Iopen my eyes, and a scream rises up my throat.
Every muscle in my body goes rigid and terror claws at my heart. Please let this be a dream. A nightmare.
Directly in front of me is the floor-to-ceiling mirror on the front of my wardrobe, and I stare into my own wide-eyed, terror-stricken reflection. My cheek is pressed into the pillow and the white ruffled strap of my pajama top has tumbled down. A shaft of silver moonlight falls across my comforter, and the clock on my bedside table ticks out every agonizing second. It’s nearly one in the morning. The witching hour?
More like the devil’s hour.
And the devil’s in my bed.
A large, muscular figure cloaked in darkness. He shifts with a sleepy murmur and the sheer size of him rocks my whole body. His head is behind mine on the pillow, and I can see little of him except for the dark, silky hair falling across his forehead and the sleeve of his black T-shirt tight around his muscular bicep.
This man is huge. Tall, and built like a linebacker. The first time I laid eyes on him, I thought that he was uncomfortably, aggressively large, and I still think that every time he walks into a room. I feel like I’m sharing this usually generous bed with a nine-foot demon from hell. His body heat is scorching the backs of my bare legs and my normally sweet-smelling bedroom is filled with an invasive masculine scent.
I hate this man in the daylight, and I fear him at night. I can’t stand him looking at me or even breathing near me, and I absolutely loathe the sensation of his body brushing against mine. Every second of every day, I’m trying to avoid his massive body in the kitchen or ignore the way he glares at me across the dining table. The last place he should be is in my bed. We’re not lovers.
We’re not even friends.
Lazzaro Rosetti is Mom’s twenty-nine-year-old husband, a grade-A asshole, and my new stepfather.
I angle my chin up and sniff the air, trying to catch the scent of alcohol, which might explain why the hell Lazzaro has mistaken my bedroom for the one he shares with Mom, but there’s nothing but the aroma of his cologne. I say “shares,” but my new stepfather is unpredictable, coming in and out of the house at all hours of the day and night. He’s more like a restless animal than a man. Sometimes I catch him sleeping on the sofa or on a deck chair out by the pool. One morning last week, he was sleeping on the living room floor, and I stepped over him on my way to the kitchen. Lazzaro came suddenly alive, grabbing my ankle and refusing to let go as I squealed and tried to shake him off. His grip was an iron manacle, and his green eyes flashed with malice. All the while, he was grinning like this was a game to him.
I managed to kick him in the ribs with my sneakers and he grunted in pain. Still grinning, he yanked me closer so he could take his revenge by looking up my skirt.
Lazzaro gazed up at me from the floor. “Mm, white lace. My favorite.”
Cheeks burning with humiliation, I shoved my skirt between my legs. “You asshole.”
Mom’s footsteps could be heard coming down the sweeping marble stairs, and Lazzaro let go of me so fast that I stumbled. By the time she came into the kitchen with a crimson-and-gold silk robe hanging from her elegant shoulders, he was leaning against the kitchen counter waiting for the coffee machine to finish dispensing a double shot of Colombian roast.
I found my voice a few seconds later. “Mom, Lazzaro just grabbed me, and he wouldn’t let go.”
Lazzaro passed the coffee to Mom, no cream or sugar, just how she likes it. She stared in confusion at his out-of-character thoughtful gesture, but then accepted the cup.
“Mia stumbled and I didn’t want her to fall and hurt herself,” he explained mildly.
“That’s not what—”
Mom winced and pinched her brow. “Mia, please keep your voice down. I just woke up. And next time, look where you’re going.”
Lazzaro folded his arms across his enormous chest and smirked at me behind his wife’s back.
Mom pushed out through the double doors to drink her coffee in the garden. She didn’t look at me once. Mom almost never looks at me.
After all these years, you’d think I’d be used to it, but it still hurts being the Bianchi family’s shame. Mom’s face falls or her eyes skim over me whenever I walk into a room. Grandmother flinches whenever I speak at the dinner table. My three uncles give me stony glares before kissing my older sisters hello warmly.
There was a vicious whisper in my ear. “So, it’s true. No one believes a single word out of your mouth.”
Lazzaro was standing right behind me. He was so close that I could see every detail of the scar that cuts vertically through his lips on the left-hand side. It gives him a dangerous, roguish appearance, especially when he smiles and bares his strong white teeth.
His vindictive mouth whispered, “Or maybe it’s just that they don’t give a fuck what you have to say, and never have.”
Now he’s in my bed, and I don’t know if it’s a mistake or on purpose. But I’m not sticking around to find out. I grasp the edge of the mattress and wriggle my way toward it, staring at our reflections in the mirror and hoping I don’t wake him.
Lazzaro’s eyes pop open. I catch the feral gleam of his green gaze in the darkness, and my stomach swoops. A slow, nasty smile spreads over his face.
He’s not confused.
He knows exactly whose bed he’s in.
I want to scream, but I don’t, because eighteen years on this earth has taught me that no matter what goes wrong, it’s always my fault. If Mom runs in here, Lazzaro will protest that he made an honest mistake. Mom will tell me I’m attention-seeking, and I’ll end up being forced to apologize for causing drama in the middle of the night. I’d rather gargle hot sauce and toilet cleaner than say sorry to this man.
“What are you doing in my room?” I hiss, holding tight to the blankets.
“Your mom’s pissing me off.”
When are they not pissing each other off? Every time they fight, I’m the one who pays for it. Mom walks around slamming doors and shouting. Lazzaro finds me and destroys whatever peace I’ve found watching TV, swimming in the pool, or reading in the garden.
“Then go and sleep on the sofa.”
“But I like your bed.”
“Then I’ll go sleep on the sofa.”
But Lazzaro grabs the back of my pajama top as I try to get out of my bed. “Running off? So fucking rude when I’m being nice to you.”
“How is this nice?” I exclaim in an outraged whisper.
“Did anyone else talk to you today?”
Tonight, Uncle Tomaso and Aunt Sofia came to dinner with their children, two cousins who are older than me and another who is younger. At one point I asked one of my cousins how school was going. Aunt Sofia immediately talked over me and changed the subject.
“Screw you,” I whisper, shuddering with anger and humiliation.
Lazzaro slides an arm beneath me and drags me back against his chest. “Cold? I’ll warm you up.”
His burning hot flesh presses against my back, scorching me from the nape of my neck to my heels. I struggle to get out of his grip, but both of his arms come around me. One of his hands is on my waist and the other is on my bare inner thigh. He’s wearing sweats, but as his hips press into me, I feel the telltale ridge of something hard and thick against my ass.
Panicked words fall from my lips. “What the . . . is that your . . . Oh, my God.”
“What’s what?” Lazzaro speaks directly into my ear, his deep voice rumbly and tinged with lust and amusement. I dig my nails into his muscular forearms and grit my teeth against the restless, fluttering feeling low in my belly. He gets off on tormenting me, and he’s made that clear from day one. The moment he crossed the threshold into this house after their honeymoon, his expression dark with anger and every muscle bunched beneath his black T-shirt, he zeroed in on me. Someone was going to suffer for what he’d been forced to do, and I’m his perfect victim.
No, it started before that day. Our eyes met at the church altar and his gaze fell to my nipples, which were pebbled into points and painfully obvious through my pink satin bridesmaid gown. It was so cold in the church, they were practically visible from space.
The priest prompted him to say his vows, and he lifted his eyes to mine as he spoke the words, I do.
Like a curse.
Like a threat.
“Why are you torturing me like this? What did I ever do to you?”
In our reflections, Lazzaro’s eyes narrow with spite. “It’s nothing personal, Mia. I just hate your fucking family.”
He didn’t want to marry Mom, and Mom didn’t want to marry him, but it was arranged by our families like something out of the Middle Ages. The Rosetti family wants to force Lazzaro to settle down, and Mom wants some of the power and money that the Rosetti men wield like weapons in this city. Absolutely nothing about their marriage has to do with love. It’s pure business.
I lie still for a moment, letting Lazzaro think he’s won whatever sick game he’s playing. He reaches up and palms one of my breasts like he owns it. My nipple hardens against the friction of his hand, and pleasure courses through me.
I ram my elbow into Lazzaro’s stomach and fling myself off the bed. I manage to get to the edge of the mattress before he snatches me back against his hard chest.
“Ah-ah, Mia,” he taunts. “Can’t have you roaming the house in the middle of the night. Good girls stay in bed.”
I growl with frustration as loud as I dare. “I hate you,” I seethe, wrenching myself back and forth in his iron-like grip.
“I hate you more.”
I buck in his arms until his hand lands on my pussy and his fingers curl to cup my sex over my pajama shorts. I inhale sharply. “What are you doing?”
“Ride my fingers.”
“Go to hell,” I say through my gritted teeth. My whole body is rigid as I wait for him to continue my humiliation. Grow bolder. Become an even worse man by invading my clothing. But Lazzaro doesn’t move. Instead, he laughs softly, and I see in our reflection that he closes his eyes and relaxes.
“Whatever. They’re there if you need them.”
And Lazzaro goes to sleep, leaving his fingers right where they are, tucked against my sex. My heart pounds, and my chest feels like it’s about to explode. I take as deep a breath as I can, locked in the cage of Lazzaro’s arms. I’ll wait until he’s asleep and then get the hell out of here.
My eyes focus on our reflection. I’m flat-chested and straight-waisted, and I have never felt sexy. But I look different in Lazzaro’s big arms with his muscular forearm draped around my middle, and I feel a little bit precious with his sleep-softened face pressed into the side of my neck. He looks as rough and scary as always, but the way he’s curled around me seems . . . protective. Possessive.
Like I’m wanted for a change.
My gaze sweeps down his body, from the hard planes of his face and jaw to his shoulder looming over mine. The bumps of his ribs beneath his T-shirt and the inch of warm, tanned skin where his top has ridden up his belly. Lazzaro always looks too big to be allowed, but right now his bigness seems just right. My heart pounds and my stomach is alive with fluttering. I shift slightly in his arms and feel the unmistakable sensation of wetness between my legs and against his fingers through my thin cotton shorts.
And because I’m wet and slippery, the pressure of his fingers against my clit feels amazing. Lazzaro is the biggest asshole I’ve ever met, but he’s also stupidly hot, and I hate him even more because of it. Every time he smirks at me, I can tell he’s thinking how great he is.
Barely realizing I’m doing it, I rotate my hips in slow circles. My eyes drift closed as the tiny movements cause a tidal wave of sensation to crash through me. I’ve masturbated plenty of times before, and the results have been swift but unsatisfying. Mechanically, everything works as it’s supposed to, but something was always missing.
Someone to fantasize about.
My eyes snap open and fasten on Lazzaro’s sleeping face. Mom’s husband is not the object of my desires. That’s just sick. But he is aggressively masculine and smells like sin, two things I crave, apparently, because my hips are still moving on their own. Back and forth on Lazzaro’s fingers. I let out a soft pant as the sensations kick up a notch.
I’ll stop.
I will.
This is so fucked up and wrong.
But so is he for coming in here.
Lazzaro’s arms are painfully tight around me, and his hard-on is wedged tight in my ass. The room is dark, and my core is so molten hot that reality starts to slide out of my grasp. There’s just pleasure and a man’s strong fingers against my pussy, and the memory of his sultry voice breathing in my ear, Ride my fingers.
I let out the tiniest of whimpers, but Lazzaro’s breathing stays deep and even. He has no idea what’s happening, and I’m close—so close—and I can’t make myself stop. It’s never felt this good before, and I have to discover what’s waiting for me on the other side of this delicious feeling. Just a little more . . . just a little more . . . I want . . . I need . . .
Heat and pleasure rise up and crash over me. My body flexes in Lazzaro’s strong arms as I hurtle beyond all conscious thought and straight into pure pleasure.
That was better than anything I’ve felt in my entire life.
I suck in a deep breath and open my eyes.
Lazzaro is awake and staring at me, his expression absolutely feral.
Fear lashes through me, and I yelp, grabbing hold of his taut forearms and clinging to him, even though he’s the one I’m afraid of.
“I wasn’t . . .” I start to say in a high-pitched, panicked voice.
With a growl, Lazzaro rolls on top of me. His bulk pins me face first to the mattress and his hot breath seethes in my ear. “Again.”
My eyes open wide. Lazzaro’s fingers are still tight against my clit. With his feet, he forces my legs open and thrusts his hips down, pushing my pussy against his fingers.
“What? No—”
My clit rolls against his hand, and I moan as pure pleasure builds inside me again. He keeps rhythmically thrusting himself against my ass while he moves his fingers in a come here motion.
“Stop that,” I buzz angrily into the mattress. I try to buck him off, but he’s too heavy, and I only succeed in working myself harder against his fingers. I can’t possibly come again. Not so soon. Surely bodies aren’t built that way, but to my horror, heat and pleasure are mounting within me. I feel him through layers of fabric like we’re completely naked. His cock against my ass. His fingers on my clit. He’s breathing hard in my ear like we really are screwing.
“Come on, Mia. Show me how bad girls get off in the middle of the night.”
“I’m going to kill . . . ahh.” To my shame, everything down there suddenly tightens up and bursts gloriously apart.
“Again,” he orders, before I can even draw breath back into my burning lungs. A threat. A brutal demand.
A third time? I couldn’t. My sex is oversensitized and his touch sends bolts of pleasure-pain coursing through me. I writhe against his hand, practically crying. Wishing it would stop but needing it to go on. I can’t think, can’t breathe. There’s only me and him and I’ve never felt so gloriously out of control.
“Do as you’re told, Mia. I’m not letting you up until you come again.”
Lazzaro thrusts hard against my ass through his sweats and his hot breath is on the back of my neck. The hottest man I’ve ever laid eyes on has me pinned in place, and my body craves to give him what he wants. His brutal assault on my senses forces a third orgasm from me.
I press my face into the pillow and moan, wishing it didn’t feel so good to be so thoroughly humiliated.
My stepfather raggedly breathes into my ear, “Good fucking girl.”
I whimper as I come down and open my eyes to see his hand covering mine on the mattress. Slowly, his fingers curve around mine until he’s holding me tight. Lazzaro’s erection is still pressed so tight into my ass that he’s practically inside me. Maybe he’s going to pull my shorts to one side and impale me with what feels like a goddamn weapon.
Lazzaro lifts his weight off me, and he rolls onto his side, taking me with him. He stretches luxuriously, pressing his cock into the fleshy part of my ass.
“You can ride me if you like. Screwing your mom is so boring.” He draws the perverted syllables lovingly over his tongue. “She doesn’t squeal and wriggle around like you do.”
My nerve endings are raw, and I feel more exposed than if I were to be stark naked in front of the whole school. He’s sick, talking about having sex with Mom after forcing me to come. I didn’t think it was possible for a man as disgusting as him to exist in real life.
Lazzaro lifts a dark, sardonic brow. “Three orgasms usually earns me a thank-you. You get three from the idiot boys at your school?”
My ex-boyfriend couldn’t find my clit with a map and compass. “You’ve had your fun. Now get out.”
“Oh, I’m still having fun.” Lazzaro pushes his hand through his hair and grins down at me, taking in my flushed face, my disheveled hair and clothes. He’s actually proud of himself, the goddamn psycho. He hooks a finger into my pajama top, teasing along the neckline.
“Pull your shorts down and beg me to fuck you. You’re so wet, I’ll glide right in and be balls deep before you can moan my name.”
A swift, hot pang passes through me. The mental image of his naked body braced over me while my legs wrap around his hips explodes in my mind. It’s not hard to imagine because his cock is jutting forward in his sweats, the ridged head straining against the fabric. His black T-shirt has ridden up, exposing the taut muscles of his stomach and the line of dark hair from his belly button trailing down beneath his waistband. Our legs are tangled together, and this tight space created by our bodies smells like his warm skin and my pussy.
Down the hall, I hear a bathroom door close. My mom is the only other person in this house. My mom. And I’m in bed with her husband.
I’m just as sick as Lazzaro.
I reel back and slap his hand away. “I will cut your balls off if you ever touch me again. Don’t you dare creep into my bedroom. Don’t even look at me from now on. Get. Out.”
But Lazzaro isn’t going. He just lays there grinning at me with his hard-on right there between us. I slide away from him and practically fall out of bed. This time he doesn’t stop me, and I grab the robe from the back of my door. The last thing I see before I run out of the room is Lazzaro settling down beneath my comforter and closing his eyes.
The house is dark and silent apart from my wild breathing. I head for the farthest corner of the house from Lazzaro, the living room downstairs, and curl up on the sofa beneath my robe.
What the hell just happened? That was ten kinds of fucked up and I should be screaming this house down. Instead, I’m lying on the couch with a drenched pussy and a heavy feeling on my tongue, like I already know the shape of my stepfather’s cock in my mouth.
I cover my head with fluffy white fabric and moan in horror. I’m going to sleep, and when I wake up, this will all have been a dream.
A nightmare.
And morning sunshine will make the memory fade away.
“Mia? Mia.”
I’m shaken roughly awake, and someone is digging their nails into my shoulder. I open my eyes and blink in confusion at Mom’s beautiful face, perfect with makeup and lush with beauty creams, frowning down at me. Mom never comes into my room unless she’s angry with me. First thing in the morning and I’ve already done something wrong?
“What are you doing down here?”
“Huh?” I sit up and look around, my gaze landing on the cream sofas, the vase of white peonies, and the spotless glass coffee table. Last night comes flooding back to me in a shameful rush. Waking up in my untidy but cozy bedroom with Lazzaro in my bed, barely putting up a fight while he ravaged my fully clothed body. Grinding against his fingers like a cat in heat.
Mom’s eyes narrow. “What’s that expression on your face?”
I drop my head into my hands and pretend I’m rubbing sleep from my eyes. My face is flaming hot, and I can imagine the horrified and embarrassed expression I’m wearing.
Someone’s in the kitchen humming to himself and making coffee. A deep hum in cheerful tones, as if he’s had a wonderful sleep and he’s excited to greet the day.
“I couldn’t sleep. I had a stomachache.” It’s barely a lie because right now my stomach is churning like I’m going to throw up. If I come face to face with my stepfather at this moment, then Mom’s going to know what happened just by looking at us. She’s scarily perceptive, especially when it comes to me. I pull on my robe, push past Mom, and hurry for the stairs.
Once inside my bedroom, I slam the door, and my eyes drop to the mattress. Lazzaro has left my bed in a disheveled state with the comforter pulled back. There’s a messy white stain on the sheets.
I step closer, wondering what the hell it is because it wasn’t there when I went to bed last night. I realize with dawning horror that there’s something strange about the stain. There’s one large puddle, and then off to one side are some marks. The scent of him washes over me, and I finally realize what it is.
Lazzaro has painted a heart in cum on my sheets. A filthy little love note, from him to me.
