Page 86 of Born into Mayhem
She smiles up at me and nods. “Okay.”
“Wow,” I say, returning her smile and running my thumb over her cheek. “Look how far we’ve come,amore mio. There was a time when you would’ve tried to stab me just for mentioning marriage.”
She turns her head and gives my thumb a quick bite. “Don’t get too cocky. I haven’t said yes yet.”
Grinning, I lean closer and kiss her, loving the way she immediately melts against me. Seeing this beautiful, strong woman willingly submit will always be the most erotic thing in the world to me.
“My little viper is slowly becoming a romantic,” I whisper against her lips.
She gives an unladylike grunt and then smacks my ass. “Come on, Romeo, we need to get back out there. The sooner we do, the sooner we can leave.”
“You’re such a handful, sweetheart, but I knew that going into this.” I give her a wink and kiss the small diamond stud in her nose. “You were never going to be a docile girlfriend or wife.”
“I know you love it. You’d be bored out of your mind with a tame woman, Dario.”
I smile and thread my fingers through hers. “You know me so well.” I give her nipples, the ones that are still hard, a long look. “Try not to beso turned on by me,amore mio. Let’s see if we can get those to go back down.”
She snorts out a laugh and elbows me in the side when I start to lead her back out into the hall. The first thing we see is Sasha’s unsmiling face. He’s leaning against the wall, eyes alert, even if they are dead at the moment, and the relaxed pose isn’t fooling me. I know he could have a knife in his hands in less than a second if he needed to. He looks between the two of us before finally settling on his little sister.
“I may never forgive you two for making me stand out here and listen to that.”
“Oh my god,” Mia groans, slapping a hand over her mouth. She knew she’d been loud, but she hadn’t thought about her brother being one of the guests who could hear her. She gives a muffled, “I’m sorry,” from behind her hand.
His light blue eyes move to mine. “Aren’t you a little old to be running off to find a dark corner?”
I can’t help but smile. “Are you ever too old for that?”
He’s not amused. He just tilts his head like he’s trying to understand why we’d need to find a corner in the first place. We weren’t killing someone, so the reasoning is beyond his comprehension.
“I needed Leonardo to hear her,” I finally say.
“Mission fucking accomplished,” Sasha says, and then pushes off from the wall before calmly walking past us. “Sandro’s in the main room. I’ll be watching her from the shadows.”
When he’s far enough away, I lower my head so only Mia can hear. “Do you think anyone will ever catch his eye?”
She shrugs. “Maybe.”
“Do you think he’d kill her.”
I’m only half-joking, but Mia just shrugs again and says, “Maybe.”
“Jesus,” I mutter before leading her back to the ballroom. Right as we’re about to walk in, I say, “Just remember that every single person in here just heard you scream my name while your perfect pussy soaked my hand.”
Just like I’d hoped, her face turns an adorable shade of pink, makingher look like a woman who’s just been caught fucking at a party. Exactly how I want her to look when we step through the doorway and all eyes turn toward us. Several of the women glare at Mia, one gives us a wistful look, and I’m guessing it’s been too long since someone’s pulled her into a dark corner and made her scream, and the men are either giving meway to gogrins orwhat a lucky fucking bastardlooks.
Scanning the room, I spot Leonardo near the center. He’s drinking wine and pretending to be enraptured by something Bianca is telling him, but his eyes keep darting to Mia. His expression isn’t like the others. It’s the same pouty look a kid gets when someone else has a toy he wants to play with. I saw it on Leonardo’s face a lot when we were younger. He’s still the same spoiled little shit he was back then, and when he notices me staring at him, his jaw tenses before he looks back at Bianca and gives her a fake smile. Giuseppe’s daughter wisely took my advice and hasn’t so much as looked in our direction, but it doesn’t take long for her brother to find me.
“It’s good to see you, Dario,” Francesco says, leaning in to kiss my cheek. The future don of the Santoro family is a few years older than me, but unlike Leonardo, I know he’s going to do his father proud when he eventually takes over.
“It’s good to see you too, Francesco.” Keeping my arm around Mia, I say, “I’d like to introduce you to my wife. This is Mia.” I smile down at her, ridiculously proud to call her that and impatient to make it real.
Mia extends her hand for him to shake. He takes it with a smile. “It’s very nice to meet you, even if you have made a liar of me.”
“I have?” Mia asks.
Francesco grins at her and then points a finger at me. “I always swore he’d never marry. He had his pick of all of Calabria, my sister included,” he adds with a friendly laugh, “and he refused them all. No one could tie him down.”
Mia looks up at me and winks, making my cock twitch as I debate whether or not I can get away with pulling her into a corner again.
