Oh my God. I tremble at his words. Terrible words. Words that imply ownership, entitlement. Regular Jess knows he’s not entitled to shit, but cavewoman Jess—well, she likes those words. They make her wet, make her squirm against him, desperately trying get his dick deeper inside her. Cavewoman Jess is ready to give him all the pussy he wants.
And then his hand disappears from my back, and both my wrists, already resting on the desk, are seized. He wraps his long fingers around them and moves them out past my head, so that his whole body is stretched and pressed against mine. His suit jacket and tie whisper against my blouse, his zipper rubs against my ass, and I feel his breath near my ear.
“You’re going to have my baby,” he says in a low voice. “Do you have any idea how fucking hot that is? How fucking hard that makes me?”
“I do have some idea,” I murmur back. “Given that you’re fucking me right now instead of running for the hills, like most men would be.”
That earns me a low chuckle, which I feel rumbling along my back. “I’m not most men. I want you now more than ever. Trust me, even before you told me about the baby, I wanted you a fucking lot. Now, I’m going to make you come, and what name are you going to scream when that happens?”
I can feel every centimeter of flesh—every atom—stroked by that glorious cock. That glorious cock that gave me the best night of my life, consequences be damned. That glorious cock that’s so big, so invasive, that I can’t feel or think about anything else.
“What name, sweetheart,” Matteo repeats. “What name will you scream?”
“Matteo!” I gasp, because just then his hand leaves my wrist and digs in between my thighs from the front. A wide calloused thumb finds my clit, and I shudder underneath him. It won’t be long now, not with that expert thumb and that giant cock and that dirty mouth.
“That’s right,” he says, thrusting hard into me now. “That’s right. Fuck, this pussy is good.” A groan that I feel reverberate through my very soul. “So fucking good.”
It comes so suddenly that I barely have time to realize it. Matteo’s thumb ignites the first wave, radiating out from my clit, instantaneously followed by fierce waves from where his cock hits the deepest and hardest. I cry out, stiffening underneath him, and the crashing waves wipe my mind of everything—fear for the future, anxiety, and loneliness. For one singular, beautiful moment, life is just pure, incandescent pleasure crystallized into one word.
Matteo.
“Matteo,” I breathe, and that does him in. Within seconds, he goes rigid and groans, his cock swelling inside me, and then he’s fucking me harder and faster than ever, riding out his orgasm with viciously deep strokes, jetting hot bursts of cum inside me.
“Shit,” he hisses. “Holy fucking shit, Jessica.”
It’s long and good for him, judging by his breathing, his erratic thrusts, and it takes nearly a minute for him to slowly still, slowly remove his hand from my wrist.
He stays inside me though, as if he’s reluctant to pull out, and if I have to admit it to myself, I’m reluctant for him to pull out too. There’s something so perfect about this moment—the pristine office, his weight heavy and sated on top of my body, me all filled up and sweaty and wet. There’s a clarity I’ve never felt before after sex, not with Nate or my two college boyfriends.
Well, scratch that. I have felt it once before. The night this baby was conceived.
With a reluctant noise, Matteo raises himself and slowly pulls out. He groans behind me as he straightens, and I can feel the reason for his groan—with his dick gone, his semen is slowly dripping out of me.
A finger prods me, swirls around the mess in my pussy, and I expect more dirty words, more delicious groans. But instead there’s the press of a cool, soft cloth. A silk handkerchief. I raise my head and look over my shoulder, watching him slowly and—dare I say it?—lovingly clean me.
Then he’s helping me rearrange my skirt and fix my bra and blouse, quickly zipping up himself somewhere in the process. I’m flushed and perspiring and, despite his best intentions with the handkerchief, sticky, but he seems just as in control as he was before, those blue eyes neutral and detached once more.
For a moment, my heart sinks. This is just like the last time—all sex but no emotion, a bright flare of passion followed by an empty bed in the morning.
He’ll tell me that we’re done now, I realize glumly. He’s had his fun and now he’s going to tell me he doesn’t want anything to do with me or the baby.
But Matteo surprises me. “When can I see you again?” he asks. Though his face is a mask, his voice betrays a deep need. “Tonight. Say I can see you tonight.”
Yes is on the tip of my tongue, but then I remember. “I have volunteer work tonight. I can’t skip it.” I hate myself, and for a brief second I hate the soup kitchen, because my post-climax body wants nothing more than to spend every waking second with him. But what kind of woman ditches helping the needy to get laid?
No, I can’t do that.
Even with as appealing as it sounds.
He looks impatient. “Tomorrow night then?”
I wince. “Cocktail party for a new partner. I can’t miss it.”
This irritates him. “Then I want you Friday night.”
“Okay,” I breathe. “I’m free then.”
“And Saturday night?” he asks, wrapping an iron arm around my waist and yanking me close.
I giggle at the sudden movement, feeling…well, feeling girlish. A hint of his dimple appears again, and a sudden pang grips at my heart.
No! I tell myself. Be strong! Just because you’re pregnant with his baby doesn’t mean you have to be stupid!
“I don’t know about Saturday,” I lie. I do know—I’m free. But I’m also scared of letting him too close. “You know, Matteo, just because of this…situation…” I glance down at where my stomach is pressed against his. “It doesn’t mean that we have to date. If you still want to be part of this baby’s life, then adoption or not, we can try to find a way to make that work without us having a relationship.”
His thick brows draw together and the full intensity of those bright blue eyes zeroes in on me. “After all that happened in this office just now, are you really interpreting that to have come out of obligation? I said I want you, that I want you to be mine. Yes, I meant your body, but I also meant you, Jessica Simmons.” He pulls me even tighter against him, his other hand caressing my hair.
“We barely know each other,” I insist, swallowing.
“So?” He sounds so nonchalant, as if knowing each other has nothing to do with it.
Frustrated, I brace my hands against his chest and push myself away. “We can’t date just because I’m pregnant!” I say.
“Princess, even if you weren’t pregnant, I would be begging to see you,” he tells me matter-of-factly. “You’ve got the kind of pussy a man can’t forget.”
“A man like you can get pussy anywhere,” I say—a little petulantly—and cross my arms.
This seems to amuse him. “If you’re the one afraid of attachment, why so jealous, sweetheart?” When I don’t answer, he steps forward and slides his hands over my hips. “And to answer your adorably jealous assertion, yes, a man like me can get pussy anywhere.”
I stiffen and try to pull away, but he doesn’t let me.
“But do you really think,” he continues, holding tight to me, “that I can find a fantastic fuck that’s also a woman as smart and spirited and ambitious as you are?”
I scoff. “You don’t know me. You don’t know if I’m any of those things.”
The look on his face sends a real chill down my spine, a true pang of fear. “You’d be surprised how much I know about you,” he says quietly, a little ominously. Warning bells light off in my brain, but then that dimple appears and my powers of reasoning are shot. It’s criminal for a man to be this handsome.
“Give me this weekend,” he murmurs, still smiling. “Stay at my house.”
“It’s too
soon,” I protest—but faintly. The better, feminist angel on my shoulder is also preoccupied with that dimple.
“Why?”
And I don’t have a great answer to that. To be honest, I’ve done the modern dating thing—three times, in fact. I’ve dated men who weren’t interested in commitment and I’ve pretended not to be interested either—until Nate at least, where I really thought there would be a ring coming in my near future. Instead all I got was a blurry text from a mutual friend showing him balls-deep in a coffee-jockey.
I’ve done the thing where I’ve been an empowered woman and tried not to care about monogamy or dedication or romance. I’ve paid for restaurant bills and bar tabs, gone dateless to weddings because my boyfriend at the time wasn’t interested, tried to strike the balance between too needy and too cold and always, somehow, failed.
And for the first time in my life, I have a man wanting me, wanting to spend time with me in the kind of possessive, passionate way I thought was only possible in romance novels. I have a man taking charge, insisting on spending time together, insisting on claiming me. Am I really prepared to shut that down? After five years of intense disappointment and boredom?
Forget the pregnancy, feminist angel says to cavewoman angel in a silent, mental conference. What does Jessica really want?
I want Matteo. I want whatever intense brand of ownership he wants to lay on me.
“I’ll do it,” I say abruptly. “I’ll spend the weekend with you.”
He grins, the first full and real smile I’ve ever seen on his face, and it’s devastatingly perfect. “Trust me. You won’t regret a thing.”
5
Jess
Uncle Jimmy doesn’t call me back until the next day, and when I pick up the phone, I hear the unmistakable din of a roadhouse on the other end. I’ll probably need to shout into the receiver to be heard, and I definitely don’t need to be shouting about my unplanned pregnancy in the middle of a hushed law office, so I stand up from my desk and go to the balcony outside.
The balcony is on the twentieth floor, and a steady breeze whips around me, keeping the July heat at bay. I speak loudly to be heard over the wind and the roadhouse noise. “Hi, Uncle Jimmy. Thanks for calling me back.”
“I’m sorry it took so long,” he apologizes. “We were on the road all day yesterday and once we got to Dodge City, we found a motel and crashed hard for the night.”
“You with the boys?”
The boys are Jimmy’s friends, and they’ve been called the boys for as long as I can remember. The boys are mostly all around Jimmy’s age, although some have sons that ride with them now, and there are a few hardened old men that hang around too, like “were bikers back in the seventies” old.
Jimmy owns a motorcycle repair shop on the other side of the state line, and he’s always traveling all over to motorcycle shows and biker meet-ups. Most people are surprised when they see Jimmy and me together—him with his mostly gray ponytail and grizzled beard and me with my Coach purse and trendy clothes—but he’s got a heart of gold and he’s always looked out for me, even before my parents died.
“I’m with some of the boys,” he confirms. “We did a quick ride down to Albuquerque for a parade, showed off a couple custom bikes we made. We’re on our way back now.” His voice softens with concern. “What’s going on, pumpkin? You sounded upset in your message.”
I’m about to tell him, when he cuts in, “Have you and Nate kissed and made up yet?”
I shut my mouth, because when it comes to Nate, I only want to respond with the kind of swear words my uncle doesn’t let the boys use around me. “No, Uncle Jimmy,” I say after I’ve collected myself. “He cheated on me, remember? We’re done.”
“You’re young,” Jimmy says soothingly. “You’re new to these things. Men stray sometimes, but if you’re a good woman, they’ll come back.”
I suppress a flare of real anger. “What if I don’t want him to come back?” I mutter so low that he can’t hear me. Uncle Jimmy has some pretty outdated ideas about love and gender roles, and I learned in college that there’s no point in arguing with him about it. “How’s that working out for you?” I ask instead.
He chuckles. “Touché. I guess three ex-wives means I can’t give you romance advice. Or maybe I just haven’t met a good woman yet.”
I roll my eyes. “Not wanting to be cheated on doesn’t make me a bad woman. It just means I have some self-respect. Trust me. Nate and I are done.”
“He’s a good kid,” Jimmy maintains. “He’d be a good husband to you someday.”
“A good husband who cheats?”
“Cheating is just sex. A good husband will provide for you and protect you. You can’t expect any man to stay faithful, Jess, so you might as well settle for a man who will keep you safe.”
I can’t help it, I let irritation cloud my voice. “Keep me safe? This isn’t the nineteenth century! I don’t need money or protection—I want someone who will do anything to be with me, including not fuck other women!”
“Language, Jess,” Uncle Jimmy says sternly. “That isn’t a word a young lady should know.”
I blow out a stream of air, a controlled exhale to calm down. Uncle Jimmy’s too old of a dog to learn new tricks, I guess, and I should have guessed he would be rooting for Nate and me to get together again, since he’s the one who introduced us. Nate helped Jimmy branch into investing some of the shop’s extra income a couple of years ago, and Jimmy thought Nate and I would like each other, since we ran in similar circles.
I frown when I think of how I jumped to be in a relationship, so confident that a guy like him—five years older and with a good job—would finally give me the things my college boyfriends couldn’t.
I had been so naive.
I hear Uncle Jimmy sigh. “I don’t want to argue with you,” he says. “We can talk about Nate another time. Now, what did you call me yesterday for?”
I don’t want to tell him, I realize. I’m too upset about the Nate thing, and if Uncle Jimmy is still this attached to the idea of Nate and me dating again, he won’t like hearing that I’m pregnant with some stranger’s child.
He wouldn’t like it one bit.
So I lie. “I was just having a rough day at work is all. But I’m better today. Promise.”
He sounds relieved. “Good, I’m glad. I’d hate to have to come down there and kick somebody’s ass.”
I wish he’d kick Nate’s ass, but I’m not willing to bring him up again, not when we’ve finally moved past it.
“Well, I should get back to work,” I say. “Thanks for calling me back.”
“Anytime. And Jess?”
“Yes?”
He sounds hesitant. Worried. “Take care of yourself, okay? The city’s a little rough right now, which is really why I’d feel better if you were with Nate. Maybe at least let one of the shop boys drop you off at work and pick you up.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” I say firmly. “I have a secure parking garage both here and at my loft. I’m fine.”
Another sigh. “Okay, pumpkin. Just remember, I’m only a phone call away, and if you need me and I can’t get to you, I can have one of the boys to you in minutes.”
“Okay. Love you, Uncle Jimmy.”
“Love you too. Stay safe.”
I hang up the phone and stare out over the busy city street for a few minutes. I’m going to have to tell Jimmy I’m pregnant eventually, but the one thing I know is that I don’t want to do it any time soon.
Trying to put that—and that fucker Nate—out of my head, I go back inside and get back to work.
Matteo’s house is nothing like I expect.
For one thing, it’s a house, not a loft or penthouse, and for another, it’s in what used to be Little Italy, and is now known as just Little Everywhere Else. Not exactly a prestigious neighborhood, although definitely the place to go if you want the best ramen or Ethiopian food.
But despite the declining neighborhood, the house itse
lf is huge and beautiful, a turn of the century brick affair with massive windows and a gorgeous wraparound porch. Huge oak trees shade the large yard, and black, wrought-iron fence taller than me guards the property.
When I drive up to the gate, I punch in the code Matteo gave me, and it opens automatically. I don’t miss the security cameras near the gate, nor do I miss the spike strips embedded into the driveway. It’s strange; this may not be a wealthy neighborhood, but it’s more or less a quiet one, and so all the security measures seem a little excessive.
But then I forget all that as I get closer to the house. Elaborate cornice pieces and carved masonry decorate every corner of the house, and I see that some of the windows are stained glass to boot—the entire place looks like a drawing in a children’s book.
But as beautiful as it all is, there’s a brooding quality to it, a darkness that unsettles me. I don’t believe in ghosts, but if I did, I’d believe this house was haunted.
I park my car in front of the carriage house in back, then walk around to the front. I hesitate before I ring the doorbell.
Am I really ready to do this? Spend an entire weekend with a man I barely know? What if he’s actually a terrible person? What if he’s into some weird shit, like flogging girls or making homemade kombucha? What if he’s a serial killer, and I’m about to be tied up and—
Stop it. You’re looking for excuses now. Just go in there, have all the amazing sex you can, and if you don’t like him, then you never have to see him again.
I ring the doorbell.
Within seconds, a stunning dark-haired woman opens the door. She looks like nothing less than Vanessa, Ursula’s human form in The Little Mermaid—all dangerous curves and dark eyelashes. But the smile on her face is real when she pulls the door all the way open and gestures for me to come inside.
“Matteo’s running late,” she chirps, shutting the door behind me. “But he called to let me know you’d be coming.”
As she twists the deadbolt on the door, the sunlight from the stained glass window catches a large diamond ring on her finger. She’s married.
Made for Him: A Mafia Baby Romance Page 3