down the hall where we extricate information from our enemies. A few of the men are standing around with their arms crossed and straighten when they see me. When we get to the room, the door is open still and Matias tosses his cigarette outside and closes the steel door, sliding the long lock in place.
Then he turns the handle, sealing us in.
But I’m not looking at a body.
I’m not looking at anything.
“Where is the body?” I ask, adding a bit of heat to my voice. “I know I wasn’t bothered twice about coming to see the fucking body and now it isn’t here. Did it suddenly walk out?”
Rosie squeezes my hand, calming my nerves.
I have to be like this in front of them.
‘We’re getting it off the ice,” Matias informs just as a few men drag it in and lie it on the floor. “Perfect timing.”
The body is wrapped in black garbage bags with duct tape around the neck, waist, and legs. “Turn around, Rosie.” I kiss the top of her hand before letting it go.
“No, it’s okay.”
I turn to her, raising a brow, but she stands firm with her decision, lifting her chin for me to dare to argue with her.
I lean in and whisper, “You don’t have to watch this.”
“I do if I don’t want to be a joke to them,” she replies quietly.
She’s smart and her decision to brace herself for this will earn a lot of respect among my men. So many of them are going to be waiting for her reaction and I know Rosie, she won’t let them see her falter. No, that lovely gift will be reserved for me in our bedroom behind closed doors. It will be our little secret and something about that is more intimate than anything we have shared.
“As you wish,” I state, giving her a curt nod.
I bend down and hold out my hand. Matias places the knife I was silently asking for on my palm and I wrap my fingers around the black handle with gold leaf accents. It’s a gorgeous blade that was given to me to help pay a debt.
The blade is sharp, and I ease the tip into the plastic material, cutting it until I get to the first barrier of tape. Matias rips the bag more so we can see who the body belongs to.
“I guess you don’t have to worry about the nurse anymore, Rosie,” Matias informs Rosie with a slight humorous tone.
“I didn’t want her to die,” Rosie sounds offended. “I didn’t like her, but death is pretty extreme. I hope she was able to die fast. I couldn’t imagine death being prolonged all while knowing you’re going to die anyway, you know?” she says, sounding so sweet and innocent, showing she truly doesn’t know how the world works.
A quick death only happens when mercy is shown and that rarely ever happens.
I tear the rest of the bags and notice marks all over the body, already proving that our nurse did not have a quick death.
“There’s something in her hands,” Matias says, plucking a piece of paper out of the frozen hold of the nurse.
He uncrumples the paper and reads it before handing it to me. “A note from your best friend.”
I snatch it from him, knowing damn well he is being sarcastic because my best friend is my twin.
Milazzo,
You’re a smart man. I’m surprised you would turn your back on our deal. I know you have the girl and I know she is the one responsible for killing one of my men. Bring her to the club tomorrow and your disloyalty will be forgotten.
-Bianchi
I growl as I crumble the paper in my hand.
Disloyal.
He sounds as if I work for him, and I do not. The only people I am loyal to are my family, my wife, and the men who work for me.
I want to kill him for thinking he has control over me.
“What is it?” Rosie asks, placing her hand on my shoulder.
“He knows you’re here and he thinks he knows you killed one of his men. What he doesn’t know is that you have the stone. He thinks those are two separate people, so we can always say you didn’t do it. He has no proof otherwise. I don’t know how he would have found out it was you. I’ve made sure your name has stayed clean. He wants to meet.”
“Then let’s meet him.”
A rumble in my chest forms. “Get rid of the body,” I order, snagging Rosie’s arm with my hand as I force her out of the room.
When we are far enough away, I duck us into a room down the hall, so we are nowhere near the men or the body.
“We are not going to this meeting. You are not going to see him,” I state, leaving no room for argument.
“Is that right?”
But my wife always finds room for argument.
