Authors: Ella Celestine
Chapter Ten
Sal smiled at those familiar hazel eyes and that pouting pink mouth. “I knew Mae years ago, she owned the shop before you did. You remind me of her.”
Jade couldn’t believe this man’s words. “She is my grandmother.”
He nodded. “I figured as much the moment I saw you in the shop. You look exactly as she did decades ago when I loved her. You have her fire too.” He laughed and shook his head. “First time I asked her out she told me white boys didn’t do it for her, but I wore her down until she finally went out with me.”
Jade listened as he talked of the summer Sal and Mae met, how they spent long days at the beach just talking and swimming. How they spent their nights getting to know each other over deep dish pizza and Italian ice cream. She tried not to be affected of the story of two lovers from different cultures. Pretended like she didn’t know this story. She swiped a tear from her cheek and looked at Anthony with a sad smile. “But both of your fathers were against it, each having already chosen a suitable mate for you. You were sent back to Sicily to meet your bride and when you returned to Chicago she’d move to Oregon with her new husband.” She blinked away more tears, having heard the heartbreaking tale hundreds of times. “You’re Salvatore.”
The old man smiled. “I am,
si.
I tried to find her but it wasn’t as easy as it is today. I spent five years looking for Mae and then my Sofia fell pregnant and I’m sorry to say I gave up hope.” He shook his head as though it was his biggest regret. “She lost the baby and blamed me because I didn’t love her. I felt bad and tried to put Mae out of my mind, but I couldn’t. How could I, she was my one true love.” He dug a photo from his jacket and slid it across the table.
Jade picked it up and gasped. It was a sepia toned photo faded by time but she could see her grandma and Sal huddled close together. She was laughing and one hand gently touched his smooth face while he looked at her like she was his entire world. “She never forgot you either. I’ve heard the story a million times.” She slid the photo back to him.
“What happened to her?”
“Standing on her feet all day got to be too much and the arthritis made it difficult to work, so she’s retired now.”
“In Silver Creek?”
Jade could hear the hope in his voice but she was wary. This wasn’t the man her grandmother had fallen in love with all those years ago. This man was a ruthless killer. She nodded.
Sal buried his head in his hands. “I’m so sorry Jade. Had I known, I never would have made you pay that fee. It was only after I visited the shop looking for Mae that I realized, it’s also why I wanted this meeting.”
She looked at the longing and sadness written all over the old gangster’s face and wondered, if their parents hadn’t intervened would Sal still have become a cold blooded criminal. All his questions finally made sense. “You want to see her,” she realized.
“Very much, please.” Those cloudy eyes held so much hope, so much love after decades apart that Jade knew she couldn’t deny the request.
“I’m only doing this because it would me a lot to grandma to see you again. But I have conditions,” she tilted her chin defiantly.
“Of course. Consider the protection fee, waived.”
She smiled. “Thanks, but that’s not it. I’ll pick her up, not the handsy one over there,” she pointed to Brick. “I will bring her here for dinner with you. Anthony and I will be at another table here, and your guys will be nowhere in sight.”
“Boss, that ain’t such a good idea,” Franco interrupted.
Jade sliced a hand through the air to silence him. “She would be devastated to see that you’re a mobster, Sal. She always imagined you were some restaurateur or banker with a beautiful wife and a house full of kids.”
The old man smiled and covertly wiped a tear from the corner of his eyes. “She always saw the good in me, more than anyone. Fine. Set it up, and thank you Jade. Truly.”
Jade smiled. “None necessary, she really loved you.” She felt a hand squeeze her thigh and looked up at Anthony.
“Sorry Sal we won’t be able to do dinner here tonight. It’s dinner with grandma night, so why don’t you join Jade and I for dinner at Mae’s?”
“Soul food?”
Anthony smiled. “Most definitely.”
~
“You handled that like a pro, babe. I’m proud of you.” That meeting could have gone a lot of different ways and Anthony was glad she’d held her own against the aging mobster.
Jade gripped his jaws and smacked a kiss to his lips that had his pants quickly becoming uncomfortable. “Thank you. Now tell me about the eye.”
He groaned, uninterested in telling her but knowing he had no choice. “I didn’t follow orders, at least according to Sal. He had Franco do it, so it didn’t hurt too bad, the guy’s smaller than you.” He laughed but winced when she touched it. “Careful.”
Jade eyed him carefully, taking in his black eye and those liquid honey eyes and smiled. She slid off his lap and went to close the office door, flipping the lock in place with a mischievous smile. “I think I know what will make you feel better.”
Anthony squirmed in his seat on the Ikea sofa he preferred to his desk, pants growing tighter by the second. “I’m willing to let you try, babe.” She smiled and he felt his heart constrict when she untied the knot behind her desk, and her dress fell to the floor. “Damn,” he whispered. She wore a royal blue lacy one piece that gave him just enough of a peek of her body to make him uncomfortable.
Jade threw her shoulders back at his heated look and walked over to him, sliding on his lap and cupping his face. “I’m in love with you, Anthony. I know it's soon but we’ve been best friends for ages and I think I’ve always been a little bit in love with you. If you don’t feel the same way, let me just have this one more time and I’ll try to forget it. It may take a while but-,”
He couldn’t take anymore. She loved him. Jade
loved
him! And she was already worrying he didn’t feel the same so Anthony decided to shut her up the only way he knew how. He grabbed a handful of her playful waves and kissed her so forcefully she had to hang on to him. He smiled against her lips. “You silly girl, I love you too.” The way she smiled at him was a dropkick to the solar plexus, it was so bright and full of love that he knew he would spend the rest of his life making her smile like that.
“Really?”
He nodded. “I wanted to tell you after our first date, but I thought it might be too soon.” She laughed and kissed the tip of his nose. “But I’m telling you now that someday in the not too distant future I’m going to put a stupidly big ring into some delicious dessert and ask you to be my wife.”
Her hazel eyes flashed surprise and then turned glassy with tears. “When you do, I’ll tell you that I want nothing more than to add wife to the role of your best friend, lover, and confidant.” She leaned forward and kissed him, rolling her hips. “I love you, Anthony. So much.” She grabbed his hair and tugged hard until his eyes looked into hers, then she smiled and licked his neck until he groaned.
Anthony was so turned on he had no idea how they were even still dressed. He cried out in disappointment when she slid off his lap, but her hands quickly went to the button and zipper of his jeans and tugged until he was naked from the waist down. “Babe,” he groaned.
“I’ve never really liked doing this, but after that small taste of you last week, I want more.” Jade held him with both hands, opening her mouth to take him deep. Her mouth was hot and wet, the suction giving it just enough tightness to make him breathless. She took him so deep he felt the back of her throat and his hips thrust on their own. She hummed and Anthony lost it.
“So good, babe. So good,” he bit out, fighting hard for control but none was to be had. His Jade was in the zone, taking care of him like she’d been born just for him. Deeper and deeper she took him until he saw stars behind his eyes. “Stop. Jade, I need to be inside you.”
She teased him with light strokes and hard sucks before pulling away with a pop. “You taste so good I think I’ll do that regularly.”
He grinned at her, that grin that always made her body overheat. “I won’t say no to that. Come here.”
Jade shook her head and stood, backing away from him as he stood. “I don’t think so. You see, I’ve had this fantasy.” She removed one strap of the blue lace. “Where I’ve driven a man so insane with want.” She removed the other strap and let the lace fall to the floor and sat in his desk chair, moving it to the side of his desk and lifting one stilettoed foot on the desk. “So crazy in his desire to have me that he pushes all the stuff from his desk and takes me. Hot.” She ran a finger through her moist folds. “Hard.” Pulling the finger from her body she trailed it up and rubbed it on her lip. “And fast.”
In the next moment Anthony did just as she said. In one sweep of his desk, all the bills, applications and even the giant calculator fell to the floor in a loud clatter. He lifted her up and sucked on that bottom lip that tasted like her as he laid her across his desk. “Let’s fulfill that fantasy, then.” He knelt before her and took several swipes across her core before dipping his tongue deep inside her body. “Tasty,” he said and stood, pressing into her in one long, slow thrust. “Hot, hard and fast, huh?” She nodded and he gave it to her exactly as she asked until they were both a hot sweaty mess on his desk.
~
“I’ve never done
that
before during sex.” She was less embarrassed now than she had been a few moments ago.
Anthony smiled and kissed her between her breasts, his body still connected to hers. “It’s hot as hell, babe. Completely normal. I’ll have dreams about that until the day I die.”
That made her smile. “Well, then I’m glad now that I don’t need to be embarrassed.” Her body still clenched around his in slow, fading pulses.
“Never with me.”
“Do you think we’ll make it, Anth? You and me?”
“Of course I do, babe. We’re friends first which means we can talk about anything. And neither of us can lie for shit so we’ll always be honest.” He kissed one nipple and then the other before he kissed his way up to her mouth. “And most importantly I love and respect you.”
She tried to blink back tears. “I love and respect you too. And I really love your cooking skills.” Her stomach chose that moment to remind her that she’d skipped lunch thanks to Brick.
Anthony laughed and kissed her again. “You didn’t get enough to eat just now?”
She stared for a minute and then her mouth gaped open. “I cannot believe you just said that!” She pulsed her inner muscles around him until he groaned. “That was plenty satisfying but unless you want me to eat it…,”
“Nope, I’ll get you some food stat.” He tried to stand, but Jade kept her legs wrapped around him, desperate to keep the connection between them. “Keep that up and you won’t be eating anytime soon.” She did it again, and he groaned.
“You feel so good,” she moaned, rolling her hips as he grew harder inside her. “I can’t get enough of you.”
He smiled down at her, and Jade felt tears leak from the corners of her eyes. “Hell, then we’re even because I can’t get enough of you either.” Then he proceeded to show her until neither of them could move.
Later they lie in a pile of limbs on his couch, spent and sated and sweaty. Jade rested her chin on his chest and smiled up at him. “Hey, Anthony?”
“Yeah, babe?”
“Will you marry me?”
He smiled, and his hands tightened on her ass. “Hey! You stole my thunder.”
She laughed. “Is that a yes?”
He kissed her hard and pulled back. “It’s a hell yes!”
The End