I shot her an unimpressed glare as I prepared to drink my own glass of liquor. “Then, they’ll die.”
The alcohol burned down my throat, leaving bright almond flavor on the back of my tongue.
Lily shifted behind me, obviously impatient with my lack of attention. “You’re not going to offer me a shot?”
I swatted her words away like a pesky fly and stared at the stone edifice that housed my brother, the only man I’d ever been close enough with to give a shit about.
He’d be proud, strong in the way of kings and emperors. He was too grand. Too smart to be a mere foot soldier in the Amato outfit. But he was also young and relatively untried.
If only he’d waited…
Bid his time and carried out his orders.
Waited as Brutus did for a time when Julius Caesar was vulnerable.
For a time like right fucking now when the Amato family’s very existence could be snuffed out by a union between our arch rivals and the most powerful family in Sicily.
My own blasphemous thoughts surprised me.
I was not my brother.
I was built for sin and pleasure. A creature of hedonism not subterfuge and war.
Yet…there was something to the idea of destroying the hand that fed me and carving out my own path.
Lily distracted me by grabbing the discarded bottle of booze and swinging it up to her lips, where she gulped from it like a woman parched near death.
Seconds later, the bottle went crashing to the ground, breaking with a symphonic shatter that echoed in the tomb. She bent over, coughing, one hand to her stomach and the other at her wet mouth as she struggled to breathe through the burn.
I sighed, feeling the almost ten-year age difference between us.
Without going to her aid, I stood and leaned against the cold stone, staring down at her like I found her lacking. “I hope you’ll prove to be better at swallowing other things…”
Lily, barely recovered, gaped at me, her pink mouth slick with almond-flavored alcohol I wanted to clean with my tongue. “You can’t speak to me like that! I’m a Vitali.”
“Is that all you are? A Vitali?” I cocked my head and raked my eyes down her scantily clad body. “Or are you a woman? One with her own dark dreams and desires?”
She didn’t respond.
I pushed off the wall and moved into her space, stopping only when the toes of my leather loafers pressed to her white shoes. My gaze locked to hers. I ran my thumb along her damp lower lip, collecting the Amaretto. Her eyes blew black with lust when I brought the finger to my mouth and sucked off the moisture.
“I think the problem is that no one has ever spoken to you like that before,” I suggested, then dipped down to drag my tongue along the same path my thumb had ventured, tasting the almonds straight from her source. When I pulled back just enough to see her expression, she was flushed and drunk on lust more than the drink. “And Lily? I think you fucking love it.”
I pulled back, stepping until I was pressed against the stone across from her. As if the cold air between us would barricade the base desires storming through my body, raiding my thoughts.
I needed space and distance. Some fucking objectivity, or I’d be drunk as her on the headiness of our connection and throw the rule book out the window.
“I bet you’re even wondering just how I’d disrespect your body and all the ways I’d make you love that, too,” I taunted to distract myself.
My cock was a steel pipe in my trousers. Her eyes darted between it and my gaze, her little pink tongue peeking out in a subconscious quest to explore that bulge with her mouth. I groaned quietly and readjusted myself so my erection wasn’t so fucking obvious.
Lily recovered enough to tip her chin up, so much defiance in her eyes, I wanted to break it. To break her. “You’re wrong. I was wondering what kind of man brings a woman on a date to a crypt.”
My grin sliced across my face, killing my illicit thoughts. “Manuel was my brother.”
She frowned, waiting for me to go on. When I didn’t, she pursed her lips and fisted her hands on her hips. “Sooo you left your dead brother a shot of alcohol and poisonous flowers? Doesn’t seem very brotherly.”
“The combination killed him,” I said with that cruel smile I’d learned from the other made men in my family. An expression of joy perverted by murder and the acts that led to it. “Lily of the Valley crushed into Amaretto.”
“And you’re smiling…” She shook her head, eyes flirting between me and the glass of poison on my brother’s grave. “That’s evil, Frankie.”
“Of course, you wouldn’t understand.”
She hesitated, thumbing the material of her dress between her fingers. “Actually, I understand more than you think. Why did he die?”
I liked her question and the intelligence it spoke to. Not how he died, but why? There was always a reason for death in the life of the mafia.
“He made an unauthorized hit against the Bruno family during a turf war a few years ago. The Council gave him the option between two sentences: death or exile.”
“He chose death?” she asked, an adorable knot in her brow.
The urge to smile while talking about my brother’s death surprised me. Usually, I felt sick with helplessness and frustrated rage, but Lily made me feel… light somehow.
“For a made man, exile is worse than death. What is life without your family, your religion?” I gestured to the sea of graves around us. A sea of men, who preferred death as a made man over death without honor, loyalty, and family. “That is what life is for these men.”
“For you,” she murmured, almost to herself. She studied me and looked out the barred window to the deepening night beyond. “My sister chose death, too. I’ll never understand why. Our cousin Renata would have let her live in America with her.”
So that was what had happened to Carlotta. I’d forgotten to look into it and kicked myself for it now.
My heart clenched at the agony in Lily’s tone, a pain that matched my own and could only be echoed by the death of a sibling.
I’d meant to woo her tender heart with my sob story, but it seemed Lily had one of her own.
“Manuel chose death to make a point,” I found myself explaining, even though I’d never before spoken of it.
“Which was?”
“In death, he could take his life back from the Family.”
Lily paused, digesting that. “Somehow, that makes sense. Carlotta asked my dad to kill her. We spent the entire day together as a family, going to the beach and out for dinner at her favorite trattoria. Mundane shit I’d always taken for granted. That night, when I was in bed, window open to courtyard where they said goodbye, Papà shot her.”
I sucked air through my teeth, shocked that they’d let her witness the killing so intimately. Paolo was known for sheltering his daughters, yet in his haste to right the wrong his eldest daughter had done, he’d exposed his youngest to something she should never have been a part of.
I’d take better care of her, I found myself thinking, the animal in me rearing its wild head, snapping its rabid teeth.
I wanted to kill Paolo Vitali for putting her through that.
A dangerous thought to have.
A surprising one, too.
“What did she do?” I demanded, angry but not with her.
She seemed to sense it. If anything, my outrage seemed to endear her further. She stepped closer until the hard tips of her small breasts pressed against me.
“Carlotta had sex before marriage,” she murmured, voice husky. “With someone who wasn’t her arranged fiancé.”
I dipped my head so my nose could slide against the edge of hers. She smelled like lilies. Of course, she did.
One of my hands found the dip of her lower back and pressed her even closer, so she could feel my semi-hard dick against her belly. The other slid into the silken treads of her hair and the base of her neck.
She gasped when I fisted the locks and tugged her head
back, her mouth blooming open for me.
“Maybe,” I whispered, voice rough as sandpaper, “the temptation was worth the price.”
“She was an idiot,” Lily insisted, eyes flashing, but her stare caught on my mouth, and she softened further against me. It was my turn for my breath to hitch when her hand slid up my chest and tangled in the short hair at my nape. “But,” she allowed as she rocked onto her tip toes, “maybe you’re right.”
“Why don’t I help you decide?”
My control snapped. I hauled her to me, feet off the ground, tight, young body banded against mine.
And my mouth was on her.
Her soft, supple lips were tender and curious. She opened for my plundering tongue, her movements tentative, reminding me of our age difference.
Lily rubbed her tongue against mine. Her little kittenish mewl vibrated down my throat. I groaned, losing myself in that almond-flavored mouth. Drunk in the potent scent of lilies.
And I knew, whatever game I was playing had just become a hell of a lot more dangerous for the both of us.
CHAPTER SIX
Lily
Tommaso and I sat across from Father Luigi, undergoing the most pointless premarital counseling in history. We barely knew one another. There was no relationship to council. Plus, I couldn’t stand Tommaso. He was controlling, spit when he talked, and possessed the humor of a broken condom. No amount of premarital counseling could fix that.
But I’d grown up in this church, a building that had existed since the conception of civilized Italy and would exist long past my demise. So, Papà had insisted on daily counseling until our marriage. His way of ensuring what had happened to Carlotta wouldn’t happen to me.
Father Luigi scribbled something into his notepad and leaned back in his chair. “How did you feel when Tommaso didn’t give you a ring, Liliana?”
Relieved.
Tommaso interrupted, “It’s not that I didn’t give her a ring. It was delayed. They’re still making it.”
We’d stopped by the shop this morning, only for the shop owner to tell us he’d been out sick all week.
I tipped a shoulder up, ready for this to end. “It’s not a big deal.”
After all, I’d locked lips with another man. At the memory of Frankie, a smile fought its way to be seen. I played it off as agreeability, much to Tommaso’s displeasure.
He gestured wildly at me. “It should be a big deal! We’re getting married! Don’t you care?!”
I’ve known you for two seconds. Calm your tits.
I couldn’t say this, so I feigned patience. “I do care, but I won’t make a fuss about it. I can wait.”
“It will postpone our wedding for a week.”
“There’s no rush, right?”
He shifted in his seat, which only confirmed what I’d suspected when he’d texted me last night, asking for a picture—Tommaso Bruno wanted to fuck me. I’d sent him a selfie with my eighty-four-year-old Nonna. Let him jerk off to Nonna’s “Grandma of the Year” shirt.
Tommaso shook his head. “You should be excited to marry me. It seems as if you’d like to delay the wedding.”
I was too exhausted to answer him, stroke his ego, or whatever handholding my future husband needed from me.
Father Luigi gave me the same look he’d given me five years ago when Carlotta and I had stolen all the communion wine before mass. “I think that’s enough for today. I look forward to seeing you both tomorrow.”
Tommaso’s hand burned my back as we stepped out of Father Luigi’s office. He inched it lower. “My car’s around the corner. I can take you home.”
“No, thanks. I drove here.”
“I didn’t see your car.”
“I parked it near the flower shop.” I gave him my cheek before he could try for my lips and went the opposite way when he exited out the back. Making my way past the pews, I fiddled with my phone, wondering if Frankie had any plans on calling me.
He hadn’t mentioned it, and technically, I’d fulfilled my end of the deal with the date, but I’d been expecting… more. I wasn’t sure what, considering my virginity equated to my life. The idea of more, however, consumed my mind.
So much so that I didn’t notice when a hand slid out of the confessional and tugged me inside.
I opened my mouth to scream, but the hand shifted to cover it. Another snaked around my waist, pulling me against a hard, muscular body. Squirming, I fought my attacker’s hold, punching whatever I could until my foot connected with his shin.
“Fucking hell, it’s me.”
I relaxed at the sound of Frankie’s voice, enough for him to release the hand on my mouth and shut the door. “What are you doing here? It’s—”
“It’s dangerous, and you like it.” His whispers caressed my cheek. “I bet if I slipped my fingers inside you, I’d find you wet.” He lowered his hand from my stomach to the outside of my thigh, just beneath my dress. It slid inward, drawing a heavy breath from me. “Do you want me to touch you?”
“No.”
But I did.
More than I’d ever expected.
Maybe it was desperation to escape my engagement. Or maybe it was the fact that we’d connected on a level I’d never expected. Manuel. Carlotta. Two sides of the same coin.
Where did that put me and Frankie?
“Tsk, tsk…” Frankie’s fingers inched up. “You’re in a confession booth. Surely, it’s a sin to lie.”
“You’re no priest.”
He pulled at my panties and released, so the fabric snapped at my sensitive skin. “I’m whatever the fuck I want.”
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”
He countered my sarcasm with his own. “I prefer you call me Daddy, but Father works, too.”
“I prefer you let me go.”
“Another lie. I’m starting to think I’ll have to spank that habit out of you.” His fingers ran a path across my slit over my panties. “Wet, to no one’s surprise.”
I bucked against his hand, trying to maintain the conversation. “Why are you here?”
It occurred to me to ask how he’d even found me, but before I could question him, he cupped me and pressed the heal of his palm against my clit.
“For part two.”
“Of what?”
“Our deal. I hid a dead body for you—”
“We went on the date. I don’t owe you anything.”
“Our date hasn’t ended.” He dug his erection against my ass. “Confess a sin.”
My heavy breaths fogged the tiny confessional. We stood on the priest’s side, because of course, we did. “And you’ll let me go?”
“To be determined.”
I tried to fight off his arm. He didn’t budge. I could yell, but getting caught in this booth with him would be worse, so I conjured the easiest confession I could think of. “I’m wet for you.”
“Already knew that. Try again.”
“After our date, I ran to my room, fingered myself, and cried out your name when I came.”
“Better,” he ground himself against me, “but I figured as much. Try again.”
He pinched my nipple through my dress, and I blurted out, “I stole a flower bud from you.”
Fuck. Me.
This was the type of torture designed to deliver confessions. Waterboarding. Breaking bones. Nothing was more effective.
Frankie froze, his fingers still attached to my budded nipple. “Why?”
It was the last thing I should have blurted, but now that I had, I wasn’t sure if I was scared or relieved. Maybe both. “Because I wanted it.”
“Not good enough. What did you want it for? No one steals a poisonous flower for no reason.”
“Well, I did.”
“Bullshit. You’re forgetting that I know you. I can call your bluffs a mile away.” He nudged my panties to the side and brushed my clit with the pad of his thumb, eliciting a moan from me that echoed within the narrow walls of the confessional. His finger gathered my we
tness, then rubbed it in a circle around my empty ring finger. “Case in point. You’re wet for me, no matter how much you denied it. What’s the lily for?”
I couldn’t answer him.
I didn’t know how he’d react or if I could trust him.
He continued to toy with my slit. “Are you trying to kill yourself, Lily?”
“Why do you care?”
“I don’t.”
“Sounds like you do.”
My heart beat an erratic rhythm at the thought.
Frankie Amato was Sicily’s heartthrob. My sister and her friends used to gossip about him after school, whispering about the dirty things they’d do to him when they thought I couldn’t hear. I used to latch onto their words, searching them on my laptop in the privacy of my room.
The truth was, I’d let Frankie Amato do all those things to me—and more.
But the idea that he might have cared about me?
I didn’t know how to process that, other than an electric spark inside me I couldn’t control.
“You’re deflecting,” he accused. “Is the flower for you?”
I didn’t answer.
He slid two fingers inside me with ease, instantly drenched with my wetness. “What’s the flower for?” I still didn’t answer, not even when he pumped his fingers in and out, a steady and teasing rhythm that left me soaked and panting. “You’ll tell me if you want to come.”
“Careful,” I warned. “Don’t break my hymen.”
His fingers pushed deeper, so far in, he had to be touching it. We were playing a dangerous game. I loved it. Thrived on it. Had never had this much excitement in my life. “I can break it right now. It’d be so easy. Do you know what the best part is?”
“What?”
“You’d like it.” He didn’t give me the opportunity to deny it, not that I could. “Now tell me, who is the poison for, Lily? Remember…” He curled his fingers against the most sensitive spot inside me, hitting it over and over again. “Good girls get rewarded.”
I was close to coming.
So fucking close.
I moaned, resting my head back against his shoulder, finally catching the shadow of his face in the darkness of the confession booth. He was unnaturally handsome. Sharp lines, high cheekbones, and the type of eyes that ensnared.
Tales of Darkness & Sin: An Anthology Page 10