Falling for My Ex's Mafia Dad novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Her Terms

Leona sets her terms in Carmine's study and he gives her one orgasm against the door, then tells her the rest she has to ask for.

Teo checked my closets, my shower and the fire escape before he let me take my boots off.

"You've got nothing but books in here," he said, looking at my shelf. "Where's the good liquor?"

"I'm twenty-four, Teo. It's in the freezer."

He opened the freezer, found the vodka and poured himself two fingers in a coffee mug.

"For the shock," he said. "Mine, not yours. I've known that kid since he was in diapers and I'm still shocked."

He settled into the armchair by the door with his sunflower seeds and a view of the hall.

I sat on my bed with my coat still on and watched my phone light up.

Four texts from Vince.

"Dont tell my dad anything."

"Ur being dramatic."

"Serafina says ur gonna regret that."

"Call me, we can be adults."

I put the phone face down.

I thought about the cellar and the long table.

I thought about Vince's hand on his glass, with my ring at the bottom of the wine.

I thought about a big hand around my wrist on a porch, and how I had wanted it to stay there.

At twelve-forty a fifth message came in from a number I did not know.

It was a photo of my own street, taken from a parked car, with my building in the middle.

A line of text sat under it.

"Tell the Don the napkin girl sleeps alone now."

My stomach dropped through the mattress.

Teo was already on his feet with a phone at his ear.

"Don't call him," I said.

"Sweetheart, I have to."

"Then call him and tell him I'm coming over."

Teo stared at me with the seed cup halfway to his mouth.

"Now?"

"Now," I said, and stood up. "I'd like to say yes in a room, not a porch."

Carmine Lucchesi's house sat behind an iron gate on South Lowe, a gray limestone with every window lit.

Teo led me through the front hall to a door at the end, knocked once and left.

The study smelled of cedar and cold coffee and something clean underneath.

Carmine stood by the walnut desk with his jacket off and his sleeves rolled to the elbow.

He had very good forearms for a man who only ever lifted a pen.

"You didn't have to come tonight," he said.

"A man took a photo of my door," I said. "I'm coming over to name my terms."

"Name them."

I put my bag on his desk because I needed my hands free.

"One. I keep my job at the restaurant and my own name. I don't go to the Sunday table as a decoration."

"Yes."

"Two. Vince and Serafina don't just lose. They lose in front of the Table, in person, where everybody can see."

"Yes."

He had not even paused to think, and that made me angrier.

"Three. You do not buy me. I don't take your money and I don't owe you my body for a roof."

Something moved behind his eyes, and it was not offense.

"I told you on the porch," Carmine said. "I don't buy women. I wouldn't buy you if you were for sale."

"Then why me?"

"You carried the right wine up from that cellar," he said.

"You set it on my table with your head high."

"I watched you do it from across the room."

He took a step.

"You've served my house for three years."

"I have known you were the best of them for all three."

His voice went lower.

"I have not allowed myself to look at you, because you were my son's."

My pulse did something stupid.

"I'm not his anymore," I said.

"No," Carmine said. "You aren't."

I crossed the carpet.

I do not remember deciding to.

I took hold of his vest with both hands and pulled.

He came down to meet me with a sound in his chest.

The kiss was nothing like Vince's.

He kissed.

His beard was rough on my chin and his tongue was slow and deep in my mouth.

My back met the study door.

One hand slid to the side of my face and the other went to my waist.

When my knees dipped he took my weight.

"Tell me what you want, Leona," he said, against my mouth.

"This," I said. "More of this."

His hand moved from my waist to the hem of my wrap dress.

It slid up my thigh, warm and sure, and I opened my legs before he had finished the climb.

"Good girl," Carmine said, very quietly, and I felt it in my knees.

His fingers found the front of my underwear, already soaked, and he made a low sound.

"All of this for me?"

"For you," I said. "Yes. Please."

He pushed the lace aside and ran two fingers through the wet, slowly, up to my clit.

I jerked against the door.

He circled it with the pad of one finger, light, and then not light, in a rhythm that made my breath stutter.

"Look at me," he said.

I opened my eyes.

His face was an inch from mine, dark-eyed, calm, wanting.

"You keep looking at me," he said, "and you come on my hand."

He pushed two fingers inside me while his thumb stayed on my clit.

I cried out, and he kissed the sound out of my mouth.

He fucked me with his fingers, curled up against the spot that made my toes go.

The room narrowed to his wrist and his breath and the heat low in my belly.

"That's it," he said. "Take it. You're so good."

"Carmine," I said. "I'm going to."

"I know. Go on."

I came with my forehead against his collar, shaking, my fingers fisted in his vest.

He held me through all of it.

He kept his hand where it was until the last pulse faded.

Then he drew it out and lifted the wet fingers to his mouth.

He tasted me, with his eyes on mine.

I made a noise I had never made in my life.

"Don't," I said weakly. "I can't stand up if you do that."

"Then lean on me."

I did.

I could feel him through his trousers, thick and hard against my hip.

My hand went to his belt before my brain caught up.

He caught my wrist.

"No," Carmine said.

I looked up, stung.

He smiled, just a little, and kissed my forehead.

"That one was free," he said.

"Tonight you came to me angry and scared, and I will not be what you did about it."

His thumb stroked the inside of my wrist.

"The rest, you ask for. When you've slept, and eaten, and decided what you want from me with a clear head."

"I know what I want."

"Ask me tomorrow," he said, "and I'll know you meant it."

The study phone rang before I could argue.

Carmine let go of me and picked up the house phone.

He listened, and every trace of the man who had just had his hand inside me left his face.

"Where?" he said.

He put the receiver down gently.

"That was Teo, at the gate," he said. "Somebody left a box on my front step."

Teo brought it in and set it on the walnut desk.

Inside lay the ring I had thrown at his son, wrapped in Serafina's cream silk scarf.

A card said, "Welcome to the family, napkin girl."

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