by Cassia Leo
He looks worried as he brushes my hair over my ear. “Are you all right?”
I nod even though being this close to him is making my heart race again.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you.” He takes my face in his hands and leans his forehead against mine. “I don’t want you to get hurt. I just want you to know how serious this is.”
The car stops, but I don’t bother looking around to see where we are. The driver and the guard exit the car without a word, leaving Knox and me alone. My hands reach up to grab his wrists as he cradles my face.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I whisper.
He kisses the tip of my nose. “You can do this, Rebecca. This is justice… for your father.”
I shake my head. “I don’t believe that. I need to know more about this plan if you want me to continue. My ignorance puts everyone in jeopardy.”
His shoulders rise and fall as he sighs heavily. “You’re right. It’s time for you to know the truth. But first…”
He plants a soft kiss on my jaw then traces his lips down the length of my neck to my shoulder. “Let me have you one last time. The truth might change the way you feel about me. But you’re all I’ve thought about today.”
His hand slides under my skirt. As his finger toys with the lacy edge of my panties, teasing me, the resolve drains from my body. I climb onto his lap and lean in to taste his neck. His hands reach under my skirt and grasp the back of my panties. Without warning, he rips them apart and yanks them out from between my legs.
I reach down to undo his pants. His enormous erection is testing the strength of his zipper. I undo his belt, then his pants, and soon he springs free beneath me.
I let out a shrieking gasp as I mount him. “You’re so hard.”
“That’s because you drive me crazy.”
He thrusts into me as I rise and fall on top of him. The combination of both movements driving him deeper inside me than I thought possible. Each time he hits my cervix, I cry out in pleasurable pain. The most exquisite pain I’ve ever experienced.
“You always have,” he whispers against my neck.
“What?” I say, clutching his hair so I can bring his mouth to mine.
“You’ve always driven me crazy,” he mutters into my mouth. “Since the day you kissed me in your living room.”
I pull my head back to look him in the eye and he’s wearing a barely noticeable grin. “It is you.”
He nods. “Don’t stop,” he says, grabbing my hips as he grinds into me. “I’ve been dreaming about you for ten years. Don’t stop now.”
I rise slowly then come down even slower. Savoring the delicious friction. The way his thick cock stretches me and fills me like no one else.
“Marco,” I whisper in his ear and his cock jumps inside me. “Fuck me, Marco. Make me come.”
My pussy is throbbing with my need for him when he roughly throws me onto my back across the seat. He pushes my shirt and bra up and takes my breast into his mouth. His tongue flicks my nipple and his soft moans get me wetter by the second.
“Oh, Marco.”
He kisses a hot trail down my belly, pausing when his face is between my legs. I’m aching, pulsing for his mouth. Ready to shove his face into me. When he licks me so softly I’m certain I’m imagining it.
“Please. Make me come,” I beg.
“Say my name.” He licks me again, leaving me utterly unsatisfied. “Say my fucking name!”
“Marco,” I breathe.
“Like you mean it.”
“Marco!” I cry. “Please, Marco. Don’t stop.”
His lips and his tongue are hot on me, drinking my juices, sucking my flesh, devouring my aching clit as if I were a succulent last meal. He tortures me in this fashion. Practically tearing at my flesh one moment, then lovingly licking and soothing me the next.
I can’t believe this is happening, I think to myself as my body convulses violently. I can’t believe I’m having the most intense orgasm of my life with Marco Leone.
He doesn’t give me any time to recover from this orgasm. He climbs on top of me and thrusts into me, so hard I scream. Everything about him is electric. His skin against mine. The look in his eyes. His kiss.
His kiss is the one thing I’ve never forgotten about him. I’ve dreamed about it for years. And now I know I’ll do anything not to lose it again. Anything.
Chapter 16
Once we’re dressed, and we’ve caught our breath, we enter the garage. I’m pleased to find a long table and four chairs where we can sit this time. My legs are like jelly right now.
“Have a seat,” Knox says, motioning to the chairs.
I gladly take a seat in the metal chair nearest me. “So, are you going to tell me everything now?”
He sits down across from me and I can sense something has shifted. The animalistic hunger and the tenderness I saw in the car is gone. His gaze is hard and calculating. A mask of coolness.
“I think I’ve shared more than enough with you, Rebecca. I think it’s time for you to start being honest with me.”
“But I already told you everything.”
“You didn’t tell me everything.”
“I told you everything I know about Frank Mainella!”
“You didn’t tell me about August Simmons.”
My stomach clenches at the mention of his name. “What about August?”
“Don’t play coy with me, Rebecca. Tell me what you know about August’s family.”
“What? I… I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Then it dawns on me. Is this what I would have found in the file Charlie gave me, if I had taken the time to read it?
“I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I insist. “Please, you have to believe me. All I’ve ever known about August is that he comes from money. I’ve only met his mother twice when she visited Manhattan to have lunch with us. They live in Connecticut. I know nothing about them.”
I reach across the table for his hand and he sits back so he’s out of my reach. “Why should I believe you?”
“Because I’m telling the truth.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth? Prove it.”
The door to the corridor clicks and I whip my head around to see August enter. “Yeah, Becky. Prove it.”
VOLUME TWO
Chapter 1
A warm hand lands softly on my hip as smooth skin presses against my back. The bedsheets shift slightly, a pleasant rustling noise as his hand eases forward to cover my abdomen. I open my legs a bit, beckoning him to slide his hand lower. His lips are on my shoulder, warm and tender. I wiggle my hips a little. Rubbing myself against him. I want him to know I’m ready.
“Knox.” My voice is barely a whisper, strangled by my desire for him. “Please.”
“I love hearing you beg.”
His words are a hot whoosh of air in the shell of my ear. My skin pulsates, my clit aches for his touch. He keeps his hand pressed against my abdomen as he sucks on my neck. I’m trembling like a junkie. My body coursing with adrenaline and hot with anticipation.
“Please.”
I try to push his hand down to where I want it, between my legs. He grabs my wrist and presses his hips against mine. His erection is hot and hard against the back of my thigh. I want it hot and hard inside me.
He’s going to make me beg.
I slip my hand free of his grip. Then I reach back and grab the back of his neck as I turn my head around to kiss him. His kiss is as powerful as every other aspect of his being. It’s possibly the most powerful weapon in his arsenal; though I’d never tell him that. Knox is not the kind of man who wants to be known for his kiss.
“Please put it in,” I murmur this plea into his mouth.
He gently massages my breast and a spark of pleasure throbs between my legs. He squeeze my nipple, tugging it lightly. I arch my back, never letting my skin lose contact with his hard cock.
“Please put it in where?” he as
ks, and I can hear the smile in his voice.
“Please fuck me in my ass.”
His hand slides down and I let out a high-pitched cry as his finger teases my clit. Then his erection slides between my thighs, finding my wetness. He rubs his thickness against my flesh until his cock is slick with my juices. He prods the entrance to my ass and I gasp.
He slides in no farther than an inch and groans. “Fuck!”
The burn of my flesh being stretched is consuming. It fills my body with a savory warmth that oozes into my limbs, rendering me useless. He pulls out slowly. I close my eyes and swallow hard in anticipation. He enters again, a bit farther, his finger massaging my clit so my muscles contract around his cock.
“You’re unbelievably fuckable,” he murmurs into my ear. “Absolutely fucking unbelievable.”
He goes slowly, moving a little farther with each stroke, until he’s buried as deeply inside me as my body will allow. Until I can feel the tip of his hard cock prodding my abdomen from within. My eyes roll back in my head with sheer ecstasy. I can’t speak or move. I can’t even tremble as the orgasm rocks me. I’ve died a most exquisite death.
He fills me with his essence as he explodes inside me. The warmth of it oozes over my cheeks and my body is too spent, too limp, to care about my sheets. If I could, I’d lay here in this position forever.
It takes a good hour to recover from this episode enough to invite Knox to shower with me. I scrub the solid muscles of his back as he leans with both hands splayed on the wall. I massage his neck and shoulders a little and he moans with pleasure.
“You’re so tense.” I dig my fingers into his shoulders, and they’re hard as granite. “You need a massage.”
“There’s ten years of hatred packed into those muscles. No masseuse in the world can fix that.”
I slide my arms around his waist and lay my cheek against his back as I think of the day I discovered the extent of his hatred. The day I discovered Knox will stop at nothing to avenge his mother’s murder. The day I found out just how far he’d go to get to me.
When August walked into that garage three weeks ago, I was certain I was hallucinating. I didn’t believe August and Knox could be in on anything together. They couldn’t be more different if they were born on different planets.
August is a spoiled rich boy who summers in the Hamptons and blogs about vintage fashion. Knox is a polished billionaire with a penchant for domination and a deep connection to the Veneto crime family—my family.
When August sat down at the table in the empty garage and told me he had been working with Knox for five months, my heart nearly stopped. It was all beginning to make sense. August hadn’t invited me to his apartment in four months. He was just stringing me along for months until the day before my father’s arraignment. Then Knox could initiate the phase of his plan that involved me.
I didn’t speak to Knox for more than a week. Didn’t answer his calls, emails, or texts. When he showed up at my apartment, I didn’t answer the door. Even though my attempts to ignore him didn’t last very long, I knew he wouldn’t knock down my door to force me to speak to him. He doesn’t want to draw attention to himself.
I’m not stupid. I know he knows I must be handled gently. I’m the key witness against my father. As long as he keeps me happy, his vendetta can continue without any snags.
The problem is that I know I don’t have that much leverage. Even if I testify that I saw my father murder Frank Mainello in my living room when I was thirteen years old, Knox will find a way to have me discredited. Not because he’s an asshole, but because nothing will stand in the way of his revenge.
So I watch what I say and do. He watches my every move. I can feel his presence everywhere I turn. Knox knows all my patterns and vices. All my family. All my coworkers and friends.
Friends.
Discovering that August was in on this plan threw all my relationships into question. Wasn’t it my best friend Lita who asked me to walk her to the train station where I was abducted by Knox’s goons? Wasn’t it Lita who made me doubt August’s fidelity with a single question?
Did Knox get to Lita too? That’s exactly what I plan on finding out this afternoon.
Knox turns around in the shower to face me. He takes my face in his strong hands and kisses me, as if he knows what I’m thinking. And he just wants me to forget everything except him and his maddening kiss. It works.
He lightly sucks on my top lip as he pulls away. “Delicious.” He flashes me a cunning half-smile as he slides his hand between my legs and pushes me against the shower wall. “I’m taking you to see your father next week.”
Shoving two fingers inside me, his thumb caresses my engorged clit. Shockwaves of pleasure pulse outward all the way to my toes and fingertips. He takes my earlobe between his teeth and growls in my ear.
I laugh as a chill passes through me. “I don’t need to see him.”
“This is not a request, Rebecca.”
He pulls his fingers out from between my thighs and slowly lifts my leg. He gets it all the way up so he can lay a soft kiss on the inside of my ankle as he pushes his cock inside me. He holds my leg up by the ankle as he thrusts into me slowly. The friction of his cock on my clit sends shivers through me.
“I don’t want to see… my father in jail… for the rest of his life.” Moan. “But I also… don’t want to see my father.”
He pounds into me so hard I feel as if he might rip me in half. “He goes to trial in two months…. You’re going to see your father…. I’m taking you myself.” Maintaining his grip on my leg, he laces his fingers into my hair. Then he gently yanks my head back as he pounds me even harder. “On my plane.”
He tightens his fist around my hair and tugs. My mouth falls open in a tiny gasp. He shoves his tongue into my mouth, silencing me. Proving I have no choice in this matter. Knox does what he wants. And I do what he wants. So next week, I’ll go with him to see my father, the murderer, for the first time in four years.
Chapter 2
Knox’s voice blares like a siren in my mind, warning me not to tell Lita anything about him or his involvement with August and my father. Of course, Lita has been texting and calling me non-stop for the past three weeks from her parents’ house in Poughkeepsie, since my father’s arraignment was broadcast on national television. She would have come back to Manhattan sooner if it weren’t for my insistence that I really am okay.
Lita and her purposely-frizzy light-brown hair attack me the moment I open the door to my apartment.
“Becky! I’m so sorry I left you!”
She shakes me like a child hugging a rag doll. At five feet eleven inches tall to my five foot seven stature, this is a very accurate simile. I laugh as I hug her back. Though my laughter sounds a bit strained by her crushing hug—and my suspicions of her.
She finally lets go. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here when it all went down. Especially since August turned out to be a total prick, as I suspected.”
She takes a seat at the small metal table with the Formica veneer. I take a seat across from her and push a glass of iced tea toward her. Lita doesn’t drink often. One of the many things I admire about her. She has an insatiable need to control a situation, and alcohol works against that need. I have to figure out how to control this conversation. How to steer it toward the truth about whether or not Knox has involved her in his vendetta, while also steering clear from the truth about my involvement with Knox.
She sniffs the air dramatically. “You had sex in here, very recently.”
“What? No, I haven’t.” I grab the sweaty glass in front of me and take a sip of my iced tea.
She glances over her shoulder at the unmade bed. “You’re lying. Who was it? It wasn’t August, was it? You’re not back with that cheating prick, are you?”
“No! August makes me sick. He was probably cheating on me for months.”
“So he admitted to it? Just like that?”
“No, I’m just assuming because….”
I take a long sip from my iced tea, trying to stall. I don’t want to lie to Lita about August and his involvement with Knox. Lita has enough trust issues without me piling more on.
We’ve all been betrayed by someone at some point in our lives. Someone who made us despise people who lie. For Lita, that person was her mom.
When she was seventeen, the woman she thought was her mother introduced her to her real mother. It turned out the woman who raised Lita was a neighbor of Lita’s biological mother. Lita’s biological mother was young when she had Lita. She literally left Lita on the neighbor’s doorstep with a note and took off.
Now Lita spends three weeks every summer in Poughkeepsie with her biological mother, to make up for lost time. Her relationship with the mother who raised her is still strained. But I understand how difficult it is to recover from such a complete betrayal. When I saw my father murder “Uncle” Frank, I felt as if I was finally seeing the real John Veneto. Not the man who pretended to be my loving father.
Then, of course, there’s the possibility that Lita already knows about Knox. Why else would she ask about August on the very day I’m abducted by Knox and this whole scheme between August and Knox blew up in my face? It can’t be a coincidence. Can it?
“Lita, I have—”
I stop myself when I have a sudden realization. Knox probably has my apartment bugged. When I asked him, he claimed that none of the surveillance is conducted in my apartment. He said he didn’t want his men watching me get dressed. Or listening to me scream his name in the throes of passion. But I’m not sure I believe my apartment isn’t being watched.
“You have… what?” Lita’s round gray eyes don’t blink as she waits for me to finish this sentence.
I lean forward to whisper in her ear and she giggles like a schoolgirl. “I’m seeing someone new.”
“I knew it!” she shrieks.
“Shh!” I almost clap my hand over her mouth. “Please don’t say anything… aloud.”