Chapter 8
Isabella
My sleep isn’t particularly restful. Though I was out like a light the moment my head hit the pillow, my slumber didn’t last. Nightmares haunted my dreams, waking me several times. Fueled by guilt, they were filled with violence, blood, and death. The images were so vivid I felt like I was back there in the kitchen of the beach house. Every sound, smell, touch was real to me.
Each time I woke, Antonio soothed me back to sleep. He stroked my hair, murmured assurances I was safe. I only half believed him.
When I open my eyes, it’s brighter than I expected. Used to waking in the early hours of the morning before the sun has fully risen, I’m surprised by how much light is in the room. There’s a golden haze that tells me it’s going to be a sunny day.
As I wriggle about, shaking off the last remnants of sleep, I realize something is wrong. I never sleep on my back and certainly not with my hands above my head. I try to lower my arms, but they’re stuck. The clink of metal confirms what I already suspect and when I glance up, I find my wrists bound together with leather cuffs and chained to a metal ring on the wooden headboard. Shit. How did I not know that was there?
Tugging frantically, I try to release myself.
“Careful, Bella. You don’t want to hurt yourself.”
I raise my head and find Antonio lounging in the doorway. He’s immaculately dressed in black pants and a white shirt, sleeves rolled up. He hasn’t got a single hair out of place.
“What’s going on?” I try to sound as if I’m not equal parts scared and turned on by being tethered to the bed. Completely naked, I feel incredibly vulnerable.
Antonio comes to sit on the edge of the bed beside me. “You had nightmares.”
“And your solution was to chain me to the bed?” I shake my head. “That’s fucked up, Antonio.”
“Don’t curse, Bella, it doesn’t suit you.”
“I’ll do more than curse if you don’t let me go this minute.”
Antonio throws back his head and laughs at my death stare. “You’re cute when you’re angry. Now, tell me about your nightmares.”
I furrow my brow. Is this a therapy session? If he wants to explore my psyche, this is a funny way to go about it.
“Bella,” he prompts.
“It’s the same dream, a memory, really. I’m at the beach house. Rico corners me in the kitchen and grabs me. He pulls me close and I can feel his…” I can’t bring myself to say erection, but the scowl on Antonio’s face tells me he knows what I’m referring to. “He tells me he’s going to fuck me until I bleed. I grab the frying pan and hit him over and over. There’s blood everywhere, so much blood.”
I shudder as I think about it.
“Then what?” Antonio asks.
“Leo comes in. He has a gun.” This is where the dream deviates from reality. When I look at the body, it isn’t Rico, but Antonio. “He shoots me and I wake up.”
“He shoots you?” Antonio muses. “Is that what you think he should have done?”
“No, of course not. It’s what I was afraid he’d do.”
“He wouldn’t have shot you.”
“I thought he would, but he was actually kind to me, gentle.”
Antonio’s eyebrows reach toward the ceiling. Kind and gentle aren’t words usually associated with his brother. “Leo was gentle with you?”
I can’t help grinning at the obvious surprise in his voice. “Yes, he could see the state I was in.”
“Yeah, you were pretty upset.”
My husband furrows his brow as if he can’t fathom why I was in distress after killing Rico. I shake my head in despair.
“I guess it’s easy for you to take a life.”
“No, Bella, it’s never easy, but it is often necessary.” He reaches over to stroke my cheek. “What else can I do when someone hurts my family?”
I shudder, knowing that he counts me among the people who’ve betrayed him. “Antonio.”
Before I can issue any plea for him to show me mercy, he places a finger on my lips.
“Don’t worry, Bella. I’m not going to kill you, but I do intend to get some answers from you.”
“Okay, untie me. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
He shakes his head and a wicked grin spreads across his lips. “Oh, Bella, where’s the fun in that?”
My stomach twists in a tight knot as Antonio reaches down the side of the bed and picks up a black leather gym bag. Fear spikes my pulse and I tug at my restraints. I can’t help feeling whatever he has in that bag won’t be fun for me.
“Are you planning to torture me?”
“Not in the way you think.”
Well, that’s reassuring—not. Antonio draws something out of the bag. Horror grips me when I realize it’s a ball gag. I open my mouth to protest, but Antonio isn’t interested in hearing my protests. Before I can utter a word, he shoves the hard silicone ball between my teeth and fastens the leather straps around the back of my head. He manages the task with insulting ease. I spit out a series of insults against his manhood, but all I do is create an unintelligible babbling sound. I grunt in annoyance. If Antonio wants answers, silencing me like this seems counterproductive.
The next things out of his bag of dirty tricks are a large silver butt plug and a bottle of lubricant. I guess I should be grateful he isn’t going to shove that thing inside me without anything to ease the way.
“Lift your legs,” Antonio instructs me. “Pull your knees up to your chest and keep them there.”
My stomach muscles grumble as I do as I’m told. Antonio unscrews the cap from the bottle of lubricant and massages some around my rear hole before spreading more over the plug.
“Relax,” he tells me. “Slow, deep breaths.”
I can’t help rolling my eyes. Does Antonio have any idea how hard it is to take steadying breaths with a gag in my mouth? I doubt he cares. The tip of the plug presses against my bottom and I try not to tense up. Staring at a fixed point on the ceiling, I focus on inhaling and exhaling slowly. As the plug pushes past the tight ring of muscle in my bottom, I can’t help squirming. Antonio makes soothing noises, calming me as he gets the plug all the way in.
“Does that feel good?” Antonio asks.
I shake my head. Though having that thing inside me isn’t painful, it’s not exactly pleasant either. It’s mainly psychological. It makes me feel like a deviant. My upbringing is to blame for that. My mother acted as if vanilla sex was depraved.
“Lower your legs. I want your feet flat on the bed.”
In no position to refuse his orders, I do as he asked, spreading my feet apart, because I’m sure that’s what he wants. Antonio’s approving nod confirms I’ve pleased him.
There’s no time to bask in the ridiculous satisfaction that gives me as Antonio reaches into the leather bag once more. This time, he takes out a vibrator. With a purple silicone shaft, it’s one of those with the rabbit ears for clit stimulation. I swallow hard around the gag as he switches it on and the air fills with a loud hum.
“Fuck!” Antonio grins wickedly as he tests the gadget against his hand. “That’s pretty powerful.”
Instinctively, I snap my legs shut as he reaches for me. Antonio forces them apart again. “Do not fight me, Bella. It won’t go well for you.”
I tremble as he runs a finger along my slit. A mere touch from this man is enough to make my body tingle with awareness.
“Would you look at that?” He holds his finger, glistening with my arousal, up in front of me. “You’re already wet.”
Armed with that knowledge, he doesn’t ease the vibrator inside me. He shoves it hard, knocking the breath from my lungs. The fullness has me whimpering around my gag. It’s weird to have both holes filled at the same time. It’s uncomfortable and yet there’s an undeniable fluttering in my clit. As Antonio switches the vibrator on and holds it in place, the little silicone prongs pressed against my sensitive nub, my hips lift. I cry out around the gag and my eyes roll back.
“Look at me, Bella,” Antonio commands.
When I don’t immediately do as he says, he fists his hand in my hair and tugs my head up off the pillow. I meet the intense glare in his eye and shiver.
“Did you intend for me to die that night?”
I shake my head. He presses the vibrator deeper into me.
“Did you know they would try to kill me?”
My head thrashes violently from side to side. The intense pulsing from the vibrator is sending a tingling through the plug in my ass to bombard me with sensation. Just as I think I’m going to go over the edge, Antonio turns the vibrator off. My pussy clenches, trying to grasp the promised orgasm, but it’s too late. The waves of pleasure die down but don’t dissipate. I’m left unfulfilled.
“But you did help my enemies evade my security?”
I nod in response to Antonio’s question, one he already knew the answer to.
“You let them into our home.”
He switches the vibrator on again and the pressure inside me builds once more. My fists clench and I whine behind the ball gag. The need to come is too much. I buck furiously on the bed and Antonio pulls the silicone shaft out of me, putting an abrupt end to the promise of release.
“Tell me why.”
He unbuckles the gag and wipes my mouth with his thumb. I stretch my jaw and pout, emphasizing the fact I did not like that thing.
“Bella?”
I take a deep breath. “They had photos.”
Antonio frowns. “What photos?”
“Suggestive ones, nudes.”
I turn my head to look away, but Antonio grabs my chin in a firm grip and forces me back toward him.
“Of you?”
This is the moment to come clean, to tell him I was trying to protect his younger sister from a stupid mistake she made shortly after she turned eighteen. I can’t do that to Livvy, though. While there’s a chance Antonio might forgive me if I paint it as a youthful indiscretion on my part, he won’t go easy on Livvy.
“When were they taken?”
“Before I met you.”
He arches an eyebrow and I realize I met him when I was in middle school so that can’t be right.
“Before we were married, when I was eighteen.”
Antonio scrubs a hand over his face. “Oh, Bella.”
“I know. It was stupid of me to take the pictures and to trust that the wrong person wouldn’t get hold of them.”
“So Gallo was blackmailing you?”
“Yes.”
Antonio shakes his head in disbelief. “Why didn’t you come to me?”
I hesitate a moment too long as I try to come up with an excuse. Antonio shoves the vibrator back into my drenched channel and fucks me with it, his pace teasing and slow. It’s pure sensual torture. My body climbs back toward the peak but this won’t take me there. Antonio is deliberately holding my release just out of reach.
“If you want to come, answer the question.”
I whimper as my clit throbs. “I was afraid, and I didn’t want you to think badly of me.”
“So you let them in to kill me instead?”
“No,” I cry out as the pressure inside me grows more and more intense. “Joey swore he only wanted to talk to you. He couldn’t get near you with Leo or Dante shadowing you all the time, so he came to me. He promised no one would get hurt.”
Antonio slides the silicone shaft out of me. I groan in disappointment.
“Fuck, Isabella. I can’t believe you fell for Gallo’s bullshit.”
In hindsight, neither can I. Though I didn’t know Joey Gallo well, I should have realized he couldn’t be trusted.
“I wasn’t thinking straight. I thought it would help bring peace with the Bianchis.” The words stream out of me. “Please, Antonio, let me come. I’m begging you.”
He grins darkly and gets to his feet. I think he’s going to leave me to stew, but he unfastens his pants and pushes them down his legs. His cock is fully erect. I guess he enjoyed driving me to distraction.
Though the blatant desire in his eyes tells me he’s eager to get inside me, he takes the time to flip me over and arrange me on my knees. With my arms stretched up above my head and my cheek pressed to the mattress, it’s a pose of supplication.
As soon as I’m in the position he wants, Antonio climbs onto the bed behind me and impales me on his cock. I cry out as my sensitized body welcomes him in. It takes only three thrusts for the first orgasm to seize hold of me. Violent spasms twist my womb as my pussy grips Antonio tightly.
“Who owns you, Bella?” Antonio demands as his hand slips between my legs and his fingers pinch my clit. “Who does this pussy belong to?”
“You.”
“Damn right it does.”
He drives his rock-hard cock into me repeatedly until another climax hits me. This one coincides with his own. My heart pounds and I tug at the shackles binding me to the bed.
“Fuck, Bella!” Antonio calls out as we come together, our bodies perfectly in tune.
Shuddering as the pleasure slowly dissipates, I struggle for breath. Antonio recovers faster than I do. He unbuckles the fastenings on my cuffs to release my wrists. Then he rolls me onto my back. I look up at him and scowl.
“What’s the matter?” Antonio’s tone betrays his concern. “Did I hurt you?”
I shake my head. “No. I’m just mad you don’t have a single hair out of place.”
My grumble makes Antonio throw back his head and laugh. “Don’t worry, Bella, I’m disheveled on the inside.”
He gets up off the bed, pulls his pants up, and puts his shoes back on. “Go have a shower and get dressed. Wear something nice. I’ll take you to lunch.”
He turns and strides toward the door. I purse my lips as I realize the bastard didn’t even crinkle his shirt when he fucked me senseless.
“Oh, and leave the plug in. I’ll take it out when I’m ready.”
With that, he leaves the room. I grab a pillow from the bed and toss it at the door. Asshole. He’s disheveled on the inside? The man didn’t break a sweat. I doubt the sex caused him any emotional turmoil.
Swinging my legs off the bed, I gingerly get to my feet. The plug shifts as I move and I grimace, not in pain, but with the knowledge I won’t be able to forget the thing is there. I’ll bet Antonio makes me leave it in while we go to lunch. It would be just like him to make me suffer. This is going to be a challenge.