The Game Changer Read online

  “Not a word,” I whispered.

  I fingered her pussy gently as I opened the tube of lube and spread it between her ass cheeks.

  After spreading an ample amount onto my cock, I guided the tip against her anus and pressed against her.

  Her back arched and she craned her neck.

  The tip penetrated her.

  She gasped.

  And I pulled free.

  I added a little lube.

  Again, I pressed the tip of my cock against her until the tip penetrated her.

  She inhaled a choppy breath.

  I pushed myself one-third of the way into her, and slowly pulled my hips back until I was out completely.

  She pounded her hands against the comforter. I looked up. Her laser-sharp glare was as intense as I had hoped it would be.

  I grinned in return, and spread her ass cheeks wide.

  “You,” I said, “are mine. This ass? Mine. And I’m going to fuck it. Like it’s mine.”

  I spread lube between her cheeks and onto my cock. After gently guiding myself into her ass, I slowly began to fuck her tight hole with care.

  After a few minutes, I added a finger into her pussy.

  Then another.

  As I fingered her wet pussy into a frenzy, I continued to fuck her ass with vigor. With each full stroke, she came closer to climax, and her labored breathing confirmed it.

  Fucking her in the ass may have been my intended punishment, but it was all too satisfying for me. The shaft of my cock was being punished, and I couldn’t take it any longer.

  I felt myself begin to reach climax.

  Slowly, I worked my hips back and forth while the tip of my finger found her clit. I circled her swollen nub with my wet fingertip.

  Together, we soared toward our climactic finish.

  “You may speak,” I huffed.

  Clearly mere seconds away from blowing my load, I continued my steady pace.

  “Holy fuck,” she wailed. “I’m...”

  My stiff dick slid in and out of her ass three more times while my finger circled her clit.

  And together we exploded into an orgasm like none I’d ever experienced.

  My balls tightened and I burst out twenty-four hours of aggravation through the tip of my cock and into her tight confines.

  “I...love...you...” she said in three choppy breaths.

  We collapsed onto the bed side by side.

  Regardless of what she’d done, I couldn’t help but love her.

  She was everything I wanted, and far more than I ever deserved.

  But she was mine.

  And punishing her was my pleasure.

  Chapter Twelve

  Terra

  Italian families drink two things, water and wine. Time of day matters not; the topic of conversation and mood seemed to be the deciding factors. In the comfort of her beloved kitchen, my mother and I were well into what would be our first bottle of wine.

  “He’s the Lutheran boy?” She waved her finger toward my purse. “From your phone.”

  “He’s not Lutheran.”

  “He’s cute. And you said he was a Lutheran.”

  “He is cute, but he’s not Lutheran. I just said it. I didn’t know.”

  Her look of indifference changed to one of concern. “If he’s not Catholic—”

  I sat on a bar stool across from her. “He’s not.” The entire ordeal was frustrating. “I’m going to talk to him about joining the church.”

  “The scrutinies, his initiation.” She sighed. “Christmas will be here before we know it, and then Easter is right around the corner.”

  The scrutinies took place on the third, fourth and fifth Sundays of Lent. The initiation was on the day before Easter. The final stage of initiation was called mystagogy, and it took place during the time between Easter and Pentecost Sunday. It was still quite possible to have everything in order before June, which is when I wanted to have the wedding.

  “I know, mother. He and I will talk about it.”

  She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Your father won’t allow a mixed marriage.”

  A mixed marriage, according to Catholic faith, was a marriage between a Catholic and a non-Catholic. Michael’s conversion to the Catholic faith was a prerequisite to marriage in my mother’s eyes, but not in mine.

  “Papa said nothing.”

  “He doesn’t have to. We’re Catholic. And he... What’s his name?”

  “Michael.”

  “Michael,” she said with a smile. “That’s a Catholic name.”

  I chuckled. “He’s not Catholic.”

  She took a drink, lowered the glass slightly and then spoke over the rim. “Tell me about him.”

  “He has no family, so, we’d be his only family—”

  She almost dropped her wine, clanking the base of the glass against the edge of the granite island. She looked horrified. “What do you mean, he has no family?”

  “His parents died when he was young. He’s an orphan.”

  She looked horrified. “No mother? No father?”

  I shook my head. The fact that Michael would have no family members at our wedding sank in for the first time. One side of the church would be filled, and the other empty. The thought of it was heartbreaking. I poured another glass of wine and responded. “No.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she gasped. “He has brothers and sisters, no?”

  “No. He’s an only child.”

  “But he must have—”

  I shook my head. “No one. No family whatsoever.”

  “Tell me something else about him.” She lifted her glass of wine. “Something good.”

  “His having no family isn’t good or bad, Mother. It just is.”

  She reached for my hand. “Tell me something good.”

  “He’s polite, and he’s nice. He treats me with respect. He doesn’t raise his voice to me, and he doesn’t raise his hand to me. He’s not like Vincent.”

  She glanced over each shoulder, then turned to face me. “There are times when a husband must put a wife in her place. You should know that.”

  My mother loved my father with all her heart, but remained beneath him, following the naturally subservient path that most Italian women traveled. Pleasing my father was her primary concern, and if keeping her mouth shut and agreeing to everything he suggested pleased him, so be it. I didn’t agree with her reasoning, but I couldn’t argue with her, either.

  “He’s not like that, Mother.”

  She shook her head. “All men. Sooner or later, you’ll see. You be a good wife to him, and he’ll treat you well. How tall is he?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Six foot two.”

  Her eyes slowly widened. “He’s tall, like Peter.”

  “But he’s not built like Peter. He’s muscular.” I leaned toward her and grinned. “He has a six-pack,” I whispered.

  “Stop it,” she said with a laugh. “Don’t tell your father you’ve seen his stomach.”

  “I’m not planning to.”

  She sat quietly for a moment, and then leaned toward me. “You haven’t. You haven’t, you know...”

  I could have lied, but I didn’t. “We have.”

  “You have not.” She shot me a scornful look. “Have you?”

  I shrugged. “It’s the twenty-first century, people have sex.”

  “If your father finds out...” She slapped the top of my hand playfully.

  “I’m not going to tell him. So, unless—”

  She relaxed against the back ofher bar stool and shook her head emphatically. “I won’t say a word.”

  “Promise?”

  She leaned toward me. “I’ll tel
l you a secret,” she whispered. “Your father and I? We did before we were married.”

  “Mother!” I gasped.

  She grinned. “You father is not as...” She took a drink of wine, and then continued. “He’s not as innocent as he makes people think.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “Papa? Innocent?”

  “That wasn’t a good word, was it? Proper. That’s better. He’s not as proper.” She looked me in the eyes. “You used protection?”

  “Yes, mother.”

  She nodded, and then reached for the bottle of wine. After pouring our glasses full, she set the bottle aside. “When will I meet him?”

  “Papa wants to have dinner. Whenever you decide to have us over.” To go from concealing my relationship to revealing it was exciting. “I was thinking Sunday.”

  She took a sip of wine, and then nodded. “At the restaurant?”

  “No, Mother. Here.”

  “On Sunday?” She shrugged one shoulder. “Sunday’s so close.”

  I wanted her to be comfortable with everything, and wondered if she needed time to mentally prepare. “We can do it next week.”

  “We’ll do it Sunday.” She filled her glass, then looked around the kitchen. “I need to decide what to make.”

  “Just make dinner. He’ll like whatever it is.”

  “He likes pasta?”

  He didn’t prefer to eat pasta, that much was certain. “He loves it.”

  “The wedding will be in June?”

  “Yes.” My mouth curled into a smile. “A June wedding.”

  She reached for my hand. “We’ve got a lot of planning to do.”

  She was right. Now that the secrets I kept from Michael and my parents were behind me, I felt free to tell the world about him, and I wanted to. “I want an engagement party.”

  “We’ll have one,” she said. “Let me get a calendar, and we’ll start planning.”

  Considering my mother’s age, I found it amusing that she didn’t use a computer. Her cell phone use was limited to phone calls—and rarely texting. When she did send a text message, it was often garbled and illegible.

  “Here.” She placed the calendar between us and took a drink of wine. “Before we get started, you need to know something.”

  “What?”

  “My advice for you. The secret of staying married.”

  My mother divulging her marriage secrets excited me. I rubbed my hands together and stared back at her with great interest. “I’m listening.”

  “It’s simple,” she said. “With your father, I don’t ask questions. It’s not my place to question him.”

  I shot her a look. “What are you saying?”

  “You’ll be Michael’s wife soon. It’s not your place to question him, it’s your place to support him. If you ask questions, you’ll get answers. And some answers? Some answers you don’t want to know. Men keep their secrets for one reason—to protect us—so, you need to know when to stop with the questions. If you learn to support him, he will be happy, and your marriage will last for all of eternity.”

  It wasn’t what I was expecting. I stared back at her, wishing she had said something else, but realized what she did say was important enough that she felt the need to share it with me. I considered what life might be like if I chose to keep my nose out of Michael’s business entirely.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Michael, because I did. I simply felt it was my right to know the truth. My mother’s experience with my father, however, led me to believe I needed to accept whatever he did without question.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll remember that.”

  She smiled. “Let’s get started.”

  She pressed the pen against the paper on the upcoming Sunday and wrote “dinner with Michael.” “That’s the first thing.”

  In the past, I found her failure to conform to the modern world’s technological offerings annoying. Planning my wedding on a printed calendar with her, however, would be something I would cherish for a lifetime.

  “Mother?”

  She looked up. “We decided this Sunday, didn’t we?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked as if I had scorned her. “What, then?”

  “I love you,” I said.

  “I love you, too,” she said, her expression incapable of hiding her joy. “Now scoot your stool over here. We need to plan a wedding.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Michael

  He stepped into my office, nervously glanced over each shoulder and then shut the door behind him. “Ain’t anybody in here that I don’t know about, is there?”

  “Not too many places to hide, Cap.” I waved my hand toward the open—and obviously empty—office. “What you see is what you get. What the fuck’s going on?”

  He walked straight to the corner of my desk, opened the drawer and motioned inside. “Pour two of ’em, we’re gonna need ‘em.”

  “It’s eight o’clock in the fucking morning.”

  “It’s damned near nine. Seen the news?”

  “Don’t make it a habit of getting up and watching the news, no.”

  “Well, I get up every morning and read MSN’s news feed on my laptop. Has national and local shit on it. Don’t pay much attention to the national stuff, but I read the local. This morning it was pretty fuckin’ interesting.”

  He stood there, looming over me like a dark shadow.

  “Jesus Christ, Cap. Sit down,” I said. “You’re making me nervous.”

  “Fire that computer up and pull up MSN.”

  “You gonna tell me what’s going on?”

  “The guy we cut into pieces?” he whispered. “He was a fed. ATF. But it’s kinda weird how they described everything.”

  My heart rate surged. “You sure they’re talking about our guy?”

  “Wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.”

  I logged on to MSN, and upon the screen loading, one headline stood out against the others.

  Federal Agent’s Body Discovered.

  I moved the cursor to the video below the headline. “Here it is.”

  With slight reluctance, I started the video. A news anchor standing along the bank of a river gave the newscast.

  “The dismembered body of a thirty-seven-year-old ATF agent was discovered late Wednesday afternoon by a man who had been fishing along the Missouri River. James Santos, of Blue Springs, told MSN that he was fishing for catfish when he discovered a tightly wrapped package that would later be found to have concealed the agent’s severed head.

  “After Mr. Santos’s grisly discovery, the area was secured by agents of the ATF and by US Marshals. After a thorough search of the river, more body parts were found, all of which are believed to be those of the agent, who is now being reported as missing since last Monday.

  “The victim, who was reported to have had his teeth removed by the killer—or killers—was identified using the ATF’s federal DNA database. Field agent Kevin Gatlin, who was reportedly off duty at the time of his death, had been with the agency for eleven years.”

  What I suspected was an ATF file photo of the deceased agent came on the screen. I paused the video and studied the photo.

  “Fuck. That’s a few years old, but it’s him, huh?”

  “Sure as fuck is.”

  I clicked Play.

  “More from MSN as details of this gruesome murder unfold.”

  The video faded to black.

  “Well, fuck,” I said. “I guess I was right.”

  “About what?”

  “About him being a fucking cop,” I said.

  “Oh. Yeah. I guess I gotta give you that. Goes without sayin’, I ain’t too thrilled about killin’ a federal agent.”

  “Y
ou might not be, but I wasn’t thrilled about the alternative. Oh, and did you catch what she said? He was off duty and he’d been missing since Monday. Of the previous week. We tossed him in the river on Tuesday night. This week.”

  “She said last Monday,” Cap argued. “That’s five days ago.”

  “The Monday five days ago would be this Monday. This week’s Monday. Last Monday would be the Monday of last week.”

  “Is that how that shit works?”

  “That’s how that shit works.”

  A confused look washed over him. After a moment, he raised his index finger. “She said he was off duty, too.”

  “She did.”

  “So he’d been missing for a week and a day when he met us. Fucker was doin’ that cigarette deal deep undercover, or it was rogue.”

  I nodded. “Agreed.”

  “Either way, Agrioli’s bein’ watched.”

  “Maybe not. But if he isn’t he will be soon. That is, if they uncover anything in their investigation of this guy’s death that’d lead them to us.”

  “What are the chances of some dipshit fishin’ for catfish to find that fuckin’ head?”

  “Obviously, pretty damned good,” I responded.

  “You gonna call Agrioli?”

  I reached for the scotch. “Probably not. I need to think about it.”

  “Need to make him aware of what’s goin’ on.”

  I poured a shot in each glass, and handed one to Cap. “Seems like we’re doing more and more of this.”

  “Killin’ people?”

  “No. Drinking during the day.”

  He downed the scotch. “Been a rough couple of days.”

  I took a sip of mine, then inhaled the aroma from the glass. My mouth salivated as I thought of what my next move should be. Being in business with the mafia was like playing chess, not checkers.

  “I think I’ll touch base with Sal, not Agrioli.”

  “Why?”

  “Agrioli’s the boss. Future father-in-law or not, I’ve got to follow protocol. Hell, as far as I know, he doesn’t even know what happened.”

  “You don’t think Sal would leave him in the dark—”

  “That’s just it. I don’t know.”

  I picked up my cell phone and called Sal. He answered on the third ring.