I Thee Take: To Have and To Hold Duet Book Two Read online

“Open your eyes and look at me.”

  I do and with two fingers of one hand deep inside me, he guides his cock to my pussy with the other.

  “You’re tight. Tighter now,” he says as he dips inside me once, twice.

  I moan, arching my back, wanting more. “I want to come.”

  “Not yet.” He pulls out and I watch him fist his cock again, jerking it. I see the little drops of precum on the thick, rounded head and I find myself biting my lip, wanting it. Wanting him to watch me. To touch me. To take me like this.

  “I think you’re ready,” he says pulling his fingers out and placing his cock at my back entrance.

  I place my hands on the bed, back ramrod straight. “Wait! I—”

  “Relax. Lay back down. I want to take this last piece of you. Don’t you want to give it to me?”

  I’m not so sure.

  “I want to feel you come with my cock in your ass, Scarlett. And you’re going to come hard. I promise.” As he says it, he presses in. He works slowly, taking his time, stretching me. When he slides his fingers to my clit, I begin to moan.

  It feels good, really good. And he’s giving me just enough to keep me on the edge of orgasm, pulling his fingers away when I’m close, claiming more of me as I relax.

  “It feels good,” I manage.

  I hear rather than see his satisfied smile “I’m almost all the way inside you. Just a little more. Give it to me, Kitten. Push against me and let me have you.”

  I do. I want to. And so, I close my eyes and do as he instructs, and I know a few moments later when he’s fully seated inside me by the deep, low moan that comes from his chest. I look back to watch him as he watches me.

  “Christ. I wish you could see how you look. How beautiful you are stretched around me like this.”

  I slip my fingers between my legs. “I want to come.”

  “Greedy little Kitten. Come,” he says, beginning to move inside me, slow at first, then faster as he shifts one hand between my legs to cover my own. Our fingers are wet as we stroke that hard little nub and only moments later I come apart, my body pure sensation, pure ecstasy.

  “Fuck,” he mutters. “You are so tight.”

  He makes a sound that seems to be ripped from his chest. He grips my hips and takes me in long, deep strokes as he holds me tight the sensations different than anything I’ve ever felt making me come again, slipping from one orgasm to the next as I watch him watch me. As he takes one more piece of me. As I belong to him in one more way.

  “Cristiano!” I call out, collapsing breathless and worn out as he thickens and throbs and empties, my body pure sensation, my awareness only of him. Him inside me. His weight on top of me. Him.

  And I know this is where I belong. I never want to be without him again.

  Because I think I love him.

  18

  Cristiano

  I find Lenore in the kitchen the next morning.

  “Good morning,” she says, looking me over as she wipes her hands on the apron. “Didn’t you sleep well?”

  I must look like I feel. After Scarlett fell asleep, I lay awake beside her listening to her breathe, feeling her small, warm body beside mine. Watching her. In a way, it surprises me how easily she falls asleep with me. There’s a level of trust she may not admit to because sleep is the ultimate vulnerability.

  And you were asleep for six years under Uncle David’s care.

  I shove that voice away. It’s one that’s come before. It’s the one that thought adding my uncle’s name to my reaper’s list was a good idea. I need to talk to him because part of me can’t reconcile the uncle I know with the man Charlie would have me believe he is.

  What if it’s true? What then?

  “I’m fine,” I say to Lenore.

  What would it change if it were true? I have to stay the course. Find Marcus Rinaldi. Find out what he said to my mother. Then kill him. It doesn’t matter if my uncle has used me to punish his enemies, does it? Nothing matters but avenging my family.

  “Sit with me,” I tell Lenore when she hands me a cup of coffee.

  “I have to make the—”

  “Sit with me.” I pull out a chair.

  “Well, all right.” She sits.

  I sit across from her and Cerberus comes to lounge beside me, resting his head on my shoe. He trusts me too, like Scarlett.

  “I remembered something the other night.”

  She tilts her head, waiting for me to continue.

  “I remembered waking up. Or almost waking up.”

  “What do you mean, Cristiano?”

  “I think you know that my memories are gone.”

  She lowers her lashes, but nods, then turns her gaze back to mine. “Maybe in time—”

  “No. That’s not what I want to talk about.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “I was waking up. I think I was, at least. From the coma, I mean.” I study her, watch her shift her position in her seat. “I think it was your voice. You said something about damage. Permanent damage. Uncle David was there. I recognized his aftershave.”

  She’s on her feet in an instant, moving to the stove, opening it. “I’m sure it was a dream.”

  I stand too, go to her. “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.” I close the oven door and take her arm, turn her to face me.

  Her eyes are wide, wet.

  “The doctor who treated me, I didn’t know he’d been killed.”

  “Cristiano, don’t.”

  “Tell me about the damage. Tell me what you knew.”

  She shakes her head. “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “There’s something and we both know it.”

  She looks down to Cerberus, who whines, then back up at me.

  “You’re like a grandmother to me. You always have been. I need you to tell me the truth, Lenore. I have so few people in my life that I can trust.”

  “I just…” she shakes her head, breaking off, wringing the towel in her hand. “He…they kept you comatose for so long.”

  “Go on.”

  “You were fighting to wake up. You almost did a few times.” She stops, shakes her head and she won’t look at me when she continues. “But I’m not a doctor. I don’t understand these things and they said you needed the time to heal.”

  The morning my brother found me I was close to death. The coma had been induced to help me heal. This six-years long sleep.

  “But you didn’t think I needed that time?”

  “I don’t know, Cristiano. I just know you tried to wake up. I saw it a few times myself. Felt it when you squeezed my hand.”

  She could be wrong. That squeezing of the hand, isn’t that just the body’s muscles working without direction from the brain? She’s right, she’s not a doctor. And neither am I. All I’ve had to go on is what I’ve been told and all I could do was trust it to be the truth.

  “What did my uncle say to you the other night?” I ask, changing direction.

  She looks down, then pushes the heels of her hands into her eyes.

  “What did he say, Lenore?”

  It takes her a full minute to look back up at me.

  “He said it could have been worse for Alec.” She wipes her face which is wet now with tears.

  My jaw tenses. My hands fist and relax. “And how did you think he meant that? As a comfort?”

  “Don’t ask me that, Cristiano. Do not ask me that. My nephew was shot twice protecting your wife. That’s all I know.” She shifts her gaze away from mine at that last part.

  “Do you resent Scarlett for that? Blame her somehow?” I ask because I hear her tone and it’s not the first time she’s said something that has made me question.

  She closes her eyes, shakes her head and takes a long time to open them again. “No, Cristiano. I don’t even know why I said that. She’s innocent. I know it.”

  There’s more. I see it in her worried expression. “If you’re afraid, know that I’ll keep you and Alec safe. I promise.”

  �
�He wasn’t safe that night.”

  I grit my teeth, take a deep breath in. She’s right. “It won’t happen again. I’ll lay my own life down before I let anyone hurt you or Alec.”

  “No, that’s not…I love you like I love him. Like I loved my daughter. Like I loved Mara. Love her,” she corrects. But she’s wavering now between past and present. Loved. Love. Has she given up hope after all these years?

  Her eyes fill up again and I see so much sadness, but she wipes it away and forces an almost smile. “I’m an old woman, but Alec, he’s so young.”

  “I promise, Lenore.”

  She nods, looks down at the floor then walks backward to sit down.

  “The medicine they were giving you to keep you in the coma, I asked about it. I asked your uncle, and I asked another doctor and did a little research. Maybe I shouldn’t have. I could have put you in danger. I know that.”

  “What did you learn?”

  “David knew if it was used for a prolonged period, it could—would—cause permanent memory loss.”

  He knew?

  The door opens then and Antonio walks in. He stops just inside the door.

  Lenore and I both turn to look at him.

  “We’ve got a problem,” he says.

  “What is it?”

  “Dante.”

  My heart drops to my stomach. “Is he okay?”

  “For now. But we need to go.”

  I nod and as I cross the kitchen, I think about them all. All the people who need me to keep them safe. Scarlett. Lenore. Alec. Dante. Even Cerberus needs me. So many people depending on me and what have I wanted all this time? Vengeance. And then? And then death. I won’t deny that anymore. It’s selfish. I’m selfish.

  But maybe in my case, dead is better.

  I’m just about to walk out of the kitchen when Lenore calls my name. “Cristiano.”

  I stop, turn.

  “He knew,” she says. “They gave you more of those drugs when you started to wake up to keep you asleep. He knew all along. And that doctor,” her expression is one of disgust. “That doctor was on his payroll.”

  19

  Cristiano

  “Where is he?”

  Antonio and I are on the chopper along with two soldiers.

  “I know one of the officers. He took him home. No arrest was made.”

  “Where the fuck were the soldiers he’s supposed to have with him at all times?”

  Antonio ducks his head to look out onto the water as we near our landing spot.

  “He doesn’t take them with him. Hasn’t in a while.”

  “What?”

  “As soon as he gets to the mainland, he drops them.”

  “What do you mean he drops them?”

  Antonio takes a deep breath in as the chopper lands then turns to me. “He’s doing something, and I can’t figure out what it is. I have the men tail him but there have been a few times we’ve lost him.”

  “And you haven’t thought to mention this to me?”

  “You’ve got a pretty full plate, Cristiano.”

  “My brother takes priority.” We climb out of the chopper and walk across the lot to the waiting SUV. “What’s he doing?”

  “He’s looking for someone. I don’t know who but it’s a girl.”

  I look at Antonio. “A girl?”

  He shrugs a shoulder. “He puts on a good face for you, but your brother’s got demons. And he’s self-destructive.”

  Family trait.

  “I know about the demons.” I hear him at night. The nights he sleeps at the house that is. The nights he sleeps. “I don’t care what happens but from now on, you double the men on him. Give him space but you can’t lose him. Period.” I can’t lose him.

  Antonio nods and we ride in silence the rest of the way to a small, non-descript house along the outskirts of the city. Soldiers secure the perimeter as Antonio and I make our way to the front door. We don’t have to ring the bell. The woman who lives here, I’d guess the wife of the man who kept my brother out of jail, opens the door, her expression one of worry.

  She meets my eyes for a split second, mutters something under her breath and makes the sign of the cross before stepping aside, almost disappearing behind the door.

  “Christ,” a man’s voice says as I look around the small living room with its low ceiling, the tiny kitchen with a kettle on the stove that’s whistling. I watch the man walk into the kitchen to switch off the burner and move the kettle. He gives his wife an irritated look before turning to me and Antonio.

  He’s middle-aged with a slight paunch to his belly. He’s still wearing his police uniform.

  “Antonio,” he says, shaking hands with him before turning to me, giving me a nod.

  I extend my hand to shake his and he smiles, puts his hand in it.

  “Cristiano,” I say.

  “Emil. Emil Giordano. Pardon my wife.” He has an accent, like he comes from a rougher part of the town.

  “No, nothing to pardon,” I say as we watch her close the door then disappear into the kitchen. “It’s early and we come unannounced.”

  He half-shrugs his shoulder. “This way,” he says, gesturing for us to follow him through the living room and down a hallway to the last door.

  “Can you tell us what happened?” I ask.

  “He got into it with a couple of guys at a bar in town. Not the best place to begin with. There were six of them against your brother. I gotta say, he held his own for a time but six against one aren’t good odds. Thing is, he started it and the bar owner knows the others. I recognized Dante. I remember what happened to your family. Terrible thing to go through.”

  “Thank you,” I say, trying not to feel any emotion.

  “I told my partner I’d take care of it, but we had to make like we were arresting him. Your brother is a little bent out of shape because of it.”

  “He’ll get over it. Your partner?”

  “Don’t worry about him. I paid him a couple bucks.”

  I nod. “Antonio will take care of you. I’d like to see my brother.”

  “Sure thing.”

  The man opens the door to the little bedroom. It’s about the size of my closet with a single bed pressed to the far corner and a nightstand with a lamp on it.

  Dante is just sitting up when I walk inside and close the door behind me.

  “You smell like a brewery.”

  “Distillery,” he corrects, his voice hoarse and scratchy. “It’s whiskey.”

  “My bad.”

  He looks up at me from his seat on the edge of the bed. “Can you close that?” he asks, shielding his face. The morning sun coming through the window is a glare in his eyes.

  “Hungover?” I ask, pulling the ropes to close the broken blinds. “Or are you still drunk?” I turn back to him.

  He looks up at me and I see the bruise forming along his jaw, see the cut on his lip and the blood on his knuckles.

  “The latter,” I guess. “How do the six men you picked a fight with look?”

  He grins but winces, touches a cut high on his cheekbone. “Like shit.”

  I sit down beside him. “What the fuck, Dante? You have soldiers. Why were you alone?”

  A darkness I don’t like, but recognize, shadows his features. “There’s some things I have to do alone, Brother.”

  “Like try and get yourself killed?”

  “Unlike you, I wasn’t trying to get myself killed.”

  The way he says it strikes me. Maybe my brother is more intuitive than I realize. “What were you doing at that place anyway?”

  “Nothing.” He shakes his head.

  “You just said yourself there’s some things you need to do alone. What are they? Is it those things that have you off the island so much? That have you coming back stinking of whiskey the mornings after?”

  He runs a hand through his hair, turns to me. His hair’s a shade lighter than mine and sometimes, at some angles, he looks like mom in that portrait.

&
nbsp; “I leave you to deal with Rinaldi. Leave me to deal with this.”

  “What exactly is this? Tell me and maybe I’ll leave you to handle it.”

  “Haven’t you got enough to keep you occupied? Maybe keeping an eye on your new wife and her brother? Enemies you’ve let have the run of our home.”

  “They’re not our enemies.”

  He snorts, shakes his head and looks toward the window with the slivers of light still coming in from the old-fashioned blinds that don’t quite close correctly.

  “Do you ever wonder what happened to Mara?” he asks.

  I’m taken aback but only miss a beat. “Of course, I do.”

  “Do you wonder if she’s still out there? All alone?” he looks at me when he asks this part and I see my brother as a kid, uncertain, not cocky, not tough. Just unable to make sense of what happened. “Do you wonder if she needs us and we’re just here getting on with our lives? Forgetting her? Forgetting them?”

  “We’re not exactly getting on with our lives, are we?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Why is this coming up now?”

  “The kid, Noah, he had a picture of her.”

  “Noah? Why would he have a picture of her?”

  “He’d taken one out of Lizzie’s room and he was talking to Scarlett. I walked in on them and I don’t know. I didn’t like it. It just got me thinking again if she’s still out there and helpless. They were five, Cris. Fucking five years old. How the fuck do you hurt a five-year-old kid?”

  I look away. I can’t see his pain. It wounds me every time I get the slightest glimpse of it. Cuts right through me.

  “You want to know what I was doing?” he asks, abruptly getting to his feet.

  I remain seated and nod.

  “I was looking for the girl. The one who called me that night. Who told me to come out. I’d met her a few days before at a club and I didn’t expect her to call but she did. And like a selfish ass I went out and…” he trails off, turning his back to me. “You know how I spent the night my family was being massacred?”

  I get to my feet. “Don’t do this.”

  “No.” He turns to me and I see something I recognize in his eyes. Hate. Self-hate. “I should do it. I should own up to it.”