Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77998 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77998 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
I’ll have questions for him.
“Tell me again how he was killed.”
“Knife up the back of the head, lacerations on his body…”
Our door opens.
“Salvatore? Are you okay?” Marialena walks in.
“Gotta go, man.” I hang up the phone and face her. “I told you to stay with your family.” I can’t keep the ice out of my voice. I hate that she flinches.
I’d move heaven and earth to keep her here with me. No one, literally no one, has ever looked at me with concern in her eyes like that. She’s worried, but she’s also truly concerned about my well-being, and I swear to God she’s the only one that ever has been.
I sit on the edge of the bed and crook my finger at her. “Come here.”
My voice is husky, and if I didn’t know any better, I would think it was affected by emotion. But I don’t allow emotion to do that to me.
She walks to me with concern in her eyes. “Is it my family? Are you uncomfortable with them here?”
Uncomfortable? No, sweetheart. Trying to talk myself out of murdering your brother. Trying to figure out how I can salvage our marriage when I have to avenge my father’s death.
“It’s nothing,” I lie. “I got a present for you.”
A look of concern flits over her features before she smiles. “Okay. I’m glad it’s nothing. They went to their rooms to get ready for tonight.”
Good. Keep those fuckers away from me.
I take a long look at her. I know that she doesn’t believe me, but we both are wise enough to know sometimes it’s best to leave a sleeping snake well enough alone and not fucking poke it with sticks. Sometimes, it’s better not to know things.
I open the side table and pull out the box of edibles. “I think tonight will go a lot better if we have a little bit of an edge.”
She smiles at me. “You just want to fuck me high.”
My voice is even deeper when I respond, “You’re goddamn right about that.” Sex with Marialena is the best thing I could’ve ever imagined. Sex with her uninhibited and high…
Right now, I have more reasons than that. I just can’t tell her.
From what she says, she’s a lightweight. I take out the small, sugarcoated candy shaped like a slice of lemon.
“Have one of these.” She’s not new to this, so her reaction will come quickly.
She sniffs the edible and sighs. “God, how I’ve missed that smell.” She slides it into her mouth and smiles at me.
“Sit here.” I take her onto my knee.
“Are you going to ask me what I want for Christmas?”
I smile at her and kiss her, tasting the sweet essence of her flavored like fine wine, imbibing her scent and thanking my lucky stars that I ended up with a woman like her. She opens her mouth to let me in. Our tongues tangle, and I swallow the sighs she releases. I slowly lower her backward as her mouth parts further. I bite her lip and kiss my way up her jaw to her cheek.
“I got all ready for the party,” she says. “Hair, makeup, clothes… I’ll have to do it all over again.” But it’s the feeblest of protests as she melts into me, her body malleable against mine.
“You have staff to help you get ready again.”
“It will still take time…”
“We have time.”
She doesn’t protest but gives me a wicked grin. “Well then.”
“Where did you go to smoke with Mario?” I ask, as if it’s only curiosity.
She grins. “God, it’s already kicking in. That’s strong stuff. And it’s been a while.” She takes in a deep breath. “Okay, alright. Focus. You asked where we smoked. Sometimes we would go down by the ocean. The wind swallows up the smell, you know. We had a cliff overlooking the water in Cape Ann. You’ve seen it before by The Castle.” I nod. Her hands roam up and down the length of my body as if memorizing me. I growl, my erection hardening as I pull her closer to me.
“If we were in Tuscany, we had various places hidden away in the vineyard, which is huge. But at home, after we were discovered near the cliffs by one of my father’s men who tattled on us, we decided to go down to the quarry.”
“The quarry.” My pulse races. I kiss her neck and press my lips to her pulse. So vulnerable. So fragile. “You mentioned that at dinner.”
“Yeah, nobody goes there because everyone believes it’s haunted. Maybe it is. Lord knows my dad murdered enough people and brought their bodies to the quarry.” She rolls her eyes, probably expecting that I’ll go along with this as I’ve gone along with everything else. It’s no surprise to someone in the mob that certain members murder each other. It’s no surprise that they take lives and it’s further no surprise that they have pet places to hide the bodies. What is the surprise is how casually she speaks of it.