Chapter Five
Victoria
I wake up with my hand between my thighs and Mario Conti’s voice still in my ear.
For one suspended second, I do not know where I am.
Then it starts to come back to me slowly.
My bedroom is dark, the sheets tangled around my legs, the city light slipping through the narrow gap in my curtains. Somewhere outside, a car passes on the street below, tires slushing through the melting snow.
I am in my apartment.
Alone.
Not in Mario Conti’s office.
Not bent over his desk.
Not feeling his body caged around mine while he murmurs filthy Italian against my neck as he plunges into me over and over.
I close my eyes.
No.
Absolutely not.
I am not thinking about it again.
I am not lying here at 3:17 in the morning, soaking wet, aching, and furious because my subconscious has apparently gone fucking crazy.
For the fifth night in a row.
Five.
Five nights of this.
Five nights of falling asleep like a normal person and waking up like a woman with no sense and no shame.
The first night was bad enough.
The second was concerning.
By the third, I considered drinking chamomile tea in the evening and removing all caffeine from my life after noon.
By the fourth, I started wondering if sleep deprivation might be preferable.
Now, on the fifth, I am genuinely considering legal action against my own brain.
The problem is not just that I keep dreaming about him.
The problem is that the dreams are getting worse.
More vivid.
More specific.
More impossible to dismiss as the random misfire of a tired mind.
Tonight, it was his office.
What I imagine his office looks like anyway, because I’ve never even been in it.
Dark wood, glass, city lights behind him, that massive desk between us until there wasn’t a desk between us at all. He had looked at me the way he does when I challenge him, like every word out of my mouth is one more reason to lean closer.
In the dream, I told him he was obstructing my work.
In the dream, he said, “Then perhaps you should do something about it, Ms. Murray.”
And because dream Victoria is apparently an idiot, I did.
I pushed him.
Not hard. Just enough to make a point.
Just enough for him to catch my wrist, turn me, and press me against the desk with one hand at my waist and the other sliding up beneath my skirt.
My skin goes hot remembering it, and my fingers, still lodged firmly between my legs, start moving of their own accord.
“Tell me to stop,” dream Mario said. His accent was thicker, darker. “Tell me you don’t want this.”
And dream Victoria, who is clearly a woman with very poor judgment, didn’t say anything.
She arched her back against him instead.
He groaned and pressed himself harder against me, his dick pressing against my ass.
The heat that goes through me now is so intense it borders on pain.
I am mortified.
I am horrified.
I am so turned on I could scream.
I slide my other hand over my skin, the way I imagine him doing it, slowly, torturing me. I touch my breast, roll my nipple between my fingers, and moan, long and low.
My hips roll against my own hand as I circle my clit faster.
"Yes," I whisper to the empty room.
I know it's wrong. I know I shouldn't be doing this.
It's so damn unprofessional.
But I am desperate.
And it feels so good.
I push two fingers inside myself, imagining it's him. Imagining his long, elegant fingers stretching me, filling me.
I slide them in and out, faster and faster.
My other hand pinches my nipple, harder this time, and I cry out.
I am so close, but my fingers aren't his fingers. They aren't long enough or thick enough.
It isn't enough.
It's not enough to get me there.
I pull my fingers out of myself and continue rubbing my clit, the ache in me so sharp and intense it's making my teeth ache.
I need to come.
I need this to stop.
I need it to be over.
I close my eyes and conjure him again. His dark, knowing eyes. The shape of his mouth. The way he smells.
His lips move down my neck, and he bites me.
Not hard enough to break the skin, just enough to leave a mark. Just enough to make me gasp.
"I am going to eat you for breakfast, Ms. Murray," he whispers in my ear. "And then I am going to do it again for lunch."
Then his dark head is between my thighs, and I am on the verge of coming.
His tongue is flat and hot against my clit while I'm splayed out on his desk, completely naked. My legs are spread, and he's watching me with those eyes that seem to see everything.
He licks me with long, slow strokes, and I know I am not going to last.
I am not going to be able to stop myself.
I am going to come all over his face.
I push my hips up, grinding against my own hand.
"Don't stop," I beg into the darkness of my bedroom, my voice breathy and desperate. "Oh, Mario. Yes. Just like that."
He chuckles, the vibration of it against me sending a new wave of pleasure through me.
He closes his lips around my clit and sucks, hard.
My entire body goes taut as a bowstring.
"Oh, God," I cry out, my back arching off the bed. "Mario!"
And then I am coming, harder than I have in my entire life. A long, drawn-out moan escapes me as the pleasure washes over me in wave after wave, leaving me gasping and trembling and utterly spent.
I lie there for a long, long time, my breathing ragged, my body still humming with aftershocks, and stare at the ceiling while the shame sets in.
I called out his name.
I actually called out his name.
My face burns with mortification.
What is wrong with me?
I have had crushes before. Of course I have. I have been attracted to men before.
I have never, in my entire life, had a reaction like this.
This isn't a crush. This is something else.
Something I don't understand.
Something dangerous.
I get up, my legs still shaking a little, and go into the bathroom. I flip on the light and look at myself in the mirror.
My face is flushed, my pupils are still dilated, and my hair is a mess.
I look like a woman who has been thoroughly fucked.
And the worst part? In all of the dreams I've had, we still haven't actually fucked.
That is apparently where my subconscious draws the line.
It's driving me insane.
I splash cold water on my face, hoping it will help. It doesn't.
I look at my reflection again.
"You need to get a grip," I tell the woman in the mirror.
She doesn't look convinced.
I wash up the hot and sticky mess between my legs and go back to bed, but I know I won't be able to sleep.
I lie there in the dark and listen to the city, and for the first time since I started my own firm, I wonder if I've made a terrible mistake.
Not in leaving the old firm. I would do that again in a heartbeat.
But in taking the Conti account.
In walking into that building and letting myself be drawn into Mario Conti's orbit.
I knew he was dangerous.
I knew he was the kind of man who could ruin a woman like me without even trying.
I thought I was strong enough to handle it.
I thought I could keep my distance.
I was wrong.
I can't keep him out of my head.
I can't keep him out of my dreams.
And I am terrified of what that means.
I am at the office by 7:15 on Monday morning.
I am a mess.
I haven't slept more than three hours a night for days. I'm running on caffeine and the terror that I will say or do something to reveal the state of my complete and utter mental breakdown to Mario Conti or one of his brothers.
My solution has been to overprepare.
I have spent the entire weekend buried in documents, creating a comprehensive strategic plan for the Conti review that is so thorough and brilliant no one will notice I look like I haven't slept in a week.
It's a good plan.
A solid plan.
A plan that will save my firm and keep me out of Mario Conti's bed.
That is the most important part.
I'm so focused on my computer screen, I barely hear the knock.
“Come in,” I call, still typing.
The door opens.
“I can come back if you’re busy,” a man says.
I look up.
Diego Conti stands in the doorway with one hand resting against the frame and a coffee cup in the other. He is the only Conti brother I met last week who did not immediately make me feel like I was being measured for either usefulness or disposal.
That doesn’t mean he isn’t dangerous.
It just means he hides it better.
Or maybe he doesn’t feel the need to make a point of it.
He is broad like the others, dark-haired and dark-eyed, with the same unmistakable family features, though his are arranged into something less severe.
Not soft. No Conti man could be called soft.
But Diego has an… easier face. A little more humor at the mouth.
A little less sharpened edge in the way he stands.
He wears a dark sweater under a jacket instead of a suit, which somehow makes him look more approachable.
“Diego,” I say, sitting back.
“Ah, you finally stopped calling us all Mr. Conti.”
I laugh. “Your brother was right. It was getting confusing.”
His mouth curves. “Coffee?”
He steps inside, but unlike his brothers, he doesn’t immediately take over the room.
I have no doubt he could if he wanted to.
He glances at the folders spread across my desk, the open laptop, the yellow legal pad covered in my handwriting, and the empty coffee cup beside my notebook. He doesn’t have to know it was the third one.
Then his eyes return to my face.
“You look like you’ve been here all weekend.”
“I haven’t.”
“That’s good. Lorenzo would blow his load over those kinds of billable hours.”
I’m also certain Lorenzo wouldn’t be happy with Diego’s colorful description, but it just makes me like Diego more.
“I’ve only been here since 7:15.”
He looks at the coffee cup again.
“It’s 8:03.”
“Yes.”
He laughs quietly and steps closer, holding out the mug. “Then I brought this at the right time. Lorenzo said you take it black.”
I take it carefully, with reverence.
“Thank you,” I say, trying not to sound too desperate.
“You’re welcome.”
The coffee is hot enough that I should wait.
I do not.
It burns my tongue a little, and I pretend it doesn’t because I have already lost enough battles with my body the past week.