Leo’s body shifts back and I reach for any part of him I can touch. His hair. His shoulders. “No. Don’t stop. No. Please.”
He’s looking at me from between my thighs, his big hands holding me still, dark eyes on my face.
“Why?” Frustrated tears gather in the corners of my eyes. My body is still sore and exhausted, but I need this intimacy with him. “Why did you stop? I’m fine, Leo, I’m okay, please…”
“You’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” he says.
I arch toward him again. He’s so close. His mouth is so close. I feel his warm breath on the inside of my thighs. “I’ll do anything, Leo. I’ll—I’ll beg, if that’s what you want. Just—”
“Marry me.”
I feel the heat of his words against the heat of me, and now I am crying, now the tears are set free. I’m still trying to get his mouth back on me. His tongue. His teeth. Please. I get my hands on his face, and oh, how dare he. How dare he. “Now? Now’s when you’re going to ask? Today?”
“I’m not asking.” Counterpressure on my thighs, holding me down. Oh, I love this. I love this. “I need you. I need this.” He strokes his tongue through my slickness, a dark grin in his eyes. “And you. I can’t breathe without you. I don’t want to breathe without you. Marry me.”
“Yes. Yes. Yes. Please.”
He leans down to taste me then. Takes his time. There’s no part of me he doesn’t touch. Doesn’t mark. “Your pussy loved that,” he says, and then he closes his mouth over my clit and I’m lost. “Your pussy wants to marry me. It loves the feel of my tongue, doesn’t it?”
Leo’s first act as my fiancé is to make me come so hard my thighs ache and my vision darkens, shutting out everything but the pleasure he’s giving me. The pain. Everything but him.
* * *
Leo
Haley dresses for the meeting in the city in black. I bring in her favorite stylist to do her hair and her makeup. My fiancée glows the entire time, which eases the tight knot at the center of my chest. Haley has been insisting on the meeting since I got her up to my bedroom after that asshole Rick fled the scene. Insisting. On meeting with Caroline.
She wanted to go alone—to meet with her Constantine to Constantine—but there’s no way in hell. So we’re both attending the meeting.
I’ve given her everything I could think of as armor. Access to my lawyers. A custom Armani dress. Delicate earrings and a necklace that puts a glint of gold at the hollow of her throat. I asked her if she wanted any other color but black for her clothes, but she shook her head. “I don’t want to look like a Constantine. I want to be yours.”
And now there’s a string around her finger, a length of thread taken from one of my shirts. “This is a placeholder,” I said as I slipped it on, and Haley nodded, her eyes shining. The last shield between her and this day, except for me.
Thomas pulls up to the curb outside one of New York City’s many glassed-in high-rises, and I take Haley’s hand in mine. “We can send the lawyers without us. You don’t have to meet with her. All this can be resolved another way.”
She lifts her chin, her blue eyes filled with determination. “I want it like this,” she says.
I will give her anything she wants. Always.
We are first to the meeting room on the ninth floor, a detail I demanded in negotiations. Haley has time to get her bearings with the lawyer and her associate, and I’m standing at her side when Caroline comes in with hers. Four lawyers means four witnesses.
Caroline, all in white, takes her seat with an air of impatience, tucks her purse into her lap, and looks me in the eye. “I’m not sure why you asked me here, Leo. What the prosecutor does is out of my hands. The police have your confession to them on the record.”
“His confession?” Haley tilts her head to the side, so graceful and queenlike I could fuck her right here on this table. “We didn’t come to discuss the charges against Leo.”
Haley’s aunt directs a fake, sad smile across the table. “Sweetheart, it’s best if you stay out of these negotiations. You’ve been through so much. The family will protect you, if you would only let us. He’s twisted your mind so much you think he’s helping you.”
My darling returns that fake, sad smile to her with such accuracy I get goose bumps. In this moment I can see the Constantine in her—the ferocity. “I’m so glad to hear that, Aunt Caroline. I’m going to need your help with the case.”
“Case?”
“The case against Rick Joseph.” The corners of Haley’s mouth turn down. “Now that I’m able to sit for interviews, I’m pressing charges for assault.”
Caroline’s eyes narrow. “He didn’t assault you, darling. The two of you had a perfectly lovely dinner date. Your outburst near the end was completely understandable, given what Leo has put you through. You were distraught.”
“The dinner date,” Haley muses. “The dinner date was lovely, up until he touched me without my consent.” I breathe through a sharp spike of rage. Keep it in check. Haley wears a symbol of my love for her on her finger, and she’s sitting on my side of the table, and she’s mine. “All the way up my inner thigh. Almost to my—”
“Haley,” Caroline scolds, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. This is the same bullshit tone she tried to use with me the night I whipped her. The same false calm, as if she’s in control of the situation instead of spiraling out of control.
“It was odd,” my darling continues. “Because he leaned over me and reached for his belt, and then he said—” Her gaze flicks toward the ceiling. “He said this is what we’re supposed to do.” A heartbeat, and Haley shrugs. “I’m not sure who told him that he was supposed to rape me, but—” She waves this away. “That’s not the assault I’m talking about.”
“He didn’t assault you.” Caroline laughs, incredulous, icy.
“Yes,” Haley says. “He did.” And then she turns her head so Caroline can see the enormous bruise covering her temple. “He hit me with a paperweight.”
Caroline can’t stop staring. “I had nothing to do with that. I’m sorry to see that happened to you, but I’ve tried to warn you about Leo Morelli. His violence is renowned.”
Haley’s brows draw together. The picture of innocent confusion. “But Aunt Caroline, Rick called you. He called you so many times. Twenty minutes after he attacked me. He didn’t tell you? Sarah, can you show her the phone records?”
“Absolutely.” My lawyer slides a folio across the table to Caroline, who opens it with her fingertips. There are Rick’s call logs. There is her number, highlighted in yellow.
“There’s also the recording,” I add, and Caroline’s eyes dart to mine. “He mentioned your name.”
Caroline’s lawyers tense. This was not part of the original discussion. Not part of the negotiations for this meeting spot, or any other fucking thing. And it’s not close to the truth. It is the truth. I don’t have cameras in my home, fucking detest the thought of them, but I did set up a voice recorder the night Caroline sent Rick to kill me. Insurance purposes, mainly. Less likely for anyone to believe I killed myself.