I stood still, Luciano’s warm palm against my back. I hated how it made my skin burn, the tingling sensation shooting throughout my body, my blood sizzling with need.
It is not for his touch, I tried to convince myself. It was a natural reaction to have a physical reaction after feeling man’s hand on me after so many years.
I had to fight the urge to close my eyes and lean back into his touch. My heart thundered in my chest, excitement and adrenaline mixing together. Luciano Vitale would end up costing me more than my life if I lowered my guard. I’d stick around till the annulment came through, then we would run and never look back.
“I have to say, Luciano,” I started, although my voice was slightly high-pitched. “You suck as a pool boy. I’ve had so much better. So either scratch the spot or step away from me.”
“Scared, Tesoro?” he whispered the question into my ear. His breath was hot, igniting my blood with each syllable.
That was the most terrifying part. I didn’t feel fear, only a burning desire that would turn me into ashes at any second. The need to feel his hands all over my skin wiped any reason or sanity, leaving me only with want. This aching want for this man… the ache only he could sate.
“Mamma,” my son’s voice woke me up from the haze and impending doom under my husband’s touch.
I shook off his touch and ran to Matteo. “Hey, buddy,” I lifted him up into the air. “How was the playground?”
“Fun.”
My eyes shifted to Luciano’s father. “Thanks for taking him to the playground.”
He grinned, and it struck me how much my son looked like his father and grandfather. The resemblance was plain as day. Luciano was a perceptive, smart man, and I feared he’d see it any moment. Each second around these men was a danger. We needed to be out of here before those two figured out who Matteo’s father was.
“Boy likes the swings,” the old Matteo announced. “Davvero?” he asked his grandson. Right? Matteo nodded eagerly, his whole face lit up from happiness. “But now we are hungry for lunch.”
Matteo wiggled out of my arms and ran up to Luciano’s father. “Nonno, Nonno.”
Each time I heard Matteo call out Nonno to Luciano’s father, a pang of regret hit me. It felt like I robbed him of the knowledge that he had a grandchild. Not like I robbed him… I did, but it wasn’t all my fault. His son was to blame too.
“I’ll go ahead and feed him,” I said in a strained voice. “He is full of energy.”
Luciano’s father just shrugged his shoulders. “I like it. He reminds me of Luciano when he was that age.”
I swallowed hard, my mouth desert dry. I always thought Matteo was Luciano’s twin. Nonno just confirmed it. Did he suspect? Luciano’s father was very perceptive. After all, his son got it from him.
Although when it came to me, my husband was blind as a bat, I thought sarcastically.
I wanted to honor Luciano’s father when I named our son. But I believed I’d never see him again, any of them again. Now I pondered whether it was a smart thing to do. I watched my toddler walk away from me with his grandfather, hand in hand, in the direction of the kitchen. The youngest generation and the oldest.
Damn it, I didn’t want Nonno to experience more loss. Or Matteo. This had to end as soon as possible so we could all move on and leave all this behind once and for all.
I turned my back to Luciano and bent over to pick up my laptop. Stuffing it into its slip, I glanced over my shoulder.
“Luciano, I want the annulment expedited. With your connections, I’m sure you can have it done fast.”
I was so lost in him, I didn’t even notice Massimo standing to the side. Of course, that man was always by his side. I narrowed my eyes on him. I wouldn’t forgive either one of them for that evening when they discarded me like some garbage.
I strode quickly away from both of them, and the memories that opened my heart and made it bleed. Even after all that time, it still caused physical pain in my chest.
I was almost ten feet away from them when Ella’s voice reached me. “Wait, Grace.”
My step slowed down but I didn’t stop. “Grace, what was that about?
“We have to get out of here,” I murmured low. “The sooner, the better.”
“What about the annulment?”
“I’ll give him a timeline. If he can’t make it happen within that time, we need to go.”
“Shit, are you falling for him again?”
Abruptly stopping, I glared at her. “No. I hate his guts,” I hissed.
Turning my gaze back to where I left Luciano, I noted he still stood there, his eyes on me and that damn, arrogant, ever-knowing smile on his kissable lips.
“Matteo is getting attached to Luciano’s father and to Luciano. You should have seen Matteo this morning, sleeping against Luciano. And it’s only been a day. The longer we stay here, the riskier it is.”
I took a big breath and locked eyes with Ella. “I want to figure out how to get my hands on my parents’ will. The sooner, the better. If Luciano doesn’t have an annulment done by then, we clear out of here. Can you work on hacking the Romano network?”
She nodded. Ella became really good at hacking, and our firewalls were strong, thanks to her picking up a few tips during her relationship with Dietrich.
“How are we going to get away from Luciano?” Her question was barely a whisper. “His guys are watching our every single move.”
Boom bum. Boom bum. Boom bum.
“I’ll move his attention to something else,” I replied in a barely audible voice. I just have to figure out what.
“The man is devouring you with his eyes,” she muttered. “Maybe sleep with him and keep him distracted that way.”
My sweet spot between my legs pulsed at the idea but my heart cringed. No fucking way. That man would ruin me, utterly destroy me because despite everything that happened, he was still my weak spot.
“More like he would be my distraction,” I muttered begrudgingly under my breath. “Forget that for now. Let’s focus on robbing Ian Laszlo of my will and finding my uncle’s kid. Tomorrow we’ll accidentally run into Ian.” I put an air quotation when I said accidentally. “And in the meantime, we keep digging for my uncle’s kid’s identification.”
“I couldn’t believe it when I read it,” she mumbled. It was the message that alarmed both of us. It was the reason she handed me this morning in front of Luciano. “Nor that I lucked out when I hacked into his network.”
“Honestly, I can’t believe he has a kid,” I told her, still shocked with that discovery. My uncle was a cruel bastard, and he shouldn’t be allowed around children or innocent people. As far as I was concerned, my grandmother’s and his evil was contagious. “I always knew him to be with other men. I didn’t realize he liked women too.”
“But do you realize what that means?” she whispered. “His kid is thirty-five. That means, you are not the one owed to Benito King. It is his kid.”
“Maybe it is a boy?” I understood what she was saying, but it didn’t make it right to be sold off, regardless if it was my uncle’s kid or me.
“But then why would he hide the fact he had a kid?”
Yes, indeed! Why?
Forty-eight hours. That was all it took. Barely two days, and I wanted to murder my husband more than anything else.
I was so furious I saw red. I barely stepped foot into his house, and he already dominated my life and my schedule. First at the pool, he swarmed me with his presence. Then demanded I change my hair color. Who in the hell did he think he was? But I bit my tongue and made the appointment. For the same day, just as he demanded. It was back to its ginger color.
Of course, I would never admit to him that I liked it better this way too. I never used permanent hair color so the hairdresser was able to strip the color off without major damage to my hair and did an amazing job bringing it back to my natural color. Or as close as possible to it because honestly, after all that time, it was hard to remember the exact shade of it. It felt good to have it cut and freshened up.
Next, he designated Matteo’s room closer to his own bedroom rather than Ella’s and where I intended to sleep; I didn’t complain. I just gritted my teeth and went along with it, reminding myself it was only temporary. Until I got the annulment. If I had to, I’d just sleep in Matteo’s room. It was certainly big enough.
But now he went too far. He had all my stuff taken to his bedroom. If that man thought I’d sleep in his bedroom for one second while we wait for this annulment, he was crazier than I thought.
“Luciano, I have to talk-” My words trailed off as I burst through the office door finding Luciano with four other men I had never seen. All five of them were deep in discussion, with drinks in their hands. Luciano and another guy were sitting with their feet propped up on the table, one guy was lounging on a sofa and two were playing darts.
Yeah, these are some tough criminals right here, I scoffed in my head. And there was no doubt in my mind they were criminals. Just the air about them was enough to confirm that. Well, that and the fact that each one of them had a gun holster. I might have missed a little fact like that three years ago but not anymore.
I pierced them all with a glare. I hated them as much as my husband. Guilty by association, if you asked me. But of course, nobody asked me. Nobody cared that he dragged us back into this life we didn’t want, jeopardizing my son.
Our son. Why did my mind try to be fair? Nothing my husband did was fair. So, no… my son!
I glanced around the space, and just like when we first got married, this space impressed me. Luciano’s office was one of the biggest offices I had ever seen. I guess it made sense since he spent so much time here. Expensive mahogany furniture accented the entire room. There were two sofas to allow visitors to make themselves comfortable. The room was decorated with taste but mainly with comfort in mind.
The best feature of it was the extensive top to bottom French windows that led to a patio and allowed you to see over the whole property. The pool stretched barely fifteen feet outside.
“Ah, Grace.” Luciano greeted me with a wide smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“You- you,” I searched for the right words.
“Your husband, yes,” he finished sarcastically.
“You. Are. Not. My. Husband.” I spoke the words through my clenched teeth. I was so pissed off, I could barely see straight.
He tilted his head as if considering my words. “Funny, because I have paperwork that shows I am.”
“Well, that is funny indeed. Because I have experience showing you are an asshole.”
Someone started to laugh but quickly covered it by clearing their throat. But my gaze remained glued on my husband, wishing I could kill him with my glare.
“Did you come here to discuss our marriage status or something else, wife?”
A growl escaped me as I glared at him, locking my gaze with those hazel eyes I used to love so much.
“I want my own room,” I gritted through my teeth.
“No.”
“You don’t get to decide where I sleep,” I hissed.
“My house, my rules.”
“You fucking asshole. I don’t even want to be here. You are forcing me to stay here. I’d rather sleep on the street than under the same roof as you. But here I am. Until the annulment comes through, you will give me my own room or I-”
“Or what, wife?” he challenged me, a knowing smile on his full lips.
My blood boiled and an image flashed through my mind, me throwing something and smashing it into his handsome face, wiping that smug smile off his lips. Before my brain processed what my body was doing, that was exactly what I did. I reached for the first object closest to me and threw it flying across the room. It missed him and crashed against the wall.
I watched with horror as an antique vase shattered into million pieces, landing all over his floor, desk and some chips even landed into my husband’s hair. I hated his fucking guts.
The crash was followed by stillness, and I was painfully aware of my heart thundering in my chest. It beat so hard, I was scared my ribs would break. Silence stretched as all kinds of creative words played in my mind. Each was worse than the previous, and I wanted to scream them all to his face. We’ve only been here forty-eight hours, and I hated it.
I despised him, his men, this house, this city. Every damn thing. It was a painful reminder of what he had done to me. I ignored his visitors. They didn’t matter. Anything connected to Luciano had nothing to do with me, and I wanted as far away as possible from it.
“I hate your fucking guts.” My voice dripped with the feelings and there was no mistaking that I meant those words.
“Wife, these are my friends. Cassio, Luca, Alessandro, and Nico. Let’s leave family drama for later and say hi to them.”
I never even turned my head their way. Manners be damned! I always tried to do the right thing, and what did it get me? A gun against my head, being tossed away like a piece of trash, used as a pawn by my family and my husband.
“I don’t give a damn about your friends, Luciano.” I spat out in disgust. “Any friends of yours are enemies of mine.”
He was on his feet and hovering over me in my next breath.
Before I got a chance to process him getting to me so fast, he continued in a calm voice, a storm brewing behind those hazel eyes. “Now, Grace. We don’t want to be rude to our guests. Be a good wife and say hi.”
“No.”
“Do I need to take you outside and put you across my knees?”
“Fuck. You. Husband.”
His lip tilted up as if my rebellion pleased him. We stood toe to toe, his hard body too close to mine. I could smell this cologne, mixture of citrus and cedar, and feel the heat coming off him. The heat I craved last time I spent winter in New York.
“We’ll do that later,” he cooed softly, but there was a hard gleam in his eyes.
“You can do that later by yourself.” It was stupid to challenge him, taunt him. But the reasonable part of me disappeared and only my anger, agitation, and need to hurt him were left. “I want my own room.”
“No.” I didn’t realize my feet had taken backward steps, and suddenly I found myself against the wall.
“I agreed to stay here till our annulment comes through,” I hissed. “Stay out of my way. Otherwise, I’ll make you regret ever finding me.”
He laughed, the sound bitter.
“Too late for that, wife.” Despite my anger and hate, it still hurt to hear him say that. I wanted to slap him, claw his beautiful face, make him hurt like he had hurt me. “Now greet our guests.”
“How about I greet them the way you said farewell to me?” I raised my chin in fake bravado. He was so much taller than me, I had to crane my neck for better effect. “A game of Russian Roulette. Which one should I pull the trigger on first?”
Something flashed in those hazel eyes, but he quickly recovered and blanked his expression. Probably a regret that bullet never came! His head bent forward, and I could feel his hot breath against my earlobe.
“You don’t want me to punish you here, Tesoro.” I knew fear flashed in my eyes because he chuckled softly. “That’s right, there will be punishment. But if you behave now, I’ll save it for later. And you might even enjoy it.”
“You have no right.” I meant to sound defiant, tough, but the words came out in a breathless whisper. I hated having him so close to me. I didn’t want to smell him, feel his body brushing against mine. Oceans between us was not far enough if you asked me.
“I’ll make you scream so the entire household hears.” He made promises that I dreaded he intended to keep. But I would fight him. I wasn’t that same young girl anymore.
I scoffed in fake bravado. “What the fuck ever, Luciano. Go fuck yourself.”
His hand gripped tight around my arm and he pulled me along through the door, into the hallway. I thought he’d dragged me through the house to our bedroom. But instead, he shoved me into the closest, dark corner, a mere ten feet from his office. I noted from my peripheral, his office door remained open.
“Always so defiant. What shall we do with that mouth of yours?” His voice was a warm caress on my cheek, sending shivers through my body.
They are shivers of disgust, I told myself.
His mouth crashed against mine. The kiss was meant to punish, dominate, bruise. And God helped me, I liked it. I haven’t felt another man’s lips on me since that day over three and a half years ago. It felt like a different lifetime, different me, but I always craved that feeling. Before it all burned down to ashes.
His lips trailed down my neck, leaving searing skin in its wake.
“Stop it.” My voice was small but I refused to beg. I refused to plead with him. “Your friends will see.”
I felt him more than heard him chuckle. “I’d never let them see you like that. That pleasure is reserved only for me.” He let the words linger in the air before he continued, “But I’ll let them hear you submit to me. So, they know who you belong to.”
I tried to push away from him, but it was like trying to move a mountain.
The palm of his hands were on both of my thighs, trailing up. My mind kept warning me, reminding me how much I despised him. But my body refused to obey, to remain still. Instead, it molded under his hands, pushing into his touch. My legs parted, the sweet spot between my thighs pulsed with need for him. I hated my body for craving him.
“Are you wet for me, Tesoro?” he purred. I bit my bottom lip, refusing to let the answer slip through. I hated that my body responded to his touch, even after all this time apart. All he had to do was glance my way and my body woke for him. For the past three years, every fiber of me was in a sleep mode; till Luciano came for me.
“Oh, Tesoro. You are soaked,” he groaned against my neck. In a haze, I watched him lower himself down onto his knees. I should push him away. Right now! All I had to do was shove my knee into his beautiful face, break his nose, and take off. But like a stupid, weak woman, I watched him under my lashes, anticipation building up.
His fingers hooked onto my panties, and I watched him slide them down my legs. I expected him to discard them to the side, instead he brought them to his nose and he inhaled deeply. My insides shook in sick excitement.
What is wrong with me?
“Smells like my wife,” he rasped. “I’m keeping these. I’ll wrap them around my dick later and jerk off thinking about you.”
My lips parted and a soft gasp echoed through the fog in my brain. Was that me? It was a shock. At least I tried to tell myself it was. It certainly wasn’t because I was ready to unravel right here in front of him, hearing his dirty words.
Grabbing my one ankle, his hands surprisingly gentle, I watched his tanned hand covered in ink drape my leg over his shoulder and dip his head between my thighs. The moment his lips touched my pussy, a loud moan escaped me.
“Luciano.” I should tell him to stop. I needed to fight him but my body refused to listen. My lips wouldn’t let the words come out. I wasn’t sure how or when my hands grabbed onto his hair, my fingers tangled through his short, dark strands. Instead of pushing him away, I pulled him closer, needing more of his tongue, his mouth.
His tongue teased my clit and stars already swirled behind my eyelids. He had barely touched me and my insides already shook, close to bursting into sweetest pleasure. The scruff of his five o’clock shadow tingled against my inner thigh, rasping against the soft flesh.
All my anger melted and turned into lust under his expert touch. His tongue swirled my clit in lazy circles, and I twisted my body, pulling away or pushing against his mouth… I wasn’t sure. The sensation overwhelmed every single reasonable thought. His hand grabbed my ass and held me firm against his mouth.
“Oh my God,” I breathed. “More.”
I’d regret it later. I’d think about it later. Now, I just needed to come undone. For me; not for him, I lied to myself.
He pushed his finger inside me, and his mouth worked me mercilessly. His growling sounds made it seem like he was enjoying the best dessert of his life.
“Fuck, you taste amazing.” My moans got louder, and I bit hard into my lip to keep silent. I was right at the edge of the cliff, ready to jump off and spiral into an abyss of delightful pleasure. He was the only one that could ever do this to me.
