“Why no police?”
He narrows his eyes at me and beckons. I go. I’m shaking, and my palms are all sweaty, but I go. It’s warm in here and smells faintly of mothballs and wool. The shiny, hardwood floor muffles my footsteps.
When I reach him, he tugs me onto one of his knees.
“I want to inspect you.”
The deep rumble of his voice goes straight between my thighs, and I pull them together.
“Inspect me?”
“Yeah, bella. Inspect you. I want to be sure you’re not injured.”
I’m obviously not injured, so it seems to me he’s just using this as an excuse to get handsy with me, but okay then.
“My sisters and mother have guards on them,” he says in explanation. “Natalia was secured in the upstairs guest room. Papa is fine, as are my men.”
His men. Who has men?
“Now I need to be sure my future wife is alright.”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” I say, shaking my head at him. “Nuh uh. I did not agree to that.”
He doesn’t respond, but slips his hands around the hem of my sweater and lifts it, exposing a strip of creamy skin at my belly. “So far, you look unharmed.” His calloused thumbs grip my waist, his fingers coming to rest on my hips. “Top off.”
It feels like an erotic dance of two steps forward, sidestep, one step back. I shrug out of my top, and he continues his perusal of me.
“Ah, baby,” he says sadly. “There’s a scrape on your shoulder.”
Bending, he brushes his lips over a red mark that looks like a scrape. The soft caress of his kiss makes me warm all over.
When he spins me around, his brow is furrowed as if in concern. He kisses so many little scrapes and bruises, I feel as if he’s made half of them up, but when he comes to an angry gash on my left shoulder, he hisses out a curse and takes out his phone.
“He still conscious?”
He listens.
“Good. Leave him for me.” The phone clatters to the floor at his feet.
Wait. Oh my God. He wants to punish the man who attacked us… because I’m hurt?
Why do I like that?
Do I?
He maneuvers me like I’m a mannequin and he’s my master. I’m pliant as he spins me to face him and eyes my bra-clad breasts.
“Off with the bra, Vittoria.” The low sound of his voice makes my nipples peak.
“What?” I mean, my breasts didn’t get injured…
A sharp spank to my ass has me coming up on my toes and hissing out a breath. “Romeo!”
“Take. Off. Your. Bra.”
He hasn’t moved his hand from my ass yet.
Here, hidden in the coat closet, he’s casually stripping me under the facade of making sure I’m okay, and I feel more turned on than I’ve been in my life.
I want to know. I want to see what happens if I disobey him, if I push him back. If I’m going to marry this man, I need to be able to push.
Why did my mind just go there?
I grasp the back of my bra, my hands trembling. I want to do this. I’m alone in a closet with a dangerous man who’s a stranger to me but possibly my future husband. I know without question he knows his way around a woman’s body, and his words from earlier echo in my mind like a mantra.
Natural.
Submissive.
Natural submissive…
I hold his gaze and choose blatant disobedience. I bite my lip. “Make me.”
With a primal growl, he reaches for me, yanks the bra, and tears it off me like it’s made of tissue paper. I gasp when my breasts swing free, the fabric falling to the floor. He glides his rough hands up my body and drags me to him.
“You’ll regret that,” he warns, then yanks me to him. His mouth clamps onto my nipple and his teeth bite down. My back arches, but when I go to scream, his mouth on mine silences me. The kiss is chastening, a physical rebuke of my daring to defy him. I whimper when he bites my lip, and on instinct sink onto his knee. I close my eyes, drowning in sensation, then scream silently into his mouth when he twists my other bared nipple.
I’ve never been corrected like this before. His hand on my ass squeezes. I yelp. He lifts me up, tips me over, and I’m staring at the floor with my belly on his knee.
“Romeo!” My hand flails out as if to steady myself, but he only shakes his head.
“I mean what I say, Vittoria.” He reaches above him, grabs something I can’t see, then settles me onto his lap. He shifts and something snaps in his hand. “I told you I meant what I say. I warned you.”
He lifts his arm and searing pain explodes in a line of fire across my ass. I’m too stunned to scream. My legs scissor when he smacks me again. My naked breasts rub against the rough fabric of his pants, but he leaves my bottoms on. He spanks me again, and again, until I’m panting and, to my shock, squirming in arousal.