Page 17 of Gardener for the Mafia

I giggle, my worries falling from me like an itchy blanket as I sit up straighter.

“Jeez, Lorenzo. How could I say no to that?”

Chapter Nine

Lorenzo

“This is amazing,” Lena says, walking to the large control panel of the recording studio, so many dials and buttons and sliders it looks like an airplane switchboard.

I can’t help but let my hungry eyes move over her ass, to the way the fabric of her dress clings to the round tempting globes. With her pale legs poking out from the hem as she leans forward, the dress riding up, every instinct is urging me to dart forward and slide my hands up between her legs to smear her wetness across my palm.

She turns to me, her face bright and her eyes even brighter, her vivacity and lust for life like a perfume that infuses the air around her.

“I can’t believe you own this place,” she says. “This is really state of the art.”

“I own a record label,” I tell her. “It’s just one of my many businesses. Truthfully, I don’t have much involvement with it. But I’d be honored if …”

“Nah uh,” she sasses, dancing over to me.

She kicked her heels off when we came in here, with the casual intimacy that befits our blossoming relationship. I stare at her calf muscles, wanting to nibble and bite and then trail higher, feeling her goosebumps prickle her skin against my lips.

“You were about to say you’d be honored if I used this studio, right?”

I loop my arms around her and press her close, feeling her breasts pushing against my torso, her body inferno hot and heaving with frenetic breaths.

Our closeness envelops and captivates us, as though nothing else outside of this studio exists.

“Right,” I growl.

“But it’s just hard for me, Lorenzo.”

“How?” I say, my voice choked as my manhood floods with the fire of a thousand stars, the heat surging through my balls and making them bulge, my seed writhing around in its eagerness to gush lovingly into her waiting sex.

“It just all seems too good to be true,” she whispers. “I mean, I want to believe it. Of course I want to believe it. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And this studio, wow, it’s just amazing. Maybe another girl would turn it down out of pride. But not me. I know what it is to grow up rough, and you learn early on not to turn down opportunity when it presents itself.”

“But?” I say, sensing that my queen has more to say.

She leans back in my embrace, sudden emotion flaring in her eyes. The lights are turned down low, giving the tears that are sparkling in her eyes a hidden yellow sheen.

I reach up and brush them with my fingertips, a fierce stabbing entering my gut.

I need to find whoever put these feelings inside of her and snap every bone in their body, my chest swelling with animalistic fury at the thought that she’d ever be sad, ever have to feel anything other than floating on clouds happy.

“Tell me,” I say.

She spins away from me, gripping the edge of the switchboard.

“Tell you what?” she whispers, and then laughs as though she can giggle away the crying.

“I’ll never stop being able to read you, Lena,” I mutter, moving up behind her slowly. I place my hands on her shoulders to steady the trembling. “What happened to you?”

She sighs, a strangling sound coming from the base of her throat before she laughs again.

“I used to think if I just kept laughing, I could keep away the tears, you know? But it doesn’t seem to be w-working …”

She explodes into a torrent of sobs, her entire body quivering like the ground before an earthquake, and it tears through me, too.

Jagged edges zigzag through my body as I watch my sweet queen turn to pieces.

I grab her and pull her into me, moving my hand through her hair and letting her cry warm tears into my chest.

“It’s okay,” I whisper, squeezing her shoulder. “It’s all going to be okay, Lena.”

“Is this real, Lorenzo?” she cries, looking into my face as black eye makeup drifts in rivers down her cheeks.

Even crying, her beauty is undeniable, coming from somewhere deep inside of her and captivating every part of me. She’s more than makeup and artistry and clever cosmetic trickery.

She just is.

“It’s real,” I growl. “It’s the realest thing I’ve ever felt. You’re mine. Always.”

She smooths her hand over her cheeks, nodding shortly. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“I’ve gotten makeup all over your shirt,” she whispers.

I glance down and see that she’s right. Her eye makeup has left black smears all over it. I laugh grimly and softly cradle the back of her head, and then move forward to smear her cheeks against my shirt. She giggles as I rub more and more makeup onto the fabric until there’s more on my shirt than on her cheeks.

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