Deep (The Pagano Family Book 4) (36 page)

He stopped. “
Bella
, tell me.”

“It’s good. It feels so good.” At her breathy reply, he relaxed, and his cock filled out.

The scarf he’d set aside was yellow silk. He picked it up again and played it lightly and randomly over her skin. She twisted and scissored her legs together. When she bit her lower lip, he leaned over her and kissed her, sucking it free of her teeth.

He lifted the glittery bodice of her negligée up, releasing her breasts, then leaned over to her nightstand and picked up her water glass. Condensation had beaded and fogged the outside, but there were still small chunks of ice floating in the water. He sucked one into his mouth, then returned to suckle at her breasts.

Her body bowed sharply at the chill touch of his iced mouth, and she cried out. Releasing her nipple but hovering just above it, he opened his mouth to remind her, but she preempted him.

“It’s good, it’s good. More. Please.” With a chuckle, he gave her what she wanted—more. He suckled and nipped her breasts, careful to be firmer with her right but not hurt her, until she was rocking beneath him, every breath a moan, and then he slid his hands into the little silken panties and pushed them off her hips. Her legs were free, and she lifted her hips off the bed to help him, and then kicked herself free of the wisp of purple fabric.

Then he took another cool drink, sucked in another slim piece of ice, and settled between her legs.

Now, at the icy touch of his tongue to her clit, she jumped like she’d been electrocuted.

He swallowed the ice. “Tell me.”

“Make me come,” she breathed. “I need to come.”

Her eyes were still closed. As far as he knew, she’d never yet opened them. Her trust in him was complete.

He needed something, too. Sliding up over her again, he spread her legs wide and entered her. She gasped in surprise, and her eyes flew open, and he was glad. Those gleaming blue eyes were on his right away, full of trust and love. He reached up and released the scarf with one hand, then pulled it free of her wrists.

“Hold me,
bella
. I need you to hold me.”

She did, wrapping her arms and legs around him so tightly she nearly came off the bed. He slid his hands under her and held her even closer, then sat back on his heels, bringing her with him. They rocked together, their bodies entirely entwined, and came together—quietly, gently, their bond unbreakable, their passion consuming.

~oOo~

After Beverly was deep in a damp, exhausted sleep, Nick eased out of bed and pulled a pair of sweats and a t-shirt on. He went out onto the balcony off the bedroom and lit a cigarette. In the bright light of a full moon, from the second floor, he could see the waves hitting the beach below. There was a heavy breeze, and the dark ink of the night ocean surged and rolled, crashing into a froth on the sand and arcing violently against the rocks. But not far out, where the ocean deepened, it grew calm, its power only apparent in the gentle heave that would become waves closer to shore.

He was going to be a father. He had real love, and they would make a family.

He was going to have a complete life. A full existence.

His world was in balance, business and family as they should be.

There were secrets, but that was the way of his world. Every good, every bad, had its equal. There would always be secrets. The balance was in keeping them deep, where the ocean heaved but didn’t crash. Where it swallowed what shouldn’t be known.

He drew on his cigarette, the ember glowing red against the dark blue of the coastal spring night.

He would keep his love, his family safe. He would never hurt Beverly, or their children. He would never allow them to be hurt, no matter what his business required of him. He would protect them from his darkness and the darkness around him. He would give his wife the life and happiness she deserved, and he would send his children on other paths than his.

She would never be sorry she’d bound herself to him.

Il vero amore è senza rimpianti
. True love has no regrets.

The door opened behind him. “Hey. You’re having smoking thoughts tonight? Should I be worried?”

He stubbed out his smoke and turned to Beverly with a smile. She was wearing her terrycloth robe, a far cry from what he’d pulled off her earlier. “No,
bella
. No worries. Never any worries for you. Not anymore.” He drew her into his arms. She was shivering. “You’re cold. We should go in.”

She shook her head against his chest. “No. I feel cozy like this. I want to be here for a minute.”

He kissed her temple and slid a hand over her belly, where his tiny child lay growing. “You’re everything to me,
bella
. I love you.”

She snuggled in even closer, and they stood together and listened to the roar of the ocean below.

Epilogue

Nick pulled a pink towel off the rod and opened it wide. He squatted and said, “Come, come,” and his daughter Lia giggled and ran into his arms. He dried her, then wound the towel around her and picked her up.

“Okay,
gattina
, let’s get you dressed for bed.”

“Can we read Princesses?” Lia scooted her hands out of her towel burrito and threw them around her father.

He walked her out of the bathroom and across the hall, into her pink room. “Princesses? Again? That’s three bedtimes in a row. Pick another book.” He set her down and unwrapped her, then handed her a clean nightgown and panties.

Lia sat on the floor and stuck each still-chubby leg through her panties, then stood and pulled them up, bouncing and shimmying until they were over her bottom. “No, Papa. I want Princesses.”

“What if Elisa wants something else? It’s past bedtime. We only have time for one story. It should be her turn to pick.”

“’Lisa likes bad books. Too many words.” Lia pouted. “Princesses is the best book. There are sparkles in the pictures.” She pulled her nightgown over her head with a flourish.

His second daughter looked like the sweetest, shyest child in the world. With huge, green eyes, the lower lip of her little bow mouth fuller than her upper, her eyebrows canted down at the ends just a tad, she always seemed to be ready to cry. She did not cry easily, however. She was, in fact, a tough little cookie with a quick temper and a sharp tongue. But at three, she had already figured out how to use her sweet beauty to her advantage.

He was onto her, but it didn’t matter. She’d turn those eyes on him, and he’d cave. Picking up her little pink hairbrush, he sat on the edge of her bed and pulled her between his legs, turning her to face away from him. “Okay. Princesses. But then Elisa gets a story, too, and you have to sit quietly for it.” He ran the brush through her long, auburn hair, still damp from her bath.

“Ow, Papa!” She turned around and gave him a baleful stare. “You don’t do it right. I want Mamma.”

“Mamma’s sleeping with your baby sister. They’re tired. You’re stuck with Papa.” Carina had been born only ten days before. He turned Lia back around and resumed brushing her hair, going even more gently now.

She crossed her arms over her little chest. “I didn’t want a sister. I have a sister. I wanted a brother. Mamma wouldn’t be tired if she brought me a brother.”

After three girls in a row, Nick wasn’t sure they’d ever have a son. But his love for his daughters overwhelmed him. They were beautiful, brilliant rays of their mother’s sun.

“Well, God gave you a baby sister. And when she gets a little older, you can teach her how to be a good girl and let your mamma sleep.” He set the brush down. “Okay. Get Princesses, and let’s go to Elisa.”

She trotted over to her pink bookcase with the pink ballet shoes painted all over it and pulled out her pink copy of
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
. They didn’t actually need the book, Nick thought. He’d read it so many times he dreamed about their stupid secret dances. Twelve little girls defying their parents night after night. Fairy tales sucked.

Lia came over with the book tucked under her arm. She took his hand and pulled, and he came up off her bed. “You’re so strong,
gattina
.” She grinned, and they walked hand in hand down the hall to Elisa’s room.

He heard Carina crying behind the door to the master suite, and he stopped for a second, listening. It had been a hard week, and Beverly was exhausted. But the baby settled quickly.

“Papa! Come
on
!” Lia tugged on his hand.

“Okay, okay.” His eldest daughter’s door, covered in glittery stickers, was closed, and he shook his head, knowing what he’d find when he went in. He knocked and did just that.

Yep. She had artfully arranged her blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals to attempt to conceal a sizable lump on her bed. A lump with a bushy, golden tail sticking out at the end. Wagging.

“Elisabetta Pagano. You think you can fool me? Cuddles,
down
.”

He was a man drowning in pink and glitter, who had a golden retriever named Cuddles. That was his life now.

His perfect life.

Elisa stuck out her lip—she had that down, too. The dog stood up on the bed, casting pillows and toys to and fro, but still covered in the floral comforter. He was clearly confused, but he managed to find his way to the floor. He came over and sat at Nick’s side, looking up with shame in his eyes. There was a sparkly butterfly sticker on his snout.

“You know better,
signorina
. The dog does not go on the furniture.” They went around this circuit at least twice a week. Elisa kept trying new and different ways to smuggle the dog—whom she’d named; Nick had had no part in that—into bed with her.

“Please, Papa. He can keep me safe. I need him to watch my closet.”

“’Lisa is a scaredy-baby, ’Lisa is a scaredy-baby,” Lia sang. Elisa threw a pillow at her little sister.

Elisa and Lia were so-called ‘Catholic twins,’ born less than eleven months apart. From the moment Lia had the motor skills to yank a toy from Elisa’s hands, they had fought nearly endlessly.

“Enough, the both of you. Lia, you sit.” He pointed to the little, pink velvet armchair next to Elisa’s bookcase. Hearing the sharp tone in his voice, Lia did as she was told, her eyes enormous. He hated that look. The one that said
Don’t be mean, Papa. It scares me
. Even as he knew she was using it intentionally, manipulating him, it still skewered his heart.

He went and sat on Elisa’s bed. “There’s nothing in your closet to watch, Elisa. We talked about this. I checked it thoroughly.” At four, she was astonishingly smart—too smart for her age. She was an avid reader, and she paid attention to everything. She had his gift for seeing. It seemed like every day she picked up some random image from the television, or from overheard conversations, or somewhere, that was too much for her to understand. They made her anxious and wary. Already, they’d weathered her panics about climate change and zombies and war and child abduction—to name a key few. She was only four, but no amount of care seemed sufficient to keep her innocent; she’d pick up something from a passing stranger’s remark in the market and obsess about it for days.

This new terror of her closet had come just before Carina was born, from seeing a trailer for a horror movie on television. She’d come to tell them she couldn’t sleep, and they hadn’t known she’d been standing in the doorway until she’d started crying.

“Papa,
please
.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. They were blue, like her mother’s. Both girls favored Beverly, Nick thought, with her auburn hair and beautiful smile. Lia had his eyes. Carina had been born with a great shock of hair, almost black, like his. The jury was yet out on what color her eyes were.

He couldn’t withstand Elisa’s tears, or her very real fear. “You
promise
that he stays on the floor, and you keep your door open, so he can come and go as he pleases.”

The tears got blinked away, and she gave him a relieved little smile. “Yes, I promise. Hall light?”

“Of course. Good girl. Okay, pick your story. We have a long day tomorrow, so you both need to get to sleep.”

Elisa leaned over and picked up a book from the stack she kept by the bed. Nick sighed.
A Little Princess
. Everywhere he turned, there was a princess.

“Come, come,
gattina
.” He waved his fingers, and Lia scooted off the little chair and brought her book over. Nick sat back against the wall and tucked a daughter under each arm. He read princess stories until they fell asleep.

Then, with Lia sleeping on his shoulder, he tucked Elisa in and settled the dog at the side of her bed. He carried Lia to her room and tucked her in.

He stood in the doorway and watched the little heartbreaker curl into her ball and put her thumb in her mouth.

Then he went to check on his other loves.

~oOo~

“She’s at it again? You need a break,
bella
.” It seemed that Carina had spent about ninety percent of her first ten days of life attached to her mother’s breasts. Beverly’s right breast had never made milk as well as her left, and Elisa and Lia had both nursed frequently, too, but Carina never seemed to stop. Her longest stretch off the breast had been about forty-five minutes. Mother and baby were both exhausted. As quickly as her body could make milk, the baby was taking it. “Ma is trying to get a big sleepover tomorrow night with all the kids. Carina, too. She wants to fill the house. She’ll have Connie stay over to help.” He stripped to his boxer briefs and slid into bed next to his wife and newest daughter. Beverly was on her side facing him, her hand holding Carina at her breast.

She looked absolutely drained, but she shook her head. “She’s too young to stay the night away from home. And I haven’t been able to express. She won’t stop feeding long enough. It all goes straight into her mouth.”

“It’s time to try formula. You can’t keep up like this.”

“No!”

He thought her militant ideas about breastfeeding had a tinge of lunacy, especially considering the limits of her damaged right breast—and since her nipples had started to crack and she’d been biting into a cloth diaper so the girls wouldn’t hear her scream when Carina latched. It ripped Nick’s stomach apart to witness that. But she wouldn’t discuss even the idea of supplementing. “I’m worried, Beverly. You need rest. I don’t know how to help.”

“I’m fine. It’s just hard right now, with everything going on. I feel like such a jerk saying that, though. I really am okay.”

Uncle Ben had died in his sleep, two days after Carina was born. Dr. Kerr had said his heart simply stopped. Aunt Angie had died six months before, and Ben hadn’t come back from that. He’d tried, briefly, but losing his wife was a blow he hadn’t been able to withstand. Nick understood.

His funeral Mass and burial service were arranged for the following day. The turnout was expected to be massive. The family had spent the past three days at vigil; people from all over New England and beyond had come to pay their respects to the legendary Don Beniamino Pagano and to kiss the ring of Don Nicolo Pagano.

And Beverly, with a days-old baby swaddled and slung across her chest, had been with him through it all. Until today, when she’d nearly passed out in the kitchen that morning, and he’d made her stay home with the baby. He’d called Skylar over and had her looking out for them both.

He’d taken the girls with him. Carlo and Sabina had hired someone to watch the children during the vigil, so Elisa and Lia had spent the days having fun with all their cousins, unaware of the mourning going on. Only Trey, twelve years old, had joined them at the funeral home.

“You’re not okay. I want you to stay home tomorrow, too.”

She shook her head. “I want to say goodbye. I love him—he was a father to me. And I want to be there for you.”

He leaned over and kissed her temple. “I love you,
bella
. You don’t have to be in the room with me to be with me. I carry your love wherever I am. All this is taking too much out of you.”

“Nick, I’m going. That’s sweet, and I love you, but I’m going.”

With a sigh of defeat, he said, “Remember when what I said went?”

“No.” She grinned, her light clearing away the clouds of her fatigue for a moment.

He chuckled and brushed her hair back from her face. “You know, outside this house, people are afraid to defy me. Important people.” Inside this house, much more important people had him wrapped snugly around very small fingers.

“Mmm-hmm. I know. Don Pagano, the god among men. At home, we remind you you’re a man. My man. Their papa.”