by Cora Reilly
Aria gripped her dress and I crossed my arms behind my back then leaned forward, bringing my face closer to her leg. I was supposed to grab the garter with my teeth, but before I did, I couldn’t stop myself from kissing the skin right below it. Aria sucked in a startled breath and I stifled a groan when her sweet scent drifted into my nose. My eyes darted up, but unfortunately the bunched up fabric barred my view of her panties.
I finally closed my teeth around the garter and dragged it down Aria’s leg until it fell to the floor. Aria lifted her foot and I grabbed the piece of clothing and stood with it clutched in my hand for everyone to see. Our guests applauded wildly.
“Bachelors,” I shouted. “Gather around. Maybe you’ll be the lucky one to marry next!”
It took a couple of minutes for everyone to come together, or for the mothers to drag their protesting teenage sons to the front.
Aria let out a bell-like laugh. Stunned by the first carefree sound I’d heard from her, I glanced her way. She was beaming at her younger brother Fabiano, who stood with his arms crossed among the men. Would she ever look that happy when she lived with me in New York?
Shoving the thought aside, I raised my arm and threw the garter at the men.
Of course my brother dove for it, shoving a few less motivated guys out of the way, and caught it.
“Any willing Outfit ladies out there that want to further the bond between our families?” he boomed, wiggling his eyebrows.
I chuckled. He knew as well as I did that it was difficult to find that kind of entertainment at our gathering. Most female guests were from our world and not outsiders, so they were firmly off-limits.
I wrapped my arm around Aria and she flinched. My good mood evaporated at once.
Forcing my face to stay calm, I watched as Matteo started dancing with Liliana, who looked ecstatic about being the center of attention. I pulled Aria against me since we were expected to have another dance. This time, she barely tensed. I glanced down at her blond head and the way her face was tilted toward my brother and her sister.
“If my brother married your sister, you’d have family in New York,” I said.
“I won’t let him have Lily,” Aria muttered, surprising me with the protective note in her voice.
“It’s not Lily he wants,” I said, glancing toward Gianna who was skulking at the fringes of the dance floor. Aria seemed shocked by my comment. Hadn’t she noticed the looks my brother had been giving her sister? Maybe she didn’t recognize desire on a man’s face. That would soon change.
When the first shouts rang out that suggested I bed Aria, I had to stop myself from jumping up, throwing her over my shoulder and carrying her to our room.
“You wed her, now bed her!” Matteo shouted, throwing his arms up and bumping into a chair.
I laughed at my brother’s antics and rose from my chair. Aria stood as well.
“Stain the sheets red!” Father shouted with a lewd grin. Ignoring him, I led Aria toward our bedroom under the applause and shouting of the other guests. Some of their comments made me want to punch them in the face, even if I intended to do everything they suggested, eventually. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt close to bursting from desire. I really hoped I could hold back like I’d promised myself.
Father and my uncles clapped my shoulder and back as I stopped with Aria in front of our bedroom door.
Aria was silent beside me, glancing down so I couldn’t see her face. I’d show her how much I wanted her. I shoved the door open and she slipped in. Finally mine.
CHAPTER 6
I slammed the door shut in Matteo’s face as he kept spewing suggestions of all the ways I could fuck Aria. If I didn’t have better things to do, I’d go outside and kick Matteo’s fucking ass. “Shut up, Matteo, and go find a whore to fuck,” I shouted.
He finally shut his fat mouth, or maybe he’d passed out. From the amount of booze he’d downed, I wouldn’t be surprised. Aria released a rushed breath behind me and I turned to her, my body already thrumming with desire. I’d had to watch her all evening in her sexy dress, not to mention the three years I’d spent waiting for her before. But tonight, the wait was finally over.
She was fucking gorgeous. Narrow waist, smooth skin, pink lips. I couldn’t help but wonder if her nipples would be the same color. Fuck. I needed her. I threw my jacket over the armchair. I really hoped she would be up for more than one fuck tonight. I didn’t think my cock would be satisfied after one round.
“When my father told me I was to marry you, he said you were the most beautiful woman the Chicago Outfit had to offer, even more beautiful than the woman in New York. I didn’t believe him,” I said. I hated that my father had been right, but damn it, in this case he’d been spot on. I walked toward Aria and grabbed her waist. She stilled completely, not meeting my gaze. I leaned down, inhaling her sweet scent. “But he told the truth. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and tonight you are mine.” I bent low to kiss her throat, but she kept ignoring me. Was this some kind of game she was playing? She should know that the games I usually played were of a darker variety, and I always won.
“No!” she hissed and stumbled away from me, her eyes wide and horror-struck.
What the hell did she mean? “No?”
She glared, but behind her bravado was another emotion I was too angry to read. “What? Have you never heard the word ‘no’ before?”
“Oh, I hear it often. The guy whose throat I crushed said it over and over and over again until he couldn’t say it anymore.”
She backed away. “So you’re going to crush my throat, too?”
She really knew how to push my fucking buttons. Did she really think that making me angry on our wedding night was the way to go? I’d sworn to myself that I would hold back for her. “No, that would defy the purpose of our marriage, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think my father would be happy if you hurt me,” she said haughtily.
“Is that a threat?” I asked quietly, feeling my pulse pound in my veins. I had to fight the urge to throw her on the bed and show her what I really wanted to do to her. Maybe she was more like her insolent brat of a sister, Gianna, than she’d let on. Maybe the shy, innocent act had been for show.
But then she dropped her gaze and I could see her shivering as she whispered, “No.”
Anger still simmered under my skin, and I wasn’t in the mood to let her off easy. “But you deny me what’s mine?”
“I can’t deny you something that you don’t have the right to take in the first place. My body doesn’t belong to you. It’s mine,” she said fiercely, eyes shooting daggers my way. I couldn’t believe her audacity.
I reached for her shoulder to pull her against my body and silence her with a kiss before she said anything else that drove me up the wall, but Aria flinched violently and clenched her eyes shut as if expecting a blow. I dropped my hand, stunned by her reaction. Did she think I’d hit her? I was a violent man with hardly any patience to spare, and my brutal reputation preceded me, but I’d sworn to myself that I’d never abuse my wife. I’d watched my father rape and beat my mother before she’d killed herself. I didn’t want to become him in that regard at least. In all other areas of my life, I was already too much like him. “I could take what I want,” I said, because I wasn’t sure what else to do. Aria didn’t need to know that it was an empty threat. While I could certainly follow through with it, I would never do it.
I hated my own confusion. I always knew what to do, but with Aria things were more complicated.
She peered up at me with her beautiful eyes. “You could. And I would hate you for it until the end of my days.”
Hate was the prevailing emotion in most marriages in our world, from what I knew. “Do you think I care about that? This isn’t a marriage of love. And you do already hate me. I can see it in your eyes.”
This discussion was a waste of time, anyway. We had our traditions. Both Aria and I were bound by them. I pointed at
the white sheets. “You heard what my father said about our tradition?” It was a ridiculous one. Not all women bled the first time, unless the man made sure to be rough, which some husbands actually did to guarantee the expected splotch of blood. I had absolutely no intention of being rough with her. I wouldn’t hurt her more than absolutely necessary, but I was a big guy. It would hurt, and she would bleed.
Aria walked away from me and toward the bed, looking down at it as if it were her doom. Had she thought she could talk me out of consummating our marriage if it weren’t for our tradition? Then she didn’t know me very well.
I walked up to her. She looked like a goddess. I couldn’t wait to get her out of her dress, to taste every inch of her. I put my hands on her naked shoulders. She was warm and soft, but she didn’t turn. I stifled my annoyance at her refusal to acknowledge my presence. I would be patient, even if she provoked me. I brushed my hands over her collarbones to the soft rise of her breasts. I could feel my cock responding to the feel of her perfect skin, to her tantalizing scent. Fuck, I burned to bury myself in her.
Something wet dropped on my hand. I didn’t have to see it to know it was a tear, a fucking tear. She was crying. I grabbed her shoulders and turned her around before I hooked my finger under her chin and tipped it up. Tears rolled down her cheeks. I knew some women could cry whenever they wanted, but the look in Aria’s eyes told me all I needed to know. She was terrified and hopeless. I was a good judge of human character—I had to be to keep my men in check. Aria wouldn’t fight me if I pushed her toward the bed, ripped her clothes off and took her. She’d lie back and let it happen. She would cry, but she wouldn’t refuse me, not anymore. She was mine for the taking. It was expected of me to take her, to make her mine. Tears had never weakened my resolve. But before now, those tears had never belonged to my wife, to the woman I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with.
I couldn’t fucking believe that the sight of my terrified wife got to me. I pulled away, cursing and so furious I could barely see straight. I punched the wall, glad for the blinding pain ripping through my knuckles that grounded me. I was going to be Capo in a few years. I had killed, blackmailed, tortured, but I couldn’t take my wife’s virginity against her will. What did that make me? Father would call me a pussy. Maybe he’d decide I wasn’t fit to be his heir if I couldn’t even fuck my wife. But I knew I wasn’t growing soft, not in general. I could go out now and kill every fucking member of the Chicago Outfit without a flicker of remorse. Hell, I could go down now and slice my father’s throat, and I’d fucking enjoy it.
Of course, we still needed to make sure everyone believed I had fucked Aria. There was only one way to do it. I turned back to my shaking wife and pulled out my knife. Not only was I denying myself the pleasure of being inside her tight pussy tonight, but I was also going to bleed for her.
The thought didn’t sit well with me, and not because I cared about a cut. I’d suffered through much worse injuries, but I couldn’t help but feel like my action would give Aria too much power over me. But I knew I’d already made up my mind.
She was watching me with barely hidden trepidation and, when I moved toward her, she flinched. Again. She expected the worst because I was a monster. I cut my arm, put my knife down on the table, and grabbed a glass to catch a few droplets of blood. Aria’s surprise would have been amusing, if I wasn’t still mad at myself. I headed into the bathroom to add a few drops of water to the blood, so it would look convincing. I hadn’t been with a virgin before. My tastes had always run toward the rough, so experienced women had seemed the better choice, but I’d witnessed a few presentations of the sheets over the years, and I knew what was expected.
Aria hadn’t moved from her spot when I headed back to the bedroom and toward the bed where I spread a few drops of the pink liquid. From the corner of my eye, I could see her approaching me carefully. She stopped a few feet from me, hope mingling with confusion on her pretty face. Some girls were ugly criers. I didn’t think Aria could ever look anything less than stunning. The deep blush on her cheeks made me hate myself even more for my weakness. I could have had her beautiful body beneath me tonight, but instead I was painting a fucking picture with my own blood for the fucking furies of my family.
“What are you doing?”
“They want blood. They get blood.”
“Why the water?”
“Blood doesn’t always look the same.”
“Is it enough blood?”
What had the women of her family told her about first times? “Did you expect a blood bath? It’s sex, not a knife fight.”
She bit her lip again and an image of her doing that in the throes of passion slipped into my mind.
“Won’t they know that it’s your blood?” she asked quietly. She looked too damn gorgeous with that fucking blush and small, hopeful smile. I wanted to see if I could make her lovely blush spread all over her body.
I needed a fucking drink. If I didn’t get laid today, I’d at least get drunk. Fucking waste of a night. “No.”
I poured myself scotch into the glass with the blood-water mix. Aria didn’t take her eyes off me as I threw my head back and downed my drink. She gave me a disgusted look.
“What about a DNA test?”
Was she serious? “They’ll take me at my word. Nobody will doubt that I’ve taken your virginity the moment we were alone. They won’t, because I am who I am.” I had a reputation. I’d never shied back from doing something I was supposed to do. So why wasn’t I getting Aria out of her dress to fuck her?
Fear filled her face and she took a step back as if she could read my mind and was thinking of running.
That was fucking why. While I enjoyed seeing fear on the faces of my enemies and occasionally my own soldiers, the idea of having Aria lie beneath me with a similar expression didn’t turn me on at all. I didn’t want her terrified of me.
“No,” I said. “That’s the fifth time you’ve shied back from me tonight.” I put my glass down and grabbed my knife from the table before I walked toward her. She looked like she wanted to bolt. “Did your father never teach you to hide your fear from monsters? They give chase if you run.”
She didn’t say anything, but I could see her start shaking when she peered up at me. Did she think I’d fucking cut her? If I really was that kind of monster, we wouldn’t be standing here. She’d be sprawled out on the bed, crying her eyes out because I’d fucked her.
“That blood on the sheets needs a story,” I told her, hoping to fucking calm her, but she flinched again. “That’s six times.” I brought the knife down to the edge of her dress, making sure the blade didn’t touch her unblemished skin. I sliced the fabric slowly until the dress finally fell apart and pooled around her heels. “It’s tradition in our family to undress the bride like this.” Aria was left in nothing but a tight corset and white lacy panties. Damn it. She was fucking sex on legs. And then she flinched again. “Seven,” I said, wishing I could tear my eyes away from her gorgeous body. The rise of her perfect small breasts, her narrow waist, the thin fabric of her panties barely hiding her pussy.
“Turn around.”
Fuck. Aria’s back was even more tantalizing than her front. What was that thing she was wearing? She had a fucking bow over her perfectly round butt, practically inviting me to unpack her. It would be so easy to rip down her flimsy panties and bury myself in her. She smelled sweet and perfect, and she was mine, only mine. I tugged at the bow. It would be so easy.
“You already bled for me,” she whispered in a small voice. “Please don’t.” My wife begged me not to hurt her. Maybe I was a monster. I ran my knuckles over the silky skin of her back, needing to touch her, before I cut through her corset.
She held onto it before I could catch a glimpse of her breasts. I wrapped my own arm around her, pulling her against me. She gasped and stiffened when my cock dug into her lower back, and the blush across her cheeks deepened further.
“Tonight you beg me to spare you, but o
ne day you’re going to beg me to fuck you. Don’t think because I don’t claim my rights tonight that you aren’t mine, Aria. No other man will ever have what belongs to me. You are mine.” She nodded quickly. “If I catch a man kissing you, I’ll cut out his tongue. If I catch a man touching you, I’ll cut off his fingers, one at a time. If I catch a guy fucking you, I’ll cut off his dick and his balls, and I’ll feed them to him. And I’ll make you watch.” She knew I wasn’t kidding. She’d seen what I had done to her bastard of a cousin years ago. And that was nothing.
I let her go. Her proximity was giving me ideas I really didn’t need right now. I walked toward the chair and got myself another drink as Aria disappeared into the bathroom. I heard the lock click into place and had to bite back a laugh. My wife was hiding from me behind a locked door. Everyone in this fucking mansion was probably getting more action than me tonight. Damn it.
I had downed three more glasses of scotch when Aria finally emerged. This was fucking torture. She was wearing a flimsy, see-through nightgown that didn’t hide anything. Was she fucking kidding? “That’s what you choose to wear when you don’t want me to fuck you?”
Her eyes darted between the bed and me. I didn’t need to read her mind to know that she still didn’t trust me. In that outfit, she was probably right not to trust any man. “I didn’t choose it.”
Of course she hadn’t. “My stepmother?” That woman was a meddlesome sadistic bitch.
She gave a quick nod. I was sick of her terrified expression. I set down my glass and stood. As usual, Aria flinched. I didn’t even bother with a comment. I was too fucking annoyed. Without another word, I headed into the bathroom and let the door fall shut behind me. I got out of my clothes and stepped into the shower. Under the warm water, I jerked off to images of Aria’s delicious body. I felt like a fucking teenage boy, and even back then I’d never had to use my hand when I shared the room with a gorgeous girl. Shooting my cum at the shower tiles didn’t give me any kind of satisfaction, but at least my balls didn’t feel like they were about to burst anymore.