Chapter 22ANGELO

Chapter 22

ANGELO

I can't believe my precious love has never had a climax with another person. Pride courses through me at the knowledge that my touch just sent her straight over the edge.

"I thought we had to get me clean before you know…"

"The pleasure of washing every inch of your skin will have to wait for another time." What the fuck was I thinking, believing I had the patience for it this time?

It took every iota of self-control honed by first my nonno, then the military and finally Enzo De Luca not to take Candi up against the shower wall, her hair sudsy with shampoo.

She's so damn sexy with water running over her body. I knew the rain shower was a good idea, but not how profoundly it would affect me to see water running in rivulets down her breasts.

If her first time had been up against the shower wall, I would have been furious with both of us.

"Why didn't you tell me you're a virgin?" I demand.

"Excuse me, stalker-boy, but I didn't realize we were dating. When was I supposed to announce that little tidbit? When you rejected me earlier tonight, or maybe you think it's something I should have in the intro package for my spotlight dances?"

"Fuck no!" I'd have to kill all the men in Pitiful Princess for hearing that.

The idea of killing the men who lust over her while she dances is growing on me.

I have no problem with Candi dancing, but letting the men live who have seen her do it is another matter entirely.

"Don't go getting any ideas of going on a rampage on the punters, Angelo. I never looked at them. None of them made me wet." She's rubbing her hand over my chest, her tone soothing.

I force the animalistic growling that's clearly worrying her to stop. "You can keep dancing," I promise her.

"Good, because that's how I make a living."

"But I can't promise not to kill the men who lust after you."

"Because you know I'm a virgin?"

Is that what tipped me over the edge? Maybe. "I'll need to remove some names from my kill list."

"I knew it! You wanted to kill the boys I dated because you thought we got jiggy with it."

Jiggy with it? "You need more friends in your own peer group."

She blushes adorably as I set her on her feet and hand her a towel to do that turban thing she does that soaks the water out of her long hair. These are specially designed to wrap with a narrow tail on one end.

Shaking it out, she stares at it. "What is this?"

"For your hair."

Understanding dawns quickly because Candi is smart.

Leaning forward, her bountiful tits swinging, she flips her hair over her head and uses the towel to deftly wrap it. Watching her do something she's done a thousand times before, but here in our home makes something go weirdly tight in my chest.

There's nothing odd about the effect seeing her backside and a glimpse of her pussy in the mirror has on my body.

When she straightens, I'm waiting with a heated towel to dry her.

"Anyway, that is from my peer group," she snarks, like there's no pause in our conversation.

"Is it?" I pat the moisture from the slope of her breasts, cupping each one in turn with my terry cloth covered hands as I dry the undersides. "I'm pretty sure that song came out when I was still in diapers and you're nearly a decade younger than me."

"Whatever. My peers said it." Huffy, she tries to grab the towel from me. "I can dry myself."

"But I want to do it."

Candi's hands settles on her hips and she glares up at me. "You can't always have your own way."

"Agreed. A healthy relationship is about give and take."

"You sound like you read that in a book."

I shrug. "I did."

"You read a book about how to get along with people?"

"I read a book about how to get along with you ."

Who the fuck cares if I get along with other people? Some men with stunted emotions like mine are so good at pretending, they charm everyone. An assassin doesn't need to charm anyone and I don't try. Not even Candi.

I want…no, I need her to accept me as I am. When she said that watching me skewer that guy's hand didn't upset her, I thought my heart would burst out of my chest with the joy I only feel with her.

"If you'd actually approached me in the last year, instead of creepily watching me from afar, that might be romantic."

Note to self: orgasms make Candi snarky.

"I was protecting you."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah…watching over me." She snags a towel and starts drying my torso. "I got the memo the first time. It still would have been more romantic if you'd I don't know, talked to me."

I give myself a moment to revel in having her take care of me like this. It's not something I expected, but I like it.

"It wasn't safe for you for me to single you out like that." Forcing myself to give up the feel of her rubbing the towel over my skin, I kneel down to dry her legs.

She's a lot more careful than I am wicking the moisture from my hair, before sliding it down to rub over my shoulders. "Sure, because talking to me is so dangerous. I'm pretty sure you cutting the hands off of men who touch me singled me out."

"Not in the same way. That could be dismissed as one of my idiosyncrasies. Everyone in the Family knows I like to play with knives."

"That's one way of putting it." I don't have to see her roll her eyes with that tone in her voice.

"I don't flirt, Candi. I fuck women and I walk away. I don't talk to them." I look up at her, my palm resting against her now dry inner thigh. "If I had talked to you, my enemies would have known I have a weakness."

She narrows her eyes, like she's trying to read me. "Are you going to walk away after we have sex?"

"No." I'll tell her as many times as she needs to hear it. "You are my one and only. I'm yours."

"I get a say about that."

"You get all the say about whether you accept or reject me, but there will be no other man for you." If she fell in love with someone else, I want to think I would let her have her happiness.

But I am me. Chances are, I'd take him out.

The kill list I have to amend now that I know none of her boyfriends touched her is proof of that.

"That's not creepy at all."

"You don't sound scared by my brand of creepy," I observe.

She doesn't look it either.

"Nothing about you scares me." There's nothing but sincerity in her tone.

Just like earlier. Even Severu watches me with a wary eye sometimes, but Candi is not afraid of me.

As it should be.

Sliding my hand upward, I let my thumb brush over her slit. She moans.

"Have you played with toys here?" I press into her vaginal opening, finding it slick and hot.

"No," she moans. "Don't have toys."

I suppose sharing her room with the precocious Cookie means keeping everything in there G rated. Which means that no one and nothing has touched Candi's most intimate flesh.

My obsessed heart wants to sing the Hallelujah chorus right now.

So, I don't ask why no other men. That's obvious, even to me. What happened to Candi in her last foster home before moving in with Mira and Cookie traumatized her sexually.

"Did he…?" I ask. "You don't have to tell me anything, but I don't want to remind you of bad memories either."

I know some of what happened to her. I shouldn't, but I had Mario get access to her file. He's good at charisma and seduction when he needs to be. He sent the reports to me without reading them.

So, I'm the only one outside of her case worker, who knows what is in the now sealed report taken at the time of Candi's removal from the home. The account is sketchy, with very little detail, but the gist is there.

Her foster father tied her up on more than one occasion and fondled her breasts while he got off, threatening to hurt her if she told anyone.

Candi didn't tell her case worker, or her school counselor, having already seen how easily the system let kids down during the five years she'd been in foster care. But she took a chance and told a teacher she trusted, and that trust was not misplaced.

Lucky for Candi, the teacher was dating a prosecuting attorney for the State of New York. With him on her side, Candi's abuse did not get swept under the carpet.

She never spent another night in that foster home either. Her teacher's intervention and the mandatory therapy afterward didn't undo the damage that had already been done though.

Subsequent reports labeled Candi as untrusting and borderline antisocial.

I should have realized Candi would never let her high school boyfriends touch her intimately. The miracle is that she wants my touch.

"Nothing you do could be like him," she tells me with conviction. "Even if you tied my hands and touched me like he did, it wouldn't be the same."

I'm her exception.

Because our souls are connected, whether she admits it or not.