Knocked Up by the Beast: A Mafia Romance (Kingdoms Book 1)

by Aria R. Blue

  Luna. The mysterious brunette he never talks about.

  “What did you say Luna did for you?” I ask casually.

  “I didn’t,” he says wearily, looking straight into my eyes. “She works in the West Wing.”

  Luna.

  The diamond.

  The West Wing.

  Leo Blackwood has secrets he’s not ready to share yet. And there are things about me that I haven’t shared with him either.

  Neither of us know where we’re headed. We just know that this feels pure.

  And for once, I’m going to let my heart lead.

  I’m going to trust my instincts.

  17

  Leo

  “Don’t you have a job?” she asks, propping her chin up on a fist. Her hair falls over either side of her face, highlighting her pouty lips.

  One month.

  It’s been an entire month since I’ve met Belle, and yet, her brightness and beauty never fail to twist my heart.

  “What’s the point of being the boss if I can’t call the shots?” I reply.

  “True, but you’re just substituting one job with another,” she says. “One that I’m perfectly capable of doing myself, by the way.”

  “Belle,” I warn.

  “What? I’m supposed to just sit here and eat grapes all day now?”

  “Nothing you say or do will convince me otherwise,” I say. “I’ve already made up my mind on this.”

  She complained of having a stiff back at breakfast this morning. After that, there was no way I was going to let her work today.

  When she said that ‘the library wasn’t going to clean itself,’ I took it up as a challenge.

  “You know, this is actually harder than it looks,” I growl, scowling at a stubborn stain that refuses to budge.

  “Told you,” she says, dunking a tortilla chip in guacamole before popping it into her perfect mouth. When she catches me staring, she sucks on her thumb provocatively, keeping it in her mouth for much longer than she needs to. “Well, go on. Don’t stop now.”

  I grit my teeth, and spray rubbing alcohol on the stain. “You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?”

  She shrugs, picking up a book from the table beside her. “I’m not going to do anything. I’m just going to sit here as you instructed me to, and mind my own business.”

  With that, she throws her legs up on a pouf, and leans back in her chair. Her shorts drag up the sides of her generous hips.

  My eyes narrow in on the sweet spot right between her thighs.

  I know what she’s trying to do.

  But it’s not going to work.

  She’s going to learn two things about me today.

  The first is that I have an iron will. If I set my mind to doing something, I will see it through to the end.

  The second thing is that absolutely nothing is more important to me than her well-being. If the cause of her sore back is cleaning these shelves all day, then I’m going to be doing that for her.

  She won’t lift a finger until I’m convinced that she’s truly feeling alright.

  So I drag my attention back to the stain.

  I need to get rid of it. Somehow.

  I try spritzing it with more of the cleaning solution, but no amount of scrubbing seems to work.

  It’s all but cemented to the bookshelf.

  A soft sound steals my attention. It’s the sound of ringing bells and spring birds. Her laughter.

  Okay, maybe my iron will isn’t strong enough to withhold her charm.

  I turn to Belle, and find her covering her mouth with a hand, trying her best not to laugh at me.

  Her eyes rove over the spray bottle and the towel in my hands. A tender expression flashes over her face, but she blinks it away.

  “If you’re going to do my job for me, you might as well do it the right way.”

  “There’s a right way to clean shelves?”

  “Yes, and you’re doing it all wrong.”

  I wait for her to guide me, but she doesn’t say another word.

  “Well?” I probe.

  “Can I at least help a little?” she asks, shutting her book and placing it on her lap.

  “I can handle it,” I lie.

  “My back doesn’t even hurt that much,” she protests.

  “Well, I’m not going to take any risks.”

  “I thought that’s what you did for a living?” she asks, mischief glinting in her eyes.

  “Calculated risks. I have a team of analysts who go over every single detail before I take a single decision.”

  My position as the CEO of an asset management firm means that I’m in charge of directing millions of dollars on a daily basis. I have dozens of clients who trust me to make the right financial decisions for them, and taking the right risks is a big chunk of the puzzle.

  But when it comes to Belle, I don’t want to leave anything up to chance.

  In the one month that I’ve known her, she’s become far more valuable to me than anything else in my life.

  I might take risks with money, but I’ll never jeopardize her health.

  She sighs. “Fine. I’ll just tell you. You’re supposed to let the spray soak in for a few minutes.”

  I look at the stain.

  Oh. It seems like common sense now, but that idea really hadn’t crossed my mind.

  “Any other pieces of wisdom you wish you share?” I ask.

  “Don’t clean the bottom shelves first. If you do that, they’ll just get dirty again when you’re cleaning the top shelves.”

  “That’s…smart,” I manage dumbly.

  She grins. “I don’t know how you get people to trust you with their money. I wouldn’t even trust you with my vacuum cleaner.”

  I blink.

  Nobody has ever insulted me before.

  But I can’t help but return her smile. “Do you have anything else to tell me that’s actually useful?”

  She plucks a grape from its stem, and pops it into her mouth. “Speaking of vacuums, instead of cleaning the fragile books by hand, you could put a piece of cheesecloth over the vacuum brush. And then run the vacuum along the spines and edges of each of the books individually.”

  With that, she goes back to her novel.

  I spend the next four hours cleaning and cleaning, only to find that I barely covered a row of bookshelves. And there are a few hundred rows in this library.

  “You shouldn’t be doing this all by yourself,” I say, pulling my gloves off.

  “Are you going to let anybody else into your precious library?” Belle asks.

  I shake my head.

  “Well there you go,” she says.

  This place has far too many memories to be placed into the hands of somebody I don’t trust.

  I’m sucked into the past—a time when everything in my life wasn’t a shade of black and grey.

  When she was alive.

  It’s only when Belle touches my elbow that I’m brought back into the present moment.

  She’s looking up at me with wide questioning eyes. I reach for her, tucking a strand of loose hair behind her ear and leaning down to kiss her.

  She lets me in, parting her lips so I can swipe my tongue along the roof of her mouth.

  I meant for it to be a gentle kiss, but with her supple hips in my hands, it doesn’t end as one.

  I grind her against my thickness, letting her feel how much I need her body.

  I’ve had her so many times, but she leaves me wanting more each and every time.

  “Right here?” she moans. “Right now?”

  I pull away from her. Our bodies are desperate to do their dance, but I know teasing her will be worth it.

  “Just one kiss,” I say, bucking my hardness against the little cleft between her thighs. Right where my cock is supposed to go.

  She looks up at me from underneath her lashes, and nods.

  I drop down to my knees.

  “You said you were going to kiss me,” she protest
s.

  “I am,” I say, dragging her little shorts down with me, and kissing the edge of her panties. “I just didn’t specify where.”

  I continue to pepper kisses all over her core. It starts out gentle, but ends up with wild biting and sucking of her flesh.

  It’s not until I have her cream coating my tongue and my beard that I pull her shorts up again. They immediately become drenched through.

  I pat her from over the shorts, gripping her possessively.

  “Keep it this way for tonight,” I order. “For when I sneak into your bedroom to finish what I started. You’re going to keep your bedroom door unlocked again, aren’t you?”

  She licks her lips, and nods.

  I grip her chin between my thumb and index finger, tilting her head up. “There’s a good girl.”

  Not being able to help myself, I press my lips against hers one more time, leaving us both a little breathless.

  She slips away from under me.

  Her absence is crushing.

  Every time I have to let go of her, I keep counting down the seconds until I see her again. She’s the best kind of addiction there is.

  “Not bad,” she says, arms crossed behind her back as she looks at everything I accomplished today.

  She walks through the rows of bookshelves, and I follow behind her.

  My eyes drop down to the glorious sway of her ass. “That’s it? Nothing about how you would’ve done thrice as much if I had let you work?”

  “Nah,” she says. “I’m in a good mood.” She waves her hand at the place where we just were seconds ago.

  “In that case, I should be working on putting you in a good mood more often.”

  If I had it my way, she’d be pinned underneath my body every second of every day. All she would know is my cock inside her tight pussy and my hands all over her curvy body.

  “You work hard enough already,” she says, patting my arm.

  Something catches her eye—a row of bookshelves that have already been cleaned.

  “I didn’t clean this,” she says, frowning at the books. “Did you?”

  I glance at them—a collection of children’s picture books.

  “I must have,” I say, shrugging.

  The words taste like ash in my mouth.

  My first lie to her.

  18

  Belle

  “You’re sleeping with him?” shrieks Julie.

  I have to pull my phone away from my ear to avoid the stream of curses that follow.

  “Yeah, I really, really like this man, Julie. It might be too soon to say this, but-“

  “Wait, back up,” she says. “When was this?”

  “Um, my first week here?”

  Another indignant shriek. “Why am I just finding out about this?”

  “I was going to tell you, but I didn’t want you to freak out,” I mumble.

  “Yeah, well, too late for that,” she huffs. “Seriously though, how well do you even know this guy?”

  Would she believe me if I told her how well I’ve gotten to know him in the few weeks I spent here? It’s not just the things he shares with me, but the things about him that I’ve uncovered myself.

  Like how much he cares.

  He goes above and beyond just to make sure that I’m happy and cared for. Nobody has ever looked out for me like that.

  “I think I’ve gotten to know him pretty well,” I say.

  “Apart from that bad-boy charm that you seem to be so drawn to, what do you like about him?”

  “Apart from his bad-boy charm, he has a heart of gold.”

  Julie groans. “Oh, come on.”

  I stifle a laugh. “No, it’s true. He has the biggest heart. Well, at least when it comes to me.”

  “You said he was twice your age right?”

  “Fourteen years older,” I correct.

  “Same thing,” says Julie. “What do you know about his past?”

  “His past?”

  “Yeah, where did he live, what did he do, who was he with. That kind of stuff.”

  It makes me pause. And burn.

  Something ugly raises its head inside my heart. Jealousy. I’m jealous of all the people who have known him before me.

  “We didn’t talk about our pasts yet,” I say honestly.

  And it’s for a reason. I have things I like to keep locked away, and I’m sure he does too.

  “Yeah, I bet you don’t get to talk much at all,” my sister says under her breath. “You’ve probably been at it like bunnies for six weeks.”

  “It’s not like that,” I say, smiling into my pillow.

  What Leo and I have, it’s deeper than surface love. It’s starting to seep inside, making my heart glow every time he’s in the same room.

  Yikes.

  “You guys are being safe though, right?”

  My face pales. “Sure.”

  “Be careful around men, Belle. You’re so trusting of everybody.”

  “Aren’t you always telling me to give somebody a shot?”

  “Yeah, but I wasn’t referring to some psycho living all by himself in the middle of a forest.”

  I pause and remind myself that Julie is just looking out for me.

  We’ve been so close since mother died, and she’s afraid that Leo will hurt me, or worse…take me away from her.

  When I don’t say anything in reply, she rushes to add, “Before you get mad at me, I want to say that I talk shit about everybody. Your Leo is no exception.”

  Your Leo.

  I like the sound of that.

  So much so that it brings tears to my eyes. I wipe them away, but they won’t stop flowing.

  “Belle?” says Julie. “Crap. Did I upset you? Crap, crap. I’m sorry.”

  The tears flow down my temples, and disappear into my hair.

  I’m still lying in the giant comfy bed that’s too big for me. I hug a pillow to my chest for comfort, but it’s not comforting at all.

  Leo doesn’t spend his nights here.

  He stays and holds me until I fall asleep in his arms, but he’s always gone by the time I wake up.

  If he were here though, I bet he’d be able to comfort me.

  His absence makes me cry even harder now.

  Julie freaks out a little, and then waits for me to pull myself together.

  It’s so unreasonable that I’m crying right now. Especially since there’s no solid reason for me to be upset. But the tears won’t stop, and my heart won’t relax.

  I steady myself with deep breaths. In through my nose, out through my mouth.

  The tenderness in my heart eases, and I pick the phone back up.

  Julie’s still on the line.

  “Hey,” she says softly.

  “Jules, can I ask you something?”

  “Anything.”

  “Do you believe in things like magic?” I ask.

  “Likeee…the magic of love?”

  When I burst out laughing, her tone relaxes as well. “You’re going to have to be more specific,” she says.

  “I mean like magic magic. Witches, prophecies, seers.”

  “Like crystal balls and fortune telling?”

  It’s been six weeks since that red-haired woman came to me that morning. She said that my life was about to change.

  And it did.

  Now I know for sure that I’m heading somewhere. A new life.

  But what if…the rest of what she said was true as well?

  She didn’t tell me to trust the blue-eyed man. She told me to be wary of him.

  “Forget it,” I say, shaking my head.

  Julie doesn’t even believe in love. She’s going to get a good laugh when she hears about the witch’s words.

  “Tell me,” she says earnestly. “I promise not to make fun of whatever it is you have to say.”

  I hesitate, but only for a moment.

  Everything comes rushing out. Julie listens quietly, not saying anything even after I’m done speaking.

  �
�Well?” I ask.

  “I don’t know what to say, Belle.”

  “How about you tell me what you’re actually thinking?”

  I know Julie. She always has something to say.

  She’s just holding back now because she’s afraid she’s going to hurt my feelings.

  “No, this time I really don’t know what to think.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. But I’ll tell you this though: If you ever see that woman again, run for your life, find a safe hiding place, and then call the police, okay?” I can hear the smile in her voice.

  “I knew you’d be completely useless,” I laugh.

  “That’s what I’m best known for,” she says. “But really though, I got chills when you were telling me about her. ’The beast will be your end and he will be your beginning.’ Like, what does that even mean?”

  “Exactly,” I sigh. “And here’s the thing—everything she said kind of felt true, you know? Like she wasn’t just some phony parading around as a seer. There was this power I felt in her presence.”

  “Crazy,” muses Julie. “But I wouldn’t think too much about it if I were you. December is only a month away now, and you don’t have to wait too long to find out if your ‘world will change’.”

  Your world will change this December. And by spring, a difficult decision must be made. Make sure that you choose wisely.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I say.

  We say our goodbyes and hang up, but I stay in bed for a little while longer.

  It feels like my life is changing with every single day I spend with Leo. Is it even possible for it to change more drastically than it already has?

  Six weeks.

  I’ve been here for almost six weeks.

  Six. Weeks.

  My heart shrinks in size, before it starts to balloon out. It hammers against my ribcage, an intense melody of war drums and raging violins.

  It’s just occurred to me—I’m late.

  And I know without a doubt that I’m pregnant with Leo’s baby.

  Everything adds up.

  My back pain from two weeks ago, my tender breasts, the pendulum mood swings.

  It shouldn’t come as a shock.

  We haven’t been careful. At all.

  Even though Leo made it very clear to me what his intentions were, a part of me felt like we were just doing it for the thrill of the idea.