I kneeled between his legs with butterflies in my stomach and nothing but him in my vision.
“If I’d known money would be the thing to bring you to your knees,” he said, “I would’ve bragged about my fortune relentlessly.”
“I already know you have money. More than my father, and he’s a multi-millionaire.” I willed my hands steady as I reached up and opened his belt. “That’s not why I asked.”
“Why then?”
I slid the fine leather band through his pant loops and set it on the bed. “If money is no object,” I said, “there’s nothing you cannot buy.”
“Nothing.”
“This thing you want to find. Tell me, truly, why you want it. Maybe it becomes revenge or money or sex—but at your core, what is your unmet need?”
The lust in his eyes burned so hot, I suspected he wouldn’t even be able to form a cohesive answer. “I’m looking for the key that unlocks something I’ve wanted for a long time.” He jutted out his chin. “Not something. Everything.”
Though my throat dried with the prospect of what I was about to do, my mouth watered. He’d said this was what he wanted tonight, but it was more of a need. And he seemed to think that I of all people could fill it. Had anyone ever reciprocated that kind of trust in me?
I had no keys to give—whatever he ultimately needed, it wasn’t here tonight. But I was.
I sat back on my calves and lowered the zipper of his pants. “Why should a man like you ever have a need that isn’t met?”
“I tend to agree.”
Dark hair gathered like a storm cloud at the root of his hidden cock. Once I freed him from his underwear, I was sure there’d be no turning back. There was no need to be scared. I was in control here, and that was saying something. I’d heard about giving head plenty of times, just as I’d heard about receiving it—and that had been a more pleasant experience than I’d expected.
“Have you done this before?” Cristiano asked.
I stared at the bulge twitching to be liberated. “No.”
“I’m glad. But tonight, I’m in no state to be your first.” It was a warning, but not a refusal.
When I shifted my hand and brushed against him, he sucked in a breath. “Why not?” I asked.
“It took everything in me—and I mean everything—not to fuck you in your wedding dress in the church. I want to own you so badly, it scares even me. Now, seeing my name on your body for eternity . . . I’ve been tortured with need since the first ink touched your skin.”
He was telling me he didn’t want this? Or he was giving me an out. An opportunity to retreat. I didn’t want to, and I didn’t want to ask myself why that was. I’d been prepared to take all of him on my wedding night, and then again earlier when I’d gone to his office in my robe.
“What state are you in?” I asked.
“The one where I find your limits and push them. I’m fine to sit back and let you kiss on my cock for hours while you figure it out—one day. Not tonight. Tonight, I want to fuck something.”
“There are lots of somethings downstairs.”
“You’re right. I don’t want to fuck any of them. I want to fuck you.”
I needed to get up. He was warning me. This had been my goal and my fear—to unleash his inner demons.
“I’m scarier than any monster,” he’d told me as a child to chase away my nightmares.
But it was also my desire. To see his worst, to free him, and to hate him for it. I was prepared to let him use me, because I was prepared to hate him.
I wasn’t prepared for the alternative. To accept him, to crave him. To . . .
I pushed the thought away.
His own inner battle played out on his face. He was just as tortured as I was bewildered by my own desire to do this.
“This is my last attempt to scare you off.” He took my jaw in his big hand and lifted my face to meet his gaze. “I will fuck this mouth. I will fill this throat, first with cock, then with cum. And you know what I’ll do after that?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t even conceive what more he could do.
“I will protect this mouth and this throat from any motherfucker who even looks at you wrong. Every part of your body will submit to me, and every inch of you will know the protection of a man who would lay down his life to keep each hair in place.” He stood to his full height, doubling in size and menace. “No man will touch what’s mine to suck and lick and fuck. No man will take what you give only to me.”