“You were foolish enough to hide from me today, knowing you’d be punished and that I’d only watch you more closely.”
I shrug a bare shoulder, keenly aware of how close he is to me, his mouth and his tongue and his fingers.
Keenly aware of how easily this could turn.
“You call it foolish. I call it intentional.”
From my peripheral vision, I watch him shake his head from side to side. “Ah, lovely. You make a mockery of me? After I’ve whipped and humiliated you?” I don’t think I imagine the warning in his tone, but how much more could he do to me?
He can whip and humiliate me all he wants. It won’t faze me. Whereas other women may be scared of the tactics of a man like him, I’ve known them from the cradle.
“Not a mockery, no,” I say honestly.
“Then what?” He stands and grabs the towel from the floor and fists it in his palm.
I don’t respond. I’m not sure how to. I’m not sure why I did it, but it wasn’t to mock him. This is far too serious a venture for me to treat it so lightly.
“You wanted my attention, Elise? That’s what you wanted?”
I did. Reluctantly, I nod, even though I already recognize the danger in his voice.
“Stand up, then.”
I stand, slowly uncurling myself like I’m waking from a dream. My breasts feel strangely full and tingly, and my skin feels heated and alive.
“Turn around.”
I turn around unhurriedly, apprehension flooding my limbs. I stare at my future husband. My strapping, furious fiancé.
I take in all of him. His sturdy shoulders decorated with ink, the Rossi rose on his inner forearm. The flourish of tattoos along his neck and chest, the smattering of dark black hair. Though he has the Rossi family dark blue eyes, there’s a coldness to his that distinguishes him from the rest. Whereas Romeo’s the Boss, Orlando the group Enforcer, Tavi’s the brains behind everything they do, I know it.
And that might make him the most dangerous of them all.
He crooks a finger at me.
I face him squarely, unblinking, as I walk to him. I’ve got nothing to lose.
When we’re standing so close our toes touch, I have to tip my head back to look up at him. We’re both stripped. Naked. My family would castigate us for this before our wedding night, but here, it doesn’t matter. We’ve broken so many rules we’ve rewritten the script.
His cock juts in front of him at full mast, and my pussy clenches in response. We could be Adam and Eve in Eden for all our bodies know. I don’t care right then who he is or what he’s done. My body’s on fire with primal need.
“You want me to watch you? You want my attention?” His voice is hoarse and rough, just like him. “You’ve got it, baby.” I hear the mockery in his tone, but it doesn’t stop me from liking it.
“Touch yourself,” he orders.
I don’t need to be asked twice. I obey immediately, grateful for the pressure of my fingers on my slick folds. But the truth is, I don’t want to be the one touching myself. I want his rough fingers again. I want that stern glare in his eyes to soften when he makes me come. I want—
His phone blares in the silence, a resounding sound like a siren. Still watching me, he turns and fetches it from the table beside the door, then walks back to me as he answers it. I freeze when he takes the call, but he quickly mouths, “Don’t fucking stop.”
My mouth partly opens as I touch myself and he takes his call.
“Yeah?” He listens, but his eyes are on me. I work myself faster and harder, and when I reach for my nipples to squeeze them, bliss floods my limbs, the first shock shuddering through me. He reaches for his own thick cock and gives a languid stroke.
“Jesus,” he mutters.
I pause only for a split second before I start stroking again. I need this. I want the release. He’s told me to touch myself and worked me this far, I’m not stopping now. A little sliver of fear warns me that he could command me to stop at any minute, but God, it will be worth another punishment just to defy him and make myself come.
I close my eyes, lost to sensation, stroking myself faster, circling my clit and pinching my nipples. I don’t even stop when he reaches for me and sits on a stool by the kitchen. He tugs me onto his lap while I work my climax, muttering in Italian and English, grunting answers and asking questions.
I’m right on the edge but can’t bring myself there. I whimper and tense, so close I want to lose all control, but I’m frozen on the edge of release, when he sinks his teeth into the muscle at the base of my neck and shoulder and bites.