by J, Bella
She tried to act all innocent and vanilla, but I saw the darkness in her eyes. I saw her need to let go and succumb to the wickedness of our most primal instincts. We were all animals, born and bred to fuck. Seeking pleasure was the single most powerful biological motivator in the world. It manipulated us, controlled us, dictating our every decision. But once you’d tasted the carnal pleasures free from the restrictions society had placed on something as natural as fucking, there was no going back. While Mila fought against it, her body embraced it—which was why I pushed her toward that edge and steadied her on the ledge. Now it was up to her to take that final leap.
“How did the meeting go with Mario?”
I turned toward Elena, who took a seat on one of the swivel chairs by the bar. “Good.”
“Does he have enough time to get everything ready?”
I shrugged. “Yes.” I kept my answers simple, hoping Elena would not pursue a conversation.
“Have you told Mila?”
Goddammit. “About what?”
“About what happens next.”
I swallowed the last mouthful of my drink and placed the empty glass on the counter. “Not yet.”
“Marcello, you need to tell her.”
“I will.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
Elena got off her seat when I tried to walk away and moved to stand in my way. “She needs time to prepare for what’s going to happen”
I clenched my jaw. “I know that.”
“Then you better tell her sooner rather than later. You have put her through enough. The least you can do is spare her the element of surprise.”
I narrowed my eyes, tilting my head as I studied Elena with surprise. “You’ve grown fond of her, haven’t you?”
“She has a good heart. And the mere fact that she hasn’t fallen apart yet, after everything you’ve put her through, says a lot about her.”
“You act like I’ve dragged her through hell.”
“Haven’t you?”
“I think, under the circumstances, I’ve been more than lenient with her. The woman has done nothing but disrespect me, defying me every opportunity she gets.”
Elena crossed her arms and cocked a brow. “Is that why I heard her scream from your bedroom earlier? Because you were being lenient?”
“Step lightly, Elena,” I seethed. “There’s a side to me you haven’t seen, and I’d like to keep it that way.” My words echoed with the fiery daggers of warning, and tension pulled at my shoulder blades.
Elena pinned me with her stare, a coy look on her face. How far would I allow Elena to go? How far would I let her challenge me before I’d finally put her in her place? I loved and respected her. She was the closest I had to a mother for the better part of my life. But there was a certain line in our relationship, a line between me being the Russo firstborn, and she a woman who did not carry the same name. It was a line I would not allow her to cross. Ever.
She sat back down by the bar. “I think you should tell her.”
Frustrated, I rubbed the back of my neck. “Tell her what, exactly?”
“The real reason you want her shares.”
“Why would I do that?” I scoffed.
“Maybe if she knew the truth, she wouldn’t be so torn between fighting you and accepting you.”
I dragged a finger across my jaw, scratching my five o’clock shadow. “She can fight me all she wants. She won’t win.”
“I’m not worried about her winning, Marcello.”
“Then what are you worried about, exactly?” I snapped, but she didn’t even flinch.
“About Mila being eaten alive because you sent her into the lion’s den unarmed.”
A foreboding silence settled around us like the last few seconds before the timer of a fatal bomb would run out. The weight on my shoulders doubled as Elena’s words rang like a fire alarm in my head. But I couldn’t allow it to affect me. There was too much at stake, and I had to make sure I didn’t lose sight of what mattered—and that was accomplishing what I had set out to do the day I walked out of my father’s house.
Destroy him.
I pulled a palm down my face and straightened with renewed resolve. “I don’t have time for this. Whatever is going on inside that head of yours, or whatever the fuck it is your cards are showing you, let me remind you that Mila is nothing but a means to an end.”
“For now.”
“Don’t,” I warned, but Elena continued to stare at me with beaming eyes, as if she carried all the wisdom in the world.
“Great wars were fought in the past, wars that started because of a woman. In the end, there was always one question that remained.” She placed her hands in her lap, fingers weaved together. “Was she worth it?”
I sucked air through my teeth, her message received loud and clear. But I refused to let it rattle me, make me lose sight of what I had set out to accomplish ever since the day I walked out of my father’s mansion. “I made a vow, a promise I had started this war over. And as God is my witness, I will win this war, and she will be worth every drop of blood that coats my hands. And Mila,” I cocked my head, steeled my expression, “she is nothing but the weapon I’ll use to slit the throat of my enemy.”
Rage burned my tongue and possessed my bones as I turned and stomped off. If I didn’t walk away now, Aunt Elena would be at the receiving end of it—something she didn’t deserve even though she pressed all the wrong buttons throughout the span of ten minutes. But I knew her, I knew her heart. She was in this for the same reasons I was, but it seemed that Mila was getting under her skin. In a way, I wondered if she didn’t see the daughter she never had whenever she looked at Mila. I could sympathize with that. No woman should carry the burden of not being able to fulfill her biological, God-given gift of producing a child.
It calmed me slightly, to try to think of the source of Elena’s motivations.
My footsteps resounded down the hall. The thought of Mila waiting for me, bound and still aching, thrilled me. Yet I couldn’t stop the sliver of remorse that tried to force its way into my chest. I lost myself with her. Lost control and thought only of my depraved desires, not giving a fuck that she wasn’t like any of the other women I had been with. In fact, I liked it. I liked the idea of her being innocent, uncorrupted, mine to pervert and taint.
Walking into my room, I was met with the beautiful sight of her, bound and aching, exactly the way I left her—legs spread and dress bunched up around her waist.
Her head jerked up, and she glanced halfway over her shoulder at me. “You here to torture me some more?”
I grinned. “So, you admit me not fucking you is torture?”
“I’d say fuck you, but I’m not exactly in the mood for irony.”
I stalked closer, the red lashes on her skin raised and flushed across her ass. A pang of remorse struck my chest, an unwelcome feeling that made me wish I had brought the bottle of bourbon with me.
It wasn’t like me to stare at marks on a woman’s body made by my hand or my whip and be assaulted by a guilty conscience. It was unnerving. Regret wasn’t something I felt—ever, and for good reason. Remorse was nothing but a thorn that stemmed from the root of a weakness, which, once it started to grow, would never stop—not until it had burrowed a thousand spikes under your skin.
Nevertheless, my chest felt heavy with unease, and I grabbed a wet towel along with some aloe vera and sat in front of her, reaching for her face.
She jerked away. “What are you doing?”
“Lay still.”
Wary eyes stared at me, bloodshot and red from crying, her cheeks blotched with tear stains. Poetic beauty, that was what it was—the tears of a strong woman. Even after everything, her eyes still hadn’t lost their radiance. The color of her irises was as striking as the first leaves of spring, as strong as the exotic allure of the Amazon. I didn’t think anything in the world could ruin it, make them lose their luster. Not even me.
She watched me the
entire time as I wiped the sticky residue of my release from her cheek. To prove I was a sick motherfucker, my dick hardened from the thought of my cum on her face, yet the unrelenting stab in my chest remained. I hated it, and much preferred the darkness of feeling nothing.
I dabbed the towel across her mouth, her lips slightly parted. Only then did I see the tiny bit of dried blood in the corner of her mouth, and I stilled as a chill slithered down my spine.
Turn it off.
Ignore it.
Don’t. Feel. Anything.
Without speaking a word, I got up to tend to the scorched skin on her ass and rubbed a decent amount of salve onto the bruised flesh. She winced, and her body tensed, the chains complaining around her ankles. The decent thing to do was probably to untie her, but I couldn’t get myself to do it. I loved seeing her like this—the blood on her lip forgotten thanks to the erotic sight of her. And while I carefully rubbed her ass, watched the ointment seep into her marred skin, I felt the urge to add more crimson lines to the canvas of imperfect perfection. With every stroke of my hands, her breathing became more labored, her hips flexing with a subtle movement.
I smiled. “I see your body still wants what I’ve denied you.”
“I might be nothing but a signature on a sham marriage certificate to you, but I’m still human.”
The sneer in her voice amused me. Not even my whip or refusal to let her come could stop her from being stubborn. It made me wonder if I should reward her resilience instead of punishing her defiance.
I wiped my hands and grabbed a bottle from my bedside table drawer.
“What is that?” Mila squirmed on the bed, tugging at the belt that held her wrists behind her back.
“Massage oil. I must admit,” I went to stand at the end of the bed as I poured a generous amount of oil into my palms, her glistening cunt on full display, “a part of me feels bad for leaving you like this.”
“Why do I find that hard to believe?”
The mattress dipped beneath my weight as I got on my knees and settled between her legs. “I might be a monster, a killer,” I traced my oiled hands across her skin, starting at her calves, all the way up her thighs, “but I’m not a selfish lover. You just needed to be taught a lesson, and now that that’s over,” I cupped her ass, “I think you deserve a reward.” Her back arched when I dragged the pads of my thumbs all along her sensitive folds.
I sucked in a rush of air when she pushed down, lifting her ass, opening more for me—allowing me to stroke a thumb all the way from her ass to her clit and back up.
“It’s quite a mindfuck, isn’t it? To hate me yet crave my touch.”
“I don’t hate you.”
Her words took me by surprise, and I stilled.
“You’re not on my list of favorite people, but I don’t hate you.”
The thought of her not hating me unsettled me in a way I’d never experienced before, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the way it twisted my insides as if trapped in barbed wire.
I continued to rub between her legs, the gray sheets beneath her already wet with her arousal, and my dick once again hard and ready. Every time I nudged at her entrance, my cock twitched with a need to enter her, and by the way her body squirmed, I knew she was hungry for it—craving to be stretched and filled. Maybe it was the guilt of how I treated her earlier, how I left her unsatisfied and aching, but my need to give her pleasure outweighed my need to feel her from the inside.
Greedy fingers stroked through her slippery slit, and I gave a little extra attention to that sensitive bud that would ultimately push her over the edge.
“Saint, this isn’t what I want.”
I smirked. “Your body seems to disagree.”
“No, I mean…” she sucked in a breath when I pressed hard against her clit, “I mean, I don’t want your fingers.”
“Then what do you want?”
She tried to glance over her shoulder, but her bound wrists made it too difficult to do. “I want you.”
I slipped a finger into her entrance, and she buried her face in the sheets. “Are you trying to say you want my cock?”
“Yes,” she breathed, and the sound slammed against the tip of my dick. Maybe I loved this game too much. Maybe playing with her had become too entertaining to stop. To watch her squirm, hear her beg, witness her surrender her fight in a bid to satisfy her aching body was fucking beautiful. I just couldn’t stop.
Faster, harder, and with vigorous strokes, I worked her sex, her panting breaths turning into loud gasps of pleasure as I rushed her to the orgasm I had denied her for long enough.
“Saint, don’t. Not like—” Her body tensed, her neck arched, and she cried out the same time her pussy walls slammed down on my fingers. Settled between her legs on my knees, I watched as her ass cheeks pulled taut, her thighs clenched as the climax ripped through her entire body. Her arms trembled, her breaths loud and labored. It was the most erotic scene I had ever witnessed—even better than the night before when she came on my dining table.
The final tremors of her orgasm left her trembling body, and she sagged into the mattress. I dragged my wet fingers coated with her release down her thigh and untied the chains around her ankles. It left red circles of tortured flesh around her feet, and I loved the sight—proof of how fucked-up I really was.
I got up, adjusted my hard-on in my pants, and removed the belt I had tied around her wrist.
She pushed herself up on hands and knees, her dark curls a perfect mess around her flushed face.
I smirked. “Feel better?”
Angry eyes locked on mine, and I could swear to God I saw the flames of hell burn in them. “Now, I hate you.”
21
Mila
Hate was a strong word. Bold. Powerful. And in this case…a lie. But I couldn’t think of any other word to describe what I felt. While he was gone, drinking the bourbon I could smell on his breath when he cleaned my face, I was down here in agony. My body was so desperate to get off, I couldn’t stop rubbing my sex against the silk sheets, which did absolutely nothing to relieve the ache. I was fucking ten years old again and just discovered the beauty of masturbation without understanding the mechanics behind it.
The entire time I lay there hoping he would return, I tried to force the image of Brad’s body bleeding on a plush white carpet. I tried to remember how scared I was when Saint rushed me out of that hotel with threats of creating a massacre if I even thought about running. I wanted to feel the fear again, the panic, the humiliation I felt when he made me walk down his hall naked and shower while he watched. If I could remember all those things, pull it to the front of my mind, maybe then I’d stop thinking about how I wanted to feel him inside me. Feel his body rock mine into a state of euphoria that would knock the air right out of me.
But no matter how hard I tried to force those feelings into my system, the fire he ignited was too strong, the flames too fierce…and there was nothing I could do to extinguish it. For what felt like a day and a half, I couldn’t move while I tasted his cum on my tongue, forced to fantasize about what it would feel like to finally be fully satisfied. And when he came back, all he did was tease me with just the tip of pleasure. One could compare it to giving a carnivore tofu to live on.
I got up and shimmied the dress from around my hips to cover myself, no sight of my panties anywhere. Saint stared at me, an expression of stunned surprise and skepticism. “Excuse me?”
“I fucking hate you.” I spat.
His nostrils flared, and his jaw ticked, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care if I pissed him off, pressed his goddamn buttons until he snapped and beat my face in. That would be far less painful than what he just did to me.
Saint lifted a single finger in front of his face, and I narrowed my eyes at him, knowing all too well which goddamn finger that was.
I placed my hands on my hips. “So, my mouth is good enough for your cock, but not my cunt?”
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered and pulled
his fingers through his hair, which was a mess of perfect disarray. Maybe the more fitting phrase would have been I hate myself.
I hated myself for succumbing.
I hated myself for allowing the devil to seduce me.
I hated myself for not loathing him.
And most of all, I hated myself because I liked what he did to me. I liked his belt on my ass. His humiliating words. His cock in my mouth. I liked the freedom of finally breaking down the walls and letting the darkness in. But I hated the fact that it had to be him. It had to be the man I was supposed to hate. Supposed to run from.
Saint tossed his belt across the room. “Be thankful I allowed you to get off.”
“Thankful?” I snorted. “For what? Getting off on third base? Twice?”
He bit his lip, his jaw ticking as he rubbed the back of his neck, the veins in his arms bulging with strength. “Go take a shower. Now.”
“You know, I don’t think I need a shower since you already wiped your cum off my face.” I shrugged. “But you know what, I get it. I probably should be thankful. You’re used to fucking women like Anete. Beautiful little socialites with pampered little unicorn vaginas. There’s no reason you’d want to be with a woman like me—a woman who’s only good enough to suck your dick and nothing else.”
I turned on my heel, the skirt of my dress bobbing behind my ass when pain radiated up my arm as Saint grabbed my elbow and spun me around. He rushed me backward, slamming my back against the wall, wild eyes penetrating mine. “You think I didn’t fuck you because you’re not good enough?”
“Maybe. Now, let go of me.” I shoved against his chest, tried to push him away. But he didn’t move an inch. “Let me go!” I grabbed the fabric of his shirt and tore it down the middle, buttons clattering on the ground. God, I was so angry, frustrated, and I was probably not thinking straight. Maybe this was what Stockholm Syndrome felt like. Something you couldn’t explain, some weird shit that made you do things you wouldn’t normally do. Like provoke the devil.
Saint cocked his head. “Not good enough? That’s such a goddamn cliché, the least you can do is come up with something better.”