I laugh outright at that. “Is that what she told you? If you believe her, then you’re more naïve than I thought.”
She plants her bare feet on the ground and stands, hands twisting around the bottle of water, my coat about to slip from her shoulders.
“I am not naïve. I’m trying to navigate this house of lies and liars.”
I snort, take a drink, then let my gaze graze over her.
She notices and tugs the coat closer.
“I’ve not lied to you once, Cristina.” Is that true though, I wonder?
“No? But you’ve kidnapped me. Taken my family from me. Forced me to marry you. And I don’t believe that you haven’t lied to me.”
“I’m your ally in this house. Your only ally. Remember that. If you betray me, you have no one.”
“Funny, I’ve heard that from all three of you now.”
“Three?” She tripped up. I see the fact register on her face. “So when did my brother tell you that?”
“I meant two.”
I set the whiskey down, then take her water and put that aside too. I reach out to take the lapels of my coat and tug her close.
“You’re going to tell me the truth, sweetheart.”
She seals her lips and stares up at me. I walk her backward until we get to the worktable. I lift her off her feet and sit her on it. Her eyes grow wide as I study her.
After pushing the coat off her shoulders, I place my hands on her thighs and open them to stand between them.
She swallows.
I look at her mouth, then follow the jagged line of her scar down to her chest. I cup her breasts. Small but firm and round.
She puts her hands on my forearms but doesn’t try to push me away as I reach into each cup and lift out her breasts, pushing the lace of the bra beneath each. I bow my head to run the scruff of my jaw over one nipple and watch it harden. The other I take between my teeth, and the moment I do, she calls out my name.
All the while, her hands remain on my forearms while I plant my hands on either side of her.
I straighten and smile down at her, seeing how her pupils have dilated. “Your eyes turn a deep violet when you’re turned on.”
She licks her lips, panting.
I reach my hand to her belly and slide it into her panties.
She sucks her lower lip in, hand tightening on my forearm but still not pulling it away or trying to push me off.
“You like this,” I say.
Her breath comes ragged when I pinch her clit.
“You like me touching you.”
“I…”
Drawing my hand out, I lift her a little, drag her panties off and tuck them into my pocket before pushing her back onto her elbows. Spreading her legs wide, I bend down and lick her slit.
She gasps, hands coming to the back of my head.
“You taste so damn good,” I tell her as I circle my tongue around her clit and listen to her moan. And it takes everything I have to stop. “But you don’t deserve pleasure right now.”
She looks disappointed.
“No, you deserve the opposite of pleasure,” I add, lifting her to stand, then turning her so she’s facing away from me. I push her down over the table and drag her arms behind her to grip her wrists at her lower back.
“What are you doing?”
I slap her ass.
“Ow!”
I lean over her. “The knife. You ready to tell me?”
“Let it go, Damian. It doesn’t matter.”
I straighten. “Matters to me,” I say, spanking her ass a few more times.
“Stop!”
“Tell me the truth or I’ll use my belt.”
“Belt?”
“Did Michela give you the knife? Think hard. If you lie to me, then you’re betraying me, Cristina.”
“What about you lying to me?”
“I haven’t. Tell me.”
“Is this some sort of loyalty test?”
I don’t answer. Instead, I unbuckle my belt.
She looks back, eyes growing huge.
I watch her as I draw it out of its loops and double it over in my palm. I raise my eyebrows.
“Well?”
She looks from my face to my hand. I step backward and raise it.
“No. No. No. Wait!”
“Talk.” I lower my arm.
She looks up at me. “You have to promise not to hurt her if I tell you.”
I have to laugh at that. “Right now, right fucking now, you’re worried I’m going to hurt her?”
Her gaze slips to my belt hand, then back to me. “Just promise. I’ll tell you but please promise. She’s scared, Damian.”
At that I snort. “She’s not scared, sweetheart. She’s a manipulator.” I raise my arm again.
“Promise!”
“I fucking promise.” I don’t really want to hurt Cristina although I’d gladly wring my sister’s neck for this latest betrayal.
“She gave it to me on our wedding night. To protect myself.”
“Against me?”
She nods. “What you did to her…her back…”
“I’ve told you that I regret that. And if I could take it back, I would. I am not making an excuse, but you don’t know the circumstances.”
“You whipped her from the tops of her shoulder blades to her ankles. No circumstances would ever justify that, and you know it.”
I bite the inside of my cheek as I exhale. “Yeah, I do.”
“Let me up.”
“Tell me about my brother. When did he tell you, he was your ally?”
“I went downstairs to eat something. I was hungry, my head hurt, and I didn’t think anyone was there, but then he was in the kitchen, and he was…nice to me.”
“Right.”
“He sat down and ate a sandwich with me, and I don’t know, we were talking. I can’t remember.”
I lean over her, angry with my brother as I squeeze her butt cheek, run the leather of the belt over it. “Try harder.”
She nods. “Let me up. Let me up and I’ll tell you.”
I straighten, look at her ass. I like her like this. My cock likes her like this.
“Please, Damian.”
Meeting her eyes, I relent and release her.
She turns to face me. We’re so close she has to crane her neck to see me.
“I asked him why he came back, and he said to take back what you took from him.”
“Well, at least he was honest.”
“He looked at me strangely then, and I don’t know, he wasn’t nice anymore.”
“Did he touch you?” My hand tightens around the belt buckle.
She shakes her head.
“What did he do?”
“He asked me if I was curious what that meant for me.”
I grit my teeth. “And are you?”
“No.”
“They’re not your friends, neither Michela nor Lucas. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know that I’m among enemies, yes.”
If she means for it to cut me, it works. I don’t show it, and I don’t know why the words even have that power, but it does.
“He’ll try to take you from me,” I say.
“Does it matter what I want in this?”
“What do you want?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters to me.”
This obviously surprises her. I guess it surprises me too. “Why?”
I set the belt on the table and lift her to sit on the edge of it. I push her knees wide and stand between them. I tug her nearer. She’s so close I smell her shampoo. Her skin. And all I want to do is kiss her. I think a part of me knows how fleeting this is. How easily it can all collapse around us.
I kiss her mouth, undoing my pants to take myself out before I lay her down, pulling her knees up so her wet cunt presses against my cock. I push into her and her muscles tense instantly around me. She’s too tight, and I know it hurts her, but I can’t help myself. I need t
his. Need her like this.
Will I always need her like this?
I give her a minute, licking my thumb and setting it on her clit, looking at her like this, my cock stuffed to the hilt inside her pussy, my thumb on her clit, her passage growing wet as I play with her.
“I love your tight little cunt, Cristina. I love how you get so wet when I touch you.”
I lift her legs, set the backs of her knees over my shoulders and move inside her. She grunts with my thrusts. I kiss her cheek, her neck. I look at her as she takes my cock.
“It feels good,” she says.
I draw back, just the tip of my cock inside her, punishing myself as I slide my fingers to her clit, rubbing just to watch her come undone. When I can’t take anymore, I lean toward her a little, forcing her legs to bend more, opening her more to drive into her again.
She moans, eyes closing.
I slide the wet tip of my thumb to her asshole and press against it. Her eyes fly open, she’s panting, and when I push into that tight little hole, she cries out. Her walls throb around my cock and I watch her come. Watch how fucking beautiful she is when she does, when she pants my name over and over, something I’m not sure she’s aware she’s doing.
“Damian. Damian. God. Damian.”
“Don’t betray me,” I tell her, then straighten and push her legs wide. I look at her like this, spread open, my cock buried inside her. Her cunt wet and pink, walls still throbbing around me. Pressing her thighs to the table, I can’t take my eyes from her face as I fuck her. I fuck her so hard that I force each breath from her.
I did lie to her once, I think as I’m in the final throes. And when ecstasy comes, when I release inside her, I realize I won’t keep my promise to her. I can’t.
Because I don’t want to let her go.
Because I won’t let her go.
16
Cristina
The smell from the fireplace is stronger than usual this morning, and I wonder if someone got overzealous starting one of the huge fires that warm the house. But when I get downstairs, I realize the fireplace is empty.
I inhale. Smell smoke.
“That was a mistake, Brother,” I hear Lucas say from inside.
I slow my steps, listening as I approach the living room, when I see the soldier standing behind a pillar in the foyer. Actually, it’s not him I see, but the end of his rifle.
I stop because it takes my brain a minute to process that it is a rifle. And when he walks out from behind the pillar to look at me, I realize it’s an automatic.
Seeing them outside is alarming enough. But having them inside the house takes it to a whole other level.
“Damian?” I ask, turning the corner to find him watching me from the dining room. He’s standing with his arm on the mantel of the fireplace. Lucas is seated at the breakfast table and Tobias is looking out into the backyard. Two more armed soldiers stand inside the house by the French doors I used yesterday.
Lucas’s dark gaze is on me as he picks up his mug and drinks from it.
Tobias glances at me, then at Damian.
Damian walks to the table and pulls out my chair.
“Morning,” he says.
“What’s going on?”
Last night after we’d come back to the house, Damian had sent me to my room. I’d had dinner alone upstairs because as soon as we’d returned, Tobias had required his attention. He’d looked even more serious than usual and Damian had been quick to send me away.
It wouldn’t have taken a genius to figure out something was wrong. Very wrong.
After dinner, I’d fallen asleep before he’d come up. I know he didn’t sleep in my bed, so when I looked into his room this morning, either the maid was very quick to make his bed, or he hadn’t slept there last night either. Had he slept at all? I wonder as I look at him. He’s changed clothes and his hair is wet from a shower, but I don’t miss the shadows that darken his eyes.
I touch my pocket as I take my seat. He must have come into my room while I’d been sleeping, though, because I found the switchblade Michela had given me on the nightstand beside the bed when I’d woken up.
He didn’t take it away. I thought for sure he would.
Unable to avoid Lucas’s gaze any longer, I meet it. I can’t read him at all. I’m getting to know Damian’s moods, but Lucas is like a vault.
Did he really know I was out there when he walked by me in the woods?
“Sleep all right?” Damian asks.
“Fine. But what’s going on?”
“Men are back. I’ll go meet with them,” Tobias tells Damian then walks away.
“Elise,” Damian calls out, eyes on me. “Bring my wife some breakfast,” he tells her. “What would you like?” I note the difference in tone when he speaks with me and it makes me think about what Liam said. That Damian feels something for me.
I’m too slow to answer, so Damian arches an eyebrow.
“Doesn’t matter. Fruit and yogurt if you have it.”
He nods to Elise, standing in the corner. She disappears into the kitchen while Damian pours me a cup of coffee. Then he sits down and looks at me.
“Michela and Bennie will be gone for a little while,” he says.
“Gone?”
He nods.
“Where?”
“A camp out West. Something Bennie will enjoy.”
“And Michela will not,” Lucas adds.
Damian gives him an irritated glance, then turns to me. “How are your hands?”
“Fine. Still sore but not too bad. What’s going on?”
“Nothing for you to worry about.”
Lucas snorts.
“What the fuck is your problem?” Damian asks him.
Lucas glances at me, then back to Damian. “You should tell her the truth, that’s my problem. She was out there yesterday.” He pushes back his chair. “I’m going to hear what the soldiers have to say.”
“Tobias will handle it.”
“You trust him over blood.”
“What choice have you given me?”
Lucas wipes his mouth, stands, then drops his napkin on the table.
“Just make sure you’re ready to go. We leave within the hour,” Damian tells him.
Lucas gives me a hard look, then leaves.
“What’s he talking about?” I ask Damian. “And why do I smell smoke?”
Damian turns to me. “We had a security breach yesterday. Two men on the grounds.”
“What?”
“Solarium is gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean gone?”
Elise returns with a heaping bowl of fresh fruit, yogurt, and granola.
“Thank you, Elise. You can clean up later,” Damian tells her, effectively dismissing her. He only continues once she’s disappeared into the kitchen. “They burned it down.”
“Who did and why?”
His jaw tightens, his eyes narrow, and I know he’s distracted. He shifts his gaze to me. “Business,” he says through clenched teeth. “Nothing for you to worry about.”
“Nothing for me to worry about? I was out there. I felt like I was being watched. You think it was the men who set the fire watching me?”
He sips his coffee, licks his lips, and sets the mug down. He’s pissed. I can see it. He looks at my plate. “Eat. I want to leave within the hour and I’m not leaving you here.”
“Tell me, Damian. Tell me what’s going on.”
“I sent a message. Clementi sent one back.”
“I don’t understand. Who is Clementi?” As soon as I say his name, though, I remember. The oldest client of my father’s. One who doesn’t want me around. I still remember his beady little eyes on me.
“Yeah, him,” Damian says, pushing his chair back. “The asshole with the umbrella in his fucking drink.” The look on his face is so dark, I think if he ever looked at me that way, I’d wither. He glances past me toward the front door momentarily. “What was Lucas carrying out there? What did you see?”
“I didn’t say that. I asked what you saw.”
I try to think. “I’m not sure. I just know they were heavy from the way he was carrying them.”
“If he betrayed me…” He trails off, schools his features. “You don’t say a word to him, understand?”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Good.” He checks his watch and pushes his chair back. “Pack a few things.”
I nod just as Tobias and Lucas reenter the house. I can hear them arguing from here.
“Christ,” Damian mutters, walking toward them.
“Damian?”
He stops and turns to me, but I can see he’s impatient.
“Michela.”
Coming back to the table, he lays his hand flat against the wood. I look at it, at his wedding band. I glance at mine.
He leans toward me. “I didn’t punish her, if that’s what you’re going to ask. Didn’t even mention it.”
“Thank you.”
“I sent them away for their own safety.”
“What about your father?”
He grins, then straightens. “That old man will live to bury us all.”
I shudder. “We’re in danger.” As stupid as it sounds, it’s like the idea just dawns on me.
His expression grows darker. “I’ll keep you safe. I won’t let our enemies hurt you.”
Our enemies.
Have I inherited his or have they been there all along and I’ve been oblivious?
I study him. He does the same to me. He cups the back of my head, as I turn my face up to his. When he leans down and kisses me, my heart skips a beat. I close my eyes and kiss him back.
When he draws back, his eyes are intense
“You’re the only one I can trust right now. Don’t disappoint me, Cristina.”
Before I can reply, he’s gone.
17
Damian
The ride to Manhattan took a little over four hours because of an accident. I’m in the penthouse study with Lucas and I wish he’d shut the fuck up already.
“You shouldn’t have destroyed it, Brother,” Lucas says for the hundredth time.
“And I wouldn’t have had to if you’d had your eye on the Clementi brothers like you were supposed to.” I turn to Tobias. “Did we locate them?”
Unholy Intent Page 9
