by Coco Miller
Okay…maybe that’s a damn lie.
Chapter Eleven
Victoria
If my poor neglected vagina could talk, she’d tell you that in our minds we have already fucked Umberto in the huge spa tub and on every flat surface in this house (and there is a fuck ton of square footage when it comes to counter space in this condo).
He is sinfully hot and I am drawn to him in a lethal way that should be against the law. He can’t know that though. I hope I’m pulling off my whole “disinterested” thing, because in actuality I want to spread my legs for him every time I lay eyes on him.
I tell myself that carbs will erase the feelings of desire I have for Umberto Bova. I trot myself straight into the kitchen and whip up a big bowl of noodles and sauce and pile a dessert plate with a little bit of everything.
He has some big fancy-ass cappuccino maker in the kitchen that I want to get my hands on too, but honestly, that feels too much like slapping on my apron and calling myself Destiny. I don’t want to be Destiny tonight. I want to be the girl who is watching Netflix and feeding my face until I am disgustingly full. Ridding myself of lustful thoughts.
Umberto has other plans, however. He comes out to the living room, changed into new clothes. He has a much more casual look of jeans and a tight-fitting white cotton shirt that shows every ounce of muscle in his well-defined arms. He has ink tattooed on his forearms and even on some of his fingers.
He sits down next to me and reaches for a cupcake but pauses when he glances over and sees me slurping noodles unabashedly beside him on the white sofa. At first, I think he’s gonna give me shit for eating red sauce on his white furniture, but he cocks a brow at me and licks his lips.
“You made that?” he asks.
“I sure did.” I shove a big bite in my mouth. “Mmm, so good.”
“You can cook Italian food?”
“I can cook anything. I spent my childhood chasing chefs from all over the world around.” I roll my eyes at him. “But you probably already know that since you have been spying on me and stuff.”
“I didn’t actually.” He rubs his forehead and watches me devour my food. And then he laughs. “You’re such a mystery to me, Victoria Holt. Even with all the info I have about you; you’re nothing like what I keep expecting to find.”
“What exactly do you know?”
He sighs a little. “Share with me a bite of your pasta, and I might feel inclined to share, too.”
“Lean in close,” I warn him. “Don’t want to ruin whatever animal hide this expensive ass couch is made out of.”
“It’s not an animal, number one. And number two, if you stain the couch I’ll just buy another one. I don’t give a fuck about material things. Eh, for the most part.”
He leans in as I twirl a forkful of pasta to feed him carefully. Watching him wrap his succulent lips around the noodles. It’s like food porn.
“Then why have such a fancy home? And on Billionaire's row of all places?” I start to laugh, but he does not.
Umberto chews thoughtfully as he stares at me. His tongue darting around his lips. “You honestly cooked that food? No lies?”
“Want more?” I grin.
“I want the whole fucking bowl, pretty girl. Pass it over.”
“Nope. We had a deal, mister.”
He sighs hard. “Fine. Okay. Jesus. Let’s just say there's someone in your circle that owes me a debt, and I’m not a very nice guy when I’m not paid on time.”
I shrug my shoulders. “What does that have to do with me? And I don’t have a circle, so that can’t even be true. I literally go to school and work, and there is no in-between. I’m a med student. We don’t get to have lives or circles. We don’t even get to sleep or eat.”
“My sources say differently.”
“Then you need to find new ones because they are wrong.”
“Yeah?” He challenges. “So you don’t know a guy named Dema Holt?”
Hearing him say my father’s name jumpstarts my heart like I just got hit by a lightning bolt. My face must say it all.
Umberto grins a little. “Yeah, I thought so.”
“How do you know my father?”
“The real question is how do I not know him. He owes practically everyone in New York something.”
Umberto curls his finger at me, silently asking for another bite for him to keep talking. I blink rapidly out of my daze and oblige, feeding him a big twirl of spaghetti.
He chews carefully and then says, “I don’t like handing out loans without insurance, but sometimes I am willing to take that chance based on what I need in return.”
“What did you want my father to do for you?”
“That’s not a question I’m going to answer regardless of how fucking incredibly good your cooking is. Next.”
“Uh, thank you? And you still haven’t explained what the hell I have to do with any of this. If you did your homework like you should have, you would know that I don’t even talk to my father. I haven’t talked to him in years.”
“I know that now. Still, it doesn’t change anything.”
“It changes everything. Do you think he’ll care that you have me here?”
“Yes.”
I scoff. “I have news for you, Umberto Bova. My father hasn’t given a damn a single day in his life about me. So you're going about getting whatever he owes you back in a very stupid way.”
“Don’t get angry with me, Victoria. Sometimes things start one way and then end up on a route you never even planned. Sometimes a change in plans is good.”
“Good? I don’t call being trapped with a criminal, with a damn gangster good, Umberto.”
“Is that really all you think I am?” he asks, staring deeply at me with his dark eyes.
My heart stutters as I feel a stab of pain when he looks pained by my silence. I open my mouth to speak but can’t find the words. Umberto groans a little.
“Do you remember the nice gentlemen who got off the elevator after our night together?”
I block out everything he brings to the surface when he mentions the night we had the most amazing sex of my entire life. Ugh. “No, I completely forgot.” I roll my eyes. “Of course I remember. I’m not you. I don’t get shot at every day of my life or threatened to be stabbed. Well, maybe in the fall when we run out of pumpkin spice syrup for our signature lattes, but bitches take their caffeine and seasons of weather very seriously these days.”
His mood quickly changes as he laughs hard and naturally, and it honestly warms me. I love that sound and feeling coming out of him. I love that I’m the reason for that sound. Umberto, on the other hand, looks as if he is embarrassed about it.
He probably doesn’t do that often, I imagine. Laugh. I mean, how could he? He doesn't exactly live in a world full of comedians and humor or even humorous situations. I don’t imagine threatening lives or stealing shit comes with many jokes.
He grows more serious and picks at the top of another cupcake, peeling away the icing.
“Those men don’t take insurance policies, Victoria, and they damn sure don’t take well to being ripped off.”
“Are you saying that I was their target?”
His stare turns severe. “Well they damn sure weren’t coming for me, love.”
Chapter Twelve
Victoria
“Are... are they still trying to kill me? Is that what they want to do?”
“You’re safe here,” is all he says. “You’ll always be safe with me.”
“So that’s why... that’s why you brought me here. You didn’t kidnap me... you... you saved me.”
He nods ever so slightly. “There’s still a debt to collect from your father, however. Two, actually.”
“You’re going to fix what he owes those men?”
“I’m going to protect what is mine.”
“And you’re not going to hurt him?”
“Do you care about that?”
“We may have a fucked up relationshi
p but he’s still my father.”
“Yes, of course pretty girl. I won’t hurt Dema.”
“And you don’t expect any kind of payment from me right?
“What.” His voice drops an octave.
“Umberto . . .”
“Do you honestly want to leave?” He challenges.
He tips to sit forward and pulls something from his back pocket. Umberto offers me his key to the elevator. I don’t reach for it, and he places it down on the table between the blueberry muffins and chocolate chip pancakes.
“Go ahead. Leave. You can even have a security detail go with you if you’d like. You’ll be safe with them watching you. I’m not even throwing you to the wolves, Victoria. You’re free. Fly away if you want to, little bird. Take your cupcake too.”
I chuckle a little. “You know you want me to leave the cupcakes, Umberto.”
“Fuck yeah, I want you to leave the cupcakes. I didn’t say you could take them all.”
I smile at him, but he just waves me off. “Go ahead. Really.”
“Okay.”
“Good. Bye.”
“Fine.”
“Say bye, Victoria.”
“Bye. I’m going.”
“Why are you still sitting then?”
“Just thinking about how I’m gonna take the cupcakes and not ruin the icing. I mean, I’ll leave you the two you finger-fucked to death, but I’m taking the rest.”
He bursts out with laughter again as he looks at the poor innocent little cupcakes he ripped all the icing off of as we talked.
“You really are something else, Holt. Damn it.” Umberto stands and grabs the key from the table. He walks over to the elevator doors and swipes his key. The doors part instantly because he’s made of that kind of magic, and then he grins at me. “I have Tupperware or Ziplock baggies. Pick one.”
Is he... is he really challenging me right now? I crack up laughing but then say, “I’d prefer the Tupperware, but that usually requires returning it. So I’ll take the Ziplock bag, and I’ll be sure to recycle it when I’m done.”
I walk to the kitchen, grab the plate of vanilla cupcakes, and shove them at him.
“Fine,” he says. Umberto packs up my cupcakes. “Anything else you’d like to take in a doggie bag, Victoria?” He’s too close to me now though. His tight white shirt makes me want to grab hold of him and kiss the hell out of his sexy lips.
No. Hell no. Stop that right now. You’re about to be free of this mess. You can leave. He said so. You can leave.
“Nope.” I smile up at him and tug the cupcakes out of his hands. “I’m good. I have everything I want, right here.” I shake the bag at him, and he growls. It goes right to my most sensitive spots. It’s like he knows exactly what to do to turn me on. I swallow hard, and I think he sees that I’m faltering. Umberto steps closer.
“You don’t look like you have everything you want, Victoria. Make sure before you leave because once you step through those doors, that’s it. You can’t come back. I don’t do charity work for the same person twice in one lifetime, pretty girl.”
Oh hell no, he didn’t. “Fuck you, Bova,” I spit.
“Try me.”
“You wish I would. Don’t you?” I step closer and brush the front of his jeans, against the bulge I see poking out. He sucks air through his teeth before he clears his throat.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I do that?”
Umberto rips the baggie from my hands and crashes his lips against mine, tightly gripping my hair as he holds me to him. And I fall. I fall so completely and irrevocably into him that I will never resurface as the same woman I started out as. His kiss has changed from the first time and even from the night we had together. His kiss is pure ownership, pure need, and desire.
I feel his desperation for me to stay. I feel how much he cares and wants me, beyond just my body but the part of me that no one has ever had or ever known before. The real me. The girl I was born to be and have always hidden under the surface out of fear or shame. I don’t have to worry about him, and I can finally be free to just live as the woman I am, like the queen I was born to become. I feel like soaring as he wraps me tightly in his arms and deepens our kiss, slowing it down to a crawl so we can truly savor this moment and all the real sweetness it holds, something so much better and more satisfying than the ones I baked.
“Oh, Umberto,” I sigh between our kisses.
He groans. “Baby, bring those fucking lips back over here.”
We stumble and fall, sending a pile of baking sheet pans I had not yet put away crashing to the floor as he lifts me up on the counter and spreads my legs. I arch my back and let my eyes roll back in my head as I feel him pull my panties to the side and shove his tongue inside of me. He eats me out until I beg for mercy, and then sweeps me roughly into his arms. Kissing me all the way to his room.
I haven’t been in his room yet. The door requires his fingerprint, and he fumbles around for the pad to press, making me laugh and forcing him to break our kiss in order to get it right.
“Fucking piece of shit thing,” he growls.
“Slow down,” I giggle, kissing his cheek.
The door unlocks, and he does anything but slow down, which only makes me laugh harder. We land on the bed, and he crawls over me, kissing my stomach and neck as he murmurs sweetly in my ear.
“Tell me your mine. Say it, Victoria. I need you to say it.”
“Mmm, Umberto, I’m yours. I’m all yours. I feel like my truest self with you.”
He kisses me hard. “I’m yours if you want me, Victoria Holt.”
“I want you so badly,” I whisper. “All of you.”
“Baby,” he dips to my neck and kisses a line right down to my breasts, ripping away my top and exposing my bare tits to him. I arch my back and beg for him to suck on my nipples because his lips are heavenly. My nipples are naturally sensitive, and I love having my tits sucked on, but no one has ever really done it like he does, grabbing hold of both of my breasts, mashing them tightly together and going from one side to the other, sucking hard as he teases me with his perfect white teeth. I could almost come from him toying with me in this way.
“Fuck me. Please. Now. I want you inside of me so badly, baby.”
“Fuck yes, Victoria. God, when you beg like that, you turn me rock fucking hard.”
I push his jeans away with my hands and then pump him in my hand. He leans in and kisses my mouth, pushing me back down to the plush pillows under my head before he thrusts his hips forward, piercing me with his big cock. And damn, I almost forgot how big he is until he is fully seated inside of me and fucking me hard, giving me all he’s got.
I take him to the hilt and cry out from how good it feels every time he hits my G-spot like he has a map to it no other man I’ve had sex with has ever possessed before. I push at his shoulders, and he complies, letting me up as we keep our lips locked together.
“What do you want, love?” he whispers.
“I want to ride you.” I shove him down, and he laughs as he pulls me onto his hips as he lies back. His dick is so thick and hard as I take him in my hand and guide him to my entrance. I sink easily down on his cock and cry out as he fills me up, stretching me with his girth.
“Fuck baby,” he groans, gripping my hips his fingers. “You’re so tight and wet.”
I bounce on him, swiveling my hips and allowing my clit to slide up and down across his lower stomach, those beautiful rippling abs that are so hot. My hands palm his strong chest as it heaves. Umberto twists his fingers up in my hair, grabbing a thick section as if it were a rope and pulls my neck back, exposing my skin to his mouth to be devoured in hot wet kisses before moving his grip to my tits.
We both come hard and with each other, and as our high tries to find its way back down to Earth, Umberto lands the most tender and delicate kiss on my lips, brushing my hair away from my sweaty face.
“I love you,” Umberto whispers sweetly. His eyes so light and sparkling compared to how th
ey are usually dark and mysterious. It feels like when the rain clouds pull away, and you can finally see and feel the warmth from the sun again. Like a spell cast over him has vanished.
This has been a world wind. This is crazy. This is too soon. But I can barely breathe as tears fill my eyes. Warmth overpowers my heart, and there’s a tightness in my chest that I welcome from how much happiness I feel at the moment.
It is what it is.
My feelings are my feelings.
And it doesn’t work to try and make any sense of it at all.
“Oh, Umberto, I love you too. You saved me. You’re the only person who has ever done that. You’re the only one who knows the real me. I belong to you.”
“And I’m yours now too, pretty girl. All of me.”
He slams his mouth on mine so possessively it makes my heart soar. It’s as if I’ve just given him the greatest gift he has ever had.
What he doesn’t realize is it’s the best gift I have been given too, because never in my entire life have those three words ever been sweeter.
Epilogue
Victoria
Put it between my hands and squeeze. Oh my God, it’s so big, and it moves so damn fast between my fingers, not to mention it is super freaking slippery when wet.
Oh, why did I think I was cut out for this when clearly, I am not an Italian chick. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’ve handled Umberto’s sausage a thousand times, all of which have been perfect and without any kind of screw-ups, but handling Italian sausage like this? Making it from scratch?
Oh, hell no. This is for the birds.
Umberto laughs as he watches me.
“Oh, you think it’s funny, do you? You try it then.”
“It is easy,” he says, still grinning at me. Looking like a million damn dollars in his designer suit and perfectly chaotic mess of hair on top of his sexy head. “But I don’t dare to touch a damn thing in this place.”