Page 55 of Runaway in the Mafia (The shadows of Cosa Nostra Chronicles #3)

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

AHANA

I was in the kitchen with Lia and Ada rolling out the gnocchi when heavy, rapid footsteps pounded through from the hallway. All I caught was Ada’s devious grin before the kitchen door exploded and Vitale burst through it.

“What did I tell you about disobeying me?” he growled.

Ugh? “I didn’t—” One minute I was standing, and the next I was hanging over his shoulder as he stormed out. Lia burst out in giggles.

“Hey Bhagwan, what is wrong with you? Put me down.” He answered by smacking my butt.

The sound resonated in the hallway. Crawled all over my burning ears.

I didn’t think I could turn crimson with my dark skin.

But I’d bet that was the colour the heat rushing to my cheek turned me.

I lifted my head and caught Ada grinning.

What was wrong with this family? How was this funny in any world?

“Let me down, Vitale.” He didn’t miss a step in his stride. “Now.” We were already out on the driveway, and I landed in his passenger seat. He yanked the belt and snapped it in place. His body was a wall of unfiltered rage. “I don’t understand,” I muttered.

“Of course you don’t.” The door slammed on my side.

I caught him in the rearview mirror, rounding the car and kicking the back of it. He loved his car. I didn’t understand what I had done to anger him. It obviously did nothing to cool him because when he slid onto his side, he was still boiling with rage.

“What did I do?” I asked softly.

He glared out through the windscreen. “I told you not to disobey me, Ahana.”

“But I—”

“Not fucking now,” he gritted through his teeth.

I locked my lips. Not because I wanted to, but because through his anger, I could feel the sheet of his pain. For some reason, it made my heart feel constricted.

Tension coiled inside the metal walls. Outside, it ate the miles like a famished beast. He drove it like a madman. A confident lunatic. But even when his driving was rash, I felt safe with him.

No music rustled between us. Just a copious anger and raw, silent pain. Halfway through, I gingerly rested my hand on his clenched fist framing the gearshift. His jaw tightened, but he didn’t shrug it off. I encircled his hand and kept it that way all the way back.

We arrived home in a cloud of dust.

Home?

The hot engine sputtered and sparked. Vitale’s anger burned next to me.

“I’m sorry.”

He glared out front. “Thought you said you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I didn’t.” I swallowed. “At least not that I know of. But I hurt you, and I’m sorry for that.”

His heavy breathing fogged up the windscreen.

His fists clenched around the wheel. A few stretched heartbeats passed before he exhaled a slow sigh.

His shoulders sagged. When he turned to me, his eyes were a whirlpool of emotions.

Anger. Frustration. Pain. He grabbed my face and yanked me to him, unclipping the seat belt while pulling me to him.

“Fuck.” His lips crashed on mine, and it felt like he sucked the life out of me.

He was a boomerang of emotions, and he showed it in his kiss.

His lips bruised me. His tongue was feverish and conquered me.

When he pulled away, both our breathing was harsh.

“Don’t ever run away again.” His tone was raw. Broken. Vulnerable.

Is that what he thought?

My chest splintered. Something warm seeped into the cracks. “I didn’t.” I placed my palm on his face. “I just went to your mother.”

“Perché?”

Why? He seemed to have forgotten I didn’t speak his language, but I understood him.

I dropped my gaze between us, where I sat straddled on his lap.

“I don’t like to be alone. The last time I was alone was with…

” My eyes burned with unshed tears. My breath hitched.

I couldn’t get myself to finish the sentence. “I can’t be alone.”

His hand traced through my hair. We sat like that quietly. Comfort and silence humming in between. Then he got out and carried me with him inside. I struggled off him and dropped to my knees the moment the front door shut behind us.

His brows pinched. “What are you doing?”

“I disobeyed you.”

“No. You didn’t.” His voice was rough.

“I did.” I latched onto his belt, and he took a hurried step back.

“Fuck.”

I leaned forward to grab him again, and he pushed my hand away. “You didn’t disobey me.” His tone was tight.

“I did, and I’m sorry.”

“Mia ammaliatrice—”

“I want to.”

His gaze was warm. Hopeful. “Yeah?”

I nodded, and he stepped in. My hands trembled on his belt.

It took me two tries to work it out and unzip him.

“I’ve never done this before,” I said to his boxer-brief-clad erection.

It was thickening under the weight of my gaze.

Of course it was. I gathered all the courage I had, put my hand in, and fetched it out.

He cupped my head, running a smooth line along the strands of my hair.

His erection pulsed in my hand. Alive, thick, red, and leaking pre-cum.

I licked my lips, and a groan rumbled out of his chest. His reaction was my strength.

It was all I needed to bring him to my mouth and lick a slow circle around it.

He stiffened. Tensed. Thickened in my mouth.

All I wanted to do was to make him relax.

I pushed through and pulled him as deep as I could.

“Jesus,” a dark hiss shuddered through his body.

I didn’t want a man to command me. I didn’t want to bow to a man.

But at that moment, I realised something.

I’d drop to my knees for this man on any day.

I wanted to please him. The need in me brought out the courage I’d been lacking.

With my free hand, I cupped his heavy balls and sucked him in deep. Pulling him in and out.

“Fuck,” he moaned, and it flowed low and deep and hit the warm core between my legs.

I pulled my gaze up to him. My husband was coming undone. His jaw was tight, and his eyes hooded. And the way he looked at me, like I was in control. Like he’d do anything I’d want… I wanted this every day.

I rolled my tongue along his thickness and rocked my hips to cool the ache in me.

With a frustrated groan, he yanked me off and pulled me up. Disappointment and failure marked the hollow of my chest. “Don’t you like it?”

His hands clenched around my ass as he walked us to the living room. He tugged my hair and cocked my head. “You are a fucking pro. I’ll fill your mouth with my cum soon enough,” he muttered and dropped me onto the sofa. “But I want to bury myself inside you now.”

I yanked my dress off. My bra and underwear ended up somewhere behind the sofa.

He tore the condom with his teeth and I helped him slide the rubber on his pulsing erection.

Except for that first night, when he was so angry that the condom had been forgotten, he kept to my request, and I loved him all the more for it.

Loved—

My heart skidded like worn flip-flops on a trail of oil.

Without any warning, it had slipped out of my hands and sprinted onto a path I wasn’t meant to walk.

My breathing stuttered, leaving me stranded as he pulled me half off the sofa and sank all the way in.

Emotion hit me right in the centre of my pulsing heart.

He stilled, as if he felt the confusion rocking inside me.

Was this it? Tears pooled up within me. His hand cupped my cheek, and he tipped it up to him.

His gaze was hard. Followed each line on my face, demanding to read what was veiled behind it.

The woman in me who’d been let down by so many before him attempted to drag up a sheet to protect herself.

“How about another first?”

“What?” I croaked.

“Not running away from your husband.”

Husband. Mine. “I didn’t.”

“I know.” He sighed. “I’ll make a deal. We’ll get some maids here…”

I frowned. “Thought you hated having people around.”

“I do. But I like you here, and if you can’t be alone, I’ll let some of Mamma’s maids in.”

I tilted my head, trying to get a read on him. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “But I want them to scatter the moment I step inside.”

“Scatter?” I grinned. “Like marbles?”

His lips twisted, and we shared a private moment. More intimate than him buried inside me.

“Okay?”

His question was more than one.

“Okay,” I agreed softly.

He pulled out and drove into me again. Slow and steady, like he’d taken me this morning.

I held him tight because now I knew he had a piece of me.

Too big for me to ignore. Too big for me to walk out on.

The truth had to come out. One day soon, I had to tell my family.

And hope the damage wouldn’t be extreme.

Outside, the world moved on. Inside, we lay on the sofa. Him on one side, bare torso, slacks open. Me on the other end, wearing his shirt. If my world ended now, I’d die melting into this happiness.

The back of his hand ran to the sole of my foot. From toes to heel. From heel to toes. “You know I can’t live in that house, right?”

“Because of your father?”

His gaze shifted. Avoiding mine. Watched his hands tracing invisible paths on my feet.

“What did he do?”

A bitter laugh twisted his face. The type that came from the hollowness of nightmares and covert traumas. A few heartbeats passed. I let him take the time he needed. “What didn’t he do? Or who didn’t he do? In front of his wife and his children.”

I let it settle in. No wonder he’d left such pain behind him. A man who did that to his wife and children...

“Did he love Ada?”

His nostrils flared, and the grip on my heel tightened.

It pinched my skin painfully. He didn’t even seem to notice it.

“He fucked any pussy he could find every damn day. No, he didn’t love Mamma.

” He glared at me. His tone vibrated with an open warning.

“Men like us don’t love, Ahana. We fuck. That’s what we do.”

No. You don’t.

My gaze moved to his forearm with his inked words. “You’re nothing like your father.”

Unlike before, he didn’t dispute it. That itself I took as a win.

He rested his head on the arm of the sofa and said something.

But distraction pulled at me. I pushed his hand off my foot and crawled over to him.

I grabbed his forearm, my eyes reading raw words.

“This is new.” There was a fresh tattoo there.

I would know. I’d seen him naked enough times.

My fingers traced the lettering underneath his tensed arm.

The skin was still red. Tender beneath my fingers. “What does it say?”

“Nothing,” he muttered.

“Sono tutto quello che Ahana desidera,” I read out in my awful accent. “There’s a word in Italian with my—” I caught his glance and stilled. He looked like I’d have to choke it out of him. “What does it mean, Vitale?”

He was silent. Hummed with quiet anger.

“Fine. I’ll Google it.” I was halfway up before he yanked me down.

“Everything,” he muttered.

“What?”

“I am everything Ahana desires.”

My eyes stuck to his. My heart wobbled precariously like an Indian train on a rusty rail track. He didn’t do love. This felt like it to me.

I’d lost the saliva in my throat. It was suddenly dry as a desert.

My gaze followed the slow bob of his Adam’s apple.

No words fell between us. Only silence echoed in the open space.

Modern furniture and a high-tech home surrounded us.

But I couldn’t find the words to convey a mutual feeling.

I guessed he couldn’t either, because his next words were rough and meant as a distraction.

“You hungry?”

I nodded numbly.

“Me too,” he groaned before pushing me off him and pulling me along by my ankle up to his mouth. “Fucking starving for your pussy.” He buried his head between my thighs to my squeals, hiding words and actions behind them.

There was an art to every conversation. And there was one for avoiding it. We took that path. Because our hearts were fragile, and we didn’t want to face disappointment at the end of a rusty road when the journey to get there had been filled with thorns.