by Mia Madison
I can’t breathe. I’m frozen, staring in horror at the tableau unfolding before me. The man holds up his hands and says, “You don’t understand. My man is tired of waiting. You don’t deal with him, he’ll deal with you.”
He’s barely finished speaking when he doubles over from Kosta’s fist in his stomach. Pulling the guy’s head up and back by his hair, the man I just screwed on his desk says, “Don’t you ever threaten me, you moronic sack of pus. Tell your man he tries to start a war with me, it’ll be the last thing he does.”
Stepping back, he gestures to the two security guards. “Get him out of here.” The men grab the guy by either arm and half-walk, half-drag him toward the rear exit, where I came in.
Marco has been standing by all this time. “Who the fuck let him in here?” Kosta asks.
The man shakes his head. “Benny first spotted him near the front, is all I know.”
Kosta lets out a stream of fluent Italian that I’m certain is profanity, and then his eyes come straight to the window where I’m watching him.
I gasp again. Even though I know he can’t see me, it feels like he can. For a long moment he stares up at me, and then he turns and makes his way through the club, heading for the front.
My freeze ends abruptly. Unstuck, I hurry to the door and out to the stairs, going down them as fast as I can in my heels, which is not very fast. At the bottom, I dart into the shadows, my heart beating like a scared rabbit’s.
I see you here again, I will end you. Capisce?
Tell your man he tries to start a war with me, it’ll be the last thing he does.
Oh god. Dear god.
My beautiful man is a mobster.
I have to get out of here.
Just as I start to move out of the shadows, Kosta comes back. I freeze as he goes straight to the stairs and jogs up them two at a time. Hurrying back to me.
In a panic, I race down the dimly-lit hallway to the back entrance and shove through the door, rushing forward as I turn toward the mouth of the alley. Just beyond the garbage bin, I trip on something and go down hard.
It knocks the wind out of me, and it’s a few seconds before I can roll onto my back. The pain in my palms and elbows and knees tells me I’ve skinned them all. Probably ruined my dress, too.
Wincing, I manage to sit up. I stagger to my feet just as the back door opens. Kosta says, “Erin. What are you doing?”
I start to turn away, then freeze. Next to the garbage bin, in the shadows beyond the light over the door, I can just make out what looks like a shoe. A shoe on a foot, that’s attached to a leg.
The smell hits me then: motor oil, mixed with a stench that makes the bile rise in my throat, and layered over all that, the warm scent of copper.
Kosta starts toward me. An overwhelming sense of danger swamps me, and I rush toward him, pushing him back toward the door. “Inside!” I yell when he tries to get around me. “Inside!”
“Blondie, what the fuck?” But he lets me back him up into the club, where he grabs me by the arms. “What were you doing out there?”
“Call the police,” I tell him. His head snaps back. “There’s a body out there.”
Kosta swears and moves toward the door again. When I block it, he simply picks me up and sets me aside. “No!” I shriek, grabbing the back of his jacket, then getting a hand in the waistband of his pants. “You can’t go out there!”
I can’t hold him, but I’ve delayed him just enough because now Marco’s here, followed by the security guards. “Boss,” he says quietly. “Do me a favor. See to your woman, and let us check it out.”
The three men are all blocking the door now. Kosta looks from them to me; his jaw tightens, but he puts an arm around me and pulls me against his side. “Yeah, all right. Get some lights from the utility room. If there’s a crime scene, we don’t want to fuck it up.”
He leads me away, and I let him, because I know what just happened. The deepest, most primal part of me detected a potential threat to my man, and I went gonzo trying to protect him.
Kosta may be a criminal. He may even be a mobster. But my heart doesn’t care.
He’s already mine.
Hard the Whole Time
I wake disoriented. I’m lying in a bed, in a darkened room. Light sneaks around the edges of the blinds on the windows, but I don’t know what time it is.
When I move, I feel pain in several places at once, and then it all comes rushing back. I’m in Kosta’s house. He brought me here last night.
After I stumbled over a dead man’s body.
After the dead guy turned out to be the man he’d just threatened.
After I freaked out in a way that demonstrates I am in way over my head with Constantine Adamo.
Once his men confirmed that there was a body, and who it was, Kosta started giving so many orders it made my head spin. It all boiled down to him keeping me safe and getting me out of there before the cops showed up. Security protocols were implemented, and we had an armed escort from the club to a car that was not mine, or his, and then to his home, where we had to wait until his men confirmed the house was clear even though it has a state-of-the-art security system of its own.
None of this made for a restful night’s sleep. Especially since Kosta texted my dad from my phone to tell him where I was, and that I’d be staying here until everything settles down. And then he texted Rico to inform him that I’d be taking a couple of days off from work.
Sitting up, I look around and spot a lamp on a nightstand. My bra is next to it. I roll across the enormous bed and switch it on, illuminating the room. It’s definitely Kosta’s bedroom. If the huge bed weren’t enough of a clue, the room has that lived-in feel that a guest room never acquires.
My hands, knees, and elbows have all been bandaged, because my man called his personal physician out to his home in the middle of the night to tend to me. I’m wearing an oversized t-shirt with nothing underneath it but my panties. The same ones I had on last night, before and after Kosta fucked me on his desk.
The lingering tenderness between my legs brings back a flood of memories, so when the door opens and Kosta’s standing there, in faded jeans that fit way too well and a t-shirt that molds itself to every gorgeous muscle, I’m already in the process of getting turned on. Seeing him just finishes the job.
“You’re awake,” he says. Crossing to the bed, he sits on the edge of it. I want him to touch me, taste me, take me right here in his bed.
“What time is it?”
“Around ten.” He tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear, and my legs move restlessly under the covers as energy singes my nerve endings. His answering smile makes my toes curl.
“Have you talked to the police?”
“They’ve been in touch with my lawyers. But we’ll get to that later, babe.” Shifting to sit on the other side of me, in the center of the bed, he tugs me down so I’m lying across his lap.
“I want you on your knees,” he says, and I shiver. “But that’s gonna have to wait until you’re healed up. So you’re gonna sit on my face, and then I’m gonna fuck your mouth. First, though, it’s time for your spanking.”
My whole body convulses. “But I haven’t given you any sass.”
“Baby, there doesn’t need to be any reason at all except you’re here, I’m here, and an ass like yours oughta be pink every day of its life.”
“Oh my god,” I groan as heat rushes through me.
Kosta’s hand makes circles on my ass. “You gettin’ wet, babe?”
“Yes.” My voice is husky.
“Good.” Without warning, his hand comes down, giving me four sharp smacks, on one side and then the other. In the time it takes sensation to leap through my body, from my ass to my clit, the pain becomes searing pleasure.
I whimper, and he gives me four more, then shoves the t-shirt up so there’s only my panties between him and my skin. “Beautiful,” he says, smoothing his hand over me. “Fuckin’ gorgeous. Gonna do everything to this ass
.”
“Baby,” I moan, and four more spanks make my flesh burn and my clit swell. I try to grind myself into his thigh but he’s not having that.
“Lift, babe,” he orders, and my hips come up in automatic obedience. He tugs my panties down and then I’m bare to him, my pussy throbbing in time with my ass. “So delicious. Almost as sweet as your cunt, babe. Gonna love having my cock in here.” His finger strokes the skin near my puckered entrance.
“Kosta—”
“Relax, Blondie.” Four more hard slaps and my thighs are slippery, my back arching. “I fuck your ass just once, and from then on it’ll be you askin’ for it. Take that to the bank.”
At that, I just can’t help myself. “Modest much?”
“I’m in the middle of spanking her and she gives me sass.” He chuckles, a deep, rich, masculine sound that makes my body tighten like a bowstring. “Makes me wanna find out how much you can take. I already know, from the way you were with me last night, it’s more than you think.”
A flurry of smacks, not as hard but rapid fire, lands on every inch of my ass and down my thighs, and I can’t keep the sounds in anymore. They burst out of me, somewhere between a howl and a moan, a demand and a plea. The whole thing only lasts a few seconds before he stops, but my mind has flipped to an altered state of pure bliss.
If he kept going I think I’d come just from being spanked, which up until right now I would have said was crazy talk. But he doesn’t keep going, because his phone beeps. He checks it, then pats my ass gently. “Cops are on the way, babe. We’ll have to postpone the rest of it.”
“The police are coming here?” I shouldn’t be startled; I know how investigations work. I’m just surprised that he’s allowing it. Then another thought strikes me. “Will my dad be here?”
“Yeah, babe.”
Oh shit. I scramble backwards off his lap. “I have to get dressed.” It’s bad enough that Dad’s going to see me at Kosta’s, but it will be infinitely worse if he sees me less than fully clothed.
“I asked Cait and Tonio to bring some of your stuff by,” Kosta says, “but that hasn’t happened yet. Your dress from last night isn’t back from the dry cleaner’s. You’re gonna have to wear my clothes for now.”
“Shower.” I’m almost hyperventilating. He points to a door, and I hurry through it. Thirty seconds later, I’m under the spray. Five seconds after that, so’s Kosta.
“You said they were on the way!”
“They are.” He drops to his knees in front of me. “You need to relax.” Then one of my legs is slung over his shoulder, his fingers are inside me, and his mouth is on my clit.
Two minutes later, I’ve had three orgasms and could not be more relaxed unless I were dead. Kosta helps me through my shower, then shows me to his walk-in closet. “Take whatever you need that works, babe.”
I find a pair of gym shorts with a drawstring waist and a t-shirt that will work. The only problem is my panties — I’m not putting them on again. “I need to borrow a pair of your underwear.”
“Babe,” Kosta says. “Now I’m gonna be hard the whole time you’re talking to them.”
And that’s why I start downstairs to be questioned by the police with a goofy grin on my face. Kosta’s already down there getting everyone settled. When I catch a glimpse of the crowd in his living room, my smile vanishes.
Grilled
Both my parents are in there. So is my dad’s partner on the homicide squad, and so are a bunch of other cops. There is a very unfriendly vibe in the room, and it’s coming from their side. Arrayed against them are Kosta, seemingly unperturbed by the overwhelming police presence, and a tall, dark, gorgeous man in a gray suit.
He turns to me as I come in and holds out his hand. “Miss Grant. I’m Romero Adamo.” For half a second, before I suppress it, a wholly inappropriate smile starts to flicker across my face, because of course he is. “I’m an attorney, and I’m here as your legal counsel for these proceedings. If you’d like to take a few moments to confer before we begin, I’m sure the detectives won’t mind.”
I look at my parents. My mom’s face is pale and strained, completely unlike her usual cheerful, unflappable demeanor. My normally in-control dad is wound so tight he could lose it at any second.
My gaze travels to Dad’s partner, Frank McDonough. I’ve known him for years; his family and mine have shared dinners, barbecues, baseball games. He’s giving me pure cop face. Blank face, hard eyes. Like I’m a stranger.
There are ten more detectives and officers in the room with similar expressions. I’m pretty sure, legalities aside, they’ll mind a whole bunch if I go off to have a private conversation with a lawyer who just happens to be an Adamo.
“That’s all right. Thank you.”
Romero holds my eyes for a moment, then nods and gestures me to a loveseat that faces the police. He crosses to the side and takes a seat near Kosta. I lower myself to the cushions, biting my lip in what I hope looks like nervousness when my ass touches down.
My man put some kind of salve on me at the same time as he applied fresh ointment and bandages to my scrapes from last night, but I’m still very aware of that part of my body. I sit back like nothing’s wrong. My thoroughly-spanked ass is my secret, mine and Kosta’s. It binds us together even though I can’t see him; he’s sitting just outside my peripheral vision.
Frank takes the lead in questioning me. I don’t think having Dad do it would be a good idea for a lot of reasons, and it’s a relief that his fellow detectives realize that too. Almost immediately, I run into trouble, because Frank wants to know why I was at the club. He’s already asked me my age, so they know I’m not twenty-one yet.
“I was there to see Kosta,” I say, and my dad’s face tightens.
“Kosta?” Frank says, even though he knows perfectly well whom I’m talking about.
“Mr. Adamo.”
“Constantine Adamo,” Frank says. They’re recording all this, so I guess he wants it in the official record.
“Yes,” I say. “Everyone calls him Kosta.”
“And how did you meet Mr. Adamo?”
“We first spoke the night I went to his club with my friend. Caitlin Miller.”
Frank cites the date for the record, and I confirm it. “And you were allowed in even though neither one of you is of legal drinking age?” he says.
“We had fake IDs.”
“Where did you get them?”
“I’ll choose not to answer that.”
Frank scowls at me and changes tack. “Did you get them from Constantine Adamo?”
“No,” I say with exaggerated patience. “I hadn’t met him yet, in any capacity.”
“Were you served alcohol?”
“With my fake ID, yes.”
“How much did you drink?”
“Part of one cosmo.”
“And last night?” Frank says. “How much did you drink then?”
“Nothing.”
His eyebrows go up. All the cops shift in their seats. “Nothing?” Frank says disbelievingly.
“That’s right.”
“Why would you go to a nightclub and not drink?” he presses.
“I wasn’t there to drink.”
“You were there to see Constantine Adamo.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Why not?”
Angry murmurs from the law enforcement personnel. “I don’t think I need to explain to you,” Frank says tersely, “the importance of cooperating with this investigation.”
“I was under the impression that this investigation was regarding the dead man who was discovered outside the club last night. These questions don’t seem to have anything to do with that. They feel more like a witch hunt against Mr. Adamo.”
The room goes electric. I haven’t looked at Kosta once since I sat down; I’m making it as clear as I can that my answers are my own.
Frank looks pointedly at my bandages. “Can you explain your injur
ies, Miss Grant?”
“I tripped over the body. It was in the shadows beyond the garbage bin, so I didn’t see it.”
“You tripped because it was dark,” he says.
“That’s right.”
“It wasn’t because you’d had a drink.”
“No.”
“Or a few of them.”
“No,” I repeat, uncrossing my legs and crossing them again in the other direction. “Most of the alley was dark except for the area around the door, and the pavement was uneven, and I was wearing heels.”
Frank isn’t finished. “Why were you in the alley?”
“My car was parked there.”
“Why?”
I don’t see any way to answer that honestly without maybe getting Kosta in trouble, but it’s no trouble at all compared to a murder charge. “I came in through the back door so I wouldn’t have to deal with the bouncers and the line out front.”
“You have a key?”
“No, one of the staff let me in.”
“Who?”
“I think his name is Marco, but I’m not certain. It was only the second time I’d been there.”
And so it goes. Frank keeps circling back around, trying to trip me up, but he can’t because I haven’t lied about anything. Then he finally gets down to asking about the dead guy, and a different kind of tension fills the room.
“Had you ever seen the dead man before, Miss Grant?”
“I didn’t see his face; I only saw one of his feet, after I tripped over him.”
Frank produces a photographic print from a folder and passes it down the line of cops until the nearest one hands it to me. It’s a crime-scene photo. The man is staring sightlessly at the night sky with a single bullet hole in his forehead.
Even though I knew who it was, it’s still a shock seeing him like this. My eyes widen, and the tension in the room ratchets up. “Yes, I’ve seen him before.”
“When?” Frank says sharply.
“He was in the club earlier that evening.”
“In Mr. Adamo’s club.”
“Yes.”