Empire

by Rachel Van Dyken

  You waited in the dark for your rescue.

  A rescue that never came.

  “I’m telling you this, not so you feel sorry for me, but so you understand, that twice it’s been asked of me to marry. The first time, it was only six months, I fully planned on divorcing her until I fell in love with her.”

  “And, this time?” I was afraid to ask the question that I knew I needed the answer to. Hadn’t he said that one day someone would love me the way I deserved? And look at me with adoration?

  I wanted that day more than anything.

  To feel needed.

  Wanted.

  Beautiful.

  “Never.” His eyes locked on mine. “Luca’s wishes were clear. There will be no divorce and, as a way to keep you in the Family, his instructions were… painfully detailed.”

  My heart thumped against my chest. “I don’t understand.”

  “His greatest desire was for grandchildren.”

  A choking sensation washed over me, paralyzing my breathing to a shallow wheeze. “Are you saying that we have to… sleep together, can never get divorced, and that I’m going to be stuck in a marriage where every time my husband touches me, he thinks of someone else? Because it sounds like that’s what you’re saying.”

  Please be wrong. Please, God.

  He swallowed, his eyes filled with pity. “Yes. That’s what I’m saying.”

  “And if I run away?”

  “I’ll find you. Or someone else will.”

  So many questions pushed to the forefront of my mind, but one still remained. He rarely looked at me, mainly looked through me, and the few brief moments he did stare at me, I couldn’t read his expression.

  Was that it?

  He wasn’t attracted to me?

  Was I that vain?

  That I at least needed him to say, It’s not you it’s me. You’re beautiful, I’m just sad. Was that so hard?

  I glanced down at my leggings and sweatshirt. It wasn’t like I was dressed to kill.

  “Can I ask you something?

  “You’re not crying.”

  “No.” I frowned. “I think I gave up on tears. They change nothing.”

  “Believe me, I know.”

  We were a depressing pair.

  “Is it me?” I knew I’d lose my nerve if I looked at him so I stared at a spot on the floor. It was pink, dyed from the spilled nail polish that I’d gotten on my twelfth birthday. Back when things were easy and all I wanted was to have pink nails like the girls on Disney channel. “Do you think, maybe if I looked different, wasn’t scared all the time or wasn’t so — young?” I almost choked on the word. “Do you think it would be better?”

  Cursing, Sergio made his way over to me. His heavy body leaned against mine, and then his hands were on my face. “Look at me.”

  With a deep breath I looked up.

  His eyes penetrated.

  They searched.

  They yearned. “You are beautiful. Young, yes, but still beautiful to any man who’s lucky enough to have his sight. I would change nothing about you. Because you’re perfect just the way you are.”

  “I’m scared of guns.”

  “I guessed that.”

  “I don’t even watch violent movies.” I confessed, embarrassed that I’d even asked him to go to a horror movie only out of a need for distraction.

  “Not a shock.”

  I just kept talking as he held my face. “I’m insecure.”

  “People who appear confident usually suffer the most from insecurity.”

  “I don’t know how to fight.”

  “All humans are born with the basic instinct of fight or flight.”

  I tried to hang my head he wouldn’t let me.

  “I can’t kiss.”

  He smirked. “Are you done yet?”

  “And I’m a virgin,” I blurted. “Now I’m done.”

  “You’re wrong about two things.”

  His eyes dropped to my lips. “First, you aren’t a bad kisser; you just need practice with someone when he’s not being a jackass.”

  “And second?”

  His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, but something in his face, in the way his fingers dug into my skin, spoke volumes about the intensity behind his gaze. “You won’t be a virgin for long.”

  I opened my mouth to respond.

  Just as his lips slammed against mine.

  Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth. Turn melancholy forth to funerals. The pale companion is not for our pomp. –A Midsummer Night’s Dream

  Sergio

  INTUITION TOLD ME to hug her, hold her close, and tell her everything was going to be okay.

  But then I’d be lying.

  And I prided myself on my honesty, on my ability to take the reality of life and deal, even though the days were filled with horror and bloodshed, because at least I had that, right?

  My truth.

  I couldn’t hold her close, not the way she wanted.

  I couldn’t love her, not the way she deserved.

  I could offer comfort, physical comfort.

  But if she wanted emotional warmth — she was going to be disappointed. All I had to offer was me.

  An empty shell.

  With a confused heart.

  A broken head.

  I kissed her — I was doing that a lot lately, maybe my body was already on board with something my heart wasn’t ready for, or maybe…

  Just maybe.

  It was her.

  Not me.

  Maybe I’d been looking at the entire situation like a selfish bastard, because it wasn’t just my life.

  But hers.

  And I refused to be the reason that she felt like her life was over. I’d already dealt with that pain, that tragedy, where someone innocent died too young.

  There are physical deaths.

  And there are spiritual ones.

  Only a damned fool would say they were different. They were one in the same. After all, death—

  —is death.

  She kissed me back, her lips parted as a salty tear met the fusion of our mouths.

  In a flurry of sudden movement, Val shoved at my chest and then slapped me across the face.

  I was too stunned to do anything except touch the throbbing skin on my right cheek.

  Nostrils flaring she gripped me by the shoulders, her mouth nearly touching mine as she said in a clear voice. “First kiss. Remember? And each time it’s out of pity. You asked me not to look at you with pity, can you at least do me the same favor? And stop kissing me every time I either piss you off or start crying? We do have to have…” She gulped.

  “Sex.” I finished for her.

  “That.” Another nervous swallow. “So you can’t go around just… I don’t know.” Her cheeks turned red. “Please?”

  “Not sure what the meaning was behind that last sentence, but…” I smiled and tugged her body against mine. “I’m going to do it again.”

  “The pity kiss?”

  “Fresh out of those.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes widened. “Oh so, a… yes, that would be…” She bit down on her bottom lip, and immediately my eyes zeroed in on how beautiful her mouth was. Damn it, I wanted to taste her.

  And then it hit me.

  Almost sucking the breath straight from my chest in one staggering swoop.

  I wanted.

  To kiss her.

  I wanted.

  I wanted.

  Something.

  The numbness was leaving, the familiarity of it being replaced by white hot need and damned curiosity.

  “This is…” I was barely able to choke out words. “Difficult. For me.”

  “Me too.” She sighed, placing her hand on my chest, against my heart, it was there, but each thump was painful, as if someone was taking an ice pick and doing some serious damage.

  “Sometimes…” I stood, pulling her into my arms so we were chest to chest; her soft breasts pushed against me with every exhale. “Not
feeling, feels better.”

  “Still feeling.”

  “You have smart ass tendencies.”

  Sighing, Val kept her right hand pressed against my chest, and her left gripping my shoulder. “Yeah well, normally I don’t vocalize all my thoughts.”

  “I think you should.” My hands moved to her hair, digging into the chestnut depths, allowing this weird, foreign sensation of touching another woman to wash over me.

  And waiting.

  For the pain.

  And it was there, oh, it was there.

  I co-existed with it.

  “That feels good.” Val swayed forward, her forehead replacing where her hand had been.

  Her body was small against mine, and different, but not a bad different, just, different.

  “I promise I’ll try really hard,” she whispered in a sad voice. “To make you happy. I—” She started shaking. “—I’ll make it my life’s mission, okay?”

  And my heart shattered all over again.

  “Val, I don’t deserve the honor.”

  She pulled back, a cute frown marring her pretty face. “It isn’t about what you deserve.” Her face broke out into a beautiful smile, one that had me sucking in a breath and nearly stumbling backward. “It’s about what you need.”

  Never had I been so ashamed of myself.

  And I’d done a lot of shitty things.

  I couldn’t stop myself.

  Someone should burst into the room, someone should stop me from doing what I was about to do.

  Then again if they did, I’d probably shoot them.

  I’d invited anger into my soul and told it to stay.

  And it had.

  Until an innocent girl made it her mission to make me smile.

  That’s the thing about pain. You live with it, you embrace the rightness of it, until someone finally reaches through the broken glass, and grabs ahold of the real you, the you that had been lost and hurting. Broken and bleeding, they hold on for dear life, refusing to let go.

  They join you in your pain.

  And as you watch the blood pour down their arm, you realize, the pain is you, you are the pain, you are the master of your own destiny, you built up the shards of glass.

  And now, it isn’t just effecting you.

  But someone else who isn’t deserving of it.

  Which makes you pause and take notice — did I ever deserve the same thing?

  “I’m going to kiss you now.”

  “But you said you wouldn’t—”

  “Because I want to.”

  “You want to?”

  I nodded. “And you’re going to say yes.”

  “I am?” Her eyebrows shot up in surprise as a panicked sound emitted from her mouth.

  “Yup.”

  “Why am I going to say yes?”

  “Because practice makes perfect and… because… we can.”

  “True but—”

  I didn’t give her a chance to reject me.

  This.

  Was.

  A kiss.

  I was going to make her forget all about her regret — and I was going to make it as good as I possibly could.

  With a shriek she wrapped her legs around me.

  “That’s it.” I sighed. “Hold on.”

  Lips trembling, she nearly knocked her head against mine as she clenched my shoulders with her dainty hands, her fingers tugging at my T-shirt like she was getting ready to ride.

  Soft legs.

  The faint smell of vanilla.

  And her erratic breathing.

  I stopped trying to pursue her with my kiss and just… listened.

  My eyes closed with an inhale as I breathed her in and closed off my mind to the world around me — focusing only on her.

  My mouth descended to hers.

  Val’s breathing was uneven.

  My lips met hers tentatively and then again, coaxing them apart, savoring the very different feel of her, of another woman.

  In her arms, I wasn’t a widower. I wasn’t mafia. I wasn’t anything but a guy; she made me feel that way, like nothing else mattered.

  It was cheesy.

  It was beautiful.

  It was like breathing for the first time.

  The way her fingers danced up my shoulders, the way she clung to my neck for dear life and, even the way she breathed me in as she kissed me back, her tongue sliding against my bottom lip.

  With a moan, I deepened the kiss, tried different angles, and pressed my lips against hers again and again, one more time and then I’d stop.

  I lied.

  Two more times.

  Three.

  Seven.

  Panting, I slid my hand up her side, my skin sizzling with the contact of her smooth skin.

  I walked us toward her bed and fell backward with her on top of me, she paused, chest heaving, her big trusting hazel eyes blinking lazily down at me. “You paused.”

  “People need air.” I grinned. “To survive.”

  “So I was using all your air?”

  “Yeah.” I swallowed back the emotion that refused to stop building in my throat, my chest, every part of me. Every glance she gave me had me feeling better and worse at the same time, her life was in my hands, and any life, regardless of how bad, was a treasure.

  But that was the difference with her.

  She was at her core…

  Good.

  Innocent.

  Untarnished.

  Undeserving of my bad.

  And yet at the same time, it didn’t stop me from giving her a tug as she collapsed against my chest, my hands digging into her hair, massaging, exploring.

  “Guess we have to get married now.”

  “Huh?”

  “You know since we just had sex.”

  I froze. “Are you serious right now?”

  She burst out laughing. “I was kidding. Holy crap how innocent do you think I am?”

  I didn’t respond.

  She smacked me in the chest. “That’s insulting. I read.”

  “Oh.” My eyebrows shot up, “So you read about sex? Is that what you’re saying?”

  She jerked away from me landing beside me on the bed, her face guilty. “No. I read romance. Huge difference.”

  “Oh yeah?” My eyes searched both nightstands until I located a book. I grabbed the first one I saw and opened. “He sucked a nipple until she screamed out with pleasure, his arousal pressed against her inner thigh as he moved to the next and—”

  “I swear.” Val held up her hands. “I had no idea!” She snatched the book out of my hands and read through, her frown growing more and more intense as she read.

  “Problem?”

  “It doesn’t say that!”

  “It doesn’t?” I grinned. “Sorry, must have been living out my own fantasies there for a moment.”

  She gasped.

  I took advantage of her outrage and captured another kiss.

  With a sigh, she pulled back. “Am I allowed to kiss you, too? You know… first? I just I need ground rules if we’re going to do this.”

  “Ground rules,” I repeated, my good mood slowly waning.

  “Yeah.”

  “All right.” I moved to the edge of the bed and threw my feet over, they came into contact with her white fuzzy rug. “No falling in love.” I stood.

  “No problem,” she said quickly moving to her feet.

  Too quickly.

  But I didn’t have a leg to stand on, so I continued. “We can kiss each other, that’s fine.”

  “All right.”

  “And, don’t pry.”

  “But—”

  “Wife, not therapist. Just, don’t pry, don’t poke around where you aren’t wanted.”

  Her face fell. Shit. I reached for her hand, but she jerked away.

  “Two steps forward ten steps back?”

  “I didn’t mean that how it came out.”

  “Yeah, you did.” She nodded, another step backward. Damn it. “All ri
ght, so tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow.” I forced a smile and reached for her, she stepped out of the way.

  “I should…” She yawned. “Sleep.”

  “It’s five.”

  “Nap,” she corrected quickly. “Thanks, Sergio. For… the talk.”

  “No thank you for the kiss?” I asked in a teasing tone.

  Her smile was weak. “And that too.”

  I walked out of the room feeling more lost than I did when I’d charged into it yelling. At least when we fought we figured things out.

  Would I always walk on eggshells around her? Would I always say the wrong things and come out of it wondering if I was the ass or if she was just immature and not getting it?

  I was still frowning when I made my way into the kitchen. Phoenix was drinking water while Tex chugged wine directly out of the bottle.

  “Classy.” I pulled out a chair.

  He shrugged and offered the bottle. “You want in?

  I stared at the bottle then at Phoenix’s water and let out a helpless laugh. “Hell yeah, I think I do.”

  Phoenix’s eyes narrowed. “New leaf?”

  “Yeah, something like that. What? You want in, too?”

  Phoenix held up his hands. “Water’s good.”

  “Pussy,” Tex grumbled taking another swig before handing me the bottle.

  “Hardly.” Phoenix grunted. “You’re chugging a cab. Who do you really think has the pussy? Think long and hard.” He grinned. “Now, if you were tossing back whiskey like a man—”

  Before Tex broke the bottle over Phoenix’s head I intervened. “So, whiskey it is, and you’re in Phoenix?”

  “I’m in.”

  “In?” Nixon waltzed into the room. “What are we in?”

  “Shots.” Tex rubbed his hands together just as Chase nearly ran into Nixon.

  “No.” Chase shook his head. “The last time we had shots I found a horse head in my bed.”

  Tex grabbed his side and doubled over laughing. “It was a prop, but worth it.”

  Chase flipped him off.

  “You in, Nixon?” I eyed him.

  He shoved his phone in his pocket. “Oh, what the hell. It’s been years since I’ve been drunk over a woman.”

  “Chase.” Tex coughed.

  “Yeah thanks.” Chase flipped him off for the second time. “Let’s just roll in giant elephants and family drama. Oh wait, didn’t Sergio kiss your wife?”