Bastiano Romano: A Standalone Mafia Romance Novel (The Five Syndicates Book 4) by Parker S. Huntington (22)

“Are you in bed?” I drew my phone closer to my ear, so I could hear her answer better.

“Yup.” Tessie popped the P and inhaled like she was on the verge of finishing a marathon, which came out like a squeaky Darth Vader through the line. “How ironic coming from you.”

I rolled my eyes, though she couldn’t see me. “Do you even know what irony is?”

“Yes! I totally do! It’s the antonym for wrinkly.”

I shrugged. At least she knew the definition of antonym. “Get to bed, smart ass. It’s late.”

“You just cursed.”

“Because I’m an adult, and I can. Stop changing the subject.”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

I swore, dragged my palm along my jaw, and considered yelling at Gio for not checking up on Tessie. “And now?”

“I guess I’m okay. Why can’t I stay with you? Daddy snores.”

“Your room is on the other side of the brownstone. Not even on the same floor.”

“It’s scary!”

I pulled up my calendar and browsed through the events and tasks lists, narrowing in on the early piano lessons she had tomorrow. “Tell you what… you can stay over tomorrow or the day after. I’ll work it out with our dad. Okay? Just go to bed.”

“Fine.” After a beat, I could still hear her breathing on the line. “Bastian?”

“Yes?”

“I love you.” She sounded fractured, fragility concealing the strength she usually wore every day like her favorite light-up shoes.

“I love you, too, Tessie,” I murmured in Italian.

“It’s Contessa.”

I rolled my eyes and hung up on her, knowing she’d probably stay up for at least another hour if I stayed on the line. I wanted to help her. I did. But I wasn’t in the right state of mind. I’d spent too much time hunting, tracking my prey, waiting for a vulnerability to attack. If Graham was the mole, he didn’t seem to be leaving any tracks. I struggled to find something. Anything.

My blue balls didn’t help either.

The week since my Prince Albert had kissed the back of Ariana De Luca’s throat had sent me spiraling to control my sex drive. Like I was back to my preteen days, where all the action I’d gotten happened between the pages of a Playboy magazine or consisted of feeling a girl up in the back of the boarding school gym. The gush of women Gio tossed my way didn’t stop flowing, but if anything, my already non-existent interest lessened.

I could have had her. I’d been buried deep inside her. But when I fucked her, truly fucked her, it wouldn’t be with a time constraint and her reservations looming over our heads. What happened last week didn’t count. You didn’t eat the appetizer and call it dinner. What I wanted—what I needed—was to savor each taste of the main course and stay for dessert.

I wanted Ariana, and perhaps it’d happen. She worked later than the rest of the crew, staying odd hours while all the lazy assholes left her to do most of the closing work. Her bonus at the end of the month would reflect her extra hours and effort, straight out of the paychecks of everyone else on her shift.

That also meant I could count on her to be out there right now—to tease, prod, and poke until she snapped, and we tumbled to the floor and hate-fucked our attraction out of our systems. Then, I could move on, hire someone new, and gather some more distance between Ariana and Tessie, who grew increasingly attached to her by the second. Hell, I’d rip Everett away from Elsa had he not already gotten attached to the witch.

I grabbed a few manila files to look at when I got home, secured my desktop, double checked that I had nothing laying around, and locked my office door on the way out. In the bar, I’d expected to find Ariana wiping down the tables or lifting the chairs.

They had been cleaned, yes. But Ariana hadn’t left. She sat at the bar, nursing an open bottle of vodka between her dainty palms. And not one of the small bottles. A bottle too big for her petite hands to fully grip.

A great chunk was missing from the bottle, more than someone her size should be drinking. She had her eyes closed, her head facing the ceiling as she hummed a melancholic melody that made me want to play along with my piano keys.

Instead, I approached her, set my stack of folders beside me on the bar top, and nodded to the bottle, though she had her eyes closed and couldn’t see me. “That’s coming out of your paycheck.”

She peeked an eye open. “Are you always such an—”

“Asshole? Have you ever read a book with the same line over and over? It gets boring.” I didn’t relent as she closed her eyes and drew in a chest-shattering sigh. “Come on, De Luca. You can be more original than that.”

“I don’t want to be.”

“Okay. Care to explain why you’ve drunk your way through”—I eyed the four-thousand-a-piece bottle of Diva vodka—“a grand of vodka?”

She swiped a lock of hair away from her face, like the single strand was the source of her anger. “It’s my deathiversary.”

I opened my mouth to ask her what the hell that meant, but she continued, more forthcoming than she’d normally be, thanks to the vodka. I’d let her speak, because her secrets bothered me. I wanted to untangle them all until I reached the center where only she existed.

Fuck, these weren’t thoughts I should be having.

She set the bottle down on the counter and traced its rim with the tip of her finger. “My mom died today.”

Shit.

“Ari—”

“For once in your damn life, just let me speak.”

Fierce eyes met fierce words. I stared into them, taking in all she’d let me see before relenting. She needed this. Clearly. Knee deep in liquor and lashing out was a state I saw too often in this bar.

I nodded. “Fine.”

I’d let her have this. She looked like she needed it, and contrary to popular belief, I wasn’t a complete asshole. I unbuttoned the top two buttons of my button-down shirt, removed my cufflinks and placed them in my pocket, sat on the stool beside her, and gave her my full attention—knowing this wasn’t my typical protocol with employees.

Normally, I’d fire their asses for drinking the inventory; write a severance check on the spot, so I wouldn’t have to see them again; and call them a cab to avoid a lawsuit.

Her lips connected with the rim of the vodka bottle. She tilted her head back and swallowed. “My mom died today. Twenty-nine years ago.”

I racked my brain, thinking back to her employee file. Fuck. Ariana turned twenty-nine today…which meant her mom probably died giving birth to her. I opened my mouth to say something, but there was nothing to say.

I understood hating birthdays. Mine was in a week, and I already knew how it would go. A quirky call from Tessie. A text from Gio, Uncle Eli, and Uncle Frankie. A text from mom if I was lucky. A visit from Uncle Vince, and a gag gift from Asher. I’d spend the night alone, and aside from a few texts, it’d be any other day.

Ariana set the bottle down and turned to face me, her eyes clear for how much she had drunk. “I don’t have a single memory of her. Not one.” Her laughter surprised me, punching me in the throat, where everything had been bottled up since I’d met her. “Granted, I don’t have a single real adult memory anywhere. Not since college. You know, I have a job—a job some would consider good and honorable—but I don’t feel either of those things. I don’t know who the hell I am or what I want to do with my life, and now I’m twenty-nine, feeling like my life has spiraled into something I can’t stop or recognize.”

I didn’t know what she meant by that for her, but her words resonated with my life. I was thirty—thirty-one in a week—and I didn’t feel like life went beyond the motions. I had a family I refused to let down but no desire to do the things they wanted from me. A job I liked but didn’t love. A sister and son I adored but rarely saw.

My life stood at odds with the type of man I was—an unapologetic taker. But how could I take what I wanted if I didn’t know what I wanted or how to get it?

Besides her.

I wanted her.

I slid the vodka bottle away from Ariana, considered taking a swig, but decided one of us needed to be sober. “There’s always a way to stop things. To live life on your terms and only yours.”

It never ceased to surprise me how I could dish advice, but I couldn’t take it. Asher or Niccolaio would come to me with questions, and I’d always have answers for them but never for myself.

Ari swung her head back and forth, the movement a little sloppy. “Maybe because you’re Bastiano Romano, but for us normal people, there’s not always a way to take what we want. Not even close.”

“What does being Bastiano Romano mean to you?”

“It means you’re ruthless.” She leaned forward and poked my chest, the tiny digit not even moving me a centimeter. “It means you can do whatever you want, create the future you desire, and make the choices you want to make. It means full autonomy of your own life, and I fucking hate you for it.”

She was so far off, it almost pissed me off.

“Careful,” I warned. I grabbed her finger when she went to poke me again. “You know nothing.”

“I know this: you jerked off in front of me without a care in the world; you dangle me around, making me wait hours and hours for you with little consideration for my feelings; you got me to do your bidding from day one; you threaten people like Bianchi, because you can, and even if he deserved it, most people wouldn’t be in the position to do so and get away with it, but you are; and you touch me when you want, but worse, you make me want it, too. You do these things, and I hate them, yet I can’t stop thinking about you. You’ve made me wake up wet and aching for you dozens of times, and each time, I slip my fingers between the folds of my pussy, mortified by how wet you make me, and make myself come, pretending it’s you, but it doesn’t live up to the real thing. What if I want to be that to another person? What if I want to be irreplaceable? That’s not the kind of thing you can just make happen.”

I knew she was drunk, but it didn’t lessen the impact of her words.

She dreamed of me.

She fantasized about me.

She thought I was irreplaceable.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Dangerous words from a dangerous woman, who saw more of me than I’d thought she did. But I doubted she saw the inside, past the shiny exterior. The inside, where nothing existed. No wants. No desires. Nothing. A hole where dreams and aspirations should have lived but didn’t, because what I truly wanted—my son—was so far out of reach, I couldn’t even dream of it.

“You don’t want to be me.”

“Fine,” she agreed. “Maybe I don’t. But I want to know that, if it were my one true desire, I could.”

Her confessions made her bare before me, but they didn’t make her weak. The opposite, actually. She was strength and vulnerability, intertwined so thoroughly, I had no clue which was which.

I ran my palm across my jaw and stared at the vodka bottle before taking in the way she gave me all of her attention. “You strike me as the type of person who can do anything.” Maybe it was because I doubted she’d remember this in the morning, but honesty felt like the right approach here.

“Really?”

“I don’t lie.”

Except to myself.

She sighed, closed her eyes, and stood. “I do. I’m probably the biggest liar you’ve ever met.”

I doubted that.

Whatever the fuck that meant escaped me as she stood. I half expected her to leave. Instead, she grabbed my hand, and I let her slide it up the skirt of her dress, wondering how far she’d take this.

She used my hand to push aside her lace panties. My nails grazed the lips of her pussy. I didn’t move them. Just let them sit there as every cell in my body warred with my head.

“Touch me.” Her eyes spoke of no uncertainty. Just sheer, unfiltered need. Her tone was a decibel short of begging, but one look at her, and I knew she wasn’t going to.

I swiped a finger between her lips, gathered her wetness, brought it to her mouth, and slipped my finger inside. “I make you so wet.”

“Sometimes, I hate you.” She latched her lips around my finger and sucked, so damned greedy for us to happen.

“You hate that you want me. Don’t confuse the two.”

“Maybe.” She sighed around my finger, and I knew then and there, with that vulnerability so bare before me, she was too drunk for this to continue. “Bastian,” she groaned out, making it so much harder for me to stop. She said my name like it wasn’t just a name but a breath—an extension of her, like I was already inside her.

I slipped my finger out of her mouth and helped her steady herself. “You’ve had a lot to drink. Let’s get you home.”

“Yeah, okay. I think I’m sleepy anyway.” She leaned into me, letting me support her weight as we walked to my car. “You’re such a fucking asshole sometimes, but when you’re nice, it confuses me.”

You and me both.

Thing was, she might have called me an asshole, but she wasn’t sweet, soft, or kind herself. She was hard. Strong. The makings of a warrior. And I’d only ever seen her softness near Tessie… and now. When alcohol had reduced her barriers to nothing.

She rattled off her address, though I remembered where she lived from her employee file. I helped her up to her apartment and into her bed when we got there. The place was bare, devoid of personality, and the cabinets even emptier. No Advil. No sports electrolyte drinks. Nothing to combat the brutal headache she’d no doubt have in the morning.

At the very least, I supposed food could help. She had nothing in the fridge and a lone carton of ice cream nestled in the back of the freezer. I grabbed it, a spoon, and a napkin, then headed into the bedroom. She laid on her mattress, her dress thrown to the floor, her body all curves and lace, her eyes closed and limbs sprawled across the bed like limp noodles.

When I entered, her eyes shifted to me, and she took in the carton of ice cream. “Ice cream is cheaper than therapy.”

“Probably.”

“I hate therapy.”

I dimmed the lights, then turned back to her with a raised brow. “You’ve been?”

Was it wrong to take advantage of her forthcoming state? Probably. Did I care? Not in the slightest. There were worse ways to extract information.

Her eyes drifted shut. “Yes. I still go, because I have to.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” I reminded her.

“Yes, I do.” She opened her mouth wide.

I sat beside her on the bed, my body putting a giant dent in the shitty mattress. “What are you doing?”

“I want ice cream, but I don’t think I could move my arms if I tried.”

“Because of the ice shift?” I needed to get her off that shift. It was an asshole move, even for me.

“You’re such a jerk. My body hurts. I thought I was fit, but of course, you ruined that conception, too.”

“I tend to ruin things,” I allowed, remembering the many nights I’d stayed awake, wondering whether or not what happened with Elsa was my fault. “But usually not without reason.”

“Yeah? What’s your reason for making me carry a hundred and fifty pounds of ice up and down a giant flight of stairs multiple times a day?”

“Punishment.”

The answer came easily.

“For what?”

Making me want her.

Instead of saying that, I opened the ice cream, scooped some into the spoon, and fed her. Her lips wrapped around the cold metal, and I drew it out, my movements slow and labored. The metal sliding past her lips brought back the image of her tongue flicking my Prince Albert. My cock jerked to life, and the lingerie on her body did nothing to help it. This woman could wear denim-blue tarp and look fuck-hot.

“Mmm.” She groaned and closed her eyes. “Definitely cheaper than therapy.”

I scooped some into my mouth when she opened hers for another bite.

Her mouth dropped open. “Seriously?”

“I can’t stop who I am.”

“Who you are is an asshole. That’s my ice cream. I bought it.”

“Remember what I said I’d do last time you called me an asshole?”

“Yes, please.” She leaned back onto the sheets, her lingerie-clad body arched toward me. “I hear an awful lot of talking and very little fucking.” She threw my words at me like a pro, something like excitement sparkling in her eyes before they drooped as she yawned.

Christ, I hoped she didn’t drink like this in front of other people.

“You’re a high-functioning drunk. You know that?” I tossed the empty ice cream carton to the side when she yawned again. “You should sleep, or you’ll feel it when you wake up.”

“Are you leaving?”

I stood and readjusted my clothes, along with my unapologetic erection. “Yes.”

“It’s late.”

I eyed the clock. Nearly five in the morning, but I didn’t really have anywhere to be until my meeting with Gio at four. “Are you asking me to stay?”

“I’m just saying, you brought me home, it’s late, and I don’t think it’s safe for you to drive while tired.”

I watched her struggle to get the covers over her body. “So, you’re asking me to stay…”

She gave up on the sheets before I leaned forward and swept them over her body. “Yes, I’m asking you to stay. Happy?”

Not really. Aside from Elsa, I’d never spent the night with the women I’d slept with, so spending the night without the sex would be a worse idea. This complicated things. I didn’t do complicated.

But it was late, and I was tired, so I kicked off my shoes, tossed off my suit jacket, unbuttoned my shirt and slipped it off my torso, and slid my slacks down my legs.

She peeked an eye open, her eyes widening as she took in my tattoos, eyeing the one with Everett’s name beneath my ribcage. “What are you doing?”

“Getting in bed with you. Do you expect me to sleep on that couch?”

“It pops out into a bed.”

“If your bed mattress is this shitty, your couch mattress will be worse.”

“Blame my shitty salary.”

“Your ‘shitty salary’ is double what any other bartender in the city would make. Not to mention the tips you make as the most attractive bartender on the staff.”

“You think I’m attractive?”

“I fucked your mouth, slid my fingers up your ass, and had my Prince Albert pressed against your G-spot. What do you think?” I slid under the sheets, reached out, and pulled her closer, so her body pressed entirely against mine.

“What? I—” She let out an alarmed breath, but I buried my face in her neck and closed my eyes, because fuck it.

If I was doing this, I was doing this the way I wanted to.

I pressed my lips to the delicate skin at the back of her neck. “Shut up and sleep.”

For once, she listened to me, relaxing against my chest without any protest. I told myself it meant nothing. I may have told Ari I wasn’t a liar, but I’d left out one thing.

I was good at lying to myself.