Chapter 14 — Calisto

Emma reached up and cupped Calisto’s jaw in her hand. Her thumb swept under his eye softly, and she tilted her head a little to the side.

“How long has it been?” she asked.

Calisto wished the thickness in his throat would leave. “Since what?”

“Since you cried like this.”

He blinked, feeling the tears fall from his lashes. Never had he cried in front of someone else. Not even his mother after he had grown from a boy into a young man. In his anger and his grief, he pushed back his tears and swallowed them down.

Calisto flinched away from Emma’s thumb when she wiped more of his tears away. “Leave it, please.”

Hurt flickered across Emma’s features.

“I must have been a big ‘fuck you’, huh?”

Calisto froze. “I beg your pardon?”

“What we did together. Even now. It’s a way for you to tell Affonso to go fuck—”

“No,” Calisto said quickly, and harshly.

Harsher than he intended, if Emma’s wince was any indication.

“Never,” he added softer.

“I would understand if that’s all it was, Cal. You don’t have to save my feelings. It seems I’m getting used to being hurt by other people.”

Calisto’s lungs burned with every breath he took.

“This …” he trailed off, waving between their bodies, “… me and you, Emmy, has never been about him or my past. I hate him—every part of me hates him—but this isn’t about him. I was drawn to you when you defied the rules people were setting out for you. You were so strange to me, but it was interesting, too. The more I was around you, the more I wanted to know. There hadn’t been a woman to turn my head in a long while. I had been stuck in a black hole for a year after my mother died, and then you came along. You were supposed to be nothing more than this hired-bride. You were everything except what I expected. It was all you, he didn’t mean a thing.”

“No?”

“He still doesn’t,” Calisto said honestly.

Emma’s hand tightened in his. “What is this for you? You and me, what are we?”

Crazy.

Stupid.

Reckless.

“Something,” Calisto settled on saying.

“Something,” she echoed.

Something wonderful, maybe.

Something doomed, probably.

He knew what it was.

He’d known for a while.

It was the same thing that woke him up night after night from the same goddamn dreams. It was his constant concern and anxiety over a woman he couldn’t help any more than he already had. It was the hunger he felt whenever he was near her—the need he felt to have her closer.

Somehow, it infected him.

She was all through him and she didn’t even know it.

Calisto tried denying it; he wanted to push the feelings away.

He loved her.

But it was hopeless—they were hopeless.

Calisto couldn’t tell Emma how he felt without taking it away at the same time.

How was that fair?

“Were you leaving the party?” Emma asked.

“I was.”

“What if I don’t want you to?”

Calisto tugged her closer. Without a word, she wrapped her arms around his middle and buried her face into his chest. He held her tight because having her closer was far better for his selfishness.

“I wouldn’t go,” he told Emma.

“Even though you have to stay on the other side of the room?”

“Yes.”

She could wear her mask.

He would watch from the shadows.

“Don’t go,” Emma said. “Stay for a little while longer. I like it when you’re around.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. Even when you’re pissing me off.”

Calisto chuckled under his breath. “I didn’t mean to, bella. The girl was harmless. She’s my half-sister. I take care of my siblings because our father couldn’t care less about them. I’m the only one he ever gave an ounce of attention or time to. And unlike them, I came from the violence he hides. That’s how he made me. Violently.”

His father was a man who had held his mother down, ignored her pleas, and took from her without care. Calisto didn’t know how to deal with that. He was a by-product of his mother’s pain, of her fear and shame, but she never loved him any less.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Your guilt again.”

“Duty, Emma.”

“That, too. What about Richard?” she asked.

“I grew up being told he was my father. When the rest of this came out, my mother told me that Richard never questioned her on the paternity of the pregnancy. He was happy—she was ashamed of what had happened. She was scared, but she thought it would be okay with him.”

Emma’s teeth clenched. “Affonso was jealous.”

“He’s always jealous. Even when something doesn’t belong to him.”

“It wasn’t a motorcycle accident that killed Richard, was it?”

“It was,” Calisto said, shrugging. “But my mother insisted that Richard would have come home alive, had Affonso not gone out with him. I only know what he’s told me.”

“I get it,” she said.

Knowing better, but unable to help himself, Calisto kissed her forehead. She shuddered in his arms, but pressed her body even closer to his.

They were playing with fire like this.

It would always be like that.

“I’ll stay, Emmy,” he said.

“I knew you would. You can’t say no to me.”

“Does it scare you?”

“A little,” she said. “You might not always stay when I ask you to.”

Calisto doubted it.

*

Calisto wasn’t sure he had ever seen Affonso as drunk as he currently was. The man had always enjoyed his bourbon before bed, his wine at dinner, and a cold beer whenever the urge stuck, but he was blasted tonight.

It was a strange feeling to put Affonso to bed while the Thanksgiving party was starting to wind down and people were taking their leave.

Affonso tossed and turned in his drunken stupor, mumbling incoherently and going on. His eyes were shut, and he was sleeping, but he still went on and on.

How did Emma put up with this nonsense?

Calisto wondered if Affonso’s recent drinking was a result of the pressure he felt. The man needed an heir—Calisto constantly refused. It could almost be seen as a failure on Affonso’s part if he was forced to give up his Cosa Nostra to someone who didn’t share his last name.

Pity was a worthless emotion. Calisto felt none for Affonso. The man had done this to himself.

For now, Calisto planned on keeping an eye on Affonso. The man had plans to move Calisto up in the rankings of Cosa Nostra. A boss had to step down first to make another boss.

Affonso wasn’t ready to step down.

Still, Calisto didn’t trust him.

Turning off the lamp on the bedside table, Calisto eased out of the bedroom with a stealth that was a learned trait of any man in the mafia business. Being able to come and go without being seen or heard was a virtue.

He sure as hell didn’t want Affonso waking up. Affonso was far more irritating when he was drunk.

Calisto closed the door with barely a click to be heard and let out a sigh. He didn’t want to be the one left tending to Affonso, but it was shameful for the boss of the Donati famiglia to be seen acting like a drunken fool.

It was unacceptable.

“The house is almost empty.”

Calisto’s shoulders jumped at Emma’s whisper. He hadn’t noticed her follow him when he came upstairs.

“Oh?” he asked, turning to face her.

She stood in the doorway of the room directly across from the master bedroom. Her hip rested against the doorjamb, and she must have kicked off her heels. She stood barefoot, and looking more tired than ever.

“I said goodbye to the people who mattered. The rest were being shuffled out by Carter. He knows the pass code to lock up.”

Calisto swallowed thickly, wondering what Emma was dancing around.

“He’s out for the night,” Calisto told her. “Someone needs to take his alcohol away.”

“As long as he stays away from me, I find him a little more bearable when he is drunk,” she confessed.

Calisto shook his head. “That’s awful.”

“It’s the truth.” Emma turned on her heel to enter the bedroom, but shot a glance over her shoulder. “Would you make sure the house is empty, Calisto?”

Her tone dropped a level.

Just enough to be inviting.

Calisto should have refused her right then.

“Of course, Emmy,” he said.

“The bedroom you used when you stayed here—it’s on the third floor, right?”

His heart raced at her innocent question, and his blood heated.

Were they going to do this again?

Here in this house?

Like this?

Calisto knew how wrong it was.

How foul.

It was a whole new level of low.

But fucking hell, he hadn’t been able to forget how much he liked having Emma underneath him. His memories didn’t do her justice. He’d wanted to fuck her again from the very second he’d came inside her the last time.

It wasn’t enough.

Once more still wouldn’t be enough.

“The only bedroom at the end of the hall,” he told her.

“You should take it for the night. No need to drive across town. It’s late.”

Jesus.

H.

Christ.

He was going to go to hell for this.

No question.

Calisto shifted on his feet. “Emmy …”

“Don’t go, Cal. Stay.”

He couldn’t refuse her.

He wouldn’t tell her no.

Emma knew it.

Calisto nodded. “I’ll check the house.”

She smiled in that knowing way of hers, and stared at him through her lashes. It was sexy and sweet at the same time. She had the power. He had willing handed it over to her and now she was using it.

Calisto liked that, too.

*

The house was empty of people.

Calisto knew it would be, but he made sure to double-check.

By the time he made his way upstairs to the third floor of the home, he had forgotten all about the wrongness he’d felt. It was hard to worry about those things when he was far too focused on who might be waiting in a bed for him.

And she was waiting.

Calisto wasn’t surprised to see she hadn’t given him more time to check the house. Or at least wait until he had come back upstairs first.

He locked the bedroom door behind him. All of his clothes hit the floor soundlessly. Emma watched him from the foot of the bed without ever saying a word. The sheer, white chemise she wore rested high enough on her hips to flash her bare skin underneath.

No panties.

Calisto’s throat tightened and his mouth went dry.

He was naked by the time he hit the bed.

“I’m safe,” she whispered to him. “After what happened …”

“It’s all right. I get it.”

She didn’t need to go into all of that again tonight. Once was enough for her.

Emma nodded.

Not once did he voice his earlier sentiments. Emma didn’t say a thing when she reached for him, pulling him down to the soft sheets beneath them.

Calisto’s mouth found Emma’s, wanting her taste and her kiss. He liked the way her skin tasted under his tongue just before sex—fevered, and sweet. Her nails raked down his chest to his hard cock, making him shudder all over. She wrapped her fingers around the base of his length and squeezed.

He lost his ability to breathe for a second.

But God, it was good.

“Fucking hell,” he mumbled against her lips.

Emma laughed a breathless sound. “Been a while.”

“Too long, Emmy.”

She rolled to her back, letting him fit in between her thighs. He pushed her legs open wider, and grinded his erection into the soft slickness of her pussy. She was still bare—so smooth under him.

Emma whined, digging her fingers into his hips and pressing the heels of her feet to his lower back. Calisto’s muscles clenched as he held back the desire to spread Emma open even more, and dive right in. He wanted to pound into her until his memories were sedated and he couldn’t think about anything else.

He’d been denying her for so long.

“Come on, Cal,” Emma urged low.

Calisto’s hand drove down her stomach to the sweet spot between her legs. His thumb circled her hard, little clit slowly, and he soaked in the sounds of her quiet cries below him. All it would take was just the right shift of his hips and he’d be stretching her full and fucking her hard.

He pushed her back down into the bed when she canted her hips upwards, seeking more. His gaze snapped up from her pussy, finding her watching him intently.

“When I say so,” Calisto growled.

“Calisto.”

“I miss this.”

Emma quieted, but it didn’t last long. A long, broken cry escaped from her lips when he sank two fingers deep into her sex.

Wet. Hot. Tight.

Fuck.

Her pussy hugged his fingers, and soaked them at the same fucking time. He was caught up in seeing his fingers disappear into her sex as he pumped them harder and deeper with each twist. His thumb rolled over her clit in time with his thrusts.

Emma’s sounds melted into breathy gasps.

But she kept saying his name.

“Cal.”

It was beautiful.

When she said his name, it was addictive.

He wanted more.

Whispered, needy, and stupid.

She called for him.

And he wanted more of it.

“Calisto … God,” Emma breathed.

“Right there,” Calisto told her, swallowing hard. He curled his fingers on the next thrust, and watched her back bow against the bed. “Right there, Emmy, just like that. You’re going to come for me, and you’re going to love it.”

“I want to, please.”

Right then, he knew.

Too long for him was just as long for her. Just because she had been made to lie down with another man didn’t mean she had gotten what she needed or wanted from it. A strange sense of satisfaction filled him at the revelation.

Calisto wanted to be the only man who did this to Emma. The only man to make her beg, twist in his sheets, and cry his name out to a dark room.

Just him.

When her thighs started to shake, he leaned down and caught her rising cries with his mouth. Her sounds muffled against his lips, but her eyes flew wide in her orgasm, zoning in on his like he was the only thing she wanted to see.

Calisto didn’t give her the chance to recover. He pulled his hand from between her thighs, pushed her legs open more like he wanted to, and then he was pushing in.

He couldn’t fucking speak.

Not with her surrounding him like that.

All wet and hot to the touch.

Snug all around.

Emma let out the softest sound, and her lips parted against his. Her head tilted back when he flexed his hips against hers, taking her deeper, sinking in the rest of the way.

“Too long,” he repeated.

Her tongue peeked out, wetting her lips.

Calisto’s thumb followed right after, feeling the smoothness of the plump flesh and her saliva.

“Jesus,” she mumbled. “Move. I need you to move, Cal.”

“We can do slow, Emmy, but it won’t last long. I wanted this too much not to make it worth it.”

Emma sighed, pleased. “Just for a little while.”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“Fuck me.”

Dio.

Yes.

Calisto wrapped his arm under her back and held tight. His other hand drove into her hair and tangled there, rooted to the spot. His thrusts came fast, hard, and deep, but they were all skin on skin, her fingernails digging into his back, and his mouth never leaving hers.

Slow.

For a little while.

He soaked in her kitten-like sounds and the way her body moved against his. He took in the taste of her skin where her shoulder met her neck, and forced himself not to leave a mark behind. Her thighs tightened around his hips, holding him closer as her pants of breath echoed into the room.

So close.

Again.

“I’m going to come,” Emma said, stilted and sharp.

“Give it to me,” he demanded.

Calisto knew he couldn’t leave a single piece of him behind on her body for someone to find, but that was okay. She left her own all over him. Scored lines on his back that stung, but made his cock harder. Teeth marks on his shoulder when she muffled her scream against his skin.

Beautiful.

“Harder,” he heard Emma breathe.

He could do soft for a little while longer if that’s what she wanted.

Apparently, she didn’t.

“Cal, again … harder,” she mumbled.

Whatever she wanted.

Calisto rolled them over in one quick movement. His back hit the bed, and Emma was above him. She hadn’t been expecting the surprise move, if her wide eyes were any indication.

“Hard as you want,” Calisto said. “Fucking take it, Emmy.”

Her airy laugh washed over him.

And then her fingernails dug into his stomach. Air cut through his teeth like a cat’s hiss. She leaned over him, her skin flushed and pink, and her smile sinful.

So damn sexy.

“Will you ever tell me?” she asked.

Calisto found her gaze with his own. “Tell you what, bella?”

“That you love me.”

His chest constricted with pain.

Calisto was learning he was not good at hiding things from this woman. Emma was far too quick to pick up on the things he didn’t say.

“Do you need me to?” he asked.

“I need …”

“What?”

Emma glanced away. “To be loved. No one does. I feel alone all the time.”

“It’s not the same as saying it.”

“I know,” she whispered. “Will you?”

“I won’t take it away,” he said instead.

Emma’s lashes fluttered closed, but another one of her smiles curved her lips upwards.

“Someday,” she told him.

Calisto couldn’t promise that.

Emma wasn’t looking for him to.

She rode him hard, so fast. She fell down over him, tangled her hands in his hair, and buried her teeth in his jaw. He let her take what she wanted, however she needed to have it. He grabbed her ass tight, and her throat in his other hand as she fucked him wild.

Soft was good.

This was, too.

Emma didn’t relent when Calisto felt the telltale tremors rocking his hands. A pressure built in the base of his spine, and he told her to slow down.

She didn’t.

She bared her teeth, and begged him to come instead.

Calisto did—blinded and blissed.

*

Emma shivered each time Calisto’s fingers roved over her shoulders. He liked the way she shuddered and twisted on him, how she sighed and smiled, so he kept doing it.

She kissed his pec, and her lips curved wickedly.

“What are you grinning about?” he asked.

“You’re hard again.”

Calisto smirked, unashamed. “Yeah, I am.”

Emma propped her chin in her hand, watching Calisto. “Where are we going with this? What are we doing now?”

“I don’t have a good answer.”

“Just this, huh?”

“It’s all there is, Emmy,” he murmured.

She let him run the tips of his fingers over her pink lips. Her mouth opened a little, taking his digits into her wet heat before she sucked on them gently.

And with another grin.

Calisto was harder than fucking steel. “Keep that up, bella donna, and watch what I’ll do with that pretty mouth of yours.”

Emma released his fingers and winked. “Another time.”

Another time.

Because they would be doing this again.

Again and again and again.

Calisto didn’t even refute it. He wouldn’t. It was difficult to turn something away when you wanted it more than you’d wanted anything.

God knew he wanted Emma.

Emma laid her head back down on Calisto’s chest. “You know, in all the stories ever told, the ending is almost always the same.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t know where she was going with this, but he let her talk.

“Do tell,” Calisto urged.

“The good guys always win. The bad guys always lose.”

For the most part, she was right.

“What about it, Emmy?”

“We’re not the good guys here, Calisto,” she whispered.

And they wouldn’t win.

Calisto kept running his fingers over her soft, smooth skin. “Don’t look at it that way.”

“How else should I look at it, then?”

“Don’t think about it at all,” he said.

“Impossible,” she mumbled.

Like us, he thought.

“You’re good for me, Emma,” Calisto said, holding her tighter. “And that’s good enough for me. Nobody said that was bad.”

Emma let out a quiet breath, shifted her weight on him, and then her hand was reaching down to grasp the base of his cock. All of Calisto’s thoughts were lost the moment Emma lowered her hips and took his cock in again.

She was hot all over. Breathless already. Trembling in her thighs.

It made him fucking high.

“But it is bad,” she said from above as she rode him. “We are, Cal. All of this is.”

“I still don’t care, Emmy.”

Her gaze found his.

“Me, either.”

Calisto couldn’t find it in himself to be mad at his lover when he woke up alone in bed the next morning. Emma still had to play her part. She couldn’t be with him in the morning while her husband slept off his drinking, one floor down.

It still burned Calisto from the inside out.

It wasn’t her fault.

Calisto made the choice, after all. He’d chosen her. He had allowed himself to become attached to and love someone who wasn’t free. The consequence of that was a heavy heart, a cold morning, and an empty bed.

His pain was by his own cause.

But it was his choice to make.

Emma was worth it.

Simple as that.

Calisto made sure to get up and get out of the house before Affonso stumbled his drunk ass out of bed.

There would be another time.

Emma said it.

Calisto would make sure of it.