“Ooh. I see.” She gazed at one of the monitors. “Is that your building?”
“Our building,” I said. “Look.” I pointed to a spot on the screen and then zoomed in. Giovanni walked around the place, making his rounds. He had no idea we were on this side. He assumed we were in our suite on that side. He would always assume that.
“You’re not going to do that to me, right?” Her eyes narrowed on him as he pulled his pants from his ass crack. Giovanni was the ugliest son of a bitch I could find with enough experience to take care of my wife when she wasn’t beside me. “Be a peeping creeper?”
“Depends.” I sat back in my seat, studying her features in the glow of the monitors. She was refreshing. Something different.
“On?” She opened her eyes wide, something she did when she wanted me to continue or expand.
“How well you behave.”
“I’m a good girl.” She came to stand in front of me, crossing her arms over her chest, which had disappeared under the massive robe. “But you know what they say about good girls? They never make history.”
She closed the gap between us and reached out to touch my tie. I had untied it but didn’t take it off. She moved slowly, watching as the black material slithered out from around my collar, and then she set it on the desk. I’d rolled my sleeves up to my elbows earlier, and using her finger, she traced one of my veins, concentrating as she did.
We both became quiet, and when her eyes rose, we stared at each other.
“Do you need something, Mariposa?”
She shook her head. “I was getting lonely. This is a big place. I’m not used to it yet. I was wondering when you were coming to bed.”
I lifted my eyebrows and she looked away for a second, at one of the many monitors. “To sleep,” she added softly. Then she started to fiddle with the ties of the robe. I could feel her anxiety. She was preparing to either say something or make a move.
“Don’t do that with me,” I said.
“What? This?” She twirled a tie, making it go around and around, smiling a little as she did.
My hand came out to stop her. “Yes. Agitarsi. Fidget. Don’t do that with me.”
She nodded, and I saw the bob of her throat when she swallowed. “You got it, Capo.”
“You mean, il mio capo.”
“You noticed that?”
“I notice everything.”
“Why do you seem…upset?”
“Going forward, no more making deals with men who are not me.”
“You mean Rocco. The ring.”
“Yeah. Rocco. The ring. Never again.”
“As you wish, Capo.”
When she first called me that, I had a hard time not fucking her at The Club. And the more she said it, the more it made me feel like a feral animal in a cage. Not being able to touch her until she was ready was like thinking important words but not being able to speak them.
After a few minutes, she took a deep breath in, untied the robe and opened it, releasing the breath she had been holding after. She was naked underneath.
My eyes feasted on her naked body like they were starved. Somehow our roles had reversed. I was the one who couldn’t seem to get enough. She was fucking perfect. The light from the monitors highlighted every one of her bones. Her tits were enough to overflow in my hands. Her waist was small, and her hips had some slope. Her nipples were hard, and a thin sheen of her desire coated the inside of her firm thighs. I could smell her arousal—so fucking sweet I could taste it on my tongue. My tongue darted out, wetting my bottom lip, craving the hit.
“I thought you should see what you committed yourself to exclusively, il mio capo. Me. Hopefully I was worth the high price.” When I could tear my eyes from her body, I met her eyes, but she looked the other way. “I’m nothing but skin and bone, but—”
When my hands took firm grips of her hips and lifted her onto the desk, she gasped. When I yanked her closer to me, her mouth parted, and a cool stream of her breath came over my burning skin. I pressed her closer to my dick, pushing against her until a breathless noise came from her soft mouth. Her hands reached out, almost clawing through my shirt, trying to get to skin.
My teeth bit at her neck, working my way to her ear. “I got a deal,” I said. “You should have demanded more.”
“Ah.” She sucked in a breath and hissed it out when I bit her neck harder. Her nails sunk into my skin, and the burn made me even hungrier. “Maybe we should go back to the table.”
“I’d need unlimited funds, because, fuck. Un estimabile valore.” There wasn’t a price I wouldn’t have paid to have her. No term that I wouldn’t have agreed to. She might have come into the deal with nothing monetary, but complete power stood in her corner. There was something about her that possessed me. Made me obsessed.
Then a strike of something else, something foreign, burned me deep.
Jealousy.
The word seemed to come at me like a shock of lightning during a storm—right as I stood in a puddle and next to a tree.
Rocco’s face at City Hall, his words, suddenly clicked together.
I was old enough to know better, but I didn’t give a fuck. I was jealous when Harry Boy told her that he loved her. When he had called her that pathetic nickname. Strings.
The thought made my fingers dig into her hips, pulling her even tighter against my dick. Something wild drove me to claim. To possess. To control. To dominate her scent with my own. My lips drifted down her chest, my tongue savoring the taste of her skin, and when I took her nipple in my mouth, she bucked underneath me.
“Just,” she breathed out, “don’t cover my mouth.”
My pace slowed, not to make her feel that she had caused me to stop with her words. I looked up at her from my position. Her hands fisted my shirt, but her claws had retracted. Her eyes were closed tight. The heart in her chest seemed to beat in my ears but not in pleasure—from fear.
Her wings tried to fly, but she was rooted at the same time.
She wanted me. Wanted this. But that fucker had done something to her that she’d never recovered from. It was the first time I had ever heard vulnerability in her voice. Even at The Club, when she had no clue what she had signed up for, she was martyr-strong.
Vivo o muoi provando. I live or die trying.
At my slowing, she seemed to relax some, and the moment passed. She had agreed to give me time. I had agreed to the same.
“Mariposa,” I said, my voice low and gruff.
It took her a moment to open her eyes. When she did, what I saw shocked me. Shame.
I lifted her up, keeping her close. “When you’re ready to have sex with me, wear something red. Consumami.” Consume me.
“You want a fire in your bed.”
She said this like it was questionable. Like fire was a bad word. Like it was something to fear. Maybe to her it was. A butterfly was a fragile creature and could easily be engulfed by flames, but not if they carried it within them. She did. She carried the strength to make the change. “Yeah,” I said. “A fire. That way I know you’re ready.”
“I want to be,” she whispered.
“You will be. We’ll work on it.”
I felt her smile against my chest. She kissed me there and then underneath my neck, around my scar. I froze, but she didn’t notice. Thank fuck. She yawned and wilted against me.