Chapter 32
Isabella
Iwas still in Lorenzo’s bed. Despite all of his anger, he didn’t say anything about me going back to the blue guest room, and I didn’t try to move my stuff. That was another fight that I was not interested in having after the day I’d had.
Instead, I tried to pretend to be asleep by the time he came through the door, squeezing my eyes shut and keeping my back to him. He didn’t say a word to me, just headed for the bathroom; I heard the shower turn on.
I rolled over onto my back with a sigh and tried not to think. My head was an absolute mess of fear and guilt and anger, and there was no point in trying to figure out what emotion was the strongest because it all ebbed and flowed without stopping.
The shower kept going, and I tossed and turned. I was desperate to find a comfortable position and actually fall asleep. Maybe that would erase this day enough for me to last the next seven or so months trapped under Lorenzo’s angry gaze.
Fuck, but it was no use. My mind was too busy to relax, despite the exhaustion pressing down on my eyelids. I sat up and looked at the clock on his bedside table. It was nearly midnight.
“I thought you were asleep.”
Lorenzo was standing beside the bed, a towel wrapped around his waist. I watched a water droplet trace down the length of his chest, his abs, only to absorb into that towel.
“I can’t stop thinking,” I said, still staring at his nests of scars.
“I’ll probably go downstairs and watch some TV in a few. ”
“No.”
“I’m going to keep you up if I stay,” I said.
“You aren’t going wandering in the middle of the night,” he countered. “No.”
“Then you’re going to have to figure out a way to shut my brain off because I cannot sleep like this.”
Lorenzo stared at me, his mouth a tense line across his face. “Is that what you want?” he asked.
I didn’t know what I wanted…but I knew the only thing that had made me feel good in months, maybe in years, was the man in front of me. Even when he terrified me in equal measure. “Yes.”
He dropped his towel, and the bed dipped as he climbed on. “I’m not going to go easy on you.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
We came together in a clash of mouths and teeth and hands.
He practically tore my clothes off me and pressed me, face first, against the mattress.
He fit his hands over my ass cheeks and spread me, and my stomach clenched with embarrassment that only deepened when he let out a cruel kind of laugh.
“Already dripping,” he said, as if to remind me that my body seemed hardwired specifically for him.
He slipped a finger into my pussy. I could hear the slick sound of it and cringed, even as warm pleasure ignited within me. Before he started any kind of rhythm that would make me come, he pulled his fingers out of me. When I whined, he brought his hand down on my ass with a loud thwack.
“Behave, dolcezza.” Even though I hated the nickname, it made me feel warm to hear him say it. I wasn’t sure that he was going to, given everything.
“I’m trying,” I panted, doing my level best to keep still when all I wanted was to scream at him to keep touching me.
His finger, still wet from me, circled around my ass, and I sank my teeth into my lip.
It wasn’t an entirely foreign thought to me, but no one had ever actually touched me there.
Until Lorenzo. After a pause, he pressed the tip of his finger inside, breaching my tight rim, and I let out a whimper.
It felt strange more than painful; I couldn’t decide if I liked it or not.
I was still trying to decide when I felt him notch the head of his cock against my pussy. I moaned. That was what I wanted. He laughed again, that mean, hard sound, before he pressed inside with a long push of his hips.
He forced my muscles to stretch before they were really ready, and it stung as much as it felt good.
I balled my fists into the sheets, tears slipping down my cheeks.
“You should not get to feel like this,” Lorenzo complained, hips smacking into my ass with the force of his thrusting.
“You shouldn’t get to feel this good when you piss me off so fucking much. ”
My eyes were going to roll back in my head. My nerves sang with pleasure; I was already so close. “I could say the same,” I panted.
He pushed more of his finger into my ass, not slowing down for a second, and my muscles clenched down around him. “Let me in,” he coaxed. “Fuck, dolcezza, has anyone played with you here, huh? You’re so tight.”
I shoved myself back against him, desperate to come.
The harder he fucked me, the more he played with my ass, the less and less I was able to keep thoughts in my head.
I was becoming a needy, throbbing thing; it was all that I wanted.
“Let me,” I moaned. Everything between my thighs felt heavy and tight, and I needed it to let go. “Oh, please, let me—!”
“Do it,” Lorenzo groaned. “Come for me.”
It felt as if something snapped inside of me, and my orgasm washed over me in waves. I felt it when Lorenzo came as well, and when he pulled away, I shivered when I felt his release dripping back out.
My head was pleasantly blank, and while I felt him moving around, probably getting wipes to clean up, I was already starting to slip into sleep.
I woke up to an empty room, again, but I wasn’t surprised in the least. Today, however, I wouldn’t be going to look for him. If something happened, and I needed to do some first aid, he could come find me.
Instead, I went down to the kitchen. Amalia was cleaning the breakfast plates. “Oh, bella,” she cooed when she saw me.
I crossed the room to throw my arms around her neck. “Thank you,” I murmured to her. “You saved my ass yesterday.”
She nodded, hugging back hard. “You can’t make threats like that,” she said in a scolding voice. “Not in a house like this. The walls have ears.”
I wasn’t sure if she was being facetious or not, but it wouldn’t shock me if she wasn’t. Lorenzo seemed like the type to have listening devices. “I know. I was just panicking, really.” If I said it enough times, maybe it would be true.
Amalia gave me a look that was kind but still one of disbelief. She patted my cheek. “Lorenzo and the boys went somewhere. I was going to make a mess of pastries. Do you want to help?”
Making pastries was way above my skill set in the kitchen, but I needed to keep myself distracted. “Sure. Show me what to do.”
Amalia’s first lesson was an easier one: pizzelles.
She already had the iron plugged in, and I watched as she made the first batch.
It was a traditional anise flavor, and my stomach growled when she ladled the batter onto the iron.
She closed the lid, and we set a timer for a few minutes.
When it dinged, and she opened it, the waffle-like cookie was a light golden brown and smelled like a piece of Heaven that had fallen to Earth.
“Here,” she said, breaking the pizzelle in two pieces. “We have to do a quality control test.” She winked, and I laughed and took a bite.
They tasted warm and homey. “My mother, sister, and I used to make these together for Christmas before my father screwed everything up. I need three dozen more of these, please.”
Amalia laughed. “Well, let’s get to work, then.”
The pizzelles came out perfect, and we ended up making two dozen of the traditional flavor and a dozen chocolate ones that were, apparently, Elio’s favorite. After we had stacks of the waffle cookies everywhere, we moved on to biscotti.
That did not go as well. Amalia’s batch turned out lovely.
Mine were soft and refused to become crunchy.
They did taste good, though, so we set them aside for tiramisu later.
We tried out a few more recipes that proved too hard for me, but spending time with Amalia in the kitchen did distract me from the spiral that my brain kept trying to take me on.
“I’m afraid that I’ll get attached,” I said when we sat down for lunch. A plate of pizzelles sat between us and I intended to clear the plate.
“To the baby?”
I nodded, but then shrugged. “To everything,” I amended.
“I don’t understand your lives, and I’m scared more often than I’m not, but how am I meant to forget about it all when this is over?
” I put a hand over my tummy. It was becoming a protective gesture and one that comforted me, and I didn’t want to think about the baby growing inside of me. I didn’t want to fall in love with it.
“You could always stay,” Amalia said.
I scoffed. “Lorenzo has made it quite clear what he wants from me.”
She looked at me, as if she were trying to peer into my soul. “What do you want from him?”
I had no idea. It used to be my freedom. Now, that prospect of freedom felt like just another jail cell that I would be stepping into. I reached for another cookie and broke it into pieces. “I want to finish this plate and then hide a bunch so that the guys don’t eat them all. Can we do that?”
Amalia nodded, eyes kind. “Of course.”