Chapter Three

Blood And Gold

Rafe

Willow bows to a cousin, thrice removed, her heels pressed demurely together, though I know better.

"How is your business?" I ask, not looking at the man. My gaze is limited to Willow alone, looking for the telltale glisten along her inner knee where her dress hangs a little more rumpled than before. "Hold it in," I murmur mockingly, knowing she will tear me a new one the moment we're alone.

I also know my father would find this entire scenario hilarious—if it wasn't Willow I targeted, of course. But he isn't here to reprimand me, and I need the dark humor, knowing I just filled her to overflowing to take the edge off today.

Hell, if I had it my way, I would never have left America. But then last night wouldn't have happened, and I knew Dom and I wouldn't have fulfilled her fantasy in quite the same way there. Because the club where she gave me her virginity holds special value to us both.

Keeping my attention on Willow mutes the inane conversation I have no interest in anyway. Once I leave this place, my father's capos will continue to run the organization the way they always have, first in his absence, and now in mine.

Should one try to step above his position, I'll rain hell from across the globe, but for now, little threat presents itself. Which leaves me free to daydream about our nocturnal activities at my club.

Dom left us after our fourth round of fucking, limping slightly as he swore beneath his breath. I reclined on the long ottoman we finished on, with Willow pressed between us like so much malleable precious metal. She walked nude to the window, her fingers dimpling the floor-to-ceiling glass's perfect reflection as she stared out into the mass of writhing bodies.

"Can they see us?" she asked without looking over her shoulder.

"Yes," I answered evenly, trailing my fingers along the carpet. My shoulders stretched back, a familiar ache blooming there after lifting her for so long, though stress ebbed from muscles tight with the burden of unexpressed grief. "More than a silhouette, less than an identity. Enough to let them know someone is here, watching. To let them know what we are doing." Or have just done, I finished inside my head. "Perhaps we should make a trip each anniversary. Create a habit of sorts."

"Of fucking like rabbits?" Her head tilted as she stared at the floors below, not the least concerned about others being able to see and maybe guess her identity.

"Of celebrating annually here, together."

She twisted, her eyes glowing.

"Is that a promise?" Her gaze shifted, her focus aimed at the empty room over my shoulder. "Not with Dom."

I consider. "He enjoyed you. I think … he has someone else in mind for himself."

"That seems fair." Her hair flicks as she faces forward again. "I thought you promised I wouldn't be standing after this."

I bite back the same grin then that creeps over my face now: sinful, dark, and as fucking needy as her. "Then get on your knees, and show me how much you can still take."

She shakes her head, and her dark gaze lances straight through me. "I won't kneel for you, or for anyone until I want to."

There's my queen.

And then…

I smile darkly at the cousin I haven't been listening to as I swallow back my pride, rubbing my fingers over the small of Willow's back, not listening to a word my cousin says at my father's funeral. Nodding in all the wrong places, I dismiss him halfway through his diatribe, gripping Willow's hip.

"How long?" I murmur, my comment aimed at Dom where he stands statue-like to one side.

"Whenever you call it, sir," he mutters, fixing the front of his pants.

So I'm not the only one who remembers.

"Have you heard from Thalia?" My house healer and rescued trafficked victim is the woman I know he holds a lone candle for. Last night, Willow offered a fun distraction for us both, though I can't help the light barb.

Dom snarls softly, following the cousin and cupping the back of his neck with his hand.

"What is he doing?" Willow stares.

I wince. "Something unpleasant."

Whatever Dom has on the man, his punishment may as well be written in triplicate for the pain he will endure in the next hour.

An hour I endure in as much pain as Willow shifts on her feet. "Rafe, I need to visit the bathroom."

"Hold it," I command in a harsh whisper.

"No, I really need to—" She grips my hand, digging her nails in to express her urgency.

"Then you will have to wait," I say evenly, ignoring her plight as I gesture to an aunt I haven't seen in at least a decade, a fake smile fixed on my face. I introduce my wife, letting her wilt a little under the aunt's extreme glare, until I am tired of my own games.

A kerfuffle at the doorway drags my attention away from the torture I'm putting us both through.

"Rafe—" Willow starts, stepping forward.

I hold out a hand as Dom reappears, dragging the obsequious cousin looking much the worse for wear, his bow tie hanging askew. Blood trickles in a thin line from his temple.

"Wait," I murmur, shooing the aunt away.

"I found your mole. The one on this side of the ocean at least. The other appears to be a little mouse infesting Connor's house." Dom throws the cousin at my feet, an open blade in his palm.

"Appreciate it." I nod, unmoving, not admitting I hadn't realized he was looking for deviants from the expected loyalty on my behalf this trip.

Get your head in the game, Gallo, or someone will lop it right off.

"He's not for you." To my surprise, he passes the blade to Willow. "He had a hand in supplying the device that destroyed the boutique you were in that day. Amongst other small things. If you would like." He offers her the knife handle first, along with the man's existence.

The room stills, watching her.

I still.

And wait.

Willow is no stranger to this life, or the blood we walk in each day, pretending its stain doesn't attach to our souls. Her parents' death, her uncle, her tormentors … the list goes on. The man she flayed with me, like an artiste.

Hesitantly, Willow takes the blade, her gaze skittering across the gathering, their eyes all weighing on her in my father's house—our house—judging.

I know why Dom decided to pull this here and now, in front of the masses who don't understand her worth. It's also his way of saying thank you for last night when he used her body as his own personal plaything for his pleasure. Now, he presents her with an offering, a devoted, oversized kitten gifting a trophy to his mistress.

Unwilling to break the impasse between them, I gently rest my fingertips along her spine, trailing there with little pressure, simply a reminder that she is not alone in whatever she chooses to do here.

Her back straightens imperceptible to everyone else at my touch, though I feel it in my fingertips. "He destroyed Christine's business? She was so lovely." Her liquid gaze dips to the cousin who fawned over her hand earlier. "You had a hand in that. You must be so sorry," she coos beguilingly as her knees bend. Willow kneels beside him, tracing the flat of the blade along his cheek, tapping it there with each word. "You are so sorry, aren't you, cousin?"

"Yes, ma'am," he stammers. "I'm so sorry. Forgive me."

He reaches to touch her but I bat the man's hand away with a growl. Tears course down his pinked face as she taps the blade there. I roll my lips, willing her to act, but unsure what she has in mind. Dom gave her the power, and this gathering, for a few silent moments, became her rodeo.

And by God does she own it.

"Of course you are," she agrees, sliding Dom's blade to his throat and parting the skin like butter.

And with that simply he gurgles his final breath.

Blood spurts over my pant leg, flowing to the floor, but I don't move. I've been covered in a lot worse fluids in my lifetime. A deep rumble of approval emanates from Dom's chest. He reaches out a hand for Willow, drawing her up. Her shins and knees trail the little traitor's blood, pooling around her perfect heels. My cum glistens on the inside of her knee, and the sense of ultimate power that washes over me is a heady thing.

She stands demurely, passing the knife back to Dom, handle first, without cleaning the blade. He folds the knife, pocketing it, and bows low.

The room shifts, taking its first new breath in her presence. As one, they move. My best friend, her one-time lover, is not the only one kneeling for the queen of the Gallo mafia.

My wife.

"I fucking love you so damn much right now it hurts. I denied you before but let's take that trip to my room upstairs, and shower so I can fuck you in the next minutes in private before I bend you over the banquet table and take you here."

Willow's serene face turns to me, alabaster and elegant. "Does it really matter where you fuck me? They just saw worse."

She floors me with those last four words. Her elbow is in my grip as I walk us away from the body slumped and draining in the middle of the floor, our footprints outlined in scarlet, evidence of his last breaths.

"In," I snap at the elevator, pushing her through the doors before they are fully open. My hand closes on her waist as I jerk her back to my front, and crash my mouth over hers, not needing to fist her hair as she leans back for me but I do it anyway. The silken length of her black hair soothes my rage, letting my lust take over. "If anyone hurts you again I'll burn the world for you."

"Don't forget to let me have a little fun." She trails a bloodstained finger along my cheek, curving her hand around the back of my neck, her lips parted for more.

My groan fills the elevator on its short trip to the third floor of our suite. I'm unable to unlock my hands from her body as I drag her into our bathroom, throwing on the shower until the room steams, stripping myself and her as best I can one-handed.

Her soft whimpers when I pass my hand along her stomach and press there leave my cock straining between the sweet curve of her ass cheeks.

"You need to be clean. I'll fuck you with his blood on you, but I want to taste your need for me in your filthy mouth, little wife."

She mumbles something as I bite her lips, pushing her under the spray, obscuring my vision for a moment. Her hair tangles in a mass of writhing raven curls on my chest as I play with her body, sliding my fingers around her curves, tugging at her nipples.

"I need to…" She bites her lips and looks up at me through lashes dirty with smeared mascara. Her cheeks pink, and I can't help the smile that lifts my own desire for her.

"You need to what, wife?" I smirk, pressing a hand to her stomach again and increasing the pressure.

"Don't do that," she flinches in her alarm, pulling away from me.

"No." I wrap my arm around her body, pinning her to me, and slide my other between her legs, filling her with three fingers in a stretch, knowing she's still tender from our combined destruction of her body the night before. "You will never pull away from me like that. If I want you to piss all over the floor and wash his filthy blood off our legs, then that's what you. Will. Do." I fill her with my fingers, pressing hard on her stomach, and work her clit mercilessly. "Won't you, sweet little wife of mine who just killed a man on my marble floor downstairs in front of every fucking lieutenant I possess?"

"I'm sorry," she cries out, in the same tone I've heard her say I'm coming.

"Don't you dare."

I slap her clit with my open palm, the water making the sound twice as loud and reducing part of the sting. "I've never been prouder, or more aroused in my fucking life, the way you commanded his pathetic little whimpering ass at your feet. But you do not say no to me."

I pump my fingers in and out of her clenching pussy, relishing in the first hot flush of her orgasm, then a thinner liquid as she comes, all control stripped from her. Warmth coats both our legs, her cheeks red as she pisses herself under my hard glare, pleasure glazing her eyes and reducing her inhibitions, though not the humiliation I steal away for myself.

"Rafe," she whispers, clinging to my forearm. Her body slides between us, pale feet skittering slowly on the shower tiles. Her body shivers in the wake of her need, another thing she can't control.

The way she softens in my arms no matter what I do to her, how perverse my desires, ruins me. I push her forward, letting the spray hit the slope of her lower back, washing away our filthy needs. Her hands brace against the wall as I push my three slicked fingers into her clenching pussy all at once. Her back arches while I stretch her, then bury myself deep there without letting her ease into the brutal violation.

"You are my queen. Take everything I am, and tear apart for me." I groan, kissing along her spine and licking the droplets away as I slam myself violently home. "Like I do for you."

She screams into her wrist, bite marks dimpling her skin when her orgasm passes. Mine follows, too fast, but we're wrapped in a vortex of need and unsated lusts, heat dripping along her thighs as I pound my tarnished soul into hers. Her name echoes back to me as I roar it to the heavens.

Barely able to stand, I gather her in my arms, cleaning her used body gently with Aegean Sea scents and spicy Cyprus cyclamen as she clings to me, still moaning and whimpering. The aftershocks last longer than we've ever experienced. Her hands shake on my shoulders when I lift her into my arms, drying her without speaking or losing contact. I stumble to the turned-down Alaskan king bed, throwing the cloudlike covers over our bodies and tucking her into the wall I make of my body, positioning myself between her and the world.

"I love you, Rafe," she whispers, already dropping into nothingness.

I mumble the same words, following her, our arms and legs tangled together in a knot I'll never untie.