Page 56 of Vicious Kingdom (Dynasty of Queens #3)

P enelope and alcohol were a wicked combination. We were giggling, and well on our way to being plastered yet again when the men showed up. They switched us to water, and after an hour of eating pizza, chatting about childhood stories, and hanging out, Alessandro took his wife home.

“I like hanging with your family,” I mused, lying back on the couch.

Leo’s eyes tracked my languid movements, darkening as I stretched my legs along the couch. I’d kicked off my shoes hours ago, my bare feet now resting against the arm of the sofa.

“They’re not bad,” Leo murmured, his voice dropping an octave. “For criminals.”

I laughed, the sound floating between us. “Says the man who strongarmed a politician.”

Instead of responding, Leo moved toward me with deliberate slowness. Something primal and hungry had awakened in his expression. He knelt beside the couch, taking my foot in his hands.

“I’ve done worse,” he whispered, pressing his lips to my big toe. “Much, much worse.”

A sane person would kick him away at the terrible reminder.

My breath caught as he worked his way across each toe, his tongue darting out between kisses. The sensation sent electricity up my legs.

This was my husband—my one true love.

“Leo,” I gasped, insides melting at his touch.

His eyes never left mine as he trailed kisses up my ankle. “Yes, cara mia?”

“You’re so good at this,” I murmured, biting my lip as he hit a particularly sensitive spot.

Leo’s mouth curved into that dangerous smile I’d come to crave. “I’m good at many things, cara mia.”

I swallowed hard, watching as his strong hands slid up my calves with exquisite slowness. The alcohol’s ebbing warmth in my blood was nothing compared to the heat he ignited with each touch.

“I should be horrified,” I whispered, my voice catching as his thumbs pressed into the sensitive spot behind my knee. “That you’ve done terrible things.”

Leo paused, his expression growing serious. “Are you?”

The question hung between us, weighted with everything unsaid. I reached out, threading my fingers through his hair, drawing him closer until I could feel his breath against my center.

“No,” I admitted. “I’m not.”

Something shifted in his eyes—relief, hunger, possession. His hand moved to tug down my pants. The first touch of his mouth on my pussy was lightning.

I bent back with a groan.

His tongue was merciless, drawing slow, deliberate circles around my clit before dipping lower. I arched against him, my fingers tightening in his hair at the pleasure. The world narrowed to this single point of contact—his mouth on me, devouring, claiming.

“Leo,” I gasped, my voice barely recognizable. “Please—my lion—I need you.”

“All in good time, sweet authoress,” he hummed against my flesh, the vibration sending another jolt of electricity through my body.

In the back of my mind, the words registered, but euphoria shoved them to an afterthought.

His hands gripped my thighs, spreading them wider as he worked me with devastating precision.

He knew exactly how to touch me, where to linger, when to press harder.

He pressed a finger against my entrance, pushing deep and curling.

I whimpered.

Another joined, and he fucked me with slow, precise movements as he devoured me.

“Let go,” he commanded against my flesh. “I want to taste you coming apart.”

My body obeyed before my mind could process his words. The orgasm crashed through me, stealing my breath and vision. I cried out. He continued to kiss and suck until I hissed in protest.

“I’m so tired, I don’t know how much more of that I can take,” I admitted, brushing my fingers in his hair.

“We can go to bed.”

I bit my lip. “Okay.”

I didn’t want to say goodnight.

Leo held out his hand, helped me from the couch, and left me at the stairs. I paused, hoping he would kiss me. When he didn’t, I hid my face, not wanting to see how much that hurt.

Trialing upstairs, the random nickname, the one he used to call me, rang through my mind. We really had something back then—back before the lies and secrets caught up to us.

I doubted we would ever truly return to that place.

Inside the guestroom, I slumped against the back of the chair. A yawn escaped my throat. While a quick shower sounded nice, I wanted to curl into a ball—

The door banged open.

Wielding the largest kitchen knife, Leo stood there, looking like death incarnate.

A stifled scream caught in my throat.

Frozen in fear, I knew this was how I died.

With measured steps, Leo strode across the floor, tore the covers off the bed, and slid the blade through them. My heart began to beat again, sending much needed oxygen to my head.

Next he attacked the pillows, then the sheets.

He wasn’t going to hurt me. That made little sense and was an instinctual reaction.

“What the hell?” I shouted.

Viciously, Leo carved the blade through the mattress. His muscles rippled with exertion. Foam split under his delusional touch.

“Leonardo!” I snapped.

He plunged the blade deep in the center and then rounded on me. His eyes were living pools of darkness.

“You do not sleep in any other bed but mine.”

Opening my mouth to point out that he was batshit crazy, my words were cut off as he gripped me around the stomach and tossed me over his shoulder.

“Leo,” I whimpered, bracing from the soreness in my body.

He relented and drew me down to cradle me. With a swift kick, he opened his own door. And all but dropped me on the king size bed.

“My wife. My bed.”

His hands planted on his hips.

Unbridled joy shot through me. I scrambled off the mattress and launched myself at him. We’d collided before, but not like this. Not without anger and pain. There was nothing but happiness, a raw coming together after so long staring across the chasm.

My shirt and his clothing fell to the floor in a heap.

Leo spun me around, kissing my neck, my shoulder, while his arms wrapped around me to play with my breast and sink into my pussy. I ground my ass against his iron-hard dick. He sucked on my trap, and my body responded with a flood of wetness on his hand.

A guttural moan wrenched from deep inside him. “I can’t go slow. Can you take it?”

I smiled. There was no pain in this place. Only pleasure. “Give it to me, and don’t hold back!”

Leo bent me over the bed. He lined himself with my pussy and thrust inside.

The force of his entry stole my breath. He filled me completely, stretching me to my limits with delicious pressure. My fingers clawed at the sheets as he established a merciless rhythm, each powerful thrust driving me farther across the mattress.

“Fuck,” he growled, his hands gripping my hips hard enough to bruise. “You feel so good, Anna. So tight. So perfect.”

I pushed back against him, meeting his thrusts with equal fervor. The sound of skin slapping against skin filled the room, punctuated by our ragged breathing and desperate moans.

“Harder,” I demanded, my voice breaking as he hit that perfect spot inside me.

“Yes, little authoress.” He responded by tangling one hand in my hair, pulling just enough to arch my back at a sharper angle. The new position sent him impossibly deeper, and I cried out as pleasure broke me, wave after wave.

I tightened around him.

My fingers clutched desperately at the comforter, seeking to anchor against the storm threatening to sweep me away.

One hand snaked around to find my clit.

At his touch, I exploded in a scream of release.

But Leo wasn’t done.

He drew out of me, my insides still pulsing, desperate to hold onto him. With a swift movement, he flipped me, lifted a leg around his back, and began to fuck me from above.

“Mine,” he growled, the word punctuated by a particularly savage thrust.

The sensation of him filling me completely stole my breath.

There was no gentleness in his possession—each thrust drove deeper, harder, claiming me with primitive intensity.

The weight of him pushed me deeper into the mattress as Leo’s fingers slid along my body.

He tweaked my nipple with a wild ferocity.

“Say it,” he demanded.

“Yes—yours—always yours.”

“Fuck, I need to see you. Open your eyes, cara mia.” His voice was rough with desire as he leaned over me.

Each stroke hit something deep inside that made stars burst behind my eyelids. The slap of skin against skin filled the room, punctuated by our ragged breathing and my desperate moans. I cracked a look at him.

The sight sent another bolt of pleasure through me. My core tightened once more, this orgasm more powerful than the last.

My entire body seized as ecstasy crashed through me like a tidal wave.

Every nerve ending fired at once, sending pulses of white-hot pleasure from my core to my fingertips.

I arched off the bed, my mouth open in a silent scream as the intensity robbed me of breath and voice.

My inner walls clamped down on him with violent, rhythmic contractions, gripping and releasing in a primal rhythm I couldn't control.

“Anna—fuck—” Leo growled, his rhythm faltering as my release triggered his own.

His fingers dug into my hips, holding me in place as he drove deep one final time.

I felt him swell and pulse inside me, his hot release flooding my core as he shuddered above me.

His face transformed in that moment of surrender—all the sharp edges softened, his eyes closed tight, lips parted in raw pleasure as he gave himself over completely.

He collapsed on top of me, moving just enough so I could still breathe.

We laid there in the rushing moments that passed, holding one another, muscles trembling from the bliss.

“That name,” I stammered, voice raw from screaming.

“Yeah?” he breathed against my throat.

“I liked it.”

He lifted himself up on his elbow. “Good, because the thought of calling you G.R. James didn’t do it for me.”

I faltered, gaping at him. “How the devil did you know?!”

Leo chuckled. “I must say, that was a fun secret to discover.”

We kissed, slow and full of emotions. And then he pulled me into his arms and tucked us under the covers.