Page 20 of Relentless Refuge

“Yes, well, I’m tired. It’s been a long day. I suppose we can retire early if you’re ready.” I look at my watch and see that it’s only just after eight p.m. I catch a hint of disappointment in her eyes. I have to hide a smirk, though, because I have no intention of retiring early. I am merely coaxing the vixen out of her, wanting to see how badly she wants me. She’s new to all of this, and I imagine she doesn’t even know where to begin.

“Well, I was thinking of going to bed but not to sleep.” She looks up at me, tipping her head until her neck is exposed. I think about biting her tender skin, right below her earlobe, perhaps even sucking until a love kiss appears. My dick is tingling, bloodalready rushing to the area in preparation, and it takes all my self-restraint to keep from flipping her over and pinning her down.

“Mrs. Romano, are you suggesting we…?” I let the words trail off, hanging in the air as the smile returns to her lips. She leans closer still, her tits now crushed against the side of my body as her right leg slides across my lap.

“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.” Her body rises slowly until her pelvis grinds on my thigh and her lips brush over mine. It’s passionate and electric, making the nerve endings in my fingers itch to touch her skin.

I cup her cheek and pull her mouth against me hard as she continues to shift positions until she’s straddling me. My hands have minds of their own, sliding beneath her shirt to brush across the soft, creamy skin on her hips. She’s hungry for me. I don’t know what’s come over her, but I’m enjoying it. It’s the first indication that she’s enjoying the more personal and intimate side of this arrangement—that it’s becoming a relationship rather than a business transaction.

“Mmm, I want you to do that thing… With your tongue…” Her hungry words come as her hands begin to undo my shirt buttons, and her hips are grinding on me. I will have no problem fulfilling each of her requests.

I push her shirt up, exposing her tits, still imprisoned in the lace and silk of her bra, and I bite the inside of her cleavage and leave a mark. She hisses and then snickers, playfully pushing me away. As I reach for the clasp to undo it, the doorbell rings. Except, whoever it is does not wait for me to come answer, or one of my staff, either. The door bursts open, rattling the pocket doors as a gust of wind is released into the main hallway.

“Fuck’s sake,” I grumble, realizing our rendezvous is at best postponed and at worst, over completely. “Who is it!” I shout, holding Isabella to my lap, though she squirms to get up.

“Marco, God…” she hisses, pushing on my chest as the pocket door separating the living room from the hallway where our guest trespasses slides open.

Victor stands gasping for air with blood streaming down his face onto his suit. The white button-down shirt he wears is covered in droplets, and the lapels of his jacket are stained red. His hands have blood on them too, and they appear burned. His hair is singed, and his wide eyes tell a tale of horror.

Isabella leaps off my lap, no longer restrained by my firm grip, and I rise with her as she scurries to the door to guide my brother into the room. Her shirt falls back down, covering her more sensitive parts I had just exposed, and I stomp over to where she dotes on him.

“Oh, God, come sit. What happened?” She ushers him to the leather armchair near the fireplace and flips on the light that sits on the stand next to the chair. In the brighter light, I can see tiny pinpricks of blood across his forehead and ears and I know just what has happened, but not by whom or how.

“Car bomb,” he stutters out, and I see blood drop from his mouth. He’s even taken glass shards to his mouth, probably as he screamed in horror while the bomb went off. He had to have been standing right next to it.

“Christ,” I growl, and I reach for the box of tissues and thrust it out toward him. Victor reaches to take it, but Isabella grabs it from my hand and pulls out a few tissues. He inevitably takes the box, but only so she can baby him. “When…? Where?” It’sobvious he’s okay, so I want details. “Get off him and let him talk,” I order her, but she is frantic, swiping and dabbing at the blood to remove it, only to have more come oozing out of the microscopic cuts.

“What is wrong with you? Can’t you see he’s injured?” She doesn’t even look up at me as she continues to clean him up.

“Bratva… They got Tony. Man, he was right there. I tried to pull him out and my hands…” He shows me his palms, both with second-degree burns and blistering. “God, he died right in front of me. That should have been me. They were trying to kill me.” He’s in shock. I don’t even know how he got here. He must have walked the entire way from where he was.

“And the car?” I stalk over and take the tissues away from Isabella, trying to prove the point that Victor only needed minor first-aid, not a fucking wet nurse.

“It’s gone. Burned up. I couldn’t get the plates off it.” He touches the blisters on his skin and stares at his hands.

“Marco, you’re being an animal. Let me help him.” Isabella reaches for the box of tissues in my hand, and I hold them out of her reach. “What the hell is wrong with you? He’s your brother.”

“He’s a soldier in a war, and he has crucial information to give me. This is nothing but a flesh wound and you’re acting like his mother.” I glare at her, and she glares back but then walks away. I don’t know where she’s going, and I don’t care. I turn my attention back on Victor and ask, “You didn’t see when they planted it? Where were you? Is there camera footage? We need to call our guys at the precinct and make sure no one finds that license plate.”

My questions come hot and fast. We have no time to lose when something like this happens. Cover-ups are different from clean-ups, and a car bomb draws a lot of attention.

“Just off Strivers Row…. God, they almost killed me.” Victor is a bit heavy on the dramatics as I pull my phone out and shoot off a rapid fire of text messages to our boys in blue, and Isabella returns from wherever it is she disappeared to. She has tweezers in hand and an armful of towels.

“Come, lie down on the sofa,” she says as she spreads a towel out for him to lie on. He stands and removes his jacket, and I shake my head at the idiocy. “It’s going to scar if we don’t get the glass out.”

“My God, woman, you will be the death of me.” I sigh hard and bite my tongue. She’s so obstinate that she will disregard a direct order, and as my wife and the leader of her own Family, there’s nothing I can do.

Victor lies down on the couch as she hovers over him, using her tweezers to pinch the bits of glass that have penetrated his skin and pull them out. I run a hand through my hair and think of what our next steps should be, but her disobeying me doesn’t sit well with me. I’m worked up over the car bombing and my evening with her being ruined, and I unleash all that frustration on her.

“Will you get off him? He needs to help me think, not suck your tit.” I grab her wrist, and she smacks my hand and yanks it away.

“You’re an ass!” She stands to her feet, tweezers in hand, and scowls at me. She’s seething. “Do you understand that your enemy has now become my enemy? My Family is in this line of fire right along with you, so back off. I’m leading the way I knowhow, and if I were you, I’d be going on the offensive to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Isabella turns around and drops to her knees beside Victor again, agonizing over the tiny cuts with white washrags in hand to stymie the flow of blood her surgery produces. Victor winces and bites down hard, gritting his teeth as she pulls out the glass, and I back down. She’s not going to listen to me right now. She’s doing the only thing that can actually be done—recovery and planning.

“She’s right,” Victor says before yelping in pain.

“God, sorry, some of these are deep.” She dabs at the fresh blood, and I see the size of a glass shard that nearly punctured his eye socket.

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