“That’s good,” he coaxed. “You are so good.” His head fell back slightly, but his grip on my hair didn’t loosen. I watched him, watched how I had all the power in this. The muscles in his neck were so tight they were like cords of thick wire. It was intoxicating.
I hadn’t thought I could swallow anymore, he was so goddamn huge, but I was determined. I breathed through my nose, relaxed my throat and took him. His lids popped open and our stares collided.
“You look so fucking good swallowing my cock. Fuck.” His grip in my hair tightened painfully. “You’re the most beautiful thing. Goddamn devastating.” Both of his hands fisted in my hair, his head fell back, and he furiously fucked my skull. My eyes watered so much that my vision of him became a beautiful, watery thing.
I heard him groan, so deep it sounded inhuman. Then he was coming in hot, salty, delicious spurts. He was so deep that it just fell down my throat. I swallowed as much of him as I could, but a little bit escaped down my chin. When he finished, I was still looking at him, and he looked back with so much adoration, so much love.
He put his thumb to where the little bit of him had escaped, swiped, and pushed it into my mouth. I sucked him willingly, eyes locked. No, locked wasn’t the right word.
Tethered.
“Sei una dea, mio cuore,” he groaned in Italian as I sucked the salty taste off his skin. The dichotomy between the flavor of him and his flesh was totally addicting. I found myself frantically palming myself as I sucked his thumb. I was going insane, absolutely aching, and it was just instinct to touch myself. He grabbed my hand, lifting it so my fingers were just below his chin.
“Greedy girl,” he said. “Don’t you know your orgasm is mine? I own this.” He sucked my fingers until they were clean and I moaned, rubbing my thighs together. I was so overstimulated, I was sure I was going to come just from the friction. I rubbed my thighs harder and he laughed darkly, pushing me off him. I fell to the ground.
Eyes still locked, Anteros reached behind and flipped over the coffee table. The glass crashed and shattered. Some shards hit my thigh, but I didn’t think about that or the mess or the possible danger because moments later Anteros was on the ground with me.
He crawled between my legs and spread them wide in the new space. I got to my elbows, watching him rapt.
“If you come without permission,” he said, licking a long, razor sharp trail from behind my knee to inside my thigh, “you will be punished.”
“Please,” I moaned, biting my arm until I saw marks, trying to keep the orgasm away. He raked his fingers up and down my thighs, working his tongue along the inside of my pussy. If I wasn’t allowed to come, why was he making it so difficult?
“Greedy girl, can’t stop herself,” he said. “So wet, too. You’re going to ruin my fucking floors with your cunt.”
His teeth dragged against my folds, finding my clit, where he bit. My vision blurred and my abdomen pulsed. My nails scratched against the floor. I pushed my head deeper into the floor, trying to stay grounded. It didn’t work. I came violently, abdomen clenching and cramping until it felt like the only release I could get was through my voice, in screams and wails.
When it was over I was satiated…nervous. Slowly he crawled up my body and wiped sweaty hair from my forehead. His cock was hard against my thigh, already ready to go again.
“Are you going to punish me?” I whispered.
A smirk came to his lips. “I think you’ve been punished enough for today.”
Disappointment hit my stomach in an odd ache. I was fucked up. I actually wanted to be punished. His gaze slimmed as if he could read my mind, and then his fingers darted back between my lower lips, spreading them.
“Unless you want to be punished.” His thumb worked a taunting rhythm beside my clit, not ever touching it, just enough to drive me mad. I clawed his neck, head falling with a sigh into the soft fur rug. “Do you want to be punished?” I nodded frantically and he said, “Say it.”
“Please punish me.” There was no hesitation. The words fell from my lips the minute he demanded it.
He laughed, rumbling and low. “Too fucking bad, little slave. You’re mine. I’ll use you however the fuck I want.” I groaned then caught the glint in his eye. This was his punishment: making me admit my need, making me beg, then having him deny it.
His grin widened. Before I could protest his punishment, he plunged his fingers inside me.
I still wasn’t sure where we were. Maybe we were in New York, or maybe we’d driven to Maine. All I saw when I looked outside the windows was black. They were tall, pristine windows with no curtain coverage, and as Anteros fucked his fingers into me, I wondered if anyone could see.
Anteros gripped my chin, pulling my gaze back to his. “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.” At my response, he plunged a fourth finger inside, filling me with a painful but pleasurable stretch. “Just wondering where we are,” I groaned. “If anyone can see—see us!” The words caught on a breath as he worked a hard and fast inside rhythm inside me. He laughed darkly and grazed his teeth along my neck. Then he bit.
“Dirty girl,” he said. “Do you want someone to see us?” The idea had goose bumps peppering my skin, but I didn’t respond. He turned my head back to the window, hand on my neck keeping it in place.
“Do you like the idea of someone watching me fuck you, Frankie?” His words were like wine, twisting into my body, getting me loose and intoxicated. “Do you want to spread your legs for everyone to see?” he rumbled, biting my earlobe, dragging the skin with his teeth. I moaned, hands reaching for his waist, groping his slick flesh. As if I couldn’t help it, my legs fell open even farther.
He laughed. “Who are you spreading your legs for? Trying to get them as far open as possible so everyone can see your cunt?” I whimpered when he slid one finger from inside to stretch my lips farther apart. The air tickled my parted flesh so I knew I was on display. “Do you want them to see you come?” I whimpered again, body alight with tingles. Anteros laughed and said, “I fucking knew you liked it. You got so fucking wet at the warehouse.” He was talking about the night he showed me off to his Wolves. It had been so horrifying, but he was right. I did like it.
His teeth raked against my neck, my ear, my chest. His hands were in my hair, on my arms, on my waist. His words were a powerful beat in my blood.
Then his fingers were gone, but before I could miss them, Anteros was inside me. Thick. Hot. So perfect. Exactly what I needed. My vision blurred. My heart ratcheted. I was barely aware of where I was.
“Oh fuck, Frankie,” Anteros groaned. “I can feel you coming.” I closed my eyes, giving in to the feeling. Blood so hot I felt it to the tips of my toes, melting in between my thighs, bursting through the skies on butterfly wings of pleasure until my sighs became cries. Earlier I’d thought I would die, and now I was so alive it was painful.
When it was over, my eyelids fluttered open. The lights above us were so bright, the fur beneath my skin so soft, and Anteros was hot, delicious against my skin.
“People can watch you.” His whisper was gruff against my ear. “They can watch because”—he gripped my chin, turning my face from the window—“you fucking belong to me.” He plunged his tongue into my mouth, swallowing my groans.
“Say my name,” he said, still hard inside me. He kissed the wing of my collarbone, going along my shoulder and to my arm, to the stitches he’d just placed. He lifted his head and looked straight at me, cock pulsing.
“Anteros,” I said, voice hoarse from screaming. When he began a slow, delirious rhythm of pumping into me, this time I didn’t look out the window.
“When you come you’ll say my name,” he ordered on a powerful thrust. “Only my name.” I nodded.
I didn’t know what this meant for the future outside these walls. It felt like with our wounds and stitches, we’d mended some of our fractured relationship. But Lucia, Nikolai—the war—it was all still out there. Waiting for us.
I screamed his name as another orgasm broke me into a billion pieces. With Anteros, it was never easy; even the orgasms were hard. You’d think they would get normal, simple, but each time they stole my body.
One thing was certain, though: I’d do anything for this feeling, for the bliss, the fracture. I’d be lost to it forever, but I didn’t want to be found. I wanted to drown in it. It was terrifying being so helpless, so addicted. I knew Anteros owned me forever because he owned the feeling, the feeling that utterly owned me.
Thirteen
Anteros rubbed a lazy, concentric path along Frankie’s back as she slept. They hadn’t gone to bed until late in the morning, fucking like animals on the floor until they’d passed out sometime near the sunrise. Now the sun was high in the sky, room glowing the color of whiskey. Her body shone too, as if from the inside.
A blanket snaked haphazardly around one of her legs, doing nothing to cover her naked body. Her slim waist, her petite yet curvy ass, the delicate line of her spine, the tiny dimples in her shoulder—it all had his already hard cock raging. She breathed an easy rhythm against him, though, so he wouldn’t wake her.
Anteros’s chest grew tight as Frankie slept, eyelashes fluttering against her cheek as she dreamed. There were so many things that needed his attention. A soldier would find the Wolves’ bodies soon and would realize Anteros was missing. People would assume he was also dead. They would turn to Lucia for guidance and the war would definitely tip in her favor. He should have cared, everything he’d been working for his entire life was coming to a head.
Frankie sighed, turning her head deeper into the crook of his shoulder, and he drew her closer. She was so serene in her sleep, so trusting. With a nearly imperceptible exhale, he ran a hand through his tangled, dark hair.
He watched her a moment longer then looked out the window. The sun was already dipping back down into the sky, blazing a trail of golden fire through the snow-drenched forest. The color was familiar, too familiar. The trees began to blur, vision getting lost in the radiance as memory took over.
The sun was bright in the sky when Anteros followed the man. Rays dripped down, painting the Venice streets gold and making the man’s black shoes shine even more. He was important, that was obvious. Anteros had followed him a few blocks, hoping to find the right moment to pick his pocket, but the man had come to a stop in a discreet neighborhood almost an hour before. The sound of a woman in labor rang through the small street and Anteros was close to giving up. Any other time, Anteros would have left to find another mark, but something about the man said he should wait. He crouched behind tables and flower pots, hoping the man would reappear soon.
“Congratulations, it’s a beautiful, healthy baby girl!” Anteros heard drift through an open window.
“A girl?” The man in the suit’s outraged voice followed seconds later.
“Lucio wait—” a woman said, sounding panicked. Anteros had no idea what was going on, but he listened anyway, drinking in the conversation like good wine.
“A fucking girl?” the man yelled. “You promised it would be a boy, a son to continue my line! I don’t want anything to do with this. Get rid of her.” A baby cried and some rushed Italian was exchanged, too hurried and quiet for Anteros to decipher, and then a door flew open. The man in the suit stomped out and a woman in pajamas flew after him, crying. Anteros’s legs hurt from bending down for so long and he wanted to stand up, but he crouched lower so they couldn’t see him.
“I thought she would be!” the woman cried. “I…but we…you can’t mean this! She’s still your blood—our blood! It will still work. She can still lead!” His view was obscured, but he could still see the man, and bits and pieces of the woman—her feet, a bit of her nightgown, the way she clung to the man in the suit, trying to get him to turn around.
“I will not turn into the De Lucas—emasculated, having other men take my name to carry it on.” The man pushed her off and she stumbled backward, nearly falling into the tables shielding Anteros. He crouched farther, hoping to stay out of view, but the woman was not focusing on anything else. Anteros opened his eyes, able to see the woman’s back clearly now—her silk nightgown, stained with blood, the backs of her thighs, also stained.
“Lucio!” the woman yelled. The man, or Lucio, turned around and slapped her across the face. Anteros couldn’t see it, but he heard the sound it made against her cheek from behind his perch. She gasped, but he couldn’t see her face.
“Don’t ever speak of this again,” Lucio hissed. “Get this childish idea out of your head. I can’t believe I traveled all the way here for this shit.”
“Lucio—” The woman’s words were cut off as Lucio stepped toward her, out of Anteros’s line of sight.
“Kill it,” he said. “You kill that baby—or are you forgetting what will happen if people find out?” Her feet lifted off the ground and her legs shook. “Do you understand?” He dropped her and tore something Anteros couldn’t see from her neck. She ran back inside before Lucio could say another word. Lucio backed up a few steps, straightened his shoulders, wiped the wrinkles from his suit, and walked away.
That was the first time Anteros ever saw Lucia Pavoni, but he hadn’t realized it was her until the letter. He’d never even had suspicions when all the Pavoni Princess shit was coming out. Like an idiot, he’d bought the lie Lucia and Lucio spun. When he’d thought about that day, he’d brushed it off as Lucio having an affair. Even when Lucio had given him the pendant for safekeeping, he hadn’t pieced together that it was the same one torn from the woman’s neck—he’d never gotten a good look.
Now with the letter, he couldn’t believe he’d been so fucking stupid, so fucking arrogant to not see outside his own truth to that of another.
It had all been right in front of his face.
Sleeping in his bed.
On his chest.
“You destroyed me too,” Frankie murmured.
Anteros looked down, surprised that she’d spoken. For a moment he was certain she would see the thoughts inside him. A few seconds passed, her head down and still in the crook of his shoulder, then she slowly turned to him.
“Earlier at the docks, you said I destroyed you.” With her chin in her hands, hands on his pectorals, she studied him with full blue eyes. “You destroyed me too, but you did more than that.” His brows drew in, waiting for her to elaborate. “You rebuilt me.”
Frankie’s chocolate curls cascaded down his chest as she gave him everything in her look—all of her self, all of her trust—and all he could think as he stared into those perfect crystal eyes was that he wanted to protect her from every hurt.
Even if that meant destroying the letter.
“You know, I’ve been searching for family for as long as I can remember? Even before Gabby pointed out that was why I had the hole inside me, I was searching for something to fill it.” Her eyes fluttered down briefly, eyelashes like feathers, before locking on his. “I think I can stop searching.”
Luckily he didn’t have to respond because she climbed up his chest and kissed him, but he couldn’t kiss her back. It was like a stone weighted his gut. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling, but he didn’t like it. Slowly, she pulled back.
“Is something wrong?” She tilted her head, lines eroding her forehead in concern.
“No,” he said gruffly, pulling her to him. She wound her hands into his hair as he worked his tongue into her mouth, but in the back of his mind, the letter was a bright, blaring sign.
“So, what is this place?” Frankie asked some hours later when the moon was up. She’d fallen asleep again and slept a surprising amount, but Anteros had been content to just lie with her. She’d looked damn near perfect sleeping on his chest in the shirt he’d lent her, and he’d wanted to be awake to watch her, to protect her. It wasn’t until around ten that she really woke up.
“A safe house,” Anteros responded. “Only I know the location. It was the first place I bought when I started earning with the Famil
y. You hungry?” Standing up, Anteros pulled her off the floor, leading her to the kitchen.
Like the rest of the house, the kitchen was a mix of modern and rustic design. State-of-the-art appliances were set in wood and an elaborate antler chandelier hung over the island, flambeau light bulbs twined in the bone.
Anteros went to the freezer as Frankie took a seat at the island. To his left, a window spanned the entire kitchen, opening the room up to a horizon of shadowy trees. Just outside the lake was black as night, and snow covered the once sandy beach like diamonds under the moonlight.
“I still remember the last time you cooked for me,” Frankie said to his back. He raised a brow as he pulled out ingredients.
“What do you remember?” Turning around, he set the items on the island next to the built-in stove and leaned on his elbows, waiting for her response.
“The way it tasted.” She rubbed both her arms, an action Anteros knew meant she was nervous. She shook her head and looked away, hair shielding her face as if ashamed about something. Lifting himself off the granite counter, Anteros went to her.
Anteros gripped her chin, forcing her blue eyes to lock with his. “No secrets.”
She hesitated but spoke. “Before you, the fanciest meal I’d ever had was brand name macaroni from the box.”
Anteros rubbed his thumb back and forth against the soft skin of her chin. He’d grown up never knowing when his next meal would be. His mother and father had been unreliable and when Lucio had taken him to America, his meals weren’t any surer. He got by on whatever he could scavenge. It wasn’t until he cooked for himself that he’d learned how food should taste.
“What are you thinking?” she whispered.
He coughed and released her, walking back to the ingredients he’d picked out. “I’d better start cooking.” It was always a little iffy using flash-frozen ingredients, but there was no other way when at the safe house.
Beauty, a Hate Story the End Page 20