Thin Lines (Donati Bloodlines Book 2)

by Bethany-Kris

“What do your injuries have to do with something being wrong with you?”

  “Well, since you won’t touch me, and you sure as hell won’t come close enough to fuck me, I was starting to think there was something wrong with me, and that might have been it.”

  “Emma!”

  She didn’t even flinch.

  “What else did you want me to think?” she asked softly. “I miss you. I know it’s not the right time and there’s so much shit going on, Cal, but I miss you. I want you. You said you would look after me, take care of me, but you’re forgetting that the only thing I want from you is you.”

  Calisto stood fast from the piano bench. “Did you think that maybe my reason for keeping a distance was because I felt like you needed time to absorb everything that happened, and fucking you might not help you do that? Did you think that I was worried I might accidentally hurt you, because everywhere I looked on you, there was a new mark to find?”

  Emma blinked. “No.”

  “No, that’s right. No, you clearly didn’t.”

  “You didn’t give me the chance to know, Calisto.”

  “My fucking hands hurt, Emma,” he growled, holding his arms out to her. “All I want to do is hold you or touch you, and I hurt because I want it that bad. And you think because you have a few bumps and bruises that I must not like the look of you?”

  She stared down at the floor, unsure of what to say.

  “I am sorry that every man in your life has treated you like a piece of property. As if your only worth to them was your ability to be constantly beautiful and quiet in a corner, but you are so much more than that to me, Emmy. You needed time. I thought I was giving it to you.”

  “I don’t need time now,” she whispered.

  By the time Emma glanced up from the floor, Calisto was in front of her. His gaze burned with a hunger that made her body heat up and her breath quicken.

  He was still worried, though.

  She could see that, too.

  Calisto grabbed her waist in one hand, and her chin in the other. He pulled her closer until her chest molded against his. She could feel her nipples harden when his hand drove down over her chest.

  But he was hesitant.

  “I’m okay,” she promised.

  Calisto wet his lips, his fingers dipped under her shirt to dance across her skin, and her body came alive. “Well, you will be.”

  Calisto

  Emma dipped lower to the floor, her hands ghosting down Calisto’s chest and stomach as she went. He didn’t know what his lover wanted exactly, but he decided that whatever it was, she could take it.

  She watched him with those knowing green eyes of hers from down below, her hair tumbling down her back in waves. The pout of her lips showcased her two front teeth, and it made her all the more sinful looking up. The woman couldn’t possibly know how beautiful and sexy she was.

  Calisto was breaking all the rules.

  He was walking on a thin line.

  This house wasn’t his. This woman wasn’t his.

  Yet, here he was.

  Someone was bound to notice he’d been spending every night in Affonso’s home, if they already hadn’t. Someone would whisper something, surely, and a rumor would travel faster than the speed of light through the family. His affections might have been overlooked before, but they wouldn’t be now.

  He was pushing the boundaries.

  Calisto knew better, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care when he met Emma’s stare, lifted his hand from his side to stroke her cheek, and she smiled at him.

  Because she was smiling for him.

  He would answer the questions if someone asked, brush off the concerns, and reassure whoever needed it that his relationship with Emma was purely platonic. Calisto knew it would be coming soon, and so he would handle it.

  But he was hoping for a little more time.

  All of those thoughts drifted away when Emma tilted her face into the palm of his hand like she wanted him to keep touching her like he was. Soft, gentle, and loving.

  She didn’t get those things nearly enough.

  She wasn’t loved enough.

  Calisto wished he could give her more.

  When she started working at his pants and belt, undoing the articles and pushing them down around his thighs, he didn’t stop her. Before he knew it, his semi-hard cock was in her tight grasp, and she was stroking him alive.

  A little snugger at the base. Smooth at the tip. Long, sure tugs that hardened his dick until his shaft ached and his balls were tight. Her fingernail grazed the head of his member, and it caused a shock of sparks to light up behind his clenched lids.

  “Jesus,” Calisto breathed.

  “Will you watch me?” he heard her ask.

  God.

  The sound of her voice was quiet but so sweet.

  Lovely, even.

  Calisto opened his eyes and stared down, offering Emma one of his lazy smiles.

  “Keep going,” he said.

  A thickness lingered in his tone. All she had to do was listen and she would hear just how fucking turned on he really was. He’d kept a physical distance between them lately because of what happened.

  Calisto wasn’t sure if Emma wanted a man to touch her after being beaten nearly to death by one. He was also scared that loving her the way he liked to—the way he needed to—might hurt her.

  That was the last thing he wanted to do.

  He could never hurt this woman.

  She was everything to him.

  Emma leaned forward, and Calisto held his breath when her tongue lapped against the underside of his cock. The thick vein traveling up his shaft thumped at her small taste. He wanted more.

  “Emma …”

  She stared at him through lowered lashes, a smile curving her lips.

  “Hmm?” she asked.

  “Teasing me won’t get you what you want,” he warned.

  Emma didn’t even blink. “I think it will.”

  Calisto’s response was lost to his jumbled thoughts the moment Emma’s tongue was back on his cock. Languid, hot strokes of her tongue wet his shaft from the base to the tip. Her grip tightened around the bottom of his member to an almost painful point, but all he could do was groan.

  Loud.

  Hard.

  Long.

  He wasn’t exactly a quiet man during sex, but the sounds he was making now were entirely different. Desperate and hungry, he wanted her mouth on his cock, sucking him dry.

  It was entirely selfish.

  He should want to please her after everything she had gone though.

  “Shouldn’t be about me,” Calisto managed to say through his clenched teeth.

  “This isn’t about you,” Emma whispered.

  Wasn’t it?

  It sure as hell felt like it.

  Calisto chose not to argue. If Emma wanted to suck him off, and she was getting something from it, then who was he to tell her to stop?

  His hand found her hair and weaved in firmly to the strands. He kept her rooted in place as he brought her mouth to the head of his cock. Emma never said a word. She sighed in that happy, pleased way of hers that said she liked what he was doing.

  Liked his roughness and his need.

  She wanted it.

  “Make me fucking come,” Calisto said hoarsely.

  Emma’s tongue swept her bottom lip.

  The sight alone made him shudder and moan again.

  “Do it, Emmy. Open that pretty mouth of yours and suck me dry,” he told her.

  Emma’s lashes fluttered closed, her lips parted when Calisto tugged on her hair again, and then she was taking his cock in her mouth.

  Wet, warm heat instantly engulfed his length. Her tongue stuck against the sensitive skin of his dick while her cheeks hollowed, her lips tightened, and her teeth grazed his shaft. She didn’t even give him a second to adjust to the sensations of her tongue flicking against his cock while she sucked him harder, deeper into her throat.

  Emma
hummed a low, hard sound that vibrated against his shaft. Her gaze widened, watching him with a glint that said she was enjoying her view.

  He knew exactly what she was seeing.

  His teeth were clenched, his jaw was tight. He was locked in place like a fucking statue, staring at her like she was God to him. His arm was shaking, and his muscles jumped like live wires snapping with electricity.

  All for her.

  It was all for Emma.

  “So beautiful,” he told her.

  Emma let her teeth slide along his pulsing vein—he took that as a good answer. Her one hand slid around his thigh, her fingernails digging into his skin with just enough sting to make him come alive all over again. Her free hand slipped between his legs to palm his sack with a gentler grip, but it was still firm enough to make his chest ache with need.

  Calisto couldn’t fucking breathe.

  Over and over, she bobbed on his cock, her gaze never leaving his. Pleasure licked up his spine, and he moaned her name loudly. The sound echoed in the quiet library.

  “You’re going to make me come,” he told her. “Your mouth is fucking heaven, Emmy. Sinful.”

  A shake coated his words. Emma’s lips tightened to his dick again. That’s what she wanted. For him to come.

  Calisto let her take what she wanted. He swallowed back his desire to ask her to stop so that he could fuck her instead. He could have that another time. She looked far too good to stop.

  “Fuck yeah, just like that,” Calisto gasped when Emma’s hand wrapped back around the bottom of his shaft. She jerked him off in time with the strokes of her mouth. “Holy shit.”

  He came hard.

  It blinded him.

  His knees weakened.

  His throat went dry.

  Emma sucked him harder, taking every single drop of his come with a fucking smile.

  Good God.

  They were fucked.

  “Again,” Emma whispered.

  Calisto chuckled, running his fingers through her hair. “You’re making my hands tired, amore.”

  “Again.”

  “Emma.”

  “You don’t play nearly enough, and it makes me so happy when you do, Cal.”

  “You only say that because you know I won’t refuse you, Emmy.”

  She tipped her head to the side, eying him silently. Her one look was enough to make his resolve waver, and he did as she asked. Calisto put his fingers back on the piano keys, and played another one of her favorites. She bit her lower lip, smiled, and closed her eyes. He ignored the ache in his fingers, because that smile was more than enough to make him play for hours and hours if he could keep seeing it.

  Once Calisto finished the piece, he sighed and went back to playing with Emma’s hair. She was sitting on the floor at his feet with her head in his lap. He was more than content to give her all the attention and affection she might need from him.

  She should know how much he loved her.

  “Calisto?” Emma asked.

  “Hmm, sì?”

  “When is Affonso coming back?”

  Calisto tensed briefly. “When I give him what he wants, I suppose.”

  Emma frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “When he can come home, sit in a corner, and know he got everything he wanted from me,” Calisto said quietly, trying desperately to keep the anger out of his tone. “When he feels like he’s manipulated me into a corner, and I can’t fight my way back out.”

  “The boss thing again?”

  “Partly.”

  “What else is there?” Emma asked.

  “You, Emmy. There’s you.”

  The tip of her finger traced circles on his thigh. “He doesn’t know about us, though.”

  “He doesn’t have to. I know. He’ll come back to his wife—whom he doesn’t deserve or love—and he’ll treat her the way he always has, as if she’s an afterthought and disposable in his life. And me? I’ll be standing in the shadows watching it all in my own unhappiness and envy.”

  “I don’t know if I can do that,” Emma said softly.

  “Do what?”

  “Pretend like that with him again. I don’t want to, Cal.”

  Calisto held the side of her face, rolling his thumb over her soft lips. “I don’t know how to fix this, Emmy. I’m sorry.”

  She closed her eyes, and he saw the sliver of wetness slide along her bottom lashes. He hated himself for making her cry like that. He wished this situation could be different for them somehow.

  Calisto didn’t know how to do that for them.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated.

  Emma nodded, and he wiped away her tears. “We knew this, right?”

  “Knew what?”

  “How doomed we were.”

  Calisto swallowed hard, heartbroken and torn apart. “Yeah, we knew.”

  Silently, Calisto pulled Emma up from the floor and into his lap. He kissed her soft and slow, taking his time to love her mouth and explore her body with his hands. He helped her shed her clothes, and his quickly followed.

  Before long, he had her on the edge of the piano, naked with her legs spread wide. He didn’t waste any time getting between her legs and burying his bare cock into her soaked, tight pussy. He fucked her hard, made her beg and scream, and it let them both forget about all the things that surrounded them.

  All the things that hurt.

  The things they had no control over.

  A life they didn’t want.

  He watched her back bow against smooth, shiny wood. He heard her breathless cries echo above the clangs of her fist hitting against the piano keys every time he thrust back inside her. He could smell their sex saturating the room.

  It was perfectly wrong.

  And disappointingly right.

  He heard her whispers of Don’t stop, right there, and Oh, my God, Cal through the blood rushing in his ears.

  Why did they have to be the bad people?

  Why did they have to be the ones who lost in this?

  Calisto didn’t stop fucking Emma on the piano until his semen filled her, and spilled out of her body onto the pristine baby grand.

  And even then …

  He flipped her over to her knees, and fucked her again.

  “Don’t you think you’re a little too close to your uncle’s wife?”

  Calisto lifted his gaze from the amber liquid in his glass to the man sitting across the desk from him. Ray Missotti had posed the question quietly, and without any emotion showing on his face.

  Calisto hated the man for asking.

  He’d been waiting for this moment, and frankly, was surprised it took someone this long to bring it up and say something out loud. Sure, there were probably a few men who were thinking it, but not a lot would have the guts to accuse Calisto of something.

  Apparently, Ray did.

  “I’m not sure what you’re saying,” Calisto drawled quietly.

  “Don’t you?”

  “No.”

  “I’m saying that your presence in this house night after night, your demand to be the only person who watches Affonso’s wife, and your lack of interest in other women is a little … concerning,” Ray finished, cocking a brow.

  “So, the fact that Emma has been through hell since her attack last month, has been left to fend for herself, and is currently without her husband is enough of a reason to accuse me of being too close to her?” Calisto nodded, resting back in the chair with a slow smile. “I see what you’re getting at, Ray. My friendship and concern for Emma can’t actually be innocent, it has to have some kind of hidden meaning behind it. I must be fucking her, or trying to. I have to be betraying my oath to Cosa Nostra, or my uncle. That’s what you mean, right?”

  “Well—”

  “And then there’s Emma,” Calisto interrupted sharply. “By saying what you’re saying now, you’re effectively shaming her to la famiglia. You’re calling the respected wife of a boss a whore, or rather, alluding to her behavior as something wo
rthy of a slut. That because she needs someone to talk to—someone to be a friend that she can trust, as her husband up and left her without so much as saying goodbye—she is automatically doing something wrong.”

  Ray cleared his throat. “I was just saying …”

  “Do not forget that Emma was taken from her family and life just one year ago. She had no one but the people here. And honestly, that isn’t a lot. She is scared, she was nearly beaten to death because of her husband’s involvement in something she doesn’t understand, and she is lonely. If being here at night to eat supper with her, and to make sure she feel safe enough to sleep is what she needs, then that is what I’ll do. Your opinions over my actions mean very fucking little to me, Ray, considering I haven’t done anything wrong. Neither has Emma.

  “And it would benefit you greatly to keep your opinions to your goddamn self,” Calisto finished darkly.

  “Okay,” Ray said quickly.

  “Good. I would suggest you pass that bit of info along to any other man taking issue with the friendship I share with my uncle’s wife.”

  Ray nodded. “Absolutely.”

  Calisto went back to his drink, satisfied he had handled the conversation well enough to at least deflect people’s opinions for a little while. How long it would last, however, he wasn’t sure.

  “Big day tomorrow,” Ray said after a while.

  Calisto tried not to choke on his sudden rush of anger. “I suppose.”

  Yes, a big day.

  Tribute, actually.

  Affonso wasn’t there to collect. Calisto would have to do it. As Affonso’s consigliere, when the boss wasn’t around to do his duties, the responsibility fell to Calisto. Ray, as the underboss, would second the acting boss. If the men of the family deferred to Ray, then Calisto might have been able to get away with pushing Ray into the seat of acting boss, but the men didn’t. They favored Calisto because of Affonso’s direction over the years. Automatically, it would place him into a position where he was the acting boss of the Donati Cosa Nostra. He had been acting boss ever since Affonso left his famiglia high and dry.

  But this would be official.

  Calisto didn’t want it.

  He hated the very idea of it.

  It was going to effectively put him in a place where the men of la famiglia could move him into a permanent position as their boss if they chose to do so. He wouldn’t be able to refuse.