“No one has ever done that.”
“Done what?” he asks in a taunting voice. “Say the words.”
“No one has ever f-f-fucked me. In any way.”
The sound he makes is more of a growl than anything else, and I hardly have time to hear it before he’s driving his fingers in deep. As deep as they’ll go. He’s holding my head up, or it would be dropped back. I see stars. God, it hurts. His fingers are too big but the stretch feels good in a way that makes me so ashamed that I do cry.
Leo swipes a thumb over my cheek and it comes away wet. He leans in, murmuring something into my ear, and I don’t know what it is because I’m both the size of the universe and shrunk down to the sensation of his fingers invading me. I swing wildly between the two until I come back to my body and find myself in Leo Morelli’s dining room, his fingers inside me and one thumb circling my clit.
It’s too much sensation to be embarrassed about. I tighten on his fingers in the same rhythm he’s using on my clit. It’s a relentless rhythm. Soft, like he knows that any harsh movements will push me over the edge into something dark and terrible. Insistent, like he knows that he can’t stop. He can’t leave me like this. Pleasure builds from his touch, it’s hot, hot, hot and getting hotter. Multiplying. Something pulls tight between my legs and I let my weight fall onto his hands, all of it, I can’t hold myself up because that coil winds down and explodes.
I come all over Leo’s fingers, just like he said I would. I can’t enjoy this. I can’t like this. I cannot like what he does to me.
It’s only when I’m coming down that the words he’s saying regain their meaning. I’m going to break you, darling. It’s only a matter of time.
The aftershocks come one after the other, and slowly I become aware of the pieces of him again. His eyes. His mouth. His sweater. As soon as my feet are back on earth he pulls his hand from between my legs and wipes it across my bare chest. Tears drip down after it, and for an instant I see pain and lust in his face.
Gone in a blink.
He goes back to the table and takes his seat, flipping the page in his book like I was never here. “Mrs. Page will bring a tray up to your room.” Oh my god. He’s sending me away. “Do better tomorrow.”
10
Haley
I don’t see anyone on the way back to my room, but they see me. I’m sure of it. This is a huge house, and Mrs. Page and Gerard can’t be the only people here aside from Leo. They can’t be the only pairs of eyes. The saving grace is that I’m crying too hard to notice.
This is sick and wrong, what he’s doing. But more than that, how I feel is sick and wrong. My family would be ashamed of me. Caroline would eject me from the family if she knew that I’d let Leo Morelli touch me. And if she knew that I liked it?
I slam the door to the guest room behind me and sprint for the bed. Someone came to make it while I was gone and I shove the covers back with both hands, ruining their hard work. I don’t care. I don’t care. I pull all those heavy blankets over my head and sob into the pillow.
If Caroline knew how confused and turned on I was right now, she’d do worse than excommunicate me. She’d send Ronan after me, and she wouldn’t stop there. Cash and Petra would be implicated too, and my dad. We’d all be in danger of Caroline’s henchman.
Why is he like this? The blankets are so heavy they make it hard to breathe, what with the crying, so I turn them back and pull them tight over my shoulders. I’ve never met someone as cruel as Leo and I can’t understand what made him this way. I’ve always known the Morellis were bad people, evil people. Every Constantine knows that. It was abstract knowledge before. Almost academic.
Leo is not mean to me in a generic sense. It’s personal. He sees all my weak spots and pushes on them until they bruise. These are not the casual insults of a bully. They’re the calculating cuts of someone who knows pain like he knows the back of his hand. Like he knows what it feels like when a Constantine comes on his fingers against her will.
I put the pillow over my face and cry harder. It wasn’t against my will. I wanted it. Was desperate for it. And now I’m desperate for more.
For more contact. For more answers. Who hurt Leo Morelli? Who turned him into a beast?
I drop into a hungry, exhausted sleep before I can come up with an answer. The rest of the day turns around this nap. Every time I open my eyes the light is dimmer. A dream pins me to the bed like the blankets. A room full of roses and white. A dark-haired man. He looks like Leo and then he doesn’t. His face is softer and more open and in the dream it makes me cry.
A sound pulls me up from a parallel dream about Leo’s hands and the dining room. Part by part, my body comes back into existence under the covers. Sheets rest gently on my shins. I’ve pushed the blankets down to my waist. Still naked. Still here.
The sound, it turns out, was a tray. A stand has appeared from somewhere and the tray balances there with a covered plate and a steaming mug.
It’s morning.
I throw my legs over the bed and stand up. Sleeping for a small eternity made my knees less wobbly, but my abs are sore like I’ve been doing crunches, or trying to ride a man’s hand in my dreams. Shake that thought away. Not this morning. I lift the silver cover on the tray.
The plate underneath is beautiful, with a thin gold line around the edges. Leo Morelli owns fine china. I would never have guessed. And the food on top—
Scrambled eggs like small clouds. Three strips of crispy bacon.
And.
And.
A stack of tiny waffles. Silver-dollar sized. My face goes into a cute emoji expression and I can’t stop it. Won’t stop it. There’s a little dish of syrup on the tray, too.
Secondhand embarrassment heats my cheeks. Someone must have felt bad for me. Not Leo, so...another person who saw me trailing up here in tears. The feeling is gone by the time I tuck myself back into bed with the tray balanced on my lap. Hunger comes first. Embarrassment later. These weird, conflicted feelings I have about Leo can go away forever.
I eat every bite of the food. It’s the perfect amount, gone when I can’t take another bite, and I put the tray back on the stand and stretch. There are no clothes left, but there is the nicest shower I’ve ever stepped foot in.
There’s a box on the bed when I come back out. My heart thumps at the sight. A gorgeous, pale pink box. A black ribbon. There’s no pretending I don’t know what this is, no excuse to be made. Whatever is in that box, I have to wear.
I wrap the robe tight around my waist and stalk over to the box. Rip away the ribbon. Throw off the top. My heart won’t settle. The hairs on the back of my neck pull up. It’ll be worse than yesterday. It will be more demeaning, more humiliating, and I know there’s no chance he’ll let me stay in this room. The tissue paper tears in my hands.
It’s clothes.
Real clothes, not lingerie.
That’s not completely right. It’s real clothes with lingerie. The set is the same color as the box, but the dress isn’t—it’s deeper, like the shirt he took from me yesterday. Of course, it’s no Target dress. It’s sweet and soft, with sleeves that go down to my wrists. It’s long enough to skim above my knees. I twirl in it in front of the mirror and push it back into place as soon as I can. Embarrassing. Embarrassing, to feel nice like this, in a place like this, with a man like this. He’s dressed me up like an innocent little doll.