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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Mya

It was dark inside our bedroom, and I knew he thought he was alone. But he wasn’t…I was there, watching him like he liked to watch me.

I understood then, the headiness of just watching.

Having that secret moment to yourself to enjoy something so wanton without anyone knowing.

But I was different from him. I couldn’t just watch. I had to feel him. Touch him.

I was wet already just watching him. My pussy was pulsing with just the thought of what he would feel like buried deep inside me. No, watching wasn’t enough for me.

I approached him, keeping my steps light, not wanting him to hear me. When I touched his shoulder, he stopped pleasuring himself for a moment, out of surprise, but then I began to remove my clothes.

I slid the nightgown over my head, revealing my breasts that were already heavy with anticipation. I stepped out my panties which were soaked with my desire, and he watched every movement, his eyes never looking away from me as he began again to stroke his dick.

I wrapped my hands around him. I knew the rules of our relationship. I was only allowed to touch when he instructed me to do so, but I couldn’t help myself. I had to touch him.

He stared at me in surprise, aroused by my touch but clearly angry that I had broken one of his rules.

I hadn’t done what I was told. There would be consequences. The first one was now.

He pushed my hands away, reached into the nightstand, and withdrew a long piece of satin fabric. He pulled me by my hands toward him and made me kneel in front of him. He then wrapped the fabric around my wrists, tying them together, so they were bound snugly.

He then led my hands to his dick, which pulsated in my bound hands. I saw the telltale sign of precum and slipped a finger over it, using it to trace the tip of his dick. He sucked in a breath.

Finally. A reaction. He wasn’t cold toward me, after all.

He was always so calm, cool, and distant, even when we fucked. I knew he worked hard to maintain that distance. He needed to control everything. Me. His family. His feelings. And even sex.

That ended tonight. Tonight, I wanted to know what it felt like to be in charge.

“Let your walls down, Dario,” I breathed at him, my warm breath ghosting over his cock. “You want me to trust you, but you don’t let me see anything but your power. Why should that make me trust you? Do you want me to fear you and nothing else?”

“I want you to trust me,” he said gruffly.

I shook my head once, sharply, leaning away from him. He pushed himself toward me in protest before he could check the movement.

“I can’t trust you if you don’t show me anything about yourself,” I insisted. “If you want this to be a partnership, that facade ends now.”

I kneeled between his parted legs and guided his cock into my mouth. The silk wrapped around my wrists that bound my hands together made the task difficult, but not impossible.

I wasn’t up for obeying his rules tonight. As I brought his dick deeper into my mouth, I looked up at him, watching his face.

I enjoyed knowing that I pleasured him. It made me feel powerful. It made me feel in control for once.

His eyes were closed, and his head was back. That’s not what I wanted. I wanted him to watch. I paused, sure that that would get his attention, and it worked. He grabbed my hair, pulling me forward until I almost gagged at the size of him.

I could feel him stiffen, and then he began to move his dick in and out of my mouth, taking control like he always did.

I tried to pull away, but his grip tightened. “Where do you think you’re going?” His eyes told me there was only one correct answer to that question. “Don’t stop until I tell you to.”

Part of me wanted to rebel, but I was too turned on to care that he was getting exactly what he wanted…again. I was wet as soon as I had walked through the door and found him pleasuring himself.

He didn’t have to say a word. He didn’t have to even acknowledge my presence. Just the thought of him, the smell of him and the thought of his touch was intoxicating enough.

So, I obeyed his rules. He was in charge again. Maybe I should admit to myself that his taking control was what I liked best about him.

His breathing now was shallow and fast. I could taste him in my mouth, he stiffened, ready to come, and I thought that maybe I would get the upper hand at last.

But no. He pulled away from me, stood up, and grabbed me by my arms, forcing me from my kneeling position. Without a word, he shoved me down on the bed.

He was on top of me then, pinning me down with his body, and pinning my hands above my head. I was completely at his mercy, just the way he liked it.

Just the way I liked it, too.

As he held me down, he forcefully pushed my thighs apart and shoved a finger into my wetness. I gasped and then moaned as he pushed into me, wanting and needing more from him.

Again, I wasn’t going to get what I wanted. I realized that as he roughly flipped me over, dragged me to the edge of the bed, and used the extra silk that bound my hands to bind me to the headboard.

I was naked, bound, and fully vulnerable to him.

I couldn’t see him, but I knew by now what happened next. I expected him to get behind me, to spread my legs, and thrust into me, but to my surprise, he didn’t.

Instead, I heard a drawer open. I guessed it was the nightstand. I couldn’t quite see what he was doing since I was turned away from him, my ass in the air, my elbows holding my weight against the bed.

“Hold still,” was all he said.

He covered my mouth then with his hand. I tensed. And that’s when I felt something cold rub up against my behind. I jumped, startled. Then my brain made sense of it.

What I felt was the unmistakable texture of a wooden paddle as he smacked me with it hard against the ass.

I cried out, not expecting the pain, and attempted to wiggle away. He grabbed me with one hand around my waist and pulled me back to him until his crotch was nestled between my cheeks.

He then did something even more unexpected—I couldn’t see him, but I could feel his lips as he leaned down and placed a soft kiss on the middle of my back. The soft gentleness of it made me want to cry.

“Hold still,” he whispered against my skin.

This time, I was ready, and when he hit me again, I felt equal amounts of pain and pleasure. I held my breath in anticipation of each hit, gasping for breath, biting his hand that muffled my screams of pleasure mixed with pain…

“That’s for disobeying me, for fighting with me,” he said softly.

I heard him put the paddle down on the nightstand.

“Say you’re sorry,” he said to me, dropping kisses down my spine.

“You first,” I managed to moan out, my pussy throbbing with need.

He made a grumbling noise. I thought he would pick up the paddle and spank me again, but then he said so quietly that I wasn’t sure I had heard it at first, “I’m sorry.”

“What?” I said, shocked.

“I said that I’m sorry. For all of it. For so many things,” he said, his breath fanning over my back as he spoke. He hadn’t lifted back away from my body.

“I’m sorry too,” I heard myself say.

I felt empty. I needed him. God, how I wanted him.

Dario was a criminal. Behind the fancy suits and words, his actions led to the death of others. Possibly even to Jason’s death. That realization was sobering.

And it’s what I reminded myself every day when I found myself doubting what I thought I knew of Dario and trying to understand the man that he was. My mom had said that no one was all bad or all good, that all of us had our shades of gray, it’s just that some of us hid it better than others.

Dario had never hid who he was from me. I didn’t know if that was a blessing or a curse.

All I knew was that I was desperate for his cock, desperate for his hunger, and wild for release.

“Fuck me, Dario,” I pleaded, my voice sounding like someone else’s. “I need you.”

He made a choked sound that might have been a sob if he had been another man.

“There is nothing that I want to do more,” he groaned.

He leaned forward and untied my hands, then turned me around.

“What do you want? Show me,” he said.

I blinked. I didn’t know how to react to him being fair with me, offering me a choice in what I wanted.

I lifted my hands and they were shaking. I stroked them up his body, running them over his hard abs, and then up over his shoulders, which were thick with muscle.

He shivered under my touch. I felt drunk with power.

I sat back until I found the edge of the bed, and then I took his hand, tugging him forward, inviting him to lay down over me.

He obliged me, resting on his elbows. I felt the smile on his lips before he started kissing me.

His kisses were different, gentle, worshipping my lips. I felt wetness dripping from me onto the sheets.

“Please,” I said against his lips. “Please fill me, Dario.”

He kissed me soundly one more time, then I felt the head of his cock against me. I keened, lifting toward him, and he slid into me slowly, his size shocking and wonderful all at once, just like always.

“Oh, God, Dario,” I moaned, finding a cadence with him right away, the dance slower this time, gentle, filled with emotion. I felt my heart breaking open, the truth of my feelings for him flowing out, as he fucked me tenderly.

“Mya,” he murmured as my body spiraled toward its release. “God, you feel amazing. Come for me, baby.”

And I did, as if my body was solely at his command now. I screamed his name as the release tore through me. I felt my own wetness soak us and he groaned loudly and arched into his own release, sinking his teeth into my shoulder.

We rocked together, swamped by pleasure, surrendering to one another, completely naked to one another in every way for the first time.

“Thank you,” he breathed against my skin, and my heart did a delightful little flip flop in my chest.

I had thought that he was the man responsible for getting me in this whole mess to begin with. However, if I were being honest, I’d only had myself to blame for that.

Did Jason find himself in a similar situation? Did he make a big mistake that made him Matteo’s lackey? I didn’t know but I knew until I had the truth whatever I felt or thought I felt for Dario would have to wait to be fully explored.

I still needed closure, and that could only come from finding out the truth about what Jason had been involved in with the di Ceccos.

But that could wait. I let Dario lead me to the shower, where we took care of one another kindly, gentle with each other, silent in the face of what we had just shared.

When I woke, I was alone.

I got up, got dressed, and went looking for Dario. I wandered to his study, assuming he would be in there as always, managing his empire.

I opened the door, calling his name, and stuck my head in, looking in all directions. He wasn’t in the office.

I probably only had a minute before someone sent one of his goons to tell me to mind my own business and stay out of Dario’s office.

That was okay. I would take what I could get. I knew he carried around the same ledger and laptop all the time. Did he take them with him?

I didn’t see them anywhere, but I spotted something else. I saw on his desk, the files that had been stored at the yacht. The files that had contained pictures of me, Jason, and Luis.

Luis! I thought to myself. I’d forgotten to call him again.

I wondered if Dario would trust me enough to lend me his phone. But did I even need to call Luis now?

Would Dario go after Luis? I told myself to focus on what I had to do and not to worry about Luis for now. It was one innocent call. But hadn’t one innocent call gotten the doctor in trouble?

I prayed that the doctor was okay. And that my presence had stopped Dario from doing something terrible to him. He needed the doctor. He didn’t trust anyone else to take care of his pregnant wife, right?

I sat down at the desk and noticed all the pictures of Jason with Matteo in the file. I studied them. I hadn’t known Jason at all, I realized.

And then I saw one picture with Joseph in it. Joseph was Dario’s driver. Why had he never mentioned that he knew Jason? Of all the people on Dario’s team, Joseph was the only one who spoke to me kindly.

And then I saw Nico in another pic and my blood boiled. He looked like the asshole he was, slimly built with a cocky look on his face that made you want to punch him. He was thinner and less imposing than his brothers, with dark brown hair that looked like it needed a wash, and anxious brown eyes that seemed to dart around even in the picture.

In the picture, he was wearing casual clothing, jeans, and a T-shirt with a random college basketball team’s name across it. I hated how he looked so carefree. I hated him.

The familiar rage burned away in my belly, and I placed a hand on it to calm down.

I had accepted that Jason was gone, but I would never accept how violently he’d been taken. Nico had made a choice to hurt Jason. It didn’t matter how Dario tried to twist it. Nico had murdered him in cold blood.

Then I saw another picture, again with Joseph parked in the background, and noticed the van Nico was standing in front of. I recognized it. It had the name of the catering company that had catered my wedding to Dario on it.

Another picture showed Nico getting behind the wheel of the van and waving to someone. That someone was Matteo. And what were they transporting in the van? Money? Drugs? People?

Clearly, Nico was working with Matteo, and…I felt sick, probably with Dario. Why else would Joseph be there?

“Found what you’re looking for?” I heard a voice say behind me. My hair stood up on the back of my neck. It was Dario.

“These pictures…all this time, you acted as if you had nothing to do with your brothers. But yet, here you are with Joseph, unless you’re going to tell me that Joseph is just a guy who likes to hang out with your siblings?”

“Funny,” he said dryly. “It’s time for you to leave.”

“You left this here for me to find? Didn’t you?”

He shrugged, “You wanted answers, and I’m trying to provide them.” I hated it when he spoke in such a cold voice. It was infuriating.

“What are you? Some sort of a robot? I have feelings, Dario. My husband?—”

“Ex-husband?—-”

“—was killed. Don’t you feel any kind of way about that? Do you ever feel anything?” My voice cracked. I was getting upset again. I need to calm down…for the baby.

I took a deep breath.

“Just please, if you even care about me a little, tell me everything. The full story. Please. I want to know. Don’t you get it? If someone you loved suddenly was taken from you, wouldn’t you want to know why?”

I could tell that statement reached him because his shoulders visibly slumped, and his eyes, for a moment were kinder.

“Sit down, I’ll tell you everything I know. And then you can decide what to believe.”