I glance at the bed canopy. The window. The floor. Back at her.
She’s laid out like a goddess.
Lucy swings her feet back and forth with a teasing smile on her lips. “What’s wrong, Damiano?”
She knew I’d have news for her this morning. She laid herself out like this just to torment me, and this girl has the audacity to callmea troublemaker.
I take a package out of my pocket and toss it to her. “This is for you.”
Lucy sits up elegantly in mermaid pose, revealing her bare breasts. She unwraps a bloodstained letter and a small plastic bag, and her nipples tighten in the cool air. Heat and desire wash over me.
Lucy opens the letter and looks at me over the top of the page. She pats the bed beside her. “You can join me if you want.”
I glance at the door, wondering if we’ll get caught again. Mom and Dad don’t come into Lucy’s room, and Ariana has gone out. What’s so wrong about sitting with my sister?
I clear my throat and push my hand through my curls, trying to act nonchalant as I saunter toward her bed while my heart is racing. I don’t know why I bother because Lucy doesn’t care. I must be trying to conceal what I’m doing from myself.
I sink down onto the bed next to her as she reads the letter, and I’m completely captivated by the sight of all her warm, naked flesh up close. The jewels glitter against her body. I reach out and trace her collarbone with my knuckle. I’ve never seen a woman more beautiful than her.
Lucy reads aloud. “Dear Miss Barone, I offer my sincere apologies to you for the offense I caused… His handwriting is shaky. How many of Dimitriou’s fingers did you cut off?”
I lean in close, inhaling her perfume, and press a kiss against her throat. “Why don’t you count them?”
She peers inside the plastic bag. My sister doesn’t scream at the sight of severed digits. She looks amused, like I knew she would. “Three fingers. My, my, Mr. Dimitriou is a stubborn man.”
“He apologized as soon as I showed him the knife, but I thought he needed to be taught a permanent lesson.”
Lucy gives me a mischievous smile. “Wicked man.”
I rub the tip of my nose against hers. “Me? The brother who loves you?”
“Will Dad be angry that you did this?”
I bury my face in her hair, closing my eyes and breathing in deeply. “I don’t care.”
She eases onto her side, wrapping her arms around me and drawing me down onto the bed with her. My lips find her neck. I kiss her slowly, admiring the sparkling diamonds around her slender throat. My hands rove over her as I listen to her soft gasps of pleasure. It’s just a brotherly hug.
A brotherly hug with her breasts arched into my chest and both my hands cupping and kneading her plump, tender ass.
Yeah, right.
What the hell is going to become of us?
“Things are happening in Malus,” I say, my lips against her throat, my hands still squeezing her. I rock my hips and imagine my hard cock thrusting inside her. Teasing her. Tormenting myself. “Things that I want to control. I’m going to arrange a meeting with the new heads of the other Malus families. Dad’s not the right person to meet with them, and we need to protect and build what’s ours. Yours and mine. So I’ll do it myself.”
“Yours and mine?” Lucy whispers, wrapping her arms around my neck.
Dad won’t be around forever. Lucy and I are the future of this family, and I promised her that when I’m don, everything will be different.
She gasps as my fingers delve deeper and find her sex. I find the slippery hollow of her core, and torture myself with how wet she’s getting. “That’s right,” I murmur, tracing my lips over her throat. Wondering if I dare push my fingers deeper.
“And what about me? Are you going to order me to stay at home?” she asks, breathing faster.
I smile against her throat. “Do you think Dad would take Mom if he were meeting with Don Cristiano, Don Vincenzo, and Rafiel Lucania to discuss the future of Malus?”
Hurt and anger suffuse her voice. “Are you going to treat me the way Dad treats Mom? I hate it. She enjoys being left out of everything, like she doesn’t have a brain of her own.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m not Dad.”
