Chapter Fourteen
Vincenzo
I’M IN A terrible mood the next morning. I slept badly after Caterina left me standing by the pool, which is not helping, but mainly I’m furious with myself for letting a beautiful, green-eyed banshee get under my skin so badly.
My terrible sleep is her fault entirely. I kept dreaming of diving into pools and reaching for her, only to feel her slippery-smooth body slide out of my hands, over and over again.
That’s not her fault. That’s yours.
It’s a truth that I don’t want to acknowledge, yet it burns a hole in my brain all the same. I’d dismissed the conversation because I didn’t like the direction it was going, and besides, I was getting hard for her again and wanted her in my bed.
But, of course, my beautiful, oppositional little wife wasn’t having a bar of that. She didn’t explain when she got to her feet and walked proudly past my outstretched hand. Then again, she didn’t need to. I could see the flames in her eyes.
She had a right to be angry.
I didn’t handle announcing my intentions to her very well, that’s true.
I could have worded my statements slightly differently, to make them sound less like proclamations and more like suggestions.
An offer of a discussion would have probably been more welcome.
After all, I’m trying not to be like my father. Yes, ‘trying’ being the operative word.
Still, what I’m asking of her wouldn’t have been any different to what the Bianchi boy would have asked, so why she got so furious is anyone’s guess.
Your dismissal of love, then of the whole conversation, might have had something to do with it.
That particular thought is an uncomfortable one, particularly when I remember what she said about being unloved and unwanted.
That had been an unexpected confession and there’d been pain in her eyes when she’d said it, which had made me angry.
I’d tried not to be, but in retrospect, I failed badly and been dismissive instead.
She didn’t need your anger. She needed your understanding.
I stalk grimly into my office with an espresso, the whispers of my long-dead conscience needling at me.
I’m not used to considering other people or even understanding them, because neither consideration nor understanding affects my decisions.
Their feelings don’t matter in the greater scheme of things, so why I keep thinking about Caterina Salvatore’s is anyone’s guess.
I down my espresso in one go then sit down at my desk.
I have work to do and many things to arrange, and I can’t afford to be sitting here thinking about my new wife for hours on end.
Yet on the desk in front of me lies the piece of paper she wrote her angry reply on, and it’s impossible to think of anything else.
She’s relentless in her opposition, even demanding I not issue a hit on her father, because she wants him to live.
However, while I understand her qualms and have long let go wanting to avenge my mother’s death, I’m still furious at him for his treatment of her.
Everything in me is telling me that I need to make an example of him, yet I can’t stop reading the words on her note.
I’m not stooping to his level…
She might not stoop, but I’ve done so many times, and while I see the irony of fighting violence with violence, as I’ve always believed, the ends justifies the means.
She’s not thinking that, though, and now she’s got me second-guessing. She doesn’t want to be her father—that’s what she said in the note—and like her, I don’t want to be mine. Yet if I kill Giovanni Salvatore, how am I any different?
Stefano ordered the death of the Salvatore family because of the offence against our family’s honour when my mother died. And in killing Giovanni, I’ll be doing the same thing. I always thought that allowable, because I’d be taking out our last enemy, and besides it would end with me. Yet…
What if you didn’t? What if it ended with Giovanni instead?
No, I can’t start thinking like her. I have to take him out or get his loyalty, that’s vital to my plans of unification, and there can be no middle ground. There never is in the families.
So why am I still hesitating? Why am I thinking about letting him live? Just because she wants me to?
I’m in the middle of puzzling through this when my door bursts open and Caterina enters the room.
She’s in a flowing dress the colour of sunflowers and she looks like a ray of sunshine come streaming into my office.
But not her eyes. They’re sharp chips of emerald mined from the dark side of the moon.
‘If you’ve ordered his death,’ she announces without preamble, ‘I’ll kill you myself.’
The kick of heat that goes through me at the sight of her is a drug and I can’t get enough.
I want to leap straight over my desk and grab her, devour her, but I can’t allow that.
I lost control badly last night and it’s not going to happen again, so I lean back in my chair and let her fury wash over me instead.
‘You have feelings about it, I gather.’ I push out my chair and put one foot on the opposite knee. ‘At least, judging by that note and your latest threat to my person.’
When people stand before my desk, they’re usually white with fear, but not my Caterina.
She storms up to the desk itself, puts her hands on the edge and leans forward.
Her hair slides over her shoulders, brushing the desktop and the neckline of her dress dips, making it very clear that she’s not wearing a bra.
‘Damn right, I have feelings,’ she says, staring daggers at me. ‘He’s a terrible father, but that doesn’t mean I want him to die. No one should have the power to make life-and-death decisions about another human being.’
Ah, now we’re getting into it. Pity. I have no patience for conversations about ethics. ‘And yet people make those decisions every day,’ I say, trying to keep my gaze from the neckline of her dress. ‘Anyway, it’s not your decision. It’s mine.’
‘He’s my father,’ she insists. ‘Who decided you get to be judge, jury and executioner anyway?’
It’s difficult to concentrate on what she’s talking about, especially when she clearly has no concept of what I can see and the fact that I’m already starting to get hard. ‘What do you care?’ I demand, losing patience. ‘I’ll be the one taking his life, not you.’
She takes a breath, fury still burning in her eyes. ‘Because I’ll know I could have stopped you.’
‘Oh yes?’ I hold her gaze, letting her see what she’s up against, the absolute force of my will. ‘And how could you have done that, gattina?’
At first she’s still, just staring at me.
Then she takes another breath, pushes herself away from the desk and straightens up.
Then before I can move or speak, she’s coming around to where I’m sitting and sliding herself up onto the desk in front of me.
Then she daintily places one elegant, bare foot on each of the arms of my chair and grips the hem of her dress.
‘Let him live and I’ll let you do whatever you want with me, Wolf. ’
A wolf is what I am and a starving one at that, because I can see a little way up her dress, as she no doubt intended, to the soft, pale skin of her inner thighs, and I can smell in the air the scent of jasmine and aroused woman.
She’s using sex against me, and why shouldn’t she? After what happened between us last night? I’d admire her guts if I didn’t want her so fucking much.
It shouldn’t be difficult to refuse, it shouldn’t, because this matters to me. This matters to my cause. I can’t be seen to be weak, not at this time, and that’s exactly what letting Salvatore live would make me seem.
But it is difficult to refuse. Because now all I can think about is shoving my chair back, stripping her dress off and laying her back on my desk to taste every inch of her.
‘What makes you think I want to do anything at all with you?’ I drawl, trying to fight her pull. ‘Especially when I’ve already had you.’
She doesn’t speak, but her gaze drops to my lap, where I’m already hard.
‘Oh, that?’ I don’t move. ‘I can easily get someone else to see to that. Or I could handle it myself. I have at least one working hand, after all.’
‘You don’t want your hand.’ She’s looking straight at me when she says this, as if she knows. As if she can see the truth in my gaze. ‘You want me.’
Holy fuck, this woman… She’s barely had sex, has no conception of men, yet she’s manipulating me with the ease of a practiced flirt. And I’m letting her do it.
She’s right. You want her. So take her.
The wolf in me will brook no argument and before I know what I’m doing, I’m shoving back my chair, and stepping between her parted thighs. My hands reach for her hips, feeling the warmth of her body through the thin fabric of her dress.
Her eyes widen and she puts out a hand, her palm landing directly on my chest. ‘He lives,’ she says insistently. ‘Promise me.’
I don’t want to. An example needs to be made, yet that’s not what I say. ‘Yes,’ I say instead, barely even thinking about Salvatore and my wretched crusade, everything concentrated on the woman in front of me. ‘I promise.’
Her hand slides up my chest, to the back of my head and she pulls my mouth down on hers, and I’m lost. She tastes sweet, like honey and vanilla, and I can’t get enough.
I devour her, my hands automatically dropping to grab fistfuls of her dress, pulling the hem up to her waist. She gasps against my mouth as I slide a hand between her thighs to find she’s not wearing any underwear.
‘Naughty, gattina,’ I murmur as I find her sensitive little clit and stroke her there lightly. ‘Using sex to manipulate me.’
She shivers, gasping again as I explore the soft folds between her thighs, stroking her, feeling how incredibly wet she is already for me. ‘I… I’m not m-manipulating you,’ she whispers. ‘I’m only using whatever I can to make sure my father stays alive.’
I slide a finger inside her, then as she moans, another. She’s so wet there’s no resistance and I’m more than ready to replace those fingers with my cock. But I’m not going to do that now. I’m going to take my time now, explore her completely, undo her the way she’s undoing me.
I lift my mouth from hers. ‘I’m going to want more than one wedding night,’ I say as I trail kisses down the side of her neck, moving my hand to drive her steadily mad. ‘I’m going to want you in my bed every night.’
She sighs, her hips shifting against my hand so I withdraw it. ‘Promise me,’ I say, echoing her as I lift my head and look down into her pleasure-flushed face.
Her eyes are dark, forest green instead of grass, and her mouth is full and red from my kiss. She’s delectable, all her anger transmuted into raw desire, and I can’t help but think of all the arguments we’re going to have and how sweet the making up will be.
‘Please,’ she says, her voice husky. ‘Please…’
‘That’s not what I asked.’ I reach out to cup one side of her face, my thumb tracing the full curve of her bottom lip. It feels so soft I want to bite her. I want to bite all of her, eat her alive. ‘You must say “I promise, Vincenzo”.’
She shivers, her gaze captured by mine as I ease my thumb between her lips and into the heat of her mouth. Her lashes drift shut as I feel the soft tip of her curious tongue against my skin, and my cock is so hard it’s almost painful. But I’m not rushing this, not now, not like last night.
I take my thumb from her mouth, rubbing the pad of it over her lower lip, and her lashes flutter. ‘Say it,’ I order softly. ‘Give me the words, gattina, and I’ll consider making you come.’
She swallows, the pulse at the base of her throat racing as her lashes lift. ‘I…p-promise,’ she breathes.
‘My name, Caterina,’ I remind her as I grip the hem of her dress. ‘I want you to say it. I want to hear it.’
She takes a shuddering breath and for a second I think she’s not going to give it to me. But then she says, ‘I promise, Vincenzo.’
My name sounds like a prayer in her mouth and abruptly, I can’t wait any longer. Not that I need to now since I’ve got what I wanted.
‘Lift your arms,’ I say and she does, letting me pull the yellow dress up and over her head, and then off.
Beneath it she’s naked and just as beautiful sitting on my desk as she was floating in my pool the night before. Her skin light olive and silky. Her breasts perfectly round with hard little pink nipples. Dark curls between her smooth thighs.
She looks up at me, utterly unselfconscious, as if daring me to find fault with her, but I can’t. ‘My wife, you are flawless,’ I tell her. ‘And now I’m going to give you what I promised you.’
Then I put my hands between her thighs and spread them wide.