Fall (Romanian Mob Chronicles Book 2) (10 page)

E
sther

T
he day passed in a blur
, and I even stayed on for a double shift.

I needed the money.

That was what I told myself. The other alternative was accepting I didn’t want to go home, be alone in my house, afraid of who might show up, and even more afraid of who I knew wouldn’t.

So on a deep sigh, I clocked out and headed home.

The man that had followed me here followed me home, not ever speaking but ever-present, watchful. And while I appreciated his presence, I was still skittish, reasonable I supposed but not something I enjoyed. Besides, seeing him also caused a searing pain in my chest. He reminded me of Sorin, reminded me that no matter what, I still wanted him with me.

As I got closer to my house, I saw a nondescript car idling in my driveway and allowed myself a moment of hope.

It was quickly dashed when Fawn got out of the car.

“Thanks for the warm greeting,” she said as she came toward me.

“I’m sorry. I just…”

Her face turned down, and she grabbed my hand. She squeezed and then met my gaze. “I’m glad I came. Vasile said something had happened, but you were okay. But this is bad.”

“I’m fine, fine,” I said as I unlocked the door.

She glanced at me quickly. “You’re not fine.”

Then she hugged me. “Why didn’t you call me? I was worried sick.”

“I’m sure Sorin—” I cut off quickly, not even able to speak the words aloud. “They told you I was fine,” I finally settled on.

“Them telling me and me seeing you with my own eyes aren’t the same thing.”

“You see me. Now go home be with your family, hold your baby.”

She frowned even harder, and my heart quaked.

“I’m sorry. I’m such a bitter bitch. You should go home. I’m not up for company.”

“You apologized to me twice in the past two minutes. I think you’ve apologize to me twice total since we were in third grade. Talk to me, Esther. Don’t push me away. Not now.”

I looked at Fawn, the wide-eyed earnestness in her voice, the gentle kindness that I had always appreciated and envied, and it shattered me.

I barely recognized the first sob as my own voice, but by the second there was no doubt. I trembled all over, tears that had exploded from seemingly nowhere wetting my face. Fawn held me tighter, patted my back, and I did something I don’t think I’d ever done. I let it all out, let myself go completely.

“I thought I was gonna die, Fawn,” I said around gasping sighs.

“Did they hurt you?”

I chuckled, only belatedly realizing how unhinged I probably sounded.

“No. Not physically, anyway.”

“Sometimes the physical wounds are easier,” she said.

I knew the words came from a wealth of experience, things that she had seldom told me about, and that she’d never given me full insight into. But I knew it now, knew how shattering it could be to be so close.

“How do you do it?” I asked, as I angrily swiped at a few stray tears that had escaped.

“Do what?”

“Live like that, with him?”

“Easy. The alternative is living without him. And that’s not an alternative,” she said. She looked at me with conviction, certitude, and again I found myself envying her.

“That wasn’t the worst of it, Fawn. Thinking I was gonna die…”

I paused, looked away. Then I looked back at her. “Seeing that man get shot. Rolling around on the ground screaming. It was awful. And then, the look on Sorin’s face when he was going to shoot Natasha. He would’ve done it. Wouldn’t have given it a second thought. Tell me I’m wrong,” I said, looking at Fawn, desperate, pleading, hoping she could help me deny the truth I new.

“He would have. And if you weren’t there, he wouldn’t have thought about it. But you were there and he did. And that’s the difference. That’s how I can live with it,” she said.

“That’s some heavy-duty compartmentalization,” I said. And when she lifted her brow, I added, “When I’m not working, I watch talk shows. You pick up the jargon.”

She gave me a faint smile, and I did as well.

“I don’t know, Esther. I’m so messed up, and I’ve been a part of this for so long that it’s hard for me to put myself in your shoes, to imagine how the darker sides of this world must be to you. So I’ll just tell you how I look at it. The things they do aren’t always pretty, maybe aren’t often pretty, but I trust him. Trust him to keep us safe. And I know, beyond all doubt, that he is the best man I’ve ever known. And Sorin is too.”

“He’s a psycho. He beat up some guy, was gonna shoot his lifelong friend.”

“Or he was defending you, protecting you and avenging an unforgivable betrayal,” she said.

“Convenient interpretation,” I said.

“Do you have another?”

I stayed silent, unable to refute her statement.

“Sorin’s not a psycho. He’s a little nutty, but someone else here is too.”

“I resent that remark. I’m totally non-nutty.”

“Whatever you say,” she replied on a laugh.

“But even if I concede that I might be a little outside of the mainstream, that and being a Romanian mobster are not, in fact, the same.”

“They’re not. But could you have been if you were born to it? Would you have managed to retain your humanity the way they have?” I went silent again, exhaled hard. “It’s a moot point anyway. He broke up with me,” I said. “I sound like a fourteen-year-old girl. He broke up with me.” I snorted in disgust and leaned back against the couch that we had moved to.

“You care about him. He cares about you. And the Esther I know has never taken no for an answer. Not even from a Romanian mobster, if I recall.”

“That Esther was a fucking moron,” I said.

She shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. That’s for you to decide. All of it is. And whatever you do decide, I’ll always be here. But ask yourself this question: is he worth the risk?”

And then she said nothing, just waited, not expectantly, and not disinterestedly. No, she did what Fawn always did for me, and was simply there.

I growled in frustration and then sat up. “I’m gonna have some wine and think,” I said. “But I’ll tell you one thing, Fawn. Your friend, Natasha, was a bitch.”

S
orin

F
our Weeks Later
…

“
Y
ou coming
?”
Vasile
said.

I considered it, then shook my head. “No. Kiss the baby for me.”

He nodded, patted my shoulder, and then left Familie.

Before, I would have hung with some of the guys, gone to Vasile’s. But being with them only reminded me of
not
being with Esther. But being alone was almost unbearable. Maria, Vasile, Fawn, they helped, but I’d intruded enough.

I’d never believed in love, scarcely gave thought to pain, but the days since I’d last seen Esther had given lie to all of those beliefs and lack thereof. I craved her, needed her. And not just her body, which I missed, skin that I could still feel against my palms, breathy moans, sharp inhales I could hear as she closed around me. But I wouldn’t experience them again, so I tried to forget, something that seemed impossible.

That was why being alone was so bad. There was nothing to distract me, nothing to stop me from wishing that maybe, if I had been born somewhere else, been born someone else, I might be a man who could protect her, be with her.

I stood abruptly, headed toward the door.

I hadn’t been and I wasn’t, so I would leave her alone, let her live her life, find a nice, normal man, have a family.

I ignored the quick stab in my chest as the image of Esther holding someone else’s child in her arms flashed in my mind, and instead focused on the one thing I could do, keep her safe.

Clan soldiers that I had assigned to watch her reported to me daily, and I craved news of her comings and goings as much as a man in the desert craved water. Stories of Esther going to work, the grocery store, to visit Fawn, it was the very air I breathed, the only things that helped me make it through the day.

“We’re not open to the public. Get out!”

At the sound of Nicki’s voice, I ran out of the back room and into the main restaurant, which was indeed not open to the public. I saw Nicki squared off with Esther who looked for all the world like she intended to run him right over. It reminded me of the first time I’d met her.

It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

And the most grueling.

It reminded me so much of that first time, the fearlessness, her bravery, her stupidity. All of the things that I loved about her. All the reasons that I had to make sure she lived, even if it was without me.

“Esther! What are you doing here?” I said scornfully, using my most fearsome voice.

Esther didn’t even bat a lash.

“What does it look like?”

“Looks like you’re trying to trespass. That can have consequences,” I said, my voice stern and ice-cold, but my heart that only she’d ever managed to find, setting off in a hope-filled gallop.

She pulled herself to her full height, brimming with the challenge that had drawn me to her. “Consequences? Really? Why don’t you tell me about them?”

I smiled quickly, but then recovered, turning my face down into a scowl. “It’s okay, Nicki. I’ll take her home.”

He relaxed as did Esther, her expression softer, eyes on mine. I grabbed her elbow and headed to my car, ignoring the thrill that went through me when I touched her, focusing on how happy I was that she hadn’t pulled away. I didn’t look at her, though, knowing that one glimpse would break my resolve.

“Let’s go,” I said firmly as I seated her in the car.

The ride was torturous, each second with her reminding me of the seconds that had come before, the seconds that would soon be over, the long loneliness that again confronted me when she was gone.

“Why are you being stupid, Esther?”

I looked at her as I said it, a grave error. Her face was shadowed by the darkness of the night, but I saw the set of her jaw, the smooth, soft skin between her neck and collarbone, and couldn’t help but remember how wildly she responded when I licked that spot.

“Sorin,” she said softly, voice, a husky, questioning whisper, pulling me back from my thoughts.

“Esther,” I said.

“I’m done pretending. I want you.”

Definitive. She’d left no question of what she’d meant. But I couldn’t accept it.

“Look, Esther, what we had was nice. We fucked each other, and very good. It was a decent time. But that’s all it can be. It’s over now,” I said.

This was new to me, so I imagined most women would have scoffed, been offended by my vulgarity and my tone, but I had been gone too long, let myself forget that Esther wasn’t most.

“The fucking was superior,” she said. Then she looked at me. Even though I kept my eyes trained on the road, I could feel her gaze on my skin, the most searing, most welcome stare. “But it was more than that and you know it.” She grabbed the hand that I didn’t have on the wheel, placed her fingers between mine. “I’m your girl. You said it yourself.”

For a moment, I squeezed her hand back, but then I pulled away. Parked the car and then, finally, turned to her.

“Maybe I just said that? A trick to getting your pants.”

She laughed, her round cheeks making her eyes narrow into slits. “Sorin Petran using tricks like that to get into Esther Jordan’s pants. Pants that he pretty much had twenty-four/seven access to?” She smiled even more brightly. “Doubtful.”

Then her face dropped, and she grabbed my hand again. “Sorin, I know what you’re trying to do, and thank you for it. But it only shows me the truth.”

I snatched my hand away again, trying to regain my will.

“You don’t know anything about me, my world, my clan. And you never will.”

“Come inside.”

Then she got out of the car, walked to the front door, unlocked it, entered, and left it open. And I sat there, weighing, debating before finally getting out.

Best do this now,
I told myself. Make sure she understood that we could never see each other again.

When I entered the familiar dwelling, Esther stood in the entryway. And I stopped short, stared at her.

“Still struck speechless by how quickly I can get out of my clothes?” she said, gesturing at the shirt and pants that she had tossed aside, though I barely noticed because I was so busy drinking in her body, which, save her bra and panties, was completely uncovered.

“Don’t try to tempt me with sex, Esther. Are you so desperate that you’d throw yourself at me even after I rejected you?” I asked, though my voice robbed the words of any conviction.

“You haven’t rejected me. And no, I’m not trying to tempt you with sex. I’m merely out to prove a point. And unless you want the entire neighborhood to see, please close the door,” she said.

Then she pivoted, turned on her strong ankles and walked down the hall, her ass jiggling with the force of her steps.

The curiosity, the question, the challenge, all the things that had pulled me to her at first, did so now. So, despite my resolve, against my instinct, I closed and locked the door and followed her. I knew the path to her bedroom, and in the few steps it took me to arrive, I told myself to leave a thousand times.

She stood in front of the bed, and I drifted closer, moving before I realized that I had. The faint smile played over her full lips, and she lifted her hand, stroked it along my cheek, ruffling the coarse hair there.

“I always hated facial hair. But this little shadow you can’t be bothered to shave is perfect,” she said almost dreamily.

Her touch, light though it was distracting enough in her words almost seduced me, but her words, her voice, so airy, enraged me. I grabbed her wrist, stilled her hand.

“Is this some kind of game to you?” I asked, my voice a feral whisper.

She shook her head. “No. It’s my life.”

“Exactly! It’s your life. That’s what’s at risk with me.”

“I understand the risk, Sorin.”

“Do you?” I scoffed.

Her eyes flashed with anger, her face rigid. “Someone came here, into the place where I felt the most safe on earth. Took me away. Left me alone, cold, in the dark, waiting to die. Pointed a gun in my face. Would have pulled the trigger. I understand,” she said flatly. “And I accept it.”

I calmed and then my own anger spiked again. “Look. You think you understand, but you don’t, Esther!” I pulled my shirt over my head, pointed at my chest. “This is who I am. Forever. It will kill me. I won’t let it kill you.”

“You don’t get to make that choice,” she said.

“I do and I am,” I said.

She stepped closer, eyes on mine, fearless. “No you don’t. I make the choices for me. And I’m choosing you.” She lay a hand on my chest, then ran a finger down my sternum. “You and all that comes with you. I want it all, and you know I can be very persuasive,” she said.

Then she slid that finger over my stomach, down my crotch, that one fingertip pressure enough to make me shiver.

“What do I need to do to convince you?” she asked, and then she cupped my hardening cock at the same time as she pressed her lips against my chest.

Finding a strength I didn’t know I possessed, I pushed her hand away and stepped back. “What are you doing, Esther?”

“Has it been that long, Sorin?” she asked, the corner of her lips turning up higher.

I kept my face set in a grim expression, and her smiled dropped. She stepped closer, put her hand over my heart.

“Sorin Petran, I love you.” She lifted her gaze until her eyes met mine, searching, hopeful. “And I trust you.”

The declaration hung between us, but I didn’t grab it, couldn’t. Not yet. Not until I was sure.

“There’s no going back, Esther.”

“Better not be,” she said with a playful smile on her lips.

And then she said nothing else because I captured her lips with mine and thrust my tongue into her mouth, kissing her with an almost feral need and urgency, desperate to taste her, touch her.

She exhaled deep, and I felt her yielding, felt her trust, her love. I wrapped my arm around her waist and crushed her to me, the soft press of her breasts making my cock harden. I snaked my hand down her strong back and grabbed a handful of her ass.

“Touch me,” I said roughly as I teased the full globe.

I stilled when she closed her hand over me again.

“No,” I said. “Touch me. Skin on skin.”

She chuckled low, her warm breath against my skin and then worked my pants down and freed my erection. A second later, she closed her hand around my shaft.

“I missed this,” she said as she stroked me.

“Not as much as I did,” I replied.

Then I loosened my hold and pushed her panties down her legs, pulling her closer so that my cock was nestled between her thighs, her wet heat and the hard nub of her clit against me.

I rocked and she moaned, tightened her hands on my flanks. My eyes had drifted shut, and I opened them, saw her pleasure-twisted expression, the way her throat moved as she swallowed.

I’d said it before, but I knew then, without a doubt, I would never let her go.

“Come back,” she said when I stepped away and sat on the edge of the bed, my cock, almost painfully hard, slick with arousal, mine and hers, rising to jut toward her.

“Nope. Come ride me,” I replied.

She snorted quietly, and I saw the quiet rebellion on her face. But whatever she thought, she stepped forward, her full body swaying seductively with each step.

“Since you asked so nicely,” she said as she lifted one knee, then the other on either side of me, hovering above me, close enough that the downy hair that covered her brushed my shaft.

Hand tight around my base, she lowered herself. But where before we both would have watched as we joined, this time, our eyes were locked, the pleasure of her cunt swallowing me, nothing in the face of the emotions she stirred in a heart I hadn’t known existed until her.

When I was fully seated, my cock buried as deep inside her as it could go, her walls squeezing around me, her eyes alight with love, she stilled, and we stared at one another, a wealth of emotion passing between us.

Then, her face bright with a wanton smile, she reached behind her, unfastened her bra and slid it off, tossing it aside, freeing her breasts. Her dark nipples were beaded, the skin around them crinkled with her arousal. She lifted her brow, and I laughed and then leaned forward and tugged one of the buds between my lips and pinched the other between my thumb and forefinger.

I released her breast long enough to smack her ass. After a quick little giggle, she laced her hands behind my head, fingers threaded in my hair, and then she rose and then ground down, arching her back so that her breast filled my mouth, riding me with the reckless abandon that was so much of who she was.

I released her tit with a loud
pop
, admiring the way it glistened, and then I grabbed her hips, loving the feel of her full flesh in my palms, her skin slick with sweat.

“Look at me, Esther,” I whispered.

Her eyes snapped open and she looked at me, her gaze soft. And then, connected with her body and heart, I spoke.

“I love you,” I said.