by Bella Grant
Dark eyes looked down at him with some surprise. “A little. I gave you no reason to believe I’d slept around.”
“No, you didn’t. But those outfits you wore, those bikinis that barely covered your nipples, let alone the rest of your breasts, do lead a man to think there’s more than a handshake in his future.” He ran his hand down her torso, resting on her hips, holding her between his knees.
“Men who think they can get into my pants because I enjoy a fashionable wardrobe are ignorant, and I won’t cower to ignorance.” He paused in his soft exploration of her belly and looked up at her. Her eyes gave nothing away. She looked completely serious, and he had to hand it to her that she delivered a valid point. “What?”
“I didn’t think of it that way,” he answered honestly. “Women who dress as you did are usually looking for attention.” She looked away—not blatantly, just a small movement of her eyes really, but he noticed the change. Isabella had been looking for attention, just not the sexual kind. Well, damn.
“I was a virgin, that’s all that matters, I think.” She put them back on topic. He nodded. “Would you have been angry if I had been with several men before you?” The hint of humor was back in her tone, and her eyes met his again. A challenge lurked there. He was starting to understand her way of thinking. If he claimed that he would have been angry, she would have asked him how many women he had shared a bed with. Then she would point out the plain hypocrisy hidden there, and he didn’t want to get into the conversation about the number of lovers he’d enjoyed over the years.
“I think what matters now is that you are standing before me naked, but I want you on your knees. Can you do that for me, Isabella?” The ire from earlier vanished completely as she sank down to her knees, her hands behind her back. “Good girl.” He unbuckled his belt, unzipped his trousers, and pulled them down enough for his erection to pop free of the painful restrains. “Just your mouth,” he instructed, fisting his cock and bringing it to her closed lips. “Open for me.” Her eyes were fixed on his face as she parted her lips and slid her tongue out. He fed his dick into her mouth and groaned as the warmth surrounded him.
Needing no more instruction, she wrapped her lips around him and began to move forward and back, taking him deep into her mouth until he touched the back of her throat. He placed a hand on the back of her head, controlling her speed but letting her decide on the depth. Her tongue played around the head of his cock before she sucked him in harder, and he groaned over the great pleasure it brought him.
His hips left the bed as he began to thrust into her mouth, her eyes still watching him. He clenched his own eyes shut after the image of her lips tightly wrapped around his cock and the sound of her sucking him nearly made him spill his seed.
“Fuck,” he growled, thrusting harder into her mouth, almost expecting her to pull back, but she took him deeper. She gagged slightly, and he pulled back, letting her get a deep breath. “I want you on your back, Isabella. Climb on the bed, and spread your legs for me. Hold them open so I can see your pussy.” She sat back on her knees and studied him silently for a moment. “I want to see you, wife. Do as I say.” He gave her nipple a soft pinch, and she rocked her body until she pushed up to her feet. Isabella was proving to be much more obedient than he thought she could be. If only he could get her to behave so sweetly when she wasn’t about to have her pussy licked and brought to a screaming release.
Slipping onto the bed, she maneuvered around him and rested her head on the pillows. He stepped off the bed and removed the rest of his clothing. When he finished and looked her over, he swallowed hard. Her hands held her knees back, and her legs were spread, giving him a perfect view of the glistening lips of her sex.
He climbed back onto the bed, facing her. With just a single finger, he swiped through her wet folds to her clit, rubbing it gently with the tip of her finger. “Perhaps I should keep you naked and wanting all the time. Your compliance is easier to obtain.” He brought his finger, wet with her juices, to his mouth and licked it clean.
“You would be a cruel husband to do something like that.” She smiled widely. The little brat knew he would never treat her in such a way. Although he could think of a few friends in the more uncivilized islands that did indeed keep their wives naked most of the time, ready to service their husbands at any moment. He doubted his Isabella would see such an arrangement beneficial, even when he explained how much the women loved being used and toyed with and how fulfilling they found their relationships.
“I never said I wasn’t cruel.” He smiled. Settling himself between her thighs, he pressed the head of his cock against her entrance. Slowly—slower than he thought humanly possible—he slid into her passage. The heated slickness enveloped him, gripping him hard and making him regret trying to tease her. The pain of denial was just as strong for him as her.
Her mouth dropped open and her eyes rolled to the side as he finally sank in to the hilt. His balls pressed against her ass, and he looked down at her with another grin. “Ask me sweetly to fuck you,” he ordered. His hands buried beneath the pillows on either side of her, and he could feel his arms shaking with the need to move within her. But this was a lesson, and she hadn’t learned it just yet.
“Antonio.” She gritted her teeth and tried to make him move by wiggling her hips. He laughed at her failed attempt. Since her hands were holding her knees, she had no leverage.
“If you let go of your legs, I’ll finish quickly and give you no orgasm. Maybe not for several days.” As a threat, it got her attention, but he doubted he’d be able to carry through. “Now, ask me sweetly to fuck you, Isabella.”
She groaned and took a deep breath. “Please fuck me, Antonio.”
“Promise me you’ll be a good girl the rest of the day.” He retracted slowly from her body, but not all the way, just enough to give her some sensual feelings without satisfying any direct need.
“Antonio.” She growled again, and he clenched his jaw. If she moved her hips like she was any more, he wouldn’t be able to hold his reserve for much longer.
He plunged into her hard, then withdrew and thrust into her again, harder. She moaned and pulled her legs back even further. Her wide eyes found his, and her nostrils flared with her hard breathing. He could feel her starting to clamp down around him, knew he was hitting the spot that would throw her into orgasm. He thrust once more and stilled. “Promise,” he ordered.
“I promise!” she yelled and wiggled beneath him again. “Please don’t stop. Please. I promise.”
He began to thrust into her again and again, hard enough that the bed began to creak beneath their movements. She cried out, panting for breath.
“Please!” she begged him, and he knew she wanted to drop her knees. She wanted the leverage to arch up at him.
“Promise me first. Say what I told you to say.” He ground out his command although the waiting was killing him. His heart thundered in his chest, and his muscles clenched tightly.
“I promise I’ll be a good girl! I’ll be good, I promise!” she called out, and he moved his hand between them and rubbed her clit in a circular motion as he plowed into her again. Within two strokes, she was writhing beneath him and screaming into the room. He felt the convulsions of her passage, the tight grip and waves of her orgasm pulling him into his own release.
As his body began to relax and his mind cleared, he gazed down at the beautiful woman beneath him. His wife. Her eyes were soft, their lids almost too heavy to keep open, and her cheeks were flushed with the perfect amount of pink. Her chest rose and fell beneath his own with her breathing as they both began to recover from their lovemaking.
She released her legs, straightening them and moving her hands to cup his face. To his surprise, she pulled him down to her, kissing his lips warmly before leaning back into the pillows with a sated smile playing on her lips.
He rolled to her side, dragging her body to snuggle against him. Antonio rested his arm around her waist and inhaled the female scent as
her head burrowed further beneath his chin. “That was a very pleasant lesson,” she whispered, and he grinned.
“Just wait until you see the homework.” He held her in place firmly when she tried to turn to look at him. “Sleep for now. We have to get ready for dinner in a little while, but you need some rest.” He pulled a cover over them and closed his eyes for a moment. Just a moment of rest would do him good as well. Politics and social agendas were on the menu for dinner, and he would need his strength to get through it.
ISABELLA
Isabella couldn’t remove the image of that woman being abducted from her mind. As she walked through the streets of the city with Elisabeth, doing some late afternoon shopping, she swore she saw the same woman duck into a salon.
“Let’s go in here.” Isabella pushed her long-time friend into the salon.
“What’s wrong?” Never misunderstanding Isabella’s facial expressions, Elisabeth could easily read her.
Looking around the salon, Isabella realized she had not seen the woman. “Nothing. It’s nothing.” She shook her head. Her guilt played with her for leaving the woman to be kidnapped.
“What’s going on, Bella? You’ve been acting strange all afternoon.” Elisabeth held the door open for her as they walked back out into the humid air of Chicago. “Is it your husband? You haven’t said much at all about him.”
What was there to say? One minute she hated him, and the next she was begging for his touch. “You’ll meet Antonio at dinner tonight. He insists on being there.” She sounded like a bitter woman being forced into a marriage she didn’t want.
“I want to meet him, too.” Elisabeth pulled her to the side of the walkway and tipped her sunglasses up. Dark brown eyes peered at her. “Bella, I know you don’t love him, and you have always held a fantasy of your prince being more like those men in the romance novels that you hide under your pillow. But you’re grown up now. And you’re a princess!” She waved at the two men standing a few feet away, her security guards at Antonio’s insistence. “A normal life is not for you.”
“I know,” Isabella sighed, giving another glare at the men assigned to her for the afternoon. It was the only way she could get the large buffoon guarding her suite door to agree to let her pass. Antonio was stuck in some meeting all morning, and she didn’t want to sit in the suite all day. While they had been shopping the day before, she hadn’t found a bookstore, and she’d left her own books at home. Her father wouldn’t let her bring them because he said that they were trash and that Prince Antonio wouldn’t approve of such garbage. She only relented because she knew she’d be able to replace them. “It’s not just that.”
Elisabeth glanced at her watch. “I have twenty minutes before I need to head back to the office. What’s bothering you? Has he hurt you? Is he mean? I can’t imagine Raphael allowing you to marry some bastard. As much as he looks like he wants to slap you around whenever I see him, he loves you.”
“No, it’s not that. Antonio is the perfect gentleman.” Most of the time, anyway. When he did let down his Royal Guard, he was anything but… And she didn’t mind it so much. That morning, he had shoved his way into the shower stall and without even making a suggestion, he spun her around and took her. Standing in the shower, her face pressed against the cool marble tiling, he had pounded into her. As animalistic as it was, he made sure she found as much fulfillment as he had.
“Bella.” Elisabeth slid her sunglasses back down, covering her eyes. “Spit it out.”
“Fine. Before we left, I went into the city. While I was there, I got turned around and went down a wrong street. I saw a girl being kidnapped. I watched her get kidnapped!” Just saying it again made her guilt bubble up in her chest.
“What? Were you hurt? Did they see you? What happened to the girl?”
Isabella pushed her bangs back from her forehead, exposing the healing cut from the dumpster on her head. “I knocked my head, but no, they didn’t see me, I saw them. I took pictures of their van, but that’s all I did.”
“All you did? You could’ve been killed!” Elisabeth had always been an alarmist. She and Antonio would get along perfectly.
“I was hiding while that woman was being taken. Who knows what they are doing to her.”
“Did you tell Antonio? I’m sure his security team can track her down.” She raised her voice and gave a solid glare at the two men standing nearby. As was usual for them, they made no sign that they’d even heard the girls.
“I did tell him. He said they are looking into it, but every time I bring up the subject, he just tells me his men are on it and not to worry.”
Elisabeth laughed. “He wants you to let him handle it and not worry? Has he actually met you?”
Isabella looked disgruntled. “That’s not funny. I’m not a control freak, I just… well…” She cracked a smile. “Okay, in this instance, I might be a tad controlling. His men won’t give me any information either, and Raphael is completely ignoring my texts.”
“Well, let me see what I can do.” She glanced at her watch again and cursed. “I have to get back to the office. I have a meeting. When I see you for dinner, I should have a plan.” With a serious nod, she adjusted her purse strap and pointed to one of the security men. “Hey, can you grab a cab for me?” she called to him, and Isabella couldn’t help but laugh. “If they are going to follow us around and eavesdrop, they could at least be a little useful.”
Isabella walked with her to the cab that had pulled to the curb next to Tony, the larger of the two men. She hugged her friend.
“I’m sure it will be fine. We’ll talk to your husband about it tonight, and I’m sure he’ll see how important this issue is.” She sounded hopeful, but Isabella reminded herself that Elisabeth hadn’t met Antonio yet. But maybe, if the two of them spoke to him, he would listen. Maybe he would see how important it was for her to know that the kidnapped woman was alive and safe and would let his wife stay in the loop of information concerning her.
***
Antonio was a stubborn, unfeeling ass. Isabella glared at him over the table in their private dining room at the restaurant he had chosen for their meal. She tried to explain that Elisabeth and she always went for sushi when they got together, but he wouldn’t listen. “I already made reservations, and that’s where we’re going.”
She couldn’t move him from his decision, and when she tried to complain about it to Elisabeth, she had laughed and assured her it was fine. “We’ve done sushi over and over again. This sounds nice.” Elisabeth was too accommodating, gave in too easily. How could she ever have seen her as a partner in crime?
“Elisabeth, my wife tells me her mother was your godmother?” Antonio ignored Isabella’s irritated state and addressed her friend.
“Yes, she and my mother were friends. Until she married my father, my mother lived near the royal estates. But she met my dad, and they moved to the US. He was traveling when he met Mom.” Elisabeth sipped her wine.
“You should have been invited to the wedding, then.” He glanced at Isabella, who looked as though she were about to launch herself into a small tirade.
“That wouldn’t have been possible. But thanks for the thought.”
“My father never approved of our mothers being friends,” Isabella commented with some distaste in her mouth. Her father’s views on the people of his own country sometimes caused bile to rush up her throat.
“My mother met Isabella’s when they were young. Mom was a maid in the palace, and Isabella’s mother had been brought to the palace to await her marriage to King Renaldo. “
“My father can be difficult at times,” Isabella conceded. Even she could not get him to allow Elisabeth to visit her home, and he very rarely put his foot down about anything she wanted. “But enough about that. I want to hear about what your men have found about that woman.” She turned the conversation to Antonio. He had avoided her questions before they arrived for dinner, but she hoped, with Elisabeth’s assistance, they could get some informati
on from him.
“Yes, Bella told me what happened. I hope the woman is found quickly and unharmed.” Elisabeth could always be counted on. Their dinners were brought out before Antonio could respond, but once the wait staff disappeared, Elisabeth looked to Antonio for his answer.
“My security team is working on finding her.” Those were the same words he ground out for Isabella when she pressed the issue in the car on the way over.
“Yes, I’m sure they are. Have you heard any news from them? I’m sure they check in with you about important matters such as this.” Isabella smiled widely as her friend continued to coax the issue.
Antonio let out an exaggerated sigh and turned his eyes to his wife. “I should learn never to doubt your stubbornness.” He shook his head before spearing a piece of chicken and shoving it into his mouth.
“You really should,” Elisabeth laughed.
“I’m worried about the woman. It’s been almost two days.”
“Her name is Karen. My men have tracked down the van, but it was found empty.” He took another bite of his chicken.
Isabella’s eyes narrowed, and her lips thinned. He had that information and wouldn’t give it to her? She had to involve a third party in order to get basic information out of him?
“Bella, are you available for lunch tomorrow? I had a cancellation and thought we could meet for sandwiches.” Elisabeth’s eyes had a little sparkle in them.
“Yes—”
“No,” Antonio cut in.
“Yes,” she repeated herself. “You have a lunch meeting. I’m going out with Elisabeth.”
“Bella.” Elisabeth gave a small shake of her head as she sipped her wine.
“We can discuss it later. Right now, I’m interested in learning about Elisabeth. What is it you do again?”
“I work for a web designer.”
“Ha! She owns half the company, acquires most of the accounts, and oversees all of the creative teams,” Isabella boasted. She had always been quite proud of her friend. She worked herself ragged and was extremely successful for it.