Secret Baby For The Italian Mafia Don

Part 12

AVA POV:

The bang cracks like a gunshot. It jolts me awake, floods fear and grief into
my heart. I scramble to my feet, my eyes roaming the darkness without seeing
it, trying to make sense of where I am. I see a party, white tablecloths, and
bits of bloodied bone glittering in the summer sun. Vinny's name turns into a
broken sob on my lips.
My back hits a wall. It jolts me to the present as a hand closes on my throat. I
can't breathe. My nails claw against the phantom hold on my neck. Finally,
my eyes focus, really see the figure in front of me. The room creeps into the
corners of my vision, familiar and solid. Half a year's worth of memories
abruptly wedge themselves between me and Vinny's murder again.
Nico stands in the moonlight spilling through the open curtains, his hand on
my neck, his words breaking through the fog of screams in my head.
"Look at me."
Finally, I look at him and really see him. I gasp for air as I realize I can't get
any. His hold loosens as I draw in deep, shaking breaths. I push away from
him.
"What the fuck?" I yell, too confused and bewildered to even make it sound
angry.
"What do you think you're doing?" he asks, furious with me for whatever
reason.
The question is so stupid, it snatches the word from my lips.
"Sleeping?!"
"Yeah? Is that how you pass the time in here, curled up in bed and dreaming
the days away like Sleeping Beauty, just waiting for someone to come wake
her up?"
"It's the middle of the night!"
"You know damn well what I'm talking about. I thought you were just
avoiding me, playing your little hard-to-get games. I didn't know you were
locked up in here all day and night, avoiding the world."
I knew this was coming, like a predicted storm charted across the Atlantic,
counting the days until its rain and wind batter against my window. Nico's
texts have piled up, unanswered:
I know I wore that pussy out, but you have to get up eventually.
Where are you?
How long do you think you can hide from me?
Unlock your door and let me wake you up how you like it.
Keep ignoring me. See what I do next time I get my hands on
you.
(You'll fucking love it.)
Every day I don't have you, it just makes me worse.
The messages go on and on. Between them, he sent pictures of himself.
Videos, occasionally. My phone is littered with his suggestions, his threats,
his promises, his fantasies.
One message in particular, I have played over and over, listening to his low
morning voice telling me about the dream he had where he had me chained to
his bed, needy for him like a cat in heat. In the dream, my only purpose was
to wait around to be fucked by him. I was his good girl, at the ready and
waiting for him night and day, and that I loved it when he would come and
take me whenever he wanted.
Nico wouldn't wait around, polite and patient forever. This was doomed to
happen. He would storm his way back into my life, into this room where I
once shared late nights with Vinny, cuddled up together, chewing through
mindless reality TV and stand-up specials. The one sacred place he shouldn't
be able to reach me.
In my silence, Nico pushes forward and kisses me hard. My hair spills
through his fingers as he catches my face between his hands and overwhelms
me.
"I shouldn't have played nice," he whispers between breathy kisses. "I
shouldn't have let you anywhere out of my sight. I should have kept you
beneath me in that hotel room for weeks, teaching you your place."
My breath hitches.
There's a no sitting stubborn on my tongue, but it won't leave my lips. I can't
make a sound.
I didn't know it at the time, but the hotel room was like a vacation from
reality, where for just a few hours, the real world had no meaning. No past, no
future. While we were there, being with Nico felt good in all the ways that it
felt wrong. When I came back here and sat in the old, worn room I once
shared with Vinny, where little reminders of him are tucked into every corner,
on every wall, in every drawer—it broke me.
I still thought about Nico.
That wasn't supposed to happen. I wasn't supposed to keep wanting him after
that night. I wasn't supposed to replay his messages or trace the bruises of his
fingerprints in the mirror.
Two tectonic plates in my life collided: my broken love for Vinny slammed
right up against this sudden hunger for Nico, and I got pinned under the
rubble, unable to dig my way out. Nico was right—I liked it when he fucked
me slowly, gently. When he tortured me with lovemaking that made my heart
curl up and my belly flutter. Like a wife, as he put it.
If I couldn't feel that with Vinny, I told myself I would never feel it at all.
That it simply wasn't meant to be in my life. I wasn't supposed to feel it,
want it, lie in bed and daydream about it like a teenager all over again. I took
Nico's deal because I was so sure he couldn't get deep enough to hurt me.
But I'm hurt.
Universe two, Ava zero.
"Nico, don't," I whisper as he kisses me the only way he knows how to kiss—
desperate and hungry. Nothing else is natural to him.
"That's not a no," he says.
I can't bring myself to utter the one syllable that will make him stop. My
silence goes on too long. He kisses me again and brings me up into his arms.
My legs wrap around his waist, the muscle memory of our night together
coming back hot and blazing between my thighs.
The pain faded and the bruises healed, and I missed them. I missed him.
"No," I finally choke out when my back hits the bedsheets. "Not here," I hear
myself saying, over and over. "Not in here. Not like this. Please," I beg him,
so senseless as I sprawl under him. My pleading fills up the silence until I
realize Nico really has stopped.
I sit up, taking one look at him and my broken door and my clothes all over
the floor, and all at once, I do what I haven't done in months—I start to cry.
Pathetically, in front of the most attractive man I've ever seen, tears that have
nothing to do with physical pain or pleasure come spilling down my cheeks. I
bury my face in my hands, trying to hide it.
Nico freezes.
His hands come up halfway, hesitating, as if he suddenly doesn't know what
to do. I've never seen him look uncertain before. "Stop it," he whispers
fiercely, sitting down and pulling me into him. He buries my face in his chest
where I cry against him instead. He holds me like that for what feels like an
eternity. My throat hurts and my eyes feel stiff. I don't have any more tears to
give.
"I'm sorry," I manage. "I can't. I shared this room with him."
Finally, Nico tilts my head to look at him. He swims in front of my vision, all
dark shadow and ghostly highlights. His breathing is elevated, his expression
shaken.
"Ava. I'm not Marcel. I'm not Sal. I'm not any of your little girlfriends that
are gonna come bring you cookies and tissues and cry with you. If you need
that, you need to tell me to leave. Right now. I'm not gonna sit here and let
you just cry. I won't let you bleed out without doing something about it. I'll
cauterize a wound if I have to."
"That's not what I need," I finally admit.
That brand of kindness has never helped me before. I've been offered plenty
of it, more than I knew what to do with. It was always wasted on me.
"Then talk to me," he whispers, his hands on me so tight they hurt. "Tell me
what's hurting you. Let me fucking kill it for you."
"I feel like I betrayed him," I confess, the hardest six words I've ever uttered.
My lungs hurt with how violently I try to hold back my sobbing and pitchy
breathing, desperate to get some kind of control.
Nico's hand curls around the back of my head.
"I told you to blame me," he reminds me firmly. "I made you feel those
things. It wasn't your fault, but you had to feel them. You had to know before
you signed your life off to someone who wasn't gonna give a damn about
what you feel."
I shake my head. Nico didn't force me to do anything I didn't want to.
"You didn't betray shit, Ava. You liked being fucked, that's all. You're
supposed to like it."
My eyes adjust to the pitch dark, and I see the fresh cuts and bruises on
Nico's face. I sniffle.
"Were you fighting again?"
I reach up to touch them, but he catches me by the wrist.
"When I brought you back home that day, you were fine. What happened?"
I glance around in the dark. I can't see much, but I know every inch of this
room. I can close my eyes and know exactly what it looks like. I turn on the
bedside lamp so we can finally see, and I can wipe my eyes on something that
isn't the front of Nico's shirt.
"It's just this place," I say through shaking breaths. "When I came back, I
just...I couldn't do it." The truth swims in my eyes, obscuring the room again
as I blink back more tears, refusing to let them start again. "It finally felt like
I did something I shouldn't have. I didn't think it would..."
"You didn't think it would change anything."
I force a tiny smile, nodding. "You warned me. You said you'd fix me or
you'd break me. I guess now we know which one it was."
Nico's throat works, the meaning sinking in.
"Come on," he says, taking me by the arm. My feet instinctively drag against
the floor.
"Nico, I'm tired," I beg, having done nothing all day except be miserable,
which takes a lot out of a person when it's your only full-time gig.
"You think I'm not?" he counters me. "I'm tired of wanting you every
goddamn day, while you're locked up where I can't have you. I'm tired of
constantly wondering what you're doing, what you're wearing, what you're
thinking about. You know what it's like, living in the same house as you?
Like I'm a recovering alcoholic working at the goddamn liquor store, the
thing I want most always just a few steps away. Wanting you is exhausting,
Ava."
The air leaves my lungs, my belly fluttering irresistibly.
I'm forced out of my room, through the broken doorway.
"You're not sleeping in there," he says, no room for argument in that iron
tone. "I spent years of my life locked away from the rest of the world. I'll be
damned if I sit by and watch you choose to do that to yourself. You aren't
going to live that."
The fight snaps out of me as it suddenly makes sense why Nico is so upset,
why he's taken my vanishing act so personally.
"Tomorrow, I'm taking you out."
"Where?"
"Anywhere," he says, pulling me along.
Nico has taken a bedroom for himself on the second floor, but there's nothing
personal about it yet, nothing to make it look lived in. I feel nothing about it
until Nico pulls down the covers and orders me into bed like a child. The
sheets smell faintly of him, like a bonfire in the late fall and crisp, turning
weather.
Suddenly, the room is very personal.
The mattress creaks as Nico slides over me. His hand cups my cheek, thumb
rubbing over the drying streaks of tears glistening there. I swallow down
another mouthful of humiliation, hating that I let him see that side of me.
"I'm fine," I whisper, trying to speak it into reality.
"You will be," Nico agrees, his fingers sliding up into my hair, where he takes
it and grips it tight. "Because if you're not going to take care of yourself, Ava,
I'll do it for you. I'm taking charge now. No deals, no games. I own you. Not
for a few hours, not for a couple nights—"
"But Thaddeus..."
"Is going to be a worthless name on some worthless court documents. I'm the
man between your legs. Inside your head. Deep in your cunt." His fingers
trail up my thighs and slide under the elastic band of my pajama shorts. He
strokes his fingers slowly against my inner thigh. "It doesn't matter if you
want me, if you love me, if you hate me. You need me. Just like this family."
My thoughts race, heart pounding.
If Vinny is the ghost who haunts me, Nico is the demon possessing me.
His fingers slide down farther, dipping between my legs. My body tenses,
breath catching.
"Nico, you're going to make it worse." I gasp as his touch plows slow and
sensual between my thighs.
"I always do," he says, drawing a moan from my lips as he kisses me, "but
you're mine to make worse. I'm a jealous man, baby girl, and I don't want
you feeling anything for another man. Not even pain. I'm the only one who
hurts you now."
Something in those words flicks a switch in my head.
We lock eyes, and suddenly I'm back in the game. Right back there in the
hotel room, daring Nico to give me his worst, just to prove that I can survive
it. He puts me back in that mindset where bad and good mean nothing, and I
am helpless to the things Nico will do to me. No choice, no guilt.
I drag him down into a kiss, ripping through the slow pace and urging him on.
His mouth matches the pace of his fingers, at first taking his sweet time
playing with me, and now stirring up my cunt with his touch. I feel it in my
belly, my chest, the rapid, frantic fucking of his twisting digits. Sensation
sparks and grows between my legs. I feel that same treacherous wetness
slicking up my thighs, the telltale secret of why I have been so devastated for
weeks.
"Did she miss me?" he asks, as his fingers love on my clit.
"Yes," I whisper, like a confession. Tears sting in my eyes as my breath
shudders, but I ignore the alarm bells ringing in my head, the frantic
pounding of emotion in my chest. Sirens wail, but I stand out in the storm and
let it wash over me. Nico's hands go to his belt, and I don't stop it. I help peel
off his clothes, run my hands over his skin. He smells like the fight, smoke
and sweat and cologne, a primal smell that's intoxicating.
He angles me under him, our hips meeting. I gasp as he fills me again, to the
absolute limit.
"Does it still hurt?" he asks, reading my expression.
I nod, gasping, my whimpers raining down as he only gives it to me harder.
My thighs close around his waist, back angled sharply. The bed shudders
under us. Nico curls his hand around the headboard as he uses it for leverage,
rolling his hips hard and fast into my jostling body.
"Maybe it always will," he growls. "Maybe that's just how we're built, you
and me."
It rips a cry from my throat even as I'm getting used to it again, my head
falling back as I let him fuck me senseless. Until there's only one feeling in
my whole body, one thought in my head, and that's the cock plunging in and
out of me, fucking me ruthlessly until I'm seeing double.
"Good girl," he breathes when I finally give in, letting my thighs shake and
my voice tremble.
I get my first break, gasping and sobbing as he strokes himself slowly inside
me, letting us both take a breather. We kiss, the sudden change in pace
leaving me whiplashed and reeling. Nico fucks me like he's trying to tear me
apart, but he kisses me slowly, savoring the long, delicate meeting of our lips,
until the ache burns in my lungs. I gasp for air, and he barely lets me get any,
until I am drowning in him.
It sets off that fire in my belly even more as Nico chokes me without using
his hands or his cock, playing with my very breath like even the air in my
lungs is just another part of me that he owns.
"Nico," I gasp helplessly, begging him for something I can't even name. Just
him.
His huge hands slide through both of mine, pinning my hands above my head
just so he can look at me like that, stretched out naked on his bedsheets under
him.
"Fuck, if I'd known you were chaining yourself to your own bed..."
I shiver at the grit in his voice, the hot fantasy on his lips.
"I would have been fucking you hard and raw every day, using that pretty
little cunt for everything it's worth."
"Keep going," I gasp, needing to hear it. "Tell me how."
"You think I ruined you before? You don't even know the meaning of the
word. You have no idea how far I would go with you, Ava. How I would use
you. You don't know what you're asking for."
"Show me."
My hands guide him into me again, urging him to fuck me like he was before.
I need it.
"Answer a question first," he says, low and serious. I search his face, trying to
anticipate it, trying to give a name to that familiar shadow in his eyes. I can't.
Finally, Nico smiles a little, that signature, dangerous smirk, and asks, "Are
you on birth control?"
The question catches me off guard, blows my pupils wide as I realize what
he's threatening me with. The ruin he could give me.
"No..."
"Good. Because I'm going to fill you up until you're dripping with my come.
You'd like that, huh? Being bred like a wife," he snarls.
Those strong arms roll me over onto my hands and knees like I'm just a doll
in his powerful grip. He draws my hips back against him, pushes into me at
this new angle that buries him deep. My hands grip the pillow, white-
knuckled, as Nico fucks me from behind. He puts my ass in the air, presses
my head facedown into the bed, like he knows all the sounds he's about to
pull from my lips. He sends me squealing and shaking as pounding, molten
pleasure overwhelms me.
"Because there's no protection that can protect you from me."
In all the times we were together before, on every surface in that hotel room,
Nico never moved like this. This is something different, desperate. It all
clicks as I'm sprawled beneath him, legs spread, his raw cock buried deep
toward my womb. Single-minded and ruthless, Nico isn't just fucking me—
he's breeding me, taking every inch of me for himself.
It's another threat. Another knife to my throat, gun to my head.
And it gets me off, the danger of it all, the bad decision.
Nico groans loudly behind me, smacking my ass hard as he fucks me deeper,
until I feel the jolt of it all the way in my belly. My eyes roll, the pleasure
choking on my tongue.
Nico leans over, words running hot against my ear. "I told you I'd get you a
wedding present if you married Thaddeus. Imagine if I gave you something to
carry down the aisle with you. His ring on your finger, my baby in your
belly."
I can barely breathe, my words just a pitched squeal as his huge cock
hammers deep inside me. My teeth close around his bedsheets, tears
streaming down my face as I hit that peak. I jolt hard, screaming mutely into
his mattress. The planet reels and the sky trembles, my little universe
imploding inside me. I shake from head to toe as the sensation ripples tight
through my pussy, throbbing deep, squeezing the pleasure until it drips
between my legs.
Nico doesn't last through that. He can't. He hooks his hands into my hips,
dragging me back against him as I finish, all at once tight and soft and wet,
and he gasps as he bends over me, tension rippling in his muscles and
catching in his breath, his cock buried deep.
We finish at the same time, locked in the same blistering moment.
I roll over onto my back. Cold air drags into my lungs, my limbs shaking and
exhausted. Nico pulls me up into his arms, sprawling me out across his lap.
We stare at each other, faces red and dotted with sweat, the fresh morning
dew of a bad decision.
I reel in the aftermath, feeling so good and so bad at once, that I don't know
what to do with myself but sit there and be numb.
"What the fuck am I doing?" I whisper half-heartedly. I should hate him for
doing this to me, for putting me through it—but I don't want to hate him, just
as much as I don't want to like him.
"Nothing," he reminds me, rubbing his huge hand against my over-worked
pussy.
"I'm doing this to you. Making you take your medicine like a good
girl," he says, low and soft, pressing a kiss against the heel of my palm and
dragging his teeth across the skin. "Your body knows what you need."
I grapple with that while Nico strips down the bedsheets.
"You're fixing my door," I say into the sudden quiet.
Nico chuckles lowly. "Fine. But I'm taking the lock off."
I decide that I can live with that.
Silence seals the deal.
He puts the TV on low, and when he crawls back into the fresh bed, he draws
me into his arms and holds me there—claimed, a prize that he's won. He
presses kisses to my temple and my shoulder, his hand rubbing over my belly.
"I'm not gonna fuck you into loving me, Ava."
The statement rocks me out of my thoughts, so unexpected that I feel like
Nico snapped his fingers and knocked me out of a trance. He continues,
"You already loved a man, and I'm not him. I never will be. So don't lie there
and worry about that bullshit. It doesn't matter. You've got your love for V
locked up behind a door even I can't kick down."
I roll over and tuck myself deeper against Nico's chest, burying myself in
him, where the rest of the world can't reach me.
For the first time in days, I sleep with the certainty that tomorrow, something
will be different. Maybe better, maybe worse. But at least it will be different.

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