My eyes lifted to meet his. Blue to hazel.
“Good thing I’m not a real butterfly then, or maybe I would’ve taken the warning the first time I saw your eyes and flew away to something lighter.”
“Good thing.” He ran his tongue from my nape to the center of my back, and then trailed firm kisses on his way back up. His hands moved to my hips, and he moved us slowly. “If you only knew the thoughts I’ve had of you since the night at The Club, the fantasies, you would’ve run away.”
“No,” I said, sucking in a trembling breath, releasing it slowly. “Now that I’ve found you, I can’t fly away. I’m attracted to blue—all shades. It’s my favorite color. It seems to heal me, not hurt me.”
His hands caressed above my breasts, circling the cups, until he removed them. With a touch so soft that it made me want to moan, he caressed my nipples.
I melted into his back and he seemed to absorb me. “I—” I barely got out. “I need to shower.”
He nodded once and then kissed me on the side of my neck, his lips against my pulse. He stepped away and slipped on his sleep pants.
“Wait,” I breathed when he went to leave. I felt lightheaded. “Where are you going?”
“There are no windows in here, Mariposa. You’re safe.”
With that, he left me alone.
18
Mariposa
He was asleep when I walked into the bedroom, propped against the massive headboard, his laptop on his lap. I tiptoed toward him, still rubbing the sweet-smelling cream on my arms. I tried to be even quieter the closer I got to him. He was a light sleeper. In fact, I couldn’t remember a time when he fell asleep first. I was usually the first one out, and each time I woke up during the night, he’d still be up.
In Italy, though, I slept all night. I still didn’t think he did.
His hair was still damp from the shower, he smelled like the ocean, and I had to stop myself from reaching out and touching his face. It wasn’t softer in sleep, but more relaxed. Except for the frown. It was only noticeable when he rested, as if he had to fight to keep it off of his face when he had control. I had once told him that he was going to get premature wrinkles if he kept it up, and he only shook his head and said, “Scars don’t bother me. They only mean I’ve earned my place in this world.”
I took another step closer and reached out for the computer, a hand on each side to slide it toward me and away from him. “Some watch wolf,” I whispered.
When I went to move the computer, he grabbed my hands. “I’m not sleeping. I’m resting my eyes.”
If anyone else would’ve said it, I would have laughed and said, yeah, right, but I believed him. He was always on guard.
His eyes slowly opened to mine. Then they took in the red silk on my body.
“I’m ready,” I whispered. Even though my voice was firm, every part of me trembled as if I was cold, which made me feel almost…achy. My insides were hot.
The shower had done me no favors. After he had walked out, he left me on fire, and not even the cool water could put it out. Every defense of mine had been consumed, leaving me empty. The emptiness demanded that his touch take the place of the fear that had stopped me from doing this with him before. It didn’t matter if we were married or not, whether it happened a week ago, on our wedding night, or the next day. I knew when the time was right.
Now.
He looked me in the eye for a moment or two and then flung the computer onto a bag beside the bed. Then he was off the bed, his body colliding with mine. I thought he’d be gentle with me, but he was the exact opposite. Rough. His mouth started another war with mine while his hands fisted in my hair, keeping me as close as skin. Maybe my lip had busted. Or his.
My hands groped for skin to touch, to claw, returning what he gave. When I raked my nails down his bare back, he hissed, and his touch became even rougher.
My back slammed against the wall and the kiss broke, but his mouth kept working. The scruff on his face burned my skin as it scraped against me. His teeth nipped. His tongue licked. He pushed my breasts up, making them pop out of the silk, and when he took my nipple between his teeth and bit down, my knees almost gave out. The shock of it went directly between my legs.
“You came to me in rosso,” he said, his mouth greedy on my skin, his hands cupping my ass. His fingers dug into my flesh, keeping me pinned against him. His erection was hard against my soft. I wondered how it was going to feel between my legs. How he was going to feel, over me, in me, all around me. Consuming me. If I thought on it too long, it made me nervous, but caught in the moment, I craved nothing but him.
“You wanted a fire,” I barely got out. He moved my neck to the side, and I hissed when he bit and sucked at the skin there. “Sono tuo, Capo.” I’m yours, Boss.
“Put your arms around my neck and wrap your legs around me.”
I did, and he lifted me up, his arms under my behind. We kissed as he moved us toward the bed. Once there, he sat me down, his eyes as greedy as his mouth and fingers.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” He raked his teeth over his bottom lip. “Mia Mariposa.”
I set one foot on each side of him, right above his hips, and once I had a good grip, I shoved his pants down. The length of him sprang free, and I’d never seen anything so erotic—this man standing in front of me naked.
When he started to creep up the bed, I pushed back some, making room for him. His lips came for mine again, while his two strong arms were like bars on either side of my head. He nipped and licked and teased. Then his mouth moved down, his tongue making routes along my skin. He pushed the red silk down, and my body, my breasts, was his for the taking. I pushed against his mouth, wanting more.
The ache between my legs begged to be eased. And I didn’t realize that I was whimpering, moving my hips up, until his hand reached down and touched me there. He whispered something about me being ready, wet and hot, in Italian. A noise that I had no control over trembled from my lips. I didn’t care. I had no shame.
There would be no shame here. He killed it.
The more I responded to him, the more he seemed to want me. When I made noises, his touch would become harder, or his mouth would bite or suck. And when he ripped the gown from my body and flung it across the room, it fluttered like a butterfly that had been set on fire in the darkness.
He leaned back, taking in my naked body with eyes as dark as sapphires.
“Don’t stop,” I breathed out. “Please.”
His hand slid up my body, his fingers caressing my nipples. A soft ahh left my lips and I lifted my hips, begging for him to move further south. His eyes moved down to my oonie, and then he gently parted me, opening me up to him. As he started to touch me, he watched. He watched what he was doing to me, and then he’d watch my face. And when his mouth came against me like it had before, I screamed out in pleasure. I was so close. So close to being shattered by his tongue. But I wanted more. I hungered for all of him, like I’d never hungered for anything before.
“Make me yours, Capo,” I said, breathless.
He knelt over me, his dick in his hand, stroking it. “This what you want?”
“Dominami.” I took a deep breath and it left my mouth in a slow push of air. Dominate me.
“Ti domino.” His voice was low and rough. And I never wanted to forget the look on his face. He was losing control, though somehow, he had every ounce of it on lockdown in this bedroom. “One word, Mariposa.”
“You,” I barely got out. “Inside of me.”
“That’s four.”
“Yes.” Yes. Yes. Yes. YES!
He lowered down, and I opened my legs to accommodate him as he came in between. I could feel the tip of him close to my entrance, and I almost lifted my behind, refusing to wait another second. I wanted to feel him pressed against the fucking ache that wouldn’t quit.
His face was close to mine, and he licked me up to my ear. “This is going to hurt,” he whispered.
All good things
are worth bleeding for, I wanted to say, but didn’t. Using no words, I pulled him closer, my nails digging into his back, drawing blood.
Blood for blood.
The violence behind it urged him to move. He entered me slowly, his size stretching, stretching, stretching my walls, and I wasn’t sure if it would ever be comfortable, but I wanted it. I wanted him to fill me up, to move harder, faster. I wanted him to send me over the edge.
He moved in even deeper, and I hissed out a breath. Pain. So much pain. A burning, like a match lit from inside. I was close to crying out, making him take it out, but then he moved in even deeper and the pain subsided, warring with pleasure. He had breached me, went beyond the pale, and moved into a space no one had ever touched before. A strange noise, between a cry and a soft whimper, escaped my lips. That spot he kept hitting, it was like…nothing I’d ever felt before.
“That’s it, mia Mariposa.” His voice was strangled as he slipped in even deeper, every inch of him pushing in on me. “Relax. Fuck. You’re so tight.”
His eyes were lowered, like he was drunk. His forehead was creased. His mouth was parted, and he made a wild noise that came from his throat. I wanted him to make it again. It made me feel powerful, as drunk as he felt. He had made it because of me.
He started to move a little faster, pumping in and out of me, and while he did, his hand came down, between my legs. He dragged the same hand across his chest, over his heart, and it left a smear of bright red blood, the color of the silk that had been ripped from my body.
So many feelings hit me at once.
This. What we were doing.
That. That part of me was still mine to give to whoever I wanted to, and I had given it to this man. My husband.
He put my hand over his heart, where the blood smear was. “We have made vows,” he said in Italian. “But none like this one. This is a blood vow between the two of us. Between our flesh.” He pulled out of me, and then came back, making me lose my breath. “You belong to me in all the ways now, Mariposa.”
It was useless to fight the feeling of being overwhelmed by him. There was no room to move, to hide, to escape him and the intensity, and if I didn’t give over to the pressure, it would split me in two. I couldn’t hold back. A wave of intense pleasure surged inside of me, and I let go, giving over to the sensation. To him. My nails dug into his flesh even harder, my back arched, and I cried out. He seemed to swallow my pleasure without his lips even touching mine.
My entire body trembled, draining me of everything but him. The pain was there, still burning, but the pleasure shot through every other part of me, the shock of it so great that it seemed to stop my heart.
He moved even faster, making noises that I drank down like a bitter wine or a sweet poison. Only time would tell if he was my saving grace or my greatest enemy. There would be no in between with him.
He went even deeper and I cried out again, so sensitive after what he’d just done to me.
We had already hashed out the details of protection. It was up to me. I wanted children—Fine by him. If I didn’t—Fine by him. It was my choice to make. I decided to wait on birth control when the doctor asked. I wasn’t sure why, but I wanted no barriers between us the first time.
Whatever will be, will be.
“Mariposa,” he growled out my name, and a second later, his head tilted back, his mouth parted, and his eyes shut tight. All of his muscles seized and then he spilled himself inside of me. I felt the combination of my want, my blood, and his seed mixing together.
He didn’t pull out of me. Not right away. He looked down at me. I looked up at him. He kissed me between the eyes, making me close mine.
The ache between my legs became real, not from want but from what we’d just done, and every part of me seemed to hurt. I was instantly sore. When he pulled out, I winced, as if he’d pulled a knife out of sensitive flesh, suddenly feeling alone and cold.
Bleeding out.
Instead of two, I felt like we were one.
The connection made me feel… What had the priest said? And the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one. There was no way to ask for it again, either. I wasn’t sure if I could move. Or how I would handle it again later, or tonight if he wanted to. It had been so…penetrating, and not just physically.
“Mariposa.” He studied me. “It’s normal to hurt the first time. To bleed.”
“I know.” The sheets beneath me were soaked with blood. When I asked my doctor what to expect the first time, she told me that blood was normal. No blood was normal. Everyone was different. She had given me the lowdown on every circumstance so I wouldn’t be surprised.
He kissed my lips. “Use all of the words.”
I didn’t expect to feel closer to you I wanted to say. I didn’t expect for this… connection to grow even deeper inside of me so fast.
All of the fear I felt at the grape arbor was not because I was afraid of sex, but of the emotional strings it came with. Strings scared the shit out of me because I was married to a man who had a severe aversion to love. Even if I wanted that, which I didn’t, it could never happen that way.
“Was it…good for you?” I bit my lip, not really wanting to share my deeper fears. I chose a surface one instead.
Maybe it was stupid, but I wanted him to enjoy me, too. Even though we never discussed his history in detail, a man like him probably had a lot of women. Women like Gigi, and Rocco’s pretty secretary, Giada.
“So innocent,” I thought he said in Italian, and then he answered me in English. “I said fire. You brought it. The kind that consumes water.”
“Not yet.” I smiled, kind of shyly, and I wasn’t sure why. “I wasn’t sure what to expect…tonight. Now that I do…”
“You’ll kill me.”
“Me?” I rose up on my elbows, getting closer to his face. “Kill you?”
“You have no idea,” he whispered. “What you do to me.” His eyes lowered and he caressed my thigh, coated in dry blood. “Vieni.” Come. “I’ll wash you clean in the shower, la mia farfalla. Then we’ll take a bath. It’ll help ease your muscles.”
Without asking, he scooped me up from the bed, both of us still naked, and brought me into the bathroom. After showering together, I fell asleep with my head against his chest, his fingers caressing my back in that delicious ‘C’ pattern, in the warmth of the bathtub.
I heard nothing but the sound of his heart beating against my ear. I smelled nothing but his skin. I felt nothing but him.
* * *
I never learned how to swim (and I couldn't remember how to ride a bike), but I knew what it sounded like to be submerged underwater in a tub. Sounds came in echoes, so close yet so far away. The closer to the surface, though, the clearer the sounds became.
Cars zooming. Background music. Mouth of truth. Legend is, if you’re givin’ to lying, you put your hand in there, it’ll get bitten off. More music. Laughter. Let’s see you do it. Higher voice. Feminine. Sure. Deeper voice. Male. More music. Dun. Dun. Dun. Screaming. Hello. You BEAST!
My eyes slowly came open. Where was I?
Same sights. Same smells.
Still at the hidden villa.
I yawned and stretched, consciousness snapping awake, and the sounds in the background took form in my mind. A movie. Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. We had started watching it and I must’ve fallen asleep.
It had been two days since our wedding and I was blissfully sore and tired all of the time. I took naps whenever I could. Then I’d wake up, he’d kiss me, or touch me, and we’d be at it again.
“You make bubbles with your mouth when you sleep.”
Even though my brain was on, my eyes were slow to open. I blinked at him. He was leaning on his hand, his perfect bicep bunched like a hard knot, watching me.
“Were you watching me sleep?” My voice was rough, almost shredded. We had been having some wild times.
He grinned and I pushed at his bare chest. He kept my
hand there, sucking on my pointer finger.
“That’s so creepy, Capo. It’s like you’re stalking me in my sleep.”
“Your dreams.” He chuckled, the sound coming out raspy and low.
“And what do you mean?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “I make bubbles?”
“Like this.” He pushed his lips out using air, making a soft popping noise when his lips parted, and then he relaxed them, and then did it again. It was like he had no control of his lips, and a light push of air kept making ‘bubbles.’
My laugher rose to the ceiling. “I must be drowning in my sleep. Or maybe I’m part fish.”
“You sleep hard lately.”
“When I sleep.” I smiled.
He leaned in and kissed me softly. I made an mmm noise and he cupped my boob, like he was weighing it in his hand. I couldn’t remember the last time I wore clothes.
“Tell me something about yourself, Capo.” My voice came out soft, as soft as the kiss had been.
I had come to learn that other than the occasional kiss, there was nothing soft about Capo Macchiavello. The first time we did it was as gentle as he got. And I liked it. I liked when he almost tore me in two. I liked when the orgasms he gave me were so intense that dizziness followed. I was lightheaded day and night.
“You know everything worth knowing.”
“Not the heart.”
“In time.”
I nodded and gently touched the scar on this throat. I never left my hand there long, but sometimes I ached to find out the story behind it. How it had happened. I never asked, but even if I had, he didn’t seem ready to share. Sometimes when I touched or kissed him there, his muscles contracted.
“You put a lot on the table, but I want something that’s not part of the deal, Capo.”
“Something given without terms.”
“Yeah.”
Machiavellian: Gangsters of New York, Book 1 Page 24