Mac held the back door to The Dollhouse open, and allowed the two men he had brought along for the cleanup to enter ahead of him. He was unaccustomed to seeing The Dollhouse as quiet and inactive as it currently was. Usually, Melina always had a girl or two on the floor, someone behind the bar, and patrons milling about.
He almost wondered why Anthony wouldn’t have noticed those things himself, and questioned it. Then again, when a man had a goal and purpose, his attention tended to focus in on only those things.
Like pussy.
Melina sat at the bar nursing a red martini. Mac nodded for the two men to head towards the back and begin their cleanup without him. Once they were gone from his sight, he headed for his wife.
Mac came up beside Melina, and slid onto a barstool. “Needed a drink?”
Her russet gaze turned on him, and she smiled. “I figured I had earned at least one.”
Sure she did.
Mac had worried—just a bit—about this plan of his wife’s. If only because he had been raised to believe that women should not dirty their hands in the business of famiglia. They should not concern themselves with the business between men. He wasn’t so stupid to think that was the way it should be, though.
He was quite aware, and had been for a long time, that Melina was not like other women, or other made men’s wives. She was unique to her, and to him. She was more than capable of getting her hands into a pot, and stirring it. She was fully able to get a job done that a man could not do, and more so, because she was a woman.
His woman.
What man wouldn’t be proud of that?
“Do you want to talk?” Mac asked.
Melina lifted a single shoulder. “About what?”
“Anything. Tonight. Anthony. How you’re feeling. Any of it, doll.”
“Like most men, he thought with his cock and not his head. Something he had wanted for a long time was dangling in front of him, and he couldn’t refuse it, even if he should have known better. His loss was our gain, Mac. There’s nothing more to say, really.”
Well, he just wanted to make sure.
Mac leaned over and kissed his wife on her temple. “Do you want to wait and head home with me?”
“I’d like to go home and hold my son. Soon, preferably”
He understood that feeling all too well.
“Call me if you need me home sooner, all right?” he asked.
Melina nodded. “Okay.”
Mac slid off the stool, ready to get to work and be rid of Anthony once and for all. He turned on his heel to head for the back hallway when Melina grabbed his wrist. She tugged, turning him back around and pulling him in for a hard kiss that froze him in place and made all the worries in his mind drift away.
God, he loved his wife.
Her lips brushed over his, soft yet insistent. Her tongue stuck against his mouth, demanding and teasing.
“I love you, Mac,” she whispered against his lips.
Mac kissed her twice, one right after the other, on her smiling mouth. “Love you, doll.”
“Can we have a break after this is all over? Just us, and Marquise, I mean. Maybe go somewhere, and do something. Without business and people? Something?”
“That sounds …”
“What?”
“Perfect, doll.” Mac grinned, and stroked his wife’s cheekbone with his thumb. “I will figure something out for us to relax, and have a break.”
It wouldn’t be easy. Especially not considering if he was going to take over the family, his first order of business could not be to run off with his wife and have a break. But fuck all that noise because he would do it for his wife. Or he would figure something out for her.
Anything to make Melina happy.
Melina downed the rest of the red martini, and set it to the bar top. “I’m going to head home.”
“How many of those things did you drink?”
She shot him a look. “Just the one, Mac. Don’t worry about that.”
He patted her on the backside with a smirk as she headed for the door. “Drive safe, doll.”
Melina waved a hand over her shoulder, and then she was gone out the door. Mac made sure to lock the door behind her, which left him and his men only the back exit to use. That was fine, though, because all that was back there was their cars and a dumpster.
Mac found his guys wrapping up Anthony’s corpse in clear plastic overtop a blue tarp. The two enforcers worked silently, rolling the man’s body until nothing was visible, and never saying a thing to one another.
“The bed and rug needs to go,” Mac said, noting the bloodstains.
“Will do, boss,” said Ross, the taller of the two.
Teddy nodded at the wall. “Bit of blood spray there, too. We’ll get it all, no worries.”
Mac sighed, and folded his dress sleeves up to the elbows. “I’ll get the bleach, then.”
“Here, boss.” Teddy held out his hand, and offered an item to Mac.
He plucked it from the enforcer’s hand.
Anthony’s signet ring.
“I would rather eat shit than wear this,” Mac said, more to himself than the men.
“Yeah, but at least if you have it, then the famiglia men will know there’s only one way you got it, boss.”
“Truth.”
Mac slid the ring down his finger. He’d destroy it the first chance he could. The snake had finally lost his head, and would not be coming back from this one.
“Let’s get this done fast, but clean,” Mac said. “I’ve got better places to be tonight.”
His enforcers agreed.
Mac went in search of bleach.
Mac slid the French toast onto a plate, and added it to the serving tray. He made his wife’s coffee just the way she liked, and added it with the rest of the breakfast. Scooping up the tray, he headed for the upstairs, making sure to check on Marquise as he passed the baby’s nursery.
Marquise, fed and changed, had already fallen back asleep. Likely until ten or later.
The kid liked to sleep.
Mac closed the baby’s door, and headed down the hallway to the master bedroom. Melina still slept contently under a pile of blankets. She didn’t stir as Mac came in, set the tray on his side of the bed, and began untangling the blankets from his wife’s sleeping form.
She, like their son, enjoyed sleep.
Maybe too much.
“Doll, wake up,” Mac murmured.
Melina rolled over, grumbling under her breath.
Mac wasn’t giving up that easy.
“Melina,” he said, tugging the last sheet off his wife’s body, “wake up.”
“It’s too early, Mac, go away.”
“First, it’s eight. That’s not early.”
Melina psht’d under her breath, never turning back to look at him. “The baby hasn’t made a sound, so it is not eight in the morning. If you’re looking for an early morning lay, you might as well go rub one out in the shower because I am not getting up.”
Mac glanced up at the ceiling, determined to keep his laughter in. “Marquise did get up. I fed him with the extra bottles you had prepped in the fridge, and laid him back down once he was changed. He’s out like a light again—gets it from his mother.”
“Liar.”
He grabbed the clock on the bedside table, and put it in front of his wife’s face, ignoring how the cord pulled against the stand and almost knocked off Melina’s book. “See, I am not lying.”
“Ugh.”
“So, you don’t want the coffee, French toast, and strawberries, huh?”
Melina sighed. “I guess.”
“Keep acting like you’re not preening inside.”
“That’s right—you keep letting me act like that, Mac.” His wife turned over, peering up at him with an amused gaze. “Are you going to feed me, too?”
“If you want me to.”
“Might as well,” she mused.
Once Melina had propped herself up against pillows, Mac joined her in the bed. She sipped on steaming coffee, while he cut pieces of French toast for her to eat from the fork he held out.
“I am, though,” she said, half yawning. “Tired, I mean.”
“Mentally tired is just another form of exhaustion, doll.”
Melina hummed an agreement under her breath.
“Also, you take this being spoiled thing far too seriously,” Mac added, offering his wife another bite.
Melina took it with a sexy grin. “Someone makes it easy for me to do, Mac.”
He chuckled. “Point taken.”
Melina was halfway through her breakfast before she spoke again. “What’s going to happen now?”
Mac shrugged. “We’ll stay quiet for a few days, let Anthony’s people figure out he’s gone missing, let them make their loops for a bit on where he could be, and then I’ll call a meet. The rest is history.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it, doll. Threats tend to work well on men who have little interest in the effort it would take to take over a family, never mind run one. They only need a boss to answer to. I will be the one to give them that.”
Melina dragged her fingers through her hair, and then piled it high on top of her head to set in a messy bun. “And Anthony’s body is …?”
In the bottom of a river, inside a deep freezer that had been filled with cement. It was never coming back up, and good luck to the fucker who found the deep freezer and wanted to pull it up from the water.
“Gone,” Mac said.
“Mac.”
“Gone, doll. That’s all you need to know. You did your job, and I did mine.”
Melina pursed her lips. “I waited up for you last night.”
“You made a bit of a mess. We made sure that room was perfect before leaving.”
“Sorry about that,” she said.
Mac laughed. “I’ve seen worse. You finished?”
“One last drink of this, and yes.”
Melina tossed back what was left of her coffee, and then Mac made the tray full of empty dishes disappear outside of their bedroom door. His wife was stretching like a little kitten against the pillows as he came to stand by her side of the bed.
“Do you want to sleep a bit more? I’ll look after the little principe.”
Melina winked up at him. “After, sure.”
Mac didn’t even get the chance to reply to what his wife was suggesting. She snagged his wrists in her grasp, and tugged him back into bed with her. Her lips met his as her thighs widened to let him fit their bodies together, while their tongues warred.
Their kiss was always so familiar to him, now. All teeth, and tongues, and lips. He couldn’t get enough of the taste of her, and he’d happily die from simply forgetting to breathe. Her mouth was his drug—a sweet poison that made him high. A sin he could never quit.
Mac edged Melina’s boy shorts down her thighs, and let her kick the underwear off as he pushed her camisole up high enough to expose her breasts. Her nipples hardened under his roving thumbs as she shoved his sleep pants down. Never once did his wife’s lips leave his, and it damn near killed him to pull away.
But he had something else to taste.
Something that was just as sweet and sinful as her mouth.
Melina arched off the bed as Mac kissed down her stomach, only stopping at her navel to flick his tongue against her skin. He set her legs over his shoulder, heard her sharp intake of air, and then he buried his face between her thighs.
Tart.
Hot.
Heavenly.
Melina’s soft pussy tasted like bliss on his tongue. He covered her sex with his mouth, let his tongue burrow into her clenching slit, and lapped up her arousal. Her heels dug into his shoulders when he sucked hard on her clit before letting his tongue flick fast against the throbbing nub.
“Jesus,” Melina whined, “don’t stop, Mac.”
He certainly wouldn’t.
Not until he got what he wanted.
Her shaking, coming all over his tongue, and ready to be fucked.
Mac felt his wife’s orgasm coming on fast—in the tremor rocking her hands that had tangled into his hair, how her legs tightened to keep him in place, and in her tone as it turned higher in pitch. Desperate, even. Her hips rocked into his mouth, wanting more, and her taste became sweeter on his tongue.
“There,” Melina breathed. “God, Mac.”
As she began to cry her way through the orgasm, Mac slid up Melina’s body, caught her parted lips in a kiss, and fit his cock between her thighs. Already clenching and wet from her orgasm, she was damn tight as he thrust in. Every fucking inch of her held him strong, taking his breath away for those first few brief seconds.
He couldn’t stand to stay still; every muscle in his body demanded he move.
Melina’s fingernails raked stinging lines down his back as he fucked her, and he could still feel the aftershocks of her orgasm squeezing his length with every flex of his hips. One of his hands cupped her throat, and his thumb stroked her lips. His other hand tangled into her hair while her legs locked around him, and she met him thrust for thrust.
There was something crazy about his wife when he fucked her.
Something especially beautiful.
Something …
Mac rolled over to his back, and took Melina with him. She never broke stride on top of him; their familiar rhythm came so easy for her. She knew where to pick up where he left off. She rode him wild, so crazy. All dark waves of hair falling over her shoulders and dark eyes locked on him. Her one hand flatted to his midsection, while her other dipped between her thighs to tease her clit.
Her bottom lip caught under her teeth, and he knew.
“Gonna come again for me, doll?” he asked.
“Gonna make me, Mac?”
Fuck yes.
They did have all morning, after all.
Mac slid the gold cufflinks into the sleeves of his suit jacket. Behind him, Enric sat in his chair, staring down at the screen of his phone.
“You could skip this meet, if you wanted,” Mac said.
Enric didn’t even bother to look up. “And what, miss seeing the man who will take over my father’s position? I don’t think so—I need to be there.”
“You know, we never did talk about the fact you didn’t tell me Luca’s plans.”
“Why would I?”
“Because I’m loyal to you, Enric.”
Enric smirked. “Yes, and look at where my loyalty has gotten you, Mac.”
Mac’s gaze met Enric’s in the mirror. “Point taken.”
“Actually, should I be using boss now, or …?”
“Not like this; not when it’s just us,” Mac said.
“All right.”
“Something came in the mail today, by the way.”
“Oh, what?” Enric asked.
Mac held up a signet ring—the second he could add to his collection. “Your father’s ring.”
Enric didn’t look surprised. “I would like to have that when you’re done with it.”
“Of course.”
Mac would need his own to be made now, anyway.
“I walked yesterday,” Enric murmured.
Mac stilled. “What?”
“Like twenty steps?” Enric shrugged. “I felt like I was going to die, and I slept from the time I got home until this morning because it took that much out of me. But …”
“You walked,” Mac said, his smile growing.
“Yeah. Victoria should have just worn an ‘I told you so’ sign. She was fucking smug about it all.”
“She cares a great deal about you.”
Mac held back from asking questions about the two’s relationship, but only because he promised Melina that he wouldn’t.
“And I think you care a great deal about her,” Mac added.
He couldn’t help himself.
Enric chuckled low. “Doesn’t matter. She won’t let me take her out, anyway.”
Mac frowned. “Why the hell not?”
Certainly not because of Enric’s current state, Mac knew. His sister was not the type to let a disability affect her feelings about a person, romantically or not.
“Getting romantically involved with a patient would cost her a lot,” Enric said quietly.
Shit.
Mac hadn’t even considered that.
“You’re not always going to be a patient, Enric,” Mac pointed out.
“Yeah, but by then, things might be—”
Mac’s ringing phone stopped Enric from finishing his sentence. He gave the young man a look to say they weren’t finished with their conversation as he picked up the call.
“Yeah, Mac here,” he said.
“The Dollhouse just got raided, boss,” came a familiar voice. The enforcer let out a hard breath, adding, “Your wife is being cornered by cops, and it’s not looking good.”
Mac cursed. “I’ll be there in thirty.”
He hung up the phone, and grabbed the handful of items on his dresser to shove in his pocket. Keys, his wallet, and whatever else.
“We have to go,” Mac said to Enric.
“What’s happened now?”
“Raid on The Dollhouse. Our meet with the men will have to wait.”
Enric scowled, and wheeled himself out of the bedroom behind Mac. “Jesus, why can’t I have one good day before it all goes to shit, huh?”
Yeah, Mac often asked himself that question, too.