Broken Promises

She got on one knee and undid his laces. One shoe came neatly undone, shortly followed by its counterpart. His feet was also soon stripped of socks. She reached forwards and undid the clasp of his trousers.

"What're you doing?"

"I know it has been a while since your wife died, but you surely remember this part."

She pulled apart both ends of his clasp and watched as his zipper slowly travelled to the bottom of its groove. She held one of his pant legs and pulled it off his leg. Same for the other, before one final tug had his pants on the floor. He lay before her in only his underwear as her eyes roamed over his body. The years had been kind to him, in no small part due to his time in the rushing around the kitchen. There was a soft fuzz of hair covering his chest culminating in a pleasantly rough stubble across his cheeks and under his chin. A thin golden pendant went around his neck, ending in a small crucifix currently askew on his chest.

Tatiana turned around and gently tapped the zipper at the back of her neck.

"Care to do the honours?"

With some effort, Roy stood up and held the top of her dress and pulled the zipper down her back.

"Holy crap!"

"I had a feeling you'd say that," chuckled Tatiana. "That scary looking guy back there is why I can never wear a backless dress."

Roy studied the face contorted into a look of fury, driving a long sword through a beast at the base of her spine. The dress fell away and pooled in a blue satin puddle around her feet. She stepped out of it and turned around. Roy's eyes were immediately arrested by the lithe form with musculature under the surface. Her breasts were moderate, topped by a dark nipple each and there was a small depiction of an ourobouros near her waist.

"Who did you have to kill to get this one?"

"No one. I was young and stupid once, after all. You know that better than most."

Roy sat on the bed and watched as Tatiana stood in front of him in nothing more than her thong. The only light in the room was the table lamp which cast half her body into shadow. She leaned back against the wall and cocked her neck back alluringly.

"I need this, Roy. Don't you bail on me now."

His wide eyes saw her hand disappear into the waistband of her thong. The fabric bulged against her index and middle fingers as she plunged them in and out of herself. Her eyes remained riveted to Roy's as her fingers increased their speed and depth.

Using her other hand, she ripped the flimsy garment off, revealing her lush shaven opening. She walked towards the seated form on the bed, two fingers still disappearing and revealing themselves alternately.

She ran her fingers through his thick hair before pushing downwards. Obediently, he dropped to his knees as she raised one foot onto the bed. Her pink lower lips were parted and already wet.

"Well? Do you need an invitation?"

She pulled Roy by the hair between her legs and he got to work. His tongue initially struggled against the unfamiliar contours and crevices before him, but kept working earnestly. He did all he remembered from a long time ago. He thrust his tongue into her and out rapidly and moved it to each side. Every new and unexpected movement from his tongue sent a jolt of pleasure all the way through her body which she expressed as an appreciative moan.

"Oh, right there!"

Getting a better handle on his task, Roy held her thigh with one hand to steady her and let two fingers of his other hand go where his tongue was currently running riot.

She clenched her fist in his hair and pulled him even tighter into her pussy. The combination of his tongue and fingers had her at the edge of delirium and back. Again and again. He looked up, seeing her tattoo glisten with a sheen of sweat.

Before he could return his attentions to her now drenched core, Tatiana grabbed him by the hair and raised him until they were eye level.

"Lie down."

He obeyed, wanting to rest his sore upper body. He could make out the numbing haze of her spray was interrupted by her wet lips making an impression at the root of his sternum. Followed by another wet kiss on his pecs. Her lips were everywhere all at once. His chest and stomach were covered with gentle kisses. The occasional use of her teeth elicited a short cry, but he consciously held himself as still as possible and let her lips mark their territory.

Roy looked down to see the tip of her grazing the innermost point of his left clavicle. She licked down to his nipple in a single unbroken motion. All throughout, her arresting blue gaze never left his.

The tongue went further down his body. Tracing a lazy arc to his belly-button where she flicked her tongue in and out, cajoling a low moan of pleasure from his mouth. Tatiana grinned at his reaction, her tongue probing in and around the area.

One of her hands found his rapidly hardening cock and grasped it at the base. She raised her head to look at it closely. It was average in all respects, decently long and thick enough for her to wrap her fingers around. She flattened it against his stomach to see the maze of veins along the underside. It pulsed and throbbed in her hand like an entity unto itself.

Tatiana gently held the cock upright before she brought her lips down to it and kissed the tip. The sudden contact made Roy jerk with pleasure. She grinned and resumed eye contact with him, gradually slipping more of the now turgid member past her lips. Soon, the entirety of his head was in her mouth and her tongue was all over it. She jabbed at the sensitive flesh with the pointedness of her tongue before running her rough layer of taste buds over the sensitive underside.

Her efforts spurred Roy to moan louder. Soon she was able to take all of his cock in her mouth. Her lips formed a seal around the base as his head pressed against the back of her throat. She bobbed up and down, her decadent gaze transfixed on the appreciative eyes at the top of the bed. One of her hands snaked around his thigh for purchase as she took the cock all the way to her throat before easing off until almost the entire crown was dangling outside her lips.

Her mouth formed an O as she slowly took Roy's cock past her lips until her lips were once again at the base. Instead of drawing back like other times, she kept her pose. Finally, when she was on the verge of running out of air, her lips drew back.

"Now this is the real Saviano menu."

Tatiana quickly clambered up his body until her soaking pussy was adjacent to his cock. She guided him inside her and settled down, feeling the hard length stretch out her velvety walls. Her face was close to his. Too close. It was almost as if Roy could drown in the twin shimmering blue pools looming over him. Her eyeshadow and mascara were intact, glinting against the dim light.

She held his hands on either side of his head as her hips began moving. Slowly at first. Her pussy clamped down on him, squeezing him with her flesh. Gradually, she pumped her hips harder on Roy. Each downstroke plunged him inside her as deep as humanly possible before she raised her hips to slam them down again.

"Oh yeah! Don't fucking stop."

Roy raised his head to kiss her before grabbing her by the shoulders and turning her over so she was underneath him. His sudden initiative took her by surprise and she laughed as she stared up at his weathered face.

He kissed her once more, passion dripping through every movement of his tongue inside her mouth. He raised his back to allow his hips maximum leverage and fucked her in an unmercifully hard rhythm. It was as if all the tenderness he reserved for her sister or the second thoughts he had about her were cast to the wind and replaced by the desperate burning need to smash into her pelvic bone like a jackhammer.

Tatiana groaned in a low guttural voice. Her entire body shook with the force behind the thrusts as she could feel a long dormant feeling take root in her stomach. She reached around his back and dug her nails into the skin. He did not even wince or slow down as she felt a slight trickle of blood but kept pounding her unrelentingly.

He was no longer a man, but a beast and all the repressed urges of three years flowed out of him and made him fuck Tatiana.

"Fuck me, lyubov moya!! Don't fucking stop."

Roy was in no apparent danger of stopping. His hips rolled and gyrated into hers as he felt his climax approach. A sweet oblivion drew closer and closer until he could stand it any longer. He could not hold back as the tidal wave of pleasure swept over him and he emptied rope of rope of cum deep inside the woman who had killed two people (that he knew of).

Even as he slowed down and felt the fuzzy details of the room come back into focus, Tatiana looked up at him, sweat plastered all over her face. The nails cutting into his back had been replaced by the tender ministrations of her fingertips tracing out long, lazy ellipses from the nape of his neck to the base of his spine.

"If you tell me this was a one time thing," she panted. "I will shoot you right now."

* *

The dark of the room was intermittently disturbed by the headlight of a passing car. Tatiana and Roy lay side by side, staring at the ceiling in sweaty, breathless amazement.

"It's been a while," she said, propping herself up on one elbow. "Contrary to what I've been told, it is easier to ride a bike again."

"Been a while for me too. Over three years."

She sat up in bed and reached for her purse on the bedside table and took out a Newport Light and lit it. She took a deep drag before holding it out to Roy. He took the end between his lips and sucked deeply.

"What happens now?"

Roy verbalized the unsaid question hanging silently over them. She looked deep in thought while she took another long drag from her cigarette.

"I don't know," she finally admitted. "There is no playbook for our situation. These are uncharted waters for us."

She handed the cig to Roy who took a pull as she caressed his cheek. Her palm ran over the sandpaper-like texture of the stubble and she smiled.

"People in my line of work don't get to have love stories. I signed away my ticket to white picket fences and family events a long time ago."

"We'll find a way."

Tatiana looked at Roy, unable to discern if it was a statement or a question.

"As long as you don't try to make an honest woman out of me and I don't try to make a criminal out of you, we will. The one thing we can agree on is that we love Joe and Donna and would put them first."

"Absolutely," he affirmed. "We'll tell them too, once we've figured it out for ourselves. When the time is right."

She held him by the chin and kissed him. The smell of nicotine and whiskey swirled between their lips as they devolved into a torrid kiss. Each tongue fought the other for dominance in a frenzied battle.

"I should probably turn in now," he said. "Have to get the kids ready for school tomorrow."

"I'll slip out now, while the kids are still asleep," she said.

A final kiss and he dove back under the covers. Tatiana looked at his sleeping form for a few more moments before getting up. As she bent down to pick up her discarded dress, she saw a picture on the mantelpiece.

Quietly, she reached out and brought it to her face.

"I see why you married him," she chuckled.

One of her hands gently caressed the glass surface of the picture frame while she took in the face smiling back at her.

"I know this was not what you wanted. If it makes you feel any better, I honestly believe Roy would not have come to me if there was any other way out. Don't hold it against him."

The smiling face did not respond.

"I promise you, Sofia, the children will never want for anything ever again," she said. "I'll take care of them... of all of them. Even him."

She pointed at the form now curled under the covers.

"He's a bit rough around the edges and a bit judgemental, but he's everything you talked about. He loves you very much and misses you every day."

In a sudden upwelling of emotion, Tatiana lifted the picture frame to her face and planted a single kiss. When she drew back, she could see the trail of single crack in her mascara reflected off the glass and small spot of wetness.

"I miss you too, sestrenka. Every moment of every day."

* *

EPILOGUE

The alarm clock broke into its usual annoying routine. Roy Saviano was already awake and staring out of the window. He remembered being here before, a lifetime ago. It was at this very spot that he had made a fateful decision and nothing had been the same since then because of it.

The chiming broke him out of his reverie. There was breakfast to prepare and children to dress for school against their will. He stood up, feeling a slight twinge at the side of his ribs. He lifted his shirt to see a bruise where it hurt.

He made his way to the kitchen to see Donna filling a glass of water for herself.

"You're up early."

"I was thirsty," she said.

"Go wake your brother and brush your teeth."

"Dad," she said with some trepidation. "There's been something I've been meaning to say."

"Go on," Roy said, setting a cup of coffee to brew.

"I know how you don't want Aunt Tatiana to hang out with us all the time. I want you to know it's okay with me and I will tell Joe too."

He looked up from his cup, stunned at the words coming out of her mouth. She stood with her glass in hand, all of ten years old and yet her tone was steady.

"I know you think she's a bad person and I don't know why. I believe you, Dad. If you don't want us to hang out with her, we won't."

"What're you saying, Donna?"

"What I'm saying is..." she started, piecing the rest together in her tender mind. "I love you, Daddy. I love you much more than her big houses and pianos. I'll stop playing soccer. I'll never see her again. I'll do anything you want, but I don't want to see you sad because you have to hang out with her because of us."

Fat droplets of tears formed at the corners of her eyes. Roy immediately wiped them away and enveloped her in a deep hug. That a ten year old could be this perceptive was beyond his comprehension.

In that moment, with his arms wrapped around his daughter, Roy learned an important truth.

It was no longer about him or a promise he made Sofia. It was about them. It was all about them. It was about them living a life he could never give them. Sandwiched between a time when they were babies and a time when they would be teenagers who were going to drive him crazy, were these precious moments when he was their superhero... and superheroes could not let them down.

He could never have what Tatiana had. Not the money, the penthouse, the flashy cars. All he had were two beautiful kids and anything he could do to see them smile was enough. It was small, but it was his dream.

For at the end of the day, Roy Saviano was a small man, and small men should never have big dreams.

* *