38. Matteo
38
The dinghy is waiting for me at the agreed spot and soon I’m heading towards Don Trapani’s yacht. It was the right call and I have to give it to the Don. After shooting up Randazzo’s place, taking a plane out might have involved too much paperwork. It was a last-minute change to my plans, but I found it easy to navigate. When people want someone dead, they are eager to help you in whichever way they can.
It’s almost midnight. I planned to be here four hours ago. The yacht is hardly lit up, only a soft yellow glow coming from the helm. The rest of the yacht is shrouded in darkness, with only the navigation lights visible. As we approach, the dinghy stops next to the side-boarding platform. I bid my skipper goodnight and climb up to the main deck.
I’ve had feedback from Burley once they boarded the yacht. Another bodyguard is with Tasha since he felt too woozy to keep an eye on her with the pain meds he took.
We’re not letting that one go rogue again. After what happened today, she’ll probably think twice about trying to escape again.
I make my way over the main deck to the sliding doors that open to a sleek lounge area. A crew member waits for me. “Mr. Scalera?”
I nod.
“Welcome. Is there anything you need? Can I prepare you something to eat? To drink?”
“My wife?” Might as well stick to the farce.
The man must read something in my expression because he indicates I should follow him. “This way.” He leads me to a closed door, knocks, and opens it after a second.
I walk inside and spot the guard sitting patiently on the sofa in the ring of a reading light, as if bodyguarding in times like these isn’t the most boring shit you can get paid for.
“Matteo?” Tasha is in bed but sits up and rips the covers off.
“Leave us.” My tone stops her from getting out of bed. She looks like a deer in the headlights.
The guard stands with a nod, a curt “Mr. Scalera,” and heads out of the suite, closing the door behind him and the crew member.
The cabin has a lounge and counter that serves as a bar. I need a fucking drink. I take the two tins of sardines from my ass pockets and put them on the counter. They’re still lukewarm to the touch. I pour myself a stiff whiskey and add some ice from the bucket.
Tasha is right behind me. I heard her getting out of bed, the sheets rustling, her footfalls soft on the thick carpet.
“I couldn’t sleep. Not until you were back,” she says softly as she comes to stand next to me.
I take a sip of my whiskey, the gold liquid burning my tongue, not looking at her.
I need distance.
“You changed your clothes.”
Jeans and a white T-shirt scream playboy on summer vacation and not Mafia pawn who just got the job done like my blood-splattered and torn suit did.
I ignore her, walk to the sofa, and sit down.
“These are pretty,” she says, the confidence draining out of her voice with each non-response from me. She’s picking up the designer sardine tins, my little memento from Sicily for the Don.
“Not for you, kitten. Whatever you do, don’t open it.”
Tasha puts the cans back on the counter. “I don’t want to know.”
She turns towards me, and I study her body. She’s wearing a limp grey T-shirt, and probably only that limp grey T-shirt. My plans didn’t include trapezing her wardrobe from the farmhouse to the yacht.
“Whose shirt is that?” I feel a fucked-up pang of jealousy thinking that she’s wearing another dick’s T-shirt. Mom’s wedding and engagement rings still bling on her finger. Good. She’s keeping up the farce too. I take another deep sip of whiskey, then put the drink down.
“I got it from one of the crew. My dress is ruined.”
Trapani’s crew won’t talk. And I saw what she looked like earlier. My wife will never look like that again.
“Take it off.” My wife will not be wearing another man’s shirts.
My wife. Fuck knows why I like the sound of that so much.
She pads over, comes to stand right in front of my legs and peels off the T-shirt. It’s such a surprise that she doesn’t backchat me, that I only have a short second to sweep my gaze down her naked body before she sits on my lap and curls up against my chest like a kitten.
“I only feel safe when you’re with me,” she whispers, her voice breaking as her hand wraps around my neck. “Please don’t leave me behind again.”
Her body is a warm drug against mine as my arm goes around her back to support her. She’s sobbing now and I can’t stop myself from holding her close. In one simple move she’s disarmed me. Stripped me completely of every defense I ever built up against this exact situation. And my defenses are strong and high. But ever since I held her like this on the day I kidnapped her, she’s been drilling a hole into my bedrock. Now she’s hit my core.
“Where did they hurt you, baby girl?” I murmur as I nuzzle her temple. Her face is pushed into my neck, hiding. I run my palm over her thigh, trying to calm her. Here is a budding bruise. Looks like a kick to the leg.
I’ve been brimming with fury ever since I saw her on Randazzo’s laptop, gagged and tied up, strapped open and helpless. Now she’s here, and all I want to do is kiss her and make her forget. I want to kiss her.
Some things you never forget.
Like what would happen to her if she’s auctioned off as a virgin.
For all I know she’s no longer one.
The idea of somebody having raped her earlier is too much. “Tell me where they hurt you, Tasha.”
I shift so that she’s forced to sit straight on my lap. Her hair covers her face and I need to sweep it away. Those lips, those perfect lips that I’ve been studiously avoiding, are trembling.
Fuck.
I cup her face and force her to look at me. “We killed that fucking asshole.”
She nods.
“And we killed all his men who were in the house. There was a shootout amongst the rest. They’re all dead.” Except for my mole and his team. “The place has been torched.”
Tasha quivers, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I—I—I stabbed that man with intention,” she sobs. “I would have s-stabbed him again. T-to k-kill him.”
Here it is. The physical pain is always secondary to the psychological. She hurts because she did something she thought she’d never do. Yes, she was trying to save herself, but that was a lost cause from the start for her and she knew it. She stabbed him with the aim to kill and to stop him from killing me.
She saved my life.
“It was you or him, sweetheart. Anybody would have done the same.” I stroke her cheek. “And you didn’t hesitate. You listened to me for once.”
She cracks a smile between her tears, but bites down on her lip as if that’s not allowed, then buries her face back in my neck. “Matteo?—”
I hold her, giving her time to grieve the girl she once was, while I wrestle with the reality that if she hadn’t delivered that stab, neither of us would be sitting here now.
She smells delicious. Clean and fresh and warmly feminine. My cock, always on high alert around her, is already painfully hard where it’s pressing into the soft curve of her hip. “Let me see what they did to you, kitten.”
“They didn’t touch me beyond—” She breaks off as my hand slips between her legs.
“I want to see what they did here,” I murmur as I carefully caress a knuckle down her sex. A tremor runs through her at my touch. Her skin is smooth, freshly shaven, a canvas prepared. By the feel of it, a wet canvas.
“I told him we weren’t married, but he didn’t believe me. And yet he wanted me marked like his other women and put to work. Even as your wife. He said that because I belong to you, I belong to him, and he could do what he wanted with me.”
My hand stills, pressing lightly against her inner thigh, my thumb pausing its sweet teasing. That logic?—
My brain short circuits. That’s no longer how it works.
I nudge her inner thigh and her legs ease open. I prepare myself for the worst. Her sweet mound tarnished by Randazzo’s seal. Black on white, red rimmed from an unwanted ink invasion.
But there’s nothing. It’s only Tasha as she was before.
“They had to call the tattoo artist in and I don’t know where she came from, but she was late. She didn’t get beyond prepping and stenciling out the design before the power cut.”
My soul sags into the sofa with relief. What I saw was only the prep drawing, with no ink. She is pure. Untouched. Mine.
Never. This woman can never be mine.
My final solution for Peter Armstrong’s retribution can go on. I could never have auctioned her off with the seal of Randazzo. To tie the Scalera operations to one of the biggest sex trafficking rings in Europe would be suicide.
Her lips press against my skin, softly, inquisitively, in slow kisses she trails up to my jaw. She rolls her hips into my touch, making my thumb connect with her sex. I respond on instinct, caressing her, and she sighs a little erotic moan that only makes me harder.
She wants this. It’s all I’ll ever be able to give her.
“You’re going to come for me, kitten?” I circle her wet clit with my thumb, our mouths a mere inch apart.
“Yes.” She rakes her fingers into my hair, guiding my head so our lips finally meet.
Our kiss is soft, gentle, a total antithesis to the chaos of the day and the way I want to fuck her. But this is what she needs. We kiss deeper, slower, our tongues connecting in an erotic dance, while her pussy meets my hand with every circle of her clit. She moans now, her release rising to the surface.
Her fingers dig into my hair, clutching, her body shuddering as she moans my name into my mouth. Her release comes as a total surrender, her body mastered by my simple touch.
We don’t stop kissing. She’s a drug that I’ve tasted and now can’t get enough of. My body is primed for its own release, and when she slides her hand down my chest and underneath my shirt, I don’t stop her.
Against all logic and common sense, I let her touch me.
When she shifts to straddle me, I groan. Some battles aren’t worth fighting. Not when her beautiful breasts are a temptation no man can resist, her nipples begging for attention. I caress the sides of her breasts, watching as her expression darkens as she leans in to kiss me again. She tugs at my T-shirt, and I sit up and edge forward so she can peel it off.
The way she moans as she finally slides both her hands over my bare shoulders and down my pecs, her tongue dancing with mine, is almost enough to push me over the edge, what with her pussy pressing into my cock, seeking friction again.
My kitten is a quick learner.
Her hands are at my belt, tugging. I should stop her, need to stop her. I still her hands with a firm grip. “Kitten?—”
“I’ve been dreaming of this, Matteo, please, let me—” She breaks off and looks me in the eye. “Teach me.”
Teach her to suck my cock? With that begging siren’s tone?
I’m fucked.