His laugh is pure delight, and his next kiss is unguarded appreciation. “After everything you’ve been through, you want to be Black Widow?”
“Is that an option?”
“Everything is an option,” he says between more kisses, lifting my shirt so his fingertips can brush the expanse of skin, leaving trails of sensation like lines in desert sand. “Anything you want.”
“Anything?” I’m caught between his body and the counter.
“Anything possible.” He finds the hook of my bra and frees more open desert.
He thinks I’m talking about learning how to kick high enough to hit a man’s face.
“This morning, you asked if I could find a way to spare the people I cared about.”
The oven beeps. I slide away to shut it off, then turn my back on him to get the potholders.
“I’ve thought about that more than you.” He holds me still against the island counter by the base of my neck. “And you think you solved it?”
“I did. I know the Colonia better than you.”
“Do you?”
In two words, he reminds me that I came to him ignorant of anything he finds important. He’s wrong.
“My friend Denise. She’s a good person. If I met her and told her what Marco did to Dafne, she might—”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Too dangerous.” He whispers wetly in my ear. “What if her shitbag husband sees you?”
“He won’t. I know exactly where to meet her. I can do it. I want to. Alone. You can’t even go with me.”
“There’s no place you are that I can’t be.”
His warning is thick with meaning, slick and suggestive. My core hears the message loud and clear.
“I’ll do it whether you let me or not.”
He can’t possibly like that answer, but his dick hardens against me. “Pull your skirt up.”
I do it, shaking with anticipation as he opens a drawer next to me and makes sure I see him remove a metal spatula. I can’t help but gasp at his intentions.
Without being told, I bend over the counter.
“Look at you,” he says, stepping back to stroke my bottom. “My stubborn little wife.”
When he removes his hand, every nerve below my waist jangles with the expectation of pain and pleasure. He taps my underwear with the flat of the spatula.
“Just do it,” I whisper.
He grunts a hmph and taps a few more times.
“When I tell you to stay here…” With a whoosh so fast it practically whistles, the metal lands on my ass. The thin fabric barely dulls the sting. “It’s to protect you.” He smacks the other side. “Until you can protect yourself.”
“I know.”
“You know.” He hits each cheek one time. My bottom is already on fire. “But here you are.”
“I don’t want Denise to suffer any more than she has already.”
He pulls down my underwear with one finger, then with a hand between my shoulder blades, presses me against the counter. “Do you want me to make your ass red?”
Resistance drains out of me, leaving a hole as big as an ocean. Only he can fill it, and when he’s done, I’m still doing what I need to do.
The unbuffered spatula is built for pain. My body jerks against him and tears spring from my eyes. I let out a high-pitched squeal when he slaps it against my bare skin again.
“You’ll stay here.” And again. “Until I say…” And again. “… it’s safe to leave.” Again, and I see every color in the rainbow. “I don’t want to beat you into obedience.” Gently, barely touching the skin, he strokes my behind. It burns like hell, but with an electricity that tingles. “I want you to obey because you understand.”
“I do. But I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“You can’t see the danger to her. You don’t know.”
“Don’t I?” His fingers brush between my legs, then my folds, and he sighs. “You’re so wet.” He inserts two fingers without resistance and I groan. “Open your legs a little. Show me how much you want to do what I tell you.”
I set my feet wider, and he goes deeper while his pinkie flicks my clit.
“I’m going to save her. I mean it.”
“Do you?” He rubs inside me, finding a hard little spot I didn’t know existed.
“Oh God, Dario.”
“I’m not done.” He hooks his finger, torturing the interior nub with pleasure.
“This won’t work.”
“I’ll be the judge of what works and what doesn’t. When will you understand that?”
He quickens the stimulation, rubbing that hidden, hardened spot.
“What are you doing?”
There’s a box of explosives inside me, and he’s picking the lock.
“I know, Sarah. I know your deepest places.”
“Oh, God.” My whole body is flushed warm as the pressure builds past where I’d usually find release.
“All the secrets they keep from you. I know them.”
My entire body shakes with release, but not completely. Not enough before another wave crashes, and his fingers speed up. He says I’m a good girl. He says I’m sexy and hot. He keeps talking and I keep coming in flood after whole-body flood. The orgasm is not rigid. I don’t arch, but loosen. It belongs to my hips, my breasts, my arms and legs. I feel as if I’m being squeezed from the inside out for the last little bit of tension.
He pulls his hand from me and catches me when I try to stand.
“I think the pizza’s cold,” I say.
He laughs and helps me pull up my underwear, then leads me to the table and sits me down before he stands at the sink.
“You can’t contact Denise.” He washes his hands thoughtfully. “I don’t want to have to tell you what’ll happen if they find out.”
“You think I don’t know?” I put my fists on my hips. “We all know about hollowing.”
“If you knew.” He twists the faucet off as if he wants to break it. “You wouldn’t stand there and talk about putting your friend, or yourself, at risk of it.”
“Grandma told us stories about traitors. The men are killed. The women… she whispered it so Massimo couldn’t hear… between their legs, their parts are removed. The parts that make us feel. The parts you like best. All gone. I was young. I thought they were just stories when I got older. But I’m wiser now. I believe them, and I know what the outside folds are for, I understand what that means.”
“Thanks to me.” He snaps the towel off the rack to dry his hands.
His shirt conforms to the bulk of his arms. It teases the contours of his chest. Even domestic chores take on power when he does them. Opening the drawer with quiet menace. Plucking out a potholder with assurance. Checking the oven like a cop with a search warrant. Sticking his bare hand where he can get burned.
“Pizza’s still warm.” He uses the potholder to grab the tray and closes the door with his foot. “Come on. Let’s eat. Forget about all this.”
He kisses me as if that’ll make me forget, and it does, for a minute. I can’t tell him this isn’t the last he’ll hear of Denise.