CHAPTER ELEVEN
Damian rested on the hood of the Maserati, his gaze staying trained on the figure through the darkness. Down the sidewalk, Lily hung up her phone call, put her hand over her eyes, and shook her head.
She’d been too far away for him to understand most of the conversation, but he had heard her use Dino’s name at least once.
Lily turned back toward her car, took a couple of steps, and nearly stumbled over her own two feet at the sight of Damian sitting where he hadn’t been before.
“Shit,” Lily gasped, her new phone dropping from her hand to the pavement.
Luckily, it didn’t break.
Damian chuckled as Lily picked up her phone and stood straight again, glaring daggers at him the entire time.
“You almost owed me a new phone again,” Lily warned.
“You should get used to this, sweetheart.”
“Having a stalker?”
Damian raised a single brow at her statement. “Really?”
Lily made a face. “Yeah, never mind. What are you doing?”
“Keeping you close.”
The briefest, tiniest smile tugged at the corner of Lily’s mouth. “Oh?”
“Just like I said.”
“Where have you been, then?”
“Around,” Damian replied, knowing how vague he sounded. “You’ve been busy and I work better when people can’t see me.”
“Just like a ghost, huh?”
“Just like that.” Damian nodded in her direction, saying, “I had a meeting with some of the Rossi family while you visited with Eve and I just caught you in time before you left. I thought you would be staying later. Didn’t you have color schemes to finish or some nonsense?”
“How did you know that?”
“Dino,” Damian said simply.
“You’re keeping tabs on me and following me?” she asked, her voice pitching high.
“Don’t be angry, Lily.”
Lily’s expression darkened. “That’s a pretty bold—”
“You want to have a life,” Damian interrupted calmly. “You want to do things and go out. I don’t blame you, but there’s a lot of messy stuff happening right now, so I have to keep a close eye on you while it happens. I’m sorry if the idea of having someone trail you leaves a bad taste in your mouth, but it’s either this, or you won’t be allowed to leave Dino’s place until shit blows over.”
Lily’s stance softened. “It’s just you watching me, right?”
Damian smiled. “Just me.”
“You could have told me, Damian.”
“I did—at Mia’s funeral. I can’t help it if you don’t read between the lines. Just because you can’t see me, doesn’t mean I’m not still around, Lily.”
Lily picked at her nails and avoided his stare. “What kind of messy stuff?”
“Distrust and uncertainty. From a lot of people. It makes for a bad situation.”
“Oh.”
“You’re not going to end up some casualty in this mess if I can help it,” Damian said, sighing. “Leading me back to point, I almost missed you because you left early. What happened?”
“Nothing,” Lily replied too quickly for it to be true.
“Nothing, right. That’s why you drove around aimlessly for twenty minutes, pulled over on a random street, and then proceeded to make a phone call to your brother while you paced back and forth. Come on, Lily. Do I look like a fucking idiot to you?”
Lily refused to look at him again. “No, but it’s not important. Leave it alone.”
“Look at me.”
“Damian—”
“Lily, look at me right now,” he demanded.
Lily blinked up at him, a wetness shining in her brown eyes. Tears saturated her bottom lashes, threatening to fall. Instantly, Damian’s gut twisted with anger and an unusual rush of sadness and confusion.
Christ.
He hated it when women cried.
“Happy?” Lily asked as the first streaks of her tears tracked down her cheeks.
“No. Why would I be happy over your tears?”
Lily sniffed and wiped at her eyes, but it didn’t stop the second flood of wetness that came right after.
“I am not a crier,” she mumbled.
“You said that once before, but I’m starting to wonder.” Damian tried to will away the odd sensations balling in his stomach. Like a shot of rage straight to his veins, all he could think about was finding out who had made Lily cry and forcing whatever goddamn apology he could out of them for it. “What happened?”
“Bad week,” she said in explanation. “All of this crap reminds me of my parents and what my brothers and I went through as kids. I called Dino because I couldn’t understand how one person’s death could cause so much uproar around us like Mia’s has. I get she was loved and that she didn’t deserve to die, but so was my mother. She was loved, too. Her death was nothing more than an accident, too.”
“And no one said a thing about her being killed,” Damian finished for her.
“Yeah, in a way. And it makes me feel awful to even think about it.”
“I get that. Nothing is ever simple, right? What did Dino tell you?”
“Blame the man, not the gun,” she said quietly.
“And who is the gun in this situation?” he asked.
“The Outfit.”
Ah.
There it was.
Dino had forewarned Damian before he even met Lily that she had her issues with the Outfit. Most of them could be drawn straight back to her parents’ murders.
“He has a good point,” Damian said.
Lily didn’t bother to wipe the tears from her cheeks as she said, “I know, but it still bothers me and I feel like a fraud.”
“Why?”
“I told Eve someone else’s mother might die because hers did and at the same time, all I could think about was why didn’t someone die for mine, too?”
“You know why though, don’t you?” Damian asked.
“My father.”
“Yeah, him. Dino saved you kids back then. You know that, right?”
Lily shook her head. “No.”
“He was old enough to have a leg stuck in the Outfit and he was working under Ben’s thumb a great deal of the time. Because he understood the rules and how badly it made you kids look that your father turned on the Outfit, Dino did what he had to so that your parents’ shame wasn’t reflected on to you or Theo. Dino separated you from Joseph and Valerie DeLuca.”
Lily flinched at her mother’s and father’s names, but Damian didn’t relent. “He took you out of that home, put you in with your uncle immediately, and then threw himself full force into the Outfit. He never finished high school. He’s never even had kids of his own or been married, Lily. Because he’s spent his entire life working to wash away the shame so that people could see you and Theo as his brother and sister, not the children of Joseph and Valerie.”
“I’m not ashamed of my parents,” Lily said.
“But you are ashamed of what your father did.”
Lily cringed, staying silent.
“You can say it. It’s just me here, you know,” Damian said. “Nobody else needs to know. You’re not protecting dead people by saying something that’s true.”
“He did wrong by the Outfit,” she said instead.
“And the people reacted how they were taught to.”
“How do you not blame the gun?”
Damian shrugged. “Because it didn’t pull the trigger. It just follows the rules.”
“I don’t think my mother’s death was an accident,” Lily told him.
“Why not?”
“I think my uncle knew she would have taken her kids and ran.”
“It’s possible,” Damian agreed. “Ben has always tried to control the DeLuca side of things as much as he could. Don’t take this the wrong way, but dwelling on it all isn’t going to help you, Lily. All that stuff has already happened. It’s been over with for years. I’m not saying you should forgive and forget, but maybe you should start leaving it where it belongs.”
“Behind,” she murmured.
“Yeah. Back where it can’t keep hurting you. Because right now, you’re the only one letting it hurt you, sweetheart.”
“Is that how you do it, Damian?”
“I’m more concerned about the now to be worrying about buried people, Lily.”
“Don’t you miss your parents?” she asked.
“I barely remember them, but if you want the truth, I miss the idea of people who were supposed to be only mine and them loving me. I miss what I think that should feel like because I never got the chance to experience it.”
“Oh.”
Just like that, her tears starting falling again. Damian’s gut twisted harder at the sight, making him feel all kinds of terrible. Pushing off the hood of the car, he crossed the few feet between them, caught her pretty face in his palms, and tilted her head up so he could stare down at her.
“Please don’t cry,” he murmured. “I don’t do well with tears. I told you that. Stop.”
Lily sucked on her bottom lip but she didn’t stop. He figured she couldn’t help it. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re going to force me to do it, huh?”
“Do what?”
“Make you stop crying so I can feel better,” Damian said, grinning wickedly.
Lily laughed through her tears. “And just how do you plan on—”
Damian’s mouth crashed down on hers, swallowing her words and gasp with his teeth and lips. The sweetest squeak of surprise echoed from Lily before she responded to the kiss and fisted his jacket in her hands. Her mouth tasted of cherries and salt as she kissed him back, tugging him closer. He kept her pinned in place, wanting to feel her mouth on his while he got himself reacquainted with the taste of her.
With every scrape of his teeth to her lips and every strike of his tongue, Damian felt like he owned this girl a little more. Like she was only his and that he was all she wanted. Just the way her body fitted into his and she never shied away from his touch and kiss, Damian knew … Lily DeLuca was two steps away from falling straight for him.
He didn’t mind.
Unfortunately, Damian could still see the tears in her eyes fighting to fall and her breathing hitched, telling him she was holding back sobs.
“Don’t cry, don’t cry,” Damian chanted, kissing along the line of Lily’s cheek bone. “When you cry, it makes me want to find the person who made you do it and shove my fist so far down their throat that I could rip their heart out and then force-feed them the organ. Seriously, it bothers me. Stop it, Lily.”
“I’m trying,” she mumbled as his lips ghosted over hers again. “You made me sad again by talking about your parents.”
Great. Now he was the reason for her tears.
Damian couldn’t handle this shit.
“I punched a kid in the face for you once,” he said, hoping that gained her attention enough to stop her crying.
Lily let him wipe away the wetness on her lashes. “When?”
“You had just turned seven. I wasn’t hanging around that much anymore and neither was Theo, really. We were doing … other things with Dino.” Damian shrugged, not wanting to go into all that. “Anyway, that left you to make new friends. Some idiot nine-year-old boy happened to be one of them. He made you run home crying over something. Dino was there when you told Ben what happened. He told Theo, your brother told me, and I hit the kid then next time I saw him.”
“That’s terrible,” Lily muttered.
“Learned his fucking lesson, I bet.”
Lily laughed, but another tear streaked down her cheek. Damian cussed under his breath at the sight, willing away her sadness.
“How can you laugh and cry at the same time?” Damian asked, overwhelmed by how affected this girl made him. He could not handle the awfulness welling in his gut because of her crying mess.
“Because I’m sad and happy.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does, too!”
“You sound like a child arguing with me like that,” Damian said, running his finger over her trembling bottom lip.
Lily gasped, hurt filling her gaze all over again.
“I was kidding, Lily!”
She didn’t look like she believed him for a second.
“I was,” he repeated.
“Still awful.”
“You’re still crying,” Damian pointed out.
“You haven’t made me stop yet, so you must not want to feel better. Remember?”
Sneaky little …
Damian kissed Lily again without warning, tugging her into his chest and turning them both so he could back her down the sidewalk. Their lips didn’t part once, not even when they stumbled off the sidewalk and Lily’s legs hit the hood of her Maserati. Unable to control the crazy desire thickening his blood, Damian ran his hands up Lily’s smooth legs and under her skirt. He could practically feel her heartbeat and blood rushing up to the surface of her skin under his touch. Every sound, every goosebump, and every inch of her was starting to imprint in Damian’s memory like a melody he couldn’t forget.
He didn’t really want to.
The way her tongue swept her bottom lip had his gaze narrowing in on her mouth all over again. He wanted to bite her lip until she begged him for more, so he did just that. The sharp, breathy whine Lily released shot straight down to his aching cock.
But Damian wasn’t important. He wasn’t interested in getting his own rocks off. No, he wanted to get her off.
“Oh, my God, what are you doing?” she asked in a breathless whisper.
“Feeling you. What the fuck does it look like?” Damian grabbed her ass in a firm grip and lifted her onto the hood before dragging his hands back down her legs. “Christ, I swear you’ve got the best legs in Chicago, Lily.”
“Liar. I’m short as hell.”
“I like your shortness. I do not lie, I simply omit things for my own benefit.”
Lily cocked a brow. “Isn’t that the same thing?”
“Ask the right questions to get the correct answers. Nobody ever asks the right questions.”
“Huh.”
“And why would I lie about your legs, hmm?” he asked, grinning sinfully. “I like them very much, especially when you wrap them around my head and my face is buried into that beautiful pussy of yours.”
Lily groaned, biting hard into her bottom lip. “Fucking hell.”
“Yeah, that’s the goal, sweetheart.”
With those words, Damian’s hands disappeared under her skirt again. He moved her legs apart with taps of his palms to her inner thighs. Lily glanced around the dark street, a shake rocking her thighs the closer he came to her cotton panties.
“Somebody might see us,” she said.
“So?”
“So!”
“What are they going to see, huh? A beautiful woman getting finger fucked on a beautiful car in the darkness. Nothing more. We should give the neighbors a show. I bet they’ve never seen one like us before.”
“Jesus.”
“Are you wet for me?” Damian asked.
“Probably,” Lily replied. “Someone still might see me.”
“I hope they do. And I hope they figure out exactly what I’m doing to you because then they’ll know you’re mine and only I get to do this.” Damian’s fingers skimmed the patch of her cotton panties covering the lips of her pussy. She shuddered at the contact. He could already feel her wetness dampening the fabric. “Yes, you’re fucking soaked. Pretend all you want like someone seeing us bothers you, but I bet it doesn’t. You’re so goddamn hot, it’s crazy. I can feel it, sweetheart. Tell me what you want, Lily.”
Lily blew out a shaky breath and wet her lips under her tongue. “I want your fingers in my pussy making me come.”
“Goddamn,” Damian hummed out. “Those are dirty fucking words coming from a beautiful mouth. Spread your legs wider, Lily.”
She did as he asked before yanking on his jacket and bringing him closer. Her legs hooked around his hips as he leaned down for another searing kiss.
“So soft,” Damian murmured against her lips as he stroked his finger along the side of her panties. The bareness of her sex drove him insane. He loved that she was waxed clean; there was absolutely nothing between them when he touched her and she felt all of him because of it. “And so fucking wet.”
“Hot,” Lily moaned.
“Yes, that too.”
Damian slid his one hand under her panties and used his other to grab the ends of her hair. He bunched her hair up to the back of her neck, holding her tight in place, and he swept his fingers over the sensitive lips of her pussy. Soaked was an understatement. With every swipe of his fingers, her fluids slicked them both up. Her juices smeared to his hand as he cupped her pussy and dove in with a single finger.
Lily arched into the touch instantly, the sweetest moan tumbling from her lips at the same time. Without warning, he added a second finger and began a fast rhythm that was sure to get her desire raging out of control and fast. He wanted to see her shattering around him as she came calling his name.
“So hot,” he told her. “Like a fucking fire holding me tight. Show your face, Lily. If anyone is watching me do this to you right now, I want them to see exactly what you look like because of it.”
Lily’s head fell back, Damian weaved his hand deeper into her hair, keeping the fast strokes up between her thighs. It was all his fingers and her sex sucking him in as he fucked her harder on the hood of the car. He reveled in the sounds of her pussy taking him in and the noises of her juices as he fucked her harder with his fingers. She didn’t seem to mind the brutal strikes of his digits taking her deep but instead, pushed right back into his palm for more.
Lily shifted her hips, meeting each thrust of his hand with a quiet, airless cry that heated him up from the inside out. Her arousal coated his fingers and he felt her inner walls beginning to flex and flutter around his digits.
“Tell me how close you are,” Damian demanded.
Lily’s eyes, hooded and dazed, met his. “So close.”
The spot he’d found inside her pussy the first time they fucked, the one that seemed to drive her wild, had her gushing around his digits. Damian spread his fingers wide, needing her to feel full of him and only him.
“How badly do you want to come, Lily?”
Her legs shook as she whined. “So bad. More, please.”
Damian flashed his teeth in a smirk. “Whatever you want, sweetheart.”
Using his thumb to play at her clit while his fingers kept up the tempo inside her pussy. It wasn’t long before her head tilted back and her lips parted with one loud shout that was sure to wake up someone on the street if they weren’t already.
As her inner muscles contracted around his fingers and the warmth of her come dribbled down to the hood of the Maserati, Damian leaned in and kissed Lily softly. He explored her hot little candy mouth with his tongue and teeth while she rode out the waves of her orgasm. Nothing was sexier than the sight of her coming undone because of what he did to her.
“So good,” she breathed as he caught her chin between his forefinger and thumb.
“You’re beautiful when you come, Lily.”
She batted his hand out from between her legs. “Sensitive.”
Damian chuckled. “I bet.”
He waved his wet fingers for her to see.
“What—”
He sucked them clean before she could say another word.
“You’re wicked,” Lily said, using her elbows to hold her up on the hood.
“Very. You’re too good to waste, though.”
Damian dotted kisses across Lily’s forehead. She shivered, humming a pleased sound under her breath. The slightest sheen of perspiration dotted her skin and her eyes were wild and dark with lust. He loved the sight of her on that hood with her legs spread around him, her panties soaked by her own juices, and looking at him like she was ready for another round.
“That seemed to work,” Lily said, her voice a little dry.
“Hmm, what?” Damian went about fixing her skirt and panties before placing his hands on either side of her hips. “What worked, Lily?”
She grinned a sexy, slow smile. “You made me stop crying.”
He did.
“And now I feel better,” Damian mused with a chuckle.
“You’re awful.”
“As I told you before, you will grow to like it.”
Lily eyed him curiously. “Maybe I already do. Can I tell you something?”
“Shoot,” Damian said.
“I think I missed you this week.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah,” Lily said heavily. “And besides following me around, I’d like to know where else you were.”
Damian couldn’t have missed the hidden meaning in her words if he tried. “Jealousy looks terrible on you, especially considering the fact I’m here doing this with you and not somewhere else doing God knows who.”
“Since you just gave me an orgasm on the hood of a Maserati after being MIA for almost a week, maybe you owe me an honest answer.”
“Ask a better question,” Damian said instead.
Lily’s gaze narrowed. “Any women?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Who was the last woman you fucked around with?”
“A couple of months ago with someone I met at Tommas’ club. I took her to the back office, screwed her on my cousin’s desk, and never got her name. I’m not the relationship type, sorry.”
“Liar.”
“I don’t lie, Lily. Stop making me repeat myself.”
“You are lying. You’re doing okay right now.”
Damian cleared his throat, stunned. She was right. “Maybe it’s different with you.”
“Why is that?”
God, she could be frustrating and stubborn as fuck when she wanted to be. Damian almost hated how he liked that part of her. Except he couldn’t hate it at all.
“Better question, Lily.”
“You’re impossible.”
Damian laughed low. “I know.”
“Don’t fuck with my head, okay?”
“That’s not in my plans, sweetheart.”
“Sometimes I wonder,” she said.
“You shouldn’t. Don’t. I care. You’re important to me. Nothing else matters in the end but that.”
“What do you owe my brother?” Lily asked.
Damian froze. “I beg your pardon?”
“I remember what you told me. You’re doing the marriage thing because you had to but, at the same time, some of your family doesn’t approve. I have nothing to give you, as my inheritance isn’t enough to make you a massively wealthy man, not that you’ll be able to touch a dime of it. You’ve already said you didn’t buy me from my brother, so he’s not giving you anything, either. Which leads me to believe you owe him something. What is it?”
Shit.
“You are far too observant,” Damian said.
“So you do owe him something?”
“I do.”
“What is it, Damian?”
“My life.”
Lily stared at him for longer than he liked before she said, “A life for a life.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re giving yours to me.”
“Yes,” Damian said again, his throat growing tighter.
“What else did my brother demand?”
“That I give you everything you need.”
Which was far more than she could possibly know.
Lily didn’t bat a lash when she replied, “You’re succeeding.”
Damian rolled down his window as Lily stepped out of the Maserati and closed the driver’s door.
“Lock that fucking thing,” he said.
Lily rolled her eyes but hit the locking button on the auto-start like he told her to. “Nobody would be stupid enough to steal a vehicle from a DeLuca’s driveway, Damian.”
“You never know. Come here.”
Lily walked over to his car and leaned in the window. Damian hooked a finger around one of her wavy strands of hair and pulled her close enough to press a kiss to her pretty mouth. She smiled as she pulled away.
“You’re not coming in?” Lily asked.
“Work,” Damian said in explanation. “You’re here, so I know you’re okay.”
“You know, I could just text you when I’m going to and from somewhere.”
Damian liked that idea. “Yeah, especially if you’re going to pull another stunt like today.”
“Wasn’t a stunt, Damian.”
“I don’t want to take chances; that’s all. It makes me nervous.”
Lily nodded and pulled out her phone, looking it over. “All right. Tomorrow night I have to go see Abriella for a fitting. Where are you going to be?”
Damian grinned. “Wherever you are.”
“Maybe I’d like to see you when you’re there.”
“I told you, I work better when you don’t.”
“Hmm, Ghost, right?”
“Right,” he said. “How about I pick you up for breakfast and we do something in the afternoon before you have to head over to the Trentini place. Maybe I’ll see if the boss wants to chat while you’re there and it’ll give me something to do instead of just be bored while I wait.”
“Sounds good.”
“Tomorrow, Lily.”
With a two finger wave and a coy wink, Lily left Damian alone to his thoughts. He waited until she had the front door to Dino’s home opened and shut again before he turned his car on. Damian didn’t even get the chance to put the Porsche in reverse before the front door opened again.
Dino walked down the steps and across the large driveway.
“Evening,” Dino greeted.
“Hey.”
“Kissing my sister in my driveway is not a good way to keep me liking you, D.”
Damian smirked. “She’s not a little girl anymore, Dino.”
Dino scowled. “I’m aware.”
“And I’m keeping up my end of the deal here.”
“As long as she’s happy.”
“She is,” Damian said. “I didn’t expect it to be this easy.”
“Give her time. Her stubbornness never fails to amaze me when it shows.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.”
Dino crossed his arms, facing the driver’s window. “Oh?”
“She’s easy to care about, Dino. She makes me want to keep her happy and all that crazy nonsense. I know that’s what you wanted to begin with, and I planned on doing that to the best of my ability because I owe it to you, but it has nothing to do with you anymore.”
“I am not going to pretend like that bothers me,” Dino said.
“Right,” Damian muttered with a sneer. “Thanks.”
“Why should it bother me, D? For me, this is a good thing. For her, it’s still a damn good thing. I don’t see what you’ve got to complain about, either.”
“It’s a dangerous thing, Dino. I’ve lived the majority of my life with no ties and no one to concern myself over but me. This is … different.”
“Just keep doing what you’re already doing, D. I’m just setting her up so she has what she needs once I can’t give it to her anymore. You were a good choice. You cared about her when you were a kid and I figured that would bleed over again. So I was right, big deal. What is the problem?”
“I thought I would have to fake it.”
“And you’re not. Congrats, I thought of you, too. You two are a good match, D.”
“She told me earlier not to fuck with her head,” Damian said quietly.
“Sounds like Lily.”
“She doesn’t even realize she’s already fucking with mine.”
Dino laughed. “Well, as long as she’s still alive by the end of this whole thing, I don’t care what it takes. Even if that means the things she’s got going on inside your head keeps you focused.”
“Whatever it takes, right?”
“Right,” Dino echoed. “Speaking of which, hear anything interesting?”
“By the sounds of Lily’s spiel about Eve, Riley Conti is two steps away from going after the Lazarri family.”
“Huh.” Dino sucked air though his teeth, glancing back at the house. “I don’t think anyone needs to push him along in that, really. He’s already on the verge of a nervous breakdown as it is. Might as well let that dog lie until it wakes up all on its own. The Rossi family hasn’t taken a side yet, however. They’re still pretty neutral.”
“Terrance is already pissed off at Laurent as it is over Serena.”
Dino nodded his agreement. “The divide is widening. It won’t take much for it to get wider.”