Chapter 6
Chapter Six
A ntonio
Fuck. Me.
My wife emerges from our bedroom in a sexy, slinky red cocktail dress. It hugs her curves, with an open triangle cutout at her breasts and a short hemline that shows off her long, shapely legs. Her hair is curled, and she’s wearing fake eyelashes and red lipstick. There’s a softness about her face, like she’s still riding the high from the orgasms this afternoon.
I’ll say one thing–what she lacks in charm, she makes up for in looks. Our children will be beautiful.
I shouldn’t think of baby-making, though, because my already blue balls grow heavy.
I stand from the table where I was going over the books. “You look beautiful.”
There’s a flicker of surprise on her face. I remember the same flicker at her debutante ball. As if she finds the compliment unexpected. Although surely she must be complimented every day of her life.
Perhaps it’s that she doesn’t expect it from me–the cretin.
I extend my hand. “Ready for dinner, Principessa ?”
Hours ago, I had food sent to the room and left outside the door with a knock. There’s no way I would risk my server entering the bedroom without me there to ensure he didn’t look at her. I was told she barely touched the food, though.
“Yes. I’m starving.”
For some reason, it pleases me that I get to be the one to feed her. Like it satisfies some biological caveman need to provide.
I escort her to the dining room where the table is already set for us, and my men bustle around to light candles and pour wine.
I lift my glass after hers has been poured. “To my wife. Who tastes as exquisite as she looks.”
Dahlia rolls her eyes and drinks without clinking my glass.
“I enjoyed watching you come undone this afternoon.”
A visible shiver runs through her. “This isn’t polite dinner conversation.”
I give her a stiff smile. “And yet here you are, the yacht princess, married to a man who doesn’t give a fuck what you think is polite.”
She recoils slightly, and I regret my sharpness. I was enjoying seeing her soft and relaxed. I don’t need to poke her this way. Not after she surrendered to me this afternoon.
Of course, I hadn’t given her much of a choice.
But the truth is, if she’d been frightened, or angry, or resistant, if her pussy had been dry or her body tense, I wouldn’t have gone on.
No, my feisty bride enjoyed my touch and my tongue. She was incredibly responsive, and watching her come was the most spectacular sight I’ve seen. It was beautiful.
“Talking about your pussy at dinner is as much my right as tasting it,” I declare. “And,” –I pause to take a sip of my wine– “I can’t wait to taste you again.”
She lifts her lashes to meet my gaze. “As punishment.” She doesn’t say it as a question, but she’s watching me like she’s trying to discern how and when it will happen again.
I shrug. “It can be a reward, too. Depends on the context, I suppose.”
I watch a pretty flush color the exposed triangle of skin above her breasts.
“Would you like me to describe what a reward might be like?”
She licks her lips, and the sight of her tongue gets me harder than steel.
“Hmm?” I prompt when she doesn’t reply.
She takes two healthy sips of her wine. “Sure.” I love how she tries to make it sound casual, but the word wobbles on the end.
“When you’re good, my sweet wife, I will reward you. I’ll take you to our bedroom and light a few candles. Pour you a glass of champagne. Then I’ll undress you slowly, my fingertips trailing across your soft skin.”
Goosebumps rise on her arms. One of my men serves two plates loaded with T-bone steak, twice-baked potatoes, and asparagus. I pause until he’s gone.
“I’ll pick you up and lie you on the bed. Maybe trail a rose across your bare skin to prime you for my touch.”
Dahlia had been applying herself to cutting her steak, but she goes still now, raising her gaze to mine. Then she seems to shake herself out of reverie and conjures a sniff. “A rose?”
“If I can’t find a dahlia,” I amend with a smirk.
I see the twitch of a smile on her lips before she hides it with a bite of steak.
“And then, I’ll push your knees wide and bury my head between your thighs. You’ll have use of your hands this time, so you can use them to pull my hair or tug me forward.”
Dahlia swallows her steak with an audible gulp.
“Of course, I’ll let you come. I won’t make you wait. I’ll bring you to orgasm as many times as you like.”
Dahlia’s back straightens as if she’s just squeezed her thighs together under the table. “So, Antonio, I get that you wanted revenge on me and my father, but isn’t it far more of a hassle to keep me?”
I don’t allow her to change the topic. “Shall I tell you what will happen if I have to punish you again?”
“No.” The syllable is mulish.
“Next time I will focus my attention on your ass.”
Dahlia stops chewing.
“The next time I spank you will be over my knee. A more intimate experience for both of us.”
“Stop talking,” Dahlia snaps, the color high on her cheeks.
“I will turn your ass pink before I give that tight little rosebud between your cheeks my full attention.”
“ Antonio. ” Shock laces the syllables.
I give her a wicked smile. “Don’t worry, darling. It can be just as satisfying as having me between your legs. Over time, you will come to beg me to fuck you there, as well.”
Dahlia’s fork hand shakes on the way to her mouth. “Let me go, Antonio. Please.”
I shake my head. “Never.”
She gets up from the dinner table, throwing her napkin down over her plate.
I stand when she does, like a gentleman. I studied and practiced refined etiquette from the moment I got out of prison. Not because Benedict King called me a brute. Not to prove him wrong. Because he was right–I am a brute. A complete monster.
No, it was a necessary adoption to enact my revenge plan. To get myself in the right doors. It’s been a very long con to lure Benedict King into investments then arranging the default of those investments. Ultimately offering him the loan on the behalf of Don Beretta.
She leaves the table, and I let her go.
My satisfaction at goading her doesn’t taste as juicy as I’d hoped. Nor does eating the rest of my dinner alone.
Dahlia
Ugh. That man. I'm trembling when I get back to the room, angry and hot and just as needy as I was this afternoon before Antonio got me off.
I seriously want to kill that man. I should have taken one of those steak knives at the table and dug out his heart with it.
Except then he wouldn't be alive to use that glorious tongue between my legs. He wouldn't be able to smirk at me and make me feel beautiful and coveted and dirty all at the same time.
I can't deny the effect he has on me. It's no less potent than it was at my debutante ball seven years ago. Just being in his presence electrifies me.
I strip out of the dress I wore to taunt him and put on a sleep shirt. I dig out the mystery novel I packed back when I thought I would be on my honeymoon with a man who bored me.
Books have always been my distraction, my best friend when I felt alone. But at this moment, even reading doesn't work for me. I can't get lost in the story or the characters’ lives. All I can think about is those smoldering golden eyes staring at me across the dinner table. The way Antonio held his wine glass in that large hand of his swirling the contents as he studied me. As he tempted me.
I do admit that I love his temptation. I love that he's intent on seducing me–his wife. He could just as easily have forced me to marry him and locked me in a cabin on the yacht somewhere. Or worse, he could have forced himself on me. He seems the type of man who's forced a great number of people to do his bidding.
The fact that he remains a gentleman with me and is waiting for me to give him permission to take my virginity, both titillates and soothes me.
Yes, I'm still enamored with the silly notion of reforming the bad boy. Of softening the heart of a hardened man. It’s the fantasy that got me in trouble at my debutante ball.
When my father opened that closet door and found me with Antonio's lips locked on mine, one large hand cupping my ass and one squeezing my breast, he shamed me so thoroughly, I never really recovered. My parents took away all the birthday gifts I received from the ball, and I wasn't allowed to go to Paris for the next two summers.
It became the event my parents threw at me every time I stepped out of line. My mom would get tight-lipped and warn me against ruining the family as I'd nearly done then. My father would threaten to disown me if I ever did.
And I guess, in a way, I have.
No, screw that!
This was all my father's doing. What he did to Antonio was unconscionable. He had no right to treat him like dirt. Not that it excuses Antonio's grandiose revenge plot.
I should be more disturbed than I am about what it says about the kind of man he is. That he could harbor such a grudge to have enacted such an elaborate plan. I have to admire it, though. It took a brilliant man to bring down my father. To climb as high as Antonio obviously has and capture an entire yacht business and the daughter of the socialite in one swoop.
After a couple of hours, I give up on the book. I decide to try out the oval marble bathtub in the bathroom. Filling it with hot soapy water, I strip out of my clothes and step in.
I lean back against the back of the tub. From somewhere out on the deck carries in the sound of Puccini. My soul is instantly soothed.
Music has always been my passion. A passion my mother completely dismissed and diminished.
I listen more closely to identify the song. It's from La Bohème–“Sì, mi chiamano Mimì”–an Aria I learned in Performance Study at Smith. I lift my voice to join along, seeking and finding the pleasure of the notes.
The sound reverberates against the bathroom walls, satisfying me, soothing me.
It feels like a return to self.
I belt out the song louder–because you can’t half-ass opera. I pour myself into the music like I'm Maria Callas holding center stage, singing my lungs out. It feels good to empty my breath, to move energy this way. Like always, singing transforms me. I forget about the rigid constraints my parents and my upbringing imposed on my behavior and my life. When I sing, I exist in oneness. I’m not Dahlia King, socialite and debutante. I simply…am. I’m the song, the music, the words, the wind. I’m a voice and a breath and a soul full of unexpressed emotion.
Lifted and enlivened, I climb out of the tub and dry off, still singing.
I wrap the towel under my armpits and walk out into the bedroom then stop short, the E dying in my throat.
“Don't stop.” Antonio reclines in the armchair, his knees spread, his hands resting on the two arms of the chair. He’s the picture of relaxed power and authority. Sexy, dominant, far too delicious.
He leans forward. “Please, go on. I’ve never heard anything so beautiful in my life.”
I blink, not believing him at first, but his expression is rapt. His attention fully focused on me. I don’t detect any sarcasm or manipulation.
I start up again, but falter, embarrassed. But Antonio remains apparently entranced, so I find my way back to the song. I close my eyes because it’s too intense to look at him when I sing, and I think of the romantic story of Mimi and Rodolfo–their bohemian love at first sight.
As I sing, I wonder what it would’ve been like if I’d met Antonio that way–as a poor seamstress, free to fall in love with another artist. Free to follow my own desires and direction. To express myself creatively. With abandon.
When the aria ends, I open my balled fists and my eyes. Antonio surges to his feet, applauding.
“Bravo!” he practically shouts his praise. “Bravo, amore . Nobody told me.” He shakes his head, wonder lighting his whiskey-colored eyes.
My foolish heart beats as fast as a hummingbird’s. “Told you what?”
“You’re incredible.” He reaches for both my hands. “How did I not know? I learned everything about you.”
A hot flush of pleasure washes over me. I know it’s foolish. There’s no reason at all to feel flattered–he learned about me to best my father and steal me from my fiance. But I like hearing it, just the same. Or maybe I like having his large hands engulfing my smaller ones. His skin is even warmer than his gaze.
“My mother doesn’t like people to know. She thinks it’s too bohemian to be an artist. The Kings are supposed to be the patrons of the arts.”
Antonio cocks his head. “Why would anyone hide a talent so great from the world? It's a travesty.”
“Well, I don't know about that.” My gaze trips around the room, unsure where to land.
“Don't be modest.” He tips my chin up. His look is intent, as if his new mission in life is to champion my singing.
I don't hate it. I know this man tackles everything in life with a ferocity that can't be denied. Knowing he's behind me on something that means so much to me is a gift. It gives me wings.
Not that I plan to pursue a singing career. But just feeling Antonio's support shifts something that was locked inside me. A compartment there was never allowed to be opened has now had its lock sprung and the drawer drawn out.
“Dahlia, you were born to sing. God gave you a gift that can't be denied.”
I'm trembling now. Close to tears although I don't know why. It's like Antonio's prying open the recesses of my heart. I feel exposed and raw and vulnerable and yet terribly, painfully hopeful. Like the candle that was extinguished when I was a young girl has just been relit.
“I can't–I can't pursue singing or sing in public…”
“You’re a Beretta now. You’ll do as you please.”
More liquid warmth pours into my chest, spreading down my arms and legs.
But I reel myself in. I can't forget that I'm a prisoner on this yacht. This man may be my husband, but he's also my keeper.
I take a step back. “Do as I please? I hardly think so. Am I not your prisoner here?”
I regret the attack because something shutters behind Antonio's eyes.
“You must bend to my will, yes. But no one else’s.” There's a ring of honoring in the last sentence that again causes my candle wick to relight. As if Antonio would defend me against anyone who tried to stop me from doing something I wanted to do.
For a moment, I have a glimpse of what it’s like to have someone in my court–something I've never had before. It makes my knees weak with wonder.
“Come here, bella .” Antonio grips the edges of my towel and tugs me toward him. The edges come open, and he uses them to pull my body flush against his. He lowers his head slowly, as if giving me time to pull away, but I’m caught in his golden stare, unable to look away, greedy as always for whatever it is he’s about to offer.
He slants his lips across mine in a slow, deliberate kiss. His lips are soft. He tastes of expensive champagne.
I open my mouth to him, slide my tongue between his lips. My timid attempt awakens him, and he drops the towel, cradling the back of my head to kiss me deeply. He gives me teeth and tongue and bruising force. Flames lick between my legs, up my center, burning down my resistance. My resolve.
Antonio eases away. “Will you sing for me, beautiful?” His voice is a coaxing soft rumble. It’s a tone I haven’t heard from him before, and it makes me feel safe and special. Held.
“Yes.” The syllable comes easily.
I don’t sing for people because my mother didn’t like it, but I do know I’m decent. My college professors often gave me the solos in chorus, and I even got the lead in the musical Gigi once. I didn’t even tell my parents I was performing, and I used my middle name for the program, so it wouldn’t get back to the society pages in New York.
Antonio strokes the side of my cheek with his thumb. I’m naked, but his eyes stay on my face. We remain that way, staring into each other’s eyes. I’m sure some exchange of energy is happening, but I don’t know what it means. All I know is my heart’s pounding, and my lips tingle and buzz from the kiss.
Antonio gently releases me. “You’d better put on your ugliest pajamas, or I might not be able to hold up my end of our bargain.”
A puff of surprised laughter comes from my lips. A buoyancy expands in my chest for the first time since my wedding day. No–that’s not true–for the first time since I went off to college. That brief period of time when I had some small freedom. But this is different. This is a warm space of lightness and possibility. Of safety and being held.
How ironic that being forced to marry a stranger bent on revenge would create this sense of freedom.
As I take the reprieve he’s offered me and turn away to put on a nightgown and panties, I contemplate it.
It’s not real freedom.
It must be just the sense of nothing left to lose.
Except that doesn’t feel true, either. Because Antonio just gave me a gift, and it’s not not the reprieve from sex, which I may have actually given him tonight. It’s something else.
A feeling I want to keep.
A new sense of myself–of what I could be outside the boundaries my parents set for me. Of who I am apart from them.
Maybe who I am with Antonio.
I brace against that thought, expecting to feel it thud like my head against the wall, but nothing hits. In fact, the thought only makes me feel lighter.
I cast a nervous glance at my new husband, who has undressed to his boxer shorts and is heading into the bathroom.
For the first time in forever, I don’t know what my future holds.
For the first time in forever, I’m actually excited to find out…