Precisely. “But you showed me your back all through dinner while you chatted with the redhead.”
“Miss Barton?” And then Paolo did something terrible. He smiled.
His smiles were rare as precious gems. That he would smile now, in reaction to her jealousy, sent a charge of rage through Mirabella’s limbs. She leapt from the seat and wheeled on him, swinging her hand for the slap he so richly deserved.
It connected, and the force of the blow turned his head. When he turned back to her, his eyes were full of fire.
Mirabella lifted her chin and held her ground. “I dare you,” she snarled.
His hand came up, and she didn’t flinch. He grabbed her chin and snarled, “English, Mirabella.”
He had her in such a grip that had she wished to reply, she would have had to do so through clenched teeth. But she didn’t wish to reply. She simply glared.
“I. Don’t. Hurt. Women,” he whispered with his mouth a scant inch from hers. “But I owe you for that slap. So what should I do? Another deal?”
“Fuck your deals,” she growled as best she could—in Italian. He could shove his English all the way up his ass.
Seeking a more effective way to hurt him, she gritted, “They laugh at you, you know. Those pretty, bland people in their big stone houses—they let you come and put you in the corner so you can’t hear them laughing at you.”
She’d wanted to hurt him, and she’d succeeded. A crack in his composure showed shock and offense—and then a rage as bright and hot as Mirabella herself felt.
And then it was gone, and he was stone again. “You’re behaving like a child. I should treat you like one.”
With that, he swooped in and heaved her up over his shoulder. The corset cut into her belly and stole her breath so she couldn’t shout or do more than hammer ineffectively at his back.
He brought her to the bed and sat, swinging her around so she lay over his lap.
He meant to spank her.
Realizing that, Mirabella fought, trying to find something to snatch with her nails or kick at with her legs, but she was constrained by his body and her clothes, the way his legs turned the corset stays into knives.
Her skirts flew up, and she fought harder, to no avail. He yanked down her silk pants. When her garters stopped him from taking them as far as he wanted, he popped the garters and then used both hands to tear her pants apart, exposing her bottom completely.
She felt his hand there, caressing, but she knew what he meant to do.
She gasped, “No! You say you don’t hurt women!”
“If you think this is the kind of hurt I meant, you haven’t been paying attention, Mirabella.” He set his hand firmly on one cheek. “Tell me you’re sorry. Beg my forgiveness.”
If he hadn’t used the word ‘beg,’ she might have. But her untoward position and her trepidation about what awaited her had neither tempered her pride nor cooled her temper.
“Fuck you.”
He struck her. The flat of his hand cracked sharply on her bottom.
It hurt—the sting was a lick of fire over her flesh—but Mirabella didn’t make a sound.
“Beg me, Bella,” he said again. She kept quiet.
Another crack. This one hurt a bit more, left a burn that lasted a bit longer. And something else, too—something that caught her attention and made her marvel: a deep heat flared to life low in her belly.
When Paolo said, “I want to hear you beg,” she ignored him. His hand hit her bottom a third time, and now the fire held even after he’d removed his hand. And the fire in her belly flared bright.
That heat was desire. What he was doing—hitting her—had kindled a bonfire of arousal inside her, a fire growing so quickly and hugely that when she felt the light wind of his hand lifting again, her hips jerked and lifted her bottom to meet it.
Oh, it hurt, and oh, suddenly she wanted more. Her sex slicked and quivered.
She couldn’t get enough air to breathe, she felt dizzy, hanging over his lap, yet she wanted him to do what he was doing more. Never had she wanted something like this. She should feel rage and humiliation, she should want him to die for this, but she could only think of the next one.
When it landed, she moaned.
“Bella?” His voice rasped, and she heard his desire in it. Then she felt his hand between her legs, his fingers slipping through her folds, and she moaned again, rocking into his touch.
“Please,” she gasped, but she was begging for something other than forgiveness.
“Ah, Bella, this makes you wet?” he groaned—and spanked her again, the hardest yet, and immediately followed it by pushing his fingers into her.
She cried out—she couldn’t help it. What he was doing was by far the most intense, complex, confusing pleasure she’d ever known. Her bottom was aflame, but it was nothing compared to the fire inside her.
His fingers left her, and she moaned in anticipation of the blow. It came, the crack like an explosion, and Mirabella was suddenly on the teetering edge of ecstasy.
When Paolo pushed his fingers into her again, he found a place within in her that was like oil on her fire, and she came, shattering into a thousand pieces as his fingers plunged roughly into her. She was still dizzy, still could hardly breathe, but now she was also wild with bliss, shoving her body onto his hand, countering his thrusts so he’d reach so deeply into her it hurt. The room was full of odd, bestial sounds, grunts and groans and howls, and she thought dimly that it was her voice making them, but she didn’t care. She came for an eternity, and Paolo held her at those maddening heights relentlessly, until she was spent and nearly weeping with the power of her release.
“Stop, please,” she finally moaned, and he stopped at once. After he pulled his fingers from her, he pressed a kiss to each tender globe of her bottom and arranged her gown to cover her again.
He eased her up from her ignominious position and settled her on his lap again, this time so she was seated, her sore bottom set carefully on his thigh. He pulled her into his arms and held her.
Beneath her, inside his trousers, his sex was hard and hot, but he said nothing of it. He simply held her. Mirabella rested her head on his shoulder and took the comfort. In this position, her spinning head began to settle, and her wits, too. What had they just done?
She decided she didn’t care.
“Are you hurt, Bella?” he asked quietly.
She considered the question. Her bottom burned. If he had only spanked her, she might have said yes. If he had only spanked her, she might have been humiliated. She might have sought a way to get even.
But he hadn’t only spanked her. He’d given her great pleasure as well. She thought she might want it to happen again someday.
“You didn’t hurt me,” she answered truthfully. “Not here.”
Seeming to understand her meaning, he said, “I wasn’t flirting with Miss Barton, Bella. I wouldn’t dishonor you like that.”
“Hmpf,” was all that statement deserved.
He chuckled softly and kissed her head. “I wasn’t, but I must say, I like you jealous.”
“Fuck you, Paolo,” she said without heat.
Another chuckle. “I hope you will, in a moment. But to be clear, I spoke to Miss Barton so much because she was full of gossip tonight, and that could be useful to me. She was angry, I think, to be placed where she was.”
“Next to you.”
He sighed. “Yes. You’re right. They won’t ever respect me enough to allow me into their circle. They only let us in enough to say upheld their part of our deal. I thought I could demand what I wanted with pressure and influence, but I think I’d have to kill them to get it.”
Mirabella lifted her head. “You mean to kill New York society?” She knew he was bold, but that was beyond boldness. It was madness.
“No, love. I won’t kill the entire population of New York’s upper crust. I’ll let them have their silly parties and stop giving them cause to, as you say, laugh at us.”
/> “Why do you want that, anyway? They’re boring, and their food is terrible. No one speaks truth and everyone grasps for something. Two nights is all I need to take their measure, and they come up short.”
“I agree. But they are the people who rule this city. I need their power to do what I want.”
She leaned back so she could look straight into his eyes. “Do you? It seems to me you already have great power. Those men fear you enough to give you invitations to their homes. They don’t want you there, and they find ways to make sure you know it, but the invitations still come. You’ve made them bend. Why try to fit in with them? Why not build a castle to suit you and show them you don’t want what they hold so precious. Show them you don’t need your power and success to look like theirs.”
Paolo studied her for a long span of quiet. His expression was typically impassive, except for a crease between his brows that showed his concentration. He was thinking through her words. Mirabella sat and watched, and let him think.
“You make some sense,” he finally said.
“I know. I’m very sensible.”
He laughed—a full sound rising up from deep in his chest. It was hoarse but not stilted, and his expression broke wide open for a moment. The first instance Mirabella had ever seen in this man of full, unguarded amusement. She didn’t care that it was at her expense.
“Your laugh make good music,” she said in English, to please him. “Even a laugh at me.”
He brushed the tip of her nose with his finger and spoke in Italian. “The woman flying at me tonight in a jealous rage, the woman who stood in front of all those idiots and sang like she was on stage at La Scala—that woman doesn’t strike me as very sensible.”
Self-consciousness flicked at her. “I make shame for you when I sing?”
“No, Bella. You were magnificent. They didn’t deserve you.”
“No,” she agreed and rested her head on his shoulder again. “Tonight you stab a man.”
“I did.”
“For me.”
“For you.”
“Paolo?”
“Yes, Bella?”
“Fuck me.”
XIX
Holding her close, Paolo stood up from the bed. He eased her onto her feet before him and turned her to face away.
Mirabella was surprised to discover that standing hurt her enflamed bottom a bit, and the brush of her silk underclothes seemed rough as a rasp.
But that discomfort faded away when she felt Paolo’s fingers brushing her hair forward on her shoulders, and unfastening the buttons he’d fastened for her earlier in the evening. Methodically, he eased his fingers down the line of buttons, popping each one carefully until her bodice sagged and she held it to her chest. When his fingers hooked into the top of the gown and tugged, she let go, and the velvet fell into an emerald puddle around her feet.
Next Paolo loosened her petticoat and let it fall away. He popped her front garters and slipped her stockings down her legs. The sensation of him moving behind her, bending and crouching, offering his hands to help her step away from her garments, was powerfully intimate. He’d undressed her before, but never quite like this. It seemed to her his most gentle gesture yet.
Finally, he untied her corset and loosened the laces. At the first touch of reprieve from that binding, Mirabella took in a luxurious deep breath and let it out on a relieved sigh. She raised her arms, and he lifted the corset from her.
“The marks here are dark red,” he murmured, and his fingers brushed lightly over the sore spots from the corset stays. Those spots were tender enough that she flinched slightly from his touch, and he stopped. “You’ve no need to wear it so tight. You’re slim.”
Mirabella turned to see him over her shoulder and smiled. “Maria helped me with it. She doesn’t like me.”
He answered her smile with a frown. “She doesn’t?”
“No. She likes you.”
He cocked his head. Mirabella waited for him to understand. When he did, his brows went up. “She’s jealous? Really?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t know how she feels. I see the way she looks at you, and you’re not a stupid man. Usually,” she added.
He let her dig roll over him. “I took her in off the streets. She thinks I’m more than I am.” His hands hooked over her shoulders and kneaded gently. “But I didn’t think she’d act out against you. That won’t stand.”
Mirabella set a hand on his. “Don’t speak to her of it, Paolo, or do anything against her for it. All she did was tighten my corset a bit too much. This is a thing between women where men don’t belong.”
He focused his attention in her shoulder, his hand there, her hand on his. Then he leaned down and put his mouth on her fingers. Mirabella tipped her head to rest on his, and they stood thus, her now nude, him still mostly dressed, and reveled in a quiet intimacy.
When she made to turn toward him, he stopped her and stood straight, drawing her tightly to him, so she felt the soft fabric of his shirt and trousers, and the solid heat of his body beneath them, against her bare back. A hard ridge pressed to her lower back and sore bottom, and she rocked her hips slightly, delighting in the tender ache and the fresh memories it brought, and in his guttural groan.
His hands slipped down from her shoulders, forward over her chest, until each one had possession of a breast. He cupped gently, and Mirabella arched into his touch. His fingers closed on her nipples, a light pinch at first, steadily tightening, then, when she moaned and pressed herself more firmly up, he pulled. Their spanking session seemed to have emboldened him to be a bit less gentle, to push her pleasure to its edge.
Mirabella loved it. She thought she could achieve bliss again from merely his attention to her breasts this way. She raised her arms and hooked them back, over her head, sinking her hands into his hair and holding on.
“You like this,” he rasped, tucking his face to the crook of her shoulder as his fingers stretched and pinched. “When it hurts a little.”
“Yes, yes,” she moaned. “More.”
He pulled until her nipples ached, with this wild pleasurepain and the huge and growing need it made.
Then it was gone. He let her go, pulled her hands from his head, spun her, lifted her, laid her on the bed, all before she could gather her wits from their wanton scatter.
Standing beside the bed, staring down at her, Paolo stripped, roughly, without a care for his buttons or seams, until he was as naked as she. As always, Mirabella gloried in the sight of him.
His body was beautiful. Scarred badly, so many marks of violence done to him, but absolutely beautiful nonetheless. He was tall, broad of shoulder and slim of hip, and astonishingly muscular. Not massive like a longshoreman, but powerful, the swell and contour of each muscle showing clearly in his skin. The hair on his chest was thick but not heavy. Short, dark curls spanned the space between his shoulders, tapering to a thin line below his navel, an arrow pointing to the delights below.
And his cock was indeed delightful. Mirabella had given away her virginity more than four years ago, but she hadn’t been with many men—Paolo was only the fourth. She hadn’t seen many cocks, beyond the tiny ones on paintings and statues throughout the museums and churches of northern Italy. Paolo’s was by far the best—thick and long, with a slight curve to his left. It didn’t fit inside her completely, but the way it fit hit every good spot.
But the most wonderful thing about him in a moment like this—his face. Only now, in the heat of physical intimacy, did Paolo show his emotions. Mirabella hadn’t yet come to understand whether he allowed his true self to show in this situation, or if he simply had no control in it, but at a time like this, Mirabella looked into his eyes and felt loved.
He stretched out beside her, turned to loom over her, slipped his strong leg between her thighs, drew it up so it pressed with steady weight on her sex. She moaned and flexed into that pressure, felt the slick slide of her ready body against the hair over his thigh and moaned again.
“Ah, Bella, what a marvel you are,” he murmured in Italian. Then he dipped low, took a nipple into his mouth and sucked. She was still tender from the sensual torment of his fingers, and she arched up with a cry, grabbing fistfuls of his hair to hold him in place as she rocked her body against his in search of another release.
He let her for a few minutes, devoting himself to the care of her breasts, leaving her to use his thigh as she would—but then, as she began to thrash with the nearness of ecstasy, he slid his leg from her and lifted his mouth from her chest.
She moaned in protest and reached for him, meaning to put him back where he belonged, but he grabbed her waist and flipped her over. Her head slipped between the pillows, but before she could shift to a different position, Paolo was on her, sliding his body along hers until his mouth was at her bottom. The flesh there still burned with a heat so sharp she felt sure it glowed.
He blew on her, a cool, soothing gust over each globe, then laved her skin gently with his tongue before he blew again, cooling her more. Mirabella moaned in a pleasure as emotional as it was carnal. He was taking care of her.
Again and again, he repeated the care, kissing and licking her tender skin, blowing cool breaths over the wetness, easing the sting while at the same time pulling her body tighter and tighter with the need of him.
Finally, he was finished. He left her bottom, trailed feather-light kisses up her spine, using his body to caress hers as he moved upward to her shoulder, brushing her hair away so he could press a kiss at her ear.
“Ti amo,” he whispered—and then he was away, grabbing her by the waist, flipping her over again, so quickly that Mirabella doubted what she heard.
When she stared up at him again, she saw the man she always saw in bed with her—open and with her, full of fiery desire. For weeks, she’d read love into that look, even if he didn’t recognize it, didn’t trust it, didn’t believe it himself.
Now, he’d said the words, in the language she preferred.
He had, hadn’t he? Or had she, in her erotic stupor, merely dreamt it?
Il Bestione (The Golden Door Duet Book 2) Page 23