In the Shadows (Barresi Book 2)

by Lux Miller

  I squirm from my place on the chair, gasping as he knocks my hand away from his face. Before I can protest, his mouth has returned to my nipple, sucking hard on the sensitive nub before he rolls it between his teeth.

  My eyes drop shut as he pinches the other nipple between his fingers in time with what his mouth is doing to the first. Groaning, I tighten my thighs around him as I bite down on my bottom lip. At this rate, the man is going to make me come with just nipple play.

  He knows it too. He pulls back, my nipple popping out of his mouth with a soft ‘pop.’ He licks his lips and rests one hand on each of my knees. “God, Emily… everything about you tastes so good…”

  I shake my head at him and roll my eyes. “Luca… you’re just drunk on what my body does to yours…”

  Luca shrugs. “So? Is that such a bad place to be? Drunk on love?”

  The words that were about to spill out of my mouth die on my lips as he captures them with his. His tongue persistently pushes through my defenses to war with mine as he lays claim to what’s been his for weeks.

  He drops his hands to my legs, digging his fingertips into the sensitive skin of my inner thighs. My heart skips a beat as he edges them up underneath the lightweight fabric of my sleep shorts. It’s only moments before he realizes what I already knew - I’m not wearing panties and my center is already moist with want.

  He pulls back from me and groans, “How do you expect me to resist that? You’re soaked, Emily…” One of his hands slides further up under my shorts until his entire hand is against my pussy. His eyes watch my face as he slides his middle finger along my slit, and I try my damnedest not to react, but my attempts are futile.

  As the tip of his finger collides with my clit, my eyes slam shut with a guttural moan. Despite knowing that we shouldn’t be doing this, my body doesn’t give a shit. It wants his intimate touches, and it wants them now.

  As if reading my mind, Luca pushes his middle finger inside of me. I feel my walls instantly clench around the intrusion. He moans and adds a second finger with the first, curling them up against the spot that he knows drives me wild.

  Then he pulls his fingers out of me and sits back on his feet, watching me in silence. As my eyes flutter open and a soft whimper of complaint breaches my lips, he smirks. He puts both of his fingers in his mouth and licks off my juices, his eyes staying focused on mine.

  Once he’s swirled his tongue around his fingers, he eyes me with a dangerous look in his eyes. “Are you still sure we can’t do this? Stitches seem to be holding fine, even with me finger-fucking you… letting me tongue fuck you won’t yank them out either…”

  My hands fly to the sides of the chair to hold on as his words assault me. More than anything, I want him to eat me out right now, but I refuse to ask him to do it. There’s no way I’m going to just sit here while he pleasures me. No way, no how…

  My thoughts drift off as he reaches up to my hips and tugs on my shorts. Despite my attempts to press my ass into the chair, he succeeds in getting my shorts off of my hips. Then he yanks them down my legs and deposits them somewhere behind himself.

  He grins at me like he’s won our little game and grips my knees in his hands. I try fruitlessly to hold my legs closed, but he’s stronger than me and he pries them open easily. He wedges himself between my legs and pulls my calves over his shoulders. I open my mouth to scold him about how much physical effort he’s putting forth, but my mind goes blank as he takes a single lick of my slit from end to end.

  Pleasure flickers through my mind for a brief moment before he buries his face between my thighs, his tongue furiously working over my cunt. He dips his tongue inside of me, then slurps at me like I’m a goddamned popsicle before zeroing in on my clit with his tongue. I don’t know who taught him how to eat pussy, but I am thanking my lucky stars they did.

  I lean my head back over the back of the chair and bite down on my bottom lip hard enough that I taste the salty, metallic tang of blood. As I do, my butt lifts off the chair, and I thrust my pussy into his face more. He chuckles against me, humming softly as I squeal in delight at the added vibrations.

  He backs off of me for a painstaking moment, but then the cold sensation of air blown across my clit hits my nerves. My entire body clenches in response. Luca pierces the moment of pleasure by shoving his two fingers inside my slicked cunt, spreading them apart to prime me for what I know is inevitable.

  I reach one hand between my legs and tangle my fingers into his hair, yanking and twisting as he brings me to the cusp of ecstasy. He attacks my clit as he inserts a third finger inside of me and I snap, barreling over the edge as he nibbles on the sensitive nerve center that has me moaning like a feral cat.

  Luca jerks away from me with a moan of his own. “God Damnit Emily, I want you to clamp onto my dick like that and milk it dry. My balls ache for you, to be emptied inside of you. To have my dick buried so far inside of you that you feel me for days…”

  I shudder as I sit up and look at him, my mouth still hanging open from the pleasure he just lavished on my body. “Luca… that would be too much… too much physical movement… we can’t fuck.”

  Luca nods as he grabs my hands and tugs on them gently. I relent and stand up, my legs still wobbly from the intense orgasm he just wrought from me. “So let me make love to you, then.”

  My breath hitches in my throat at his words. “Luca—”

  He shakes his head and gently tugs me to him, wrapping his arms around me gently. “I’m serious… if I love you and you love me, it’s time we make love… we’ve fucked like rabbits enough. I want to be able to be inside you and see you fall apart as I bring you to the brink... I want to see that pretty little face of your scrunched up as your heart beats with mine… give me this, just this once, and I’ll never ask again… please…”

  Seriously? How can a woman refuse that? A hardened man like Luca… practically on his knees begging me to let him make love to me? Did I whack my head and wake up in a cheesy romance novel? I mean, who really asks to be allowed to make love to you? I’d be a fool to say no, that’s for sure, so I nod.

  He grins and turns us around so that the backs of his legs are against the chair. He pushes down the low-slung sweatpants he’s wearing and I smile in amusement to see I’m not the only one who wasn’t wearing underwear. I’m also not the only one extremely turned on right now. His boner is bobbing like it has a mind of its own and it’s very clear what it would say if it could talk - use me.

  Sitting down on the chair, he carefully kicks off the sweatpants and holds his hands out for mine. As soon as I grab hold of his hands, he tugs me toward him, and I have to straddle his thighs so that I don’t crash into him. He smirks and puts his hands on my hips, pulling me as close to him as I can get.

  From this angle, I can feel his erection against my inner thigh. It brushes against my outer lips slightly as he breathes, and I can feel him watching me intently, even though my eyes are closed. “Luca… are you sure you want this?”

  He brings one hand up to my face and caresses my cheek. “Emily, look at me…”

  I sigh and open my eyes. He’s staring at me, a look of earnest need on his face. He wants this as much as I do. His other hand slides down to his dick as he wraps it around the base of himself and positions the throbbing flesh at my opening. “Just give me the word and you own me, Emily…”

  A single tear slips down my cheek as I lean over him and capture his lips in a kiss full of need. As our lips unite, he drops the hand from my cheek to my hip again and guides me down onto him. I gasp into his mouth as he fills me completely, the raw stretching sensation of accommodating him setting every nerve ending on fire.

  He holds me there, his manhood fully seated inside of me, for what feels like an eternity as his tongue fucks my mouth. His motions are desperate but skilled as our tongues clash. Finally, I’m able to pull away to inhale a breath like I’ve been starved for air. Panting, I shift on his lap and groan at the fullness inside of me. “Luc
a—”

  He puts a finger to my lips and shakes his head, his eyes closed. “Just enjoy it…”

  He bucks into me gently and I shake my head fervently. “You have tricked me into making love to you. Now let ME do it…” I lift myself off of his lap slowly until his length nearly slips free, then I lower myself back down onto him painstakingly slowly.

  Luca groans as he digs his fingers into my hips. This slow dance of torture continues for almost ten minutes before Luca whimpers, bucking his hips again. “Emily, please… don’t tease me. It feels amazing inside of you, but my balls… oh God, they hurt… I need to—”

  His words trail off as I speed up my motions, lifting and dropping back onto his lap quicker now. His eyes are closed, but his wanton moaning tells me everything I need to know about how he feels right now. I continue to ride his dick for another five minutes, gradually gaining speed until he digs his fingers into my sides again. This causes me to pause, but it’s the words that tumble out of his mouth that make my heart skip a beat.

  “Oh fuck… fuck, Emily… I can’t… I can’t stop…”

  I silence him with a fevered kiss before he can say anything else. He grunts into the kiss as his entire body tenses up. I feel it all over, including inside of me as his cock quivers with his release. As I pull back, he stares at me in disbelief, shaking his head.

  I raise one eyebrow, shrugging, “I just got off, Luca… it was amazing, trust me.”

  Luca shakes his head furiously and opens his mouth to say something, but shuts it just as quickly with a dumbfounded look on his face. I tilt my head to the side, “What’s wrong?”

  He swallows hard and nudges at me to get off him. As I do, he slides free of me, and I look down. I see his softening dick and go to retrieve the condom to throw it away. That’s when I realize why he’s panicking. Instead of the thin layer of latex that’s always separated us, the only thing covering him now is a thin layer of slimy bodily fluids, mine and his.

  With a gasp, I jump off his lap. “Luca! You came inside me without a condom?!?”

  He blushes, slicing one hand through his hair as he looks away, unable to meet my gaze. “I… I couldn’t stop, but fuck, it felt amazing, Emily. I… I’ve never had sex without one… but I’m clean, I swear.”

  Both of my hands fly to my face as I pace back and forth in front of him, muttering, “No, no, no… when is Franco coming back? This is bad, this is really bad…”

  Luca sighs as he shrugs his shoulders and stands up off the chair. He rubs my back gently and apologizes profusely, “I didn’t mean to… it just, felt so good, and I got off so fast. I never get off that fast… I can usually last twenty minutes or more… but it just hit me like a hurricane. I couldn’t stop. I don’t have any diseases, I swear!”

  I stop my pacing and look him straight in the face, “Luca, I’m not worried about diseases!”

  He looks confused for a moment, so I clarify, “What you just did - that’s how babies are made!”

  Luca’s face falls as panic sets in. He shakes his head quickly, muttering, “No, no, no…”

  I nod, giving him a ‘duh’ look. “I know! That’s why I’m freaking out…Babies complicate things. I’ll take a Plan B pill… it will be okay. Neither one of us wants babies right now. Well, you don’t want them ever because you have some sick, twisted notion that you’re a demon, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. Demons don’t have feelings, not like what we just shared… oh fuck… Dante has surgery first thing tomorrow! I promised I’d go with him...

  “Give me your keys… I’m going to the drugstore today. This can’t wait. It may make me sick for a couple days, but I can’t afford to give your little swimmers a fighting chance… I should have stayed firm and made you keep your ass in bed! No more sex until we’re sure I’m not… not—”

  Luca nods and yanks his sweatpants back on, then shuffles over to the bed. I run around the room like a chicken with my head cut off, tugging on a tank top and a pair of panties, followed by shorts. I look at Luca, and he slowly slides back into the bed, looking exhausted.

  “Who’s on duty?”

  Luca winces and motions at the door. “Mike… he’ll take you to the store. I’m sorry, Emily…”

  I blink, surprised to hear an apology from the man who gives no fucks. I stare at him in silence for a moment before walking over to the bed and leaning over him to kiss his lips quickly. “Plan B will make sure nothing happens, but we have to be more careful… the chaos of a crime family in upheaval is no place to raise children…”

  Luca nods, his voice quiet as he responds, “Don’t think I’m not reminded of that every day of my existence. My father has never let me forget the risk he took by bringing me into this world. In return for his generosity, he turned me into a machine. A criminal mastermind with a black hole for a heart… he traded my humanity for the promise of a guaranteed heir. He broke me. I can’t, I won’t bring a child into this world just to break them… I’d rather die before hurting anyone I loved.”

  My heart aches for him as I see the utter devastation on his face. I grab his hand and squeeze it gently. “You still haven’t scared me away, Luca. I think there may be hope for you still… you see, a wise person once said that hearts are a funny thing… they can be maimed, tattered, bruised, and betrayed, but the wildest of us… the stallions that were born to run free… they are the wild hearts that can’t be broken.”

  EIGHT

  Last night may have been the most embarrassing moment of my life. After throwing on the first clothes I could find, I ran downstairs and practically barreled straight into Mike. He snagged me by both arms with a concerned look on his face and gave me a silent tilt of his head when I blurted out, “Condoms! I mean, uh… I need… oh fucking hell, just take me to the store… please.”

  He remained dangerously quiet as he followed me into the CVS that isn’t far from Luca’s sprawling estate. Though I tried to be discreet and disguise my purchases from his prying eyes, there’s no keeping secrets from a man who’s protected the mob for thirty plus years. Especially when I announced that I’d be heading straight to the aisle where wanton lovers go.

  He didn’t say anything about the collection of personal care items that I tossed onto the counter - lube, several boxes of condoms, spermicide… no, his interest wasn’t piqued until the young pharmacist dropped the damning blue and white box onto the counter with a smirk.

  Mike coughed as it landed face up with the name of the emergency contraceptive written out in bright blue letters. They even embellished the box with swirls and swooshes to make it look fancy. Seriously, who in my position would care what the fucking box looks like. Forget the packaging. Just stick it inside a chocolate bar and make everybody happy.

  I paid for my purchases as quickly as I could and tried to ignore Mike’s imploring look as we walked back to the car. I cracked open the twenty ounce drink, popped the little white pill out of its blister package, and downed the stupid thing before Mike could ask any questions.

  That was last night and Mike still hasn’t brought it up. I can’t say I’m particularly devastated that he isn’t mentioning my obvious indiscretions, but I do wish he’d say SOMETHING. Especially since he’s been giving me the silent treatment in this hospital waiting room for the last three hours.

  The nurse said Dante’s surgery could take anywhere from two hours to six depending on the severity of the scar tissue and how well the injury has healed. He did mention that they would be rebreaking the wrist if it had fully set so they could wire it into proper position before attaching half a dozen rods and pins into the joint. Other than that, the doctor assured me that I would have time to do almost anything I wanted while my boyfriend was in surgery.

  I didn’t correct the doctor. It wasn’t worth the effort. Now Mike is legitimately giving me stink eye as I sit curled up on the waiting room couch. I’ve sketched my way through half the book in an attempt to avoid his unnerving stare, but I can still feel his eyes boring into m
e.

  Finally, I drop the sketchbook beside me on the couch and sit up, eyeing Mike warily, “What? Did somebody pee in your Cheerios this morning? I’ve never seen you in such a foul mood.”

  Mike shakes his head and sighs. “What was that last night?”

  I rub my hands over my face with a grunt. “Really? We’re having this discussion here? Now?”

  Mike nods. “I know he can be a real ass sometimes, but Luca does have feelings. Feelings that he doesn’t hide nearly as well as he thinks he does. I’ve known him since he was in diapers. I changed those diapers. He ain’t no pussycat, but under all that bravado and badass attitude, he can still be hurt.”

  I blink, a look of confusion on my face. “Uh, okay. Wait, what do you think happened yesterday?”

  Mike clears his throat and slides his finger between his neck and his tie, looking uncomfortable. “Well, uh… based on the, um, supplies you got… I’d say you were, you know, engaged in certain activities…”

  I know my face is scarlet as a flush creeps across both of my cheeks. “Why would me having sex surprise you? It’s not like it was the first time… for either of us. It was stupid not to use a condom, I’ll give you that, but that’s why I got the Plan B!”