19. Davide

Stefania doesn't come to bed and it's around midnight by the time I decide that I handled things poorly.

Which is frustrating, because it's not like I told her she can never get a job—only that it isn't a good right now for her to spend significant time outside of the oasis's protection.

I could have done a better job making her understand. It's just that my head is somewhere else and I'm not used to explaining myself to other people, much less doing so gently with my wife. Bruno and Emilio are used to me being a moody fucking prick sometimes, but Stefania doesn't know me like that. She doesn't understand that I get like this for a reason.

I wake early the next morning and peek into her library. She's asleep in a little ball on her big, comfy chair, snoring softly and wrapped in a throw blanket. My stomach twists at the sight of her, and I decide things don't have to be this way. I can be fucking better for once in my life, or at least I can try. I head downstairs to make coffee and breakfast.

She appears right when the bacon is finished, which is great timing by her. I push a mug of coffee over and plate some scrambled eggs as she sits at the table and glares at me like she wants to jab a fork down my throat. Which happens to be an effective means of torture, from personal experience.

"We're taking a ride when you're done," I say, giving her more bacon, and sitting down on the other side of the table.

"Oh, yeah? You think I'm allowed to do that, or should we go ask your Don for permission first?"

I don't rise to the bait. She's still angry, and I'll let her be angry. "Wear something comfortable."

She shakes her head and drops her fork on the plate. "I can barely believe your bullshit right now. You know I'm still mad at you, right?"

"Dolcezza," I say as gently as I can. "Please, just this once, finish this meal I cooked for you then go put on comfortable clothes. I want you to see something, and I hope it will help explain things."

That gets her attention. Her brows knit, but she's still very much on guard. I like the way she looks like she's not sure if I'm about to bite her throat off or if I'm going to shower her in presents. It's a little of both.

"Just so you know, if this ride doesn't make me feel better, I'm going to be even more angry with you."

"I figured as much." I get up and leave her to eating since I don't think my presence is helping much. I sit in the back yard and answer emails from the patio table, but I'm distracted by my wife.

I shouldn't care about her feelings. I'm keeping her safe, and that should be enough for her—except I don't want to go to sleep alone anymore. I want her in the bed with me, I want to feel her warmth, I want her touch, her lips, her moans, I want her everything, and it's very fucking inconvenient. I've never been responsible for someone else's emotions before. I can barely handle my own.

The drive out to the edge of town is tense. She refuses to talk to me and I get tired of trying to draw her out. I pull down the bumpy driveway and park outside of the warehouse before killing the engine.

"You're not about to kill me, are you?" Her eyebrows quirk. "Because my brothers would notice that."

"Come on, baby," I say and head toward the entrance.

She follows, looking a little reluctant, but once inside, she stares around at the mess, and I hope she understands.

The place is still a wreck. We organized what we could, but there are still shards of shattered crates and other refuse thrown in the corners waiting for some spare manpower to come haul it all away. I walk through the nightmare and gesture at a pallet of bullet boxes, thousands of them just waiting for their home.

"For years, our conflict with Uncle Luciano has been quiet," I say, and I hope she can understand how important this is. "But he's making moves, dolcezza. The night before last, one of my soldiers was killed outside of a bar, just gunned down in the middle of a fucking crowd. His girlfriend has just given birth to a little baby boy, and now that child will grow up without a father."

I turn to face her. I'm not telling her this to make her feel bad, but to make her understand. If she had asked me to get a job a week ago, I would've said yes, without hesitation, because I want her to be happy. I want her to find a way to fit in this new life.

But now Santoro has gone from sinking boats and wrecking a warehouse to drawing blood, and that's a line which can't be uncrossed.

"I didn't know," she says, speaking very gently. Her hands stray to her face. "Oh, god. That's why you were in a bad mood."

"Rocco was a good man. Bruno's pretty fucked up over the whole thing. Everyone's on high alert waiting for Santoro's next move, and that's why I can't have you out getting a new job."

"Why didn't you just tell me that?" she asks and comes closer. "I feel like such an asshole right now."

"I'm not good at this." Which is an enormous understatement. I'm not good at anything when it comes to human interactions, much less navigating a complicated relationship like the one I'm forming with Stefania. We were thrown together, forced into a match that neither of us really wants, and that makes this immeasurably more difficult. I don't know where I stand with her, and I don't know where she stands with me, which leaves us tangled in a messy knot.

"Next time, communicate." She comes closer and puts a hand on my chest. My heart's beating hard, but steady. "If someone you care about got hurt, tell me about it. I'll understand."

I put my hand over hers and pull her forward until she's pressed against me. Her mouth opens and she licks her lips, and I can't take my eyes off her little pink tongue. I've been so fucking hungry for her ever since she refused to come back to my bed last night, and that's a problem right there, but it's a problem I can't solve with guns and knives and blood. It's a problem I'm not equipped to handle.

"I thought if I brought you here and showed you the mess, you'd understand better. This thing with Uncle Luciano, it's real, and it's getting worse. That's why I don't want you outside of the oasis's protection right now. Our block is the only safe place in this whole damn city, and if you're at home, I don't have to worry about you. But if you're in some office—" I leave that unspoken. I don't want to imagine her getting killed on her fucking commute.

"I understand." She lets out a long breath. "I hate it, but I understand. I remember what things were like when my family was at war."

I almost forgot that her brothers spent the last few years battling for control of Philadelphia. That'd been one of the most brutal and violent mafia conflicts in the entire country in the last decade, and that's why my father wanted to create this alliance. We're about to enter into our own street fight, and it's smart to have competent and experienced men in our corner.

"What can I do to make this up to you?" I ask very softly, and I find that I mean it. I don't want her to sit around the house feeling miserable, but I also know I can't let her out of my family's protections for hours every day.

"You can kill your Uncle Luciano or whoever he is and let me get a job." She smiles sweetly and I like her vicious little mouth. She's a violent kitten with razor-sharp claws. "Short of that, I don't know."

"I can pay you more attention, dolcezza." I touch her chin, finger brushing toward her mouth. "Have you been feeling neglected?"

"No, not really," she says, cheeks turning pink. I'm willing to bet she's thinking about all the time we've been spending together. Very vigorous, very intimate time. "I just want to feel useful. Back home, I was always—" She stops herself and looks away.

But I pull her face back toward mine. We're entwined now and my body's pulsing to grab her and bury her mouth with my lips, but there's something she wants to say, only she hasn't been able to find the words. I want to help.

"Tell me. You were always, what?"

"I was the baby." She laughs lightly, but there's a bitterness in her expression that tells me exactly how unfunny it feels to her. "My parents barely wanted me when I was born and by the time I was growing up, they were all but checked out. Renzo raised me, and my brothers helped out, but they weren't equipped to be anything more than really bad stand-ins for actual authority figures. I was mostly forgotten and left on my own, and I always felt like I was the cast-off, the least important member of my family, and practically forgotten about half the time. I think they let me go to college mostly to keep me out from under foot."

I try to picture how that must feel. In my family, everyone is equally important, though we've always been in a quiet competition for my father's attention. But my mother's the kind of woman who can spread herself thin and still seems so vibrant and alive. None of my siblings are forgotten, although I'd bet Laura wishes she could be, but it must've been agony for Stefania to go through life feeling like she wasn't wanted by her own family.

The thought breaks my heart. Poor little Stefania, my dolcezza, trying to find her way in life, only to be stolen away by a creature like me. Nothing is fair.

"I can't speak to how things were in your family," I tell her as my hand moves back into her luscious hair. "But with me, you are a priority."

"Priority enough to let me work?"

I grunt and lean down to kiss the shell of her ear. "Find a job you can do from our house and I'll consider it."

She stiffens in my arms and I realize she's perking up. "Really? You'd let me work from home?"

I press my lips together. I hadn't actually meant it—but if that's an option, why not? "There'd be layers of security. But—" I kiss toward her jawline. "We could make that happen."

"I knew you were smarter than you looked," she says, practically beaming. "I'd rather go into an office, but I'll take what I can get. And hey, now I know what I'll do with my other room."

"We'll get you a big, wooden desk. The kind of desk that tells the world to go fuck itself."

"I've always wanted a fuck-you desk," she whispers as my hand grips her hair and gently pulls it back, forcing her chin up into the air.

I kiss down her neck, down to her throat, and back up again, my heart racing in my chest. I haven't done anything for her yet, but I like trying to solve her problem, I like trying to make her happy, which is a completely strange and foreign feeling. My every waking day until meeting this girl has been focused on doing my job and giving my life to the Famiglia, but now there's another person who needs me, and I find myself needing her, too.

"And once it's set up and you have your job, I'm going to bend you over your fuck-you desk, and I'm going to fuck you like the boss bitch you are." I bite her lower lip, grinning like a beast. "I'm going to drive my cock into your tight cunt and make you call me sir."

She's vibrating in my arms. "Promise?"

I kiss her hard, tongue lashing against hers. I push her up against a tall stack of heavy crates and my hands are all over her now, pushing her blouse up, palming her breasts, and unbuttoning the front of her jeans like a maniac. I can't take this fucking pressure in my heart any longer—I need to find a release.

My lips kiss the tips of her breasts as I slide a hand down the front of her panties. She digs her fingers into my shoulders and I drive my fingers deep into her pussy, growling when I find her already dripping wet.

"This is what I love about you," I growl, gripping her bra to the side so I can suck on one of her stiff nipples. "You're already soaked through for me and I've barely touched you."

"You've been teasing me for like five minutes," she moans, head thrown back.

"Are you complaining?"

"No, just stating a fact. You don't even know you're doing it, do you?"

"I'll confess I find it hard to keep my hands off you." I work my wrist, gliding my fingers in and out while grinding my palm against her clit. She wriggles her hips, building more friction.

"If I work from home, I'll have to keep strict office hours." She moans as I hit that lovely little spot deep inside. "Fuck, Davide. You can't just come up into my space and use me like this whenever you want just because I'm around. Do you understand?"

"Listen to you, baby, trying to make rules." My other hand wraps around her throat. "That's fucking adorable." She moans as I squeeze and I feel the darkness in me taking over. I grind my palm into her pussy as I hold onto her neck and kiss her, tongue inside of her mouth, pushing her and driving her into overload. She's moaning and breathing hard, and there's just enough pressure to let her know that I own her, but not enough to cut off her air. I want to scare her, I want to own her—but I don't want to fucking kill her while she comes.

"You think—fuck—you're in control, but—my god, damn it, Davide, keep going—but you always end up doing what I want."

"Only because you make it worth the effort." I bite her lip again and this time turn her around, yanking down her jeans and panties and forcing her hands up against the crates. I unbuckle my belt and open my jeans with one hand, and I slide the tip of my rock-hard dick up and down her pretty, soaking slit.

"This is all you want, isn't it?" she says, her face against the wood. Her eyes swivel to mine. "You just want to fuck me, don't you?"

"I want to ruin you, baby." I push my engorged head against her dripping opening. "Look at you, messy fucking girl. You think you don't live for this just like I do? You're my filthy slut, baby, and when I want to fuck you into oblivion, all you can do is beg for more. Now tell me you want me to fill you up."

"Davide," she whines and gasps when I spank her ass. "Fill me. Please. Stop teasing."

I slide myself inside of her with a growl and fuck my wife up against a pile of crates in a ruined, empty warehouse. I fuck her rough and taste her clit, stroking her with my fingers as I wrap my other hand around her throat. She leaves her palms up above her head and lets me dominate her gorgeous body, and we're fucking in a slick rhythm, my cock gliding into her over and over as the tension grows, and I don't know how much longer I can take it before her back arches.

"Oh my god," she gasps and I feel her pussy clench down. Her body flushes pink as she comes. "Don't you fucking stop, you asshole."

That throws me over the edge. I must be fucked up worse than I thought, because getting called an asshole mid-thrust drives me wild, and I fill her as my orgasm explodes through me.

We come down together. I'm gentle with her when it's over, kissing her softly, telling her how beautiful she is, how good it feels to fuck her, and help her get dressed. She's giving me this incredible look, this dreamy little smile like she can't stop grinning, and I must be smiling back because I feel my lips pulling against my teeth. I press my forehead against hers.

"I want a really big desk," she whispers.

I laugh and kiss her, because fuck, she can have whatever she damn well pleases.