Chapter 14
KARINA
I’d put Marco’s number in my phone under a fake florist’s name.
No one would question me about that, and if they did, it would be easy to explain any texts about meeting up as being strictly wedding related.
They’d have no way of knowing that the alleged florist is the man I can’t stop thinking about.
Mercutio drove me to the track today and didn’t push back too hard when I told him I needed a few minutes and would catch up with him. After giving me a warning about discretion, he dropped me off at the private area for drivers and VIPs and told me to get to our box ASAP.
I didn’t even try to hide my excitement from him.
What’s the point? Merc already knows what I’m doing and who I’m doing it with, and although he certainly doesn’t approve, he seems resigned to feigning ignorance about it.
But even if he had tried to talk me out of it, I would have found another way to meet Marco anyway.
Nothing can keep me away. I’m in too deep.
The crowd is thick as I hurry to the area under the stands, looking for where row 15 would be above me.
Trying not to make it obvious, I glance around to see if anyone is watching me but honestly, there’s no way to really tell.
I’m not an expert in this covert stuff. If anyone does see me, I plan to say I’m just exploring a little before watching my fiancé race.
I’ll lay it on thick about Pietro and sing his praises as a racing god, and no one will suspect a thing.
You know, I’m beginning to realize that I can get away with a lot more than I thought, simply because people think I’m too good to be bad. My family certainly doesn’t think I’m capable of disobeying. I’m happy to keep it that way.
“Marco!” I call out.
He’s already waiting for me in the shadows, suited up in his racing leathers and taking my breath away with those blue eyes as they turn my way.
I run into his arms and he scoops me up, his mouth finding mine as he swings me off my feet.
He lets out a sigh of pure relief and I know exactly how he feels.
The weight of my world rolls right off me when I’m with him.
I can breathe easier. My heart can beat slower. I can relax and just be me.
“You’re here,” he murmurs. “Thank you. I know it’s a risk for you.”
“One I’m willing to take,” I tell him. “Always.”
Palming his cheek, I lift my chin and angle for another kiss. Something about the tone of his voice gives me the feeling he’s going to cut our meeting short. I don’t want it to end before it even starts. In fact, I want nothing more than for him to whisk me away from here, away from my real life.
“I wish we could go somewhere and just be together.” The words drop from my mouth in a desperate rush. It sounds pathetic and na?ve, I know, but it’s the truth.
Marco’s brow knits. He sweeps his thumb over my lower lip as his smile fades. “I do, too. And one day, my family responsibilities will be done with. Then I’ll be free of all this.”
“Really?” I ask. “No more winery?”
He nods. “No more winery. Like I told you, I don’t care about the fucking wine. It might be the family business, but it’s not mine. The vines are ruled by the soil, the weather, a viticulturist, and then the grapes need the input of winemakers, my family’s financial support…”
“But racing is all yours,” I say, giving him a squeeze. “I remember. It’s your magic.”
“Yeah. The one thing I have that’s just for me. That nobody else has a say in. I control the car, the speed, my pit crew, everything. I rely on myself alone. It’s…my freedom.”
His voice has that self-assured tone that it gets whenever he talks about racing. He’s not even behind the wheel yet, but I can tell he’s already in the zone just thinking about it.
I smile, but I know my sadness must show on my face as I say, “I understand. Freedom is magic. And it must feel incredible, knowing you’re the master of your own destiny.
I really get it. Well, I get the idea of it…
unfortunately, my family treats me like I’m just another cog in their business.
I’d give anything to be my own person, too. ”
“You are your own person, bella.”
He kisses me again and his hands wander lightly up and down my back underneath the soft linen of my shirt. It feels so good, I want to just lean into it and let myself go, but I can’t. Because I have to tell him about my engagement, and I need to smooth the way first.
Pulling back, I shake my head. “You’re wrong.
Nothing about my life is my own. Everything is done for me, all the choices made, all the rules set in place.
” I can’t keep the bitterness from my voice, but I need Marco to understand.
“My only purpose has ever been to do exactly what I’m told, and with a grateful smile. ” Like marry Pietro, I silently add.
“I grew up just the same,” he tells me in between soft kisses. “I know what you’re going through, how trapped you feel. But it doesn’t have to be like that forever.”
Though I feel the sincerity in Marco’s words, I have no doubt that the measure of being controlled in our lives is very different.
The scales aren’t anywhere close to being even.
I’m sure his childhood was difficult, of course, but he’s an adult now and he gets to be in charge.
And even if he did break his family’s rules, what would they do to him?
He’s a grown man, powerful in his own right.
Even more, he’s a Bellanti—and everything I’ve heard about them suggests they don’t go down easily.
Marco would fight to have control of his future, which is something I don’t have the luxury of doing.
Maybe that’s what his feelings are really about: control.
I want to press him further, talk to him more about the ability to choose one’s own path in life, but we don’t have time. The sound of engines grows louder in the air, mixed with cheering crowds. The clock is ticking. I wish I had a lifetime to get to know my Romeo, but I don’t.
All I have is right now.
Forcing a smile, I throw my arms around his neck. “You’ll have everything you want one day,” I whisper. “I just know it.”
He nuzzles my hair. “And what about you?”
I hold him tighter, but don’t say anything. My future is filled with monotony, obedience, and marriage to a man who doesn’t even like me. “Let’s not talk about me right now.”
“Then how about this?” His lips graze the side of my neck. “How about we live for right now? Right this second, and we won’t worry about anything beyond that.”
Nodding, I lean into him. The scent of his leather racing suit is rich with outside air and his cologne.
It’s soft as I run my hands over it, but I can feel the hardness of his chest beneath.
Toying with the zipper, I pull it down just enough to slide my fingers inside and splay them over his fireproof undershirt, feeling the curve of his pecs, his hot skin.
His heart beats fast and hard beneath my touch. Did his pulse just jump because of me?
Marco grips the hem of my white skirt and pulls it slowly up my right leg to my hip. Goosebumps erupt on my forearms, a hot tingle following his hand. His thumb traces the edge of my panties, teasing them up just slightly so he can whisk a finger along the sensitive crease of my inner thigh.
Now I’m the one reacting. My knees weaken at that small, soft touch.
His lips trace my neck, nibbling along my collarbone and behind my ear, making me shiver.
Tempering my breathing, I try to hold back a moan, but it slips out of me anyway.
His fingers move from the edge of my panties toward my center, lightly stroking me through my underwear.
“Mm. So wet already, and I’ve barely touched you,” he groans in my ear.
I swallow hard.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asks.
“Never,” I whisper into his mouth.
He smiles and kisses me again, deeply, hungrily, at the same time his fingers begin a light back and forth over my pussy.
The ache that grows there is so hard and demanding that I have to grind myself a little into his touch…
seeking, needing, wanting so much more. How much longer can we keep this up?
Every time we meet, we dance around our desire for each other, placating it as best we can but never really fulfilling it.
I want to be in his bed. To feel him between my legs.
Stroking into me, making me whole, filling me up.
Marco works me with his fingers, slowly and steadily, somehow knowing exactly how to tease out the flames in me.
I can feel my panties soaking through. My instinct is to clench my thighs together, push him away before I lose control, but the heat of his kiss stops me.
I accept the feeling, the wetness, the pleasure as his tongue invades my mouth.
A gasp flies out of me at the friction of the fabric over my clit, my breath going jagged as the pleasure builds and builds.
“Nobody owns you but you, Karina,” Marco tells me, his voice hard with restraint as his fingers work me. “Your heart, your mind, your body, your soul—all yours.”
“Mmm,” I moan in response, grinding myself against his hand with every stroke.
“Tell me something, bella. Did your uncle tell you it’s okay to feel like this?”
I shake my head no, and Marco kisses along the side of my neck.
“Did he say it was all right for you take pleasure from my hand?” he murmurs, increasing the pace, the friction. “Is it anyone else’s choice for you to feel this good?”
Gripping his shoulders tightly, I bury my face in his neck to hide the moans spilling out of me.
“No, Karina. And nobody has a right to decide for you. This choice is yours.”
An alarm starts going off, so loud that it instantly breaks through the intimate bubble we’re in. I pull back, panting and startled. “Your phone. You should go, Marco. The race.”
“I’m not leaving until you come,” he tells me.
His fingers move faster, harder, as if he’s demanding my orgasm. Commanding it. Taking it from me. So I give in. Bucking against him, I give him everything.
“Yes, Marco, yes,” I whimper.
“Come for me, Karina, bella.”
“Yes.”
A shockwave of pleasure crashes over me as I flood his hand. He swears into my mouth as he devours my cry with his kiss. Tears squeeze between my clenched eyelids. Fuck.
Pulling back with a sigh, he removes his hand, then settles my skirt back into place. “I have to go. Really.”
I can’t speak. I can barely stand. I manage to nod.
Things between us are moving so fast, and every moment I spend with him invests me even more. And this? My panties are soaked and my body aches, but there’s a feeling of incompleteness. Of being…empty. It’s not enough. I need all of him.
With a smile, he turns to go, and I suddenly find my voice.
“Wait,” I say.
We haven’t been fully honest with each other, and half of that is my fault. I want him to know all of me, all my secrets. Maybe we can never have a future together, but I don’t want to look back and regret that I kept things from him.
I speak in a hurry before I lose my nerve. “My nobody guy? Pietro.”
His brows furrow. “Yeah?”
“He’s my fiancé.”
Something flashes in his eyes, his expression darkening. Oh no. I’ve ruined this.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you,” I babble on. “It’s not what I want, but it’s what I have to do. The wedding is soon. Very soon.”
Silence. His eyes shade and I can’t determine what he’s feeling.
My voice breaks as I say, “I’m sorry.”
Marco just shakes his head. “We’ll figure it out, bella.”
Then he kisses me one last time. As he strides away, no doubt in a hurry to get to his pit crew, I wonder what he’s thinking. Our relationship can’t go anywhere—it’s impossible. There’s nothing to figure out. My future is carved in stone.
But that doesn’t stop me from practically floating to my seat in the box.
Because if there’s any way out of this, any chance of securing my freedom…Marco will be the one to find a way.