Thin Lines (Donati Bloodlines Book 2) (20 page)

“I was right,” Affonso repeated.

“At what cost?” Calisto roared.

“None to me. I have everything I want, now.”

“Go to hell.”

Affonso chuckled deeply. “I am already there, Calisto.
But from where I’m standing, it’s a lot better place than your current
position. You could have taken it long ago and saved us the trouble of all of
this. I only helped you along.”

“I can still refuse.”

“And what, leave your family and Cosa Nostra exposed
to the Irish?”

Calisto didn’t respond to that. Instead, he said, “And
what about your wife?”

“What about her?” Affonso asked, laughing.

“Do you plan on sending her away to protect her, too?”

“Why should I? She’s perfectly fine here. You’re
obviously keeping an eye on her. She’s fine.”

“Jesus,” Calisto said, his voice strained. “You don’t
care about her at all, do you?”

“I didn’t marry the bitch because I care, Calisto.”

“Don’t call her that. Have a bit of respect for the
woman you married.”

“What does it even matter?” Affonso asked. “Emma is
fine right where she is.”

Emma was still trying to piece it all together.

“You don’t know how to be a coward, Calisto,” Affonso
said, sounding far too happy and pleased with himself. “I raised you far better
than that, son. I taught you to protect Cosa Nostra first—it’s bred into your
very being, it’s who you are. Don’t deny it now.”

“And what are you going to do?” Calisto asked. “Keep hiding?”

“If that’s what it takes. Cancun is beautiful this
time of year. My fight is already booked.”

“You …
pezzo di merda
.”

“Ouch, my heart,” Affonso mocked.

“What heart?” Calisto asked, scoffing. “You don’t have
one.”

“But you do, Calisto, and that’s all that matters.”

Emma sipped on a cup of coffee, watching Calisto from
the other side of the table as he flipped through a newspaper. He hadn’t said a
single thing about Affonso showing up the night before. She had tiptoed back
into the living room and pretended to be asleep before Affonso left without so
much as a goodbye.

Not that she minded.

She was worthless to her husband.

Emma was well aware of his feelings.

Still, she wondered why Calisto hadn’t told her.

“Cal,” she said quietly.

Calisto lifted his gaze, cocking a brow in question.
“Hmm?”

“I …”

“Spit it out, Emmy.”

“I saw Affonso and you fighting last night.”

Well, she heard it.

Same difference.

Calisto’s throat bobbed as he sat the paper aside.
“And you didn’t think to tell me when I woke you up to go upstairs?”

She shrugged. “You didn’t think to tell me this
morning when I woke up.”

“Point taken.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.

“I didn’t want to upset you,” he replied.

Oh.

Emma had not been expecting that answer.

“Where is he now?”

Calisto lifted one shoulder and said, “As far as I
understand, out of the country.”

“Why?”

“To force me into something I didn’t want to do,” he
muttered heavily.

“Women and children,” she said to herself.

“Hmm?”

“Women and children are supposed to be the most
important thing in Cosa Nostra. Men are supposed to protect them, no matter
what. Why does he get to run away and hide, but I’m left here to fend for
myself?”

Calisto didn’t have an answer for her other than to
say, “He doesn’t think you need to be taken away.”

Or he didn’t care enough.

Emma pushed down her rising sadness. “He didn’t say
anything about you being here in the house and looking out for me?”

“Why should he? I’m doing his job. I’m doing what he
believes I should do—protect my family and my Cosa Nostra. And he was right,
the fucking bastard. He was right and I hate him for it.”

God.

He sounded like he was in pain.

Again
.

“I still don’t understand what I heard between you two,”
she said.

Calisto ran the tip of his thumbs over his lips,
laughing low. She wanted to lean over the table and kiss his confusion and
worry away. “Me, neither.”

“What did he do?”

“Something crazy, but it’s got little to do with you
and everything to do with me,” Calisto explained.

“The bruises on my body say differently.”

Calisto frowned. “You were collateral damage. A maybe
situation that he knew could happen. He had a goal that he wanted to meet, and
that was all about me.”

“Being the boss,” she finished for him.

That much she had understood.

“It’s what he wants,” Calisto said under his breath.

“But you don’t.”

Calisto shook his head. “No, because he wants it.”

“What do you want, Cal?” Emmy asked.

“I didn’t know for a long time.”

“But you do now?”

“Of course, I do. I’ve known for a while. I just can’t
have it.”

Emma bit her bottom lip, knowing then what he was
alluding to. She still asked, “And what is that?”

“You, Emmy. I only want you.”

Emma found Calisto sitting at the piano. The cover was
turned down over the keys so that he couldn’t play, but he was staring at the
large instrument like he wanted to.

She had listened for the last hour and a half as
Calisto and Ray shouted at one another from inside the office. Ray showed up,
demanding to know when they were going to make a move on the Irish and wanting
information on Affonso’s whereabouts. Calisto finally had someone to take his
anger out on, it seemed.

Now, he was just quiet.

Emma ached for this man.

He was rarely sleeping, and when he did, he couldn’t
sleep in a bed with her because someone might show up. People seemed to come
and go from the house all the time, wanting things from Calisto that he never
gave, before they left again.

He was torn in a million directions.

She wanted to bring him back again.

“Cal?”

Calisto’s swung around at Emma’s call, and offered her
a tired smile. “I thought you were napping. You’re supposed to be resting,
Emmy.”

“The yelling woke me up.”

Again, she held back from adding.

“Sorry about that, kitten,” he mumbled, rubbing a hand
over his face.

Calisto looked older than his years in that moment. He
still had that twenty-eight look about him, but his eyes spoke of stress and
age that she couldn’t possibly understand.

Invisible burdens weighed him down.

“Come upstairs with me,” Emma demanded. “To bed.”

“No, I—”

“Is there something wrong with me?”

Calisto’s gaze widened before it narrowed. “With
you
?”

“That’s what I said.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you.”

Her bruising had mostly healed, and the swelling was
finally gone. A little bit of makeup helped to cover up what remained. Even
still, Emma wondered if that’s why Calisto was keeping a physical distance
between them.

“Is it this?” Emma asked, waving at her cheek.

The makeup hid the worst bruise that had turned a
yellowish color, but he would know what she meant.

“What do your injuries have to do with something being
wrong with you?”

“Well, since you won’t touch me, and you sure as hell
won’t come close enough to fuck me, I was starting to think there was something
wrong with me, and that might have been it.”

“Emma!”

She didn’t even flinch.

“What else did you want me to think?” she asked
softly. “I miss you. I know it’s not the right time and there’s so much shit
going on, Cal, but I miss you. I want you. You said you would look after me,
take care of me, but you’re forgetting that the only thing I want from you is
you
.”

Calisto stood fast from the piano bench. “Did you
think that maybe my reason for keeping a distance was because I felt like you
needed time to absorb everything that happened, and fucking you might not help
you do that? Did you think that I was worried I might accidentally hurt you,
because everywhere I looked on you, there was a new mark to find?”

Emma blinked. “No.”

“No, that’s right. No, you clearly didn’t.”

“You didn’t give me the chance to know, Calisto.”

“My fucking hands hurt, Emma,” he growled, holding his
arms out to her. “All I want to do is hold you or touch you, and I hurt because
I want it that bad. And you think because you have a few bumps and bruises that
I must not like the look of you?”

She stared down at the floor, unsure of what to say.

“I am sorry that every man in your life has treated
you like a piece of property. As if your only worth to them was your ability to
be constantly beautiful and quiet in a corner, but you are so much more than
that to me, Emmy. You needed time. I thought I was giving it to you.”

“I don’t need time now,” she whispered.

 By the time Emma glanced up from the floor, Calisto
was in front of her. His gaze burned with a hunger that made her body heat up
and her breath quicken.

He was still worried, though.

She could see that, too.

Calisto grabbed her waist in one hand, and her chin in
the other. He pulled her closer until her chest molded against his. She could
feel her nipples harden when his hand drove down over her chest.

But he was hesitant.

“I’m okay,” she promised.

Calisto wet his lips, his fingers dipped under her
shirt to dance across her skin, and her body came alive. “Well, you will be.”

Calisto

Emma dipped lower to the floor, her hands ghosting
down Calisto’s chest and stomach as she went. He didn’t know what his lover
wanted exactly, but he decided that whatever it was, she could take it.

She watched him with those knowing green eyes of hers
from down below, her hair tumbling down her back in waves. The pout of her lips
showcased her two front teeth, and it made her all the more sinful looking up.
The woman couldn’t possibly know how beautiful and sexy she was.

Calisto was breaking all the rules.

He was walking on a thin line.

This house wasn’t his. This woman wasn’t his.

Yet, here he was.

Someone was bound to notice he’d been spending every
night in Affonso’s home, if they already hadn’t. Someone would whisper
something, surely, and a rumor would travel faster than the speed of light
through the family. His affections might have been overlooked before, but they
wouldn’t be now.

He was pushing the boundaries.

Calisto knew better, but he couldn’t find it in
himself to care when he met Emma’s stare, lifted his hand from his side to
stroke her cheek, and she smiled at him.

Because she was smiling for him.

He would answer the questions if someone asked, brush
off the concerns, and reassure whoever needed it that his relationship with
Emma was purely platonic. Calisto knew it would be coming soon, and so he would
handle it.

But he was hoping for a little more time.

All of those thoughts drifted away when Emma tilted
her face into the palm of his hand like she wanted him to keep touching her
like he was. Soft, gentle, and loving.

She didn’t get those things nearly enough.

She wasn’t loved enough.

Calisto wished he could give her more.

When she started working at his pants and belt,
undoing the articles and pushing them down around his thighs, he didn’t stop
her. Before he knew it, his semi-hard cock was in her tight grasp, and she was
stroking him alive.

A little snugger at the base. Smooth at the tip. Long,
sure tugs that hardened his dick until his shaft ached and his balls were
tight. Her fingernail grazed the head of his member, and it caused a shock of
sparks to light up behind his clenched lids.

“Jesus,” Calisto breathed.

“Will you watch me?” he heard her ask.

God.

The sound of her voice was quiet but so sweet.

Lovely, even.

Calisto opened his eyes and stared down, offering Emma
one of his lazy smiles.

“Keep going,” he said.

A thickness lingered in his tone. All she had to do
was listen and she would hear just how fucking turned on he really was. He’d
kept a physical distance between them lately because of what happened.

Calisto wasn’t sure if Emma wanted a man to touch her
after being beaten nearly to death by one. He was also scared that loving her
the way he liked to—the way he needed to—might hurt her.

That was the last thing he wanted to do.

He could never hurt this woman.

She was everything to him.

Emma leaned forward, and Calisto held his breath when
her tongue lapped against the underside of his cock. The thick vein traveling
up his shaft thumped at her small taste. He wanted more.

“Emma …”

She stared at him through lowered lashes, a smile
curving her lips.

“Hmm?” she asked.

“Teasing me won’t get you what you want,” he warned.

Emma didn’t even blink. “I think it will.”

Calisto’s response was lost to his jumbled thoughts
the moment Emma’s tongue was back on his cock. Languid, hot strokes of her
tongue wet his shaft from the base to the tip. Her grip tightened around the
bottom of his member to an almost painful point, but all he could do was groan.

Loud.

Hard.

Long
.

He wasn’t exactly a quiet man during sex, but the
sounds he was making now were entirely different. Desperate and hungry, he
wanted her mouth on his cock, sucking him dry.

It was entirely selfish.

He should want to please her after everything she had
gone though.

“Shouldn’t be about me,” Calisto managed to say
through his clenched teeth.

“This isn’t about you,” Emma whispered.

Wasn’t it?

It sure as hell felt like it.

Calisto chose not to argue. If Emma wanted to suck him
off, and she was getting something from it, then who was he to tell her to stop?

His hand found her hair and weaved in firmly to the
strands. He kept her rooted in place as he brought her mouth to the head of his
cock. Emma never said a word. She sighed in that happy, pleased way of hers
that said she liked what he was doing.

Liked his roughness and his need.

She wanted it.

“Make me fucking come,” Calisto said hoarsely.

Emma’s tongue swept her bottom lip.

The sight alone made him shudder and moan again.

“Do it, Emmy. Open that pretty mouth of yours and suck
me dry,” he told her.

Emma’s lashes fluttered closed, her lips parted when
Calisto tugged on her hair again, and then she was taking his cock in her
mouth.

Wet, warm heat instantly engulfed his length. Her
tongue stuck against the sensitive skin of his dick while her cheeks hollowed,
her lips tightened, and her teeth grazed his shaft. She didn’t even give him a
second to adjust to the sensations of her tongue flicking against his cock
while she sucked him harder, deeper into her throat.

Emma hummed a low, hard sound that vibrated against
his shaft. Her gaze widened, watching him with a glint that said she was
enjoying her view.

He knew exactly what she was seeing.

His teeth were clenched, his jaw was tight. He was
locked in place like a fucking statue, staring at her like she was God to him.
His arm was shaking, and his muscles jumped like live wires snapping with
electricity.

All for her.

It was all for Emma.

“So beautiful,” he told her.

Emma let her teeth slide along his pulsing vein—he
took that as a good answer. Her one hand slid around his thigh, her fingernails
digging into his skin with just enough sting to make him come alive all over
again. Her free hand slipped between his legs to palm his sack with a gentler
grip, but it was still firm enough to make his chest ache with need.

Calisto couldn’t fucking breathe.

Over and over, she bobbed on his cock, her gaze never
leaving his. Pleasure licked up his spine, and he moaned her name loudly. The
sound echoed in the quiet library.

“You’re going to make me come,” he told her. “Your
mouth is fucking heaven, Emmy.
Sinful
.”

A shake coated his words. Emma’s lips tightened to his
dick again. That’s what she wanted. For him to come.

Calisto let her take what she wanted. He swallowed
back his desire to ask her to stop so that he could fuck her instead. He could
have that another time. She looked far too good to stop.

“Fuck yeah, just like that,” Calisto gasped when
Emma’s hand wrapped back around the bottom of his shaft. She jerked him off in
time with the strokes of her mouth. “Holy shit.”

He came hard.

It blinded him.

His knees weakened.

His throat went dry.

Emma sucked him harder, taking every single drop of
his come with a fucking smile.

Good God.

They were fucked.

“Again,” Emma whispered.

Calisto chuckled, running his fingers through her
hair. “You’re making my hands tired,
amore
.”

“Again.”

“
Emma
.”

“You don’t play nearly enough, and it makes me so
happy when you do, Cal.”

“You only say that because you know I won’t refuse
you, Emmy.”

She tipped her head to the side, eying him silently.
Her one look was enough to make his resolve waver, and he did as she asked.
Calisto put his fingers back on the piano keys, and played another one of her
favorites. She bit her lower lip, smiled, and closed her eyes. He ignored the
ache in his fingers, because that smile was more than enough to make him play
for hours and hours if he could keep seeing it.

Once Calisto finished the piece, he sighed and went
back to playing with Emma’s hair. She was sitting on the floor at his feet with
her head in his lap. He was more than content to give her all the attention and
affection she might need from him.

She should know how much he loved her.

“Calisto?” Emma asked.

“Hmm,
sì
?”

“When is Affonso coming back?”

Calisto tensed briefly. “When I give him what he
wants, I suppose.”

Emma frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“When he can come home, sit in a corner, and know he
got everything he wanted from me,” Calisto said quietly, trying desperately to
keep the anger out of his tone. “When he feels like he’s manipulated me into a
corner, and I can’t fight my way back out.”

“The boss thing again?”

“Partly.”

“What else is there?” Emma asked.

“You, Emmy. There’s you.”

The tip of her finger traced circles on his thigh. “He
doesn’t know about us, though.”

“He doesn’t have to. I know. He’ll come back to his
wife—whom he doesn’t deserve or love—and he’ll treat her the way he always has,
as if she’s an afterthought and disposable in his life. And me? I’ll be
standing in the shadows watching it all in my own unhappiness and envy.”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” Emma said softly.

“Do what?”

“Pretend like that with him again. I don’t want to,
Cal.”

Calisto held the side of her face, rolling his thumb
over her soft lips. “I don’t know how to fix this, Emmy. I’m sorry.”

She closed her eyes, and he saw the sliver of wetness
slide along her bottom lashes. He hated himself for making her cry like that.
He wished this situation could be different for them somehow.

Calisto didn’t know how to do that for them.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated.

Emma nodded, and he wiped away her tears. “We knew
this, right?”

“Knew what?”

“How doomed we were.”

Calisto swallowed hard, heartbroken and torn apart.
“Yeah, we knew.”

Silently, Calisto pulled Emma up from the floor and
into his lap. He kissed her soft and slow, taking his time to love her mouth
and explore her body with his hands. He helped her shed her clothes, and his
quickly followed.

Before long, he had her on the edge of the piano,
naked with her legs spread wide. He didn’t waste any time getting between her
legs and burying his bare cock into her soaked, tight pussy. He fucked her
hard, made her beg and scream, and it let them both forget about all the things
that surrounded them.