All the way downstairs, I wished there was something I could do for her, but my father wasn’t an easy man to talk to. If I said that in the past year I’d spoken to him a handful of times, I wasn’t exaggerating. So, not only was the opportunity not there, but neither were the words.
He wasn’t interested in me, Mom, or our family. He made that abundantly clear whenever he deigned to show up.
As I made it outside, I moved around the corner, and my face lit up when I saw Declan’s Spider waiting there. I slipped in as quickly as I could, and when I saw him, I felt my heart start to pound.
He was so beautiful.
I was working on a set of sketches that would never see the light of day because no one would ever be able to know about us, and a set of paintings with him as the subject were bound to catch someone’s attention.
“Hey,” he murmured, his smile deepening when I beamed at him. He reached over and cupped my chin, sliding his fingers over the crest of my cheekbone with those rough hands that were capable of such violence, yet could be so tender too.
He was a man of many facets, and I wanted to know each and every one of them.
“Hi,” I whispered. “Where to today?”
He shrugged. “Got a present for you.” He ducked his head a little sheepishly. “Got two, actually.”
My eyes twinkled. “Really?”
“Really,” he replied, his lips tugging into a grin as he reached behind him for something on the back seat.
When he plopped a little bag on my lap, I eyed it with glee and started to open it. Seeing a box, I laughed, and then laughed some more when I opened it up and found another box. It was long and thin, so not a ring box or an earring box. Maybe a necklace? Although, not with those dimensions.
A little nervous, I stroked my hand over the box and giggled when he asked, “Want me to open it for you?”
His dry question had me shooting him a shy look, then I opened it and my mouth gaped.
“My God, it’s beautiful,” I breathed, my fingers drifting over the jade hair stick. It had a tiny figurine on the tip, and when I peered at it, I just knew how old it was.
I could literally feel the age on it.
The jade was still as pure, as green, as regal as ever, but the carvings in it were soft, smoothed over time like sand on the shore.
“Do you like it?” he asked cautiously.
“I love it,” I whispered, beyond touched that he’d give me something like this. I gulped as I picked it up, letting the light hit it, and then I reached up, took my hair out of the ponytail I had it in, and created a loose bun. I slid the hair stick into it, and with stars in my eyes, queried, “How’s it look?”
“As gorgeous as you.” His hand moved to cup my face again, and like he usually did, he gently angled me this way and that, just like I’d done with the jade hair stick. Positioning me so that the light would hit my face, hit the angles in it, so, like the artist he was, he could appreciate it. “Beautiful.”
My smile was shaky. “Thank you.”
“Never thank me for the truth,” he murmured, his gaze distant, and I wished like hell he was standing behind an easel or with a pen and notepad in his hand, sketching me. He needed that output, needed it more than I did, but I knew he’d never let himself have it.
A tragedy.
“What’s my other gift?” I asked, because even though I wasn’t greedy, if I didn’t change the subject, I’d burst into tears.
He twisted his hand, showing me the tag on his hand. Acuig meant five in Gaelic, and a lot of the gofers had it on some part of their body, which meant almost everyone in the ranks did because you started off as a gofer and worked your way up.
“I want to mark you.”
My eyes flared wide in surprise, but I knew why he was doing it, and I knew, immediately, why he’d given me the jade hair pin first.
That was for me.
The tag was for him.
And it was tying me into what I was. What he saw me as. Not what I wanted to be.
I bit my lip and nodded, but my excitement died.
The mark would tell any Five Pointer that I belonged to one of them.
And the lack of a wedding ring?
Declared I was a girlfriend. A mistress.
My jaw clenched at that, and I knew he saw the tears in my eyes because he rasped, “Aela, I love you.”
I jerked my head to the side, looking away from him.
I got it. I did.
Some women were for marrying, others were for—
What?
Fucking?
I couldn’t label what we had as simply that. I doubted he could either.
I was the only person who knew him. Knew the real him.
“Let’s get it over with,” I whispered, my misery in my tone.
He hesitated for a second, then murmured, “Thank you.”
Two words. Not the ones I needed to hear.
Because what hurt the most was the fact that I’d just left my mom, had just promised myself that I wouldn’t live for a man, yet here I was, allowing him this power over me.
But Mom and Dad’s marriage was proof that being tied together meant nothing. If Dad had a mistress, which I figured he did with how absent he was from the apartment, I knew she got more of him than we ever did.
Somehow, that didn’t make me feel better.
As his engine roared to life and we headed to whichever ink parlor he was taking me to, I didn’t utter a word.
And neither did he.
Nine
Declan
Before
Eight weeks later
Adrenaline was bursting through me, making me feel a little light-headed, a lot shaky.
Which, of course, made me feel like a pussy.
This was my first kill. I knew Aidan and Brennan had killed someone when they were a lot younger than this, and I had no real idea why Da had cut me as much slack as he had, but I was grateful for it.
Because I was going to puke.
I knew it.
I was going to shame Da and my brothers by puking over a dead man.
A man who’d betrayed us.
A man who’d deserved to die.
A fucking rat.
I sucked in a shaky breath, gulping when I saw those stars twinkling in the periphery of my vision, but Da slapped me on the back, and muttered, “Well done, son. Hold your gut a little longer, and go and puke back at home.”
His compassion stunned me.
Da wasn’t exactly known for that. He’d bred us to be tough, bred us to be hard, and that he was cutting me even more slack made me wonder if some alien had popped down and snapped up my father to colonize Saturn or something.
He was certainly extraterrestrial enough to fit in on another planet.
At his words though, I headed out of the warehouse where I’d been told to kill Jimmy D. execution-style, and on shaky feet, I made it out of the massive empty space and into the yard where there were fewer people wandering around.
I wasn’t sure how there wasn’t blood on me. Why it wasn’t soaking into me, into my clothes. Drenching my skin.
When Jimmy’s head had exploded the way it had, gore had gone everywhere. I’d thought I’d know what to expect, but I really didn’t. I could never have expected the mess. The sheer force as a bullet caved in a man’s skull.
I sucked in another breath, but it was too late. I rushed toward a nearby wall and pushed my back into it, trying to keep straight, trying to stop my knees from goddamn knocking.
Feeling like a baby and hating it, I closed my eyes and breathed through the chaos attacking my mind.
Most guys would talk about the first time they got laid, or the first time they got drunk. My brothers often shared war stories. The first time they’d been shot, that they’d killed. But even though I’d listened, and while I’d felt sure I’d learned something from them, I realized I’d learned nothing.
Christ, nothing could have prepared me.
I wante
d to puke out my guts, but the one thing that stopped me?
The stupid tune that Aela had set as her personal ringtone on my cell.
My clammy hands found the flip phone I’d shoved into my pocket earlier, and I opened it, rasping, “Babe, I can’t talk yet.”
“I know it sounds stupid,” she muttered, “but I just felt like you needed to hear from me.”
Pain speared me at how well this woman knew me, and how little I could give her when she deserved the fucking world. “No way.”
“Way.” Her laughter was faint. “Stupid, right?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” I licked my lips as I stared up at the floodlights that illuminated the warehouse yard as if it was midday and not almost midnight. “You alone at the apartment?”
“Da’s out on business, yeah. Mom took a Valium,” she said, her tone shy.
Any other woman, I’d have said she was being coy, but Aela didn’t play those games. It was one of the reasons I loved her.
My stomach had stopped protesting the second I’d heard her voice, and the thought of being with her, of being inside her, was a lifeline I couldn’t ignore.
“I need you, baby,” I told her, my voice low and husky with a desperation I couldn’t hide.
“What’s wrong, Declan? You sound funny.”
“I feel it.” My admission came with a sharp sigh. “Can I come over?”
“You know you can,” she whispered, making relief rush through me.
I needed her in ways I couldn’t even admit to myself, but every time I went to her, I felt like a piece of shit.
I could never be hers, not while Deirdre was alive, and yet, some days, the only thing that got me out of bed was the prospect of seeing Aela. Of her smiling at me, of her kissing me, of her hand in mine, her fingers on my stomach before she reached for my dick.
It wasn’t all sex, even if that was a big part of it. I needed her.
I knew she needed me too.
“I’ll be there in twenty.”
“You’re at the warehouse?”
She shouldn’t know about that, but one time I’d had her come meet me here while I was on guard duty and we’d had some fun in one of the back offices.
The only time I didn’t have that squid fiancée on me like gonorrhea was while I was working, and getting some time alone with Aela was next to impossible but imperative to my mental health.
Yeah, mobsters-in-the-making had mental health issues too—go figure.
“You should have told me. I’d have come visited.”
The words sent longing through me.
If ever there was a woman who wasn’t made for being a side piece, it was her, and though it was crappy of me to treat her that way when she deserved everything I had to give, I was grateful for her.
So grateful.
Somedays, I felt sure she was the only reason I didn’t blow my brains out. Just like I’d done to Jimmy D.
Closing my eyes, I rasped, “Tonight wasn’t a good night for a visit.”
Her voice turned hushed. “Oh.”
We both knew what that meant.
Even though Deirdre was the daughter of one of my old man’s lieutenants, she didn’t seem to understand how shit worked. I wasn’t sure why that was or how she couldn’t know. Maybe she was just oblivious to it. I knew she was ignorant of the fact I hated her. Of the fact that when I touched her, I hated every second of it. So why would she even notice if crap had gone down, and how would she even monitor it?
I knew she was self-centered. It was one of the many things I loathed about her. And one of the things I loved about Aela was how she was the exact opposite. How she read between the lines and understood the darker days where my soul cringed with what I had to do for my father.
Two women had come into my world, one I hated, one I loved. I was destined to be with both, but not in the way they deserved.
“I’ll be there soon,” I vowed, and she hummed.
“Can’t wait.”
I knew she meant it, and my heart skipped a beat with excitement too. She knew why I was coming, and she never turned me away, so that little purr in her voice told me she wanted me as much as I wanted her.
Thank Christ.
Gulping, I disconnected the call before I did something dumb like tell her I loved her again. I tried to do that only when I was emptying my balls in her because I couldn’t not do that. It always blurted out of me like I had no control over my mouth when I was inside her. Maybe it was a weakness, but she was one big proof of my weakness, and the longer I was with her, the less I cared about that.
Now knowing what I was going to do, and knowing that puking wasn’t exactly going to be much of a turn on for her, I managed to keep my stomach contents in my gut, and headed for my car.
When I climbed into the Spider, sinking into it, I locked the doors behind me, and for a second, I rested my head against the headrest. I couldn’t go to her wired. I’d be too rough. The last thing I wanted was to scare her away.
So I took a few calming breaths before I started the engine, and then I rolled out of the warehouse parking lot, saluting the men on guard as I headed onto the interstate.
It took barely any time at all to hit her neighborhood. It wasn’t the best part of Hell’s Kitchen, but neither was it the worst. I didn’t have to worry about my car being ransacked—that had nothing to do with people knowing it belonged to me, and that if they damaged it or stole from me, they’d have the O’Donnellys coming after them and their kneecaps—and everything to do with the quality of the area.
I pulled up a block away, because even though it wasn’t under threat of being stripped, a Spider still stood out around here where most vehicles were American.
Locking up, I headed down the street toward her building and used the key she’d given me to get in.
When I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror in the elevator, I grimaced because I was pasty as fuck. Scrubbing a hand over my face didn’t do much good, but it confirmed I wasn’t walking around covered in blood, so I knew I could go straight to her without showering.
When I was on her floor, I walked to her door, used the key to get in, and then slipped inside. Her bedroom door was open, and the furtive moves always made my heart rush with excitement.
Doing this, having the key to her apartment, moving into her room like it was my right, it all made me feel like this was my home.
Like I was coming home to her.
I wanted that, I realized. I wanted that so badly…
Jesus.
I’d never thought I’d want to settle down this young, mostly because my choices were denied to me. Deirdre was forcing my hand every step of the way down the aisle, but she wasn’t the one I wanted to settle down with.
When I slipped into Aela’s bedroom, I saw she had a nightlight on. The place was still kitted out like she was a kid, which was skeevy as hell for me, but I saw nothing else when she lifted the comforter and revealed her naked body. Barely remembering the need to close the door behind me, I was careful not to make any sudden noises because it might disturb her mother.
Nostrils flaring at the sight of her when I turned back around, my dick hardening to the point of pain, I started to strip out of my clothes. My pants and jacket soon hit the ground, and I almost tore off my shirt, boxers, socks, and shoes in my haste to get naked.
The second I was there, in bed with her, she covered me with the comforter, and I groaned as her silky soft skin collided into me. Her arms slipped around me and her legs cupped my hips as I rolled onto her. My dick settled against her core as I moved atop her, and my mouth came to meet hers.
“Best greeting ever,” I rasped against her lips as I started to tease hers into opening.
She was always shy when I kissed her, which was cute when I thought about how she’d greeted me. But it was just one of the many nuances to her nature. Free with herself in some ways, needing me to coax her in others.
Everything I enticed from her was always hard earned and
made me feel like Julius Caesar in the aftermath.
With my dick against her heat, it felt criminal to pull back, reach under her bed, and grab the box she kept there for nights when I visited her. When I fiddled with the lid, managing to open it and grab a condom, she groaned when I ground my cock into her before I passed her the foil packet.
I loved how she eyed that silver wrapper with big, round eyes. She’d been raised uber Catholic. No sex before marriage, no condoms between a man and a wife. I wasn’t scared about being caught fucking her or about the condoms because my father, to the Five Points, was more powerful than God himself. Irony being that whole ‘no false God’ stuff would probably get my da sent to hell faster than all the other atrocities he committed.
Not that I needed to be thinking about him now. Christ, that was one way for my boner to die a swift death.
Because I knew she got a kick out of it, I held onto her hips as I twisted us around so I was flat on my back and she was on top of me. She gnawed on her bottom lip as she settled there, then she sat up, carefully tore the condom wrapper open, and pulled the sheath out of the foil. When she pinched the tip, her breath hitched as she reached for my cock and held it upright. The delicate touch was always enough to make me want to shoot my wad.
I’d been sucked off by pros, handled by women who knew their way around a dick, and nothing got me hotter than Aela’s hesitance. Bringing her into the light, awakening her sexuality was the sexiest fucking thing I’d ever experienced in my life.
Bar none.
She rolled the latex down my length, not stopping until I was fully covered.
I dreamed, one day, of taking her without a condom, but I couldn’t risk getting her pregnant yet, not until I had her set up somewhere safe. Not when I had to marry that cunt Deirdre.
My jaw worked at the thought, but I focused all my attention on Aela, on the woman who made me happy, on the woman I wanted to possess in every possible way.
She stroked me, a small smile on her lips as she did so. The gesture always amused me because it should have made me feel dirty, like a filthy little secret, but instead, I just felt cherished.
Filthy Dark: A SECOND CHANCE/SECRET BABY, MAFIA ROMANCE (THE FIVE POINTS' MOB COLLECTION Book 3) Page 12