Chapter 30 #2
His fingers are in my hair, grasping the wet strands with the perfect amount of bite. I don’t even try to turn away as his lips slant over mine.
A moan rises from deep inside me as his tongue swipes past my parted lips. I’m going to hell. I wouldn’t even care if Ettore walked in now and put a bullet in my head.
Yesterday was a rollercoaster. The only glimmer of relief was Ettore not coming home. I couldn’t face the world today.
I’ve not been this low since my wedding day.
Then Christian just storms past my resistance. He’s the furthest thing from a white knight ever put on this earth, yet his hatred and his touch have saved me over and over again.
How can a kiss provide instant relief from a pounding head?
How can that look in his eyes make me forget my own name?
I don’t have answers. At this stage, I’ll take my revenge against life where I can.
He lifts his mouth from mine. His lips glisten, and his eyes are a little wild as he releases my hair. His hands slide down my throat to cup my breasts. He lowers his head again, closing his mouth over my right nipple… and sucks hard.
My fingers spear his hair. I’m making him all wet, but I couldn’t care less.
He twists my other nipple cruelly, and it tips liquid flames into my core. His mouth trails down over my belly.
I groan, hoping and praying he will put his mouth where I need it.
My mind is playing tricks, dancing between the image of Christian sinking to his knees and the memory of Dante doing the same, so very long ago now.
He drags my ass to the edge of the counter and plants his mouth on me, taking a long lick.
He moans.
I twitch as his tongue reaches my clit, and it’s almost too much.
He tightens his fingers around my thighs and pokes his tongue right up inside me like he’s trying to get more of my taste.
My cell rings—Ettore. He has his own special ringtone.
A shot of fear and near climactic pleasure slam into me all at once. My fingers tighten on Christian’s hair trying to pull him off.
“It’s Ettore,” I hiss.
His lips disengage. I whimper. My brain is nothing but mush. I cannot process anything beyond the throbbing in my neglected core.
He rises slowly. His hair is tousled from my gripping fingers, and his chin is wet. He swipes his fingertips over it, then sucks them into his mouth.
My damn cell is still ringing. I’m comatose.
“Better answer it then, babe.”
Answer it? Jesus, I need to answer it.
I fumble to pick it up, but my attention is diverted when he begins unbuckling his belt.
Why the hell is he unbuckling his belt?
My frantic eyes slam into his as I swipe my finger over the lock screen and lift my cell phone to my ear.
“Hello.”
“Why did you take so long to answer?” Ettore demands.
I swallow thickly as Christian slides his zipper slowly down.
He’s going to stop in a minute. This is him being a dick.
“I-I was in the shower. I had a headache and slept in late.”
He shoves his pants down. My eyes go wide. The rustle of the material sounds unbearably loud to me. Ettore is talking but I don’t hear a word. I’m still trying to revive my wits from their slumber when Christian’s cock bobs free.
I forget how to breathe.
The piercing. No wonder my damn eyes cross whenever he puts it inside me.
He steps right up to me. I shake my head frantically as he strokes his cock from root to tip once and lines up.
Ettore is still talking.
Christian’s head lifts and his eyes hold mine.
I shake my head and mouth, “Don’t!” My palm plants in the center of his chest and I shove, but I might as well be pushing a boulder up a hill.
He grins and pushes inside me in one glorious stroke that awakens sweet nerves the length of my channel and nearly tips me straight into freefall.
“Are you still there, Carmela?” Ettore asks, the first words I’ve understood in several minutes.
I can’t answer. I’m too busy biting my lip against the risk of moaning.
Christian slides out with agonizing slowness and pushes back in, his dark eyes locked with mine the whole time.
Fear and tension coil inside me.
I need to respond to Ettore, but words are beyond me. My breathing turns choppy. I’m going to come. I can’t stop it. It’s like trying to stave off sin with a fake prayer.
Christian takes the phone from me and tosses it into the sink where it lands with a clatter. His fingers sink into my hair, and his lips are on mine, kissing me deeply as he pumps into me, filling the emptiness.
I’m going to die. Ettore is probably ordering his men to storm the house. And I don’t care so long as I come first.
I drown in the kiss, lost but for the way his body moves against mine and the perfection that is him inside me, stroking me ever higher. His thumb slides over my clit, pressing against the sensitive bundle of nerves, and that’s all it takes to send me convulsing around him.
“That’s my perfect little cum slut,” he says, lips against my ear. “Take your medicine like a good girl.”
He groans and stills. I can feel his cock pulsing and his hot flood filling me inside as my pussy continues to flutter and quake.
Reality slices through the euphoria, sharp and unwelcome.
“Oh God!” I shove at his chest. My body shudders through another sharp wave of pleasure. What the hell is wrong with me? I’m about to die, and I feel like I’m coming all over again.
He doesn’t budge. Cupping my chin gently like I’m not on the brink of self-destruction. “Babe, he’d hung up on you.”
“He did?” I want to believe him. My heart is still pounding out of my chest, my pussy is locked so tight around him, I can feel the blood pulsing. “You didn’t think to mention it before?!” I slap him.
A red stain spreads across his cheek. Regrets swamp me. This isn’t me, lashing out.
He gathers my hand in his hand, lifts my stinging palm to his lips, and kisses the hurt away.
The adrenaline drop is brutal, leaving me weak all over and shaking. “I’m losing my mind.”
“Well, don’t lose it yet. Dante wants to see you.”
My pussy squeezes over his softening length still inside me.
He chuckles. “Guess that answers that. Put his necklace back on, yeah?”
Christian goes back downstairs, and I clean up and get dressed.
I put the necklace on.
No soldiers come for me.
In fact, everything is confusingly normal.
On the outside, at least.
Inside, I’m a quaking mess, barely able to string two coherent thoughts together. The once innocuous vanity in my bathroom will never be innocuous again.
Christian puts the radio on in the car for the drive over to pick up my sister, and doesn’t say a word.
My sister is there waiting the moment I open the door.
“Morning, Jessica,” Christian says cheerfully, heading down the hall to the kitchen, where he will have a drink and annoy Nina while waiting for me.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” I say, watching Christian disappear from sight behind the kitchen door.
“How can you stand it?” Jessica demands.
I sigh. “I can’t. Next question.”
Her face falls. “He’s a pig.”
I get a strong impression that she’s talking about Dante, not Ettore, and she also knows about the wedding. “He’s not a pig,” I say softly.
Her lips tremble, and her eyes pool with tears. “He was supposed to save you. Doesn’t he know that? Doesn’t he understand?” Her glare cuts in the direction Christian just went. “And his brother is no better.”
Her distress acts like an amplifier of my own.
I feel the sting at the back of my eyes.
The necklace presents a weight against my throat.
Over the last year, I have tossed it in the trash and taken it back out a dozen times or more.
“This is the real world, Jessica. It doesn’t play out the way we wish it to very often, at least not for the likes of me.
In this world, powerful men make all the rules, and the rest of us obey. ”
“Helena is going to be queen bitch now. You know she had a fling with someone in the Russian mob? That woman has more baggage than an airport carousel during summer vacation. Please tell me there isn’t going to be a big wedding we’re forced to attend?”
“No big wedding,” I say, too exhausted to even question the mob nugget she casually slipped into the conversation. “I went to lunch with her two days ago, at Ettore’s insistence. I had to suffer through her telling me how Dante was desperate to marry her quickly. Overcome with passion.”
Jessica makes a gagging motion.
I snort a laugh.
“What did Christian say about it?”
Her question wipes the smile off my face. She hasn’t said anything outright but has dropped the odd hints regarding Christian and me—that keeps secrets from the man who should be his boss.
“Nothing.” He fucked me on my bathroom vanity while my jealous, vengeful husband was speaking to me on my cell. As distraction techniques go, it was a winner . “But he said Dante wanted to speak to me.”
Her eyes widen. “You know he came here? Did Papa mention it to you?”
An almost electric jolt goes through me. “Dante visited? When? And no, Papa didn’t say anything to me about it.”
“Two days ago. It was probably while you were having lunch with bitch face. I knew something had happened when I spoke to Nina later in the day. When I questioned Papa about it, he said Dante had come to tell him about his wedding.” She rolls her eyes. “As if! I know they’re planning something.”
“They? Dante and my father?” My heart jumps a beat. My sister’s propensity for snooping will get her into trouble one day. “If you weren’t at home, how could you possibly know what they may or may not be planning?”
“I don’t know exactly.” Her eyes turn shifty.
“Papa had a private investigator working for him for a while. He kept some reports in his bureau. Pictures. It looked like they were from the accident… when Mama died. It didn’t make much sense, but I knew they were important.
After Dante came, Papa burned them. I found the corner of one of the pictures in the grate in the drawing room.
A fire at this time of year? I only looked because I was confused when I saw the ashes. ”
My eyes go toward the kitchen where Christian just went.
Can I do this to myself? Can I revive my hope and survive if it comes to nothing?
Maybe my father is going to apologize to me, tell me to move on, and that he is doing so.
“Put his necklace back on, yeah?”
“I guess I’ll have an answer soon.”
“Maybe you should ask Papa?” her eyes search mine. “Maybe he will tell you what he won’t tell me.”
“No, not unless he speaks about it first. But if what Christian said is true, and Dante wants to see me, then I will ask him… Now, let’s go out. I just want to forget this wedding.”