I pull out my phone and call. “You can come in now.”
Lily closes the door quietly behind her and stands looking at him. “Anything you want, while your daddy is in a receptive mood?”
She glowers down at him. “You agreed to make me head of the family?”
He blinks slow. Nods. Then he says, “Yes,” in a croak.
“You really are the fucking coward I always believed you were,” she sneers. “But it took a man to prove it.”
Then she says, “Yes, there is something I want. Take the fucking DNA test, asshole. I’m probably more afraid than you are of how it will turn out, but I have a right to know.”
Then she looks back up to me.
“Okay, Giovani. Thank you. He’s all yours now.” And she sits on the couch to watch.
I tell him, “You’re lucky. If Lily hadn’t sat down, if she’d left the room, I would have given you a good kicking and broken a few of your ribs as a going away present.”
Her voice is cold as she says, “Seriously. Don’t mind me.”
“Thanks,” I tell her, “but it would feel disrespectful to you. Kicking your father, while he’s down, in front of you.”
She shrugs. “I’ll take it as a compliment. Though, honestly, I really don’t care.”
I tell Leo, “Start making plans to hand over to Lily.”
I reach down and yank his ear. I tug until his head comes off the rug. A long groan burbles from his gut as I pull harder. Then his shoulders come up. The weight of his upper body hangs off his ear. “And do not fucking think of crossing me.”
I let go of his ear and his forehead bangs on the floor.
“You want me to get some guys to scoop you up and wheel you to the E.R.?”
Slowly, painfully, biting his lip, he climbs unsteadily up to his feet. He hobbles to the door and makes it outside before his foot gives way.
I call down the corridor, “Joey? Put the bleeding asshole somewhere tiled and call him an ambulance.”
Joey and Umberto come up to drag Leo away.
Umberto says, “This is the head of an L.A. crime family?”
“One of the top five,” I tell him.
Joey looks at Leo. Then at me. He shakes his head. “Do you think you stepped up far enough?”
When he’s gone, a single tear tracks down Lily’s cheek. She does nothing to wipe it away. I know this is one of those moments where she needs to take her own time.
I never met a woman like her.
I tell her, “I need a shower.”
She says, “That’s good, because I really need you in a shower.”
I want to move. To hold her. Take her. But I know this move has to be at her time. It’s hard, but I wait. And I tell her, “I want to taste you before you’re too clean.”
Her eyelids lower. “Trust me, roadrunner, I will never be anything like clean around you.”
I’m shocked. “‘Never’? Isn’t this just finishing the one-and-only with an after-party?”
“Sure,” she takes a step backward. “Maybe a two-and-only. It could be a long after-party.”
Her eyes flash as I make a stride toward her and I say, “Well, we don’t want your dress to get messed up.”
“Oh, no.” her tongue flicks over her lips. “Definitely not.”
I fling my arms around her. Her mouth opens and I press my lips on hers. And pull down the front of her dress. Snap open her bra.
I grab her tit. She moans and kisses me harder. I grab her hair as I rip my mouth away to kiss her throat and her neck.
She rips my shirt open. Buttons pop and fly. Her mouth is on my chest. She yanks my shirt out of my pants. Her tongue licks and flicks over my pecs and my abs. She takes nips and bites.
I squeeze her breasts. Pull them against my abs and my hips.
She nibbles my ribs and my side.
I slide my hands up her legs. Hold her ass. Feel the tops of her thighs. Press against her wet, clinging panties.
She grinds her pussy into my hand. On the ridge of my thigh. Up my leg. Her body rises, turns. Writhes and twists.
I need her mouth. With a hand in her hair, I yank her head back and pull her to me.
Locked together again, we grab and claw.
I pull her against me, wrap her tight in my arms. Our breath and our tongues push and beat together. I rub her pussy.
She gasps. Her legs spread.
I have to have her dress off. The hooks at the back are tight. I pull too hard. They make a loud rip.
The pretty dress drops. Falls, fluttering to the floor. She kicks it away.
She is busy yanking on my belt.
I hold her shoulders. “I have to see you. Let me look.”
She scowls back. Naked, all but for her wet panties and her shiny boots.