Punishing Thirst : Mafia Romance (Rough Redemption Book 1)

by Olivia Fox

  Almost, but not quite.

  I turned off the truck engine, and she looked at me, demanding an answer.

  The fact that she was at least a hundred pounds lighter than me and had been through hell made me want to apologize in advance to her for what I was about to do.

  “Whatever happens here,” I unbuckled my belt and slid it out of its loops, “I do with love and acceptance, Savanna. Even though you are about to drive me around the bend.”

  She whispered, “I’ve brought nothing but trouble into your life. You and Carlos didn’t have to help me out, but you put your own reputation and livelihood on the line.” Her hands trembled in her lap.

  “I could never stand by and watch you go through hell without trying to help,” I said.

  We got out of the truck and took in the deserted surroundings. There was a stand of stiff and tall cat tails cutting a line through the deserted pasture on the other side of the barbed wire fence.

  “Do you get that your punishment sets me free?” She glanced meaningfully at the belt loop which hung from my hand. “From guilt? From my unquiet mind?”

  Her words turned me on. Already jacked up when I pulled over to the side of the road, my pulse quickened with taboo longing.

  “Are you asking me to discipline you?”

  Her eyes turned dark with desire. “Yes, I want you to take control.”

  I grabbed her arm and spun her around, shoving her against the hood of the truck.

  “Right then, this is for your own good.”

  Yanking her leggings and panties down, I smacked her cheeks, slowly building intensity with the belt’s impact, watching as her skin turned from its usual creamy color to a burning red.

  “Stand with your feet apart and put your arms over the top of that hood.” The leather was thick in my hands when I folded it in two. A fog of lust filled my head, and I lashed into her repeatedly on the back of her thighs and ass cheeks.

  Her breasts jiggled with every impact, and she wiggled to get away from my belt. I moved to stand close behind her and lowered my hand between her legs, her bare pussy lips soaked my fingers, and that was my undoing.

  “Stop, Dante. Stop!” she yelled. “You can do whatever you want to me, just no more belt, please.”

  “You have such a beautiful ass, Savanna. Shove it back here and open your legs wide for me.”

  I got on my knees between her thighs and licked her pussy until she moaned.

  I stood up and held her from behind, fondling her tits and running my hands down to the slick opening between her legs. “Tell me what you want, naughty girl.”

  “I want your huge, fat cock shoved up inside of me,” she said, and I loved the nasty words that came out of her mouth.

  Yanking down the zipper of my jeans, my hand wrapped around my rigid dick, I shoved it into her heat from behind. No warning.

  She screamed.

  I was going to blow my load right there with her hot little body sitting on my cock, shaking underneath me.

  “You okay, baby?”

  “More than okay. You’re so big. Almost too big. All I can think about all day long is you fucking me with that huge thing.”

  “It’s because you’re so tight around me.” I thrusted into her as if my life depended on it, running towards some crazed finish line where she was mine forever and I got to punish her and reward her with my cock every night.

  As if reading my thoughts, she yelled, “Give it all to me, Dante! Fuck me hard.”

  Encouraged by her reckless desire, I told her, “That’s right, you take it. Take all of my thick dick up that little cunt.” I started forcing myself faster and faster into the heated core of her body, fighting my release.

  It was hard to tell if the sounds that we made were of ecstasy or agony.

  Every time I expected her to back off, she cried out for more. “God yes that feels so good!”

  She was nothing but sweet velvet heat around me and I wanted to make her feel better, grabbing onto her swollen nub, rubbing it back and forth between my fingers while bouncing her off the side of my truck.

  She took off like a rocket ship and threw her head back, her ass thrusting back onto my cock as I pounded home, filling her up with my juices.

  I trailed my fingers up and down her back, stroking her skin.

  It didn’t matter what we called it: punishment, reward, control—they all added up to the same thing.

  I owned her.

  20

  Savanna

  If I closed my eyes, I could still feel the sting of Dante’s punishment on my ass and hear him chastising me. “You’re not to run away and hide from me again, princess!”

  Dante was hot.

  Every single thing about him made me feel like I was standing next to an electric heater.

  I’d never been with a man like him before.

  Even the scent of him got me worked up. Like it was specially blended, designed to get my pussy pulsing.

  I inhaled him like he was oxygen and I’d just surfaced from a tankless, deep, underwater dive.

  And damnit if he weren’t right. I felt secure when he was around.

  It didn’t make me feel any better about jeopardizing his election with the drama in my life. No matter how much I wanted to be in his.

  My time as a stand-in fiancée would be over soon.

  From the front of the shop, I could hear Dante buying coffee and scones for his crew, talking to my aunt as if he didn’t have me tied to his bed, split wide and at his mercy all night long.

  I felt my cheeks go hot.

  He asked Teresa to speak to me for a moment outside, and I wondered what the heck he was up to now.

  I didn’t get off of work for another hour.

  “Dante,” I protested as he pulled me out the back door by my wrist, a fierce scowl across his brow.

  He shoved me against the building, alpha male style, and pinned me against the wall. “I couldn’t wait, I needed to see you.”

  “Dante, I get off work in another hour. Can’t it hold for a bit?” Turned on and appreciative of his sheer bulk, just looking at him made me eager to have him explore me.

  “What did I just say?” His eyes darted around the alley and back parking lot, checking for people, and he reached under my skirt and shoved down my panties.

  I was a goner when his hands hit my slick spot and started working my clit under his thumb. I blew my whisper into his ear. “Oh, God. Please. Help me come…”

  Something had infected my entire body with lust—I was ripe, ready, and needed fucking. But I knew I wouldn’t get that here, so I started pumping at his fingers to save my life.

  “Greedy, aren’t you? Can’t you wait to get home and ride my cock? Until then...” His burning breath tickled my neck and he started rubbing at my center more enthusiastically, taking me toward release with just his thumb, and then he slid two fingers inside me.

  Twisting.

  Driving.

  My wetness was all over his hand, and I could smell my arousal rising between us.

  “That’s it, Savanna. You’re almost there. Come when I tell you to, understand?”

  What if someone walked down the alley, or came out the back door before he made me come?

  He took my clit between his strong fingers and squeezed. Shoving, grasping, and petting that highly sensitive spot.

  “Now, come for me now,” he ordered in his deep voice.

  On command, I shattered all over his hand, the wracking ripples shuddering through my body until I was a limp mess, dangling from his shoulders.

  “That’s my good girl. That’s just the afternoon pick me up I needed.” He held me until the aftershocks subsided. “Go wash up in the restroom; I’ll divert your auntie. Be back to pick you up in an hour.”

  Speechless, I wondered what kind of hussy let a man finger her in the alley just because he looked irresistibly hot in a business suit?

  What was becoming of me?

  Letting him tie me up in bed.
>
  Slap my ass.

  Feed his cock to me while I was on my knees.

  And I loved every minute.

  The water ran under me in the short sink, for I didn’t know how long. Rising steam from the spout that had gone hot brought me back to reality. Wiping the mirror down, I cleared a circle and stared at my forehead, cheeks and chin, all looked brighter in this light. My skin was shinier than usual.

  Is this what love felt like?

  Was it too soon to tell?

  I thought of him nonstop.

  Even though I’d never been in love before, I knew it required a hell of a lot of trust, something neither Dante nor I seemed to have in droves. Him with his overbearing protectiveness, assigning a bodyguard to watch over me when he wasn’t around.

  Me, with my severe flinchiness after Mathew’s obsession and his expression of twisted feelings that culminated in his killing my dog.

  Talk about fucked up.

  I hung my apron after a last sweep of the floor.

  “Don’t forget our class, Auntie! Jessica and Kate are going too.”

  “Who’s Jessica again?”

  “She’s going out with Dante’s uncle. Trust me, you’ll need an org chart to keep it all straight. They just keep coming out of the woodwork.”

  Teresa handed me a bag of chocolate chip cookies and stood in front of me. “Savanna, I’m so glad to see you happy. You’re practically glowing these days, and I wanted to tell you... I’m so proud of you for opening your heart to Dante. He’s a good man.” She pulled me towards her, and I inhaled her powdered sugar scent and felt tears form in the corners of my eyes.

  “God, you’re making me a complete mush ball.” I wiped the moisture away and gave her a soggy smile.

  “Can’t have that, sweetie. Looks like your ride’s here”

  There was no mistaking my driver for anyone other than a Drago. Thick black brows above his heavily lashed hazel eyes. The most striking feature was the distinct Drago mouth, thick and pronounced, but, as I knew from personal experience, they had surprising softness when kissing. And like Dante, Pete’s face was charcoal shaded beneath his cheekbones because of the persistent shadow which appeared in the afternoon no matter how closely razored in the morning.

  I was glad my auntie was enjoying the view, and I too could admire Pete from an aesthetic perspective, but he left my pussy cold.

  Dante held the controls to my sex drive, and my glands worked in overdrive only for him. Not for any of his devastatingly handsome male relatives.

  Which was why that night, when I heard Dante on the phone, my ears perked up. “What’s the matter with you? I think you’re the one going soft. I’m not even a made man, and I can see how the hoodlums behind this need to learn a lesson. That’s twice they’ve vandalized a finished site and once they sabotaged heavy equipment. If it continues, we can say ‘sayonara profit’.”

  I sat quietly at my place on the couch, wanting to hear the rest of the story. I sucked my breath in silently and held it, wondering if Dante was ready to snuff out a life in the name of business. It wasn’t like I didn’t know the scoop on Dante’s family, but I’d never heard him get his hands dirty like this. “Carlos, you’ve got to ask Don Orlov who’s behind this meaningless destruction. He’ll know, and he won’t like it any more than we do.” He kept pacing.

  It bothered me he wasn’t letting me in, and I had no reason to expect him to. I wasn’t a proper girlfriend, significant other, whatever the hell you wanted to call it. I was one more example of how the Dragos put business first.

  I was strictly business.

  Just then, Dante hung up with Carlos and came around the corner to see me sitting on the couch in the dark.

  “What are you doing in here all alone?”

  The words left my mouth before I gave them proper consideration, “I can’t handle it anymore, Dante. You can’t have me in and out of your world.” I twisted the throw in my hands, ringing it like a wet sweater. “I need you to let me in all the way or not at all. Just like I let you into the very ugliest, exposed part of me that first night you and Carlos helped me.”

  He gazed at me and pushed his lips out. “You’re not just in my world.” He rang his hands in front of him and stopped, holding them clasped together in front of his chest. “You are my world, Savanna.”

  I threw myself at his chest and started to say, You’re mine. I love you. I’ll die if you get hurt.

  But I left the words unsaid, hoping my embrace gave voice to the words I was too chicken to speak aloud.

  After sleeping like a log all night, I woke up feeling great, had a quick breakfast with Dante where I surprised myself by eating three stacks of pancakes, a slew of sausages, and sucked down two glasses of orange juice like I’d been in the desert without water for seven days.

  “Savanna! Pete‘ s out front with the car,” Dante yelled just as I was shoving my feet into a pair of leggings and struggling to get my jogging bra over my boobs. They were extra sensitive. Probably from all the attention Dante was giving them.

  “Be right there!” I shouted.

  Dante sat at the counter looking like an Italian prince of yore that had time traveled to the twenty-first century. I said, “Thanks for letting us use Pete as a driver today. Kate, Jessica, Teresa, and I are taking a self-defense class.”

  “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he said.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll stay out of trouble.” I leaned over and placed what I meant to be a chaste kiss on his gorgeous lips, only he wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me between his legs where he sat on the stool. “Don’t stay gone too long.”

  There was a small shred of me holding onto objectivity and distance around Dante. The bigger piece of me believed we belonged together and was determined to prove it.

  Don’t be a dolt, Savanna. The only direction this is headed is toward trouble. If you think you stand a real chance with a Drago prince, you’re even more delusional than the girl who said she only wanted one stack of pancakes.

  “Let’s do pizza and a movie tonight.” I tossed a glance over my shoulder and caught the puzzled expression crossing over his features.

  Dante was no dummy. He knew as well as I did the look, smell, and feel of a girl trying to protect the uncharted territory of her own heart.

  It gave me a thrill to stop the private car, pick up my girls, and whisk them off to the Fierce and Foxy self-defense studio.

  As Lorenzo‘ s girlfriend, Jessica was accustomed to such things. For the rest of us, it was like appearing as a guest on the Real Housewives of New Jersey. Jessica wore a tie dye crop top with matching leggings and a baby blue, fluffy, faux fur vest that hit mid-thigh. My aunt sported a turquoise Adidas tracksuit, and Kate had borrowed some of my leggings and a baggy T-shirt.

  She‘ d told me while getting dressed that she’d extend her stay and test out her employees, letting them run the shop while she was out of town since they were proving to be competent and reliable.

  On the short drive there we discussed our mornings in the back of Pete’s car. “My God, I was hungry as a horse this morning with the pancakes, already. I ate three stacks, which I haven’t done since I was a little kid.”

  Slowly stroking her chin, Teresa said, “Huh.”

  “Huh, what?” Kate asked.

  Teresa continued. “And you said you had a tough time fitting into your jogging bra?”

  “Why do you ask?” What the heck did pancakes and tata-support have in common?

  Teresa held up a finger for each of the following points. “Increased appetite. Bigger boobs.” Both eyebrows raised to make a point. “Are they sensitive?”

  “What a question,” I said.

  “What are you thinking, Teresa?” Jessica asked.

  “I’m thinking.” My aunt tapped her temple, then pointed that finger at me. “Preggers.”

  Kate did a spit take with the prosecco she was sipping, and it sprayed all over her lap. “Oh shit. Are you pregnant?!”


  Suddenly it made sense, the way my body had become a stranger to me for the past couple of weeks. “That’s not possible. I’m on the pill.”

  Jessica spoke into her phone. “Siri. Can you get pregnant while on the pill?”

  Siri spoke. “Here’s what I found. Birth control pills are ninety-nine percent effective with perfect use, but it is still possible to get pregnant while on the pill.”

  I never hated that know-it-all more than right now.

  “Did you ever miss a pill?” asked Kate. “It says here that can make you ovulate again.”

  “Oh shit, pretty sure I did.” The first weekend I stayed at Dante’s I hadn’t packed them, “I guess we need to pick up a pregnancy test on the way home.”

  By the time our lesson was over, my muscles were like sacks of cement, and I couldn’t concentrate.

  Kate led us into the gift shop where they sold personal safety alarms, pepper spray key chains, and discreet stun guns. Jessica looked like she just stepped out of a salon run by woodland fairy folk. The sheen on her face was an angelic glow provided by the glitter gel she’d applied before class. Her post-workout perfection had something to do with the fact that while the rest of us lined up to practice moves on one another, she walked to the window and looked out over the harbor instead.

  When she came out of the shop, Kate said, “Have you had any other symptoms like missing your period?”

  “I don’t know. I need to look at my calendar.” A sharp hunger pang hit me. “It would be horrible timing.“

  “You just got engaged. No one cares anymore if a couple is married when they conceive. There‘ s never a perfect time to have a baby,” said my aunt.

  Thank God, Pete pulled up to the curb. There were no words to express how thinking about having a baby with Dante made me feel. I was barely figuring out how I felt about us. What if I was pregnant and Dante didn’t want to be involved?

  I couldn’t blame him for that.

  It wasn’t like he signed up to be a father. But maybe, just maybe, a baby was a sign of better things to come.