Ruthless Empire: A Dark Mafia Collection

That aside, I appreciated that Willow was an intelligent person with an iron-clad will, who didn’t back down from a challenge. She was stubborn to a fault, to the point that she would occasionally sacrifice her happiness and sanity to prove a point—case and point, our current situation. Even that stubbornness was something I admired about her. Nothing made me happier than putting in days and days of work trying to get her to admit defeat, even if it was something menial. She would poke her bottom lip out and throw an adorable temper tantrum that typically started with her trying to ignore me and ended with her staring at me, waiting for me to kiss her frustrations away. Back when we were together, not a day passed where I wasn’t happy to wake up dating Willow Morietti. I truly believed I’d marry her one day. If it was socially acceptable for head over heels fourteen-year-olds to wed, I might have done it already.

“Are you following me?” Willow growled. “Don’t follow me. Go home.”

“I came all the way over here to talk to you. The least you could do is hear me out,” I said. She turned into her bedroom, and I followed in after her.

“I don’t want to hear what you have to say.” She lifted her suitcase from the ground onto her bed, opened it, and started sifting through the clothes.

Memories flooded my brain. It felt like I’d stepped through her door frame into the past. All the numerous days that I spent in that room, trying to get Willow to make out while she tried to entice me to study. All of the times we’d made love in her bed. It was easy to get away with because her mom wasn’t around much. All of the occasions I came storming up here and nearly broke down her door because I was pissed about one thing or another, and all she had to do was cup her hands on either side of my face, look into my eyes, and whisper my name, and the anger would crawl out of me. I missed everything we were back then. If I could have stepped back in time, I would have.

“Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve been up here.” The carpet was still the same knotted blue threads, and the walls were still cream with dark blue baseboards. Why did I expect it to look different, as though it had changed with us?

“Me too,” Willow replied. “It was weird walking back in here again.” She wasn’t looking at me, only pulling different articles of clothing out of her suitcase while folding up others. I moved to sit on the bed, the ecstasy that filled me as I did both arousing and calming. Willow’s bed; it was a place that brought me nothing but joy, regardless of what was done there. She closed her suitcase with force. “Can you go? I have to change.”

“So change. I’ve seen you naked dozens of times.” I tucked my arms behind my head and made myself comfortable against her backboard.

She snatched up the clothes she picked out and stomped off toward the door to the adjoining bathroom. “When I come back, you should be gone.”

“Hey, remember when you tried to sneak me in your window because your mom was dating that I’m gonna be your kids’ new dad guy?” I remembered myself trying to scale the lattice vine fence outside that was barely strong enough to hold the vines curled around it, but I tried to move all one-hundred-seventy pounds of me up it. “You sat there looking down at me, and I kept thinking to myself, I gotta get to her, I gotta get to her.’”

She was only standing a few feet away from me now, and I was still repeating that to myself.

Willow leaned against the door frame and looked at the window with a nostalgic smile. “Yeah. When I looked at the fence from outside, I didn’t think it was that high, but when you were climbing it, I was so terrified you were going to fall and die.”

“That was probably one of the dumber things I’ve done.” My eyes landed on Willow’s. “Don’t regret it.”

I watched as she briefly lost control. She took a cautious step toward me before stopping like an invisible forcefield pushed her back. She closed her eyes, put her back to me, and pointed toward the doorway out. “Go.”

“I don’t want to.” I stood up off of the bed and moved a little closer to her, the scents of suntan lotion and some sweet, fruity perfume filling my nose. “Willow, look at me.”

She shook her head. “Please just leave.”

“Do you really want me to?” I asked. I took a couple more steps forward. “I was joking downstairs, but I heard what you said. Being with me would make you happy.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“Yes, you did. You

don’t lie to Ricky. I know you.”

“You don’t know me,” she said.

I took another step, and I was so close I could reach out and touch her. Her head cocked gently to the side, and I knew I was close.

“You don’t know me at all.”

“I know you, Willow Morietti.” I brought my hands up to rest on her shoulders. “I spent my whole life getting to know you. Every single day, I woke up wanting to know more about you.” I tried to fill my cup with Willow, but I never found the top. The more I poured, the deeper the glass seemed to be. “I love you. I always have. Can you tell me, honestly, that you don’t feel the same way?”

Willow remained silent, and I moved my right arm to wrap around her stomach, her soft, porcelain skin like silk beneath my fingertips. My left hand ghosted forward, brushing against her cheek and cupping her chin to turn her face to the left, giving me access. All it would take was one utterance of no or stop or even for her to pull away. If she stepped away from my embrace, I would know proof-positive that she had made a decision to leave me in her past. It was like we were both tugging at the same rope, trying to pull the other to their side. Willow was spilling across the line, leaning toward my side. I was so close to what I’d dreamed of without fail for months upon months with no reprieve.

“I’m going to kiss you,” I whispered into her ear. “If you don’t stop me, it won’t end there.”

“If I was going to stop you, I would have done it already.” Her eyes fluttered closed, and she leaned back.

I couldn’t have been convinced I didn’t win the lottery. I pulled our lips to meet as what was left of my dam of restraint crumbled, sending a flood of waves crashing forth.

9

Willow