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October 12 - October 12, 2024
This one is for every single woman who was taught she will never be enough. The simple act of being you inspires me. The strength and tenacity of the female spirit is unconquerable.
Aseel Shihab liked this
“It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil.” – Anthony Burgess
want to be the one to make you lose control. I want to watch you bend and break beneath my hands so I can glue you back together with pleasure.”
“There has never been another man for you,” he said fiercely, eyes flashing up to mine and filled with primal possession. “I am the only one to touch you this way, to bring you this pleasure. Forget the past, Elena, because I am the only man in your future.”
“Only you, Elena. Only with you do I feel like fucking you, marking you, owning you with my body and my cum. I’m going to paint you with it right now so you know you’re mine. Mine to fuck. Mine to cherish. Mine to love.”
It was ironic in a way, to think that I’d eschewed all things morally gray and certainly criminal because my father was a deplorable human only to meet a man who was both of those things yet the best person I’d ever known.
“Partner? Mmm, I don’t think so. I like the sound of… my lover, my woman, innamorata mia, amora mia.” My love, my heart.
“You don’t understand this yet, but you do not need your armor all the time now. Not when you have me.” He lipped the edge of my jaw all the way up to my ear, where he spoke his next words on a purr. “I will be your sword.”
“It’s not enough. When we get to safety, I plan to lay you out on the bed and feast for hours. Could you handle that, Elena?”
“In New York, you were my champion, hmm? My lawyer and my advocate striving to keep me safe. Well, Napoli is my courtroom. Put down your weapons, relax your shields. For once in your life, you do not have to fight all your own battles. I will fight for you. Here and now, I will be your champion. Do you trust me?”
I was a man who only feared one thing, which I was learning was infinitely more dangerous than a man who feared nothing. I would not lose Elena. Not for anything. Not for my bloody kingdom and stacks of crisp bills. Not for my honor or my family, my Italian ideals. She was it. Mine. Forever.
It was not in her nature to be as mafia women were raised to be. Elena was fire encased in a hard shell of ice. One wrong word and her cutting tongue would reduce a man to ribbons; one wrong move and her flames would raze him to the ground.
I watched her move around the table with that inherent grace I’d never seen in another woman, her shoulders squared, chin canted high, legs rolling easily on those absurdly high heels she loved so much. She was a queen walking into the arms of a grubby monster.
But I couldn’t resist watching the glory of the moment unravel as Elena Lombardi smoothly pulled the gun from between her thighs and leveled it with two steady hands around the grip at Rocco, right on the plump underbelly of his chin. Right where he’d leveled a gun at me on the airport tarmac.
“It was so pleasant to meet you, Rocco,” she murmured in low, liquid Italian, her blood-red mouth brushing his cheek as she spoke intimately to him. “Do not ruin it by insulting my people, mmm? I belong with my man as much as he belongs with me. No one will take him from me, not God or the devil himself. Not even you, the mighty capo dei capi of Napoli.”
Chi vuole male a questo amore prima soffre e dopo muore. Whoever is against this love suffers and then dies.
“I’ve told you, Elena, whatever you and I are made of, it is the same. No one exists for me but you. No one makes you come alive but me.”
I knew no matter the length of our lives together, I would never know Elena Lombardi in all her iterations. She would continue to surprise me, impress me, and test me. For a man who had been bored by the human condition for years, it was the greatest gift I could have ever possessed, so of course, it made sense that it should possess me in return.
“Vienimi dentro, capo mio.”
She shivered as I filled her up, canting her hips up so I was locked deep inside her, at the very entrance to her womb.
“And if it happens?” I demanded as something painful twisted in my gut. “If we make a baby? Because, Elena, I do not intend to stop fucking you and filling you with my cum.”
“But not for a baby of ours. Not when he or she will have you as their shield and me their sword.”
“There is no shame in anything between us, lottatice mia. I will not have you feel embarrassed of your emotions with me. Embarrassed of the dreams I hope you’ll come to share with me. Most people have reason to fear me. I’d end them without blinking for even a slight offense against me or mine. But you?” I brushed my nose up her elegant neck and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her cheek. “You have nothing to fear in me, capisci? You have had enough to fear in your life and I will break apart the entire universe if it dares to harm you again. Do you understand me?”
“Tu si l’azzurro dò mare sì duci e si amar,” I told her. You are like the sea, sweet and salty. “A sailor does not leave the sea because it storms, and it does not begrudge the ocean her moods. I have no intention of giving up on you, Elena, because there is no part of you I do not find worthy and fascinating. If this ends, it will be because you choose to end it, and you refuse to let me fight to win you back.”
Dante was home, so no matter what, I would never be homeless. I’d have his shelter, his protection, and his love to guide me through the worst of life and the worst of myself.
“It is a privilege, Elena, to know you intimately. To know what makes you hurt and what makes you blush. To know what your demons are so I can slay them for you when you don’t have the strength or watch you overcome your own nightmares because I love to watch my fighter conquer everything in her path. It is an honor to know you, and I won’t ever take that for granted.”
“I just know what it’s like to be hated, to feel alone against the world, to feel like a villain. I told you before that we’re not so different.”
“You aren’t my lawyer anymore, Elena. Tu sei la mia regina.” You are my queen.
No matter the adversity, I could always count on one constant. Elena Lombardi was a weapon. And she was mine.
“Anyone who tries to come between our love will suffer then die,” I swore to her, kissing her again because I was high on adrenaline, on the scent of her damp pussy in my nose and the victory of a fight won in my blood.
For the first time ever, I wanted to eschew my duty and bury myself in her warmth. Fuck her for hours until she was swollen and soaked, every inch of her possessed by every inch of me.
“They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but so is goodness,” I told her, folding her into my arms, her slightness fitted perfectly to my broad chest, her head tucked beneath my chin. “By my definition, there is no one braver or worthier of love and admiration than you.”
“Because you’re Elena and I’m Dante,” I corrected. “I belong at your side just the same.”
“I’m willing to take a life-altering risk for a life-altering reward,” she told me steadily, her flames cooling to ice-cold surety. “I don’t know what love means to you, but to me, it means loving someone no matter what baggage they come with for as long as they’ll let you love them and as hard as you possibly can. The only risk I fear is one where I lose you. You fell in love with a fighter, Dante. Let me fight with you.”
Maybe every bad thing that had happened to us, maybe every single time we’d been made to feel like the villains of our own life story, we had been moving farther along the path to this. To us. Two broken and battered people made whole by love.
Light was easy to love. This love was dark. It was night as black as my eyes and as stormy as hers. It was seeing the shadows in each other’s souls and being drawn into their abyss. It was knowing we would never understand each other, not fully, and it was loving that challenge as much as the mystery. This was what happened when two villains fell in love.
“You need me to kill this man to prove to you that you are worthy of love. You are worthy of passion. You are worthy of respect. In all my life of hardships, Elena Lombardi, you are the truest thing that has ever been worth fighting for. You deserve the loyalty and love you give to everyone but yourself, and now I know, this figlio di cane made you feel like a beggar when you are a motherfucking queen.”
“This beats for you. It bleeds for you. I am yours. Your sword, your champion, your lover, and your home. You don’t understand this yet, but I will never hurt you, Elena. I only ever hurt for you because fuck me, you’ve been through too much already. I will only ever hurt those who hurt you because I love you, and I won’t let anyone else ever get away with putting pain in your heart without consequences. Mi senti?”
“Cuore mia, my heart breaks for you,” he whispered raggedly before kissing the tears from my cheeks. “I won’t let yours break again.”
“Because you and I are the same,” I said, and I meant it. Our entire lives had led us to this moment. I caught the glint of Chiara’s cross around Dante’s neck through the opened throat of his white button-up, and I knew that she’d been right. Even our ancestors’ lives had brought us here.
“You like them admiring your beauty because you feel safe. You know I’d never let them have you.”
I was nothing but his, and he was nothing but mine.
Was it impossible to find a man who hadn’t loved one of my sisters first? Was I always destined to be second choice?
“I would do anything for you, Elena. Men have said that to women before, but they couldn’t know what it means, not really. I will kill and die for you, but I will also shop for you because I like you in the clothes I’ve bought, and I’ll cook for you because I love to watch you rediscover the joy of indulgence. I will make love to you when your heart is aching and lonely, echoing with the past, and I will fuck you when you can’t stand to be empty of me for one second longer. I am capo dei capi of the New York Camorra, but that is not the most important title I have anymore. In fact, it means
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“In any life I might have lived before, you were mine,” I agreed, running my nose down her cheek. “And I was yours.
“I hope you know that since I met you, you’ve been the hero I never knew I needed.”
“Some people have hobbies, art, music, playing sport. Mine is learning you.”
“Sono con te, lottatice mia, anche quando non lo sono.” I am with you, my fighter, even when I am not.
“Dante Salvatore isn’t my client anymore because he is now my husband,” I explained calmly as I raised the gun and aimed at the target down the range. “And I didn’t come to beg forgiveness from a hypocritical stronzo. I came to warn you.” I sucked in a quiet breath and pulled the trigger. Bang! “…If you keep coming for my husband…” Bang! “…I’ll come for you…” Bang! Bang! “…And if you thought my father could be cruel, you should see what kind of monster he made of his daughter.” Bang!
“Never again,” I promised once more, foolishly. “Nothing will come between us again. I will kill anyone who tries.”
