Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Nico
Soon, we're situated in Mother’s lavish garden. I sit on the fountain's edge as Sienna arranges her painting supplies. I love the concentration etched into her forehead, her narrowed eyes. The way she sticks her tongue slightly from the corner of her mouth.
"This is going to require multiple sessions," she tells me, extracting a canvas roll of brushes, untying it, and arranging them by size. "It's more intricate than sketching. There are a lot more elements to play with."
"You sound excited."
She smiles. "Do I?"
"Yes. I appreciate that. I can sense your passion."
"You can sense it?" She removes the paint tubes, arranges them by color, and checks the caps.
"You say that as though you're surprised I have feelings."
"No, that wasn't my intention. I just meant... I'm not sure."
"Continue."
"It's nothing."
"Now you have to elaborate."
"I simply never thought I’d meet someone who could sense my emotional states." She sets a glass jar of solvent beside a folded rag and unwraps a wooden palette, placing it flat. "It sounds kind of woo woo."
I smirk. "Didn't I tell you I’m a secret hippy? Chakras, horoscopes, healing crystals. They're all essential to my practice."
She laughs while adjusting the easel legs, ensuring stability, and securing the canvas. She evaluates the lighting, slightly repositions the setup.
"Why do I find that hard to believe?" She steps back momentarily, confirming everything's optimally positioned. "And why are you looking at me like that?"
"In what way, Vignette?"
She flinches, though not from discomfort. It's more as if the nickname sends a tremor of desire coursing through her. She attempts to hide it, to suppress it, but I can tell how desperately she craves another kiss, more intimate contact, more passion.
Presumably as intensely as I do.
"Do you always give strangers nicknames?" she asks.
"You didn't specify how I was looking at you."
"Yeah – and I won't. Because it's inappropriate."
"That indicates it was sexual, then."
"For this painting, I'll need you to do your best not to speak if possible. I need concentration. Pencils were my first love; painting takes more effort. Can you manage that?"
"If it means I can watch you, piccola pittrice, I could sit here indefinitely."
* * *
After roughly an hour, she rises and stretches her arms overhead. The hem of her shirt shifts slightly, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of skin.
"You're looking at me in that way again."
I can't help it. I've likely had the same expression throughout the entire time.
"No – it's subtly different."
I stand, rolling my shoulders, stretching my neck from side to side. "How so?"
"Before, you resembled a caged animal. Now you look like you also appear... impressed."
"You read me like a book."
"I must need more classes, then, because I can only read some of your few pages."
"Maybe those fragments are the only significant ones."
"Am I supposed to know what that means?"
I approach her, conscious of her sharp intake of breath, the vibration that courses through her exquisite body. She gazes up at me with eyes brimming with restrained desire. She's trying to conceal it, combat it, but unsuccessfully.
"It means that, like everything between us, we can block out the rest of the world."
"Whatever you say, Mr. Stranger."
When I grip her hips, she emits a tempting gasp. Her luscious curves press against me as I pull her closer. My arousal intensifies.
"Why do you keep saying that?"
"Because we are strangers."
She puts her hands on my chest, but she doesn’t push me away. I lean down, staring into her eyes. “Just because we only met recently, that doesn’t mean we can’t have chemistry, passion, attraction… How do you think people get together at all, Vignette? They feel hard, and they give in to those feelings.”
“I wouldn’t know. My only love is art.”
“I’m not asking you to love me. Just not to hate me.”
“As annoying as it is, stranger, I don’t think I could hate you even if I wanted. Are we done?”
“Done?” I counter.
She squeezes her hands against my chest, her fingernails digging through my shirt. “Let… go.”
“Say that like you mean it.”
She shudders, then whispers something too quietly for me to hear.
“I don’t think I can say it like I mean it,” she snaps.
“Good.”
She talks a big game about stopping this, about us being strangers, blah blah blah, but when it comes to this pure uncontrollable passion, nothing can stop us. Our kiss is explosive. It shatters any ideas she might’ve had about keeping our distance.
One night? We can’t limit ourselves to that.
She opens her mouth, gasping as our tongues brush against each other. Lust erupts in the tiny space between our pressed-close bodies. There’s nothing but hunger. My length is solid as we stumble across the garden, toward the fountain.
I sit down and pull her into my lap. She straddles me, her warm crotch caressing my thickness through our clothes. Her hands smooth over my shoulders, down my back, as she rocks back and forth.
I growl with obsession as I rock back and forth, the tip of my hunger burning as it rubs against my pants. Her pussy presses against me, hinting at the pleasure we could share.
“What time is your mom home?” she asks, her lips red, her cheeks flushed.
“Why would you want to know a thing like that… stranger？”
She groans, half frustration, half pent-up pleasure, trying to find a vent. “Don’t be a jerk. Do you seriously want to tease your way out of this?”
“I don’t know when she’ll be back. But it sounds to me like you want to see the spare room.”
Her eyes glimmer with desire. She looks tipsy. I know the feeling. “What gave you that impressi?—”
She laughs in delight when I stand and cradle her to my chest.
“How strong are you?” she says, giddy.
“Not strong enough. I can’t resist you.”
“Have you even tried?”
I carry her toward the house. “The whole time you were painting me, I was trying not to get rock solid. I was trying not to fall for you.”
“Fall for me and get rock solid, hmm?”
I kick open the door to the hallway and carry her up the stairs. “Your passion for your art would make even a cold bastard fall for you. And the way you narrow your eyes, bite your tongue, shift that curvy body…”
Carrying her up the stairs quickly, I almost run to the spare room. A cynical part of me wonders if I’m hurrying because I don’t want Sienna to go back to what seems to be her natural state: distancing herself, resenting me, fighting this.
There’s no sign of that when I drop her on the bed. She moans and claws at my shirt, pulling me on top of her. I climb atop her, kissing her again.
Our desire doesn’t care if we’re strangers, if she has every reason to hate me, fear me, because of what I am. She moans as I grind my manhood against her neediness through our clothes. She grips my shirt, pulls it up.
I lift my arms, and she pulls it over my head, then slides her hands all over my body. I take her shirt and tug on it. Buttons go flying. She half laughs, half moans.
Pulling her shirt off, I unclip her bra and free her curvaceous mounds. I caress them greedily, then suck one of her nipples, eliciting a ball-tingling moan from her. Massaging her breasts with one hand, I slip my other down her body, unbutton her jeans, and slide my hand inside her underwear.
“Oh, oh.”
Her lust-filled whimpers drive me wild as I find her wetness.
I slide my hand over her slickness, rubbing her folds and her clit, my head growing light with how soaked she already is. She can lie to me, to herself, but her body tells no tall tales. I move down toward her heat, gently smoothing my finger around it.
Kissing her breast, I move to her neck, then find her lips again.
“I’m getting your perfect body ready for me,” I groan.
She looks at me for a moment, seeming to debate, telling me no. But then I push down against her sweet slit, and she gasps, then nods.
“I’m ready,” she says. “But – uh, there’s something you need to know.”
“Tell me.”
“I… ah, ah.” Her speech is cut short when I push my finger gently into her. Her tunnel clings tightly to me, her tightness telling me how badly she needs this, needs us.
Slipping deeper, my balls sizzle with seed as I feel how tight she is. My shaft burns as I imagine her gripping my pole with that same tightness.
Pushing my palm against her clit at the same time, I shift my finger inside of her, moving it in scintillating circles as her hips move with all consuming hunger: the same hunger inside me.
“I’m… a….”
She bites down, wave after wave of pleasure caressing her, owning her. I lean back, enough so that I can watch her. She stares into my eyes like she can’t take it anymore. She’s going to erupt. And I’ve got the best seats in the house.
I pump my finger faster, sensing that her orgasm is close.
Her body makes slick wet noises as I finger fuck her. Her hips jerking faster, chasing the pleasure.
“I’m a virgin.” She gasps when the orgasm rocks her body, making her shiver all over. Her confession somehow makes me even more captivated. I fuck her with my finger, slipping it in and out, making her tightness sing with wet, slick noises.
After, she sits back, breathing hard.
I remove my hand from her underwear. “Are you ready to lose your virginity?” I groan. “Is that what you meant when you said you were ready?”
She bites her lip. Opens her mouth. I’m sure, despite everything, she’s going to say yes. She’s going to tell me she wants me, this, us.
Even if she’ll regret it later. I don’t like thinking of her regretting this. But it’s not going to stop me. My body pumps with hot desire.
Before she can answer, my mother calls from downstairs. “Nico? Sienna? Are you home?”
Sienna wriggles away from me. “I should clean up.”
I almost tell her no, she doesn’t need to. We’ll lock the door. Ignore her.
“Adrian is here,” my mother calls up.
Dammit. That means there’s mob business to attend to.
“Okay,” I say after a pause. “But this isn’t over.”
“It has to be,” Sienna replies, walking to the en-suite.
I stare at her thick ass, her wide sensual hips. She looks over her shoulder, and suddenly, the lust takes second place. First place is her face, the concern in her eyes, the humanity. No artist could capture the conflict in her expression. Except, maybe, Sienna herself.
“I’ll head downstairs,” I say.
She breathes a sigh of relief. “Okay, thank you.”
At the bottom of the stairs, Mother says quietly, “Adrian wants to speak with you in the kitchen. Is Sienna still here? Her paint supplies are in the garden.”
“She’s upstairs.”
“Oh…” My mother has a wicked smile on her face.
“I don’t want to hear any matchmaker nonsense,” I tell her sternly.
“Is something wrong?”
“No–yes. Everything. She doesn’t want me. No, that’s not right. She doesn’t want to want me. But I can’t stop.” My head feels hazy. I’m oversharing. “Forget I said that. I’m going to speak to our consigliere.”
Without waiting for a reply, I head into the kitchen. Adrian is leaning against the counter. “Sup, cousin.” He seems nervous, but he’s trying to hide it.
“All good?”
“Got word from some of my guys. Apparently, Viktor has been buying warehouses through one of his legitimate contacts. I was thinking we should check them out.”
“We… meaning me and you?”
Adrian averts his gaze. “Yeah, why not? If we leave this to the men, they might make a mistake.”
The Don and the consigliere don’t usually handle business like this. This is work for capos and soldiers. Adrian must have another reason for wanting me to come personally. Is he planning a trap? Perhaps this is my chance to test his loyalty.
“Then let’s go,” I tell him. “We’ll take my car.”
Perhaps mafia work will distract me from Sienna, my Vignette, my piccola pittrice.
Unlikely.