Mob Daddies: A Contemporary Romance Box Sex

by Alexa Hart

  The walls were the same shade of gray as when I’d moved in. I had never painted them. There hadn’t seemed to be any point. It was just Nic and I. Half the time he was at his mother’s. What the fuck did I need to paint the damn walls for? This wasn’t the Hilton.

  The paint outside was peeling. I hadn’t ever gotten around to that either. It had turned out there was a hideous shade of orange underneath the pale blue, and it now peeked out in patches all across the two stories of despair that was the Fanucci home.

  I’d sold Ma’s house the same year she died. I couldn’t stand looking at it, and even more-so, I couldn’t stand the fact that I could see the Angelone house right out my mother’s kitchen window. Although it wasn’t really the Angelone house anymore. Dario had moved somewhere up-coast, wanting – and needing – a fresh start. That had been the right decision for him, and I sometimes wished I’d done the same.

  But after Nat left – again and for good – I had just stopped caring altogether. I wasn’t gonna love anyone like that again. I didn’t even want to. There were enough divorced neighborhood girls still around if I ever needed some “companionship”. And for the most part, I hadn’t wanted that either.

  The business had basically moved with Dario, and fuck it anyway. That goddamn organization had stolen everything from me – everything that mattered. I had picked up a night shift at the local gas station, and it was just as fulfilling, if not more-so.

  Sure, I wasn’t exactly proud of myself. And I knew a million times over that my father would spit in my face were he to see what had become of my life, but fuck him anyway. This was all his goddamn fault, in the bigger scheme of things.

  I hadn’t really given Nic a much better example to follow, but I worked an honest job and brought home an honest paycheck – and Rafaele Fanucci couldn’t ever have said that even if he’d cared to. And he hadn’t cared to.

  Besides, Nic seemed to look at my life and plan his accordingly opposite. He was already accepted into some big, showy ivy-leaguer school a few states away, and I knew that once he left, he wouldn’t be coming back.

  Just like Nat.

  I barely talked to Dario anymore – too painful – but the last I had heard from him, she was doing well. A doctor now – a psychiatrist. Married. She had children.

  Sometimes I got drunk enough that I’d throw empty beer bottles at the wall and rant at her – though she was thousands of miles away. “You don’t love him like you loved me! You don’t!”

  It never helped. Usually I ended up blubbering like a baby and hating myself more than I already had. Nic would nearly always sweep up the broken bottles while I slept off the booze. He never said a word about it. He didn’t remember Natalia. But he knew I couldn’t ever really live without her – not in any way that actually mattered.

  The look in his eyes sometimes – those hazel eyes that were the mirror of my own – was so mournful. I had let him down. And worse, he knew that at this point in my life, I was incapable of ever being anything more than what he saw before him...

  I realized I was crying. One more block to go, and I was full blown crying like this was six years ago, and I already knew what was going to happen. I’d help her shut the trunk, she’d hug me, and she would leave.

  Natalia was going to leave me again.

  “No,” I said out loud now, to absolutely no one and simultaneously to the entire universe. My tires squealed as I rounded the corner onto Oak Street, surely alarming half the neighborhood. I could see it ahead – that classic yellow cab car pulled up to the Angelone curb. Some asshole was putting Nat’s suitcases into the trunk while she stood by watching – still and cold.

  I took the first open spot I could find – a screeching sound ripping through the air as my brakes struggled to obey orders. And then I was running.

  She saw me coming – I watched her face turn from stone to recognition, then surprise, and finally terror. She was shaking her head, unconsciously walking backwards when I reached her, and I defiantly grabbed her face between my hands.

  “You were going to leave – just leave again without saying goodbye? You were going to just leave?” I shouted it – not meaning to, but unable to control myself. I knew I was still crying, and I knew I was acting like a psychopath, but I didn’t fucking care.

  Not again.

  “Max - Max, I have to – ” she was pleading with me, crying herself now and trying to push me off to no avail.

  “You don’t have to! You don’t! I quit, Nat. I quit the business! It’s over! Done! You don’t have to leave me!” I knew I was also pleading, holding those frozen cheeks between my palms, knowing I was seconds away from possibly never seeing them again.

  Her blue eyes were sparkling – the sunlight making her tears shine like glass – and she seemed to stop struggling for a moment. She looked away from me, saying so quietly that I almost couldn’t hear her, “You’ll change your mind. The business is your life.”

  It burst through me then, the agonizing anguish that she truly believed what she had just said.

  “YOU - YOU ARE MY LIFE!” I roared, pulling her to me and kissing her lips with a fire that exploded out of my heart, enraged and astounded that this girl could ever, ever really think she was second to anything else after all of this time.

  She was kissing me back passionately – my lips on hers was something Natalia had never been able to stop herself from responding to – and sobbing so hard her body shook in my arms.

  I pulled her back just far enough so that she had no choice but to look me straight in the face. Her eyes were wounded and swollen. She’d been crying for days. We’d both been suffering for years.

  “I don’t have a life without you, do you hear me? Do you understand me? I am nothing – I want nothing – without you! You. Are. My. Life.” I kissed her again, then put my forehead against hers, trying to regain even an ounce of composure. “Fuck the business, Natalia. I hate it. I've always hated it. I've hated it since I was a fucking child. I won’t let it take you away from me again. That’s done. That’s over. Over.”

  God, please hear what I’m saying, Nat. Please hear me.

  Her voice trembled now and she struggled to speak. “But your father...”

  “My father is dead, Nat. And I - I am not my father.”

  She looked up at me then, and I saw – with complete ecstasy I saw – the first signs of hope spark in her eyes.

  “But before...” she was still grasping, trying to find a reason...

  “Before I was a kid, Nat! I thought I had something to prove! I thought I had to be what my father was! I was an idiot! I will never forgive myself for letting you go! Not ever, do you understand?” I waited, that whole split second before she spoke seeming like my entire life was hanging over the edge of a cliff and were I to fall... There was no coming back this time.

  A tiny, sad smile spread across her face, and a fresh burst of tears as she looked up and said, “And I will never forgive myself for leaving you.” Then she was kissing me, laughing with happy delirium, and I knew – for the very first time knew – she was staying. Natalia was staying.

  The truth of it fell over us like our own private waterfall of joy.

  We were together.

  We were going to be together for the rest of our lives.

  I picked her up then and ran – ran – for the house. She was giggling hysterically and we probably looked like two lunatics as I bounded to the door – but neither of us cared.

  I was never quite sure how her bags got back into the house – the cab driver or Dario – because all I saw then was Natalia and our life together, beginning right in that moment. Absolutely nothing else mattered – not even the fact that half the neighborhood had come outside to witness the scene we had just made.

  Five stairs or a thousand, we climbed them giddily, and I made love to her then, cradling her body in my arms with a newfound, ethereal bliss. She clung to me, drunk with happiness, and each kiss, each touch, each sound of elated paradise that w
e made was blanketed in the euphoric rapture of a new freedom – a fresh page in our lives where we could love without fear, and be whatever we wanted to be.

  Epilogue

  I sipped at my tea, grinning as Max’s voice boomed across the backyard.

  “You got me! Lissie, your sister got me!”

  He dramatically fell to the ground, the victim to one count of fairy dust sprinkling. Lissie was laughing so hard she was crying, and threw more glitter on her Pop just to make sure he was really done for. She was seven years old now, and she knew better than to take any chances. Sophia, only five, and feeling she wasn’t getting enough of the action, began to administer her own chubby fistfuls of sparkle onto her father, who was now moaning and rolling around in the grass. Sophia was supposed to be on Max’s team, but that didn’t seem to matter right now.

  Ralph, our trusty Rottweiler, was lounging under the swing set, not concerned in the least by the events happening before him.

  The funniest part was that from my vantage point I could see their big brother creeping up behind the bushes, ready to spring his own surprise attack of magical powers upon all three of them. I watched Nic’s smile grow wider with every stealth-ridden step he took towards them.

  And then it was complete chaos. Squealing and sparkles and dragon-slaying filled the air of the neighborhood. I rubbed my round stomach gently, wondering how this little guy was going to feel about all of the commotion when he arrived in a few months.

  What would he look like, this little man? Lissie was a carbon copy of her father, while Sophia took after me.

  “Maybe you’ll look like both of us,” I whispered to him, feeling a tiny kick near my hand.

  Who would this little guy be?

  Happy tears sprang to my eyes then, because I already absolutely knew the answer.

  He can be whatever he wants to be.

  THE END

  KEEP READING FOR DAX

  BOOK 4 IN THE MOB DADDIES SERIES!

  BOOK 4: DAX

  I’ve made billions, but the filthy streets of Boston made me.

  Once a bad boy – always a bad boy.

  One night with little miss good girl and we’re both knee deep in sh*t.

  Getting her pregnant was never in the plans.

  But I’ll protect Hannah no matter what it takes.

  I did what it took to claw my way out of the gutter.

  No matter the cost.

  But I’m nobody’s savior.

  That is until Hannah came along.

  One night with her and she’s become all that I crave,

  The one thing that can make my life whole again.

  This is a f*cking problem.

  She is a f*cking problem.

  There’s no room in my life for another liability.

  An innocent girl like her doesn’t belong in a world like mine.

  But I put her in danger,

  Now I have no choice but to protect her.

  Being with me means Hannah’s life is on the line,

  But I’m also the only one who can keep her safe.

  Chapter 1

  Hannah

  I’m running late. These days it seems I am always running late. My shift starts in five minutes, but I’m sprinting down the still unfamiliar streets of Boston reciting mixed drink recipes in my head and praying that my bulldog Samson doesn’t destroy any more furniture while I’m gone. I don’t know why Joey, the manager of The Spotted Owl, is letting me come back for a second shift after how badly I did my first night, but I guess he feels sorry for me. Or maybe it’s just entertaining to watch a classically trained, former ballerina try to make a Rusty Nail for a bunch of grizzly, old men who talk like Boston goodfellas without looking up the drink recipe on Google.

  I’m nearly across the street from the bar when I hear Samson barking behind me. I freeze. Dammit. That little wrinkly, smooshed-nose monster is unbelievable! Ever since I quit dancing and Samson and I moved into our new (not so nice) place, he’s had some serious separation anxiety. Couple that with the not particularly sturdy front door and broken deadbolt on my basement apartment, and he’s managed to escape like Houdini a couple of times and come to hunt me down. Despite my numerous requests, it looks like my landlord still hasn’t fixed my door because as I turn around, I see Samson trotting after me, his little pink tongue lolling out as he hurries to catch up. He’s old and lazy so as soon as he sees me and knows that I am going to come back for him, he plops down to take a moment to rest right in the middle of the narrow street he’d been in the middle of crossing.

  I’m hurriedly shuffling towards Samson and cursing under my breath when I first see the man on the motorcycle approaching the intersection. The motorcycle is coming down the narrow side street, going way too fast and barreling right toward my short-legged, slow-moving, fur baby.

  “Samson!” I cry out.

  Without thinking, I rush toward my aging rascal of a dog and scoop him up in my arms. With him in my grasp and the motorcycle speeding right at us, I crouch, squeezing my eyes shut and half turning away from the bike, bracing myself for impact. At that moment, my whole life flashes before me, a quick whirl of images involving an obscene number of ballet lessons and life with my mother before she passed away. I close my eyes and even Samson whimpers at the impending doom barreling straight at us in the guise of a Harley Davidson. I hear a loud screech and slowly peel my eyes open to find that the motorcycle has spun to the side and squealed to a halt, only a few inches from my face. I can feel the heat of the engine on my leg, and I can smell the burning of the tires from how fast it torqued to avoid crushing me into a bloody pulp. The motorcyclist tears off his helmet and glares at me with pure murder in his very dark, and I hate to admit it, very handsome eyes.

  “What the hell were you doing?” He asks. He doesn’t yell, but his voice, somehow strangely calm and icy cold, is even more frightening than if he had. He climbs off the motorcycle and glares at me. “That stupid stunt almost got us both killed.”

  I look down at Samson and he licks my cheek, completely unaware of the trouble he’s caused (as usual). I feel incredibly shaky and it doesn’t help that the man glaring down at me is gorgeous and masculine in a way that my whole body seems to register despite the frighteningly, near death circumstances. He is easily over six feet, muscular and unmistakably dangerous. He has dark, almost black eyes, thick black hair and a thin shadow of dark stubble on his face. He’s wearing jeans and a tight t-shirt; his strong arms roped with tattoos.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “But I mean, pedestrians have the right of way and you were going….really fast.”

  He laughs, but there is no warmth in it. “Are you suggesting that this was my fault?”

  “No.” I stand up, a bit wobbly. He makes no move to help me and I find him even more intimidating now that we are face to face, or more accurately, face to muscle bulging chest. I gulp. “No, of course not. Samson and I were totally to blame. Should I pay for the bike? I mean not the whole bike... I’m pretty strapped for cash at the moment... but whatever…. a new tire? Let me give you my contact info….”

  I start scrounging through my purse searching for a pen and a scrap of paper to write down my name and number, but my hands are still shaky from the rush of adrenaline. As I clumsily rummage through my purse I manage to drop my wallet, lipstick, and much to my horror, a dried pig’s ear I carry with me to keep Samson occupied. The man leans down and picks up the pig’s ear, turning it over in his hand and studying it.

  “Unusual,” he says.

  I swipe it from him.

  “Samson is very particular about his treats,” I bite out, my face flushed from the pure humiliation of the moment.

  “Lucky dog,” the man says. He looks me up and down and I feel very self-conscious in my tight jeans and outrageously low-cut Spotted Owl tank top. Way, way too low-cut for my taste, but apparently completely necessary if you want to get decent tips. Years of dance have kept me lean and toned. I see his eyes linger on my che
st and I blush, adjusting the strap on the tank top.

  “You work at The Spotted Owl?” He asks.

  I snort. “Barely,” I say.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I suck at bartending, I’m late, and apparently it’s ‘take your dog to work’ day. So, I’ll probably be fired by say... 8 p.m.”

  “Maybe the boss will understand,” the man shrugs.

  I shake my head. “No way. The manager told me the guy that owns the place is some super rich asshole and doesn’t tolerate, well, much of anything. And he’s, like, terrifying.”

  “Is that so?” The man says. For the first time since he nearly ran me down with his motorcycle, he looks legitimately amused.

  “Apparently he’s some bigshot, billionaire developer now, so he never slums it back home. Him not finding out how terrible I am at bartending is pretty much the only chance I have of keeping my job. He’s too good for the place now. That’s what the manager says, anyway. But in my very limited experience with rich, arrogant assholes, I’d say they don’t tend to be lovers of stray dogs and poorly mixed drinks.”

  “You’re probably right,” he pauses thoughtfully. “I bet you don’t make it until 7:30.”

  I laugh. “I mean, you don’t have to be so sure I’ll tank tonight.” We lock eyes and I feel an electric, scary, delicious heat pulse down my body. This man is pure man. I am not usually forward with the opposite sex, ever, but I can’t seem to let this moment go. The adrenaline from the near-death experience must be egging me on. “You could come in and I could treat you to a drink if you’d like.”