Page 47 of Beautiful Torment (Empire of Kings #1)

ABELLA

A fter spending the last few days alone with my thoughts, regret eats away at my sanity. I should have just unburdened myself. It’s the only fair thing to do. Angelo deserves the truth, and he should hear it directly from me. But the thought of coming clean feels like a death sentence of its own.

I pace along the deck, caught between agony and indecision. Either way, I lose, and I’m not ready for that yet.

“Are you ready to go into the city?” Nicky appears at the top of the landing, shooting me a curious glance.

We’re docked in Marseille today, and Angelo has assigned a fleet of guards to accompany me while I explore. But I’m tired of spending this honeymoon by myself, and I’ll lose my mind if I have to sit on another beach and pretend everything is fine.

“No,” I tell him. “I want to talk to my husband.”

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.” He shifts, tension creeping into his shoulders. “Maybe you should wait.”

I’m not sure if he’s keeping me away because Angelo’s still angry, or there’s another reason. But paranoia gets the best of me.

“Is it because he’s with Genevieve?”

“Uh, look, Mrs. Vitale, it’s not my place to?—”

“You’re right,” I agree. “It’s not your place.”

I head for the stairs, and Nicky’s sigh trails after me.

The entire way to Angelo’s office, my heartbeat hammers against my chest. I don’t know what I might find behind that closed door.

In Angelo’s mind, I’m sure it would be justice well served to take up with the woman who hates me. But I need to see it for myself.

When I reach his office door, her soft laughter drifts out from behind it, and I don’t hesitate. I fling it open, and both their heads swivel in my direction.

Genevieve once again has her ass parked on my husband’s desk like she was never taught how to use a chair. They’re two feet apart, but it isn’t nearly enough for me.

“I need to talk to my husband,” I bite out. “Alone.”

Genevieve doesn’t move. Instead, she looks at Angelo and waits for his direction. It only irritates me more.

He spares me a disinterested glance, and for one heart-stopping moment, I think he might reject me in front of her. Instead, he opts for a different tactic.

“Wait outside,” he tells her. “I’ll need you after.”

A smile curves across her face. “Of course, Angelo. Anything you need.”

The insinuation is there, and I hate him for playing into this, but I have to believe he’s doing it just to piss me off.

When the door clicks shut behind her, Angelo taps out a message on his phone, not bothering to look at me. “What do you need, Abella?”

I round his desk, closing the distance until I’m beside him. “You’re my husband.”

“And?” He arches a brow at me.

“We took vows to be faithful, and I am. Can you say the same?”

“You’ve made promises before,” he reminds me. “How did that turn out?”

“Are you fucking her?”

He laughs, and it sparks a fury in me I didn’t even know I was capable of.

“Tell me.” I shove at his chest. “Are. You. Fucking. Her?”

He captures my wrist, and I fight him off, shoving at him again until he rises from his seat and quickly overpowers me. It only takes one of his hands to pin both of mine behind my back.

His body presses against me, darkness pooling in his eyes. Our mouths are mere inches apart. He’s breathing fire, and I’m so angry I can’t control myself. It spills out in hot, ugly, embarrassing tears.

I wish I could just find a way to hate him.

“Enough,” he growls. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” I glare up at him. I’m not even fighting him anymore.

“This.” He swipes my tears away with a rough hand, like they offend him on a personal level.

It doesn’t make sense, until it does.

He gets no pleasure from seeing me cry.

“Are you going to behave?” His voice softens a fraction.

I nod, and he releases his grip on me. But I prove myself a liar when I grab his face and try to kiss him.

Again, he rejects me, prying my hands away as he shakes his head.

“Why?” I ask.

He kissed me the night we married. He did it repeatedly. But now, he won’t.

“I have work to do,” he says.

He’s dismissing me, but I can’t leave things like this. He’ll stay mad forever if I do. And maybe it’s stupid, but I don’t want it to be this way for the rest of the time we have together.

“This is our honeymoon.” My voice cracks. “We only get one.”

He takes his seat, giving me one of the toneless responses I hate so much.

“It’s for show, Abella.”

Those words are intended to wound, but I know there’s more to it than that. He might want his revenge, but there’s a part of him that wants me too. He can deny it all he wants, but I’ve seen it. And right now, I intend to prove it.

I squeeze into the space between him and the desk and sink to my knees before him.

“Is this for show too?” I stroke the rigid outline in his trousers.

“You think that means something?” he answers with a bored expression. “I could get an erection from a light breeze rolling by. So don’t flatter yourself.”

Ignoring that jab, I lean in and press my lips to the heavy length straining against his seam.

“Abella.” He makes a rough noise in his throat.

I kiss my way up his shaft to the button on his trousers. When I swirl my tongue around it, I feel his cock jerk beneath the material. It gives me the encouragement I need to unzip him.

Slowly, I peel apart the fabric and unwrap him like a gift.

He’s wearing black boxer briefs that sit low on his waist, showcasing every glorious inch of him. I don’t think it matters how many times I see him like this, it will probably always take my breath away.

I slip my fingers just under the band of his briefs, dragging them along his warm skin.

It’s a stolen touch, and it isn’t nearly enough.

I could spend days exploring his body. But right now, I settle for pushing his shirt up, exposing the ridged expanse of his abs.

I scrape my fingers down the hard muscle, enjoying the way it contracts in response.

He’s the embodiment of weaponized masculinity, and for as long as I live, I’m certain I’ll never see another like him.

Leaning up on my knees, I kiss a path along the dark trail of hair that disappears beneath his waistband. A slight tremor moves through his body, and it makes me feel feral.

Wrapping a palm around the pronounced swell in his briefs, I pump his cock a few times through the material. Then I do something I’ve wanted to since the first time I saw this part of him. I open wide and lightly bite down on him through the fabric, scraping my teeth up his length.

He inhales sharply, hand twitching at his side. I tease him a little more, sucking the wet spot at the top of his briefs before lapping at it with my tongue. He throbs in my grasp, the heat radiating from him an undeniable giveaway.

He wants this.

When I tug down his briefs, his cock falls heavy against his abdomen. Smooth, solid, and veiny—it’s both obscene and beautiful. I’d expect nothing less from Angelo Vitale.

For a moment, I let my gaze rake over him, leaning back in his chair, thighs wide, trousers gaping. He’s the picture of menace and control as he lazily assesses me with those dark, sinful eyes.

I want to unravel him.

Bracing my palms on his thighs, I lean in and lick the entire length of him from base to tip. A shudder runs through him, and from my periphery, I see his hand twitch again. His restraint is slowly fraying.

I wrap one of my palms around the base of his cock and use the other to milk the arousal leaking from his tip. I lap it up with my tongue, then suck him into my mouth. Closing my eyes, I give myself over to the moment, slowly sinking more of him into my throat with every dip of my head.

The muscles in his thighs contract, and his breaths grow shallower. After a few minutes, I settle into a rhythm, but it doesn’t last long. He finally makes contact when his hand slides into my hair, gripping it roughly.

“Is this what you wanted?” His fingers press into my scalp as he shoves my head down on his cock, making me gag. “Are you so desperate for my attention you’ll take anything you can get?”

I gurgle around him, enjoying my little victory. It doesn’t matter what he says… because I got to him.

But in this war between us, nobody really wins. He takes control, fucking my mouth as if it’s little more than an object to be used until he empties himself. He’s intentionally depriving me of his pleasure and praise—the thing I want most from him.

“You want her to hear you choking on my cum?” he taunts. “Is that it?”

Undeniably, the thought of Genevieve just outside the door listening gives me a certain satisfaction. So I nod against him.

“Since you asked so nicely.”

He shoves his cock down my throat and holds me there for so long I feel like I can’t breathe. When I start to struggle against him, he pulls me up for air.

“Giving up already?” he asks. “We’ve only just begun.”

I take him back into my mouth and let him fuck out his frustration. The more I relax, the more he gives. When his last thread of restraint snaps and the primal sounds of his satisfaction fill the space between us, it feeds the darkest part of me.

I want to be the only one who can give him this.

When I moan around him, he shudders, and I realize he likes that sound of approval just as much as I do. He drags his fingers through my hair, sending little shocks of pleasure through me. Gathering a fistful, he angles my head back slightly, like he needs to see more of my face.

When I look up at him, eyes soft, so obviously owned by him in this moment, he tips his head back and releases a long, painful groan.

His cock empties into my mouth, and I swallow everything he gives me. It feels intimate and possessive, and I don’t want it to end. I keep sucking him even as he softens, drawing out every last drop and licking him clean.

“That’s enough, cara .” He stills me with his grip on my hair.

For a fleeting second, I catch a glimpse of tenderness in his eyes as he pulls his cock from my mouth and brushes a thumb over my lips. It disappears into the void of darkness a moment later.

“That was a waste,” he says. “I can’t get you pregnant there.”

I rise on stiff legs and wipe the mascara leaking down my face, trying to hold it together long enough to say my piece.

“I know what I’ve done to you. So you can punish me as much as you like, but it won’t change anything,” I tell him. “I didn’t walk away because I was disloyal to you, Angelo. What I did to you, I did for you.”

His face is a mask of indifference. He doesn’t believe me, and he never will. I turn and walk out the door, trying to breathe through the agony crushing my rib cage. When Genevieve sees how wrecked I am, she smirks.

“Trouble in paradise already?” She casts me a pitiful glance as I brush past her.

“My marriage isn’t your business.”

“I’m just offering you my sympathy, Abella. It must be so hard on you.”

I hate that I pause to hear her out, but I do. “What must be so hard?”

She lowers her voice, as if she’s telling me a secret. “Everyone knows he only married you because you were already bought and paid for.”

Her words hit their intended target with brutal accuracy.

That’s exactly what Angelo said the night we married.

Maybe I should have believed him.