Chapter 16 Annetta
ANNETTA
I’m halfway up the stairs by the time he gets to three. When I leap onto the top step, my chest heaving and calves burning, he’s reached five.
I peek down the stairs, and he rises from the floor with a smug grin, taking measured steps toward me.
He thinks he can do this without working up a sweat? I turn tail and race across the hallway, catching a glimpse of him at the end of the hallway before I fly down the second set of stairs. I’m going to hide in the kitchen—the island will give me space in case I need to dodge him.
Behind me, his steps thunder down the stairs, giving me enough time to dash into the kitchen. I tuck myself behind the island, peering into the reflection of the oven door for his head.
I hold a breath in as he passes by, his footsteps heavy.
I know with every single fiber of my being that Dom would never hurt me.
It doesn’t make sense for me to trust him, and I know that too.
He’s bigger, older, and more vicious. He’s hurt other people—I’ve seen him kill a man with his bare hands.
It’s not like I have a good track record of understanding deep truths about people, so it’s almost impossible to know if it’s a lie I tell myself, but I believe it all the same.
My name is Annetta.
The Earth is round.
Domenico Lombardi will never hurt me.
That’s what has my heart slamming against my chest in a sort of trusting, blind panic. The rollercoaster’s about to tip over, the blonde girl on the TV is about to walk into the basement, and my big, scary husband’s just turned the corner.
I’m terrified, but I’m safe. I’m not calm, but I am in control. Once I hear a loud footfall out of sight of the kitchen, I crawl on my hands and knees away from him. Maybe I can spy on him from the opposite set of stairs.
I lift to a crouch, balancing myself carefully on the balls of my feet to set out in a silent sprint.
The moment I lunge forward, a hand circles my ankle.
I shriek giddily and kick at him, but he’s already wrenching me toward him, final and certain as a ship to a dock.
“Well, well, well.” Dom flips me so I’m on my back underneath him. His thick thighs trap me against the cool tile, and his hand splays next to my head, the edge of his thumb brushing against my cheek. “What do we have here?”
The sight of him knocks the air out of my lungs.
“You caught me,” I whisper breathlessly. My chest heaves like I’ve just won a sprint.
The same wolfish grin as always grows arrogantly across his face, but his eyes are tender. “I’ll always catch you, reginetta.”
I suck in a breath. My heart swells against the underside of my chest, and three little words press against my throat, even when I swallow. I don’t know if this is love, but I’m certain I want him, in all the ways he’ll give himself to me.
I press my palm flat against his chest and dig my fingertips into the muscle there.
If I could just take his heart without asking, I would.
“It’s time,” I say.
He brushes his thumb against my jaw in a slow caress. I want to pull out his ponytail so badly, feel his hair tumble over my face. I want to live inside his skin.
“Yeah. It’s time.” He leans down and kisses me like he’s starved for every one of my exhales. Like he wants to guard every piece of me inside him.
My hands move up to his ponytail, tug, and a curtain of hair falls over us.
He chuckles against my lips. “You like that?”
“I love your hair.”
He groans deeply, pressing me back against the tile floor with his mouth until the back of my head sings in pain.
I drag my legs from between his to circle around his waist, pressing against his sides with all the strength in my thighs, free in the knowledge that I can’t hurt him, even if I tried.
I collect his hair into my fist and tug, leading his head up in a slow arc to bare his throat to me, and he lets me do it.
I curl forward to shove my face into the crook of his neck, wanting to smother myself with him, to shake apart from the vibrations of his moans. I kiss the scar I left on his neck.
Energy thunders through me. He said I could have whatever I want.
“Take your shirt off,” I urge into his ear like the devil on his shoulder.
Dom rises onto his knees and tugs his shirt off with one hand.
I don’t know where to look first—it’s all delicious, all of the tattoos, scars, hair, and muscles.
I like that he keeps his hair long. I like that he doesn’t suck in his belly.
I like his patience, his confidence, and his appetite.
I like that I can see a future with him.
He leans down as I push my hips up, and then he scoops me into his arms, easily lifting both of us off the floor with his intense strength.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask, wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing behind his ear.
“Upstairs. My knees can’t take this tile floor shit.”
My laugh follows us all the way to the master bedroom—our bedroom.
Dom tosses me lightly on the bed. He’s breathing a little heavier after our trip.
I rub my thighs together. “Tired?”
“Not even a little.”
I wet my lips. “Alright.” Time to test how serious he was about giving me what I want. “Get undressed then.”
If he thinks today is a repeat of our last encounters, that I’ll use his mouth or hand and let him come into my panties without touching him in return, he doesn’t show any sign of disappointment as he drops his pants and boxers to the floor and his cock springs forward.
It’s uncut—and every bit as thick and heavy as I imagined it would be.
He’s confident, as he should be, as he stands there in the center of our bedroom, waiting for me to finish my inspection of his body. I know some of the stories of the tattoos covering his body, but not all of them. One day, I plan to fix that.
Since I’ve been here, I haven’t noticed him working out in his personal gym upstairs, but his body is stacked with thick, well-defined muscles like he’s been sneaking off to chop firewood in the forest while I sleep.
I slip a hand between my legs and rub against the achy pressure there while he watches.
I think if I asked him to stand there and watch me get myself off and told him he wasn’t supposed to touch me, he would listen.
I don’t know if it’s a form of love or kink or patience or something else entirely, but for me, it feels like power.
For once, I get to sink my teeth into it.
“Everything to your liking, reginetta?” His cock bobs gently in the air with a pearl of pre-cum gleaming in the bright daylight.
The idea that this could all be for me and not the idealized woman I mold myself to be is a little terrifying, but it’s a different kind of scary, where there could be something good at the end of it if I can just be willing to open myself to him.
I swallow.
“You are the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen,” I murmur in open awe. “And I want to taste you now.”
His physical reaction is immediate. His cock jerks upward, fists clench, nostrils flare.
“Yeah,” he says in a voice like gravel.
His reaction—his clear arousal for me fills me with confidence.
He’s so damn tall that if I kneel at his feet, I won’t be able to reach his cock. I slip onto the ottoman at the foot of his bed. “Come here.”
He takes one long step forward, spilling a drop of pre-cum onto the carpet.
“Aren’t you going to undress?” He sounds hopeful, but I don’t think it’s to see me naked. I think he wants to spoil me with his generosity again, to get me off.
This time, I want to give him the same gift.
“No.” I grip his cock in my hand.
He groans.
His hands rise to touch my hair—but he said I could have whatever I want.
Before my brain can tell me to stop, I glance up at him. “Hands behind your back.”
We lock eyes—I’ve gone too far, no man likes being spoken to like this—and just as I open my mouth to apologize, to take it back, he complies. His arm muscles flex as his hands disappear behind his back.
“You like telling me what to do?” He sounds dangerous.
Anticipation needles at my skin. “Is that okay?”
He tilts his head back with a grin, only a sliver of his dark eyes visible. “Angel, you can tell me what to do any day of the week.”
Warmth floods my panties at his masculine, borderline arrogant, confidence.
I turn to his cock and give it an experimental tug, his hips chasing my hand’s path, and my clit pulses at his eagerness. I slip one hand between my legs, over my leggings, and dip my head forward to lick the slit of his cock.
Ocean saltiness explodes across my tongue. We moan in unison, and then I go back for seconds and thirds. I suckle at the head, tugging lazily at his shaft, drawing out the sensations for him with long, slow movements.
My nipples prickle painfully against the knitted fabric of my sweater, and I soothe myself with an echoing circling against my clit, dulled by the layers of clothes on top.
“Reginetta,” he groans after several minutes of me teasing him. “Let me touch you.”
I glance up at him. Pain and desire are etched into every line of his face.
I release his cock and lean back—he sighs, reaching for me.
How far will he let me go?
“Did I tell you to move your hands?” I murmur, searching for the hem of my sweater with my fingertips.
His arms snap back behind him, and he chuckles darkly. “No, you didn’t, reginetta.”
“That’s right. I didn’t.” I feel more myself than I ever have. I’m the version of myself that’s been passed through a hundred filters, leaving behind the heartbreak, pain, and insecurity to distill into the purest essence of me.
I pull my sweater over my head and toss it to the floor.
Dom releases a gruff sigh, looking like a barely restrained wild animal, muscles flexed with a light sheen of sweat across his face and chest. I rub myself at the sight of him, that he wants me as badly as I want him, and in the same way.
“Tell me when you’re about to come.” It’s the only warning I give before I suck his cock into my mouth.