“So, Commissioner Reynolds was deliberately encouraging Whitely’s and Vane’s underhand techniques, just to make things difficult for you?” I wondered. We were sitting in his office in a large, leather wingback chair. Technically, Renato was sitting in the chair, and I was cradled in his lap.
“Mm-hmm. They didn’t have a legal leg to stand on, pushing you to spy for them, trying to arrest Lucy and then you. Lucy’s ridiculous arrest was simply a chance to get her out of Casa Nera. Reynolds needed the Castillo Cartel to clean up his mess, and they just wanted a shot at me, and revenge, of course, for what happened to the kid. The one who started all of this.”
“How did they know Lucy would sneak out?”
“They didn’t. I guess that was just a bonus. They probably planned on ‘holding up’ Vane and Whitely and stealing her from them. Her wandering out alone, and then you following, was too good to be true.”
I shivered. “What happens now?”
“With Judge Ellens going to jail, and Commissioner Reynolds’ unfortunate suicide?”
I snorted. “He set himself on fire and jumped off the roof to commit suicide?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
I raised an eyebrow at him.
He grinned. “Well, you didn’t hear it from me, but when the cops investigate, they are going to find very concerning images on his computer. It only makes sense that he killed himself before it was found.”
“Images?” I thought of the way Giada had been cackling all afternoon. “Does the resident IT guy have anything to do with this?”
Renato smirked and cut his eyes to the potted plant on the corner of his desk. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mrs. De Sanctis,” he said in a raised voice, as if acting up for the bug. “All charges against you and your sister have been dropped. All records of anything connected to you have disappeared. You have a clean slate, and Lucy as well.”
I let out a long breath. “She wants to go to culinary school, you know, maybe.”
Renato nodded. “I know. Carmella has been making a case for it. I wonder how she’d like Florence in the springtime. Or Le Cordon Bleu, Paris. Paris in March is lovely. We could tour the museums when we visit.” He thought for a moment. “Switzerland is respectable, too.”
I twisted in my chair and kissed him hard. “Thank you,” I murmured against his lips.
“For?”
“For the first time I’m my life, I’m not alone,” I admitted quietly.
Sure, I’d always had Lucy, but it was a different kind of feeling when you were caring for someone else. You could still feel alone, burdened by responsibilities that were growing too heavy to share.
“Then I should thank you, too, little nurse.” Renato smiled and pushed my hair back from my face.
He leaned in and kissed my neck, his lips pressing against the pulse point that he’d first licked back at the charity benefit. The first time someone had rattled the walls of shame and repressed desire I’d built around myself.
“I prayed, you know?” I whispered.
He made a noise of appreciation against my skin.
“I prayed that you would come for me, and you did. I prayed you would save Lucy, and you did.”
He continued his hot path up to my ear, while the words that had been brewing inside me slipped out.
“When I was thirteen, I prayed my Da would come back, and he never did.”
Ren paused. “He was dead, anima mia.”
Something about his dry humor took the sting out the memory. “Thanks, genius. I know that. I knew it then, too, though it took a while to sink in. After that, I prayed that me and Lucy could be safe and happy again. It took thirteen years for that prayer to come true, but I think it has now.” I threaded my hands through his hair. “Every prayer, every struggling step I took brought me closer to you. I think those childish, desperate prayers were answered.”
Ren had reached the chain of the St. Anthony’s medallion.
“Does that mean you aren’t lost anymore?”
I shook my head slowly. A lazy smile spread over his lips, and he kissed me softly.
“You know, if this conversation is about to turn into denying me the soul you promised, we’re going to have a problem.”
I laughed. Renato De Sanctis, playful? No one would believe it.
“Oh really? How can we fix this dilemma?”
“You’ll have to give me something else in return, it’s only fair.” Renato flexed his hips against me, his cock lying in a hard line up my cleft, and it made me gasp.
I wriggled in his arms, wishing it was inside me instead of just tantalizingly close.
I reached down between us and stroked him through his pants. He grunted, a mutter leaving him at my touch. Having a man like Ren groaning under your touch was a new kind of power I was addicted to wielding.
“What did you have in mind?” I teased, my thoughts already heading into the gutter. I felt no shame in wanting this man. He was my husband. There was nothing wrong with wanting glorious, filthy fucking in general. It was something I was working on believing, one orgasm at a time. Maybe sexual healing was really a thing.
“As the one getting stiffed on the contract, I demand the right to choose the substitute,” Renato murmured in my ear. “Keep your soul. I’ll take your heart.”
That’s already yours.
I paused, overwhelmed for a second by this man. I’d never expected a lot for myself in life. Just surviving and supporting Lucy had been like achieving a goal set down for me by my Da every single day. But there was more to life than just surviving, and it was okay to want more. Tears threatened to fall again. For someone who had rarely cried in a decade, the last month had been intense. I’d cried, laughed, and fumed. I fought and hurt and screamed. I’d felt everything after years of feeling nothing at all.
“Too much?” Ren mused softly.
I’d left him hanging.
I shook my head and twisted to place a light kiss on his lips. “My cup runneth over,” I whispered.
He smiled against my mouth, and then his hand joined mine, and he freed himself, dipping his hips so his length sprang free. He guided it to me. When his hand moved up my thigh, pushing my knee-length skirt up and out of the way, he froze as his fingers met the soft curls on my mound.
“Wife, are you walking around here without panties on? What did I tell you about covering this fucking dream of a body for all eyes but mine?”
I sat forward and gripped his base, slipping it just inside me. He growled softly as I sank down on his length, facing away from him, my feet braced on the floor. He tugged my skirt out of the way so he could watch his cock disappearing inside me.
“You told me there’d be consequences if I broke your little rules,” I reminded him and rolled my hips with him buried deep inside me. “I want to know what they are.”
His hand landed on my lower back and guided me forward.
“You destroy me,” he said thickly, just before his hand landed hard on my ass cheek, sending a curl of delicious heat racing through me.
He matched the other side as I ground myself on his length, enjoying every depraved moment.
“Now, bounce on me, bambina, until I come, then I want you to keep all that cum inside your cunt. Waste a single drop, and I’ll have to refill you.”
“You know it’s a few weeks until I can even try to get pregnant, right?”
“Practice makes perfect, little nurse.”
