Page 46 of Princess of the Mafia

“I won’t cheat on you, and you promise to give this marriage a try.”

I pulled back to eye him. “You’re—”

“Principessa, you should know I don’t give my word lightly. So do I have yours?”

I didn’t believe him. Every vein in his body would scream to fuck the next woman he met. Not his fault, really. That’s how he was programmed. Just like that’s how Papà was made.

“Are you going to try, Daria?” he whispered.

His eyes flickered with something dark that urged me to give in. I tried to imagine a marriage to him where he didn’t cheat. It didn’t take me far. It was easier to picture him coming out of another woman’s room, fucking a maid, or smelling of alcohol and sex after work.

“I haven’t cheated on you, Daria,” his soft tone urged.

“Yet,” I muttered.

He sighed. “Why don’t you give me the benefit of the doubt?”

I suppose I could try. He wouldn’t last long anyway.

“I could try,” I muttered unconvinced, but he jumped on it like I’d cut my arm and sworn with blood.

“That’s all I am asking.”

He ran his hand along my cheek and gently tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “One step at a time. Prove me you mean it.”

I puffed my lips out. How am I to do that?

“Give me a kiss.”

What? What did a kiss have to do with any of this?

“Before you say I gave my word for a kiss, I didn’t. I gave my word to you, and I want you to give yourself to me.” He tipped my chin up. “All I am asking for is a kiss today.” He held up his hands. “I won’t push you. You can get off me and walk out the door.” He nodded towards the door. “But I would really like it if you would press those beautiful lips of yours against mine and show me you want to try. Show me you mean what you said, just like I showed you by hauling Benedetta here for you. Actions speak louder than words. What do you think, Principessa?”

I thought I wanted to get off him and run. Run all the way to Corleone and put my head on Mamma’s lap. My eyes dropped to his lips. They were full and thick and lined with the darkness of black hair. The thought ran through my mind of whether his scruff would tickle. My body throbbed somewhere I refused to acknowledge. Just because he was so different from me. My hands twitched to know what it would feel like to have them on a man. His tongue slipped out and trailed across his upper lip. Medda! It was like he touched my lips with his tongue. Now his lips were all wet. I bit my bottom lip and pondered. The pinch in my lip and the tongue on his. A giddiness I’d never known before overtook me, and before I knew it, and could stop myself, I had leaned forward and touched my lips to his. It felt soft and gruff at the same time. He didn’t move. I was not sure if he even breathed. What am I to do now? I should stop. My breath fell on his lips, and I put my tongue on them and gave a soft flick. I liked that. I trailed his lips with mine, and a rough groan left him. It was so unexpected and threw me off so much that I was off his lap and out the door before the next breath. Only I wasn’t sure if it was mine or his.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

LORENZO

The smell of chocolate and cinnamon waltzed over to me the moment I opened the front door. The sound of a giggle floated along the hallway and filled my rib cage with a tangible ache. Two fucking weeks. Not even in my teens had I ever gone so slow with a girl, and I had to do it with my wife. Fuck if it didn’t hurt.

Day by day, I inched closer to her, slower than a snail on a siesta. It killed me to let her have the upper hand, but it made it easier for her to close that fucking gap. Bliss. That was it when she put those deliciously plump lips of hers on mine. But damn, did she take her time with it. Some days, I wondered if this was innocence or pure seduction because, goddammit, she knew how to string a man along. I hadn’t fucked a woman in ages, and my dick was permanently leaking pre-cum. It didn’t help one damn bit I had married a seductress who refused to put out until it was set in stone that I’d be faithful to her. I wondered if this would be on my deathbed, because how could I prove my faithfulness to her without having her wrapped around me 24/7?

I followed the sound of merriness to the kitchen. Well, it looked like someone had had some fun. I had never known Benedetta to be anything other than pristine, but it looked like the whirlwind that my wife was, had changed that. The spilled flour, the stickiness of leftover dough, and the smear of dark chocolate on the countertop made my hand clench inside my pocket. I liked things to be in their place. Everyone knew this. Except for my fucking wife.

The urge to fill my lungs with nicotine crawled through me. But the masochist in me wanted to see if I could hold it off till she kissed me. If she kissed me.

I should have married her sister and taken her fucking bodyguard along. I could have fucked whoever I wanted, and imagining her with her bodyguard didn’t lift a single hair on my body.

Now I was stuck with the messiest woman I’d ever known, who made me hang around like a juvenile, hoping for an innocent kiss.

She was popped on a bar stool, the shortest dress in history riding up her tanned thighs. Mamma used to say karma could be a bitch. I guess it was knocking on the door for all my past sins.

She turned around, her finger in her mouth, licking off the remnants of chocolate, by the smell of it. The innocence on her face, in combination with those lips wrapped around her finger, took me straight to another place where those lips could wrap and suck. Who was I kidding? The moment I saw her, I lost fucking track of her sister.

“Oh!” Her mouth popped open, and her finger slipped out.

Benedetta looked up from doing the dishes. “Enzo, you’re home early. Couldn’t keep away, figlio mio?” she asked sneakily.

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