Page 23

B enito

My entire body is vibrating, and not just because this ancient piece of tin has the suspension of a feather. I can still feel her soft, warm lips wrapped tight around my pinky, licking and sucking like it’s a piece of candy. My cock is plastered against my thigh, dying to jerk upward to make itself known, but I need to keep my head on straight.

This is Contessa Castellano. She’s barely twenty—six years younger than me. She’s the sister of my boss’s fiancée. And the biggest brat I’ve ever met.

When I look at her, I don’t just see the creamy legs that go on forever , the long dark hair begging to be wrapped several times around my fist, or the pink pouty lips that I ache to kiss—and not just to shut her up, but because they look like they might taste like Satan’s temptation.

I see a young woman who doesn’t even realize how broken she is. Someone who feels like her life spiraled out of control the day her mom died, and she’s too small to make it count. Someone whose only way out of the mess in her head is to lose herself in dance.

I could have let her lips suck on my finger for days, but a voice in my head is asking why—why would she do that when she hates me so much?

A note of smugness unravels across my chest. I didn’t ask her to do that. She took my finger between her lips because she wanted to. Federico had to ask her for her affection; I didn’t. But this can’t change a thing. I can’t lose my grip around her, because if that happens. there’s a very real chance I’ll lose my grip on everything . I just need to take her home.

Her chest rises and falls in my peripheral vision and her tongue keeps reaching out to wet her lips. It’s doing nothing to quell the hard-on threatening to rival the length and girth of my leg.

“I don’t want to go home,” she says, almost breathless, and as if she can read my damn thoughts.

I don’t respond. We still have a few miles of this stretch before we’re even off the freeway.

“I’m serious, Bernadi. Please… can we go somewhere else?”

I dart my gaze to her. “Like where?”

“Anywhere.” She grips the sides of her seat. “The ocean.”

“Why don’t you want to go home? ”

There’s a long pause. “It’s stifling,” she says, quietly.

I flick my gaze her way then back to the road, and swallow. “I can take you back to Cristiano’s.”

She barks out a bitter laugh. “Yeah. So I can be ogled by grown men , have my outfit choice judged at will, then be chased down the freeway because my choice of destination isn’t to your taste either.”

I grind my teeth. She makes several fair points. “Ocean it is.”

She’s quiet as I come off at the next exit. I take some of the backroads to a secluded bay just east of Washington Port. It’s not exactly the closest ocean point but it’s the one least likely to be littered with tourists at this time of year.

I pull into a small parking area and shut off the engine. Ahead of us is a sandy clearing, with a few swaying palms, and the sea.

“There,” I say, fixing my gaze on the view through the windshield. “The ocean.”

She pushes open the passenger door, then steps outside, straightening her long legs like a cat. I watch curiously as she walks the short distance from the car to the water’s edge where she stretches her arms up and over her head, drawing the hem of her top high up her back until it skims a small tattoo. It must have been covered by her hair when she swam in the pool because I haven’t seen it before. And even though I can’t see what it is, the fact some man has had his inked needle that close to her makes me rigid with tension .

She shakes her hair down her back, blocking the view of the tattoo, and bends down to slip off her sandals. A small gust of wind flips up the skirt of nightmares and gives me a perfect view of her rounded cheeks, a black thong disappearing between them. I lift a curled fist to my mouth and bite down on it, leaving red teeth marks on a white knuckle. Jesus H Christ, what I wouldn’t do to feed my fingers beneath that cotton and grab a handful of her ass.

With her back still turned toward the car, she folds her arms across her middle then pulls the top over her head. Then she reaches behind her back and pulls at the delicate string holding her modesty together. That joins the top on the sand.

I try to blink away because if she turned around, this could signal the end of days for me. If Cristiano were to ever find out that I’ve seen his sister-in-law up close and practically naked, not once, but twice, I’m pretty sure he’d kill me. But, like a man seeing the Aurora Borealis for the first time, I can’t tear my eyes from her.

Seconds pass as she looks out at the ocean, topless, and I hold my breath in anticipation of what’s coming next. My body moves on autopilot and I step out of the car, my gaze glued to her. She hooks her fingers over the waistband of her skirt, then pushes it, and the entirely ineffective thong over her outlawed ass and steps out of them before tossing both to the side.

My jaw unhinges as she walks like some fucking Greek goddess into the waves without looking back. The scene takes me back to when I watched her swim naked in Cristiano’s pool. She had never looked more authentic, more free. My frown dips. Maybe this is how she copes with all the shit life throws at her.

I swallow. I just became some of that shit. But, I remind myself, I have to be. It’s the only way to assure her safety.

She disappears beneath the waves and, for a second, my heart stops. It only seems to beat again when she pops back up, her jet black hair glistening.

My gaze tracks her for several minutes then I’m forced to avert it when she starts striding out of the water. It’s agony to not look her way. I just know that decadent droplets of water are running over her fucking perfect breasts, dripping off the peaked tips of her nipples, leaving tracks down her stomach, pooling between her legs. I’m suddenly ravenous and thirsty and aching , and my dick is so fucking hard I’m not sure I can walk back to the car.

I can feel her green gaze on my face as she walks slowly toward me, naked . I tip my chin, my hands stuffed into my pockets, training my focus on the swaying branches of tall palms. My voice is croaky and foreign. “Are you trying to get me fired?”

“I’m not trying to get you anything ,” she replies, her voice lusty and all kinds of tempting. I keep my gaze averted and let out a breath of relief as she walks straight past me.

When I hear the creak of the car’s suspension, I turn around. She’s lying across the hood of her car, arms resting languidly over the top of the windshield, one knee propped up. Her black-painted toenails gleam in the sunlight, her long limbs taut with stamina and muscle.

Fucking fuck me.

“What do you want, Contessa?” My words come out on a long exhale.

There’s a long pause filled with breaths that float on the breeze.

“I don’t like being ignored. I want you to look at me.”

What the actual? I always look at her. Even when she’s not there, the vision of her is front and center of my mind. It won’t fucking leave.

With her permission, I allow my gaze to ravage her. Those taut, honed limbs, criminal curves, felonious tits, gorgeous hips flattened on the metal hood. I don’t need to starve myself anymore—I can fucking ogle her like a dirty old man in a trench coat.

Her eyelashes are framed with droplets of saltwater, her lips scandalously plump and parted, waiting.

“I thought you hated me,” I say, my voice soft but with a surprisingly bottomless depth.

I notice her breaths becoming shorter the longer my gaze devours every inch of her.

“I do.”

Fuck. My dick is screaming at me. “How much?” I challenge, in a sunken baritone.

Several seconds pass with nothing between us but rasping breaths.

Her voice cracks. “So much I could cry. ”

I take a step toward her and wipe the back of my hand across my mouth. My timbre is rough.

“You wanna cry?”

She hesitates, her eyes widening a fraction. I am not bluffing.

She wets her lips.

Swallows.

Whispers.

“Yes.”

I take another step toward her. I’m so close I could reach out and coast my fingers across her pussy. Her breaths are erratic.

We’ve been talking in code. I know what she really wants, and dear God, I want it too, like a man on death row wants redemption. I want to bury myself inside her, feel her insides fucking eclipse me. I don’t care that she’s not a virgin. In fact, it’s better that she isn’t. I want her to feel everything, without any pain. I want to watch those green eyes roll back in her head and hear my name whimpered from the lips that have spouted so much fucking hate.

“How about if I made you cry my name? At the top of your fucking lungs?”

Her limbs tremble and her fingers curl into her palms.

I take one final step toward her and gently lift her other leg so her foot is resting alongside the other on the hood of the car. The feel of her soft skin is addicting .

“How would you feel about me then? Would you still hate me? ”

Her breaths stutter and I hear her swallow several times before she replies. “I’d hate you even more.”

I gently press my weight on her knees and coax her knees apart. She resists but I’m strong. I keep pushing until her hips are flattened and her bare, shaved pussy is open for me and I can count every single one of her swollen folds. I’m staring at the doors to fucking Heaven. I lick my lips and swallow.

“I’m going to make you hate me with every inch of your soul.”

Her eyelids pop and she sucks in a panicked breath, then I lower my face between her legs. Hovering over her pussy I inhale deeply. Mother fuck . Her scent penetrates every fucking pore. I need to taste her.

I inch my tongue forward, torturously slow. This may be the only time she allows me this close. I need to savor it, commit it to memory, embed it in my flesh.

The tip of my tongue makes contact with the edge of her pussy. She almost jumps off the hood, pushing me backward. We stare at each other and my mouth floods with saliva. I am gone. Frozen. She’s the sweetest thing to ever touch my taste buds.

Her hands curl around my neck, pulling me forward.

Then, like a rabid dog who’s just been given flesh to sink its teeth into, I bury my face between her thighs. I push my tongue between her folds and lick the length of her, feeling the bud of her clit swell instantly. Wrapping my lips around it, I pull it into my mouth, suckling on her sweetness. She gasps and it turns me on so much my head spins. With undiluted focus, I alternate between softly sucking her clit and licking through her folds, tasting every damn inch of her.

As the haze of insanity thins, I settle in, resting my elbows on the hood. My tongue and mouth find a torturous rhythm, and my God , she tastes so fucking sweet I might die.

Contessa moans , making my dick swell even thicker. Her head flips to the side and she sobs my actual name.

I swirl my tongue around her clit, then lap at it gently like it’s a rare delicacy. Letting my lids drift closed, I let the scent of her arousal draw my mouth to her opening. I wet my thumb in her juices and massage her clit while I stare greedily at her cunt.

Her fingers wind through my hair and the words, “I fucking hate you so much,” are purred from her lips.

“I fucking hate you too,” I groan. Then I press a hand to her stomach and tease my tongue around her opening, tasting the new territory.

The desperation it invokes in my chest shocks me and I remember why we’re here. She hates me, despite knowing the truth about the Falconi’s. She taunts me like this is a game. This isn’t a fucking game. This is war, and she started it.

She releases a battle cry and I know I’m winning. Her thighs shake against my shoulders and I press my hand more firmly onto her stomach, preventing her hips from pushing up toward my mouth.

Oh no, Contessa. If you hate me, you’re my enemy. And this is what I do to my enemies. I annihilate them.

I tease her entrance with my tongue, feeling every sob and whimper in my pants. If this is killing her, it’s sure as hell finishing me off too. Bit by bit, I push my tongue inside, letting her sweetness wrap around my taste buds. Then I fuck her, slowly, curling the tip of my tongue with each thrust, in the exact spot I know will end her.

“Oh God …” she weeps.

Her fingers release my hair, making me glance upwards. After dwelling in the darkness of her core, the sunlight almost blinds me, but then what I see challenges every urge I have to unzip my pants and push myself right in, up to her damned cervix. She’s holding her breasts and pumping them softly. They look heavy and swollen, the nipples peaked painfully.

Shit .

I withdraw my tongue, making her head jerk upward, then I lean over her body, ignoring the frenzied look in her eyes, and hold her hands above her head. Then I lower my mouth to her right nipple, sucking the sharp diamond into my mouth. She breathes out a languid sigh, chased by a delirious moan. It takes no time at all for me to get lost in the sound of her helplessness, but I’m half-aware that her hips are moving, rubbing her clit against the bulge in my pants.

I remember the other breast and continue to massage the right as I transfer my mouth to the left. Her moans sail into the trees, getting louder and more frustrated. Her soft skin feels like butter, melting beneath my fingers and lips.

“Please Bernadi…” she whispers. “I need?— ”

I smile around her nipple. “What do you need, Contessa?”

“I need to come.”

“You want me to let you come?”

“Yes,” she whimpers. “Please...”

“You come. I win,” I growl, gently.

“I don’t care,” she pants. “Just please finish me.”

“Do you still hate me?”

She bends her neck to glare at me. “With every fiber of my being.”

“Good.” I smile and dip my face back between her legs, then I hold her down and fuck her pussy until she can’t convulse anymore.