by Marian Tee
“But---” She sighed when Domenico just looked at her, his face stoic. She knew that look. “Okay, the armory then. They have a first aid kit there, and will you put me down for God’s sake?”
He gave her another look.
She frowned. “Stop that. I’m not your wife anymore.”
Yet another look, even more stoic this time.
The Faeries who managed to hear their conversation as Domenico walked past them were giving Misty odd looks, as if unable to believe that she dared argue with the Moretti prince. Or maybe they were just shocked that she was able to admit that she was no longer his wife.
Either way, she hated those looks. She really did. It reminded her of all those times she had been bullied in the past, had deliberately played the wimp because it was the safer way. Sixteen long months of trying to be strong were completely ruined just after spending a few days in Domenico’s company. None of the Faeries had looked at her this way until Domenico came along.
“I hate you,” she whispered, unable to help it. But the moment she said the words, she wanted to take it back.
Domenico turned to her as they reached the gates of the armory.
She held her breath.
“I love you.”
Misty turned her head away quickly, not wanting Domenico to see just how those words hurt. He was so, so sly – maybe even more manipulative than he had ever been. How did he always know what to say to make her break down completely?
There was only one guard inside the armory, and he almost tumbled out of his desk in his haste to salute Domenico.
“Get some food for my wife. Now.”
Domenico’s voice lashed out like a whip, and the guard nearly ran past him, his nervousness making him salute and bow to Domenico at the same time before leaving.
When the gates snapped close, Misty said, “Stop saying I’m your wife.”
He didn’t say anything, instead gently lowering her to the most comfortable place he could find in the armory, which was nothing more but a squeaking padded bench that the soldiers used for working out.
Misty bit her lip, wanting to take the words back again but too proud to do so. Domenico’s silence made her feel so childish and petty, which consequently made her feel defensive and angry.
Outside, the clashing of swords continued to ring in the air. Briefly, Misty wondered where Lysander was and whether he was okay. “You shouldn’t have hurt Lysander like that,” she heard herself saying. “I was really worried about him.” Misty almost winced after. How the mighty had fallen! Was she truly trying to make Domenico feel…what? Jealous over a gay man?
She waited for Domenico to laugh at her, but if anything his eyes flashed, a sure sign of his temper.
That made her angry, and she lashed out without thinking, “Can’t you leave me alone? Don’t you know I don’t want you here?” Misty couldn’t believe what she was saying. It was like a she-devil had taken over her body.
But still Domenico didn’t answer. Instead, he was calmly pulling his shirt off, and she bit back a cry when she saw how worse his wound was. She stood up and immediately fell back to the bench with another little cry, shocked at how the world around her whirled.
Domenico was back at her side in a flash, kneeling in front of her as he stroked her back. “Easy, cara.”
Her eyes stung. It had been a very long time since Misty had heard him call her that. It meant Italian for ‘darling’, and she used to think it was terribly sweet of him to call her that.
“You’re still too weak. Don’t move. Just rest there and wait for the food.”
She pointed towards the cabinets above the unused armors. “The first aid kit.”
A little smile touched his lips, softening the harsh lines of Domenico’s beautiful face. “Was that why you tried to stand up?”
Realizing how she had given herself away, she clamped her lips shut and didn’t answer.
He laughed. “Concerned for me, are you?” He straightened in one graceful move, and Misty couldn’t help gawking when he turned his back, allowing her to feast on the beauty of his muscled back. God, he was so much sexier now. How was that possible?
“Of course not,” she finally remembered to protest even as she continued looking at Domenico. He still had his back to her, now rummaging the contents of the cabinets. She licked her lips – at the same time Domenico turned with a first aid kit in his hands.
The air around them immediately changed, the sexual tension between her and Domenico so thick it was impossible to breathe.
He strolled towards her slowly, as if giving her a chance to savor the sight of him bare-chested. Oh dear Lord, but she couldn’t help it. Misty savored.
He took a seat next to her on the bench, close but not close enough for them to touch. He gave her the first aid kit. “Could you help me bandage it?”
Bandage? Could she be his bandage instead so that she could wrap herself around him?
His eyes widened.
Shick. Had she just said those words out loud?
Domenico opened his mouth.
“Shut up.” It was her first time to say that to him. In fact, it was probably his first time to hear someone having the audacity to say that to him.
But Domenico didn’t even blink. He snapped his mouth shut obediently, not saying a thing.
That made Misty suspicious and after washing his wound clean, she peered at his face, unable to help it.
Domenico smiled, and everything in it told her how he was just waiting for her – how he wanted her to act on her desires, to take his cock into her mouth, squeeze it between her breasts, pull it inside her sex---
She turned red.
When Domenico laughed, she couldn’t help it, slapping the gauze hard against his wound.
“Oww!” Domenico didn’t know if he wanted to scowl or laugh at how petty her mode of revenge was.
“Serves you right,” she mumbled.
After a few seconds, Domenico’s lips twitched. “You weren’t like this in the past.” He then added softly, “I like it. I’m glad you’ve become even stronger.”
She busied herself with keeping the gauze in place. “You mean I was such a wimp before.”
“No.” Domenico surprised her with the swiftness, the hardness, of his denial. “You were never that, Misty. Your strength was unique – a quiet but undefeatable one – but this time you have become more confident. And I’m glad for it.”
He paused, and Misty could sense him debating with himself about what he wanted to say next.
“Domenico---”
“I’m just fucking sorry you had to learn it without me at your side.”
Her fingers fell from his wound. The sincerity in his voice was impossible to deny, and her throat felt a little scratchy as she answered, “It’s not your fault.”
“It is.”
She shook her head and forced herself to look back at him. “It’s not, really. Besides, it’s all water under the bridge now.” She stood up, taking her time now so that she wouldn’t feel dizzy again. “We’re both better off apart.” Unable to stop babbling, she walked towards the gates, saying, “You have your life and I have mine here with---”
One moment she was about to reach for the gates, and then the next she found herself pushed towards the gates, her breasts hitting the arm that Domenico had wrapped around her from behind.
“You have your life here with Allard? Is that what you’re saying?” Domenico growled, his control snapping when he realized that Misty was actually admitting to planning a life with another man.
Her mouth opened and closed several times. All Misty had wanted to say was that she was going to rebuild her life with the Faeries. Lysander hadn’t even entered her mind…but he didn’t have to know that.
She lifted her chin. “It’s my life---” Misty couldn’t say anything else, finding herself gasping instead as Domenico’s claws flashed out just before he completely ripped her dress apart with one slice.
She screamed. “What
the---no!” Domenico had ripped her bra and panties away. Before she could struggle and scream again, he had turn her around and taken her lips for a hard, passionate kiss that inflamed her senses even as she tried to break free.
“You’re just making me want to fuck you harder, sweetheart,” he rasped against her throat, and she knew it was true when he pushed his hips towards her and Misty felt his cock actually swelling in size against her sex.
The feel of it was too much, and instead of screaming she heard herself moaning instead. “You bastard!”
“Scream as much as you want, Misty,” Domenico growled just before he sank his teeth on her shoulder and bit her hard enough to make her cry out. “No one will hear you.” He lifted her arms above her head, pinning it to the gates. “I’m going to fuck you so hard just so you’ll know no other man can please you this way.”
“You’re so full---” Misty forgot what else she had to say when Domenico lowered his head and took one nipple into his mouth and started to suck. She screamed instead, and she screamed again when it made him suck harder.
When she tried to keep her screams silent, he pulled away, his pants-covered cock teasing her bare sex while one hand kept her arms pinned over her head. “I won’t kiss you again if you won’t scream, darling.”
She glared at him. “Over my dead---” Misty tried not to moan as he pushed his hips harder towards her, her pussy becoming soaking wet at the feel of his cock.
Domenico released her all of a sudden that she could only stand there, her body shaking with desire. When Misty recovered enough of her senses, it was too late. Domenico was undressing himself, stepping out of his pants and kicking his shoes away. When he had taken off his briefs, revealing his straining cock, Misty bit her lip hard to keep herself from moaning again.
“This is all yours, Misty. Only yours.”
She squeezed her thighs close, not wanting Domenico to guess how he had aroused her even more with his words.
“Are you sure you don’t want to take it?”
They stared at each other, Domenico waiting, his eyes burning bright, while Misty’s body was tense as a bow about to snap.
Domenico started to stroke himself.
Her control broke.
“Damn you,” she sobbed, the sheer strength of her desire engulfing her. “Take me, Domenico, take---” She cried out in utter ecstasy as Domenico was suddenly next to her, slamming her against the gates, his mouth taking her other nipple in the same time his cock slid home.
“I love you.” He said the words when he released her breast and moved to its twin, his hips never stopping its hard, deep movements, his cock sliding so far into her it brushed against her womb.
“Domenico.”
He gripped her ass tight, shifting her for a more perfect fit as his cock pummeled her depths faster and more furiously, making Misty cry out his name again and again. It was the sweetest music, and he could listen to it all day.
“I love you.” He had to say the words even though he knew she didn’t believe him and wouldn’t return them.
He had to say it because that was what he felt, what he would always feel.
Her head had fallen back, her lips slowly parting open, and Domenico knew Misty was close. Keeping his gaze on her beautiful face, he withdrew all the way to the hilt, knowing it would make her look at him.
She did.
He shoved his cock back in full force, and Domenico was rewarded with the loveliest sight, Misty falling apart in ecstasy as she came, her body shuddering. Weakly, she held on to him as he sought his own release, his hips wild in its movement, his cock hungry for more of her depths because it had been so fucking long.
“Misty!” He threw his head back as he came, and he shuddered anew when Misty’s arms locked around him, as if wanting to be close to him. That had been so fucking long, too---the feeling of Misty wanting to be next to him.
“Misty,” he whispered against her hair even as he pulled her closer, urging her silently to wrap her legs around his waist more tightly.
“Misty, I love you so fucking much.”
She still didn’t answer but he could feel her tears leaving a hot wet trail on his cheeks and down his neck. His own eyes burned. “All those months, I gave you time to heal, but now it’s my turn. I want you back, Misty.” He touched her hair with his lips, and his words were both a promise and a threat.
“I won’t stop until I have you back and you understand that you’re meant to be mine.”
Chapter Seven
Something had happened between Misty and Domenico.
Lysander knew it right away the moment he met with Misty the next day. “Hello, my pretty.” He kept his voice light and casual as he came to her.
She tiptoed to kiss him on the cheek, and again the gesture surprised him. There was nothing sexual about it, but even so it made his cock harden. Why did she appear so irresistible to him?
“I’m sorry I didn’t get to check up on you yesterday,” she said guiltily. After what happened in the armory, Misty had allowed Domenico to take her back to her cottage. How could she not when she didn’t have anything to wear but his shirt? Just remembering her walk of shame, with her in the arms of a bare-chested Domenico, made Misty want to knock her head against the wall as many time as it took to get some sense back into her.
How could she have let herself make love with Domenico again? Hadn’t she learned anything? He was not to be trusted – no matter how much he seemed to care for her!
Lysander sighed. “I admit to feeling hurt.”
She felt even guiltier. “Tell me how to make up for it?”
He grinned. “I was just teasing you. It wasn’t even your prince’s fault.”
“He’s not my prince,” she said automatically but this time she paused afterwards, as if troubled by the words.
That pause troubled Lysander, too, alerting him to the fact that he had to move faster if he wanted Misty in his bed. He wasn’t stupid. He knew his worth, but not even the most impressive skills in bed would be able to seduce Misty away from the Moretti heir if she fell in love with him again.
“Of course he’s your prince,” he teased. “If the rumors are true, you worship him so much that everyone in the entire realm heard you screaming his name.”
Misty choked. “Lysander!”
It was the first time she had called him by his name, and the pleasure it caused disturbed him. She was beginning to matter to him too much, and that wasn’t something he had counted on. It was not a good thing.
Misty was gnawing on her lip. “What else did people say?”
Lysander’s lips tightened. Was he supposed to tell her that the women who did hear her screaming had all thought Domenico Moretti was so good in bed to make her sound delirious with pleasure? He did not want to think about that, not when he wanted to be the one to make Misty’s body go soft and tight with pleasure, to see her pussy filled to bursting with his come.
His cock strained against his pants at the thought.
“Lysander?”
He answered slowly, “I don’t think you want to know.”
“I want to!” Did they think she was a slut? Did they---
“They were talking how your prince was such a stud because after what happened, they saw him taking Ivory to dinner next.”
She involuntarily took a step back. That was not what she had expected to hear at all.
Lysander’s conscience stirred at the way Misty had paled at his words, but he did not retract them. It was not his fault if women made fool of themselves – even if the woman was as kind as Misty.
“Stop looking so glum, Misty.”
She mustered a smile. “I’m not.” But her heart was heavy. Could it be true? After what had happened between them, could Domenico take another woman to his bed?
“Tell you what, why don’t we have a picnic and forget about all our problems and responsibilities for now?”
Misty hesitated. There were still terms of the agreement that they ha
dn’t yet ironed out, and the longer that took, the more danger they were in. Many of the other races would not be willing to offer the Faeries a helping hand without the Alliance agreement formally signed.
Lysander sighed. “Misty, stop being a martyr. It’s just one day – surely you deserve that much?”
She flinched at the term he used. A martyr. Had she been done that all the time? Could it be the reason why Domenico never thought her fit to be his true mate?