Hidden Worthiness

by Susan Fanetti

  But so was Arianna’s love for him, and his for her. And his happiness—Jesus, he looked happy in this photograph; even he could see it.

  Arianna’s hand came to rest on his arm. Her ring glittered in Christmas Day sunshine. “The photographer sent me an email with this shot. When I saw it, I had to have it, for you. This shows us, Donnie. This is us. More than that, this is who I see when I look at you. I see love in your eyes, and in your smile. I see your scars and I love them, because they are part of your history. They aren’t who you are, but they are part of the life that made who you are. You are beautiful to me. Inside and out. Every part of you. I see you.”

  Donnie cleared his throat, trying to loosen the grip of his surging emotions so he could speak. “It’s perfect, Arianna. Thank you.”

  She studied his face, poring over every inch before diving into his eyes. “Yeah?”

  “Yes. I love it.”

  Relief burst from her lips on a soft laugh. “Oh, I’m so glad. I was worried you wouldn’t understand.”

  He set the box aside and pulled her into his arms. “I understand. I love you.” He kissed her, turning on the bed, careful of his midsection, so he could lie over her. Enough with waiting. No more waiting for anything between them.

  She was with him, moaning under his kiss, scratching her nails up his back, arching into his touch. But when he shifted to settle between her legs, his core muscles cramped painfully, and he couldn’t suppress the grunt of pain.

  Arianna went still at once and broke off their kiss, pushing deep into her pillows to put space between them. “No, Donnie. It’s too soon. You’ll hurt yourself.”

  “I don’t care. I need you.”

  “I do care. I need you. I’m not fucking you today.”

  “But it’s Christmas!”

  She laughed at him. Hearing the petulant teenager who’d whined that complaint, Donnie laughed, too. “Well, it is.”

  “Next Christmas, you can fuck me unconscious. This Christmas, we can cuddle.” She put her left hand on his scarred cheek. Her ring sparkled at the edge of his vision. God, the things she’d said. The way she loved him. All of him, the light and the dark.

  He didn’t want to cuddle. Not yet. It was Christmas, and he loved and was loved, and he wanted more. He wanted all of her. To know every part of her. Every part.

  She loved him. As he was.

  Donnie put a quick kiss on her sweet lips and, moving slowly, careful of his sore muscles, eased himself down her body, under the comforter. He pushed the t-shirt up.

  With a soft sigh, she pulled it all the way off, then relaxed and set her hands on his head. “Okay, a little titty play won’t hurt.”

  He laughed against her skin as he arrived where she thought he meant to stop. As he loved her beautiful small breasts, flicking his tongue against the beads of her excited nipples, Donnie smoothed his hand over her hip and belly and wondered if he should stay where he was. More than twenty years—even had his mouth worked like it was supposed to, his skills would have been lost after all this time.

  But she was moaning at the touch of his mouth on her breasts. Her hands scratched at his scalp, and she writhed beneath him. He wanted all of her. To know all of her, to have her etched into all his senses. Everywhere.

  Easing away from her delicious breasts, Donnie moved downward, kissing the soft flesh over her ribs, her firm, flat belly, the blade of her hip, the contour of a lithe thigh.

  She sucked in a breath, and her body tensed as she lifted off her shoulders. “Donnie?” She picked up the comforter and peered down at him.

  Hovering over his goal, smelling her already, as sweet as the rest of her, he lifted his eyes to hers. “Can I?”

  God, if she said no ...

  But she nodded her head, and her eyes washed with tears. “Only if you want.”

  “I want. I want all of you.”

  With a sharp tug, Arianna sent the comforter sliding off the bed. “I want to see you.”

  For the first time in a lifetime, Donnie put his face between a woman’s legs and tasted her. But this was no mere woman. This was his woman. Who saw him and wanted him and loved him.

  Arianna thought it was only one woman who’d hurt him and turned him away from love, but she was wrong. Maybe it hadn’t been any woman at all. Maybe it had been him, taking one painful moment and turning it into a life. Maybe he’d closed himself off from love for all these years. Maybe other women could have loved him if he’d been able to let them.

  But only Arianna had seen what he’d needed to take the chance. She was the key. He’d been waiting for her.

  She was sweet on his tongue. Her body quivered in his arms. So enraptured by the experience, Donnie forgot to wonder if his mouth felt strange to her or moved wrong for her. She moaned and whimpered and trembled and writhed. She gasped his name, and the name of God. He stayed on her, fed on her bliss, held her fast, ground his hips into the bed beneath him until he was on the verge of climax himself.

  When she came, arched sharply up and keening, he drank of her, and the taste of her release, the very fact of it, while his face was covered with her pleasure, made him come, too.

  The force of it turned all his core muscles into a knot of hot iron, and he let his head fall to her thigh and dropped his hands from her to clutch the sheets.

  “Donnie?” She scrambled from under him. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m good,” he gasped, waiting out the cramp. “I’m okay.” And he was. Unless he’d made something break open inside, he was fine. The cramp passed, and he rolled to his side and grinned at his woman. “I’m great. I just came all over the sheets like a scrub, though.”

  Frowning at him, Arianna leaned close. “Are you really okay?”

  “I’m fine, stella mia. Just a cramp.”

  “You’re supposed to be taking it easy!”

  “I wasn’t trying to get off. I was trying to get you off, but you’re so hot I couldn’t control myself. That was good?”

  Her frown lost a battle with a blushy grin. “That was brilliant.”

  “It didn’t f—”

  Her fingers covered his mouth. “It felt like you, making me feel good. It was perfect, and now you have to do that all the time.”

  He took her fingers from his mouth and kissed their tips. “I will do that any time you want. Day or night. For as long as you look at me like that. Sei la mia stella. Sei la mia vita.”

  She leaned even closer and kissed his scarred cheek. “Sono tua per sempre. Ti amo, amore mio.”

  ~ 24 ~

  Ari got out of the back seat of the SUV and stopped where she was, still inside the wedge of the open door. As a frigid burst of January wind slapped her across the face, she pulled up her hood and stared at the house in front of her. Her childhood home.

  She’d been home for Thanksgiving. Not even two months ago. But her life had taken some wild spins in those few weeks.

  Donnie came up from the street and took her arm. He pulled her to the sidewalk, and Dre closed her door, which she’d been blocking. She turned at the sound. “Oh, sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Miss Ari.”

  Everyone who worked for Donnie called her Miss Ari. She’d told them they could drop the ‘Miss,’ but had been ignored. In a few months, they’d call her Mrs. Goretti, she was sure, though she meant to keep her name.

  Well, at least professionally.

  Dre got their bags from the back of the truck, and Donnie took them. They exchanged some words regarding security—those kinds of instructions had become background noise to her life, like the suited men who inhabited her shadow—and Dre stood with his hands crossed and his back to the car, at his post. There was another car with two more guards doing a patrol around the block. Because the Pagano Brothers were still on high alert.

  But Donnie hadn’t met her family yet, and they were getting married in June, so they’d driven up to spend a weekend on Long Island.

  “It’s a nice house. You ready?” Donnie sa
id, hooking her bag over his shoulder so he could take her hand. He’d healed completely from the shooting and seemed strong as ever.

  “I’m nervous! It’s so weird.”

  “I’m nervous, too. I’ve never met my fiancée’s family before.”

  “Speaking of meeting family ...” she nodded to the bright red Mustang in the driveway. “That’s my Aunt Anita’s car. You could get tackle-hugged. She gets ... enthusiastic.”

  He grinned. “Okay. I’ll lock my knees.”

  They were halfway up the sidewalk when the front door flew open, and Aunt Anita dashed out, down the porch steps, and straight for Ari. “There’s my baby! There’s my girl!” Ari was tackled into a bear hug. After a few back-cracking squeezes, her aunt took a short step back and grabbed her hands. “Oh! You look so good! And look at that ring! Did you eat? You look skinny! Are you eating? We missed you so much at Christmas!”

  “Sorry, Auntie. I had to stay close for Donnie. This is Donnie.”

  Anita turned and beamed at him, but she was much more subdued in her greeting. She kept hold of Ari with one hand and held out the other. She knew who he was, what he was. Her eyes scanned his face, and dashed quickly away from his right side to focus on his left. Ari saw it, and she knew Donnie had, too. That was the way for him, meeting people. They had to reckon with his scars, which meant he had to as well. Over and over again. “Hello, Donnie. It’s wonderful to meet you.”

  Donnie took her hand and shook it warmly. “Arianna talks about you all the time. I’m very glad to meet you, Anita.”

  Anita turned a wry smile to Ari. “Oh, he’s charming, Ari.” Back to Donnie, she said, “Oh come here, I can’t stand being so damn polite. Can I give you a hug?”

  Donnie took her hug with a friendly laugh and smiled over her shoulder at Ari. She grinned back. As they started toward the door again, Ari’s father stepped into the doorway. She hurried up the porch steps to him.

  “Hi, Daddy.”

  He smiled and pushed his glasses to the top of his head. “Hi, baby girl.”

  Before they could hug, Anita was pushing them into the house. “It’s freezing out here! Come on, come on, we’re heating the whole neighborhood and turning the front room into a tundra.” She herded them all into the front room. There was a fire in the fireplace, and the Christmas decorations were still up.

  “You didn’t take the tree down yet?” Her father had a rule that the Christmas tree had to be down by Epiphany, which had been a week ago.

  “I wanted you to see it,” he said with a shrug.

  Now she hugged him, and felt guilty tears stirring in her throat. “I’m sorry, Daddy. We won’t miss any more Christmases, I promise.”

  He kissed her head. “It’s okay, cara mia. I understand. I just missed you, and since you were coming so close after, I kept it up for you.” With a nod to Donnie, he asked, “Will you introduce me to your young man?”

  Young man. Donnie was as close to her father’s age as he was to Ari’s. A little bit closer, actually. “Daddy, this is Donnie Goretti, my fiancé.”

  Donnie offered his hand. “Dr. Luciano.” Oh, her guy was good. The underboss of a major Family, and he showed her dentist father all his respect.

  “Call me Art, please.” Her father shook his hand. “I’m glad to know you, Donnie.”

  Ari turned to her aunt, who broadly mimed an impressed face and gave her two cheerful thumbs up.

  ~oOo~

  After they put their bags in Ari’s old room, she showed Donnie around. This house was full of family photographs, and he wanted the story of each one. She’d already told him about her mom, how she’d had a heart attack at the age of thirty-two, a young woman with a six-year-old daughter, healthy but for her two-pack-a-day Kool habit, and a lurking blood clot.

  He considered their wedding photo: a small, smiling, pretty woman in a tulle confection of a gown, and a serious young man with a prodigious nose and thick black glasses, evidently uncomfortable in his white tuxedo jacket over black trousers and black tie. “What do you remember of her?”

  Ari shrugged. “Not much. We have some videos, and all my memories feel like they came from those. Playing at the beach. Watching me at dance class and recitals. Birthdays and holidays. All the things families take videos of. That’s what I remember.” It was a lot—those videos meant she remembered her voice and her laugh, and the way she moved. “Aunt Anita and Uncle Mel lived just around the corner then, and after the funeral, Anita stepped in and took over with me, and Daddy did his work, and Uncle Mel did his work, and that’s how I grew up.”

  “He never remarried?”

  “No. He still loves her.”

  Donnie folded his hand over hers and squeezed.

  They’d made their way down the hall and the stairs, to the photos on the mantel. The front door burst open, and her Uncle Mel swept in with his usual Atlantic City flourish. “Ari baby! There’s my good girl!”

  “Hi, Uncle Mel!” She went to him for yet another back-cracking hug. As usual, he smelled of booze and cigars, which was more an effect of where he’d been than what he’d been doing. He ran his loan operation out of a cigar lounge.

  He squeezed her cheeks and smacked a kiss on each one. Then he set her aside and strode to Donnie, who’d hung back.

  “Mr. Goretti. It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

  His tone was completely different, much more serious. That was the shylock meeting the underboss. They weren’t from the same families, but they were both of La Cosa Nostra, and rank was rank.

  Donnie took his offered hand. “It’s Mel, right?”

  “Yes, sir. Carmelo Luciano. I guess you know I’m a Romano man.”

  “I do.”

  Ari stood near the door, fascinated to see this side of Donnie. She’d seen him with his guards, giving them orders, and she’d seen him with Nick and others, in casual situations like Christmas Day brunch, but she’d never seen him so obviously in command before. He demanded respect simply by his bearing. He wasn’t aggressive at all. Power simply flowed from him, and respect flowed to him.

  Mel had been made before she was born. He was respected in the Romanos and, as a good earner, was well regarded by the top brass. She knew that, had seen evidence of it. But in terms of rank, he was only a soldier. A man on the streets, whose only value was the profit he brought in. Donnie outranked him by a whole layer of atmosphere.

  She had seen this before—when Donnie had brought Baxter to heel. Her uncle faced him with more spine, but the respect he paid was obvious. If Donnie wore a ring, Mel would have kissed it by now.

  “I’ve been asked to talk with you about a few things, and let you know my don invites you in tomorrow.”

  “I’m here on personal matters, Mel. As you know.”

  “I understand. But this I think is important to you, and to Don Pagano.”

  Donnie looked past him to Ari before he answered. “I’ll give you five minutes, after dinner.”

  “Thank you.” Just like that, the tense Mafia exchange was over, and Mel was her boisterous uncle again. “Wow, it smells fantastic! My Anita is a great cook, Donnie. I hope you’re hungry!”

  ~oOo~

  Dinner—veal piccata with capellini—was delicious, because Anita could really cook. Donnie ate as carefully as Ari, but for different reasons. He was still dealing with some appetite and digestion issues from his wounds, and she would be playing the starving Manon in a few months and couldn’t pack on the pounds now. But three bottles of wine had gone around the table by the time the meal was over, and the awkward, getting-to-know-the-new-boy-who-is-a-badass-mobster chitchat warmed up to more fluid conversation as their cheeks got rosy with drink.

  It was her father, though, not Mel, who took the conversation to the red zone.

  He leaned past Ari and filled Donnie’s glass. “That black truck outside, and the one just like it doing laps around the block. That’s your security, right? You got trouble so big you need three armed guys on my girl? The same trouble
that got you shot?”

  Her father was an educated man, and took pride in his diction. He was quiet and bookish. But when he was drunk, he talked like a guy from the block, and he scrapped like one, too.

  He waved dangerously at Donnie’s face. “Looks like hurt follows you around. You gonna get my girl hurt?”

  Oh God. Had her father just called out Donnie’s scars as evidence of weakness?

  Donnie, for the same reasons he’d been careful with his food, had been careful with his drink. He was the soberest person at the table, Ari included. He got very still.

  Ari was a bit tipsy, and Mel and Anita were as drunk as her father. All three of them, though, sobered fully up and went still as well, and they all said, in chorus, Ari, her aunt, and her uncle:

  “Daddy.”

  “Art.”

  “Turo.”

  Her father shot an aggressive hand up. “No. I wanna know. I only got Ari left. You gonna get her took away, too?”

  “Art,” Donnie said, quietly. Almost gently. “I love your girl. She’s the only woman I’ve ever loved or ever will. She’s safe with me. I will put myself between her and any bad thing, for the rest of her life. I will die for her. I will kill for her. That’s my vow. Those trucks that follow her around, the men inside them will die for her, too. They will kill for her before even a hair is mussed on her head. She is safe.”

  Loving Donnie as much for his compassionate restraint in this moment as for the vow he’d made for her, Ari put her hand on her father’s and squeezed. “I’m safe, Daddy. I’m safe.”

  He gripped her fingers hard and pushed his glasses up onto his head with his other hand. Then he dropped his face into that hand, and Ari thought he was going to cry.

  Nothing more than a loud sigh escaped him, though, and Anita vaulted to her feet. “There’s ice cream! I went to 31 Flavors and got the good vanilla bean flavor, and I got that hot fudge syrup, too. And whipped cream and jimmies. Who wants a sundae?!”

  ~oOo~

  Ari swirled one of the handled sponges that looked to her like a pink flower on a white stem over a plate, under the running tap, and handed the rinsed—practically cleaned—dish to Aunt Anita, who put it in its proper place in the dishwasher.