Chapter 39
GIANNA
We bought so much that you could hardly see our five security guards as they lugged all the bags and parcels up to the apartment for us.
The light was fading in a gorgeous display of lilac and grey as we ate a family dinner of chicken nuggets and French fries in the kitchen, not the formal dining room, of our parents’ penthouse.
It was just the five of us, all the staff let go for the night.
Dad made his jokes about how we’ll soon need two more penthouses just to store all our clothes and how none of the department stores within a thirty-mile radius have any chance of going out of business while we’re around.
Mom countered that he wouldn’t want us any other way to which he said he just wants us all to be happy.
Which I believed, because I felt the words in the bottom of my heart.
Even Chiara didn’t feel the need to voice any of her usual objections regarding duty and such to the family. She laughed with the rest of us.
It was a night like we hadn’t shared for a very long time. Not since my sisters and I were much younger, before any talk of marriage, and before family duty was even something we were aware of. Definitely before blood was shed and we lost our brother.
Back before we were still just Daddy’s little princesses and all the ugliness of our family business wasn’t even a hint of darkness.
We even watched a movie together, eating popcorn and laughing some more.
I fell asleep as easily as I used to when I was still a carefree young girl.
But I woke up just after midnight, my heart racing from a nightmare I couldn’t fully remember.
All I know is that it left me feeling unbearably trapped.
My hands were shaking and still are, even though I’ve been sitting up in bed for fifteen minutes at least, breathing deeply and trying to chase away the dark thoughts.
They have no shape, no substance, and yet they’re like the heavy concrete blocks they tie to a man’s feet when they drop him in the river.
I’m that drowning man, unable to swim to the surface, unable to breathe, unable to face my fears.
Because facing them will only make them worse, make them real, make them as hard and heavy as those concrete blocks.
I am trapped. I will always be trapped. I will never swim to the surface. I will forever be just an inconsequential pretty princess, playing with her toys, while others play with her and decide her fate from sunrise to sundown.
I hear the creaking of floorboards outside my room. Steady, soft, getting closer. But I am sure that’s all just my mind playing another cruel joke on me. My memory of a time when I saw my escape from my cage in Matteo becoming audible. Tormenting me like my dreams torment me.
And then the door opens.
Matteo walks in. Shrouded in darkness, glowing as bright as the sun.
My memory torturing me with visions because I ignored the sounds.
He walks to me and climbs in bed beside me. His heat, the powerful vibrations of his muscles, his presence assaulting all my senses at once. My hands are still shaking, but for a completely different reason now.
His touch is soft as he brushes my hair off my face, his eyes fixed on mine, his gaze so deep I fall into it and keep falling and falling, dragged down by those concrete blocks tied to my feet.
I don’t fear it. I don’t fight it. I want to go deeper still.
All the way away from my reality. All the way to a place where all is good and light.
He can show me the way. I know it as deeply as I know my name.
So what if he’s just a ghostly vision? Just a figment of my imagination. It doesn’t make any of it less real.
Then his lips touch mine. And all that light explodes inside me, brushing my skin, riding my blood, crackling everywhere.
And I know this is real. That he is really here, in my bed, kissing me. Because no vision has ever felt this good. Or ever could.
The very air in the room is different now that he’s here, now that his lips are on mine. It’s crackling with possibility, excitement, the light he brought streaking across the darkness like Christmas sparklers.
His kisses are intense, deep, filled with so much desire I can hardly breathe or think. But I don’t need to. These kisses are all I need.
He breaks away from the kiss, as breathless as I am, his warm hand resting on my belly, strength he’s not using coiling in his fingers.
“Do you still want me?” he asks, looking so fiercely into my eyes I’m pulled into the bottomless depths of his.
“Yes,” I whisper, because there is no other possible answer. Because he might be the only thing I truly want.
He kisses me again, softer this time, as his strong hand slides up under my shirt, pushing it up, his powerful fingers brushing against my nipples, sending sparks of desire all through my core, hotter than fire.
He breaks the kiss again, just long enough to slide my shirt over my head. Then he gazes at my naked breasts, his eyes growing even brighter than they already were.
“Perfection.” His warm breath tickles and makes my already hardened nipples grow even stiffer.
I let out a long sigh as his lips touch my neck, release a breath I didn’t even know I was holding… for years, it feels like.
He trails soft kisses down my neck, across my collarbones, the soft flesh of my breasts.
Another deep sigh leaves my throat as his lips find my nipple.
It’s like the vastness of space opened for me and it’s all pleasure, all bliss, all light.
And it’s not letting up. He sucks my left nipple into his mouth, the momentary jolt exploding in yet more pleasure, yet more bliss, as he releases it.
He does it again and again, worshipping my breasts like I’m some kind of goddess he can’t get enough of, like he truly means for me to be his and only his. Not even my own anymore.
I’m moaning and writhing beneath him, wanting more, needing more. And I don’t even know what more is.
His kisses leave my tingling nipples and heaving breast, tracing a soft, slow line down the center of my belly, my vision, and my thoughts all fuzzy and blurry with the anticipation of the more that I know is coming. Even if I still don’t know what it is.
His kisses reach the edge of my panties and my body enters a new level of pleasure and anticipation. Now that it finally knows what it craves.
He slides down my shorts, the silk fabric caressing my hot skin, but not as well as the breath from his lips.
My pussy is sending sensations through my core I didn’t know were possible.
I’m shivering even as my body is burning, breathing heavily even though I’ve never been more relaxed.
And I’m yearning for something I don’t yet have but can practically already taste.
And as his lips touch my clit, that yearning explodes into a million tiny bubbles of pleasure, floating inside me and all around.
My hips come off the bed to meet his lips, my moans so loud I’m sure they could wake the dead, let alone my entire family.
But he doesn’t relent, kissing and licking, caressing my clit with his tongue and his lips and his fingers.
Doesn’t stop my loud moans, doesn’t fear being discovered, so I won’t fear it either.
It’s impossible to fear anything with so much pleasure coursing through my veins anyway. All those bubbles are popping now, spilling more and more bliss into everything I feel, touch, breath in.
The orgasm rips thought me with such ferocity, such strength I don’t even recognize it at first. Because it’s so much stronger than anything I’ve ever felt. So much more pleasurable. So much better than anything I’ve ever felt before.
I try to look into his eyes, try to thank him with mine, because I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to speak again, or think, or do anything but bathe in this pleasure over and over for eternity.
He’s smiling at me, caressing my clit gently as my breathing returns to normal and my thoughts start to make sense again.
“Ready for more?” he asks and I instinctively look at his cock.
He’s still fully dressed, wearing a suit that’s the color of the sea in darkness.
The part at his crotch is tenting up, and I don’t know if it’s the shadows or what, but it looks monster big.
I’m not sure I can take it. Not sure I dare even try.
“No?” he asks. He must’ve read it off my face. I swallow hard, not sure what to actually say. I don’t want to say the wrong thing and ruin this perfect moment. Or cut short what could be so much more pleasure and bliss.
“We can wait,” he says, and a huge weight lifts off my chest—a weight I didn’t even know was weighing me down.
I tug at his jacket sleeve, while his thumb is still tracing lazy little circles of bliss over my clit. “Why don’t you take your clothes off too? Please.”
He smirks at me. “Is that what you want?”
I nod. “I want to see all of you.”
He chuckles and removes his hand from my clit, instantly making me regret my request.
But then he slides off his jacket and unbuttons his shirt, the coiling muscles of his arms gleaming in the faint greenish light of the city coming in thorough the window.
He stands up to remove the rest, his shoes, his pants, his boxers, all the while grinning at me as I stare with open mouth and eyes probably open even wider.
He’s giving me quite a show, so many of my deepest wishes and desires coming true as he strips for me that I’m having a hard time taking it all in.
But I want to take it all in. Every line of ink on his muscled arms, his chest, even his legs, which are just as powerful and strong as the rest of him.
Every shadow of hair, every peak and valley of his six pack abs, defined biceps, chest, neck, where a thick vein is pulsing lightly with his heartbeat.
I want to take it all in. And keep it forever.
Including his cock, which rises before me now, even larger than I feared it would be.
Feared is not the right word.
Because I know the pleasure it will give me will be even more magnificent than what his lips and his fingers could do.
“Well,” he says, still grinning at me. “You happy now?”
I drag my eyes away from his cock to meet his eyes and smile back as I nod.
Then I rise, as naked as he is and go to him. The top of my head reaches his chin. I already knew he’s much taller than me, obviously, but he seems even taller now, even more magnificent, even more powerful.
“What do you want me to do?” I ask, the words just rolling from my mouth with no conscious thought behind them. Only the knowledge that yes, I would probably do anything he asked me right now.
The question makes him laugh. Not harshly, not like he’s laughing at me. It’s a pleasant, summery sound, light and whimsical somehow, like a memory of a fun day by the ocean.
“Tonight’s all about you,” he says. “So do whatever you want.”
The word tonight was uttered harsher than the rest. Suggesting that tonight is all I get. And I know I must be reading too much into it. Because tonight will not be enough. Never enough.
I want to kneel before him and kiss his cock, make him climax the way he did me.
But I’m afraid I’ll just mess everything up.
I don’t know anything about touching a man in a pleasurable way.
Absolutely nothing. The only thought I’d ever given it was fearing I’d have to do it with a man my father forced me to marry.
I take his hand and pull him towards the bed. “Let’s lie down again.”
He smiles and follows me. I drape the covers over us both, and nestle into his side, resting my head on his chest, enjoying the softness of his skin, the hardness of his muscles, the strength and protection of his arm around me.
Because this I did spend a lot of time thinking and dreaming and fantasizing about. Being held by the man I love, falling asleep in his arms, safe, protected, loved, and cherished right back.