Dating the Don (Savage Crime Lords #1)

Chapter 18

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

MAEVE

D ays pass uneventfully.

It feels like a terrible letdown. How sad is it that suddenly, not being blown up or attempted to be kidnapped somehow feels anticlimactic? I know that Cristiano’s working on it. I know that he’s trying to get as much accurate information as he can before moving forward.

He’s been out of the house more often than he’s been home.

In the morning, I wake up and he’s gone. He’s rarely back before I go to bed in the evening. Ada keeps saying she’s never seen him work this hard and I don’t know how to take it. I want to assume that it means good things. I want to assume that he’s getting his men closer and closer to a lead, but maybe he’s finding nothing at all.

I need him to talk to me.

I figured he was going to start taking me with him. Or, at the very least, updateme on the developments. Instead, he's left me holed up in this place, waiting for anything to happen, day in and day out. I keep toiling away. I can’t draw. I can’t sew. I have no idea what to do with myself since all I can think about is him .

Callum Sullivan is my father.

We found my birth certificate. He’s found more information on my mom’s childhood and even some pictures of the pair of them together from the short period they were married. Not that they ever got divorced.

Cristiano won’t tell me if he knows where Callum is or what he is up to with Doyle. I know that he’s Hugh’s right-hand man now, so clearly it’s been a very important secret for them all to keep. Still, the only details I’m being fed all seem rather superficial; nothing that will help me know where he is or what he’s going to be doing.

I understand he’s trying to keep me safe. But there are limits. Cristiano’s getting dangerously close to breaking his promise to me. I have to show him that I can handle it. I have to prove to him that I’m not that vulnerable. I can do this. He just has to trust me.

Whether he likes it or not.

So that night, I wait for him to get back. I am willing to wait all night long if that’s what it takes but I’m not going to let him ignore me any longer. I’m done. When Cristiano walks into the room, he seems surprised to see me awake and waiting for him.

“What are you still doing awake?” He asks as he removes his jacket and starts undressing.

“Can’t a girl wait up for her fiancé?” I say playfully with a smile that doesn't quite reach my eyes.

Cristano’s brow lifts.

He pulls his shirt over his head and wads it into a ball.

No, Maeve, focus. Don’t allow yourself to be distracted by the sight of him shirtless or the fact that it’s been days since you’ve last felt him inside you.

I’m on a mission here. I can’t let myself get distracted.

Cristiano unbuttons his pants and lets them linger on his hips as he crosses the room to where I’m sitting on the bed wearing one of his shirts and only that. I am willing to debase myself a little bit if it means that I’ll get the information that I want out of him.

He presses his knuckles into the bedding on either side of my legs and leans closer until he’s only an inch from my face. “Want to tell me what this is really about?”

My chin lifts until my lips nearly brush against his own. “This is about you cutting me out.”

Cristiano exhales roughly and rolls his eyes before pulling away from me. “I’m doing no such thing.”

Something inside of me snaps.

“Oh, so you’re doing it on purpose. I was hoping that I was just reading into things but your reaction just proved it. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t blow me off like that. You made a promise! You promised and, what, your word just means nothing?” I shouldn’t follow him when I’m angry.

He turns on me, his hand finding my neck and pinning me to the closest wall with a snarl.

That mask of his that’s always so carefully in place slips. This is the version of him that I found in that basement. This is the ruthless version of him that’s the head of the Dominio clan.

It shouldn’t be so fucking sexy.

The concentration of fury that he’s aiming at me and me alone should terrify me.

Instead, arousal rushes between my legs and it takes just about everything that I have left in me to keep from moving. I want to keep poking the proverbial bear. Half to see what he does, and half to get my point across.

“Careful what you say,” Cristiano warns in a low voice.

“Or what?” I push. “Is this how you treat all of your partners?”

Cristiano doesn’t answer at first. Something I don’t recognize is on his face.

I mock him with a bitter laugh. “Oh is it? I see. Then I guess you’re really just as sexist like the rest of them, aren’t you? You just pretend to be above it all to fuck me, isn’t that right? Get what you want and say what you have to in order to shut me up.”

That does it.

Hurt flickers over his face before he forcibly lets me go. “Jesus, Maeve.”

“Oh, don’t back down now! Where did the fire go? So big and tough, aren’t you?” I push him in the chest, trying to get a rise out of him. I will do whatever it takes to get an explanation from him.

“I don’t have partners, Maeve!” Cristiano shouts in response. “Do you think that my mother was a partner to my father? That they went to business meetings together? No! She was a wife .”

He could have slapped me and it would have been kinder.

“So I’m right then,” I say bitterly. “You’re just as sexist alike everybody else in Cosa Nostra. Only you’re worse because you pretend that you’re not.”

“Are you fucking serious right now?” Cristiano rebukes.

“Well, I’m not fucking anything else, so I guess so,” I cross my arms over my chest and shift my weight onto one foot.

“Are you seriously pissed off because I’m trying to keep you safe? Are you kidding me?”

“Don’t turn this around on me like I’m asking for something crazy here. You promised that we were going to do this together!” I shout.

Cristiano sneers at me, his lips curl and he pushes back into my space again. He glares down at me, his sheer size pressing me up against the wall. “I’m trying to keep you safe!”

“I’m not some princess that you get to keep locked away in a tower, Cristiano!”

I can’t stop. I can’t come down. I know he’s trying to keep me safe. But he doesn’t get to choose what I do and don’t get to know.

“I would do it for anybody that I—” Cristiano swallows whatever he was about to say. “I don’t see Ada complaining that I’m keeping her safe!”

I scoff audibly. “Ah, I see. So you’re treating me like your kid sister? Like a defenseless girl? Is that what this is?”

Cristiano swallows hard. The fire in his eyes seems to fizzle out all at once. He nods.

I shove him.

Is he serious?

Something inside of me is breaking and I can’t stop it.

I grab and kiss him. I have to prove a point.

He groans as he lets me pull him into the kiss. I haul him to my body so swiftly that he has no choice but to brace a hand on the wall behind my head to keep from falling.

“Would you do this to your sister?” I say, breathless as my teeth close over his bottom lip, hard enough to keep his focus. He tries to pull away, but I haul him back.

“That’s not what I fucking meant,” Cristiano growls.

I grab his hand and place it on my breast, letting his thumb brush over my hardened nipple. I move his hand down my body, stopping to twist it between my legs and onto my bare pussy. “Am I your sister now?” I ask. Last chance.

Cristiano bites his bottom lip, but the choice is obvious. “Fuck, no.”

His fingers sink inside of me and my head falls back. I let him finger me, pumping his skilled fingers inside of me, filling me as I cling to him. “Prove it,” I gasp.

He growls and somehow manages to lift me with one hand while fingering me with the other. I blink and he’s got me on the bed. He fits a third finger inside of me and my hips nearly come off the bed. I grab him by the back of the neck and pull him closer.

“Do I need to teach you I’m not breakable? You don’t get to keep me on a glass pedestal,” I command.

Cristiano nods as he wrenches the shirt up, exposing my breasts. There’s nothing soft or kind in the way that he’s touching me, I wouldn’t want it to be. I want everything he has to offer. His teeth close over my breast, possessive in a way that blurs the line between pain and pleasure.

“More?” He challenges.

I meet his gaze, the fire is back for both of us. I nod. “Do your worst.”

He smirks. “You couldn’t handle it.”

“Try me,” I challenge.

He flicks his tongue at the tip of my nipple as he pinches it between his teeth. It’s a warning. Teasing. I’m not going to back down. He is sadly mistaken if he believes this is enough for me to back down. I draw him in and wrap my legs around his waist, my fingers digging into the tops of his shoulders. I should be ashamed of myself for the wanton way my hips lift and grind against his hand, forcing his fingers deeper into me, but all I can feel is the intense desire pulsing through my body as I let out a plea.

I push his pants down further with my heels until I can feel the insistent heat of him.

Cristiano buries himself inside of me with a snap of his hips and I forget how to breathe. He fills me completely, his fingers trailing up my core to circle my clit.

The contrast of his slow fingers and the almost brutal pace of his hips is going to be my undoing. Far more quickly than I mean to. I’m supposed to fight him. I’m supposed to prove that I can handle myself and yet I cave quickly.

If I can’t even keep up with him here, then he’s never going to let me have my part of revenge against the Irish mob for what they did to my mother. He’s going to think that the only way he can keep me safe is by keeping me locked up here where the world can’t touch me.

I can’t live like that.

I grab hold of his shoulders and leverage a foot against the bed until I force him onto his back. Cristiano’s eyes widen in surprise. I’m not sure if he’s surprised just because I took charge or because he’s probably never had a woman on top of him before.

I take over the pace as he continues to tease my clit, his other hand on my hip, helping me move.

No, that won’t do at all. I don’t need his help. So, I slap his hand away. I can win this fight. I deserve this.

Fuck, he feels so fucking good. I didn’t think that it was possible to have something this deeply inside of me before. The burn in my thighs is instant and exhausting but I refuse to quit. I refuse to stop this even as my orgasm starts to make my body tingle and my unsteady legs begin to shake.

Cristiano smirks.

I’m losing and he’s winning and fuck him for making it feel so fucking good.

His hands shift, and he grabs hold of my hips and holds them in place. I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. His powerful thighs push up into me, thrusting from below and all I can do is reach for the headboard over his head to keep from falling over completely as my orgasm rips through me. He fucks me through it, like a tidal wave of pleasure that seemingly has no end in sight and I can’t think. I can’t breathe. I am adrift in all things Cristiano and it no longer occurs to me that I should probably protest.

He lifts me and I slump over onto the bed beside him, trying to catch my breath.

He lifts my hips, positioning my knees behind me as he fills me once more from behind. My eyes roll into the back of my head as he reaches around my thigh to rub me again.

I can’t take it. I try to shove his hand away, but he keeps pushing me higher. I won't be able to cum again so soon.It's impossible. And yet, I cum again so violently that my breath is cut off. Cristiano rips out of me and slaps my ass hard enough to leave a red mark, making my knees tremble and shiver. He skirts the side of the bed and brushes my damp hair away from my face in a way that borders on tenderness.

He cups my chin. “Open your mouth.”

Mutely, I obey.

Salty sweet on my tongue and over my face as he finishes with my name groaned off of his lips. He bends to kiss my forehead, likely the only part of my skin not painted in him.

“Good girl, Maeve. When you’re ready to talk rationally, come and join me in the shower.”

There’s no more steam coming out of the shower by the time I can walk again. His cum drips from my face onto my shirt, so I discard it. To say I’m wearing my defeat would be an understatement. I refuse to look in the mirror because I don’t want to like the image it presents to me. While I’m sorely tempted to lick it off and go back to bed, I don’t.

Cristiano takes one look at my face and breasts and he’s hard again when I step into the shower.

“Hands to yourself,” I warn with faux authority and chastisement. He makes a grand sweeping gesture to give me the spray of water.

“Even to help out?” He points at the soap. “Though, I rather like the image that you’re sporting right now.”

I frown. However, in another situation, I might capitalize on it. I turn my back to him and let the water sluice over my hair and body. Cristiano’s warm, soothing touch finds my hair moments later to wash it for me.

“I am sorry for the way I was acting, even if that wasn’t exactly obvious by my actions just a moment ago.”

I glance at him over my shoulder so that he can keep talking, but I say nothing as he massages shampoo into my scalp and I let the water rinse everything else off of me.

“I don’t…” Cristiano wraps his arms around me and pulls me flush against him. He kisses my temple sweetly. It feels so intimate I don’t know what to say. It’s so much more than just sex. It’s so much more. “I don’t know how to do what I need to do if it means putting you in danger too.”

I bite my lip and swallow down the retorts. It’s a sweet sentiment but it’s misguided. “I… understand.”

It’s half of the truth at least.

“I just want to keep you safe. You’re… important to me, Maeve,” he admits. I turn to rinse the shampoo out of my hair as silence fills the shower. I should say it back. I should say what I’m thinking but I can’t. The tension between us grows into something uncomfortable I don’t know how to name or handle. “Will you accept my apology at least?”

“I accept it… I just don’t like it.”

It’s the only answer that I can give him.

“I promise that they will pay for what they did, Maeve. I don’t want you to have to see me become the person I have to be in order to handle all of that business. You understand that too?”

I turn to glance at him with a smile that doesn’t reach my eyes. “Of course.”

He makes a move like he’s going to touch me again, but refrains. He silently passes me the body wash and steps out of the shower to let me finish in peace. I need the moment to breathe. I need the moment to rethink my plan. I might have lost our little battle but I haven’t lost the war. I just need him to think that I’ve accepted my defeat.

I don’t like lying. I never have and I don’t think I’ll ever get to a point where it will be comfortable for me to do it. Even less to Cristiano when he’s put so much on the line for me as it is. But he’s left me no choice. I can’t sit here and do nothing. I know that he doesn’t want me involved. He doesn’t want to put me at risk and, on some level, I suppose I can respect that, but I’m much more capable than he’s choosing to give me credit for.

It takes some time before his breathing starts to level out.

I don’t slip out of the room until I’m absolutely certain that he’s asleep.

He will forgive me for this, he will have to.

I dress in all black, something that would normally make my skin crawl. But when it’s needed, it’s needed. I tie back my hair away from my face as best as possible and don a pair of comfortable shoes. No time to think twice. No time to back out or consider my actions. If Cristiano isn’t going to help me take the revenge that I’m owed, then I’m just going to have to go out and get it for myself.