Bastiano Romano: A Standalone Mafia Romance Novel (The Five Syndicates Book 4) by Parker S. Huntington (34)

I didn’t wake up alone. I thought I’d open my eyes to Vincent’s ghost, but he was gone. The sheets pooled around my waist as I sat up. Ariana slept beside me, but I couldn’t see Vince’s ghost.

Nothing behind me.

Nothing to the left.

Nothing to the right.

Nothing straight ahead.

Just gone.

Maybe he was really gone, or maybe it was the granola bar I’d eaten. I was tempted to starve myself again, but my stomach churned at the thought. The fear that I’d forget what he looked like—each detail of his face I thought I’d see every day—gripped my throat.

I hacked out a cough, reminding myself he and Gio shared the same face. It didn’t help. I couldn’t look at Gio without seeing Vince, and because Gio was so far from Vince… I vowed not to look at Gio again.

A hand rubbed at my back until the coughing subsided. Ariana’s hand. She hadn’t left.

I kept my eyes on the wall as I asked, “Do you have a shift?”

“It’s”—she paused—“eight in the morning.”

Oh. Right. The bar didn’t open until dinner time. I didn’t even know today’s date, let alone the time. Ariana stood and stretched her arms up. She’d changed sometime during the night because she wore my Wilton Rugby shirt and a pair of pink panties. The shirt rose, and I caught a peek of the lace caressing her hips before she lowered her arms and left the room.

She returned ten minutes later with a tray with peanut butter and jelly on toast and a glass of orange juice. “I stopped by the grocery store while you slept last night.”

I stared at the food. If I took a bite, Vince’s ghost would never return.

“You need food.” She set the tray in front of me. “Please.”

The orange juice tasted bitter, but I finished the glass off, taking my time so I wouldn’t throw it up. I ate the toast slowly, studying Ariana the entire time. She looked as tired as I felt. Bags under her eyes. A little thinner than she already was. Shivering as she stood in front of me, refusing to sit until I popped the last of the toast in my mouth.

She grabbed the tray, set it aside, and took its place on my lap. “I talked to Everett.” Her words shocked me enough to snap me from my self-loathing. For a second at least.

I wrapped my arms around her waist and anchored her when she fell to the side a little. “How is he?”

“You could hear for yourself if you’d pick up your phone?”

“How is he?”

“Sad. Not because of Vincent. I didn’t think it was my place to tell him, but I did say you were sick. That’s why you weren’t answering your phone.” She bit her lower lip. “Basically, he’s been calling you for the past seven days, I finally caved and answered, and the first real thing I told him was a lie. Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” I was a shitty dad. I gave Elsa a hard time, but truth was, I failed at parenting, too. “Did he ask who you were?”

“Yes.”

“What did you say?” When she didn’t respond, I pressed, “I’ll need to know, so I don’t contradict it.”

“I said…” She looked away from me. “I’m your girlfriend.”

The label fit us. We weren’t in the fifth grade, where I’d bike over to her parent’s house with a handful of roses I’d picked myself and stutter out the question. But if anyone deserved grand gestures, it was Ariana.

Open your heart to the people who love you… Promise me.

Vince’s last words to me echoed in my head. Just his words. No ghost this time as he reminded me to open my heart up, and I tried with everything I could manage to follow my promise. He’d included Ariana on his list.

I tilted my head back and studied her. “Do you love me?”

An unfair question, at least now when I knew she worried about me. The question caught her off guard. She glanced to the ground and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. I let the silence stretch out for a few seconds before I shook my head.

“Don’t answer that.” I already knew how we both felt. “Answer it when you’re ready. When you know for sure.”

She hadn’t shattered my barriers. She’d broken them down one by one until they laid stripped away, and I hadn’t even noticed until I looked around and saw only her.

Here I am, Uncle Vince. Being a man of my word.

I tipped Ari’s chin up, so she looked at me. “I love you. Not just because you’re amazing with Tessie, not just because you’ve helped out these past weeks, not just because you put up with me. I love you because you stare at my dimples when I smile. I love you because you genuinely care about people. I love you because you have so much fight in you. I love you because you’re patient. I love you because you don’t take my shit without dishing it back. I love you because your tongue is sharp but your heart is soft.” She opened her mouth, but I shook my head. “Don’t say it back right now. I want to hear it when you’re not worried about me.”

“Okay, but I will say it.”

“I know.”

She pressed her forehead to my shoulder, digging her nose into the crook of my neck and inhaling before pulling away. “You smell.”

I couldn’t remember how a shower felt. The day after Vince had died, I’d sat under the shower until the water ran cold, my entire body pruned, and my back ached from the tile. Hours soaked in soap and water, and I still hadn’t felt clean.

Ari pulled away from me and grabbed my hand. “Come on.”

I let her lead me to the bathroom and slide my boxers down until I stood naked on the marble flooring. She stripped her dress off and leaned over the clawfoot tub to run the bath. Her breasts swayed as she stood, and I pushed aside the grief, the frustration, the anger, the sadness, and focused on her.

The way she made me feel.

The way she made me want to change.

The way she consumed my life.

I slid into the tub as she grabbed a razor, hand towel, and shaving cream from the sink counter. She hung the towel on the side of the tub and sat on the edge until I sunk deeper into the tub and leaned against the backrest. She slid in next, straddling my waist, the razor in one hand and the shaving cream in the other.

“Hold this.”

She placed the razor in my hand, pumped shaving cream onto her fingers, and spread the lather across my face. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the feel of her. Her ass against my cock. Her breasts pressed against my chest. Her fingers on my cheeks.

Her breath fanned against my face. “Stay still.”

My eyes popped open, and I watched as she set the shaving cream bottle aside and lowered the razor to my skin. She bit her lower lip, her eyes concentrated on the movements of the razor against my cheek.

I reached up and gripped her narrow waist. “You’ve lost weight.”

She swiped the razor against the hand towel and returned it to my face. “So have you.”

“I haven’t been eating.”

“I know. We ran out of groceries today, but I’ve been leaving a meal in front of your door every day. It’s always there when I get back.”

Another reason to love her.

Told you, Vince’s memory agreed. No taunts. Just genuine happiness for me.

I traced the outline of her rib, enjoying the way she jumped and her bare pussy rubbed against my stomach. The jolt of pleasure flashed across my face, and her hand shook. The razor nicked my skin, but I didn’t care.

She was so beautiful.

My fingers skimmed her ribs again. “Have you been eating?”

“I’ve been pulling doubles. More like triple shifts. We’re understaffed with Dana gone and…”

I slid my fingers from her ribcage up to her breasts and toyed with her nipples. “And?”

She tossed her head back and moaned. “Graham quit.”

“He quit?” I removed my fingers from her nipples so she could pay attention. “Did he say why?”

She returned to shaving my face—the other half this time. “He said he had issues with the management, but he signed the non-disclosure agreement to get his severance package. I made sure of it.”

Who would have thought?

Ariana De Luca putting out my fires.

She finished shaving my face and swiped the razor against the hand towel.

“I have a file on my desk.” I gripped her ass cheeks and pushed her toward me, grinding her pussy against my stomach as the razor clattered to the marble tiles and Ari’s free hand gripped my shoulder. “It has an approved application for a bartender.”

She placed her other hand on my chest. “My replacement?”

“You were a pain in my ass.”

“And now?”

“You know I love you,” I scolded as I gripped her hair in one fist and tugged a little, enjoying the way she moaned at the sting.

Running my tongue from her collarbone to her exposed neck, I let my teeth graze the sensitive skin. Her nails dug into my shoulder, no doubt leaving little crescent marks.

“Kiss me,” she begged.

I feathered her lips with mine before pressing a bruising kiss to her lips. My tongue pushed past her lips, stroked the roof of her mouth, and clashed with hers. She sucked on the tip until my cock bobbed against her.

Using my shoulders to raise her body a little, she sank onto my cock. The water splashed at the movement before settling. She rocked her hips forward, a slow grind on my erection, drawing out my pleasure.

I let her set the speed, loving the way she took her time enjoying my body. The water moved around us in light waves, reacting to her unrushed movements. I steadied her with both of my palms on her back and leaned forward to capture her nipple in my mouth. It pebbled as I bit down on it.

Her pussy clamped harder around my cock, and she pleaded, “Again. I’m so close.”

I released her nipple and kissed her lips instead. Reaching around her body, I parted her ass and rubbed my finger against her hole. “Come on my cock, baby.”

She came on me as I slid the finger in her backside. My other hand gripped her waist, and I took over, driving my cock into her pussy as it tightened around me. I came inside her, my cock as deep as her body would let me.

Water splashed over the edge of the tub. Her moans echoed across the room. Our lust and sex and the water’s heat steamed the room. It was messy and foggy and loud, but she’d chased away my pain, and it was us.

Growing up, my aunt had always told me to be careful who you love. What happened to my mom had scarred her, and maybe she knew me too well, even when I didn’t know myself, but she wanted me to find someone who treated me with caution and care. Someone who kept me whole.

That sounded boring as fuck, and after spending the past week without Bastian, I realized safe wasn’t what I wanted.

I don’t want to be loved like a shelved book, treated with painstaking, delicate care, kept pretty and pristine like a shiny trophy. I want to be used and devoured, kept near at all times, read over and over again until everything that’s in me is memorized and consumed, the pages are bent and worn with memories, and the marks he left on me can’t be erased.

Bastian could use me all he wanted and spit me back in mismatched pieces, because I’d do the same to him, and our broken pieces would learn to fit together. That is love. It isn’t perfect. It’s finding a way to be imperfect together.

The sheets laid tattered around the bed from our second round of sex. Bastian and I stared at the ceiling, our hands close together but not touching. I wore nothing but a sheen of post-sex sweat on my body as I waited for him to confide in me.

“Tell me you love me.”

It came out of nowhere.

He sounded half-desperate, so unlike any version of him I’d ever seen. I didn’t say anything. Just earlier, he’d told me not to. I didn’t want this to be the circumstances in which I said those words for the first time, but there was no denying now how much I felt them.

I love you, Bastian. I love your wit. I love how unapologetic you are. I love that you build walls around yourself—not because you’re cruel but because you love too hard. I love that you love me. I love that you’re mine.

I kept the words trapped in my mind, where they’d stay until he healed. Grief is another name for love. It’s all the love he wants to give but no longer can. For all the love trapped in his body, there’s an emptiness in places once full and a fullness in places once empty. A lump in his throat. A hole in his soul.

I want his love. I want it so much my own throat feels that same lump, my own soul shares that same hole. But I don’t want his love because he’s looking for some place to house his grief, and I was the first to tell him, “I love you.” When he hears the words from me, they will be untarnished by grief.

Bastian waited a few minutes for me to say the words. When I didn’t, he replaced them. “Go to his funeral with me.”

“Okay.”

I knew the risks it’d bring. My half-brother would likely be there. Damiano De Luca scared me, but if Bastian was going to the funeral, there was nowhere I’d rather be. I turned to look at his face, wondering what ran through his mind.

I cupped his cheek. “Tell me what you’re afraid of.”

He didn’t hesitate, and it struck me how fearless this man was. “Healing. Being okay and happy in a world without him.”

I hadn’t given him the three words he wanted to hear, but he gave me an answer to a question I wasn’t sure my dishonesty deserved.

Jupiter and Ganymede, Vince’s voice filled my head, and for once, I considered it.

Jupiter and Ganymede.

One spins. The other chases.

It was an odd time for hope to consume me, but maybe all these years, that thing inside me that told me to keep going, to look forward to the next day, wasn’t duty. Maybe it was hope.

Love was broken, but maybe we were the type that could make broken love work.