8. Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
I stare at the view from Nico’s penthouse in the city. “I feel like I can see the whole world from here.”
“Not quite.” He coils an arm around me and kisses my right temple.
“This is nice,” I whisper.
“What is?”
“This. Being here with you. Alone.”
“You don’t like the house?”
“It’s not that I don’t like it. I mean, it’s beautiful. There’s just so much of it, and we just got married, and I never see you. I thought we’d spend more time together. Honeymoon…”
“You wanted a honeymoon?”
“I mean. It is tradition.”
“You’re nothing like I expected.”
“I could say the same thing.”
“You’re not afraid of me.” He’s not asking.
“I thought I would be, but I saw you and I thought, wow. He’s beautiful.” I leave out the terrifying part.
“You think I’m beautiful?” he laughs. “I have a confession.” He glances down at me, so I turn to face him.
He presses my back against the floor to ceiling window.
I should be terrified that I could plunge to my death if this glass were to break, but I don’t think I have anything to fear with Nico. “It’s me that’s afraid.”
“Of what?”
“You.”
“The Big Bad Nico Moretti fears me?”
“After Catherine, I never thought I’d…feel something again. I took one look at you, and I wanted you.”
“You want me?”
He strokes my cheek. “You’re beautiful and you make me laugh. You make me feel alive again. Fiore Mio. You make me care whether I live or die. You fucking terrify me.”
“I hear a little fear is healthy.”
He smiles, and my insides melt at the way he’s looking at me.
“I look at you and all I want is to be inside you.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“I loved Catherine. Losing her nearly killed me. It almost did. I don’t want to go through that again. If something happens to you…” he shakes his head. “I think I’d burn the world down.”
“Nothing is going to happen to me. I’ve got you to protect me.”
His face hardens. All humor is gone, and he’s back to being cold as ice. “That’s what she thought, and look where that got her.”
“Can I ask what happened?”
“I’m sure you’ve heard all the rumors.”
“I want to hear it from you.” This is my second time asking.
“You thought I murdered my wife, and you married me anyway.” He shakes his head.
He says it as if I had a choice. “If you say you didn’t kill her, I believe you.”
“Let’s not think about the past. I just want to be here in this moment with you.”
He pulls me down onto the black leather sofa.
I want to press him for answers and tell him about the whispers, and Marco, but I finally have him alone. He’ll tell me about his first wife when he’s ready to open up more.
I snuggle into his side, laying my head on his shoulder, and pressing my nails to his stomach, feeling his muscles tense and flex beneath my touch.
“So you stay here most nights?”
“Mostly.”
“But now that we’re married, you’ll be sleeping at the manor…”
“You’re full of questions.”
“I want to know you better since I’ll be with you until death do us part.
Unless that is you’re already planning on getting rid of me.
” I regret the words the second they leave my mouth, but if he’s bothered by the poor choice, he doesn’t vocalize it.
I try to recover by keeping the conversation moving.
“Where do you sleep? Is there a reason we have separate rooms?”
“I thought you’d like the privacy. My room is next to yours.”
“So if I asked you to sleep next to me, that’d be okay?”
“If I get in a bed with you, I won’t be sleeping.”
“What will you be doing?”
“Putting a baby in you.” He tilts my chin up and presses his mouth to mine. “I like kissing you, Odette.”
“I like when you kiss me. I really liked where things were headed the other night.”
“Me too.” He kisses me once more. This time harder and deeper, giving me his tongue before breaking away. “Are you on birth control?”
“No.”
“There’s something you should know.”
“What?”
“About my tastes when it comes to sex.”
“You don’t have to treat me like glass. You can’t scare me off so easily. Are you into BDSM or something?”
“Or something.”
“Okay…what is it?”
“I have a ravishing and breeding kink. Do you know what that means?”
“I don’t think so.”
“It means I want you to resist me some. I want to take you against your will and fuck you unprotected and come inside you hoping to impregnate you. It’s what gets me off.”
“Like role playing?”
“In some ways.”
“Is this something you do with other women, or will I be the only one?”
“I don’t have other women. I wouldn’t share this with just anyone.”
I want to ask if he tried to ravish and breed Catherine, but I also don’t want to know. If I do, I’ll be comparing myself to a dead woman. To a ghost. I don’t want to wonder if he’s thinking about her when he’s with me.
“Is that what you think? That I’m fucking other women because I haven’t fucked you yet? Did Marco say something to you?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me, Odette.”
“Can we start this conversation over or forget it altogether? I want to be with you, Nico. I want you to want me. You’re my husband now. The only man I’ve ever kissed.”
He cuts me off with a kiss that moves from zero to sixty. His hand is up my shirt, and his tongue is down my throat. “I’m the only man you’ve ever kissed?”
“You’ll be my first and only everything,” I tell him. “I want to give you what you need. I’m worried I won’t know what to do. I want to be perfect for you.”
“You already are. So fucking perfect.”
“I want our marriage to be a real one.”
“Our marriage is real.”
“On paper, sure.”
He grabs my hand and places it over the crotch of his pants. “Do you feel that? That’s how real this is. Whenever I’m with you, it’s all I can do not to just rip your clothes off and take what I want.”
“Tell me what you want me to do.”
“I want you to run, Fiore Mio. And when I catch you, don’t submit so easily. Make me work for it.”
I should be freaked out and not turned on that my husband basically fantasizes about fucking me against my will and getting me pregnant in the process, but I’m not. I’m turned on by the thought of him dominating me.
Instead, I do something crazy. Something reckless.
He tries to kiss me, and I slap him. Not hard, but hard enough my palm stings before I jump up from the couch and run up the stairs to the second floor.
My heart races as I slip into the massive walk-in closet.
Nico’s footsteps echo around me as he climbs the stairs one by one.
I shiver in anticipation of what he will do once he catches me.
I crouch down and bend myself like a pretzel to hide in a cubby that is probably meant for storing blankets or something, and I wait for him to find me.
What feels like several minutes but has probably only been seconds ticks by. I see his feet as he enters the closet. “I can smell your perfume,” he taunts.
I breathe heavily. A bead of sweat rolls down my back and into the crack of my ass. I’m nervous. I have zero experience with men. With sex in general. Nico is it.
“Found you.” He grabs me by my ankles, yanking me out of my poor hiding spot.
I thrash my legs, kicking at him as he drags me across the floor.
“Please don’t,” I cry, but on the inside a thrill like I’ve never felt before shoots through me.
Nico stops in the doorway that separates the closet from the bedroom.
He stares down at me, nostrils flared, a brutal expression clouds his eyes.
“Just let me go,” I whisper.
“Never,” he growls.
I spot an opportunity to crawl between his legs, and I take it.
I get about halfway through when he grabs me by my hair, wrapping it around his fist. My breath catches in my throat.
My heartbeat pulses against my temples. I swallow as he gives my hair a good yank.
Not enough to hurt me, but firm enough to let me know he’s in charge.
“Come here, wife,” he demands, and I shake my head. “Are you scared of me, Odette?”
“A little,” I confess. It scares me how easily he turns into a predator. Did he play this game with Catherine and take it too far?
“Good. You should be.” He hauls me up to my feet and tosses me over his shoulder like I’m weightless before tossing me on the bed and pinning me down. Wrists held above my head with one of his large hands while the other tears at my clothes.
I twist beneath him, but his weight bears down on me.
“Tell me to stop,” his voice orders, husky and raw.
“You don’t want to do this,” I plead as he shoves my shirt up over my throat, stopping when the fabric covers my eyes. He uses the sleeves to bind my wrists. I can’t see. I can only feel.
His lips drag along my throat, nipping and sucking as I writhe on the bed. “I’m going to fuck you raw until you cry. Fill this pretty little pussy up with my come and put my baby in you. Bind you to me in every fucking way.”
“No,” my mouth says, but my body gives me away as I rub against him and pant for him.
I want him to touch me. To fuck me.
To defile me.
To hurt me.
To love me.