Keep: The Wedding: Romanian Mob Chronicles (4 page)

I didn’t ask for clarification because I knew what she meant. She, Vasile, even Sorin often corrected me when I said bad things about myself. I really tried, but sometimes, like today, it was difficult. Especially when I was in such a state over something that ultimately didn’t matter, even though I grappled with the fact that despite how little it mattered, I wanted it anyway.

“I just feel stupid. And jealous.”

“Of…?” Esther said.

“You. Lily, who I hope will be our new friend,” I finally said.

“You’re jealous of me? For what possible reason—oh,” Esther finally said, nodding knowingly. “The husband thing?”

“How stupid is that?” I said.

“Fawn, we’ve talked about this. There’s nothing stupid about wanting your man to marry you. Have you talked to him about it?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I’ve mentioned it, but I haven’t pushed the issue.”

“And what does he say when you mention it?” Esther asked.

“Nothing.”

She nodded knowingly. “He goes all iceman on you.”

I nodded and could clearly imagine Vasile and the closed-off expression he got on his face, the warmth that was still new but so treasured leaving his eyes. He’d never told me no, but he’d never had to. His body language, the way he went silent, distant, and cold, told me enough. If Vasile had wanted to get married, we would. We hadn’t, which meant he didn’t want to. I was torn on how to feel about that. I loved him, and I knew he loved me, but I could acknowledge, at least to myself, that our status, or rather our lack of official status, hurt.

Esther broke into the silence. “Sorin talks too much, but I’m glad he doesn’t do that. It would drive me batty. Not that I don’t love Vasile,” she added quickly.

I laughed. “Talking about my man? Don’t try to take it back, Esther.”

“Sorry. Still have a big mouth. So what are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know,” I finally said. “Probably nothing.”

Esther shook her head. “You should tell him what you want. He might surprise you,” she said, patting my hand.

“Maybe,” I said noncommittally.

I remained skeptical, though.

Vasile didn’t change his mind, and though he had never outright denied me, I doubted he’d appreciate me reopening the topic.

“You wanna get out of here?” Esther asked.

“Yeah,” I said, standing and walking to Maria. “Come on, baby,” I called.

I gathered Maria and said good-bye to Esther and Baby Sorin, trying to act as if everything was normal.

But as much as I tried to ignore the persistent thought that nagged at the back of my mind, tried to pretend that I was fine, the question lingered in my mind. There was only one person who could make me feel better.

Ioan and I left the park, and despite Maria’s protests, I had him take us directly home.

I tried to keep my outward calm.

I sometimes got like this, worried, panicked, desperate to see Vasile. That was natural, I knew. Every second he was out of my sight was one that I worried about him. I wasn’t foolish enough to believe, no matter how hard he tried to convince me, that he wasn’t in danger.

That wasn’t what drove me now, though. No, the franticness that raced through my blood, that had me hardly unable to stay inside my skin, was because I needed to see him, look into his eyes and see his love.

The drive seemed to take forever, and I was relieved when the house came into sight.

But when I walked inside, the house was quiet, empty.

Vasile wasn’t there.

V
asile

I
’d dispensed
with business quickly, but still hung around. More than anything, I wanted to go home and see my woman and my daughter. But duty required me to keep a good face. The money flowed, people stayed out of jail, and those who followed the rules stayed alive.

You’d think that was enough, but still there were rumors of discontent. Not a surprise, really, but one would think criminals would have better ways to occupy themselves, yet that wasn’t the case.

They expected hand-holding, a duty that fell to me as their leader.

“Markov,” I said, sitting at the table across from the man.

“Ah, Vasile. Hello! Drink.”

I did and somehow I managed to not come across as disinterested as I felt.

“It’s good you stayed,” Markov said, his words slightly slurred.

I said nothing as he patted me heavily on the shoulder, seeming almost undone by the effort. “My man here, Denys, said you wouldn’t,” Markov said.

“Is that so?” I asked.

Markov nodded, as did Denys. Then Denys spoke. “Yeah. I told him you’re pussy-whipped. Maybe I was wrong, eh?”

Then he laughed, but Markov, seeming ever so slightly more sober now, didn’t. Good on his part, but I paid him little attention. Instead, I focused on Denys, kept my eyes glued to his.

“Is that so?” I asked, voice as it had been before, but even Denys seemed to be figuring out the error he’d just made.

“I didn’t mean anything by it. There’s just talk,” he said quickly.

“‘Talk’? Tell me what this ‘talk’ is about,” I said.

“Nothing, it’s just, you know, you have a kid, a woman that nobody knows—”

I moved swiftly, the small table falling aside as I wrapped my hand around Denys’s throat. Markov scurried out of the way and I squeezed tighter, digging my fingers into Denys’s neck. I stayed crouched low, my eyes on his as I banged his head against the wall, the sound a low
thud
that soon was even more muted by the wet
splat
of his blood as it coated the wall behind him.

He went limp, so I let go and watched as he slumped against the booth. He’d live, probably, but I’d made my point.

“Markov, you should teach your men manners,” I said.

He lifted his hands. “No disrespect intended, Vasile. Denys is stupid and becomes even stupider when he drinks,” he said.

I ignored him and left, feeling all eyes on me as I moved, though each gaze slid away before I could meet it.

“Drive,” I said when I got into the car.

I’d brought a driver along tonight, which was a good thing. The energy coursed through me, and I wanted to go back and kick Denys to death. So there was talk about them, whispers of the sort that hadn’t yet reached my ears. I’d known there would be. I was convinced the men spent more than half their time gossiping like old women, but this was the first someone had dared speak such things about Fawn to me.

I hated it, hated the thought of Fawn and Maria even being known to them.

I hated the thought of my world touching them at all. But it would, it couldn’t not, not when I was around.

Which meant I’d have to work harder, keep them more insulated. Because no matter what, I wouldn’t let my world touch them, taint them, destroy them.

V
asile

F
awn wasn’t
in the living room when I got home. The house was dark, quiet, and my chest pulled tight at the emptiness.

That emptiness had been my life for as long as I could remember, but now I hated it, and the urge, no, the need to see her, hear her voice, propelled me up the stairs.

Fawn was lying in bed, and she sat up when I entered, the covers falling down around her waist. My heart clenched again, but this time with the love this woman made me feel.

“Hi,” she said. “I missed you.”

I closed the door behind me and moved to her, not stopping until I wrapped my arms around her body. Then I leaned down and kissed her, her soft lips under mine, and for those seconds, I felt completely content, at peace.

At home.

Yet again, I was reminded that I could not live without this woman. She brought light to my life, brought meaning, and I would never be without her.

I kissed her, touched her, her skin under my hands both grounding me and sending me to the highest heights. So rarely in my life had anything touched me. But Fawn did. She broke down my walls without trying, loved me for who I was and yet made me want to be better, made me want to be worthy of her and her love.

Like always, she melted into my touch and parted her lips, accepting my tongue into her mouth. I kissed her with all I had, the all-encompassing desire I felt for her in no way fading even though I’d had her so many times before. But I would never have enough of her, never have my fill, and I prayed she felt the same.

I pulled her closer, rocking my hips so that my hardening cock nudged the softness of her stomach. That was me and Fawn, hardness to soft, darkness to light, death to life.

When I broke the kiss, I moved my lips down her neck and over her collarbones, intent on going lower, the scent and taste of her skin driving my already raging passion higher.

Fawn yielded to me, her hands wrapped tight around my arms as she held me. I broke away long enough to strip her and then myself naked before resuming my path, kissing down her stomach.

The need to taste her had me frenzied, and I brushed my lips across her mound and breathed deep, the rasp of her crisp pubic hair against my lips and her sweet scent filling my nostrils, intensifying my already fevered passion.

My cock throbbed with need, my thigh wet with precum, but I ignored it and instead focused on Fawn. I pushed her thighs open and stared at her wet sex, the glistening flesh calling me. But I didn’t give in to the call and looked up to meet Fawn’s eyes. She met my gaze, her eyes heavy-lidded with desire but that shyness still there.

I looked back to her pussy and she started to close her legs.

“Be still,” I said, my voice gruff with command.

She complied and I watched her longer, denying myself what I wanted, enjoying the anticipation before I would enjoy the act.

Then I moved, pressing my face against her wetness, the sweet, musky scent and taste of her hitting me at once. I wanted to devour her, and I did my best to, licking and kissing and sucking her, trying to touch all of her at once. Her legs fell slack, Fawn opening herself to me, and she bucked against me.

I threw an arm across her waist to hold her in place, smiling at her frustrated sigh when she realized she couldn’t move. That frustration only increased when I started to tease her clit, licking the hard little nub and then backing off right when Fawn was on the edge. I dropped lower and circled her opening with my tongue once, twice, and then again and again until Fawn cried out on a broken breath.

She was soaking, and the evidence of her desire on my face only made me want more. So I pushed my tongue inside her, spreading her slick wet walls with my tongue and fucking her with my mouth like I soon would with my cock. Fawn thrashed beneath me and held my shoulders tight enough to sting. I welcomed the pain, welcomed any proof that this woman felt even a fraction of what I did.

I thrust my tongue in and out of her harder, faster, and when I squeezed her clit between my fingers, she cried out and then came, the low, hoarse moans, the wetness that flowed ever faster telling me she had reached her peak.

The first of many she would reach tonight on my tongue, my cock, my fingers. All of me was in service of her pleasure tonight. But it was selfish, really. Nothing had ever made me as happy as giving Fawn pleasure, so in pleasing her, I was pleasing myself.

After a final kiss against her quivering sex, I moved up her body and kissed her, letting her taste herself on my lips. I stilled, keeping my lips against her skin, taking in her warmth, the feel of her body under mine, her heart pounding against her chest as my heart did against mine.

When I finally pulled back, I stared down into her dark eyes.

“I love you, Vasile,” she said.

The words filled me with joy as they always did. So did the desire in her eyes. She loved me, she wanted me, but there was something else. I could see the shadows that I hated in her eyes, the ones I had sworn I would see vanquished forever.

Whatever it was, I knew Fawn well enough to know that she wouldn’t speak about whatever bothered her unless I pushed.

I gripped her neck and then traced my thumb along her cheek as I lowered my other hand between our bodies. I guided my cock into her wetness, pushing until there was not a millimeter of space between us.

She panted out, as did I, when we were fully joined, but I ignored the need to thrust and held her gaze.

“Tell me, Fawn,” I said.

She thinned her lips and then broke my gaze. I didn’t loosen my hold, though. If I did, she’d brush it off, pretend whatever preoccupied her was nothing.

I hated that, but I understood. She trusted me, loved me, but her past wasn’t so easy to shake off, and I knew that this kind of communication was difficult for her. So I’d stay patient, and maybe one day, she’d believe, really believe, that she could tell me anything without fear of anger or punishment.

She met my eyes again. “It’s nothing,” she said.

I shook my head at her. “Speak, Fawn,” I said.

For a moment, she looked stricken, almost as afraid as she had the very first time I’d seen her. A fleeting regret, something I didn’t know well and only really experienced with her, came over me. I never wanted to see her like that, and especially not because of something I had done.

But I ignored that feeling. She needed to trust me, and this was a part of that process. So I stayed quiet, watched her, and as I did, I saw her literally stiffen her upper lip and meet my eyes. I was heartened when I saw that any shadow of fear that might have been there was gone.

“I want to get married,” she said.

I frowned, but then straightened my expression when I saw her reaction. I prided myself on my intelligence, my ability to predict the sometimes unpredictable. But Fawn, as she so often had, had thrown everything I’d thought I’d known away.

An error on my part, really. I hadn’t been expecting her to say that, but I should have. She’d hinted she wanted as much in her own gentle way, so her desire was no surprise. That she’d so boldly stated it was. It made me happy beyond thought that she trusted me enough to speak freely, to tell me what she desired. It also saddened me beyond thought that I would have to disappoint her.

I pulled out of her, missing her instantly, but needing the focus that I hoped distance might bring.

“Has Esther been filling your head with ideas?” I asked.

I kept my gaze on her but lay beside her. She glanced at me, then turned so her back was to me. Still, I hadn’t missed the displeasure in her expression and saw it even now in the tight bunch of her shoulders, shoulders that had been loose with pleasure only moments ago.

“I know my own mind, Vasile. I don’t need Esther to fill my head with anything.”

Her words were clipped, and I didn’t miss the hurt in them, so I turned her to face me, ready to soothe her feelings as best I could so we could get on with our evening.

The Fawn that greeted me when she finally met my eyes was one I seldom saw. Had never seen, in fact. She glared at me, as pissed off as I had ever seen her.

“Fawn,” I started, as I reached for her face, ready to put an end to this conversation. The sooner she got this out of her head, the better. It was my job to protect her, even from the silly, impossible thoughts that might sometimes fill her head.

I stroked her cheek and moved forward to kiss her. She stiffened and turned her head, glaring harder at me.

“You don’t have anything to say. You’re just going to ignore that?” she asked.

I stayed silent. What could I say? She wouldn’t listen to me if I tried to speak reason to her, so I’d say nothing. She’d come to her senses eventually.

That didn’t seem to be happening, though, and as the seconds passed, her anger increased beyond anything I had seen.

“You know what? Never mind,” she said.

She rolled away from me and stood and stomped away without looking back at me. My gaze was drawn to the sway of her hips and ass as she moved, and my cock, which had softened, was again hard. She was pissed, but that didn’t lessen my desire at all, nor did the fact that she would rather punch me than fuck me. It was as it always was with her. I’d never been able to control my reaction to Fawn, and I doubted it would ever change.

Instinct told me to go after her, make her see reason, but instead I lay back against the mattress, deciding I would wait. The sheets were soft, and a pale purple color that I had pretended to disapprove of. I didn’t give a fuck about sheets, but having Fawn work to convince me was worth putting up false resistance. Warmth spread in my chest, and I felt my lips turning up in a smile.

Something so mundane, something that would have escaped my notice only a few years ago, had my heart full to bursting. She’d made my life real, made it about more than business, more than being honorable. She had rescued me out of the loneliness I hadn’t realized I was suffocating in until I’d found her. And I wanted that forever, for as long as I managed to live.