She’s My Queen

24. All the feelings

24

ALL THE FEELINGS

SEVERIO

B eing balls-deep inside Cristina is a more comfortable position for me than the one I find myself in after sex. Probably because I recognize this moment for what it is. A form of aftercare when a woman needs me to hold her, which is something I avoid at all costs by not placing myself in a position where something like this would be necessary. Or even expected.

My brother was right. Typically, I’m not a territorial animal or the kind of man who gets jealous or possessive over a woman. That’s only because those types of feelings happen when a man cares. I never have.

Unless it has to do with this girl. If it’s about her, I seem to care.

Maybe it’s temporary, something distance will cure. Distancing worked before, since this isn’t the first time I’ve met her. This line of thinking just goes to show how uncomfortable I am while spooning. I’ve tucked her so close to me that we couldn’t get any closer unless I were inside her again.

Which I won’t be, because I don’t want to tear her inner walls.

She’s sucking on my thumb while my cum leaks from between her legs. I grab a spare pillow, shake it out to separate it from the pillowcase, and use the case to wipe her.

I could’ve left to get a towel.

It’s distancing.

But no. I can’t bring myself to refuse whatever it is she needs from me. Or maybe I need it. Maybe I’m the one who needs to feel her against me and know she’s finally mine.

Minutes pass, and Cristina takes my thumb out of her mouth.

“Hey, Severio?”

Again, I kiss her shoulder. “Yes?”

She turns to face me, and I’m struck by how pretty she is. Big chestnut eyes framed in dark long eyelashes. Rosy cheeks. Plush mouth always shining with some sort of lip gloss. Today, I tasted cotton candy.

When she doesn’t say anything, I prompt her. “Did you want to ask me something?”

“Was I any good?”

I frown. “How do you mean?”

“At sex. Is that how you like it?” She clears her throat. “How you enjoy it? With the spanking and all, not letting me move?”

Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh.

She’s blushing prettily and probably has lain with me this entire time summoning the courage to ask me if I liked having sex with her. Silly question. But a serious one for her, given the fact she’s inexperienced and probably didn’t expect a spanking. There was no way I wasn’t going to. Her ass cheeks begged for it.

“I enjoyed it, yes. Did you?”

She pulls the sheet up and over half of her face, leaving only her eyes.

I chuckle. “Don’t be embarrassed.”

“I know, but I am. It’s hard to look you in the eyes.”

It’s no easier for me, but for different reasons. I think I made love to a woman for the first time instead of fucked her, but I don’t say that. If I say it, it’s real, and I can’t take it back.

She reaches for the pendant on my necklace. She inspects the seashell. She won’t remember it. She was too small. Even I wonder why I kept it.

Cristina looks up at me, then at the seashell, and my heart thuds in my chest at the thought of being discovered. I’ve kept this memory private for so long, I feel like nobody should have it. Not even the girl who shared it with me. I’m so fucking uncomfortable that I must force myself not to get up and walk out.

I’m assessing her as I would a threat.

It’s such an awkward feeling. She’s a nice girl, and her goal in life is to cook food that makes other people happy. She’s completely and utterly harmless.

Yet, she holds power over me, and I don’t want her to find that out.

Not yet.

Not ever, if I’m being honest.

“The edge is sharp,” she says about the seashell.

I move it out of her reach. “Don’t cut yourself.”

She smiles. “You’re protective.”

You have no idea.

I nod, discomfort with intimate conversation growing like mold in my chest.

“Oh my God, the fish!” Cristina leaps off the bed as if it’s on fire. She flings open the old closet, almost tearing the door from the hinges. A dress practically flies over her head before she sprints out into the courtyard, leaving the door swinging.

I prop my head on my arm and chuckle at her theatrics.

The bedroom doors close, and I sigh, content to lie here for a while.

The hideous wallpaper takes me back to memories of my grandparents’ part of our manor in Switzerland. I remember my grandpa sneaking outside for a smoke. He spent most of their marriage thinking Grandma didn’t know he smoked a pipe after she’d gone to bed.

Until one night, when he was outside, she locked the bedroom door on him and wouldn’t let him back in. Grandpa spent the night in the living room, where Grandma found him in the morning, arm hanging over the edge of the couch, his pipe on the floor.

I found her standing near him. She knew Granpa would never get up, and she just stood there like a statue. I remember walking up to her and showing her the ripe tomatoes our staff picked from her garden. I had been waiting for her to wake so she could make me breakfast. It’s what grandma did.

But that morning, she asked me to check if Grandpa was alive.

I touched his forehead as if checking his temperature.

He was cold.

After he passed away, Grandma was never the same again. Our family was never the same either. That was when the dissent started, when my uncle Gio started looking at me as a threat instead of as his beloved nephew. My father, a perceptive, intelligent man, picked up on Gio’s subtle and not-so-subtle threats and exiled him to the island.

I wished he’d killed him.

I wished he hadn’t loved him like a brother. Love made him stupid.

I better take care that that’s not what’s happening to me with Cristina, or I’ll risk not only my life, but the lives of my family.

“Fuck.” I scrub my face and grunt as I stand. Shaking out my thigh, I wince from the sting as the wound continues to heal. I’m happy with how the healing is progressing. The connective-tissue gel injections are an absolute miracle.

Once dressed, I start toward the house, but Drago appears at the French doors. He peeks inside and waves at me like the creeper he is.

I open the door and exit the bedroom, inhaling the heavy air outside. The humidity makes it harder to breathe. I expect him to tell me the food’s ready, but instead, he leads the way to the lawn chairs and sits on one.

I swipe his New York team baseball hat from his head and put it on to shield my eyes from the sun. He unhooks the sunglasses from the front of his T-shirt and puts them over his eyes.

“The jet’s ready,” he says. “I need the girl distracted for a while longer so I can sanitize.”

“I’ll handle the girl.”

Drago cracks his neck and purses his lips. I can tell he wants to say something.

“Just say it.”

“All right. Last year, when Corrado brought his wife to my safe house, and you ordered me to put a dial-explosive into her phone in case she couldn’t be trusted, she dialed 911.”

“Since she’s alive and well, I presume you either disobeyed my order and never put it in, or it failed to trigger, in which case you need to improve your craft. The plane needs to blow up, and I’m relying on your skills. You know how much I hate incompetence.”

Drago shakes his head. “I’m not the problem.”

“Continue, then.”

“She dialed 911 when no other number gave her an open line, and not because she intended to actually call the police.”

“Who the hell tests the phone by dialing 911?”

“She does.”

I sigh. “Jesus. What did you do?”

“I swiped the phone and threw it into the pool.” He points at the pool as if reliving it. “Corrado went ballistic, we fell into the pool, he tried to drown me, shoot me, end me in several ways. But he never did.”

Drago watches me, waiting for the moral of his story to sink in, and I can tell he’s reached the same conclusion that I reached in the bedroom. We’ve always vibed this way, Drago and I. It’s why he’s my closest friend.

“Tell me. Just say it,” I say.

“He never ended me because she asked him not to. I was a threat, and instead of ending me, he gifted her my life.”

I shake my head. “Your place is with me, not Michela. I’ll make sure Corrado redacts that.”

“That’s not why I’m telling you what happened. I don’t give a fuck about which of you Mancinis owns my life when I’m committed to the Order already. I give a fuck about how you will continue making existentially beneficial decisions for all of us when you have a girlfriend you’re protecting. I know you’re protective of her. Don’t insult me by denying it.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“What is she, then?”

I look around and make sure she’s not within listening distance, and the fact I care enough not to want to hurt her feelings pisses me off and tells both Drago and me everything we need to know about my relationship with Cristina.

“She’s an acolyte.” It literally means the one who serves the leader. Most high members of any secret order have acolytes. “That’s all she is.”

“When her father shows up, and we both know he will, and she turns on you, and we both know she will, because they were close and she misses him, has mourned him for a long time, probably still does, I want you to know you can trust me to do what you need me to do regardless of my knowing her well enough. Or liking her as a person.”

“It won’t come to that,” I say.

Drago leans his elbows on his knees. “It will. You know it will because this is how you designed the trap for the man. You are here because you know she is his weakness, and once he realizes you’re all over his daughter, he’ll show up. He’ll come for her.”

“Because love makes him stupid.”

“It’ll make him dead.” Drago sighs heavily. “I hope you know what you’re doing, or you’ll end up dead. If you’re dead, then it’s over my dead body, so I guess I won’t give a shit.”

I clap him between the shoulder blades, and he grunts. “There you go. Cheer up. Once in hell, you’ll finally meet your idol, Lucifer.”

Drago looks up and grins. “Now I’m in a hurry to do just that.”

I laugh. “Tonight, you’ll flirt with danger again.” While I flirt with Cristina. Again.

Here she comes, emerging from the main house, walking toward the bedroom, a smile playing on her face, probably because she thinks I’m in her bed. She’s so cute. The cutest.

Drago whistles, drawing her attention.

She rounds the pool and comes to stand in front of us. My gaze travels lazily from her cute toes and up her legs. Her thick thighs turn me on. Her waistline turns me on. Her breasts? Most definitely. Her cute face, the way she blushes when I look at her, telling her with my gaze I want to fuck her more. Every inch of Cristina turns me on.

Drago waves a hand in front of my face.

What the… I’ve been staring at her. We’ve been staring at each other. I’ve completely lost control of myself. This won’t do. It can’t. I have to get ahold of this…whatever this is between her and me.

“Is the food ready?” I ask.

“Appetizers only. Come and hang out while I prep the main dish.”

“We’ll be there in a minute.”

Cristina nods and leaves.

I breathe out as if that’ll relieve the swelling in my chest.

“We’re doomed,” Drago says. “But cheerfully.”

I start walking toward the kitchen, “I want to invest in the company that makes the healing gel you’ve been applying to my wounds.”

He catches up and side-eyes me with a why do I care look. He’s my hitman, not my investment banker.

“Also,” I continue, “I’ll pilot the jet tonight.”

Drago stops. When I don’t halt, he stops me with a firm grip on my shoulder. “I prefer you on the ground in case something goes wrong up there.”

“I’ll pilot the jet.” Besides, Cristina and I could both use some distancing.