DROPPING MY PURSE ON THE kitchen island, I kicked off my heels and stretched out my toes, wincing at the ache in my feet. I’d had too much on my mind to stay at the club, and while Van’s attentions weren’t unwelcome, I couldn’t find much interest after my conversation with Aleksandra.
I was glad to find Magdalena and her date had vacated my apartment, though I could see they’d enjoyed one of my expensive bottles of wine. Finding some left, I poured the remainder in a glass and leaned against the counter, taking a sip.
A heavy knock sounded at the door.
I sighed.
I’d been waiting for a visit from Luca—or, more likely, a check-in—now that I was a single woman. He was probably here to remind me about how not to go to jail. It’d been three years since my last felony offense—you would think they’d trust me now.
I finished off my wine and went to open the door.
My heart dropped to my toes.
Christian stood in the hall, his gaze lowered. He’d removed his jacket but otherwise wore his gray tie, pants, and white dress shirt he’d had at the club. When his eyes came up to me, I realized they were clouded with something dark and terrifying.
My pulse leapt.
On mere instinct, I tried to shut the door on him, but he kept it open with a hand. I took a step back as he entered my apartment. He shut the door, his eyes hot enough to set my skin on fire.
“You’ve been ignoring me.”
I shook my head.
He followed me as I walked backward, his tone demanding a response. “Tell me why.”
“You like me,” I breathed.
“Like?” His gaze flashed with something sardonic. “I don’t know if I’d call it that.”
I swallowed. “You like me . . . like me.”
I didn’t know how I could have been so stupid for so long—maybe I was in denial—but it was all clear to me now. He might hate himself for it, but Christian Allister was still into me. Really into me. Enough to kiss me. Enough to think I tasted like his.
My back hit the living room wall.
“Does that scare you?” A whisper of darkness laced through his voice as he stalked toward me.
I couldn’t focus—not with how hot my body was and how uncertain this revelation made me.
I nodded.
“Good.” He pressed his hands against the wall on either side of me. “It should.” The rasp of his voice sent the hair on my arms on end, and I sucked in a breath as his lips skimmed up my neck. “I’ve always thought about you.” He pressed his next words against my ear. “More than your date tonight could ever think about you.”
I shivered.
“I’ve thought about you so much you’re mine now.” It was a growl that lowered into a threat. “You’re lucky you didn’t let him touch you, Gianna, because I really don’t like it when people touch my things.”
I swallowed. “Who touches me is none of your business.”
“It’s always been my business.”
As twisted and a bit degrading as his words were, something about them was burning me up from the inside. He was so close, and he smelled so good, his body heat warming my skin. My heartbeat dipped between my legs, and I was suddenly looking through a hazy film of desire. I dropped my head against the wall, drawing half-lidded eyes up to his.
“Why do you kiss me?”
My lips parted as he ran a thumb across the seam.
“It shuts you up.”
That wasn’t what he’d planned to say two days ago at the cemetery, but I was suddenly glad he’d evaded the question. Just his gaze was too much, let alone the things he was admitting to me.
I remained still, my breathing erratic, as his hands slid down my waist, my hips, skimming the outsides of my thighs. The caress was slow, reverent, as if he was trying to memorize the curves of my body. Heat bloomed beneath my skin, tightening in my breasts and burning a lower path.
“You have a girlfriend,” I breathed.
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
His possessive gaze watched mine, almost daring me to stop him, as he eased the dress up my thighs, baring the lacy fabric between my legs. My body shivered in anticipation.
He pressed two fingers against my lips.
“Suck.”
Oh, God.
Any sense I had left drowned in a pool of lust.
I didn’t hesitate to draw his fingers into my mouth. His gaze darkened when I scraped them with teeth as he pulled them back out.
When he dipped his hand beneath the fabric between my thighs and roughly pushed those fingers inside me, a strangled sound escaped me, and I clutched his waist for something to hold onto. The beginning of an orgasm already stoked a fire inside me.
“You blushed for him,” he growled. “You really shouldn’t have done that, Gianna. You have no idea what you’ve just unleashed.”
I was too far gone to care what he said at this point. A flush warmed my body as I writhed, panted, moaned, under his touch. Each time he slid his fingers in and out of me, it was slower, easier, like the anger was draining out of him. And then he rubbed against a spot that made me see spots.
His lips skimmed against mine.
“Who makes you come, malyshka?”
“You,” I moaned.
A noise of satisfaction rumbled in his chest, and then his fingers were gone. He lifted me by the waist and carried me a few steps. A gasp escaped me when he dropped me in a rough motion on the kitchen island, after sweeping everything off the surface. Glass shattered. Silverware clanged. Papers flew.
He ripped my thong down my legs, and, with shaky hands, I worked on his belt buckle. Reaching beneath his waistband, I took him in my hand. So hot and hard. I was fascinated with him, dying to explore him further. Though, once again, I didn’t get the chance. His fingers dug into my inner thighs as he spread my legs, and then he pushed inside me in one deep thrust.
I choked.
He hissed, his eyes on where we were connected.
“Slow. God, slow,” I begged, clutching at his arms.
I still wasn’t used to his size, but even more so, something about having sex with this man was so intense I thought I would lose myself completely or do something ridiculous like cry if I didn’t feel I had a semblance of control over it.
He stilled, and then we were both shaking as he eased out and then back inside. Pleasure burned through my veins. I moaned. Ran my fingers up his chest and held onto his shoulders as he fucked me slowly on the edge of the counter.
We both watched his length disappear in and out of me.
“Christian . . . no condom,” I breathed. “Again.”
“I’ll pull out.”
“I think that’s how my cousin got pregnant with three of her kids.”
That should have been enough to scare both of us, but, with heavy breaths, we only continued to watch him fuck me.
“I’m clean,” he rasped.
“I’m not worried. I’m sure your body temperature is too cold for any STDs to survive.”
His eyes came up to mine and narrowed. “It sounds to me like I’ve worked you in, malyshka.” He punctuated that sentence with a violent thrust that tore a gasp from my throat.
He lifted me off the counter, pressed me against the wall, and fucked me deep and hard. Each thrust sent a wave of heat curling and searing through me. We were chest-to-chest, his hand on my throat, my legs wrapped around him. We still had our clothes on, yet every point of contact was so hot, so maddening, I’d never felt closer to anyone.
He kissed me only twice, both short and distracted, but each time, something warm unraveled in my chest, pooling in my extremities like melted butter.
The orgasm hit me hard, shooting stars between my eyes and knocking the breath from my lungs. I tightened a fist in his hair, lightly biting down where his shoulder met his neck.
With a rough noise, he pulled out and came all over my thigh.
It wasn’t romantic in the least, but something about seeing him come undone brought out a tender, grateful part of me. With my legs still wrapped around him, I placed a kiss on his neck, soaking up his smell. He rested his hands on the wall on either side of me, his breathing hard, while I kissed his jawline, his cheeks, his lips.
“If I knew I only had to fuck you to see how sweet you could actually be, I’d have done it a lot sooner.”
Warmth ran to my face. And I knew he saw the blush when he ran a finger across my cheek.
“Moya zvezdochka.” He murmured the two rough words against my lips.
I stilled.
Those words . . . I’d heard them before. More than once.
And then the memory dropped into place.
“You,” I breathed, eyes wide. “You were at my wedding.”
Gianna
20 years old
“You look beautiful, stellina. Stop fretting.”
I dropped my hands from the pins in my hair and turned away from my white-clad reflection in the mirror. “I just don’t want him to be disappointed.”
Mamma snorted. “He wouldn’t deserve you in a gunny sack.”
I sighed.
She cupped my cheek, her eyes soft. “I did not wish this for you.”
“Mamma, stop.” I pulled away from her and headed to the window. I didn’t want today—my wedding day—to be clouded in pity. For better or for worse, this was the life I’d been given, and I was going to make the best of it.
“Mi dispiace, stellina. We only have a few more minutes . . . Do we need to have the sex talk?”
I gave her a look.
She chuckled. “I wasn’t sure what you’ve learned from Signora Tiller.”
My private tutors were old enough to be WWII survivors and stuffy enough to be virgins themselves.
I swallowed and turned back to gaze out the window with a dark secret pressing in on my chest. I’d been molested for four years of my childhood and my mother never knew. Even at eight years old, I’d known if she found out she’d try to take me and run again. I’d been terrified the next time she tried Papà would actually kill her. Now, at twenty, I couldn’t force that secret past my lips knowing how much it would upset her.
“Ricorda, mia figlia, you do not have to do anything you’re uncomfortable with. You are young—Antonio will understand.”
“I’m not afraid of the marriage bed, Mamma. I’m not even nervous about it. I just want him to . . . like me.” Love me.
“Oh, stellina . . .”
My chest tightened. “Please don’t ruin this for me, Mamma.”
“You are right, I’m sorry. I think it’s time to go downstairs. Are you ready?”
I took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
My first wedding was a lavish affair, with white lilies and tulle bows as far as the eye could see. The guests cheered and threw rice at the bride and groom as we left the church.
The day was beautiful.
The mood perfect.
I was gorgeous—everyone had said so.
I was floating on a cloud of optimism. Right up until I’d gotten lost at the reception in my husband’s ten-thousand-square-foot home while trying to find the bathroom. Then that optimism shattered like glass at my feet. And all because of a crack in a door that should have been closed.
Her name was Marie Ricci.
Mid-twenties, girl-next-door looks, slightly cheap.
I knew of her only because she’d played the part of a waitress in a B-horror movie I’d had the misfortune of seeing.
Everything about her was ordinary, but it was impossible to overlook her while she kneeled in front of my husband’s office chair, his hand in her dark hair.
That was the moment the first whispers of bitterness crept into my jaded soul—watching my brand-new husband get blown by an Italian actress on our wedding day.
I drifted down the hall, my dress suddenly feeling fifty pounds heavier. I thought my husband had poor taste in sexual partners, but at least he had an amazing library. And an impressive collection of scotch. I had never had more than a sip of alcohol in my life—Papà had forbidden it—but I knew the bottle I was currently pulling the cork out of was more expensive than most people’s cars. Papà liked his liquor from so high a shelf God must have put it there Himself.
I took a drink straight from the bottle.
Sometime later, I was sitting cross-legged at the piano, playing a nursery rhyme I remembered from the lessons I’d taken as a child. I went to lift the half-empty bottle to my lips, and instead, ended up falling backward off the bench and smacking my head on the floor. Liquor spread across the oriental rug.
“Ow,” I murmured, but when I realized I’d drunk so much it didn’t hurt at all, I laughed.
“And they say marriage is bliss,” a deep voice drawled.
My eyes shot to the sound. The whole room spun at the movement, and I could only see a large, black-suited silhouette in the doorway.
I rolled my eyes and looked away from the stranger to watch the fan spin around and around. “You sound like an . . . impressionist.”
That amused him. “I think you mean, pessimist.”
I continued to lie in a tangle of sequins, bows, and white gossamer.
“Does your husband know what’s become of his pretty teenage wife?”
I shot him a glare and then blinked because there were suddenly two of him swaying back and forth. “I’m twenty, thank you very much.”
“Ah, my mistake.”
“And to answer your question—even though it’s none of your business—I’m sure he’s still too busy getting blown in his office to notice where I am.”
“So, she’s already jaded,” he drawled.
“I hope he reciprocates,” I said, slightly slurring my words. “I’m not sure what the protocol is, but I do believe men should reciprocate. Would you reciprocate?”
“Is this the first time you’ve been drunk?”
“What gave it away?”
He laughed. It was a deep sound, like the first rays of warmth after a long winter. I liked it.
“Well?” I pushed. “Would you?”
“I’d return the favor if I was interested enough. And I’m not always interested enough.”
I frowned. “And women are so eager to please you while getting nothing in return? I’m sorry, sir, but you don’t look all that special from here.”
He chuckled for some reason, amused at what I’d said. “You’re drunk, sweetheart.”
I murmured something unintelligible because, suddenly, my eyes were closing, unconsciousness pulling me under.
“You going to sleep there?”
“Yes, I think so. It was nice to meet you,” I mumbled. “You’re not the first man I’d volunteer to give a blowjob to, though.”
Another chuckle, but this time it was closer. “I’ll let you know when I’m running short on volunteers, just in case you change your mind.”
“I won’t—” My eyes fluttered when I was suddenly lifted from the floor, but I didn’t have the strength to keep them open.
“My dress is heavy,” I complained.
“Ah, so, it’s the dress, huh?”
That made me smile. “You’re rude.”
“You’re young,” he told me.
“I don’t feel it.”
“You look it.”
“What did you say your name was?” I asked.
“I didn’t.”
I opened my eyes, suddenly curious to see what he looked like up close, but as soon as I did, the world spun so fast I feared I was going to be sick. So, I closed them again and let this stranger carry me down the hall.
“I hope you’re not taking me somewhere to take advantage of me,” I murmured against his chest. “I’m a virgin, you know. It wouldn’t be very much fun for you.”
“I don’t know about that,” he drawled.
When I was set on a bed, I curled up on my side, heaviness pulling on my consciousness.
My voice was a whisper. “I’ll make him love me, you’ll see.”
A thumb skimmed across my cheek. “If anyone can do it, it would be you . . .” His voice was soft and rough. “Moya zvezdochka.”
And then it went black.
