Page 14 of The Beast Who Begged Me

I lay under a burning roof and accepted my end. But this…this makes me feel like I could live forever. His weight braced over the bed, his hands moving over me, his body heat spreading over me.

I’m getting loud. I know I’m getting loud, because his palm comes up and seals over my mouth, big and warm, and he watches me moan into it with dark, hungry eyes.

“There are two armed Clemenzas in that corridor,” he murmurs, conversational, his other hand not stopping. “Ferraro and that kid, Giordano Junior. You want them to hear what I do to you?”

I arch up into him. His palm muffles my answer, which is fortunate, because the answer is embarrassing. I’m pulling at his belt, and he’s letting me, one knee coming up onto the bed⁠—

A knock at the door, gunshot-sharp, shatters the mood. Dami goes statue-still over me.

“Someone better be dead,” he calls. And he adds in a mutter, “And if they’re not, they will be in two goddamn seconds.”

“Don Clemenza has a visitor.” It’s Strike, sounding suspicious and hard.

Dami’s forehead drops to my shoulder. For a second, we both breathe hard together. Then he lifts his head and straightens my gown. He pulls the blanket back up over me and leaves me decent.

Or as near to decent as I could possibly get right now. I’ve never been so frustrated in my life.

Dami crosses to the door, pulling on his shirt. “Who is it?” he growls, not yet moving the chair out of the way.

There’s a pause before Strike responds.

“It’s Luca D’Amato.”

CHAPTER 6

DAMIANO

Luca D’Amato?

For a heartbeat, I’m not a guard dog. I’m just a man caught with his pants, figuratively and almost literally, around his ankles. Worse still, I got caught by the biggest gun in the city.

And I’m not the only one. Caligula is flushed, almost feverish-looking. His lips are swollen and red. His hair is a mess from my hands. The Clemenza Don looks exactly like he was just about to get dicked down, hard, and I’ve never seen anything so tempting and so goddamn out of reach.

God fucking damn Luca D’Amato.

“Just a second,” I say to the door. I glance back at Caligula, who’s got a hand up to his mouth now, snickering. “Get it together or I’ll send him away,” I hiss at him.

But Caligula just grins at me. “Come on, Dami. When the Capo dei Capi comes calling, you can hardly turn him away.”

The hell I can’t. I glare at him, but it doesn’t do any good. I can’t stay mad when he looks like this.

Happy. Happy, despite everything.

Despite everything I did to him, on top of everything the world did to him.

I want to finish what we started, show him how I feel since I don’t have a right to say the words, but instead I pull the curtain back and unwedge the chair from the door. “Ready?” I ask in a low voice.

Caligula, who hasn’t bothered to do anything except pull up the hospital blanket a little higher, nods.

Ferraro opens the door, but it’s D’Amato who fills the frame behind him. He takes up space, and not just physically. I’m reminded of his influence every time I see him, and the old Giuliano resentment still raises its ugly head, even though I’m not one of them anymore.

“Orsini,” he says in greeting, his eyes flicking over my swollen face and the bandage on my hand before his gaze moves beyond me to the man in the bed. “Cal. May I come in?”

Caligula gives a little shrug from the bed, the gesture of a king receiving an unwelcome envoy. “It’s your city, Mr. D’Amato.”

“Why don’t you call me Luca, since we’re all friends here.” D’Amato steps inside, and I close the door in Ferraro’s face.

The Morelli Don assesses the room first, and then he looks at Caligula, at me, and then back to Caligula. “You look like hell,” he says. “I understand you had a fire in your home. I know how terrible they can be.”