Lena #2
“I don’t know. Something. I had a professor who wanted to recommend me for a consulting track—the kind where you get recruited before you graduate.” I look at the skyline. “I’ve thought about it less as time went on. The gap gets harder to close the longer it is.”
“It’s not that hard to close.”
I look at him. He says it the way he says things that he means—flat, just a fact being offered. I believe him, and I’m annoyed at how much I believe him. Have I just been telling myself that it’d be too hard to go back?
I can’t get bogged down in that thought right now. “Tell me something about you. Something real.”
He actually thinks before he speaks, every time, which is rarer than it should be. “My father’s name was Enzo Spinelli. My mother was Angela Scarpetti before she married.”
I go very still. I keep my face even. I’m almost certain I succeed.
Scarpetti. The name sits in my chest like something dropped from a height.
I grew up in this city. My uncle ran with the wrong people.
I know that name from the news, from the conversations adults had in low voices when they thought the kids weren’t listening, from the particular way people said it, with a careful neutrality that meant the opposite of neutral.
Angela Scarpetti had a reputation that preceded her by decades. Brilliant, ruthless, and reportedly more feared than her brothers by the people who had reason to fear the family.
She worked as an assassin as a hobby. A hobby. She didn’t need the money, and from all accounts, she often did the work for free because she enjoyed it or because it needed doing or maybe she felt it was an honor to take lives. Hard to say about someone like her.
“I’ve heard the name.” This is the most controlled sentence I’ve produced in recent memory.
“Most people have.” He’s watching me now with that precise attention.
“My parents pushed me toward medicine. I had the mind for it, and when my father died, I was in my mid-twenties in med school. I had to make a choice. Stay in my residency or come home to the family. They had asked me to become a doctor, so I did.” He says this last part with a flatness that doesn’t quite conceal something underneath it.
Hurt. Anger. Guilt. Something I can’t read. But it’s not good.
I reach across the table and put my hand over his. I’m not sure why, but I need to touch him right now. Need to reassure… me? Him? I don’t know. Why is it that I feel this primal urge to comfort this man? A man who, by all accounts, is ruthless and powerful.
But he needs this. Needs me. I can feel it.
He looks at my hand. At me. I see the moment his expression changes—the careful, controlled face he wears for most things softening by a degree, just one degree, like a door opening the smallest amount.
I stand, still touching his hand, then come to his side of the table and kiss him. It’s nothing particularly sexual, not at first. More like reassurance.
But he stands as he deepens the kiss, wrapping his arms around me. I can’t breathe. Don’t need to. I’m dizzy from it, and I let him take the lead.
He brings me inside. To his bedroom. But he doesn’t rush this. Actually, he pauses before removing any article of clothing. Looks in my eyes. Waits for just a moment.
When I pull him to my mouth, there’s no more hesitation.
The afternoon light comes through the bedroom curtains in long pale bars. Wine or not, this decision is made in the cold light of day. No night to hide in. Just the quiet and him looking at me like I’m something he didn’t know he was looking for.
He’s different in the daylight. More careful with me. His hands are still sure, but they’re unhurried in a new way, and when he looks at me, it’s direct and undisguised, and I feel… more than I usually let myself feel.
I know exactly where I am and what I’m doing and who I’m doing it with. There’s no mental excuse games now. This isn’t a part of the blackmail. Not a moment of gratitude for taking care of a problem. No self-delusion about this being something it’s not.
I made a choice to have sex with Dario. To comfort him. To feel good. To enjoy him.
When he has me naked, we’re still standing next to his bed, and he kisses from my mouth down my body as he kneels. “Lean on the wall, pet.”
I do, and it’s cold, but I hardly notice because he picks my leg up over his shoulder to open me for him. I’m so exposed and off-balance and holy shit, his mouth.
After I had Opal, there were a few other men, and none of them ever saw me in the light. I couldn’t do it—my body had changed in ways I didn’t expect and didn’t want.
But even when my clothes are on, Dario looks at me like I’m the answer to his prayers. And now, he’s worshiping at my altar. His tongue is light on my clit at first, and again, I can’t breathe. Then his fingers join the party.
Not deep. But many. Stretching me open while his tongue works me over. I can hear my own wetness as he slowly pushes those fingers into me. Two? Three? Can’t tell. All I know is that delicious pressure and his magic tongue.
“That’s so much.” The words chop out of me.
“Mm-hmm.” He doesn’t let up. Doesn’t stop.
Strange how his three fingers together aren’t wider than his dick, but the stretch is somehow different in intensity.
And then a fourth tries to join the party.
“Um, I don’t… I don’t know about—oh, fuck!”
It slides in after he applies more pressure there for a moment. Like my pussy was waiting for that last digit all along.
So full. Fuck, I’m so fucking full right now. My body is electric, waiting for the last charge before I can explode. I rock on his hand, his mouth. A fistful of his short hair is not enough, so I cup the back of his head with my hand to push him against me. I need—fuck, I need.
“Want… bed.”
He merely shakes his head and keeps at me.
“Gonna fall.”
No stopping.
Safeword… do I have a safeword? Shouldn’t I?
My core tightens around those fingers, and it’s too late to safeword or breathe or do anything but come on his face. Pleasure and heat ride me. A scream wrenches out of my mouth, forcing my body forward, and he grabs my ass with one hand to hold me in place.
But he doesn’t stop. This man never stops.
I think he’s been fucking my mind every moment of every day since I met him.
When I finally come down enough to breathe, he slowly removes his fingers and stands, kissing me all the way up until he reaches my mouth.
Then he shoves me onto the bed, splits my legs open, and fills me with his cock, and somehow, he’s bigger than all those fingers were a moment ago. He takes my wrists in his wet hand, and with the other reaches past me, and then I feel it.
The rope around my wrists.
He pumps into me twice, then pulls out and scoots down the bed. I glance down to see him bind my ankles wide apart.
I’m still breathless from my orgasm, but manage to ask, “What are you doing?”
“Whatever I want.” He bends down past where I can see over the edge of the bed, and I hear something being shoved across the floor a short distance. Something from beneath the bed.
When he stands, there’s a dildo in his hand. “Be a good girl and hold still.”
“That’s huge!”
“That’s the point.” He notches the cold silicone inside of me, just a little, and watches my reaction. The sadistic smile on his lips is the only warning I get before he forces it halfway into me.
When I cry out, his smile grows.
He fucks me with the toy, and it’s all I can do not to come. I’m twisting on the damn thing, and I can’t help it. I’m right there, too primed to hold still.
And then he stops. But he doesn’t pull it out.
Instead, he slicks his cock up with lube. “I’m going to enjoy this.”
“I can’t… can’t fit both of you in there. Not at the same time.”
“I know.” He pulls me to the edge of the bed, bending my knees completely. And then his cock sits at my ass.
“Wait, I’m not sure—”
“I won’t hurt you, pet. I know what I’m doing.”
“But—”
He pushes, just a little bit, and I hold my breath. He tsks. “Breathe, pet. Trust me.”
I try not to hyperventilate. I have no control here, no way to fight back if I need to. It’s not possible to stop him by any physical means if this goes badly.
But then he sweetly strokes my inner thigh and stares into my eyes. “Have I ever really hurt you?”
“Well, no—”
He taps the outer end of the dildo inside of me, and suddenly, it buzzes against my G-spot, and there goes every thought I had. Panic? Gone. Fear? Still there, but I can’t speak it.
He works another inch of his cock into me while the toy vibrates deep inside. He’s not shoving, not pushing. Gentle thrusts of his hips, slow retractions. All while he stares into my eyes and caresses my body as he takes my ass.
I’m stretched beyond my limits. So full I can’t see straight. When I come, it travels up my spine, down my bones, and out my fingertips, and then back through me again. One orgasm becomes two. Two burst into infinity.
I cry out his name, I think. It fits well between curses.
When he’s finally buried inside my ass, I hear his words interspersed with my sailor language. “Taking me… so fucking good… Want another? Yeah, you do, don’t you?” He taps the toy again.
A little bit faster now. Another burst of pleasure, edged with pain. More screams. My body jolts, locked tight, his toy to play with.
Finally, his handsome face is red and sweaty over me. His pelvis pushes the toy deeper still as he fucks me twice. His eyes darken as he snarls, “Right… the fuck… now!” and he erupts in my ass, pumping, cursing, gripping the sheets.