47. Valentin
47
VALENTIN
Ana Costa didn’t know how to cook. She’d lived with us for almost a month, and somehow, that fact hadn’t come to light. How many days had we left her alone with nothing to eat? She hadn’t complained once. Merde. What else had I assumed about her that was wrong?
Certainly that Angelo and I were enough for her . Fuck! I squashed that bitter train of thought as we wound our way through the aisles of the grocery store, my fingers wrapped tightly around hers, refusing to examine my need to keep her close or my need to give her the comfort my touch provided.
Ana listened quietly as I explained the different types of pasta, then teasingly bumped me with her hip when I started in on tomatoes. “I am Italian, you know. And I did live on my own for three—” She stopped and flushed, then scoffed and said softly, “I lived on my own for three weeks.”
“Three weeks when you’d never done it before? You disappeared, princess, and nobody could find you until facial recognition software picked you up in that casino. That’s better than a lot of the men Angelo hunts.”
“So that’s how you found me.”
“Yes.”
Her smile was slow and rueful. “I bought vegetables in French markets and felt so grown up, but it was just playing pretend, wasn’t it?”
I wanted nothing more than to reassure this beautiful, brilliant woman that she could do anything. But I couldn’t. Her future was uncertain and would be until we’d rid the world of the plague that was Boris Tchérnov and married her to someone who could keep her safe.
I rubbed my hand over the pain in my chest, entirely unready to confront the maelstrom swirling through me. Angelo let her fuck that Russo whelp. He said she needed it. That she’d needed kindness that morning.
Kindness. Not order. Not control. Not the sweet emptiness that followed a painful session with me. Tenderness. Things I couldn’t provide, even if I wanted to. Maybe that meant she needed Luca in her life. The thought wasn’t as unpleasant as I expected it to be, not when it was accompanied by the idea of a future with this gorgeous, stubborn creature who continually astounded me.
We paid for our groceries in silence, the mood fraught with emotions I suspected she wanted to face as little as I did.
Fuck.
I hated this. I wanted to go back to hating her.
As she shyly slipped one of the bags out of my hand, helping me carry them without a word, it struck me like a fucking clichéd bolt of lightning. I wanted her to want to stay. Fuck!
I pulled out my phone and started a group chat.
Moi
Dinner at 8. Our place.
Luca Russo
???
Moi
Ana’s cooking.
Luca Russo
Ana doesn’t cook.
Moi
You’re going to come for dinner, and you’re going to be fucking appreciative of the meal.
Angelo
If you insult her, I’ll slit your throat.
Luca Russo
We agree on that, at least.
Angelo
I’m airing out the apartment now after the fire.
Luca Russo
Fire?!?!?
What happened?!?!?
Is Ana okay?!?!?
Neither Angelo nor I replied.
A moment later, my phone rang. My eyes cut to the woman sitting in the front seat of my car. She’d want him to know she was fine, and that was the only reason I picked up the phone.
“Is she okay? What the fuck happened?” Luca snarled.
“She’s fine. I’ll explain tonight. Or she will. But she’s fine.”
“Eight,” Luca confirmed. “I’ll bring?—”
“Dessert,” I interrupted.
“Dessert,” he confirmed, a smile in his voice.
Ana shifted in her seat when I climbed into the car. “Everything okay?”
I laid my hand on her thigh, possessive and irritated that I’d be sharing her with Luca tonight, even though I’d invited the cheeky bastard.
Her muscles clenched under my touch, and then she melted into the seat, threading her fingers through mine and holding my hand against her skin.
“ Parfait ,” I said softly. “Absolutely fucking perfect.”
The apartment smelled faintly of charred garlic, but with the windows open, it was slowly improving. I ordered several bouquets of flowers, briefly wondering what type Ana preferred before banishing the thought. The last thing I needed was to act like a lovesick calf. Ana was our toy, and I was taking the price of Tchérnov’s war on my businesses out of her hide.
And I would keep telling myself that until I believed it.
“Come here, princess.” I handed her an apron and couldn’t stop my chest from warming at her delighted smile.
“Salad first,” I murmured.
She gestured to the salad she’d already chopped. “That, at least, I have under control.”
“Good girl,” I said without thinking, and a faint pink flush stained Ana’s cheeks.
“Before we get started on the rest, we’re going to get everything chopped.”
Moments later, she was gleefully mincing garlic, then dicing onions. Tears poured down her face. “Fuck, Valentin! I mean ma?tre ,” she quickly corrected herself.
“I love to see you cry,” I teased, and when she tilted her face to mine with a sweet smile, I couldn’t stop myself from brushing my lips over hers.
“Mean,” she murmured against my mouth before stepping away.
I grabbed a clean wooden spoon off the counter and swatted her ass with it. She shrieked with surprise.
“Brat.”
“You love it,” she said, rubbing her ass with the palm of her hand.
I stopped myself before responding in the affirmative. What if I did love it?
Together, we blanched the tomatoes and peeled them, squishing the flesh between our fingers to remove the seeds, to her delight.
The door to the apartment opened while she was laughing, and Angelo walked in with more flowers.
“This is so gross!” she said with a girlish giggle that lodged in my chest, burrowing its way into my soul and taking up residence, despite my resistance.
“It’s not as gross as bitter sauce,” Angelo said, wrapping his arms around me and kissing my shoulder. He did the same to her, and a vision of future evenings together danced across my imagination.
Ana carefully poured olive oil into the warmed pot, then added the onions a moment later, stirring them with a clean wooden spoon. She looked at me, her eyes wide with pleasure as the apartment filled with the sweet smell.
“Delicious,” Angelo murmured. “I’m proud of you, angel.”
“Be proud of me when it’s done,” she answered, “and edible.”
He placed two baguettes on the counter, along with a block of butter and two bottles of red wine.
“Is the Russo whelp’s cum still dripping out of your cunt?”
Her breath caught, and she nodded. It was a lie. He’d fucked her hours ago, and she’d showered since, but the idea was so fucking hot.
“And when I tell you I expect you to eat dinner without anything underneath your dress, will you do it?”
She nodded again, and he kissed her neck where it met her jaw. “I’m proud of you, angel.”
“Keep stirring,” I murmured, and she hurriedly gave the onions a push. “Now add the garlic.”
“That isn’t traditional,” Angelo complained.
“But it is delicious,” I answered.
Ana giggled, and the tightness in my chest returned. Under my direction, she added the tomatoes to the pot along with the rest of the ingredients.
“Now go shower, while it simmers,” I instructed.
“What should I—?” Ana took a deep breath. “What would you like me to wear, ma?tre ?”
Pleasure swept through me at her sweet submission. I tilted her chin up to me for another quick kiss, and she melted, her eyes open and warm. “Ask Angelo, princess.”
Thirty minutes later, she reappeared, looking soft and comfortable in a lilac silk wrap dress and, as instructed, nothing else.
Her gorgeous breasts swayed with every step, nipples jutting out proudly through the fabric. I opened my hand to reveal two nipple clamps, round rings with four small screws through each, designed to be tightened individually and painfully. She walked right to me, her lips turned up.
“ Ma?tre , please,” she murmured. “Put them on me.”
I reached into the neckline of her dress, delighted to find her nipples already tightened to hard peaks and begging for my touch. Carefully, I freed her right breast from the dress, swiping across it with my thumb before pinching it hard enough to elicit a whine.
My pants tightened, and when she threw her head back and exposed her throat, I couldn’t resist taking her nipple in my mouth and worrying it with my teeth.
“ Ma?tre ,” she gasped. I pulled away from her breast with a wet pop, then affixed the first clamp, tightening the screws until her nipple was red and distended. I licked the apparatus, and Ana’s moan was primal with need.
I tucked her breast back into her dress, then quickly did the same with the other.
When I stepped back, the clamps were visible through the silk. The pain would dull as she got used to them, but I could bring it back with a simple flick.
And I intended to. Over and over again.
“Thank you, ma?tre ,” she breathed, her lips parted and wet. I bent down to nip her lower lip, hard enough to hurt, and she wrapped her hands around my head before remembering herself and dropping them back to her sides.
“You’re welcome,” I said into her lips. “You’re stunning, Ana.”
She preened, then twirled around. “Thank you.”
I handed her the apron back. While we waited for the water to boil for the pasta, the doorbell rang.
Ana’s brow furrowed, and her adorable lips pulled down into a frown. “Are you expecting someone?”
“Go answer it,” I told her.
Her eyes strayed down to her clamped nipples and bare feet before snapping to mine.
“I didn’t realize we were having company or?—”
“Or what?” Angelo asked. “Or you wouldn’t have dressed exactly as I instructed you to? Wouldn’t have let Valentin put those clamps on you?”
I flicked one for good measure, and Ana moaned.
“Fuck.”
“Language, slut,” Angelo said, wrapping an arm around her waist. “Go answer the door.”
“Yes, sir,” she whispered, and opened the door.