Owned: A Mafia Menage Romance (60 page)

Skimming the photos on the mantlepiece, Aunt Winnie and my mother beamed out at me from years and years ago, frozen mid-laugh among friends. I tried to feel them here, the way people say you can. This would have been the exact right time to have a maternal ghost figure around. Someone I could turn to for comfort.

Someone I could confess to.

“Mom, I fucked up so bad,” I whispered into the dusty, dark air.

But she didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. What would I even tell her? That I screwed over my best friend? That I burned bridges on two sides of the world I would probably never be able to rebuild? That I had apparently given up something real to snatch after a shiny object when some douchebag dangled it in front of my face?

Could I tell her I was that girl? No. It was better she would never know.

I had left the Netherlands with a single bag and nothing else, and that seemed appropriate. My work was gone, my clothes… even my paint materials were in a studio halfway around the world that I would never see again, hopefully.

Well, I guess this is as good a time as any to start over, then.

Sliding open the glass doors, I was grateful to see that Roger had kept the garden and pool from going wild while I was gone. I flipped on the pool light and flopped onto a deck chair, sinking wearily into the cold, fluffy cushion.

The night sky was a smear of grey. No stars at all. With a frustrated groan, I realized I had never even looked up while in Amsterdam. Another chance just wasted. Frittered away.

Deliberately relaxing my muscles, I pushed away any thoughts of what I needed to do. Just for a moment, I wanted to float without feeling. I knew I had to turn everything in my life around, and it was going to be like diverting the Titanic. But just for a few minutes, I wanted to not think.

The sound of the doorbell punched through like a klaxon horn. I sat up straight and immediately began to swear.

“Fuck, I need a new bell. OK, that is job one,” I muttered as I slapped barefoot through the house. Who the hell would be ringing that? If Bridget thought she could have me murdered, she should have hired someone less courteous.

I opened the door, then before I knew I’d done it, threw myself at Jackson and wrapped my arms around his neck. Sudden, choking sobs shook my body.

“Whoa, hey!” he said, his voice pitched with concern. “Baby, hey… No don’t cry!”

But I couldn’t help it. He held me just as tight as I needed on the dark steps in front of my house, squeezing me still while my sobs tried to shake me apart.

I wanted to tell him and couldn’t. I was positively wretched. In his arms the fragile scaffolding that held me together melted away and I could see it. Everything had been ruined. Everything I had built was at risk, yet again. I felt selfish and mean, ashamed at how I had acted.

Knowing he would hold me up, I succumbed to the urge to just crumble. I let wave after wave of sorrow and regret shudder through me, not even trying to hold them back anymore.

“Oh, Margot… Margot… Shhhh baby it’s alright.”

“It’s not!” I choked, a mucousy, wet retort. “Everything… I ruined everything.”

“No, everything’s fine.”

“No,” I whimpered.

Then I pulled back and looked up at him. Had he ever been this handsome? I couldn’t remember it.

“Wait… How did you know I was here?”

He chuckled shyly. “Oh, I saw your pool light go on. Raul and I were in the garden.”

“And you… came over?”

“I had to be where you are,” he said softly.

“Declan said I would never see you again.”

“Ha! Oh he did, did he? Well that shows what he knows. Say… why are we still out here?”

He dipped down and slid his hand behind my knees, picking me up effortlessly and carrying me back to the living room.

“Declan says you never fight for anything,” I admitted, feeling a little like a gossip.

“Jackson wants to fight over
everything
. I want to be more judicious.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I never had anything worth fighting for.”

I shook my head in confusion. Was he really saying this?

“But… Declan said he won. That I stayed and he won.”

Jackson sighed and pushed me back on the sofa, hovering over me on one elbow. “I can’t believe you would listen to anything he says.”

“Well… but you left.”

“I told you I would be here,” he replied, as though it was obvious.

Oh man, he totally did. How did I miss that?

I squinted at him in the dark room. The proof was undeniable: here he was. Really here. No matter what I had feared, the real and present truth was that he was here with me. The sound of that thought boomed through my mind. There was one solid thing, like the first post of a pier. One solid thing to hold onto.

“You look beautiful, by the way,” he murmured, his lips gliding over my collarbones, his voice tinged with a smile.

“I think I look like I’ve been on an airplane for six weeks.”

“That long? It suits you,” he whispered. My skin puckered into goosebumps under his breath.

“It felt like forever,” I said, letting his kisses restore me. Each one was like a tiny ray of hope. Everything wasn’t ruined. If he was here, it seemed impossible to believe everything was really ruined.

“But you never answered me,” he said, his voice suddenly wary between kisses. I wriggled beneath him, wanting more, hungry for each hope-giving touch.

“Answered you?”

“Stay with me,” he said.

I pushed him back so I could look into his unblinking, sky-blue stare. I couldn’t quite believe what he was implying.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… stay with me.”

How many times had I heard him say that, or some version of it that mean the same thing? A dozen? More?

“OK, yeah, you’ve said that but… I-- I didn’t know that was a question.”

“That’s always been the question, Margot,” he said earnestly, diving back to cover my shoulders with kisses. “Ever since the beginning.”

“Since the… Wait now. The
beginning
-beginning? Like, since Zac Efron?” I teased.

He chuckled modestly. “Well if I’m being honest… Part of me knew even then. But it’s only gotten more intense as time went on. There’s something about you… You do things to me. You finish parts of me I didn’t even know I was missing, Margot,” he whispered.

“So will you?”

I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to keep my face from bursting into an uncontrollable grin, and leaned in close to his ear. Inhaling him deeply, trying to get his scent as deep as possible into my lungs, I whispered, “Say it again.”

He pushed himself and hovered over me, drawing so deliciously close I was sure we were exchanging electrons.

“Stay,” he whispered, then covered my mouth. His lips sucked gently at mine, plucking them individually with his lips, rolling them softly.

“With,” he breathed into my mouth. His tongue pushed at my teeth, opening my hungry mouth for him.

“Me,” he said, then plunged his tongue against mine, drawing lazy circles across the roof of my mouth with the tender tip of his tongue, reminding me of all the pleasures his body had shown my body.

“Yes,” I sighed.

“Yes?” he asked, drawing back with a smile.

“Will you, Margot? Stay with me?”

“Well…” I quirked an eyebrow, trying to look like I was seriously negotiating. “Will you fight for me? If you ever have to?”

“I think I just did,” he whispered in the darkness.

“Will you show me the stars?”

He nodded vigorously. “Every single one,” he promised.

“And you’ll…”

“Love you, Margot,” he finished, as though he’d heard what I didn’t want to ask. “I’ll love you, Margot. Yes. I will.”

“I love you too, Jackson,” I said all in a rush, the words tumbling out of my mouth like water. As I heard each one it echoed back inside of me, flipping through every cell, changing me forever.

He groaned in response, his mouth falling onto mine again with a passion he’d never shown me before. My body arched into his, suddenly, urgently straining to feel all of him.

I felt his hands everywhere as our fingers found each other’s hems and buttons and pulled until the clothes were cast to the floor. In moments, but not soon enough, I had his skin on my skin.

His breath came in short, hormone-sodden gusts as he rocked against me, his cock instantly hard and insistent. I threw my legs around his hips and pulled him close, grinding my slippery wet folds against him. It had been so long, I wasn’t sure I could keep from coming before he got inside me.

He pulled back, panting, then grabbed the backs of my knees.

“Turn over,” he demanded in a thick voice, lifting my legs and twisting me onto my belly.

Obediently I flipped over, angling my hips back toward him, my knees out and spread. There was no point in hiding it, I wanted him, needed him to be inside me. I couldn’t hide anything from him.

I heard a small tearing sound and the tiny click of something hitting the floor. Then his hands were on my hips, pulling me upward.

His tongue was hot and wet, stroking my buttocks from the back of my thighs upward with long, juicy laves. My whole body shuddered as he teased along my crack, his thumbs gently pulling my cheeks apart.

“Oh, my gaaahhh--” I gurgled into the sofa cushion. My fingers clawed at the chenille and my hips pulsed backwards, urging him to explore me completely.

Patiently, his tongue stroked closer and closer to my tight, untested opening. I tried consciously to relax, but it felt like my body knew what it was doing, shamelessly shoving my ass against his face.

With each pass, I felt the tip of his tongue darting just into the opening, then out again and around. The circles went fast and then slow, then fast again. One of his fingers found the throbbing button of my clit and tapped it three times, sending desperate sparks through me.

“Yes, that!” I groaned, shoving myself back toward him. I wanted him everywhere, in my pussy, in my ass, against my clit. I wanted to be filled to bursting.

“Yesss… Baby, yes,” he moaned, sliding a slippery finger just into my ass. I inhaled deeply and spread my legs wider. I wanted him to know that I was ready. I could take it, and I wanted it more than  I had ever wanted anything.

“You want this?” he asked me. I felt the wide head of his cock nosing against my tight but eager hole. He slid it up and down my crack, and I could feel the thick sheath of a lubricated condom. The ridges and wrinkles tickled me everywhere.

“I do!” I said. As soon as I felt the tip of him at my hole again, I pushed back slightly. I wanted to feel him stretch me. “Touch my clit, Jackson.”

“Yes, Mar,” he answered, flicking my clit back and forth. With his hips, he nudged me forward so I was laying flat on the sofa with his hand pinned beneath me. Instantly my hips started grinding against his fingers.

“Fuck, you are so ready for me, aren’t you?” he whispered hotly into my ear.

I whimpered, driving my clit against his slippery, juice-soaked fingers.

Then he pushed harder, his cock insistent against my tight ring. I felt a bright, stretching... burning... combined with a searing hunger from deep within me. I relaxed against his slow, undeniable entry. With every second he advanced, millimeter by millimeter, exploring a part of me no one ever had. I gave in to it completely, relaxing, willing him ever forward.

Soon he began to pulse, to thrust gently against me. His voice hoarsened, groaning out unintelligible commands. I could tell he was holding back, trying to be gentle. All I knew was I had to have him in me, and I had to give him whatever he needed. I pushed back harder onto him, driving myself onto his thick cock until I felt his pubic hair against my buttocks.  

“Maaar!” he groaned, one hand clawing my hip so hard I relished the thought of the bruise he would leave me. But still  I pressed on, feeling him plunging deep toward my core, loving every second of it.

“Give it to me!” I heard myself groan, and immediately he began to thrust, gently at first, then faster and faster, with long, deepening strokes. The sound of our skin slapping together filled the bright knot of desire in my belly like a wine skin, fuller and tauter than I could have thought possible.

He thrust in and out faster and faster as I ground my pussy against his fingers. I wanted to come so badly, I could almost see the fireworks in my mind. Suddenly he pulled out with a yell. I almost turned back but then he jerked my hips up. I heard the condom hit the floor and he plunged his bare, rock hard cock into my pussy all at once, burying himself to the hilt.

I yelped and dug against him, submitting to every command my body gave me. As our bodies pounded together everything became bright, lit from within, then on fire, then bursting apart. He roared against me as I cried out, our twinned orgasms cresting in one magnificent, cosmic explosion.

Rocking, arching together, we rode the waves until they subsided. Crashing spasms flexed every muscle in my body over and over, draining him, drawing life back into myself through his seed, his love, his warmth. He held me immobile against him, my body totally conformed to his every curve. I belonged to him. And I felt better for it. Whole.