by Christa Wick
"Whoa-whoa-whoa." My legs were slow to snap together, but they closed like a vise when he said "men."
Clutching the shoulders of his jacket for leverage, I pulled myself up. His hands moved higher under my skirt. I did nothing to restrain them, my focus instead on getting out of the room. I had studied enough battles as a history major to know that they only way out of an ambush was through it. And if I had to physically go through Parisi to get to the door, I would.
"You intended to build a monument to your mother," Parisi whispered, his voice barely audible over the anxious, roaring pulse of blood through my body. "Are you really going to give up that easily? And over what? What fear is driving your refusal?"
I glared down at him, my eyes burning with frustration. "You don't get it. Women can't behave like this!"
Not just in business, I thought, but everywhere else. A woman could not own her sexuality without repercussions that echoed the rest of her life. What happened when she had children and their teachers found out? What happened when her future husband found out?
The bastard just shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "Then maybe only men should be the CEOs of real companies."
No longer touching me, Parisi gestured at the open door to his office with a tilt of his chin. "Go home, cara. Go run some little store and tell yourself that five years from now it will be national."
He stood and approached the bag Anders had brought from the guest room. Tucked down at the very bottom, I had placed the ancient Egyptian version of a negligee -- a split skirt comprised of six panels of semi-transparent scarves and a cup-less bustier that was only good for holding the breasts up instead of concealing them. He pulled them out and draped them over the bag.
"Then tell yourself again five more years after that. Or sell your designs to Gucci or Versace and let all the achievements be theirs while your mother molders in her grave."
Leaving me, he stopped at the room's threshold and looked back one last time. "But if you don't want to spend the rest of your life playing it safe, open your bedroom door at midnight and step into a new life, cara."
********************
Back in the guest room, I paced and watched the clock. I packed and watched the clock. I stared into every nook and cranny the room had to offer and I watched the clock.
I talked to myself, too. First inside my head, then softly under my breath and then in a way I could no longer discern the actual volume of the words that escaped me. Was I really considering his offer? Could I live with myself if I so much as acknowledged the possibility that I might consider it?
With too many questions and zero answers, I went into the suite's bathroom a little before eleven. I felt dirty for the offer having been made and tried to wash the slimy sensation coating my skin and insides away with a brief, unforgiving shower.
Clean and wrapped in an oversized towel that barely contained my thick body, I stared at the long mirror above the sink. I stared at my face, looking for some hint of my mother in the features. I had my father's eyes, a bright aquamarine. Like my skin tone, my mouth was a combination of both parents. The overall width was narrow like my dad's, but the lips remained generous with a cupid's bow on top, the extreme arch creating a small gap at the center where my lips met that I had to consciously keep shut or look like I was begging for a kiss.
I dropped the towel and stared at my body, still looking for what parts of me came from my mother. Below the chin, I was all on my own. Both of my parents had been thin, my father a tall, pale reed who had to be reminded to eat on a daily basis, while my mother followed the dictates of her chosen profession with an iron will.
Snapping a hand towel from the folded pile next to the sink, I doused it with hot water and started wiping what makeup from my face the shower hadn't removed. As I rubbed furiously, I swore at Parisi then at myself over the thoughts stampeding through my head.
I thought I had accepted my body years ago, had learned to smile at the parts I could appreciate and ignore the ones I couldn't. Gazing into the mirror, all I saw was another reason why I had to stay inside the room and give up on making my dreams a reality any time soon.
Naked, my face scrubbed clean, I continued staring at the mirror. I could feel my father lightly tapping against the center of my forehead, his response to my insecurities always the same.
"This...this marvelous brain, that's the important thing," he had always said. "It will endure after everything else fades away."
My lips pushed together in an angry, ugly moue. I loved my father, but he was an academic who had fucked a fashion model then had to watch her walk out of his life and return to a world that had nothing to do with the mind. As temporal as my mother's world was, it lasted long after their relationship fell apart.
I stomped into the bedroom a raging, copper-skinned, overweight, growling woman, and grabbed all the cosmetics I had brought with me. Back in the bathroom, I slapped on primer and illuminators, liquid foundation and powders. I drew angry but symmetrically perfect lines around my eyes, my mouth, then contoured my cheeks.
With color and shading, I could fix the face, reduce its roundness, add more definition. Not so with my body.
I damned Silvio Parisi for making me look at myself like this! Not white, not black, not exotic enough, not thin, not even close, not beautiful but not ugly.
Was I worried what people would think if they found out about Parisi's deal, or was I really concerned what the men would think while they fucked me?
And just how many men was he proposing? He had mentioned Cleopatra -- or as the Greeks had so derisively called her, Meriochane, she who gapes wide for ten thousand men.
"Doesn't matter, doesn't matter, doesn't matter. Not doing it, no fucking way."
I leaned over the sink, my forearms flat against the counter, and tried to breathe. My legs were locked, unbending and shaky. Spreading them wider, I felt the upward flow of air against my most sensitive area.
She who gapes wide...
Ten thousand men...
I wouldn't have to worry about midnight's approach. I would pass out before then, be unconscious through it, conveniently robbing myself of the responsibility of deciding. Whatever direction my thoughts swung on some future day, I would be able to lie to myself and say I would have done X if only I hadn't cracked my skull on the marble floor beneath my feet.
Head down, my brain trying to shut off all thought, I heard a sound in the distance. A bell, probably the same bell I had first heard when I was in Parisi's office then again on the hour every hour since I returned to the guest room.
It was midnight and I didn't know if the bell was on its ringing peal or its last. I raced back to the suitcases. In pulling out the cosmetic cases, I had also removed the outfit Parisi had draped over the bag before leaving me alone for the night to make my decision.
I wrapped the skirt around my waist and secured its clasp. My brain wasn't done warring with my emotions. The preoccupation made my fingers stupid as I secured the bustier.
The bell sounded again. Was that just three or had I drowned out more?
I rushed to the door of the suite, gripped the handle and froze.
Opening the door isn't a commitment, Nadine.
I nodded at myself. I could slam it shut if whatever awaited me in the hall seemed too freaky.
Everything I was perched on the sharp edge of indecision, waiting for a sign.
No sign came, nothing at all. No sign, no sound, no assistance.
No sound -- the bells had stopped.
Midnight had come and gone.
Too late, too late! My mind screamed at me as I yanked the door open and found my future waiting in front of me, its as yet explored contours framed by the sensual, expectant smiles of two men I had already encountered on my trip.
Franco and Benito Bassani.
********************
The brothers were dressed the same -- which was barely dressed at all. They wore leather sandals and the steel studded war skirts of Roman soldiers, the bl
ack leather cut into a dozen or more strips that revealed the absence of any undergarment whenever they moved.
The only difference between them was that Benito had replaced the discreet nose ring with a thicker, bigger ring that ended with two ball caps and a gap.
Stunned by their presence, I let each brother capture one of my wrists. They lead me through the expansive house. I couldn't keep track of the corridors or rooms we passed through, but whenever we were presented with a choice to go down or up, they chose down. The air became more humid and I thought I could smell the Venetian lagoon around us as salt water pinched my nose.
Every time my steps stalled, they coaxed me forward with tame caresses and soft murmuring until at least we came to a room of shadows and flickering candlelight. In the center of the room was a long, gilded bench covered in a metallic fabric of buttery yellow. Next to it on the floor rested a silver bowl with gold-foiled packets that answered the question I hadn't yet had the sense to ask.
Beyond the weak circle of light was darkness except for the dancing reflection of the candles' flames in a lattice of burnished metal that stood opposite the door. The smell of the bay was thick in the air, and, if I stayed motionless, I could hear the gentle lapping of water over rock. Caught in the loose embrace of the Bassani brothers, my body moved with the sound of the water.
Franco placed me on the bench. One of his long legs slid behind me as he straddled the seat. Fingertips cascaded down my back, the sensation of their light touch sparking out in a million directions. I arched my spine, my breasts pressing upward as my eyes drifted shut.
Sightless, I could hear everything. Franco taking slow, steady breaths from where he sat behind me, the brush of flesh against the stone floor as Benito knelt at the foot of the bench, the water somewhere on the other side of the screen, not just lapping over stone but dripping from where the moisture collected against a vaulted ceiling I could only guess at.
I heard other bodies breathing, harsher than the brothers who touched me but at a greater distance, one off to each of my sides so that I was the center point on a compass. Opening my eyes, my vision adjusted to the near darkness. The ceiling above me was ragged, so were the walls. The floor was smoother but uneven. I looked left and then right to the points were I heard the heavier respiration.
Two uneven alcoves emerged from the darkness, each one populated by a solitary shadow.
Was Parisi one of them?
Slowly, I shook my head, denying the possibility.
"Please, bella," Franco whispered in my ear as he removed the bustier. "Don't deny us. Our eyes have been starving for just a glimpse of you since we departed, our tongues for the faintest taste. Look at my brother, the bull, and see how much he aches."
My gaze drifted to Benito. He was on his knees in front of me, but his height ensured that I could see his cock fighting to part the leather strips of his war skirt and fully reveal itself.
"Can you see the ache?" Franco asked, his lips warm against my ear.
I nodded. Water licked at stone somewhere beyond the screen. Was Parisi there, watching through the metal lattice, remote and unattainable?
"You see how much he wants you, but still you deny him, bella." Franco punctuated the accusation with a kiss to the curve of my neck. "Are you a cruel beauty, then? A heartless queen?"
I shook my head. This was a game to them, a game to Parisi, something rehearsed and played over and over with one woman after another. Whatever cruelty existed on that island, it wasn't mine.
"Then open to him." Franco's fingers danced against the skirt that clung to my damp skin in long strips that had turned completely transparent.
The fabric peeled away at his insistence, but I kept my legs pressed together, shielding a more intimate view. Behind me, I felt the flex of Franco's muscles and the rub of his erection against my unguarded spine.
"Maybe you think he's unworthy, maybe his desire offends you?"
I tried to shake my head again. The man on his knees in front of me was a demi-god, all tanned muscle, smooth and hairless with a light sheen to the dark gold skin. His eyes were bottomless pools. But I couldn't do what they were asking.
The weight of Franco at my back vanished. He stepped past me and ordered his brother onto his hands and knees then made him crawl a few feet beyond the end of the divan so that I could see all of him.
"Strip and face the wall," Franco coldly ordered as he removed his own war skirt.
Benito complied, the change in position giving me a side view of his body. His cock was hard, its length and girth stirring fresh anxiety inside me. The tension pounding through me doubled again when Franco rolled his skirt with its viciously studded strips of leather facing outward into an impromptu flogger.
I whimpered in protest as Franco drew his arm behind him then whimpered again when the leather and steel smacked hard against Benito's broad shoulders. He grunted, the sound his only acknowledgement of pain, and then his cock swelled a little bigger.
Franco's head swiveled slowly in my direction. "Will you still deny him, bella?"
Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck! Would the blows continue until I relented or fled?
I looked at the door we had entered through. It was shut, made of cast iron, heavier than me and with its bolt slid through the catch.
Another smack of leather and steel against muscle and weathered skin yanked my focus back to the brothers. This time, Benito bore the pain without protest. His cock looked like it had grown again and his testicles hung big and low. A third blow landed and pre-cum began to drip from the head.
"Stop," I whispered. Horror gripped me, horror at the brutality, horror at the pleasure both brothers took in the act and, most of all, horror at how much wetter I had become while watching.
"Make me, bella," Franco demanded. He walked to the foot of the bench then called Benito to heel. "Open your legs and let him taste you or go hide in your room. But if you stay here all locked up and hiding from your desires, I'll beat him bloody."
Slowly my legs parted, my entire body shaking with some unnamable need. I no longer thought of Parisi or the men waiting in the alcoves. Even Franco with his harsh words was little more than a shadow in the room. My reality had collapsed down to me and Benito, the strong, bullish man who had subjugated himself for the chance to touch me. Up came his big hands, wrapping around the underside of my knees and resolutely dragging me toward him until my ass perched at the edge of the seat.
I couldn't breathe. My vision grayed at the edges. I felt like my whole body was whipping up and down in the effort to drag in the tiniest volume of air. Franco slid in behind me once more. I heard the rip of one of the foil packets and the rub of him putting the condom on. Then his hands secured my shoulders and he brought me to lean against his broad chest as Benito took his first lick, the metal balls that capped his nose ring moving up and down my clit with his tongue.
Gods! My spine curved sharply, my hips lifted. Benito's hands pressed hard against the top of my thighs to keep me in place.
"Bring the jars," Franco said. Shadows on two legs peeled away from the dark recesses of the alcoves. The two men that stepped into the circle of light, neither of them Parisi, were older than the brothers but solidly in their masculine prime. Each carried a jar with a wide open top and a linen cloth. They dipped their fingers in then started to stroke at my flesh as Benito groaned with his mouth against my pussy.
My hips surged again. Benito pushed me back down but his mouth didn't instantly fasten to my clit as it had before.
"Prepare her," he said to the man on my right as Benito sheathed himself with one of the condoms.
Slick fingers found the entrance to my cunt and pushed in, lubricating me with thick twists that left me thrashing and moaning.
"Lift that ass again and a finger's going in," Franco warned as my hips started to surge.
I realized his meaning and the danger a second too late. Benito's massive hands cupped my raised bottom. His strong arms supported my weight as th
e man on my left pushed a finger thickly coated with the jar's contents into my anus.
My first climax slammed hard and fast through me. I gasped for air, every muscle on my body seizing so tight I could hear the vibrations around me. Franco lifted his arm to dip into the man's jar, his flesh brushing mine with a kiss of wildfire. My bottom lifted again. I felt his hand between us, coating his cock, pushing it forward.
I moaned, incapable of speech, unable to warn him I wasn't ready, had never experimented with the hole he intended to fill. My legs trembled violently with the effort to keep my ass up until the words came back. His fingers probed, stretched, penetrated deeper than the man with the jar had dared. I collapsed slowly onto him, around him, my second orgasm wrenching me and wringing a scream from my throat.
"Shh, bella," Benito said, his hands atop my mound and around my hips to keep me from injuring myself with the jerking spasms.
When I quieted, he gently suctioned his mouth against my clit once more. Lazy, firm circles, tripled by the metal balls, kept going nowhere against my flesh over and over. The men with the jars placed them on the ground and knelt beside the bench.
They rubbed my body, their caresses mingling with gentle kneading. Fingers dipped down to replace Benito's mouth. That's when the bull began to prepare my cunt for the next intrusion. His fingers entered me, one then two then their twins on the opposing hand so that I had four fingers inside my pussy and Franco filling the greedy hole below.
A mouth sucked at each breast in between rough pinches. I felt the last of my sanity slip away. I didn't sense the two men fade into the background, only knew they were gone as Benito settled his muscular ass on the end of the bench, pushed my thighs to their maximum stretch and patiently began the process of feeding his monster cock into my pussy.
"Breathe, bella," Franco panted into my ear. He had one hand knotted in my hair and the other digging into my breast in an attempt to control the wild abandon that infected every joint and ligament within my body.
Pushing up, Franco sandwiched me between his and Benito's solid frames. I was impaled atop both men, my weight tugging at me, heightening my pleasure and ensuring pussy and ass swallowed them all the way down to the base of their cocks.