by Bethany-Kris
“As long as I’m the only one composing in you.”
Aria laughed.
Caesar’s eyes opened, then, all stormy-blue again and burrowing into her. “Not funny.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“And?”
“And it’s only you.”
“Better be.”
His statement was punctuated by one of his hands traveling around to smack her ass, and then grab tight to the same spot. His fingers skimmed further around her backside until she could feel just the tip massaging the tight entrance back there.
It sent a shock of pleasure rushing through her blood. And then a hard jolt of need when that finger slipped into her ass after a few small circles to get her relaxed, and ready.
“Jesus Christ,” she breathed. “What if I wanted more of that?”
Caesar flashed a grin. “I would ask if you had lube.”
“In the nightstand.”
“Then, I would tell you to bend over.”
“Would you?” she asked sweetly.
Anticipation curled through her gut.
Hot, and heavy.
Lingering, and sweet.
“Bend over.”
God, yes.
She was fast to climb off of him, and despite how empty she felt without him between her thighs, the second she was on her knees, and holding onto the curved edge of the headboard, it didn’t even matter. He was behind her again—already had that small bottle of lube in his hands.
The cool, slick liquid dropped between the crack of her ass, and then his fingers were there, too. One sliding into her ass, and then a second. The third came with a bite of pain, but it was gone quickly enough. His hot mouth came down to kiss the swell of her ass as he fucked her with his fingers, and then his teeth bit into the same spot.
Pleasure.
And pain.
A delicate balance.
A lot like them.
The sounds that escaped her as he worked her ass, and praised her with dark whispers were raw. Climbing out from deep within her chest, and showing just how much she needed what he was giving to her.
Then, his fingers were gone.
“Breathe,” he said, his palm sliding up her spine as the head of his cock pressed against her ass. “Just keep breathing.”
She was high.
Or, it sure felt like it.
Aria had all she could do not to bear down when he first started working his cock into her ass—thicker, and longer than his fingers, it stretched her in a more painful way. But with every teasing lick of pain, bliss soon followed, in the way he touched her, or even his fingers between her thighs circling her clit. His lips kissing the back of her neck, or the way his body fit tight like a glove against hers.
“Oh, my God,” she whined.
It took one hard pull of her hips, and he was buried in her ass all the way to the base of his cock. The ache that settled deep inside her core was unlike anything, but it quickly turned into something else entirely as he started to pull out slowly.
Like his cock was hitting untouched nerves.
Dragging against every good spot she had.
Caesar was slow, and careful. Gentle strokes that filled her full, and then pulled right back out again. It drove her crazy—she just wanted more.
“Please fuck me,” Aria breathed, resting her cheek against the curved edge of the bed. “Fuck my ass, and make me feel good. Please.”
Caesar’s fingers pressed hard enough into her hips to leave bruises behind. His next thrust hesitated, and she knew she had him. Instead of another slow flex of his hips, he fucked her hard enough to make her whine. He didn’t slow between one thrust, and the next. Her words and moans melted into the same fucking sound.
Something wild.
Something raw.
Caesar leaned over her, and tangled one of his hands into her hair. His lips were at her ear, and he fucked her harder. “You better give it to me if you want me to come in your ass, donna. Give me what’s mine—come for me.”
It was the way he pulled her hair, how hard he pounded into her ass from behind, and the circling of his fingertips against her clit that threw her over the edge. She went numb all over but for the pleasure slicing through her body.
She heard nothing but him.
Felt only him.
He didn’t slow even as she came—if anything, her orgasm spurred him on to fuck her harder, and faster. She was just coming down from her high when she felt his last deep, jerky thrusts, and then he spilled inside her.
He came with a groan of her name.
Her name.
And it sounded like God on his lips.
Except it was her fucking name.
It was only when he’d pulled away from her, and those gentle hands of his were brushing the hair away from her face that she spoke again.
“My turn,” she murmured.
“Mmm, for what?” he asked.
“To get what I want—let me apologize.”
Caesar stilled. “I beg your pardon?”
“To your father, I mean. If we’re going to see this through, then issues between him and I won’t do us any good. Let me apologize to him privately for what happened, and then we can go from there.”
“Aria—”
“Please?”
She only ever needed to say that one word to get what she wanted. At least, when it came to Caesar.
This time was no exception.
Apparently, Angelo preferred to take his late breakfast in a small enclosed porch on the east side of his home. It allowed him to overlook the property, and gave him some semblance of privacy with only one wall of windows to stare out of.
Or, that’s what Caesar explained.
Just outside the porch, frosted glass covered the French doors leading to where Angelo was currently eating.
“Just you,” the enforcer said when she gestured for Nico to follow.
Aria frowned, and glanced at Caesar for an answer. “What, I can’t have my right-hand man with me?”
“His rules. You asked for this.”
She had.
“Fine,” Aria said, rolling her eyes. “We were checked, though. I don’t have anything to hurt him, and neither does Nico.”
Caesar shrugged. “His rules.”
“It’ll be fine,” Nico murmured. “I’ll be right here when you’re done.”
She didn’t doubt it.
Caesar, on the other hand, leaned back against the wall, and gave her a look. “Don’t antagonize him—we’re hanging by a very thin thread here.”
Right.
“Antagonizing him is the last thing on my mind,” she assured.
It wasn’t a lie.
Caesar nodded at the doors. “Go ahead. We’ll be here.”
Aria grabbed the handles on the French doors, and pulled them down. Pushing the doors open, music filtered through the space. Italian opera, it sounded like.
Jesus, she hated that garbage.
It wasn’t important.
At the other end of the room, Angelo sat at a table near the windows. A small, two person dinette set that gave him the perfect position to see everything. He didn’t even pass her a glance as she closed the doors behind her with one last look at Caesar and Nico. As she crossed the room with quiet steps, her heels still clacked against the tiles.
In front of him, Angelo had a full spread of food.
Eggs, bacon, bagels, and more.
Anything he wanted.
Currently, he was buttering a bagel.
Aria came to a stop two feet away from the table, and waited. Angelo didn’t keep her waiting for long—he gestured with the butter knife in his hand at the seat across from his at the small dining set. Once she had joined him at the table, Angelo tapped the edge of his butter knife against an empty coffee mug.
“Make yourself something to drink,” he said, “if you think we’re going to be here a while.”<
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“I don’t know that I will, actually.”
The man’s dark eyes lifted, and landed on her with a heavy weight. She could tell he was unhappy—he didn’t like her, and she didn’t even wonder why. After everything she had done to him, she suspected it was only because of his son that he allowed her to be in his presence.
“Then, what are you here for?” Angelo asked gruffly. “I was told you wanted to apologize.”
Aria nodded. “That’s what I said.”
“Get on with it, then. Kind of pointless, though.”
The song changed on the small radio behind Angelo, and he set the butter knife down on the table before turning around to increase the volume just enough to make Aria smile.
Every move was a mistake. Setting the knife down. Turning his back on her.
Assuming shit about her.
Why did they keep underestimating her? Why did they think they could trust her?
Angelo turned back around in his seat, but it was too late for him. Aria had snatched up that butter knife, and swung hard the second she had the chance. It embedded deep into the side of his neck—right into the major artery—and she was quick to grab the bagel on the plate when Angelo’s mouth opened to shout. She shoved that hard piece of warm bread deep into his mouth, and yanked the knife out.
Blood went everywhere.
On her.
The table.
The windows.
Warm, and sticky, and crimson.
He’d bleed out in minutes, and no one would know a thing. Even if someone did come in, it was already too late to save him.
The music was turned up just enough that Angelo’s choking gurgles could barely be heard even standing right next to him. He almost tipped over the table as he fell to the tiles, and blood pooled all around him.
His eyes stared up at her wide and stunned. She smiled down at him as she began to make a coffee with the bloodstained cup.
“There was really only one way for this to end,” Aria said quietly. “Me, or Caesar. One of us was going to have to go so that the other could get what we wanted. That couldn’t happen, and so I figured out another way to give us both what we want. What was one more death, Angelo? He’ll understand why I had to lie and hurt him one more time.”
She was sure he would.
That didn’t mean Caesar would like it.
“I did come to apologize,” she said, tipping a spoonful of sugar into her coffee cup. “I’m sorry you’ll never get the chance to ask your son for forgiveness. I don’t think he would have given it to you anyway. Die knowing that, Angelo. It’s what you deserve.”
Aria, like she had just before she first entered the enclosed porch, took a deep breath, and then pulled open the doors. As promised, Nico and Caesar were still waiting for her right where they had been standing when she left.
The enforcer was directly across from the doors.
He saw her first.
Saw the blood first.
“What the fu—”
All eyes were on her, then.
She imagined she was quite a sight.
Aria smiled at the man. “There was a little accident.”
She barely got out of the way before the enforcer rushed the room, and the doors automatically closed behind him. Nico made a noise under his breath, but Aria simply flicked a hand at him as if to dismiss whatever concerns were about to fly out of his mouth.
She turned to Caesar.
He was waiting with a smile.
“Now we both get what we want,” she told him. “You’re free—no marriage, no rules. And so am I. You shouldn’t have trusted me again.”
His striking features turned almost playful in his grin.
She didn’t know what to make of it, or him.
“Wrong,” Caesar murmured, “I trusted you to do exactly what you did, Aria. See, you taught me a new trick, donna. You thought I didn’t know what would happen the second you got him alone? I knew. I don’t have to plan my own moves when it comes to you, I only have to plan for what I expect you to do when something happens, and work accordingly. I would thank you for removing my last problem, but I don’t think you want me to.”
She stared at him.
Stunned.
Unsure.
Amazed.
“Well done,” she said.
Caesar nodded. “A bit of a shame, isn’t it, my girl?”
“What is?”
“All we’ve done to one another. Every cut we made. And though I hate you for a lot of things, still, I somehow love you.”
Her heart stopped.
She swore it did.
Spattered with his father’s blood; knowing she lied to him again; manipulating him one last time to get what she wanted.
All those things …
He still said, I love you.
“Why?” she asked. “Why do you love me?”
“Because you’re amazing, and you’re everything I can’t have. After everything we’ve done, it could never work. We’re not healthy. This isn’t that kind of good, Aria.”
She was scared.
That terrified her.
Because what if he was right? What if like everything and everyone else the two of them had touched on their way to the top, they were ruined now, too?
“You should probably go,” Caesar said, “I have a problem to handle, and you don’t want to be here when the shit really hits the fan.”
That was his goodbye.
He couldn’t even say it.
She didn’t want him to.
One week passed.
And then two.
Aria fought tooth and fucking nail to get her life—and the Camorra clan that had been left in utter chaos—back to some semblance of their normal.
And yet, it was everything but.
Her people, still unknowing of everything she had done to get them to the place they were now, wanted action and retribution against the Accardo family.
For Raffe, for her father, and even for her.
Retribution she wouldn’t give.
Action she wouldn’t take.
She was being challenged at every turn. She hadn’t expected it to be easy. She didn’t think it would be this hard, either.
Life in Camorra as a woman had always been a little too fucking suffocating. And even now, it was just as horrible, only maybe worse given her position. They were looking for a reason to discard her—something to give them any reason at all to replace her.
And she understood why.
She would do it, too, if needed.
Mostly, she was just unhappy.
And lonely.
Nico dropped onto the couch beside her, and handed Aria a mug of coffee. “You look sad.”
“I am,” she said quietly.
“Why? Don’t you have everything you want, now?”
Almost.
Mae clicked her tongue, drawing their attention to where she was sketching with a pad and charcoal next to the window. “She won’t even smile for me, Nico.”
Aria did smile at that. “I always smile for you, Mae.”
More so, now.
Her sister-in-law—Mae would always be family regardless if her useless brother was dead or not—had the chance to do whatever she wanted. Be whatever she wanted to be, now. Aria was going to keep working to make sure the girl could do exactly that from here on out.
Including keeping control of the Camorra.
Mae would not be someone’s pawn.
“Okay,” Mae corrected, giving Nico a look, “but she doesn’t smile as much for me.”
“Mmm,” Nico hummed. “Sad thing, that is.”
Fucking Nico.
“I miss him,” Aria admitted.
The first time she had willingly admitted it.
Mae passed Aria a look—her newest confidant next to Nico. It was best she have both a male and female with her at all times so that her behavior and act
ions couldn’t be questioned. They needed to be people Camorra respected and trusted. Mae and Nico were both of those things, thankfully.
Nico sighed. “This was not a part of the plan.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
Mae glanced over her sketchpad. “Does he—this Caesar—have the kind of face I can draw?”
Aria wet her lips, and nodded. “He has a beautiful face. Handsome and haunted.”
“Oh, I like him already.”
Nico, on the other hand, was still on their previous conversation. “What are you going to do now? About him, I mean.”
“Let him bury his father,” she told her friend, “and have his time.”
After everything, Caesar deserved that. He didn’t need her there to do it. Even if she needed him.
Hell, he might not even want her at all.
She would understand that, too.
NINETEEN
THIS WAS NOT how you thought it would end between us, did you, Papa?
That question lingered heavily in the back of Caesar’s mind as he stood at the very edge of his father’s grave. He was so close to the six-foot hole that the toes of his loafers hung over the edge, and dirt crumbled down onto the black casket from his weight.
Still, he didn’t move.
Not as the priest did his business, and said his prayers. Not as the people came to say goodbye. And not as the first shovelful of dirt was tossed down.
You always thought you would be burying me, didn’t you, Papa?
It was funny to him that in his mind, he referred to his father the way he had when he was just a young boy. As his papa, and not Angelo, or the bastard, like he had been using for the last several years.
On the outside, Caesar was sure he seemed disconnected from the funeral and burial to anyone watching. He made the bare minimum effort to do anything when it came to this day. He’d picked the church, and the burial plot for his father’s sake, but very little else. He left those details up to whoever wanted a say, and stepped way back.
Things were good once, weren’t they, Papa?
Back when he was little.
And Angelo cared.
Before Martina.
Caesar sucked in a deep breath, and finally looked away from the casket scattered with dirt on the top six feet down. He looked up instead—at the bright blue sky, and the fluffy clouds rolling overhead. Heat bore down on him, but he barely felt it even under his black three-piece suit when he was too busy feeling everything else.