He clamped his hand over my mouth and pulled my head to his shoulder. “I don’t want to talk,” he hissed into my ear. “I want to fuck.”
I couldn’t make more than an mmm into his palm. He pulled off my shirt, freeing my hands, while keeping my head stable against him.
“Pull your pants down, Contessa.”
I grunted a no and tried to shake my head. I was sweating and spit covered his hand, but he held me.
“You’re going to pull your pants down right in front of this window. And you’re going to be quiet when I fuck your *. Not a word. No talking. No yelling. Then I’m taking your mouth, and you’re going to swallow all those words.”
I begged with my eyes, but we’d done it rough so many times.
He was so serious, squeezing until he dented my cheeks. “Pull your pants down. Let me see it.”
He pulled me back until I could see us in the window. He was hidden behind me except for the hand covering my mouth and the face growling into my ear. I swallowed. I saw my hard nipples in the window’s reflection, and if I took my pants down, he’d feel how wet I was.
“Don’t make me take my belt to your ass before I fuck it.”
I heard and felt him undo his belt with his free hand. I made a sound in my throat. He looked at me in the darkened window. I wasn’t allowed to protest.
“Look at us, Contessa. Watch when you give yourself to me.” He locked my head forward, and I watched him put his hands down my pants. “Adesso”—his wrist disappeared below my waistband—“put your hands on the glass. Let’s see how much you want to fuck.”
I shook my head, but he pushed me forward, and I had to hold my hands against the glass to keep from falling. Cruel. He was so cruel. And my body was lit from within by his brutality.
He slid his hand to where I was soaked for him and put two fingers inside me as if he had every right to. My knees nearly buckled.
“No!” I said it behind his hand and knotted my brows, rattling my vocal cords.
If this wasn’t serious enough for him, if he didn’t hear this cry of mind over body, we were over. I swore it. My better self needed to be heard.
sixteen.
antonio
he always resisted when she was tense, and I always forced my way through. This was us. This was how we were. I felt better afterward, no matter how I felt before, and our ferocity always lapsed into tenderness.
But she was crying, and she meant it. She wasn’t playing. I was about to hurt her, or I’d done it already.
Had I lost her?
My pain was almost physical. I took my hand off her mouth.
“Let me go,” she gasped.
“Why?”
I didn’t know why I asked. To fill the space, maybe. I stepped back with a heavy heart. I’d done something wrong. Maybe too rough? I didn’t have a minute to ask what exactly had gone over the line in the sand for her. I didn’t have a second to make it up to her. She buttoned her pants and walked out of the room.
I didn’t know the layout of the house, so I followed because I didn’t want to lose her. I didn’t fear much, but I did fear having her too far from me, and if she went outside, I thought I’d never see her again. That was a reality to me. Her disappearing into a puff of smoke, or getting shot or taken when my back was turned. I’d let her see her brother for thirty minutes while I met with her sister, and she wound up getting dragged down a stairwell by Domenico Uvoli.
I turned a corner in time to hear a door slam. She’d gone into a bathroom and closed the door without even turning on the light.
I knocked. “Contessa? Open this now.”
“Pounding on the door is not helpful.”
Had I been pounding? I realized my fist hurt. “Let me in.”
“No, please. Just leave me alone.”
“I will break this door down.”