Sold To Mr. Milano (Evil Empires Book 1)

by Daniella Wright

  She crossed her arms again and gave the same little cross pout she did over the horse debacle.

  “Good God, woman. You are going to drive me mad. Look, there’s only one tent for us, okay? Do you honestly expect me to make two of them share a tent just so you can have your own? When you know damn well you’re just going to end up crawling into mine anyway. Don’t act like I wasn’t in between your thighs just last night.”

  “You’re awfully sure of yourself. I can promise it won’t be happening again tonight,” she scoffed.

  “Fine. We’ll sleep on opposite ends of the tent. I don’t care, just stop nagging me about every little thing.”

  We sat in silence around the fire, but Alicia was about as good at staying quiet as she was at riding a horse. I could see her trying to resist the urge to talk to me out of spite, but too much was teeming up inside of her. Finally, she gave in and the words started spilling out.

  “You never stop surprising me,” she remarked, sounding only a little insulting. “In some ways, you’re not what I expected at all, and in others...you’re too much of what I expected.”

  “Whatever that means,” I said under my breath.

  “Tell me about yourself.” It was an order, not a question or invitation I was allowed to refuse.

  There was nothing else better to do than poke a stick around in the fire. So, I let out a heavy sigh and told her what she demanded to know. “I was born into a very wealthy Argentinian family with Italian ancestry.”

  “That explains a lot,” she snipped. “I can see the Italian in you. A big stubborn bully.”

  “I could say the same for you,” I shot back. “It wouldn’t surprise me at all to know you had some Italian in you. My mother would have liked you.”

  I noticed her smile a little at that sentiment. “No, not Italian. My mother was American. She died while giving birth to me.”

  I had always known Don Martino was a single father raising Alicia on his own, but somehow it seemed more real coming straight from her own lips. “I could say that explains quite a lot about you as well, you know. You act like you were raised by a man.”

  Her dark eyes glinted over to me, and I could see her trying to decide if she wanted to take it as an insult or a compliment. But never ceasing to catch me off guard, she did something else entirely. She stood and walked over to me, stopping just inches from where I sat. She undid the back of her blouse and let her clothes fall down around her feet.

  “Oh, but in your arms...I feel very much like a woman.”

  I rose to the call, wrapping my arms around her naked body and urging her mouth open with my tongue. Trying to figure out what was going through her head at any given moment was a losing game, but I figured whatever prompted her to give in and undress in front of me like that was probably a fleeting opportunity. One that I intended to take full advantage of before she changed her mind.

  I scooped her up and carried her off into the tent to give her what she wanted. Our third time together was just as exquisite as the first two times. I had my fair share of women in my bed, but it was different with Alicia. It felt like the earth cracked and shifted beneath us as I moved inside of her. Only this time, when we were finished, there was nowhere for me to run away to. It was something I obviously knew would happen, but the reality of it felt much scarier than I predicted.

  As she laid draped across me, swirling her fingers through my chest hair, I felt an immense need to make her happy...to protect her, even if she didn’t want to be protected. But the feeling had a weight to it that made it seem like much more than just delivering her back to her father’s safely. I wanted more than that, even though I had no clue what that even meant.

  “This is so strange,” she said softly. “Sleeping with the enemy.”

  “Well, you are not my enemy,” I answered, hating how true that was. “I admire you. And the way you stick to your values.”

  “If only you could do the same. If you’re going to be so stubborn, you could at least have some morals to go along with it.”

  I groaned in a low growl, hating the way she would never let herself stop fighting me for long. It was like she just had to keep digging into me with her words to forgive herself for handing her body over to me so willingly.

  “Maybe some of us just aren’t so keen on declaring our values to the world every chance we get,” I argued, wondering how long it would take for her to no longer want to be laying in my arms. “There’s something untrustworthy about people like that who act so high and mighty...like they’re better than everyone else.”

  “You mean there’s something untrustworthy about people like me?” Her eyes sparkled with anger and, sure enough, she was soon sitting straight up, not wanting to be draped across my chest anymore.

  I knew anything I said would only make her angrier. She was looking for an excuse to be furious with me. So, I put out the lantern and rolled onto my side to try and sleep. The blankets rustled as she slung them around and settled to the far opposite corner of the tent, just as she had promised she would.

  “At least you kept part of your promise,” I teased.

  We both knew that she had been wrong when she swore I wouldn’t be making love to her that night. I could practically feel the heat of her rage coming off of her body. Good, I thought. A pissed off woman will keep the tent warm through the night at least.

  14

  Alicia

  Being around Alberto was like a rollercoaster ride that was as bumpy as the endless horseback journey we continued on. The only thing that was more unpredictable than the words that came out of his mouth was my reaction to them. One moment he could give me a look that made me want to rip his clothes off and let him ravage me, the next I wanted to slap him across the face.

  At least I had the sights of my beloved country to calm me. I told myself that I would make more time for things like this when my life went back to normal. I spent so much time devoting myself to me and my father’s fight for justice, that I hadn’t spent nearly enough time slowing down to enjoy the country we were fighting for.

  When we stopped for breaks, Alberto would come over and offer a hand to help me down from the horse. Even though we tried to be subtle around his men that were accompanying us, there was no mistaking the look that flashed between us when our eyes locked in those brief, tender moments. I had been foolish to kid myself into thinking we weren’t lovers when we were obviously just that...even if only for a short while.

  But other times I felt like another one of the guys as I washed up in the creeks and rivers and ate beans from a can while sitting on rocks. I was glad Alberto didn’t always treat me like some fragile thing that needed his protection. Or maybe he was just learning not to bother.

  All day, there was an electric current crackling between us, building up a ferocious force of something we could hardly wait to release. By nightfall, we did exactly that. We didn’t even bother bickering before tumbling into the tent to lose ourselves in each other’s bodies with an animalistic passion.

  He didn’t treat me like some fragile thing in bed any more than he did in the outdoors. He was rough in the most exquisitely pleasing ways...in ways I never knew I wanted from a man. And he let me tear into him with the same amount of grit. We didn’t hold back.

  But the third day had a different sort of cloud over it. I would be home by the next morning, and we would never know each other in this way again. For as happy as I was to return to my father, something about parting ways with Alberto made my stomach turn with a sick uneasiness. It was strange to feel that way about leaving him, when just looking at him used to inspire the same feeling.

  I didn’t think it was a mistake that we stopped earlier than usual to make camp. We were getting closer to my town, and it was almost like Alberto wanted to keep a distance between us and my home on the final night. Maybe he didn’t think he could make love to me in the same way if we were too close to my father’s house.

  Setting up camp early afforded us the
chance to watch the sunset together. We did so over the fire while we ate fish for dinner. We were both quiet, but not in an uncomfortable way. I was lost in my own thoughts about what all of this meant...about what he meant to me. I could only guess if he was just as unsettled as I was about us parting ways. He stayed strong and silent, not giving a single hint to how he really felt. I was finding it hard to swallow as I studied him and wondered...would I miss him?

  “What are you thinking about?” I asked finally, needing a break from the confusion swirling around my brain.

  He took a long time to answer as he watched the last of the sun vanish over the horizon. “I guess I was thinking...that I’m sure you’ll be happy to be home.”

  I swore I detected a tinge of pain in his voice. His face tightened as he said it, and his throat seemed to close up on the words. His stoicism irritated me. All I could do was lean back and reply, “Yes.” I kept it cold and short, just as he was behaving towards me.

  As the darkness fell, Alberto kept staring off into the black canyons around us. He seemed to be looking at something specific but well hidden in the night.

  “There’s a cave just over there beyond that ridge,” he explained finally. “There’s a famous story about a couple that went across the country robbing banks together. They got carried away and knew they were probably going to get gunned down on their next job. They hid out there for the night, knowing it was their final night alive...their last night together. So now some people call it the rebel lover’s cave.”

  He smirked as he told the story, and I could tell the idea of it made him happy. It was a relief to see him happy about anything besides making biting remarks to me or the sight of my naked body.

  “We’re not so different from them I suppose,” I quipped, staring off in the same direction as him. I thought maybe if I looked long enough I could see the cave for myself. “We have been pretty rebellious. The villain and the detective’s daughter falling into bed together.”

  “I could see you robbing banks by my side in another lifetime,” he smirked.

  “We would never be able to agree about what to do with the money. You’d want to keep it all for yourself, and I’d insist we give it to the poor.”

  “Not for myself, but for us,” he argued. “You’d think differently when you saw the kind of jewelry and furs I could buy you with that stolen money.”

  I laughed, knowing I was not the type to fall for such frivolous luxuries. But then again, I also never thought I’d be the type to sleep with Alberto or feel so drawn to his power. Even his machismo airs had a way of turning me on.

  “I couldn’t sleep at night knowing I was hoarding so much for myself while there are starving children in our country.”

  He didn’t mock me the way he usually would. Instead, he replied, “Well, I have a feeling you could talk me into a lot of things that didn’t make sense to me. Even giving money away to people who had done nothing to earn it.”

  I rolled my eyes at him, not wanting to fall into another one of our political debates. I walked over to him and put my fingers to his chiseled jaw, drawing his eyes up to mine. “Why?” I asked. “Because I am a woman?”

  I undressed in front of him again, just as I had done on the first night of our trip. I loved how powerful I felt as I towered over him, letting him drink me in with his eyes.

  “No,” he insisted, dropping to his knees before me. His dark eyes stared up at me as he kissed his way along my inner thighs. “I have never met a woman as convincing as you before. Even if it is just a matter of you wearing me down until I’m too tired to fight you anymore.”

  I decided to take that admission as a win, which was easy to do as his tongue flicked across the bundle of nerves between my legs. That feeling of powerfulness only grew as he pressed his mouth harder against me, squeezing his hands around my ass. He was bowing down before me, pleasuring me, and it made me feel like a damn queen. I raked my fingers through his hair and rolled my head back, relishing in the feeling of his tongue.

  I soon had to push him onto his back, even though I hated for his mouth to part from my folds. My legs were already shaking, and I didn’t think I could stand there and cum without falling over any more than I could wait another second to feel him inside of me. He laid back in the grass once again. I wondered if we would even know what to do within the walls of our bedroom. It seemed like the only places we could let ourselves give in to these urges were out in the wild, or in some cold, dark dungeon.

  I straddled him, sliding him in between my legs. As my body lowered over him, I lifted my arms high above my head, running my hands through my hair. I tilted my neck and moaned out with the feeling of him filling me completely. There was no time for timidness or shyness. This was my last night to take pleasure in the body of a man who was so forbidden. I let go of any insecurity and just let myself ride him without inhibition.

  His hips buckled as I went, my breasts bouncing in the light of the fire. He took them into his hands in big greedy squeezes, delighting in how I threw all reservations to the wind. I felt like I was conquering him as he laid out on his back before me, surrendering himself and offering up his body for me to use in any way I wanted. I shifted my hips and found the perfect angle to slide up and down across him, bracing one hand on his chest. I dug into his perfect, hairy muscles with my nails, loving the way he hissed between his teeth. I didn’t know if it was the bright red scratch marks I was carving into him or the feeling of my wet, clenched muscles stretching over him that made him make those noises. I didn’t care. I just wanted more.

  But with every devilish and delightful moment of it, there was this feeling of loss looming over us. We would never know each other like this again. We let our bodies say our goodbyes - the ones neither of us would submit to saying with words. The finality of it all only made us make love more fiercely than ever before.

  My cries grew louder as I kept riding him, feeling him grow harder inside of me. I didn’t care if his men could hear us from their tents in the distance, or that coyotes were howling back at me. He made me feel just as wild as them and I howled right back with the moans of my pleasure. I could feel the tension swelling, just dying to send me crashing over the edge. I went harder and faster, letting it swallow me whole.

  My eyes drifted from Alberto up to the stars until finally, they closed. I felt the heat of his chest press up against me as he sat up, begging me to come back to him. He pulled my face towards his and rolled his tongue into my mouth, urging me to go faster and harder still. He wanted me to take what was mine. He sucked at my hardened nipples and ran his hands up and down my back.

  I stayed focused on him for as long as I could until everything slipped away into darkness for a few blissful moments. I screamed out into the night, letting the intense sensation wash over me completely. It felt like I was hit with a tidal wave that knocked me over and took away my breath.

  I collapsed into Alberto’s arms as he rolled over, not letting me have even a moment to recover. He thrust into me with a relentless, rough passion, not giving up until he could feel me being pushed right back to the cusp of another orgasm. He laid back and let me use him to get off the first time, but he wasn’t going to give up the reins for my second time. He plowed into me, letting me know he was claiming that one all for himself. He wanted to be the one in control, drawing it out of me.

  He rocked back onto his knees, lifting my hips into the air as he pounded deeper into me. My curves and breasts rippled and bounced with every sublime collision of his body to mine, each one pushing me closer and closer. It was building up inside of him too, but we both seemed to be clinging to those final moments, not wanting it to be over.

  We held on until it was impossible to do it any longer and finally we let the formidable force take us under. I held tightly onto his body as we both trembled. He collapsed over me with a loose vulnerability he had never shown before. For a few brief seconds, we didn’t bother fighting it or acting strong. We melted into each other
without fear or hesitation.

  For those same few moments, everything inside of me felt just as clear and as the intense pleasure I had just felt. There was no denying it. Of course, I would miss Alberto. I didn’t know why when half the time I hated him just as much as I had all those years ago, when I was just eighteen and saw him for the first time. But all along there was another driving force behind that hatred...a curiosity, a need to know more...a longing. A million unanswered questions that still weren’t answered, but only seemed to quiet down when I was pressed close against his body like that.

  His arms closed in over me, and his hands ran through my long hair. He squeezed tightly, and I could almost swear that he didn’t want to let me go.

  15

  Alberto

  It seemed fitting that it was raining the next day as we packed everything back up on our horses. Each time thunder and lightning boomed over the distant mountains, I could feel pangs of anger shooting through me. I didn’t know if I was angry about having to make the last leg of the trip in the rain, or that I knew I would be traveling back in this weather...without Alicia.

  While she was cozied up with her father by the fire, telling him all about her adventure - or at least the parts of it he could bear to hear, I would be soaking wet riding home in silence. I was never good at managing my anger. I was good at keeping it bottled up, but not at knowing where to direct it. And on that morning, I was inclined to be angry at Alicia.

  It was her stunt in the market that dragged me into this mess in the first place, and it seemed the only thing I had done since then was deal with one thing after another with her. I shuddered to think how much time I had wasted...how much money I had lost by being pulled away from my work. And the fact that it all seemed worth it only baffled and enraged me more.

  She took her time getting her horse ready and even more time to finally mount the damn thing. And she had kept me up far too late the night before. By the time we finally made it into the tent, exhausted after draining each other’s bodies under the stars, she was ready for more. I didn’t have it in me to deny her. One look and that certain sway of her hips that she was so good at, and I was putty in her hands. I hated that she had that kind of power over me.