The Wake Invitation

The air in the funeral home smelled of lilies and stale coffee. Chiara Benedetti stood near her husband's casket with her spine straight and her face arranged into the acceptable mask of grief. She had worn it for six weeks now, ever since Gusto's car had been found wrapped around a highway pillar with his throat cut ear to ear.

Her black dress was modest. Her mother's pearls sat at her throat. She accepted handshakes and murmured condolences with practiced grace while inside she counted the seconds until she could peel off the stockings and pour herself a glass of something brown.

"What a terrible loss." Aunt Renata squeezed her hand yet again. "He was too young. It doesn't make any sense."

Chiara murmured something appropriate. She had become an expert at appropriate. At nodding in the right places. At letting her eyes well up on command. The performance of widowhood was exhausting, but it was also armor. As long as she played the part, no one looked too closely at what lived beneath the black lace.

Then the front door opened and the temperature in the room dropped.

She knew him before she saw him. The whispers stopped first. Then the older men straightened their jackets. A sudden stillness fell over the room like a held breath.

Niccolo Pavone walked through the doorway and Chiara's chest went tight.

He was taller than she remembered. Broader. The black suit fit him like a second skin, and his dark hair was swept back from a face that looked carved from stone and regret. His eyes found hers across the room and held. They were brown so deep they looked black, and they did not blink.

She had seen him before. Three times, maybe four. Always at a distance. Always watching. Gusto had called him a snake and a predator and a dozen other names that Chiara had absorbed without question because that was what wives did. They believed their husbands.

But she had never forgotten the weight of those dark eyes on her skin.

Niccolo moved through the crowd like a blade through water. People parted. Hands were extended and ignored. His gaze never left her face.

He stopped in front of her and the space between them was suddenly too small and too vast all at once.

"Mrs. Benedetti." His voice was low. Rough at the edges. It scraped against something inside her that she had thought was dead.

"Mr. Pavone." She kept her chin up. "I don't recall sending you an invitation."

Something flickered in his eyes. Amusement maybe. Or approval. "I don't wait for invitations."

He reached out and took her hand. His grip was warm and deliberate, and he held her fingers a beat too long before lifting them to his lips. The kiss was a whisper of contact that burned like a brand.

Around them, the room buzzed with renewed whispers. Chiara could feel the weight of a hundred stares. Aunt Renata had gone rigid at her side.

Niccolo released her hand and stepped closer. His hand found her waist. His palm settled against the curve of her hip with a possessiveness that made her breath catch.

"What are you doing?" she hissed.

"Paying my respects." His thumb traced a slow circle against the fabric of her dress. "And making my intentions clear."

She should have stepped back. Should have slapped his hand away and called for someone to remove him. That was what a proper widow would do. That was what the mask demanded.

But her body did not move. Her body stood frozen under his touch, and somewhere deep in her gut, something hot and shameful unfurled.

Niccolo leaned in. His mouth brushed her ear. "You answer to me now, Chiara. Your husband left a hole in this city, and I'm filling it. That includes you."

She pulled back. Her eyes were wide and her heart was hammering and she hated him for making her feel this. Hated him for walking into her husband's wake and touching her like he owned her. Hated him more for the fact that some part of her wanted to be owned.

"You've got no claim on me." The words came out steady. She was proud of that.

Niccolo smiled. It was not a kind smile. "We'll see."

He turned to face the room. His hand stayed on her waist, anchoring her to his side. "Mrs. Benedetti is under my protection now." His voice carried. It filled the space. "Anyone with business to discuss will come through me. Anyone with threats to make will answer to me. She's mine to guard. Mine to keep."

The silence that followed was absolute. Chiara could hear her own blood in her ears.

Aunt Renata stepped forward. "Niccolo, this is highly inappropriate. The woman is grieving."

"She's alone." Niccolo's voice softened, but only barely. "And in this city, a woman alone doesn't stay safe for long. I'm offering protection."

"You're offering a cage," Chiara said.

He looked at her. Really looked. His eyes traced her face like he was memorizing it. "All cages have keys, Chiara. But you have to want to use them."

He released her waist. Stepped back. Gave her a nod that was almost respectful. "I'll come by tomorrow to discuss the details. We've got a lot to arrange."

He walked out the same way he had walked in. The room stayed silent until the door clicked shut behind him, and then the whispers exploded like a shaken hive.

Chiara did not hear them. She was still standing where he had left her, one hand pressed to her stomach, feeling the ghost of his palm against her hip. Her skin burned where he had touched her. Her lips tingled where he had not kissed them.

The next hour was a blur. More condolences. More whispers. Aunt Renata hovered and fussed and asked pointed questions that Chiara deflected with practiced ease. By the time the last guest left and the funeral home staff began clearing glasses, she was vibrating with a fury she could barely contain.

She stepped outside into the cool Boston night. The street was empty. The streetlights cast yellow pools on the wet pavement.

And Niccolo Pavone was leaning against a black car parked at the curb.

He straightened when he saw her. "I knew you'd come out eventually."

"Get away from me."

He did not move. "I need to know you understand what I said in there."

"I understand that you're a predator who saw an opportunity." She walked toward him because walking away would feel like surrender. "I understand my husband's dead and you think that makes me yours. But I'm not a territory. I'm not a prize. I'm a woman with a business and a house and a life that doesn't include you."

He watched her approach with that same unblinking intensity. "Are you finished?"

"No. I'm just getting started."

He moved before she could react. One hand wrapped around her waist, the other cupped her jaw, and then his mouth was on hers and the world stopped.

The kiss was not gentle. It was not a request. It was a statement, a brand, a declaration of war and hunger all tangled together. His lips were firm and demanding, and he tasted like whiskey and dark coffee and something sharp she could not name.

Her hands came up to push him away. They landed on his chest and the muscle there was hard and unyielding. She should push. She should shove him back and slap him and scream for help.

Instead her fingers curled into his lapels.

He made a sound low in his throat. Approval. Triumph. His hand slid from her jaw to the back of her neck, angling her head so he could deepen the kiss. His tongue traced her lower lip and she opened for him without thinking, without anything but the raw animal need that had been sleeping inside her for years.

His tongue swept into her mouth and she tasted surrender. She tasted want.

His grip on her waist tightened. He pulled her flush against him, and the full length of his body pressed against hers. She could feel the hard planes of his chest, the rigid line of his thighs, and something else, something thick and unmistakable pressing against her lower belly. The realization sent a jolt of heat straight between her legs.

His mouth left hers and traveled along her jaw. His teeth grazed the soft skin below her ear, and she gasped. His tongue soothed the spot, then bit again, harder, and her knees went weak. Her fingers tightened in his lapels until her knuckles ached.

"Tell me to stop," he murmured against her throat. His breath was hot on her skin. "Tell me to stop and I'll walk away."

She couldn't. The word sat on her tongue like a stone, and she could not push it out. His mouth was at the hollow of her neck now, his lips pulling at the sensitive skin there, and her head fell back on its own. Her body had stopped listening to her mind. Her body was answering to someone else entirely.

His hand slid from her waist to the small of her back, then lower. His palm cupped her ass through the black fabric and squeezed. The gesture was crude and possessive and it made something inside her clench. She pressed her hips forward without meaning to, grinding herself against the hard length of him, and the sound he made in response was barely human.

His other hand fisted in her hair and pulled. Her head snapped back and his mouth crashed onto hers again. This kiss was different. Hungrier. His teeth caught her lower lip and pulled. His tongue invaded her mouth and she met it with her own, tangling, fighting, tasting. She could feel her control unraveling. She could feel the careful architecture of her widowhood crumbling under the weight of his hands and his mouth and the relentless pressure of his body against hers.

He walked her backward. Her shoulders hit the cold brick of the building and she gasped at the shock of it against her heated skin. He pressed into her immediately, pinning her with his hips. His thigh pushed between her legs and the pressure there was unbearable. The ache that had been building since the funeral home was now a throbbing demand that pulsed with every heartbeat.

She bit his lip.

He pulled back. His eyes were dark and his mouth was wet and a bead of blood welled on his lower lip. He touched it with his thumb and looked at the red smear.

"That's not going to be enough to keep me away."

"I hate you." Her voice shook. "I hate you for coming here. I hate you for touching me like this. I hate you for making me feel anything at all."

He stepped closer. His chest brushed hers. "You don't hate me, Chiara. You hate wanting me. There's a difference."

He was right. God help her, he was right. She could feel the heat pooling low in her belly, could feel the ache in her lips where his mouth had pressed, could feel the way her body leaned toward him even as her mind screamed retreat.

"Leave me alone." The words came out broken. "Please. Just leave me alone."

Niccolo studied her for a long moment. Then he reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. The gesture was almost tender. Almost kind. It was worse than the kiss.

"I'll come by the bakery tomorrow. We'll talk about the protection arrangement." He stepped back and opened the car door. "Get some sleep, Chiara. You're going to need your strength."

He got in the car and drove away, and she stood on the sidewalk with the taste of him still on her tongue and the feel of his hands burning on her skin and the terrible, shameful knowledge that she was already counting the hours until tomorrow.

She walked home alone through the empty streets, and when she locked the door behind her, she pressed her fingers to her lips and felt the ghost of his kiss claiming her.

She was furious.

She was terrified.

And somewhere beneath the black dress and the widow's mask, something else stirred. Something that had been waiting for Niccolo Pavone to walk through a door and take what he had always wanted.

She just did not know yet if she had the courage to let him take all of her.