Copyright © 2020 by Bethany-Kris. All rights reserved.
ONE
THE REALM OF boredom was a dangerous place.
At least it was for Cory.
“Joe.”
“Mmm.”
“Hey,” Cory said, once more attempting to get Joe to as much as look at him.
It didn’t work.
Fuckhead.
“Joe, I’m serious.”
“Yep.”
He was going to punch his brother.
Hard.
“Joe.”
He didn’t even glance up over the newspaper in his hands. Joe did, however, smile and voice his thanks when his wife came around to the head of the table to set a mug with rolling steam coming off the rim down in front of him. Liliana headed back across the kitchen but now rhythmically patted the back of her two-month-old son sleeping against her chest. A task that was made easier after she delivered her husband’s coffee.
He smiled at the sight of his nephew.
Babies weren’t so hard to understand even if they were foreign creatures in a lot of ways. Who wouldn’t want to be constantly warm, fed, comfortable, and happy if one was new to a big world and nothing seemed to make sense?
Shit, yeah.
Babies knew what was up.
Damian Joe “DJ” Rossi.
The first of his generation.
Cory loved that kid to death already, and he didn’t even do anything at this point but cry, sleep, and eat. It was only the love he had for his nephew that stopped him from reaching across the table to punch Joe in the shoulder when he deliberately ignored his younger brother.
A few years ago, that wouldn’t have surprised anybody. Hell, a few months ago Cory still could have been provoked into doing something crazy to Joe just to make his brother pay attention to him at any given moment that he felt the need. His ma, Lily, liked to say he had a bad case of middle child syndrome. The one-year age gap between Cory and his older brother made them closer than most siblings; they did everything together growing up and when they moved into adulthood. The nine- and ten-year gap between Joe and Cory and their younger sister, Monica, fostered an older brother complex that the world would just have to get used to.
But the brothers …
Joe always looked out for Cory.
Not that he had to.
Or fuck, maybe he did.
Except--
Cory glanced his sleeping nephew’s way once more—the baby was starting to blink awake as his mother wiped down a counter. He would hate to make the little guy cry when Joe cursed Cory out for being a shit. So, he kept his fists and annoyance to himself.
Later, though … He could always get his brother back later.
“Have you listened to anything I’ve said to you in the last five minutes?” Cory asked, his hand faster than Joe’s when he snatched the newspaper out of his brother’s grasp before he held it out of reach entirely. “Because I know you’re not that fucking checked out, bro.”
Joe glared.
He didn’t get the chance to speak, though.
“Language,” came a quiet, feminine call from across the kitchen. Just as quickly, Liliana cooed to the baby, “How was that nap, bambino?”
Goddammit. He considered rolling his eyes. Except he liked his brother’s wife.
Cory grinned at Joe instead while saying to Liliana, “Sorry, Lil.”
“Mmhmm.”
“Give me the newspaper,” Joe muttered while holding out a hand, waiting.
He answered that with a shake of the newspaper, taunting his brother. “Talk to me first. I’ve got plans.”
“You always have some kind of fuc—”
Joe’s gaze cut to the side where Liliana watched them from behind the kitchen island like she was daring one of them to start up with their usual nonsense. Cory was being good; Scout’s fucking honor and all that shit. It was just Joe who seemed to forget where he was. Liliana’s new thing about correcting bad language in her house—although she’d never liked them swearing in the kitchen to begin with—made her seem more like Joe and Cory’s mother than she already did.
And that said something. Considering their mother’s name was Lily and all.
Cory had learned it was better to not point those things out to his brother. Despite what people liked to think and say about him, he wasn’t dumb. Foolish at times because often, that’s when he had the most fun. Not stupid, though. He didn’t like to wake up with aching bones, so he kept his mouth shut to his brother about how he’d basically married a woman who was a lot like their mother.
See?
Smart.
“You always have a plan, Cory. The problem is you rarely follow said plans because apparently why bother and then you cause a bunch of shi--problems.” Joe let out a hard sigh with his gaze blazing when Cory laughed at his almost slip-up again. “Knock it off—Damian barely slept last night. He’s teething. I’m tired.”
“That’s a little early, yeah?”
Joe’s brow crinkled. “What?”
“Isn’t he young for teeth?”
“Apparently not,” Liliana answered for her husband.
Cory hadn’t taken his gaze off his brother. He decided to scale back his usual personality just a touch or two. At least for the moment. Sometimes, Joe was owed a break from his younger brother’s constant torment, regardless of how much personal enjoyment Cory gained from it.
Screw it, he thought.
Forget the new property he wanted to buy with his brother to add to their portfolio. They could get back to the legal side of their business on another day. Besides, they weren’t even supposed to be opening anything new for a while. He’d promised their mother to give Joe a break on any new real estate or other business ventures until they settled in with the new baby. It made sense, but this particular business that was up for sale had been too good to pass up. Except he would. He wanted to do something else for his brother instead. Joe could use some fun.
Right?
“You need a break,” he said to Joe, switching tactics and topics in his next breath. Now he had a better idea, and the follow-through to get it done would probably be a lot easier. “Let’s go to High Life tonight.”
“We opened that club months ago, and it’s still packed full every night.”
“Good business, right?” Cory pointed at his temple. “Told you that one would be a banger.”
And he was right, like with most of their business ventures.
“So, come and enjoy the place with me tonight,” Cory said. “You didn’t even open it with me.”
“My son was three days old.” Joe scoffed. “Are you serious? I’ve got a newborn here, man. I’m not going to party all night while my wife chills with a teething baby.”
“That would be a dick move.”
Something their father, also named Damian, would have his sons’ balls for. He liked to tell the brothers that good men were made at home serving their wives and not in the streets with people who often forgot their morals for the sake of business. For a simple reason, too. Another man might not trust someone based on the things they knew from the streets, but the way a man treated his wife—publicly and privately—would always say a lot about his character.
It was a poignant statement. Considering his father was one of the three highest seated men in the Chicago mob—the Outfit—it really said something coming from him.
Cory kept it in mind. Not that he had a wife to remember it for. He also wasn’t currently looking for one. Besides, one married Rossi brother was enough.
“Except you could use a break,” Liliana spoke up, “and all he really wants is me at night, anyway, Joe. Why not go out and get away from … everything?”
He pointed in his brother’s wife’s direction, saying, “See. What was it you told me last week? The Outfit is running you dead, man.”
Joe said nothing, but he didn’t have to when the two faced one another at the table. Nothing he told his brother was a lie. The Outfit had both men by the throats when it came to work. That happened when one looked to move up in the mob, and they came from a family like theirs.
They never said as much, sure. It wasn’t like they ever spoke about their intentions with the mob. Everything was always unsaid, but just understood. He blamed that on the fact this was all they ever knew.
Their uncles? In the mob. One, a boss. The other, sitting next to their father so that the two could act as the right and left hand of the man running the whole criminal organization.
Where else were they going but in? They didn’t need to say it.
His brother was already in. Joe just wanted … a seat at the table, now. Cory, on the other hand, kept busy with his Uncle Theo and the man’s arms and substance dealing he had going on in the city and elsewhere. All he ever did was work now, too.
Damn, he hadn’t even gotten a new tattoo to add to his collection of full sleeves, a throat and chest piece, and an almost finished back piece, too. That was unheard of for him—every six to eight weeks of healing, and Cory was back in for another round in an artist’s chair. His lack of new ink spoke to how busy he’d constantly been.
Joe was no better. Hadn’t they earned a break?
Cory gave Joe a grin. “So, are we going out tonight like old time’s sake, or …?”
“You know I’d feel better if I just got to have a damn nap, right?” Joe asked back.
That time, Liliana didn’t correct his language. She did laugh, though.
“I mean, yeah,” Cory returned, shrugging under his leather jacket, “but what’s the fun of being twenty-five—”
“You’re twenty-five.”
“Twenty-six,” Cory corrected, cursing himself internally because no doubt, Joe was onto his scheme.
“Really, you just want to go out tonight, but you want me to come with you, right?” Joe asked. “That’s what this whole thing was about, wasn’t it?”
Well …
Cory looked Liliana’s way for help.
She always did.
It’s why he liked her the most. Next to his brother marrying her and all.
“He does need a break, doesn’t he?” Cory asked. “You said it first, Lil.”
“He does.”
He went back to his brother. “The wife spoke. I’m really just trying to follow her wishes.” His brother still said nothing. “Come on, Joe, all I do is work … that’s all you ever do anymore, too. Take a night.”
Joe shook his head. “You’re something, man. I hope you know that.”
He did.
All too well.
•••
“Rossi!”
The holler from the other side of the club’s VIP section had Cory raising a hand in reply. He didn’t know who had called his last name, or if they were even calling for him. The place was mob-owned considering it was the brothers’ name on the paperwork, so really, it could have gone either way.
Lowering his hand from the air to bring the cup to his lips, Cory downed what remained of his tequila in one swallow. It burned all the way down, but he found satisfaction in that all the same. He was certainly fucking feeling the alcohol, too.
Then again, he was six drinks in.
And he’d mixed some.
Joe’s dark laughter had Cory’s attention moving away from the oncoming server. The chick would do her job—in this club, when a Rossi’s cup was empty, it needed to be filled before they had the chance to pick it up again and ask someone to do it.
“You were right,” Joe said at Cory’s left.
“On what?”
He usually was.
No one liked it when he pointed it out.
“The DJ—he was the right pick for the place.”
Cory nodded, his booted foot tapping out a beat to the shined cement floor—High Life sported a whole industrial look that he really preferred, though only a few of their mutual businesses went down that design route. In the VIP booth, the two had a view of the entire club laid out before them. Like this, they stayed clear of the dancing and drinking crowd filling the floor in front of the DJ with his booth and lights and the bar that never stopped moving.
“I seriously thought you just wanted him because he smoked a blunt with you when you were supposed to be doing his interview,” Joe said in a chuckle.
“I mean, that was part of the reason.”
Why lie?
That never got Cory anywhere.
Tipping his head to the side while the sounds around Cory blurred like his vision, his last drink had started to take hold. He eyed his older brother. In years, there wasn’t that much of a gap between them. It was the changes in their lives that separated him from Joe more than he wanted to admit sometimes. Things like marriage, babies, and adulthood. Just in general.
He didn’t blame or fault his brother for the differences between them now, but he still liked to close the space and remind himself they were still those fucking Rossi brothers. As everyone in their life liked to call them when they were younger and crazier.
“Hey,” Cory said, the taste of tequila still heavy on his tongue.
“Yeah?”
Joe glanced his way.
Cory flashed his teeth in a grin. “You out?”
That’s all he needed to ask.
His brother would understand.
“Would you hate me if I said yes?” Joe returned with a lazy smirk.
“Nah, I figured once I got a few drinks into you, then you’d be ready to head home.”
“Oh?”
A shrug lifted his shoulders. “Is what it is, bro.”
That was it, and that was all.
Joe didn’t have the same priorities as Cory at the end of every day now, and he got that. He didn’t need his brother to tell him to know that Joe’s mind hadn’t been very far from his wife and newborn son from the moment they walked into their club for a good time.
Besides …
“I got you out to blow the fucking stink off you,” Cory said, straightening up in the booth and eyeing the dancing crowd for something—or someone—interesting. He’d know what it was when he found it. “I’ll count that as a win.”
On another night, when Joe was less drunk and tired, he probably would have had a smart ass, cutting comment for Cory in reply. Instead, he just shook his head and smiled like he knew the truth.
“You know, if all you really want is to spend some time with me, you just gotta say, Cory.”
Yeah, well …
“I told Liliana,” Cory said simply. “She came up with a better plan.”
Because usually, he’d just cause some shit to get his brother’s attention. It always worked before. He was trying a new thing—one that didn’t end up with someone in trouble, mostly him and Joe, or worse.
He figured that was good.
Mature.
Whatever.
“Let Max know at the door,” Cory said, “because I already had someone ready to drive you home when you were ready to go. He’s probably got the car close by the entrance.”
Joe sighed. “And what are you doing for the rest of your night?”
Cory’s gaze finally stopped in its search of the dancing swell of people when he found a brunette with a shimmering, black club dress tossing back a round of shots right off the tray of a server. In towering heels that showed off all kinds of smooth, tanned legs in that short dress, the woman spun around to join another female waiting. The fast movement made the blonde and red highlights in her long, wavy brown hair catch the lights overhead. The women started dancing again. Now that he had found her in the crowd, he couldn’t seem to look away.
Not that he minded.
She was quite a sight.
Every inch of her—from the curves of her hips to the glowing sheen on the valley of her breasts where that dress dipped dangerously low, and even the red on her lips—screamed fuckable. He tried not to objectify women upon first sight. It wasn’t a particularly admirable trait in a man, after all.
The brunette made it easy, though.
Damn.
She’d tossed back five shots one after the other. Not a flinch in sight. That meant one of two things to Cory.
The brunette was looking to forget something, or she wanted one hell of a night. Either way, he could provide both of those things. That was, if she was interested. He simply needed to make his way over to her and find out.
But first, Joe.
“Well?” Joe asked. “Do you need me to make sure you get home, too? Or are you not done here?”
Cory was already standing from the booth. “Not even close to done, bro.”
The only thing he could guarantee was that he’d make it home to take his dog, Mace, out for a piss, because the animal depended on him. The pup was the only thing that ever gave him a real sense of responsibility. He would be drunk when he got home, likely, but he always had a mob enforcer waiting in the wings to do the driving when needed.
And that was it. Everything else was up in the air. He liked it that way.
“Talk to Max—it was my deal with Liliana,” Cory told his brother as he passed by him in the booth to exit. “You’re not driving home.”
“Yeah, I got it. I don’t know what caught your attention out there on the floor, but you know the fucking rules, yeah?”
Joe called that at his retreating back.
Cory just laughed.
He was way too drunk to be picking up a brunette in his club to fuck, if he were being honest. The way the room looked as he walked away—a little too fuzzy, maybe—told him that.
What did it matter?
Fun was still fun.
“The rule, Cory!”
“Yeah, yeah.” He waved a hand high over his shoulder, and his fingers made the peace sign that quickly turned into just his middle finger standing up. “I know the rule—don’t be stupid.”
Sometimes, that was when he had the most fun.
He just knew better than to say it.
•••
The brunette had a name.
Cory just couldn’t remember it.
He blamed his lack of memory on the fact that the second he got close enough to actually catch her attention, the girl was like a fucking spider web. Beautiful face. Intoxicating laugh. Sex appeal in every move she made. He got a dance from her. Made her laugh and smile and it all pulled him in closer to her. More shots were involved.
Then, she kissed him.
The second he realized those stained-red lips of hers tasted like sugar and Henny … Cory was done for. At some point between her round, pert ass grinding into his cock through his slacks on the dance floor and a kiss that had his lungs aching for more in the darkened hallway leading to the employee’s private bathrooms, she’d told him her name.
Now, after he’d gotten her somewhere relatively private, had her sitting on a counter with her tight dress bunched around her hips while he buried his face between her thighs, he was trying to remember what it was.
Her name, that was.
Mel?
Lana?
Fucking hell.
Cory hadn’t needed those extra shots.
Not that it mattered at the moment—his drunkenness made no difference to the fact that the brunette’s legs shook as they tightened to his head while her demands came out high and broken and perfect.
“Don’t fucking stop … don’t stop,” she breathed.
She rocked against him, needy. He loved them like that. So messy.
It was the only time he let himself love a woman, really. He often fell in and out of lust more often than he cared to admit, but sex wasn’t quite the same. Nothing got him off more than making a chick lose her control while he ate her out like it was the last thing he was ever going to taste.
On his tongue, she was hotter and tart as all her sounds echoed in the empty bathroom. Her manicured nails pulled tighter in his hair when he stuffed two fingers into her pussy. Those strappy stiletto heels of hers scratched against the fabric of his silk button down.
And then she was shaking.
Begging.
“There, there … there, fuck, yes.”
Her pussy, a slick paradise.
Cory had most certainly found heaven.
At least for the night.
All at once, as he looked up and a wild gaze—the color of his favorite dark chocolate—met his sky-blue stare. He couldn’t really smudge the stain on her lips like he’d wanted, but he’d kissed her hard enough in the hallway outside the bathroom that she looked like he’d fucked her before he even got the chance to actually do so. Every breath she dragged in had her tits rising and falling heavily.
He grinned.
She licked her lips.
“I forgot your name,” he admitted.
She shrugged her shoulders, the straps of her dress tangled down her arms, but she didn’t seem to care at all. “I didn’t even bother to ask for yours.”
Fair enough.
A buzz echoed to their left.
She didn’t look away from him, but his gaze darted to the side where her purse laid in a heap on the corner of the counter. Her phone had done that a lot since they left the club’s dance floor. She ignored every call or text—acted like it didn’t even exist.
“Someone looking for you?” he asked.
The lines of her face changed to something more sensual when she laughed. Beautiful wasn’t a good enough word to describe how feminine her features were. From soft, plush lips to cheekbones that would undoubtedly look best in the glossy spread of a magazine, she really was something. The fact he had the taste of her pussy on his mouth currently made his opinion of her a lot greater, too.
“He can keep looking,” she said.
Oh.
Well, shit. Who was he to step in this woman’s way of getting back at—or maybe moving on from—some other man in her life? Hell, he might as well help however he could.
Wasn’t that the gentlemanly thing to do?
“That’s what this is?” Cory asked, tipping his chin up when he let out a dark chuckle that had her shivering under his hands that flexed at her inner thighs. “You’re out looking for a rebound, pretty girl?”
“Just a fuck, actually,” she countered. “Make it worth about a year of my wasted time, would you?”
That time, it was Cory’s turn to laugh when he straightened to his full height to tower over where she sat trembling on the counter. The bathroom smelled like liquor and sex. Like a damn good night. One well spent.
Her legs widened when he grabbed her waist.
“Well?” she asked.
He liked that there was still a hint of a woman who could probably grab him by the balls and make it hurt if she really wanted to when she stared at him. At the same time, she was all sweetness and sex and sin under his grip.
Her breath hitched when he yanked her down to her feet. Those heels on her feet clicked against the floor. His lip curved upward to flash his teeth when he smirked, a wink only adding to the arrogance of his next words.
“Oh yeah, I can definitely do that.”
He still couldn’t remember her name, but it proved insignificant when he bent her over the counter and fucked her. He was sure she would have a line of bruises on her thighs from the edge of the counter and how hard he grabbed and pulled at her body.
Yet, she took all nine inches of him, and then asked for more. Purred when he pulled her hair and came harder when he wrapped his fingers around her throat.
So, shit.
He hadn’t remembered her name.
No big deal.
Besides, he’d learned not to sweat the small things.
How important was a name, really?
*
PRE-ORDER NOW!
ONE
THE REALM OF boredom was a dangerous place.
At least it was for Cory.
“Joe.”
“Mmm.”
“Hey,” Cory said, once more attempting to get Joe to as much as look at him.
It didn’t work.
Fuckhead.
“Joe, I’m serious.”
“Yep.”
He was going to punch his brother.
Hard.
“Joe.”
He didn’t even glance up over the newspaper in his hands. Joe did, however, smile and voice his thanks when his wife came around to the head of the table to set a mug with rolling steam coming off the rim down in front of him. Liliana headed back across the kitchen but now rhythmically patted the back of her two-month-old son sleeping against her chest. A task that was made easier after she delivered her husband’s coffee.
He smiled at the sight of his nephew.
Babies weren’t so hard to understand even if they were foreign creatures in a lot of ways. Who wouldn’t want to be constantly warm, fed, comfortable, and happy if one was new to a big world and nothing seemed to make sense?
Shit, yeah.
Babies knew what was up.
Damian Joe “DJ” Rossi.
The first of his generation.
Cory loved that kid to death already, and he didn’t even do anything at this point but cry, sleep, and eat. It was only the love he had for his nephew that stopped him from reaching across the table to punch Joe in the shoulder when he deliberately ignored his younger brother.
A few years ago, that wouldn’t have surprised anybody. Hell, a few months ago Cory still could have been provoked into doing something crazy to Joe just to make his brother pay attention to him at any given moment that he felt the need. His ma, Lily, liked to say he had a bad case of middle child syndrome. The one-year age gap between Cory and his older brother made them closer than most siblings; they did everything together growing up and when they moved into adulthood. The nine- and ten-year gap between Joe and Cory and their younger sister, Monica, fostered an older brother complex that the world would just have to get used to.
But the brothers …
Joe always looked out for Cory.
Not that he had to.
Or fuck, maybe he did.
Except--
Cory glanced his sleeping nephew’s way once more—the baby was starting to blink awake as his mother wiped down a counter. He would hate to make the little guy cry when Joe cursed Cory out for being a shit. So, he kept his fists and annoyance to himself.
Later, though … He could always get his brother back later.
“Have you listened to anything I’ve said to you in the last five minutes?” Cory asked, his hand faster than Joe’s when he snatched the newspaper out of his brother’s grasp before he held it out of reach entirely. “Because I know you’re not that fucking checked out, bro.”
Joe glared.
He didn’t get the chance to speak, though.
“Language,” came a quiet, feminine call from across the kitchen. Just as quickly, Liliana cooed to the baby, “How was that nap, bambino?”
Goddammit. He considered rolling his eyes. Except he liked his brother’s wife.
Cory grinned at Joe instead while saying to Liliana, “Sorry, Lil.”
“Mmhmm.”
“Give me the newspaper,” Joe muttered while holding out a hand, waiting.
He answered that with a shake of the newspaper, taunting his brother. “Talk to me first. I’ve got plans.”
“You always have some kind of fuc—”
Joe’s gaze cut to the side where Liliana watched them from behind the kitchen island like she was daring one of them to start up with their usual nonsense. Cory was being good; Scout’s fucking honor and all that shit. It was just Joe who seemed to forget where he was. Liliana’s new thing about correcting bad language in her house—although she’d never liked them swearing in the kitchen to begin with—made her seem more like Joe and Cory’s mother than she already did.
And that said something. Considering their mother’s name was Lily and all.
Cory had learned it was better to not point those things out to his brother. Despite what people liked to think and say about him, he wasn’t dumb. Foolish at times because often, that’s when he had the most fun. Not stupid, though. He didn’t like to wake up with aching bones, so he kept his mouth shut to his brother about how he’d basically married a woman who was a lot like their mother.
See?
Smart.
“You always have a plan, Cory. The problem is you rarely follow said plans because apparently why bother and then you cause a bunch of shi--problems.” Joe let out a hard sigh with his gaze blazing when Cory laughed at his almost slip-up again. “Knock it off—Damian barely slept last night. He’s teething. I’m tired.”
“That’s a little early, yeah?”
Joe’s brow crinkled. “What?”
“Isn’t he young for teeth?”
“Apparently not,” Liliana answered for her husband.
Cory hadn’t taken his gaze off his brother. He decided to scale back his usual personality just a touch or two. At least for the moment. Sometimes, Joe was owed a break from his younger brother’s constant torment, regardless of how much personal enjoyment Cory gained from it.
Screw it, he thought.
Forget the new property he wanted to buy with his brother to add to their portfolio. They could get back to the legal side of their business on another day. Besides, they weren’t even supposed to be opening anything new for a while. He’d promised their mother to give Joe a break on any new real estate or other business ventures until they settled in with the new baby. It made sense, but this particular business that was up for sale had been too good to pass up. Except he would. He wanted to do something else for his brother instead. Joe could use some fun.
Right?
“You need a break,” he said to Joe, switching tactics and topics in his next breath. Now he had a better idea, and the follow-through to get it done would probably be a lot easier. “Let’s go to High Life tonight.”
“We opened that club months ago, and it’s still packed full every night.”
“Good business, right?” Cory pointed at his temple. “Told you that one would be a banger.”
And he was right, like with most of their business ventures.
“So, come and enjoy the place with me tonight,” Cory said. “You didn’t even open it with me.”
“My son was three days old.” Joe scoffed. “Are you serious? I’ve got a newborn here, man. I’m not going to party all night while my wife chills with a teething baby.”
“That would be a dick move.”
Something their father, also named Damian, would have his sons’ balls for. He liked to tell the brothers that good men were made at home serving their wives and not in the streets with people who often forgot their morals for the sake of business. For a simple reason, too. Another man might not trust someone based on the things they knew from the streets, but the way a man treated his wife—publicly and privately—would always say a lot about his character.
It was a poignant statement. Considering his father was one of the three highest seated men in the Chicago mob—the Outfit—it really said something coming from him.
Cory kept it in mind. Not that he had a wife to remember it for. He also wasn’t currently looking for one. Besides, one married Rossi brother was enough.
“Except you could use a break,” Liliana spoke up, “and all he really wants is me at night, anyway, Joe. Why not go out and get away from … everything?”
He pointed in his brother’s wife’s direction, saying, “See. What was it you told me last week? The Outfit is running you dead, man.”
Joe said nothing, but he didn’t have to when the two faced one another at the table. Nothing he told his brother was a lie. The Outfit had both men by the throats when it came to work. That happened when one looked to move up in the mob, and they came from a family like theirs.
They never said as much, sure. It wasn’t like they ever spoke about their intentions with the mob. Everything was always unsaid, but just understood. He blamed that on the fact this was all they ever knew.
Their uncles? In the mob. One, a boss. The other, sitting next to their father so that the two could act as the right and left hand of the man running the whole criminal organization.
Where else were they going but in? They didn’t need to say it.
His brother was already in. Joe just wanted … a seat at the table, now. Cory, on the other hand, kept busy with his Uncle Theo and the man’s arms and substance dealing he had going on in the city and elsewhere. All he ever did was work now, too.
Damn, he hadn’t even gotten a new tattoo to add to his collection of full sleeves, a throat and chest piece, and an almost finished back piece, too. That was unheard of for him—every six to eight weeks of healing, and Cory was back in for another round in an artist’s chair. His lack of new ink spoke to how busy he’d constantly been.
Joe was no better. Hadn’t they earned a break?
Cory gave Joe a grin. “So, are we going out tonight like old time’s sake, or …?”
“You know I’d feel better if I just got to have a damn nap, right?” Joe asked back.
That time, Liliana didn’t correct his language. She did laugh, though.
“I mean, yeah,” Cory returned, shrugging under his leather jacket, “but what’s the fun of being twenty-five—”
“You’re twenty-five.”
“Twenty-six,” Cory corrected, cursing himself internally because no doubt, Joe was onto his scheme.
“Really, you just want to go out tonight, but you want me to come with you, right?” Joe asked. “That’s what this whole thing was about, wasn’t it?”
Well …
Cory looked Liliana’s way for help.
She always did.
It’s why he liked her the most. Next to his brother marrying her and all.
“He does need a break, doesn’t he?” Cory asked. “You said it first, Lil.”
“He does.”
He went back to his brother. “The wife spoke. I’m really just trying to follow her wishes.” His brother still said nothing. “Come on, Joe, all I do is work … that’s all you ever do anymore, too. Take a night.”
Joe shook his head. “You’re something, man. I hope you know that.”
He did.
All too well.
•••
“Rossi!”
The holler from the other side of the club’s VIP section had Cory raising a hand in reply. He didn’t know who had called his last name, or if they were even calling for him. The place was mob-owned considering it was the brothers’ name on the paperwork, so really, it could have gone either way.
Lowering his hand from the air to bring the cup to his lips, Cory downed what remained of his tequila in one swallow. It burned all the way down, but he found satisfaction in that all the same. He was certainly fucking feeling the alcohol, too.
Then again, he was six drinks in.
And he’d mixed some.
Joe’s dark laughter had Cory’s attention moving away from the oncoming server. The chick would do her job—in this club, when a Rossi’s cup was empty, it needed to be filled before they had the chance to pick it up again and ask someone to do it.
“You were right,” Joe said at Cory’s left.
“On what?”
He usually was.
No one liked it when he pointed it out.
“The DJ—he was the right pick for the place.”
Cory nodded, his booted foot tapping out a beat to the shined cement floor—High Life sported a whole industrial look that he really preferred, though only a few of their mutual businesses went down that design route. In the VIP booth, the two had a view of the entire club laid out before them. Like this, they stayed clear of the dancing and drinking crowd filling the floor in front of the DJ with his booth and lights and the bar that never stopped moving.
“I seriously thought you just wanted him because he smoked a blunt with you when you were supposed to be doing his interview,” Joe said in a chuckle.
“I mean, that was part of the reason.”
Why lie?
That never got Cory anywhere.
Tipping his head to the side while the sounds around Cory blurred like his vision, his last drink had started to take hold. He eyed his older brother. In years, there wasn’t that much of a gap between them. It was the changes in their lives that separated him from Joe more than he wanted to admit sometimes. Things like marriage, babies, and adulthood. Just in general.
He didn’t blame or fault his brother for the differences between them now, but he still liked to close the space and remind himself they were still those fucking Rossi brothers. As everyone in their life liked to call them when they were younger and crazier.
“Hey,” Cory said, the taste of tequila still heavy on his tongue.
“Yeah?”
Joe glanced his way.
Cory flashed his teeth in a grin. “You out?”
That’s all he needed to ask.
His brother would understand.
“Would you hate me if I said yes?” Joe returned with a lazy smirk.
“Nah, I figured once I got a few drinks into you, then you’d be ready to head home.”
“Oh?”
A shrug lifted his shoulders. “Is what it is, bro.”
That was it, and that was all.
Joe didn’t have the same priorities as Cory at the end of every day now, and he got that. He didn’t need his brother to tell him to know that Joe’s mind hadn’t been very far from his wife and newborn son from the moment they walked into their club for a good time.
Besides …
“I got you out to blow the fucking stink off you,” Cory said, straightening up in the booth and eyeing the dancing crowd for something—or someone—interesting. He’d know what it was when he found it. “I’ll count that as a win.”
On another night, when Joe was less drunk and tired, he probably would have had a smart ass, cutting comment for Cory in reply. Instead, he just shook his head and smiled like he knew the truth.
“You know, if all you really want is to spend some time with me, you just gotta say, Cory.”
Yeah, well …
“I told Liliana,” Cory said simply. “She came up with a better plan.”
Because usually, he’d just cause some shit to get his brother’s attention. It always worked before. He was trying a new thing—one that didn’t end up with someone in trouble, mostly him and Joe, or worse.
He figured that was good.
Mature.
Whatever.
“Let Max know at the door,” Cory said, “because I already had someone ready to drive you home when you were ready to go. He’s probably got the car close by the entrance.”
Joe sighed. “And what are you doing for the rest of your night?”
Cory’s gaze finally stopped in its search of the dancing swell of people when he found a brunette with a shimmering, black club dress tossing back a round of shots right off the tray of a server. In towering heels that showed off all kinds of smooth, tanned legs in that short dress, the woman spun around to join another female waiting. The fast movement made the blonde and red highlights in her long, wavy brown hair catch the lights overhead. The women started dancing again. Now that he had found her in the crowd, he couldn’t seem to look away.
Not that he minded.
She was quite a sight.
Every inch of her—from the curves of her hips to the glowing sheen on the valley of her breasts where that dress dipped dangerously low, and even the red on her lips—screamed fuckable. He tried not to objectify women upon first sight. It wasn’t a particularly admirable trait in a man, after all.
The brunette made it easy, though.
Damn.
She’d tossed back five shots one after the other. Not a flinch in sight. That meant one of two things to Cory.
The brunette was looking to forget something, or she wanted one hell of a night. Either way, he could provide both of those things. That was, if she was interested. He simply needed to make his way over to her and find out.
But first, Joe.
“Well?” Joe asked. “Do you need me to make sure you get home, too? Or are you not done here?”
Cory was already standing from the booth. “Not even close to done, bro.”
The only thing he could guarantee was that he’d make it home to take his dog, Mace, out for a piss, because the animal depended on him. The pup was the only thing that ever gave him a real sense of responsibility. He would be drunk when he got home, likely, but he always had a mob enforcer waiting in the wings to do the driving when needed.
And that was it. Everything else was up in the air. He liked it that way.
“Talk to Max—it was my deal with Liliana,” Cory told his brother as he passed by him in the booth to exit. “You’re not driving home.”
“Yeah, I got it. I don’t know what caught your attention out there on the floor, but you know the fucking rules, yeah?”
Joe called that at his retreating back.
Cory just laughed.
He was way too drunk to be picking up a brunette in his club to fuck, if he were being honest. The way the room looked as he walked away—a little too fuzzy, maybe—told him that.
What did it matter?
Fun was still fun.
“The rule, Cory!”
“Yeah, yeah.” He waved a hand high over his shoulder, and his fingers made the peace sign that quickly turned into just his middle finger standing up. “I know the rule—don’t be stupid.”
Sometimes, that was when he had the most fun.
He just knew better than to say it.
•••
The brunette had a name.
Cory just couldn’t remember it.
He blamed his lack of memory on the fact that the second he got close enough to actually catch her attention, the girl was like a fucking spider web. Beautiful face. Intoxicating laugh. Sex appeal in every move she made. He got a dance from her. Made her laugh and smile and it all pulled him in closer to her. More shots were involved.
Then, she kissed him.
The second he realized those stained-red lips of hers tasted like sugar and Henny … Cory was done for. At some point between her round, pert ass grinding into his cock through his slacks on the dance floor and a kiss that had his lungs aching for more in the darkened hallway leading to the employee’s private bathrooms, she’d told him her name.
Now, after he’d gotten her somewhere relatively private, had her sitting on a counter with her tight dress bunched around her hips while he buried his face between her thighs, he was trying to remember what it was.
Her name, that was.
Mel?
Lana?
Fucking hell.
Cory hadn’t needed those extra shots.
Not that it mattered at the moment—his drunkenness made no difference to the fact that the brunette’s legs shook as they tightened to his head while her demands came out high and broken and perfect.
“Don’t fucking stop … don’t stop,” she breathed.
She rocked against him, needy. He loved them like that. So messy.
It was the only time he let himself love a woman, really. He often fell in and out of lust more often than he cared to admit, but sex wasn’t quite the same. Nothing got him off more than making a chick lose her control while he ate her out like it was the last thing he was ever going to taste.
On his tongue, she was hotter and tart as all her sounds echoed in the empty bathroom. Her manicured nails pulled tighter in his hair when he stuffed two fingers into her pussy. Those strappy stiletto heels of hers scratched against the fabric of his silk button down.
And then she was shaking.
Begging.
“There, there … there, fuck, yes.”
Her pussy, a slick paradise.
Cory had most certainly found heaven.
At least for the night.
All at once, as he looked up and a wild gaze—the color of his favorite dark chocolate—met his sky-blue stare. He couldn’t really smudge the stain on her lips like he’d wanted, but he’d kissed her hard enough in the hallway outside the bathroom that she looked like he’d fucked her before he even got the chance to actually do so. Every breath she dragged in had her tits rising and falling heavily.
He grinned.
She licked her lips.
“I forgot your name,” he admitted.
She shrugged her shoulders, the straps of her dress tangled down her arms, but she didn’t seem to care at all. “I didn’t even bother to ask for yours.”
Fair enough.
A buzz echoed to their left.
She didn’t look away from him, but his gaze darted to the side where her purse laid in a heap on the corner of the counter. Her phone had done that a lot since they left the club’s dance floor. She ignored every call or text—acted like it didn’t even exist.
“Someone looking for you?” he asked.
The lines of her face changed to something more sensual when she laughed. Beautiful wasn’t a good enough word to describe how feminine her features were. From soft, plush lips to cheekbones that would undoubtedly look best in the glossy spread of a magazine, she really was something. The fact he had the taste of her pussy on his mouth currently made his opinion of her a lot greater, too.
“He can keep looking,” she said.
Oh.
Well, shit. Who was he to step in this woman’s way of getting back at—or maybe moving on from—some other man in her life? Hell, he might as well help however he could.
Wasn’t that the gentlemanly thing to do?
“That’s what this is?” Cory asked, tipping his chin up when he let out a dark chuckle that had her shivering under his hands that flexed at her inner thighs. “You’re out looking for a rebound, pretty girl?”
“Just a fuck, actually,” she countered. “Make it worth about a year of my wasted time, would you?”
That time, it was Cory’s turn to laugh when he straightened to his full height to tower over where she sat trembling on the counter. The bathroom smelled like liquor and sex. Like a damn good night. One well spent.
Her legs widened when he grabbed her waist.
“Well?” she asked.
He liked that there was still a hint of a woman who could probably grab him by the balls and make it hurt if she really wanted to when she stared at him. At the same time, she was all sweetness and sex and sin under his grip.
Her breath hitched when he yanked her down to her feet. Those heels on her feet clicked against the floor. His lip curved upward to flash his teeth when he smirked, a wink only adding to the arrogance of his next words.
“Oh yeah, I can definitely do that.”
He still couldn’t remember her name, but it proved insignificant when he bent her over the counter and fucked her. He was sure she would have a line of bruises on her thighs from the edge of the counter and how hard he grabbed and pulled at her body.
Yet, she took all nine inches of him, and then asked for more. Purred when he pulled her hair and came harder when he wrapped his fingers around her throat.
So, shit.
He hadn’t remembered her name.
No big deal.
Besides, he’d learned not to sweat the small things.
How important was a name, really?
*
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