20. Portia #2
The soprano on stage flaunts the strength of her voice, hitting notes that are impressive and sorrowful all at once. Though I can’t follow every lyric, I recognize the levity in the way her body bends with the crescendo, in the tightening grip of the conductor’s hand.
I glance uncertainly at Il Diavolo out of the corner of my eye and murmur quietly enough not to disturb anyone else nearby.
“I don’t really understand what’s happening.”
He inclines his head toward me. “She’s leaving him. Not because she wants to, but because she believes it will protect his family’s name. She thinks if she sacrifices herself, he’ll be free.”
I watch him closely, studying the angles of his jaw, half hidden behind the devil’s mask he’s wearing. I recognize him even with the mask disguising his face.
It’s the face of the man I’ve fallen in love with; the same man who broke my heart months ago but not for the reasons I initially thought.
He was trying to protect me from himself.
Yet the man sitting beside me now isn’t the same. He’s the devil. My captor, currently so engrossed by an opera that he’s leaning forward in his seat as if concerned he’ll blink and miss a crucial moment.
“She’s in love with him,” he adds of the female character, Violetta. “She will sacrifice everything.”
He doesn’t sound like a captor speaking to his captive. It’s a confusing blurring of the lines that leaves me once again questioning what’s happening.
Not only does the man have the face of Rafael, but at times he conjures feelings inside me that he shouldn’t…
I turn back to the stage, watching as Violetta steps further away from the man reaching for her. The music swells with sorrow as she denies him, doing what she believes is best.
We sit close enough I can feel his body heat. Our arms graze each other on the arm rest of our seats. I shift to move away, but then his pinky finger crooks mine, if only briefly. Possibly the smallest, most fleeting gesture imaginable, yet it draws a fast thump of my heart anyway.
I drop my hand into my lap and keep my gaze set on the stage for the rest of the show, cheeks flushed hot.
This man next to me is not Rafael.
He’s not Rafael. He’s not Rafael.
I repeat this in my head over and over and over again.
He looks like him. Sometimes he sounds like him. There are many other similarities at times, but in no way, shape, or form is he the man I had fallen in love with.
He’s not the man I was in a relationship with.
When the final curtain falls and the audience erupts into applause, Il Diavolo rises without a word.
He offers his arm as if it’s simply expected, and I take it because we’re in a crowded theater.
The world rushes back in—applause, laughter, the rustle of expensive fabrics as the theater begins to stir with life once more.
His security team surrounds us as we make our way toward the exit.
It’s my first real time in public in weeks. I should feel more overstimulated than I do, suddenly surrounded by dozens of strangers and loud noises.
But instead, I feel strangely shielded, like nothing could reach me while I’m with him. It’s how I used to feel whenever I was with Rafael…
And that is what frightens me more than anything else.
Because I know who this man is. I know what he’s done. I know how many times he’s made me cry, scream, break. Yet here I am, walking beside him with sapphires around my throat and a twisted sense of fondness developing deep inside that I can’t seem to eradicate.
What is wrong with me if I’m developing feelings for my captor?
If I’m having feelings for the same man who is keeping the man I love away from me?
“Hello, dolcezza.”
I turn toward the voice, my breath catching. Rafael stands near the windows, wearing one of his signature designer suits that fits him to perfection. His dark hair is styled, his jaw framed by stubble that’s grown in since the last time he’s shaved.
His eyes gleam meeting mine.
“Have you missed me?”
“Rafael?” I take an uncertain step toward him.
“I’m back,” he says. He reaches out to cup my face in his hands. “No masks, no games, no cruelty. Just the two of us together.”
His lips capture mine, kissing me with the kind of intense affection I’ve longed for. The kind I’ve missed since our breakup.
My hands find the lapels of his jacket, holding on as he deepens the kiss like he can’t help himself.
“I wish it could always be like this,” I murmur against his lips. "I wish we could always be together.”
“But you don't want soft, do you, dolcezza?”
I’m pulled away from Rafael into the arms of another.
My eyes open to find Il Diavolo in front of me. He’s taken me from Rafael, pulling me close like I’m his possession.
“Diavolo,” I mutter. My hands come up to his chest to push him away.
“You want fire. You want darkness. You crave it, dolcezza.”
His eyes darken as they bore into mine. I start to shake my head to the side, but he drags my mouth to his in a hard kiss.
“Remember how you took my cock?” he growls. “Remember how you begged for more?”
“No…” I mutter.
“Yes, dolcezza. You came on my cock just like I knew you would.”
“She belongs to only one man, and that’s me. The cock she came on? It was mine .”
I’m wrenched from Il Diavolo as Rafael takes me back. He slides a hand up the side of my throat and leans forward to press kisses to the delicate column of skin.
His natural passion takes over, an instant reminder how often he gave me the best orgasms of my life.
My eyes flutter close and I moan at his warm lips on me.
But Il Diavolo refuses to be outdone. He grips me by the hips, his hands soon mapping out the curves of my body.
“Correction. She was yours. Just like this body was yours. But now,” he says, fondling my breasts through the thin fabric of my dress. “Now I’ve taken it all for myself and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Wait…” I puff out.
Both men are too lost to giving me pleasure.
As Rafael kisses my neck, Il Diavolo tugs down my dress straps and exposes me. I gasp as he fills his palms with my bare breasts and tweaks each dark nipple between his fingers.
…what is happening right now!?
I can’t even begin to process it as both men inflict pleasure on me all at once.
The rest of my dress is discarded as the men’s hunger for me escalates. A deep shudder racks through me as Rafael hoists me up and slides his cock inside my pussy.
My mouth drops open from how full he makes me.
Some distant part of me knows this is so sudden, so wrong when Il Diavolo is here.
Instead of backing off, the man in the devil mask comes up behind me.
Rafael holds me in his arms, sliding me up and down his dick. I cling to his shoulders, body vibrating from pleasure.
“Look at how you fall apart,” Il Diavolo rumbles. He presses a kiss to my shoulder. “You melt so easily for him. Just like you melted for me.”
I have no clue what the hell’s going on.
Rafael grunts and fucks me harder, bouncing me up and down in his arms. I answer both men with a throaty moan.
My head is spinning, my thoughts so hazy and scattered that I can’t make sense of what’s happening.
“So perfect, dolcezza,” Rafael says.
“Yes, so responsive,” Il Diavolo agrees from behind. His firm hands stroke my back, his touch slow and erotic. “She’s ours.”
I should be horrified by this—by wanting both of them—but the pleasure is the only thing that matters.
I’m already so close to coming…
“Let us make you ours,” Il Diavolo says.
I wrap my arms tighter around Rafael’s broad shoulders as I feel Il Diavolo behind me. He’s stroking himself, getting ready to share me between them…
I’m pulled from sleep by hands on my shoulders, shaking me awake.
My eyes flutter open to darkness. A shrouded figure stands over me, devil horns vaguely distinguishable among his silhouette.
It takes me a second longer to realize it’s Il Diavolo. Then another moment to grasp the urgency with which he’s gripping my shoulders. The tension his presence brings.
“You’re coming with me,” he says, voice clipped. He leaves no room to argue.
“What…?” I croak. “What’s going on?”
“Get up. Now.”
I push myself upright, the sheet falling from my chest as my body catches up with my mind.
I’m in my nightgown and scarf, though it doesn’t feel like enough around him. I might as well be naked.
“Wait… what are you talking about? Where are we going?”
He steps back from the bed. “We’re leaving.”
I swing my legs over the edge of the mattress, feet hitting the cool floor as I stand. “Leaving? Leaving where?”
“Sicily.”
My stomach drops. “What? Leaving Sicily and then what? Where will we go?”
“Where else? Newport,” he snaps irritably. “Hurry up and get dressed.”
“I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“You don’t need to understand, dolcezza. This is urgent. There’s been an incident.”
I pause midstep on my way to the closet, half turning for a look at him. “Can’t you just tell me what this is about?”
“It’s the Tucos. They’ve finally retaliated.”