by Sam Crescent
“No, I didn’t.”
“Why didn’t you tell me the truth? Why lie to me? Why not tell me what it was you did?”
“You really wanted to know who I was? What I did? Would you have stuck around?”
“Is that what this is all about? You don’t think I’m strong enough to deal with you?” She sniffled. “I … I … I need to leave.”
“You’re not leaving.”
“I’m not sticking around here.”
He went to touch her and she pulled away. “No! I don’t want you to touch me. I don’t want to have anything to do with you. Stay away from me.”
“Ellie,” he said.
There was a knock at the door.
“Antonio, Romeo is asking for you.”
“We’re done,” she said. She went to go past him but Antonio grabbed her. He sank his fingers into her hair, pulled her head back, and took possession of her mouth. His touch was brutal, punishing, and damn it, she ached between her thighs for more. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She shouldn’t feel anything for him, and yet, her body betrayed her.
“We’re not done. We’re far from done. You will not get far, Ellie. I will find you. Always.”
He let her go and she opened the door to find Raphael smirking as she passed. If he’d been an ordinary man, she’d have kicked him. Violence wasn’t the answer. She hated causing pain or suffering. Walking away from Antonio was hard, but she only had a small window to go and she was going to take it.
****
Antonio didn’t care about protocol and how he wasn’t supposed to hurt Romeo’s son. He was angry, enraged. All through dinner, he had to deal with his woman serving him, feeling her confusion, knowing she was hurting. He couldn’t do a single thing about it, and all that time, Raphael had watched him.
Slamming his fist against Raphael, he wrapped his fingers around the man’s neck, cutting off his circulation.
Raphael started to choke but what was more, he didn’t put up a fight.
Antonio knew at that moment that Raphael had planned this on purpose.
“Why?” he asked, letting go of Raphael as he started to gasp for breath. “Why the fuck would you do that?”
Raphael didn’t answer straightaway.
He wanted to keep on hurting him but what made him a damn good enforcer for the Giavanni Family was that he didn’t act stupidly. He never made rash or rushed decisions. Everything had a place. It was what he did.
“You can’t keep her a secret for long, Antonio. Your life is full of darkness and you will consume her. You will fuck her over, and you can’t get away with it.”
“Is this because you can’t stand the fact I’ve got my woman and now you’ve got to marry who your father says?”
Raphael stood up. “No. You need to get your head out of your ass. As your capo and your boss, I’m telling you the time for being a pussy ends now. You will no longer hide who you are, and you will bring her into the fold.” He ran his hands across his jacket. “That’s an order.”
Antonio stared at his friend. “Ellie isn’t like us. She’s not like the women of our world, or the sluts we use. She’s neither a servant nor a slave. She’s free.”
“And the moment you decided to keep her, Antonio, you took that freedom from her. You cannot have it your way. I suggest you go, bring her back, and present her to Romeo. He knows of your intentions.”
“You son of a bitch.”
“You have until tomorrow. Not many men would be granted this same courtesy.”
“And if she’s already skipped town?”
“Then I suggest you get to her before one of his soldiers do. Romeo already knew, Antonio.”
He paused as he’d been about to leave.
Turning to Raphael, he saw the sadness in his friend’s face. “I didn’t betray your trust. I know you don’t believe me, but I did what I had to do. My father had a file on her. Asked about her. He knew. He may not have known all of your connection to her, but he knew enough for me to act. I respect our friendship and I hope in time, you’ll come to see that … I did what I thought I had to do.”
Antonio didn’t say anything. He turned on his heel and left. He had a woman to find. She couldn’t have gotten far. He wouldn’t let her get away from him. He’d get her.
After rushing out of the mansion, he took off, climbed into his car, and drove straight to her apartment. He didn’t even bother with knocking.
Once he’d slammed her door open, he walked straight into her bedroom. There she was, packing what meager shit she owned. Seeing her doing it pissed him off.
“I didn’t give you permission to come in here.”
“Too late. I’m here.” He advanced toward her and grabbed the case, zipping it up.
“Hey, you can’t do that.”
“I think you’ll find, baby, that I can do whatever I want.”
“So it’s baby now? You lying piece of … ugh, you lied to me.”
“I never lied.”
She grabbed the card he’d given her. “What do you call this, huh? This exists. How is it this exists when you work for the Giavanni Family?”
He stared at the card, knowing that no matter how he told her this, she was going to be pissed.
“You set this all up, didn’t you?” Her voice was a mere whisper. “Why? Did you want to laugh at my expense? Why would you do something like this?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Then what was it all about? You’ve told me before you can have plenty of women. Why drag me into this?”
Tears gathered in her eyes and seeing them cut him to the core. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He shouldn’t care what a woman thought of him, or how she reacted to him. Ellie was different. She would always be different.
“I wanted you for more than one night.”
“What about me? What about what I wanted? You didn’t even give me a clear shot to get out.”
“Once you knew who I was, there wouldn’t have been an out for you. There wouldn’t have been an out for anyone.”
She shook her head. “You don’t know that.”
“I do. I know my job.”
“And what are you not saying right now?”
“I can’t let you leave. My boss wants to see you. There’s no out for you.”
“So if you want to leave me, you’ve got to kill me, is that it?” she asked.
“I won’t kill you.”
“But you said so yourself. I can’t leave anymore. My chance of having a normal life has just evaporated because I saw you in a bar.” She sank down to the bed, leaning forward, elbows on her knees, head in her hands. “All you were was a guy in a bar. I was down in the dumps, and all you were supposed to be was … my … fun.”
He held the case and didn’t know what to say. He should have gone about this a different way, but he hadn’t. “You’re mine now, Ellie. Come on. You’re no longer living here.”
“Why not?”
“It’s no longer safe. My boss knows who you are, which means other people know who you are.” He grabbed her arm and lifted her to her feet, ready to take her home.
She pulled out of his hold and growled. “I don’t want to come with you. I can leave. I’ve done it before. It’s easy to be no one.”
He ran a hand down his face. “If you don’t come quietly, I will force you, Ellie. Don’t make me do that. You won’t like it.”
“I don’t like any of this already and you’re still here, forcing me. What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“I don’t want you to do anything. I want you to come with me so I can keep you safe.”
“If you’d left me alone, I would have been safe.”
“Well, I didn’t. I fucked up and now, you’re coming with me.” This time, he didn’t let her go. He dragged her out of her apartment. As they went, she tried to pull away. He was as careful as he could be with her, which was next to impossible because she kept on fighting. There would be bruises where he held her.
Dumping her ass in the car, he left her all alone, locked inside, to go to her landlord. From there, he paid the man to get her stuff packed up and sent to a secure location. She could decide what she wanted to keep at a later date.
Rather than drive her back to the mansion, because he wouldn’t risk her disrespecting his boss, he took her back to his real apartment. The one he’d barely been to since they’d gotten together.
She buckled herself in as he took off and headed in that direction. Their apartment was safe, but his had a lot more weapons and security.
Ellie didn’t talk to him. Her arms were folded and her gaze outside.
Seeing her angry made him smile. He’d never known her little temper to spike so much. Sure, he’d done stuff to piss her off, but seeing this fiery passion within her turned him on.
He wanted her, no doubt about it.
Running fingers through his hair, he thought back to the mansion. When she’d leaned over him, he’d known it was her before he looked at her. The scent and feel of her. There was no doubting his body’s reactions.
She was everything. Now, he had to keep her and find a way for her to stick around in his world.
He didn’t want a complicated life, but it had just gotten a whole lot more so because he wasn’t willing to give this woman up. Not for anyone. Not for his boss.
Antonio was used to getting what he wanted, but he wouldn’t have ever thought of himself as a selfish man. Far from it. In fact, he considered himself a generous person, open and willing.
With Ellie, he was going to be selfish because she belonged to him, and he had no intention of giving her up. She was his.
Chapter Eight
Hatred was such a strong word.
Ellie didn’t believe she could ever hate anyone so much in her life. Glancing at Antonio, she wasn’t even sure herself if she hated him. It was such a powerful emotion, a scary one.
Gritting her teeth, she stared straight ahead, wanting, no, needing, some kind of clarity. She took a deep breath and tried not to think too hard. It was impossible. How could she not think when he had sprung all of these lies on her?
No, he hadn’t done it. Her work and his friend had. Antonio would have continued to lie to her. This life, the one she thought she was building with him, had been based on lies.
He still held her suitcase.
He grabbed her arm the moment the elevator doors opened and went straight down a long corridor. She watched as he slid a key into the lock and used his thumb to access what she assumed was his apartment.
“So is this your secret hideout?” she asked.
He closed the door. She heard a code being pressed inside.
Her case was dropped to the ground. She whirled around to glare at him but he captured her face, pulled her close, and slammed his lips down on hers. She melted against him. The instant heat drew her to him, making it impossible to ignore him.
With her hands folded between them, she wanted to push him away, to make him suffer, but he pressed her up against the wall and had her arms above her head.
“I know you hate me right now, and I get it, I do. I even accept it, but I don’t care. I did what I had to do to make sure you survive.”
“And now? What do I do now?”
“I will never hurt you.”
“But what if you’re ordered to, Antonio? You should have left me alone.”
“Never.”
“You’re being a fool.”
“No, I’m not. I’m being honest with you. I’m not going to hurt you.”
He held her hands above her head and slowly caressed down her flesh, going to her breasts. She gasped as he stroked across each of her nipples.
They tightened and her body betrayed her.
“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” he asked. He pressed his cock against her, and she gasped. He was hard as a rock. “No woman has ever made me want to keep her before, but you do, Ellie. You with your hatred of rock music, your love of classical and pop. The way you don’t wear socks on your feet properly, and how you somehow think orange and green can go together.”
She had worn an orange shirt with green sweatpants. Antonio wouldn’t be caught outside of the apartment with her. She had found them comfortable.
“You can hate me all you want. I accept it, but what you need to understand is that I’m not letting you go. You belong to me, just as I belong to you.”
Tears filled her eyes. “You lied to me.”
“I know. I was trying to protect you.”
“And in doing so, you’ve made it so I can no longer leave. I didn’t even know the mafia existed and now I’m dating someone who’s a member. Was anything you said to me the truth? Was it all lies?”
“It wasn’t all lies. I do work in security. I’m the one who keeps the family safe. I protect them.”
“Do you kill?”
“Ellie, don’t ask questions you’re not ready to know the answer to.”
“I want to know—”
He cut her off by kissing her.
She cried out as his arms let her go. Rather than push him away, she wrapped hers around his neck as he lifted her into his arms. Securing her legs around his waist, she was happy to kiss him. It was the only way to ease her confused mind.
His kisses helped her feel safe and warm, protected. He carried her through to his bedroom. He didn’t bother to kick the door closed and seeing as they were alone, she wasn’t going to beg him to give them privacy. He dropped her to the floor, pushing her hair out of the way as he started to undress her.
Slowly, he worked her clothes down her body. First her shirt, then her pants, followed by her bra and panties. She was naked and he cupped her breasts, fingering her nipples before taking them into his mouth.
She grabbed his jacket, pulling him away from her tits and trying to get his clothes off.
“I’ll help you with that.”
Staring at his body now, she saw all the ink. She got to her feet and put a hand on his chest, where there were some scars.
“Bullets?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“I’ve been shot at thousands of times. I have six wounds on my chest. None of them got a major artery.”
Some of his ink went to his neck, and she stroked up, touching over the rough skin. She only had the rose tattoo on the inside of her wrist, but it wasn’t rough. She had wondered why his flesh felt odd underneath the ink. Now she knew.
“My neck was cut. They had gone for my throat but missed.”
“I take it the guy is dead.”
“Yes.”
“Do I want to know how he is?”
“No.”
“Then I won’t ask.” She went to each of the points where the ink wasn’t perfectly smooth and pressed a kiss to each one before going to his neck and kissing that point there. “I don’t want you to die.”
It wasn’t a confession of love. She wasn’t even close to giving him that, at least not yet. He’d lied and it hurt to know he had done so for so long.
She wasn’t trying to make him pay, just for him to know the kind of pain he’d caused her.
He picked her up in his arms and moved toward the bed. Rather than throw her on it and fuck her, he climbed on and took her with him so she straddled his waist. He grabbed her hips, lifting her up, and slowly, ever so slowly, lowered her down on his length.
She gasped, crying out at the sudden pulse of pleasure rushing through her as he went incredibly deep within her. The fire burned brighter with every passing second.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she arched against him. Antonio sucked on her nipples as she rocked on his cock, wanting him to suffer just a little, to make him earn his orgasm.
“Do you have any idea what you do to me? How much I want to fuck you and how desperately I do? I think about you all the time.”
“Good.”
He consumed her thoughts on a daily basis as well. She knew her feelings ran far deeper than ju
st caring about him. They were stronger, more powerful, and he held her locked up in his life with no way for her to escape.
She wouldn’t admit her happiness of being with him. It was too much, too quickly. Antonio wasn’t just some security specialist for a firm, he was so much more, and it scared her.
Keeping her arms wrapped around him, she rested her head on his neck, panting as he began to speed up his thrusts.
The grip on her hips tightened almost to the point of pain, but it wasn’t too bad. She could handle it as he fucked her harder, going deeper with each thrust.
“Fuck!” He growled the word against her neck before pushing her back. She still had her legs wrapped around him, and he played with her pussy, his fingers stroking over her clit as his cock still pulsed deep inside.
She felt every inch of him, even as he got her closer to orgasm. She didn’t fight him, giving herself over to the pleasure of the beast and his ministrations. Each stroke, each pulse driving her close to the peak of bliss.
“Yes, baby, come for me. Come all over my cock. I want to feel you.”
Ellie did so, crying his name. The sound echoed around the room as he filled her. He caught her hips, lifting her, and began to rock her on his dick. She followed his lead, taking him higher and higher.
She still felt some of the aftershocks of her release, but it was amazing, better than that, and she couldn’t stop the pleasure, nor did she want to.
When Antonio came, she held on to him, knowing there was no other way out now. He’d pushed her into a corner, and now she belonged to him. She had to wonder why he would do that, and if there was another reason Antonio was so determined to keep her rather than let her go.
****
The following day, Antonio had taken her shopping. In all of his experience, shopping with a woman was supposed to be tiring and boring. Women loved to shop. They loved to buy pretty things.
Not Ellie.
Nope.
She hated to shop.
He had to drag her from store to store until she found some clothes she actually showed an interest in.
Of course, it had taken some guidance from him to get her to do as he asked. She didn’t like him paying for her clothes. What she needed to understand was that her image was very important to his boss. She no longer could walk around in sweatpants and long shirts, at least not out in public.