Thin Lines (Donati Bloodlines Book 2) (18 page)

Emma was grateful for his distraction, given the way
Calisto was looking at her right then. It was enough to make her mouth dry and
her hands shake.

Obviously, he had been missing her, too.

Calisto strolled past Emma, and grabbed her small
clutch at he went. He put two fingers up to his mouth as he tossed the purse to
his desk, silently asking her to stay quiet.

She didn’t know what in the hell he was doing.

“Carter,” Calisto barked.

The enforcer turned on his heel. “Yeah, Cal?”

“Take Emma down and get her a drink. I’ll be down in a
few.”

“Sure.” Carter gave Emma a look, and tipped his head
toward the private elevator. Calisto had explained it was the only way in and
out of his office, and that it wasn’t used for anything else. “Let’s get out of
here and leave Calisto to his people watching.”

Still unsure what was happening, Emma followed Carter
to the elevator. She stepped inside with the enforcer once the doors opened. He
hit the ground floor button. Just as the doors began to close, Calisto held up
the purse.

“Emma, you forgot this.”

It sounded innocent enough.

It sure looked that way, too.

Emma hid her grin as she stepped back out of the
elevator and turned to Carter. She would have to walk all the way back across
thirty foot wide office to grab her bag. “I’ll be right down. Get me a Sex on
the Beach, okay?”

Carter shrugged, unaware and distracted by the new place.
“Sure.”

“I’ll find you,” Emma lied.

The elevator doors closed and she watched the light
above it turn from green to red to signal it was dropping floor levels. The
moment Emma spun on her heel, Calisto was on her.

She gasped the second her back met the cold metal of
the elevator doors. The force was enough to take her breath away, and her spine
ached, but she didn’t even care.

Calisto kissed and nipped a hot path over her neck and
down her chest where her dress dipped into her cleavage. His hands drove her
dress up, pulling roughly and making her skin sting.

It was wonderful.

“Jesus,” she whispered.   

Calisto caught her hands in his and pinned them above
her head. Those soul-black eyes of his found hers, holding her in place with
his stare alone.

“I didn’t get the chance to tell you how damn good you
looked tonight,” he said.

His voice came out like a rumble.

Deep in chest, forcing its way out.

It made her wet.

And so hot.

“New dress,” she told him.

“I can see that. I like red.”

“I know, Calisto. Why do you think I bought it, even
after I was told not to?”

Calisto flashed her with another one of his sinful
smirks. “You’re awful.”

But he loved it.

She knew it.

“How long do you think we have?” she asked.

Calisto glanced back at one of the many flat screens.
“A few minutes. Maybe a little more. The place is pretty big. You could get
lost.”

“But he might come back up here.”

“Yeah,
bella
.”

“I’ll take that risk,” she said softly.

Calisto turned back to her, lust darkening his
features. “I promise to make it worth your while.”

Emma laughed. “Then shut up and get to work on that.”

“My pleasure, Emmy.”

Well, it certainly would be.

Emma didn’t even blink again before Calisto’s mouth
crashed down on hers. His kiss was sinful and demanding. He tipped her head
back against the elevator doors, kissed her harder, and yanked her panties down
her hips and thighs at the same time. His tongue warred with hers, owning her
with every strike and stroke.

Emma moaned into Calisto’s mouth when his hand tapped
the inside of her thighs. She spread her legs, feeling his palm slide further
between her thighs and cup her sex. Two of his fingers swept along the folds of
her pussy, dragging her wetness up to her throbbing clit.

It was the proof of just how crazy this man made her.

How hot she was.

How insane she felt.

God, it was
good
.

“You get so fucking warm when I touch you,” Calisto
hummed against her lips. “So hot and tight, Emmy. I dream of fucking you,
bella
.
Of being inside you, feeling you taking me in and milking me dry. I wake up
hard as hell and thinking I can still taste you in my mouth. Do you know that?”

Emma shook her head.

“Every night,” he told her.

“Love your mouth, Cal.”

It made her feel dirty.

But his words proved how bad he wanted her, too.

Calisto chuckled, pulling away from her. “I promise
you’re going to love it a whole lot more.”

Emma didn’t question why. She let him pull her away
from the elevator, kicking her discarded panties off her ankles as she went.
Calisto’s hand met her lower back, and guided her across the room. Her hands
met the cool, smooth bar that was attached to every window at waist-height.

“Bend over,” she heard him growl.

Emma did what he wanted, no questions asked. She
shuddered when Calisto pushed the skirt of her dress up over her backside.
Without her panties, her pussy and ass were on display for him. She sighed,
loving the feel of his calloused hands as he stroked her ass and lower back
with a softer touch than she expected.

Then she heard his belt buckle rattle.

Emma glanced over her shoulder, but Calisto grabbed
her chin and turned her head back to the window.

“Watch the people,” he said.

Her breath caught in her throat when she heard his
knees hit the floor. The moment his mouth met her pussy, Emma let out a shout.
She instantly tried to muffle the noise into the crook of her arm.

Calisto stopped.

Emma whined.

“I want to hear you—no one else can,” he murmured.

Jesus Christ.

She always had to be quiet.

Their stolen moments made it that way.

“Scream for me, Emmy. I need to hear how much you want
this. Do you understand that?”

Emma nodded, sucking in a quick breath.

It was all she got before she couldn’t breathe at all.

Calisto spread the cheeks of her ass, and then his
mouth was on her sex again. Rough, fast strokes of his tongue dove between her
folds and straight into her clenching pussy. She could feel his thumb dragging
circles around her clit as he lapped at her slit, taking in her arousal while he
ate at her like he was fucking starved.

He was hungry.

She had suddenly become his meal.

Emma shook from the heels on her feet all the way up
to her shoulders. The hard strikes of his tongue into her pussy as his thumb
toyed with her clit and his fingers dug into her inner thigh were too much.

She was going to come.

Soon
.

Her broken cries echoed into the office. She took a
bit of comfort in knowing the noise from the music and people down below
swallowed her sounds.

“Oh, my God,” Emma cried. “Calisto … Jesus, don’t
stop.”

His chuckles rocked against her sex, heating her blood
up even more. Dazed and trembling, she looked out over the crowd, feeling the
orgasm beginning to build deep in her core. The swaying people, the beat of the
music under her pumps, and Calisto’s tongue on her pussy all came together in
one giant clash of sensations.

She was gone.

The bliss raced through her body before she understood
what was happening. Her knees gave out as she shouted his name and her hands
slipped on the bar.

The intensity of the orgasm made Emma sob.

She hadn’t been expecting it to hit so strong.

Calisto kept a hold on her, keeping her upright. Emma
was grateful, because she was pretty sure she couldn’t feel a fucking thing
from her knees down. His hands skimmed up her back with that demanding touch of
his as he kissed up the back of her dress to the nape of her neck.

“You taste like the best sin,” he whispered in her
ear.

Emma swallowed the emotions lodging in her throat. His
back fitted to hers as he crowded her to the glass and shoved his pants down
around his ankles. She closed her eyes, feeling his fingers wrap around the
bottom of her throat as he fitted his cock at the entrance of her pussy. His
fingers danced through her hair, down her shoulder, and over her arm.

She wanted him to keep exploring her skin.

It was lovely.

But she wanted him to fuck her even more.

“Do it,” Emma mumbled.

“Breathe, Emmy.”

Fuck that.

“Make me scream,” she begged.

“
Cristo
. You’re killing me,
dolcezza
.”

“
Please
, Calisto.”

She just wanted to feel.

Her days were spent pretending like her life was
better than what it seemed. She had to make everyone else around her happy;
they needed to believe it was real.

Calisto was the only thing that made her feel right
anymore.

Emma was just her when she was with him.

Nothing else mattered.

“Please,” she breathed.

“Missed you,” he said.

It was all she heard before he pressed a kiss to the
back of her neck, his fingers tightened around her throat, and he pushed in.
One sharp, quick flex of his hips was all it took and he was seated deep into
her pussy.

Emma’s body took his length in without hesitation. She
was so wet from his tongue and her orgasm that she didn’t feel even a flicker
of pain from being stretched open and filled full. It was enough to make her
chest tight with need as a cry exploded from her lips.

“Fuck,” Calisto hissed into her hair.

Emma’s forehead met the glass window. She backed into
his cock, taking every punishing thrust with her own. She held onto the bar
with one hand, and grabbed a hold of Calisto’s hair with her other, forcing him
to stay as close to her as possible.

She wanted to hear him.

The pants.

His clenching teeth.

Her name in his mouth.

All of it.

She needed it like she needed air.

Calisto let go of her waist to grab a fistful of the
hair at the back of her head. She laughed breathlessly with his hand at her
throat and his other one in her hair.

“So much better,” she told him when he started
pounding into her again.

It was always better when he fucked her harder. So
much better when he grabbed a fistful of her hair so he could pound into her
even deeper.

“You know it, kitten,” she heard him say.

His voice was deep, thickened with his need.

Then his whispers started.

That dirty fucking mouth of his.

Fuck that cock, Emmy.

Show me how you want it.

Take it like that, kitten.

It was wrong—he made her feel filthy.

But she didn’t want it any other way.

Emma screamed and shivered her way through another
orgasm that turned her into nothing but mess of sensations and jumbled
thoughts. She felt Calisto’s seed paint warm streams against her ass not five
seconds later.

Her name was the only thing he said.

The most beautiful things sometimes came from the
foulest of deeds.

She knew it was true.

Calisto was her proof.

Calisto

There was nothing like seeing the love of your life be
held by another man. It was a knife straight to Calisto’s gut each time Affonso
pulled Emma back to his side, and put his arm around her waist. Even worse, was
when the man turned her head, and kissed her.

It was like white, hot lava had been poured straight
into Calisto’s nervous system.

He was enraged.

Jealous.

A goddamn
mess
.

But he couldn’t do anything.

Affonso had finally made an effort to visit Calisto’s
newest club. He’d changed up his routine by having his twice monthly tribute
location changed.

Just this once
, Affonso told
him.

Calisto didn’t have a choice but to agree.

Affonso brought Emma along, seeing as how she liked
the club. She sat beside Affonso in the VIP section, turning her pretty cheek
each time another man arrived with a thick envelope to pass over to their boss.

Their dues.

She had to know what her husband was doing with each
quiet word to her, every sweep of his fingers to her face, and his quick
kisses.

Affonso was showing off his wife.

Their one-year anniversary had jumped on Calisto’s
back before he even knew it was there. For every “happy anniversary, boss” that
was handed over to Affonso, Calisto found it increasingly more difficult to
keep control of his inner emotions.

It shouldn’t have been this hard.

He knew what he was getting into.

He understood what he had done with Emma.

It still killed him.

February was the month of love for most people—his
love wasn’t allowed to be shared.

How twisted was that?

“You’re awfully quiet over there.”

Calisto came back down to reality at Affonso’s
statement. He passed his uncle a look, hoping his turmoil wasn’t as clear to
see as he felt like it was. “Thinking.”

Emma bit her lower lip, her gaze roving over him like
she was searching for something. Calisto knew it would be as simple as holding
his hand out to her, something to calm her worries about him, but he couldn’t
even give her that.

Jesus.

He couldn’t give her much at all.

“Well, stop thinking,” Affonso said. “We’re in the
middle of business, Cal.”

At those words, yet another Capo showed up with his
men to pay his dues to the boss. Calisto stood from his seat, and crossed the
VIP section with a hand held out, waiting for the envelope. The Capo handed it
over with a smile and nod. The man was permitted inside the VIP section to
party his night away. Calisto went off into a corner to count the money, and
make sure what needed to be inside was all there.

He still caught himself looking over his shoulder,
staring at the green-eyed crazy that had become his life.

Emma was watching him, too.

Oddly, Calisto still didn’t regret it.

“Are you seeing this, boss?”

Calisto leaned into the table and put his hands on the
edge, watching the monitors closely. “Yeah, I see it.”

Twenty minutes after the last man had arrived to pay
the dues to his boss, Calisto had gotten a call from the man watching the
security cameras upstairs in the office. Something had caught his eye, and he
figured Calisto should come up and see if he thought there might be a problem
brewing.

There definitely was a problem.

Two men had entered the club without issue. Dressed in
dark-wash jeans, blazers, and white T-shirts, they didn’t look out of place on
the main floor with the rest of the patrons. What caught the eye of the man
watching the cameras was the fact that neither of the two men made an effort to
grab a drink at the bar, socialize with anyone, dance, or anything else of that
nature.

It was a club.

That’s what people did.

People who didn’t do that were suspicious.

It didn’t help that the two men had separated shortly
after entering the club. One went in one direction, while the other went in the
opposite. Neither man made an effort to approach the other and apparently
hadn’t for a good hour, despite having arrived together.

Did it stink like something was up?

Oh, yes.

“They’ve progressively moved closer and closer to the
VIP section,” Calisto’s man noted.

“Toward the boss.”

“Yeah, Cal.”

Calisto checked another monitor on the wall, gauging
who was sitting near Affonso. The only person he considered important enough
for his attention and concern was Emma. If something bad was about to go down,
for whatever reason, he didn’t want her mixed up in it.

“Do you have any idea who it might be or what they
could want?”

Calisto shook his head. “No.”

But his mind whispered,
Irish
.

Despite Affonso having told Calisto to mind his own
business where the Irish were concerned, he still kept an eye out and an ear to
the ground. Very little was being said.

Calisto suspected that was because whatever had happened
between the Irish and Affonso, it was a private matter. The Irish were probably
willing to make a public issue about other things to gain Affonso’s attention,
just so that they could get back to the rest.

In
private
.

Sometimes, crime families were strange in that way.

Not wanting to dwell on it more and waste any precious
time, Calisto reached for the walkie-talkie on his desk. Putting it up to his
mouth, he hit the button on the side.

“Arthur?”

The walkie-talkie beeped with an incoming transmission.

“
Ciao
, Cal,” came his uncle’s man’s response.

Arthur was one of Affonso’s closest enforcers, and
usually his driver. Affonso occasionally rotated his guards, but Arthur was the
one who always did tribute duty.

“We might have a problem,” Calisto said.

“Might?”

“There’s two men on the floor getting closer to the
boss. We’ve been watching them for a while. Arrived together, but staying
apart. They’re not making use of the club, if you know what I mean.”

“Anything visible on them to say who they are?” Arthur
asked.

Calisto waited his man out while the camera angles
were manipulated and then the specs zoomed in. With the ball caps on their
heads, it was impossible to see the men’s faces. The blazers they wore kept
their arms covered.

“No visible tattoos, and we don’t have a clear shot of
their faces,” Calisto said.

“Are you making a mountain out of a mole hill?”

Calisto bristled with irritation. He honestly didn’t
give a shit about Affonso at the moment, but things had been tense over the
last year between their family and the Irish syndicate from New Jersey. Things
has progressively been getting worse. It went from threats of action, to a man
down, straight to burned property.

If Affonso made a mess, he needed to clean it.

Calisto didn’t think Emma needed to be caught up in
it.

“I could be making a mountain out of a mole hill,”
Calisto said sharply, “but do you want to be the fool who says I am and then
has to answer for it later when it turns out I wasn’t?”

Arthur didn’t respond right away.

Then, the walkie-talkie beeped again before he said,
“Fine.”

“Have the boss’s wife escorted out the back to her
driver’s car. Affonso had her driven here in a separate vehicle from him.
Affonso can go out the front with his guards a little while after. Do not send
them together, Arthur. I want it to look like they’re getting ready to call it
a night and he’s sending his wife home. If this is something, I don’t want to
draw attention the fact we’ve realized they’re here.”

“Got it,” Arthur replied.

A weight pressed down on Calisto’s shoulders as he
discarded the walkie-talkie to the desk. He sat down on the high-back computer
chair, rubbing a hand over his mouth. His eyes never left the monitors as
people began to move and messages were relayed right in front of him.

He still felt too far away.

Something was off here.

“Would they be so brazen?” his man asked.

Calisto shrugged his shoulders. “People who are
desperate for things they believe they want will do almost anything to get it.”

That could be what this was.

Had the Irish sent in men they didn’t mind losing? A
couple of upstarts looking to get in with their family by killing the rival
boss of another syndicate?

It was hard to say.

On the far monitor, Calisto caught the tail end of Emma’s
goodbye to her husband. Affonso kissed his wife’s hand, and then dropped it
just as quick, his attention already gone from her and onto someone else. Emma
had smiled her way through it, but as always, her eyes told the truth.

Disgust.

Hate.

It didn’t help the jealousy crawling all over
Calisto’s back.

He felt slightly better when Carter—Emma’s
driver—escorted her across the club floor to take her out the back way to where
his vehicle had been parked. Emma pulled on her thick wool trench coat as she
went.

On another screen, he took note of the fact that
neither of the two men who had entered together seemed to notice Emma was
leaving.

Then, Affonso walked out of the VIP in the middle of a
circle of men.

Calisto smirked bitterly at the sight.

Protect the boss, always.

It was a rule.

Only then did Calisto see a change in the men they had
been watching. One pulled a phone from his pocket and glanced down at the
screen. The other, seemingly waiting for his friend, watched the circle of men
leave the VIP.

The two men started walking toward one another.
Affonso was moved to the front of the club. The men didn’t follow. It wasn’t
long at all before Affonso was out of the club, and the two men were chatting
with their heads close together in the swarm of people.

The music turned up. Strobe lights began to blink with
such rapidness it fucked up Calisto’s focus. People swarmed the floor as
another wave of patrons were let in.

He lost sight of the men.

Fuck.

“Where did they go?” Calisto demanded.

He cursed under his breath over and over, knowing he
should have put in a call to the DJ downstairs for the lights to be set on a
constant brightness. That was his mistake.

It wasn’t like Calisto to make those kinds of errors,
but he had been off his game for a long while. Ever since Emma came around. His
concern for her had made him overlook a basic thing.

Goddammit.

Calisto’s brow furrowed as he took in the scene on the
monitors, still trying to find the men again. The more he searched, the worse
his anger grew until it festered like poison in his gut.