8. Carmen
Chapter 8
Carmen
P orca miseria. Ma porca puttana.
Holy shit. Motherfucking bitch.
When did I start mentally cursing in Italian?
Mierda.
Fuck.
etter.
Dante’s hand is on the back of my neck. When did that happen?
His lips are just… son of a bitch.
Everything. It’s everything. More, actually.
In these silent days of relentlessly trying not to think about this very scenario, I could have never imagined this. How good this feels. The way desire courses through my body, the hardening of my nipples, the squirming feeling between my legs.
He holds me steady as I experiment with pressure against every corner of his mouth, chasing the feeling of pure, unbridled want. Greedy for it.
Then.
Oh.
His tongue dips out across my bottom lip.
The jolt of desire is so strong my eyes snap open.
Which is very, very bad. Because now I’m very, very aware of my surroundings.
And…
I’m kissing Dante Grasso.
My hand reacts before my brain can catch up.
SLAP.
The sound of my palm on flesh reverberates around the dungeon with a ferocity that makes me cringe back away from the bars.
Dante stares at me in a daze. The hand that had held my neck moments ago now cradles the side of his face.
“I…” my voice cracks. Too low. “I’m sorry.”
“ You kissed me .”
“Yes, well. I was momentarily overwhelmed.”
I can feel my breath coming out in embarrassing pants, but there’s nothing I can do to compose myself—beyond putting as much distance as I can between us. But this is futile, really, because there are only thirty steps to the back wall of this cell.
Also, my traitorous body simply doesn’t want to. It wants to reach out and tug at those really, very nice arms and pull him close. Pull him, impossibly, through the iron bars and trap him in here with me, just so I can feel his tongue against my mouth again.
Unfortunately, this intention seems to be crystal clear in my expression.
Dante is pressed so far into the bars they will likely leave an imprint if he steps away. And those dark eyes…God. He looks like a man starved.
“Momentarily?” His voice is charged with something dangerous.
I swallow down my lust. “It was a long moment.”
Because this is insane. And maybe I am going crazy from being locked up down here, finally succumbing to Stockholm Syndrome, exacerbated by my embarrassing lack of experience with anything romantic.
Come on, Carmen, be logical. You’re smarter than this.
I need something. I need a…reason. Yes. A justification. Does it matter that I’m coming up with it after the fact? Probably. But…if I could just…
“Then come back here.”
There is no mistaking the undertone of desperation in his tone. The longing, the want. Despite everything, I’m appealing to him.
I can work with this.
I can…
God. I can seduce him, can’t I? I can use my traitorous, curious body to my advantage and offer him something so he keeps coming back. Something so that he keeps slipping up and feeding me pieces of information that I can utilize to make my escape.
He holds the key to my cage. I could pluck it right from his sleeping, satiated hand after a night of…inexperienced, non-penetrative sex with a virgin.
I might need to workshop this a bit more.
But it’s a start. And if there’s something I do know a lot about, it’s about how to remain flirtatiously unavailable.
Seduction at a distance it is.
“I don’t think I will,” I take another step back so that the backs of my thighs press against the mattress of my bed.
Dante seems to take the movement as a personal assault. “You forget that I can open up this cell.”
“And what exactly is it that you’d be coming in for?” I force myself to keep my tone light and take a seat. “I think the moment might have passed now, and I’m not in the mood to be accosted by my captor.”
I see some of the tension leaving his shoulders and panic.
“No matter how attractive he is.”
This perks him back up a little. His arms slide through the bars to dangle at my side.
“Well, I think I’d be curious to learn how you could have gone so long touching yourself without describing it as pleasure.” He tilts his head slightly, a crooked smile that does little to offset the intensity of his eyes.
I bite at my lip as an insane idea begins to form in my mind.
“There’s no need for you to come in for that.” I try for nonchalance, but it comes out too breathy. “You can watch from there.”
And oh, how his jaw goes slack. All pretense of casualness evaporates from his posture.
“Carmen.”
Before I can mentally talk my way out of it, I slide a hand across my chest, curving my fingers around the swell of my breast as they journey south.
The clothes they provided me were basic and thin—glorified pajamas in a dull gray, complete with an elasticated waist on the pants. There’s no way he misses the outline of my taut nipple through the fabric.
“ Carmen.”
Emboldened, my hand plays with the top of my pants and the other tugs at the bottom of my tee, balling it up to expose a sliver of bare midriff, giving him a perfect view of the moment my fingers slip beneath the elasticated waist.
I can feel the flush of my cheeks as I get close enough to feel the wetness already pooling between my legs. A small whimper escapes my lips.
This is my first mistake.
Unable to look at his face, my gaze travels down to where his legs press against the bars. To where they perfectly frame the bulge of his crotch.
An insidious thought courses through me at a speed I’m unprepared for.
Suddenly, all I can think of is the image of me on my knees before those bars, begging for him to release himself into my mouth, taking him eagerly, desperately. Dante would be unable to touch me beyond the way his hands would tangle in my hair.
He’s bucking himself into my throat, whispering lo prendi così bene.
My fingers rub enthusiastically at my clit, and I groan as pleasure begins to jump along my veins. It’s never felt like this before.
“Look at me.”
In my haze, I obey and…well, shit.
Dante looks wrecked. His body is shaking so hard he might have collapsed if his hands weren’t wrapped around the bars. His eyes are like dark pools of pure, unfiltered desire as his tongue slips out to dampen his lip.
“Massage your chest.”
My body is puppeteered by his words. My free hand slips beneath my shirt and palms at my breast eagerly. I almost laugh at how good it feels when my fingers skim over my sensitive nipple. I feel almost dizzy with the attention on two different sensitive areas.
It’s enough for the dampness between my legs to coat my fingers. Curious, I lift them back out to examine the slickness.
My tongue slips out to taste it experimentally. It’s salty but not entirely unpleasant.
I suck in my fingers to the knuckle, lapping up the taste of myself with an odd sense of satisfaction.
“Fuck.”
When I look back up at Dante, fingers still in my mouth, his pupils are blown. He’s staring intently at my mouth.
I suck at my fingers again. This time, I don’t drop his gaze.
He springs away from the bars as if they’ve electrocuted him.
“Fuck no. No,” he croaks, hands tangling themselves in his hair as if to try and tug away the madness. “I’m sorry.”
My fingers fall out of my mouth. “I thought you wanted to watch?”
He swallows hard. “I can’t do this.”
The rejection stings harder than I thought it would. My confidence deflates like a balloon. He’d looked so eager. I was so sure of it in the moment. But maybe that was my own traitorous arousal clouding my judgment.
Worse, maybe Dante had more self-preservation than I had given him credit for. Maybe seducing him was entirely pointless.
“Your loss.” I try to disguise my disappointment by kicking up my legs and lying back on the bed, making sure he sees my hand disappear beneath my pants again before I throw the blanket over myself.
I can feel him watching me still, but I refuse to look at him. The arousal still courses through my body despite the rejection, so I try to focus on finding it again.
Even if nothing comes of it, at least I’ve discovered one thing—that there is a way to find pleasure when touching yourself. The tension that dissolves within me is addicting.
I close my eyes to concentrate.
Immediately, I’m greeted with that same image. My knees cold against the floor, large hands pulling me closer, chin grazing the metal of the cell bars.
Dante’s cock fucking into my mouth.
My mind now supplies the taste: salty but not entirely unpleasant.
“ Lo prendo così bene ,” I whisper.
I take it so well.
Dante must hear me because a moment later, I hear the door slam closed behind him.
* * *
In the cold light of day, I’m willing to admit that my actions last night were, perhaps, not becoming of a virtuous Cartel debutant.
However, I rationalize that my father would, at least, approve of me taking the initiative to conduct a prison escape.
I pace the fifty-two steps of my cell’s width.
Who am I kidding? If Amos Rubio found out I was doing this, he would probably leave me here.
I try not to think about it.
But thinking about my father is a wonderful anaphrodisiac. And not thinking about my father means that I’m thinking about.
Well.
The tension throbbing between my legs…it hasn’t settled since I heard the door slam closed and no matter how hard I tried with my new instructions, I couldn’t top the arousal I felt when I knew Dante was watching.
“Look at me.”
I groan as I turn on my heel and walk back the other fifty-two steps.
No one told me how difficult it would be to think straight. I consider myself to be a very rational person, but now I’m not entirely sure I trust myself to do anything.
Especially when I spent a good twenty minutes debating the pros and cons of just rutting against my pillow like a horny teenager, I’ve decided to blame all of it on twenty-four years of built-up frustration.
I fear I need an outlet, or else I may never think clearly again.
The problem is that there’s only one outlet I really want. And I’m not entirely sure Dante will show his face tonight. He left so quickly and under such…unprecedented circumstances…
I resign myself to a day of internal suffering.
Thankfully, I hear the door open a moment later, and with it, comes the scent of freshly baked pastries. Flirting with Pierre seems like a perfect temporary reprieve.
“You know, Pierre, if I keep meeting you down here, I’m going to get the wrong impression,” I say as sultry as I can, knowing his cheeks will be bright pink by the time he drops off my breakfast.
“Oh, that poor man.”
I turn in alarm to find Dante standing there instead.
He seems to have recovered somewhat since yesterday. Clothes fresh, easy demeanor, cocky little smirk—a far cry from the man straining to instruct me to massage my chest.
I regain composure quickly. “You’re back.”
“I’m back,” he confirms, watching me almost as closely as I him.
I narrow my eyes. “I’m not offering a repeat performance.”
“That’s not why I’m here.”
But I notice the flicker of interest in his eyes before he regains control of himself. “I’m here to apologize,” he continues.
“Apologize.”
“You see, I was quite drunk last night.”
“You were quite drunk.”
“Is there a parrot in here?”
“I’m just trying to understand how you feel this piece of information is relevant,” I counter. “I wasn’t drunk last night, and as I recall, you did very little other than get all hot and bothered.”
His jaw drops open, much to my satisfaction.
I watch him for a moment before pointedly gazing at the plate of pastries in his hand. He immediately scrambles to push the meal over to me.
Dante clears his throat. One small gesture away from tugging at the collar of his shirt. “So, did you…manage to…”
“I think I could use some further instruction.”