by Monica Owens
Marty had a soft spot for Dottie, everyone knew it. But he’d never acted on it. Smart of Mick to throw her name into the mix, though.
Marty heaved out a breath. “Yeah, I see what you’re saying.”
I let him go. “Bury him. I’ll send his family money. Then we pay Capone a visit.”
I left Marty and Mick to dispose of Joe’s body.
I headed to Charlotte.
****
She was sitting on the edge of her bed facing the window, her back to the door. I paused a moment, trying to judge her mood, but she turned to me before I could figure it out.
“You can come in.”
She wasn’t crying. She didn’t seem to be in shock. I walked in and she faced the window again. I sat on the other side of the bed, my back to her and looked out over the little room.
“He’s insane,” she said quietly.
I thought about the things that people said about him. Insanity seemed to be the least of his problems. It didn’t take a genius to know that Capone had been gunning for me for a while. When you’ve got the best liquor in the city and you won’t give up the source? Makes you some enemies.
“I’d heard that,” I answered her.
“When I came here, I got off the train and didn’t have anywhere to go,” she continued. “A man named Costa ended up taking me under his wing. Walked me over to Ebby’s. That’s where he first saw me.”
“Capone?”
“Yes. He was there when Costa brought me in. Told him to shine me up and put me on display. He said I could keep my hair. I had no idea what was happening. But soon I was trying on dresses and having people fix my hair and makeup. It was all so fast.”
“He wanted you.”
I heard her shift on the bed and her words were closer now, as if she’d turned to face me. “He told me I needed to get a few guys under my belt. Then he’d make sure I got what I wanted. He’d make sure my family was taken care of. I saw the other girls he hung out with. They were…vacant, sad. I couldn’t be like that. That night you came, I thought that man was going to kill me, because I wasn’t going to let him do what he wanted. No matter what.”
“You’re safe now.”
“Am I? Because I’m sure Joe thought he was safe.”
Now I shifted and brought my leg up onto the bed. I leaned on my thigh and looked at her. That peach skin, that beautiful hair, those deep blue eyes. I could drown in those fucking eyes.
“Know why you’re safe?”
She shook her head, a curl bouncing against her forehead.
I took her chin in my hand and steadied her slight shaking. “Because you’re mine, Baby. Ain’t nobody takes what’s mine.”
Chapter Eight
Her trembling began in earnest as I held her gaze. “Do you know what that means, Charlotte?” I asked.
She closed her eyes.
“Means every morning smile is mine. Means every evening smile is mine. Means every dream you got is mine to make come true. Means I take care of you. In every way. You got me?”
Her eyes opened and she met my gaze. “If this is about the money—”
“Fuck the money, Baby. Just fuck it. I don’t look at you and see what I can get out of you. I look at you and see what I can do for you.”
She didn’t say anything, but she put a hand to my cheek.
I leaned into her soft palm and kissed it lightly.
“You’re different from them,” she told me.
“Not so different.”
She tilted her head and rubbed my cheek. “Yes, different. This world doesn’t hold you down, like it does them.”
I pulled her hand off my cheek and placed another kiss in the center of her palm. “That’s a good thing?”
She shivered as my tongue traced the lines on her hand. “Yes. Very good.”
Her taste, her beauty, her goodness, was nearly too much for me. I hooked a hand behind her neck and spread my fingers up into her hair. Pins went flying. But she didn’t protest. In fact, she fell toward me, her arms wrapping around my shoulders.
I yanked her closer and finally, finally, I covered her lips with mine. She half sat, half leaned on me, but she clung tight, especially when I pushed my tongue into her mouth.
She was such a little, delicate thing. My hand cradled her head perfectly. I could tell her breasts would be the same, her hips would be the same. God, her fucking body would be mine…
She kissed me back with abandon. When she pulled away, it was to right herself and sit higher in my lap. She came forward and nipped at my lips but when I went for more, she leaned back.
“I’ve been watching you,” she whispered.
“You’ve been watching me?” I asked.
“Yes. I’ve never met anyone like you.” She kissed my jaw and the corner of my lip. “You want to save me, but you let me make my own decisions. You hated that I was downstairs, but you didn’t say a word. Just watched me.”
I speared my fingers into her hair. “How could I not watch you?”
She smiled. “That’s what I thought about you.”
I kissed her again, holding her head in place. I fucking devoured her. I sure as shit had never kissed a woman like I was kissing her. And she definitely hadn’t been kissed like this. She could barely keep up. I fumbled at the buttons of her dress, but I managed to undo enough of them to spread the lapels wide.
When I pulled back to look at her, I saw a lacy camisole. I wanted to tear it with my teeth.
Underneath was creamy skin, scented like lemon, the soft rise of her breasts rising jerkily with her breath.
I fingered the lace. “You attached to this?”
She huffed a laugh. “No. I bought it yester—”
I tore it. Straight up tore it. If she wanted more lace, I’d swaddle her in it, but fuck if that little camisole was going to hold me back. I held back the torn edges and watched her chest rise and fall.
“You scared?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “Excited.”
I pulled on the lace harder. She took a deep breath as the cooler air hit her nipples. Fuck me, she was gorgeous. I covered her tits with my hands, her nipples jabbing into my palms. Then I leaned forward and started kissing along her jaw, down her neck. She leaned back to give me access, a moan warming her throat. I shifted my hands around her to brace her back and I let her lean more. Because, damn, I wanted to suckle those breasts.
She hissed in a breath when my tongue touched a nipple. But I’m not a patient man. Getting her used to this would have been the right thing, but those nipples were just hard enough, just big enough, just pink enough…I sucked in deep, the pebbled hardness sucked to the roof of my mouth. I held it there as I drew on her and she scrabbled under my hands and mouth. The little sounds she made were fucking exciting and my dick couldn’t handle it.
I let her tit go with a pop and she moaned. I looked up at her and her head was back, her hair falling from its pins. I blew on her wet nipple then licked over to the other breast. She got the same treatment over there. This time I got nails in my upper arms she liked it so much. If her nipples were this sensitive, then how sensitive was the rest of her?
Time to find out.
I got up and her legs instinctively wrapped around me. I returned to her mouth, my tongue plunging in and out because I sure as hell wanted to do that with my cock. In her mouth, in her ass, right up inside that pussy. Wherever. Whatever she’d give me.
I squeezed her ass and turned. I dropped her back onto the bed and unwrapped her legs from my waist. I stripped that dress off her, leaving her in the torn lace camisole, her lace undergarments and a garter belt. Fuck me, a garter belt. Her shoes were burgundy velvet and the roses on her garter belt matched.
She covered her breasts. I must’ve been looking too long.
“Naw, Baby, don’t do that.”
“You’re looking—”
“Yeah, I’m looking. Looking at how fucking gorgeous you are.”
A flush spread acros
s her cheeks and her chest. “You’ve done this before.”
“Yeah.”
“I haven’t.”
I could see inside the slit of her underwear. Blonde. Blonde everywhere. More than anything I wanted to lick her. “I know, Baby.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing. My mother always said I should be married—”
“Baby, you’re babbling.”
“But this just feels so right, doesn’t it? I mean, you make me warm and angry and hot and—”
I plunged two fingers straight up into her pussy. Her words immediately died. Her hand came down and grasped my wrist as her mouth opened in a silent O.
“Wet,” I finished for her. “I make you wet.”
She nodded dumbly and I moved my fingers in and out. Tight. God, I hadn’t had a woman in a while and this one was going to strangle my cock. Her velvet shoes came to rest flat on the bed, and she didn’t let go of my wrist. Her hips started to buck, which made her tits bounce a little, and her face retained that pretty little blush I liked.
“So we talked about fucking before,” I said as I watched my fingers plunge in and out. A strangled moan came from her throat. “About me mounting you. You good with that?”
“Angelo—”
She didn’t say anymore, just clutched my wrist tighter. I used my other hand to spread her lips wider, to find that nub of pleasure she might not even know existed. My fingers were bumping against a barrier and I sure as fuck wanted to break through it. But I’m a selfish bastard and I wanted that barrier to belong to my cock.
So I dropped to my knees and licked that pretty clit of hers until she screamed. Her nails dug into me again and I thought I would die. Giving a woman an orgasm is one of the things I do best. But giving a woman her first orgasm ever is something even I hardly get to do.
I licked my lips and tried to catch all the juices she was leaking. Fuck it, though, she was wetter than I’d ever seen a woman. So I stood up, licking my fingers and she gave another strangled moan.
I do debauchery well.
I leaned over her, holding my weight with one hand on the bed beside her head. My other fingers I ran along her lips, urging her to open them. “You taste that, Baby?”
Her tongue darted out, cleaning my fingers of her own juice.
“That’s you, Baby. That’s all you. Whenever you want, I’ll lick you clean, okay? You just gotta ask.”
I removed my fingers and she whispered my name. I didn’t think her legs would hold her right now, so I started pulling her remaining clothes off. She didn’t protest, she even lifted her hips for me to pull down her underwear. She was perfect. Long legs and a tiny waist, her pretty tits, her blonde hair. She flushed all over her body when I pet her and she tried to close her legs.
“Uh-uh, Baby. This is mine, remember? No reason to be afraid.”
“Are we going to—”
“You ever see a man before?” I asked her.
Now that blush was certainly everywhere. I knelt over her, my body hanging over hers. I rubbed a nipple and she squirmed.
“Yes or no, Baby.”
“No,” she whispered.
A surge of stupid pride rushed through me. I would be the first cock she’d see. First one she’d feel. I almost came right there, with me fully dressed and her nearly naked spread out beneath me.
I yanked at the buttons on my shirt. I sure as fuck wasn’t going to give her a choice on seeing a man. Her body shuddered the closer I got to naked. Soon I was standing in just my trousers and she was holding her hands together above her head. Her feet still lay flat on the bed, her body still open to me.
When I pushed my trousers down, she made some sound that I interpreted as pleasure.
“My dick’s a little different,” I told her as I held it and crawled onto the bed over her.
We all got branded in hell. I fell for making people believe I was a god. After I got them to believe that, they were more than willing to let me fuck ’em.
“What happened?” she whispered.
Ah, shit, what happened indeed. Motherfucking devil branded my cock. “The God of Wine” is branded all over it in the old Angelic language. Lucky for me, that language is beautiful and it just looks like a bunch of swirls and curlicues have been tattooed on my cock. Hurt like the devil when he did it. Made me think twice about using my cock for about two hundred years or so once we’d escaped. I’d since gotten over that.
“Tattoos,” I told her.
She swallowed. “Didn’t that hurt?”
“Yeah,” I said roughly.
“Why would you do that—”
“Let’s talk about something else, okay?” I interrupted. “Like how I’m going to put this cock in you. How about we talk about that?”
“I’m a virgin,” she said softly.
“Baby, I know.”
“How do you—”
“I felt it. Grab on, Baby.” I urged her arms around my shoulders and her legs around my waist. I moved us on the bed so we could both lie comfortably. I didn’t waste time to grind my cock against her pussy and she gasped.
Fuck she was wet. Wet. The wetter she was, the easier this would be, but it would still hurt. I wasn’t small by any means. And she was tight. So I rubbed. I felt her twitching under me, her body arching. I was gonna blow before I ever got in her, like an untrained schoolboy.
“Let’s hold on a sec,” I told her.
“Angelo, I need—”
“Yeah, I know what you need,” I whispered. “But if we don’t hold on a sec, no one gets what they need.”
She giggled. Not an annoying giggle, but a cute, deep giggle. It made me harder. I took her mouth again and licked into her until she moaned. And then my cock hit her entrance and I thrust. I couldn’t help it. My hips moved against hers, shallow, shallow, until I felt that barrier again.
I yanked my head back and held myself off her with my arms. “Shit, Baby.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s fucking wrong, but I gotta deflower you right now. Only got one chance to do this and it’s gonna hurt you.”
Her nails dug into my ass. “Do it.”
I resisted. As much as I wanted to plunge deep, I sure as fuck didn’t want to hurt her. “It’ll hurt.”
“Do it,” she insisted, digging deeper.
Shit, you can only handle so much when a virgin’s tight around you and she’s digging her nails into your ass. I wanted to make this good for her, I swear I did, but she wasn’t making this easy. She tightened on me and my hips plunged forward, almost like I couldn’t help it.
I tore through and she screamed a little.
“Fuck, Baby, fuck. Did I hurt you?”
I had dropped to my forearms above her, raining kisses on her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks. I’d never had a virgin before if you could believe it. I didn’t know what she was going through—
She lunged up and kissed me. Hard. Tongue and everything. I forgot about breaking that barrier. I forgot she’d never had a man before. So I pulled back and thrust forward again and again.
She took me. Gave me back everything I was giving to her. Her nipples rubbed up and down on my chest, her fingers squeezed my upper arms, and her legs wrapped around me again. If I hadn’t torn through that fucking hymen of hers, I never would’ve thought she was a virgin.
Soon she was panting, looking up at me with those big blue eyes. I pounded. Dear God, I pounded her. Shit, the bed was scraping on the fucking floor. But I couldn’t stop and she sure as shit didn’t want me to stop. Not when her neck arched back and mewls of pleasure escaped her. Her body milked and her hands spasmed on my arms. This might be her first rodeo, but she sure knew how to ride the goddamn bucking bronco.
“Angelo,” she muttered. “Oh, God, Angelo.”
I reared up and she grabbed the headboard slats. I grasped her hips and fucked my cock with her body. That damn garter belt…I dropped my head back and that’s when she tightened. Thought she was gonna cut my cock off.
“Angelo,” she moaned. “Yes, please, more. Angelo!”
She splintered all around me. I looked down to watch her tits bounce, her mouth open in an O, her pussy flower around me. That was it for me. I couldn’t hold it anymore and I pumped my fucking life into her. Each rope of come I jetted into her set off an aftershock in her body and she was trembling by the time I was done.
I pulled her up and into my arms, my breath harsh in her ear. She melted into me and I held on tight.
“Mine, Baby,” I reiterated to her. “You got that?”
She nodded. “Yes, I’ve got that.”
I held her head, my palm covering her tumbled down hair. This was the most relaxed I’d been in days.
Never saw any of the shit storm coming. Should’ve. But I didn’t.
Chapter Nine
We didn’t open that night. When Baby and I finally stumbled downstairs, the rest of the crew was looking lost. No one felt like making merry. Lots of regulars stopped by and banged on the door, but none of us felt like opening up. We sat around a few tables in the middle of the speakeasy, lights turned low, drinks all around, and didn’t say a whole hell of a lot.
Joe had been a good guy. He’d fallen into the wrong crowd when he was young, did some time. He learned all he could when he’d gone in the pen, used all his skills to fuck over anyone he could. Lucky for him he tried scamming me. Not only did I beat him soundly for it, I gave him a goddamn job.
He’d known the risks. Everyone in this crazy-ass life knows the risks. If it hadn’t been Charlotte, it would have been something else. Gangsters didn’t give a shit who they had to kill if that person was in their way.
Right now, I was in the way.
Charlotte sat on my lap and I had a hand around her waist. No one seemed surprised. I had nearly fucking peed on her to prove she was mine, after all. There wasn’t a person in our circle that would argue that she belonged to me. For some reason, this ball of light had settled in our small circle and made herself at home.
Marty was telling a story about Joe, a drunk Joe, from the early days of Prohibition, when I saw Two lift his head. He looked over toward the front door with a perplexed look. Then One did the same thing. A prickly sense of unease shifted over me. I saw headlights burn through our windows, illuminating as much of the interior as possible.