Desired Too

by Lessly, S. K.

  Raquel was trying her very best to leave, but I wouldn’t let her. I had her up against the wall in the garage, kissing her, caressing her for about fifteen minutes now.

  I finally released her lips, but I didn’t release her. I slowly traced my lips along her cheek to her neck, feeling the rise of her skin meet my lips.

  “Le tue labbra sono dolci come il miele. Ogni volta che ti bacio dimentico dove sono. Sono in fiamme per te.”

  “Angel,” she whispered again, causing the tent in front of my shorts to lengthen. Her hands moved through my hair as she moaned in my ear.

  Fuuuucccck!

  My hands instantly went to her jean-encased ass and brought her up against me. I felt like I was in high school as I grinded against her, trying to get to parts of her that she tried to keep hidden.

  My lips drifted to her ear, and I kissed her lightly there. I was attempting to behave, but fuck that. I wanted her. I started pulling her shirt up.

  “Sono in fiamme per te, Raquel.”

  “I can’t, Angel. I have to go.”

  I couldn’t help the growl that escaped my mouth. “Why?”

  I looked into her eyes, trying my best to keep my anger in check. She didn’t have to work; I’d told her this multiple times. She was stubborn as shit, though. It was all about that independent woman bullshit that kept her from letting go and letting me take care of her. She gave me some sob story that she needed to be her own woman. She didn’t want to rely on “no man.” I tuned her out after she said that crap. Instead of arguing further, I let her believe that she could do what she wanted.

  I was trying to be a good boyfriend.

  I was being supportive.

  But…You know I’ll have my way, right?

  Raquel rolled her eyes at my question and brought her hands to my bare chest.

  “You know why. I have a few meetings to get to today. If I’m going to start my new consulting business, I need to keep my commitments.”

  “Yeah, and what about your commitment to me?”

  I hostilely brought my hand in her hair and gripped tight. “I need you, Raquel. Sono in fiamme per te.”

  I didn’t wait for her to say shit else to me. I was taking what belonged to me. Fuck whatever she had planned.

  I invaded her mouth with my tongue, sweeping aggressively, hungrily, demandingly. She was back up against the wall behind her. My hands were up underneath her shirt, snatching her jean buckle open and bringing my fingers to her warmth.

  She didn’t fight me this time. She actually spread her legs just enough to give me better access to her sweet heat.

  Just as I stroked her, expertly, her leg moved voluntarily up against my hip. Now, if I could just get her undressed and...

  “Fuck!” My phone started up with a double beep.

  Shit, not again. I had assigned that ringtone specifically to the phone Darrell used for immediate emergencies.

  Raquel, who didn’t have a clue what that ringtone meant, groaned and frowned.

  “Baby, what are you doing?” She looked at me, her eyes wide and breath coming quick. “Baby…” she called painfully, and that sound of need from my woman was undoing me. I started moving in her again, saying to myself, If Darrell really needs me, he will call aga-

  “Fuck!” My phone had gone off again.

  I gave Raquel my apologies with my eyes and reached for the phone in my pocket.

  “This shit better be good,” I bit through gritted teeth.

  “We need to talk. It’s important, boss.”

  Hearing the abrupt and clipped tone in his voice caught my attention.

  “Okay. Are you coming here?” I probed.

  “No, can you meet at the warehouse on Commerce?”

  “Okay, I’ll see you in twenty,” I said simply, then hung up.

  As I put the phone back in my pocket, I looked at a very pissed, very flushed Raquel. She was standing by her car’s driver door.

  I crooked my finger, signaling for her to come to me.

  She shook her head. “I’m not falling for the banana in the tailpipe.”

  “Banana in the what?” I countered, utterly confused, but aware that whatever we had going a minute ago was gone.

  “Go handle your business, Angel. I have things to do.”

  She turned to get into her car, but I was on her before she took her next breath. I brought my left hand around her head to turn her into me and kissed her lips.

  “Don’t ever deny me my fill of your taste, Cara Mia.”

  I watched her carefully, and it was at that moment, when I looked heavily into her eyes, that I finally saw what I’d been waiting for, what I needed from her.

  However, I didn’t say what I’d been holding close to me for weeks. Instead, I kissed her again and said, “Dinner tonight. You and me. 7pm. We’ll go to that French Restaurant you’ve been dying to try on 18th Street.”

  She shook her head and grinned. “It would be nice if you would ask me to dinner, for once, instead of telling me. Maybe you could say please once, or twice even.”

  I grinned myself and caressed her cheek with a lone finger. “Please wear that dark purple dress I love so much. You know the one.”

  She shook her head again. “Are you referring to the purple dress you keep replacing because you always rip it off my body? Is that the dress you are speaking of?”

  My grin grew at the fond memories of how perfect that dress fit on her perfect body and how it felt ripping the dress off her the moment we got home. “That would be the very dress I’m speaking of.”

  “Uh huh, and is there anything else I can do for you?”

  I leaned in and, before I kissed her lips, I replied inches from them. “There is, but I’ll wait until later.”

  I kissed her again, then stepped back so she could get into the car. I watched her drive away, my mind no longer on her, but on the phone call I’d received from Darrell.

  I waited until the car disappeared from sight before I closed the garage and headed back upstairs to the apartment. With each step I took, I could feel a transformation happening. It was something in Darrell’s voice that had me on edge. What was odd to me though was the lack of urgency to call him back. Actually, I should have been calling him back right this very moment and demanding that he talk to me about this right now. This could have been life or death. Fuck, for all I knew, it could have been about Raquel. I said this before; there was something going on with her, and that feeling hadn’t gone away. She refused to tell me, so I decided to put Darrell on it. I told him to figure it out and tell me what was going on once he did.

  It had been a few weeks, and he hadn’t gotten back to me yet. But, again, I wasn’t tripping off that. In fact, it wasn’t in the forefront of my mind and that had me perplexed. I should have been going half out of my mind right now, especially when it had to do with the love of my life.

  Did you catch the title that I just gave her? Yeah, it’s like that!

  Anyway, that’s how it had always been. Every time we parted, I didn’t stop worrying about her until she was in my presence. However, for some reason, as she drove away, I wasn’t concerned. I was strangely content, which was odd in itself, and I knew it, but as I said, that didn’t concern me at the time. I would realize why I wasn’t too concerned with Raquel’s safety later.

  What was concerning to me, what had the blood in my veins set to boil was Darrell’s call. Things had been quiet around here. It was a complete change from a week ago. There was, of course, the normal shit. Someone was always testing me, seeing if I had the balls to back up the shit that fell from my mouth. People still wanted to try me since Lincoln, my enforcer, wasn’t a factor anymore. I also learned someone was working their way through my organization, throwing discord where they could. Either my shipments were highjacked or they just simply disappeared without a trace. What was fucked up was that no one seemed to know where the shipments went or who was responsible. In our regional meetings, some of the other families started to quest
ion my toughness, my competence. You could imagine how frustrated and impatient I was with everything. My temper was at an all-time high.

  But, as I said, all of a sudden, things had gone quiet. It was actually a little too quiet, too peaceful. It was as if the eye of a hurricane was passing over me, and you know what they say about those kinds of storms; the winds are always stronger on the other side of the eye.

  War was coming. I felt its rumble throughout my body. The atmosphere around me was beginning to unsettle. Shit wasn’t right. It was as simple as that. I felt it. I knew it. It was due actually. Which brought my mind instantly to my brother. Eddie had been quiet as well, but not by actions. For example, I couldn’t prove it, but I knew he was responsible for sabotaging the shipments. I know you’re probably wondering why he would hurt the name of our family, by doing this. But the family wasn’t his concern at the moment; it was mine. And, if you remember, he wanted what was mine.

  This family belonged to me, so every failure belonged to me as well. He’d been the reason for the questioning, the uncertainty that families were expressing. He’d been running his mouth all over the city, throughout the US, and to our interests overseas. They had never found a reason to question me before. I’d run everything the way my father had, with a few changes, of course. No one complained about the changes because I was making them rich beyond their imagination.

  Now all of a sudden, people wanted to complain. My beloved brother was busy preparing for my demise, sowing the seed of doubt for anyone that would listen.

  Yeah, war was coming, and I would be ready.

  I moved quickly to my bedroom to get dressed. As I walked into my closet, I believed that today was going to be the shit of all days. Again, my mind couldn’t grasp why this feeling was afflicting me, but it was there, and it was strong. So, I got ready for war.

  My eyes fell on the many suits I owned. I traveled my hand along Brioni, Givenchy, Alexander Amosu, Dolce, Burberry, Versace, Brooks Brothers, and Tom Ford, but the one that caught my eye, the one that got me in the right frame of mind was Armani. I’m not sure why, but I think it was the meaning, the history behind these Italian-made suits. Armani was the first suit I ever wore when I popped my cherry. Actually, Armani was always my fall back suit for almost every first I had. It was my comfort zone.

  I grabbed one of the many Armani suits, along with a grey button down and laid them on my bed. There’s nothing like a suit that told people, “You’ve fucked with the wrong one,” and I was the wrong one.

  I showered quickly, dressed, adding Italian on my feet and wrist, Austrian in my holster, and Cuban inside my inner jacket pocket.

  When I pulled up to the warehouse, I didn’t see the truck. I drove around to the back of the warehouse where we kept a small hutch-like structure that we used as a private office and found Darrell’s Suburban. I climbed out of my Mustang, getting my mind ready to deal with whatever the right side of this storm was going to bring.

  I entered the small space that just held a metal desk, chair and two tall cabinets. Darrell and Hugo were inside waiting for me.

  My eyes instantly went to Hugo.

  “What the hell happened to you?” I asked.

  Hugo inadvertently touched the side of his head. “Bar fight last night. That’s all.”

  I could tell that something hard had hit him on the side of his head based on the bruising. I doubted the bruise had come from a fist.

  “Shit, it looks to me like you lost,” I told him.

  Hugo’s face frowned. “Bullshit.”

  I smirked at him and shook my head. “Yeah, right.”

  I turned to a very unusually quiet Darrell, asking, “Why am I here?”

  I sat down on the desk and waited for one of them to speak.

  Darrell finally took a deep breath and said, “I happen to stumble on some news. I received a call today that a Don, originating from the San Francisco area, just landed in Philly.”

  It wasn’t odd that another family had come into the city. It happened all the time in fact. There were a lot of families in this territory. I was sure they got many visitors from outside of this city. I wasn’t sure why Darrell was telling me this shit. Okay, fuck, I knew exactly why he was telling me. I had told Darrell about my suspicions that Raquel was holding shit from me and that something went down with her in San Fran. It was too coincidental that a Don from San Fran was coming here. Fuck…

  I sat up straight. “What family came to visit?”

  Darrell shifted in his stance nervously and that put me a little on edge. “Basile.”

  I didn’t reply, so Darrell continued, “I learned that they came in town specifically to meet with the Don later today.”

  I looked skeptically at him, “My father?”

  He nodded. “They have a meeting set for this evening in one of the safe houses we have in New Jersey. From what I learned, it seemed Eddie called Don Basile on some information he got about Ms. Waters. He actually shared this information that he found with the Don and was instructed to make the call.”

  Now that shit didn’t sound right. “Wait. Hold on a second, Darrell. You mean to tell me that Eddie met with my father about my woman pertaining to the Basile family? And based on that conversation, my father, the Don, called a meeting with this family to discuss my woman?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The next question I asked was important because the answer I received from either Darrell or Hugo would define what I would do next.

  “Did Russo or anyone from my father’s Capos tell you to inform me of this meeting?” I asked.

  “No, sir,” Darrell responded. “No one has called me about the meeting.”

  I kept my eye on my friend of over a decade, and I could tell that he was holding back.

  I asked him. “You know what the meeting is about, don’t you?”

  Darrell didn’t reply to me. He merely nodded.

  The fact that he didn’t volunteer the information told me that whatever it was that he knew, I wasn’t going to like.

  “All right then, Darrell. Spill it. What’s going on? What does Eddie know about Raquel?”

  “You’re not going to like it,” he admitted.

  “I figured as much. Tell me anyway.”

  The moment that Darrell started talking, I felt the surge of rage through my veins. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I actually felt my veins about to burst. I balled my fists next to me to stop from slamming them into the wall, desk or Hugo and Darrell.

  This was fucked up. No, this was beyond fucked up.

  I took a few deep breaths and tried to center my mind. I’d known that she was in some shit, but I didn’t think it was to this extent.

  The more and more Darrell spoke, the more my blood began to boil.

  If I was honest, though, I think I was angrier with myself than with Raquel. My father warned me this would happen. I should have known shit was not right a week ago. I had hints to the fact, but my damn mind was clouded with everything Raquel Waters.

  The last huge argument we had, I had given her two days to think about what she was truly getting into. In no way was I changing who I was. It was up to her to decide if she could deal with it or not. That night, I was resolved to the fact that I wouldn’t see her for a couple of days. What I didn’t expect was to see her that night.

  I was sitting on my couch partaking in some of my calming devices, a cigar between my right index and middle finger, a glass of cognac in my left and smooth new age Jazz, a CD that Raquel bought, caressing my ears. I was getting my mind right for a fight when she came back home or a warpath if she didn’t, when I heard the garage door rise. I reached for my phone, pulled up the security feed and watched her park next to my Mustang.

  I reclined further and closed my eyes.

  I felt her presence enter the apartment. I waited for her to start going off, but she didn’t. No, she shocked the hell out of me when she climbed into my lap and buried her face in the crook of my neck.

 
; “You okay?” I asked, kissed the side of her face and scooted further into the chair to give her more room.

  She didn’t reply to me. She just wrapped her arms around me as best she could and moaned contently.

  “Bella,” I called a little more firmly, trying to get her to speak to me, but she didn’t reply.

  Something was wrong, and I remembered vaguely getting that feeling that she was in trouble. I actually should have known it the moment she entered the apartment. Her arrival anywhere was never quiet. When we were good and she came home or I did, she was up on her feet, kissing me or telling me about her day. When we’re not good and she’s pissed at me, she’s giving me the business.

  However, that night she was quiet. She didn’t say a word to me. She just hugged me tight as if she needed me, needed my protection. I ended up putting my glass down on the cushion next to me and brought my hand to her face. I pushed her up so our eyes could meet. Seeing the fear in her eyes, the vulnerability in them should have been the final confirmation.

  “Baby, what’s up?” I remembered asking, and I really was hell bent on getting some answers from her.

  Well, as you can guess that didn’t happen. Why? Well, my woman fucked me up next by reaching for my glass and bringing it to her lips. Her gaze held me as she took the liquid down in one gulp. She then took my cigar and took a few puffs, blowing the smoke above my head.

  I was in shock. I’d never seen her smoke, and she never eluded that she did. I watched eyes wide as shit, as she then stubbed out the cigar in my glass, brought her hands into my hair and kissed me. Her kiss was slow, seductive and meaningful. What I meant by meaningful was simple; my body knew instantly what she wanted. It responded in kind and, as she circled her center over my erection, I moved my hands underneath her shirt.

  That night was one of the most erotic nights we’d ever had. Everything we did was slow. Our bodies seemed to be in harmony with each other and the music that was coming through the speakers. As we touched each other with our hands and lips, it seemed as though my sense of touch and feel heightened somehow.

  Every time my fingers touched her body, I could feel a surge of electricity move through me. It made me want her more. It made me desire her with every fiber of my being. As she touched me and caressed me, I knew she felt the same.