With This Ring

by Natasha Knight

  “Ten years,” he repeats.

  He slips his hand into the waistband of my panties and I gasp as his fingers curl into the little mound of hair there, then down. Down to my sex. A sound comes from deep inside his chest. Something animal.

  “Cristiano—” I start, his name a breathy whisper.

  “And what do I get?” He moves his fingers a little and my mouth falls open to take in a shallow breath. “A virgin.”

  I swallow hard because his thumb is on my clit and two fingers are smearing my wetness onto me.

  “A virgin when what I need is to fuck a whore.”

  I gasp but when he takes my lower lip between his teeth, I close my eyes and let my head fall back. He releases my lip and kisses my neck, leaving a trail of small bites to my ear.

  “I’m going to make you scream,” he whispers.

  I should stop him. Drag his arm off me. But his fingers are doing something to my clit that feels better than when I do it to myself. His hand is so big, the pads of his fingers rougher than my own fingers, and I’m already soaked. Needy. So needy.

  But then he pulls his hand out of my panties and steps back.

  I stumble forward on an exhale of air I’d been holding. He catches me, sets his hands on the neck of my hoodie and in an instant, it’s off. Ripped in two, sliding off my arms.

  “What—”

  I look down at the ruined top, then back at him.

  He glances down at my breasts which are exposed now. I wasn’t wearing a bra. I’m a B-cup on a really, really good day and today isn’t one of those days. My first thought—because I’m a dummy—is to wonder if he’s disappointed. Although it’s not the first time he’s seen them, but that time was different. Very different.

  I move to cover them, but he takes hold of my hands, bringing my arms to my sides and looks again. It’s a moment before he shifts his gaze back to my eyes, my mouth. He smears his fingers across my lips, and I taste myself. I should be outraged. Humiliated.

  “Open your mouth.”

  I swallow.

  “I said open your mouth.”

  I lick my lips and do as he says. He pushes a finger into my mouth.

  “Suck.”

  I do. I have to.

  His breathing is ragged, eyes dark. He tastes like me.

  “Fuck, Scarlett.” He pulls his finger out and kisses me hard. There’s something urgent about the kiss. Something possessive and hungry.

  “I’m going to devour you,” he says, then draws back just a little, eyes on me as he crouches down. Placing one knee on the floor, I watch his dark hair as he peels my panties down, exposing me, taking the time to slide them all the way to the floor. His knuckles whisper along my skin before he helps me step out of them.

  I feel exposed and shiver when he pushes two fingers of each hand into my triangle of hair then down to spread my lower lips.

  He looks at me for a long, long time. I think about the ten years comment. Has he really not had a woman in that long? Is that normal for men?

  “I smell you.”

  I swallow. I’m wet. I feel it trickling down the inside of my thigh.

  “I smell your want.”

  When he closes his mouth over my clit, I lose the thread of my thoughts, only feeling his warm, wet mouth on me, his tongue licking me. My hands move, one into his hair the other onto his shoulder. He pushes my legs wider and licks and sucks. I’m gasping for breath, moaning, my eyes cast down to watch him. When he takes my clit into his mouth, I’m undone. I come. I come so fucking hard my knees give out and he has to hold me upright as he sucks harder.

  I bite down on my own lip, cutting it. I taste that copper of blood and I realize that moaning, growing louder, is mine. Me. Blubbering words, calling for god. Calling him god. I don’t even know. I just…my god. I’ve never felt like this before. Never come like this before. I’m bucking with it and all I can feel is him. On me. His hands. His mouth. His tongue. Him.

  I’m limp when it’s over, a whimper all I have left to give.

  He meets my eyes, holding onto me as I slide down to my knees. I stare up at him as he sets his other knee on the floor. His eyes, my god. His eyes. They’re so beautiful even for the sadness ever present in that brilliant blue.

  I think about what he said. How none of it will matter after he does what he has set out to do.

  And I understand what it means and something inside my chest twists at the thought.

  I touch his face. When he kisses me, I kiss him back and let him have my tongue.

  He wraps a hand in my hair again and draws my head back, kisses my throat, bites the curve of my neck before facing me again.

  “Take me out, Scarlett.” His voice is a growl.

  I lick my lips, looking down at the crotch of his jeans, at the erection pushing against it. I fumble when I reach for him, undoing the button, the zipper, pushing his jeans and briefs down far enough to see him.

  He’s big. Thick and throbbing, a vein pulsing.

  I look up at him and he guides my hand. I close my fist and he squeezes his hand over mine so hard I’m sure it must hurt him.

  “Fuck,” he starts, and I watch in awe as he pumps his cock once, twice, then stops to pull me close, to kiss me again, his cock at my belly, the tip wet on my skin. He kisses me as he guides himself between my legs and I draw in a breath when he rubs himself over my still-sensitive clit, between my wet folds.

  “Oh, god.”

  He looks at me then. We’re so close. All it would take would be the slightest shifting of position and we’d be even closer. He’d be inside me.

  I swallow hard, wanting it. Wanting him to do it. Greedy in my desire to be closer. To feel him fill me. Greedy to come again. It’s the first time I’ve wanted a man like this. I never thought I’d want to be touched by a man again.

  But then he makes a sound, a low groan followed by a curse. He draws back so abruptly, I startle, and the moment is gone. Poof. Just like that. Like it never even was.

  He stands, turning to tuck himself away.

  I remain on my knees staring up at him and his look is pained when he looks down at me.

  “You need to go upstairs,” he says, his tone on edge. Tight.

  “Why?”

  He looks me over again, shakes his head, walks back to his desk where his shirt carelessly hangs over the back of his chair. He takes it, tosses it to me.

  “Get dressed. Go upstairs. Get out of here. Now.”

  I pull the shirt on, feeling embarrassed. Unwanted.

  I stumble to my feet and watch him tilt the bottle back to swallow the rest of the whiskey.

  When he turns to me, his eyes are shuttered.

  “Noah’s already upstairs. You don’t go down to the cells again, understand?”

  “He is?”

  “Do you fucking understand?” he asks, stepping toward me almost aggressively and forcing me to take a step back.

  I nod quickly. I’m still afraid of this man. It’s a mistake to be anything but afraid. He’s holding on to his sanity by a very worn thread.

  “What happened just now? I don’t understand—”

  “Go upstairs, Scarlett. Please,” he says through gritted teeth.

  I want to. I want to run out of here but he’s too close. Beyond him I see the pot of ink on the desk, a towel, what looks to be a homemade tattoo machine. I look at his chest, at his arm where the bloody streak was, and see the dark lettering. I don’t know if it’s too dark or just badly done, but I can’t read it.

  He walks to an armoire and opens it, takes out a fresh bottle of whiskey and twists the lid off.

  “Haven’t you had enough?” I ask.

  He turns to me, looking at me as he swallows three glugs out of the bottle. “Go to bed, Scarlett. I mean it. I’m about this close to losing what little control I have left tonight.”

  “What did you do?” I ask, pointing to the spot. “Did you add a name?”

  He steps toward me, the bottle dangling in one hand at hi
s side. “Enemies crawl inside my house the way maggots crawl over a corpse.”

  Hate punctures his words making the visual that much more terrible. It takes all I have not to back away from him.

  “Where the fuck is Alec?” he barks, then opens the door and yells for him. But when he doesn’t come, he mutters a curse and loudly sets the bottle down on his desk, some of the whiskey splashing out.

  He takes my arm roughly to march me out of his study and to the stairs.

  “Let go!”

  But he doesn’t let go. He drags me and when I stumble, he just keeps going, righting me as we take the stairs. Like he’s bringing an errant child up to her room.

  “Let me go. You’re hurting me!”

  “Remember it next time and do as I say,” he barks as we get to my borrowed bedroom. He opens the door. “In,” he says and deposits me inside.

  “What did I do?” I cry out.

  He opens his mouth as if to answer then shakes his head closing the door between us. Then, for the first time since he’s put me here, he locks me in.

  25

  Cristiano

  She’s right about the whiskey. I’ve had enough.

  But I walk into my bedroom, slam the door shut and pick up the bottle there to drink some more. Because tonight, I need it.

  I place my gun on the nightstand and bring my fingers to my nose to smell her on them. The taste of her mixed with the taste of the whiskey makes me heady.

  My dick is still hard. I need to fuck. Maybe I should have fucked those women my uncle supplied all this time. I couldn’t touch them though. Turned my stomach to think of it.

  Her though? Fucking Scarlett De La Cruz with that big mouth she doesn’t know when to shut. Her whiskey eyes and tiny tits. Her pussy smelling like perfume and tasting like the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted?

  Yeah. I could fuck her.

  I could fuck her for days.

  I shove my jeans and briefs off and switch on the shower because if I don’t do this now, right fucking now and right fucking here, I’m going to go back into that room and fuck her so hard I’ll rip her in two.

  I meant what I said. I get a virgin when I need a whore. Because I can’t take her the way I want to. The way I need to. Not yet.

  And so, with the hand I used to finger her I fist my dick and pump so hard it’s just this side of pain. When I come, it’s with one fist against the wall and the vision of her little pussy in front of my eyes. The neat little triangle of dark hair, swollen little nub poking out at me, for me. Her pussy leaking onto my tongue as she called out my name.

  Called me god.

  Christ.

  Fuck.

  I curse her as waves of orgasm take me under, drowning me. Because I am drowning. Life is drowning me.

  When it’s done, I’m out of breath. Out of energy. I sit on the bench, back against the wall, eyes closed. Water washes over me. I’m too drunk to think. Which is exactly what I wanted tonight. What I needed. Besides her, that is.

  She’s lucky I had sense enough to lock her away. Never mind that I have the key.

  Standing again, I switch the water to cold and suck in a breath with the first icy wave. I make myself stand under it. It’s what I need to do. It’ll wake me up.

  And I need to wake the fuck up.

  Because what Charlie sent me today is fucked up. Marcus Rinaldi isn’t working alone, and I don’t mean the cartel. I’ve suspected that for years but now I’m sure.

  There’s no way the cartel would just help him to attack me. Would help him when they know doing so would set me against them. They wouldn’t risk losing their inroad to Europe, not now. The Rinaldi family doesn’t have enough manpower to stand against me so it makes no sense that the cartel would simply back him.

  No. Marcus has had some help.

  I touch the spot on my arm where I fumbled the newest name. It’s illegible but maybe that’s a good thing because it was a stupid thing to do.

  Switching off the water, I grab a towel, dry off then discard it and walk into the bedroom naked. I pull back the covers and climb into bed. Lenore changed the sheets so there’s no blood, but that means I can’t smell her on them anymore either.

  That’ll all change tomorrow night though, I tell myself.

  Come tomorrow night I can have her till my heart’s content. I’ll go slow. Build it up. Teach her to take what I give the way I give it. Teach her to come when it hurts.

  I close my eyes, but sleep doesn’t follow. Only the photo Charlie sent. Marcus Rinaldi sitting on a rickety wooden chair in the De La Cruz house drinking from a bottle of tequila. A woman on her knees sucking him off while Felix and a crew of Cartel men stand around probably plotting how they’ll off him when he’s no longer useful. When they can take over.

  Marcus the idiot getting his fucking dick sucked at the exact time that we were attacked here. He’s no mastermind behind any plot. He’s just not that smart. That attack wasn’t him.

  I don’t sleep much. Haven’t in years. But after lying in a coma for six long years, there’s time I need to make up for. I wonder if I’ll always feel this way.

  I roll onto my side and reach to open the nightstand drawer, taking out the stack of photos there. Old photographs of my family. Us when we were little. All of us. My brothers, my parents so young, then a few with my baby sister.

  And even as I see myself in those pictures, even as the proof that I was there is right in front of me, is in my fucking hands, I don’t feel a thing. Not a mother fucking god damned thing. I can’t. Because I can’t remember any of it. Not the vacations. Not me on my father’s shoulders in the pool. Not my mom hugging me when I fell and scraped my knee.

  I don’t remember the events and I don’t remember my family. My only memory is the night they were killed.

  What a cruel thing that that’s the one thing that sticks in my stupid brain.

  26

  Cristiano

  My head throbs in the too-bright sun as I stand on the beach drinking coffee while Cerberus plays in the waves. I need to make some calls today. Organize our impromptu wedding.

  Cerberus runs back to me as wind whips my face. It’s a brisk morning. He drops the ball I’ve been tossing for him at my feet and lays down, ready for more.

  “You’re quite the guard dog, you know,” I tell him, picking up the ball and throwing it into the waves.

  He charges after it and I watch. I love that dog. I love his innocence. The honesty of his existence.

  My arm aches. It’s the same one the doctor reset yesterday. I peel back my shirt to glance at the tattoo. Why I thought I could write a name in script no less at that angle while drunk is honestly beyond me. I shake my head at myself and finish my coffee, unable to resist looking up at her window again.

  It’s been empty every time, but she’s there now, her face turned up to the sun. She has her eyes closed as I watch her.

  That tattoo wasn’t the only idiotic thing I did last night. I kissed Scarlett. That’s twice now I’ve done it. The rest of it, tasting her, wanting my dick inside her, that I can classify as sex. I don’t have to overthink it. But kissing her is so fucking personal. And looking in her eyes when I do it is just fucking stupid.

  Cerberus barks.

  Her eyes snap open and they lock on mine. She’s surprised to see me here, and a moment later, she’s gone from sight.

  I rub my face, push my fingers into my hair. I’ve got to get my head on straight. Keep my eye on the goal. On why I’m doing any of this.

  Punish those who had a hand in the murders of my family.

  Period.

  Destroy Marcus Rinaldi.

  Period.

  Put him in an early grave.

  Period.

  The end.

  If I let myself get caught up in Scarlett De La Cruz and how good she tastes when I kiss her, how she feels and sounds when she comes, it will weaken me. Her uncle saw it last night. Just read it right on my face when I saw her standing there in that d
ress, looking like she didn’t belong here on earth.

  The chopper’s blades cut into the morning.

  I look up at it, see my uncle in profile. I feel nothing at the sight of him. Should I feel something?

  Without looking away I whistle for Cerberus who comes running out of the water, standing a little too close to shake off the excess.

  “Come on,” I tell him as we head to the kitchen door.

  “She refused breakfast,” Lenore says from the sink, giving me a sideways glance.

  “Hunger strike. It’s what she does.”

  She turns off the tap, picks up a towel and turns to me as I lift the espresso pot to pour myself another cup of coffee.

  “Why don’t you take some coffee up at least.”

  “I’m not her servant.”

  “Don’t be stubborn,” she tells me and shoves a second cup toward me.

  “Fine.”

  She nods, pleased with herself, I guess.

  “I’m only doing it because I need to talk to her about the wedding anyway.”

  “Sure, Cristiano.” She doesn’t say it sarcastically, but I hear her. Lenore knows me well. Better than anyone else. “Do you want me to show your uncle into the study?”

  “No. Keep him here. Put Cerberus with him.”

  She nods, grins because she knows how much Cerberus likes my uncle. “It’s good you’re going to ask Father Michael to perform the ceremony. Your parents would be pleased.”

  Father Michael married my mom and dad too.

  Without a reply because I don’t know how to reply, I walk out of the kitchen, leaving Cerberus to have his breakfast.

  I’m not sure what to expect this morning. That’s the thing with her. I never know what to expect. She’s unpredictable to the point of being reckless. I’m surprised she survived Marcus considering his temper, but I guess her brothers stood between him and her. Hell, I don’t know how she survived them.

  I get upstairs to find Alec standing outside her door and the sound of women talking inside. They’re speaking in Italian so it’s probably the women doing her hair and makeup.