by Watson, Meg
As I slowly unroll the bandage to hold the gauze in place, I brush near it. The hem of my top grazes the top of his thigh, and he arches his back as though I burned him.
“I hurt you!?” I yell.
“No… You didn't hurt me,” he says in a low voice. He's breathing quickly, his chest heaving, the sculpted muscles of his torso flexing with every breath. I'm not sure if it's pain from the wound, some other pain, or something else.
“Okay… Okay…” I say uncertainly. I glance at Alek who’s peering at me curiously, knuckling his chin. He wants to see what I'm going to do.
But I don't know what I'm going to do. As I roll the gauze around, I bump into Roman's hip and he flinches back again.
“Okay, I know that one hurt you! I'm sorry!”
“It didn't hurt me!” he snarls. “It doesn't hurt, okay? Can you just hurry up please?”
“It doesn't hurt?”
He shakes his head slowly, his lips pressed together in a tight frown.
Alek steps silently behind me and dips his head toward my ear. “It doesn't hurt him.”
“Then what?” I say, afraid to ask.
“He's just… He gets like this. After a job.”
Realization dawn on me. He’s aroused? From the job? There’s something about that fact that’s simultaneously disgusting and sexy as hell.
“Well can I... help him?”
My eyes find his. His dark charcoal gaze glitters subtly, though his face is a mask of what looks like pain. From the way that his arms are trembling, I can tell that he's holding himself back with an extreme effort.
And I don't know what to do. I know what I want to do, but I don't know if I should do it. I don't know if I can. He is so enormous, it's like trying to take the thorn out of a wounded lion’s paw or something.
“Touch him,” comes Alek’s voice from behind me.
Before I know it, my hand is floating in the air. I want to touch him. I can't explain it, but the urge is overwhelming.
The white of the bandage is so stark and tight against the ornately tattooed skin. He looks clean, mended at least in that one spot. I think I did a good job. But still, he needs me. Some deep, wordless part of me wants to nurse him, to heal him.
“Not… Not here,” I say in a small voice that surprises me. Roman nods just a little bit as though he understands, and I'm glad that I don't have to explain it. I reach out for his hand. His fingers find mine and they’re so hot, so thick.
Glancing over my shoulder, I offer Alek my other hand and with a small smile that quickly turns into a big smile, he takes it.
And then I lead my two giants out of the bathroom, to my bed.
They glance at each other and then at me, and nobody wants to say anything right away. I’m not sure that I can say anything, but I guess I have to.
“Show me,” I say.
Hooking his thumbs in the waistband of his boxer briefs, Roman slides them over his narrow, sculpted hips and lets them fall to the floor. Then he just stands there, wearing only the wound dressing that I gave him. I suck my lower lip between my teeth and bite, hard enough to hurt.
A network of tattoos covers his skin, illustrating him in macabre imagery and words I can’t read. As he breathes, the shapes undulate as though floating on ocean waves, brought to life from underneath. Trying to look at all of him at once is overwhelming. But I have to look… I have to see...
His cock... it’s huge. I didn't see it before in the hotel. I only felt it. But seeing it now, I can't imagine how I did that. It's thick, curving upward and ending in a wide, dusky head. His balls are like goose eggs, nestled underneath his member for safety.
“Touch him,” Alek says again softly.
Nodding, I come forward as Roman slides back on the bedspread. He leans against the headboard, glancing at his brother uncertainly.
My hand stalls in the air.
“Okay, you’re going to have to tell me what to do. I don't know what to do.”
There, I said it. I mean, I want to touch it. It's pretty, fascinating even. I want to touch all of him, both of them, but I'm a little bit scared. Is it just going to explode, just like that? I have no idea.
“Tsk tsk tsk, oh come on now,” Alek sighs, tugging me forward, “let’s just drop the innocent—”
I just stare at him. I don’t know what to say. His eyes narrow as we pass some kind of psychic understanding between us.
“Oh… really?” he says softly.
“I just… I mean, I told you that was a one time thing,” I explain quietly.
Suddenly Alek slides his arms around my waist and pulls me to him. His mouth covers mine completely, filling me with an explosion of taste. As his lips push mine apart, my breath is sucked from my lungs leaving me utterly dependant on him. His kiss gives me life.
When he finally breaks away I am confused and panting. He strokes the side of my face with his fingers, smiling gently at me, and I realize I’m suspended in the air with his one arm around my waist.
“I’ve been waiting for our kiss,” he whispers apologetically.
“So have I,” I admit, hearing the truth of those words as they tumble from my lips. Every day I have wondered when he would give me that kiss, the one that mirrors his brother’s on the altar. The one that seals everything. The one that confirms what they have been telling me all along: I belong to them now.
He dips his chin, his breath filling me with a musky, meaty scent that I can taste on my tongue. His eyes are curious and wanting.
“Are you ready?”
I nod quickly. “Yes… Yes, I think I am.”
Alek smiles at me and nods. “Don't worry, Princess. I'll tell you how to do everything. Now come here... touch him.”
His hand glides down the length of my arm, lifting my palm and drawing me closer to Roman. Roman’s brow is knitted hard together as he glares intensely at me, his chest heaving. I see his fingers digging into the mattress and he looks for all the world like he's trying to keep from hurling himself at me.
“He's not gonna bite you,” Alek says with a chuckle.
Well it looks like he's going to do something. His features are twisted with what looks almost like pain, but as my fingers finally make contact with his skin, I can see why. He's trembling, shaking all over like a barely contained explosion. Instantly I am overwhelmed with sympathy. He must really be trying to hold himself together, and I find myself desperate to reassure him.
As though I've done it a thousand times, my body just slides up next to him and I cup his cheek in my palm. For a moment he looks startled and then softens and I place my lips against his, just barely touching.
My fingers find their way naturally. I curl my hand around his thick member, tasting the groan that slides over his tongue as I finally touch him. He is velvety and firm, bumpy with veins that slip just under the skin.
“That's it, that's it,” Alek coos into my ear as he slides up behind me. I feel his fingers drag along the back of my thighs and my knees open automatically. His breath hisses between his teeth as his hand moves gently between my legs, opening me again like a long-withheld wedding present.
Closing my eyes, I try to focus on Roman’s sex even as his tongue begins to press against my teeth, opening my mouth. Just when I think it's too much, I can't manage all the sensations at once, I feel his fingers over the back of my hand, guiding me.
Firmly, he takes my palm against the base of his shaft and directs my hand gently, swiftly to the tip. I circle my thumb around his sensitive opening and relish the sound of his gasp before his hand pushes mine back down to the base.
When his hips buck, thrusting against me as I am handling him, I feel an eruption of pride and joy in my heart. I am really doing it. I’m stroking this beast of a man... this huge, complicated, terrifyingly dangerous man. My monster.
And he loves it. His body is rocking and undulating against me, just with the now-effortless stroking of my tiny palm against his huge cock. I feel absolutely triumphant.
<
br /> And then I'm suddenly weightless. I fall against Alek’s hand as he abruptly pushes me to the bed, half on my side, flipping over to the front of me like a gymnast and hooking my knee over his shoulder. Simultaneously Roman lets go of my mouth and kneels at my shoulder level.
Now I can see him, his throbbing member just inches from my face. I stop moving for just a moment but I can sense the trembling need in his body and I have to continue. I have to satisfy him; it is the only thing that I can think of.
My fingers find a way to continue their piston-like motion, stroking him from the base to the tip with my thumb dragging along the sensitive seam underneath him.
“Open your mouth,” someone says, I don't even know who. I let my jaw fall open and Roman pushes his hips closer to me. At the same time, Alek nudges my thigh over his ear and drags his lips across the ridge of my hip. My breath squeezes out in a gasp as I feel his teeth nibbling gently at the tender swell of my inner thigh.
“Don't stop, Marie, don't stop!”
I can't stop. As I open my mouth, Roman pushes the purple-rose head of his cock closer just as Alek’s tongue swipes the length of my moist seam. Tentatively, I swirl my tongue around the tip, relishing the sound of the groan that that seems to come from both brothers at once.
Experimentally, I swirl my tongue again but harder this time, and they both groan again. I can feel the vibration in Alek’s mouth as it’s pressed against my nether lips.
And now I know for certain. They're connected. What I do to Roman, Alek can somehow feel. And then he transfers the sensation to me with his fingers, with his mouth. The three of us are joined together completely in a triangle of sensation where every point is an electrifying union.
Roman’s fingers plunge into my hair and he commands me closer. His cock jams against the roof of my mouth and I flat my tongue, pushing hard against him, squeezing with my hand at the base and pumping firmly. Alek moans deeply and mashes his face into my sex.
Before I know what's happening, we're all rocking together, Roman plunging into my mouth as Alek plunges into my pussy. All three of us together, swelling and undulating like an ocean wave, moving like a machine that was made to do only this.
When Roman begins to thrust harder against me, I squeeze with both my hands, pulling against him, milking him. I want to taste this. I want him to relieve all the stress and tension of his body into me. Automatically I lock my ankles behind Alek’s shoulders and urge him closer to me too. I want to be overwhelmed by this, overtaken. I want to give myself to them utterly, shamelessly.
And I do. I feel my orgasm begin as a small series of discrete explosions that quickly turn into a huge eruption of fireworks. Roman mounts my face with his knees on either side of my shoulders and pins me back to the bed, hammering himself into me in three short bursts and tearing the bedsheets next to my head, roaring. Alek groans as well, moaning into my sex as I orgasm in a bright, overwhelming display of fireworks that leaves us all breathless.
My mouth is salty, filled to the brim as my body is awash with a hot, pheromone-sodden sweat. I can barely breathe and for a moment I feel like I'm drowning, but I'm not drowning.
I rise back to the surface like something that was submerged and finally breaks through into the sunlight, and it's glorious. Absolutely glorious.
CHAPTER 19
ROMAN
I push open the door to the cigar shop and Marie's little friend, Gianna, looks up at me, startled. At first her eyes are hopeful but then she changes. I guess she realizes it is me, and I certainly wonder if maybe she was expecting someone else? Perhaps Alek?
That's a funny thought. I almost want to laugh.
But since I'm in a good mood, I go ahead and smile at her. She flinches at first but then she smiles back. It almost looks real. Close enough anyway.
I don't even care. Somehow things just don't bother me like they used to. What do I care if some Italian teenager likes me or not? I don't care. Not one bit.
“Stosh told me to ask you if you could wait for just a minute?” she says in her scared little mouse voice. For a moment, I want to say no, just to see what she will do. She looks like the sort of person I could actually frightened to death. Literally, to death.
“Of course, devushka,” I say to her, still smiling. Why not?
“Oh, Roman!” Don Lauro calls in a big voice. He comes out from the long hallway pushing his hand through his short, thinning hair. “Is everything all right? Is Marie all right?”
“Of course she's all right,” I say with less respect than I probably should. He is her father after all, and entitled to his concern, but why wouldn't she be all right? “She's just fine. She's at home I think.”
“You think? You don't know?” Don Lauro frets. Look at him. He looks like a junkie, twitching for a fix. Was he that addicted to surveilling his own daughter all this time? I feel sorry for him.
“She's home,” I say and I hope that's the end of it. “Alek is there with her,” I add to reassure him.
“Good, good,” he mumbles and then finds something that he needs to do behind the counter. He's never made mention of all the cameras that Alek extracted from the house. I suppose it's possible that he simply stopped watching the recordings, but I find that unlikely. That means he knows that I know that he had cameras everywhere. Creepy fucker.
I'm glad that he knows that I know, too.
“So you're waiting for Stosh, then?” he says, making conversation. Why do people need to make conversation? There is nothing that we need to say here. Can’t we all just have some peace and quiet?
But I nod anyway. He knows why I'm here.
“And how are you liking the house? Her mother loved that house, did she tell you? Just loved it. Just picked out every single piece of furniture, every scrap of wallpaper. Her mother had a beautiful eye, did she tell you that?”
I stop. Something is wrong here.
“It's a beautiful house,” I say to keep him talking.
He nods, jamming his pudgy fingers against his cheeks. From the wobble there, I can tell he's almost overcome with emotion. Italians. These guys.
“I was so happy to see that Marie left everything just the way it was. She could have changed anything, but she left it just the way her mama had it.”
He nods, his thoughts far away.
“How long did you live in that house, Don Lauro?” I ask slowly.
He smiles and frowns the same time, tipping his chin up to stare at the ceiling. “… Maybe twenty years? No. Twenty-eight years. Oh my God, has it really gone that fast? Twenty years since I lost my bride…”
My mind starts to click and I wish Alek was here to hear all this. “I'm so sorry for your loss, Don Lauro,” I say stiffly.
He waves his fingers in the air as though pushing away a bad memory.
“My queen, her mama was my queen. I can only hope that you will love her half as well.”
“I will, I promise,” I say in a low voice. “She's my princess, you know. I can't tell you how grateful I am that you allowed us to wed.”
The Don looks up at me with a start. A smile creeps across his cheeks and I see his jaw is red and damp. Gianna has her fingers pressed to her lips and her eyes gleam.
I've pleased them, I can tell. I pleased myself too. I didn't mean to say it out loud like that, but I can't deny it. She reaches into me. She touches me.
“Marvelous!” he says in a hoarse whisper, choked with emotion.
Nodding, I need to know more so I stand in front of him. I can hear down the hallway that voices are raised, sounding as though Stosh’s meeting is almost complete.
“So the house…” I continue quickly. “That's your family house? Is that correct?”
“Yes, yes. I just told you. When she graduated highschool I got the place around the corner, the bungalow. Gave her the house as a present.”
“Thank you, Don Lauro,” I say, and everything clicks together. Now it makes sense. I want to call Alek, but I hear the door open at the end of th
e hall and the whoosh of the air filter. There's no time left.
As soon as the light from the private room pours into the hallway, I make my way to the end. Two of Stosh’s captains brush past me, and even though I don't look at them directly I can see their expressions. They’re surprised I'm here.
That only confirms what I thought.
As I enter the room, my eyes automatically sweep the surfaces for obvious signs of bugs or cameras. It's pointless, I know. Of course this room is bugged in some way, but I can't help but look out of habit. It seems like everybody is on on the surveillance game these days.
I close the door behind me and it makes a soft click. Stosh sits back in his leather club chair, bringing the fat cigar up to his smiling face. His grin is too wide, and I think I can see the tip of his tongue behind the spaces between his front teeth.
“Are you surprised to see me?”
Stosh shrugs one shoulder. “Of course not. Leon told me you were coming. There was some… Difficulty, I gather?”
“And does that surprise you?” I ask him directly as I sit in the chair across from him. I put both my hands on the armrests where he can see them, but when he gestures at the humidor on the table I shake my head. I don't want to be smoking right now.
“Does it surprise me?” he repeats slowly. His tongue comes out between his teeth and runs along his bottom lip, wetting it. He's enjoying this way too much. “Nothing surprises me anymore,” he says philosophically.
I pause for a moment, trying to assemble what I want to say to him. Really, I wish Alek was here. He's the one with all the words. It suddenly occurs to me that maybe I should just shoot him. That's my usual course of action. In fact, he may be thinking that's what I'm going to try to do anyway.
His dead, wolfish eyes flicker subtly toward my hands, apparently looking for signs of violence. Stupid. When I decide to shoot him, he's not going to see it coming until it's too late.
“So, explain to me what happened,” he says slowly. A huge cloud of smoke circles his head. “Were you able to finish the job Leon gave you?”