chapter Twenty-One
Good Morning
Monique
My eyes flutter up as the heat at my back wakes me. As the sleep falls away, I realize that heat is a body. A hard body.
I blink in confusion, then look down. A white, but tanned hand is cupping my breast. A heavy thigh is slung over my legs, locking me in and I’m pretty sure there is a rather large piece of morning wood poking me in my behind.
I try to wiggle free, but the hand on my breast tightens and the erection digging into my ass nestles deeper. His warm breath is heavy on the back of my neck. So heavy, I can smell the alcohol from the night before.
“Sam,” I whisper, hoping to get him to release me.
He groans, only shift his hand to reach under my t-shirt. I gasp when he flicks my nipple and starts to grind his hips into mine. His large palm kneads my flesh, feeling so good. Instantly a pool floods my core.
“I missed you, Baby,” LaSalle groans huskily.
Pain crashes over me. He thinks he’s in bed with Ellen. For the last six months, LaSalle has been sleeping on the floor beside the bed. He must have been seriously drunk last night to end up in my bed. It’s the first time he’s come home like this in a long time.
“Sam,” I say louder, as his other hand snakes into my shorts.
“You’re so wet. I want to be inside you,” he rasps.
I shiver as his fingers shove into my wet folds. “LaSalle,” I nearly scream.
He pops up looking around wildly. Neither of his hands have moved from my body yet. When he looks down at me the lust in his eyes is clear. Both of his hands flex, and I gush around his fingers.
“Oh shit,” he breathes, pulling his hands away as if he’s been burned. He runs the hand he just pulled from my pussy through his hair.
Then he looks at it as if just remembering where it had been. “Fuck,” he says, closing his eyes. “Mo, I’m so sorry. I had way too much to drink last night. I tried to wake you to talk. You wouldn’t wake and I just thought I’d lie here for a minute.
“Shit, fuck, Baby, I’m so sorry,” he says sincerely.
I’m speechless. He barely touched me and gave me my first orgasm from a man. I can’t even look him in the eyes. I slip from the bed and look down at myself.
“You’re really a virgin,” LaSalle’s voice rumbles.
My head snaps up and I look at him with wide eyes. He falls back on the bed, covering his face with his arm. He groans and starts muttering more curses.
“We need to get him out of here. I can’t do this shit anymore,” LaSalle snaps and jumps from the bed. He storms out of the room, boxers and all.
“Good morning to you too,” I mutter to his retreating back before face planting from embarrassment.
~B~
Sam
I storm down to the other end of the house to my master bedroom, in my boxers. I can’t believe what I just did. I was so fucked up late night. I’d gone to Bobby’s after leaving the Indian restaurant.
When I got to his place, I found both my brothers and my two cousins, D’Angelo and Marco. That was not what I was expecting. My Uncle called them both back to Italy after Ellen’s death.
Seeing them here means a lot more than most know. My time is up. I’m officially the Don of the Locatelli family. Seeing my fate come to life with that realization sent me further into a rage.
Ellen wants me to let Mo in, to love her. That’s bullshit. Ellen had no idea of the monster I am. A monster trying to make amends by becoming an even bigger monster.
The end result of the Alliance is all peaches and roses, but the slaughter that I’ll have on my hand before that is not to be ignored. We’re going for power and with power comes war. I’ve set a war in motion and now I’m being crowned to carry out the execution.
Monique doesn’t deserve that. She has a brilliant mind and a gentle soul. I watch her with four children that aren’t her own and she has started the mending process in their little hearts and minds.
Misha and I are taking advantage of her as it is. Allowing her to do what we can’t do with our own children. Misha may not admit it, but I will. My children and I need her.
Milanie wet the bed for two weeks until Mo wrapped her in love and started a nightly routine with her. Misha was at a lose the first few nights it happened. The plea in his eyes when he told Mo about it, was the most vulnerable look I’d ever seen on the man.
She has saved me from a few similar situations. It’s what she instinctively does. She cares for others.
I’m just not the man for her to care for. Monique never wanted a man like me. She’s been trying all her life to get away from someone like me.
Ellen got it wrong this time. I’m not the man for Monique. The Don of the most feared family is not what Monique wants or needs. Coming to this awareness was the thread that broke me yesterday. I found my way into a bottle because I know I want something I can’t have.
I stare down at my fingers, still sticky from her juices. I war with wanting to stick them in my mouth, wanting to taste her. Fuck, knowing she has never been touched. That she’s waiting for marriage has me so hard I could bust through a wall.
From the look on her face, I know I’m the first man to ever touch her in an intimate way. With a body made for a man’s pleasure, I can’t fathom how she’s gone untouched for so long.
Fuck, I want to go back down the hall and talk her clothes off. I bring my fingers to my lips and inhale. Fuck, yeah! I stick my tongue out, but stop just short of licking my fingertips.
I shake my head to clear it. I need a plan. Misha has to go. Our fragile relationship be damned. If he doesn’t go, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to keep the lines from blurring.
I shove my boxers down and climb into the shower. As the cold water beats down on my back, I place my head to the tiled wall. My shoulders begin to shake, as I sob for the second time since burying my wife.
“You got it wrong, Baby. You got it so wrong,” I cry out.
Ellen never knew LaSalle. She didn’t know his world. Even if I told her who I really am, she wouldn’t have understood the depth of my world.
Monique knows, she knows too much. She has seen too much. Mo understands a monster when she sees one. I want to protect her from that, not pull her further in.
I think I saw that in her eyes the night I met her. That’s why I let her walk away. I didn’t understand it then. I was just so shell shocked from that kiss. I convinced myself it was best to let that kind of power go.
Yes, Mo has power. A power I don’t think I can fight or ignore much longer. I knew that night she owned a part of me as she walked away. Back then, I willingly let it go. I eventually became resolved with never getting it back.
Now, as I stand beneath this cold stream of water, her scent still clinging to me. I know I need that piece back to ever be whole again and that brings back the rage, anger, hurt, and betrayal. Ellen betrayed me.
She threw me into this hell I’m standing in. Trapped between the woman I love, that is gone and lost to me forever, and the woman that is going to burn me to the ground without even trying. I feel like a savage, clawing at my own heart that is also a traitor.
To love two women. Is that even possible? Oh, I am not lusting after Mo. That became clear the moment I watched her cook in my home and feed my family. It wasn’t the action, but the love in which she did it.
I watch her daily care for four children, without complaint. She has opened her heart to Misha’s daughter even though she still can’t stand the man. I knew I loved her when her laugh stopped me in my tracks.
I was on the way to end a life. Business as usual, but her laugh stopped me. When I looked into her face as it lit up the room, I knew. Once I saw the look of awe on Misha face, I understood why he’s been obsessed for years.
Mo has bewitched everyone around her; my family, my friends, my children, darn near everyone that comes near her. Yes, I love her. That’s why I know I can’t have her.
“God, you were wrong, Ellen,” I sob. “You didn’t have to leave me.”
I never deserved either of them, but I refuse to ruin another precious woman. Not another woman I love. I won’t, I can’t.