Lady and the Champ (29 page)

 
H
onest to God
, I can’t believe what I’ve just done. Sal De Luca’s girlfriend—no, his
fiancée
—in my house. She’s gorgeous, even with her face tear streaked and her dress still a little askew from having my hands inside it. My fingers still smell like her cunt. I want to taste her there, drive my tongue into her. I want to fuck her every which way to Sunday.

Then she’ll be mine. I’ll fuck every trace of Sal off her, and neither of us will ever have to think about him again.

It’s a heady feeling, like being a little too drunk. Sal won’t ever recover from this. There’ll be no question, then, of who should take over as Spada’s right-hand man. It’ll be me, and they’ll run Sal out of town on a rail.

I hear a soft sniffing noise, and it pulls me out of my thoughts. Sarah’s still standing near the front door, looking almost lost. Forlorn. My triumph fades a little.

“Can I get you a drink?” I ask her.

She drags her attention to me and looks at me for a minute like she’s not quite sure who I am. Then she nods. “Sure. Something hot.”

“I can do that.”

I get her situated on a nice, comfortable chair in the living room, then go back into the kitchen to mix her up a hot toddy. Rum and butter, a little hot water. Cinnamon? Sure. Why not? I make one for myself, too, and bring them back into the living room.

In the archway between the kitchen and the living room, though, I stop. She’s sitting there quietly on the couch, and she’s started crying again. Not a lot—just a few tears streaking down her face, like they’re left over from the crying jag she had at the restaurant. She shoves her hand across her cheeks, shoving them away like she’s angry at them. She’s not facing in my direction; her focus is on the bookshelf against the opposite wall. I know what she’s doing—when you’re uncomfortable in somebody’s house, you distract yourself checking out their library. I hope she’s finding mine fascinating.

Strangely I find myself not able to move right away. I just want to stand there and take her in. She’s beautiful, yes, but it’s more than that. She’s so vulnerable right now, and I know damn well I’m taking advantage of that, but I think she knows it, too. And something about her just…

I don’t know how to describe it. It’s just a sort of warm feeling in my chest. Something about looking at her makes me happy.

At least I think that’s what it is. I’m not sure I’ve ever actually
been
happy. Not like some other guys I know who’ve settled down with good women and are raising families. I always thought Dad was happy, at least in the last couple of decades or so. Maybe he fought, too. Maybe he had issues with the Spadas and everything that was expected of us. But with me and my brother, with my mom, he was good.

I swallow hard as I’m hit with a sudden vision of Sarah, still in my house, still in my living room, but with her body heavy and beautiful with a child. My child. I want that. I want that quiet kind of security that having a woman at home, having a family, gives a man. And I can’t put it off much longer. Life is short.

I must make a noise or something, or maybe Sarah just feels me looking at her, because she turns abruptly, looking almost startled. I give her a reassuring smile and move toward her with her drink.

“Hot toddy,” I tell her as she takes it out of my hand. “Good choice?”

She smiles, hesitant, or maybe still sad. “Good choice.”

Carefully she sips at the drink and then makes a face, but I can tell the grimace is because the toddy is hot and not because she doesn’t like it. “Cinnamon,” she says. “Nice touch.”

“I’m glad you like it.” Without asking permission, I sit down next to her on the couch and stretch an arm out along the back of it, my fingers only a couple of inches from her shoulder. I sample the drink; it’s hot but tasty, and the heat and the liquor feel good sliding down.

For a few minutes we just sit quietly, sipping our drinks and not quite looking at each other. It’s awkward, but that’s all right. It’s a start.

Finally I set my drink down on the end table and ask her the question that’s been bugging the hell out of me since even before we met at that party. “How did you end up with Sal, anyway?”

She tenses, and I regret breaking the quiet mood, awkward or not. With a small shake of her head, she says, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

I nod. I get that. “Okay. But if I know what he’s holding over your head, it might be easier for me to help you.”

Her head swivels, her eyes meeting mine directly. I can tell she hasn’t thought of that angle before. As she mulls what I just said, I can damn near see the thoughts rolling over and over each other in her brain. After a few long seconds she says, “The bakery.”

That makes sense. It’s usually something like that. Something that can be taken away without much effort. “What happened?”

Sarah takes another sip of her drink, this time as if she’s fortifying herself. “I’ve always wanted a bakery. Or a little restaurant. A coffee shop—you know, something little and intimate that adds character to a neighborhood.” With a shrug, she sets the drink aside, and from that small gesture I know she’s going to spill the whole story. “Mom and Dad wanted me to do something more useful with my life, but I just wanted that little restaurant. So I scrimped and saved and still I didn’t quite have enough. So…I took out a loan.”

“Ah.” Familiar story. I’d given out more than a few of those loans myself. It always seemed good at the beginning, but if you couldn’t pay, things got ugly really fast. “From Sal?”

“Yeah. And after a while, I couldn’t make the payments. I was having a hard time getting the place up and running. They decided it’d be a better return on their dime if they torched the place and collected the insurance money.”

I wince. Yeah, I’ve done that, too. I always told myself I did what had to be done, that the business had to go ahead of everything else. Profit. Success. Return on the dollar. Hearing it from Sarah puts a whole different spin on it. I don’t comment, though. I let her keep talking.

“Obviously I wasn’t keen on that plan, but I had no idea how to stop them. Or even if I
could
stop them. So I’m panicking, I’m already seeing my perfect little bakery going up in smoke, and when Sal comes around to collect his money, I beg him for a deal.”

She stops. After a moment she picks her drink up again and tosses off the rest of it in a single gulp. Her fingers are shaking as she sets it back down.

I decide to let her off the hook. “Sal was the deal. He’d let you keep the bakery if you moved in with him.” I put it in the most delicate terms I can think of. At the same time, my stomach’s gone cold. I suspected it was something like this keeping her under his thumb, but this is even worse than I thought. I’m queasy all of a sudden, thinking about the number of times I’ve put people in similar positions. I’ve never asked anybody to whore themselves, but I’ve done things nearly as bad. Threatened livelihoods, vehicles, homes.

In a way, though, being on the other side of it makes it easier to understand why Sarah ended up where she is. Because I know Sal was serious when he said he’d burn the place down. He would have done it just like I would have done it. Sarah just got stuck between a very big rock and an extra-hard hard place.

She just nods. “And now this. Now he expects me to spend the rest of my life with him.” I can tell from the shiver in her voice that tears are threatening again.

I move closer. “I’ll be sure that doesn’t happen. I promise you.”

Her eyes slide sideways. I know she’s wondering what the catch is. Because of course there’s a catch. Yeah, it’s probably enough that I’m giving Sal the double middle finger by stealing his girl, but I’m starting to want more. A lot more.

She doesn’t ask any questions, though, and when I lean toward her to kiss her, she doesn’t even pretend like she doesn’t want me to.

God, she’s beautiful. Even after everything she’s been through today, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman look like she does. She’s cried off most of her makeup, and without it her skin is pale like porcelain. Her eyes stand out, stark and wide. There’s still lipstick on her mouth, dark against the washed-out colors of the rest of her face. She looks so fragile, so vulnerable, and yet in her eyes I see a stubborn fire that I don’t think I want to cross.

Somehow, in spite of everything, Sal hasn’t broken her.

I smile a little at that thought, which brings with it an inexplicable surge of pride. I kiss her again, deeper this time. She’s not going to leave this house without me having her every way I can think of. And then I’m going to tell her exactly what I want from her, and she’s going to agree. Because I’m the lesser of two evils, and because I can give her things Sal can’t. Or won’t.

Her small hand comes up to comb through my hair, and she presses closer to me. I know she wants this. Regardless of anything else, we’re hot for each other. I’m hard already, my dick demanding more than just the contact of my clothes to satisfy it. It’s not good at being patient.

Neither am I, but I have to be this time. I want her on board with this from the beginning. I want her to know what she’s getting into.

I lay my hand over hers where she’s stroking my hair and make the kiss even deeper, slanting my mouth over hers. Her breath is speeding up, and I can feel her heartbeat against me, also getting faster. She feels so small against me, her hand delicate inside mine, like a small animal, fluttering.

“Nick…” she breathes after a moment, drawing back just a little.

I meet her eyes, smiling. “Yes?”

“I…”

She doesn’t seem able to finish the sentence. I stroke a hand down her shoulder, over her breast, cup that heavy softness, and press her nipple hard with my thumb. She bites her lip, and her eyes close for a split second.

“I can’t do this,” she says, but it’s breathy and not very convincing.

“It’ll be all right,” I tell her. It probably won’t, but we’ll deal with that later. “I promise. You’re safe here.” That much is true. Nobody’s getting in here. Nobody’s taking her from me.

Her hands lower, folding against my chest between us. She looks down at them then back up at my face. Finally she tips her head back again, inviting another kiss.

I give it to her. This time I lower her onto the length of the couch, easing her down to her back so I’m mostly on top of her, holding her there against the cushions. The couch isn’t wide enough, I realize, but I’ll do something about that shortly. Right now I need to press my advantage.

Lying on her full length like this, I’m even more aware of her smallness. I’m afraid if I move the wrong way, I might break her. She doesn’t seem to mind, though. She shifts so she’s even more fully under me, and her thighs fall open, her legs wrapping around my hips.

Ah, that’s nice. I can feel the heat between her legs soaking through my trousers, sparking reactions in my dick. My balls are pulling up—
easy, boys, it’s not quite time yet
—and my dick wants inside her right fucking now. I start to pulse my hips, dragging my erection across that hot place between her thighs. She pulses back, wiggling so I’m stroking where she wants me to be. A harsh breath bursts from her, and I pulse faster.

“Nick…” She grasps at my shoulders, her nails digging into me hard enough I can feel it through my jacket and shirt. Shrugging, I manage to get one shoulder out of the jacket. She grabs the lapel and drags it down my arm then pulls at the other shoulder. Within a few more seconds I’m tossing the jacket across the room. Before it even hits the floor, she’s working on my shirt buttons.

Leaning down to kiss her, I let myself enjoy the depths of her mouth for several long seconds while she struggles with my shirt. Then she’s shoved that back, too, and I draw back to let her finish.

“Oh, Nick…” she breathes, and I realize she’s staring at my bare chest, eyes wide. I flex a pectoral muscle with a smug grin.

“You like that?”

“It’s beautiful.”

Yes, my chest is a work of art on its own—I spend a lot of time in the gym to ensure that—but it’s the tat that’s caught her attention. It’s a stylized phoenix, wings spread, with bright flames curling up on either side of it. It covers my whole chest, the tail reaching down toward my navel.

Sarah wiggles down to put her face between my pecs, and then she starts to lick the outlines of the bird. Now I’m the one making the surprised noises. I can’t say anybody’s ever done that to me before. I like it.

She uses her tongue to outline the wings, then she finds my nipples and laves them, nips them. Bites them, and I jump at the sharp clench of her teeth. Her arms go around me again, and her nails dig in as she pulls the shirt the rest of the way off me and tosses it to join the jacket across the room somewhere.

“We should…” I break off as she drags her nails down my bare back. “We should go somewhere a little…roomier.”

“Mmm-hmm,” she agrees. She’s kissing across my collarbones now, and I think she’s finally completely on board with this. I move back then ease off the couch.

“What…” she protests.

“Shh,” I tell her. I scoop her up and carry her to the stairs, then up, down the hall, and into my bedroom.

There’s a slight hesitation—very slight—as I set her on her feet. She takes in the room, and I see that little spark of fear in her eyes again.

“It’s roomier,” I tell her.

That gets a reluctant laugh out of her. “Yes. It certainly is.”

I can tell she’s still a little unsure, so I take her shoulders in my hands gently and kiss her. She responds, like she has from the beginning, and it doesn’t take much to ratchet up the heat. A matter of seconds and she’s melting against me again, pushing up on her toes to kiss me harder, deeper.

“Okay,” she finally murmurs against my mouth. “Okay.”

I pick her up again. This time I carry her all the way to the bed and lay her down on top of the covers. She’s still wearing her dress from the party, and I want her naked, but there’s something else I want to do first. This is going to be about her, not about me getting my dick wet as fast as possible.

I take hold of the hem of the dress and ease it up her legs, bunching the material around her waist. Her long, slim legs are completely exposed, all the way past the soft cotton thong she’s wearing. I can almost feel the wet heat on my fingertips again, and I lower my face to her mound and breathe deep. She smells rich and musky, intensely aroused. And so hot.