Chapter 12
GIA
Fuck.
I looked over at him. Dominic watched the ceiling, his breathing slowing down.
Sweat covered his brow. His hard and damp tattooed chest rose and fell.
I studied the artwork. Intricate drawings in color and black-and-white spanned his right-side upper chest and arm ending just below his elbow.
I knew it wrapped around back too. Over his shoulder. I’d glimpsed the edges earlier.
Central to the design was a clock. Three-thirty-three.
Heavy chains circled it, and a skull, a grim reaper, trapped a rosary between its grotesque teeth.
Beneath it an eye, the blue-like crystal, watched, and around it, intricate dark designs of which I did not know the meanings bordered both clock and reaper.
Within these were carved dates. The whole thing gave off a sense of regret.
Of time having run out. Of doom and damnation.
Seeing this, the name I’d given him when I hadn’t known his name fit.
Death.
And I’d just fucked him.
Or he’d just fucked me. Hell, we’d fucked each other. He hadn’t had to make me. I’d spread my legs wide and gripped him hard, taking my pleasure from him, liking the taste of him, wanting it. Wanting him. Needing him inside me. Making sure he knew he wasn’t taking anything from me.
I would not be a fucking victim. Not again. Not ever again.
Dominic turned to me, his gaze on my face.
“You fuck like you fight.”
What was I supposed to say? Truth was, I’d never been like this with anyone else.
And as much as I tried to convince myself that I did it in order to not give him power over me, I’d never wanted anyone like I wanted him.
His darkness drew me as much as it should have repelled me.
His loneliness, his secrets—they all worked like a magnet, making it impossible to ignore.
He slid off the bed and dropped his briefs on the floor. I couldn’t help it; I let my gaze roam all over his body, his perfectly sculpted, powerful body.
“Up.” He held out his hand.
I sat up, then stood, attempting to pull my jeans over my hips as I did, feeling the smear of him leak down my belly beneath this stranger’s hoodie I’d found in the closet.
“No,” he said, pulling my hand away. “Take it off. Take everything off.”
I gritted my teeth, but my belly fluttered at the command.
“Off, Gia. Now.”
I stripped, angry, pushing my jeans down and stepping out of them and yanking the hoodie up and over my head.
There was nothing erotic in my disrobing as I tugged the panties off and threw them on the floor as I unhooked my bra, dropping it onto the soiled pile.
This man had seen me naked more often than clothed.
Dominic looked me over. Having his eyes on me, as much as I despised myself for it, only made me want. They made my pussy ache. Again.
But they also made me want to understand the darkness behind them.
“You look good wearing my cum.”
“I hate you.”
He closed his hand around the back of my neck and brought his face to mine.
“I don’t care,” he whispered.
I believed him. He did not care what I thought, what I felt. I wasn’t sure he cared about much at all.
A shudder ran through me. He moved, leading me by my neck into his bathroom. It was similar to mine but bigger, and for all the white in mine, his was black. Droplets of water clung to the glass wall and door of the shower. He reached in and turned on the water.
“In.”
I stepped into the stall, my belly to the spray. That was when I felt him behind me, his naked body touching mine.
I turned, panicked.
“What?”
He casually ran his gaze down to my ass, his hands gripping my hips. He leaned down, his mouth at my ear.
“I liked fucking you.”
I froze when I felt him harden behind me again, and when he rubbed himself against me as he leaned over me to pick up the bottle of body wash, I stopped breathing altogether.
“I think you liked it too.”
He squeezed some out onto his palm and began to rub it over my belly, my breasts, down to my sex then back up as I sucked in air.
He turned my face and kissed me, his fingers finding my nipples as he did so, the soap slippery as he kneaded them.
His tongue dipped inside my mouth, swallowing my moan whole.
He turned me so my back pressed against the wall, looked down at me, and spread my arms out to either side. His cock lay thick and hard and ready between us. God forgive me, but I wanted to touch it, to touch him, to kiss him, to feel him inside me.
“You’re fucking beautiful.”
He dipped his head to kiss my face, my neck, as the water of the shower rained down on us. He released one of my hands, and I brought it to his chest. He slid his hand down between my legs to first rub, then pinch my clit hard. Holding on to it, he leaned back to watch my face.
I grunted, an involuntary sound, and tried to reach up to kiss him, but he moved so his nose touched mine while he twisted and squeezed my clit.
“I should punish you for trying to run off.”
He reached down and bite-kissed my lower lip.
“You won’t,” I said, closing my eyes as he squeezed harder. “Fuck.”
“You like that?”
I curled my hand around the back of his neck and looked up at him, watching him watch me, knowing my vulnerability, knowing he saw it, the fact making me hotter. “Fuck, I’m going to come.”
And beneath his gaze, I did, his fingers working as I panted and moaned, knees giving way so that he had to keep me upright, the orgasm quick after what we’d just done, and when he released my clit, I cried out, my eyes flying open to watch him lift me up only to impale me on his thick shaft.
It seemed the only word I could say was fuck again and again and again.
Dominic chuckled, but his face grew serious as he took both of my wrists up over my head and brought his mouth to mine, his eyes wide open, fucking me harder, faster, until we both cried out with the release, my third, his second, the walls of my pussy clenching around the throbbing of his cock before he pulled out, again covering me with his cum.
I don’t remember the rest of the shower. All I know is that by the time he tucked me into his bed and climbed in beside me, I was half gone, exhausted, thoroughly spent and empty. And when he turned to wrap his body around mine, I drifted off to the deepest, most restful sleep I’d ever had.
When I woke the next morning, Dominic was already gone. I got out of bed, shamefaced at the soreness between my legs, the memory of the previous night at once humiliating and arousing.
I’d wanted him. I’d wanted every inch of him. And I’d had it.
I picked up the clothes I’d worn on my getaway attempt—which had almost succeeded—and crept out the door and down the hallway to my bedroom.
Mine at least for the moment. I chose clothes out of Lucia’s closet, thanking my lucky stars she and I were similar in size so most things fit well enough.
It felt weird wearing a stranger’s underwear, but I did anyway.
After choosing today’s outfit, I went into the bathroom to dress.
I wanted to check how the brand was healing, since the scabs had started to peel off.
Standing at the mirror, I turned to my side and looked at my hip, picking at the crusted, raised skin, hating the mark, this permanent brand Victor had burned into me.
It would remind me always of that night.
Of his power over me. I knew it was stupid to think of it as weakness.
Me alone against him and several of his men?
I’d had no chance. I’d fought anyway, though, knowing I’d lose.
Knowing I’d pay. That’s what had earned me all the bruises, which were mostly faded by now.
Victor was a bully. A thug. But it didn’t mean I didn’t feel shame every time I looked at the damned brand.
It was a circle containing what appeared to be a family crest maybe. I half expected it to be the Scava family crest, actually, and was surprised when it wasn’t. I knew their symbol. It had been on a necklace James had given me after we’d been dating for a month. This wasn’t it.
A B stood at the center of this mark, large and decorative. Spears protected that B and the Famiglia beneath. A lion’s mane acted as backdrop and anchor of the design.
I leaned down to have a closer look, confused. What the hell kind of mark was this?
Would Dominic know? He seemed to know a lot about the mafia world. He’d called it “our world.” He was an insider. I had assumed a foot soldier at first, then maybe a mercenary later, after I had gotten to know him a little more. He’d know what it was.
“Gia?” Dominic called out sharply from the bedroom.
I startled, grabbing a nearby towel and holding it up against me when he came into the bathroom, fully dressed in jeans and a tight-fitting, black-cashmere sweater.
My eyes fell to the edges of the tattoo the V-neck left exposed.
He stopped when he saw me, his blue-gray gaze sliding over me then rising to meet mine.
“What?” I asked once I could get my voice to work. I sounded annoyed, like him. It was an act, though. Was it an act for him? Did he act tough and cruel when he wasn’t?
No. It would be a stupid mistake to think that.
“I want to go,” he said, walking inside.
He stopped, and it seemed to me he had to force himself to keep his gaze on mine even though he wanted to act like he didn’t give a damn.
Like he was unaffected. I knew he felt it too, this insane physical pull charged and sparking like a live wire between us.
“I just have to get dressed. Give me a minute.”
His eyes narrowed a little, and I turned as he moved, keeping myself covered as best as I could, realizing the mirror exposed everything to him when his gaze slid to it.
“Please,” I said, no longer able to help the dropping of my head. I needed to manage this, to figure out how to be around him. Fucking like we had last night, it didn’t help. Only blurred the already fuzzy line.