Strapped: A Second Chance Mafia Romance (9 page)

4
^th
October 2014

I
was going to run
, I really was. In fact, I almost did it. I looked at that door, and then I made the decision to go, but my feet wouldn’t move. They just wouldn’t go anywhere. My brain was screaming at me to run, but my body knew better. My body is aware that although this new Marco is slightly terrifying, he isn’t as scary as what is out there in the world waiting for me.

The men he works with seem to scare him, never mind me. If he’s afraid, it means that there is something to be scared of, which means I need to be smart.

Sure, I went to the grocery store, but that’s basically just downstairs. It was a risk, but not too much. Plus, I really wanted to do something nice for Marco. Okay, so he certainly hasn’t gone about things in the right way – chaining me up for starters – but if I really try and see past that, it’s obvious that he was desperate, and that he only wanted what was right for me. He’s been trying to protect me from the start, and it might just be time for me to accept that.

As I set about in the kitchen, I can see him looking at me strangely from the corner of my eye, but I don't let that affect me. If I continue to act like everything is normal, then soon it will be, and he won’t be able to keep berating me about leaving. Whether it was a clever decision or not, it’s done now and that’s all we need to worry about.

I make him a lemon chicken dish that I remember to be his favorite. His grandma used to make it for him from time to time, and I could always tell when she did because he would meet me afterwards with a big smile on his face. He took me for dinner once, and as I ate it, I started to understand that it wasn't necessarily the taste of the dish that he loved, but the feeling of normality it gave him after his complicated childhood. It tasted amazing of course, but it was the sitting around the table, eating a home-cooked meal that did it for him – although I wasn't sure why that one in particular was his favorite.

I hope I’m not overstepping any boundaries by cooking this for him, but a part of me is praying that it will lead him to open up to me a little bit. I don't want to discuss what he does for a living any more – I honestly don't know if my brain can handle it – but I would like to know what led him to this place. I know it started when we were together before, but I’d still like to know more.

Eventually, Marco leaves the room silently and I hear the shower running in the background. He hasn’t yet mentioned whether or not he managed to achieve what he set out to, and secured my freedom, and I’m too afraid to bring it up first in case it’s bad news.

What I saw could get me killed,
I think to myself as my heart beats faster.
I really don’t want to die.

I gulp my nerves back down and get everything set out on the table, hoping that this meal will go some way to pasting over the cracks. There is so much that needs to be said, so much awkwardness that we need to overcome, and I hope that we can at least do something to help that tonight.

“Marco?” I call out quietly. “Dinner is ready.”

With that I sit at the table with my arms folded across me, and I wait for him to come back out. As I remain in one place, my mind starts to wander into seriously dangerous territory, and I start wondering what he must look like in the shower, with that hot, steamy water trickling all over that amazing body...

As an involuntary moan escapes past my lips at the mere
thought
of Marco naked, I sit up straighter, feeling my face flush brightly. I should not be thinking of him in that way, that is not what this night is about. This is about rebuilding some sort of friendship, just to get through this situation intact. I can’t ruin it by thinking about him in any kind of sexual way.

It’s just so difficult because he’s so damn hot. Not only that, but we have this connection that has been there for years. It brought us together in the first place and made it very difficult for us to be apart. Then after all the years apart, it drew us in again. Like magnets.

When I remember how heartbroken I was when we first arrived at our new home in Jackson, it tears open a hole in my heart all over again. I cried for days, sobbed over the loss of the best relationship I’d ever had, and I really didn’t think that I would ever be able to recover, but obviously, over time I did a little bit. I didn’t
fully
become the person I once was, but I moved on enough to continue on with my life.

At first I focused only on my career, on wanting to make a life for myself. I really threw myself into my studying, trying to distract myself from the pain that was still lodged inside. Eventually, as I got a little older, I tried to move on in another way too, I tried to get into a relationship. I chose a guy from one of my classes, someone who was good looking enough in a bland kind of way, but that I knew would be safe forever. He wouldn’t break my heart like Marco did, because I would never really give it to him.

But he bored me, and because there was absolutely no spark, it really didn’t work. In fact, it lasted three measly months, and it didn’t even get as far as the bedroom.

The sad fact is, I’m still a virgin. I’ve been waiting all this time for the right man, yet here I am, fantasizing over a man that couldn't be more wrong.

“Are you okay?” Marco asks, interrupting me from my thoughts.

“Oh erm, yes, thanks,” I blush brightly. “Are you?”

“Food looks great,” he smiles brightly, warming me up inside. “Thank you for making this. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had a home-cooked meal.” The sad look that spreads across his face breaks my heart even more. It proves what I’ve been fearing, that his grandma is no longer alive.

“Thank you,” I whisper, sipping my wine quickly. “I hope you enjoy it.”

We eat in silence for a while, but I can’t relax. My eyes keep flickering over to him, praying that he will start speaking first to address everything. In the end, he doesn’t and my crazy brain can’t take it anymore so I blurt something out without even thinking. “Did you manage to sort things today? Did you... have your meeting?”

“Erm,” his face goes pale and he starts to look a little awkward. “It isn’t going to be straightforward, but it is being sorted. One way or another, everything will be okay.”

“Right,” I drawl slowly, wondering how he can be sure. “Okay great.”

Marco looks at me curiously, seeing that I’m really uncomfortable. I’m not even aware enough to try and change my face for his benefit. I’m scared, confused, and I feel really out of my depth. This isn’t a situation that I ever envisioned myself getting into – it’s like something from a movie – and I keep waiting to wake up from it.

But I don't.

I’m really here, I’m really in the middle of this, and my future isn’t fully in my hands.

“Look, I know what you probably think about me and those guys, but we aren’t all bad.” He sighs deeply, and looks to the floor, but I don't take my eyes off his face for one second. Is he going to try and justify his lifestyle to me? What the hell am I going to say to that? “They... they might not be the sort of people that you are used to, but they’ve become my family. Especially since...”

He gulps and I grab onto his hands instinctively, wanting to comfort him. I already know what he’s going to say, and I’m so sad for him. I wish that I could do something to take away the pain that’s plastered over his expression.

“Especially since grandma died.”

“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” I gasp, standing up and wrapping my arms around him. “That must have been so hard for you; I know how much she meant to you. I wish... I wish that I was around.”

“No, no, you don’t,” he shoots back, rubbing his eyes. “I fell apart, I became a real mess. I’m glad you didn’t get to see that part of me.”

I feel like the time is upon me, and that it’s now or never.

“Is that... why you turned into a killer?” My heart thumps as these words leave my mouth, but I need to know. I need some sort of answers before I can even think about anything else.

“I killed before,” he tells me honestly. “But this life... this is the best that a guy like me could ever hope for.” I stare at him curiously, wondering what the hell he’s on about. “You wouldn’t get it,” he continues, clearly seeing where my mind is headed. “You come from a good family, a good background, a good life. You’re a smart and beautiful girl with the world at your feet. Not me, I’m just a scumbag.” I shake my head, but he doesn’t stop talking. “I come from the ghetto, my dad was a junkie who ended up dead, my mom a stripper who ran off with one of her clients. I’ve never been able to become more than this. That’s why I am who I am.”

“Is that why you let me go?” I ask with a tremble in my voice. “Is that why you didn’t say anything when I told you that I loved you?”

“Of course,” he replies, as if it’s totally obvious. “I had to let you go, I had to let you have the life that you were always destined to have. I let you go because I loved you... love you.”

Love? Present tense?

My heart flickers all over my body sending a weird buzzing feeling through my veins, but he doesn’t give me long enough to think about it too much.

“I know what you think of me, I can see it in your face, but I’m not as bad as I might seem. That guy – the one I killed – his name was Dazza, and he was the lowest of the low. He was a drug peddler who pushed cocaine and meth onto teenagers. I never got involved with him in any way until his death, but I knew all about him. He borrowed money left, right, and center and he never paid it back. That is what got him killed in the end. It might not have been the right thing to do, but trust me the streets are much better off without him.”

“And the other people you’ve killed?” I instantly shoot back. “Are they all scum too? Is the world better off without them too?”

“Of course,” he insists. “We all are. The world would be better off without the lot of us.”

“Not you,” I practically whisper back as my mind reels. “The world wouldn’t be better off without you.”

I don't know why I’m saying that, only that it feels like the truth. I don't know about the world, but I know for a fact that my life would be worse if he wasn't in it. It has been bad without him, it was like a light had dulled within me, and now with Marco back by my side it has switched back on.

Do I love him? Is that where all of this is headed? I know that the smart answer would be no, but I honestly, truly think that it might be a yes.

4
^th
October 2014

T
here are so
many unsaid things flowing between us, and I really wish that we were in a position to vocalize them, but of course we can’t – not when things are so weird, not when our lives are hanging so delicately in the balance.

We are sharing an intense eye contact that really has the power to lead us somewhere, but I’m not sure if that’s wise. I love Olivia and I would like nothing more than to scoop her up into my arms and claim her, but it could really mess up this living situation that we both need to have.

“I...”

“We...”

We both start talking at once, before bursting into awkward giggles. There is an element of us returning to something like normal here, which I want to grasp onto with both hands.

“I need to get changed,” I reply, just saying words without even thinking about what I’m saying. I’ve only just had a shower and put these clothes on, but I’m committed now. I need a time out, and this seems like the easiest way to do that.

I turn my back on Olivia and make my way into the bedroom, breathing deeply as I go. I need to calm my body down before it freaks out and does something insane. It already wants Liv so badly I could burst.

But as I whip my shirt off, and glance at myself in the mirror, I spot a shadow behind me. One that I know belongs to Olivia. I don't turn around at first because I can already sense what she wants, and I need to decide if I’m going to follow through with it despite all of my internal protests. I could argue with myself until the end of time that it isn’t wise, but the fact that she’s there, wanting me after all this time is too much for me to resist.

My eyes connect with hers and my heart does a dance all over again. Her gaze runs down my half-naked body and she practically gasps with what she sees. This might actually be it, the first night that we ever take things that step further. We’ve fooled around before, when we were young and now, but we’ve never actually had sex. She was never ready and I always respected that.

In the end, I wish we had done it, because at least my virginity loss would have meant something. In the end, it actually happened on a drunken night, a month or so after she left, with some random cougar in a nightclub bathroom. I was just so desperate to forget her, to lose myself in the life that I knew I was desperate to have, that I allowed the first woman who wanted me to take me... and I haven’t done much better ever since.

“What are you doing here?” I rasp at her.

Instead of replying, she moves slowly and seductively towards me, and she wraps her arms tightly around my body. I inhale her familiar, citrusy scent and I can instantly feel my cock strain against my jeans, Olivia has always been the one girl who could get me going no matter what, which is why I’ve always had to pick women who were totally different from her. Anyone that reminded me of her would have been far too off-putting.

She leans up toward me and places a sweet kiss on my lips – one that has me trembling excitedly. I move my mouth against hers gently, not wanting to push her too far, but she instantly reacts in a heady and passionate way. She kisses me frantically, pressing her body up against mine, making her message very clear.

She wants this. She really,
really
wants this.

I snake my hand up the t-shirt she’s wearing, tracing my fingers lightly over her skin. I’m going as slowly as I can physically manage, really restraining myself, but she isn’t playing the same way as me. She’s forcing me to react, and that is driving me wild.

I watch intently as she steps back and whips the shirt over her head, revealing a very sexy lacy black bra to me.

“Oh God,” I pant, drinking all of her in. “You’re just so amazing.”

I step forward and rain kisses all over her neck and collarbone, wanting to have my mouth all over her skin. I feel like any tiny piece of her that hasn’t been kissed by me is wasted, and I need to rectify that right now. She runs her fingers through my hair, tugging at me, grasping me passionately.

“Whoa, wait, wait,” she suddenly calls out, shoving me away from her. As I look at her flushed face in confusion, I start to wonder where this all went wrong. I can see that it’s all about to be stopped just as I was about to get in the mood, and I’m absolutely gutted. Of course I respect her, and I understand her choice, but I was excited to finally experience all that she has for me, so I can’t help being upset. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

She slumps onto the bed, looking like she’s in shock, and I sit across from her quietly, waiting for her to open up.

“I... I always tried to move on from you,” she tells me, and I narrow my eyes, wondering where the hell this is going. “But I couldn't. No one was the same, no one was good enough,” I almost go to dispute this insane statement, but I stop myself just in time. I don't want to wreck this moment of her opening up to me – she might be about to say something really important. “And so I never... I never...” She turns an odd shade of pale. “I never slept with anyone else...”

“Wait,” I try to process this as she fixes her face pale considerably. “But we didn’t have sex either.” I might be sounding really dumb, but I need to clarify this before I can go any further.

“I know,” she whispers. “I’m a virgin, I’ve never had sex.”

“Whoa,” I gasp, slumping backwards. I’m overly happy that she hasn’t been with anyone else. The fact that she was willing to give me her virginity is huge, but at the same time it’s too much. I definitely don't deserve that.

“I want you to be my first,” she confirms sliding closer to me. “You were always supposed to be, and that hasn’t changed as far I’m concerned. I just... I wanted you to know before anything happened. I didn’t want you to do something if you didn’t want to.”

“Are you kidding me?” I exclaim, dumbfounded. “All I want is you, all I’ve ever wanted it you. I love you, there’s no denying that. I’ve always loved you and I always will. But you deserve so much better...”

“Shhh,” she silences my protests by pressing her finger up against my lips. As I stare into her eyes I can see a deep, fiery passion burning behind her eyes, one that wants to eat me up hungrily, and that’s almost impossible to resist. “I trust you, I know that you’ll take care of me, and you’ve always been good enough in my eyes.” She pauses thoughtfully for a second, before speaking out once more. “I love you too, I hope you know that by now.”

“Even after...” I start, wanting to check that my life has taken that from her.

“Even after finding out what you do. I don't like it, but I know that you’re so much more than that.” She kisses me lightly on my nose. “You might not be able to see that, but I can. I see a totally different version of you than you do.”

I wonder what she means by that, but not for too long because her lips are upon mine again, sending sparks of desire racing right through me.

After a while I give in to what we both know is going to happen and I lie her back on the bed, hovering over her. I reach my arms behind her and unhook her bra, needing to see even more of her skin than she’s already showing me. Once those wonderful breasts are out, and I’ve tossed her bra haphazardly to one side, I run my mouth and tongue all over her nipples, loving the way that her back arches against me as I go. She seems freer now that she’s told me the truth, happier, and I love that. She always told me that I was the only person that she could truly be herself around, and it feels like we’re slowly sliding back into that place again.

“Oh God,” she gasps, tugging at my pants, desperately wanting them off. I help her along by kicking them to the ground, but she doesn’t stop there, she needs my underwear gone too so that she can grab me between her fingers.

As she strokes my shaft, I tremble between her hands, feeling a whole range of new sensations flooding through me. Of course, we have been in this position before, more than once, but now I know it’s leading somewhere brand new, and there is a real fission of excitement inside of me. I can’t wait to know what it’ll be like to be inside of her, driving her into an oblivion. I might not be the one who’s a virgin, but it certainly feels that way. This will be the first time I’ve actually made love, rather than fucked someone, and there’s a whole bunch of pressure on my shoulders.

I need this to be amazing. I need Liv to have the time of her life.

I move my hand up her leg tantalizingly, wanting to bring her to the brink of desire before anything else happens. I watch her face contort as my fingers trace the edge of her panties, waiting, teasing before they finally explore that hot, wet desire. I can already feel a need emanating from her core, proving that she’s acutely aware of the new way this is headed too.

“Are you okay?” I ask her, wanting to be sure. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I’m sure,” she nods vigorously. “I’m really, really sure. I definitely want to do this.”

She looks so certain, so filled with desire that I can’t help but smile to myself. I yank her underwear down quickly, as if it’s the most inconvenient garment in the world, and I start to feel her with my fingers.

“Oh fuck,” I moan, resting my forehead against hers. “You’re so wet.”

“All for you,” she pants back, parting her lips in ecstasy. “That’s what you do to me.”

Her hands grip the sheets tightly between her fingers as the pleasure gets too much for her, and as her head lolls to one side, it all becomes too much for me, so I move my hand away and I begin to slide my length in, inch by inch. I move carefully, acutely aware that this might be painful for her as it’s her first time, but she doesn’t look to be in pain. If anything, she looks happier than I’ve ever seen before.

“Oh my God, that feels so good,” she groans. “I need more of you.”

It’s almost as if she doesn’t quite know what she’s asking for, but I give it to her anyway. I move harder and faster, focusing only on her and her pleasure. Usually, when I’m with a chick I only care about my needs, so this is a change for me, but it’s an awesome change – it makes me feel good about myself.

She clings tightly to me as I thrust against her, feeling all of the sensations that her body is rocking through my body. I feel more amazing than I ever have done before, and I never want it to end.

“Oh God, Marco,” she screams against me as I can feel the orgasm shudder through her. “I love you so fucking much.”

As the intense waves of pleasure consume me, and I explode with lust, all I can think about is making this life work for me and Olivia. We really do love each other and that means so much. It isn’t just my mob family that care about me anymore, in fact they probably never did. I have a chance here, an opportunity, and I don't want to make the wrong choice again.

Moments later as we both collapse on the bed side by side, laughing happily, I turn toward her smiling face. “I love you too,” I tell her, feeling raw and open but in a really good way. “I really do, so much.”