9. Under the Roses We Go
Chapter 9
Under the Roses We Go
M y wife called and invited me to Paris.
“A private underground club,” she said. “It is by invite only.”
I had not seen her much, thought of her even less, but I accepted her invitation. Only time would give me the true reason for this. Rosaria was not a woman to call and invite me out unless it was going to enhance our image as the newly crowned prince and princess of the Fausti famiglia . We were required to make public appearances, at least, twice a month. It was also required that she spend time at my place in Maranello when she was not performing. All included in our arrangement.
After we’d gotten back from our honeymoon, a day before I went to Monica, I went to the lawyer and had him officially change the terms of our arrangement. We could take lovers, but neither of us would ever know about them, which meant, if Rosaria wanted a ménage à trois , or a room full of fuckery, she could have them on her own, or invite me, as if I was one of the strangers on the street who wanted a room full of women instead of the one woman that I had an arrangement with.
Before I left for France, I studied all the products she had left out on the counter in my bathroom. With a swipe of my hand, I sent all the lies to the floor and left.
When I arrived in Paris, I could not put my finger on it, but my wife looked different. Her eyes were brighter, as if she had a fever, and she was anxious to leave our place and go out for the night.
We attended the ballet at the Palais Garnier.
The woman dancing, Scarlett Rose Poésy, entranced me. I could not stop staring at her, hanging on to her every move. Her feet were magic. She was the granddaughter of the legend, Maja Resnik, who, in her prime, was one of the best. If I was not mistaken, I believed it was Maja who had ensnared Matteo Ballerini all those years ago.
Tears ran down my cheeks as I rose from my seat, giving her what I rarely did unless the artist moved me—a standing ovation at the end of the heart-changing performance. If Rosaria had put me under a spell with her voice, this woman, Scarlett Poésy, had done the same with the movement of her body.
She was art, and she deserved to be set on a plinth and adored for it.
My face seemed to be made of a different substance than my flesh. My wife’s eyes could not seem to look away from me, as if she was trying to figure out what it was. When our eyes met, she turned hers in another direction. I followed the line of her gaze, but I turned away when I realized it was another man in the audience who resembled me in build.
We took a private car to a restaurant after the ballet. I fixed my suit and gave Donato instructions to be sure this outing with my “wife” would somehow be noticed. What better place than the romantic city of light? Rosaria set her hand over mine and shook her head.
“I do not think this is a good idea,” she said. “Tomorrow night we will go out to dinner at a different place.”
I studied her face and then looked at Donato and nodded. He would forget it. Donato nodded, then opened the door for me. Reaching in, I gave Rosaria my hand. She took it, but we walked side by side, not touching, into the restaurant. She removed the rose from her long jacket and handed it to the ma?tre d’. It was a symbol. The man nodded to us and then brought us to a room in the back. We were given masks to wear, and after being led through a series of doors, we were led into the bowels of the Parisian earth.
We were led into an underground club.
I turned to leave, but Rosaria stopped me by grabbing my suit jacket.
“This is not a sex club,” she whispered. “Unless…you want it to be.” She smiled at me.
I kept my eyes on hers until she looked away.
I decided to stay.
We were given drinks as we waited for—a show, perhaps. A crude stage had been erected in the center, mirrors surrounding it. It was not my scene, but Rosaria seemed riveted by it. Her eyes seemed to be everywhere, but her stare always stayed the longest on the stage. And when the lights went out and flames came to life, I would have thought she had turned into a flame.
Her breath picked up.
Her eyes widened.
And when a woman in a cloak, her face hidden, started to sing, a dancer appeared on the stage with mirrors. This dance was slow, sensual, and my cock hardened at the sight of the woman’s body. Rosaria narrowed her eyes, like she was trying to find something on the dancer only she could see, and when she could not find it, her face fell.
“Tell me, my wife,” I said in Italian. “Not the body you were expecting.”
Her eyes slowly moved to mine. “No. Wrong dancer.”
“She looks right to me, ah?” She was good enough.
“Should we take her home, lover?” my wife almost purred at me, the snake inside of her pretending to be a kitten .
I nodded, and the three of us left together after the performance was over.
My wife became obsessed with the underground scene after we’d gone to the club in Paris months earlier, and when she offered herself to me—solo—if I would go with her to the one in Volterra, I made the deal with her.
I had not had my wife alone in the bedroom since the day in Monaco. Our arrangement was working, but it would be ideal to fuck my wife occasionally—only the two of us doing the fucking. That was all it would ever be between us, it seemed, but sometimes I caught the way my wife looked at me, especially after the Paris trip. With want in her eyes.
Perhaps there could be more.
Rosaria was too afraid to find out, and even if she did, her instincts were too ruthless to let something as tender as love in for long. She had once told me of having children, “I will do it, for the sake of heirs, but I am too selfish to have a being living off me rent free.”
The thought of her selfishness brought me up cold. I sat up straighter, fixing my suit, on the way to the club in Volterra—a club owned by Olivier Nemours?—
My train of thought derailed, and I stared at my wife as she stared out of the window of the car. Olivier Nemours. He was known for the sexual parties he hosted, and I was sure my wife had been to more than one of them while in Paris. Call it a fucking hunch.
Rosaria turned her face and met my eyes. “What?” It was not said tenderly, but with a snap.
I turned my eyes away from hers, or I might fucking strangle her. The strain in my fists caused them to ball and harden, and I took slow, even breaths to control the sudden anger stuck in my chest, the feel of it as hot as fire.
By the time we pulled up to the ancient building, it had cooled, only because my feelings seemed to feed off hers. She found me not worth fighting for, and I found her of the same value.
Donato and I made eye contact. All the patrons wore masks, but some of them wore cloaks reminiscent of vampires. Rosaria took it all in. Her steps seemed rushed. Her breaths came in pants. Her eyes darted around as if she might find a man or a woman she longed to see her entire life.
I took her by the arm and just looked at her.
She shrugged, answering my silent command— tell me . “We had a good time last time, did we not?”
I only performed my duty as a man, allowing the women to use my body for pleasure, and as a tax, I took some of it for my own, but there was never a connection. I felt separate from the actions. From the shallowness of it. I craved a deeper connection, which Rosaria refused to give a chance between us.
We were connected through my family and our roles in it only.
I freed her, and we walked inside side by side, my men waiting outside. The setup inside was similar to Paris, though this place was above ground and had a larger-scale party in one of the rooms. Cages hung from the ceiling, women and men inside, dressed either like a sensual bird or a woman’s toy in leather. Music pulsated and made the walls tremble.
Rosaria produced another rose, and we were led to a private room.
This show was more intimate. Only a select few patrons in masks. Most of them were dressed in the cloaks I had noticed outside. There was no seating, but when the lights dimmed and the dancer stepped out of the darkness, my breath caught.
The other dancer in Paris was good, but she had nothing on this woman.
This woman moved, and I could feel the caress of her fingertips as they slid across my overheated skin like cool silk, even though she did not touch me. Unconsciously, I moved to the front of the crowd, knocking men out of my way as if they were not even there. I could not move my eyes away from this woman. The attraction was physical, but it felt as if her power over me went much deeper.
In a crazed part of my mind, I wondered if this woman was what Olivier Nemours sold her as—an otherworldly being. The dancer in Paris was a woman, but this being…she reached inside and caused a man such as myself to feel.
I had to know who she was.
The show lasted for about thirty minutes, and after, she was whisked away by two men in masks. I did not spare them much attention, but my wife did. She kept looking between the three retreating backs and me, as if she wanted to say something, but could not find the words. It did not matter what she felt or the words she needed to speak. I tore through the club, Rosaria a step or two behind, and demanded the doorman allow me to speak with Olivier Nemours.
“Tell him Rocco Fausti requests to speak with him,” I said.
The doorman met my eyes and then looked away, scampering like a rat to find his boss. A few minutes later, Olivier Nemours appeared, a mask over his face.
“You wished to see me, Signore Fausti?”
His eyes quickly went to my wife, but I ignored it.
“The dancer. Tell me, who is she.”
“Ah,” he stammered. “I cannot reveal her identity. We have a legal, binding agreement, which I know you understand. Besides.” Another quick glance at my wife. “Her husband would kill me if I broke it. You understand?”
“She is married.”
“ Oui .” He answered as if I had asked him a question.
I snatched my wife’s arm, and she became breathless as we charged through the crowd. Before we arrived at the place we were staying for the night, I took my wife’s wrists, about to pull her toward me, but she gave me a grin before she started fighting me. She lifted her neck some, wanting me to wrap my hand around it, and I did.
“Tell me, is this what you want from me, la mia spietata regina . For me to take what’s mine.”
“Fight me for it,” she said, breathless.
We did.
We became rough in the backseat, my wife slapping, clawing, and biting me, me pushing her around like a threadbare doll, until we had both ripped each other’s clothes off, and she was dripping for me, and I was rock hard for her. I kept my hand around her throat as I sat her on top of me and fucked her into the roof, her eyes rolling when the pressure around her throat became tighter and tighter.
My wife was on top of me.
But the thought of the dancer…how soft her body had moved, like a whisper…consumed me.
“Thinking about that beautiful dancer?” Rosaria’s voice was garbled, punctuated by moans loud enough to be heard over the music. “We should kill her husband. Adopt her as a little pet after, ah?”
I did not say a word to her, just increased the pressure around her throat.
She smiled at me. “You want to fuck her, don’t you?” Her voice was raspy from the pressure. “Stick that big cock in that beautiful fica and split it apart until her juices drown your cock. Mmmmm . I bet she tastes like sweet fruit and cinnamon all in one.” She rolled her tongue over her lips.
She kept up the commentary, my cock impaling her, my grip on her throat tight, until she exploded all over me, and I exploded inside of her at the thought of another woman.
This pleased my wife.
She orgasmed twice more that night—and after I fed her pasta in bed and she fell asleep, she had a smile on her face. I had never seen her do that before. Smile after we fucked, only the two of us. Though a third person had been in the car with us, by thought, not counting my men.
I could not sleep. The hollow cave inside of me felt like it was growing wider and darker, old and new ghosts crying out inside of it, keeping me awake. I thought back to the night in the witch’s tower, but I did not seek the scarf that had drifted inside with me that night. It was too delicate for my monstrous touch.