A Million Different Ways To Lose You (The Horn Duet Book 2)

by P. Dangelico

  Best Regards,

  David Bernard, Esq.

  Without hesitation, I slid the pen from the envelope and signed all ten locations on the contract where the highlighted arrow pointed. Placing the papers back in, I handed it to the security guard and told him to send them back to Geneva for overnight delivery.

  I hated keeping it from Sebastian. However, I knew that sharing the information would open an argument of epic proportions and my force of will was nothing compared to his. He was in a completely different weight class than me…in other words, I didn’t stand a chance.

  Strangely, as I signed my name on the dotted line, a yoke I was unaware of carrying around magically lifted. All the reasons I debated with myself regarding the possible cost to Sebastian’s reputation by becoming his wife seemed to dissolve under the power of the pen. Without any claim to his fortune, we would be back on even ground. At least, we would in my eyes.

  “Wake up––” whispered a sexy, gravelly voice. Drifting on a sea of tranquility, a merman appeared in my dreams. His eyes supplicating, his voice calling me home. “Wake up, wake up.”

  There was mischief in that voice. I reached out to stroke his face but he caught my wrist and playfully bit my thumb. Then he wrapped his full lips around it and sucked. My body was suddenly burning. The sea of tranquility transformed into a wildfire of lust.

  My hands stroked across his smooth, muscular chest and traveled down to his full blown erection. Steel wrapped in velvet. It pressed against my hip begging for my attention. My hips, as if summoned by their master, turned to press into the the merman’s impossibly hard sex. Pushing and pulsing, gentle pleasure coiled into something much more potent.

  “Wake up, sleeping beauty. I want to show you something and if we start that, we’ll miss it.”

  This merman was very bossy. My eyes blinked open to find Sebastian’s face hanging over me.

  Wearing a crooked smile, and wicked intentions, he said, “Can you let go of my dick, babe?”

  Barely conscious, I looked down and saw my hand fisted securely around him. Poor man. I peeled one finger off at a time. “Jesus, did I almost rape you in my sleep?” I asked groggily, my eyes falling shut again.

  “Trust me, I was willing.”

  He grabbed both my wrists and pulled me out of bed. “Noooo,” I whined.

  “Yes,” he replied chuckling.

  Another fifteen minutes of cajoling and he had me semi-dressed and walking up four flights of stairs to the top level of the boat. As soon as I reached the last step, I got it. I knew what he wanted me to see…and it was worth it.

  The image my eyes beheld was so awe inspiring, so absurdly romantic, that it brought a tear to the eye of a cynic like me. Without any pollution, electric or otherwise, nor clouds to speak of, the full moon was so large and perfect hanging low in the night sky that it looked Photoshopped. And on the opposite side, an infinite amount of stars sparkled down on us.

  Lacing his fingers through mine, he led me to a lounge chair that fit us both comfortably. We lay down, him on his back, me wrapped around him, my leg pressing against his sex which was growing hard again. He tucked one hand under his head, and all the muscles of his arm and chest popped up. I’d never seen a more innately sexy man––no artifice whatsoever.

  A falling star streaked across the night sky. Staring in wonder at the show Mother Nature was putting on just for the two of us, I murmured, “Am I still dreaming?”

  He looked down at me. In his eyes there was more love gleaming brightly back at me than there were stars above. “If you are, don’t wake up. I want to stay a little longer.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The next day we disembarked in Sardinia. Sebastian’s private jet was waiting for us at the airport of Olbia. A parade of private jet after private jet taking off and landing on the airstrips. Two hours later we landed in Venice and checked into the Gritti Palace hotel where Sebastian had reserved an entire floor of suites. A week after landing in Venice, we were married on a humid Sunday in the middle of September.

  My head was spinning at how quickly and efficiently Sebastian arranged everything. All I did was stand back and let the inexorable force of my beloved control freak take me wherever he wanted to go.

  Hanging out of the open window, I watched the vaporretto, the water taxi, steam by on the Grand Canal and took in the incomparable view, almost surreal in its beguiling beauty. My spirits soared so high I could have flown out the window. A cacophony of different languages, from German to Japanese, drifted up from the narrow sidewalks down below. I smiled and waved at a Japanese tourist who lifted his camera to take a picture of the grand historic building.

  “It’s just a wedding, my love. Does it really matter where we do it?” When my question was met by silence, I glanced over my shoulder.

  Since Sebastian was raised Baptist and stopped practicing ages ago, Roman Catholic law wouldn’t allow us to be married in a church. Not unless we wanted to post banns and wait a month. It didn’t stop him from trying though…the word no was a difficult concept for him to grasp.

  Seated at the breakfast table bare chested with his pajama bottoms hanging on his hips in shear desperation, he looked sexier than anyone had a right to. No shame whatsoever––I loved that about him. His heavy lidded eyes met mine over the rim of his coffee cup. My attempt to reason with him was answered with a frown and an emphatic, “Yes.”

  Placing the cup down, he licked his lips and stalked over to me. A big cat hunting prey. He blanketed my body from head to toe, caging me with his arms and thighs. A low groan rumbled in his chest as he pushed the erection tenting his pajama bottoms against my rear end. He crammed himself snuggly between my cheeks and heat radiated to every point in my body. A slow burn that made me soft and compliant. His hips rocked slowly. His warm palm cupped my breast. He knew my weaknesses, knew how to turn them into his strengths, how to mold them into desire.

  My eyelids grew heavy, my eyes lost focus. But I caught it nonetheless––the shadow of a woman in the building across the canal. Partially hidden behind a heavy silk curtain, she was watching us. My eyes tangled with her tip-tilted dark ones. She was older, maybe sixties, and by the easy grace in her posture and the way she held her cigarette between her long fingers, sophisticated. A dark flush of embarrassment crept up my neck, and yet, I possessed neither the will, nor the want to stop him.

  He bit and kissed a path down the curve of my neck. An act of possession, of ownership. It sapped all the strength from my legs. Pressing his groin harder into my rear end, he trapped me against the wall below the window frame. His hand covered mine on the sill, his tan fingers resting between my paler ones.

  A sudden realization crashed down on me. Everything that came before him, everything that I thought I was, had been a sham––the imitation. This is who I really was, my natural state. With him I felt alive for the first time in my life.

  His other hand found the crease between my thighs and petted me over my nightgown. With no means of escape, I was tortured ruthlessly. “Now what were you saying?” he crooned while his other hand slipped beneath the gown and brushed my nipple.

  “I…I don’t think you should take it personally that the Pope wouldn’t speak to you,” I said, my voice cracking and breaking as I jumped between laughter and lust. Biting my lower lip, I managed to squeeze out, “I think he has more important matters to attend.”

  “I’m ‘bout to atten’ you in a minute, darlin’,” he crooned. His accent thick and rich ratcheted the heat up times ten. The shameless seducer knew what that accent did to me.

  He gathered the hem of my gown and lifted it to my waist, pushed his bottoms down in one efficient motion. Kicking my legs apart, he spread me open with his fingers, his palm petting the place I was dying for him to touch.

  My world turned into pure sensation. The velvety heat of his sex pressed between my cheeks. The crips feel of the hair between his legs. The unyielding muscles of his abdomen pressed into my lower back. Pleasu
re tugged and tugged at me.

  On pure instinct my hips rolled, my back arched, seeking him, wanting…needing. So much need. Thrusting powerfully, he buried himself inside of me to the root. My scream of approval reverberated off the ancient hand painted walls of the hotel.

  Deep and slow, he pumped into me. So deep I couldn’t tell where he ended and I began. My eyes cracked open to discover the woman across the canal was still watching us. Shame blazed a fire across my cheekbones, but there was nothing to be done for it. I was lost to everything other than him, his body, the scent of sex that drifted languidly around us, the deep, raspy voice that murmured deliciously filthy things in my ear.

  For reasons I couldn’t even begin to understand this man ignited something in me that I never knew existed. In his arms I wasn’t proper, or quiet, or measured, or apprehensive. I was a wanton thrill-seeker, a risk-taker. I was adventurous and carefree. And more in love than I ever thought possible.

  “This is everything,” I heard him murmur right before he came, after he had me screaming my release from the rooftops.

  Hours later, after we showered and attempted to put clothes on, I was watching him button his shirt, watching him conceal muscles honed by years of intense swimming, when I asked, “Why is this so important to you?” The question was meant to be lighthearted, casual. His large eyes, filled with profound emotion, left me to focus on the buttons he was fiddling with.

  “I’m marrying the woman I love,” he replied in a voice serious and true. “I don’t intend to do this ever again. I want everything to be perfect.”

  That sobered me instantly. The naked sentiment hit me in the chest, my throat closing up at his sincerity, his courage, his ability to wear his feelings for me on his sleeve… something I still had a very hard time doing.

  In a shocking turn of events, the Roman Catholic Church did not bend to his will like the rest of us. He huffed and puffed all week at not getting his way, while I did my best not to laugh and crow I told you so. I was marrying a hopeless romantic after all––I had to remind myself to handle his feelings with care.

  Mrs. Arnaud, Mr. Bentifourt, and Charlotte flew in on the private jet three days before the wedding. Ben took a separate flight for reasons no one had a bloody clue about. Held in an historic villa overlooking the canals, the intimate civil ceremony was officiated by the Mayor of Venice.

  I grabbed a hand towel and wiped my damp palms on it.

  “Nervous?” Marianne asked while she button the thousands of tiny, fabric covered buttons that trailed from the top on my spine to the hem of my train. My eyes met hers in the etched Venetian full length mirror we stood before.

  “We come from such different worlds…can this last a lifetime?”

  In the subsequent heavy pause, her vibrant eyes skipped from me, to the buttons of my dress. “You are looking at it from the wrong angle.”

  “Meaning?”

  “In which ways are you alike?”

  The proverbial bull’s eye. I was so wrapped up in listing all the ways we were different that I ignored the way in which we were alike. The most important way, the most fundamental way.

  “Our souls…are souls are alike.” She smiled back knowingly. Tears pooled in the corners of my eyes. “I love you, Marianne.”

  “I love you too, cherié.”

  The room, already breathtakingly appointed with authentic antiques, was decorated sparingly with large vases of white lilies. I stepped into the room wearing an ivory, Chantilly lace gown by Valentino that had been hand delivered from Rome. God only knows what he did to swing that because it fit me perfectly.

  Charlotte served as my maid of honor and my personal attendant––I couldn’t move an inch without her fussing with the train of my dress. She wore a grin as bright as the sun, and a lavender Chloe dress I had no idea where she’d gotten until I heard her thank Sebastian. Ben served as best man, looking uncharacteristically surly throughout the entire ceremony––though that did nothing to diminish how handsome he was in his tailored blue suit––handmade no doubt, no way was he getting that body into anything off the rack.

  Mr. Bentifourt walked me down the aisle wearing an appropriately solemn expression for the occasion. As he handed me over to Sebastian, he patted my hand and gave me a warm smile that lit up his whole face.

  And Sebastian…well, I’m not embarrassed to say he looked liked he’d stepped out of my dreams, dreams that in no way could I ever have anticipated manifesting into reality.

  In front of the arched windows, towering over everyone, he stood completely still, his posture relaxed, wearing a handmade blue suit that hugged his impressive frame perfectly, and an ivory silk tie.

  He looked like a gilded mythical god, his hair shot through with streaks of pale blonde from hours spent in the Mediterranean sun, his skin the color of raw sugar making his eyes glow a deep, reddish gold. I watched a million different emotions, large and small, rise to the surface and receded. But the smile in his eyes…that smile always remained.

  Sebastian lifted my veil, then took my hands in his. His palms were damp, otherwise I would’ve never known he was nervous. Sweet man. I squeezed and he squeezed back. As the Mayor murmured the words that would bind us together, a peace unlike anything I’d ever experienced before descended upon the room, permeating every corner. Within me something transcendent of shape or definition aligned and clicked into place. In the eyes of the man standing before me, I saw my joy, my future, all my hopes and dreams living there.

  I recited my vows without reserve. No matter all the obstacles I may have contemplated until that very moment, as I stood before him, basking in the love that emanated from every fiber of his being, I knew what I was doing was right. Because in the end, this thing between us proved stronger than both our wills combined. Because there was no question that all roads would forever be leading me back to him.

  “One more,” I said squirming, an apologetic look on my face. Sebastian gave me his best ‘I’m trying to be patient’ look but he wasn’t fooling anyone. “Can I please see the one with the double strands of turquoise?” I asked the street vendor in Italian. He reminded me of an Impressionist painting I’d once seen in a schoolbook. Playing off the bright orange kaftan he wore, his black skin looked nearly blue. Although he nodded patiently, a sweet smile on his face, I suspected he was just about as annoyed with my inability to make a choice as Sebastian was.

  “We can get a real one at the jewelry shop on St. Marks Square.”

  “This is real,” I said, holding up the turquoise bracelet for his inspection.

  He frowned. “I meant precious.” Turning to the street vendor, he said, “How many euros?”

  “Fifteen,” the vendor replied in English, his accent thick.

  “We need to get going. We’re too exposed here,” Gideon stated. The naked concern in his voice pecked at me. Gideon was perpetually Mr. Cool and Collected. If he was alarmed, there must’ve been good reason.

  My attention broke away from the table of colorful bracelets and moved over my shoulder, where I watched Gideon furtively scan the narrow, cobblestone street flanked by ancient buildings. The look on his face made me uneasy. Sebastian handed the street vendor a twenty euro bill and told him to keep the change, his face now tight with a heightened sense of awareness.

  “Let’s go,” he ordered. Clasping my wrist, he pulled me along.

  All heavily armed, Gideon and two of his men, whom had been with us since we sailed from the French Riviera, created a boundary between us and the flow of tourists that moved up and down the narrow street. In a well orchestrated effort, we walked methodically, on a mission to reach the safety of our hotel.

  The din of the crowd was making everyone jumpy. Someone shouted. My head swiveled in the general direction, and yet we didn’t even pause to see what the commotion was about. A car horn blared a street over. I jerked in surprise, and still we kept marching at a brisk pace.

  Watching Sebastian eating up ground, you would never have kno
w that his knee was injured, or how hard he worked to make it look like he wasn’t. I worried about how much pain he would be in later. When I squeezed the hand I gripped tightly, he squeezed back.

  A revving of a motorcycle engine could be heard in the distance, the sound growing louder by the second. We’d just reached the intersection, ready to turn the corner, when people began to scatter. A second later, mass confusion took over.

  At the top of the street, a motorcycle was quickly approaching, flying down at a high rate of speed. Like bowling pins, bodies dove out the way. It was too late to run. Too late to retreat. We were boxed in by the ancient buildings closely packed together. The security team instinctively got into position.

  And then it seemed to happen simultaneously all at once, and also in slow motion, as if I were floating above the scene watching from a third person perspective. But I wasn’t…I was right in the thick of it.

  A black Ducati screamed towards us, the rider’s identity obscured by a helmet with a black visor. Sebastian’s grip on my hand became painful. He jerked and pushed me into a store, turning so his back was to the street. He was shielding me while exposing himself. I didn’t scream. I didn’t have time to.

  Pop–pop–pop. It sounded innocuous, like balloons popping. Or fireworks on Bastille Day. Not the sound of death. Not the sound of vengeance. Next came the sound of glass shattering. It was loud. Female screams right on the heels of it. The air was crushed from my lungs as Sebastian fell on top of me. I gasped and grappled for breath, but two hundred and twenty pounds of bone and muscle made it impossible. I didn’t have the strength to push him off, nor the air to speak. He didn’t make a sound and he didn’t move. Up until then, I was operating on adrenaline, numb from it. Now, for the first time that afternoon, I knew true fear.

  “Fuck.”

  His voice was music to my ears. That word was suddenly the best ever to be invented in the English language. When he managed to push himself up on his elbows, I took a long, deep breath that hurt my lungs. A violent coughing fit ensued.