Luciano pulls out, shifts, and then something much thicker than his fingers presses against my rear entrance, spreading it shockingly wide.
“I think dear old God left you a long time ago, Chloe Becker. I’m your God now. And your Devil.”
He pushes deeper. My body resists, clenches, panicking. “Don’t!” I mewl. “It won’t work!”
He sits up, pulls out and I clench air. Then more liquid. Much more liquid. He smears it on and around my entrance, pushes his fingers inside. When he leans over me again, pushing his cock against me again, my resistance is pathetic. He kisses my neck, keeps up the pressure, kisses along my shoulder, pushes on, then he bites down and I jerk from the unexpected pain, temporarily losing control, and he’s past my entrance, past my only chance to keep some control.
“Bastard,” I squeal.
“Nope.” He pulls out a little and then pushes back inside. The fires of a thousand hells burn between my legs. “My mother and father were married. You’ve got to come up with better insults.” He keeps thrusting. In and out. I gasp and try to clench, but it’s impossible to resist his intrusion.
“Monster!”
“That’s a compliment.”
“I fucking hate you!”
“And that’s a fucking lie.” He puts a hand between my legs, fingering my clit as his thrusts intensify. It burns. It sets every nerve ending on fire. I tense up, feeling like a piano string about to snap.
“Please don’t stop!” I gasp. I don’t feel the mattress, I don’t think I breathe, I couldn’t tell my name if someone were to ask.
“I’ll never stop,” he groans, his thundering heart reverberating through my chest, beating as one with mine.
“I’m coming,” I cry as the first deep spasm rocks my body, and then I lose all sense of self as I come undone in the strongest orgasm I’ve ever experienced. He burns in me, scorching hot as he roars out his release, buried deep in my ass, twitching, thick, filling me more than I thought was possible. I hate him and I can’t get enough of him. In this moment he takes everything I am, devours it, twists it and releases it as something else, someone I’m not but that I can be, someone he turns me into.
Still lodged in me, he falls over me, heavy, sweaty. Hot air fans my ear as he pants, his chest heaving.
“Good God,” I whisper, out of breath.
“It’s so different,” he says, rocking his hips a little, thrusting slow, intensifying the furnace.
“What’s different?”
“Being with someone I—Never mind.”
I think I know what he wanted to say, and I’m about to burst with the shock of the unexpected almost-confession. I’m also not going to let him get away. “Someone you…?”
He strokes my hair, pulls some strands off my face. Then he kisses my cheek along my jawline, up toward my ear. “You’re a nosy girl.”
“Well, you’re a coward mob boss.” My heart suddenly slams as sweat breaks out all over my body. I have no idea how he’ll take that.
Luciano grabs the hair at my nape, rough, but not painful, and pulls my head back forcing me to meet his gaze.
“People have—”
“—died being less mouthy. I know,” I say, finishing the sentence for him.
To my great relief he smiles, and it’s not that scary, seemingly friendly, smile he sometimes shoots off when he’s about to do something really horrible. It’s a smile that makes his deep brown eyes glitter.
“It’s funny,” he says, “how it seems to be the women in my life who get away with giving me crap. I have shot men for looking at me the wrong way.”
“Get away?” I sputter.
He cocks his head and raises an eyebrow. “Maybe I should rephrase that?”
“Yes! And please get off me, I can’t breathe.”
He reaches for my hands and deftly unwraps my wrists. I moan as blood comes rushing back into my fingers. “Give me a second. Oh, and brace yourself.”
“For—” what, I’m about to say, but then I squeal from the sting when he pulls out and jumps up, disappearing out of the bedroom. He’s back a few moments later, holding a towel over his cock, pushing another between my legs.
“I’ll untie you.”
He pulls at the straps holding my ankles and I’m loose. “I can’t move a finger,” I moan. “I can’t feel my feet.”
Luciano takes one of my feet between his large hands and rubs it. “You have a masochistic streak, Chloe. You get off when I hurt you.”
“Mmm no,” I mumble, burying my face in the crumpled comforter.
He scoffs. “I also think you’d get off on dominating.”
I turn my head and look up at him. “What are you on about?”
“There’s such defiance in you. Still, after all this time.” My glare makes him laugh. “There you go.” He switches to the other foot, stroking it. “I think you’d get off big time, tying me up, teasing me with the nine-tail, scorching my back.”
I gape. A rush runs through me at the image. “You’d let me?”
He barks out a loud laugh. “No.”
I scoff. Tease! “Fine. What is different, then?”
“Hm?”
“What you said before.”
He stills. “I can’t allow myself to get vulnerable, Chloe.”
“Isn’t it a little late for that?” I whisper. The air between us is suddenly thick again, charged.
Luciano looks dead serious as he holds my gaze. I push up with a moan, lift my hand but let it fall again. I want to touch him, but I’m suddenly afraid to. It’s as if it would mean something that I’m not sure I’m ready to explore.
“It’s different being with someone I care for,” he says. Then he narrows his eyes. “And don’t ever call me a coward again.”
I stick out my tongue at him, poking the hornet’s nest, hoping he’s as tired as I am. He raises an eyebrow, his eyes darting to my mouth.
“You really want to tease the ‘mob boss’?”
“I’m not afraid of you.” It’s a damn lie, but in this unique moment he’s a completely different man. It’s like we’re in a bubble and nothing can touch us. No rules apply.
He shakes his head. “I should bundle you up and spank that nasty kid out of you, but I’m too fucking spent.”
“Rain check?”
I squeal when he throws himself at me, flipping me over on my stomach, pulling me under him. In the next moment he pushes his cock inside my pussy, the shock of the sudden intrusion making all air rush out of me.
“No! Fuck! You’ve been in my ass.” I squirm. It stings like hell, and still it rouses me, makes my insides tingle.
Luciano scoffs. “I washed.” He moves in me, slow, deep. Then he stops and just lies on top of me, covering my arms with his, entwining our fingers. “I wish you’d stay.” He says it so quietly that I’m not sure if I heard it right. I’m not sure that it was meant for me.
Suddenly he’s off me and I already feel empty where he’s not touching me.
“I’ll send for you soon, Chloe.”
Chapter 31
Chloe
Luciano showers for a long time. The bathroom is too tiny, or I’d have joined him whether he wanted me to or not, because I’m sweaty and icky with a capital I. I’m also shamefully aroused thinking about his strong, naked body, water splashing over it.
‘I wish you’d stay.’
Here? In Bietini? With him?
The clatter of the water stops, and he appears in the doorway, a towel around his waist. I swallow a groan. How the fuck can this man be so beautiful?
He cocks his head. “Go shower. I’ll find us some breakfast.”
I jump up. “There’s—”
“I know my way around this house.”
At my, no doubt, surprised look, he laughs. “It’s my house, Chloe. I’m letting Alessandra live here when I’m not in town, or she’d still be living with her mom.”
“Oh… okay. I’ll… shower then.” I flee into the bathroom, rattled by the reali
zation that I’ve still been under his roof all this time. While the water soaks me, warm and purifying, I don’t know why it even matters anymore.
I feel like a new woman when I make my way down the stairs, even though every muscle protests. Luciano stands with his back to me by the kitchen counter. He has new clothes on, dark blue jeans and a white T-shirt. The muscles on his arms ripple. I stop and cock my head, taking in the sight. In this small cottage, this tall, dark man is such an unreal vision, and I realize there are sides to him I have yet to discover. I’ve seen him cruel. I’ve seen him tender. I’ve seen him working himself to exhaustion in the gym, as if he too has a devil that haunts him. I’ve seen him loving and vulnerable with his son, and now I’ve seen him making us breakfast.
“See something you like?”
I twitch and meet his gaze. While I got lost in thought, he has turned, a plate with cut tomatoes, cucumber, and a pile of rucola in his hands. The smell of coffee is mouthwatering and my stomach rumbles.
I raise my eyebrows. “I like vegetables.”
He laughs his rich laugh that I have yet to get used to. He’s so different here. Relaxed. A part of me wishes I could stay. That we could stay. It makes me pause and take in what I just thought. I need to process that. I miss my brothers. I’ve missed my friends. They were hard to come by for someone like me, I have a hard time trusting that people really want to be with me, that they want to stay, but these girls found me and didn’t let go. Especially Kerry. She adopted me from the moment we met. Sweet, bubbly Kerry. A sting of pain stabs my chest. This man is responsible for her downfall, for her disappearance. I have to remember that. I have to fight my traitorous heart because right now it wants me to step into his arms and just stay this close, because it feels good. No one has taken care of me since I was a child. It was always me looking out for everyone else. Since I got to Bietini, the sun, the heat, the slow life, Alessandra and the other people here have softened my core.
And now this man, this monster, on top of that shows that he’s more than that. He’s human.
I have to remember who he is. I can’t lose myself.
“Sit with me for a while. I have to get going soon.”
He rouses me from my musings and I jerk to action, sitting down at the table, letting him pour me coffee. “Thanks. Where are you going?”
He pours coffee for himself as well and starts to pile salami and vegetables on a thick slice of white bread. “Home. My business doesn’t run itself, and I have a funeral to arrange.”
My heart sinks at the expression on his face. “Your friend?”
He makes a face. “Yeah.”
“You were close?”
“I don’t know anymore. I thought so. Now I just don’t know.”
I don’t know what to answer and we eat in silence after that. I keep stealing glances at him, utterly confused by this other side of his persona.
“Is… is the war over?”
“That’s what I thought after we slaughtered every last man. Until I learned of the attack on you.”
“Wasn’t just me. It was on the whole village. Everyone here was in danger. They wouldn’t have stopped with me.”
His face turns grim. “I’ll make sure it never happens again.”
“How? You can’t kill everyone.”
“I can. And I will.” He dabs his lips with a napkin, drops it on the table and stands. “It’s been… different. I’m glad to see you’re doing well. I need to leave, but you won’t be staying here much longer.” Leaning in, he gives me a quick kiss and picks up his phone, looks at the screen and then pockets it. “Time to go.”
I dart up, my chest tightening. I don’t want this odd moment to end. Luciano grabs his bag, slings it over his shoulder and heads out without even looking back. My stomach plummets. He’ll send for me. We’ll go back to captor and captive, predator and prey. Tears well up in my eyes at the thought and my hand shakes as I drink up the last of my now-cool coffee. I should try to run, but I know there’s no use. I can’t get away from here. I don’t know how far his reach is in Sicily, but I have no doubt his influence is wide and that I’d run into his people wherever I went. Also, I have no money, nothing but sandals and little dresses. I have no phone of my own and no means to save myself.
The next couple of days are hell. My insides itch with longing and trepidation. All I see is how I get locked up again, how he’ll spank me and fuck me and use me. Oh, I know I’ll let him. He coaxes answers from my body that I have no control over. I want him so fucking bad: on me, under me, everywhere. I can’t wait to feel him again at the same time as grief builds in me.
The village stirs when a dust cloud approaches, moving quickly along the road and the shape of a car manifests. My heart shoots up to my throat, fear seizing me. No more fighting! I can’t do this again! Alessandra comes running across the square, a phone in her hand, I see her through the window. She looks excited, but not scared as she barges into the house.
“Chloe! It’s for you!” She hands me the phone with a sly expression on her face.
I put it to my ear, filled with trepidation and breathe out a faint, “Chloe.”
“The car is for you.” Salvatore’s voice is like silk in my ear. “I suggest you pack up quickly.”
“I—” But he’s already disconnected.
A woman shouts for Alessandra and she and I dart out of the house and take off running through the alley. On the square, almost on the spot where I was left off a few weeks ago, stands a black limousine with dark tinted windows. Next to it a driver dressed in a navy-blue suit and with a cap to boot. A drop of sweat runs along his temple. It’s hot, and it has to be scorching in those clothes.
“Signorina Becker?” He takes off his cap and holds it against his chest as he gives me a tiny bow. “I take you to aeroporto.”
“Yeah,” I gasp, still panting from the sprint. “That’s me.”
He opens the back door and holds out his arm, inviting me in. I hesitate, then I realize I have absolutely nothing to pack. A hand on my shoulder makes me spin around. Alessandra has tears in her eyes and I throw my arms around her neck, hugging her tightly. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ll miss you. I wish I could stay.”
She strokes the back of my head. Always so warm, so tender. “You’ll be all right, Chloe Becker. It’s been an honor knowing you. You have a good heart. Take care of yourself. Tell Signore Salvatore that if he doesn’t treat you right, he’ll have hell to pay the next time he gets here.”
I scoff. “He does as he pleases. How would you even know?”
“If you don’t stay in touch, we’ll know.” She holds me at arm’s length. “Stay in touch. Come back and visit.”
I bite down on my lower lip so that it won’t tremble. I can’t promise her that. I don’t know what awaits me.
Everyone comes to bid me farewell. This time around I understand a few words. I recognize ‘thank you’, ‘goodbye’, ‘take care’, and ‘come back’. When everything has been said and done, I hold Alessandra’s hands, looking at her pleadingly. She squeezes my hands reassuringly and smiles. “It will be all right. He cares for you more than you know.”
I don’t say anything but I nod to make her happy, then I turn to the cool darkness of the back of the car and climb inside. Alessandra gives me a little wave and closes the door. We’re off before I’ve even buckled up, driving so fast along the narrow road that it takes my breath away and I clutch the seat, thinking we’ll shoot off the roadside at every curve.
The view of the mountains, with their blurry, snow covered tops, is familiar this time around. It seems this ride to the airport is shorter than I remember. Maybe it’s I who fear the great unknown even worse this time? Shimmering heat slaps me in the face when I get out of the car and take hesitant steps toward the airplane. I look back at the driver for confirmation and he nods and gestures for me to continue.
I recognize the pilot, but the co-pilot is a new face.
“Buckle up, Miss Becker. We�
�re on a tight schedule.”
I sigh. “Long ride.”
“This isn’t as long,” says the pilot.
“No? Where are we going?”
“The great Roma, capital of Italy.”
I stop flat. “We’re going to Rome? I’m going to Rome? Do I get to see Rome?”
The pilot’s serious, almost saddened face brightens a little. “I don’t know. At least you can get a good look out the window. Now please sit.”
My heart bounces as I obey. Fuck everything else. I really need to see Rome. Images of churches, of the Colosseum, The Da Vinci Code, ice cream, old movies in black and white with Anita Ekman, and that famous square I can’t remember the name of flicker through my mind and for the first time in a long while I’m nothing but excited.
When I step off the plane, I wave to the pilot who gives me a brief smile, then I bounce down the stairs. The air is different here. Definitely more polluted, and thicker, more humid than in the mountains. There’s only one transport in sight. A black limousine, of course. I half expect someone to be sitting in the back seat. Maybe Luciano himself, but it’s empty. I lower the window between the passenger compartment and the driver.
“Hey. Where’re we going?”
He shrugs and says something in Italian before he pulls at his safety belt and gestures for me to sit back. I groan. My life in a nutshell, ushered around.
I’m like glued to the windows, darting from left to right as we pass through narrow streets and wide boulevards. Everything here is old. Like really, really old, and I’m beyond awed. It’s so pretty. There are flowers in almost every window of the dirty-beige stone buildings. The houses get larger and a little more modern looking and we stop outside a black marble facade with heavy glass doors and tinted windows. The street is narrow. On the other side is a small canal and behind lies a park where some children play and their fashionable moms sit and chat. I’m suddenly embarrassed over my simple outfit and pull self-consciously at the hem of my dress. We have double parked and the driver gestures for me to exit. I’m confused. I’m to get out by myself? It’s the first time someone doesn’t grab me by the arm and pull me along. With an almost agoraphobic feeling I step out, standing like a lost puppy on the sidewalk. The thought that I could run strikes me. I could find the American embassy and find shelter. They’d help me!
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