by Ella Miles
I pull her back up onto my lap, and her legs automatically go around me, startling me, as her lips lower to my mouth, kissing me hard and fast. One hand grabs her long mane of hair, and the other grabs her breast as her nipple hardens beneath my hand.
She moans, and the sound hardens my cock even more, pushing against her entrance. I want to fuck her now. But I need to hear her say my name first. I need her to want me as badly as I want her.
I bite her lip, bringing it into my mouth, as she purrs deep in her throat.
I grab her hips and grind them against me as she bites her lip to keep from screaming.
I lower my mouth to her nipple and suck at the same time I push my cock inside her.
“Fuck, Matteo,” she moans.
Finally.
She pushes my head back the second I enter her and takes the control back. She grinds up and down on my cock, riding me like it is her favorite thing to do.
I want the control back but not nearly as much as I want her to keep doing what she is doing.
“You like my cock, beautiful?” I ask.
She nods and licks her lips as she keeps fucking me, unable to say anything.
I thrust hard against her, meeting her thrust for thrust, as her grip on my shoulders tightens. Her nails dig into my shoulders as she holds on, trying to keep from coming.
“Come, beautiful.”
She keeps riding me harder, increasing her pace, as I barely contain my own orgasm.
“No.”
I growl, “Come. Now.”
“No.”
She rides me harder, and I can’t hold back another second.
“Nina,” I growl.
She milks an orgasm out of me.
Only then does Nina finally come.
She collapses onto my body, and I wrap my arms around her, loving having her body pressed up so closely against mine.
We stay that way for a long time, both passed out and just holding each other.
Then, Nina slowly lifts her head with a grin on her face. “Now, I have some questions for you.”
I firmly kiss her on the lips, slipping my tongue into her mouth, begging her to have sex with me again.
“But, first, you want me to fuck you again?”
She takes a deep breath and bites her lip, still grinning. “Yes.”
“As much as I want to do that again, my body can’t take much more,” Nina says, lying on Arlo’s bed in his playroom while I lie next to her, completely spent.
I nod. “I guess that means it’s time for me to stop stalling and answer your questions.”
She nods.
But neither of us says anything else as we just lie in bed, staring at each other. The sex was great. Nina and I share a connection like no one else. But it still doesn’t mean we have any sort of future together once we leave this room. I don’t know what feelings she has for Arlo. I’m sure she still hopes that she can find a way out of this mess and end up back with her husband. And, even if she does choose me out of all the men in her life, I’m not sure that we could have a future together. So, this might be it. The last moment I can claim her as mine and mine alone.
She knows it, too.
I can see it in the way she tries to slow her breathing down to really cherish me. I can feel it in the stillness. She doesn’t move or speak right away; she just is. Her eyes don’t look anywhere but mine. She’s just present with me, taking everything in.
“What questions do you want to ask me?” I finally ask, breaking our perfect moment that could have lasted forever.
She takes another deep breath, staring at me while I tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear.
“What do you and your family do for a living? How do you make money? Why does Arlo come home, covered in blood almost every night? Where is Enrico? How did your family gain so much power?”
I nod. I knew my family would be at the center of her questions even though she has probably guessed enough to know most of the truth. She needs to know about my family.
So, I tell her, “My family has lived in Italy for hundreds of years. We never had any power, no noble blood, nothing to tie us to royalty.
“But the story goes, one of the first members of my family had a son who was strong and good. He lived his life as a soldier, fighting for good. One day, he and his brother were traveling back to town when they came across a horse without a rider. The brothers searched and searched until they finally found the rider. A woman had fallen off in a nearby creek. They rescued the woman and brought her to the nearest town. That woman was the princess.
“The king knew he owed a great debt that could never be repaid to the brothers, but he vowed to give the brothers whatever they wanted. Jewels, money, power. But the brothers were more interested in his daughter than the money.”
“Naturally,” Nina says as she rolls over onto her stomach, resting her head on her hands as she listens to my story.
“The brothers fought over the beautiful princess. But, ultimately, she chose neither of them. She chose an actual prince to marry. The brothers were heartbroken and grew to resent each other until, one day, the king sent them money as payment.
“That money turned into more money. More jewels were sent. And those jewels turned into power. People would turn up at their doorstep, asking for their help. Giving them money. Giving them women. Giving them everything they could ever want.
“They soon learned the power they wielded if they had the richest people in the country in their debt. So, that is exactly what they did. Soon, they became as powerful as the king himself.
“My family continued the tradition for years, becoming more corrupt and evil as each descendant took power until here we sit.”
Nina bites her lip to keep from laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Oh, come on! You don’t really expect me to believe that crazy story you so clearly just made up, do you? You just made up that story as an attempt to get me to choose one of you.”
I grin. “You can think I’m a liar all you want. I’m not. Now, do you want me to finish answering your questions or not?”
She sighs. “Continue with your lies.”
“My family still carries on with the old tradition of getting powerful men—”
“And powerful women,” Nina interjects.
I smile and nod. “And powerful women to owe us a debt, therefore giving us power over them. Our regular business and sources of income are building and selling powerful weapons. But we never give our enemies any weapons more powerful than what we already have. We build the weapons mainly for ourselves as a way to gain more power. We use it to protect our homeland here, which the Italian government allows us to do pretty much whatever we want with.”
“So, basically, you became the unofficial kings of Italy,” Nina says.
I smile, liking the thought of us as kings.
“Our work requires us to do a lot of different things. We have meetings during the daylight, negotiating terms of the debt our clients owe us or discussing weapons that we will sell or gain. At night is when we make the trades or deal with clients who think they don’t owe us a debt. We make it clear that no one gets away without paying back their debt.”
I watch her eat up every word I say even if she thinks part of it is a lie. Or all of it. But she still hangs on to every word.
“Sometimes, those meetings don’t go so well, and we have to use force to ensure the meetings go our way.”
She frowns. “But why does Arlo always end up hurt, and you never end up with much more than a scratch on you?”
“Because I’m that much better at avoiding getting shot than he is.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Fine. You already know the answer anyway. Arlo is a martyr who will take a bullet for someone he cares about. He won’t let me get shot even if it would do me some good to realize that I’m not invincible.”
Nina laughs. When her laughter settles down, she asks, “And Enrico
?”
“He went to America to negotiate a trade we have been working on for some time. It’s tricky negotiations. He won’t be back for several months yet.”
She sucks in a breath and nods. I watch her as she opens her mouth to ask another question and then stops as she looks past me. I don’t have to turn around to know who she is looking at.
Arlo.
22
Arlo
I stand in the doorway of the room where I first saw Nina naked, and now, I find her naked in the bed that I desperately wanted to fuck her on the first time I saw her. I should be thrilled. I should be thanking God that my dreams have finally been answered, but instead, I feel like a dagger has been shoved into my heart and then twisted over and over again.
I shouldn’t care that she is naked in my bed with my brother. But I am.
If he thinks I will protect his sorry ass again after what he just did to me, he’d better think again.
“How did the meeting go?” Matteo asks with a smirk on his face.
“It clearly doesn’t matter to you. I do all the work in this family anyway.”
“It definitely matters to me since I most likely won.”
I laugh. “The game isn’t over yet.”
Matteo turns his attention back to Nina. “Do you want to go back to my room now? You can finish asking all the questions you still have for me.”
Nina doesn’t look at him. She looks at me. “No.”
Matteo frowns. “I thought you had more questions for me?”
“No, I don’t have any more questions for you. But I do have more questions for Arlo.”
Nina’s eyes sear into my soul when she says she wants to ask me questions, probably because she didn’t get the honest answers she was hoping for out of my brother. But she doesn’t get to play games with us both. I’m done playing games after she’s made it perfectly clear what games she is playing. And whom she really wants.
Nina stands up and begins walking toward me. I can’t get the image out of my head of the last time we were in this room, and she walked toward me like that. My cock hardens as my body remembers how badly I wanted her then and how much more I want her now. Last time, I fucked three other women while trying to imagine they were her. It didn’t work. She didn’t get out of my head. And, even now, after fucking her countless times, she’s still not out of my head. And I’m afraid she’s buried herself deeper into heart than I ever thought possible.
She reaches her hand out to touch my face, and I grab her wrist, stopping her.
“I’m not answering your questions. You made your choice; now, live with it.”
She laughs and jerks her hand away. “I never said I made a choice. I made a deal with Matteo. I fucked him by himself, and in return, he offered to answer any question I had. I’m offering you the same deal. I’ll fuck you. If you promise to answer my questions.”
I shake my head. “I’m done answering your questions.”
She bites her lip that I’m desperate to taste, bite, lick, suck. But I won’t.
Nina reaches out and grabs my hand, pulling it to her mouth and slowly sucking on my index finger. “Are you sure you can’t be persuaded?”
I close my eyes because I can’t look her in the eyes and say what I need to say. “I’m not answering your questions.”
She sighs. “Fine. Matteo—”
Damn it.
I grab her naked body and throw her over my shoulder. I carry her out of the room before she has a chance to offer to fuck Matteo. I can’t answer more of her questions, but I can’t be the reason she fucks Matteo again.
I don’t know what I’m doing, but I carry her toward my section of the house. When I get to the door, I pause, not sure if I really want to let her into my personal space. I’ve never let anyone in, but I’m desperate, and for the first time ever, I want someone to share my space with, if only for a few hours.
I open the door and carry her inside. I throw her naked ass down onto the circular couch in the center of the main room while I stand, not believing what I just did.
Nina looks around with her mouth wide open. I don’t know what she is thinking, and I’m too fucking nervous to ask. Why do I care about what she thinks of my personal space?
“Wow,” she says.
I look around the room, trying to see it like she does, but I’m not sure I can. I have no idea if she loves it or hates it. Is disgusted by it or engrossed by it. And I don’t have the balls to ask.
She looks back at me. “Did you paint all of these?”
I look around the circular room that is covered with paintings.
I nod.
She looks up at them. “Wow, they are incredible.”
She stands up and walks over to the closest one. She hovers her fingers over the portrait of a man, getting as close as she can without actually touching the painting. “I can feel everything that you felt when you painted this man. Hatred. Fear. Heartache. Pain.”
I walk over and stand behind her as I look at the painting she’s looking at.
“Who is it a picture of?”
“A memory that I will never forget.”
She narrows her eyes a little when she looks at me and then walks to the next picture. “And this one?” she asks, looking at a painting of a woman and her child.
“Same.”
She nods, looking at them and then at me. “They are paintings of people you’ve hurt.”
I nod.
She sucks in a breath. “They’re beautiful.”
“They aren’t beautiful. They are paintings of pain and torture. Paintings that show me at my absolute worst.”
They’re my nightmares that haunt me every night when I sleep. I thought painting them would allow me some peace, but it didn’t. Nothing helps.
She turns back to me, and I see the tears in her eyes. She hates me for killing them. There are dozens of paintings in the room, and they aren’t even all the ones I’ve done, just the ones that haunt me the most. I’m the devil. She’s finally realizing that one of the men she has been fucking for weeks is the monster she was trying to avoid.
She can’t forgive me for what I’ve done.
I turn away because I can’t see her cry from the pain I’ve caused these people. I can’t deal with her hurting, too.
I feel her hand on my face, and I immediately push it away, not willing to face her right now.
She grabs my face and turns me toward her. “They’re beautiful.”
She leans her head against my forehead, and I feel her tears roll from her eyes to down my cheeks.
I suck in a breath, not liking being so close to someone. Not liking sharing someone’s pain like this. I hate it, but I also never want it to end.
Nina pulls away and looks up at me with tears still in her eyes.
“Kiss me.”
I narrow my eyes, not understanding why in the hell she would want to kiss me.
“No.”
“Kiss me.”
“No.”
Her eyes search mine, but she’ll find nothing but emptiness there.
“Kiss me.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Why? You don’t want me. You’re playing games. And, after seeing the pain I’ve caused, you can’t possibly want anything to do with me.”
She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter that I’m playing games. You’re playing games with me just as much as I am with you.”
“Exactly. You don’t want me! You just want me to fall for you so that I will save you.”
“And what’s so wrong with that? Maybe I don’t want to die or be held captive for seven years. Seven years is a long fucking time!”
“What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong is that I can’t fucking save you! Even if you succeed in making me fall in love with you, I can’t do a damn thing about it!”
She grabs my face and kisses me.
And, in that moment, my world stops. I’ve never wanted anything more. I also hate myself
for wanting this and letting it happen. But, now that it is, I’ll never stop kissing her.
My hands wrap around her body while my tongue tangles with hers. She tastes just as sweet as I’ve always imagined. Her lips are just as luscious. And the moment is even better than I could have ever imagined.
I grab her legs as she wraps them around me, and I push her against a wall as I continue to kiss her. Her hands wrap tightly around my neck, not letting me stop the kiss even if I wanted to. I don’t. I don’t ever want this kiss to end.
I kiss her deeper and listen to the beautiful purr in her throat as I do. Her kisses are everything.
And, as much as I try to stop my mind from going there, I think they are everything to her, too. She might still love her husband. She might even have feelings for Matteo. But there is no denying that she doesn’t have feelings for me as well. No one kisses like this and doesn’t love the other person.
I don’t want to hear the words fall from her mouth, and I’ll kiss her all night long to keep her from saying something so stupid as that she’s fallen in love with a man like me. But there is no denying that is how she feels.
“I need you to fuck me,” Nina says with her lips still pressed against mine, not allowing me to stop the kiss even though she is speaking.
I’ve never agreed more with her. I can’t stop kissing her, and it’s clear she won’t stop kissing me either.
She’s already naked, and my cock is already hard against my jeans.
Nina grabs the button and swiftly undoes it with one hand without breaking our kiss. She pushes my pants down along with my underwear until my cock is free. I push inside her, knowing how wet she is.
“Arlo,” she growls against my lips as I enter her.
I’ll never get tired of hearing my name fall from her lips. I’ll never get tired of anything Nina does. I need to fuck her against every surface in my room. That way, when she’s gone, I’ll never be able to forget her.
She bites my lip hard as I thrust inside her, holding on to her ass with my hands. I love how she bites my lip before lapping up the blood. I love how she craves my body just as much as I want hers.