SIENA CRACKED aching eyelids open to see white stucco tile staring back at her from the ceiling. A strong antiseptic smell burned her lungs with every breath. The low, rhythmic beeps made her head pound. Something hurt like fucking hell in her chest.
She coughed.
Oh, God.
Yeah, shit, that hurt way worse.
Still, she refused to close her eyes and go back to sleep, no matter how much she wanted to do just that. She could tell she was in the hospital, but it was only after a few seconds of being lucid that she remembered why she had found herself there.
Her mother shot her.
Her own mother.
Siena blinked again.
“Look into this light for me, sweetheart, and follow it,” she heard a man say.
That statement was quickly followed by a snarled grumble in the corner of the room—an angry, heated hiss of words that both worried her, and comforted her. Siena’s bed was propped up higher, and her gaze found the person in question.
John.
His hard-set jaw, and blazing eyes would have nailed the doctor to the wall had the man been looking at John. He clearly didn’t like the man using pet names on Siena, and while it was cute, she didn’t even think she had the energy to smile at the moment.
“Follow the light, not the angry Marcello in the corner,” the doctor said, grinning just a little.
Apparently, she could smile.
It didn’t take that much effort after all.
“Sorry,” she rasped.
“Johnathan,” the doctor said, “I think the patient could use a bit of water. Three quarters of ice, one quarter of water, please.”
“The nurse—”
“They are all busy at the moment. Siena will be fine for the entire forty seconds it will wake you to walk across the hall to the machine, and fill her a cup of water.”
John looked like he struggled the most just to get up out of that chair. His blazing gaze flitted between the doctor, and Siena momentarily before settling on her. The anger there quickly bled away when she offered him a dry-lipped smile.
Or the best she could give.
“Please?” she asked him.
John nodded, but he didn’t tear his gaze away from her until he was out of the room entirely.
“He’s very protective of you,” the doctor noted, still moving his light.
Siena followed it with her gaze as she had been instructed to do. “He can’t really help it.”
“He scares my nurses sometimes.”
“Yeah, he can’t really help that, either.”
The doctor chuckled low, and clicked the button on the end of his mini-flashlight. The bright light turned off, and then he shoved it into his breast pocket.
“All in all, you’re doing remarkably well. We expected you to wake up within a few hours of your surgery,” he explained, “but maybe your body felt you needed the extra rest, as it’s been twenty-four hours since you came out of the OR.”
Siena almost felt like a sludge hammer had come and beat her right in the chest. “A whole day?”
“Your surgery took about five hours. There was a lung to repair, and a small piece of heart. Once in there, I found fragments from the bullet had embedded into different places. I didn’t want to leave those in, so what should have been three hours turned into five. I suspected six—sometimes we all win.”
Siena coughed, and pain followed all over again. Blinding, aching pain deep in her chest cavity that then spread throughout her entire nervous system. As though it was her body’s way of trying to numb the pain a bit by spreading it out.
Still, it fucking hurt.
She pulled back the hospital gown to see the bandages wrapped around her chest. She suspected there was going to be a mighty scar left behind, but it was only details in the background of far bigger thoughts.
She had survived.
She was alive.
“How long is it going to feel like this?” she asked.
“Hmm, like what, sweetheart?”
“If he doesn’t like it, then you probably shouldn’t call me that.”
The doctor grinned, saying, “You’re probably right.”
“It feels like I am breathing in acid.”
“Ah. Well, until the wound in the lung heals, I imagine. You’re breathing without a respirator, and came out of surgery like that, so it won’t be long. You are young, and healthy. All good things. I suspect you will be discharged in a couple of weeks, and by then, you probably won’t need the bandages. Your nurses will be in twice a day to check the surgery incision, and change the bandages when needed.”
The doctor shrugged, adding, “You were incredibly lucky. Had the bullet been even a couple of millimeters to the left, your heart would have been useless. You’ll need to take it easy for a month or so. No strenuous activity—nothing more than walking from one room to the next.”
That sounded fun.
“I will make sure she rests,” John said from the doorway.
John gave Siena a sexy wink, and crossed the room with a cup of ice water in his hand. The doctor gave her one last order to get some sleep, and keep the excitement to a minimum for the first couple of days, and then he left.
The sliding ICU doors closed shut behind him. It was only her and John left, then. The curtains covering the glass windows blocked out the outside world. John used a dial behind her head to turn down the lights in the room.
Another button quieted the machines.
Silently, John climbed into the bed with Siena. She hadn’t even gotten the chance to ask him to do that—he already knew what she wanted.
The second he was there with her, and she was wrapped in his embrace, nothing else mattered. She cried because she was sad, and she was happy, and she was terrified. She was all of those things at once, and it was overwhelming.
John rocked her while his lips pressed against her forehead with a soft kiss—comfort, affection, and assurance all rolled into one. Next to the heartbeats between them, she couldn’t hear anything else.
She didn’t want to.
John tipped her head back, and used the pads of his thumbs to wipe away the tears from her cheeks. He quickly pressed one kiss, and then another just as fast to her smiling lips. All the worry he had shown earlier was gone for the moment. Sure, there was still a bit of concern flashing in his eyes, but nothing like before.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
John’s brow furrowed. “For what, amore?”
“Between us, I’m always the calm, levelheaded one. I know this probably upsets you. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t upset me. Ever.”
His statement was so small, and yet firm and sure at the same time. As though it wasn’t at all up for argument, and he didn’t want to entertain it further. She chose to let it go because it didn’t really matter.
John kissed her again—lingering longer the second time, and letting his tongue tease at the seam of her lips. It was not nearly as innocent or sweet as his first kisses. Siena’s heart picked up the pace.
“You’re not supposed to excite me,” she whispered.
John laughed darkly. “My bad.”
Then, she had another thought. “Is my mom—”
“Dead.”
Flat. Dry. Cold.
His tone was all of that, and more.
Siena sucked in a shaky breath. “Yeah, okay.”
“Sorry,” he murmured. “I know that probably hurts.”
“A little.”
She was still her mom.
Coraline had given her life.
She simply hadn’t cared about it.
“But probably not for the reasons you think,” Siena added.
“I think—”
John’s words cut off when a knock against glass echoed. Siena could see through the one sliding glass door with no curtain that people were waiting. A new family for her. People who loved her because John loved her.
His family.
“So much for no excitement,” John muttered, climbing off the bed.
“They’ll be good, and quiet.”
“They’re Marcellos. They don’t know how to be good or quiet.”
He was right.
But she had needed all their noise and love.
Just like she needed him.
• • •
Six weeks later …
The front door to the Queens home Siena now shared with John slammed shut, and she cursed under her breath. She didn’t even have the time to hide the laundry basket she was hauling up the stairs before her lover came around the corner.
John’s gaze drifted to the basket in Siena’s hands, and then to where she stood halfway up the stairs. His eyes narrowed, and he gave her that look. The one a parent might give their child when they caught them doing something naughty.
“Oh, my God,” she grumbled, “it is just clothes, John.”
“You’re not supposed to be doing anything but resting, Siena.”
He came closer, and she shook her head.
Nope.
She was not doing this with him anymore. She was fine, and he was just going to have to let his overprotective nature down a little bit.
Holy fuck, she was lucky she could wipe her own ass the way he went on sometimes. The most she had gotten to do since leaving the hospital was attend Catherine Marcello’s wedding to Cross Donati.
And even then, John barely left her side, or let her do anything more than walk a few steps before he told her to sit down. She knew he was concerned—he didn’t want her to push too far, and hurt herself.
Siena was fine.
John was going to have to deal with it.
“Siena, put that damn basket down and go read one of your books, or something,” John said, his foot landing to the bottom stairs.
She knew he was pissed.
How?
He hadn’t taken his shoes off at the front door. There was nothing he hated more than dirt being tracked through the house because people didn’t take off their shoes. The fact he was the one tracking dirt meant his focus was somewhere else entirely.
All on her, apparently.
“No,” Siena said, turning her back to him.
“Siena.”
Her name practically yanked from his lips in a growl. A warning, if she ever heard one. John was not playing around, but neither was she.
Siena picked up her pace, and climbed the last few stairs without even losing a breath. She hoped that would be a clue to John—because her last three appointments had apparently not done that for him.
John was right behind her all the way. She made it to their bedroom, and dropped the basket on the floor beside the bed when he rushed into the room, too.
“What in the hell is wrong with you?” he asked.
“You.”
John snapped back like she had struck out at him.
So, maybe she could have presented that statement a little bit easier than she had. Still, it needed to be said, and John needed to hear it for once.
“You hover, and you nitpick at every little thing I do,” she told him. “You even get frustrated when I want to have a shower instead of a bath because I might be on my feet for too long. I couldn’t even dance at your cousin’s wedding—I wanted to dance with you. In case you forgot, I also have a job. Or I did, before you know, my brothers were killed. But now I own those businesses—they’re mine, and I have to take care of them. I need to get out, and do shit, John. Work. Walk. See the goddamn sun.”
He stared at her, unmoved and quiet.
Siena continued on, saying, “It’s a laundry basket with a half of a load full of clothes. It weights six pounds at most. I can carry it from the downstairs, to the upstairs, and put it away without a problem. I am fine.”
“Fine,” John murmured.
“That’s what I said.”
“And I am your problem.”
Siena pressed her lips together before saying, “I didn’t mean it like that, and you know it, John. I just meant … I know what happened was traumatic for you, and it scared you. You’re not going to say that, though, because it’s you. But I know. I do.”
John glanced away, and scrubbed a hand down his face. “I don’t want you to push yourself too hard, that’s all.”
“It’s been six weeks. I am cleared. I can resume normal activity. You know this.”
“But what if—”
“No.”
“Siena, you have to—”
“No.”
“You can’t—”
“Nope.”
John let out a frustrated grunt, saying, “Let me finish a sentence, donna.”
“Unless that sentence is something about getting me on my knees, I really don’t want to hear it. Because you know what, that’s another thing. You won’t even fuck me for fear I might get out of breath. That’s kind of the point of sex, John.”
“I know what sex does!”
“That is not the thing I want to hear,” Siena said in a singsong fashion.
John gave her a look.
Another unspoken warning.
Siena wasn’t having it.
“Killing me here,” John muttered under his breath.
Siena grinned wickedly. “What if I helped you along, then? Do you think that would snap you out of this nonsense?”
“It’s not nonsense. It’s—”
John’s words cut off when Siena pulled the straps of the dress she was wearing down over her shoulders. Without the straps to hold the flimsy fabric up, it simply fell down her body, and landed in a heap at her feet.
She wore nothing underneath.
No bra.
No panties.
This was planned.
She had a goal.
She was going to get it.
John made a noise under his breath, and then said, “What are you doing?”
Siena gave him a wink over her shoulder as she moved toward the bed. “What do you think?”
“You seriously want to fuck right now? We’re having a discussion.”
“No, you’re having a discussion with yourself. I told you what I told you, John.”
She bent over the bed to reach for one of the pillows, and pulled it toward her chest. Her scar had healed, but it could still be a little tender. Having something soft to rest on would help that little issue.
“Jesus Christ,” John said low and husky.
Siena looked back at him.
She knew exactly what he was seeing—her bent over, and her bare ass high in the air. Given her legs were a little spread, he could probably see a peek of her pussy, too.
John’s gaze lingered on her backside.
Siena smiled.
Good.
“Killing me here,” he rumbled, moving closer with every word. “I know what you’re doing, Siena.”
Dark.
Rich.
Sinful.
His tone promised sex.
Siena’s body hummed in anticipation. “Do you?”
She jumped—heating shooting through her body—when John’s warm, rough palm slid from her ass to the top of her spine. His other hand landed a soft slap to her backside. Not enough to hurt, but just enough to sting.
It made her sigh.
“I am fine,” she said, looking back at him.
John’s hazel gaze found hers. “So you say.”
“I am.”
“Mmm.”
He just needed a little more pressure applied, apparently.
Siena could do that.
She pushed her ass back into his groin before he could think to stop her. At the same time, she slid her hand between her thighs, and let the tips of her fingers run through her sex. Dampness met her fingertips, and she used that wetness to help her fingers slide in fast circles around her clit.
Jesus.
Already, her body was revving to go. Already, she was wet between her thighs. It had been too long for this, and she was not waiting one more fucking second.
“Siena,” John murmured.
She kept playing, knowing damn well he could hear the sound of her fingers sliding through her arousal. “You should help me out here.”
How was she already breathless?
How?
“Well,” John drawled in that rumbly way of his, “I think you should get yourself off first, and then we’ll talk about what comes after that.”
Siena’s eyes widened, and she found him grinning behind her. He lifted a single brow as if to ask her to challenge him while he shrugged off his suit jacket, and began unbuttoning his dress shirt.
Her fingers stopped working between her thighs. He didn’t miss it.
“Don’t stop now, Siena, you started this little game.”
“But … but I want you to—”
“I know what you want, and you can wait.”
Fuck.
She as not a dumb woman.
She could see how this turned around on her.
His palm came down on her ass harder than the first time. The harsh, yet still lovely, sting sent her flying up to her tiptoes with a gasp.
“Play,” John ordered. “And don’t be fucking cute about it, either, or you’ll wait longer, babe.”
“Fuck you,” she whispered through a laugh.
John flashed her a grin with teeth. “And we will be talking about the other shit you brought up after.”
“Whatever,” she said, working her fingers faster against her clit with every passing second. “I got what I wanted.”
“Or you will soon,” he countered.
“You know it, John.”
“Widen those beautiful legs of yours. Show me that pussy—I want to see your fingers nice and wet. It’s all mine, so let me see it.”
Damn.
His filthy words flamed her desire higher.
Siena did what she was told, and made sure to let him see two of her fingers press deep into her sex before she dragged them back up to her clit. “You like that?”
“Just worry about you, babe.”
Because yes, he did like it.
Siena heard the fabric of his shirt ruffle as he yanked it off, and then tossed it aside. She looked back at him again at the rustle of a buckle just in time to see him shove his pants down over his hips, and free his already hard cock from the confines of his boxer-briefs.
Not once did John’s eyes drift away from where her fingers worked between her thighs. She saw lust glint there—a pure, carnal love at what he was seeing. That only made her hotter, and already, she felt like she was going to combust.
Her nerves sang.
Her skin hummed.
Her clit ached.
“Almost?” he asked.
“God, yeah.”
“God does not live in this bedroom, babe. It is just you, and me.”
The spiral of her orgasm came on fast. A shot of cold down her spine, and a wave of heat in her gut. Pleasure started from somewhere in her center, and radiated outward until it reached the tips of her fingers and toes.
“Holy shit,” Siena breathed into the pillow.
Intense, but not quite enough.
Wonderful, but it could have been more.
Good, but the relief didn’t linger.
She couldn’t make herself come like John could. It was sometimes strange to her how this man knew her body even better than she did.
John proved it in those seconds by letting one of his fists tangle in her hair, and sliding his hard length into her clenching sex before she had even finished panting her way through the orgasm. She felt him flex, and he was seated in deep.
Stretching her open.
Filling her full.
“Christ, I love the way you soak me,” he said behind her.
His body fit perfectly against hers. So deep, her muscles hummed from clenching around him so tight. She vibrated all over.
She could feel that promise of another release—a better, stronger one—just beyond her grasp. She wouldn’t be able to reach it herself.
No, he would have to take her there.
“Ask me for it,” John murmured against the back of her neck.
His other hand slid around her throat. Long fingers wrapped along the delicate column, and held tight. She still had her breath, sure, but it caught in her throat a little with every exhale and swallow. His fingertips danced along her pulse point.
“Ask me for it, Siena.”
“Please fuck me.”
“Hmm? I didn’t hear you, babe.”
His lips grazed her neck, and then her ear. His words slipped over her skin with damningly sinful intent.
A wicked promise.
“Please fuck me, John,” she said a little louder.
Not much, though.
She was airless.
Her mind muddy.
Her body needy.
“Please, please fuck me.”
He either got the response he wanted, or he felt bad for teasing her like he had. She didn’t even get the chance to take another breath, or prepare for him to take her again. He simply pulled back, and flexed forward all in the same second.
A hard thrust that sent her back up to her toes, and pushed her further into the pillow. She was right—the softness of the pillow cushioned her chest enough to keep the tenderness at bay.
She didn’t even think about it at all as he pounded into her from behind. She couldn’t think about anything except for his cock driving into her over and over again, and the way he held onto her hair and throat at the same time.
His pace was brutal.
Unforgiving.
So relentless.
John didn’t slow at all when Siena’s cries became a little higher, and her breaths came out shorter. He fucked her through the second orgasm, and then kept on going until she was shouting her way through a third.
Nobody owned her like he did.
Nobody loved her like he did.
Nobody could ever possibly be him to her.
“One more,” she heard him say, his words mumbled into her hair. “Give me one more, babe.”
“I can’t—I can’t.”
She didn’t think she could come again.
John had a different opinion. “You sure fucking can.”
It took longer for the fourth orgasm to come. It took her fingers toying between her thighs, while he fucked her hard enough to make her bones ache in the best way. It took two of his fingers stuffed into her ass while he yanked her hair back, and whispered the dirtiest things in her ear.
God.
She loved all of it.
She didn’t hurt a bit.
She really was just fine.
“Fuck, yeah.”
She heard John’s grunt through her mindless, pleased haze a second before his warm cum painted her back. His hand pressed hard against her shoulders, and she could feel the tremor working its way through his body just from the pressure alone as he tried to keep himself upright.
Siena laughed.
John chuckled, too.
“I still said what I said,” she said, tasting sex and love on her tongue. “And I meant it—I am fine, John.”
“Don’t push me, Siena.”
“Who else will?”