Stolen Kisses Read online

  That same thought though made me start pounding, jackhammering into her in a rush like I wanted to make sure I took every part of her.

  Her soft cries filled the room along with the sexual sounds of us. Sex and love blended together to create something wild and purely magical.

  Then it came. That wave of pleasure that coursed through me like a drug I savored and would die happily indulging on.

  For a moment I allowed myself to lose control. Completely lose it as I plunged deep and she arched her back into the silky sheets.

  I lost it and couldn’t control my release.

  I came growling deep from inside and tightened my grip on her as I kept thrusting and her orgasm rippled through me.

  I looked down at her breathing hard. She pulled me down to her and our mouths found one another just like the other night and we got lost in our kisses the same way we did our love making.

  It was all the same.

  From the slightest touch to the most intense feeling.

  * * *

  Today was perhaps supposed to be a bigger day than yesterday.

  I should have had some sleep.

  All night I’d indulged on her.

  Thank God Flynn was a heavy sleeper. Thank God I had the good sense to put him in the bedroom upstairs.

  The other night when I brought Maria here, I knew she expected my old place.

  It had been a nice house and it served me well. This place though was the real deal. It was a six-bedroom manor home with a pool and three gardens. Even had acres of land which meant plenty of space for my vehicles.

  She’d been more than impressed.

  We lay side by side, her cocooned in my arms as we watched the sunset.

  “Can Flynn swim?” I asked.

  We’d been quiet this whole time and as the question came into my head, I asked it as if we’d been talking about it before.

  She turned to face me and smiled.

  “He’s scared of the water. He thinks there’s sea monsters in there.”

  “I’ll fix that. We can go in the pool later and I’ll make sure he loves the water by the time I’m done.” I continued looking at her. “What doesn’t he like?”

  “Darkness, and … ketchup.” She chuckled.

  “Ughh, I’m with him on the ketchup and any kind of sauce. Not sure whose idea it was to put something like that on anything. So, he’s a man after my own heart there.”

  She started laughing. “Dante you don’t like ketchup?”

  “Just don’t say that word. Looks like blood pumped with shit.”

  She shook her head at me. “You are the strangest boy.”

  I laughed. That was what she used to say to me when we were kids. “Yes, apparently I am.”

  As I looked at her, I knew I’d have to leave soon and I’d have to say why. I never had to before and it was strange knowing what to say to her. Stranger too, because this kind of involved her.

  “The boys are going to watch you and Flynn again today.” I leaned forward kissed her forehead, then rolled over to sit up.

  She straightened up. “You’re leaving so soon?”

  “Claudius wants us there early. We have stuff to tend to. I’ll have the boys here and we have people keeping watch on Franco too. We haven’t seen anything yet.”

  “Dante …”

  I turned back to face her and couldn’t ignore the sadness in her eyes.

  “Maria, look this is hard because it is. There’re certain things I can’t tell you and certain things I shouldn’t tell you. You know how it works. We keep our women out of business for a reason.”

  “I need to know something. You know me, I may not be in any kind of position to make demands, but if you’re with me I need to know something more than you’ll be out for the day. Something so I’m not left wondering what you’re doing.” She winced.

  “Goddess, rest assured I will never cheat on you.” I knew she wasn’t talking about that, but I thought I’d try to side-track her if I could.

  “I’m not talking about that. I just want to know you’re safe. I just need to know you’re careful.”

  As I looked at her I couldn’t help but wonder if it would be so bad to tell her. Tell her something. Just in this instance, because this was about Christina. So far, we’d managed to do our digging under wraps. The most dangerous thing we were actually up against was Franco and the possibility that he’d found her. It was kind of looking like he hadn’t.

  So, it boiled down to this decade long investigation that we’d taken on ourselves, because Claudius tried another path no one else would have explored.

  I stood up, dragged on my boxers and returned my focus to her.

  “It’s about Christina,” I stated.

  “What?” she gasped. “What do you mean?”

  “We found some new stuff and I’m looking into it.”

  Her face went pale. “What kind of stuff?”

  “Names and different avenues. Someone I may not have considered in my search.”

  “Search?”

  “Maria, you know me. She was my sister and her killer was never found. You knew I never stopped looking and searching. You know I would never. This is a chance for me to get answers.”

  “Is it dangerous? Dante is what you’re doing dangerous?” A tear ran down her cheek.

  I thought it was best to stop right there and not tell her I was going into Antonella territory.

  I went back on the bed and took her hands into mine, bringing her hands up to my lips to kiss. “I’m going to be careful Maria. I am. Sweet Maria, Christina was your best friend. She looked up to you and loved you, just as much as me. Someone killed her and we don’t know who did it. You can’t tell me not to do this. You can’t. Just try to, say the words.”

  She looked at me and I knew she couldn’t say the words.

  Of everyone who loved Christina, we both deserved answers. We’d seen the nightmare and no one could tell me it was wrong to find answers.

  Answers and justice.

  Chapter 21

  Maria

  10 years ago …

  Calm and cool…

  Calm and cool…

  I could do this. I could definitely do this. I could walk into this party and act like I was invited. Anything for my best friend who’d suddenly decided to take it upon herself to go crazy.

  Would have been nice if she’d gone the other kind of crazy and did something like sell everything and move to Vegas, or get a tattoo on her face, or get a fucking nipple piercing.

  Any of those things could have been fine and manageable. Better than what she was doing now.

  Dating a host of men that looked like trouble. My God, did they ever look like trouble.

  In my quest to find out who Mr. Mystery was I’d sunken to a new low. The other night I’d followed her to a party at a fancy penthouse in the city. She’d gone there with one guy who’d looked like a capo’s from one of the crime families and when she got there she linked up with another guy who looked even more like the rough stuff. She’d linked up with him and started kissing him.

  Men with deep pockets. I always told her to go for guys like that but damn those two looked like trouble on a different level.

  Two years had passed and she’d never told me who this mystery man was. Never said anything. We lived together and she kept the man a secret. I thought it was one of those guys and that it was an on and off thing from the way she’d behaved.

  It was off for a long time and she’d dated other people. Guys she introduced me to. That was how I kind of knew that she wasn’t all that serious about them, or there was something she definitely wanted to hide in respect to Mr. Mystery.

  I thought maybe she’d moved on until two months ago when she started acting strange again. I decided she must have had some reason to hide him from me. Keeping a secret from me, of all the people in the world. I decided that maybe he was married.

  So, I snooped even more and saw a text from a private number. It said
>
  Crowthorne Society Friday at eight. Dress up.

  Just the first part of that message had my stomach twisted in knots

  Crowthorne as in Antonella’s Crowthorne. Even I knew that.

  Me a simple barmaid/waitress.

  Me a nobody. In my twenty-one years I’d come to know a hell of a lot and I knew my limits when it came to certain guys. I knew there were the bad boys, who of course were criminals, but that didn’t mean they were bad people.

  Then there were the other kind.

  I wanted to be with a guy who could spoil me, treat me right, and give me a good life, but I wasn’t about to jump into hell and knock boots with real demons.

  I’d heard the Antonella’s were an assassin family. Want someone dead and they were your people. I didn’t mean any old person either.

  I was talking about notable people. People like public figures and important people national and international. Not the regular hits you may hear of being organized among the other crime families.

  The Antonellas didn’t associate with everyone else. The Manellos were right alongside them in badness, even in my eyes. They’d married into the Antonella family forming some alliance. I didn’t know how many people knew that, but I did. I figured they kept it hush, hush just in case the day came and they had to break the alliance.

  That would make sense to show their power, but in terms of who had the most power in the hierarchy it was absolutely the Antonellas.

  Raphael Rossi may think he owned Chicago, but that was because they allowed him to.

  Give a dog the bone he’s after and keep him quiet. That way you can get on to other things. The real things you want to do. To me it was obvious that the Antonellas had power on a national level with ties in the government. That was substantially more than controlling one city in Illinois. Popular and powerful as Chicago was, it really was small fry when it came to the comparison on a scale.

  I may be a nobody and some could look down on me as a barmaid or whatever, but I heard things. I heard things through the grapevine and in the underground.

  Give a man a drink and you could get him talking. Wave a pair of tits in his face and that guy was all yours especially if you knew how to play the game right.

  I knew about Crowthorne and knew to stay the fuck away.

  This craziness of me sneaking into this event was … a death wish. A death wish and a risk on my life to make sure my one and only friend was safe.

  Dante … fucking hell, he would kill both of us if he knew we were here.

  Well … me at least, because I couldn’t find Christina.

  The place was packed with all manner of wealthy people. This was some kind of fundraiser event it seemed. I didn’t know what for though and I didn’t care to find out either.

  She was supposed to be here at eight. It was eight-thirty now. I’d gone home early from work. Got dressed and was hoping this was going to be the sort of thing where I’d follow her in her car or something. But that never happened. So, I came here and rolled in with the crowd, thanking God for my good looks, because I had to flirt my way in here.

  My name of course wasn’t on the list. The way I was dressed however screamed that I should be. What helped was I saw a guy I knew from the bar in town.

  Always drunk, Porter Canning always did what I wanted when he saw me. He owned the football stadium and Luc always had me around as a distraction when they were playing poker or some game.

  Porter got me in and I had to make up some excuse of needing the ladies room to get off his arm. The man was drunk so all he did was nod.

  Now here I was looking for Christina.

  Where the hell is she?

  I was starting to get antsy, because the same way Porter knew me, the other guys would know me too as Luc’s girl.

  Well … within reason I suppose. I wasn’t actually his. Unlabeled that was me, but I’d be an idiot to turn a man like that away just because he wouldn’t put a label on us.

  I stopped by a pillar on the second floor hall and looked around. This would be a good spot to see her. I could see everyone dressed in their finest from here.

  I scanned the area below where all the waiters were, all walking around with food platters and drink trays.

  I straightened up when I saw that creepy guy from Christina’s office. Long pointed nose and lanky with a side parting that made him look off. I couldn’t remember his name, but I just knew he was weird. He always gave me this overtly sexual look when I went to visit Christina. I think he had something to do with listing the campaigns they did with government officials.

  I was surprised to see him here. He would definitely be a person to avoid.

  I was looking at him so much that I foolishly didn’t see Christina behind him. My heart leapt, then squeezed. He was leading her away toward the basement.

  I snapped into action and moved, weaving my way through the crowd.

  Ahead the creepy guy and Christina turned down a corridor.

  I had to hang back to give them a chance to go without alerting them that I was following close behind.

  Once I saw where they turned, I moved and continued in stealth in the direction they went.

  Once I turned down that second corridor it got a little easier to follow, but scary.

  There was no one around and it was very clear that the party was upstairs.

  This area looked like the dungeons in one of those old films.

  They went deeper and further into a storage space where they stopped.

  God, my heart wasn’t beating. I was so scared. I was so fucking scared and I knew I should have probably alerted someone to where I was, and what I was doing.

  No, not just someone …

  Dante. I should have told him. Truthfully I was avoiding him, because every time I saw him he gave me that look. A look that was filled with hurt, because I was with Luc.

  On that night two years ago when he asked me out I should have just gone. Even just one time then I wouldn’t feel so bad now. I wouldn’t find it hard to look at him, and I as sure as fuck would have involved him in this crazy plan of mine. As in it would have been more likely that he would be here. Not me.

  Christina at the Crowthorne was enough to make the man jump on that bike of his and haul her ass home.

  I kept close to the shadows and tiptoed in my heels over to a shelved area that had some empty boxes. I found a good hiding spot, just near them. It was a little cupboard with one of those sliding doors.

  Tucked away amongst some large storage boxes and reams of metal wire.

  I got on my knees and crawled over, into the cupboard. As I did, I could hear them talking and I shuffled so I could see.

  “Must you wait and watch?” Christina asked the guy who smiled.

  Him with a straight face was creepy enough. Him smiling was definitely a no.

  His smile was perfect for a horror film. He had yellow, crooked teeth on show, his pointed nose looking just a little more pointy and his bulbous eyes were even larger.

  “I do what I’m told. Doesn’t hurt to catch a glimpse of what I can’t have.” He taunted.

  That man was creepy as fuck at work, I didn’t know why Christina would want to associate with him outside of the office. It was actually beyond me. But, it did seem like he’d led her here. Like he was some kind of escort and they both looked like they were waiting for something to happen.

  Or maybe for someone to come.

  Footsteps sounded in the opposite direction. Christina’s face brightened and she rushed up to a tall blonde man throwing her arms around him and kissing him.

  I was shocked to shit to see who he was.

  Fucking hell. It was Elliot Granger.

  Elliot Granger, as in the assistant States Attorney Elliot Granger and son of Charles Granger, governor of Illinois.

  Elliot Granger as in the man who was married to Sheila Granger, who did a lot of work with Help the Homeless. The place Christina worked. They had four kids.

  Christ
ina, what the fuck are you doing?

  No …

  This was why. This was him, Elliot had to be Mr. Mystery man. He was the only candidate that truly fit the category of someone to keep secret.

  Much more so than the other two guys I’d seen her with.

  Put simply, she wouldn’t tell me about him because of all the reasons it would shock the shit out of me.

  God in Heaven. She’d been seeing him, and was still kissing him while that creeper watched and smiled, looking like he was loving the sight of watching.

  It was like he got off on it in a similar way to a man watching porn.

  What the fuck was going on?

  The couple broke out of the passionate kiss and Elliot stepped back.

  “I can’t stay,” he said.

  “What? No, you said we’d have tonight.” Christina looked utterly disappointed.

  “Later, I’ll send for you later. Something important has just come up.”

  “I’m not important? Elliot she knows, Sheila knows. I’m sure she does. You should tell her. Someone needs to tell her.”

  His face when she said that contorted and his eyes blazed. It was like watching someone just switch from being normal to angry and in seconds too. He grabbed her arm and squeezed hard.

  “Like fuck, I will tell her when the time is right. Don’t presume to tell me how I should break up with my wife.”

  “I can’t keep doing this. I can’t do this again. We just got back together. You said it would be different this time. You said, you wanted to be with me. It’s wrong not to tell her.”

  He chuckled, sounding like the man of power he was. People knew the Granger family were one of those old names that carried money. Money and power. Lots of power.

  I knew when the two were combined it was never usually a good thing. Too much of either was never, ever a good thing.

  He grabbed her the way he had and she just took it. No man would be crazy enough to grab me like that and think he could hurt me. I would never allow it.

  Never. I just couldn’t imagine being with someone who could have such dominance over me.

  Someone who could look at me like they knew it too. The way Elliot was looking at Christina, and she looked back at him like she was more afraid to lose him than the fact that he might hit her.