With her knees and elbows flying, she shouted, “You can put me down now.”
As Calhoun put in the elevator key for the penthouse, Pierce smiled. “I think we’ll get you installed all nice and cozy first. Then I’ll think about putting you down.”
She continued to wriggle in spasms, and the sensation of her hot, frantic body held against his stirred and stiffened him, but there was nothing to be done about it now.
Calhoun and Callaghan stood either side of Pierce Agostini with his wailing bundle. The three men chuckled quietly, and the elevator whooshed as it shot them to the top of the building.
When the elevator doors opened, Agostini finally put her back on her feet. Princess stopped still and her jaw dropped.
She stood and stared silently at the massive glass box on the side of the high, airy room, the plain two-story-high windows. Through them, she saw clear across Central Park.
The view stretched right over the roads and the lakes of the park, from the rooftop ridges of the Metropolitan Museum, past the zoo and all the way downtown.
The green roof of the Park Plaza Hotel, with the huge black rectangle looming behind it, the gleaming silver curves of the Time Warner Center towers, the farther, smaller peaks of the Rockefeller Center, the Empire State, and the Chrysler all spread in front of her.
She hadn’t yet moved from the elevator, and she could see almost all of Manhattan. Silently drawn across the thick, pale carpet to the windows, she was wide-eyed as she traced Broadway to Times Square and way beyond. She searched out landmarks of the financial district that was her home.
The windows were high, clear glass walls of a gallery that stretched up beyond the height of the spacious room. Princess stepped slowly toward the raised terrace. As she moved toward the glass, her chest tightened.
The platform leading up to the window was obviously safe, but her body tensed as she approached it. Stepping up, she realized that the floor of the gallery was glass, too, and she saw the sheet of sheer, shining glass all the way to the ground.
Outside the glass box, an open terrace a few feet wide—also made entirely of glass—appeared to wrap the whole way around the building. Princess’ heart beat hard.
The height of the platform and the clarity of the view, coupled with the illusion that her feet were high in midair, made her stomach leap in a dizzying flip.
Princess’ shoulders tensed when Pierce spoke, as though he shook her from a dream. “Let me show you around.”
He was behind her with his hand outstretched, palm up. His eyes smiled. Princess wouldn’t take his hand, but she followed him and allowed him to lead her across the carpeted sunken living area.
A wide flight of open steps in pale wood stuck out of the far wall and rose to the space above. Princess followed him across the wide living space.
“Remotes for the entertainment center are all around.” He picked up a small tablet, showed it to her and put it down. “They know which room they’re in, so if you take one from here into the kitchen area or a study it will just work in there.”
“A study?”
He looked back at her and shrugged. “I work hard, I play hard. Feel free to join in or just, you know, veg and goof off. You like some champagne? Calhoun, crack out some champagne.”
He led her through the wide open kitchen area with dark granite surfaces and ultra-modern equipment. One of the bouncers, Calhoun, handed a flute of champagne to her and another to Agostini.
He raised his glass to her. “Whatever the circumstances, you’re our guest, and it’s a pleasure to have you here.”
She lifted her glass and said, “We’ll see about that.”
She followed him down a few steps to an airy corridor. Pointing to a tablet screen he told her, “All the tablets work as phones, of course.”
She said, “For my one phone call?”
He stopped and turned. “You can make all the calls you want, Princess. Call anyone.”
She frowned and waited.
“Obviously,” he said, “I wouldn’t suggest you encourage people to come around visiting. Not unless you want to watch them make a twelve-hundred-foot swan dive. You like some lox with cream cheese on a bagel?”
“Suppose I told the police I was here.”
“Is that something that would interest them, do you think?”
“If I were being held against my will, it might.”
“Good thing you aren’t, then.” He led her on down a carpeted hallway to a pair of wide, lacquered doors, which he swung open. “Your dungeon,” he inclined his head, “madam.”
Inside was a sumptuous suite. A huge, high, canopied bed with muslin drapes and silk pillows and throws dominated the main area. The side wall was a floor to ceiling window. To the right was a dressing room with a dressing table and a walk-in closet.
The tan tiled bathroom had a claw-footed bath and a three-hundred-sixty degree shower. Left of the bedroom area was a lounge at a sunken level, with a desk on one side and a coffee table, a sofa and armchairs, and its own glassed-in balcony.
A glass terrace wrapped around the balcony, just like the one off the main room. Princess tried to guess if they were at the same height. If they were connected.
She turned to him and pouted. “I expect your own suite is much bigger and nicer.”
His eyes rolled. “No, Princess, I always put my captives and kidnap victims in the better rooms. It’s so they’ll give me a nice character testimony if it comes to court.”
“At least you don’t pretend there’s nothing wrong in what you’re doing.” She scowled at him.
“Oh, you mean like the bankers who come to your daddy’s club and pretend they’re not doing anything wrong?”
“I was thinking more of the other criminal lowlifes.”
Pierce narrowed his eyes. “Princess, I have to admire your complete disregard for your own personal safety.”
“You won’t hurt me. You can’t afford to. Not while you still need Daddy’s cooperation.” Saying, ‘Daddy’ to this gangster was starting to feel odd to her.
“You push your luck, Princess. Something untoward happens to you, it could be a while before your daddy gets to know about it.”
He was in the doorway with his hands clasped together and asked her, “Shall I call the cops now, or would madam prefer to wait until after breakfast?”
She scowled at him.
He said, “There will be food in the kitchen if you want some. Although, of course, help yourself to whatever you want from the fridge anytime.”
He bowed as he backed out and closed the double doors. As soon as the doors shut, she rushed to them and pulled on the handles, sure he would have locked her in.
The doors flew open and she staggered back. Agostini was still in the hallway with a grin that made her want to slap him. “Something else that you’d like?” He lifted an eyebrow. “A pot of Earl Grey perhaps, or some cucumber sandwiches?”
With her teeth clenched and her cheeks prickling, Princess slammed the doors shut again. It was going to take some willpower to get through this.
She knew that she had to be honest with herself; there was no use pretending. He was smoking hot. Her pants were on fire for him.
There. Now she had admitted it to herself and maybe she could figure herself a way out of this.
Down in her lounge area, Princess made for the window. There was that balcony outside, but she couldn’t see any way to get there. It didn’t make sense.
The glass parapet was maybe four feet high. It would be scary and dangerous, but it did look as though it would wrap around, so maybe it could be a way out.
It could work if it went around to a service entrance, maybe. Or even another penthouse. The building could have two properties exactly like this, or maybe four. From inside, she had no way to tell.
Then she remembered the bathroom window. Princess hurried into the bathroom. The window looked as though it should open, but it seemed to be jammed shut, whether by paint or perhaps just be
cause it was never opened.
No matter how hard she twisted the handle and yanked on it, the window wouldn’t budge. On the desk in her lounge, she remembered a letter opener.
Pierce finished his champagne as he returned to the lounge, shaking his head. Calhoun said, “She’s a firecracker, that one.”
Callaghan said, “Marlo called from reception, boss. Said he got a package for you from Adelina Bontempi.”
Callaghan and Calhoun were both looking at him. “Yeah, all right. That package is going to be the files from her husband’s computer.”
Calhoun said, “Oh, but are you sure, now? Might it not be a little note to tell you, ‘Oh, Pierce, I just need some more of your hot filling, Pierce.’ Do you not think she’ll be needing a repeat prescription?”
Callaghan grinned. “Once they get a taste of that salami…”
“Okay,” Pierce said, “knock it off, you two. And she won’t be getting any second serving.”
“Ah, sure, none of them do.” Callaghan shook his head.
Calhoun said, “Isn’t that the pity of it?”
Callaghan said, “The ‘one time only’ rule.”
Agostini started, “Look…” But he decided there was too much to be done and he didn’t want to be fooling around. His voice was firm as he told Callaghan, “Go check on our guest.”
“Yes, boss.” Callaghan’s mood snapped straight back to professional. Calhoun’s, too.
“And, Mr. Calhoun, if you’d be so kind,” Pierce said in a mockery of Calhoun’s Irish accent, “when you’re back from getting me parcel, will you see to it that one of the two of yez has an eye on the guest and the other one’s got a view of the door? We don’t want her getting lost now.”
Calhoun’s eyes flashed and his smile tightened as he unlocked the elevator and stepped inside. Agostini knew that Calhoun and Callaghan wouldn’t push their jokes too far.
Behind the banter, they all shared some real concern about what might happen with Adelina’s husband, Alberto Bontempi.
Pierce laughed whenever he heard someone had described him as a Mafioso, but Alberto Bontempi had come the closest of anybody Pierce Agostini knew to having been an actual made guy. Closest on Wall Street, as far as Pierce was aware. All a long time back, maybe, but those associations held their value.
But once he had the files, Pierce would have no more need for his association with Bontempi. Still, Alberto would jump at any opportunity to show that he could be an old-school heavyweight.
He couldn’t, and Pierce knew that. The man had been off the streets since he went to NYU and he’d spent his whole life since then bossing computer screens. He still knew plenty of guys, though, and there might be some owing him favors.
It was hard to say what would light more of a fire under Bontempi, knowing that Pierce had his files or the fact that he fucked Adelina to get them. Either way, he would catch wind of it sooner or later, one way or the other. When it did, it wouldn’t be pretty.
When one mob guy offs another, it doesn’t hurt the police too much and they don’t always break their backs trying to solve it. The thing of it was, though, far as anyone on the outside knew, Alberto Bontempi was a pillar-of-the-community, straight-as-a-die Wall Street banker.
For any chance that the cops would forget about it, he would have to go very missing indeed. No sacks off the back of a boat on the Hudson—Bontempi would have to vanish in the most unsuspicious circumstances.
He would have to choke on an ice-cream cone in Grand Central at rush hour, or die in a freak yawning incident in St. Pat’s. Either that or disappear in a puff of smoke during a live interview on CNN.
Sitting on the couch in the loggia, watching twilight drop like a blanket over Manhattan, Pierce’s thoughts drifted around Princess. Played with the idea of her. She wasn’t like any of the usual women he had. She wasn’t a clothes horse, she didn’t play the little girl with a vacant stare, she didn’t simper and pout.
Princess had the body of a real woman.
He thought how she might look. What she really was like under her clothes. He’d seen her in the sleek black and white she wore in the club, neat and severe in a way but not showy.
And when he lifted her, in that thin print dress, he felt her soft curves. He imagined her peachy skin emerging. Her frank eyes.
He thought of her playing. How her mouth would taste. Her sitting on top of him. Feeling her, rolling her ass to press his balls. Watching her full breasts pushed together between her upper arms. Seeing her eyebrow twitch and her teeth bite into her bottom lip. Dragging her plump, wet wings along the throbbing ridge of his cock.
Of her hair spilling on his chest as she grazes the flesh of his shoulder, her hands reaching down between her legs, past her trembling wetness. To seize his cock. As she sighs, her warm breath fans his shoulder, her cool fingers wrap around his thick, stiff cock and she grips it.
She leans forward and her breasts push and spread against his hard pecs while she pulls his cock toward her soft, swollen opening.
He rises. Her eyes widen and her mouth opens as he puts her on her back, holds her neck, his thumb against her jaw. He feels his grin spread and relishes the sight of her apprehension, her anxious wait while he spreads her soft thighs wide.
He lets her feel the weight of his cock. Drags the length of it slowly against her clit. She peers down as he pushes it to rise from the fuzz on her soft mound.
He takes a hold of her plump breast and squeezes it, watching her face collapse and feeling her hips buck against him when he turns her shrinking, hardening, darkening nipple. He leans over to blow on her nipple, then seizes it with his lips. Sucks on her, pulling her breast into his mouth.
He cradles and hefts her other breast as he sucks. Then he holds her throat as he leans up. Moistens his lips as he traces hers with his thumb. He leans over her and bears down.
The underside of his cock drags against her hot, weeping pussy. He holds the back of her neck and connects his lips with her open mouth. As her hot, heaving breath fills his mouth and he seals her, he draws the length of his cock down.
She shakes as he slips the head against the entrance of her waiting lips. His hard bulb presses her opening and she moans as her thighs quiver. Her breath vibrates and her hands clasp the hard cheeks of his ass, pulling him. He makes her wait.
Her warm breasts push up against him and her breath trembles.
His eyes are on hers. When he pierces her pussy, pushes her lips wide apart, slides up along her hot, wet walls and her folds close and grip him, he slowly fills her. Tilting her hips up, she tempts him, urges him, tries to take him, but he holds back.
Her hands squeeze and claw at his ass, her nails drag up the rolling ridges of his back. Her fingers slide through his hair, winding and pulling.
He enters her slowly, making her feel every hard, hot, velvety inch of him, feeling her plead and giving her all but the last inch before he drags it back, pressing down against the back of her hungry pussy.
Then, with her eager eyes showing she’s ready, he saws all the way into her, plunges right to the hilt, grinds his wide pubic bone against her full, soft mound. And she groans into his ear, holds his head as her mouth works on his, her breath drawing him, urging him, begging him in.
Perfectly Bad: a bad boy romance Page 3
