I sigh and flip my pillow over before scooting closer to the wall and tucking my blankets around me.
Katherine returned from her trip, slept, and left for classes while I was at work, so other than our notes and the one phone call yesterday afternoon, I haven’t spoken with her. I miss her so much my chest aches, but with how unstable my emotions are, it’s probably best I haven’t seen her face yet. I’ll probably lose all control when I hug her.
Despite my fatigue from running nonstop in the emergency room for twelve hours, I can’t fall asleep. The apartment feels way too empty. Every creak or muffled sound from a neighbor sends my senses on high alert. I tighten my grip on my knife and press it harder against my breasts.
Worry gnaws at me. I should have tried to identify the man Fiero caught, but I couldn’t force myself to look. I don’t want to remember the face of the man my husband killed under the guise of keeping me safe, even if the guy was a criminal.
Narciso is still loose in the city, and with Fiero preoccupied, I’m easy prey. The lock on my door won’t stop someone like Narciso, nor will the building’s security cameras or alarms. I don’t know any of my neighbors, so I can’t rely on them to call the cops if I scream.
I’m as alone as when Fiero had me bound, blindfolded, and gagged in a strange room.
I long for the bubble of safety he exudes, which is stupid as fuck because he’s pure danger himself.
The soreness between my legs and the dull throbbing of my insides should be proof enough for me to fear and hate him with every cell in my body, but the brute tapped into so many parts of me I didn’t know I had.
I sigh, flip my pillow again, and punch it a few times for good measure before moving my knife to my other hand.
The small kitchen knife won’t do me much good against a seasoned killer, but maybe the element of surprise will be enough.
A few seconds pass in relative silence. The fridge hums. Wind whistles over the closed window. The clock in the living room ticks.
After I jerk awake several times, I beg my mind to go offline for a while. I need at least a few minutes of restorative sleep so I can function properly at work.
When exhaustion finally takes over and drains the tension from my body, I float in a world of darkness. Temporary peace settles over me. I sigh in my sleep. Soft footfalls creep down the hall. The bedroom door closes.
When I finally lift my heavy eyelids, I lie in the center of the bed on my back with Fiero’s massive frame looming over me. I’d know him by the broad expanse of his shoulders, even if he stood in a room full of hundreds of men. He shrugs his jacket off and tosses it aside, and with that one simple movement, he reawakens my lust. Heat bubbles in my veins as he pulls his shirt over his head and drops it to join his jacket. When he leans down and braces his palms on either side of me, my nipples pebble and clit pulses.
He angles his head to align his face with mine and pierces my soul with his intense brown orbs.
“Mio Dio, how the hell am I supposed to do this when you’re so fucking gorgeous?”
His words make no sense. I furrow my brow and lift a heavy hand to touch the stubble on his chin. A muscle ticks in his jaw. He closes his eyes and nuzzles my palm.
My heart leaps, and still mostly asleep, I bask in the intimate moment.
He grabs my wrist, pulls the blanket down to my hips, and yanks the knife out of my hand before dropping it onto the floor and pinning my hands above my head.
I snap awake with a gasp and buck, but it’s too late. His heavy body presses mine to the mattress.
“I need all your secrets, mia caramellina,” he murmurs against my jugular.
Fear solidifies my heart. I shake my head and twist my hips.
“Are you hiding something from me, Mia?”
His use of my fake name reminds me of what’s at stake. I can’t endanger my sister after all she’s been through.
“What the hell are you talking about? Did you get hit in the head or something?” I snark.
He chuckles and licks the side of my neck.
“Ah, my spicy little caramel is back to fighting form, isn’t she? Buono. I have things to do to you. Nasty, delicious things,” he promises with a nip to my collarbone.
Even as my insides melt and need thrums through my loins, I curse him and try to knee his thigh, but he wedges his hips between my legs and grinds his cock against my sex. When he slides down so his ribs part my thighs impossibly wider and his muscular chest presses against my pussy through my shorts, I force my muscles to relax and take a steadying breath.
He flexes his fingers around my wrists and pushes them deeper into the pillow.
My thin t-shirt does little to dampen the sensations as he nestles his face between my breasts. His facial hair scratches my flesh and the warmth of his breath ghosts over my skin through the fabric. My thighs tremble as he reaches down to adjust his cock against the mattress before slipping his fingertips under my shirt to tease the flesh above my waistband.
“Look at me, amore mio,” he demands.
I swallow, open and close my fists, and look down my body to meet his eyes. The visual delight of his head nestled between my breasts and his masculine body overpowering my feminine curves creates a firestorm in my core.
“I’m going to take more than a taste tonight, mia caramellina,” he promises.
I shake my head, more from instinct than denial, but the sound of the front door opening stiffens every muscle in my body.
My sister shuts the door, takes off her shoes, and tosses her bag onto the kitchen counter, like always. When she opens the fridge and pours herself a glass of water, I silently beg her to either lock herself in her room or leave the apartment altogether, but I know she won’t.
She doesn’t know specifics, but I told her through my note and during our phone call she needs to be scarce for a while. This morning, she’ll write me a note claiming she picked up another part-time job near her new boyfriend’s place, so she’ll only stop by occasionally.
I’m not ready for this. Having sex in the living room was too much, and Katherine wasn’t even back in town yet. How am I supposed to cope knowing my sister is right there?
Fiero mouths my breast through my shirt and skims his hand up my bare side underneath the fabric. I jump and glare at him.
Katherine moves around a bit before settling on the couch and turning on the television. She starts a show we’ve watched many times, keeping the volume at a respectable level but loud enough to drown out most noises.
I don’t know what time it is. My blackout curtains make the room perpetually dark, and I don’t have an alarm clock other than my phone.
Fiero cups and lifts my breast with his long fingers underneath my shirt and rubs his face back and forth over the covered mound, teasing his lips and stubble over my nipple with agonizing slowness. The t-shirt adds a layer of friction. A whimper escapes my throat.
“Hush, principessa. Wouldn’t want your girlfriend to get jealous, would we?”
Ice coalesces in my chest and fury rides the lust roaring through my veins as memories flood my mind, lending me unprecedented strength. I yank one wrist out of his grip, but he closes his fist before I can pull my other arm away. I grab his hair as he tightens his fingers on my other wrist in warning.
“Don’t do this. Please,” I manage through gritted teeth.
“Do what, exactly? Pleasure my wife? Torture my captive? Taste my midnight snack? Or do you mean fuck my woman while her past lover sits a few feet away?”
“She’s my roommate, not my lover, you moron, so quit with the jealous caveman act and get off me. This is weird and I don’t like it, so stop.”
He hums a noncommittal note and scrapes his teeth over my nipple through my shirt. I bite back a gasp as lightning arcs straight to my core.
“Your body says otherwise, mia caramellina. It wants me to taste every inch, doesn’t it?”
I part my lips to argue, but he closes his mouth over my breast and laves my nipple. At my strangled sound, he guides our joined hands to my mouth and presses my palm over my lips before lifting his hand away. He circles my extended peak with his tongue before suctioning his mouth over my entire areola and pulling his head back. I squeak and squeeze his hair and the bottom half of my face. Just when the stinging pleasure pain in my breast tips toward agony, he releases suction and smirks at me.
I clamp my thighs around his midsection, but he wedges his free hand between us, slips under my waistbands, and teases the tips of his fingers over the fleshy mound centimeters above my clit.
“What secrets are you hiding, Mia?” he asks as he shifts his attention to my other breast.
I shake my head and glare at him as best as I can with his face hovering over my sensitive nipple.
“Was meeting Narciso really an accident?” he asks.
I peel my hand off my face and yank his hair.
“Of course it was. Look at where it landed me. My life was perfect before—”
I gasp and writhe as he sensually attacks my breast. His saliva soaks my shirt and adds an undeniably erotic element to the sensation.
“Hush, principessa, before your roommate comes to check on you,” he growls with his lips brushing over my nipple.
Even as I realize he’s goading me, fury bursts through me.
“Don’t call me that, testa di cazzo,” I hiss and buck.
He chuckles, nips my sensitive peak, and sinks two fingers into my pussy.
I hover on the edge of an explosive orgasm.
“Why do you hate being called principessa, Mia?”
“Vaffanculo!”
It’s a lame comeback, but I pour every ounce of my hatred into the curse. One stroke of my clit and I’ll come undone.
He shushes me and releases my breast to guide my hand back to my mouth before pushing my shirt up to my collarbone.
“Where’d you learn Italian, baby?”
My pussy flutters around his fingers as his hungry eyes roam over my breasts and his gravelly voice rumbles through my veins.
“Mio Dio, you’re a wet dream in the flesh. Why do I keep thinking you look familiar? There’s no way I’d forget meeting someone as luscious as you.”
He dips his head and flicks his tongue directly over my nipple.
I clamp my hand over my mouth and will my mind to disassociate. The lust roaring through my body is too much.
He curls his fingers inside me.
Pleasure barrels through me, but he pulls away and rises, ending my orgasm too soon. He pulls my shorts and panties off in one fluid movement before settling his face between my thighs and wrapping my legs over his shoulders. I shake my head and press my hand against his forehead.
His heavy-lidded gaze as he studies my pussy adds fuel to the fire in my core. He hooks his hands around my thighs and holds me right where he wants me.
“Answer me, amore mio. What is mia moglie hiding from suo marito?”
When he simultaneously dips his head closer to my sex and reaches up to grab my breast, I arch my back, tighten my grip over my mouth, and straighten my arm to hold him away from my pussy.
He extends his tongue and runs the tip through my drenched folds. My thighs quiver around his head as fissures of pleasure electrify my nerves.
“Fuck, how am I supposed to interrogate you when you taste so good?”
I shake my head, but it’s too late. He growls, leans forward, plasters his mouth over my entire sex, and devours me as though he’ll die without his next lick.
Wave after wave of rapture batters my insides and floods his mouth. Sweat drips down my temples and mindless sounds burst from my throat, but I muffle the noise with my hand.
When he tweaks my nipple and nips my clit with his lip-sheathed teeth, I launch into a second orgasm. It’s too intense. I fill my fists with his silky hair and twist my fingers in the strands, needing to hurt him in whatever way I can.
He releases my breast and covers the bottom half of my face with his calloused hand.
The bathroom door closes. My sister shuffles down the hall toward the living room.
My soul screams in denial as I convulse through the aftershocks of two back-to-back orgasms.
Fiero lifts his head just enough to reveal his glistening chin as he meets my eyes. He quirks a brow and lifts his hand from my mouth.
“Will you tell me now, mia caramellina, or should I start over?”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
My shaky, throaty voice doesn’t sound like mine, but my chest aches from the effort as I heave for breath.
He lowers his head.
I descend into a world of too much. Too much pleasure. Too much pain. Too much him.
For what feels like hours, he tortures me with teeth, tongue, and hands, sometimes bringing me to the brink just to keep me there for millennia, while other times he overwhelms me with multiple, unending orgasms.
Nothing exists beyond his mastering of my body. His domination of my soul. He ties me to him with no way to sever the connection. My mind and heart will never fully belong to me again. He’ll always own parts of me. I’ll always drip from his fingers. Always coat his face. Always come apart for him and him alone.
When he finally crawls up my body and fits the head of his cock to my entrance, I cling to him, afraid I’ll melt into the mattress to become forever lost, and I moan at the delicious stretch as he sinks into me.
I already breathe him, so when he captures my mouth with his, I have no defenses against his ruthless invasion.
With every thrust of his hips, he gives me more of himself. More of his cock. More of his heart. More of his devotion.
He’s too rough. Too intense.
I never want him to stop.
With unhurried strokes, he hits painfully deep before pulling almost all the way out and surging back in. His enormous hands brush my hair from my temples, caress my throat, and grab my hips in a mix of demand and worship, scrambling the remnants of my brain, and I wonder how I ever survived without him.
I need him, and not just for protection. Stripped of all my defenses, I recognize him as my other half. He’s the only one who can handle my fucked up past—if he doesn’t kill me when he finds out the truth.
He loses control and releases deep inside me. Even as I relish the moment, I slip into an exhausted half sleep. My arms slip off his back and land on the bed. Moving is too hard. Breathing is overrated. Thinking hurts.
I rouse when his weight disappears, but he shushes me and covers me with the sheet.
“Let me clean you up, then we’ll start round two,” he whispers against my ear before pulling his pants on and opening the door.
The instant shift in ambiance clears away my fatigue. I hold the blankets to my chest and sit up.
The tension emanating from him terrifies me. I lean forward and freeze as Katherine’s terrified expression etches itself into my mind as she stares at him from the end of the hall.
Her eyes shift to mine.
Fiero’s hands close into fists at his sides.
He recognizes her. There’s no other reason for his reaction.
Katherine bolts. Fiero curses and darts forward. I scramble after them, landing face first and halfway in the hallway when the sheets tangle around my legs.
“Don’t hurt her!” I scream as I push off the floor and use the wall to rise as I rush down the hallway.
By the time I reach the living room, it’s too late. Fiero wraps an arm around Katherine’s midsection and peels her fingers away from the front door’s handle. She screams and kicks as he carries her across the living room. He shoves me away before I can grab either of them. Naked and weak from hours of sensual torture, I trip on the edge of the coffee table and tumble over the arm of the couch.
Adrenaline erases my pain. I rise onto my knees and pull myself upright using the couch as he slams her bedroom door and breaks the handle, locking her inside. He drops her backpack, purse, and phone onto the coffee table before stalking toward me.
I scramble backward until I hit the wall.
Katherine pounds on the door and screams my name. My real name.
My heart quails as my husband wraps his hand around my throat.
He’s no longer the man who worshipped and ruined me mere moments ago. He’s the brother of the man I was supposed to marry, a merciless, heartless killer. A soulless monster.
His semen seeps down my inner thigh.
My heart stretches out to my sister. I led the cruelest mafia man right to her doorstep. I failed to protect her.
Just like I failed to protect my heart from Fiero’s ruthless claiming.
I’m so fucking fucked.
