Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
LORENZO
“ è a posto , Ale . ” Her voice floated over to where I stood just behind the arch of the open-plan area. He’s alright? She’d moaned and ridden my fingers like a fucking porn star last night, and I was just alright?
Frustration clawed at my edges. When her juices soaked into the creases of my fingers and her moans echoed in the walls of my rib cage, I thought I’d taken ten steps forward to closing that fucking gap. Progress, I realized, was a delusion when I found myself in the shower, my hands fisting my cock to the tone of her grating voice. Fuck, I wanted more. Her skin lit up when she came. Like she was a falling star in the deep black sky. The constant knowledge of the color of her pussy and the hum of her voice zapped in my mind like an electric shock. An addiction called Daria had swept into my veins. Couldn’t get rid of it anymore. I wanted more. So much more, but I feared it was easier to shoot a hole in my chest than to get through this woman’s walls.
I rocked on the balls of my feet, eavesdropping on her call. Even if she’d not mentioned her brother’s ridiculously shortened name, I would have known it was her family on the other end. With them, she stuck to one-syllable names and kept her side of the story short. It wasn’t much in the way of entertainment, to be honest. With that friend of hers, who she called once a week, it was a completely different ball game. She described me in colorful rants and followed the alphabet studiously. On her last call, I realized she had reached the letter L. I heard her passionately refer to me as a lunatic loser who was filled with nothing but lies. I was assuming these lies were my future sins should I cheat on her.
“ Sul serio, sto bene , Ale.”
Mild irritation prickled my nerves. Why did she have to fucking convince her brother she was okay? What the fuck did he think I was doing to her? My sins were all innocent with her. The darkest being ideas of laying her down on that desk she stroked like it was her lover and fucking her on it. I supposed, as a brother, he would frown upon that, but damn if it didn’t get my dick jerking.
“I’ll be off shopping, anyway. Like today.”
Liar. All she’d be doing was binge-watching her shitty shows filled with men who couldn’t hold up their dick if they tried. It hadn’t escaped my mind that the men in those series looked like that boy I’d killed with my bare hands. He was a far cry from me. I didn’t understand her fascination with blond men who looked like they’d never seen the sun under the rock where they’d been hiding. Or was she intent on picking the opposite of me? Animosity prickled at my edges, but it didn’t really matter. The only man in her life would be me.
Her soft laugh grazed the hair on my skin. “No, Mamma. As if he’d allow it. I’m going with a friend.”
Unease slithered along the floor and rode up my body. Who is her fucking friend? It took me less than a heartbeat to stride up to her. She was swinging her legs on the bar stool like a child on a joyride. I came to a stop right beside her. Her legs halted, and her shoulders tightened instantly.
Our eyes met as her mamma’s voice filtered through the phone. Something about New York being a big city for small girls. Don’t I know it? A frown of annoyance coasted through her forehead.
I pulled her phone from her hand and stuck it to my ear. “ Non ti preoccupare, Mamma. I am not going to let my wife run around New York alone.”
It wasn’t the awkward pause on the other end that bothered me. It was the irritation on the face of the woman right in front of me.
Polite distaste edged the voice of my mother-in-law as she fought to hold a conversation with me. The dislike for me seemed to run in the family of Di Matteos, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I just wasn’t much of a fan of the clenched fist on the kitchen island and the stiffened lips staring back at me. So I hung up on her mother mid-sentence.
She gasped. “ Sei un cretino! Did you just hang up on my Mamma?”
“I’m not a moron, Principessa . I just don’t enjoy doing things I don’t want to.”
“Lucky you,” she bit out.
“If you don’t like talking to your mamma, then don’t.”
“I love talking to her.”
My hand wrapped around her clenched fist. I stroked her fingers and released them one at a time. “What is it you don’t like, then?”
“This.” She pointed with her other hand between us. “Don’t like us. Can we get a divorce?”
Jesus! It was like she had a box of matches and lit a fire inside me every single time. I fought to relax my grip on her fist. “Not going to happen, Principessa . Tell me something else.”
“Will you give me whatever I want?”
I’d take that matchstick of hers and burn the whole damn world if she wanted me to. But I feared that wouldn’t be what she would want. “That would depend.”
She laughed. A short and bitter laugh. “Of course it would.” She pulled at her hand, and mine tightened around it.
“Tell me what you don’t like.”
“It doesn’t matter, anyway. Women are of as much worth as the bin you throw your bloodied shirts into.”
I pulled the stool behind me closer and leaned against it. Her lack of faith was pissing me off. “Try me anyway.”
“Let’s see.” She tapped her cheek exaggeratedly. “So many things, so little time. I don’t like being tied to you, but I told you that.” My molars clenched. I was beginning to think she was brought into my life to test my patience. “No harm telling you again. No?” This girl. I didn’t know where she got her daily dose of courage, but I needed to find it and snuff it right out.
She waited for my reaction, and when I didn’t give her one, she continued, “I don’t like just sitting in here waiting for you,” she jabbed her finger at my chest, “to come home. I’m not a damn accessory to your house. I want to go out. Want to work. Study. I want to wear whatever the hell I damn well want and not be told that it’s too short, too tight, too damn everything. I want to go out. Alone. Or with a friend, but alone. I don’t want your dark suits trailing me all the damn time. I want out of this marriage. Did I tell you that?”
Jesus! She wanted to slip through my fingers like jelly when I wanted to tie her to my bed and hide the key in concrete. It irritated me more than I cared for that if I let her go, she’d be out of here in a heartbeat.
“That’s a long list,” I growled.
She shrugged her shoulders. “Told you it wasn’t worth it.”
“Did you hear a no?”
Her eyes lit up like a fucking Christmas tree. “Are we getting a divorce?”
In a heartbeat, I yanked the stool with her on it and caged her between my legs. My hands crawled up her neck, and my scruff touched her soft cheek. Hot words burned the shell of her ear. “The only way you are leaving our marriage alive is if you rip my fucking heart out, Principessa. ” Her breath heaved, and she trilled in my arms. “Even then, I’ll come after you from my grave because there’s no way another man besides me is touching an inch of your aura.”
My lips grazed the end of her ear and trailed along her jaw. “Who am I to you?” I muttered darkly.
“My captor.”
Fucking firecracker. I nipped at her chin, and she gave a loud yelp. “Try again.”
“My abuser?”
Jesus! I cupped her ass and yanked her closer to me. She was half on her stool and half on my lap.
“Fine. Fine. My business contact.”
I squeezed my hands around her neck, pulled her to me, and sank my lips into hers. Fuck! I’d always wanted her to take the initiative, but she pulled at my control and good intentions like it was nobody’s business, and Jesus, it felt good to slip my tongue in and ride her mouth. She didn’t fight me. Didn’t even stiffen in my arms. She melted like hot wax. Like she wanted me as badly as I did her. So why is she always fighting me then? With the last thread of self-control I had wallowing somewhere in my body, I pulled back to her gasp and the soft plop of her swollen lips.
“That didn’t feel like a business contact to me, Principessa. Who am I to you?” I rasped.
Her fingers came up to her lips and traced them softly. Fuck. If she wasn’t going to answer right, I was going to fuck her right here and right now. I was done with my patience.
Did she read my intentions? She must have. That was the only reason she muttered the next words begrudgingly.“Husband.”
“That’s right, Principessa. Remember that every time you take a fucking breath because this…” I took her finger and touched her breast and my chest, “is forever. Now, what do you want to study?”
“Ugh.” Confusion painted her face.
“You said you want to study, so what do you want to study?”
She studied me with skepticism in her eyes. “I don’t know…”
“Think about it. Do some research. If you want to visit some colleges, we can do that, sì ?”
“You’re really going to allow me to study something, or what?”
“Didn’t I just say so?”
She grabbed my thighs and leaned forward. “Can I stay in a dorm?”
“Fuck, no,” I said gruffly. “My men will bring you and follow you everywhere, but you can study.”
“But I want to go alone.”
Fuck if she wasn’t cute when she pouted. I might have said yes to anything else, but not this. “Don’t push me in this, Daria, or you aren’t going to college either.”
“Well, I want one more thing.” She leaned back, put her hands on the stool, and smiled sweetly.
Fuck. A smirk lit on my lips. My wife was a fucking brat. And a vamp. For an innocent, she’d got her seduction down to a tee. Her crotch pushed down on my thighs, too close to my dick. I let out a harsh laugh. "I just told you that you can study whatever the hell you want, and you want one more thing?"
“ Sí. ” She wiggled on her stool, shifting closer to my heat. “You know, just to prove you mean it.” She counted each point with her fingers. “I can’t get a divorce…” I growled. “Can’t go out alone…” My teeth clenched. “Can I wear what I want?”
My eyes trailed the skimpy thing she had on her. Something that wrapped her breast tightly and flowered below it, ending up at least a full hand above her knee. I put my hand on her thigh. Yes. A full fucking hand.
“Does your Mamma allow you to wear this shit?”
She jutted out her chin. “Mamma isn’t here.”
So if her mother didn’t allow her to wear this, how did she sneak it in? I followed the movement of her breasts as she breathed. “So who got you this shit, then?”
“My friend, Luna. You don’t know her.”
If I did, I might have throttled her with my bare hands. The fabric was like a t-shirt. It wrapped around her breasts like a fucking second skin. I swallowed.
“Don’t you like my style?” she asked with an innocent smile.
Her style? She looked like a damn sex invitation. I wanted to say yes, she could wear whatever she wanted to. I wanted to give her that. But the thought of that damn s oldati’s eyes on her was too fresh in my mind and I just couldn’t. “I can’t, Principessa,” I grated. “Give me some time, sì ?”
Disappointment sighed out of her body. “I was just going to buy a shit load of clothes.”
I didn’t know what made me say the next words. Whether it was the look on her face or the masochist in me but, “You can wear them when I am with you,” rumbled out of me with no logical thought. Fuck!
She smiled. “Yeah? Cool, I thought I’d have to cancel shopping.”
Unease rattled my nerves and brought me back to the reason I’d stepped into the kitchen. “Who are you going shopping with?”
“Emily.” Her voice was weak, her eyes on the floor, like she knew I wouldn’t like her fucking answer. Damn right, I didn’t.
I gripped her bare thighs. “I told you to lose her number.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I guess I didn’t listen.”
“Cancel it,” I snapped.
“No. I want to go,” she whined.
Well, fuck me. Since when had she got up the nerve? My jaw clenched as I tried to bite down on my anger. “Daria, don’t fucking push me.”
Her lips thinned. “Tell me why you don’t like her?”
Fuck! I can’t. This, our relationship, was too fragile to break with my past.
“If you can’t tell me, there’s no reason.” She pulled out of my grasp and hopped off the stool. “See, it doesn’t feel good to do things you don’t like, right?”
“Daria,” I said tightly.
She turned, and fear floated across her face. I ran a frustrated hand through my hair and sighed. Fuck, I couldn’t just cancel all my meetings. There was no way I was giving in. “You will allow my men to follow you everywhere, sì ?”
She nodded her head wildly.
“I mean it, Daria.”
“Can they also come into the fitting rooms?” she asked with a cheeky grin.
I growled. “You go alone. Alone. Capisti? ”
“Yeah, yeah, I won’t let another man see me naked. As long as you don’t either,” she snapped.
“I don’t do men.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I am keeping my word, Principessa . Now wait here until I check your car,” I said tightly.
“I’m sure your men can check the car for me.”
“No.” My voice cut through the air like an ax on willow wood. “I’d like to do it myself.”
She went still with confusion, but I wasn’t in the mood to explain.
I called Danilo as I stepped out and towards the elevator. “Get my car ready for my wife. I’m coming down to check it and get two more to follow her.”
I punched in the elevator code and got in. “I want you to follow her. She’s not to be alone even for a second.” Fuck. I wanted to cancel my meetings. Fucking woman. I should have just given her back to her brother and saved myself the trouble. Because she was all of that and more.