Chapter Eleven

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Dav

I’m pretty sure I blacked out for a second there, buried deep inside of her, coming with her pussy still squeezing me with her orgasm.

Her whole body was trembling with aftershocks as I finally pulled in a few deep breaths, bringing some calm back into the chaos of my body.

I’d been too fucking rough.

In general.

I didn’t fuck women like that. With that dark side of me. With that borderline savagery.

But I especially shouldn’t have been so rough with her. Not when her ribs, despite what she’d insisted, were still sore.

“That was too hard,” I said, my fingers drifting up to feather over her ribs, the bruises still smattering her skin. Not healed on the outside, let alone inside.

“No,” she said, shaking her head as she took long, deep breaths, likely embarrassed by her trembling. But, fuck, did I like it.

There was something about seeing a woman like Cinna lose all control that pulled at something in me.

So I sat there, watching, feeling the way she reacted to me until, eventually, the aftershocks subsided, and her breathing evened out.

Only then did I slide away from her, turning away to deal with the condom, before turning back, finding her already up by the pillows, trying to pull the covers over her, wanting to put something between us.

Because I hadn’t been the only one stripped raw during that. I’d seen a side of Cinna that I was pretty sure she’d never shown anyone before.

There was no way the Cinna everyone else knew would be so soft, would beg any man for anything.

But she’d given that to me.

Just like I’d given a part of myself to her that I never shared before.

I got that feeling of vulnerability more than she could have known. But, unlike her, I wanted to lean into it. I wanted more of it. While she worked to build back up those walls she felt safest behind.

I knew better than to come at her with a sledgehammer.

This was not the wall you could slam through.

I had to pick it apart brick by brick.

So I flicked the covers over us.

“Did anyone ask about me?” she asked, ready to change the dynamic, to bring others in between us.

“Yeah. Rico and Renzo,” I agreed. “And… I don’t know how close you are with her, but you might want to reach out to the kid.”

“Saff?” she asked, frowning at me. “Why?”

“She was looking at me weird when I was talking to Renzo about you. Then she said I was lying about something once he walked away. Think the only thing stopping her from prying was Coal coming in all beat to shit.”

“Again?” she asked, shaking her head.

“You remember those days,” I said, shrugging. “Just so you know, I’d mentioned you in passing a few times. Didn’t mention it was in my hallway. Said you seemed busy.”

“Okay,” she said, nodding. “I know you don’t like lying to the family,” she said.

“Extenuating circumstances.”

“Anything going on with anyone that I should know about?”

“Renzo took a job away from Saff. She almost took his head off with a pool ball over it tonight.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I haven’t been in the know about shit lately,” I admitted. “But there was a job she brought in that he thought she wasn’t ready to close.”

“I kind of understand trying to hit him then,” she said.

“It wasn’t about being a girl,” I said.

“Of course it wasn’t,” she said, brows scrunched as she looked at me. “Renzo isn’t like that. But I wonder sometimes if it is just because she’s younger and newer, or if some of it has to do with how tiny she is. Sometimes, without meaning to, I think a lot of the guys treat her like a baby sister and not a grown-ass woman who could probably kick their asses if she felt like it.”

“That’s… fair,” I agreed. “I’m probably guilty of that too. Think it’s different with her because she’s younger, but we’re also older.”

When Cinna came up, we were closer in age. I wasn’t looking at her through a more seasoned gaze like I was with Saff.

“Figure maybe the dynamic we all have with you is similar to what Coal and Cage and the other younger guys will feel about Saff.”

“That makes sense. I mean, I’m even guilty of it,” Cinna admitted. “She had me as backup on a deal she was working on, and I remember thinking that if shit went down, I was going to push her behind me.”

“That protective instinct is a bitch,” I agreed. “But I imagine it’s stronger in a lot of us because we never had someone to protect us.”

I felt her gaze cut to my profile, studying me, trying to read more deeply.

But, no.

This was give and take.

If I offered up too much, she wouldn’t feel the need to do the same.

“And she resents it because she never had it either,” Cinna said.

“So what I’m hearing is… we’re all fucked up,” I said, shooting her a smile.

“I’m pretty sure normal, well-adjusted people don’t end up being mafia capos for a living.”

That was the damn truth.

At least for our generation.

Men like Renzo, when they started having kids, would raise them the way we all deserved, but didn’t get.

“Dav,” Cinna called, voice small.

“Yeah?”

“Can you hand me the aspirin?” she asked, pointing toward the nightstand at my side. “And if you can do it without the commentary, that’d be great,” she added when I opened my mouth to say something about how I knew I’d been too rough.

“Gotta get you something to take it with,” I said, climbing out of the bed, tossing her the bottle, and making my way out into the kitchen to grab her a bottle of water.

Honestly, a part of me thought she might follow me, try to go back to sleep on the couch again. But when I walked back, she was still in bed, though she’d zipped up her shirt and inched further to the other side of the mattress.

“Thanks,” she said when I uncapped it for her before passing it.

I climbed back in, slid down, and waited for her to do the same.

A part of me hoped she might turn to me, might curl into me, let me run my hands over her like she’d allowed me to do when she’d been hurting, when she’d been craving something soft after all the hard.

But she moved flat, likely favoring her ribs, leaving the space between us.

It was only maybe a foot.

But as the moments ticked past, it might as well have been a fucking canyon.

Eventually, her slow breathing told me she’d fallen back to sleep. I lay awake for another hour before, finally, I drifted off as well.

__

I thought it was a dream at first.

The brush of hair on my chest.

The soft curve of a body pressed against me.

Lips on my neck.

A hand drifting down my chest, sneaking under the sheet, moving lower.

It wasn’t until teeth bit the lobe of my ear that the haze of sleep pulled back and made me realize this wasn’t a dream.

Well, in a way, it was.

But it was real too.

Cinna’s skin felt feverish against me. Like her own desire was burning her up from the inside out, and now she wanted me to get caught up in the flames as well as her hand slid over my stomach, making the muscles twitch as her fingers pressed between them, tracing them, mapping me with her touch.

My cock thickened as she teased a finger into the line of my Adonis belt. So close. Then across my stomach to trace the other one.

Seeming to sense I was awake, she reached down, pushing the covers away, leaving no question about my own need as she slid her body over mine. Her lips teased over my neck as she moved to straddle me, then slowly pushed back to sit up and look down at me.

My hands lifted, sliding up her thighs to land on her hips as my hungry gaze took her in.

“That’s a good fucking view,” I said as she shifted down slightly so my cock was pressing against her pussy, finding her already fucking drenched for me. “Thought your ribs hurt,” I said as my fingers slid up her side to move over them, feeling the little shiver that moved through her at the barely-there touch.

“Nothing hurts right now,” she said, planting one hand on my stomach to steady herself as she rocked her cleft against my cock, her eyes sliding closed as she let out a little whimper of pleasure, making my cock twitch.

She looked fucking beautiful just like this. Her head thrown back, her long dark hair spilling over her shoulders and chest, her breasts rising and falling with her rapid breath, moving with her body as she rocked against me, driving herself up.

My hands kept exploring. Over her stomach, up her sides, then closing over her breasts, making her head lower, her eyes fluttering open to look at me with a heavy-lidded gaze as I squeezed, rolled, twisted, feeling her writhing against me harder and faster with each new touch.

My cock was drenched with her desire, and it was taking every ounce of self-control I had not to shift her back slightly, and surge inside of her just like this, to feel her tight, wet walls close around me.

Instead, I reached out to the nightstand, fishing out a condom, and breaking it open.

Cinna slid away, giving me space to protect us then fist my cock for her.

“Are you going to ride my cock?” I asked, watching the flames lick higher in her eyes as she lifted up, positioning herself over me, pausing for an agonizing moment, then lowering down, taking me in. “Fuck,” I groaned, feeling her walls close around me inch by inch. “You feel so fucking good.”

Her answering whimper was another jolt of desire through my system as she kept taking me.

“You’re so fucking big,” she whimpered as she paused.

“You can take me,” I assured her, my hands going to her hips. I’d been balls-deep in her not long before. It was the angle that was giving her the feeling like she couldn’t. “See?” I asked, inching my hips upward, pressing deeper, getting a low, deep moan out of her. “Good?” I asked, a satisfied smile tugging at my lips.

“More,” she demanded.

And, fuck, I could give her that.

I dug my hands into her hips, pulling her downward as I thrust up, making her take me to the hilt, getting a surprised gasp.

“Too much?” I asked, holding still.

“Yes,” she admitted, but her walls clenched tight around me. “But I like it,” she added, doing a little roll with her hips.

Then another.

And another.

As she found her rhythm, I started to rock myself up into her over and over, getting sweet little mewling sounds out of her for a few moments before she was riding me harder, faster, and her whimpers became loud moans, filling the room.

“You take my cock so good,” I murmured, watching her tits bounce as she rode me, her movements getting more and more frantic with each passing moment as she got closer and closer until, with a strangled cry, she came, her pussy clenching around me over and over as she fell forward into me, her face in my neck, her body trembling through her release.

I wrapped an arm around her lower back, fucking her through it, then driving her up again, her whimpers against the skin of my neck, her breasts crushed to my chest, trapped against me, helpless to do anything but let me take her there, the second orgasm stronger than the first, making her whole body jolt hard as she cried out against my neck.

“Don’t come,” she demanded, voice breathless. “Not yet,” she added, voice softer as her lips planted soft little kisses up my jaw.

I froze inside of her, knowing I needed to slow down if I was going to be able to follow her orders.

She was being all soft and sweet, and I wanted to know where she was going with this.

I didn’t have Cinna pegged for gentle little kisses. I was pretty sure she didn’t even have herself pegged as a woman who did that kind of thing.

We were both in uncharted territory with it together.

All I knew was I was all too fucking happy to let her experiment and explore with me as I felt her warm breath on the shell of my ear before she snagged the lobe with her teeth before making her way back down my jaw then, finally, pressing her lips to mine.

There was no hunger in her kiss right then.

It was something intimate and a little uncertain, soft and sweet. A kiss that was for the sake of itself, not to lead anywhere.

I don’t think I’d ever made out with someone as long as I was with Cinna, my arms sliding up and down her back, sifting through her hair, as my lips felt almost fucking tingly from the kiss.

It was physical, yes, my desire still a live wire through my body, my cock still straining and aching deep inside of her.

But it was something more than that.

Almost like I could feel her sinking into me, little by little, with each passing moment. Until my damn chest felt full of her.

Almost as the thought crossed my mind, like she maybe felt it too, her lips pulled back, her eyes opening, watching me as she did a slow rock with her hips.

We both sucked in deep breaths in unison, something feeling, I don’t know, different. More intense.

Cinna’s dark gaze held mine as she took me in deep again, but just as slowly, something building between us that was more than orgasms, more than I could put into words.

Like the thoughts were passing across my eyes and into hers, her lids fluttered closed, cutting them off, and her lips sealed to mine again as she continued to move with those achingly slow, deep strokes.

My hands kept sliding over her, feeling like I couldn’t get enough even as she drove us toward that cliff at a glacial pace that seemed to only intensify the sensations until we were both tensing, both right at that edge, teetering.

And then she fell, her body trembling, her walls clenching my cock, her cries against my lips.

She took me with her, a slow, explosive sort of orgasm that seemed to go on and on for both of us.

At the end of it, though, I couldn’t quite explain the strange, sad sensation that moved through me as she slid off of me, as I discarded the condom, then rolled toward her, finding her already curled up facing me, eyes closed.

It wasn’t until I woke up alone that I understood.

The sadness?

It was because she’d been saying goodbye.