Page 5 of Bound to Him

“What’s wrong honey?” she purred, jutting her bottom lip out and stretching out seductively like a cat that had just woken up.

I leaned back in my chair, watching her step off the stage in her dangerously high heels, eyes still on me. I often watched my own toes around these women, not always trusting them to keep those death daggers safely on the ground and off my feet. Her perfectly realistic fake tits swayed with the motion and bounced when she planted herself on my lap.

“You aren’t yourself tonight,” she murmured into my ear. “You want a pick-me-up in your office?” Her lips touched my ear seductively as she made her offer. “Like what we did last week?”

As tempting as it sounded and as much as I wanted to fuck around before becoming a married man and having to do this in some kind of secrecy, I just wasn’t in the mood. Not for the sex anyway. The stardust on the other hand, I’d taken a lot of. I smiled my usual charming smile that I used with all my ladies, sliding my hand down Jewel’s back and snapping her thong against her hip.

“No thank you, sweetheart.” I winked. “You just keep doing your thing for the boys.”

Another pout. “Alright, if you say so, Boss.” She stood up slowly and chose her next victim, my rich cousin Johnny.

At least here I was considered the boss. Back at home, I might as well be a doorman. Even as the underboss, I had very little pull. I had to do my duty for the head of the family and for the protection of the whole family—always for the family. I knew I had responsibilities, and I’d made my peace with that a long time ago, after a very disruptive rebellious teenage phase. I just didn’t realize those responsibilities would be so… damning. Yes,damning.

Mannaggia!

The more I thought it over, the more I realized that this marriage arrangement wasn’t just a ceremony, it was a lifelong contract. If it was ever broken, the peace treaty between our families would be broken too, and that would mean war. This went way beyond just my sex life.

Fuck.

I would do anything,everything, for my family. Christ, I could beat and humiliate, torture and kill, work my fucking ass off to keep the Moretti businesses up and running. But marriage? That was where my sense of willingness drew the line. That was where I felt as if they were asking a bit much of me. Go figure.

“Goomba! Why so glum, man?” Johnny Moretti asked, holding his hands out in question while Jewel slowly gyrated against his body. “You’ve got all of this at your fingertips!” His hands spread out, gesturing to the entirety of the club around us. I laughed, shook my head, and stood up.

“That’s exactly it, ol’ Johnno. It’s all mine, to have and to hold!” This time I was the one waving my hands across the room. “For better or worse, right? Devoted to the Moretti’s!”

With only a couple confused looks amongst the cheers for the famous family name, I turned and headed for my office behind the bar. Even if I came out tonight to enjoy myself and get my mind off things, my fate was proving to be impossible to forget.

I closed the door behind me and poured myself a scotch before I fell back onto the couch alongside my desk, holding my glass up in the air to avoid spilling the precious liquor as my body moved completely uncoordinated.

Just this one night, Hux. Tomorrow you can be sober and deal with your duties.

With a tired sigh, I looked down at the couch. Immediately, I remembered the few romps I’d had right here on this couch, in this exact position, with a stripper’s ass in my hands.

Hm, I wondered,would my wifey be good in bed? Would the princess Viola Romano be into kinky quickies on my office couch?Probably not. This was partly a strip club after all, and she was considered royalty… she’d probably expect more romance than that. I just hoped she wasn’t a stuck up rich-bitch with high expectations and even higher maintenance tendencies.

Truth be told, I’d heard wonderful things about the Romano sisters, well, about their beauty anyway. Especially Olivia, the older sister. Apparently, all the guys were shocked speechless when Olivia turned from the young, quiet, little Romano girl into a slim sex queen with the best jugs in the city. That’s what I heard, at least. I’d never had the pleasure of meeting the twobellas, due to Tony’s hatred for me, and honestly, my hatred for the entirety of the Romano family. They were my rivals, after all. Even if we tried to work together to keep the city safe and protected, there was always something we disagreed on.

“Hey, man. Boss told me what happened earlier.”

I hadn’t even heard Vinnie crack the door open. He slid in and casually pulled a chair up backward, straddling the seat with his arms over the backrest. I sniffed, downed my drink, and looked at him.

“He did? He tell you that apparently I’m a little bitch he’s enjoying fucking around?”

Vinnie chuckled, a rare occurrence. “Yeah, I get it. You hear a lot about girls whose parents arrange their marriages, but guys? Not so much.”

“Right?” I huffed, shaking my head. “You want one?” I lifted my tumbler. Vinnie nodded once, and I stood to pour us both a drink. “Look, you know me. I’ll be the man and step up, marry the girl for the family. But to be all buddy-buddy with fucking Tony? Not a chance, boy!”

Vinnie sucked in his breath between his teeth. “Shit, I forgot about Tony and Liza.”

“Yeah! Fucking Tony Romano. He’s the one being a bitch about it!” I handed him his glass and returned to my couch, sliding all the way down, and resting my glass on my knee.

“Yeah… he’s definitely a bitch.” Vinnie sighed, downing his scotch in one go. “I remember when you two fought for the first time. What were you, sixteen?”

Vinnie had always been there, even back when I was a young kid. He showed up as a teen looking for work, befriended Antonio, and proved his loyalty to the family. His initiation involved beating the shit out of a pusher they’d found operating from the back of a diner’s kitchen. He passed with flying colors. Ever since then, he’d been a part of us, another big brother to me. So naturally, he was there when Tony and I started our rivalry.

“Sweet sixteen…” my words were slurred by now. “Young and full of hormones and adrenaline… Tony threw down gloves because I scored the most goals in the football game that day.”

“He always had a sensitive ego.”

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