by Bethany-Kris
“He needs to relax.”
“I’m aware, Gio.”
“Give me the goddamn phone, Cat.”
Catrina held up a hand over her shoulder, but otherwise, said nothing to her husband. She went back to Gio instead. “He will call you back tomorrow. How does that sound?”
“You make it tomorrow night, and I will make sure your Christmas gift is extra awesome,” Gio replied.
Catrina laughed. “Deal.”
The phone call clicked off.
Catrina set the phone to the receiver, and turned to face her glowering husband. Every single inch of him radiated a pissed off atmosphere. It was damn near impossible for her to stand close to him and not also get defensive simply because of his posture.
“Go do something else, bello,” Catrina told him.
Dante’s green gaze narrowed. “I beg your pardon?”
She pointed at the door. “Get out of this office. Go have a coffee. A shower. Run on the treadmill. Beat the shit out of your punching bag. I really don’t care, but if you keep yelling my walls down while you’re on the phone, we’re going to have a problem.”
Dante didn’t move.
Neither did Catrina.
Finally, her husband said, “I have work to do, Cat.”
“Nothing that cannot wait, bello.”
“Says you.”
“So be it.”
Dante let out a grunt of frustration.
Catrina still held her ground.
Then, she pointed at the door again. “Go do something else.”
Dante went.
Catrina let out a sigh of relief.
One battle down.
A million more to go.
December 10th
The front door slammed under Dante Marcello’s heavy hand. Usually, he wouldn’t be doing that kind of shit, but damn, lately he needed some kind of an outlet for the irritation that just kept building higher and higher.
As a crime boss, it was no longer acceptable for him to use physical violence when he needed or wanted something done. He was expected to act as an example for his men, and behave accordingly. He was meant to talk. Talk like it was his friend, talk like it was fine, and talk until he got what he wanted done.
Just fucking talk.
Dante was so done with talking at this point that it wasn’t even funny.
Perhaps if all he had to worry about was talking, it wouldn’t be such a goddamn issue. It wasn’t just his Cosa Nostra, though. It was his legal business, too. Work that just kept piling up. Issues that kept weeding their way through cracks he couldn’t fill.
Nonstop nonsense.
Frustrated that yet another work day had left him with more things added onto his to-do list, and nothing actually solved. He should’ve been happy to be home. Except he wasn’t.
Dante was a lot of things—stubborn, difficult, and particular.
He was not, however, an idiot.
His problems with work outside of the house had started to bleed into his home and family life. He saw it every day he came home—like today—and his kids didn’t greet him at the door. Never mind his wife, who was probably just about at her wits end where he was concerned, too.
Dante shrugged off his jacket, and eyed the empty hallway. The best part of his days was this moment right here … or, it should be.
His kids didn’t come running. His wife wasn’t waiting at the end of the hallway. He barely heard a sound other than the faint hum of the television in another room.
Cinnamon and sugar clung to the air as he put his shoes into the rack. Fresh pine wafted through the living room entryway as he passed it by. Compliments of the tree he had gotten a man to pick up and bring to his home.
All the scents of Christmas.
It should have been the most wonderful time of the year.
Wasn’t that what the song said?
Right.
Fucking joke.
Dante hadn’t gotten five damn minutes this year to even enjoy the season. He hadn’t been able to shop for his wife or kids—never mind his brothers, their wives, or his parents—other than some online browsing. At some point, those online purchases would be delivered to his house, but it was looking like he would have to pay someone else to wrap the damn things for him.
Yeah, it sucked.
Usually, he would help his wife decorate. He would be the one to grab their tree while Michel tagged along to demand it be perfect all around. He would hang the high ornaments, and lift Catherine up to put the angel on top.
Not this year.
All of that had been done without him. Not by his choice, of course, but it was still done.
And Cat!
Catrina cooked—she cooked the best things around this time of year, and Dante barely got to taste any of it.
He fucking hated it.
Dante supposed that wasn’t helping with his mood, either. He felt like he was missing out on something that usually made his kids and wife happy. He wasn’t there to help them, or watch their excitement grow as Christmas came closer.
Add on his mood to make them wary, and it was just crappy all around.
Dante found his wife in the kitchen. Catrina didn’t look up at his entrance, and instead, focused on the book she was reading while she sipped what looked to be hot chocolate from her favorite mug. He could smell hints of peppermint, too, so it was probably one of those specialty ones she liked.
In the kitchen, the scents of cinnamon and sugar were far heavier. It almost made his mouth water, but he had other things on his mind at the moment.
“Where are the kids?”
“Hello to you, too,” Catrina murmured, never looking away from her book.
Dante’s gaze narrowed. “Evening, Cat. My day was shit. How was yours?”
“Fine.”
“Until now, right?”
At his unneeded, rude response, Catrina set her cup down, closed her book, and slowly turned in her seat to face Dante. He didn’t need to be told by her to know he had crossed a line with what he said.
Still, it was out there now.
He couldn’t take it back.
“Excuse me, bello?” Catrina asked calmly.
He always liked how even when she was raging pissed—which she clearly was now—how she could both let her tone cut him with its sharpness while also calling him handsome. She did it without batting a lash.
“Your day,” Dante said, wondering what in the hell he was doing and where in the fuck he planned to go with this. “I bet it was a lot better before I got home, huh?”
Catrina cocked a brow.
Dante didn’t back down. “It’s like the kids, too. I come home, and they’re anywhere but here lately. Upstairs in their rooms, outside, or wherever else. As long as it’s not next to me, then they don’t care. Right?”
“Perhaps your attitude and moods lately are a bit much for them, Dante. They’re kids, not little robots. They can tell when their father is not up to his usual self, and they don’t want any part of it. Can’t blame them, really.”
“No shit.”
Catrina sucked air through her teeth in a hiss, and her gaze darkened. “That’s your response to what I just said?”
Dante side-eyed the stove, and noticed the red light and timer. “Are you cooking something? It smells good in here.”
Catrina stood from her chair, and tipped her head to the side. She pointed a single red-tipped stiletto fingernail at her husband with a nod, like she just had some bright idea. As though she knew exactly what he was up to.
“What happened today, bello?”
“The usual fucking shit,” Dante muttered.
“And you’re pissed.”
“Of course. It’s a regular thing for me now, isn’t it?”
Catrina came closer, and so did her pointed finger. “So you thought to come home and pick a fight with me, is that it?”
Dante blinked.
His wife stood her ground.
“You need an outlet,” Ca
trina added, “and it’s me.”
“Can’t be the kids. Can’t be people at work. Can’t be useless fucking made men who don’t listen.”
“So it has to be your wife.”
Dante lifted a single brow. “You’re the only one who might be able to fight or fuck this mood out of me, Cat.”
His wife smirked a bit.
“The kids are with Antony, by the way. He took them to see the parade.”
Great.
Yet another thing he missed out on this year.
“Can we yell a little before we start?” he asked.
Catrina shrugged. “As long as I get to go first.”
He didn’t mind that a bit.
December 10th
Catrina laughed breathlessly—a bitter ring clinging to her amusement—as she found herself flipped over, and pushed to the edge of the bed. Her laughter only spurred her husband on more, urging his baser needs to come out and play.
She didn’t mind that at all.
Dante bent her over the bed, slapped her ass hard enough to take her breath away, and then he was kicking her legs apart again. He gave no warning before he split her open with his cock once more—the thrust sending her up on her toes and crying out as bliss saturated her senses.
At least when he was fucking her, he was focusing on something other than his problems. Or rather, he was focusing that anger into something worth doing.
Every brutal thrust brought Catrina closer and closer to the edge. Dante had been playing the tease game for a while, now, denying her orgasm whenever it came close enough that she could practically taste it.
His hands fisted her hair, yanked her back, and he fucked her harder.
Damn, she was wet.
Slick down her inner thighs.
Sweat beading on her spine.
Shaky in her knees.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Catrina chanted.
Dante’s husky laughter practically skipped across her skin. He pounded harder into her from behind, and fireworks lit like sparks over her skin.
“Like that, amore? That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”
“You’re such an asshole, bello.”
Her insult only made his tempo increase. One of his hands left her hair to wrap around her throat. His fingers tightened just enough to make her see stars.
She thought to insult him again, if only to see what else she could get out of it, but she didn’t. Instead, she gave into the cloyingly sweet release bubbling up through her gut and spilling into her bloodstream.
Don’t fucking stop.
It became her mantra as the orgasm raced through her body.
Catrina damn near sobbed her way through the force of it. So damn intense, like nothing else. They weren’t a big fight and fuck couple. It encouraged couples to fight more often just to fuck, so they could feel that way again.
Sometimes, though, it was worth it.
Like now.
“Jesus Christ,” Dante grunted behind her. And then louder, “Fuck, Cat.”
She felt him pull out a second before warm cum painted her naked back. He didn’t let go of the hold he had on her body, or her hair, as he rubbed his dick through the semen, smearing it across her overheated skin.
Catrina used the few seconds she had to catch her breath. It didn’t really help.
This had started with a few shouts.
Then, Catrina had got in Dante’s face. Something she never did. Catrina was not the kind of woman who needed to get up close and personal in a man’s space to get him riled up. She could do that from twenty feet away, fully dressed, and with a fucking smile on her face.
She wanted to push, Dante, though.
She had to.
And what did her husband do?
He laughed her.
Fucking laughed.
Catrina might have slapped him, but she couldn’t say. What came after that was a blur of biting kisses, stinging words, and then the bed.
Them, and the bed.
Dante’s husky chuckles rang out from behind Catrina. “You going to roll over, or what?”
“And make a mess on the bed?”
“Fuck that.”
Dante flipped her over before Catrina could argue further. Her husband leaned down over her, and placed a much softer kiss to her lips than he had given her earlier. She bet there were still teeth marks inside her lip from his bite.
“I will help you change the bedding,” he murmured against her lips.
Catrina swallowed the lump forming in her throat, and nodded. “All right.”
“You good?”
Sore in all the right places.
Suddenly tired like never before.
Blissed.
“Happily fucked,” she told him.
Dante grinned. “Same.”
Catrina reached up and placed her palm against Dante’s cheek. Beneath her hand, she could still feel the tic working there. A sure sign of his stress and irritation. At least he wasn’t physically showing it more than that, though.
“The kids will be back soon,” she told him.
He cleared his throat, and looked away. “I’ll … take them out for a movie.”
Worked for her.
It would give Catrina the chance to figure something else out for him. This had not been enough. That much was clear.
“I love you, bello.”
Dante smiled, turned his head into her hand, and kissed her palm. “I know, Cat. Too much, I think.”
Never.
She didn’t correct him.
• • •
Catrina sat on the edge of the desk both she and her husband used, and placed the ringing phone to her ear. After only a couple of rings, her mother-in-law picked up the call.
“Cecelia,” Catrina said, smiling. “I expected Antony.”
She had called his office phone number, after all.
Cecelia laughed. “The kids tired him out today. He’s dead to the world in bed at the moment. We won’t tell him that I let you in on the secret, though.”
“Never.”
All men had their things.
Antony’s was refusing to acknowledge that he was getting older, and couldn’t always do what he had once done as a younger man.
The rest of them, however, said nothing.
“What can I do for you?” Cecelia asked. “Is this about the party details from yesterday? I know it’s a bit much and on a short deadline, but I’m sure you girls can handle it.”
Catrina waved those worries away with a quick, “It’s not the party, don’t concern yourself over that, Cecelia.”
“Then what?”
“Dante.”
“Dante,” her mother-in-law echoed.
Catrina called Antony because she thought her husband’s father might have a perspective on his son that could help her. One that might point her in the right direction where handling Dante’s stress and moods became a bit easier on them all.
Now, with Cecelia on the line, Catrina had a different thought. Her mother-in-law might be the better person to ask for perspective. Cecelia, too, had married a boss and lived with him through the most difficult times. She had to know what to do—or give Catrina some kind of worthy, usable advice.
“Did Antony ever have … spells of bad moods?” Catrina asked. Before Cecelia could answer, she added, “You know, times when work and life and all the rest got to be too much, and he didn’t handle it well. When nothing you did helped.”
After a long pause, Cecelia replied, “Usually every few years or so.”
“Like clockwork?”
“Men like Antony don’t know how to … well, relax, I guess. Just taking vacations for him were not actually vacations. Business was almost always involved somehow. So yes, I would say he didn’t know how to properly relax. It was something he needed to learn over time.”
“Did you help him with that?”
“Sometimes, and other times, I just let him work it out on his own.”
“Well, th
at is not going to work here,” Catrina muttered.
“Ah,” her mother-in-law said. “I’m assuming the time of year isn’t helping Dante, either.”
“Likely not.”
“There isn’t much I can do to help, Cat, except to say that regardless, it will pass. In the meantime, force him to take a step back, and relax.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
Cecelia hummed on the other end of the line. “I know someone who does.”
December 11th
Dante didn’t look up from the work spread out on his desk as someone entered his office. No one got inside his office at Empire Developments unless their name was on the list, or they were an investor that put a lot of zeroes behind their name.
Basically, important people.
“Son.”
Antony was one of the important people.
Still, Dante didn’t look up. “Dad.”
“You busy, son?”
“A little. I have something coming up that I need to approve.”
“Looks like a new build to me,” Antony said as he came closer.
Dante leaned back just enough to let his father look over a few of the plans and proposed contracts for a new fifty floor building Empire Developments wanted to nab in upper Manhattan. A condo build for expensive clients. Apparently, already half of the condos were bought with contracts signed even though the building wasn’t up yet. Dante wanted to be the company that put forth the right number to get that contract.
“You’re never going to step back from this company and relax a bit, are you?” his father asked.
“Nope. I guess you shouldn’t have fired me from Marcello Industries all those years ago. Look at what you could have had, Papa.”
Antony chuckled. “Ouch, Dante.”
He eyed his father, and shrugged a shoulder. “I was joking.”
“I know.”
Antony quieted as he gazed around Dante’s office. He didn’t need to follow his father’s stare to know what the man was seeing. Glass walls that served as floor to ceiling windows and overlooked New York City. A city that was currently being blanketed in falling white snowflakes. Across the office, the two walls separating Dante from the rest of the floor were currently frosted for privacy, but could be cleared with a push of a button.