After our nap, we went to breakfast at Bar Harbor followed by a walk along the wharf. Yachts and lobster boats rolled in as we walked hand in hand like a couple watching the lobstermen haggle with their processors.
The smell of the ocean wafted in the breeze. I felt like I was walking in a dream, in a picture-perfect fishing village. It was a warm day. The sky was a deep blue, and the sun was lower in the sky as we just passed the autumn equinox.
“Boothbay Harbor is three hours from here,” Matteo told me. “There are more things to see there and it gives the feeling of a coastal town. I’ll take you sometime.”
I didn’t know what to say. He was talking about the future and I kept reminding myself that we were in a real relationship and this wasn’t fake anymore. Any denial was extinguished the second I let him come inside me. Matteo was an unrelenting force. If he practiced the same mindset in business, I could see why he earned his moniker as a raptor. When he set his mind to acquire something, he did it with singular determination.
I wasn’t sure if that worked in my favor or against it.
The aroma of spun sugar overwhelmed the scent of seawater. Up ahead was a confectionary. I may have squealed like a child as I tugged Matteo toward the shop’s picture windows. Through the glass, we saw people making fudge, but off to one corner sat the cotton candy machine.
An old ache pinched a corner of my heart. I hadn’t had a cloud of sugar on a stick since I was a child. Since the time when I had a mom and a dad.
“Want one?” Matteo asked with amusement, but the amusement died in his eyes when he saw my face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I whispered. “It’s just that…the last time I had cotton candy I was eight.” I cocked my head as I confirmed with the memory that I was correct. “It was the year before my mother had a nervous breakdown.” I blew out a breath. “And two years before I lost both of them.”
I was staring through the glass mesmerized by the spun threads of sugar. But beyond it, I was seeing a young girl and her mother. I was seeing a mother laughing as her daughter tried to take a mouthful of sticky cotton candy.
It was a bittersweet memory.
“That’s it. We’re having one,” Matteo rasped.
I didn’t argue. I loved walking into confectionary shops, especially vintage ones such as these in small towns that elicited nostalgia and kept to the old ways of candy making. It made me think about how, sometimes, it was good to keep traditions.
We walked out with ginormous layers of spun strawberry silk. Matteo grabbed a handful and fed it to me. It was so messy. I did the same, but smashed it against his face. We laughed and kissed the sweet off each other. I even took a selfie of us and sent the image to Ivy. She texted me immediately, but I didn’t want to interrupt this moment with Matteo. When the confection was half its size and more manageable, Matteo held the stick with one hand and wrapped an arm around me with the other while I embraced his torso with both of mine. Then leisurely, we traversed the boardwalk until we reached the end of the wharf.
We were silent for long minutes. I was finding peace in the vast ocean and the seagulls flying above. I had a feeling Matteo was giving me this time to remember my parents.
“It wasn’t all bad,” I told him finally. “Mamma was happy not knowing about what Papà did for the family.” I glanced up. “He was already being trained to take over for Nonno.”
Matteo nodded briefly and led me to one of the benches.
He held out the stick and I took a chunk of candy that was rapidly deteriorating from its puffy perfection. The sweetness somehow fortified my soul. Sugar did that to you, so now was as a good time as any to tell Matteo about a past I hardly remembered, but played a large part in shaping who I was today.
“It was the first attempt on his life that sent Mamma into a nervous breakdown.” Papà was ambushed in front of an Italian restaurant but his assassins were poor shots or that was how he told the story. He was grazed by a bullet and the soldiers with him were able to shoot back.
I gave a shake of my head. “Mamma was never the same. I was thankful Miss Rita was already with us, otherwise I didn’t know how I could’ve helped Mamma.”
“Didn’t they send her to a doctor?”
“Papà and Nonno decided it would look bad on the family if word got out she’d gone to see a psychiatrist.”
“You serious?” Matteo growled.
“Luca tried to argue with them, but he was only eighteen at that time.” I shrugged. “It’s always been frowned upon. They were probably afraid about what Mamma might reveal to someone outside the family.”
“Carlotta didn’t help?”
I sighed. “She tried. But there was little she could do from New York.”
He gripped my hand. “I’m sorry you had to go through that at such a young age. I can’t imagine how alone you must have felt.”
“You know what I feel guilty about sometimes?” I asked.
“Tell me,” he said gently.
I almost didn’t because I was rendered speechless with the compassion in his eyes. His eyes were a brilliant blue, but they warmed my soul. “I thought she was in a better place.”
“Oh, Sera.”
“We were assured they died quickly.”
“Car accident, right?”
I nodded. “Tampered brakes. She broke her neck and died instantly.”
Matteo gathered me in his arms. I didn’t cry. There was sadness. But I had been so young. I never experienced adolescence with a mom. When I had my period, it was Miss Rita who told me what to expect. She was the one who bought my feminine products. Mamma spent her days in bed and Papà grew more distant. It was Luca, of all people, who told me my father loved me but was just under so much pressure.
It all turned out to be bullshit.
Because when Papà was killed, the same pressure was applied to Luca and Ange. More so because there was competition. Yet Luca found ways to be an overbearing father figure/older brother and in a way, it showed someone cared for me. That was why I owed him so much.
“I’m sorry, Sera.”
“It’s all in the past,” I said. “Sometimes I think I was fortunate when Luca took over.”
“Heaven help us.”
It was two p.m. when we made our way back to the compound. Our convoy of bodyguards was ever present, but that was nothing new.
Matteo was on the phone with Nico, catching up with the goings-on in Manhattan.
I didn’t have much time to process the shift of my relationship with him. My skin felt feverish whenever I got flashes of our steamy encounters. When we were having breakfast at the wharf restaurant, it’d been a struggle not to look at his mouth and not remember how those perfectly formed lips that were not too wide and not too thick, pouty yet firm, had been busy making me scream all morning. He was a god with that mouth, and a devil with that tongue.
We should have stayed home. I would have been happy to stay ensconced in the room, but Matteo was so anxious to do couple-y things, it made me laugh as well as made me swoon. I had only to look at my own family to see that money wasn’t everything. Nonno, Luca, and Ange had been so busy running the organization, we rarely had family time. And that was probably why I never threw myself at Daniel because I saw his own ambition in business.
Matteo was different. I basked under his attention.
In just two days, I’d unburdened so much of my past to Matteo that none of my other boyfriends were privy to. Of course I couldn’t just talk about murder and mayhem to people who hadn’t grown up in the family. But a nagging feeling bloomed in my chest.
Matteo knew so much about me and made an effort as to what made me tick, but I knew next to nothing about him. I glanced over at my boyfriend who smiled at me while he continued to chat with his brother. I needed to start prying information out of him. I was curious about his relationship with Renz.
When we arrived at the compound, Matteo told me he needed to talk to Trevor, so I decided to check my phone.
Shit. Ivy. She’d left me several messages already. I was typing a message to her when my phone came to life with FaceTime. Fine. It was the least I owed her.
“Oh my God, you’re alive.”
“I texted you a picture of me and Matteo.”
“You didn’t respond to my texts and calls. I thought he threw you into the ocean.”
I laughed. “As you can see, I’m in one piece.”
She pouted. “You left me a message yesterday saying you’re heading out of town. Then you ignored my calls.”
“My phone drained. I left it in the charger and on silent.”
“That’s convenient.”
“What? The picture this morning didn’t make up for it?”
“A little.”
“Where’s Daniel?”
“He flew to Chicago yesterday.”
“Chicago?”
“First shipment of olive oil coming in.” Her face came closer to the screen until it was distorted. “You look different.”
By the narrowing of her eyes and the mischievous gleam I spotted there, I knew what she was about to say.
“You got laid.”
“Oh my God.” I glanced over to where Matteo was still talking to Trevor. He must have felt my stare because he looked my way, the corners of his mouth lifting. I could feel my face heat up, so I walked around the house.
Ivy laughed. “Oh my goodness, Seraphina Moretti.” She backed away from the screen and put a palm to her cheeks. “You really look like you’d been sexed up hard.”
“Sexed up?”
“Fucked hard? Is that better.”
“Okay, before you hear it from anyone else,” I said. “Matteo and I are making a go for it. I mean…we’re a couple.”
“What…like he’s your official boyfriend?”
I nodded.
“When did this happen?” she asked. “You went on one date. And I don’t consider the breakfast, the soup kitchen, and the dance club a date. But damn, you guys did do the whole round of togetherness.”
“And we went away together, and on our drive he asked me about my bracelet.”
“You told him about your nanny?”
“Yes!” I was giddy about the whole thing again. It was a good feeling when someone listened to what mattered to you.
“Wow, that is impressive. Brownie points.”
“He took me to the best lobster shack in Maine.” I could barely contain my excitement in telling my best friend about this morning.
“Hmm, then he fucked your brains out.”
“No,” I said. “So, he woke me up before dawn.” I left out the part about him staring at me while I slept. “Then he took me to a cliff where you can watch the sunrise. It was glorious.”
“Get out,” she said disbelievingly. “You’re making that up.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Sera, somehow I find that hard to believe.”
“Believe it.” I left out the part about the obsession too. “We also walked along the wharf.” I sighed. “He bought me cotton candy, and then hugged me while I told him about Mamma and Papà.
“Aw…but…” Her eyes narrowed. “You left out the good part.”
Precisely. Things were happening too fast between Matteo and me, it was making my head spin. The first night he took me home after the gala, I’d been too wrapped up in Daniel to identify my attraction to him. Even now, I had trouble processing our relationship.
Ivy was going to ask details. Unless alcohol was involved, I doubted I’d ever be ready to share how skilled Matteo was with his tongue and cock. I was selfish. I wanted to keep the intimate details about him to myself and I was okay with that.
“I’m not ready to share yet.”
“Fine,” she groused.
Matteo finished his conversation with Trevor, so I ended mine with Ivy before she found a way to make me confess.
Matteo
“Oh my God, Matteo. Right there.”
In the shower, I had Sera’s leg draped over my shoulder and my mouth was on her pussy, taking my fill of her. Sera and I had retired early to our room, and I’d been making love to her ever since. We did take a break to sneak into the kitchen for food and to throw the bedsheets in the washer. Trevor and the rest of the crew had been instructed not to enter the house. My friend smirked and knew exactly what we were up to.
The shower was a great place to continue the different ways I envisioned having her. I loved the feel of her fingers digging into my skull, alternately pushing and pulling me toward her core.
I made her come one more time and rose to my feet. I traced her mouth. “I can take you here, but I’ve been dying for these lips to be wrapped around my cock.”
She grinned. “Then we better hurry.”
After rinsing off and toweling dry, we kissed our way into the bedroom. It was as if we had to have a part of us always connected. I backed us against the bed, but she surprised me when she shoved my chest.
I played along and fell on my back.
“Headboard,” she ordered. “You’re at my mercy, Matteo De Lucci.”
I elbow-crawled backward until I was sitting against the headboard.
Sera climbed on the bed, her hair a mass of wet curls framing her face. Her tits were full and hypnotizing as she crawled on all fours.
This had to be paradise.
I was already hard. My erection was happily pointing up. I spread my legs and Sera moved right between.
She licked her lips. “You have a beautiful cock, De Lucci.”
“All yours, baby.”
She dipped her head and swirled her tongue around the tip.
I hissed and gritted my teeth.
She was teasing me like I had done to her. Fair is fair.
With our gazes locked, I watched my cock disappear into her mouth. I could’ve come right there. My arm reached out, fingers threading through her hair before I fell back as I struggled to keep from coming too quickly. “Fuck.”
Then I lost her eyes when her hand joined her mouth and together they worked in perfect symphony to make me lose my damn mind. The pressure was building. Just watching her take me in, her cheeks hollowing out in suction and her lips all wrapped around my cock was seared into my brain. She made a sound at the back of her throat, a vibration I felt from the tip of my cock to the base of my spine.
The rising pleasure was subliminal.
I shuddered. I was getting close.
She went faster and faster. I was about to come. “Sera… Off… Now.”
She ignored me.
“Last chance,” I growled.
She still didn’t stop and her hand gripped me tighter.
I collapsed against the headboard and exploded into the back of her mouth. My release completely stole me of words, I could only grunt my approval.
And she continued sucking and lapping up every last drop of me. Even when I controlled her head movements, I felt my surrender. I was all in, yet somewhere in my subconscious, a warning blared.
