Promises and Pomegranates by Sav R. Miller

Chapter 11

Elena’s eyesflare to life, fires blazing in her golden irises as she drags her impertinent little tongue over her plump lips.

“I can handle it,” she practically purrs, arousal coating her words as they stroke across my skin.

The flimsy pink outfit she has on does nothing to hide the fact that she’s turned on, her nipples sharp as they strain against the satin fabric. A deep, scalding flush inches up her throat, highlighting the mark I left at its base even though she tried to cover it with makeup.

I wasn’t being dramatic when I said I wasn’t in the mood for company. In fact, before she walked in, I was mere seconds away from reentering the soundproofed outbuilding and continuing on with the job I started.

Leo “Knees” Morelli’s blood still stains my scrubs, with my need to get a message across to Elena’s father the only goal I’ve had in mind for the last few days.

Unable to get through to the Riccis in Boston and unwilling to leave Elena at the Asphodel alone, in case there’s some sort of plot to steal her away from me, I’ve been something of a sitting duck since finding out about the stories making headlines.

Waiting, watching, biding my time.

Keeping myself locked away from my wife, trying to keep my anger toward her father completely separate from our little arrangement.

Then Blue, one of Jonas’s employees at the Flaming Chariot, noticed an out-of-towner who seemed to pop up out of nowhere. No family or friends, and no interest in doing tourist activities. He’d walk into the bar, take a seat in a back corner booth and drink beer all day, then disappear at night without a trace.

He walked with a limp, Blue reported back to Jonas, and had a very distinct zigzag scar running from the top of his kneecap to the back of his heel. No one would’ve noticed it if not for the fight he got in during his second night in town, where he pinned a waiter down for spilling wine on his table.

I know that scar. Dragged the dermaplane tool that created it through his thin flesh myself.

Knees is a Ricci cousin, though a shitty one at that. Years ago, he got caught cooking the books at one of Ricci’s illegal gambling operations, and rather than send him to the bottom of the Charles like the Elders wanted, Rafe had me put the fear of la famiglia into him, then excommunicated him from town.

Last I knew, they weren’t on speaking terms, although his presence in Aplana proves otherwise. I don’t know what exactly Rafe sent him to do, couldn’t get him to admit anything, but it’s not happening now.

Jonas should be delivering his head to the post office on the north end of the island soon.

Taking a small step toward me, Elena reaches out, brushing her fingernails against my scrub top.

I haven’t practiced in months, but they were the only other thing in the basement when I arrived earlier, and I hadn’t wanted to run upstairs and risk Jonas laying into Knees before I could.

Curling her fingers under the hem, she pulls herself closer, leaving just enough space between us that I can feel the slightest whisper of her breath against the base of my throat.

“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” I say, swallowing as she tips her chin up, hooding her sweet gaze with her thick lashes.

I’m already thinking of all the ways I might take her, make her regret ever meeting or propositioning me in the first place.

Things I swore to myself I wouldn’t even consider until she was here enough time for me to get her settled, and yet here I am, succumbing to the hysteria in her eyes.

She shakes her head, dark hair swishing back and forth over her slender shoulders. “I know it’s not.”

Without another word, or even time for another conscious thought, she fists my shirt and yanks me flush against her. Pushing up on her toes, she fuses her mouth to mine, taking charge before I can put a stop to it.

This is only the second time we’ve kissed, and yet somehow it feels as if it’s our millionth and first all at once.

Fuck, if she doesn’t taste as wicked as she did before, the slight tang from a fruity snack lingering like a film of temptation. It mixes with the scent of her pomegranate shampoo, and suddenly I don’t want to ever eat another fruit as long as I live.

If Elena is even half as divine as the fruit in the Garden of Eden, I absolutely understand Eve’s surrender.

Maybe she is just bored, and maybe I’m skipping valuable steps in my plan, but fuck if I’m considering any of that when her mouth devours mine.

A growl passes between our lips, though I’m not sure whose chest it tears from; my dick swells as I wrap my arms around her waist, fitting myself into the pliant curves of her body, and turn, shoving her back against the desk.

Grunting when her ass smacks against the wood surface, she slides her hands up my chest and locks them around my neck, using her fingers to maneuver my head the way she wants.

Sucking and nipping, she creates a storm, lashing her tongue against mine, mapping out the interior of my mouth like it’s an uncharted island.

One of my hands drops to her right ass cheek, fingers digging into the meaty flesh, while the other reaches up to tug down the lace neckline of her camisole. The pale, rounded flesh of her breast pops free, baring one dusty pink peak, and I roll my thumb over it, relishing in the shiver my touch elicits.

Arching into me, she groans, the guttural sound making our lips vibrate.

“Do that again,” she whispers into my mouth, flicking her tongue over the inside of my upper lip.

My dick jerks at her sultry tone, so far removed from the tentative virgin I practically maimed weeks ago. I don’t know what’s changed, if maybe she lied about not being with anyone else, but as I knot my fist in the hair at the base of her neck, forcing her back to bow and present her perky tits, I realize I don’t fucking care.

At this particular moment in time, she could tell me she’d made her way through the entire city of Boston, and I’d still have this need to sink inside of her.

To make her forget there was ever anyone else before me.

Pulling back, I look into her wide eyes, hazy with lust. “Once we do this…”

She scrapes the back of my neck with her nails, sending a jolt of white-hot electricity down my spine, right to my balls. “Once we do this?”

“I’m not going to be able to stop.”

“Who’s asking you to?”

Wrapping my lips around her nipple, I suck on the puckered peak, dropping my free hand to the top of her thigh. I skim beneath the edge of her shorts, searching for my brand in her skin, moaning around her the second I come into contact with the mark.

A whimper escapes the corner of her lips as I sweep over the scar, traveling farther up her leg. Yanking the material of her shorts to one side, I brush my knuckles over her sopping core, cursing under my breath when I meet unbidden flesh.

“I haven’t worn panties since we got here,” she hisses, cutting off on a moan as I circle her clit with my thumb, pressing until she bucks into the motion.

“No?” I ask, raising up to capture her mouth once again, taking charge as her muscles become more pliant. “Has my slutty little wife been walking around every day, hoping to get fucked?”

“God, yes—”

A harsh, insistent knock raps at the front door, echoing down the hall just as I shove a finger into her warm, deliciously wet pussy. Her hands fall from my neck, clawing at my biceps, alarm flooding her features even as her inner walls spasm around me.

I freeze, stroking forward slightly, listening for my housekeeper’s footsteps.

Silence.

“Marcelline?” I call out, turning my head to look over my shoulder, as if that might give me some sort of insight as to her whereabouts.

“Um,” Elena squeaks, shoving my shoulders. “Can you not say another woman’s name while your finger is inside me?”

I look down at her, cocking an eyebrow. “Jealous?”

Her eyes narrow. “Not at all. Oh, Mateo, that feels so fucking good. Don’t—”

Slipping my index finger from her pussy with lightning speed, I tug her head back and stuff it inside her mouth, interrupting her. “I can’t kill him twice, Elena. Sure that’s a road you wanna go down?”

The knocking starts again, growing in volume, and she hollows out her cheeks, swirling her tongue over my digit. My cock leaks a bead of precum as the memory of her slurping at my length resurfaces; she smiles around the intrusion, finally releasing me with a pop when she’s finished.

“I know you like to keep a clean workspace,” she says. “Tools and everything.”

My mouth parts to say something, but the knocking doesn’t cease, the dull pounding grating on my nerves like nails raked over a chalkboard.

Flexing my fingers in her hair as that familiar irritation takes root in my gut, growing like a weed to the cognitive part of my brain, I inhale sharply and let her go at the same time.

She blinks, her left breast still hanging out of her shirt, rubbed red and raw from my lips and scruff. “You’re not going to answer that, are you?”

“I don’t get a lot of visitors. I kind of think I have to, no?”

“Right, but… we were in the middle of something. Can’t you visit with them some other time?”

Normally, I’d say fuck it and ignore the knocking, but add in the betrayal from her parents, and my elimination of a low-ranking Ricci soldata—but soldata, nonetheless—and I’m inclined to believe anyone visiting my house is here with ill intent.

No one but Jonas and Marcelline know this place belongs to me. Even the phone I had set up for Elena pings her location at the north end of the island, some special feature the guys at Ivers International equipped it with.

Reaching out, I pinch her chin, forcing her to stare up at me. “Go upstairs, strip yourself bare, and climb into bed. Wait for me there, and I’ll make this visit short.”

Her lips curve up at the corners, and she nods. I smirk, flicking my fingers against her.

As she slips from the office, I admire her ass sashaying away from me, then quickly discard my scrubs in the biohazard bin hidden in the closet, pulling on a pair of flannel pajamas.

Pulling my pistol out from where it’s strapped beneath my desk, I tuck it into the waistband of my pants, draping the tail of my shirt over it. Scrubbing a hand through my hair, I take several deep breaths, trying to make my dick deflate before walking to the front door.

When I peer out the peephole, I don’t see anyone. Palming my gun with one hand, I slowly ease open the door with the other, mentally scouring the porch for signs of an intruder.

Instead, all I’m met with is an envelope taped above the mounted mailbox.

Tearing it off the wall, I quickly slip back inside and rebolt the door, leaning against it as I tear the envelope open. My stomach drops to my ass as I finger the contents, returning to my office to resituate my pistol.

And even though my gut already knows, I pull the flash drive out anyway and shove it into the USB port in my laptop, pushing play when the media window pops open.

I’m met with grainy footage of a private moment between Elena and I, from minutes before the knocking began.

I glance around my office, apprehension licking a path up my sternum, making it hard to gather a normal breath as I search for signs of a hidden camera.