Chapter 26
Contessa
Well, this is weird.
I’m standing in a circular room, furnished with two small, curved sofas and one long, low glass table. It looks luxurious and exclusive but… there’s no one here.
I sigh out a long breath. As much as I wanted to escape the day I’ve had, the thought of being with other people and making small talk, even with Paige, makes me so tired.
I need time to process what happened earlier—the dancing, the completely out of character compliment I got from Antonio and the surreal moment I shared with Bernadi. And, of course, the rejection.
I walk into the room and look around. It feels as snug as it appears.
Velvet drapes line every wall but it sounds as though the far wall isn’t a wall at all.
I walk towards it and pull back one of the drapes.
Immediately, the dance floor below appears.
This room is on the first floor looking down on everyone in the club below.
There isn’t a corner of the club that’s concealed from this balcony.
It’s the perfect place to spy on every patron.
Something feels off. Do all clubs have a voyeuristic control tower like this one? I doubt it.
My skin prickles as though someone’s watching me and I let the curtain slowly fall, closing off the view. I turn around, about to walk over to one of the sofas when a figure in the center of the small room makes me freeze. I would scream but my breath is caught at the base of my throat.
The angle of the light makes it impossible to pick up facial features but I don’t need them to know who’s standing in front of me. His silhouette is, annoyingly, etched on my brain.
Benito Bernadi.
It doesn’t make any sense. He can’t be here because of the message I sent him. I sent it less than six minutes ago, and it surely couldn’t have been obvious from the photo where I am.
I can’t restrain the contempt in my tone. “What are you doing here?”
He steps forward and the lights illuminate his scowl, along with the moody cut of his jaw and too-beautiful hooded eyes. “I should be asking you the same thing.”
“I’m here with a friend. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“Where you go and who you’re with is all of my business.”
Anger singes my skin. “Do you know what? I don’t want you anywhere near me, Bernadi. I don’t care what Cristiano says. I am not your responsibility and I don’t need to be chaperoned wherever I go.”
“I don’t care what you think.”
I force out a laugh. “If you don’t care, why are you here?”
“That photo you sent me… What did you expect would happen? You think I’m just gonna let that go?”
I jerk backward with a frown. “Let it go?”
“Like it or not Contessa, I’m responsible for your safety. I cannot let you be somewhere—anywhere—dressed like this, without someone looking out for you.”
“But this isn’t next to nothing. I’m wearing actual clothes and quite a few of them too, as a matter of fact.”
“That dress is too…”
I’m so sick and tired of him telling me what to do, and the rejection still burns. I stamp my foot in frustration. “Too what? Too blue? Too pretty? Too flattering?”
He stares at me like he can’t find the words.
“Come on, Bernadi, what exactly is it? What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
His jaw is clenched and I see his fingers flexing by his side.
“Come on,” I goad, spitefully. “What’s wrong with it?”
He explodes. “It’s too fucking hot, Contessa,” he shouts. “And no one gets to see you looking like that but me.”
I gasp and stagger backward. “What?”
“You heard me.”
My brain scrambles to make sense of his words. “But… this is just a game to you.”
He chuckles, darkly. Takes a step toward me. I take one back. “This is no game, Contessa.”
I wonder how far the drop is from the balcony to the dancefloor below because I’m certain the only safe way out from under his predatory stare is to jump.
“I’m tired of your behavior Contessa. You need to be taught a lesson.”
“What do you mean ‘my behavior’? What lesson? I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“You think? Where do I start? How about dressing like fucking catnip for every man in the city? How about wandering around a nightclub filled to the brim with firearms, on your own?”
I swallow.
“How about taking a photograph of yourself giving the bird dressed like that and sending it to me? And if all that wasn’t enough, you don’t even question why someone might want to see you in a VIP room, you just follow a stranger into an elevator?
Contessa, you’re about to become a part of the Di Santo family and you are a fucking liability.
You need to learn a few things, and fast.”
“So, you’re going to ‘punish’ me?” I hook my fingers into quote marks.
He steps right up to me, flooding my senses with the scent of his aftershave.
His face is like thunder but his caress on the side of my face is soft.
“Yes, brat.”
His neck bends, bringing his face down, closing in on me. Everything goes dark as if he personally controls the lighting in this room.
I grip my purse defensively but still feel an unbridled urge to confront him. “Tell me, how did you get here so quickly? I only sent that message ten minutes ago. You were here within five.”
“I was in the basement having a business meeting.”
I blink. My instincts were right, this place is riddled with mafia.
“And it’s my club.”
A shiver coasts across my shoulders. “You own a club?”
His mouth ticks up. “I own several. This one’s the best.”
“The other ones must be pretty poor.”
My sarcasm earns me a painful tug on my hair, and it’s only then I realize he’s grabbed a handful of it with one hand while now holding both my hands behind my back with his other. My purse has fallen to the floor.
“I was going to go easy on you, Castellano, but you just sealed your fate.”
I frown, not having a clue what he’s talking about and my head spinning from having him stand so close.
His face is still lowered over mine. It’s despairingly beautiful. Without thinking, I rise up to my tiptoes and press my lips to his. At first, he’s like stone—solid and unyielding. I breathe against his mouth, willing it to open. I want to taste the bitterness on the edge of his tongue.
It happens slowly. His lips part and the tip of his tongue ventures forward on a moan. He gently sucks my bottom lip between his teeth.
Then he bites it.
I yelp and try to pull back but he’s holding me so tightly I can’t move.
“What did I say about putting your mouth on me, Contessa?” I can hardly make out the words because he growls them, like an animal.
The room starts to spin as his words fly at me. I won’t ever stop, and that’s a promise.
A frightening sense of foreboding creeps beneath my skin and his gaze devours the terror in my face.
The room stills as if awaiting his next move.
“There’s one thing you need to know about me, brat,” he says, his voice deep and otherworldly. “I don’t break promises.”
His mouth slams down on me so hard I can’t breathe. The force bends me backward and only his firm grip of my hands keep me from collapsing. He plunders my mouth, swiping his tongue across my mine with relentless force. His pelvis grinds against me, shocking me to my core.
“I warned you,” he snarls, and suddenly he’s carrying me across the room, his mouth melded to mine.
I’m lowered to something hard and cold and his body presses down on me so I can’t move.
His kiss alone is punishing, giving me no room to breathe.
He kisses me like he’s been starved of oxygen and I’m his last breath.
It’s disorienting and the force of it is tearing me apart.
When he releases the pressure on my ribs and stands, I still can’t move and it takes my brain a few seconds to realize I’m trapped.
Somehow, while kissing the absolute life out of me, he’s managed to tie my wrists and ankles to the legs of a long glass coffee table.
No wonder he’s so lethal in his line of work—nothing and no one can get past him.
“What are you doing?” My voice trembles.
His gaze rolls slowly from my wild eyes, down my body to my strapped feet, and a smile dances across his mouth. Then just as quickly, his brow falls into shadow and the smile is wiped away with an inked knuckle.
“You need to learn a lesson, brat.”
I blink up at him, confused.
“I want you to feel the way I feel every single fucking day. How I’ve felt since I saw you at Gianni’s funeral.”
“What do you mean?” My voice trembles.
His chest concaves and he suddenly slams his fists into the table, bringing his face close to mine. “Fucking needy.”
My chest thumps with the echo of a frantically beating heart. He strokes an inked finger down my forehead, making my skin burn. “I need to know what’s going on in here.”
He slides his finger down my throat to my collarbone and then between my breasts. “I need to know what you feel in here.”
His finger trails a line of fire down my stomach over the satin dress and rests on the spot between my thighs. “I need to taste this.”
I inhale sharply, but the sudden throbbing between my legs takes that breath away.
“You already did,” I whisper.
He glares at me, his bronze eyes now black. Then he grunts. “It wasn’t fucking enough.”
He straightens to his full, intimidating height, then walks around to my feet and bends at the knees.
I lift my head off the table so I can see him.
His gaze holds mine and his voice drops low. “Was it enough for you?”
My entire body heats and I give a small shake of my head.
“What would be enough?”
His question makes me shiver. I haven’t dared ask it of myself but now I’m confronted with it, the answer makes me feel weak and vulnerable. So I don’t reply.
He places his large hands either side of me on the coffee table and lifts himself a fraction. “Would my mouth on yours be enough?”
I hesitate. My answer should be yes. That should be enough. But I know with haunting clarity it isn’t. I shake my head slowly.
He straightens his legs and hovers over my thighs. “Would my mouth on your pussy be enough?”