8. Luna
8
LUNA
I was tired.
So tired and so… satisfied.
There wasn’t a place in my body that didn’t have that delicious ache.
Massimo was still buried deep inside me, and I didn’t want to pull away from him. I didn’t want to look at him, not after something so intimate. I was feeling shy all of a sudden, which was ridiculous considering I was still naked, and my bare skin was pressed up against him.
Massimo shifted a little, and I made a small noise in protest.
He gently shushed me. “I’m just switching positions.”
I let my body relax as he maneuvered until I was lying on top of him, somehow still keeping us connected.
I shivered from the sensation, automatically clenching around him and feeling a small spasm of pleasure working its way into my body. I was too damn tired to do anything about it or think clearly. I rested my head on his chest and closed my eyes. Massimo’s hand moved to my back, rubbing soothingly up and down.
How… gentle.
How… different from everything that was said about the man. So which version was the true version of Massimo De Luca?
The monster who ruled Las Vegas and most of the West with an iron fist, or the man holding me close to him, soothingly running his hand over my back?
I was asleep before I could really register what was happening.
I dreamed of being lost in the woods, unsure if I was running away from something or running toward it.
I woke up feeling disoriented.
I squinted my eyes when the sunlight shone into them, trying to move away from it, only to freeze up when I felt something warm and hard behind me.
It took a moment for me to remember all that had happened the night before and exactly who it was lying beside me, his arm banded around my middle as if he had held me in his arms the entire night.
I shifted and gasped when I felt his hand cupping me lightly between my legs.
Had he been touching me like this the entire night?
My leg muscles clenched at the thought, and I debated whether he would wake if I moved.
Just the thought of him being aware of this was…
I couldn’t think about that, but I couldn’t stay like this either.
I pushed the blanket off my shoulder, shivering a little when the cold air touched my bare skin, before trying to wiggle my way out of his hold. I barely made any progress when I felt him tighten his grip on me, both from the arm wrapped around my middle and his hand on me.
I gasped and turned toward Massimo before I could think better of it. I blinked in surprise when I found his bright green eyes aimed directly at me, clear from sleep and tiredness. His face was expressionless—not that I had expected much. But there was just something about this expression while he was holding me so close, as the memories of the night before intruded on my thoughts, that made me feel off balance.
I cleared my throat. “Good morning.”
“Morning,” he said, his voice smooth and even.
God, if only there was a way for me to know what his thoughts were.
“Should we get ready for the day?” I asked.
A small smirk formed around his lips. “I think we still have time.”
Hell.
I opened my mouth, to say what I didn’t know, when I felt his fingers strum over my opening. Words escaped me. All I was capable of was a soft moan that didn’t sound like me at all.
“Massimo, I?—”
“I know,” he said. “I know you’re sore. That’s why we won’t do anything more than this.”
“This?” I gasped out.
His fingers quickened against me, drawing my arousal. My legs rubbed against each other on their own accord, trapping his hand there. He moved then, pushing himself up on his arms and throwing the blanket away from us. I was no longer cold. No, instead, I was feeling a blistering heat that was almost getting to be too much.
I was naked. And so was Massimo. We never put any clothes on after last night. The sun peeked through the curtains, making all the details of our bodies that much more conspicuous. I wanted to pull the blankets back over us, but instead, I forced myself to relax and let Massimo take in his fill. My skin flushed wherever his eyes landed, and there was a dark glint in them that told me perhaps… perhaps he liked what he saw.
“I’m going to make you feel good,” he said, his voice gruff, just as he pushed my legs apart and gave himself better access.
A rough sound escaped my lips before I could think to curb it. His eyes glinted as he looked at me, and though I didn’t know the look well, I thought he appeared… happy with me. And if not happy, then at the very least satisfied with me as his choice for a bride.
He leaned down and kissed me once more. This was different. It wasn’t like our first kiss, which had been reverent if not a little restrained. It wasn’t like the kiss he gave me at the church that held no emotions, and not even like the one last night, filled with a dark promise I had no way of understanding.
This kiss was desperate. Ugly and messy, even.
It spoke of ownership, of a surrender to an agreement we both promised.
It was addicting. I moaned against his lips and kissed him back, needing more of him.
And more still.
Lina was right. Massimo De Luca would break me, just not in the way everyone was expecting.
This break would be irrevocable. Unstoppable. Like a freight train moving at top speed on a broken track. Surely, it would cause some damage in the end.
But I didn’t care.
He plunged his tongue inside my mouth at the same time I felt his fingers push inside me.
I turned my head to the side, pulling away from the kiss and looking at him. I clenched down on him automatically, wondering if there would ever be a time when I would get used to the feel of him inside me.
He didn’t say anything as he began to move his fingers at a slow, steady pace first, causing a slight tremor to convulse deep inside until he picked up the pace, and the tremors grew.
“God, you’re so fucking tight,” he gritted out. I didn’t know how to answer him, so I didn’t, not used to how free Massimo was with his words around me. “You were made for me, weren’t you, principessa ?”
Was I?
Didn’t that sound too… idealistic for someone like Massimo?
He talked like he believed in fate. As if fate had brought me to him, when in reality, it was Andre’s quest for more power.
But even with that thought, there was a huge part of me that liked the idea a little too much.
He pulled his fingers out of me suddenly, leaving me feeling empty. I made a small sound in protest, wanting him back, wanting that sensation. Massimo leaned down and took my lips in his once more, kissing me in that way that left no room for doubt about who I belonged to.
“Do you like it when I touch you?” he asked me when he pulled away.
I nodded, feeling shy, just as he cupped me between my legs.
His hand moved over the wet lips, and my skin convulsed when I felt his thumb press over my clit.
“Feel good?”
I nodded, wishing he would stop talking so much.
“Look at me,” he said darkly. I looked at him. “I want you to watch me as I feast on your pussy.”
“What—”
Hell.
He smiled at me, his smile pure wickedness, just as he kissed his way down my body. I closed my eyes when I felt his lips glide over the concave of my stomach. The hand that was still cupping my pussy squeezed me roughly, forcing me to open my eyes and look at him.
There was a sort of reprimand in his gaze, reminding me what he wanted me to do, but I could tell there was a part of him that enjoyed my disobedience. Or perhaps it wasn’t my disobedience that he enjoyed, but the fact that he could remind me of it. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, and seconds later, I didn’t care to know because he was moving again, pushing further down, stopping when he got to my navel. His tongue came out and dipped inside my belly button. My legs shook from the sensation, something Massimo didn’t miss.
“It seems my principessa likes this,” he said seductively against my skin. Heat bloomed in my cheeks over my inability to hide from him. He shook his head. “There is nothing to be embarrassed about. You’re reacting to me— your husband .”
Had he ever sounded so deranged, so dominating as he said it?
He moved further down my body, his hand leaving it just as he pushed to lie between my legs, bringing his face just mere inches away from me.
I tried to close my legs on instinct, but he was in the way, and there was a part of me that was trembling with anticipation, remembering the way it had felt when he did this to me last night. Was it so wrong of me to enjoy Massimo’s touch?
The women I’d talked to before didn’t seem to enjoy their husbands’ touch, so perhaps I was the lucky one?
I didn’t know anymore.
My emotions were all over the place, and there was no time to think about it because I felt Massimo’s tongue then.
One of his hands moved up and wrapped my black hair around it, tugging on it. “Look at me,” he said roughly, showing me just the hint of the monster everyone had warned me about.
I looked at him as he took another swipe and another one and another.
“Massimo!” I yelled, feeling myself close to the edge.
“That’s right, principessa . Say my name again.”
He used the flat of his tongue and licked up my crease once more.
“Massimo,” I moaned out.
He let go of my hair and pushed my legs further apart. Cold air teased my wet skin as he took his time looking at me.
“Just how familiar are you with your body?” he asked. “Have you touched yourself before?”
His fingers moved through my slit, his eyes watching me expectantly.
I could only nod.
He smiled. “Here?”
I nodded.
His fingers moved faster against me. “Give me your words, baby.”
“Y-Yes,” I said softly.
His hand slid down. I made a small noise in protest and shook my head, my hand wrapping around his wrist to stop him.
His eyes glinted.
He moved down anyway and touched over the tight muscle of my asshole. I bit my lip.
“Here?” he asked seductively.
“No,” I whispered.
Something glowed in his eyes, something dark and sinister.
“Fuck,” he gritted out. “This is mine, got me? Just as everything else. This pussy. Your perky tits. Your mouth. Mine .”
He practically growled the last word just as he bent down and licked up and down my slit from one end to the next.
I let out a small yell as I felt him, feeling everything in me wanting to hollow into itself and just give in to the raging pleasure.
“God!” I threw my head back, no longer caring about keeping my eyes on him.
“That’s right, principessa . I am your God. You will see no one, know no one but me. I will put you up on the altar and worship everything about you. I will own you in every way possible.”
He went back to eating me, his lips moving up and taking my swollen clit into his mouth. He nipped on it roughly, the sting of it, the very thing to blow me up into tiny bits, irrevocably damaging me beyond repair.
I wasn’t sure how long we stayed in bed, but by then, the sun was shining brightly and high up in the sky.
Massimo had his arms wrapped around me possessively, and there was just something about being held by another person so intimately that made me feel… strange.
How long had it been since I was held so tightly?
Perhaps when I was a child, when my father was still alive?
Or sometime after that, before Mom decided that she hated me? Perhaps she had held me then? I didn’t know.
We didn’t talk.
I looked out the window, not wanting anything to intrude on my little bubble with this man I didn’t know very well—a man I now called my husband.
A man I would be depending on for everything, including my very own insignificant survival in this world.
I shivered from the thought, and Massimo tightened his arms around me.
“We have to leave soon.”
I kept the small sigh that wanted to escape inside. I turned around to look at him and was struck once again by his savage beauty. I knew why people were afraid of him, but I wondered if anyone had ever looked at him and thought, This must be what a fallen angel looks like.
“What now?” I asked, moving my eyes back to meet his quickly before looking away. He tightened his arms around me once more, briefly this time, and caused my heart to stutter.
“Now we go home.”
“Home.”
Home wasn’t Chicago anymore. It had never felt like that anyhow. Even when my dad was alive. Home wasn’t Las Vegas though. I had never even stepped foot outside of Chicago. What would I know about being anywhere else?
I nodded when Massimo didn’t say anything. The look in his eyes said that’s what he wanted from me.
He pulled away, leaving me feeling cold all of a sudden. I shivered, and he glanced back at me strangely.
“It’ll be warmer in Las Vegas.”
I nodded. It wasn’t that cold in Chicago now. We were heading into spring, and sure, there might be the lingering of snow on the ground, but the weather hadn’t been as bad as it was a few weeks before.
I sat up and pulled the cover over my naked body, all the while trying not to look at Massimo so much. Like me, he was naked. But there was no shyness, no awkwardness about the man. He stood in the middle of the room, as confident as he would have been wearing one of those tailored suits that molded to his huge body perfectly. My eyes moved down to his cock on their own accord. I hadn’t been able to look at him clearly last night or earlier this morning, even as I had felt him, but now, in the morning light…
My chest tightened, and it felt like I wasn’t getting enough air into my lungs.
He was huge. And perhaps I was na?ve not to know better, but I thought he was beautiful. Sculpted like Michelangelo’s statue, only… more endowed .
I inhaled deeply when he hardened right before my eyes—even more so than he already had. I was the only one who got to come this morning.
I moved my eyes away, and they slammed right into his.
He was smirking at me.
I peered back down at the bedsheet as he crawled onto the bed toward me. I had no choice but to look up into his face when he was so close to me. So close his nose nearly touched mine.
“You can look all you want, baby.”
I bit my lip, not knowing what to say to that. He was giving me permission to ogle him?
“After all, I plan on looking at you,” he said seductively.
Hell.
I didn’t think it would be possible for there to be a time when I wouldn’t be shy with him or let him look at me like that. The image of me just lying there naked while he got his fill came to mind, but even that scenario was too unbelievable for me.
He chuckled and playfully tapped my chin with two fingers before moving off the bed and toward the bathroom.
I gasped slightly when he showed me his back. The three scars on his face were nothing compared to the scars on his back. I thought I had seen a few on his torso, but whatever happened to him, it seemed his back bore the brunt of it.
Tears sprang to my eyes at the image. I couldn’t imagine the kind of pain he must have been in from the torture—and it was that. There was no way to define it as anything but torture.
He went to the bathroom and closed the door behind him before I could say anything. Not that I would have been brave enough to ask.
I waited until the water turned on before I sprang out of bed. Then, I grabbed the white robe hanging off the ottoman nearby and quickly put it on.
I turned back to the bed. The covers and the bedsheet were all in disarray, and I wondered if the person cleaning this room after we left would know what we did on it last night.
My cheeks tightened at the thought, and I pulled on the blanket, wondering if I could make it, only to find a bloody stain in the middle of the bed.
A small noise escaped my lips. What the hell was I supposed to do about that?
Tears stung my eyes, and I was suddenly feeling overwhelmed. So much so, I didn’t even hear Massimo coming out of the bathroom. I jumped when I felt his hand on my shoulder.
“Whoa, easy there. Are you okay?” he asked.
I turned around to look at him. I still had parts of the blanket wrapped in my arms, and the bloodstained sheets drew my attention from the corner of my eye.
Massimo looked at the blanket, at me, and then back to the bed before looking at me once more.
He frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“They’ll know,” I said, my voice a near whisper.
“Know?”
I pointed at the bloodstain.
Massimo’s face relaxed. “Ah. I’m sure they’ve seen worse.”
I grimaced. Was that supposed to make me feel better?
I didn’t say anything. What could I say? Argue and be difficult?
I nodded and tried to walk around him to the bathroom and get ready. We were set to leave for Las Vegas as soon as we checked out. At least when they sent someone to clean the room, I wouldn’t be in Chicago.
Massimo stopped me when I got about two steps away. I looked back at him questioningly. He didn’t say anything for a beat, his eyes roaming over my face. He was doing that thing where he looked at me as if he could see right into my soul. I resisted squirming on my feet.
“I’ll take the sheets with me.”
My eyes widened. “What?”
“If you don’t want anyone to see the blood, I’ll take the sheets with me.”
“Won’t they find it weird that the bedsheet is missing? And you would have to pay for a replacement.”
He seemed amused by my words. “I’m sure I can afford it.”
“Right.”
It wasn’t like my husband wasn’t worth billions in blood money.
I stood there, dumbfounded, as he pulled the bedsheet from the mattress and bundled it up into a small ball. He turned to me. “Okay?”
I nodded. “I’m going to get ready.”
I turned and walked away without waiting for a response from him. Massimo De Luca was turning out to be an anomaly I wasn’t sure I wanted to figure out.
It seemed everyone was there to see us off.
After a tense breakfast that I wasn’t sure I could stomach, we were set to take off on a private plane to take us back to Las Vegas. I stayed close to Massimo’s side, especially when it seemed like there were more people I didn’t know than I did, and they were all smiling at me in that unnerving way.
Andre, Mom, and Lina stood close to us. Andre patted Massimo’s back, and I winced at the sound. Not that it seemed to have any effect on Massimo. Andre might as well have been patting a rock. Romeo scowled at my stepfather for the move, and I held my breath when it looked like he was about to do something, but thankfully, Elio stopped him in time. He shook his head at his younger brother.
They seemed close.
All of them. Even Giulia, who was safely tucked by Matteo’s side.
I blinked.
How would it feel to be protected like that?
I looked back at my husband, who was talking to Andre. He must have felt my eyes on him because he turned away from my stepfather mid-sentence and looked at me curiously.
I shook my head, moving my eyes down so that I was looking at his black tie. Andre shifted beside us, drawing my attention. I nearly grimaced at the look of impatience tinged with anger on his face. He didn’t like to be ignored. He wasn’t used to it, not that it looked like Massimo was concerned about that.
Massimo tipped his fingers under my chin and tilted it until I was looking back up into his eyes. “Okay?” he asked, his voice low enough that only I could hear.
“Yes,” I whispered, unsure if he heard me more than he probably read my lips.
He didn’t look like he believed me. I didn’t blame him. I wasn’t sure how I was feeling. One thing was for certain though. I wasn’t going to miss Chicago.
I let my eyes roam about as I took in the crowd when Massimo pulled away and turned back to Andre. I wondered if anyone noticed how tense Massimo was when he interacted with my stepfather. I found Mom and Lina standing by Elio. Mom was chattering about something nonsensical in his ear. He seemed uninterested in what she had to say. Not that I blamed him. Lina noticed me looking. She didn’t look as smug as she did last night. Probably because I didn’t look broken like she had hoped.
Elio said something to Mom, bringing her attention to me. She nodded, and then she and Lina came over. Before I could react, Mom pulled me into a huge hug. I couldn’t even remember the last time she held me like this in her arms. And I knew this hug was nothing more than a show she put on for all the people around. I didn’t hug her back. It didn’t matter. She pulled away quickly.
Lina came next. I couldn’t help but tense.
Not that she cared. She leaned down close to my ear and whispered, “Are you so unappealing that he couldn’t bring himself to fuck you?” she taunted.
I pulled back and looked at her. Were those the only two things that could have happened? That Massimo either broke me, or he didn’t touch me?
I didn’t answer her. After today, I wouldn’t have to see her again, so it wouldn’t matter.
But she didn’t like that. Anger flashed over her features. Massimo pulled me away from her before she could say anything else to me.
I leaned in close to him, plastering myself against his side. There wasn’t any reason for me to seek his protection, but at this point, I thought he might be better than my family.
“It’s time for us to leave,” Massimo said, his eyes on Lina before turning them over to me.
I nodded.
“Of course,” Lina said in that sugary, fake tone of hers. I wondered if anyone could hear that. “I’ll miss you so much, Luna.”
I couldn’t even bring myself to fake the pleasantries with her.
Thankfully, Massimo quickly pulled me out of there and took me to the waiting car. We would be driving separately from his siblings. Elio took the car in front of us, and Matteo, Romeo, and Giulia took the car behind while we had an entourage of men in front and behind the three cars. I thought it might be a bit of a fuss, but I got it. This marriage wouldn’t have made the De Luca Famiglia suddenly trust the family in Chicago. This was nothing more than a tenuous peace treaty, which made my marriage to Massimo seem even more pointless.
I looked out the window as the car drove off. I didn’t turn to see the family I left behind, and I didn’t look forward to this new family I now have.
I was in the midst of strangers, flailing, drowning.
My eyes moved over to Massimo. He was looking down at something on his phone.
My husband was a stranger. And I just wasn’t sure he would be the one to throw me a lifeline.