Page 28 of Assistant to the Mafia

She gasped beneath him, a faint tremor rolling through her. “I am mad,” she breathed. “And hurt.” Her voice caught. She struggled, just for a second, in his grasp. “Are you even … who I’ve always thought you are?”

Romeo drew in a steadying breath, shifted his weight, and sat up on his knees. He pulled her arms up with his movement, deliberately placing her palms on his chest. “I am mostly the man you think I am,” he said, holding her wide-eyed stare. “I’m just more dangerous than you realized.” He encouraged her to slide one smooth palm up his skin, until her fingers rested partially over the pair of tattoos over his heart. He watched her gaze drop to the ink, saw the subtle pinch of her brow. More than likely, it wasn’t Lucia’s birthdate that she didn’t recognize.

A flash of memory went through him, but he didn’t let it linger. That wasn’t the point this time.

“The first one is the date my dad was killed,” he said quietly. She knew he and his brothers had lost their father years before, of course. Some of that was public information. Still, her gaze snapped back to his in surprise. “Our family’s been mafia since before we were born. It’s literally in our blood. Dad was Boss before Dante, and he raised Dante to take over everything after he was gone. But because this life is hard and ugly oftentimes, I got a lot of those lessons, too. Just in case. It was this life—being mafia—that took him from us, just like it was this life that took Cris’s parents when we were kids.”

Sadness contorted Grace’s features and her fingers pressed into his skin like she wanted to grip hold of him. Her lips parted, the words obvious in her eyes, but he didn’t want to hear them. Not like this.

“I’m not telling you this to make you feel sorry for me, or any of us,” he said. “I’m telling you because you need to understand a couple of things. Losing family when we were young, and again when we were a little older and a little more competent, taught us things. One of those things is that we refuse to be the fucking victims again. This life is dangerous, Grace. I won’t lie to you about that.” Romeo let go of her wrists and allowed his fingers to trail down her arms, to her waist, to dip beneath the shirt he wholly intended to peel off of her. “But so are we. We can be fucking monsters when we have to, and when it comes to protecting what’s ours and especially our family, each and every one of us will burn the outside world to ashes.”

Her fingers traced the roman numeral lettering of the top tattoo in slow strokes. “I’ve always envied how close your family seems….”

Romeo groaned and pushed up her shirt, exposing her perky tits. “I’ve got questions about yours, too, actually.” Although this no longer seemed like the time. But he supposed he was the one who’d started the conversation.

“They’re pretentious, obsessed with appearances, and believe my sister is perfect,” Grace said, as if she were reading off a list. The hand not over his tattoos dipped lower, trailing the grooves of muscles along his side. “I was always expected to strive to be her, and even when I did my best, I was deemed a failure. So I decided to fail on purpose and moved out of state.”

He took both her breasts in his hands, grabbing hold as if he were anchoring himself, and her gasp vibrated up his body. He let his hands begin working the pliable flesh and forced more words from his mouth. “There are ways to deal with that without violence. We’ll split holidays between families to be fair, and just let them feel—” He made sure to give a firm roll across her nipples as he said the word. “How successful you are, how fucking well you’re doing. And we’ll do it with a big-ass smile.”

Grace squirmed beneath him. “Romeo…”

He growled. “Arms above your head, angel.” They hadn’t even had the other discussion yet. Any of them. But fuck, she was too tempting. “Did you think of a safe word?”

She licked her lips and stretched her arms over her head, her back naturally arching with the motion. “I, um … how about ‘halo’?”

He blinked at her, then broke into a wide grin. “Fucking perfect.” He grabbed the shirt bunched at her shoulders and swept it up, but instead of sweeping it off, he twisted it around her wrists in a loose restraint. They hadn’t talked, about preferences or fantasies, let alone limits, so he’d consider this a test.

“Romeo?”

“Can’t help myself, angel,” he said as he reached down and released his straining cock from his slacks. “I’ve fucking fantasized about this.” He watched her face as he stroked himself slowly, her gaze riveted to the motion of his hand. “You should know, I like to be in control, Grace.” He inched forward and palmed her breasts again, sliding his dick between them in a slow, sinful motion.

She gasped, her body rolling slightly as if to help him thrust. Her elbows bent as her hands gripped onto the pillows beneath them, but she didn’t pull at the fabric around her wrists. “That sounds like a conversation,” she said, almost breathlessly.

Romeo groaned, half delirious at how good it felt to have her boobs folded around his cock and further aroused at the way she was clearly enjoying it. The blush that traveled down her neck, the way her lips hung open as she sucked in raspy breaths, all of it made him hotter. He moved his thumbs to her nipples, watching as her eyes rolled back for a long second at the pleasurable assault. Her head tipped back, elongating the column of her throat. He couldn’t wait to fuck that, too.

He wanted all of her.

It was hard to remember he should probably respond to her accurate statement. Hard to form coherent words. “It should be,” he managed, voice barely more than a growl.

She licked her lips again, gaze lifting from where he continued to pump between her boobs up to his own. The heat in her eyes did nothing to settle him. “After, please.”

Please.

She was too fucking perfect. “Open your mouth, angel. I’m gonna come all over you, I want you to catch as much as you can.”

Her eyes widened and she obeyed without question, her mouth opening for him. She even tilted her head closer, as if to catch his surging cock. So he let her take just the tip as he pushed forward one more time, the pressure that had built in his balls finally bursting free and pouring out of him. Most of his release shot straight into her waiting mouth, some of it landing on her jaw to dribble off her chin, and the rest splattering across the top of her chest.

It was fucking glorious.

Grace pressed her lips together and swallowed, her hooded gaze lifting back to his. “Please,” she said again, her voice quieter, “I-I need…”

Romeo shifted, moving his hips lower in order to stretch over her again. “Tell me what you need, Grace, and I’ll give it to you.”

Grace stared up at Romeo, feeling breathless, astoundingly aroused, and faintly mortified. She couldn’t believe she’d just allowed him to use her breasts like that, and she could even less believe how much she’d enjoyed it. But she had. She very much had. She was doing herself no service if she denied it at this point. What she needed to do now was be honest—with herself and with him.

“I like the way you touch me,” she whispered. “I want more of that.” Something in his eyes warmed and her mouth kept moving. “I want what Iris has, what Felicity has. I want to be that—” She almost said ‘to someone’, but those words felt misleading. She hadn’t had anyone else on her mind for a while and she couldn’t imagine letting another man touch her now. “Please, Romeo, if this is really something—if you really want me—then I need you to show me. I need to feel it.”

A part of her thought she ought to have been crazy, because she could no longer claim she didn’t know what she was truly asking for, but she meant every word. In her heart she knew if he was serious about her and about them, then she was willing. All she had ever really wanted was to feel valued, and worthy of that affection.

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