Chapter 26
CARMELA
W ednesday comes around again, and still I haven’t seen Christian.
I should be going out, but I don’t feel like doing anything. I need to snap out of this, but I’m caught in the backlash of my own making.
My sister calls me as I’m getting ready. Usually I would open a video, but today I don’t want to take that risk while I have no makeup on.
“How are you doing?” she asks.
“Good. Will you be at home when I come over today?”
“No,” she says, “and you are such a liar. The only time you say you’re good is when you’re feeling really low.”
Silence.
“Put the video on, Carmela.”
“I can’t.”
“Did he hit you again?”
More silence.
Don’t fucking cry.
“I swear, I’m going to stab the man in the dick.
I’ve started self-defense classes in the evenings, by the way.
They’re very popular… which might be down to the instructor being so hot.
Mateo.” Her voice takes on a dreamy note as she stretches out the word.
“He used to be a navy SEAL, or so Grace says. She’s also in the class…
half of my friends are, and their moms. Just as soon as I’m proficient, I’m going to kick Ettore’s ass. ”
I can just imagine this class full of horny teenagers… and their moms. I laugh. It feels good. I hear her snicker on the other side of the line.
“Jessica, please don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re never going to be mission ready to take out a don.”
“Fine then. My acting is on point. I’ll make Mateo fall for me, and he can kill Ettore for us…
scratch that, it won’t be acting. He’s got golden retriever vibes.
His face turned crimson when Grace’s mom felt him up when he was showing her a move.
Her acting is terrible. None of us fell for her I-can’t-do this-move bullshit… Hey, maybe you could come along?”
As if Ettore would ever approve that… My next breath is heavy.
“Don’t cry, big sis. I’ll stay home, be here when you arrive. I’m ahead on all my studies. We’re mostly into wrap-up stuff now, anyway.”
“No, please don’t. You break up in a couple of weeks. We can do something together, then.”
“Fine then,” she says. “It’s a date.”
There was a time when I wanted to protect her from the ugly side of life. When did our rolls change? When did she start being my rock? I only know that she is. “I love you, Jess.”
“I love you too, Carmela. Next time you see Christian, tell him he’s a shit bodyguard and a pig, and I’m going to practice my dick crushing moves on him.”
She hangs up.
A laugh bubbles up.
Please don’t ever change, baby sis.
Just speaking to her makes me feel better.
But it fades and then I feel twice as sad.
When I enter the kitchen, Brigida is busy with early prep work for tonight’s dinner. She slides a coffee across the table in front of me without a word and goes back to her work.
When the kitchen door opens, I don’t even bother looking up. Brigida’s sudden stillness is what tips me off that something is wrong.
The door shuts with a soft thud.
My exhale is sharp. A lump in my throat prevents words. I wouldn’t know what to say if I could speak.
He smirks. “You seem surprised, babe?”
Babe, right here in front of Brigida… As for being surprised, I definitely am.
That I would ever see him again.
That the fading marks on his face tell a story.
I don’t know a damn thing about myself other than I wanted to punish him for following my husband’s orders.
And yes, I wanted to punish him for touching me and those crass words about me being aroused.
I wanted to punish him because I hate my life, and I needed someone to pay.
I don’t recognize myself and this creature I have turned into.
Is this me reaching breaking point?
Brigida mumbles something and flees the kitchen. The door rattles into the jamb in her wake.
Christian saunters over. His footsteps make a light tap against the tiled floor. “Ready to go?”
I stare blankly at my half-drunk coffee, my thoughts scattered, my heart beating like a drum.
He’s right beside me. Sometimes, I hate how much larger he is than me and his obvious strength, and sometimes, it offers a warped form of comfort. Today, it produces jitters under my skin.
“Yes,” I mumble, pushing the chair back.
He doesn’t make enough space for me, forcing me to brush past him.
“You smell good,” he says, lips intimately close to my ear.
My shiver is entirely involuntary. His low, husky chuckle tells me he noticed.
He finally steps back. “After you, babe.”
“Don’t call me that,” I hiss, making the mistake of meeting his eyes.
This close, there can be no delusions about what has happened to him, nor can I pass this off. His face is littered with fading bruises; one eye is a shade of yellow-purple. He looks a mess.
Like someone beat him.
I can only imagine the parts of him that I cannot see.
Just an occupational hazard? Or is this my doing?
Those eyes I can’t tear my gaze from give me the answer. My words made this happen as surely as if I had landed the blows myself.
I want to cry, to beg forgiveness, to say I’m fucking sorry.
He smirks, and then the mocking humor in his eyes is wiped out like the flipping of a switch. “After you, Mrs. Gallo.”
Damn him for always knowing my weak spots and using them to effect.
“What? Don’t like that one either? That’s a shame, being as it’s your name, Mrs. Gallo.”
How could I miss him when he’s such an asshole to me.
I turn away, heading out the kitchen door that leads into the hallway.
“You smell aroused.”
A hot, languid pulse kicks off low in my womb knowing he’s looking at me.
I wish it wouldn’t.
I wish I loved my husband, that I enjoyed his hands on me and his cock inside me.
The truth?
I think about Christian whenever Ettore touches me.
Or Dante.
Only that’s another minefield.
It’s not healthy. I hate Christian ninety percent of the time—I hate Dante more—but they do provide an excellent source of escapism material.
Thinking about them is better than the alternative.
If I actually acknowledged what was happening when my husband was inside me, I’d do something really stupid.
The ride passes in silence.
He’s normally chatty. Sometimes he even makes me laugh, and I surmise this is him punishing me.
I deserve it and more.
We stop at the florist, my mother’s grave, and arrive at my father’s brownstone, and still he hasn’t spoken a word.
Unlike Peter, who remained outside last week, Christian follows me in.
“Your father is in the drawing room,” Nina says, smiling. “I’ll bring the tea directly up.”
“Thank you, Nina.” I take the stairs.
“Nina, looking good today,” Christian says, following her into the kitchen, his cheerful voice fading away. “Did you get something done to your hair?”
Double asshole.
My sister is not at home. It has been a while since I last saw her, and I miss her. My conversation with my father is all very superficial—no mention of what he said last time about this not being forever.
Today, I need something.
I don’t get it, and I say goodbye to my father feeling the melancholy calling me.
How much longer can I keep doing this?
Voices are emanating from the kitchen when I head down to collect my coat. When I push the door open, they’re leaning their backs against the counter, side by side, laughing over something he’s showing her on his cell phone.
Nina’s smile is gone in a flash.
Christian lets his linger, although his eyes are on me, almost as if he is taunting me with the easy warmth he shows to someone else. “Could you give us a few, Nina?”
“Yes, of course.” She slips out of the room without a backward glance.
His smile drops. The silence is oppressive. We’re alone. My father is upstairs, and my sister might return at any moment. None of that will matter to Christian.
He wants to punish me. To make me pay. God help me, but I want him to.
He pushes off slowly, stalking me down. I don’t even move, nor try to evade him as he takes me by the throat and pushes me up against the wall.
He pins me there, trapped between the solid surface and the hard planes of his body that are radiating an unnatural amount of heat. He’s twice my size, a wall of masculine power neatly contained under an immaculate suit.
“Look at me,” he commands.
And I do, although my mind is screaming at me not to.
His fingers tighten on my throat. It is not enough to cut off the airflow, but certainly sufficient to provide a warning. “Bitch on me again, princess, and better hope he kills me.”
His voice is cold, gruff, and utterly devoid of his usual humor.
I hate this version of him.
I hate that he is only this way for me.
My lips part to say something, anything, that might shake us free of this stifling impasse, but the moment I do, his lips crash over mine.
I moan into his mouth, reveling in the sensation as he pins me more securely against the wall. My fingers entwine with his hair. He growls and hoists me up into his arms, pivots, and drops my ass on the nearby counter, already yanking up the hem of my dress.
His rough fingers find the seam of my panties as we devour one another. The taste of blood—his blood—on my tongue only ramps up my arousal. A single finger slips past the silken barrier of my panties and thrusts into me.
He wrenches his lips from mine and nips my earlobe. “Dripping.” He adds a second finger, pumping roughly. “Did you get off on knowing what would happen to me? What a perfect little slut you are for violence, Mrs. Gallo.”
“Don’t call me that,” I hiss.
“No?” He takes his fingers away. A tearing sound follows as he destroys my panties. I sob with need and impatience as he fumbles between us to loosen his belt. “What then? You don’t like babe. Maybe I’ll call you what you are, my little cum slut.”
He wraps my legs around his waist and fills me in a single thrust. His palm closing over my mouth, smothers my scream. His other hand palms my ass roughly, holding me still as he pounds into me.
Damn that piercing. I feel the passage of it stroking me intimately like it was designed by the devil himself to deliver me into sin.
“I hate you,” he purrs, fucking me rough and fast. “Hate everything about this perfect temptation of a body. Hate your cold, beautiful face. Hate the bitch words that spill from your lips. You cost me my brother, and I will never forgive you for that.”
I’m on fire. My pussy quakes under the passage of his thick cock, the nerves lining my channel fluttering on the brink.
“Did you lay in your bed, dreaming about them putting a beating on me while your husband watched?”
I shake my head frantically.
“I don’t believe you, bitch. Not when your pussy is gushing and gripping my dick. Accept what you are. Accept that this perfect, filthy fuck hole is all mine.”
He fists my hair, peeling my upper body from his, dragging me backward until I drop against the kitchen counter. Then his palm is back over my mouth, his finger and thumb pinching my nose closed.
I can’t breathe. My fingers claw at his hand, trying to peel it away.
He leans right down, still fucking me with rough, angry strokes, getting his lips up against my ear.
“I’d bleed for you,” he snarls like he despises the admission.
“Willingly, all day, every day. Is that what you want to hear? That with every blow, I imagined how I would seek retribution on your hot cunt.”
My world is turning gray, but I’m so close, and I don’t care if I die like this, not when I feel my most alive, not when I welcome every pounding stroke of his beautiful cock like it might offer me deliverance.
I break for him.
For my future lost.
So lonely whenever he is not near.
My last connection to a shattered dream.
My last connection to Dante, the man I should have married.
“Come, Carmela. Right fucking now.”
I do. Coming apart, splintering, squeezing in sweet rhythmic waves over his hard, unyielding flesh.
With a harsh low grunt, he stills, releasing his hold on my mouth, allowing me to suck sweet air into my lungs as his hot cum fills my pussy.
The sound of my breathing is harsh. My eyes are watering—my makeup will be ruined.
My clothing is askew.
He pulls out slow and exaggerated, making sure I feel every inch of his cock as it is taken away, along with his dripping cum.
I’m shaking, witless, as he releases me, leaving me panting on the kitchen counter.
What the hell is wrong with me… with us?
He steps back, grinning as his eyes lower to my pussy and, without any apparent urgency, he puts himself away.
“That was stupid,” I say, snapping out of the daze and fumbling to shove my dress down as I sit up. The counter is high, and I’m short. No sooner do I acknowledge the dilemma than he lifts me down.
“Take your damn hands off me!”
I bat his hand away. He chuckles.
I lost one shoe and wobble as the seemingly simple task of slipping my foot into it eludes me.
It finally goes in.
His cum is trickling down my inner thighs.
I need a shower, to change, to redo my damn makeup.
He steps up to me, trapping me against the counter and cups my chin, tipping it up, stilling the mania gripping me. His eyes lock on my cheek, his thumb brushing over the faint, barely-there bruise.
He wasn’t the only one who paid for my uncensored words.
“Trust the process, Dante said,” he murmurs. “So much easier said than done… One day, I’m going to open the fucker’s chest with a blunt spoon and rip out his beating heart.” His eyes lift to meet mine. “No one leaves marks on your perfect flesh but me.”
I’m lost in the post-climax daze, but later, I’ll be going over those words.
He turns in profile, releasing me from the spell, and smirks as he casually straightens the cuffs on his jacket.
Taking my elbow, he draws me away from the counter toward the door.
“Clean yourself up, babe.” He winks. “I doubt your husband has ever seen your face when you’ve just come.
Don’t want to clue him into what he’s missing out on, now do we? ”
I clean myself up.
Somehow, I go home and eat another stoic dinner with my husband. But I lay awake late into the night. The best I can offer myself is that I survived another day.