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EPILOGUE 1

Alessandro

Several weeks sweep by, our lives settling into a routine in the mountains, spring blossoming into glorious color in the Alps. The flowers sweeping the mountainsides are almost as beautiful as Isabella.

I finally understand what they mean by ‘glowing.’

She’s just beginning to show at the start of her second trimester.

It’s truly a miracle, reassuring any doubts I ever had about this choice we made to run away. Certainly, for the sake of our child, this place will be an incredible home to grow up in.

My parents, and their parents before them, lived a dangerous life. And they still chose to have us, to bring us into that life.

Not to say I’ve left it completely behind. Someday, we will exact revenge on Domenico.

But that task lies with my brothers, for now.

Angelica and Gigi have settled nicely into the east wing, the remodel refitting it for her and Isabella's decorative taste. It was a great opportunity for the two of them to bond as sisters.

And a good chance for Tomas and I to work on a project with our hands. Boredom remains the only challenge to overcome when neither of us has a job to do.

He’s taking it harder than I am, having been dedicated to my security for the better part of a decade. But time with Gigi and Angelica has broken down that barrier.

Still, I catch him sitting outside Angie’s door some nights when I pass the wing on my way to the kitchen. I guess that we all have some scars that are hard to heal. I’m just glad Adriano decided to keep Tomas here with us.

As for me, I read. I exercise.

Isabella and I watch movies and go on hikes. We have long, stimulating conversations, really getting to know one another.

And we only bicker every other day.

Usually it ends in sex, each time more incredible than the last. She’s daring. Insatiable.

Of course, daring has its limits when we have housemates. Added to the fact that Isabella needs plenty of sleep, our passions have some constraints that are wearing on my desire.

The animal within me and the one I brought out in her, writhe under the surface, howling to be let out.

These same thoughts are hounding me, chafing my libido, as I head to my office one night after dinner. Isabella finished and left me eating to go take care of something, but she wasn’t in our bedroom.

I sigh, sitting down at my computer, browsing over my notes. With no real work to do, I’ve taken to writing my memoirs. Letters to my brothers that may never reach them, things I wish I said to them growing up.

And most of all, letters to my child.

Whoever they are, they will be a Diamante. I’d like them to understand what that means, even if they never join the life .

I’m just tacking away at another line of text, my heart not really in it, when I hear a soft click behind me.

The bookcase …

My secret door is ajar when I turn, the dim, flickering light glowing from within.

Easing the door open, I creep inside, years of training making me move silently, cautiously. A single rose sits in the center of the big, low, round bed. I glance around, approaching the flower, a smile playing on my lips.

“Hmm. Someone is feeling playful…”

I tense as I feel something slip around one wrist, then the other, clicking into place.

“I thought you’d never come looking for me.”

“I didn’t realize I was supposed to come looking.”

“You’re right. That’s the whole point of a trap, I suppose…” Her voice is a velvet purr as she saunters around me, wearing thigh high leather boots, a tiny, jet-black G-string, and a strapped, corset top that leaves her sexy, protruding belly exposed. Dark red lipstick accents dark eye shadow, her hair cascading down in pinned curls to frame her face, covering her pushed up tits peeking out over the harness.

Nothing compares to the way she gets me hard, instantly.

Even more so when she pulls on the cord next to me, dragging my handcuffed wrists up above my head. My heart starts a pounding rhythm, a drum thumping through my entire body.

A sharp heel stabs at my back, forcing me to my knees roughly.

“Your trap worked … now what?”

“Something I have been wanting to do for a long time,” she breathes into my ear, sending shivers across my flesh under my clothes.

“Looks like you caught me with my pants…on.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to cut them off. ”

Her hiss precedes the tip of a razor-sharp knife, slicing through the fabric of my shirt first, dragging lightly along my skin between tearing away one sleeve, then the next, followed by the front panels, then the back.

I’m sweating by the time she’s done, my arms aching above me, tugging against my restraints.

“Up!” She jerks the chains again, forcing me to stand as she drags the blade up each leg, destroying my outfit.

Every scratch is superficial, just enough to hurt, not deep enough to draw blood.

It’s a glorious prelude of what’s to come.

Isabella locks my ankles, tightening the chains until I’m stretched out, unable to move.

She draws it out, grazing one fingernail all over me, finishing with a long, slow scrape up the head of my throbbing cock. “This. I needed this.”

“I wanted to surprise you.”

“I’m very surprised.”

“Are you?”

I almost answer when the first lash cracks along my back, making me snap my teeth shut, moaning in shock and sweet pain. The second lash is harder, wild.

Between sessions of punishment, she tortures me with near kisses, bites along my sides, my neck; and the worst and best of all, phantom licks down the length of my sex, forcing my back to arch trying to reach her.

She looks like a freaking demon when she appears before me, a goddess.

Sweat glistens on her flawless skin, her nipples adorned with clamps, a chain running between them, a collar at her throat.

Below the waist, she’s soaking through her almost nonexistent underwear.

So much so that she slices them off, revealing her perfect folds, her swollen apex, taunting me to taste.

“You’ll get your chance to lick me. To fuck me. But only how and when I say so.”

The whip, exchanged for a braided strap, slaps my back, the multiple leather cords stinging, tingling.

“Oh! Isabella!”

“Louder. Let's test these soundproof walls.”

And she does just that, putting them to the test with rigorous cracks across my back, my ass, my hips.

I slump forward as she finishes another round, circling around to kiss me, burrowing her tongue into my mouth. It's liquid fire, our tongues intertwining, lashing each other, drinking in the taste of her.

It’s done too quick, leaving me panting, biting at thin air.

She laughs, mocking and sultry, swinging her hips as she walks away. I see the red jewel nestled between her cheeks, twinkling in a new, even more provoking play.

“I need…I want…” I’m growling, baring my teeth.

Isabella grinds up against me, pressing her searing flesh against mine, grabbing my face and jamming a ball gag in my mouth.

She reaches down, grasping my length, squeezing hard to make her point. “When I’m done with you tonight, slave, there’s not going to be anything left—want or need.”

I nearly faint from desire, exertion.

It’s pure ecstasy.

She takes me through hours of edging torment before she finally gives me permission to come. It’s so natural, this lust, our love. And I will never get enough of it.

“Isabella …”

Nothing will ever be the same for me again.

“Alessandro …”

Nothing will ever break our bond.

Because I'm going to ask her to marry me.