18. Matteo
CHAPTER 18
MATTEO
I slowly lower her panties, resisting the urge to rip them from her. The heels, though, stay on.
She’s glorious. Long legs slightly parted, that waxed pussy glistening and naked and inviting.
Red hair flows down her narrow back and over her right shoulder. I lay my palm on her ass, the smooth, soft heat of her so right against my hand.
I want to strip naked and plunge my cock into her tight, dark hole, but I don’t. Instead, I prolong her need. My need, too. I know how the game is played. The longer I wait, the sweeter and more delicious the prize.
I slide my fingers between the globes of her ass, rubbing against the wetness below, and I spread them.
She moves her thighs for me, parting them without a word.
I undo my pants, lower my zipper and pull my rock-hard cock out, the precum already wet on the head. She’s breathtaking, a study in erotic art, a thing to be savored, etched deep in memory to play over and over again once she’s gone from my life.
Pushing a finger into her, I go down on my knees, licking a path from my hand to her ass, tonguing that tight little hole and making her scream, her entire body shaking in response. I do it again and again, fingering her at the same time, and she moans, the sound pure music.
Getting to my feet, I slide in my thumb and pump her and she’s shaking all over, nonsense words spilling from her lips as she presses her hands and face down against the bed, her ass high in the air, everything on offer. All of it mine for the taking.
I fist her hair and say against her ear, “Did you like that, Heaven? Did it feel good?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to do that to you again?”
“Yes!”
Then, without warning, I bring my free hand down against her ass, smacking that soft, ripe flesh. My dick throbs. She yelps and I spank her again, harder. She squeals each time I bring my hand to her now-bright-red skin.
“Tell me who you belong to, Heaven.” And still I finger her.
“Oh, God. You. I’m yours. Only yours.” I slap my hand against her ass once more. This time I grasp her flesh in my hand, bending down to nip at it with my teeth. My God, I want to devour this woman, bite by delicious bite.
“And are you ever going to defy me again?” I ask, moving up and biting her ear.
She chokes on a pant. “Yes! I want you to punish me. I want you to fuck me. Mark me. Oh, God, Matteo, I fucking hate you, and I want you more than I can believe. Do it all to me. Just make me come.”
I pull free and flip her on her back. I drag my fingers down the front of her abdomen, taking her tits in my mouth one at a time and flicking the nipples hard enough with my teeth that she screams out.
“More.” She pushes up into me, her hands reaching for me, and she’s squirming under my relentless and taunting grip. “I need more. I want you to make me feel like this over and over again. I want you , Matteo.”
“Are you sure about that?”
A throaty cry erupts from her as my fingers slide back into her wet pussy. She clenches tightly as I thrust them in and out, slick with her juices. “Oh my God, yes.”
I work her clit with my thumb, my eyes falling on some rope on the table next to the bed. “Then let’s see how much you can take,” I say, sliding her farther onto the bed. I gather both of her wrists and wrap them, fastening the rope to a hook in the wall so her arms are overhead. “Tell me what you want, Heaven.”
“I want your mouth, your hands, your cock,” she says, her voice a snarl of need, of savage desire, her eyes glittering with a challenge I can’t resist. “I want it all.”
Pulling my fingers free, I wrap them around my cock and pump it, then shove her thighs farther apart. I run the head against her hot wet slit and she moans, thrusting her hips high. “Naughty girl. Ah, amore mio .”
Without another thought, I straighten and strip down until we’re both naked. The hunger in her gaze makes me throb. “Like what you see?”
“Fuck you, yes. You know I do.”
“Good, because I fucking love what I see. You are perfection.”
I wrap my hand around my cock once more then straddle her, high on her chest.
Her gaze is locked on my dick and all I see is desire, all I feel is the crazed need that pumps through me. “You want this?”
“Yes.”
“You want my cock in your mouth? You want me to fuck your face?”
“Yes, damn you, yes.”
I stroke myself a few times, hovering over her lips. “You think you can handle this cock, Heaven?”
She eyes me like a starved jungle cat. “Let me taste,” she whispers, licking her lips. “I can’t touch it, so I need to feel it in my mouth. Against my tongue.”
I thrust my hips forward and she opens for me. She sucks and strokes and tugs on my dick with her lips, trying to swallow me whole, and dear fucking God, this is bliss. She’s tight and wet and hot in there, and the swirl of her tongue and the slight graze of her teeth only sets the inferno in me blazing higher.
I want to do nasty things to her. I want to go so deep she can’t breathe. I want to come down her throat and make her swallow every last drop. I fuck her face hard. Her head comes up with each thrust, like she needs more, and I’m on the cusp of losing everything, every modicum of control.
Somehow I stop, pulling out.
“Noooo.”
“No?” I look at her as she struggles against her binds, like she needs my cock to live. I get that. I need her juices on my tongue. I turn and sixty-nine her. This time, my dick slides down deep, and she makes a guttural sound, her mouth sucking hard, tongue working me, and I’m not sure that brief moment of reprieve is enough to let me keep control.
But her pussy is there, spread and open before me and I go in, my face between her thighs as she continues to drink me in. I spread her pussy lips with my fingers before probing her folds with my tongue, my teeth nipping at her clit. She trembles beneath me, pushing up into my face, her juice so fucking sweet in my mouth, the softness of her divine and filthy hot.
Oh, fuck, how have I slept in the same house as this woman for the past week and a half without tempting myself with fucking her?
I need to stop. If I keep going, I won’t get to sink into her. And I need that. I pull free and roll over onto my back.
“Goddamn you, Matteo. You’ve punished me enough,” she says, voice savage. “Fuck me. I want that big cock in me. You want me to grovel more?”
She bucks against the ropes, and I push her thighs up high and apart. “You’re so fucking dirty. So fucking uppity. Yes, I want you to grovel and beg. I want you on your knees. I want you willing and ready for me at all times. I want you completely mine.”
“I just told you I am. Maybe you’re not man enough.”
“Still goading me?”
“Fuck. You.”
“I’d rather fuck you.”
I rise up over her and line myself up with her cunt. And then, I push into her. Oh, she’s so tight. Her low moan is a sound I’ll take to the grave, and I’m finding it hard to keep myself and my plan separate from this wild, untamed pleasure rising in me. She’s hot. Fuck.
I wrap my arm around her, sliding it beneath her, pulling her against me as I withdraw. And then I drive deep, my cock stretching her wide. Her walls close tight around me like a glove, her legs clamped around my hips. I drive into her, again and again and again, harder, deeper until she’s making sounds with each slam home.
I want more. I reach up and undo the rope and move onto my back so she can straddle me, and she rides me hard. I flip her over, pressing her into the mattress, and she scrapes her fingers into my hair, against my scalp, pulling me in, and I take her mouth in a violently passionate kiss, one she meets, beat for beat.
It’s like we each need to be in the other.
The passion is swift and hard and fast and she’s in my blood. I’ve never felt anything like this before. It’s more than sex, more than need, more than possession. It’s alive, and it’s wrapped around me tight, driving me on, deeper, harder, climbing to that ultimate peak.
The air is so thick with heated lust, it’s hard to breathe.
But I’d welcome death if it meant I could feel like this for eternity.
I roll onto my back, pulling her with me. Her long hair brushes my skin when I circle her hips over me. She squeezes my cock with every thrust into her, dragging her pussy lips to the head of my dick and then sinking all the way down again.
Her pussy quivers uncontrollably as I pound her relentlessly. Her tits bounce as she rides me, and she throws her head back, her mouth singing the exact song I want branded into my mind forever.
We come. Her screams pierce the stillness as she clenches down on me, over and over again, strong contractions that set off my own release. My mind short-circuits from the waves of euphoria rippling through me. Bright white flashes of light blind me despite the dimness of the room. I grit my teeth as I come apart, everything alive and awash with orgasmic pleasure. I grip her hips, grinding her clit against my cock as I erupt into her.
A guttural roar rumbles deep within my chest, and I can’t focus on anything except my undoing…
And hers.
The connection, the bright white flames raging between us, and the all-consuming carnal bliss…fuck, yeah.
The bliss.
I’ve never felt anything like it in my life.
She collapses on top of me, her hair splayed across my chest, her arm slung across my torso. “Holy shit,” she murmurs. “Is it always like that?”
I let out a dry chuckle as I smooth her damp hair from her face, a strange peace coming over me. “No. Wasn’t it a good surprise, though?”
“Oh God .” She sighs. “And I’m not normally a fan of surprises. So…where does this leave us now?”
It can’t be that easy, fucking her into showing some softness toward me, but I’ll take it. It’s a beginning, something to build on. For my plan. Always for that. She’s collateral damage.
Maybe she won’t die in all this. She’s smart and…
That’s not something to think about now. My eye’s still on my ultimate goal, the prize, and it’s enough. And this…if I play it right, I’ll be able to use that softness. The fact I feel it, too, means it’s easier to manipulate her.
“I don’t know, amore mio . Where do you want it to leave us?”
“I don’t…” She sighs again, her hand slipping down over my abs. “A wise woman told me to take this and make it work. We’re getting married. You made a business deal with my father and I’m the pinnacle of that. You’re protecting us all.”
“Yes,” I say quietly. “I am.”
Until I end that protection, of course.
“I don’t know if this changes anything. It was just sex,” she says.
“No, it wasn’t.”
I stop. I don’t know where those words came from, but they weren’t what I planned to say to her. I wanted to offer lofty sentiment, emptiness dressed in pretty baubles, but instead, they came up.
The truth.
I have no idea what the fuck just happened between us, but it wasn’t just sex. There was something else there. Not love. That’s bullshit. But something more. A deep connection.
Something I can ride, use, manipulate.
“Let’s…we’re stuck with each other. Let’s take it day by day.”
I raise her chin and look into her green eyes. “I chose you, Heaven.” This is the truth. But not for the conclusions I’m going to let her come to. “There are other ways I could have done this. But I chose you.”
“What do you mean by that? I know what it means, but not what you mean.”
“It means what it means,” I say. “And you need to work that out on your own.”
“Okay. In the meantime…” She stretches and yawns and throws a leg over me, snuggling down against me.
Women do this. And I hate it. But Heaven…like this she’s soft and vulnerable and kitten sweet, and shockingly, I find myself wanting more of these moments when everything is just calm and comfortable.
“We can’t sleep.” The words are out before I can stop them, before I realize I’m going to say them. It’s not really a place made for sleeping with a woman. More like crashing because I’m so fucking tired I don’t want to make that short trek home. Or spending time in here because I’m fucking some woman I don’t give a damn about. But sleeping? All night? With Heaven?
No, I don’t want that. I tell myself it’s because I don’t want to sully the place with stupid memories once she’s gone from my life, but that’s a lie because when I’m in the position to move on and up and take over the Mulligan territory, I’ll probably hand off the running of the sex clubs to my brothers.
But home, our home, mine and Heaven’s, is the place to sleep, to do all the fucking stupid shit women want to do. A place to lie in bed and hold her, which right now seems pretty sweet as lethargy sweeps over me.
It’ll deepen that connection to me I need her to feel.
After all, this marriage won’t be done in a week or a month. I’m fast-tracking my plans, playing different games with the same end result, so it’s going to be a while. But the deeper I hook her, the faster I get what I want, and the more time I’ll have test-running the territory, strengthening future relationships that are built from that.
“So what? We go?” she asks, trailing her fingers lazily down the front of my chest. I squirm away from her, that touch almost too much, and she laughs. “Wow, Matteo. Is the big, badass gangster ticklish ?”
She goes for me again, but it’s an easy matter to roll over and pin her, holding her wrists down.
“Maybe a little, but I find this far more interesting.”
Her eyes are pure green fire. “I’m sure you do.”
“Let’s get the fuck out of here, and I’ll show you exactly how much more interesting it is.” I rake my gaze over her as I rise up.
If she survives, she’ll never speak to me again, but I decide to take what I can now and walk.
If.
Either way, dead or alive, Heaven and I are fleeting, together as long as she’s useful, until I turn her and the cocksuckers over. And then I’ll destroy my other enemy, too. But that’s for a later date.
And thinking all these things now is dangerous. She has a way of reading me, of seeing past things, of asking all the right questions about my veiled words. I need to keep her distracted and now I know how.
It’s a beautiful plan, using lust and morphing it into love.
“Come on, my little deviant, let’s get home.” I rise and throw the dress to her and start to pull on my clothes.
There’s a bathroom that she primps in, but no one can wipe that just-fucked look from her face. Her mouth is swollen, her eyes a little dark, the excitement and satiation an announcement to anyone who looks. I pour us a couple of shots of whiskey from my liquor cabinet as I wait. I hand her one, and down mine.
Heaven cups her hands around her lowball glass. “Underwear?”
“Not on your life. I’m keeping them.”
I expect her to try and savage me, but she smiles, the haze of a good fucking still working its magic. “A collection?”
“Until I convince you not to wear any.”
She raises her brows and takes a swallow of her whiskey, that innocent-experienced look on her face again. It’s utterly compelling, just like her. And this, right now? It’s the most comfortable we’ve been together since the engagement was officially announced.
But I rise from where I sit, and cross to her, taking her now-empty glass and set it down. “Let’s go home. I want you naked again…in our bed.”
“I’m still not sure if I like you, Matteo.”
“That’s fine. I’ll settle for hate sex. I’m easy.”
She doesn’t move. “How old are you? I don’t really know anything about you.”
“Thirty.”
“I can work with that. And just think, if I don’t kill you, I’ll be thirty-five in just over a decade and in my sexual prime. Imagine what we could do.”
If only…
She’s fucking high on sex. It’s different for her, and I’m fascinated. Which, I tell myself, is good. It makes the rest of my seduction of every part of Heaven that much easier.
I take her hand, and at the door I turn and brush her mouth with my lips. Then I look at her and kiss her again, claiming her lips in a soft, deep kiss that borders on romantic.
She’s panting as I finally step back. “What was that for?”
I really don’t know. “A new beginning, amore mio .” I settle her mask back in place, and then my own.
Before I can open the door, she does something that shocks me. Heaven stares up at me a moment, and then rises on her toes and kisses me. It’s a hot, full-on kiss, her tongue dancing with mine, and we merge, fuel to each other’s fire. Finally she draws away, her hands on my chest. “A new beginning.”
Heaven, I suspect, is still a little drunk on her orgasm. I know I am. And that something else that’s there between us. Sexual compatibility. Explosive sexual compatibility. Women confuse it, and the chemicals that ride our veins when it clicks, with love, confuse the intimate moments with emotions. And I’ll use it. Fuck, I’ll use it all. I might get a little singed but it’s been a while since I’ve indulged in dangerous risk of the wrong kind, and the fact I need to do that to get what I want is all the excuse I need.
I also suspect Heaven’s trying to feel her way, to use the shift that happened back in the warehouse on the edge of Hell’s Kitchen caused by the shock of her fuckwit brother pulling the gun and the thrill of me coming in on my white horse to save her.
She’s trying to make the best of the situation and she’s going to be her own downfall, just like I knew she would.
And I tell myself I don’t care.
I open the door and guide her through the building and out onto the main floor. I don’t have business here tonight. I know we can make a quick exit and then get home for part two.
And three, if she can handle it.
It’s a little quieter here with most of the lascivious activity taking place on the opposite end of the space. She gives a grimace, glancing up at the discreet bathroom sign.
“You were just there, back in the room.”
“I didn’t go.”
And fuck me, she blushes and I almost laugh. She had my cock down her throat, she let me finger fuck her naked in front of strangers, and now she’s blushing. Heaven is something of a wonder.
“Go, then, if you can’t hold it.”
A flash of fire lights up her eyes. “You aren’t the boss of me.”
“I very much am,” I say, sliding a hand along her throat. “I’ll show you when we’re home. And no, you won’t be molested in there.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’ll be back in a few.”
As Heaven disappears, I lean against the wall and pull out my phone, taking quick care of business that’s there. I frown at a message from Roman.
Shit. I’m not interested in answering whatever questions my brother has about the man looking to speak to me. I’ll take care of it when I’m good and ready.
“Matteo Villani,” a deep, accented voice says.
“Speak of the fucking devil.”
Jorge Dominguez stands in front of me, all five-foot-six of him. But what he lacks in height, he makes up for in brute force. As the head of his cartel, he single-handedly ensures that money is always lining his pockets, and that revenge is always served to those who deserve it.
What he’s doing here is pissing me off.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
I let my gaze slide over him, making no move to look at the bathroom door. “I told you to sit tight and wait for me. Don’t make the mistake of angering me, Dominguez.”
“You don’t tell me what to do.”
“Actually, if you want our deal to happen, then I do exactly that.” I keep my voice low, conversational.
Jorge smooths a beefy hand down the front of his dark gray suit that probably cost him five grand, although dressing to the nines doesn’t really add much appeal to the overall package. His dark hair is slicked back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck, his face pock-marked, scarred, and his body portly.
A faint scent of fried food wafts in the air around him, along with the scent of the mescal that he must drink all day long. But looks and smells aside, he’s got a shit ton of money, and that’s his claim to fame. He doesn’t need to look like a billion to have it stashed away, that’s for fucking sure.
“We have an arrangement?—”
“Yes,” I say, “we do. And you being here puts that in jeopardy.”
He laughs and licks his lips. “You got that hot piece with you. After seeing her in action, I want to change the terms.”
“There’s nothing to change,” I tell him, not straightening up, even though every muscle of my being is on high alert. He won’t do anything in here, and he wants things only I can deliver. But I don’t trust him. I’ll be fucking him over once everything is in place, done and dusted down the line.
After I get what I want.
“I think I want her now.” He smiles but it never reaches his eyes.
“No.”
He rocks on his toes. “Getting pussy-whipped there? She’s fine goods, I’ll give you that. Won’t be worth shit when I’m done. You can get her first, I finish her off. Then again, maybe she’ll wish she died with her family.”
I disagree with his methods. He wants the Mulligans out of the way because they block certain channels, but I also don’t interfere with how others play—unless that fucks with me. When we entered this, before fucking Conor, it didn’t. And it still doesn’t. But what he’s insinuating…I’m not about to play. Or let that happen.
“What part of no don’t you understand?”
He looks at me, studying me closely. “Why would you care? She’s probably going under with everyone else. You get all the Mulligan territory, all their connections and some of mine.”
“I’m opening the channels they control for you. They’ll be yours. It’s a fair deal.”
“You ask a high price. I’m just looking for a little something extra.”
“Not a fucking chance in hell. The only reason you’re getting them is me. I can change it. I can call it off and you won’t be able to do a thing about it. Don’t forget I also control some of the important ports you use. Cut those off and you might well be dead in the water.”
His eyes narrow and his ugly face turns a mottled red. “You don’t want to make an enemy of me.”
“Or you me.”
Why the fuck does he want Heaven? Apart from the obvious. But she’s too old for his particular tastes—he likes underage. Virgins, if he can get his repulsive hands on them. Right now he thinks the Mulligans merely block ports he wants free access to. He knows the Mulligans were there that night in Harlem. But I’ve led him through a merry dance around the one who actually pulled the trigger. There were a lot of people there that night, most of them fucked up. I’m saving the juicy tidbit until needed, and if he suspects, he’s keeping quiet, because even an idiot like Dominguez knows the worth of our deal.
It’s more than pride or the loss of his second. But I can keep him in place—for now. Too much rides on what he wants out of this. When he came to me months ago about dealing with the Mulligans, I could have wiped them out. It would have been blood and war, but I could have done it. But the opportunity for more was something I saw, and told him if he sat back, bided his time, then he could have so much more, too.
It was stars aligning when the Mulligans came to me.
Why I moved my pieces. Why I took the opportunity. I could have let it all fall, let a war begin and stepped in later to clean up.
But I’m not interested in broken. Not when I can take the beating heart, whole and perfect, and make it my own.
He won’t cross the line with me. But I’m going to make sure he’s watched a little more closely and keep Heaven more tightly constrained.
Bottom line is, I don’t trust this man and his impatient, wild ways that remind me a little too much of Conor. He can control it. Until, of course, he decides not to. But I’ve been keeping one step ahead, leading the game.
No, I don’t trust him at all.
I let my gaze linger on his ugly face.
“Is there something else going on, Dominguez?”
“Not at all,” he says, spreading his hands wide. “But I think you’ve developed feelings for the redhead.”
“No, I’m just not done laying the groundwork for our arrangement. Here’s the bottom line.” I straighten up, and come close to him, making sure he feels the power of my height as I crowd him. “We have a deal, so stick to it or I walk, and you’ll end up with nothing.”
“I wouldn’t call the destruction of that family nothing.”
“In the long run. And destroying the family as is, is shortsighted. But your choice. I won’t stand in your way on that. But if you do that, I’ll take my pieces that are left, and I might shut you out. There’s always that.” I pause. “Play the game as we agreed is my advice. And do not piss me off.” I pause again. “Don’t worry. You’ll be getting what’s coming to you.”
“A threat? Or my reward?”
The man isn’t the smartest, but he isn’t stupid, and his instincts are razor sharp. The options are often one and the same, but I don’t say that. “Stick to the deal, and everyone is happy.”
“Except Declan and your fiancée.”
“When I’m done, you do you.” The game I’m playing is risky as hell. It has me dangling over the edge of a cliff with no safety net. It sets the blood pumping. And Heaven…I’ll deal with that when I have to. I look down at him. “Now get the fuck out of my club.”
He points a finger at my chest. “Don’t fuck me, Matteo.”
“You’re boring me. I suggest you get out now, before my fiancée returns and you screw yourself over. But, as I said, you do you.”
His eyes narrow, but they avert, and he turns, heading down the hall and around the corner into the crowd beyond.
If I’m lucky, maybe he’ll get smothered by tits and ass. It would make everything so much easier.
The door to the ladies’ room opens, and Heaven emerges. I take her hand, drawing her into my arms. “Let’s go.”
Heaven frowns as she looks up at me with that sharp gaze that bores into my soul. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, why?”
She shrugs. “You just look…I don’t know, off.”
“I’m just preoccupied with getting you naked again.”
“Oh. Well, in that case…” She loops her arm through mine. “We’d better get home. Fast .”
As long as Dominguez doesn’t try to screw things up by trying to fuck me over and collect his prize first. He won’t get anywhere if he tries. I’ll destroy him, but I’d rather things play out as planned. There’s more to gain that way.
He’s an enemy. A useful one at the moment, and one I need to definitely keep a closer eye on.
There are plenty more just like him, and worse.
And I know that in this life, we’ll never truly be safe…
From anyone.