THE CALLAHANS (A Mafia Romance): The Complete 5 Books Series (41 page)

Once I’d been with a man—a boy, really. A college boy who fumbled and hesitated, not quite sure what he was doing. It’d been awkward and embarrassing and painful. But this…I’d never been more confident, more in need.

He was rubbing lotion onto my thighs when I decided I couldn’t take it anymore. This teasing, this foreplay, was more than my fevered mind could take. I’d wanted Sean since that first kiss down in my kitchen. I’d imagined it over and again in the darkness of the night, aching with a passion that I had never imagined before. I couldn’t wait anymore.

I climbed into his lap and stole his lips, my arms wrapping themselves around him as his hands rested on my hips. We kissed for a long moment, and for that moment, I was lost in him, in the taste of him, in the feel of his tongue seeking out all those little places inside that I’d never even known I had. And then I reached between our bodies and sought him, sliding my fingertips around his head and drawing another moan from his lips as the moisture of his excitement wet my skin. I rose up on my knees and pulled him to me, guiding him against my cunt lips, against the opening that begged for his touch. A small touch of fear that came from inexperience shot through my chest. He was…would I disappoint him with my lack of knowledge? Would he hurt me with his impressive girth? Would this be the erotic pleasure I hoped it would be, or would it end in disaster?

Did it matter?

He cupped my ass and guided me at the same moment I guided him. I felt the pressure of him against me; I felt him slide inside me. And then he filled me, a little bit at a time, as he slowly allowed me to settle on his lap, his cock touching things inside of me that had never been touched before. I broke our kiss, rolled my head back, my eyes closed as the sensation of him inside of me took control. He pulled me close and held me still, his own eyes closed as we both adjusted to this new sensation, this new reality.

He moved first, sliding his hands over my hips, pulling me up just slightly. And then we began to rock, the movement perfect from the first. I’d never felt anything quite so perfect in all my life. My mom told me once that good sex was an elusive thing, and it was something you should hold on to when you found it. I’d thought she was cynical, that she was biased by the number and quality of men who’d passed through her life. But maybe she was right.

This…I wanted to hold on to this for as long as I could.

I ran my fingers through his hair and stared into his eyes as we moved together, lost in the affection I thought I saw there. He was so handsome, so lost, and so full of me all at the same time. I couldn’t stop taking in everything about him as we moved together, as his fingers dug into my flesh, tugging me closer and closer, holding me as close to him as he could. And then his eyes rolled back in his head as the pleasure became too much. He lifted me up and twisted our bodies so that he fell on top of me, thrusting deeper, harder. My belly quivered and my thighs tensed, my legs wrapping themselves around him as though I was afraid he would suddenly disappear. I cried out as my orgasm rushed through me. I wrapped myself around him, pulling him as tight against me as I could.

He cried out, too, tugging my thigh up over his hip. I felt him swell; I felt him lose control. He shivered as he rode the crest of his wave, the tension leaving his body as he fell down on top of me. I cradled his head against my shoulder and ran my hand over his hair.

“It’s okay,” I whispered.

Another shiver rushed through him, and I could have sworn I felt a few tears before he pulled away, rolling away from me and disappearing into the bathroom.

Sean

“What haunts you?”

I laughed, trying to brush off her words as if they weren’t right on the mark.

“What do you mean?”

“Did you know you cry out in your sleep?”

I lifted her foot and began to rub it, trying not to look her in the eye. We were on the couch in her living room, supposedly watching some television show she really wanted to share with me, but we got so involved in making out during commercials that I wasn’t sure she realized the show had gone off twenty minutes ago. We were nearly naked, curled up under a soft blanket she brought down from the bedroom. I should have gone home a long time ago, but I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her here alone when it would be so easy just to climb those stairs and crawl back into her bed.

“You were asleep before I was.”

“Yeah, but you woke me up.”

“Sorry,” I said, studying her foot like it was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen.

“It’s okay. I just…I was wondering what it was that bothered you so much.”

I shook my head. “Just a bad dream.”

“Do you remember what it was about?”

I did, actually. It was a dream that I had often, though I was hoping being with her would make it go away. It wasn’t even a dream, really. It was more like memory.

I rubbed her foot a little harder, watching the flesh change from red to a completely colorless white. She pulled away, sitting up a little straighter, the blanket falling from her bare chest to puddle in her lap.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said, reaching over to touch my arm. “I just want you to know that if you ever want to talk about it…”

“There are things about me that you probably don’t want to know, Delaney.”

“Like what?”

I groaned. “You can’t ask me that.”

“Why not?” She moved closer to me, sliding up against my side, our legs tangled under the blanket. “I want to know everything about you.”

“Do I know everything about you?”

“Probably not. But I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

I leaned back against the couch and studied her face. “What kind of music do you listen to?”

She laughed, clearly not expecting a question like that.

“Pop. Adele. One Direction…”

“You like One Direction?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Isn’t that one of those groups that preteen girls scream over?”

She blushed, but that didn’t stop her from defending herself. “Their music has matured a lot over the years. And Zayne just released his own album and it’s definitely not meant for kids.”

“Zayne?”

“One of the guys. He quit and…” She slapped my arm. “You’re making fun of me.”

I laughed, and she just shook her head, lifting the blanket to her face, covering a smile of her own.

“Okay, so my taste in music is slightly young. But if you ever came by my office, you would understand. We’re all a bunch of juvenile delinquents there.”

“What about movies? Do you watch adult movies?”

“Do you? I bet you’ve seen every one of the Marvel movies that’ve come out in the last five or six years.”

“You mean Avengers and Iron Man and Thor? Of course.”

She giggled. “And that’s mature?”

“That’s very mature. Those movies have very adult themes.”

“They’re based off of comic books.”

“So? Grown men read comic books.”

“I’m sure they do.”

I pushed her shoulder. “What kind of movies do you watch?”

She glanced at the television as though it would tell her what to say. “Anything with Melissa McCarthy. And Julia Roberts.”

“
Pretty Woman?
”

“Yeah. Is that too girly for your taste?”

“No. It was actually one of my mom’s favorites. She made us all watch it with her at one point or another. That and
Mama Mia.
”

She nodded. “Awesome movies.”

“My mom would have liked you.”

I regretted the words as they came out of my mouth, not because they weren’t true, but because they opened the door to a whole conversation I wasn’t ready to have. But she didn’t jump on it. Instead, she lay her head on my shoulder.

“I’d like to meet your family someday.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think you want to meet my mom. She’d probably hit on you the moment my back was turned.”

“She’s done that?”

She sighed. “Every boyfriend I ever introduced her to. That’s why I don’t introduce her to anyone in my life if I can help it.”

“She never met Claude?”

“Nope.”

“What about your dad? He ever meet Claude?”

She sat up again, drawing the blanket up to her chin. “My father isn’t really a big part of my life.”

“Really?”

“He and my mom…she worked for him. He owns this big corporation, and she was a secretary in the secretarial pool who subbed for his secretary once. They hit it off, starting seeing each other, and then he ended it when she told him she was pregnant. I think she got pregnant on purpose in hopes that he’d leave his wife, but it didn’t happen.”

“Have you ever met him?”

“Yeah. He’s been in and out of my life since I was fifteen. More so lately for reasons I still don’t understand.” She was quiet for a minute. “My father’s not a good person. He’s involved in criminal activity, and he’s conceited enough not to try to hide it.”

I nodded. She had Jack nailed perfectly.

“Does it worry you?”

“That he’ll be arrested someday?” She thought about it for a minute. “Not really. No one knows we’re related, so it wouldn’t blow back on me. And our relationship is just bizarre. I’m not even sure how I feel about him to be completely honest. He clearly didn’t want me, and he’s only coming around now because his other kids don’t want to have anything to do with him.”

“I wouldn’t think that would be true.”

“It is. You don’t know this guy. He’s a real piece of work.”

I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her against my chest. I wondered what she would say if she knew what I did in my spare time. I wondered if she would send me packing if she knew the reason she met me was because Jack sent me to watch over her.

That was the thing about Pops’ involvement in Jack’s business. The lies were everywhere, plugging up even the best things in every life they touched.

I kissed her neck. “Everyone has secrets, Delaney.”

“Yeah, but not every secret has the power to destroy everything it touches.”

She lay there against my chest for a long moment, then she turned and crawled into my lap. We kissed, moving into a dance that was already familiar to us both. I ran my hand up her bare back, loving the feel of each and every bump of her spine. And then my hand wandered down, sliding under her panties. She sighed as I touched her, as I touched that moist place that had already brought such pleasure into my life. I couldn’t seem to get enough of her. I’d never wanted a woman as completely as I wanted her, as often as I wanted her.

I knew she was aware of my arousal. She was moving her hips against me in a way that told me she was more than aware. I was thinking about bending her over the couch, thinking of how good it would feel to bury myself inside of her again, to experience that oblivion that was such a relief after nearly six years of guilt and self-hatred and this burden I hadn’t been able to put down. But then her phone began to go off, the same tone announcing itself over and over again until she couldn’t ignore it any longer.

“Fuck!” she suddenly cried, the foul word falling from her lips like a ton of bricks landing in my lap, a word I had yet to hear fall from her beautiful lips.

“What? Just ignore it.”

She shook her head, pulling away from my touch.

“It’s him.”

“Who?”

She got up and padded across the room, taking the phone from her bag where she’d abandoned it the day before when we came in from the fish market. Her face grew steadily pale as she studied the screen of the phone, her eyes widening with something like fear.

I got up and slipped the phone from her hands. Even as I began to read the messages, more came across the screen. They were increasingly threatening, beginning with things like:
I know you have someone in there with you
to
You better enjoy yourself because it’s the last time you’ll ever feel pleasure.

And not all of them were quite that pleasant.

“These are from Claude?”

She nodded. “It started the week after I broke up with him, these threatening texts that came every morning in place of the morning greetings he sent me when we were together. They stopped for a little while after that night you stopped him in the parking lot outside the gym. But they began again Friday morning.”

“And now this.”

She nodded, gesturing weakly with one hand as she walked back to the couch, sinking down into its cushions. “I thought it was over, but I’m beginning to think it will never be over.”

“It is over, babe. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

I turned the phone off, setting it screen side down on the counter. Then I went to her and lifted her up so that she was cradled in my arms.

“I’ll talk to him. I’ll make him stop.”

“What makes you think it’d do any good? I mean, the last time—”

“I’ll make him stop.” I brushed the hair out of her face and kissed her. “After I’m done with him, he’ll forget your phone call, where you live, even what you look like. Okay?”

She touched my face, her eyes rising to mine.

“It should scare me to hear you talk like that. But it doesn’t.”

“Good. I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”

She shook her head, her eyes never leaving me. “There’s something about you that makes me want to trust you.”

“You should trust me because I’m never going to let anyone hurt you, Delaney. Never.”

“And what about you?” she asked, her hand sliding slowly over my cheek. “You hurt and I want to make it stop.”

“Some things you can’t fix.”

“If you told me…”

I kissed her. I loved her for just wanting to fix me. But what haunted me wasn’t just an ex who wouldn’t leave me alone, a physical presence that could be scared away. What haunted me was something bigger, something I’d done that I couldn’t undo. It was a burden I’d have to carry for the rest of my life. It was something I’d chosen that I knew would haunt me but that I couldn’t avoid. Delaney couldn’t fix it, but being with her made it just a little easier for me to carry.

I kissed her because she was the first person who made me feel as though I was capable of surviving what I’d done. She was the first person who’d offered me more than pain and guilt. I could almost believe that I could have a future when I looked in her eyes.

I’ve only known her a few weeks, and I was falling for her. It was a dangerous game we were playing, one that could potentially blow up in our faces. But it could also give us a reward that could bring us both things we’d never even wished for.

I was falling in love, and I almost felt like it was okay.

For the first time in a long time, I felt hope.