Worth of Waste (DeLuca Duet #2)

by Bethany-Kris

  He didn’t have a particularly good reason why, he just did.

  Dino pulled the door almost closed again, the same way Karen had left it, and went back to the kitchen. He wasn’t a particularly good cook, which was strange considering his Italian mother, but he did okay when he was left to his own devices.

  And breakfast would always be his thing.

  Maybe because it was his favorite meal of the day. Dino wasn’t sure, but he went to work, pulling items from the fridge and cupboards to whip up something quick enough to have it ready for when Karen was out of the shower.

  He had just slid the omelets onto plates to let them cool when Karen peeked her head around the corner of the kitchen entryway. Her wet hair hung in rivulets around her shoulders, and she hadn’t dressed. Instead, her hand clung to a towel wrapped around her body, keeping it in place.

  She smiled widely at the sight of him in her kitchen.

  “I thought I heard something out here,” she said.

  “I was here when you woke up.”

  Karen’s head tipped to the side. “Why didn’t you come tell me?”

  “You’re a bear in the morning.”

  That was a lie.

  She was as sweet as sugar in the mornings.

  Karen gave him a mock glare. “I’ll remember that.”

  Dino chuckled. “I’m kidding. I thought you might want an easy morning, since J will have you running and cleaning for the majority of the day.”

  “Oh.”

  Her soft exclamation made him shoot a smile over his shoulder. He quickly went back to pouring coffee into mugs. It was only when Karen’s hand stroked his shoulder did he turn around to face her again.

  Sweetly, she leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed him.

  “Morning,” Dino said against her lips.

  “It’s a good morning if you’re here.”

  “You did want me for Christmas.”

  “I did,” she echoed, her smile sensual and true. “Are you staying all day?”

  At that, Dino frowned, but then wiped it away as quickly as he could. “Not all day. I have a dinner to be at around four.”

  He could see in her eyes that she wanted to ask him about the dinner, or maybe even why it was important. He was grateful when she didn’t, and instead, kissed him again. The second kiss was a little harder—hotter—when her tongue struck out against the seam of his mouth, her demand for him to open up and give her more. They stayed like that for minutes, his arms wrapped around her trim waist, keeping her close, as he explored the familiar heat and taste of her mouth.

  The longer they stayed like that, the less Dino found he cared about the food he had made for them to eat before their son woke up. And when Karen’s teeth nipped into his bottom lip, and then a little harder on his jawline, Dino found he didn’t care to eat food at all right then.

  It only took a little shift of his arm at her waist and a quick tug with his free hand, and he had pulled the towel from her grasp, letting the fluffy red material fall to the ground. Dino lifted Karen from the floor with ease, spun them both around, and sat her down on the edge of the counter.

  Her breathless laugh echoed in his ear—the heat and want coming out loud and clear as she stroked her hands down his T-shirt and fumbled with the buttons on his slacks. Her legs widened for him, spreading open to expose the sliver of her pink, wet sex between her thighs. He grabbed her legs in a tight grasp, fitting them around his hips as he yanked her a little closer to the edge.

  “Bedroom is right down the hall,” Karen whispered against his cheek.

  Her words said one thing, but her hands were doing something else entirely. He paid no mind to her words, instead focusing on her hands undoing his pants and pushing them down around his hips. Then, as quick as a flash, her warm palm had slipped under his boxer-briefs and circled his cock tightly, tugging with firm, insistent strokes that had his breath catching and his control slipping.

  “Fuck, just like that,” Dino encouraged, peppering kissed from the shell of her ear down to the corner of her mouth. “Love your hands on my cock.”

  Karen gripped his length firmer, damn near making his knees buckle. “Let’s go down the hall and maybe we can get your cock in my mouth, too.”

  Oh, he wanted that.

  He so wanted that.

  “This is good,” Dino managed to grunt out.

  He wasn’t going anywhere until he was buried as deep into her pussy as he could possibly be, and fucking his way to oblivion. She could suck his cock another time—she could make him see heaven another day.

  Right then, he just wanted to fuck.

  “Get your hand on your pussy, and rub that clit of yours until you come all over my cock,” Dino said, pulling Karen’s hand from his cock. “Show me how you like it, sweetheart.”

  The prettiest pink color washed over Karen’s cheeks and even down her neck and chest. Still, she did as he wanted, her fingers sliding between her folds, drawing her own wetness from her slit to her clit again and again until she was satisfied. As she started circling her clit with the pad of her fingers, Dino grabbed her jaw, pressed a quick kiss to her mouth, and then tipped her head down.

  “Watch me fuck you.”

  Karen swallowed audibly, but her gaze didn’t move from the head of his cock pressing into her sex. One good, hard thrust, and he was home. Surrounded by a sensation that could only be described as crushed, wet velvet wrapping his length like a fist-tight glove.

  He didn’t really need to think when he fucked Karen.

  He didn’t need to worry.

  He didn’t even need to breathe.

  No, he just needed to feel.

  Dino probably liked that the most—she took away all the shit muddling up his mind, and he only really had to focus on him and her, on getting them to that blissful place where her cries bounced off the walls and heat danced up his spine.

  He watched their bodies connecting, too, how his cock disappeared into her sex, and came right back out soaking wet with her and the pulse in the veins. Her thighs shook around him, yet her fingers never stuttered.

  “God.”

  Her word came out damn near airless, so broken, and barely even there at all. He still heard it, and the rhythmic clenching of her inner walls around his shaft as he fucked her harder had his own pressure building in the base of his spine.

  The lightest sheen of sweat on Karen’s cheeks and the way her bottom lip trembled were the sexiest sights.

  Best Christmas morning ever, he decided.

  “Okay, are you ready?” Dino heard Karen ask Junior.

  “Ma!”

  Dino sat back on the couch, enjoying his lukewarm cup of coffee and not finding a single reason worth complaining that he hadn’t been able to drink it hot. This was just fine, too.

  “Go!” Karen urged, laughing.

  Turning his head slightly, Dino listened as tiny feet padded down the hallway from the baby’s bedroom all the way to the living room. Junior’s eyes lit up and widened as he came to the entryway and took in all the lights of the tree and the sparkling wrapping paper of the gifts underneath.

  Then, as quick as the presents had caught his attention, Junior looked to something else, or rather, someone else.

  “Da!” the baby cried, his little hands shooting out toward Dino as he lurched toward his father. “Da!”

  Dino’s lukewarm coffee was forgotten instantly, set aside to the coffee table as he stood to go to his son. No matter what, when that kid wanted him, Dino was going to go.

  He’d settled himself on that long ago.

  Junior bounced happily in his father’s arms as Karen came up behind them, a camera already in her hands. She took pictures, and Dino got his boy interested in the gifts under the tree again.

  He understood then why he couldn’t make his house feel like a proper home. After all, his home was where his heart was, and his heart was with the people who made it beat.

  Dino

  NOPE, absolutely nothing had c
hanged in the Outfit.

  The New Year’s bash Riley Conti had put together for the four families was a perfect example of just how little things had changed within the ranks. The people were still excessive, still greedier than most, and still liked to show it off.

  Dino had to wonder if the rivalry between the families would ever wane, but he seriously doubted it would, unless something serious happened to force them all to work together. It amused him to no end that the older generation of Outfit people had grown up essentially hating one another while playing nice at the dinner table for the sake of appearances.

  Yet, the younger generation, the children of those same people, had forged friendships that went much deeper than what it looked like on the outside.

  Theo and Damian were a good example of that.

  Even Dino’s own sister, Lily, and her friendship with Riley Conti’s daughter, Evelina, was a bright contrast to the absolute hatred Dino held inside for the Outfit’s front boss.

  There were more examples he could use, but he didn’t know what good it would do these people. Probably very little, as their lives inside the Outfit had taught them all one important lesson that was the same, no matter which family you belonged to.

  For the betterment of themselves.

  For the respect of a name.

  For the rise of a family—the family you belonged to, of course.

  It never failed to amaze Dino how much these people had in common with one another, and yet they barely managed to throw a party without some sort of issue coming up to ruin it. After all, one family couldn’t very well stand for another to look better than them, even if it was something as simple as a holiday celebration.

  Dino was sick of it—he didn’t want to be here sharing drinks and fake laughs with these people. Karen had invited him over to share a drink with her around midnight, and if he could get away without someone noticing, he fully intended on doing just that.

  He would much rather ring in the New Year with someone he adored, rather than people he was forced to put up with.

  Maybe—just maybe—Dino was no better than those around him, who he found himself judging in these situations. He too put on a mask, did what was needing done, and pretended like he wanted to be there. He too hated those around him, yet acted as indifferent as the next person when he was forced into conversation with someone he would rather put in the ground.

  It was a strange realization.

  One he quickly decided to correct by getting the hell out of the Conti home, and away from the Outfit people. He didn’t want to be there, anyway, so why should he stay?

  Dino didn’t think he would be missed.

  He had just slipped past the servers in the kitchen, and rounded the entryway to where it lead to the front of the house, when the sound of someone calling his name in a cheerful way made him pause.

  “Dino!”

  Despite the friendly tone, the familiar voice had Dino’s skin crawling almost instantly. For the most part, he had done well since his release to avoid those he thought might be a detriment to his freedom, for whatever reason. Those people included anyone who was even remotely close to his uncle.

  People like Walter Artino.

  Dino turned on his heel, facing Walter as the man approached. In his beefy hand, the DeLuca Capo held a glass of what looked to be water, but was more likely to be rum. At his side, the man’s snake of a son, Dean, stayed all too close to his father.

  He didn’t trust these particular men.

  For good reason.

  Both Walter and Dean were a little too close to Dino’s uncle for his liking. They had always been prone to doing Ben’s bidding whenever he asked them to, including spying on the DeLuca brothers to relay information back, or whatever the need was that Ben had for them.

  Neither the father nor the son cared to hide their doings, either.

  Dino highly suspected it was because Walter, for one, was gunning for the position Dino currently held in the DeLuca ranks—the head Capo. And at the same time, he fully believed Walter wanted to get his son the in to the family—his long awaited button that he didn’t deserve for even a minute.

  “Walter,” Dino greeted drily.

  He couldn’t even manage an ounce of respect for this man. He figured it was a damn good thing that he ranked higher than Walter, as it afforded him a bit of leg room to move where he wouldn’t get in too much trouble for his attitude.

  “I haven’t seen you since you got out,” Walter said. “How was that, anyway?”

  Dino’s gaze slid between the father, and then to the son. He couldn’t help but notice how Dean avoided Dino’s stare, and instead, watched the beige wall like it was the most interesting thing in the room.

  Something about that kid made Dino uncomfortable, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on exactly what it was that he didn’t like. Maybe it was Dean’s sense of entitlement, something he had picked up from his father. Or perhaps it was the sneaky, down-low way Dean went about doing things when in the presence of others.

  It didn’t help that around the time he had started looking after Dean and teaching him a bit of the ropes almost two years earlier, some of Dino’s paperwork had gone missing. And then, once that ball had started rolling, it’d taken him straight to the jailhouse, and then to the prison for a year and a half.

  He had no real proof that it was Dean who had taken the papers for his father—probably under Ben’s direction—but he also didn’t have a reason not to believe it wasn’t Dean, either.

  That was enough for Dino not to let the idiots in close again.

  Fool him once, shame on them.

  They wouldn’t get the chance to do it again.

  No, Dino didn’t care for these Artino idiots at all.

  “It’s prison,” Dino said. “How do you think it went?”

  Walter chuckled. “My apologies—you’re right. Although, it won’t be very long before the possibility comes back that you might be looking at a cell for a while longer, huh?”

  Dino’s back stiffened at that statement.

  A lot of people knew he still had legal troubles brewing, and that forced people to keep a distance from him, and for the most part, Dino didn’t mind. As it were, he had been born the son of an Outfit Capo turned traitor, and that branded him untrustworthy to most in the mafia. Dino didn’t care to play to their politics, he hadn’t chosen this life for himself, anyway. He was more than capable of doing his job and making money without the help or trust of others, as it were.

  That wasn’t his problem at the moment, though.

  No, his problem was that no one was quite gutsy enough to point out straight to his face that he might be looking at more time behind bars.

  Not like Walter just had.

  It didn’t sit right with Dino.

  “Looking for your comeuppance?” Dino asked the older man.

  Walter didn’t even blink at Dino’s accusation, simply shrugged. “Someone’s going to have to look after your shit, right? Theo can’t do it all—he’s too young for this. I’ll happily fill in when the time comes.”

  Over Dino’s dead fucking body.

  He might not care too much for the life he lived or the position he had, but his younger brother was not the same. Theo worked hard to get where he was, and he deserved every bit of it that he was given for his time and effort.

  Unlike Walter and his fuckup of a son.

  “Keep thinking that,” Dino told the man. “Have a good holiday.”

  He didn’t bother giving Walter the chance to say anything else, instead turning on his heel and grabbing his blazer off the waiting coat hook. He didn’t turn around as he left the house, either, and he was pretty sure the window rattled when he slammed the door shut.

  His exit was enough of an answer.

  Let them make of it what they wanted to.

  Dino didn’t care.

  The sun was just barely peeking over the horizon when Dino pulled his car into the garage of his new house. He sti
ll didn’t feel very attached to the place, and that feeling was only exacerbated by the fact he knew it would be empty because he’d left the most important parts of home way across the city.

  It was strange, really.

  He tried not to dwell on it.

  Karen had been excited to see him the night before, earlier than what he had promised to be there. He’d shown up in enough time to help put their son to bed, but he wasn’t able to stay long enough that morning to be there for when Junior woke up.

  Work never really ended for a Capo.

  Dino cut the engine to his Bentley and eyed the cherry-red Stingray parked in the second stall of his garage, curiosity and irritation churning in his gut.

  Apparently, Theo had come to visit.

  His house wouldn’t be empty, after all.

  Dino wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He’d been hoping for a bit of a quiet time before he had to travel back across the city for tribute to pay the boss his monthly dues, but it seemed that wouldn’t be the case if Theo was inside.

  He’d given his younger brother the passcodes to the house’s security system if he needed to use it for whatever reason, but mostly for emergency situations.

  Theo had a hard time understanding what constituted an emergency.

  Dino found his brother perched on the island in the kitchen, an apple in one hand and Dino’s stack of mail in the other. Theo barely passed his brother a glance as Dino entered the kitchen and went for the fridge, instead continuing to flip through the mail, occasionally opening something if it looked interesting enough.

  “Pretty sure that’s a federal offense,” Dino said under his breath as he looked for a beer.

  It was too early to be drinking, but he didn’t give a shit.

  It was also too damn early to get in some kind of emotional argument with his brother, but it always happened whenever Theo showed up.

  “Pretty sure you would just keeping adding to the pile until it rotted through your table,” Theo replied just as unaffected. “Do you even pay your bills when they come in, or do you just let them sit there until collectors ring your phone off the hook?”