Chapter Eight
BECCA
I chew my cheek, debating on whether I should say anything. But after everything that’s happened tonight, I can’t leave this idling on the back burner. “I met your sister.”
His flat stare makes me feel like a lone gazelle being watched on an open field. “Good to know Sera finally made her usual fashionably late entrance.”
“You never told me you had a sister.”
“You never asked.”
I grit my teeth. This is going great. Trying to have a deep conversation with this man is like trying to catch running water. “She’s nice.”
“She is. That’s why I’m fairly certain she’s adopted.”
“Gianni!”
He arches an eyebrow. “What? You met the source of the Marchesi gene pool. ‘Nice’ isn’t part of our DNA.”
Okay, that lead-in went completely left of center .
“I, uh, also met Cathalina Damiano,” I hedge.
“Is that right?” At my cautious nod, Gianni pulls back, a veil falling over his eyes. “And what did the princess of New Haven have to say?”
“Nothing I didn’t expect. She seemed congenial enough, in a plastic, silver-spoon-up-her-ass kind of way. She offered to bury a hatchet I never swung, so that was a little odd.”
“I’m not surprised. The whole Damiano family takes their social cues from The Bronx Zoo.”
I let out a nervous laugh and swallow the baseball-size lump in my throat. “But that wasn’t what set me on edge. She said something about Anton.”
He tenses. “What about him?”
“She said that La Cosa Nostra is a man’s world, and women have to look out for each other because no one else is going to do it. Then she told me to watch out for Anton.”
“I trust my underboss, Doc.”
“That’s what I told her. To which she said, ‘so did Marcello.’”
His impassive stare hardens. “Did she say anything else?”
I think back to our awkward encounter. “No.” But then, I remember her strange comment as we stared at the herd of mob bosses. “Wait, yeah, kind of. It’s probably nothing.”
“Let me decide that.”
I groan, his mood shift making me regret I brought it up. “When she first said none of the men were going to look out for us, I asked her if that included her father, and she said, ‘especially my father.’”
I wait for a reaction, or some kind of follow-up. Instead, his hold on me tightens, and the next thing I know, I’m flush against his chest. “Becca, do you trust me?”
“Of course.”
“Then believe me when I tell you Anton can be trusted, and Cat is being a shit stirrer.”
I try to let it go, but a diabolical mix of untamed jealousy and unease drags my insecurities to the forefront. “Why would she bother if you two weren’t involved?”
“Because she’s a spoiled mafia princess who doesn’t like to share the spotlight.”
“That's some serious high school mentality.”
A slow, lethal smile curves his lips. “Some people never evolved. Not all of us are highly educated doctors with incredibly luscious … brains.”
I roll my eyes, fighting my smile and losing miserably. “You entertain yourself, don’t you?”
“I have to.” Lowering his mouth, he traces the tip of his tongue along my carotid artery. “After eight weeks of battling my intellectual and infuriatingly sexy psychiatrist across a coffee table, nothing else seems to measure up.”
“You’re trying to distract me again.”
“Is it working?”
Yes, for a moment I forget about pinging phones, questionable underbosses, and pushy mob princesses who don’t understand boundaries.
I let myself disappear in the scent of his skin and the feel of his mouth.
But all too soon, Anton’s words from the car ride home seep inside my bubble and destroy it.
“Gianni?”
“ Hmmm ?”
“What made you become Torch?” His lips still, the muscles in his back pulling taut.
A sizzle of warning tears through me, but fuck it.
I’ve already thrown a rock at a hungry bear.
Picking it up won’t make the attack any less gentle.
So, I hurl another. “What happened in your past that made you so obsessed with fire?”
“This is New Jersey, not Providence, Dr. Brennan. The psychoanalysis is over.”
“I’m not asking as your psychiatrist.”
“Then who’s asking?”
“Your wife. The one who gave up everything for you—my job, my life, my identity. The least you could do is share pieces of your past with me.”
His eyebrows knit together, confliction clouding his eyes.
For half a heartbeat, I think he might cave, then his walls slam down.
“Maybe later,” he says, sliding his hands from my hips to my legs.
One moment I’m standing in confrontation, and the next, I’m airborne with my legs curled around his waist.
“What are you doing?”
He gives me a wicked smile. “Make-up sex.” He meets my eyes before claiming my mouth in a kiss that burns hotter than the fire he covets.
Our tongues duel as he walks up the stairs and carries me into our bedroom.
However, instead of tumbling onto the mattress, he continues into the bathroom.
The moment we cross the threshold, he lowers me to my feet, stepping away just long enough to turn the water on in the shower.
Within seconds, steam swallows the room, leaving only the hazy image of his outline.
But I don’t need to see him to understand him.
If anything, the obscurity adds another layer to the battle for control that lies at the cornerstone of who we are.
He slips my glasses from my face, and I hear the soft clink of them being placed on the sink behind me before feeling his hands at my back. “How much do you like this dress?”
“I hate it.”
“Good answer.” Bunching the fabric in each hand, he pulls, ripping the zipper open.
The material slips off my shoulders and pools at my feet.
I’ve been with this man long enough to know his kinks, so I wait for him to rip off my panties.
Instead, he steps back into a cloud of steam, leaving me with only the sound of dangling buckles and pinging buttons before returning with his hard, firm, and very naked body on full display.
Diving a hand in my hair, he walks me backward toward the shower.
It only takes a couple steps for my body to become completely soaked by the huge rainfall showerhead embedded in the ceiling. As my feet shuffle, I glance down at my panties. “Gianni, you forgot something…” I lift my chin only to be met with a diabolical grin.
“No, I didn’t.” He crushes his mouth onto mine for a hard, devouring kiss, and then the hand in my hair drops to my neck, taking a punishing grip before spinning me around and shoving me against the tile. “You like teasing me, Doc?”
My heart leaps into my throat. “What?”
“I came home to find you all but on another man’s lap,” he murmurs hotly against my ear. “Are you trying to make me jealous, Mrs. Marchesi? Perhaps trying to provoke a reaction?”
Again, what?
I was doing no such thing. Owen was barely touching my wrist. We were talking about him, for God’s sake. Why would his mood flip such a complete one-eighty after…
Oh.
My adrenaline spikes as I realize what he’s doing has nothing to do with reality.
Gianni needs an outlet from the chaos of the day, as well as the lingering guilt about Henry.
A violent man only knows absolution through violence but needs a consensual, safe outlet.
With role-play, he can do it without fear of going over the line.
He needs this, and it emboldens me knowing I’m the only one who can give it to him.
“Yes,” I say, lifting my chin and sinking into my part. “Does that make you angry?”
“Angry?” His low laugh makes me shiver. “Oh, cara mia , angry isn’t the word for what you’ve made me. I’m a powerful man who expects his toys to stay in the fucking box when he’s not around to play with them.”
“Then maybe you should play with them more often.”
The hair on his chin scrapes my cheek. “Is that a threat?”
“No, it’s a fact. This is a marriage of convenience, not choice.”
“You belong to me,” he growls, kicking my legs apart. “Let anyone else near you again, and they’ll die … slowly and painfully.”
“Is that a threat?” I quip, throwing his words back at him with a daring side-eye.
“No, it’s a fact,” he says, mirroring my response.
“You’re mine, beloved, a word you seem confused by the definition.
” I hear a rattling sound to my left, but I can’t discern what he’s doing since my head is turned right.
“It’s a simple four-letter word that implies ownership.
You know what else has four letters and makes disobedient toys learn their place?
” I try to shake my head, but it’s being held immobile by an iron grip. “Pain. Deny.”
I freeze, my act slipping. Maybe I misread the situation. Maybe asking him about Torch tripped some wire in his head, sparking a flame that I’ve fanned. I’ve always accused him of having multiple personalities. What if this is one I haven’t seen?
What have I gotten myself into?
I’ve drowned myself in so many “what ifs” that I don’t notice the pressure at first… But then he pushes another button, and a full blast of pulsating water slams mercilessly against my lace-covered clit.
“Shit, shit, shit!” I struggle to close my legs, but the son of a bitch surges forward and traps me in a tight hold between his chest and the tile, his knees keeping mine apart.
I drop a mouthful of curses, damning him to hell when the water assault pauses long enough for me to catch my breath.
I don’t let my guard down. I know him too well.
A decision proven wise when another button sends water jetting out of the handheld showerhead again, this time, in forceful, intermittent streams. Just when I’m on the edge of an orgasm, he presses another button, and it slips away.
By the fifth time, I’m ready to rip it out of his hand and stab him with it.
Now I know why he left my panties on—to torture me.
“Gianni,” I wail, dangerously close to begging. “Damn, you…”