Chapter 1: Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia King: Chapter 1

When Ren Caruso puts me on my back in a discreet hotel room, our meeting place overlooking the East River, I know by the look in his eyes: At nineteen years old, he isn’t a boy anymore. Not by the mafia’s definition. The truth is spelled out in tiny red flecks soaked into the fabric of his white undershirt. The secret of where he’s been tonight is written, like braille, across the swollen and busted knuckles of his right hand. There’s a look on his face, a shadow in his gaze. Something has eclipsed the bright-eyed boy I grew up knowing and loving.

Ren’s killed a man for the first time.

I don’t have time to ask questions, my breath knocked out of me by the sheer force of him bringing me into his arms and dropping me onto the bed. He kisses me breathlessly in his post-adrenaline high, a growl in his throat. I barely have my shoes off before he wedges himself between my thighs.

“Well, something must have gone well…” I gasp, my hands on his chest.

“Depends on who you ask,” he says, with a low, private grin.

I swallow and kiss him again.

The hotel room shrinks in at the corners. My senses narrow, cut down to just the heated space between my body and his. The room is lost to the shadows, a blur at the edges of my vision. Above me, Ren is all fine, perfect detail. He sheds his suit jacket. His undershirt should be in a crime scene baggie in an evidence locker. I strip it away, revealing the lean stretch of muscle underneath, and drop the shirt on the floor.

That first kill is an expected rite of passage for a don’s son. Ren’s first blooding into the underworld. This night has been looming over Ren his whole life. I can’t even imagine what he must be feeling.

At first, I think he’s still shaking. But I realize it’s me, trembling as I take his hand, kissing each finger, each bruised and battered knuckle, as if can taste what those hands have been out doing for the last hour while I stayed here, pacing the floor waiting for him.

Ren isn’t the only one having a first time tonight.

“How was it?” I try to ask. It’s as close as I dare to get to are you okay?

With his tongue, Ren steals the words away and then my breath, and then my thoughts entirely. A practiced thief. I drown in him until my lungs burn and my lips tingle. I’ve never seen him like this before. He’s always been confident, but this is something else. Raw, urgent. He smiles at me, and his smile is darker than the shadows creeping into the corners of the room, a strand of hair hanging into his eyes. He’s proud .

My gorgeous boy is usually all smiles, charm, and dangerous wit. Old-school Americana beauty, with a carved face, aquiline nose, and a pearly, candid smile. But when he smiles now, it’s only to say, “It was easy ,” and kiss me again.

A dark shiver follows my spine down to my curling toes.

Ren’s mouth tastes like adrenaline and champagne, and sweet, celebratory cigars. He pushes the sheer straps of my silk chiffon Valentino dress from my shoulders.

“ You made it easy,” he continues, his mouth finding my throat. “I thought about you when I did it. About this.” He takes the soft curve of my jugular between his teeth, nipping his way down. “How does that feel?”

His eyes search my face.

In its own sick way, it feels like the darkest slice of heaven. If I look at it sideways, if I squint real hard—it’s like Ren killed a man for me. For this . I crush our mouths together again, and he answers me with a low growl. He peels the rest of my dress down over my bra, giving way to my cleavage. My hands instinctively stop him. I hold the sheer fabric against my body like a last defense.

Ren takes my wrists and pins my hands on either side of my head, with a sharp, “No.” For a second, he almost looks like a stranger. I curl beneath him, searching his gaze. “Let me see you,” he says, and the dress slowly peels away. I gasp softly as I lie undressed before him for the first time.

What Ren and I share is, to me, the most intense, real, bona fide love anyone has ever felt. Everyone else’s love is cheap plastic, while I have the real deal, made of ivory, gold, and blood diamonds. A rare and expensive luxury. Most people would just call it puppy love. I hate that term. And it’s not just because we’re young or because our parents wouldn’t approve or because most people would say there’s no future in it.

It’s because Ren and I have never had sex.

The truth is, I’ve never had sex with anyone.

One by one, I’ve watched my friends change. The way they act, speak, dress. Hemlines got shorter and makeup got bolder. I am the only holdout, the only one who refused, who has nothing to giggle and gossip about, who has no pictures of men (or any of their body parts) to swipe through on my phone as they compare scores. My standards are too high. My future with Ren has already been mapped out in my mind so clearly. When I close my eyes, it’s like I time travel. I don’t want anyone else. I don’t want “experiences” and “options.”

I just want him.

Ren would have been happy to relieve me of my virginity sooner. He was always talking about doing so. He’s teased me about it. He’s brushed his knuckles up my knee, curled his fingers around my thigh, smacked my ass in passing. Whenever he wanted to remind me who I will someday belong to, Ren didn’t hesitate.

But being a love-struck virgin isn’t synonymous with being an idiot or a pushover. Ren’s had plenty of girls before me; I wasn’t going to just be the next one on his list. I’ve held out all this time. I’ve made him work for it. Wait for it. And he has said, over and over, that he would wait for me as long as it took.

But this was the deal. The promise I made, both to him and to myself: If Ren went out tonight and became the mafia’s definition of a man, then I would let him come back here and finally make me my definition of a woman, not just a girl, anymore.

Well, Ren is a mafia man now, and he’s here to collect.

“Please.” I twist against his grip.

“Careful,” he warns, with a flash of teeth before he drags them against my chin, nipping me, “I could get used to hearing you beg.”

My stomach flutters weakly for him. I like the way my wrists feel in his hands. His fist tightens in my hair as he makes his way back to my mouth.

“Please,” I whisper again, ignoring his warning.

His hand goes to my jaw, his fingers tight and firm.

I search his face, my breath heaving. His growl drops low and hungry, his hands sliding to my hips as he pulls me down flush against his body. The straining curve of his cock throbs between the fabric of our clothes.

I gasp sharply at the pressure of it.

“Come here, and let me finally make you mine,” he says.

As if I haven’t been his all this time.

Clothes are shed urgently. The room only seems to get hotter as the layers come off. He fondles me, my bra clasps snapping open and letting him fully drink in my cleavage. I curl my fingers in his hair as he works his way down my body, his hands and mouth touching my straining nipples.

It’s my first time, but it isn’t his. It shows. Unlike me, Ren doesn’t hesitate. He isn’t unsure, isn’t holding his breath like I am. He brings that dark energy that got him through that ugly family business right here to the bedroom and pins me to the mattress with it. Anything Ren wants, he takes, puts his hands and mouth all over it. I twist under him like a branded thing.

“So, you just…you did it? Just like that?” I ask, unable to help myself.

Did he hesitate? Did the pressure of the family make it easy? How did his knuckles get bloody? Did he relish it and put on a show? I try to picture it, the shadowy scene playing out behind my eyelids, but I can’t. I can’t tear my eyes away from his body, don’t want to think about anything else except the boy on top of me.

His thumb rubs the jut of my hip bones.

“Is that so hard to believe?” he asks, as he drags my thong down my thighs. “I wanted it.”

He says, “I wanted it,” but what I hear is, “I wanted you .”

The cold bundle of nerves sitting in my stomach like an ice cube has already melted under his heat, and suddenly, I have no idea how I resisted him this long. I want him so badly, it hurts. We aren’t kids anymore. My finger is curled around my own trigger.

He pushes my legs back and looks at me in my entirety. I feel the naked rush of heat as his gaze washes over me, takes me in from head to toe. I sink my teeth into my lower lip, so hungry for his approval.

“Fuck,” he breathes softly.

He drags two fingers up and down the slit of my pussy, tracing it under his touch.

I shiver, trying to hold his gaze. He splays my legs, and my pulse skips as his eyes roam down my body, looking at parts of me I’ve barely seen before. I reach for the dim orange lamp on the bedside, the only thing giving the room any light, but he stops me.

“No,” he says, his voice stern.

I swallow.

“Girls who look like you don’t have sex in the dark.” My belly clenches hard for him as he opens my legs again and buries his face between my shaking thighs. I don’t resist him, slowly relaxing the tension in my thighs and letting him move me. “Good,” he whispers, pressing a kiss against my clit. “Don’t fight it. Let me make it good for you, Nadia.”

With two fingers on each side of my clit, he spreads me open, gets his mouth right on that tiny sensitive point of massive pleasure.

“Ren,” I gasp, a mix of panic and desire. His tongue answers me. Hands slide up my thighs, keep my legs parted and open. My body shakes, shudders, the sensation having nowhere to go. My foot jerks up and my nails slide over his thick shoulder. I pinch my eyes shut and catch a whimper in my throat, contending with the swirl of pleasure tightening inside. “ Ren , oh—”

His hand presses on my belly, keeping me down.

The sensation flutters, almost too much, making me jerk, but he rends my legs open further and swirls his tongue in hot, merciless circles. I gasp and twist against the bed, my gasp filling up the silence. I pull at the covers, the pleasure coiling tighter and tighter.

“Aah—”

For several long minutes, Ren does nothing but get acquainted with the parts of me he has never met before. I’ve never felt anything like this. Being savored . Wringing out pleasure for the sake of itself, not leaving a drop locked inside me. Ren’s tongue rolls rapidly, his head moving until my hips grind up toward that sinful mouth.

It’s too much.

He starts to slide his fingers between my legs. I reach out and catch his wrist.

“Wait—”

I see it for the briefest second, the flash of lightning that flickers in his eyes as I keep him from what he wants. I sit up and get my hands on his belt. Our eyes meet.

“I don’t want your fingers to be the first thing I feel inside me.”

His throat works.

I throw his belt aside, unzipping his fly. He holds my gaze as I pull down his pants. Ren does the rest. He kicks free of his clothes until just his boxer-briefs remain, hanging low on his hips. His hard cock juts into the air. Even for someone who has no experience, little frame of reference except for late-night internet searches and the rare TV show that might show a man’s cock for all of three seconds, there’s no mistaking Ren’s size.

He pushes my legs back, so I am bunched in on myself, so we can be hip to hip and mouth to mouth all at the same time. We swap kisses as his tip teases at my entrance. His hand goes to my jaw, his thumb brushing my lips. I nip the end of his finger softly, staring up at him. His hand fists my hair so hard it hurts as he tilts my head back, revealing the soft column of my throat.

I gasp, and the sound is cut short by the squeeze of his fingers.

I look into his eyes, and I see that same look. Easy . The words whisper in my thoughts again. That hungry darkness has crept back into his face, all raw power, and I realize this is how he’s going to do it. With my legs bent, his hand on my throat, his body looming over me. Not chest to chest, smothered in kisses and gentle thrusts the way they do it in movies. I get a glimpse of him under that rugged charm, see the snarling, hungry thing inside him that made him able to pull the trigger on a man tonight.

He stares down at me; the moment hovering. Stretching. My lungs hurt.

Is this how he waited tonight, too? His finger on the trigger, bullet in the chamber? Did he make the man wait for death?

“…You have no idea how many men I’d kill for this,” he breathes with half a laugh, but the way he says it—it isn’t a joke. My heart and belly twist in tandem at the same moment he buries the tip of his cock inside me. I jerk back, but his hands hold me steady. My cry is soundless, fingertips pressing into the flat of his belly as I hold us those dire few inches apart. My throat works, muscles rippling and tensing as his cock tests that tightness inside of me.

He growls slowly, his hands adjusting our position.

He rolls me farther on my side, hikes one leg over his shoulder.

“Ren—” I whimper, feel so fucking vulnerable like this, it makes my belly tense like armor. His hand glides over my clit, trying to relax me. He loosely pumps the tip of his cock into my pussy again and again, teasing the pleasure that’s right there beneath the surface. And God, that’s so close to feeling like something good. I want him, want him, want him. My head falls back as he drives his cock deeper, but my hand stops him again as it burns so sweet.

He snaps my hand away, pins it up by my head again. His eyes lock with mine, and for a moment, I am bracing for the worst, my breath caught in my lungs.

“You’re mine, Nadia,” he says, “Only mine, after this. Do you understand?”

I nod, whimpering. I only want to be his .

I tense, my knuckles sharp crescents outlined against the bedsheets, as I tell myself I am going to take it and I am going to like it. One tiny moment of awkward pain for all the pleasure in the world.

But Ren takes me slowly.

“Look at me,” he says, staring into my eyes. He enjoys every second of watching me surrender to him, every twitch of my body as it gives in, one whimper at a time. The sounds drive him mad, his expression thunderous as he holds me, makes me face him. I feel myself coming apart from the inside out. Wet and needy and fighting that stubborn, stiff pain inside, working through it until my thighs are shaking.

“Ren, I can’t,” I whisper, my voice shattered glass. “It won’t —”

“It will,” he says firmly, rolling his hips slowly again. His hands grip my thighs, his cock nudging into my pussy again and again and again. “You’re doing so good,” he says, showering my clit in attention. The two sensations become one as he works on me, building the pleasure that makes my lungs feel like they’re going to pop from holding back my cry, while the girth of his cock splits my innocence wide. “That’s it,” he urges, “That’s my good girl. Take it deep,” he orders, through clenched teeth. “Show me how you were made for me. Only me.”

I want it. I want to be good. I want to be his. Heat pounds behind that tight ring of innocence, desperate for him.

Suddenly, his cock moves deep inside me, with a sharp give that singes my insides. My gasp flutters. I writhe, thighs twisting. I know I’m not Ren’s first, and maybe that’s for the best. Maybe that reputation of his, the one I’ve always been sulky about, has its uses, because he takes my panicked inexperience in stride as he holds me firm, kisses the cry from my lips and distracts me from the pain. We spend a few moments like that, forehead to forehead, his breath shaking.

“There you go,” he whispers, gazing at me intently. “That’s better. Do you feel that?” he whispers, as he drives his huge cock in to the hilt. I reel. “Nothing between us now.” The roll of his hips drives his point home by thrusting slowly and deeply into me. I gasp at the feeling, this sudden hollow inside of me that’s being filled like never before. I cling to him as he finds my new limits, how deep and hot that pleasure can rock into my belly.

Ren rolls his hips against me, his cock battering into that hot, desperate pool of heat that’s been clenching deep in my gut all this time. Pleasure claps through my pussy in jolts. I gasp under him, writhing, skin slapping as the urgency picks up. He has me on my tiptoes as the heat twists and twists, builds like a scream inside my lungs, a flash before my eyes. The pounding becomes relentless, convulsing, something I’ve never felt—that I didn’t know it was possible to feel, something only he could give me.

My thoughts are wordless, formless—but they are all him .

“I’m never letting you go,” he whispers.

The words crush me under them.

“Never, Nadia—”

His hand closes on my throat, chokes a strangled whine from my straining vocal cords.

“Never,” he repeats, the pounding of his hips rolling deep and hard until my legs shake. The grip on my throat tightens. Squeezes. Harder. Too hard. I can’t breathe. The world becomes pinpricks of light, his voice a roar in my head like an avalanche. I can’t breathe!

“ I’m never letting you go— ”