Marked Steel: A Stand Alone Dark Romance (Steel Crew Book 8)

by Mj Fields

  While adjusting to my medication switch, I read an exuberant amount of research on the subject, because it is important that, when I do leave this world, she and everyone around her, her family and friends, can see in her eyes what I do.

  This mental health diagnosis is not a sentence. To me, it’s truly a gift. She feels deeply, and it saddens me that she shoulders the burden of how she presumes those around her perceive her.

  The fact that she has had to endure all that she has in such a short amount of time hurts my heart, and it is obvious that it hurts those around her, too. But the fact that she faces things, practically begging for a diagnosis so that she cannot feel so alone in it, and make peace with people … Marcello, so that she can grow past those things.

  I have also been seeing Marley alone to better understand how to help her.

  There is no question in my mind that Tris was given to me as a gift. She’s shown me love. Love that is not forced or attached to dollars or status … or bloodlines. I will make sure to give her that back in spades and love her through her highs and lows, through ever moment we have.

  She squeezes my hand as we near everyone. “You’re quiet. Do you need to go back and rest?”

  I squeeze hers back and tell her, “No, and if we were to return, I can assure you rest wouldn’t be what I’d be wanting to do.”

  Quickly, she switches directions. “I’m down.”

  Laughing, I pull her into me and kiss her quickly to avoid a hard-on. “We have guests.”

  She grabs my jacket and pulls me against her. “They aren’t even supposed to be here until tomorrow.”

  In the distance, I hear, “This damn thing work?” and then the sound of someone tapping the mic. “I said, introducing Mr. and Mrs. Matteo Arias!”

  “That’s us.” She smiles.

  “That’s us.” I laugh.

  She squats down, grabs her shoes, then my hand, and begins running. “That’s us!”

  At the doorway, Tris peeks in. “I found him! He was trying to run.”

  Everyone laughs, and I pull her back. “Is this how I’ll win them over?”

  “I’m not even sure they heard me.” She starts to step in again, and I pull her when I hear Catalina begin playing the introduction to the song that the girls and I collectively chose for Tris.

  “And reintroducing Mr. and Mrs. Matteo Arias,” Xavier says into the mic.

  “After you.”

  “Together,” she insists.

  We walk in, and I point to the girls, Elena and Martina, sitting at the grand piano that I had delivered this morning as Martina grins and starts to sing, in English.

  “I’ll tell the world; I’ll sing a song. It’s a better place since you came along.”

  Once in the middle of the area cleared for a dance floor, I extend my arm and bow before spinning her in a circle. She tosses her shoes, and I pull her in for our first dance … ever.

  Arms wrapped around her, I lift her and twirl her in a circle, hoping she will stretch her arms out, because it’s one of the most beautiful and unforgettable moments of my life. She doesn’t disappoint.

  Once I have stopped, she grabs my face, eyes bursting with emotion, tears instantly falling. “I love you so fucking much.”

  My eyes mist over, and I bury my head in her neck. We stay just like that, swaying to the music until the song ends, and a little bit after.

  Stepping apart, we both brush away one another’s tears, and then Tris turns, squats down, and opens her arms.

  The girls come running, faces full of happiness and pride for what they learned, and I’m sure the excitement from the applause surrounding them and the sheer joy on Tris’s face. I immediately realize each one of them are trying to get to her first and step behind Tris, holding out my hand as Tris squeals in laughter on impact that sends us all crashing to the floor.

  Amongst the laughter and her thanking the girls, telling them that they have “mad talent,” Xavier comes across the sound system.

  “And not to be outdone by the kids, here’s Max and Amias.” Then his voice drops an octave as he says, “Let’s do it.”

  Laughing, Max says, “Wrong song, Uncle X.”

  “This ones better, though. Right, Trouble?”

  Tris sits up and laughs so hard that she snorts, which shocks me, and she notices. “Sorry.”

  “No, happy, with or without the snorting, looks amazing on you.”

  Her two youngest nephews both come over and extend their hands.

  One of them, the one in the cowboy hat, scowls at me. “Ladies shouldn’t be on the floor.”

  She looks back at me and wags her eye brows as they pull her up. “Did you hear that Uncle Matteo? Ladies shouldn’t be on the floor.”

  “Girls, up,” Hugo says sternly from behind me.

  I help them each up, even though they don’t need it, kiss them each on their cheeks, and nod to Samuel. They scurry away, and I turn to Hugo. “For once, allow them to be children.”

  “They’re in dresses, and we’re in formal attire. They should act appropriately.” He looks over my head, smiles, and lifts his drink to someone.

  As he steps around me, I step in front of him, blocking him. “I’d like you to remember whose party this is.”

  “Oh, brother, I know. And might I say, I am very proud of you.” He leans in and whispers, “Seventeen, I’m impressed.”

  Arms wrap around my waist from behind. “Can I steel you away, husband?”

  “Of course, Mrs. Arias.” He leans forward. “If he can’t keep up on the dance floor, I’d be glad to step in.”

  “You—”

  Tris squeezes between us, her back to him, and wraps her arms around me then looks over her shoulder. “Thanks, Hugo, but I’d rather fuck myself with a razor blade and sit in a vat of rubbing alcohol.”

  He looks confused. I, however, understood exactly what she said.

  I drag her away.

  “What a dick.” She rolls her eyes.

  “Tris.” I shake my head.

  “Sorry, but he was mean to my nieces and—”

  “Jesus,” I groan and pull her into a kiss. Feeling it everywhere, I step back.

  She blinks for a few seconds, clearly shocked, and then she smiles. “You want me.”

  “I have you.”

  The song changes, and so does her smile. “It’s one of those sticky sweet love songs that used to make me want to vomit. Not anymore. Come dance with me.”

  Standing in the middle of the dance floor, she wraps her arms around my neck and begins to sing along, to me. Also a first. “I just wanna be somebody to Matte-o. I wanna be somebody to Matte-o. I never had nobody and no road home. I wanna be somebody to Matte-o.”

  I wonder if she knows she’s not just somebody. She is everything to me.

  ~~~

  After dinner, she seems to have calmed down a bit, physically. She’s still talking a mile a minute about how she was nasty to Brisa and how wrong that is. She also heard Brisa talking to her cousins about wanting to take a year off and travel but stopped talking when she noticed Tris.

  “She tries to like me, but I know she doesn’t really. It’s that whole empath thing. She just thinks—”

  “She loves you, Tris,” I interrupt her. “You just have to stop pushing people who love you away.”

  “Rain says she is amazing with social media, and she did that whole thing with our shoot on the beach. Plus, she seems to be awfully click happy. So much so that she hasn’t even noticed Ranger.”

  “You mentioned she had a crush on him years back, correct?”

  “Yeah.” She grins. “If years were measured in minutes, that would be accurate.”

  “You mentioned she wants to travel. Have you put any thought into where you’d like to honeymoon? Ibiza still or—”

  She leans forward. “I could totally hire her to do my social media, and yours, too. I could sell it on the premise that we need her for our honeymoon and have her take pictures. Force the two of them
together and see how it goes. And then maybe”—she shrugs—“maybe we could, like, get close again. Maybe I could even tell her about my crazy.”

  “Your genius,” I correct her then casually ask if she has taken her medication today.

  She ignores me and looks around.

  “Brisa was talking to Hugo, and I told her that he was the married one. She turned red. I wasn’t doing it to upset her. I was doing it to piss him off.”

  I look around the room and see he and Brisa are both missing.

  “I’ll kill him.” I stand from where we are sitting.

  She jumps up. “Do you think—”

  I take her hand. “Let’s just walk around and see if they’re around.”

  “And when I find her, can I ask?”

  “Of course.”

  “Like, you’re okay with her being on our honeymoon?”

  “I think it’s a great idea, as long as we have our own room, of course.”

  She smiles. “That’s a given.”

  After looking around for a couple minutes, we see Hugo walk in from outside, and she looks outside.

  “You mind if I go ask Dad if he’s seen Brisa?”

  On my way toward Hugo and Dante, who’s not being social at all tonight, I see Samuel and the girls, who look tired, and walk over to suggest they retire for the evening.

  “You girls look beautiful but tired. I bet it was all the dancing.”

  Martina pouts out her bottom lip. “We wanna stay. But so many people talk to you and Tris.”

  “These people are all her family. How about Samuel takes you back to the house and, tomorrow, we’ll carve out some time for just us and Tris.”

  “Will her people let her?” Elena asks.

  “Of course.”

  “We have to return to school the day after the wedding. Since the wedding was a day early, does that mean we have to go back a day early?”

  “No, of course not.” I hug and kiss each of them then wish them the sweetest dreams and leave without fuss.

  Glaring at Hugo, I wish they knew it was actually all right to make a fuss.

  ~~~

  After kicking Hugo the hell out, I look around for Tris and see Ranger, who apparently is no longer hiding from Brisa. Interesting.

  I walk over him and ask, “Have you seen my wife?”

  “She’s in the restroom. Been in there for the fifteen minutes it took you to kick your asshole brother out.”

  “Thank you.”

  When I walk in, she’s nowhere to be found. I look under the stalls and see nothing. The last door, however, is shut.

  I knock on the door, and she says nothing.

  “Tris.”

  She clears her throat. “I just need a minute.”

  “I’d like a minute myself. How about we take it together?”

  “How can you love me?”

  “How can I not?” I ask, looking beneath the door again and see she hasn’t moved.

  “I made a mess for you.”

  I walk into the stall beside her and climb on the toilet seat to peer over at her. “The mess was made way before you.”

  She looks up and scowls. I scowl back, and she suppresses a smile.

  “You should have said I don’t, instead of I do.”

  “You should unlock the door and come out so we can sneak out of here before anyone notices I just kicked my brothers out.”

  She stands up and shakes her head. “You didn’t.”

  “I did.”

  She steps up onto the toilet and looks me in the eyes. “Brisa doesn’t want to go with us. Well, with me.”

  “That’s okay. I’m more than sure we will have more fun watching us fall in love than laughing at two people who just don’t get how amazing it is when you find the one person in the world you’re supposed to be with.”

  She points to herself, and I nod.

  I point to myself, and she nods then leans forward, gripping the divider wall between my hands.

  I kiss her nose. “Let’s go?”

  Low

  Tris

  He draws me a bath in the suite’s jacuzzi, undresses me, helps me in, without trying to cop a feel, brings me my pills, and doesn’t yell at me for not taking them, even though I can tell he knows. He just lets me soak while undressing himself slowly, unhurried, and then gets in the shower.

  I know it’s wrong to compare two men, but it’s hard not to when everything about them is different. The fact that they’re …

  God, it makes me sick to think about it. So, I decide to try my hardest not to.

  Deducting that they are nothing alike.

  Matteo is without ego, and he could totally be that guy and pull it off. He talks to me, listens, and knows what I need. He doesn’t talk down to me. When we had sex, it was—I look up from the bubbles to him in the shower—love and not fucking. Whereas, with Marc, it was like a porno, one that ended in blowjobs, except that one time when I finally broke my “not until graduation” rule.

  How fucked up is that? Everything else, including the BDSM shit, was on the table, but no sex.

  Foreplay might be the name of my band, but straight-up, it’s overrated, and I know that now. The connection is lacking, or maybe it’s just Matteo and my connection is so deep that sex is otherworldly.

  Sex.

  I want sex, I want sex with him, and I want it now.

  I push myself up out of the bathtub as he hangs his head under the shower, one hand on the wall, the other running shampoo through his hair. His ass, his ass is insane, rock-hard and defined. His whole body is.

  And his “manhood,” which is such an odd word, but it works when it’s his and attached to all that depth and his heart.

  God, his heart …

  I step into the shower and wrap my arms around him, and he groans. “Is this okay?”

  “Tris”—he turns and looks down at me—“if every evening ends in a shower, with my wife in the shower with me, I’ll be the happiest man on the planet.”

  I feel him harden between us and move closer. “And if this is the only thing that ever comes between us, I’d be the happiest wife on the planet.”

  “Then you shall be.”

  I push up on my tiptoes, intent on kissing him, and see soap moving down his forehead. “Head back.”

  “Perdón?”

  I reach up and wipe the soap away then let my fingers run through his hair, and he sighs while he tips his head back and I rub his scalp.

  “First time you do this, heaven. This time, whatever beyond heaven.”

  I bite my lip as he groans. He’s tired; his English is slipping a bit. It’s sexy.

  Looking up at him, I watch his Adam’s apple bob and, without thought, I lick up his neck.

  “Tris.” He grips my hips and pulls me closer.

  “You are the most beautiful man I have ever seen.”

  He looks down at me, eyes narrowed, water streaming down his face. “I was made to complement you.”

  Leaning in, I kiss his chest, and he takes in a deep breath, making it expand. “I love you.”

  “Cada día te amo más—every day I love you more.”

  I kiss above his heart. “Mine.”

  “Es tuya—it’s yours.”

  He bows his head and cups my breast, rubbing his thumb across my nipple. “Muy sexy.”

  I press into his hand. “Es tuya.”

  He turns me, wraps his hand that is not cupping my tit around my hair and pulls back. “Let me clean you then make love to you.”

  As he shampoos my hair, I rub his body down with body soap. When I have him in my hand, stroking him, his chest rises and falls, and he groans out, “Cada noche, mi corazón.”

  I squeeze him in my hand. “And every morning.”

  He starts rinsing my hair. “Bed. Ahora.”

  “Conditioner, or my hair will be fucked.”

  His voice deepens, his eyes darken, as he says, “No conditioner, and you will be.”

  I bend down to grab the
conditioner and am eye level with his … manhood.

  “Tris.” He shakes his head.

  I squeeze some conditioner into my palm and rub it through my hair as I kneel in front of him and take him in my other.

  I lick across his crown, and he hisses, “I want you.”

  I wrap my lips around him, and he mumbles something before he lifts me up.

  “Hey, I was—”

  “Rinse.”

  He turns me and quickly rinses my hair.

  “Mr. Arias, if I wanna suck your cock, I can suck your—”

  “Not tonight.” He leans down and kisses me softly then deeply.

  The water is turned off, and he grabs my ass, lifting me. I wrap my legs around him as I reach between us, grabbing his cock and rubbing it against my heat.

  “Sí, sí, si,” he groans as I take him in while he hurries toward the bed, kissing me the way he does, the way we do.

  I pull my mouth from his and mumble, “Floor. We’re wet.”

  He drops me onto the bed, bodies no longer connected, and as he goes to his knees and spreads my legs, he says, “Ladies shouldn’t be on the floor.”

  I start to laugh, because he’s taking advise from Cooper, but I stop really quick when his mouth covers my core.

  ~~~

  Hearing a vibration, I wake, which never happens. I untangle myself from my beautiful, sexy, insanely well-hung and orally-talented husband and look at the screen. It’s Brisa. I can’t help but smile, thinking she may have changed her mind.

  “Hey?” I whisper, hoping to not wake Matteo, because he needs sleep, and because three rounds and I am seriously raw.

  “Hey, I’m out on the terrace and, well, um …”

  “You want company?” I whisper, grabbing a pair of shorts off the floor and sliding them on.

  “Well, Marcello’s here, and I am calling you before—”

  No, no, no, no, I think as I grab a shirt out of Matteo’s bag and cover my ass really quick in case he’s awake. I have to fix this. “Of course I’ll keep you company. Give me a minute.”

  “Tris, if you don’t want to see him, he’ll leave.”

  I hang up and quietly open the door, seeing Brisa and Marc.

  I ball my hands at my sides, digging my nails into my flesh, hoping the physical pain keeps me from getting pissed … emotional … both.