Chapter 6 Aurelia
Aurelia
I pulled up to the gates on my motorbike.
The gate was the same height as the wall that surrounded his property, at least seventy feet high.
Trees were visible over the top, but all the branches that should have extended over the wall had been sawed off so no one could climb over.
The wall was also like the one that surrounded the Vatican, angled slightly outward so no one could climb it even if they wanted to.
His security team knew who I was at this point, so they let me inside. I drove my little bike down the driveway and around the fountain in the front, seeing the group of armed men stand there and stare at me.
I smiled awkwardly. “Hi.” I left my motorbike there and hooked my helmet on the handlebar. The second I was behind the walls, the noises of the city were muffled. You could hear the sound of birds in the trees, the falling water from the fountain. It was like an oasis in the middle of the desert.
When I made my way up the stairs to the entryway with the double doors, they parted simultaneously, his staff opening the doors for him so he could walk out. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, but his wealth and power made him look like he wore a crown and a cape.
That big smile was on his face—as always.
A smile that could make every inch of me melt into a puddle.
“Hey, sweetheart.” His arms hooked around me, and he pulled me in tight, giving me a kiss in front of his entire staff.
“You look cute on that motorbike.” He gave my ass a playful smack before he took the bag from over my shoulder.
It was bright pink with white flowers, but he didn’t hesitate to take it.
“Thanks.”
“I worry about you driving it, though.” He took my hand and walked inside with me, into the palace decorated with priceless pieces of human history. The front entryway room was always a spectacular view.
“I’ve been driving a motorbike a long time. I’ll be fine.” I stopped before the Eye of Horus and admired it. “Is everything in this room . . . real?”
“It is.”
“Even those?” I pointed to the enormous statues of Anubis.
“Yep. I see it so often, I forget about it sometimes.”
“That’s wild.”
“You know what else is wild? The Romans were obsessed with Egypt because it was the only civilization that felt ancient to them. Just as the Romans feel ancient to us. And someday, we’ll be ancient to some other civilization.”
“Yeah. That’s deep.”
“Come on,” he said as he nodded toward the next room. “I want to see you naked.”
“Wow, right to the point, huh?”
He grabbed my hand again, and we walked up the several flights of stairs until we reached the mahogany door that separated his wing from the rest of the villa. Then we moved through the enormous gold doors until we were in the sanctuary of his palace.
He carried my bag to the closet.
“Where’s Medusa?”
“On her evening walk.” He came back to me, focused intensity in his eyes, and he immediately scooped me up like I weighed nothing and held me to his chest, kissing me like it was all he’d thought about all fucking day.
I hooked my arms around his neck, and I fell into the abyss of his kiss, my fingers digging into his short hair, feeling the thick slabs of muscle of his shoulders and arms. I’d been picked on in school for being the tallest girl in the class.
I’d heard every mean name in the book. Sometimes I had a crush on a guy who was shorter than me, and he acted like I was a freak.
Constantine was the first man who made me feel .
. . small. Enzo couldn’t have picked me up like that if his life depended on it.
Constantine carried me to the bed, then slipped off my flats and got me undressed, yanking my dress over my head, unclasping my bra so my tits came free. He leaned over the bed and kissed me everywhere, kissed my stomach and then my tits, squeezed me to him like all of me still wasn’t enough.
What the hell did I do to earn a man like this?
I pulled his shirt over his head and finally felt his searing-hot skin. Gripped his enormous arm muscles, the strength that could crush me in an instant.
He pulled away to kick off his boots and get his bottoms off.
When he was stripped naked, six and a half feet of muscle on muscle on muscle, with cuts through the flesh to separate all the different layers of strength, he came to the bed and moved over me, his fat dick anxious for me like I was something to be anxious for.
He pinned me like he always did, opening my hips wide, bending me like a plastic doll, conquering me like a city underneath a king.
He guided himself inside me, then sank deep into my flesh until there was nowhere else to go.
“This pussy makes me fucking crazy.” He planted my foot against his shoulder, while my other leg rested in the crook of his arm.
Then he pounded me relentlessly into his mattress and headboard, giving me the best dick a woman could ever ask for.
We had dinner together in his dining room, and then Medusa was returned after her evening walk. We all sat on the couch together and watched TV before bed. When I slept here alone, it felt like a hotel. But when I slept here with him, it felt like home.
All three of us piled into the bed together, and of course, Medusa had to get the spot between us.
“Medusa,” Constantine said with a slight tone.
I laughed because her jealousy and desire for attention were cute. “It’s okay, I don’t mind.”
She closed her eyes like she wanted to pretend not to notice Constantine’s look of admonishment.
“Baby girl.” He sat up and patted the end of the bed by our feet. “Come on.” He gave a quick whistle.
She opened her eyes but continued not to move.
“Con, she’s fine. I really don’t mind.”
“I want to sleep with my woman.”
“Well, she was your woman before I came along. It’s hard for her.”
He gave a humorous sigh before he rolled his eyes. “You two could at least switch places.”
“I don’t think she’s going to move.”
He gave Medusa that look.
She closed her eyes.
I chuckled before I got comfortable, turning on my side to face him, the sheets to my shoulder. “It’s fine. Let’s go to bed.”
He gave a growl before he turned off the lamp on his bedside table, then turned to face me. “Maybe I didn’t plan on going to bed just yet . . .”
“Well, I’m pretty sore now, so . . .”
He grinned. “Told you that pussy makes me fucking crazy.” He lay still, then continued to stare at me, the smile slowly leaving his lips the longer he looked at me. His eyes became relaxed but serious, just looking at me with his dog in between us.
I could look at him forever. He had a jawline as sharp as a knife, cords up his neck so taut they might pop, coarse scruff along his jaw that slightly scratched my skin whenever we kissed .
. . or he kissed me between my thighs. He was so handsome, I wondered if I had hallucinated all of this because Enzo’s abandonment gave me a dose of psychosis.
I made up this whole thing so life would be bearable.
“What are you thinking?” he said in the quiet.
The corner of my mouth quirked up in a smile. “That I’m experiencing psychosis . . . because there’s no way you’re real.”
The corner of his lips kicked up in a smile too. “Wouldn’t be sore if I weren’t real.”
Medusa started to snore.
He rolled his eyes. “Fifty bedrooms in this place, and she’s gotta snore right here.”
“Her life doesn’t have to change just because I’m here. I would never want to replace her.”
“No wonder she likes you so much.”
“She’s a sweetheart. She likes everyone.”
He released a quiet scoff. “Trust me, she doesn’t like everyone. She’s pretty standoffish.”
“Fooled me. Have you ever taken her to Taormina?”
“No.”
“Aww, she’d love your family.”
“Yeah, she would. She’d love the beach too.”
“You have to take her.”
“All right, next time we go.”
“We?” I blurted.
His eyes narrowed. “Fuck yeah, we.”
My tummy did that thing where it got all nice and warm. Where a garden bloomed and butterflies soared.
“If I went back without you, Ma would kill me.”
“I’m glad she likes me.”
His eyes turned serious once more. “She loves you, sweetheart.”
“I get the feeling she’s just a loving person.”
“Yeah,” he said with soft eyes. “She’s pretty great. I definitely look up to her.”
I’d never heard a man say he looked up to his mother. It was refreshing. “I notice you don’t have much to say about your father, really.” Nothing nice to say, at least. He spoke about his childhood like he’d been raised by a single mom.
He was quiet for a while, crafting his answer in his head before he shared it.
“Even when my father was present, he was absent. He always preferred the company of his friends to his family. He used to fish with his friends all the time, and the only reason he taught me was because I asked him to. I’m not saying he was a bad guy or anything, but I just don’t think he ever wanted to be a father. ”
I didn’t realize it until now, but Constantine and I had something in common. The only difference was his father stayed, while mine ran. I wasn’t sure which was worse. To have a father stick around out of obligation . . . or care so little that he just left.
“I don’t judge him for it. Parenthood isn’t for everyone.”
“Is it for you?” I asked without really thinking about it. I always assumed this had an expiration date, so I didn’t think about the future much. But now, I thought about it more.
“Honestly, I could go either way. I could easily never have kids and be perfectly fine with that. But I could also have them, and it’d be great.
People, particularly women, worry about it way too much.
Because they have a timetable, they think about it more, which I get, but I think it causes stress and makes them jump to a decision they might not have made if they didn’t have that stress.
My philosophy is, whatever happens, it’ll be fine. ”
I could take several pages out of his book. “Yeah . . .”
“What about you?”