by Bethany-Kris
Then, he held it out to the baby, but not close enough for Junior to grab.
“Blow it out, little man,” Dino said softly.
Karen’s throat tightened with emotions as she said, “He’ll need a bit of help for that.”
“Oh.” Dino flashed his son a smile, but Junior was far too entranced with the flickering flame on the candle. “Like this, J.”
Dino blew the candle out, and Junior’s gaze snapped to his father’s faze, amazement lighting up his brown eyes. “Da!”
“Happy birthday. Daddy didn’t mean to miss it—it won’t happen again, I promise.”
Karen didn’t say a thing about his promises that time.
She needed this one to be one he kept no matter what.
Dino
“STILL just as amazing as it was the first time I saw it,” Karen murmured as Dino parked her car.
“It’s a little different this time around.”
“Oh, how so?”
“Your name is on the deed.”
Karen’s smile bloomed, but she didn’t respond, instead pushing out of the car and rounding to the back passenger seat to grab Junior from his car seat. Dino stayed right where he was in the driver’s seat of Karen’s car, watching as she made her way up the front steps of the lake house that now belonged to her.
It hadn’t taken much prodding on his part at all to get her to come out. She had the weekend off, anyway, and Dino only had to mention how he’d like a day or two with their son before he had to get back to life on the other side of Chicago.
Karen agreed.
Quietly, but she had agreed.
Fumbling with the keys on the front porch, Karen got the front door unlocked and disappeared inside. Dino stayed where he was for a while longer, thinking over what would be happening next, and where he was going to go from here.
Or rather, what he was going to do when he couldn’t hide away any longer.
It was a daunting thought, and one he knew would come to fruition a lot quicker than he wanted to admit. Soon, he would make his way back to Chicago, insert himself back into the Outfit and the business, and try to pretend like nothing had happened.
Except something had happened.
Something big.
A much bigger fear rested in his gut, climbing up to his throat and choking him silent. A constant, unrelenting reminder that the things he loved the most—his family, Karen, their son—were not safe in his world.
And how was he supposed to keep them safe, when the largest threat was the person who loved them so much?
Dino didn’t have an answer to that question.
Not one that he liked, anyway.
He was selfish, he knew. Selfish because it would be better for him to step away from the innocents in his life that could be stained and harmed by the monsters waiting to jump from his back to theirs. Selfish because he wasn’t willing to say goodbye, because his happiness was always so fleeting, and he wasn’t ready to let it go.
Selfishness was a DeLuca trait he’d earned fair and square.
But for now …
Karen came to stand at the threshold of the front door, expectantly staring at him from her position. “You coming in or are you just going to sit out there all day?”
He was coming.
Of course, he was.
Opening the car door, Dino stepped out and felt the weight on his shoulders leave for a moment. He could pretend for the weekend that things were perfectly fine—that his life wasn’t about to be in shambles again, and that nothing was wrong.
He could have this weekend, surely.
Enjoy his freedom.
Spend time with his son.
Dino found Karen still watching him, her gaze soft and her smile waiting.
Maybe she and him would have a moment or two …
He was going to let her decide that, as he had far too many other things to consider and plan for, and he already knew what he wanted from Karen.
Her.
Him.
Happiness.
Love.
Things that at one time had been so foreign to him, but he now understood the preciousness they held when placed in his hands. As strange as it was, he didn’t want to have those things torn from his grasp again, and that really only left Dino with one option.
The only things worth having were worth fighting for.
He’d never fought for anything before.
His siblings’ happiness, sure. Their freedom, of course. A position that he never really wanted, yes.
None of those things had ever really been for him. None of those things had ever been something he could hold up and call his own. Dino wanted that—he wanted something that was solely his because he’d earned it, and because he loved it enough to fight for it.
With his arms loaded down with bags, Dino crossed the gravel driveway, stepping up onto the porch where Karen still stood.
“It’s a little chilly in there,” she said.
Behind her, he could hear Junior smacking something and giggling in that boyishly baby way of his. It didn’t take much to make that kid happy, thankfully.
“We’ll get a fire going,” he told her.
Karen nodded. “You okay?”
“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You look like something is on your mind.”
Dino smiled—something he didn’t mind doing around Karen. “Something is always on my mind.”
“That could be a dangerous thing, Dino.”
She didn’t know how right she was.
She would probably never know.
As long as Karen was happy, he didn’t think she had to.
This time, he wanted to do it right with her, if she would allow him to. No lies, no hiding, and no games. But that didn’t mean he was going to purposely give her information that might hurt her, not if he could help it.
This was just one of those times.
“Let’s just have a good weekend,” Dino said. “That’s the most important thing.”
Karen looked up at him as he passed her by in the doorway. “But what about when the weekend comes to an end? You already told me—back to life, right?”
Dino dropped the bags down. “I think I said that wrong.”
She didn’t look like she believed him. “Do tell.”
Junior toddled over to his father on his newly-walking legs, stumbling every so often until his tiny hands grasped onto Dino’s pants and held firm. His boy looked up at him with wide, adoring eyes. His son didn’t even know him, but he loved him.
For nothing more than because his mother wanted him to, because she’d spent time showing him pictures and telling him who Dino was. Karen would never truly understand how appreciative he was for that—how grateful he was in his heart that she cared enough to do that for both him and their son.
“Dino?” Karen asked.
“I’m not getting back to life—I’m handling business so I can have a life.”
So we can have a life, he corrected internally.
“What does that even mean?”
Dino reached out to cup Karen’s cheek in his palm, and she let him, never moving away from his touch or affection. It was important—a good sign for them, he thought.
“It means you’re important, that’s all.”
Karen didn’t ask for another explanation.
“He’s out.” Dino dropped down on the large leather sectional, exhaustion filling him to the brim. “Does he always fight to sleep like that?”
Karen didn’t look up from the magazine in her hands. “Never.”
“Ever?”
“Nope.”
Dino frowned. “So, it’s just me then?”
Karen smiled slightly, amusement lighting up her eyes. “I think it’s for you, not necessarily about you. New place, his new favorite person, and—”
“Hey, that’s not fair.”
She did look at him that time. “What?”
Without warning, Dino leaned over and circled
Karen’s waist with his arms. Holding her in a tight embrace, he pulled her to his side, and with a little urging, she laid her head in his lap. He ran his fingers through the silky strands of her caramel-toned hair, soaking in her presence and life for a brief moment.
“I’m not his favorite person,” Dino said. “Pretty sure that’s always—will always—be you, huh?”
Karen laughed. “I said his new favorite, not that it was a bad thing.”
“I haven’t been around enough for him to really—”
“Doesn’t matter,” she interrupted softly. “You are now.”
Yeah, he was starting to get that.
Dino opened his mouth to respond, but the quiet cry from the back bedroom stopped him. Instantly, he moved to go to his son, like instinct beating in his soul, but Karen was on her feet before he was.
“I’ll get him down, just relax,” she said.
“But I want to.”
“He needs to sleep—you make him excited.”
Oh.
Well, then, Dino let her go.
Dino turned the TV on, flipping through the channels until he found some action movie that seemed interesting enough to watch. He didn’t realize Karen had come back from the rear bedroom until she was standing behind him, and her hand came to rest on his shoulder. Usually, someone approaching Dino from behind would get a bad reaction from him, out of habit and nothing else, but not Karen.
No, he relaxed at her touch.
His contentedness only grew as her fingers traveled from his shoulder to his neck, and then up into his hair. Then, she stopped at the nape of his neck, seemingly content to stay there like she was and touching him.
“Are you going to stay up for a while?” she asked.
Dino shrugged. “I’ve got a full cup of coffee and a decent movie on.”
“Okay.”
He heard a lilt in her tone, a small note that caught his attention and made him reach for the remote again to turn the movie down. Glancing up at her over his shoulder, Dino cocked a brow.
“Something wrong, sweetheart?”
Karen smiled. “No. I’m just going to head up to bed.”
He wished she wouldn’t. He’d rather have her down there with him all night, even if the only thing she did was watch him or look through magazines. He didn’t care. Having her close was better than her being away.
It’s up to her, Dino. You’re letting her make the calls.
Right.
“Sure,” Dino said quietly.
Karen’s fingers didn’t leave his neck. “I thought …”
Dino was already looking back at the TV. “What?”
“There’s only one bedroom downstairs and the loft upstairs. Junior is sleeping.”
“I’m good with the couch, no worries.”
Except he wasn’t.
He’d much rather be in bed with her.
Karen let out a quick breath. “Or you could—”
Dino looked up again, meeting her gaze and quieting her. “Do you want me upstairs with you tonight or not?”
“Well …”
“You never were shy. Don’t start now. Say what you want and I’ll give it to you, Karen.”
Karen smirked. “Things are different this time around.”
“Not that different, sweetheart.”
“I was going to make you grovel a little more,” she admitted. “Maybe I thought you deserved it after everything.”
“But?”
“I don’t really want you to.”
Fair enough.
Dino clicked the television off, and stood from the couch as he grabbed his full cup of coffee from the side table. He set the cup on the kitchen table as he passed by it, and then rounded the circular stairs, taking them two at a time until he reached the loft.
Karen was only one step behind, never saying a thing, even when they were both facing one another in the loft, stoic and waiting on the other to do something.
He’d settled himself on this—they were all up to her.
Whatever she wanted.
Dino was not going to manipulate or sway Karen with his own feelings. If she wanted him back in her life—if she wanted him at all—then she had to make that call, not him.
It had never been up to him to begin with.
“I never really asked you to leave,” Karen said quietly.
Dino blinked, taking in those words. “No, I guess you didn’t.”
“You still left, Dino.”
“I’m still sorry, Karen.”
Truer words had never been spoken from him before, other than how much he adored and loved her. That was true, too, and it wasn’t about to change anytime soon.
“I don’t want promises you can’t keep,” she said.
“Then don’t ask me for them.”
Karen sucked in a quick breath at that, like it wasn’t what she expected, but it didn’t seem like she was all that hurt by it, either.
He wanted to give her honesty if he could.
Sometimes it might hurt.
“Okay.”
Dino took that statement in, digesting it slowly. “Just okay?”
Karen nodded. “I fell in love with who you were, and for a while, I wondered if that man was someone different, if maybe he was a beautiful lie I’d told myself. I’m only starting to realize that man isn’t all that different from the one standing in front of me, I just know a bit more about him, now.”
“And?”
“And what?”
Dino pointed at his chest, right over the spot where his heart beat. “And what do you think of this man, Karen?”
“I think he loves me, and he might not be perfect, but he does love me.”
He did.
Entirely.
Karen
“ARE you just going to stand there after all that and do nothing?” Karen asked.
Dino crossed his arms as amusement colored up his strong features. The hardness of the lines on his face almost seemed to soften when he grinned—not like when he smirked or sneered. This was different.
“I already told you,” Dino replied, “I’m leaving us—”
“Up to me. Yes, I got that.”
“Then it’s up to you, sweetheart.”
“Asking you to spend the night with me isn’t obvious enough that I want you?”
A tic moved in Dino’s jaw. “Want me, huh?”
A heat coated his tone, making his words feel like a silken caress sliding over her skin. He didn’t even have to touch her—he was two feet away—and she still felt like he’d touched every single inch of her.
Karen hid her shiver, but barely. “I do miss you, Dino.”
She had barely even gotten the words out before he was closing the distance between them, catching her face in his hands, and then his mouth crashed down on hers. The kiss was bruising—punishing, even as his tongue stroked her bottom lip before his teeth replaced it, nipping sharply into the same spot.
Her whine was swallowed by his chuckle of approval, and as the sound tried to escape, his tongue darted into the heat of her mouth, finding hers and warring there for long enough to take her breath away.
She thought it was very possible that she had missed his kiss most of all.
The way he dragged her closer, how his fingers knotted into her hair to keep her in place, and how her knees damn near buckled under the intensity but he just kept holding her up. He’d never let her fall before.
Those hands—fast and strong—had a goal in mind, it seemed. And that was to get her clothes off as fast as possible. Karen helped, only breaking their kiss long enough to step back and allow him to pull her shirt off. Her pants quickly followed, and as he tugged them down her legs, Dino dropped to his knees at the same time.
She only took a single, quick breath in as Dino’s fingers twisted around the waistband of her thong and he glanced up at her, frozen like that for a split second. The glimmer staring back at her, one she hadn’t seen in far too long, shined all too brightly.
Need.
Want.
God, yeah.
She’d missed this man.
“Breathe,” she heard him murmur.
His words were there, the order was clear, but Karen didn’t really register what he was trying to tell her. It was only the slightest graze of the tip of his nose along her inner thigh that broke her from the daze.
She realized then that she was trembling, because her body knew what was coming—she knew all too well what was coming—and she didn’t want to wait. She couldn’t wait. It had been far too long.
“Not too loud,” Dino said, tipping his head to the side, reminding her where they were and the open-concept loft. “But still let me hear it, Karen.”
Jesus.
“Anything you want,” she replied.
Dino smirked, tipping his face down and nuzzling her thigh again, his mouth coming a little closer to her cotton-covered sex. “Not about me. It’s never been about me.”
Oh.
Well, then …
He tugged firmly on her thong, dragging it down over her thighs and to her knees with a slowness that damn near killed her. She was caught like a deer in the damn headlights as she watched him, entranced by how his gaze never once left the path his hands were traveling. Even the coolness of the room, amplified by her nakedness, didn’t catch her attention all that much.
Dino was far more interesting, anyway.
Once more, he glanced up at her.
Love.
Promise.
Sin.
She found all of that in the eyes searching hers.
Then he was between her thighs, his mouth encasing her sensitive sex and his tongue flicking out to dive right in between her folds. He didn’t give her a chance to think about what he was doing, but rather, ate her pussy like he was a starved man that had just found the most delicious thing he could ever lay his tongue on.
Karen’s muscles clenched at the swift, sharp and repeated strikes of his tongue against her already-thrumming clit, which seemed damn near relentless in their intent to get her flying off the edge. She felt his hand slide up the back of her thigh, his fingers dig into her ass, and then his other hand was between her legs, too. The tip of his thumb massaged her clenching entrance, smooth but firm.