4. Lucie
FOUR
lucie
His lips on mine are warm and soft, even as the kiss grows hard and greedy.
Suddenly, everything inside of me bursts into carnal flames—I can’t think, I can’t even breathe.
All I can do is let him take over.
When his tongue slides into my mouth, my brain feels like it’s imploding as desire floods every part of me.
In that moment, everything changes.
He’s flipped all my internal switches to on, and I grind up against him, my fingers pulling him even closer as I eagerly kiss him back.
He tastes of cigarettes—a heady mix of tobacco, sin, and a darkness I desperately want to let consume my soul.
And God help me, there’s that sweet trace of sugar and booze—the Jack and Coke I splashed in his face left just a hint on his lip that I eagerly lick before plunging my tongue back into the hot depths of his mouth.
Our tongues tangle, and I feel something on his—a hard, smooth, and intriguing presence sliding against mine.
His hand slips into my hair, causing my hat to fall off, and I moan as he pulls me onto his leg, rubbing me along his thigh.
The rough fabric of his pants—wool, maybe—grates against the delicate lace of my panties, making my pussy clench and ache.
This man is like a wild trip into darkness, into a side of me I’ve never fully explored, and I press closer against him as a shudder ripples through me, my clit lit up by the pressure of his leg taunting me.
Broken, splintered thoughts zap my mind, but I can barely catch a single one that can register above the pounding of my heart and the rush of my blood.
His touch is scorching hot, his body so undeniably hard and muscular and powerful.
I’ve never been in the arms of a man like him before.
Heck, I’ve barely done anything physical with a guy before tonight, and even then, they were all boys.
No freaking comparison to him.
At all.
His kiss shifts and I swallow a gasp at what I feel next.
No. No way. It can’t be.
Because… holy shit. He has to be otherworldly because I can’t imagine a human would have something that big down there.
His kisses soften, trailing down to my throat where his teeth nip against my skin before his tongue finds a path up to my ear.
My knees buckle.
I’m so ready.
Take me to the mother ship.
I’m buzzing, melting—like a flickering flame—as he provides me with all the oxygen my desires need to feed on.
“You want more, my little vixen?” he whispers.
I can’t form words. All I can do is moan, my eyes rolling back as he continues his relentless assault on me.
He leans close, his breath hot against my face.
“I want to taste that hot cunt of yours, so wet and needy against my thigh. I love how you’re trying to use me to chase your pleasure. I bet you taste so fucking sweet.” He brushes his lips over mine .
His accent lilts a little at that, but the only thing consuming my mind right now is surrendering to him.
This whole night has been crazy and intense, and I need this.
I need him. This psychopathic madman.
His fingers. His mouth.
His cock.
I want it all.
And for that I should probably have my head examined.
Tomorrow.
I moan again as he bites and sucks hard on my throat, my pussy burning, throbbing, and hypersensitive.
Then he drops his thigh and licks the outer shell of my ear.
“I’m not gonna fuck you here on the ground. For now, I’m just going to claim you.”
I try to sputter out a protest, but the words die on my tongue as his fingers glide up my thighs.
Their slick movement tells me I’m wet, dripping for him.
When he grazes my pussy, I nearly scream, and his other hand clamps over my mouth.
“Don’t worry, I want you to scream—just not here,” he murmurs.
Those words are a threat and a promise all at once, and my pussy aches beneath his teasing strokes over the lace.
Then, slowly, he slips three fingers beneath its edging.
He explores my outer lips, then ventures in and trails down along my slit, and suddenly I am mindless—my body exists only where he touches me.
Each touch feels like a thousand volts of electricity surging through me.
When he brushes over my clit, I moan into his hand, struggling to focus as his dark eyes burn into me from behind his mask.
The intensity of his stare is almost as erotic as his caresses.
Frank parts my lips deliberately, slowly pushing a finger inside and crooking it upward.
Then he adds another.
I shake and shudder, consumed by the throbbing intensity his touch unleashes.
“Ah, Jesus, you’re fucking tight. And hot. Christ, the things I’d do to ruin your cunt, your ass—I’d make it so you couldn’t walk, so you’d beg for me,” he growls.
I’m on the brink, almost begging now , and he starts to thrust into me, curling his fingers inside.
This time, I can’t hold back a scream into his hand, and a slow grin spreads across his face.
“More, sweet thing, more. I want you to come so hard that I consume your every waking and unconscious moment. I’ll invade your fucking dreams, make you crave me every second of every day.”
He doesn’t kiss me again, and I ache for that close contact almost as much as I desire the rhythmic motion of his fingers inside me—the way his thumb rubs my spot, sending sparks leaping through every nerve.
Then Frank shifts slightly, dropping his other hand to wrap around my throat, squeezing just enough to restrict my breath—a distraction—while his thumb finds my clit.
Everything spikes. He squeezes again, and the lack of oxygen makes my sensations go into overdrive.
I’m gasping for air, leaning into him as I teeter, caught in a swirling storm of pleasure.
I’m about to come—my first orgasm with a man, and I don’t even know who he is, other than his first name.
The pressure becomes unbearable.
His gaze is locked on me, and suddenly, a tidal wave of delicious, heart-stopping, toe-curling pleasure explodes in violent throbs and spasms. I try to cry out, but he swallows my sound, replacing it with a kiss as passionate and erotic as the relentless thrusting of his fingers and rubbing of his thumb.
I tremble and quake—the sensations don’t stop.
They go on and on and on until I don’t think I can take any more.
Then he tightens his grip on my throat as his kisses turn tender, and I come again.
He releases his hold yet keeps kissing me as his thumb slides aside and his fingers continue their lazy, deliberate thrusts, drawing out every last diminishing wave of orgasm from me.
Finally, Frank lifts his head, removes his fingers, and slides his thigh back into place, leaving me sagging and limp from the intensity of what he just did to me.
He brings his fingers to his nose and breathes in deeply, like sampling an expensive perfume to see how it reacts with his own chemistry.
Then, eyes locked on me, he sucks them.
“Knew it. Fucking sweet as hell,” he murmurs.
I crash back to reality.
“Let me go,” I say in a shaky voice.
“A little late,” he replies.
“Better late than never.”
He leans in once more, a demonic glow in his heavy gaze.
“Maybe I shouldn’t let you go. What if you go to the cops?”
“If I were going to do that, I already would have,” I insist—hoping he understands that the swirling madness inside me is only temporary.
“He was going to kill you,” he reminds me.
This conversation is as surreal as the night's events. “And you killed Mr. Mitchum.”
“Mr. Mitchum was a bad man,” he says with a soft laugh, though the sound feels empty.
I narrow my eyes. “And you?”
He stops laughing, that sensuous mouth turning deadly serious. “I’m a bad man too—the worst.”
His words should scare me, but instead, they ignite something even deeper, and he kisses me again. Oh God—I wonder if his tongue is pierced. That hard, smooth thing is beyond hot. I even find myself wondering what it might be like to…
“Why don’t you meet me again?” he asks.
“No,” I reply firmly .
“You know I’ll find you.”
“You can try,” I slur, still drunk from my experience and completely out of my mind with lust. “I—I have to go.”
I push him away, and he steps back.
For the third time that night, I run like freaking hell. When I’m a few blocks away, I call an Uber and wait inside an all-night diner for my ride to show up.
I’m still reeling from him when I finally get home about forty minutes later. I sneak into our Bayside mansion, up to the third floor and my bedroom. I strip out of my costume, then pause to stare at myself in the mirror. My eyes are dilated and slightly stunned, my hair, which is a color I like to call dirty carrot, is a complete mess. My lips are swollen, and there’s a bite mark and bruise on my throat—as if he branded me as his. I try to shove that thought away, but it sticks stubbornly.
No freaking way am I seeing that monster again. He won’t find me. Besides, I rarely hang around in the borough where I live anyway.
Slowly, I head to the shower in my giant en suite and turn on the rain showerhead, letting the hot, steamy water wash over me—the hotter and steamier, the better. A sudden chill runs through me. Or maybe it’s just the shock of cold water mixed with zero steam. My legs begin to shake as I glance at myself again in the mirror—there are more marks hidden beneath the blood spatters, and they almost kill the last of the lust coiled inside me. Luckily, I can cover them up with makeup.
Fucking John. What an asshole.
I shower, pull on an oversized t-shirt, and return to my room.
In a moment of panic, I scream, “Viviana! What are you doing here?”
My sister is sitting on my bed in her frilly pajamas, smiling. “Sorry, Luce, didn’t mean to scare you,” she says, though there’s no real sorrow in her voice. “Headley never showed up and when I couldn’t find you, I just left.”
“You got back fast.” She must’ve been in the car on her way home while I was being deliciously assaulted in the park.
She lets out a deep sigh. “Can I sleep with you? I’m lonely.”
“Sure. Why didn’t Headley come out? Did he call you?”
Her green eyes shift away from me. “No, but he will, I’m sure. C’mon, I’m tired.”
I walk over to the bed and she flips over to look at me. “What happened to your face?”
I bring a hand to my cheek like I’m surprised at the question. “I walked into a low-hanging branch on my way to the club. Scratched up my cheek real good.” The lie rolls easily off my tongue.
She rolls her eyes. “Klutz.”
I flash a sheepish smile and shrug but resist the urge to tell her about John and everything that happened tonight. Something holds me back.
Viviana sighs. “Lucie, I think Daddy’s going to try and marry me off.”
“Say no,” I urge.
“I can’t, I’m the firstborn.”
“It’s just his threat—say no and plead, and don’t mention Headley.”
“But I love him,” she whispers.
Viviana, who falls in love about eight times a year, is Dad’s favorite—the perfect daughter, the one who always behaves, the beauty, while here I am, overlooked and free. “Definitely don’t tell him that. You can get out of it. And then when you’re twenty-five, you can run away.”
“Mmm…” Her eyes close as I flip off the light. Twenty-five—that’s when the inheritance comes, when freedom is supposed to arrive. I’m only twenty-one, but Viviana is already tw enty-four. She has a year left, and poor Maximo—who’s away at boarding school—is seventeen, with little hope of escape. Mom gave up on him years ago.
But I can’t worry about either of them. I can’t control a thing except, maybe, keeping Frank out of my head. Failing that, I can only try to force myself to sleep.
The next morning, my dad sits in his huge office that reeks of cigars and testosterone and announces, “This doesn’t concern you, Lucia, but you might as well be here. We need to rearrange our priorities—to deal with old and new threats. The world is changing, and I intend to change with it.” He slaps a newspaper onto his massive desk. It’s four in the afternoon, and he’s sipping a drink while the gold and gemstones on his fingers glint in the light.
“Where’s Mom?” I ask.
He narrows his eyes at Viviana as he strides over to her, taking her face in his hand and squeezing before letting her go. “She’s out.”
“Dad, what?—?”
“Are you wearing makeup, Lucia?” He turns narrowed eyes to me. “I don’t approve. And you won’t outshine your sister.”
I swallow hard and stay perfectly still—years of training stop me from flinching from his words as if he’d struck me.
“Now, girls, this pain in my ass Mitchum is dead, and I’m sure all of New York is celebrating. I will be, too. But things aren’t as good as they seem. To fix that, I’ve made a deal.”
I hate when he speaks in such vague terms so we don’t understand exactly what he’s done.
“There’s a powerful man connected to the Italians here with major ties in Europe. I need him—his money, his power, his clout. I made him an offer he couldn’t resist.” My father smiles. “So congratulations, Viviana. You’re getting married.”
Viviana leaps out of her chair, and I follow. She opens her mouth, but I push her out the door.
“Don’t,” I hiss. Then I turn back to my father. “She’s so happy, Dad, she’s speechless.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “And you will also be the perfect sister. On your best behavior when he and his family arrive for the engagement party. I trust you won’t embarrass me.”
I smile, nod, and reply, “Of course not.”
With Viviana outside the door, I take her hand and drag her over to the kitchen.
“I told you, didn’t I? I told you he had something planned. Oh, this is a fate worse than death,” she moans, tears springing to her eyes.
“Marriage is?—”
“Would you want it?” Anger flashes in her expression. I shudder as memories of Frank’s hot kisses, his fingers under my short dress, in my panties, separating my lips, curl through my mind. I swallow hard—I'm still technically a virgin—and I try to imagine a husband thrusting into me.
I can’t. “No.”
“I have to do something?—”
“Viv, is there more to this? I mean, it’s not ideal, but plenty of mafia marriages start as an arrangement. It wouldn’t be forever, and maybe…” I swallow.
“Maybe in a day or two, we can talk Dad down.”
She stares hard at me.
“I can’t.”
I grab her arms. “You can. Please, don’t do anything rash, Viv.”
She hugs me tight.
“I promise I won’t.”
It isn’t until later that evening I realize she hasn’t come down from her room.
Viviana has a tendency to sulk, to demand that all eyes be on her—something I absolutely despise.
I know she can twist a man around her finger, make them all scramble for her attention.
I’ll bet the guy Dad wants to marry her off to is old, fat, probably can’t even get a hard-on.
There are whispers—some want a fresh virgin to fuck and start a family with, others want the alliances that a marriage brings on the condition they appear united.
And hours later with no sight of her, and Dad now gone, I’m filled with an uneasy sense of foreboding.
She has to be around somewhere.
After searching the mansion for twenty minutes, I pass the back garage and frown.
Shit. Where is her damn car?
“Oh, man, don’t tell me she went to see Headley…”
I stomp back to her room, panic rising in my chest. Her travel bag is missing.
So are her toiletries, her jewelry, and half her clothes.
My father, Vincent de Rosa—a powerful New York Don—is going to freak the hell out.
His little prize? His dealmaker? She’s gone.