Back at the manor, Alberto shuffled me through a backside door that led directly into one of his private studies. He shut and locked the doors before any of his attendants could greet us. I guess I should have been grateful that I wasn’t immediately handed off to the staff and carted off back to his dungeon or locked in some other small room that was comparable to slave quarters. But that didn’t seem to matter either if I wasn’t going to be free. Whatever he had planned for me, no matter how civil it might have been in the private quarters of his office, I didn’t care. The audacity of it all sent me into another fit of ranting and swearing.
“And you! What do you have to say for yourself!?” I circled around to say eventually. “Don’t you have any thoughts? Or is this your plan? To just stare at the walls in silence, ignoring how miserable I am!?”
“Oh, I have thoughts. I was just thinking about how ungrateful you are.”
His words knocked the wind out of my chest, but I managed one very loud and appalled gasp. “Ungrateful!? How dare you! I suppose I should get down on my knees and kiss your feet!? Thank you for how you’ve treated me!?”
“I could have left you there at the Mendozas!” he argued back with a deep, thundering voice. “I’m not supposed to interfere with their undertakings. There’s a peace treaty between us which I have just violated to save you...again!”
My breath was restored, but I was speechless. I paced back and forth as I took it in. I assumed he came to get me out of some machismo need to claim what he thought was his - like rabid dogs fighting over a slab of meat. But no. He had risked his safety and the well-being of his seedy empire to come and get me. Something about it was comforting and all the more unsettling at the same time.
The ridiculous dress the Mendozas had forced me to wear felt like it was getting tighter by the second. I fanned my flaming chest and cheeks as I tugged at the fabric squeezing around my ribs. “I need to get out of here,” I begged. “I can’t breathe. It feels like the walls are closing in on me.”
I said it all in vain, assuming Alberto wouldn’t care how uncomfortable I was or what I needed. He certainly hadn’t led up to that moment. So, I was surprised when he marched over to the side door and ushered me back outside.
“Let’s take a walk,” he suggested.
I agreed out of necessity, but there was no part of me that wanted to go strolling along the property in the moonlight with Alberto...as if everything was perfectly fine. I would never be free. The words echoed through my head over and over again, and it was Alberto who made them true. I couldn’t pretend he was some kind of decent man for saving me or for allowing me to take a walk. I couldn’t forget what kind of monster he really was.
“I saw everything you’re keeping in the basement,” I confessed finally. I blurted it out without really thinking. I didn’t know if I needed to say it out loud to remind myself, or if I honestly wanted some kind of explanation...as if there could be one. I knew better. Nothing could excuse hoarding all those unclaimed goods.
“The wine, the furs, the cars...all of it. I’m not an idiot, Alberto. I know why you’re keeping heaps of those things stowed away. You’re evading taxes. Money that is used to support poor families struggling in our country!”
He didn’t explode in the way I expected. He didn’t even seem angry. Instead, he continued walking in a steady stride and explained himself calmly. “The government steals money from its people all the time. You don’t think they’re lining their pockets with most of our tax dollars? They benefit from those payments far more than the poor do. The only way to help the impoverished is to offer them a job.” He waved his hand across his property. “Which you can see...I have done plenty of on my estate. I certainly don’t need this many people on a daily basis.”
I had to consider his argument more than I wanted to. It was true that he kept a huge amount of staff on hand, but I found it hard to believe that it was out of some sense of obligation or a desire to do any real good.
“You really expect me to believe that? That you’re employing so many people to help anything other than your own selfish needs?”
“I’m a businessman. I recognize the need for a thriving economy. The best way to do that is to ensure people have more than enough money to live off of...and therefore, money to spend.”
I stopped walking and turned to face him. My face was wrinkled as I studied him, desperately needing to know if he was telling the truth. His features were soft and blank, maybe even a little vulnerable looking. My gut told me he really was being honest.
“I can see your point,” I admitted hesitantly. “You’re not wrong.”
He laughed a little. “You wouldn’t dare say that I’m right. Just that I’m not wrong.”
“I’m still wrapping my head around you saying anything that sounds remotely good or honest.”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” he huffed with a subtle grin.
I narrowed my eyes, not liking the uncertainty of trusting him in this way. But then again, I had given in and trusted him with my body. I supposed I had to admit that trusting his words wasn’t so far fetched.
We stood there, facing each other in the darkness. It was uncomfortably quiet, leaving too much room for tenderness to sneak in. I decided to take the opportunity to defend my case.
“Perhaps if I can admit to the possibility that there might be some good in you...You can admit to the possibility that I’m not so unreasonable.”
He squinted and looked off in the distance as if he was thinking it over, and he didn’t look so convinced. I knew he was recalling the state of raging madness I had been in from the moment he picked me up from the Mendozas.
“How would you behave if you were being held against your will?” I argued, responding to thoughts he hadn’t said out loud. “I was a free woman when you found me in that market. I knew what I was doing. You really had no right to buy me like that. Nor should anyone have the right to buy any human being like a slave. And now...I’m stuck here. Away from my home and my father.”
My breath quickened as he stepped closer, erasing the gap between us. He wrapped his hands around my arms and demanded that I look deep into his eyes.
“I promise I will take you home,” he said earnestly. “I didn’t have a plan when I snatched you up at the market, and I haven’t ever since. But I don’t have the time or energy to keep someone like you under constant watch, always worrying about what you’ll do next. I’ll just have to take the risk of whatever you’ll say to your father about me and where you’ve been.”
I didn’t expect him to give in so easily, but my heart swelled with the promise of going home. “When?” I asked impatiently.
“We’ll leave first thing in the morning.”
I would have cried if he wasn’t standing so close and watching me so carefully. As I fought back my happy tears of relief, I found myself getting lost in his dark eyes. I didn’t want to admit it, but there was more to him than I thought. Which only made things even more confusing...If he did care enough about me to rescue me and promise to take me home, why had he left me alone in that dark, cold hell hole after I gave into him?
“Why did you leave me last night?” I asked finally, afraid of what he might say next.
His voice dropped to a low rasp. “Maybe...because...you scare me.”
I knew it pained him to admit it just as much as it pained me to consider another side to him. Maybe he wasn’t the evil Alberto Milano I had grown up believing in. Or maybe he was, but there was more to him as well. Perhaps he could be both good and bad. Was such a thing even possible? My father and I had only ever believed in black and white facts. There was right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust. To consider that someone could be on both sides of anything was hard to fathom.
But I didn’t have much time to consider any of that too deeply. Alberto’s eyes stayed locked on mine and soon he was closing his eyes and slowly sweeping his lips over mine. It was far softer than anything he had shown me the night before. I
t was dangerously sweet and I quickly found myself not caring if Alberto was good or bad. No truly evil man could kiss like that.
He pulled away just enough to speak. The sexy scratch of his voice struck me in my core, almost enough that I missed what he was actually saying. Almost.
“You see...I do have my ways of making you talk. You just told me everything I wanted to know. I found your weak spot.”
He smirked, and I felt a rush of renewed rage pulse through my veins with a fury. Had all of it been just to make me talk!? Surely, he wasn’t that clever and calculating...Enough to have sex with me and then lure me off on this walk just to get me to confess everything.
I felt stupid for doubting his wickedness for even a second. I didn’t know which one of us I was angrier with, but I didn’t care. My hand reared back, and I wanted nothing more than to slap him across the face. I flattened my palm and thrust it towards his cheek, intent on wiping that smug little expression away.
But his hand shot forward and caught my wrist in a tight grip. With that, his mouth lunged back to mine and somehow, once again, I didn’t care about any of it anymore. There was no good or bad or anything to confess. I forgot about feeling duped or which one of us had lied to the other more to get what we wanted. There was only me and him and the feeling of our lips and tongues intertwining.
I melted against him and opened my mouth wider, taking him in completely. He happily obliged and at some point, we slipped down to the ground, desperate to feel our bodies pressed together tightly. I worried briefly about which of the workers might be lingering nearby to see him urgently ripping away the tight dress that I longed to be free from, especially while I was in his arms. But then I remembered no one would be bold enough to disrespect Alberto in that way. They would give him his privacy.
He could do whatever the hell he wanted. This estate was like his own little country, and he ruled over other little corners all across Argentina. I knew I should feel guilty by how much his power turned me on in that moment. It went against everything I believed in and everything I thought was true about myself. Kissing him at all did the same. But my body was buzzing with too much ravenous need to really feel it. All I was aware of was my desire for him. Nothing else mattered.
He quickly and expertly slid the dress from my body until I was sprawled across the lawn, completely naked, with the stars shining up above us. It would have been romantic if it wasn’t with Alberto. But wasn’t it just as romantic regardless? All of my walls against him were crumbling by the second, and I quickly lost any ability to fight it as he kissed his way down my body, settling his head between my legs.
He sucked me into his mouth and sent overwhelming sparks of pleasure rippling through my body. My fingers dug into the grass and dirt on either side of me as the sensation swelled. It didn’t take long for him to draw the climax from my quivering body. It was almost too much to take, but the more I squirmed against his mouth, the harder he bore down.
I licked my lips as my orgasm faded, and I was left completely limp with my legs draped across his arms. He still didn’t pull away. He softened the strokes of his tongue and settled in like he intended to stay there for a while. I gave in again, thinking to myself that for as much as I never wanted to submit to him...it sure did feel good.
13
Alberto
I relished in the sweetness of Alicia’s taste and felt like I could get lost there for a long while. In fact, I did. Time seemed to dissolve as I licked and sucked at her folds until she was trembling and limp. By the third eruption of pleasure that erupted through her body, I couldn’t resist it any longer. I was hard and throbbing and yearning to thrust inside of her. I remembered how divine she had felt while we were in the interrogation cellar, and could only imagine how much more thrilling it would be out in the open night air, under the stars.
As I moved over her, she eagerly wrapped her arms around me and moaned. Her fingers raked through my hair and ran down my neck, clawing into my back as I slid inside of her wet silkiness. Her muscles tightened around me and intensified the relief and building blissful sensation.
I kept my eyes glued to her, loving the way she clenched her eyes tightly shut and threw her head back with her long black hair flowing out around her. She bit into her bottom lip, and I felt a pang of jealousy. I crashed my mouth back to hers with the swell of my climax, needing to have that bite all to myself. I stayed there until the pleasure was too great, and everything went black and blurry.
I nuzzled my damp hair into the curl of her neck for a moment to catch my breath before finally rolling over to the side. We didn’t bother hiding our naked bodies. The yard was still and empty. If anyone had noticed us when we started, they knew well enough to leave us alone.
Alicia watched me curiously and laughed a little to herself. “What happens now?”
“We sleep. I’ll deliver you back home, as I promised. Which means we have a long journey in front of us. We should get an early start.”
She rolled over and pressed her lips to my shoulder. “Yes, but where do I sleep? I suppose it’s back to the dungeon with me?”
Once again, I hadn’t thought it through too carefully - a foreign feeling that was becoming far too common with Alicia. But sending her back down to the dungeon didn’t seem right. Sending her back to the little room she was locked up in before that didn’t seem appropriate either.
I imagined what Felix and Pablo would say to the alternative, but shook it off. I didn’t need their approval, and hopefully, we would be gone before I’d have to face them again. By the time I returned, Alicia would be gone, and they wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.
“Get dressed,” I told her as I pulled up from the grass to find my own clothes. “I will take care of your sleeping arrangements. You don’t need to worry about it.”
Being around her was like getting lost in a cloud of perfume that kept me from seeing clearly. As much as I longed to stay tangled up in her arms, I wanted, even more, to be alone in my own bedroom. It seemed like the only way to break the spell, and I would need the time to pull myself together before traveling alongside her for three days.
Without saying another word to her, I left her just as coldly as I had after our first night together. I could feel her eyes burning into my back, but I didn’t look back. Instead, I walked inside and found the first housekeeper I could and gave them instructions for putting Alicia up in one of the guest suites. It just so happened to be the nicest guest bedroom in the manor, usually reserved for the wealthiest, most distinguished guests that I wanted to impress or win over in some way. I wasn’t trying to do that with Alicia. I just figured a nice room was something I knew I could give, and maybe it would make up for all the things my heart seemed unable to do for her.
After ensuring that she would be provided with nice, clean clothes, the finest soaps, lotions, and perfumes, and a big dinner and breakfast, I retired to my own room and tried not to let my thoughts wander. But as I layed in my bed, I couldn’t help but imagine the sight of her soft, brown skin as the silk robe slid around her naked flesh. I imagined the scents of lavender, rose, and vanilla wafting from her hair and the curves of her body. I had such vivid images of her licking soup from the corner of her deep red lips or biting into a juicy strawberry. I wanted to be in those moments with her, but knew we were both better off with me in my own bed...alone.
The joy of those simple luxuries manifested in her face the following morning when she emerged from the manor with a content and peaceful smile. She glided over to stand beside me as I waited for my men to finish loading up the horses. Her face wrinkled as she took in the scene.
“Are all four of those men coming with us?” she puzzled.
“Yes, I am bringing my best men for our protection.”
“But there are only five horses, and there are six of us.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “After your track record with horseback riding, do you honestly think I’m going to put you on your own horse?”
She was not amused. Her smile faded into a frown as she crossed her arms and turned her back to me. “I’m not going to be stuck on a horse with our hot and sweaty bodies right on top of each other for three whole days. I demand to have my own horse. I’m getting better at riding, and you’ll be around to look after me anyway...Not that I think I need it.”
“I thought our hot and sweaty bodies being on top of each other for three whole days was exactly what you wanted,” I teased.
Her cheeks turned red as she looked to the nearby men, waiting for them to shoot her looks of judgment and accusation. They didn’t even notice, but it didn’t seem to make her any less bothered by the remark.
I watched the anger brewing inside of her and figured the last thing I wanted was for her to be furious with me the whole trip. I sighed and waved one of the men over. “Will you please get a sixth horse ready for the princess here?”
She huffed at my little insult but seemed happier with the new arrangement.
“I knew you’d be difficult,” I grumbled. “I just didn’t know you’d start in before we even set foot off the property.”
The benefit of traveling through the countryside of Argentina for three days was all of the beautiful sights around us to take in. We rode through vast canyons with big blue mountains lined up along the horizon. My men surrounded us for protection with one of them in front and in back, and the other two on either side of us. Alicia and I were left in our own little bubble in the middle. It saved us from having to talk about anything, which would have been awkward with the others around to hear. But at night, they set their camp up at a good distance and gave us some privacy.
“Only one tent for the both of us?” she asked as she watched them prepare our campsite for us.
“Why not?”
Her eyes cut over to me with an offended glare. “You just assume I’ll climb in there with you like we’re lovers or something?”
“Aren’t we?” I grinned. “At least for now?”
Sold To Mr. Milano (Evil Empires Book 1) Page 9