69. Ana
69
ANA
Angelo carefully washed my hair. He carefully fed me. And he carefully tucked me into bed at night, trading off with Luca, and leaving Valentin quietly seething.
Coffee would wait for me downstairs, along with my favorite pastries and a vegetable-filled omelet. Luca would carefully arrange me on the bench they’d set up for me along with a workspace in the living room. He’d whisper how much he loved me, and show me with sweetness and care, but never with the rough, punishing handling I craved from my men.
Angelo would work through my father’s accounts with me, filling in the blanks with more information as we quietly consolidated power. Valentin would cook. He’d ache to feed me, but he’d ignore it because he thought what I wanted was independence, not just for the men I loved to love me back.
I stomped down the stairs, and I was exactly right.
Luca handed me a coffee. Valentin dropped the goddamned omelet onto my plate. And Angelo slid onto the stool beside me after making sure that everything was within reach.
I wanted to scream!
Never had I been treated so goddamned carefully in my entire life, and never had I been so frustrated to be treated so well.
Deliberately, I sneered at the omelet. “I don’t want an omelet this morning.”
Valentin whipped around, his eyes brightening for a second before collecting himself. “What do you want, then, princess?”
“I’m not hungry.” My growling stomach revealed the lie.
Angelo grinned. “Feeling better, angel?”
I kept my eyes on Valentin. “Feeling bratty,” I admitted.
Hope shone in Valentin’s eyes before he swiftly banked it. “What do you want to eat, princess?”
I clenched my jaw. Stop catering to me! Treat me like an equal, not a princess on a pedestal! Fucking throw me over your knee and spank me like we’re both aching for!
“I want you to eat me,” I snapped.
“You’re in no condition for sex,” he snapped right back, as if I hadn’t fucked Angelo stupid the night before.
“You’re an asshole.” I love you . “I never should have come back.” I just want you to love me too. “I’m fucking tired of this shit.” I miss you.
The vein on his forehead ticked, and for a second, I thought I might have goaded him into the punishment I was aching for. I wanted normalcy more than anything else, and for me, normalcy was on my knees for this magnificent man who made me feel so fucking good when he hurt me.
I shoved my plate on the ground and watched it smash into pieces.
“ ?a suffit !” Valentin raged. Enough! “I’m not going to punish you, no matter how hard you brat.”
My heart broke. Again. For the thousandth time since Nico Lombardi stormed into that restaurant and murdered my father. Valentin loved me so little, he wouldn’t even indulge my masochism, my desperate need for him to hurt me so badly that all my worries floated away.
He leaned over the kitchen island, his head in his hands so I couldn’t see his face. “I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t treat you like he treated you. I can’t let you think that all you are to me is a punching bag to satisfy my sadism.”
When he looked up, his eyes gleamed, holding back a deeper emotion. “Princess,” he trailed off. “I’m sorry. I can’t. After what he did—I don’t want to be the same.”
“Valentin, you lovely, kind, sweet idiot.”
His eyes widened.
“You’re not the same as Tchérnov,” I said firmly. “And I never thought you were, even when you were spanking me in the basement of a casino.”
Amusement flashed in his eyes, replaced by thoughtfulness. I summoned all my bravery. If he turned me down now, that would be the end. I could not spend the rest of my life loving a man who didn’t trust me enough to treat me as his equal and to know my own mind.
“Give me a safeword,” I said.
“ Comment? ” What?
“A safeword,” I repeated, grateful for the hours I’d spent alone in my room, researching BDSM when I couldn’t sleep through the pain as I healed. “Give me a way to tell you when it’s too much. And trust me to use it.”
Valentin walked around the island, and I allowed my gaze to rove over his trim waist, his thick thighs, and the way his shoulders filled out his button-down shirt. He turned me around on the stool and stepped between my legs.
“Are you sure?”
I nodded, my heart in my throat.
He leaned his forehead against mine. “This is—” He stopped and cleared his throat before stepping back and cupping my cheek, his thumb stroking over my cheekbone. “Terrifying,” he finished with a wry smile.
“Agreed,” I whispered back, holding his gaze. “Valentin, please. You promised me anything. And this is what I need.”
“You’re so fucking brave,” he said, and brushed his lips over mine. “I love that.” He pulled away and frowned. “I love you .”
“ Je t’aime aussi ,” I murmured as I lifted my hand to smooth out the furrow in his brow. I love you too.
“And your safeword?”
“Vanilla,” I said with a grin.
“I owe you a punishment,” he murmured. “You left us. You lied to us. And you broke a fucking plate this morning.”
“To be fair, the plate was to get your attention,” I sassed back. “And it worked.”
Valentin kissed me, a gentle exploration, his lips moving against mine. When I lifted my arms to wrap them around his neck, he angled my face so he could lick at my lips. Longing, sweet and painful, had me opening my mouth to invite him in.
Our kiss turned frantic, and I bit him, needling him to do what I wanted.
Valentin wrenched away from me, his pupils blown and his eyes hooded, as we both caught our breath.
“Toy,” he growled.
“ Ma?tre ,” I breathed, a frisson of fear working its way up my spine, as terrified of his reaction as I was thrilled that he was coming back to me.
“What’s your safeword?” he asked.
“Vanilla,” I answered confidently, then leaned forward to lap up the drop of blood tempting me as it pooled on his lip.
“Strip,” he snapped.
“Angel,” Angelo breathed beside me. “Are you sure?”
“Stop treating me like I’m made out of glass,” I said, “and fuck me, already.”
Angelo laughed and helped me climb off the stool. For all my bravado, I was still healing.
Luca helped too, slipping the silk shirt over my shoulders as Angelo helped me with my leggings. The swift movements made me wince with pain, but the hurt was outshined by the heady anticipation of Valentin’s punishment.
I wanted it.
I needed it.
“Go bend over the couch,” Valentin ordered me.
I stopped and turned around, marching right back up to him, butterflies swirling in my stomach as he took in the bounce of my breasts, the curve of my hip, the curls between my legs.
“ Ma?tre ,” I said softly. “Look at me, please.”
Love shone out of his eyes as he did as I asked.
“Do you love me?”
He nodded.
“Would you ever intentionally hurt my heart?”
“ Jamais .”
“Would you ever hurt me if I didn’t want you to?”
“Never.”
I cupped his cheek. “Then play with me. Please. Help me replace my memories of torture with reminders of your love.”
He closed his eyes and turned his lips into my palm, kissing it, then swallowed hard. “Hands on the back of the couch, sweetheart.”
I did as he asked, spreading my legs slightly so he could see how much I wanted this, how wet I already was.
“Count to ten,” he murmured, then spanked me gently.
Warmth bloomed on my ass, not enough to truly hurt, but I was so grateful Valentin was touching me again, I wasn’t about to complain. “One.”
“I hate that he saw you like this,” Valentin said.
“I love that you’re looking at me,” I answered.
He spanked me again, hard enough to sting.
“Two. I love that when you spank me, it turns us both on.”
Again, harder.
“Three. I love how the sting blooms into fire, and then agony, the more you spank me.”
Harder yet again.
“Four. I love how careful you’ve been with me because you wanted me to know I was more to you than just an object for your sadism.”
“Five. I love you.”
“Six—”
“I love how fucking brave you are,” he interrupted. “How you leaned into the pain when you discovered how much you liked it.”
“Seven.”
“I love that you asked for what you needed, and that you’re trusting me to listen to you when you tell me enough is enough.”
“Eight.”
“I love that you’re helping Angelo build an empire here, rising like a phoenix from the ashes of your father.”
“Nine.”
“I love everything about you.”
“Ten.”
“I love you.”
A sob escaped me, and he immediately reversed our positions so I straddled his lap as he sat on the couch.
“Ana?”
I shook my head as tears streamed down my cheeks, and I collapsed against him, the sweet agony in my ass as cleansing as it was hot.
“I missed you,” I whispered into his chest. “So fucking much.”
When I sat back up, Angelo and Luca had melted away, leaving Valentin and I in our own, silent bubble.
I unbuttoned his shirt, desperate to feel his skin against mine. To my surprise, Valentin let me, leaning back with his hands on the sofa as I peeled his shirt off his shoulders, revealing the hard lines of his body. I kissed across his chest, then moaned when he clutched at me, his fingers digging into the bruises of my ass.
Pain blossomed, low and sweet and so fucking good.
“ ?a va, princesse? ” Are you okay, princess?
“Better than okay. So good,” I moaned as I rocked my hips over his hard cock, blissfully unselfconscious about the mess I was leaving. Valentin never fucking judged me for what we did when we were fucking, for the pain I loved, for the release I found when he hurt me, for the soaring bliss when he sent me into subspace.
Valentin moaned. “I’m not going to last long if you continue like that.”
“Take it, then,” I challenged him.
He cocked a black eyebrow. “No, princess. You take it.”
He squeezed my ass, then bent his lips to take a nipple in his mouth. “You never pierced me,” I murmured.
He laughed. “It’s not too late.”
With a smile on my lips, I unbuckled his belt and freed his cock before rising up and teasing it with the slick lips of my pussy.
“Fucking perfect,” he muttered, shifting underneath me so every inch of his hardness pressed against my core. He stilled. “Take me, my love.”
I brought his lips back to my nipples, more sensitive than usual from the pregnancy hormones. “Make it hurt, ma?tre . Please.”
He worried my nipple with his teeth as I sank down onto him, taking him deeper with every roll of my hips until the pain of the stretch eclipsed the pleasure, and then morphed into bliss.
Valentin shuddered beneath me, but he didn’t move. Instead, he leaned back, his hands at his sides, and captured my gaze with his. “ Je t’aime, Ana Maria Costa. Je suis à toi pour toujours. ” I love you. I’m yours. Forever.
“Mine,” I snarled, lifting myself up and plunging back down, but it was too hard to sustain the rhythm with my injuries. I slowed, grinding my clit against his pelvis, but not getting the deep stroke I needed. “Help me,” I growled, and Valentin laughed, the fucker.
“Hold onto me, chérie ,” he murmured. He gripped my hips again, then rapidly pumped up into me.
Pleasure blinded me, and I slammed my hands onto his shoulders, holding myself up as he fucked up from underneath.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “Such a perfect slut for me, taking what you want and then asking for help when you need it.”
“Valentin,” I cried out.
“Taking what’s yours,” he continued. “I swear it. I love you,” he murmured into my neck as he bounced me on his cock, the pain of each movement blending with the unearthly pleasure until I couldn’t see, couldn’t think, couldn’t focus on anything except the slide of his magnificent cock in and out of me.
Pressure built in my core. “Please,” I begged, needing more, needing something else.
Valentin moaned, his thighs shaking beneath me. “ Chérie ,” he gasped, and it was the hottest thing I’d ever seen. “I’m not going to last,” he said before fucking up into me once, twice, and then a third time, before crying out my name and filling me with his come.
“I can’t wait to fuck a baby into you,” he murmured as he painted my insides.
I had to tell him. In that moment, I made my decision. Luca loved me. Angelo loved me. Valentin loved me. And I loved the three of them with all my heart.
“You already have,” I whispered into his chest.
His eyes widened and his mouth parted in a soft “oh” of surprise. My indecision must have shown on my face, because he immediately pushed my hair out of my face so he could see my eyes.
“Say it again,” he commanded.
“I’m pregnant,” I admitted, terrified of his reaction. A breeding kink was one thing, but an actual baby, on the way, that the four of us would somehow have to take care of?
Valentin’s smile was so fucking big, it was like the fucking sun coming out. “We’re going to be parents.” He brushed his lips over mine. “You’re going to be an incredible mother.” He thrust his hips up, grinding my clit against his pelvis until I writhed with need. “Such a beautiful, perfect, slut,” he said as I whimpered.
He reached between us to pinch my clit hard, a wry smile on his lips, and then the world turned white as an earth-shattering climax exploded through me.
“That’s it, princess, squeeze my cock like you own it.”
“Because I do,” I breathed as I came down from the high.
“Fuck yes, you do.”