Married to the Mobster

by Leighton Greene

  You’re a good fuck.

  Chapter Seventeen

  LUCA

  I don’t like to think of myself as a cruel man. I suppose others might. Must. When you’re in my business, it’s inevitable.

  Still, I don’t like to be unnecessarily cruel to innocents, and Finch might be a jaded party-boy, but there’s still something wide-eyed about his approach to life. So I feel like a complete shit when I say it, but I have to say it: “You’re a good fuck. We can come to some arrangement for our physical needs.”

  I only hope it’s believable enough this time.

  Because I’ve slipped up. I never should have taken him to bed; never should have let my guard down. He touches something deep inside me that I thought was dead, or maybe never existed in the first place, something that is dangerous for both of us.

  If Fuscone thought for one second I had feelings for him…

  It’s bad enough, what Tino has done: making us marry, parading us around, making us an even bigger target. But it would be far worse if Fuscone realized the kind of leverage he could get over me by making a move on Finch. He’d give Finch a slow, ugly, humiliating death instead of making it a clean kill if he thought it would cause me more pain.

  I asked Frank before we left on our honeymoon to find a place to stash my new spouse by the time I got back, because I fully intended to keep Finch locked up in a gilded cage for the rest of his life with all his needs catered for. I’d never see him again, but he’d be protected in a safe house in Australia or Iceland or on the moon.

  But I find I can’t do it. There’s a selfish little part of me that refuses to give him up.

  Anyway, Tino wouldn’t allow me to send Finch out of the city while he still has a point to prove. That’s how I justify it to myself: Tino wouldn’t allow it.

  For now, at least, no one can know I’m not indifferent to Finch, least of all Finch. He wears his feelings about me on his sleeve, and worse, he seems inclined to talk about them. If someone here on the boat heard him say he loved me, and fed it back to our enemies…

  These emotions of his are as dangerous as wildfire. I need to put them out, or keep them contained at least. And I need to stamp out the same fire he’s lit in me, too, for now.

  I can’t think when I’m near him, and that terrifies me.

  It could kill him if I don’t get my shit together. Literally kill him.

  The next morning I wake after the deepest and calmest sleep I think I’ve ever known, and find Finch in my bed still, his back to me. I have my arm around him again, and he snuggles closer with a sleepy sigh as I tighten my hold, his well-toned ass rubbing into my crotch.

  He gives an appreciative moan as my cock comes to life, and reaches back to pull my hip towards him. He’s still slick from the night before; I can feel it when I slide my fingers between his cheeks. His hole is a mess of worn lube and my cum, and it should disgust me, but it only makes me harder.

  “Come on, baby,” he murmurs sleepily, and his hand reaches down awkwardly between us, bumping into mine where I’m fingering him. He squeezes my cock and pulls it closer, begging without words.

  Well. I’m only human.

  I slide into him easy as anything, and he’s so warm and welcoming I let out a moan of my own. We rock slowly, building our pleasure together. It’s so unlike the hard fuck of the night before. This feels even more intimate, more emotional. My body is betraying me, but I can’t help hoping that he understands what it’s saying.

  All the same, I’ve made a decision. I will squash any emotions I have towards him, at least until we get back to New York and I can see how the battlefield is set up. I just won’t love him until we’re safe. Love is a choice that I’ve never bothered to make before, and I’ll put it away from me again now, fold it up and shove it in the back of a drawer like a winter sweater when springtime hits.

  Simple.

  After I’ve emptied myself into him and wrung a long, sweet orgasm out of him as well, I roll back and stare at the ceiling. “We’re docking today,” I say casually, like nothing has happened. “Not for long. Fuscone asked me to check in on one of his business interests while we were down here.”

  “Oh,” Finch says. “That could be fun. Maybe I—”

  “You’ll stay here on the Maddalena.”

  He flops over at that, staring at me. “The hell I will.”

  I get out of the bed without looking at him. “You’ll do what you’re told.”

  “Oh, no you don’t.” He flies out of bed and bolts around it to halt me, a hand in the middle of my chest. “Nope. You don’t get to dump a load in my ass and then tell me I’m confined to quarters until you feel like another fuck. You’re my husband, Luca, and this is our fucking honeymoon. So we will spend time together, we will get to know each other better, and we will enjoy it!”

  He’s risen to a shout by the end of his tirade, stabbing me in the sternum with a finger.

  “Take your hand off me if you want to keep it,” I say quietly.

  His anger dies almost as quickly as it arose, and after only a moment’s hesitation, he pulls his finger back and his eyes drop. I step forward and tip his face up, making him look at me. “You don’t shout at me. You don’t demand things from me. You take what you’re given and you say, ‘Thank you, Luca.’ Understand?”

  His mouth firms in a thin, pale line. “Fuck you.”

  My fingers tighten on his chin. “Only if you behave yourself, angel,” I say lightly, and finally he gives, pulls his face from my hand. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten your vows already? You promised to love, honor and obey.”

  Part of me wants to tell him to wait. To just hold on to that avalanche of feeling inside him and just wait until we get back to New York, until we get back to a place where I feel secure, where I know I can protect him. But I don’t believe he can hold back his emotions, not like I can. And besides that, I can’t have him questioning every decision I make. If I need to stop and explain every move I make, I’ll never fucking move at all. No, he just needs to do as he’s told for now.

  “You need to learn to trust me. To do what I tell you, and trust that it’s for your own good. Understand?”

  He gives me a contemptuous glance, but he won’t meet my eyes. “There are some moments I actually hate you,” he says, almost too quietly for me to hear.

  But I do hear it, and it feels like a knife slicing into me, into my heart. It’s a good thing if he hates me a little, I tell myself. A good thing.

  “That’s fine. You can hate me all you like, so long as you do what I say. And what I’m saying now is, stay on the damn boat,” I tell him.

  I brush past him on my way to the bathroom. When I come back out, he’s gone.

  This is what you want, I remind myself. Keep him off balance. At least until we’re back in New York and you can control the environment.

  We waited five years, we can wait another few weeks.

  The thing is, I seem to be off-balance as well, an unfamiliar feeling gurgling in my belly. It takes a moment to place it. I’ve only felt it once before, five years ago when I walked out of Finch’s suite without a backwards glance.

  Regret.

  Chapter Eighteen

  FINCH

  Fuck Luciano D’Amato.

  I hope he gets fucking leprosy and his dick falls off and all his fingers and his stupid perfect nose, too.

  I wash myself thoroughly, thinking vicious thoughts, wondering if I really am wrong about those glimpses of real feeling I’ve seen from him. I mean, guy’s kind of sociopathic, I know that. He’s a killer, and he lives his life storing things in little boxes in his mind like that’ll help keep his psyche in order.

  Therapy would be a fucking disaster for him. He’d have a complete mental break if he ever had to look at what’s inside some of those boxes.

  But I really did think he was coming around. We were finding a balance between ourselves over dinner. Don’t treat hired help like scum versus don’t challenge me in front o
f other people. And he really did seem interested in learning from me about social graces and all that shit.

  And the way we made love last night—because that’s what it was, even in the cold light of day. Not just a fuck, no matter what crass shit he said afterwards.

  It cuts deep when he turns around and says all that cold bullshit to me, but I don’t believe it. The way he kisses me, the way he lets out a long breath when he slides his cock into me, like he’s finally come home…

  Not to mention that finch tattoo right there on his arm.

  Surely he can see what a great team we’d make?

  He’ll come around eventually. This marriage is going to work, and I’m going to show that dumbass just how great he can be. Lady Macbeth ain’t got nothing on me.

  So now I’ve decided to be cheerful, I just need to find something to do. I wander down to have breakfast in the dining room, where Nunzio’s wife has baked fresh croissants and biscotti, and made cute little individual tropical fruit salads topped with tart yogurt. Yum. I eat three of everything. Hey, it’s my honeymoon, I’ll pack on a pooch over my washboard abs if I want to. Besides, my awful wedded husband hasn’t had the balls to show his face at the breakfast table, and I don’t see why all this amazing food should go to waste.

  After breakfast I dress in my hot-pink Speedos and head to the pool. I bake myself in the warm morning sunshine for a while, but my attention is distracted by the island coming closer and closer. It looks busy and bustling, and I’ve traveled most of the world in my tender years, but I’ve never been in this part of it, and it looks like fun. I’m itching to get off the yacht and go exploring.

  It’s not just stretching my legs, either. I miss people. I’m a social animal. Luca’s not. That’d be fine if he’d actually spend time with me, his long-suffering husband.

  But he won’t.

  By eleven the Maddalena has dropped anchor at the dock, and I stare longingly over the rails at the bright colors and cheerful people going about their business on shore. I even wave at some, and they wave back.

  “Don’t draw attention to yourself,” says a sharp voice behind me.

  I turn with a sigh. “It’s called being friendly. Something you might learn from.”

  “I’m not here to make friends.” Luca is wearing that horrific suit again, and cheap dark sunglasses, although the shades do make him look sexy. If only the man understood clothes.

  “You should wear shorts if you wanna blend,” I tell him in my most-bored voice, and turn back to lean on the rail and watch the definitely-more-fun stuff going on in port.

  “I’ll be back soon,” he says. “Behave yourself until I do.” I hear him walking closer to me and then his hand slides between my thighs, cupping my balls under my Speedos. I can’t help myself; I moan and push into his hand. He leans over me and his lips brush my ear. “If you do behave, you’ll get a reward again tonight.”

  I turn my head a little, eyes shut. “And if I don’t behave? If I make a break for it and beg for asylum in the islands?”

  His hand tightens up around my nuts, not enough to be painful, but not comfortable either. “Then I will find you and drag you back to the boat, and leave you tied up in the smallest bathroom on board for the rest of the voyage.”

  He totally would, too, I think to myself as he walks away. But I can’t help finding the idea weirdly hot, and I’m still hard by the time I see Luca walking down the dock ten minutes later. He’s wearing cargo shorts and a tee, just like I told him to.

  He looks as sexy as ever.

  I watch him until he disappears into the back streets leading away from the port.

  I wander down below deck and find the crew, just for someone to talk to. The deckhands are gathered in a tiny room, smoking weed and cigarettes and playing cards like something out of an old movie, but they look so startled and uncomfortable to see me that I just back out again, apologizing. Nunzio’s wife hustles me out of the kitchen insistently, and according to her, Nunzio himself has gone ashore on her orders with a shopping list to replenish the cupboards.

  I guess I could go bug the captain, but he’s a wizened old sea dog who has no interest in making conversation.

  I’m so tempted to sneak off the yacht. I could swan dive off the back and swim ashore, and no one would even notice. But the dirty promise of Luca’s hand on my balls and lips against my ears keep me tied here.

  I want him. And if I flit out of my cage, I know it’ll end badly for me. And there’d be no more sex, because I know Luca meant what he said. I’m starting to identify his I’m real damn serious tone from his I can be pushed a little tone, and it was definitely the former when he threatened to truss me up in a bathroom. So I mope back down to the little cabin I found the other day and stare out the porthole, waiting and watching for my darling husband to return home from work. I have a good view of the port, and it’s kind of like watching TV.

  Engrossing.

  I don’t know how long it is before the door opens and I jump, startled. It’s one of the card-playing crew members. I’ve seen him around, swabbing the decks or whatever it is that they do, and I’ve never seen a crew hand so wobbly on his feet as this guy has been the last few days, only now he seems to have finally got his sea legs.

  He looks at me. I look at him.

  “Whatchoo doin’ in here?” he grouses.

  “Looking out the window. What are you doing in here?”

  He stares at me for a second, his big dumb cow eyes playing over my face and then down my body, like he’s checking me out. But he’s not checking me out, or at least, I don’t get that frisson I usually do when a man is eyeballing me.

  He’s still holding one hand behind his back, and I stand, alarm bells sounding in my head. “What are you doing?” I demand.

  Slowly, he brings out the hand from behind his back, and I hold my breath as he does. This might be it. The moment all my problems stop with a bullet to the face, a slash to the throat.

  But in his hand it’s not a gun or a knife; it’s a fucking ginormous spliff and a lighter. I laugh, too loud and too long as usual, and the guy looks disconcerted.

  “Boss said no drugs,” he says, and it takes a second for me to realize he means Luca. “So I came down here to make sure we’re cool. Peace offering from the crew?” He holds out the spliff to me.

  “Boss ain’t here right now, and I won’t tell,” I purr. It’s exactly what I need, a nice mellow high—something natural, not like that prescription shit that makes my memories fragment. I can handle myself on weed. Luca will never even notice I’ve smoked up.

  I know I promised to ditch the drugs, but this isn’t the same thing at all, right? This is natural. Just like having a drink at the end of a hard day.

  “What’s your name?” I ask the guy.

  “Tommy.”

  “Tommy, I think you’re my new best friend. Pull up a chair.” I sit back down on the lower bunk and he sits on the opposite one.

  Tommy seems obliging enough. He pushes me to have as many drags as I like, and soon enough the thrill is spreading through my body. I like weed; I like the kind of buzz it gives me. Tommy doesn’t have any, even when I press him. But that only occurs to me halfway through the damn thing.

  “I’m done for now,” I say, when he urges me to keep going. “Any more and I’ll green out, buddy.”

  He gives me the once-over and carefully presses out the glowing end of the spliff on the metal bar holding up the upper bunk bed. “What’s he like?” he asks. There’s something in his tone that makes me open my eyes again. I was going to lie down, get comfy, let the weed work its magic, but I can’t, not with a guy sounding like this.

  “Who?”

  “Luca D’Amato.”

  “Stone cold asshole.”

  “No. I meant, what’s he like in bed?”

  Definitely something wrong here. “You ask all the passengers what their men are like in bed?”

  Tommy gives me a long, hard look, and I know what it means. It
means it’s time to get the hell out of here before things escalate. I stand up, clunking my head on the bunk as I do, and I’m swaying slightly.

  Whatever I smoked was laced with something.

  “You know what, I think it’s time I go pretty myself up for my husband. He’s due back any second now.” I try to slide past him, but Tommy is faster than me. He’s built like a goddamn tank but he moves like a viper to shove me back and slam the door shut.

  “How about we enjoy ourselves right here?” he asks, and then he loses the dumb act and gives me the grin that shows who he really is, and who he really is is someone I don’t want to be around.

  Even high as fuck I can see that.

  “You know what, Tommy, I think I’m just gonna—”

  He takes out a kitchen knife from where he had it stashed in his pocket and chuckles at the look on my face when I see it.

  It’s not large, but it’ll do the job.

  Chapter Nineteen

  FINCH

  “You know what,” I slur, the drugs making my vision blur now, “I really think I should—” I try to push past Tommy again, and the guy totally bitch-slaps me, hard, so my teeth slice open my lip, a spray of spittle-blood hits the sheets, and I go flying. Only there’s nowhere to fly, not in this tiny room, so I just slam into the wall with the one window I was happily staring out of till Tommy showed up, and I crumple to the floor.

  The next thing I hear is an almighty fucking crash as the door Tommy was standing against explodes open. Tommy stumbles towards me, and I make myself as small and as invisible as I can, because in the doorway is my husband.

  Only he’s not my husband, or not as I’ve seen him. His eyes are stone, and he has a gun in his hand. I don’t know anything about guns, but I can see that this one, whatever it is, is as much a part of him as the hand at the end of his arm; it’s just a further extension of his being.