Page 40 of Beautiful Torment (Empire of Kings #1)

ANGELO

“ H ey, boss.”

I glance up from my desk to find Nicky hovering in the doorway. “Yes?”

“Uh, we got a problem. Not sure how you want to handle it.”

“What’s the issue?”

He scrubs a hand over his face, hesitating. “It looks like your wife decided to do a little sunbathing on the main lounge, and she fell asleep.”

“And?” I lean back in my chair, irritation flickering through me.

“And…all she’s got on is one of those thong bikini bottoms. You know the ones that look like floss between the ass cheeks?”

My blood heats as he paints that fucking picture for me. “She’s topless?”

“Yeah.” Nicky stuffs his hands in his pockets, and I know what he’s not telling me is that he’s seen my wife’s tits. But on a vessel this size, he’s certainly not the only one.

“I’ve told the deck hands to avoid the area for now,” he adds.

“ Cazzo .” I stab a finger in his direction. “You scrub that fucking image from your mind. You understand me?”

“It’s gone, boss.” He waves his palm in front of his face as if to prove he’s erased it. But who the fuck is he kidding? There isn’t a man on God’s green earth who would forget the sight of Abella’s tits.

I slam my computer shut and skulk my way up to the main deck, where I find her just as Nicky described. She’s lying on her belly—topless—a single black strip of fabric slicing down the center of her round peach of an ass. Floss was an accurate description.

Oblivious to the dark shadow looming over her, she continues her nap without a care in the world. I grab her by the ankle and yank her toward me. She shrieks, hair tumbling around her face as I toss her over my shoulder and cart her off.

“Angelo!”

“If you wanted my attention, Abella, all you had to do was ask for it.”

She curses me in Italian, and I smack her ass hard enough to leave a palm print. She lets out a little yelp that goes straight to my cock.

I told myself I’d give her time to cry over her precious fucking Matteo. But she effectively ended the ceasefire when she made me question a murderous rampage of every man on this yacht.

“Where are you taking me?” she asks.

“The bridge,” I tell her. “You wanted to put on a show for the crew. I’ll give them one they’ll never forget.”

“Angelo, no.” She acts horrified, but beneath that, her voice betrays her.

She might be too embarrassed to admit she likes the idea, but I’ve seen the books the little pervert reads.

I know exactly what she likes. And if these weren’t men who got to see her every day, I might actually consider it.

But anonymity will be a nonnegotiable when I fuck her in front of someone else.

The last thing I need is another asshole sniffing around her. She’s already proven she can’t be trusted, and slaughtering every man who looks her way is a full-time job. I should know, I’ve made a pretty good dent already.

“What’s the problem, cara ?” I taunt her as I carry her up the stairs. “You already showed them your tits. Don’t you want them to see your pussy too?”

She starts to wriggle as I clear the landing and make my way to the bridge door.

“I’m sorry!” she blurts. “It won’t happen again, okay? I swear it.”

I pause outside the door, itching with the need to punish her. I’ve already made up my mind, but it’s still tempting to fuck her here to prove a point.

“Tell me why you did it,” I growl.

The tension in her body dissolves as she heaves out a sigh. “You know why.”

“I’ll need you to spell it out for me.”

This is undoubtedly a tantrum about Genevieve, but I need to hear her say it because I’m a sick fuck. There’s a twisted kind of pleasure in the idea of provoking this hot little green monster in her.

“Of all the people in the world you could have hired, did it have to be her?” she bites out.

“Why does it matter to you?” I throw the words back flippantly. “Last I checked, you didn’t care who I fucked.”

Her body goes rigid. “Are you?”

“Am I fucking her?” I parrot the question without answering.

I hope she’s imagining it right now—the same way I imagined her and Matteo together for six fucking years.

The door to the bridge opens, and the first mate pops his head out, his eyes widening when he sees us there.

“Pardon my interruption, Mr. Vitale.” He averts his gaze. “I’ll give you some privacy.”

“No need,” I tell him. “My wife?—”

“Angelo…” Abella begs, the vulnerability in her voice tugging at something I thought I’d already killed.

This fucking woman.

Turning around, I head for the stairs, dismissing the first mate. “As you were.”

I carry Abella back to the owner’s deck and into our suite, releasing my grip on her slowly. She slides down my body, her bare breasts skimming over my linen shirt. Even through that barrier, I can feel her nipples dragging along my chest, and it distracts me far more than it should.

I turn her in my arms, pressing her back against me as I tug her scrap of a thong over her hips, letting it fall to the floor. When I slip my fingers between her thighs and find her wet, it irritates the fuck out of me.

“Does their attention get you off?” I growl. “Are you so desperate for cock you think you’ll take any you can get?”

“No,” she breathes. “Nobody else has touched me. You saw the evidence of that.”

My dick swells another inch just thinking about her virgin blood on me. The relief I felt when I saw that was immeasurable. But now I have a point to make, and I intend it to be a permanent one.

“Nobody else will ever touch you again.” I haul her to the bed and shove her facedown across the mattress.

She doesn’t move as I rummage through the nightstand drawers, collecting the items I ordered for her. I toss them onto the bed, and she tries to glance over her shoulder, at which point I shove a pillow over her face.

“Angelo?” Uncertainty hitches her voice, and I let her linger in that moment. She can twist herself into knots and wallow in the fear she craves.

I grab the tattoo kit and the battery pack and toss them beside the other items. Then I mount her, caging her legs between mine as I lean back on my haunches.

Compared to me, she’s pint-sized—compact and easily portable.

She can’t bear much of my weight, but the little diavoletta isn’t going anywhere in this position.

When I open the kit, the snap fills the silence, and a tremor runs along her spine. That soft expanse of golden skin laid out beneath me makes me want to sink my teeth into it. It doesn’t help that she smells like coconut and vanilla from whatever she smeared all over herself.

She seems to be handling Matteo’s death suspiciously well, but I’m not going to question it. I’ve spent the entirety of her mourning period sorting and categorizing all the ways I want to defile her. Today, she’s given me good reason to fuck her senseless.

I clean her upper thighs and apply the stencils I’ve been waiting to use before I prep the machine. It takes me a few minutes, and when I turn it on, she starts to squirm. I plant my palm in the center of her back and press her down into the mattress.

“What are you—” The words die in her throat as I touch the needles to her skin, the machine buzzing as I begin my work.

She falls quiet beneath me, her face still buried under the pillow as I execute my claim on her. Moving from one thigh to the next, the entire process takes less than twenty minutes. When I’m done, I sit back and admire the view—my first and last name inked onto the back of her thighs.

“In case I didn’t make it clear already, nobody else will ever fuck you,” I tell her. “Any man who tries will stare down his own death sentence.”

“But you can fuck who you want?” she bites back.

“Is that jealousy I hear in your voice, cara ?”

I want her to admit it, but she’s too fucking stubborn for that. So I clean and wrap her with a medical-grade film that’s durable enough to handle what I’m about to do to her next.

“What did you put on me?” she asks.

“A permanent reminder of what happens when you flaunt your ass and tits for all the world to see.”

I toss the kit aside and reach for the lubricant, snapping it open. Abella jumps beneath me, her body thrumming with nervous energy. I lube up the anal plug and spread her ass cheeks, smearing some against her skin.

When I nudge the rounded point of the stainless steel against her tight hole, she gasps and bucks the pillow off her head.

I press her back down again.

“Relax, baby,” I taunt her. “You were so desperate to show off your ass. Let’s see how much you like my cock inside of it.”

“You’ll split me in half,” she whines.

“You survived the first time. There’s a good chance you’ll survive this one, too.”

A strangled sound lodges in her throat as I start to work the plug against her. Despite my wanting to punish her, I take my time, slowly opening her up. I plan to fuck this ass more than once, and I want it to be a pleasurable experience for her.

I have to start with a bigger plug to stretch her out so she’ll be ready for my cock. It takes a while for her to relax, but when she does, I fuck the plug in and out of her. When I finally push it all the way in, she whimpers for more.

“Has your pussy recovered?” I spread her legs apart and push two fingers inside her.

“Mostly,” she moans. “It’s still a little sore when I sit. Or…move.”

Dark satisfaction flares in my chest. “You’ll have to get used to it. I’ll be fucking you hard and often until I put an heir inside you.”

She shivers beneath me, letting out a desperate little cry as I slide my fingers in and out of her pussy.

That sound goes straight to the most primal part of my brain, lighting it up with one need—fucking her until my name is the only word she can verbalize.

Meanwhile, the rational part of me remembers she’s still fragile.

I need to unleash these primitive urges in increments she can reasonably handle.