Deep (The Pagano Family Book 4) (19 page)

He pulled her close and slid his hand under the t-shirt, then into her panties, between her legs. She was as wet as he was hard. She gasped at his touch and threw her head back, her hands clutching his arms. He flicked his fingers over the swollen bud of her clit, and she twitched and moaned.

“Wear it tomorrow,” he growled. “I’m gonna fuck you right here.” He kissed her, fiercely, more than he’d even intended, and wrapped his fist around her underwear. He yanked until the side tore free, then he turned and shoved her against the side of the building.

He felt her hands pushing at his chest, but he ignored her. When he had to let her mouth go to get the t-shirt over her head, she gasped, “Wait—not out here! The neighbors—Nick, no.”

“Yes.” She was naked, but still wearing the necklace he’d given her earlier in the day. The sun. It made him all the hotter to see it. All day, his eyes had been drawn to it. More than an adornment, it was a symbol. A mark. He hadn’t realized it when he’d bought it, but it was more than a gift. It was a statement.

He released his aching cock from his sweats and lifted her off the ground, catching her leg high over his arm. More than two weeks had passed since she’d been hurt, and days had passed since their fucking had caused her ribs discomfort. She was working out again, and he could feel the way her muscles stretched more easily with his demands.

Sinking deeply into her, he felt again, as always, the wonder at her responsiveness. She was completely without affect in sex, without guile or self-consciousness. Just as she danced for herself, for the enjoyment of it, she fucked the same way—by instinct, following the needs and impulses of her body.

He’d fucked a lot of women. About half of them fucked like they were performing—always aware of how they looked, how they sounded. Most other women were passive, apparently taking his need for control and his lack of gentleness to mean that he didn’t want them to participate, even when he told them to. Beverly just went with it, doing what felt right, making whatever sounds happened, moving with him to maximize her own experience—which maximized the shit out of his.

And so, as he’d known would be the case, as soon as he was inside her, as soon as his hand was plucking her nipple and his tongue was exploring her mouth, she gave up her protests about their location and was completely with him, grunting raunchily with every thrust, biting his tongue, his lips, yanking at his hair. This was what he wanted. Passion. Physical need so great and powerful that the world disappeared around them.

Nick let go of the world and fucked her, driving harder and deeper with every thrust. She let go of his hair and put her hands against the wall, forcing her body down with his every inward, upward thrust, bringing him even deeper. Needing more oxygen than he could get through his nose, he broke their kiss and put his forehead on her chest.

“I need it harder,” she gasped. “Harder, oh God, please harder.”

He went harder, but didn’t have much longer left, so he dropped his hand down her back and slid two fingers into her ass. This was his; only he had ever given her pleasure in this way, and Nick found that fantastically potent. He wanted more of her ass, but would take that slowly. For now, he loved the way all her muscles closed around him like a vise the very instant his fingers pressed against that tight skin. She came immediately, and she came hard.

And tonight, she came screaming, drowning out the sound of the roaring surf. Nick released his hold on himself and followed with her, his own shout crashing around them.

They’d definitely given the neighbors a show.

~ 12 ~

“Remember to keep your breaths coming from the diaphragm, from your center.” Bev looked at the women assembled before her, facing the ocean. Teaching this little morning beach yoga class was one of her favorite things. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was just play money, anyway, set aside for treats and extras. And she would have done it for free. She’d been glad to get back to it, and gladder still that her class didn’t seem to mind that there were two guys in suits lurking back at the edge of the sand.

Two men. Donnie and a much bigger guy everybody called Smash. Bev felt sure that his mother had named him something else, but he hadn’t said, and she hadn’t asked. Though she liked Donnie a whole lot and had been even having fun with him hanging around all the time, Smash was grimmer and more businesslike—and he scared Bev, just a little. She knew he was on her side, there to protect her, and in that way she felt safer with him around. Donnie wasn’t so great at the bodyguard gig. But Smash didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d sit with her and watch
Smallville
reruns with some popcorn.

She moved her class down to savasana, talking them through the full-body relaxation, keeping her speech timed to the ebb and flow of the water nearby. Then they came up to lotus, and she ended the class, as always, with “
Namaste
.”

The class rolled up their mats and walked together toward their building. Bev looked up and saw Nick watching from his balcony, dressed in everything but his suit jacket. He lifted his coffee mug, and she smiled and waved at him.

“Come see me before I go,” he called down.

She wasn’t really sure what day marked the beginning of their couplehood, but she marked their time together from the bombing, which was just shy of three weeks earlier. Things seemed to be moving quickly, at least from her perspective, but they also seemed to be going at the perfect pace. They spent almost every night together, sometimes in his bed, sometimes in hers, with no real plan or reasoning behind the choice.

He’d been away one night, in New York for some kind of business. With the extra guards and that terrible scene at the cemetery with all the guns, Bev expected that his business in New York had been dangerous, and she had felt real fear for him, even though he’d brushed her fears away, just as he had in the car at the cemetery.

What he did didn’t matter to her, at least as long as it was in the abstract, at least as long as she had the Nick she knew. But what she didn’t know did scare her. There was so much death around him. The chance that he’d get caught up in that himself had to be high. She was holding her heart out to a man who could die and take it with him.

But she supposed that was true of anyone. No one got a guarantee of a long, safe life. Heartbreak was around every corner.

She got to their floor, and Sam opened Nick’s door for her. He was waiting for her inside.

“I love watching you do that.” He kissed her, and she dropped her mat and hooked her arms around his neck, letting him bend her backward a little. No one had ever kissed her the way Nick did—with his full body, making her full body respond in kind. “Makes me want to fuck you on the spot.”

She chuckled and sucked lightly on his bottom lip until he groaned and held her even closer, so that their bodies were almost sealed together. “Fine by me. I’m closing tonight, so I have hours before I have to go in.”

With a quick kiss to the corner of her mouth, he set her solidly on the floor again and released her. “I don’t like you closing. I don’t like you working that job at all.”

She smiled and brushed her fingers over his strong, square chin. “We covered this already—a couple times. I need to work. I need to pay my bills. You’ve got David and Goliath following me around everywhere. I’m just as safe at Sal’s as I am anywhere else.”

“That is objectively false. You’re safer tucked in your apartment. Or mine. Mine would be better.”

“No, Nick. My heart is already all tangled up here. I’m trying to do a little bit of thinking with my head.”

“If you were thinking with your head, you’d do what I say.”

In the days since Brian’s funeral, he’d started this topic every time she mentioned her job. He’d said he’d keep her safe. He’d said he would take care of her bills. But they were too new to even contemplate something like that. Part of her wanted it, wanted to be able to say,
Yes! Take care of me!
But she didn’t like that part. She wanted to be independent. And she needed to be smart. Giving up her job was wrong for a thousand different reasons. “I need to work.”

He stared down at her, the muscles in his jaw twitching, and she knew he was frustrated. She was, too. But she blew that feeling away like a dandelion puff and smiled up at him.

After a beat or two, his expression eased, and he smiled, too. “People don’t tell me no.”

“Obviously.”

“You come straight back, and you come here. Understood?”

“Like Donnie and Smash would let me do anything else.”

“Good. And I’ve got something for you. I’ll give it to you tonight.”

“Something else?” Already he’d given her three expensive gifts, though the first, her necklace, was by far her favorite. He seemed to take great pleasure in giving her gifts, and he understood her taste in ways even she didn’t. Nothing he’d given her would have made her own radar screen—in large part because of the expense—but all of it was beautiful and suited her.

“Yes. You’ll see tonight. But now”—he kissed her nose—“I have to get going. Are you going to stick around here for a while?”

“No. I have things to do at my place.”

He nodded and grabbed his jacket from the back of a chair, then led her out of his apartment.

~oOo~

Traffic in the diner was a little heavier than usual for a Wednesday, but the spring had been warm, and it was early May. The season wasn’t far off. Skylar worked the swing, so she and Bev worked dinner together. They had a full house, counter, too, and for the first time, Bruce grumbled about Bev’s ‘friends’ in the corner booth. Every time he said ‘friends,’ the quotation marks were obvious. He was, in general, in a foul mood all day.

Bev wasn’t in a great mood herself. She’d been fine, having a day like any other, trying and almost succeeding to nudge Bruce into a better mood, flirting a little with Dink, who always blushed when she did. The dinner rush was harder than usual, though, and badness had almost broken out when some jerk at the counter smacked her ass as she went by. Smash had jumped up so fast he’d almost torn the booth apart, and Bev had found herself holding him off like a rabid bull. The diner had been full of people.

Bev had been more embarrassed by the scene than by the slap, as much as she hated that. She got her ass slapped or pinched fairly often. It came with the job, and she had grown to accept it. So far, Donnie hadn’t noticed, because she didn’t make a fuss. But Smash had seen this one happen.

And then, not long after, while she was cleaning up the mess left behind by a couple and their three out-of-control rugrats, she saw Chris walking by the front window, toward his shop. That itself wasn’t unusual. Though he drove to work and parked in a small lot at the other end of the street, he liked the Indian place a couple of blocks in the other direction, and he had to pass the diner to get there. Always before, though, he looked in and waved. Today, he just walked past.

They hadn’t spoken since he’d called her a twat. She’d left a couple of messages, but she hadn’t gone back. And he hadn’t sought her out at all. More than a week. In all the years of their friendship, they hadn’t gone so long without contact. Even when he’d gone to Greece for two weeks a few years back, he’d checked in regularly. He was breaking her heart.

Bev rubbed her feathers again and again, trying not to let the crap get her down.

Sky clocked out at seven, and Romeo came to pick her up. He’d taken up the offer to work security, but he wasn’t working for the Paganos, exactly. He’d gotten on at Neon, working security. Apparently, the Paganos owned a piece of the club. Bev had had no idea that their reach was like it was. It seemed that they were involved in everything.

The next few hours were quiet, with people coming in a couple at a time, for a slice of pie or a late burger, or maybe a cabinet. Once it was full dark, Donnie and Smash took turns walking the street in front of the diner, or the alley in back. Bev got the sense it was more to be moving and doing something than because they were especially concerned.

Bev got it. She was bored herself and spent about an hour in the storeroom reorganizing the shelves, simply because she was wearing the sparkle off the counter, wiping it down so often, looking for something to do. Around nine, she came out with a box of paper napkins and saw Donnie and Bruce back by his desk, locked in a quiet, serious conversation. They broke apart as soon as they saw her, and Donnie took the box out of her hands and went out front.

Thinking about Bruce’s complaints about her guards and feeling aggravated at the thought that Bruce was riding Donnie for being around, Bev put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes at her boss. “Was that about me?”

Bruce looked both surprised and guilty. “What? No! No, Bev. No. That’s something else.”

Bev didn’t believe him and she let it show.

He gave her a look and then blew out a sigh. “I owe him money.”

Well, now, Bev was the one who was surprised. “What?”

“Your ‘friend’ Donnie is a shylock.” Bev had no idea what that was, and it must have shown in her face, because Bruce added, “A loan shark.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s a long, sad, story, but the short of it is I almost lost the place some years back, during the recession. And then Sandy hit, and I didn’t get what I needed in relief. I’m to my teeth in bank loans and nobody would give me more. So I got the loan I could. I missed a payment. Donnie was just reminding me of that.”

“Wait. Donnie is a loan shark?
Donnie
? He was back here, what? Threatening you? Donnie?”

That made no sense at all. Donnie was sweet. A little bit dopey without being dumb. He liked
Battlestar Galactica
. And hot chocolate with marshmallows. She looked through the doorway and saw him laughing with Dink. He spent ten hours a day with her—often more. How was he a loan shark?

“Donnie?”

“Yeah. It’s fine, Bev. We worked it out.”

“That’s why you’ve been so grouchy about him being here today.”

He gave her a sheepish grin. “I won’t lie. It’s not great having the guy who’s going to break my arm next week if I don’t come up with the payment and the penalty sitting around drinking my coffee and eating my pie all day. Usually it’s good to try to avoid a guy like that.”

“Bruce, I…I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry.” Her head was still reeling.

“Don’t be, sunshine. I knew what I was getting into when I asked for the money.”

“Do you want me to…say something?” Could she do that?

“No! Absolutely not. This is none of your business. Okay? Don’t meddle. I hate meddlers.”

“Okay.” She kissed his cheek, then went out to the counter and opened the box of napkins, seeing her friend—no quotation marks—Donnie in a whole different light.

~oOo~

The rest of the night, the vibe was off for Bev. Bruce wasn’t as grouchy, but he was quiet. Bev felt guarded and kept staring over at Donnie, trying to imagine him breaking somebody’s arm. Dink was clueless as usual, singing to himself as he cleaned the grill and emptied the big dishwasher. Their last customer left just after eleven, and the last hour, everybody just tried to get as much of the close as possible done early, until Bev could turn the sign over and lock the door.

Sassy Sal’s was the last place open on its block of Gannet Street. All the retail shops closed around seven or eight—some of them earlier. On the whole commercial segment of the street, only Quinn’s bar was open as late. Even the other restaurants closed by ten. Sometimes, especially in the season, that meant good late business, people coming back from a night out and stopping in for a little something greasy or sweet. But on a quiet night, it often meant a sort of creepy ghost-town atmosphere.