Chapter 9 #2
I leaned back in my seat as the salesgirl unhooked the belt and slowly slid the dress off Lucia, leaving her standing in panties, a pair of boyshorts like the ones she’d packed to Italy. That seemed so long ago now.
I abandoned looking at Lucia’s eyes as I studied her nearly naked body, each time seeming like the first. Narrow shoulders; small, high, round breasts with nipples that tightened beneath my gaze; a flat belly; and long, slender, muscular legs.
She was beautiful. Perfect. And my cock twitched in appreciation.
I had her, she was mine. But I wanted her to want it. To want me.
I swallowed as she raised her arms for the girl to slide a short black dress over her head. This one hung loose to the low waist and had long sleeves with slits all the way through.
“Best part,” the girl said, turning Lucia so she had her back to me. The back was cut out to the hips, accenting the silhouette of her figure seductively.
I nodded. “I want to see that one.” I pointed to another, and the girl quietly obeyed, undressing Lucia and dressing her again. Turning her this way and that, all while my cock grew harder, Lucia’s submission turning me on as much as having her naked did.
Once she’d gone through the rest of the dresses, the girl left us.
“What are we doing?” Lucia asked as she stood before me in just her panties and those sandals, her hands over her breasts, the spell broken.
“We’re shopping. Don’t cover your breasts.”
For a moment, she resisted, her eyes questioning. But then, she obeyed and dropped her arms to her sides.
“Turn around.”
She did, presenting me with her ass still clad in lace. I stood. She glanced over her shoulder but then faced the wall again.
“Hands up on the wall.” I stood close enough to make sure she felt my breath on her shoulder, the heat of my body pulsing against hers.
Leaning down, I inhaled the clean scent of her hair, watched her nipples harden and goose bumps rise along the flesh of her arms. “I like looking at you, Lucia.” I pressed my erection against her hip. “You don’t know how badly I want you.”
She swallowed as I ran the knuckles of one hand along her hip, then slid two fingers along the edge of her panties.
“I like these.” With both hands now, I traced the outline of lace on the soft swell of her ass.
I then dragged them upward, exposing more of her cheeks as I set the material in the split between them, then tugged upward.
Lucia gasped.
“I like your ass.” I wrapped one hand around to pinch her nipple.
“I like your breasts.” I slid it down over her belly and into her panties to cup the wet mound of her sex.
“And I like your pussy.” I rubbed her clit as she leaned against me, softening, a small moan escaping her lips.
Wrapping my free hand around her neck, I drew her against me, still playing with the slick folds of her sex as I ground my cock against her back.
“I want to bury my cock inside your pussy, Lucia. I want to bend you over here and fuck you so hard, everyone in this damn place knows it. Knows you’re getting fucked. Knows you’re mine.”
She stiffened at my words, resisting, but her body jerked as she neared orgasm.
“Stop.” Her voice was weak. A half-hearted plea.
“Give it to me.”
“I…”
I pinched her clit, and she fisted her hands, leaning her forehead into the wall.
“Please. Don’t. Not here.”
“Come.”
She shook her head but stayed as she was, not attempting to free herself, to drag my hand from her pussy.
“Come.”
“No… Fuck.”
Her knees buckled, but I kept her pressed against me, this time gripping a handful of hair and tugging her head backward. “Come, and I’ll release you.”
“I…said…no.”
“Stubborn.” I turned her to face me, kissed her, and worked her clit hard between thumb and forefinger. Her mouth opened to mine, and her arms wrapped around my neck, pushing and pulling, so close to orgasm yet resisting with all she had.
She broke away. “I…won’t.”
But I took her mouth again, and this time, I slid the hand that held her hair down into her panties, parting her ass cheeks, pressing my finger there, rubbing her tight little asshole until her knees gave way, and she cried out, gripping my neck, burying her face in my chest to stifle her moans as she came, her pussy soaking my fingers, my hand, her weight fully supported by me as her body gave out.
She sighed, her breathing short, her eyes wet and dark when she turned them up to me.
I wrapped my arms around her, smiling, victorious.
“I hate you,” she murmured, closing her eyes when I claimed her mouth for the kiss I took, triumphant again.
“I’m not hungry.”
“But you are stubborn,” I said to Lucia, leaning in closer. “You’re eating. Choose something, or I’ll choose for you.”
She glared but acquiesced. “Fine. I’ll have the mushroom ravioli.”
“Ravioli it is,” the waiter said, giving me a look and taking our menus.
Once the clothes had been paid for, Lucia had dressed in the black backless dress, and we’d headed to a small Italian restaurant for dinner.
“I can’t show my face at Nordstrom again. You know that, right?”
“No one saw your face,” I said, winking, as I picked up a piece of bread and dipped it into a bowl of olive oil.
“You make me so mad!”
I chewed on the bread. “They have the best olive oil. You know, it’s made from their own olives from their groves in Tuscany.”
She took a piece of bread and violently dipped it before biting off a chunk, then sat back and gave me a look. “Did you wash your hands?”
I laughed so hard I nearly choked, and the patrons at the tables around us turned to stare. “I like the way you taste,” I said, reaching under the table and sliding one hand up the inside of her thigh.
“You’re terrible!” She caught my hand and shoved it away.
“That’s not what you were saying in the dressing room.”
The waiter brought over the bottle of wine I’d ordered. Lucia dropped her gaze to her lap, her cheeks flaming red.
He popped the cork and poured. “It’s fine,” I said after tasting it. He filled Lucia’s glass first, then mine. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” I said to her after the waiter left and we picked up our glasses.
“I just had a very loud orgasm in the fitting room at Nordstrom.”
I smiled and shrugged a shoulder. I knew this resistance was in part due to her anxiety over my father’s birthday party. “You’re probably not the first,” I teased, then gave her a wink and decided now was a good time to change the subject. “Your niece is cute.”
She studied me, slowly sipping from her glass. “She is.”
“You’re close with your sister?”
“I was. Before…everything.”
“What do you think of her moving into your father’s house?”
“I’m glad she’s moving in there. I don’t know if I’m ready to sell it. And I’m glad she’s staying nearby.”
“Why didn’t you see each other while you were at school? You could have. Nothing was forbidden.”
She shrugged a shoulder. “You mean like when Marco was standing over us when she came to visit me at the house?”
I gave her my most patient smile. “You didn’t want to.”
“You don’t know me or my family.”
“I’m trying to get to know you. Just because you haven’t been in touch with them doesn’t mean you can’t start again. They’re your family.”
“What about your brother? Are you close?”
“With Dominic?” She nodded. “No. Dominic is…not good.”
“But you were close with Sergio?”
“Yes. Very.”
Neither of us spoke until the waiter interrupted with our dishes. Once he left, Lucia looked at me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t talk to my father before he died. I should have told him I forgave him.”
“Do you? Forgive him, I mean?”
She shrugged a shoulder. “I think he was backed into a corner. And you’re wrong, he wasn’t just saving himself. He gave me up to save all of them. You…your father had murdered—”
“I’m getting bored of this conversation. It was a war. Both sides lost many lives. You and I both know that.”
She sighed and pushed ravioli around her plate.
“But you’re right. Your father was backed into a corner.”
“Thanks for that.”
I nodded as I stuffed a forkful of salmon into my mouth. We ate in silence for a few minutes. Every time I looked at her, she’d have her eyes on her plate.
“Your sister isn’t married?” I knew she wasn’t and suspected what the man I’d assigned to follow her would come back with.
“No.”
“If I may ask, who is Effie’s father?”
She picked up a ravioli and turned her gaze fully to mine. “You’re welcome to ask. You’d just have to ask her.” Her mouth spread into a victorious grin.
“Touché.”
“Salvatore,” she started a moment later. “This party,” she put her fork down and wiped her mouth, shaking her head. “I don’t know if I can. He hates me, and I feel the same toward him. I don’t even know why you’re nice to me.”
I reached across the table to touch her hand. “I’m not him, Lucia.”
She looked at my hand covering hers. It was so much bigger than hers. It swallowed her up. It was almost a physical manifestation of my power over her: I could make her disappear.
“Look.” I turned her hand around and traced the lines of her palm with my thumb. “We don’t have a choice. We will go to that party. There’s no if about it, not even for me. You and me…it could be worse. He could have kept you himself or given you to my brother. You don’t want that.”
I knew she understood by the way her face changed a little, becoming more hesitant, but her expression told me she trusted me, at least more so than any member of my family. It was a start.
“I’m not saying you have to be grateful for any of it, but neither of us have a choice.
We just need to go, to get through it. Just do as I say, don’t make waves.
We’ll eat dinner; I’ll be beside you the whole time.
Keep under the radar, and don’t give him any reason to have to prove anything.
He will not miss another opportunity, Lucia. ”
“So do as you say. We’re back to that again.”
She rolled her eyes, but it was all an act underneath which, she was afraid. “Look at me.”
She did, reluctantly.
“I can only keep you safe from him if you do as I say.”
“I’ll try.”
“Are you finished?”
Lucia nodded. She’d eaten half her plate, which was good enough.
“Then let’s go.” I tossed some bills onto the table and stood. “I want to give you a closer look at those things you found in my bedroom.”