This night is different. On this night, I lie awake in his bed.
He doesn’t come.
When the clock chimes midnight, I climb out of bed. The hand-scraped wood floors are cool under my feet. I’m wearing only the ruby silk nightgown he gave me, its hem barely reaching my thighs.
I find him in his study, every light off, still dressed in a rumpled suit.
“Sebastian?”
He makes a round sound of denial. “Go back to bed, Lucia.”
He can’t be working in the dark. He doesn’t even have a drink in his hand, like he sometimes does before sleep. And there’s a tension in the air that feels both familiar and acute.
“Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine.” Except I can hear the tightness of his voice. Almost like pain.
I cross the Persian rug to his leather armchair, reaching for him. My hands grasp linen spread over broad shoulders. In the dark I hear his breath catch.
“I’m serious, Lucia. Go upstairs.”
He’s using his angry voice, the one that makes the big men who work for him jump to attention. I should be scared, too, but I know how tender he can be. How sweetly he can run his fingers through my hair when he thinks I’m asleep. I’m not afraid of his roar.
I climb into his lap, ignoring the way he goes rigid. For a second I think he might push me away, might stand up, might physically force me to leave. This is the trap around his paw. This is a strong animal being held captive by sharp metal.
My hands are on his chest for balance. I feel his breath, heavy beneath my palms. His entire body burns like a furnace. He smells of man and musk. Of danger and desire. I lean forward and press a kiss to his cheek. It’s sweet and innocent, this kiss. Chaste, which is how he thinks of me.
I move my lips over the stubble on his jaw, finding the smoother skin of his neck. And then I place a kiss there, like he did to me that night at the ball.
He shudders, his hands tightening on my waist. “Fuck, you need to go.”
His voice is hoarse. Less angry now. More…desperate?
“Why?” I whisper against his skin. His body reacts even to the brush of air as I speak, hardening beneath me. I can feel him holding back. From what?
“I’m going to fuck you,” he says, as dark as charcoal. “I’m going to pin you down on this chair and break your pretty little cunt open. Is that what you want?”
Fear trickles through me. Maybe that wasn’t his roar. It’s this threat. His hands on my body, his cock inside me. I should definitely be afraid of this, but I want to know him in every way possible. I want to feel him, even if it hurts.
“You’re too fragile for me,” he says, almost despairing. “Too small. I’ll break you.”
That’s why he hadn’t has sex with me. He thinks I can’t take it. That my past has made me weak. I may only be a small mouse, but I’m strong enough to save him.
That’s the moral of the story.
His chest is broad, his shoulders thick with muscle. I scrape my teeth along the cords of his neck until I find the juncture, the exact same curve where he bit me. My tongue slides over his skin—salt and safety.
I bite down.
For a moment, neither of us move. Violence fills the air, sexual and sweet. Whip-fast, he lifts me. Then I’m in the chair still warm from his body, legs pushed over its leather arms. He pushes the red silk up over my stomach, my breasts, baring me to his gaze.
His expression is feral, eyes fierce. He’s a lion. My lion.
In seconds he releases himself. I feel him thick and throbbing against my thigh. He pushes inside—and God, it hurts. A strangled cry leaves my lips. He covers my mouth to drink it in.
He pushes inside me like he wants to own me, to take me over. With every thrust of his cock, I’m filled. I’m his. All I can do is take it, spread open, vulnerable to him in every way.
“You’re mine,” he growls. “Fucking mine.”
“Yes,” I whimper, unable to move.
He touches my lips and shoves two fingers inside. I feel his fingerprints with my tongue, taste the essence on his skin. And when he’s wet with my saliva, he pulls his hand back. The first touch against my clit makes me jump. The second makes me moan. And then he’s rubbing me in time to his thrusts, bringing us higher, finding the tallest peak, the sharpest point. We reach the top together, broken apart and put back together, our bodies moving as one, our climax going on and on, deeply passionate and happily ever after.
* * *
Thank you for reading Mafia Cinderella!
Turn the page for the fourth and final dangerous bedtime story…
HEAVY EQUIPMENT
Skye Warren
I’ve been raised as the good, obedient daughter, but I never expected to be sold to pay my father’s debts. Cold. Rough. Merciless. The foreman of the construction crew is going to make me pay every last cent.
CHAPTER ONE
Cherry blossom trees date back to 1912 in the US, when Japan sent the trees in goodwill. The US sent back flowering dogwood trees.
The rumble that comes from downstairs seems to shake the house, loud voices and crashes that make my heart skip. Little ripples appear in the surface of my soup.
I stand, almost knocking over the small antique tray. I’m still in my strapless bra and panties, ready to get dressed for the gala as soon as I’ve eaten. The gown is already laid out on the bed, ready to step into—and even though it’s uncomfortable and constraining, it’s the fastest thing to put on. I step into it and rush into the hallway, working the zipper as I go.
When I hit the stairs, the voices get even louder. I’ve always been taught to whisper. Sometimes my father would yell, but he’d always close the office door first.
There’s a loud bang—like a gunshot. I grasp the railing and rush down the steps. As I round the curved staircase I see my father in his tux.
In front of him is a man in a leather jacket and jeans.
The strange man looks up at me—and instead of looking surprised by my presence, he smiles. The smile makes him look wolf-like, as if he’s caught his prey. “There she is now.”
“Papa,” I say, terrified. “What’s going on?”
I half-expect him to tell me to go back upstairs. He never tells me the details of his work. I always played in his office as a child, at least until he’d gently push me out and send me to a nanny. The fact that this new business seems darker, more dangerous, would be all the more reason for him to send me away.
Instead he looks at me, his eyes burning with something I can’t recognize. Fury? Defeat? “Come down here, daughter,” he says in Cantonese. The old language. He only speaks that way in front of family, but this man isn’t family. He isn’t even Chinese.
I’m trembling, but there’s no thought to question or disobey. He’s raised me to be the perfect daughter, and I do everything he asks. I attend every party at his side, standing in for the wife, my mother who died when I was a child. So it’s only natural that I go to him when he calls me.
His skin feels thin and papery when I take his hand. “Papa?”
“Something terrible has happened.” His expression is so grave. It scares me.