KON (Trassato Crime Family Book 2) Read online

  “Oh shit,” she whispered.

  “Carmela, can I talk to you for a second?” Evie’s distinct voice floated through the room.

  My muscles tautened, ready to flee. Oh shit was right. I had no interest in facing off with Gian or my sister tonight or anytime in the near future.

  “I thought you said they left,” she murmured next to my ear.

  “They did.”

  The door handle rattled, and I jumped off the bed, snagging my t-shirt and pants from the bed.

  “One second. I’m changing.” Carmela rushed across the room, flung open her bathroom door, and pulled on a short silver robe, knotting it at her waist.

  “Oh, okay,” Evie said.

  Carmela pointed at the bathroom, and mouthed, “Hide in here.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Carmela

  I cracked open my door, smoothing a hand over my chest, trying to stop my heart from jumping out of my chest and plopping onto the floor near my feet. “Hi. I thought I saw you guys leave.”

  “We did. Gian forgot the leftovers, and you know how much he misses your mom’s cooking.”

  Evie couldn’t cook to save her life. Her culinary skills started and ended with canned soup and raw vegetables. If my brother wanted a real Italian meal, he had to call my mom or do it himself. He didn’t seem to mind, though. As far as I could tell, he believed the world revolved around Evie, and that was exactly the way it should be. Quite honestly, I’d give my left arm to have a man look at me the way Gian looked at her.

  “That explains everything.”

  Chuckling, she waved her hand toward my room. “Can I come in?”

  “Ah…” I glanced over my shoulder, checking on the closed bathroom door.

  “Just for a second. I’m sure you’re drained, and Gian can’t stay long anyway. He has a meeting early in the morning.”

  “Sure.” I flipped on the light and sat on the edge of my now messy bed, discreetly smoothing out the wrinkles with hand.

  She followed me in and leaned on the edge of my dresser. “We didn’t get a chance to talk tonight.”

  “No. Not really.”

  “I hope Gian didn’t give you a hard time when your mom and I went outside.”

  “We worked it out.”

  “Yeah, Gian said you’d stay away from Kon, and he’d help you with the Nico situation.”

  “He told you?”

  She shrugged, sheepishly. “We don’t keep many secrets from each other, and he knows I’m worried about you. I don’t like this whole thing you have going with my brother. I don’t trust him. He’s not right for you.”

  She swept her hand along the top of my dresser, pausing when she spotted Kon’s keys. Frowning, she scooped them up and studied the icon dangling from the chain, her mouth pressed into a firm disapproving line.

  The possibility of being caught with Kon in my room made my stomach plummet like I’d swallowed a leaden balloon. If she summoned Gian, this night would end in a fistfight or worse.

  At twenty-eight years old, I should be able to do what I wanted with whom I wanted. Unfortunately, my family didn’t work that way, which was both a good and bad thing. Without a doubt, I loved them, and I would never dream of doing anything to hurt or disappoint them intentionally, but I’d be the first to admit their love was stifling. They monopolized every weekend, weeknight, and holiday with birthday parties, baptisms, weddings, and the plain old Sunday dinner just to name a few, which didn’t leave much time for anything else.

  “Is something wrong?” I said when she remained stubbornly silent.

  Her mouth opened, closed, and then she dumped the keys back on the dresser right next to Kon’s wallet. They hit the wood surface with a loud clunk. She stared at me for a second, her face pale. The faint laughter from the television did little to alleviate the awkward silence.

  “I-I have to go. I can’t be part of this. I won’t.”

  I shot up from my bed, hooking my hand around her wrist right as she neared my door. “Don’t say anything,” I whispered not wanting anyone, including Kon, to overhear me.

  “I can’t lie to Gian. He’d never forgive me. We don’t keep secrets,” she hissed.

  “I’m not asking you to lie to your husband.”

  “Then what?”

  “If Gian comes in here, things will get ugly. You don’t want that, and neither do I. You may think you hate your brother, but I know you, Evie. You don’t want anything bad to happen to Kon, and that’s precisely what will happen if you tell Gian.”

  Her hand drummed against her thigh. Time froze. I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs as I waited. Right now, she was my judge, jury, and executioner.

  “Okay. Okay,” she finally conceded. “You’re probably right. I’ll cover for you this time, and that’s it. Don’t ask me again.”

  “I won’t.”

  She scanned the corners of my room. “Get him the hell out of here and tell him not to come back. I don’t want him in my life or yours. He’s toxic. My whole family is toxic. They’ll drag you through Hell before they’re done with you.”

  I should have called her out. After all, this was my home and my life. I didn’t, though. I took her moment of reprieve and embraced it. “Thanks, Evie.”

  The second she left, I closed and locked the door behind her, and slid down the wall, tears rolling down my cheeks. I’d made such a mess of my life. I didn’t want to marry Nico. I’d been lying to myself, thinking I could merge my life with someone who I didn’t want. Who I didn’t love. And Kon…well, I couldn’t give him up. The thought of kicking him out of my life made my insides twist. Somehow he’d come to represent my freedom and a rebellion from what everyone expected of me, and I wasn’t ready to clip back on the Trassato family leash. The worst part was that I liked Kon. More than liked him.

  Kon crouched down in front of me and his hands circled my waist. “Hey, is everything okay?”

  “Evie knows you were in here.”

  He tipped up my chin, his brow furrowing when he spotted my stupid tears.

  “I know. I heard.”

  “She saw your keys and wallet on my dresser. She’s not going to say anything.”

  “I’m sorry I forgot about them. Are you okay?”

  “Yes. You should probably go, though. I’m sure she’ll act weird the entire way home and Gian will weasel the information out of her. We probably only have a half hour grace period here.”

  “I’m not leaving.” His lips brushed over mine, and he unknotted my robe.

  “Gian—”

  “Fuck Gian.” He wrapped my legs around his waist and carried me to the bed, pausing near the edge. “I only care about you and right now you need me. I need you.”

  “If he comes back—”

  He placed a finger against my lips. “We’ll deal with it.”

  He set me on the bed, pushed the robe off my shoulders, and I shivered when the cool air hit my breasts. His eyes burning like blue flames and the light from the television highlighting the sharp angles of his face, he unbuckled his pants. They, along with his boxer briefs, fell to the floor with the clunk of his belt.

  In two strides he nudged his hips between my dangling legs. Reaching up, I sifted through the silky strands of his blond hair. A devastatingly sexy smirk split his face and his mouth sealed against mine. Rocco’s kisses made me glow with happiness, yet they didn’t compare to Kon’s. No one kissed like him. His taste was as intoxicating as the grappa my uncle served after Christmas dinner. He seduced me with every brush of his lips and curl of his tongue.

  His tattooed hand blanketed my breast, his calloused thumb rubbing over my stiff nipple. I tugged at the roots of his hair, pulling him on top of me, fusing our bodies together, desperate to have more.

  The minute his bare chest collided with mine, a shiver zipped down my spine, and I whimpered in relief. His erection slid against me until I was dazed, needy, and oh so greedy. A sweet ache burrowed beneath my chest. We had sex so many times last ni
ght I’d lost count, and now I realized I’d never get enough of the way he made me feel.

  Of course, somewhere buried deep in my brain and quilted with a dreamlike haze, I wondered if Evie was right and Kon was toxic. A toxic addiction that would destroy me some time not too far in the future. Only unlike Rocco and my father’s death, Kon could deal the final defining blow, one impossible to recover from.

  I was a Trassato. He was a Trincher. I should keep my guard raised in anticipation of treachery. In the beginning, we were enemies united in the common goal in finding a path out of the deal we made. Now we were something else, something fuzzy, indistinct, and undefined. More than that, he’d never indicated his intentions toward me had changed. As far as I knew, he still didn’t want to marry me, and on the outside chance he did, it would never happen.

  All thoughts of why I should stop this fizzled the second his mouth slid down my jaw to my neck, to the swells of my breasts, moving lower and lower. Fire licked at my skin. With his lips, tongue and fingers, he worshiped me, taking his time, and cataloging my responses like he had all of eternity to use the information, and not only tonight.

  “Kon,” I gasped wanting nothing more than to have him inside of me.

  “What do you want, solnyshka?”

  “You, inside me.”

  He chuckled against my lower belly, and the gruff sound sent a blast of lust directly to my core. “I’m getting there. I want to taste you first.”

  I mumbled indistinguishably in response because I wanted that too. He centered himself between my thighs, his knees dropping to the floor. Bracing my upper body on my elbows, I watched him lick my clit and moaned.

  “See? You needed this.”

  His tongue swirled, plunged in and out, gravelly and silky at the same time. Too soon, full body trembles rippled through me, signaling both how far and how close I was to falling over the edge. My hips arched. My toes curled. My fingers clawed at the bedding while I begged and pleaded for him to let me come.

  He didn’t give in. He climbed on top of me and settled his thick cock at the apex of my thighs, his heavy-lidded stare boring into me.

  “Now you can come,” he said, thrusting inside me, filling me with unparalleled perfection. I screamed his name, wondering why I had begged for more of his tongue because this was so much better. One pump of his hips and I was there, falling, spiraling to the point of no return. My sex pulsed around him, greedily pulling him in and refusing to let go, and he was right there with me, our breaths in sync, our movements the perfect counterpart.

  With an exaggerated groan, he pumped into me again and again. The bed squeaked, the bottle of water fell off my nightstand, and he pushed me higher and higher.

  My body shuddered. My lips were numb. Nothing except that moment and the way I felt as we melded into one mattered. When he stopped moving, I closed my eyes and my legs flopped to the side, the turmoil of this night forgotten, the adrenaline and endorphins gradually retreating.

  “We aren’t even close to being finished,” he rumbled next to my ear. Chills cascaded down my arms.

  “Really?” I replied without opening my eyes. I would do anything he wanted if it entailed him making me feel this good. “What do you have in mind?”

  The bed dipped, and one way or another he managed to scoop me up and stand with my legs circling his hips, him still buried inside of me like he couldn’t bear to be separated. I knew I couldn’t. I tucked my face into the spot where his neck met his shoulder, inhaling his scent that had become achingly familiar over the past couple of weeks and something that would be burned into my memory forever. Moments like this made me believe nothing could go wrong.

  “All good things.”

  Thirty seconds later, he turned on my rain showerhead, and we stepped inside.

  ***

  Sometime before the sky lightened, I woke to the husky rumble of Kon’s voice.

  “I need to go. I’ll call you later.”

  I stretched my arms over my head, rolled to my side, and pulled the sheet over my still naked body. He brushed his lips over mine.

  “Don’t leave. We still have a couple of hours before my mom gets up.”

  He trailed his hand along my arm. “I’d love to stay and make you breakfast, but we’ve already pushed this too far. I need to go.”

  “When will I see you again?”

  I shouldn’t have asked him this. Common sense told me I needed to file away the memory of last night and forget about him like I promised Gian. I couldn’t do it, because for the first time in over three years, I felt as if I had a reason to get up in the morning and live my life without a cloud over my head.

  He hesitated with his hand on the handle of the balcony door. “Your family isn’t going to like it. Gian will be watching you now more than ever.”

  “I know. We still haven’t figured what to do about the arrangement we made with your dad, and I’m kind of getting used to having you around.”

  He grinned and cracked open the door. “Do you have a soft spot for me, Carmela Trassato? And here I thought you’d hate me forever.”

  I grabbed the pillow off my bed and tossed it at him. He easily batted it away. “Ugh. Don’t be a jerk.”

  His deep chuckle followed him out the door.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Konstantin

  “Hooray! You made it,” Carmela said, beaming.

  She stood in front of the commercial range, her curvy body drowning in a white chef’s jacket, her glossy hair slicked back in a low ponytail, a shiny spatula in her hand.

  “You didn’t think I’d blow off a home cooked meal, did you?”

  “I sent you through quite the obstacle course to get here. Sorry about that. Gian’s been crazier than usual this week. I think he suspects something and he’s pissed off he can’t come right out and accuse me of anything unless he catches me in the act.”

  We had to be careful every time we met up, which meant both of us would take multiple forms of transportation, go in the front door and out the rear or side door of retail establishments, and generally waste an hour or so going somewhere that took twenty minutes. Without question, seeing her qualified as a huge pain in the ass, but she was worth it, one hundred times over.

  Tonight she had a friend open up the kitchen of her family’s restaurant so she could cook me dinner. I hesitated to go along with her plan until she assured me the owner didn’t have any connection to her family. She’d met the owner’s daughter in design school, and they closed the restaurant every Monday so it worked out.

  I pulled her into my arms and planted a kiss on her ruby red lips. She tasted like wine. “What’d you tell your family this time?”

  “That I was cooking for my friend at her family’s restaurant.”

  “Don’t you think he’ll see through your story?”

  “Nope.” She waved the spatula at me. “That’s the best part. Bethany picked me up, and I did actually cook for her. She’s been begging me to give her my family’s meatball recipe. I told her I’d clean up and lock the door when I left.”

  “You’re sneaky. I need to remember that.”

  “Not sneaky. Inventive. Now sit.” She swept her arm toward a wood plank bistro table with two folding chairs. Two place settings decorated the table, complete with flickering white candles. “I know it’s not fancy, but I didn’t want to open up the dining room, and I found this table by the back door. I think the employees sit at it to take smoke breaks.”

  “You didn’t have to go to all this trouble, Carmela. I would’ve been happy with a sandwich.”

  I’d take Carmela anyway I could get her these days, which scared the shit out of me. I promised myself after the Laney debacle I wouldn’t get sucked into a relationship that had the potential to turn my life inside out again.

  For the first time in over three years, I’d stopped checking out other women in bars or on the street. Last night, I purged my phone of random hookups in my life. I liked seeing Carmela and talking to her.
She was easy to be around, unlike Laney. I had to walk on eggshells to avoid any topic that would send her into an inconsolable rage.

  “That’s good because we’re having meatball subs.” She pulled two foil covered plates from a warming drawer and placed them on the table. “I know I promised some elaborate dinner, but Bethany kept asking question after question so I didn’t have time to prepare everything. But I promise you, when our lives aren’t so crazy, I will go all out and show off my skills.”

  Silence wrapped around us like a sheet of ice, freezing our lighthearted conversation in its tracks. I should have changed the subject, but my mind was stuck on repeat. Her words had gutted me from the inside out. There never would be a time when our relationship would be more than forbidden, stolen moments. I could never take her out on a date or a weekend getaway. This right here was as good as it would ever get.

  “Yeah, of course.”

  She grabbed the open bottle of wine from the counter, filled our glasses, and settled into the seat across from me. She twisted the stem of her wine glass between her thumb and index finger, the welcoming expression on her face absent.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “What are we doing here, Kon?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, knowing damn well what she meant.

  “Us. What is this? I mean, at first, we were working together to get your dad what he wanted so we didn’t have to fulfill that stupid bargain we made. Now we’re meeting in secret. We’re hiding this from my family, from Nico. That was kind of the point of spending time together in the first place. They would find out about us, and your dad could do whatever he does.”

  Carmela hopped out of her seat. “God, Kon, don’t answer that question. Holy shit, I admitted I put together some trap to screw over my family.” She started pacing. “I’m a traitor. My family is going to disown me. I can’t believe I didn’t put the pieces together before. I was so focused on finding a way for Gian to be happy that I didn’t realize the magnitude of what I was doing.”

  “Carmela—”

  “No. You don’t get it. I’m going to be ostracized. It happened to Nico’s sister. She got pregnant and the father disappeared. Everyone pretends like she doesn’t exist, and me, well, I did something so much worse. I’ll probably be sent to—”