Page 5 of I Would Die For You

Right. That woman exudes Ice Queen energy from a mile away. It must take a stern, no-nonsense hand like Don Giacomo’s to thaw her out even a little and make her comply.

“If you’re interested, you may need to get yourself in gear,” he continues. “She won’t be here for much longer.”

That’s not a threat in his words, but still, I sit up straighter. “What do you mean?”

He shrugs. “Her debt is almost paid off.”

And he’ll let her go when it is. She can walk away never be seen again. I know she’s American—she’ll surely want to go back to her homeland.

“She can be a good distraction,” he continues.

My chest constricts upon hearing this. Society will expect me to marry sometime next year, before I get any closer to thirty-one. If my father had his way, I’d be getting hitched before this very year is out, to the eighteen-year-old daughter of one of Don Giacomo’scapos. Mafia marries Mafia and begets Mafia children—that’s how it’s supposed to be in our world.

“Whatever you do, don’t break her heart.”

“Who, me?” I ask with a smile before taking a sip of whiskey.

I’ve left a trail of women behind me, sure, but they’d all been waiting with shackles to tie me into holy matrimony. As the Don’s future enforcer, I’m considered a catch in our circles.

The last thing American Ice Queen Kaya Norton wants is marriage, I’m sure. As such, she’s safe for me. Would she be open to the idea of some fun? Right now, I can’t contemplate the idea that my own family is coming up against me to foist a bride I don’t want onto me. Thank the Good Lord for Don Giacomo and Valentino who are on my side.

“I mean it, Stefano. She’s precious to me,” my godfather—my Don—tells me. And it also sounds like a warning is threaded in there.

“I won’t hurt her, I promise. If something happens, it will be on her terms.”

Don Giacomo doesn’t need to know I always let a woman set the pace and conditions for her being with me, but at the same time, maybe he does already know this. All my life, he’s the man I’ve emulated and looked up to. My ways aren’t so different from his own.

“Good,” he states. “Valentino is here with you tonight?”

He knows my cousin has been at my side for most of the time he’s been in Torino. Sent to shadow my father to learn the ropes of managing crews and Mafia business, Valentino has been drawing closer to me and consequently to Don Giacomo himself as time passed. The Don is a good role model for him, I’d say. Better than my strict, by-the-book father, at the very least.

“Go. Enjoy your night.”

I follow suit when he gets up. He grabs my shoulder with his free hand and leans forward to kiss my cheeks again.

“Bear with yourpadre,” he says softly. “He’s from a different generation.”

I nod, not wanting the vitriol stirring inside me at the stunt my father has pulled over me today to spill out and much less onto him. Don Giacomo is only twenty-one years older than me. He understands my world better than my father, who never even deigned to recognize this. Looks like I’m going to get piss-drunk tonight.

After a pat on the back, I exit the office and make it back down to the lounge. A pretty brunette is wrapped around Valentino in the booth, whispering things in his ear, kissing his neck. My cousin looks like acazzoabout to get very lucky.Bastardogets all the girls he wants with just one smoldering look, the epitome of the tall, dark, and handsome Italian. Doesn’t matter a whit he’s as American as boxed mac and cheese.

I shake my head as I land in the booth across from him.

“Vai, vai,” I chide with a wave of my hand. In no way do I plan to cock-block him tonight.

The brunette giggles, then she’s up and tugging on Val’s hand. He follows without much resistance, and they disappear around the bend next to the bar, toward the private rooms at the back where a party or an orgy can happen, depending on the occupants.

Resigned to spending the rest of the evening alone, I turn in the direction of the bar, in order to catch the barman’s attention so he’ll send another drink my way and keep them coming.

A whiff of a scent that’s never tickled my nostrils prior to this moment registers, making me frown. No, actually, it’s making me want… It’s a hint of roses and something green like juniper on a crisp gin. But something’s missing, a level of sweetness just evading the senses and thus making a person smelling this scent yearn.

As the fragrance deepens, the presence of someone in my vicinity clocks in. When my gaze alights on smooth alabaster skin, my mouth waters. There—that’s where the sweetness missing from that scent is. It’s to be lapped up from the creaminess of that pale expanse, to be tasted from this woman’s body and breasts and, I’m sure, the plump folds of her soft pussy.

My eyes, having latched onto the sight of her, track up from the lean thighs bared by her dark-brown leather miniskirt to the exposed strip of midriff before a bustier clasps her torso and props the swelling flesh of her breasts onto a wide decollete. Her long neck leads to a pointed chin, a mouth pursed so her lips plumped up with just a right amount puffiness, her cheeks hollowed out to display a formidable bone structure rendered even more arresting by the upturned lift at the outer corners of her deep brown eyes. Women pay plastic surgeons a fortune to give them this cat’s eye look—she has it naturally.

It's not often I’m rendered speechless. In fact, the biggest comment I got growing up was ‘Stefano won’t shut up in class’ and nothing’s changed much since then. It’s just who I am.

Yet, in this moment, words escape me. Ice Queen Kaya is standing next to me, her perfume clouding my mind and her very presence making everything inside me tense and hard. Damn, what a gorgeous woman she is.

---