The tension, miraculously, leaves me.
“We had a deal,” I murmur, reaching down and pressing my hands against hers, feeling the heat of her through my shirt. “Now. Tell me.”
“You’ll think I’m crazy,” she whispers.
“Let me be the judge of that,” I tell her.
“Okay, but you can’t look at me.”
I chuckle grimly, shaking my head.
“I’m serious,” she snaps, her voice unexpectedly ferocious. “I can’t watch you as I say it, as I tell you. I can’t see the laughter in your eyes, Arturo. Because you will laugh at me, even if you fight it. And you’ll hate me. And resent me. And—”
“Stop telling me what I’ll do,” I growl. “And just tell me.”
She shivers against me, resting her cheek against my back. Every part of her is hot and full of life, as though our children are already inside her, running hotly through her body, roaring at me that they’re here, they’re ready to come into the world.
“That first time I saw you,” she murmurs, “in the cellar, and afterward… when you came to me in the bedroom. Those first moments, I started having these really weird, crazy thoughts. I can’t explain them. But I started to imagine that we were going to have a family together. I saw myself as the mother of your children. I imagined us laughing, loving, really being together. I thought it would go away. But it didn’t. It hasn’t. I know it makes no sense. But …”
“But you want it, even now,” I say.
“Yes,” she whimpers. “I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s like there’s this force inside my body, screaming at me, every second we’re together – heck, every second we’re not – and it’s telling me to get pregnant by you, to have your children.”
A series of shattering sensations move through me, compelling and primal, a savage howling echoing her words around me.
My heartbeat drums and my balls throb, as if my seed is writhing, hungrily, ready to be shot inside of her again.
“Are you going to let me turn around now, you bossy girl?” I tease.
“Yes,” she says, smiling for a moment against my back. “But please don’t laugh at me.”
I turn and take her face in my hands, leaning close and kissing her softer than I have yet, carefully parting her lips and then tasting her tongue, her saliva, all of her. I want every juice she has to offer. Sweat, come, spit, I don’t care.
Every single part of her belongs to me.
I want every scent, every sound.
She. Is. Mine.
I break it off, keeping my face close to hers.
“You’re so damn cute,” I tell her, kissing the edge of her mouth, causing her to smile. “Aida, did you really think this would make me angry? Goddamn, I feel the same.”
She flinches, gasps. “What?”
“I feel the same,” I growl, firmer. “The second I saw you, I knew that you were going to be the mother of my children. I’m not messing around when I say that I own you. Every part of you belongs to me—your tits, your cunt, your ass, your lips. Every. Single. Part. But most of all, I own your womb. I never wanted children before I met you, but now I have to have them. You’re going to give them to me, aren’t you, Aida? Say it. Say it now.”
A shiver moves through her, but her smiling lips tell me how much she’s enjoying this.
“I’ll give you all the babies my body will let me, Arturo,” she moans. “Oh, God, do you really mean it? I thought I was going crazy.”
“Maybe you are,” I tell her. “Maybe we both are. But I don’t give a damn. If this is crazy, I wouldn’t be sane for all the money in the world.”
Chapter Fifteen
Aida
I pick up my cheeseburger, the scents wafting around me and up my nose. My mouth waters, and then I take a bite. I chew and make moaning noises, unable to stop myself, feeling as though I’m floating atop the world.
The sun has almost set now, the world tinged the most surreal shade of purple.
But more than that, it’s the way Arturo looked at me when he told me the crazy fact that he’s had the same fantasies as me.
I thought I was going to be met with laughter, or scorn, or some other terrible thing.
When he took my face in his hands and kissed me like his life depended on it, everything inside of me soared.
I felt like I was flying toward heaven.
But the heaven was here, made just for us.
It’s crazy.
But if this is crazy, I wouldn’t be sane for all the money in the world.
“Why are you smiling so much, eh?” he teases lightly, the shadow of a genuine smile on his face.
I freeze his image in my mind, wanting to savor it forever, wanting to glue it into place and make it so I’ll never forget him. His shadowed smile is almost difficult to believe, it’s so brimming with genuine, untarnished happiness.
But it’s gone as quickly as it appears, his characteristic smirk taking its place, making me wonder if I imagined it.
“The burger that good?” he goes on.
“Maybe,” I say, after a satisfying mouthful. “But mostly it’s the fact that you haven’t thrown me off the balcony.”
He narrows his intense eyes. “Aida, did you really think I was going to react that badly?”
I toss him the sassiest look I can muster.
“Have you met yourself, Arturo?” I counter. “You’re pretty intense, not to mention bossy.”
“Well, I’m a boss,” he banters. “What do you expect?”
I pause, picking up a gourmet French fry and plopping it into my mouth, chewing, staring down at my plate.
Something whirs around my mind, but tonight is too special for me to ruin it.
But my man – my heart sings at the phrase, my man – can see through me too easily.
“Aida, what is it?” he growls.
“What?” I shoot back.
He tilts his head perceptively. “Are we really going to play games? Now? After what we just admitted to each other?”
I sigh. “It’s just the whole mafia thing,” I murmur. “You told me Dad killed two men and—”
“He most likely didn’t kill them himself,” Arturo cuts in.
“Oh, because that makes all the difference,” I retort sarcastically. “Fine, he ordered two men killed. It could’ve been Snaps or any of the men I’ve known my whole life who carried out the actual act. How am I supposed to be okay with that? And—and it’s got me thinking, do you kill people, Arturo?”
He looks at me plainly.
“I’ve killed people,” he says.
A cord of panic runs through me.
“Who? Why?”
“Rapists, pedophiles, evil men … I’ve killed bastards like that, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. The rest – the men who owe the Family money, the men who step out of line – they’re either blackmailed or exiled.”
“And if they still don’t stop?” I murmur, my voice like a shadow, raspy, croaky.
“Then I’d be forced to kill them,” Arturo sighs. “But that hasn’t happened yet. The Amato name holds too much weight for that. Our network is too vast. We work with politicians, law enforcement, everybody. Usually, the dirt we have on people is far too bad for them to risk crossing us. Those who are exiled count themselves lucky to escape with their lives. We seed fear through the city by spreading rumors about the men we’ve killed—lies, but effective lies. We keep the streets clean. If we’re attacked, we fight back, and sometimes when bullets are flying, men die. But we don’t go out of our way to kill people. That’s one of the things I made sure of when I started this family.”