Iofficially had my license again and couldn’t wait to show it off. It was a little bonus in the grand scheme of things, but for me, well, it was a big deal for me to be legal and free to be myself. Despite the unrest or the people that followed me on every venture off of the estate, I knew, one day, things would settle down. I’d get to have a life again; whether it would be normal was debatable, but I could deal with it if it wasn’t. Hell, it would definitely not be, but that was okay. I knew what, and who, I wanted—the rest, it didn’t matter so much.
As I headed for my room, the sound of low music playing in the game room lured me, so I detoured, then followed the faint scent of tobacco smoke. It led me to Marco. He stood on the balcony, smoking and staring out over the property, lost in thought.
“Hey, guess what I got today?” I asked, startling the big guy, but when he turned around, he had his usual crooked grin for me.
“What’s up, Paradise? You find Santos’ balls in your purse again?” he teased. He just couldn’t help giving me shit over Santos and vice versa. The two of us, me and Santos, were well versed in poking at each other, and Marco delighted in pointing out who was currently in the lead and who owed who an apology. I was also pretty sure it was his way of playing peacekeeper, which I'd noticed he did quite a bit. His devil-may-care attitude was totally legit, but so was the more subtle role he'd taken on, and it worked well. “If you give them back again, make sure he keeps ‘em this time. The poor sap seriously needs a pair. You’ve broken our enforcer, Edie,” he whined when I laughed. I hadn’t, broken anyone that is, but Santos had been extra sweet and accommodating, not a trait I was too used to seeing from my ex-boyfriend. I was pretty sure he wanted to be a current one as well, but we still had a bit of old feelings to hash out before I’d chance that it wouldn’t blow up in our faces and permanently wreck everything. For now, I was happy with the pace things were going.
“He’ll be okay,” I reassured, certain I was right. “He’s trying to avoid pissing me off. Seems he doesn’t like being friendzoned.” I rolled my eyes and pulled out one of my own cigarettes, and as I put my lighter back in my purse, I grabbed my new driver's license and nonchalantly dropped it on the table for Marco to see.
“Well, look at you, all legal and shit! And your picture doesn’t even suck.” His smile held more warmth, with a hint of pride added in, and I couldn’t help but beam back at him.
“I was so nervous I’d tank the test or run over an old lady or her dog or something, but I passed!”
“Of course you did, you’re Eden fucking Moretti. You can do any goddamned thing you want to. And if you did run anyone over, or fail, I’d just have Tony get one of the men to make a visit and pay them off. We’d have made sure you got it, one way or another.” For a second, I was worried they’d done just that, but the teasing light in his eyes made me almost certain that they hadn’t. “Have you shown the others yet?”
I shook my head and paused to take a drag from my cigarette as he crushed his out in the ashtray, “I heard the music and came in here to investigate.”
“So I’m first today?” he asked with a glint in his gaze that had my heart rate picking up. “I’m going to rub that in Vanni’s face, the smug fuck.” And then he was crowding me, and I wasn’t backing up. His breath, heavy with the scent of tobacco, played across my lips as he kept his eyes on mine. Not that I minded since mine tasted and smelled the same. “You know, that’s why I love you.”
“What?” I asked, wide-eyed at his declaration. “That you’re first in whatever feud or competition you all have going on?”
“Yes and no. Do you know why I called you Paradise all those years ago? Besides the obvious.” I shook my head, having thought it was only a play on my name. “Because you were my idea of paradise. I wanted what you and Santos had, and I wasn’t sure I could find it anywhere else. I knew what my life had in store for me. But I couldn’t exactly mack on his girl, that would have gone way against bro code, so I imagined there was a possibility that if the stars aligned one day, I’d find what I wished for. And now they have, so that’s what you are. My Paradise.”
“What the fuck, dude?” It was his turn to be wide-eyed, and then wariness filled them as he started to step back. I put my cigarette out before I managed to burn one of us, then grabbed him by his belt to tug him back to me. “I show you my license and you drop all of that on me! I feel like anything I say at this point wouldn’t measure up.” My shoulders lifted in a shrug, but it wasn’t a lie. I was feeling slightly inadequate in the romance department at the moment, yet also kinda tingly with the joy he’d evoked.
“It’s easy, Edie. Just open your mouth.” He reached for said mouth and pursed my lips like a fish before moving them open and shut. He also didn’t get any farther since I accidentally pulled my lips free...then bit his finger.
“Ow, you shit, what was that for?” He might have been complaining, but he was laughing too. “Kiss it better.” The injured fingertip was thrust back in my face, and I did lean in to kiss it, but I decided to go one better. Before he could pull away, I gripped his wrist and sucked the digit into the warm recesses of my mouth, twirling the tip of my tongue around it for good measure before pulling off with a pop. “That was...unexpected. And really fucking hot. Don’t think I’m forgetting where we left off, but Lady Garden’s lady garden just got on my mangrove’s radar.”
My groan of second-hand embarrassment was swallowed up by Marco’s lips crashing into mine, and his seemingly favorite new trend of packing me around came into play as he hoisted me up to go inside, barely breaking away to navigate the doorway. A moment later, my back hit the hard, fuzzy surface of the pool table, and I arched a brow at him in question.
“Yep, happening right here, right now, before someone interrupts us. You’ve been staying with Santos at night, Edie. How am I supposed to party crash the sick room?” His complaint mostly went in one ear and out the other as he pulled his shirt, then mine, off before doing the same with our pants and shoes. We were down to just underwear when he walked off to the bar.
“It’s been three days; you’ll survive. Why are you getting a drink?” I’d thought we were doing something else entirely, but maybe he wanted to finish that stripping game we’d played before…
“I stashed these things all over the house while you’ve been doing things like worrying us to death and getting your affairs in order.” He waved two foil packets as he came back to take his place between my spread thighs.
"Little ambitious there, don't you think?"
"Confident, Edie," he replied with a smirk. "It's called confident." And then he shucked his tented boxer-briefs down his thick thighs, revealing his ruddy-tipped erection in all of its pierced glory. "I can't fucking wait to make you scream my name, Eden. The whole fucking house is going to know who you belong to." His promise was delivered with hazel eyes hooded with lust.
"Go on with your bad self then, show ‘em how it's done," I teased with a smirk of my own.
“Lose the rest or I’m liable to damage your pretty underwear. You have until I get this thing on my dick. After that, I can’t be held responsible for my actions.”
Just to taunt him, and maybe gain a few extra seconds by keeping his attention on me rather than wrapping his prick, I quickly slipped off my lacy panties before I arched up into a backbend, twisting my arms behind me to unhook the clasp of my bra. The maneuver had the desired effect because I swore I heard something close to a growl come from him, and then he was holding my hips high so I couldn’t sink down. Forced to keep the pose, I contemplated complaining that my arms would go to sleep sooner than later, but the wet heat of Vanni’s mouth covering my core had it coming out as a moan of pleasure instead. Fuck the arms. That was about all I could think as he worked me over with his tongue until my legs had gone to jelly, forcing him to hold up most of my weight. As I reached the precipice, Marco gave up the teasing and went in for the kill, lightly latching onto my clit with his teeth while he paired suction and precise flicks of his tongue in a way that had my lungs seizing in my chest. When he ground his chin, just a hint of afternoon stubble, against my entrance, he got what he’d predicted. Me shouting his name as I came on his face.
His cocky chuckle vibrated against me as he laved my sensitive bits with the flat of his tongue until my orgasm settled down, and then he finally lowered me as he rose up, but he didn’t release me. Instead, he notched the head of his dick against me and shoved into my slick sheath, not giving me a second to adjust, only stopping when he was buried to the hilt.
“Oh, god,” tumbled through my lips in a high-pitched moan. I wasn’t sure if it was aftershocks or if the pulsing my pussy walls were doing was signaling another impending orgasm.
Marco slipped one of his arms free, continuing to hold me up with the other, keeping the edge of the pool table from digging into me, while he helped get my own arms out from under my back where they had, in fact, gone to sleep. As soon as I was in a more comfortable position, he hooked the same arm around me, gripping my shoulder to hold me in place—I definitely wasn’t going anywhere, not that I wanted to.
“It’s Marco, Lady Garden, but I don’t mind if you’d rather worship at my altar instead.” He punctuated his silliness with a thrust of his hips before he took up a slow rolling motion that had him touching every hot spot inside me, making me forget even my own name.
“Harder, please, Marco,” I begged when he kept it up, staring at me and deliberately avoiding brushing against my clit. I panted and arched against him, unable to quite reach the pinnacle I needed to get off again.
“First, say you’re mine,” he demanded instead of giving in.