by Mandy Rosko
Great.
Arturo, for his part, took it like a pro. He’d probably had worse confrontations with fathers before in his time—including his own, if Isla really stopped to think about it. Arturo just nodded. His mouth wasn’t moving, so she knew he wasn’t saying anything either.
He was just taking it.
“Uh, maybe I should go over there,” Isla suggested.
Her mother took her by the hand and gripped it tight. “Let him have this. I think he needs it.”
But how was that fair to let him unload on Arturo just because her father needed it? Arturo didn’t exactly need this himself.
Thankfully, he finally stopped with the finger pointing and quit talking just before his words could get loud enough for Isla to hear any specifics that were coming out of his mouth.
Arturo just nodded again.
That seemed to finally satisfy Isla’s father, who straightened his dinner jacket and then turned to face his wife and daughter, a smile suddenly on his face. “Ready to go?”
Isla looked to her mother, who just pat her hand and kissed her cheek. “It was good to see you. You should call more often.”
“I know.”
She watched as her mother walked over to her husband, but stopped in front of Arturo.
Fuck, was she going to say something, too?
No. Well, nothing bad or nagging.
She actually took Arturo by the hands, which seemed to shock him as much as it did Isla, if his wide eyes were anything to go by.
“Thank you for dinner. It was a very lovely evening.”
Her mother never used the word lovely unless she was really trying to win someone over. She was probably hoping to undo any damage her husband had caused with his whispered rant and not scare Arturo off from Isla.
Then her mother shocked her even more when she leaned up and kissed Arturo’s cheek, which was not an easy thing for a woman her size to do, even with the high heels.
And it was kind of funny how Isla’s father nearly choked at the sight.
He managed to hold himself back from flipping out. Sam had arrived with the limo ready to take her parents back home. By that time, Isla’s father had managed to nod curtly in Arturo’s direction, the closest Arturo would likely ever get to acceptance from the man, and she knew better than to think of it as even being that.
It wasn’t.
Then the door was closed, and Isla watched from the window as the limo pulled away before she sucked back a deep breath, letting it out in a whoosh. “That was the worst.”
“Was it?”
She looked at him. Arturo had a stupid little smile on his face.
“I think your mother likes me.”
“Yeah, well, don’t get any ideas.”
“Too late. It wouldn’t be the first time a hot mother-daughter team got into bed with me.”
Isla jerked back, her eyes flying wide. “That’s disgusting!”
Arturo continued to smile at her.
Isla laughed. “Oh, God, you’re gross.”
He shrugged. “I had no complaints at the time, and there isn’t anything in your contract that states you won’t.”
“I’m telling you right now that I won’t,” Isla said, shaking her head. “Christ. You know, I can’t even tell if you’re joking right now or not, but on the off chance that you’re not, the answer is no. I’ll let you keep Baciami before I walk up to my mom and ask if she wants to join us.”
“A woman with standards. Be still my beating heart.”
“Shut up.”
But even as Isla was laughing, having fun with Arturo’s joke, she kept thinking about what her mother had said, about Arturo looking at her in that way that…. Okay, she couldn’t think of how to describe it, but just knowing that he was doing it made her stomach flutter in all the right ways.
And when she looked up at him, he was giving her a look right then.
It looked more like he was observing her, really just looking at her, instead of glaring at her and plotting ways to embarrass her.
After tonight, she was fairly confident he wasn’t going to try and ruin her life after this was all done and over with.
Maybe she’d done a better job than she’d thought. She had wanted to at least make Arturo like her enough that he would feel, what? Guilty for all of this? That he would want to give her back Baciami Boutique without pulling some sleazy business trick that would make her contract null and void.
He liked her enough to sit down and have dinner with her parents.
“What did my dad talk to you about?”
The corner of Arturo’s mouth turned up. “He threatened to rip my balls out and feed them to me if I ever hurt you.”
She felt her eyes go wide. “Wow, really?”
He shrugged and went to stand next to her. He crossed his arms as they leaned against the wall. “Not his exact words,” he replied, “but definitely something to that effect.”
There was a pause, and Arturo had that same soft smile on his face when he continued. “You’re lucky to have them.”
Isla’s heartbeat felt like it stopped in her chest for a second or two. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.
Arturo was clearly aware of what he’d just said as the smile on his face slowly melted, replacing itself with a harder, sterner expression. He looked down the hall, away from her. She could see the tension in his neck and hear the slight grumble he let out as he punished himself for saying something that gave so much of himself away.
She didn’t think she would ever forget the look on his face as he said that, envious of her parents and the good life she’d had, whereas his mother had been less than stellar, his father had been an abuser and later a murderer, and now he and his brothers were barely hanging on.
Something inside of her must have snapped at that, because Isla was overcome with an urge she couldn’t even hope to fight against, not that she gave it the good old college try. She didn’t want to fight herself as she reached her hand out and touched his cheek.
Arturo resisted when she tried to pull his face to the side. “Cut it out.”
She didn’t. She put her hand back on his cheek and forced him to look at her.
At first, he looked like he was going to keep pulling away, but he stopped. Isla stared up at him as his body seemed to relax. The darkness in his deep brown eyes softened.
Her heart pounded as they looked at each other. She could hear the thumping all the way in her ears as she leaned up and pressed her mouth to his.
A soft press of her lips, their mouths meshing together warmly, but still hardly touching at all. Arturo shut his eyes for a brief second, and so did Isla. She pulled back before it could really begin, her heart slamming louder, and it was a little hard to breathe in that moment, though their noses were still touching as she met his gaze again, making sure this was okay.
It must have been, because Arturo took the next move. A strong, calloused hand went behind her head and into her hair. His fingers threaded through the strands in just the way she liked as he pulled her forward to finish what she’d started, and she moaned as she opened for him.
34
The kiss was so damned sweet. Why had Isla never noticed that Arturo had soft lips? She’d known he was a good kisser, but she hadn’t realized his skills went to quite this level. It was easy to get lost in what Arturo was doing to her and forget that she’d wanted to kiss him to comfort him, not to get swept away in the warm, tingling sensation of it all as he slid his tongue across hers and licked deep inside.
Like he was trying to own her.
Well, own her more than her contract allowed.
And Isla didn’t mind that in the least. Her eyes fell shut as she leaned her body against his hard, larger, muscular one. Her nipples tightened beneath her dress, and that pressure of their bodies pushing so close to each other, grabbing onto each other and trying to get closer, didn’t ease that ache in the least.
It made it worse.
And what was that
cologne he was wearing? It was good, and she was only just noticing it now.
Probably because she was pressing herself against him and no longer worried about what her mother and father were thinking about. And as far as they were concerned, Isla wanted them as far out of her thoughts as she could send them while she let her fingers slide into Arturo’s dinner jacket.
She allowed her fingernails to gently scrape across the silken expanse of his button down, finding his nipples beneath the material and sliding her nails across them until they hardened even more.
He groaned in her mouth, a warm sound that made her lips and tongue, along with the rest of her body, vibrate.
He pulled back from the kiss, and the cold rush of air that met Isla was completely unwelcome. Her hands were already on the back of his head, gripping the soft strands of his black hair, wanting to pull him back down for another kiss.
“I’m going to fuck you.”
She nodded, her sex swelling and throbbing from what Arturo had just promised. “Yes.”
“Right here.”
“Right.” Isla’s eyes widened, and she looked around to make sure they were alone. “Will anyone see us?”
“Probably, but I don’t care. Do you?”
His large, strong hands were already moving across her stomach and waist. He wasn’t touching her where she needed to be touched, and maybe that was why the pulsing heat inside of her got to be so much worse than it should have been.
She definitely wasn’t thinking with her head. “No, I don’t care,” she said, and Arturo allowed himself to be pulled down roughly for another kiss. Isla groaned into his mouth when his hands grabbed onto the swell of her ass and lifted her up.
He was so damned strong. She’d known this already. Ignoring the fact that she’d seen him during a workout session before, she’d also been naked with him and touched his body enough times to know about the power he had.
Physical power was a thing in its own ranking system compared to social and financial power, and Arturo had all of that in spades.
That was probably why she got such a thrill when he pulled her up into his arms.
Isla’s dress gave her enough leeway that curling her legs around his waist was easy. With the way her legs gripped him, Arturo only needed to hold onto her with one hand as he used the other to pull the fabric of her dress out of the way.
Though, from Isla’s position in that moment, she got the feeling he would’ve been able to do that, regardless of any help she was offering.
She couldn’t keep her mouth off his skin. She leaned in to kiss at his throat, sucking on it and not being satisfied until she was sure something would be left behind to prove she was there, that she and Arturo were doing this and, for the moment, he was hers.
It was something of a frantic scramble after that. She held herself up while he pushed her dress and panties out of the way. He didn’t rip the flimsy material completely off her, but he did stretch them to the point that she would have to throw them away after this.
Isla heard the rip and everything, and that made her body feel even warmer.
“Hurry, hurry up,” she begged, panting her words because she was feeling too hot to breathe and too crushed to take in a proper lungful as she was pressed between Arturo and the wall.
With the fabric of her dress in the way when Isla looked down, she couldn’t properly see Arturo’s hand, but she could hear the clink of his belt buckle as he loosened it, and she could see the frantic motion of his arm as he fought to free his cock.
She wanted to see it. She wanted to see how hard he was, see his prick throb, see if there was pre-cum forming at the slit, but she couldn’t, and that brought on a whole new level of frustration that she hadn’t been expecting.
Arturo couldn’t exactly see her either, but she could feel the touch of his cock head. She felt it as it touched the lips of her vagina, pushing up between them, searching for her entrance.
It didn’t exactly take him long to find it. Why would it have? Arturo knew full well what he was doing, and it more than showed as he thrust inside of her.
Isla opened her mouth and threw her head back. A squeak escaped her, embarrassingly enough, as though the pleasure and the shock of being filled and stretched so suddenly were all too great for her to form any proper sounds.
She still couldn’t see Arturo’s cock, but now she could definitely feel him. She felt the hot throb of his dick as the length of that hard column pushed deeper inside of her. One long, pleasant slide until he could go no further, and Isla felt the touch of his tight, hard testicles against her sex.
She sighed. Arturo pressed his face to the crook of her neck and shoulder and release a guttural groan.
“Don’t stop. Keeping moving,” she begged, pressing her mouth to the shell of his ear as she gripped his hair because she didn’t know what else to do with herself.
Another groan, and Arturo’s hips canted back before plunging forward in one hard motion.
Another squeak escaped her throat. Isla wished she would cut it out with that noise, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. It was there and it wasn’t looking like it was about to stop.
His hand moved to her breast, squeezing hard through the fabric of her dress and her bra. She felt the lust and desire burning through him as he gripped her hard. She wanted more of it. She wanted… she wanted it harder.
“Fuck me harder,” she panted into his ear.
Arturo said nothing, he just did as she asked. Every time he pulled back, his forward thrust was firmer, slapping against her body and making her bounce on his cock and against the wall. Each groan he released against her throat was pornographic. Isla thrust back against him, feeling the pleasure mounting, needing to reach the end, wanting it to last forever but for it to hurry up and be over so she could ride that high that came from an orgasm.
And she wanted him to feel good, too. She wanted him to look at her. He wasn’t looking at her.
“Arturo,” she said, partly moaning his name and partly just trying to get his attention as he thrust inside of her.
It felt so damned good that she nearly gave up and just let him do what he needed to do.
She was in that perfect place of high–tension sexual gratification, the one it was hard to get into and stay into. Every thrust stretched and opened her more, and her pleasure was swelling and sizzling hot. She moaned with each powerful movement that made her bounce on his hips, but at the same time, that toe-curling pleasure wasn’t reaching any higher.
It meant that this lasted longer. Isla could enjoy herself and not worry about coming too soon and putting their fun to an end.
But Arturo was still not looking at her, and it was driving her insane.
She gripped his hair tight in her fingers and heard his groan from the pain, but she didn’t care.
“Look at me,” she demanded.
He did. There was something in his eyes that she didn’t quite understand, but she did recognize the heat.
Arturo paused for only a second, and then he was moving again.
“You like this?” he asked, rolling his hips.
Okay, so that heightened sense of pleasure was no longer at a standstill. It spiked inside of her.
Isla moaned. “Yes.”
“Tell me how much. I’ll stop if you don’t.”
She felt her eyes fly wide, and weirdly enough, Arturo’s threat stoked a fire inside of her that made everything so much more desperate. She needed to get off. She was right there at the precipice and she wanted to fly off the edge, but she couldn’t yet.
Arturo would see to it that she didn’t, at least not with any help from him, if she didn’t say something.
“Start talking, Isla. I don’t understand silence,” he said, but even as he tried to sound strong and in control—which he was—he still panted for breath as much as she did.
He thrust forward again, making her bounce up just a little higher against the wall. Her words sailed off the swooping arch of her l
ong moan.
“I like it,” she gasped, squeezing her eyes shut and shaking her head. She’d never talked dirty before, so she was going to have to hope he liked her flimsy attempt well enough to not be an asshole and leave her hanging. “I love feeling your big cock stretching me open. I love the way you push inside me like you own me.”
Isla looked at Arturo again, and that same look from before was back on his face, like he was trying to see through her but couldn’t quite do it. What was he looking for?
She bit her lip and shut her eyes again as she moaned. Her fingers tightened in his hair one more time without meaning to, but if he was in pain, he didn’t complain about it.
“Arturo, seriously,” she said, forcing her eyes back open, “I hope you don’t want to hear anything else, because I honestly don’t know what to say.”
He grinned at her just then, slowing the motion of his hips, his hands sliding down her waist and to her ass, gripping her tight. “You don’t? That’s adorable.”
Isla huffed out a breath. It was easy to glare at him, even as she fought against the pleasure that swelled inside of her. “Just get me off, and I’ll call you every name in the book if you want me to.”
“That wasn’t exactly what I was going for,” he murmured, still panting, still smiling at her like she had done something amusing.
Another circle of his hips pushed his cock deeper still. How was he doing that? The worst part about it was he wouldn’t stop smiling at her, and his hands were starting to leave warm tingles across Isla’s skin as he touched her. It was like every inch of her skin became as sensitive as her sex or her nipples, and because of her dress, it still wasn’t completely skin to skin.
That was the most frustrating part.
Then he moved again and it was done; it was over. Isla was going to come no matter what Arturo did and whether either of them wanted it or not. She was leaning off the edge now, looking down at the long drop that led to the implosion of her pleasure.
“Oh, God, I’m coming!” she gasped, squeezing her thighs tighter around Arturo’s waist. “Move, move, move, please move,” she begged.
