Somebody had some serious explaining to do.
Just because his dominating kiss and touch made me hotter than I’d ever felt, didn’t mean I could ignore he was having an ongoing affair with death.
No matter how hard it was to stop thinking of the sweet sting of his belt marks on my ass.
19
Roberto
Valko had my ass in a sling, forcing my hand to put my signature on a paper contract that made my gut wrench.
Two things twisted my intestines in knots, the dirty deal, and Eva’s narrow escape.
Proof I needed her closer. I didn’t care if the sexy spitfire was mad as hell at me, at least she was safe.
“Dabble!?” she kicked off her sky-high heels and slapped her hands on her hips. “Dabble is definitely the wrong word. Your family doesn’t just flirt with danger, it full on sleeps with it!” She reached inside her dress and pulled out a small can of something, and a small bottle, slamming both down on a side table.
Hairspray?
Damn.
Not only did she have a dangerous bod, but formidable fight, and I had to admit it made me want to fuck her.
“Don’t do that,” Eva warned.
“Do what?” I wanted to drag her to me and throw her down somewhere but opted for a subtler approach.
“Don’t size me up with your eyes. Now isn’t the time, Roberto.” She looked lickable standing there in her bare feet, planted wide. I wanted to get on my knees, shove her skirt up and plant my face between her legs.
She was trying to pick a fight with me.
A fight she couldn’t win.
My jaw tightened, and I stepped forward to kiss her quiet, placing my hand at the side of her neck to feel the drumming pulse there. She wanted me, and I’d prove it to her.
I’d prove that above all else, so she thought only of me, wanted only me—no matter what was going on around us.
Otherwise, I’d lose her.
We belonged together, though the cursed journey to our destiny was unconventional.
What some people might call taboo.
Perverted even.
But in the Moretti family, the sinful ceremony was the only way I could keep Eva forever.
The only way to break the curse.
I’d make her understand.
“Is this where you stockpile all your weapons?” I asked and slipped my finger into the top of her dress, tracing a line above her breast, “Or only the deadly ones?”
Her breathing stopped and her mouth half opened to reveal her pretty pink tongue; I couldn’t take her looking up at me like I might save her from something.
I was nobody’s knight in shining armor. But for Eva, I want to be.
My armor was rusty, tarnished by the dictates of a fucked-up disaster from the past that Moretti males atoned for in the present. I didn’t want to believe it. Wanted to tell myself I was above the silly superstition.
Then I remembered Karina.
All the ways that denial didn’t work.
The many times my mind repeated, “I told you so.”
If only I’d done as I was told.
As duty demanded, to break the evil inevitability of a man bucking the burden of his destiny.
I knew what I had to do, and it scared me shitless.
“Eva,” Even to my own ears, her name was a prayer on my lips, an incantation that if uttered the right way might make her never doubt me.
Might make her yield to me.
Offer her body like Sunday communion to my touch, and my tongue.
I approached her altar, to take of her body, with nothing but plans for sinning on my mind.
There was a knock at the door.
Cazzo.
My neck stiffened, and I said, “We can fend for ourselves, Simone. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”
“A word, Roberto?” a voice spoke from the other side of the door which I opened to see her looking at me sideways.
She’d known me since I was a kid, and that made her as close to family as it got. Following her down the corridor of the long hallway, her whispered words surprised me, “You’ve got to let her know.” She put an arm on my shoulder. “Don’t keep that poor girl in the dark.”
I patted Simone on the back and helped her with her coat. Of course it wasn’t just the Cosa Nostra that Simone referred to—it was the curse.
Odd timing, but as per usual our thoughts were in sync.
“She’s gotten to you too, hasn’t she?” I said, and a grin stretched across my face.
“Don’t wreck her, Roberto. Beneath her spunk lies a fragile heart. She’s falling in love with you.” Simone shoved her hat down on her head and opened the front door, looking back at me.
The romantic streak hiding beneath the no nonsense exterior of the woman I’d known my entire life surprised me.
“Take care of her. It’s about time someone did,” said Simone.
Trust me. I planned to. Eva was mine, and curse or no curse, she’d learn to accept it.
The time to make my possession of her permanent was now. There was only one way to do that in the Moretti famíglia.
That was to take her in front of them all, the entire mob of male Moretti’s that lived here on the mountain and beyond.
I’d have to tie her up and get her wet, ready and begging for it in a room full of men.
Bring her to soul shattering orgasm in front of them as they watched, stroked themselves and murmured their filthy appreciation.
Pound her until my pulsing cock gushed into her pussy, on display for them all, as she milked every drop from me, and her folds glistened with my spilled seed.
Then I’d have to watch while they chased their release, wrapping their hands around their erections, pumping, spurting their cum all over her precious body and rubbing the seed of the Moretti family into her flesh—making her fate our own.
Fulfilling the unspoken oath that never again would another man touch, explore or admire her.
Initiation complete, Eva would be mine forever.
My made woman.
20
Roberto
“What the fuck is this?!” Eva cursed at my gift.
That mouth of hers was going to get her flogged.
“Watch your lip, Eva.” I cut her off and encircled her neck with my arms, fastening the Elsa Peretti Diamonds-by-the-Yard necklace I bought for her at Tiffany’s.
Collars were passé.
This was more our style.
I’d adorn Eva in jewels, like a depraved princess—bestow a diamond upon her for every sin we commit together.
“You’re overdue for a lesson in respect.” I snarled at her. It had been too long since I’d had her alone, and my frustrated tone made her frown with displeasure.
“Then maybe you should start earning it!” she argued, and instead of fighting about her lack of deference, the blood boil went straight to my cock.
She rambled on, “I can’t accept expensive gifts from you paid for with dirty money, Roberto. You told me your family was no longer dangerous, but today proved otherwise.”
As if she had a choice.
She raised her delicate hands to the back of her neck, to remove my gift. That was the last straw.
It wasn’t hard to pick her up, and I marched her to my shower. “If you can’t stop your sass and be good, you might have your mouth washed out with soap. You’re getting a lesson in manners. Now.”