Going After Heaven (Mafia Romance)

Chapter Thirty Seven

Recipe for mild orgasm; a devilishly handsome man, driving you to his place, with his finger absentmindedly drawing circles, slightly into your bare inner thigh.

I've been clenching my core for the past thirty minutes as Gabriele drives us to his place. My spine is rod stiff. My ears are steel in a hot furnace. And my stomach is a newly proclaimed bee hive.

It is everything. His debonair personality. His calm. His protectiveness. His claim on me. Everything is the reason my inside feels buttery.

The farther Gabriele drives us away from the familiarity and buzz I've been accustomed to, the more relaxed I become. And more turned on by his touch and that damn fucking too-good cedar scent circling me.

I've always loved living in the heart of the city. It keeps your eyes wide and your body on the move. It keeps your pulse always on the brink of escalation. You live like you've been on some boost to keep your energy sprinting.

I love action. I love to see things happening. I love to see people living. I love to be in a place and hear noises even in my sleep, not in my space but mostly within ear reach. I love to know people work all night and into dawn around me while maintaining a work-life balance. I am not saying they work for me. I just want to know that when I look out my window, I see people—not dead, alive, and on the go.

Some moments before I lost my parents, everything around me was quiet. The peace was overwhelming. Just giggles from me constantly picking on my mama's nerves as I keep picking into the bowl of chicken salad she had made for Thanksgiving. Birds tried to outshine me with their insistent chirping but hard luck. I was barefoot, with my hair bouncing from side to side every time I giggle because I couldn't keep my head from shaking when I'm happy.

It happened so fast. So fucking fast. And when I stepped out from under that table—- trembling fingers and escalating heartbeats— to see dead bodies and feel that lull. That silence after the massacre. It changed me. It damaged me.

But today, I crave that. Not the lull after their deaths but the one before. The happy one. The one I have missed for twelve years.

I turn my eyes away from the dusty road ahead and look at Gabriele, still feeling his finger drawing circles lazily on my bare thigh from the access the slit on my gown offers.

Hell if he doesn't look like the road will disappear when he blinks. Like we would both be teleported to someone's nightmare with two dicked aliens and pussy on the forehead mistresses. He has such firm attention on the road, but still never misses the rhythm of his spin on my thigh.

His jawline is relaxed. He's mostly relaxed. Always keeping a straight face but relaxed. Like he couldn't be bothered for much. His plush cherry heart-shaped lips are slightly pressed together, thick black lashes casting a shadow under his eyes, bristled eyebrows, glints from the rings on his ear piercings, his curls ruffled in a men's bun, ink peppered arms—one stretched out leading to his tattooed knuckles on the steering wheel, and the other leading to the tattooed knuckles circling diagrams that stirs me to melt iron. God, he's easy on the eye. And slithering to places inside me that have been marked as forbidden territory to intruders.

I look back out. The road is narrow, with dots of cottages by both sides in a distance, away from the main road, swerving past us as we drive.

We've been driving in silence. He's never been the talker and I am just realizing I like to hear him talk. Anything. Though half the time he was mostly saying things to spite me.

But he's a gentleman, with rough edges but still gentlemanly. He is confident, considerate, compassionate, and chivalrous.

How so? Well, the confident part is the first thing you notice about him, from his stance to gait and how he speaks with kingly authority. I notice the considerate part with Helena. He didn't want to hurt her feelings. I felt his compassion when I had the flicker vertigo incident and in his room at my place after the gala. Then his chivalrousness? Isn't that glaring with the same intensity of blinding light?