Page 21 of Protected By the Mafia

She shouldn’t have smiled. She wished she could fight back the tears she knew she was about to cry. “Manny and Tristán used to get in a lot of fights, but they were never serious. Tristán just … he always…” Her voice trailed and she had to stabilize herself again. “He thought he owned me. He liked to pick on me, but he didn’t like when anyone else did, and as we got older, he got worse. He chased off any guy who talked to me at school, deliberately got us both suspended once, and then—” She didn’t know if she could do it. She’d never said the words out loud.

Cristiano rubbed his hand up her spine. “Shh. Don’t push yourself, baby. You don’t have to relive this.”

She nodded against him and held him tighter. “I do. I need to say it. I need you to know. I need you to understand, because sometimes I have nightmares and because it’s why what we did today matters so much to me.”

He went still. “Felicity. What the fuck did he do?”

“When I was seventeen,” she whispered, her own screams echoing in her memory now, “I let a boy I liked bring me home and kiss me goodnight. Tristán saw, and he lost his mind. He chased the boy off with a knife, then he turned on me. He dragged me inside, waving his knife in my face, raving about what a slut I was … and he shoved me down and h-he tried to—” Her throat constricted, choking on the words. Tears dripped from her eyes. “He said I owed him, that I b-belonged to him, and he was going to ‘stick his dick in my slut hole’ to prove it.”

This time Cristiano definitely growled, his arms tightening around her until his embrace had morphed into an almost crushing hug. But she relished it. She relished the strength and comfort and security he offered, and gave herself several long seconds to soak it in. Cristiano said nothing, simply held her, until she was ready to talk again.

“That was the only time Armando—my mother’s husband—kind of acted like a father to me,” she finally said, her voice still weak. “The whole house heard Tristán’s shouting, but Armando was the only one who came and stopped him. Not because he was doing something terrible or wrong, but because it was me. And his son deserves a nice, full-blooded Latina girl.”

Cristiano exhaled roughly. “His son’s gonna get a bullet to the eye socket, but not before I take my knife and slice it lengthwise up his shriveled dick.”

Felicity pulled in a breath, held it, and slowly released it. “After that, I avoided them as much as I could. I took a scholarship to California just to escape. I was so petrified that someday he’d finish what he started that night….”

“Where the fuck was your mother during all of that shit?” He loosened his hold enough to let her shift against him. His thumb rubbed against her scalp.

“Pretending I didn’t exist, except when it came time to make sure I was doing my schoolwork.” Familiar hurt and sadness crept up in her heart at the thought of her mother. Her mother who had refused to tell her about her biological father. Her mother who said she’d named her after a friend lost to tragedy, then later said she resented Felicity for the reminder of grief. Her mother who taught her how to apply bandages and wound treatment—in the interest of not letting Manny and Tristán, and sometimes Armando, get caught in their abuse. Her mother who had blamed her for enticing Tristán on that horrible night.

“Why did you come back?”

She let out a brief, bitter laugh. “My mother nagged me. Insisting we needed to present a strong, united family front for Manny’s trial. Like us all being there and listening to that would help him not get locked up.” She’d never get some of those visuals out of her head. Both of her half-brothers were monsters.

Cristiano grunted. “How upset will you be,” he asked, his words unusually measured, “when your family ends up dead?”

Felicity pulled her lip between her teeth. “When all of that is done, and you’re done with Tristán and whatever information it is you need from him … will you stick around? Or will I lose you, too?” It didn’t seem like her answer should depend on his.

But everything that had happened between them had been crazy, arguably since the moment she’d laid eyes on him. She should have known, from the instant he’d put hands on that teenager in the middle of the grocery store, that he was a different breed of man. Maybe she had known.

Maybe she liked it.

Cristiano turned his head and pressed a hard kiss to her hair, near her temple. “You have me, Foxglove.”

A laugh snorted out of her unexpectedly. “You’re really going to run with that, aren’t you?”

He hummed. “I think I am.” Then he stood, scooping her properly into his arms, and started walking. “Come on, let’s wash up and get ready for bed. It’s been a long day and you need to rest.”

She leaned back enough to see his face. “I feel like all I’ve done today is rest.”

He smirked down at her. “All?”

Heat rushed through her. “Okay. I feel like I’ve done a lot of resting.”

His expression softened and he kissed her forehead. “I was hoping to talk to you tonight about kinks you were curious about, things you knew you wanted to try, versus hard limits you might have.” He drew a short breath, brow furrowing. “But—”

Felicity reached up and placed her fingers over his lips. “I read a lot of sexy books,” she blurted. “So I’m curious about a lot of things. On the flip side, I cringe real hard at the idea of hard spankings with tools and that sort of stuff. Probably my childhood. So if nothing else, I’m not ready to try that yet. But things we can do with our bodies … I want you to lead me. Show me what you like, and if I don’t like it, I’ll tell you. How’s that?”

He set her down on the bathroom counter and leaned over her, crowding her against the backlit mirror. “I have some unconventional tastes, Foxglove. You may not want to give me that kind of free reign over your perfect body.”

She barely managed not to snort. “First, we both know it’s not perfect, but thank you. And second—” She reached out to hook her fingers into the collar of his shirt, despite that he was already close enough to kiss. “I’m curious. Like what?” She hadn’t seen any of those big crosses described in some of her kinkier reads, so unless he had a whole room devoted to sex play, she was betting she’d read something at least comparable.

He lifted a hand and slowly, deliberately, curled it around her throat. His thumb stroked over the skin above her jugular. “You know about breath play?”

Her lips popped open and her belly coiled. She felt a flicker of nerves, all the possible dangers of the idea rushing through her head. But Cristiano’s hand was steady. His stare unwavering. “I’ve heard of it.”

“Does it scare you?”

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