by Nina Levine
I walk to the bathtub and sit on the edge, pumping from base to tip, and moaning because it feels so damn good.
It’s the creak of the door that grabs my attention, and I glance over through hooded lids.
Bella is behind the door and she’s watching me.
I should be startled.
I should pretend this is something that it’s not.
Deny. Deny. Deny.
But I’ve come too far to stop.
I’m close to coming.
And let’s face it, wild horses aren’t going to drag my hand off my dick at this point when I’m this close to lift off.
I bite down on my bottom lip because the sudden thought of her watching me turns me on even more.
Fuck.
She’s going to think I’m a perverted fuck and start yelling any second now.
Then I realize she isn’t turning away. She wants to watch. She wants to see me running my hand up and down my thick, throbbing shaft.
I groan and it vibrates through me. Precum spills over the head of my cock, and I shiver as I roll my palm over the creamy liquid before dragging it back down the shaft again.
I’ve passed the point of no return.
There’s no turning back.
My body is getting ready for a much-needed release.
With my free hand, I massage my balls, groaning as the tension builds, threatening to snap.
I pretend I don’t see her, but I am acutely aware of her watching me. Of those big eyes burning with lust as I continue to fist my cock.
She hasn’t moved.
Is this turning her on?
Is it making her wet?
Is her pussy throbbing with need?
Fuck.
Just thinking about her pussy brings me to the edge.
The warmth.
The softness.
How the soft, dewy lips would feel suckling at the head of my cock.
How tight and wet and warm it would feel to be inside her.
Fucking her.
Making her come.
Making her moan my name.
With a violent shiver, my orgasm crashes through me. I grab the edge of the bathtub as a spatter of creamy cum hits the grooves of my abs. I growl, overpowered by my pleasure, my brain drenched in ecstasy as I pump my cock until I’m emptied of every drop.
Seconds pass as I sit there panting, waiting for my breath to even out as I think about her. I’m going to have some explaining to do.
But when I look up, she is gone.
14
Bella
“He did what?” Imogen’s voice screeches through my phone. It’s Monday, and I’ve been married for two days. “You mean, he sleeps fully naked? Like, cock out and everything?”
“That’s usually what being naked entails.”
“Is it big? It’s big, isn’t it. A big, perfect man like that has a big, perfect penis. You can tell me. I’m right, aren’t I?”
I’m not telling her anything about his big, perfect penis.
Just like I’m not telling her about what I watched him do afterward.
Sitting on the edge if the tub. His big hand wrapped around his big cock… the panting… the look on his face…
Because something inside of me wants to keep that all to myself.
But that won’t stop Imogen from prying. “I can tell by your lack of details that I am right. Your hubby has a gigantic cock.”
I laugh as I make my way toward the elevator and press the button. “Listen, I’m on my way into the office and I’m about to step into the lift. I’ll call you later, okay.”
“You’d better! And I want all the freaking details.” She pauses, and when she speaks, her tone is more serious. Concerned. “Just tell me you’re okay.”
“I am. Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”
I end the call and ride the car up to the third floor to my office. Roberta, my assistant is waiting for me with coffee and a big smile.
“Welcome back!”
“Oh my God, I love you. Thank you!” I say, accepting the coffee. It’s black and strong, and utterly delicious. “What did I do before you came into my life?”
“Floundered like a fish out of water,” she replies with a smile as she follows me into my office. “So where are you going for your honeymoon?”
I sit down at my desk and take out some paperwork from my briefcase.
“What honeymoon?”
“The one you’re going on next week?”
I stop what I am doing and look at her. “What are you talking about? There is no honeymoon.”
“That’s not what your husband told Mr. Christi. Did you know Mr. Lastrantonio is the majority shareholder of the Ulvaeus Diamond Company? I guess that makes him our boss. He rang Mr. Christi and told him that after today you won’t be in for the rest of the month.”
I stare at Roberta because I am so fucking gobsmacked.
“He fucking did what?”
“How dare you!” I yell.
I’ve got my husband cornered and I’m hopping mad.
But he looks like a man who doesn’t have a care in the world. Leaning against the kitchen counter, he calmly takes a sip of coffee from the espresso cup in his hand. “What have I done now?”
“You told my boss that I won’t be in for the rest of the month.”
“Oh, that.” He puts down his cup and makes his way out of the kitchen toward our bedroom. “He didn’t have a problem with it.”
“Well, I do,” I yell, following him.
“Too bad. Like we discussed, I need my wife with me when I travel.”
“And like I said, I won’t let you interfere with my job. Do you have any idea how you’ve made me look to my boss?”
“Last I looked, I am your boss. I own the majority share.”
Anger heats up my face.
“You really are a prick, you know that?” I grit my teeth. “Did you buy Ulvaeus Diamond Company because I worked there?”
Inside our bedroom, he turns around to look at me.
“It certainly was an attractive part of the package.”
My fingers curl into a fist.
“Why are you fucking with my life?” I shout.
“You’ll see,” he says calmly.
I’m so angry I want to cry.
I slap him across the face, hard, and I can see the restraint in him as he battles to control his temper.
I have a feeling that no one has dared put their hands on Alessandro Lastrantonio and lived to tell the tale.
Anger flares in his eyes.
The energy in the room shifts.
When he speaks, his voice is low and dark with a smoky dangerousness that hits me straight between the legs.
“I have never raised my hand to a woman in my life. And God help my soul if I did. But you are pushing every one of my fucking buttons, Bella, and you should know, there are plenty of other ways to punish you.”
I refuse to be intimidated. I raise my chin, and the bright green of my eyes lock onto the black obsidian of his. “You don’t frighten me, Alessandro Lastrantonio. Give it your best shot.”
His eyes burn into mine and dear God, it’s turning me on.
I think about our wedding night.
About seeing him with his cock in his hands.
About the look of ecstasy on his face.
About how wet it made me.
A throb takes up between my thighs.
Honestly, it hasn’t left me since that night.
And I hate myself for it.
He can see I am losing the war taking place between my body and my mind.
He backs me up against the wall, towering over me, and his body settles against mine and it is warm, and big, and rock hard.
Our eyes lock on to one another as he reaches for me. His cool fingertips find my hot skin as they whisper down my throat and over the rise of my breasts.
The darkness on his face recedes and I see him struggle to swallow as he touches me so
intimately for the first time in over a decade. He licks his lips, his pulse raging in his neck as his fingers skim lower, over my stomach and down to the hem of my dress.
With his eyes not leaving mine, he slides his hand beneath the fabric, and I watch his expression with mindless fascination when he feels the touch of my lacy underwear against his fingers.
He begins to stroke the soaked fabric, sending waves of pleasure through me. His gaze is intense, his eyes black and dark as I tremble and soften against him, my body igniting beneath the friction.
I start to shift restlessly as pleasure funnels through me, and in that moment I need so many things. I need him to kiss me. I need to see him naked. I need him to take me into his bed and fill me with every single inch of the hardness I saw in his hand the other night. But most of all, I need him to keep rubbing me because I am seconds away from what is going to be the most intense release of my life.
My eyes flutter. I’m going to come.
He leans closer and his lips brush my ear.
“Il mio piccolo diavolo.” My little devil. “This will be your punishment.” He draws in a rough breath, and with a growl, pulls his touch from my body and steps away.
The sudden loss of contact is devastating.
I sag against the wall, my orgasm retreating like a coward.
I was so close to coming and now… now I want to fucking cry.
My hands curl into fists at my side.
I glare at him, mourning my lost orgasm.
Asshole.
If he thinks he can do this to me, then he’s sorely mistaken.
I straighten and pull myself together because I’m not about to let him win.
I’m going to beat him at his own game.
If he wants a war, then I’ll goddamn give him a war.
Pretending he isn’t in the room, I walk over to the nightstand and remove my vibrator from the top drawer. I feel his dark gaze on me as I climb onto the bed and settle into the pillows, the buzz of the vibrator cutting into the tense silence as I close my eyes and bring the vibrating head to my soaked panties. I press it against my aching clit, and my lost orgasm roars back to life with fierce intensity.
I hear his breath hitch in his throat.
Feel his dark energy ignite.
And it all excites me beyond belief.
I bite down on my lip and start to moan because fuck, this feels good. I’ve never done anything like this in front of a man, and it’s making me so damn hot. Not to mention wet and needy.
“Oh God…” I moan.
Close to coming, I glance over at Alessandro. He carves his hand through his dark hair and struggles to swallow, the other hand gripping the edge of the dresser so tightly he is white knuckled.
I sigh with pleasure as the beautiful bliss between my thighs builds and builds with every vibration against my achy clit. I hear Alessandro growl and the sudden hiss of his inhale as he wrestles with his desire. His smugness is gone, vanquished by a raw need as he watches me give myself the orgasm he so cruelly denied me. Suddenly my body tightens with pleasure, my legs stiffen and my toes anchor into the mattress beneath me. I cry out as my climax hits with a ferocious force, sending me deeper into the pillows, my body trembling, my mind drenched in ecstasy.
Floating back to Earth, I start to laugh.
I sit up and glance over to my husband. He looks like a man undone. His eyes are molten with heat, and the front of his pants are tented by his massive erection. He stalks toward me, his face stiff with lust, his mouth slack with uncontrollable need.
I climb off the bed before he can reach it and step toward him. As I lean in, my palm glides over the rigid outline of his erection and he groans.
My lips brush his ear. “I’ll consider this battle won.”
And feeling smug, I walk away.
15
Alessandro
“She might actually be the death of me,” I say to Cristian as I glance out the window and watch the city roll past. We’re in the back of the limousine, on our way to a meeting across town.
I should have my mind on the meeting agenda. But I’ve lost focus.
I’m distracted.
By her.
The woman I now call my wife.
The woman with a raging inferno of resentment in her heart.
The woman I’ve been jerking off to in the shower every day.
We’ve been married for a little over two weeks and lying next to her warm body in bed every night has kept my head screwed on backward and my dick hard.
We should be on our honeymoon. A little island off the coast of Italy where there would be no distractions. No hesitations. Just us.
I’d hoped the time away would improve things between us.
But again, I had misjudged her. A honeymoon at this point isn’t going to work. Forcing her to be alone with me isn’t going to work. Telling her to do anything when she didn’t want to… Isn’t. Going. To. Work.
“You knew she was going to be a handful,” Cristian says with a grin. One that tells me that he loves the idea of her torturing me because he thinks I deserve it for what I’ve done. And he’s right, of course. What I’ve done is fucked up. But it was a necessity.
“I know, but I think I might have underestimated just how passionately she hates me.”
Cristian chuckles. “She’s not shy about showing you either.”
No.
And I have a serious case of blue balls to show for it.
After watching her pleasure herself, I’ve been walking around with a permanent fucking hard-on.
I need to force her out of my head, so I try to focus on the view outside the window, instead.
I love this city. I get intoxicated by its thrumming energy. Its smells. Its vibe. Its insomniac vitality.
But my heart belongs back home.
I’m only here for Bella.
In my wildest dreams we leave all of this behind us.
All of it.
If I could just make her remember…
If she could just let herself feel what I know is still in her heart…
My phone rings. It’s the doorman from my apartment building.
My face pales as I listen to his words. “Someone has just kidnapped Bella.”
16
Bella
Blackness.
I only become aware of the nothingness as I slowly rise out of its murky depths.
Feeling foggy, I open my eyes and blink, and my blurry vision begins to sharpen.
“Welcome back, sleepy head.”
A man steps in front of me, and my mind rewinds back to when he accosted me on the street outside the apartment.
Fractured images of my kidnapping swing before me. How he had pressed a gun into my side and hustled me away from the building. How I had looked at the doorman for help and felt relieved to see the realization slant across his face as I was pushed into the car waiting by the curb.
There’s nothing after that, because once inside the car, this sonofabitch must’ve knocked me out.
I glance around. We’re in some sort of warehouse. It’s dimly lit and there’s a musky stench of mildew in the air.
“Do you know who I am?” he asks.
“A kidnapping asshole?” I manage.
He leans down and scoffs. “You always were too feisty for your own good.” He stands. “My name is Luca Castabella. You will have heard of me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
I know of him.
Of course, I do.
His family killed my brother.
“My family were once aligned with the mighty Lastrantonios. When your father and Vincent Lastrantonio became rivals, it was the Castabellas who stepped in and formed an alliance with Vincent. An alliance forged in honor and respect… both of which have been spat on by this truce. Alessandro had no business offering peace. And your father had no business accepting it.”
“You’ve done this because the Lastrantonios and Isle Cicculas are no longer rivals?”
“Good to see that little bump on your head hasn’t affected you.”
I swallow thickly. Behind my back, I am furiously working on the knots binding my wrists together.
“You stand to gain nothing from doing this,” I say.
“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong. There is nothing like the sweet taste of revenge.” He smiles evilly. “Kill you, and I destroy both your father and your husband.”
I narrow my eyes, my head hurting like a sonofabitch. “They will find you.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that. But by then it will be too late.” He reaches for his belt buckle. “Now, I’m not normally a taking man, Bella, but I want your husband and father to know exactly what I did to you.”
He crouches before me and yanks my knees apart, his hands running up my thighs.
I growl and push them closed but he laughs. He stands and his eyes gleam menacingly as he unzips his pants. “You might want to make your peace with it now, Bella Isle Ciccula, because the next hour is going to be hell for you.”
I look up at him and smile. “You’re in so much trouble.”
“Ah, yes, your husband. What will he do when they pull his beautiful wife’s lifeless body out of the Hudson?” he taunts.
“It’s not him you should be afraid of right now,” I warn.
“No?” He mocks surprise. “Who then?”
My eyes zone in on his. “Me.”
Before he can reply, I’m out of that chair so damn fast he doesn’t have time to react. I get him first in his stomach which bends him over, allowing me to get him in the eyes with my fingers, and his balls with my foot.
He fights back but I’ve done enough Krav Maga that it’s hardwired into my instincts.
When he goes down, his weapon spins across the floor and I grab it before fleeing out the door. I’m woozy and out of sorts, but there’s nothing like a threat to your life to get you moving.
Immediately, I run into some resistance. A bodyguard. But before he can reach for his gun I have mine pressed into his forehead. He steps back and I run… I run so fucking fast my lungs feel like they’re on fire.
I expect more resistance. More bodyguards. More something. But Luca Castabella had clearly underestimated me, taking minimal manpower with him to the warehouse where he’d planned to rape and murder me.