Page 4

SAL

Make it good for me .

There's a hidden sensuality in Ilaria that calls to the primitive man inside me. The one who needs to conquer and claim.

Her dress brushes against my fingertips as I slide my hands to the row of tiny buttons holding the bodice in place. No chance anyone believed my bride could get herself out of this dress.

Ilaria is wrapped up like a present that only I can open. My already hard cock pulses with the need to be buried in her tight pussy.

Undoing the top few buttons, I say, "I'm going to make it so good, you're going to need a cushion to sit on tomorrow."

Goosebumps erupt on her exposed skin and I smile. My new wife likes my dirty talk.

Leaning down, I inhale her scent. Soft floral mixes with sandalwood and musk. "Fuck, you smell good."

"It's Red Door. Mamma gah…" Ilaria's voice hiccups as I press my lips against her nape.

"She got a bottle for me before the launch."

Nuzzling the skin under her ear, I inhale more of her tempting scent. "Whatever it is, it's perfect on you."

My mom only wears Chanel No. 5, but she's from that generation. She refuses to try anything new because she insists that once a woman finds a fragrance that mixes right with her own body chemistry, she should stick with it.

I'll keep Ilaria supplied with Red Door from now on.

As I undo more buttons, I get a peek at what she's wearing under the wedding gown fit for the mafia princess she is. I don't expect the white satin corset edged in lace to be tied in a fucking knot at the top.

Fuck me. "The only way I'm getting you out of this corset is to cut the ribbons."

"That's what you're supposed to do," Ilaria says breathlessly.

I approve. "These Benetti traditions are sexy as hell."

"I'm glad you think so."

"You don't?"

"I didn't this morning when mamma and the designer trussed me up like this."

"And now?" I breathe against her ear.

She shivers like I expect her to.

"I'm pretty sure anything with you would be sexy," she says like the idea surprises her.

"Good." Because I have plans.

Not typical plans for a wedding night with a virgin, but Ilaria isn't just an innocent bride. She's my bride and that streak of sensuality running under the surface is going to make her my perfect lover, just like I will be hers.

"Thank you." Her soft voice rings with unexpected emotion.

I'm not sure what she's thanking me for though. "For what?"

"For giving me a reason to be grateful for my wedding night."

"How?" I haven't done anything yet except undo a few buttons on her dress and promise to destroy the ribbons on her corset with my knife.

"By showing affection and not just sexual need."

Is that what this is? Affection? When Capo Benetti approached my father about the marriage deal, I didn't think of Ilaria as a person, but the means to an end. That changed quickly on the night we announced our engagement. Another man flirted with my fiancée and I quietly took him aside.

He went home with a busted jaw and the promise of death if he got too familiar with Ilaria again. Within twenty-four hours every soldier in the Genovese Family knew to keep their distance from my future wife.

However, they weren't the only ones who had to keep their distance. Ilaria and I barely saw each other during the months before our wedding. I spent a lot of that time in Italy on mafia business for my dad. And hers.

When I was in New York, no private dates were allowed.

Her father saw the way I looked at his daughter and assumed there would be no blood on the sheets if we had time alone together. I can't be sure he was wrong.

My dick has gotten hard for one woman in the last year and it's the one who just told me to make it good for her.

"You didn't dismiss my fear either," she adds before I figure out what I want to say about the affection thing. "And you made promises about our future that, if you keep, makes it shine a lot brighter than it was for me this morning before we spoke our vows."

"I'm a De Luca. I always keep my promises." Knowing she wasn't looking forward to our future together as much as I was makes me determined to prove to her how good we can be together.

"Thank you," she says again.

Shaking my head where she cannot see, I undo a few more buttons. It feels like there's a hundred of them. "Don't thank me for being decent to you and having honor."

I like that she thinks I'm something special. A man wants to be larger than life in his wife's eyes. But I don't like that she thinks she has to show gratitude for what should be a given.

My father raised Enzo and I with a harsh hand, like all made men with their sons, but he showed by example how to revere the women in our family.

"Papà would skin me alive if I did not treat my wife with the respect and consideration you are due," I tell Ilaria truthfully.

I don't know if my father loves my mother, but he's always treated her with respect and care. The mafia might come first, but that doesn’t mean she comes last.

"Your parents are the couple my mom threw in my face as proof of how well an arranged marriage could work."

Interesting that the Benetti's own marriage wasn't enough to convince her. "Did they have to convince you of the arrangement?"

My cock is hard enough to pound nails through concrete and my bride is telling me she had to be convinced to marry me.

Unwilling to examine why the idea she's not entirely happy with this marriage creates a lead ball in my gut, I undo two more buttons.

This is the mafia. We all do our duty.

"If by convince you mean my father reminding me that I am no more immune than any other member of the mafia when it comes to loyalty, then yes."

Dannazione . God-fucking-damn-it.

My hands stop on the last button. "You didn't want to marry me? They forced you?"

I refuse to consider what form that punishment would have taken right now. I don't want to have to kill my father-in-law on my wedding night, but we will have words about threatening Ilaria.

He will never do it again.

She is mine to protect now.

"It's not you I objected to, Sal. That has to be obvious. I knew I wasn't going to fall in love with Prince Charming and get married on a puffy pink cloud of dreams." She sighs. "But I wanted to go to college."

Relief out of proportion to her words sends more blood surging to my dick. "You still could."

"You don't mean that."

Leaning down, I kiss the join of her neck and her shiver pleases me. "You will learn, cara , that I never say anything I don't mean."

"Oh." She turns fast, her voluminous skirts wrapping around her legs, and looks up at me, beautiful blue eyes luminous. "You'd really support me going to college?"

"Yes."

"But what if I get pregnant right away?"

I don't bother saying we can use birth control. We can't. This is the mafia. Children are expected.

"Then you take time off and go back after the baby's born. Two of the seven women in my MBA program were nontraditional students in their thirties."

Her mouth slackens in shock. "There were seven women in your program?"

It might be the 80s, but women in master's program focused on business are almost as uncommon as female students in the engineering, or science departments.

"Yes."

"Then—"

Done with talking about how much she didn't want to marry me, I kiss my beautiful bride and cut off the gratitude I don't want to hear either.

Ilaria doesn't melt. She goes nuclear, her lips eating at mine as hungrily as I devour hers. I shove the dress down her body, the last button ripping away under my impatient fingers.

She grabs two fistfuls of my shirt and holds on like that's all that's keeping her up.

My hands are everywhere, caressing Ilaria's incredible body through the satin corset.

But there are layers and layers of silk still covering her from the waist down.

Ripping at the binding in the back, satisfaction fills me at the sound of the zipper giving way so I can shove the poofy slip the rest of the way off.

The layers of white land in a heap around her feet and ankles with a soft rustle. My roaming hands find her hips and deepening the kiss, I lift her up against me.

With a sexy little mewl, she wraps her legs around my body, pressing her pussy against my torso and giving me access to her luscious ass.

I take a handful and squeeze. She moans rubbing her sex against me.

Fuck. She's so sexy.

Sliding my hand over her ass and between her thighs, I press my middle finger against her sweet spot, giving her something to rub against.

She cries out against my mouth and moves her hips frantically until her body goes rigid and my innocent wife gives herself an orgasm rubbing off on me.

Stepping over the pile of silk, I carry her to the bed. I lean down and rip the bedding away and lay her down on the mattress.

Looking luminescent against the black satin sheets, in her white corset, garter and stockings, Ilaria looks up at me, her gaze hazy with passion. "You're still dressed."

"We'll get to that."

ILARIA

I don't ask what comes first. Because it's obvious.

Me.

Sal rubs his middle finger under his nose, inhaling. "Your arousal smells so good. I can't wait to taste it."

Heat climbs my neck and into my cheeks. That's the finger I rubbed so hard against. But he can't mean what it sounds like.

I've heard the gossip in the girls locker room at school. I know that some boys put their mouth there . Not mafia men though. Not a made man. He would never do that.

My body doesn't get the message my brain is sending because I feel a gush of moisture between my legs at the thought of Sal's mouth between my legs.

"Get up on your knees and turn away from me," he orders in a guttural voice.

Despite having just had the best orgasm of my life, my core throbs with renewed desire at my new husband's commanding tone and the hungry look in his eyes.

Yes, I've touched myself. This is the 1980s, not the 1880s. But no climax I've ever given myself felt like that .