Livia
As the sirens chase us to Aedan’s car and we drive as inconspicuously as we can through New York to my apartment building, I find it absurd that the sky is still bright with daylight. It feels like we’ve been in the bar for days, not mere hours—less than an hour, I realize, when I check the dashboard clock. I glance across at Aedan every few seconds, at the flecks of blood on his face, in his beard, making it even redder.
There’s so much between us to navigate, I think, watching him.
We drive in silence and I try and get it all straight in my head.
He was going to kill Dad, and yet I know for a fact Dad has taken a shine to him and him to Dad; I know they’ve grown close. I can’t count the number of times Dad’s mentioned Aedan to me, smiling, hands tucked into his waistband and eyes glittering as though he’s talking about a genuine son. But perhaps it was all an act, me included. But if that’s the case, then why did Aedan jump at me, protect me, even at the expense of Patty taking a bullet. I tell myself that there was something real between us, there must’ve been, but I can’t get the way Aedan sounded when Patty gave him his salesman’s pitch. But he’s his dad... but he betrayed me...
When Aedan stops the car outside my apartment building, I let out a groan and bury my face in my hands, massaging my eyelids with my thumbs, trying to work out the tension. My eyes ache—I cried more than I realized, back there in the bar—and there’s a band of tension around my forehead. All I want is to collapse in a heap and let the madness of today wash away, but as we sit here, I find myself not wanting to leave. If I go up to the apartment, I’ll be alone, alone with the memories of today. I’ll have to face that eventually, but right now, so soon after it all happened, the idea repulses me.
So instead of getting up, throwing the door open, and leaving like I probably should, I sit back in the chair and close my eyes. I hear Aedan recline, too, and let out a long, slow breath. The pain in his voice is palpable, and though I know it was his dad who ordered him to betray me, I can’t help but feel sorry for him—even if this sorrow does lurk within a hotbed of resentment and confusion.
“I don’t understand,” I say after a while, not planning on talking, the words tumbling out of their own accord. “If you were ordered to kill my dad...” I swallow, acid burning down my throat at the thought. “If you were ordered to kill my dad, why did you get so close to him? Why go golfing with him? Hang on—why save his life that day on the golf course? Was it just not the right time? Is that it? You wanted to wait for the right moment before you took him out. And why get close to me, Aedan? Was that part of your plan?”
“No.” Aedan sighs, turns to me, and when I face him I feel my body gripped with warm hands, tingles moving up and down my arms, a buzzing forefinger trailing down my spine. There are energies within us, I think, energies and impulses that don’t care one tiny bit about how we feel; whatever happens, they’ll always want each other. Chemistry, attraction, whatever we want to call it—it’s there, within me, within Aedan, calling out to each other. Just looking at his face, dried blood clinging to him, I can’t help but want him, to hold him, kiss him, be close to him, heal him.
“No,” he repeats. “I... I never would have killed Bruno, Livia. I want you to believe that. I never would have had it in me. These past few months, I’ve been thinkin’. Bruno, you know, well, Bruno’s been a damn sight nearer to a father figure than Patty ever was. Maybe that’s a fucked thing for me to say now that the old man’s dead, or maybe it’s only because he’s dead that I can say it, but it’s the truth.” He clenches his jaw, looking vulnerable in a way he never has before. He looks wounded, but not beaten, never beaten; Aedan is made of material too tough for that. “When I was a boy, my parents pushed me into the life, both of them, not just Patty. Mom was never happy. Patty, he... he hit her. I knew it. I knew it and I did fuck all about it. And then when she died, I...goddamn it, Livia, I wanted his approval then. Saying that aloud after I just admitted he beat my mother makes it sound damn strange, but that’s the way it was with Patty, always damn strange, always confusing. Nothing ever made any damn sense.
“I was always waiting for a nod, a smile, a pat on the shoulder. I went through the life slaughtering every damn bastard in my way, not for the cash—though that came, of course—but for the chance that that old, wiry bastard’d give me something, anything, that’d let me know he knew I existed, that I wasn’t a fuckin’ ghost in his eyes. But, he was a bad man, Livia. That’s the truth. A sadistic man. And over these past months, I’ve come to see Bruno as more of a father figure...”
He sighs. “I never would’ve killed him; that I can promise you.”
“I wish I could believe you,” I say, voice wracked with uncertainty.
“Then believe me,” Aedan says. He reaches across and takes my hands. I know I should pull away, but as soon as he touches me, the lust that grew between us at my apartment explodes all over again. This is a man I’ll always find it hard to pull away from, I know, even if everything is messed up beyond recognition. “I... I want you, Livia. I saved you. I could’ve run for Patty, protected him. That would’ve been the right thing for me to do, the thing that would’ve made me a good son. But I didn’t, did I? I came for you.”
“That doesn’t change what you were going to do,” I mutter, as he massages my hands in his. These strong hands, these strong killer’s hands...to feel them on me after the madness in the bar is like a gift. They soothe me, calm me down. I find myself squeezing him in return.
“Going to—I was never going to,” he says. “Never.”
“At first, you were. Before you got to know Dad, before you got to know me.”
He winces, and I know I’ve got a point. Before he knew me, before this energy began to buzz between us, he was going to kill Dad. He wouldn’t have thought twice. Whatever else Aedan is, he’s a stone-cold killer. His performance in the bar showed that much. He killed, what...over ten men, at least, and now he’s sitting here like his biggest concern is me.
“That didn’t last long,” he says, moving his hands up my arms to my shoulders.
Get your hands off me! I want to scream. How dare you touch me! Irish dog! Beast! Animal! Peasant!
Mom was right, Mom was right, Mom was right.
Remember Luca.
Remember Aedan’s betrayal.
But the truth is, when Aedan touches me, I’m weak. In all my life, I’ve never met a man who could penetrate my defenses so skillfully. The smell of our lust fills the air, overpowering the blood and the sweat, a potent odor of longing. An animal scent. It’s like we’re in heat, I think, as my body begins to thrum with it.
Aedan massages my shoulders, pressing his fingers into my skin, compressing it, and at once I relax. The murder and the mayhem fall away. I’m not so naïve to think that it will fall away forever. But now, it drifts into the abyss.
“Aedan,” I say. Hear myself say. Am I speaking these words? Am I really about to say this?
“Yes?”
“Drive us around there.” I gesture at an alleyway which sits between a gym and a closed-down restaurant. I know for a fact nobody ever goes down there. At least, I’ve never seen anybody go down there.
Aedan doesn’t ask what I mean. His dark eyes, moving down to my breasts, tell me he knows exactly what I mean. I close my legs around my pussy, loving the way that even now my clit aches with longing.
What are you doing? All along, you’ve had your doubts, and now they’ve been confirmed. Don’t do anything stupid. But since when did my lust for Aedan listen to reason? As he drives us into the alleyway, far back into a shadowed recess which the sunlight doesn’t touch, I allow my eyes to rove over him. I start at his face, flecked with blood making him look dangerous and manly, capable. Say what you want about Aedan, but he’s capable and efficient, a real man, a real killer, the most dangerous man I’ve ever been in the presence of. His beard—so rugged, so manly. His chest, rippled muscles, muscles honed through countless hours of fighting, Down, down, to his crotch. Oh, fuck, I think, as I see how the fabric of his pants pitches up around his cock. His ten-inch cock. His cock which gets so damn hard for me.
He turns off the engine and looks at me with that vulnerable-yet-strong expression, as though for the rest of the world he’ll play the untouchable hitman, but for me—and only me—he’ll show another side. It makes me feel special, and he saved my life, and though there’s distance between us, right now I feel closer to him than ever. I know that afterward, when our lust is spent, we will drift apart, have to drift apart, but—
“I want you,” I say, staring into his eyes. “I want you so damn much right now.”
His eyes move down to my legs, those legs which drive him wild, and then up to my face. He lifts his hand and touches my cheek, strokes it with his fingertips. “I want you, too,” he says, voice husky as all hell.
“Take me, then,” I whisper. I lift a barrier in my mind. For the moment, I will forget, I will lose myself in him. And afterwards...but afterwards will come when it comes. After I’ve come, more like, I think, suddenly feeling frisky.
This is wrong, I think, as Aedan slides his hand up my leg toward my panties, which are already wet, already drenched through. He stares into my eyes, his gaze hard and his jaw clenched, and then he presses his palm down on my pussy through my underwear, squashing my lips flat, turning my disc into a disc. I suck in a shaky breath as pleasure fights back uncertainty. This is wrong. Aedan pushes aside my underwear and then, oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, he slides his finger inside of me. All the time, he stares at me, his face carved from marble. He slides his finger deep, deep, deep, until he’s buried inside of me, the heel of his hand pressed against my clit.
“I want to come, baby,” I moan. “I want to come. Make me forget. If only for a little while, make me forget.”
Aedan moves his finger in quick motions around my tender place as though he’s plucking the strings of a guitar. He’s an expert musician and knows exactly where to strum to give me maximum pleasure. I dart my hand out, squeeze down on his denim-clad cock, press through the material and feel it engorge in my hand.
“Oh, Livia...”
I squeeze even harder. It’s like his cock is a lever; the harder I squeeze, the faster he moves his finger inside of me. I squeeze my legs around his arm, trapping his hand between my legs. Heat builds inside of me, but it’s not just inside me, I realize. The windows are shut and heat fills the air, too. As my insides get hotter, so does the air of the car, until it’s like we’re sitting in a sauna. I close my legs with even more force.
“Make me come,” I sigh. “Make me come, Aedan. Make me—”
His finger goes into overdrive mode; he slides another finger inside of me, middle- and ring-fingers dancing around my sweet spot, a cocktail of pleasure brewing deep within my pussy. The heat is unbearable, a trembling, vibrating heat which moves through my body all the way to my head, making thinking impossible; the only thing I can think about is the pleasure which constantly mounts. I grip onto the ecstasy willingly, ignoring everything but the budding euphoria. His fingers make wet, fleshy sounds as he fucks me with them. I shift my legs, pulling at his wrists with my thighs, making him go in and out of my pussy, leading him, aiming his killer’s fingers right to that perfect spot inside of me. Then the heat reaches boiling point and I close my eyes and let my head loll back. I know that anyone walking down the sidewalk at the mouth of the alleyway could see us, but I don’t care, not right now, I can’t care. The only thing I care about are his fingers, fucking, pounding, stroking, teasing, all his killer’s strength aimed at that sensitive place.
“Keep—going—”
I grip his cock even harder, dig my fingernails through the denim, gripping onto him as though gripping onto life. My body sings. I feel as though a blanket has been wrapped around me, and then another, and then another, until I’m sweating profusely. My sweet spot engorges, shifts, grows and grows until—
Fuck, this is wrong. This is so wrong. I shouldn’t be doing this. Not after what I learned. Oh, fuck, I shouldn’t—I shouldn’t—this is bad, so bad, so bad, but it feels so, so, so...
“Don’t fucking stop!” I scream, spasms causing me to smash against the seat, my knees bumping into the glove box. “Don’t—you—dare—”
Faster, he moves his fingers. He moans from deep in his throat, easily the manliest noise I’ve ever heard in my life.
He just killed over ten men. He’s a killer. A dirty, deadly killer has his fucking hand between your fucking legs and it’s bad and wrong and—and—
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
Suddenly, I’m sitting away from the seat. Aedan drives his arm up, lifting me, and I reach down with both hands and grab onto his wrist. I bounce up and down on his hand as the orgasm hits me. I gyrate, as though riding a cock, twist my body here and there. I am sitting atop a scorching wildfire, the flames hissing and spitting at my pussy. With an effort, I open my eyes, and when I see how easily Aedan holds me up, two-fingered, by my pussy alone, a fresh wave of pleasure moves through me. I curl my toes, squeeze them, and close my hands into tight fists around his forearms, piercing his flesh, adding a fresh layer of blood onto his already-bloody skin. He stares killer-hard into my face, as though he owns me, and right now—yes, fucking own me, take me, make me yours, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. I come all over his hand and down his arm. I look down and watch as liquid bursts from within me and spills down over his fingers, onto the seat of the car, my pussy getting so tight he has to force his fingers deep into me with a grunt.
Then, the pleasure passes and he withdraws his arm. I slump down on the seat, panting, the air so thick with the scent of lust now it’s all I can think about.
I turn to him, lips parted, lust making me forget, just for a little while…I hold onto the lust, desperate for it to last forever.
“I need you inside of me,” I moan, shocked at myself, always shocked because this isn’t me. I’ve never been a creature of lust, never in my life. I’m the closeted princess, the sheltered mafia queen. I don’t give myself to wanton emotions.
But it feels so fucking good.
“Take your clothes off,” Aedan says.
I reach down, find the lever for the seat, and grab it. I push it back, making as much room as I can, and then strip quickly, my hands confident even if far back in my mind I know they shouldn’t be. Somehow, knowing that this is wrong, so wrong, makes me hornier.
In a matter of seconds, our clothes are piled on the backseat. Aedan’s body is covered in blood and sweat, his muscles so strained that I truly believe his skin could burst at any moment. He looks exactly like the sort of man I should never go near: wild, fucking wild and crazed and half-mad and hotter than a burner on full power. His cock is hard and when I look down at it, I see drops of pre-come sliding down his shaft, coming to rest at the base of his cock in his tuft of blood-red pubes.
“Push your seat back,” I say, unable to take my eyes from that cock. It’s so goddamn hard, hard for me, and the fact that he’s just slaughtered a dozen men, that he’s just watched his father killed, and he’s still able to close all that away and get rock-goddamn-hard for me is the hottest thing I can think of. He’s so attracted to me he can put that all aside. Fuck, he wants me, and I want him.
He reclines in his chair, and then I lean over and sit in his lap. I place my hands on his chest and for a few minutes I just fucking grind on him, rubbing pre-come and pussy wetness up and down the shaft of his cock. His cock rubs up against my clit, tingling, and I think: I shouldn’t be doing this. I should not be doing this. He’s too bad, there’s too much broken between us. This is wrong. But it feels right, too right, and it’d take a meteor to stop me—and maybe even that wouldn’t do it.
He moans loudly as I dig my nails into his chest and prop myself up. With one hand, I reach down and grab his cock, maneuver it, and then sit on top of him. My pussy has none of the doubts my mind does; my pussy opens at once for him. There’s no hesitating moment of pain, just a pure rod of pleasure. I sit right down until my ass cheeks squash against his legs, his cock buried balls-deep inside of me. His face twists and he stares into my eyes. We’re closer than we were last time, somehow. We meet eyes and there’s affection, affection not just lust, travelling between us.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says, surprisingly softly, and then reaches up with his hand and cradles my face.
“You’re so damn sexy, baby,” I moan, and then place both my hands on his chest. I shift my hips up, savoring every minute movement of his cock pulsing inside of me, and then, with all my strength, I sit down. He lets out a yelp, a wicked grin on his face, and I grin back at him.
“Can you take it hard?” I say, my tone mocking his question from that gorgeous night.
He tilts his head at me. “How hard can you give it, Livia?”
I ride him, ride him like I’ve never ridden any man before. I’ve always been self-conscious around men and I certainly never would’ve dreamed I’d have the courage to go on top like this, take control like this, but as I ride, I feel a new sort of pleasure taking hold of me. It’s like my hips are on fire, not just my pussy, my tender spot, but my hips. The heat of the car presses close around me like a thick fog, and out of the fog hands form and grip onto me. I bounce up and down but after a while I don’t even have to think about the movements; the hands throw me, pull me down, throw me up, pull me down.
Aedan reaches around and grabs onto my ass cheeks, squeezing the flesh. “Your ass is so fuckin’ perfect,” he groans, pushing his cock up as I sit down, pulling it out as I sit up. “You’re so fuckin’ perfect.”
I take my hands from his chest and place them on his face, sliding my fingers through his beard, and hold onto him as though I can hold onto this moment and push everything else aside. He holds me up by my ass, leaving me free to sit down and lean up. My legs ache, burn, but I don’t care because that deep sensitive spot aches and burns even more.
“Come all over my cock,” he says, his voice strained. “Come all over me, Livia.”
I lean down and kiss him, not thinking about it, just doing it. I find his blood-flecked lips and slide my tongue deep into his mouth, the tips of our tongues brushing together, electricity humming between us; it’s as though the pleasure of his tongue travels down my neck, through my torso, and into my pussy, so his tongue is actually licking my insides. It feels strange, but sweet and new and fucking steamy.
We moan as we kiss, and then I feel my pussy go so tight I have to sit down with all my strength to bring his cock inside of me. I sit, sit, sit, and then—
The car explodes. That’s how it feels. The engine spontaneously erupts and Aedan and I are sent flying into the sky, soaring through clouds, right up into goddamn space. I lose all sense of weight or physical space. Only two things exist: my ever-tightening pussy, and his cock. My eyes are closed tight and I bounce, but all I feel is the pulsing wetness of my pussy, emptying all over his cock, a release which feels like truly letting go for the first time in my life. I scream loudly through the kiss as the orgasm grips my hips and throws me about. I hear the slap-slap-slap of my ass against his muscled legs but that seems faraway. I’m floating, that’s how it feels, floating atop his cock, flying, soaring.
I squirt over and over down the length of him, and then slump forward, suddenly exhausted.
“Oh, fuck,” Aedan moans, his hips going into overdrive. He thrusts upward, grabbing onto my ass as though for purchase. “Oh—fuck!”
He comes, his cock jolting and then wilting, and I roll aside almost at once, sitting naked in the passenger seat.
A minute passes, and then two, and then three, and all the time I’m thinking: That was wrong, that was wrong, that was wrong. But then I realize I’m saying it aloud: “That was wrong, that was wrong, that was wrong.” And Aedan is slowly and quietly getting dressed, and I’m slowly and quietly getting dressed, too.
Why did I do that? He was going to kill Dad. Dammit.
“Livia—”
I open the door and step into the alleyway.
“I—I can’t, Aedan. There’s—there’s too much between us now. I need to go. I need to think. I need to—”
I walk down the alleyway, aware of Aedan’s eyes staring at me as I leave him. Half of me is convinced leaving him is the right thing to do; the other half wills me to go back to the car and just lose myself in pleasure once again.
But I don’t see how I can go back. The truce is broken. Our trust is broken. Our relationship—if we ever even had one—is broken.
Back in my apartment, sitting on the edge of the bed, I try and fight the tears.
I lose, and for a good half hour I bury my face in my hands and let the drama of the day— Mom’s tongue-lashing, the discoveries about Aedan, the fight in the bar, all of it—spill from me in wracking sobs.