31. Valentin
31
VALENTIN
“Strip,” I snapped at Ana the moment she walked into my penthouse apartment. I’d refused to stay in the Costa compound when Gio was alive, and now it didn’t matter. Angelo’s brother had never bothered to hide his dislike of my relationship with Angelo. Good riddance.
Ana followed my directions with pleasing alacrity. She whipped off her clothes quickly, dropping them on the floor, then waited for my instructions, her eyes downcast, her chest flushing as I gazed at her. Where had this sweet obedience come from?
Angelo’s declaration on the plane had shocked the two of us. He intended to marry our bratty little sex toy? What the fuck? That wouldn’t solve anything, only saddle us with the debt-ridden Costa empire in the States. Angelo had no use for the trafficking logistics chain—he’d never condone it.
I was furious with him. Instead of talking about it like adults, I’d allowed Ana to pretend to fall asleep when she didn’t protest.
My mind flashed back to the moment Angelo had decided to stay with me. We’d just finished torturing a sub in a Greek BDSM club, leaving the poor thing blissed out. I’d intended to leave, as was my habit, allowing Angelo to manage the aftercare. Angelo had snapped his hand out and grabbed my wrist.
“Stay,” he’d said. I shook my head with a smile.
“You’ve got this.”
“I don’t want to do it alone. I want to do it with you,” he’d insisted quietly as he fed the young man an orange slice.
When I reluctantly took my place on the couch beside Angelo, he adjusted our bodies, so the sub was arranged over both of our laps, and I allowed myself to luxuriate in the comfort of our thighs pressed together, along with the soft kiss Angelo gave my shoulder.
“I’m keeping you,” Angelo had said when he straightened. I thought he was talking to the sub, but when I’d looked up at him, his wild grey eyes were focused on me.
“Forever.”
To my shock and surprise, we’d built a life together. One that this dangerous hoyden threatened to overturn. I refused to acknowledge the thought that I wanted to keep her too, just as I’d refused to admit how badly I wanted Angelo.
He’d persevered, and I suspected he would with Ana too. If Angelo meant what he said—I snorted at my optimism. Angelo absolutely meant it when he said he intended to marry her, and he’d said it confidently, as if he knew that deep down, I wanted her too. Did I? Fuck.
I took in Ana’s naked form, the curves of her hips, the ink covering her stomach, the beautiful charm that winked at her belly button, and her puffy nipples that begged for the bite of a clamp. But now wasn’t the time. I ignored the bite of sorrow for what Angelo and I were about to do to her, and a fleeting sadness overcame me as I mourned the loss of her fiery spirit. It’d been a long time since we’d trained a pet with the brutality we were about to unleash on her.
But Ana needed it. And Angelo wanted her. She was an unstable brat of a woman who fought us at every turn, making her a danger to herself and to us. So we had to break her quickly.
Fuck, this was a nightmare. A sexy, gorgeous nightmare, to be sure, but still a nightmare.
“Crawl,” I commanded her, striding off to the room I’d ordered prepared for her.
She dropped to her hands and knees, and I fought the urge to turn and watch her as she followed me, the expanse of her creamy skin screaming for the flick of my whip, her gorgeous hips swaying and waiting for the strap of my belt. She already wore my marks, and she’d wear more.
She’d scream for me.
She’d beg for the pain.
And then she’d beg for both of our cocks.
I was done with coddling this brat. The room I’d requested be prepared for her was empty. No furniture, nothing but tile floors and a light fixture on the ceiling. There was no bathroom, no toilet, nothing but four walls covered in forest-green paint and a bucket if she needed to relieve herself.
“In,” I snapped. She’d been so fucking good, so docile for the last several hours, and as much as I wanted to reward her for her repudiation of the Russo puppy, her training had to begin.
Ana crawled past me, her shoulders stiffening as she looked around the room. She rose to her knees and looked at me, her eyes wide and confused.
“Stay.”
I shut the door and slumped against the wall where she couldn’t see me. The little siren didn’t need to know her body called to me, how I ached to cover her in welts and bruises, claiming her for myself as much as for Angelo.
No, it was better for everyone this way. We’d take away her free will, slowly stripping away her sense of self, until she was a perfect toy for Angelo and me. She wouldn’t want to misbehave. She wouldn’t need to, because she’d learn to crave the attention that good behavior got her.
And then we’d figure out what the fuck to do with her in the long term.
Ash and blood covered Angelo when he returned, but he waved off my concern. “It’s not mine,” he snapped. “I need her.”
“She won’t be ready for a few more days, at least,” I told him. Deprivation first, the cruelest punishment. No company. No one to talk to. No intellectual stimulation. Until she begged for mercy. We should have been firmer about that in the first place.
“We discussed this,” Angelo reminded me with a frown.
We had, while she slept on the plane, a shadow of the vibrant woman we’d known, so worried that we’d drug her that she’d submitted without question. I’d take her training in hand while Angelo let off some steam chasing down the assholes Tchérnov sent to attack him here in Yorkfield, and then we’d bring her out to play.
Together.
“The compound is a wreck.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “The safes were cracked open and the weapons cache empty.”
“And Gio’s records?”
“Gone, along with my mother’s piano,” he said softly, pulling out his phone and showing me a photo of the charred wreckage.
“ Merde . I’m sorry.”
“I need a shower.”
I followed him, the vacant look in his eyes worrying me as much as the blood he was covered in.
“Who’d you murder?”
“Russian dogs,” he sneered as he dropped his clothes to the floor. I admired the hard cut of his body, the lines of the black tattoos that covered his chest and arms.
“Are they going to show up knocking on our door for revenge tonight?”
He turned to look at me, arms crossed over his chest, emphasizing the size of his biceps and shoulders. “Do you think I’m an idiot?” His face softened as he looked at me. “You’re worried.”
“We should marry her off and be done with it,” I said, surprised at the regret pushing at my chest as I said it.
“No,” Angelo snapped. “I—” He stopped and looked at me, before turning on the shower. “I’m more centered when she’s here.”
That Angelo had a need for her outside of his decade long obsession was something I hadn’t considered prior to now. He’d grown increasingly unhinged as time went on, and if Ana could bring him back? Merde.
I stripped and joined him in the shower. Hot water poured over us, and I reached around him for his shampoo. Angelo obliged me by tilting his head back and allowing me to massage his scalp.
“We’re keeping her,” he murmured. “She’s good for you. You’re—” he cut himself off as rare uncertainty flashed in his eyes. He took a deep breath. “You’re more open with her than I’ve ever seen you. You’re present .”
Guilt racked me. I’d never been able to give Angelo that, terrified that one day I’d lose him to his violent mafia life. Ana drew feeling out of me, as if I couldn’t stop myself from reacting to her. She consumed my waking thoughts, amplifying my emotions.
Instead of answering him, I pushed down between his shoulder blades, until he caught himself with his hands on the wall, his strong arms holding both of us up, as I wrapped my arms around his waist.
One tug, two, and he was as hard as I was.
Angelo groaned.
“Whose cock is this?”
His startled laugh brought a smile to my lips.
“We don’t play those games with each other,” he rasped.
“Maybe we should.”
He turned around, and I tugged him toward me, out of the stream of water pouring over his face. We stood there, wrapped in each other’s arms, each lost in our own thoughts.
Angelo cupped my cheek, his grey eyes serious and calm. “No. I’d lose you if I ordered you to drop to your knees for me.”
He was right. I bowed to no man, not even my lover. Neither did he.
I tangled my fingers in his salt-and-pepper hair and pulled his lips to mine for a gentle kiss. Our cocks rubbed together between us, soap and water and sweat mingling on our skin as the water rinsed the blood off Angelo.
“I won’t,” I swore, as I had again and again and again. “I won’t lose you.”
Angelo’s tongue slid along my lips, hot and tempting, and I opened for him, as I always did. His tongue scraped against my teeth, comforting and gentle, with none of the conquering malice he exhibited elsewhere in his life.
I ran my hands up his back until I pressed him to me, chest to chest, our hard muscles leaving no space between us.
“I’ll never let you go,” I promised as his lips dragged over my chin and down my throat, each scrape of his beard against my skin like molten lava, setting me on fire with need. “Angelo,” I breathed.
“Yes, my love,” he murmured as his hands found our cocks. I dragged his lips back to mine with one hand while my other tangled with his, stroking, our cocks sliding against one another as we fucked each other’s hands.
“ Putain ,” I swore as pleasure swept through me, tightening at the base of my spine. “You feel so fucking good.”
Angelo threw his head back and moaned. “Valentin,” he cried, my name like a prayer on his lips.
I dragged my tongue down his neck, lapping up the blood that lingered there, groaning as the salty iron taste slid down my throat. Angelo’s fingers tightened around my cock, and I almost exploded. All these years, and there wasn’t anyone who knew me, who knew my body, as well as he did.
“Don’t hold back,” he encouraged. “Come for me, my love.”
I moaned, my hand stroking over the hard velvet of his cock, harder, faster, willing him to take his pleasure alongside me.
Angelo rewarded my efforts with a moan, his fingers squeezing me tightly as he came all over me. A second later, I followed him over the cliff, bliss exploding out of me as I coated him in my release.
We stood there for long moments, breathing hard, until I leaned into him, resting my cheek on his shoulder. He drew his arms up my back, and we held each other.
“This is nothing,” he murmured into my ear. “A little bit of murder never bothered you before.”
I’d never worried he was going over the edge before either, but killing Dario Fontana and pissing off the mafia families who ran Rome and controlled imports and exports through Italy’s mainland was dangerous.
As if he could read my mind, he continued, “We’ll run imports through Corsica and Nice.” As if we hadn’t left a trail of bodies in the South of France while searching for Ana.
The French authorities would turn a blind eye, same as they had for all of the smuggled materials I used for my construction business. But the mafia wouldn’t. We’d pissed off a lot of people to get his sweet angel free, and now we were going to pay the price.