Chapter 20 Caterina #2
He spreads me a little wider and sucks on my clit just so.
I break into a million pieces for him, crying out in rapture.
Shamelessly, I ride his face without mercy, chasing every second of delight.
He keeps working his magic through each wave of my orgasm.
I never realized it would come in waves that way.
In truth, it’s beyond anything I’ve ever imagined.
Melting like butter in the sun once the strongest pulses have ended, I sink heavily toward the bed.
I might be suffocating him for all I know, but his tongue continues to gently lick me.
I hum to myself, unable to believe this night.
He lifts me from his face at last and lays me back across our bed, his chin and lips shining from my arousal when he claims a kiss.
The musky tang hits my tongue, and I find myself blushing.
“Dolce Caterina,” he murmurs. Sweet. Everything about this night is.
“I could touch you if you-”
“I’m not finished with you.”
True to his word, Alessio begins by kissing me again and then moves to my breasts. This time, as his mouth awakens that needfulness inside me, his hand slips between my legs. “I’m going to finger you for your second orgasm, Caterina.”
“Will it hurt?”
“I don’t think it will. You’re very wet. But, if it does, tell me to stop.”
I don’t tell him to stop though it does sting at first. He watches me intently as his finger pushes gently but surely inside my channel while he’s teasing my nipples with his tongue.
It feels like such an invasion, and I can’t help tensing but, when he mouths the word pain in question, I shake my head.
“I can take it. Give me more.” It stokes fresh fire in his blue gaze, and I love that as much as the pleasure he offers.
One finger feels like so much, but his thumb circles my clit, and I love the attention he’s giving my breasts.
A second finger stretches me to the point I feel like I’m being ripped apart.
How on earth will I handle his penis? “Try not to tense so much. Relax if you can and it should get better,” he murmurs in my ear.
I try and suddenly his thumb is pressing down on my clit as he sucks a bit harder on my breasts.
It distracts me. It’s more than distracting.
It’s sublime. Just like that, the stretch and sting mean nothing.
I’m floating again. I’m seeing stars. My hips chase the movement of his hand, and I come every bit as intensely as I did the first time.
“Two out of three,” he says and it takes me a moment to catch up.
“You mean to make me come with your dick next?”
“I will… but not tonight.” He’s respecting my earlier wishes, and I know that’s probably for the best. Even if there’s a small part of me wanting more.
“You’re getting sleepy,” he whispers, somehow aware of my internal debate.
“You’ll get to come again in the morning, greedy girl, and maybe I will, too. ”
My eyes flick down to where his erection is trying to punch its way through his boxers. “Are you sure he can wait that long?”
He chuckles, giving his boner a shove. “He’ll have to. Enough torturing me, kitten. We both need sleep.”
I smile, ready to acquiesce, but the word torture is still lingering in my consciousness when my hand glides up to capture his wrist. There’s the circular raised mark on the inside of it.
My brows snap together, instinct guiding me to the matching scar on his other wrist. “Will you tell me what these are from?”
He turns the lamp off, his eyes becoming deep, dark pools in the moonlight. I feel a wall rising between us when he says the word I’ve been thinking – “Torture.”
My heart twists with hurt for him. “I’m sorry. Were you captured by an enemy or-”
“My father did it. To harden me.”
“How could he-”
“Many ways and that wasn’t the first time.”
I had meant to ask ‘how could he do that?’ but I know better than to interrupt when Alessio continues.
“These scars are electrical burns. He strapped me up and flipped a switch, waiting to see how long it would take me to break and beg for mercy. I learned to hold my tongue for a long time in the face of agony. Otherwise, the session would last longer. My older brother enjoyed getting to help.”
Ice water spills across my heated skin, burrowing into my earlier contentment.
I know Alessio’s experience is not unusual for boys in our world, but it makes me sick.
And his big brother helped? I remember being much younger and overhearing Nico quietly comforting Dante when he was twelve.
Our father had been ‘hardening’ him, too.
When I’d asked Dante why he had been punished, he’d looked at me with pity and told me there was at least one reason to be glad I was a girl.
The thought of having a son, an innocent child like Nico’s newborn boy and watching my husband mistreat him someday to prepare him for the mafia…
“It was years ago. Don’t look so sad.”
“How old were you?”
“Ten when he gave me these. Seven when he first started.”
Good God, even worse than I pictured. “Do you ever think of another life away from…”
“A treasonous thought, Caterina.” I remain quiet.
He made me swear never to betray him but is it treason simply to ask a question?
“No, I don’t think of another life. We’re rich.
We’re powerful. We’re not working in cubicles or factories, drowning in debt or struggling to eat, living by all those rules normal people must follow.
Fuck, I could never be that kind of man, living that sort of life.
I’d rather die. This is the life I’ve chosen, and I will never turn my back on my men or my oath.
Don’t cry any silly tears for me either.
I’m a murdering, torturing monster like my father, and I fucking enjoy it. Now, sleep.”
The last was a command, and I know I should listen.
But, in the darkness, my fingers find those burn scars again, and I gently caress them while whispering words from my heart. “I’ll never leave your side or betray you, Alessio, but I want to be happy. I will do my best to bring you happiness in our dark world, too.”
He doesn’t reply. It doesn’t matter. If he will treat me right, perhaps he will decide he is glad of our arranged marriage.
Perhaps he will even give up his wish to kill my brothers.
My eyes are so heavy that, when his arm wraps around my shoulders once more with another gruff order to sleep, I couldn’t keep them open any longer if I tried.