Bound by Honor

by Cora Reilly

  “Luca, please.” I bucked my hips again.

  Luca nudged my clit with his tongue and I cried out. “You want this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Soon,” he growled and eased a finger into me, fucking me with it slowly as his tongue slid around my opening, coating me with his saliva. His tongue moved up, finally circling my clit. I relaxed with a moan. Luca took my clit into his mouth and suckled, bringing me closer and closer to the edge.

  “Tell me when you come,” Luca said against my wet flesh.

  He fingered me faster and pressed his tongue against my clit.

  “I’m com--”

  Luca pulled his finger out, then entered me again with two fingers. I gasped in discomfort but my orgasm ripped through me, pain mingling with pleasure as my body tried to get used to the fullness. Luca kissed my inner thigh, then groaned. “You’re so fucking tight, Aria. Your muscles are squeezing the life out of my fingers.”

  My pulse was slowing and I glanced at Luca. He was watching me, two fingers buried in me. He slid them out a couple of inches and I winced but he slowly found a rhythm as he slid in and out.

  “Relax,” Luca murmured, and I tried. “I need to widen you, principessa.” Luca traced his tongue over my folds and clit again. I hummed in pleasure. The discomfort in my core lessened with every stroke from Luca’s tongue and I could feel myself approaching another release. Luca must have felt it too. He pulled his fingers out and moved up until he was propped up over me. He lined himself up and shifted my legs and hips until he found the angle he wanted, then his tip brushed my entrance. And just like that I froze up again. I wanted to cry in frustration. Why couldn’t my body work with me?

  Luca kissed my chin, then my lips. “Aria.” My eyes finally met his. His expression reflected some kind of inner struggle. I wrapped my arms around him, my palms coming to rest on his flexing back. Resolve claimed his expression.

  He shifted his hips and the pressure increased. I tensed even further and Luca let out a harsh breath. “Relax,” he said as he cupped my cheek and kissed my lips. “I’m not even in yet.” His hand caressed my side down to my thigh. He cupped it and opened me a bit wider. Then he pushed in slowly. I tightened my hold on him, pressing my lips together. It hurt. God, it hurt like hell. He would never fit. I whimpered when the tearing sensation got too much and tensed even further. Luca halted in his movement, jaw clenched. He brought one of his hands up and cupped my breast, rubbing and twisting my nipple.

  “You are so beautiful,” he murmured into my ear. “So perfect, principessa.” His words and his teasing of my breast made me relax slightly and he pushed in a bit further. I tensed again. Luca kissed my mouth. “Almost there.” He slid his hand down my body, fingers ghosting over my belly until he brushed my folds. He rubbed my clit slowly and I exhaled. Through the pain and discomfort I could feel small bolts of pleasure. Luca took his time teasing my clit and kissing me. His lips were hot and gentle, and his finger sent tingling sensations through my body. Slowly, my muscles loosened around his cock.

  Rocking his hips forward, he pushed all the way in and I gasped, my back arching off the bed. I squeezed my eyes shut, breathing through my nose to get through the pain. I felt too full as if I was going to rip apart. I buried my face against Luca’s throat, and started to count, trying to distract myself. ‘It gets better’, that’s what the women said at my bridal shower, but when?

  Luca moved, slowly and just an inch, but it hurt too much. “Please don’t move,” I gasped, then I pressed my lips together in shame. Other women had gone through this and they had lied back and suffered through it. Why couldn’t I? Luca’s body became taut like a bowstring. He touched my cheek as he pulled back, forcing me to look at him.

  “Does it hurt that much?” His voice was pure restrain, eyes dark with an emotion I couldn’t place.

  Get a grip, Aria. “No, not that much.” My voice caught on the last word because Luca had twitched. “It’s okay, Luca. Just move. I won’t be mad at you. You don’t have to hold back for me. Just get it over with.”

  “Do you think I want to use you like that? I can see how fucking painful this is. I’ve done many horrible things in my life but I won’t add that to my list.”

  “Why? You hurt people all the time. Only because we’re married you don’t have to pretend to care for my feelings.”

  His eyes flashed. “What makes you think I have to pretend?”

  My lips parted. I didn’t dare to hope, didn’t dare to read too much into his words, but God, did I want to.

  “Tell me what to do,” he said harshly.

  “Can you hold me close for a while? But don’t move.”

  “I won’t,” he promised, then kissed my lips. He gritted his teeth as he lowered himself completely. We were incredibly close, not even a sheet of paper would have fit between us. Luca curled one arm under my shoulders and pressed me against his chest, and then we kissed, our lips gliding over each other, our tongues tangling, soft and teasing. Luca caressed my side and my ribs before sneaking a hand between us and drawing small circles on my nipple. Slowly my body became slack under his soft caress and the taste of his mouth on mine. The pain between my legs became a dull ache and my core loosened around Luca, my body growing accustomed to his size. Luca didn’t seem to notice or he chose to ignore it, instead he kept kissing me. His fingernail scraped my nipple and a flicker of pleasure spiked between my legs. I drew back, my lips raw and hot from our kiss. Luca’s eyes were hooded.

  “Can you still…?” I asked.

  He shifted and I could feel how hard he was. He hadn’t softened at all. My eyes widened in surprise.

  “I told you I’m not a good man. Even though I know you’re hurting, I still have a boner because I’m inside you.”

  “Because you want me.”

  “I’ve never wanted anything more in my life,” Luca admitted.

  “Can we go slow?”

  “Of course, principessa.” Still holding me close, he withdrew a few inches watching my face. The look of concern on his face released a knot in my chest.

  I exhaled. It still hurt but not nearly as much as before and behind the pain was the hint of something better. Luca eased back into me and found a slow and gentle rhythm. I soaked in the feel of Luca’s strong body pressed against me, the sharp lines of his face. His eyes never left my face. He didn’t seem to mind the slow pace. The tension in his shoulders and neck was the only sign of how difficult this was for him. He changed the angle and a spark of pleasure shot through me. I gasped. Luca halted. “Did that hurt?”

  “No, it felt good,” I said with a shaky smile. Luca smiled and repeated the motion, sending another tingle through me. He lowered his lips to mine. I wasn’t sure how long he kept up the slow rhythm, but I was getting sore and I knew I wouldn’t come. I wasn’t even close, despite the occasional flickers of pleasure. Dull pain still covered too much of it. I didn’t know how to say what I needed to say. He must have seen something on my face because he said. “Are you okay?”

  I bit my lip. “How long until you…?”

  “Not long, if I go a bit faster.” He scanned my face and I nodded. He propped himself up on his elbows and thrust faster and a bit harder, and I pressed my lips together and buried my face against his shoulder, clutching his back. The pain was back, but I wanted Luca to come. “Aria?” Luca rasped.

  “Keep going. Please. I want you to come.”

  He growled and kept thrusting. His pants came faster. He thrust deeper than before and I bit down on his shoulder to keep from whimpering in pain. Luca tensed with a groan, then he shuddered and I could feel him expand even further in me, filling me up until I was sure I’d come apart. He stopped moving, his lips against my throat. I could feel him softening in me and I almost breathed a sigh in relief. I held onto Luca, relishing in the feel of his quick heartbeat and the sound of his harsh breathing.

  Luca pulled out and lay down beside me, pulling me into his arms. He brushed back my hair from my swea
ty face. I felt something trickling out of me and shifted uncomfortably.

  “I’ll get a washcloth.” Luca got out of bed to head for the bathroom. I felt cold without him. I stretched my legs but winced. I sat up and my eyes widened. There was blood smeared on my thighs and the bed, mingled with Luca’s semen. Luca knelt on the bed beside me. He must have cleaned himself because there wasn’t any blood on him. “There’s much more blood than the fake scene you created during our wedding night.” My voice was shaky.

  Luca nudged my legs apart and pressed the warm wet washcloth against me. I sucked in a breath. Luca kissed my knee. “You were a lot tighter than I thought,” he said quietly. He pulled the washcloth away and I flushed, but he discarded it on the floor without another glance before he pressed his hand against my abdomen. “How bad is it?”

  I put my head back on the pillow. “Not that bad. How can I complain when you’re covered in scars from knife and bullet wounds?”

  “We’re not talking about me. I want to know how you feel, Aria. On a scale of one to ten, how much does it hurt?”

  “Now? Five?”

  Luca tensed. He lowered himself beside me, curled an arm around me and scanned my face. “And during?”

  I avoided his eyes. “If ten is for the worst pain I’ve ever felt, then eight.”

  “The truth.”

  “Ten,” I whispered.

  Luca clenched his jaw. “Next time will be better.”

  “I don’t think I can again so soon.”

  “I didn’t mean now,” he said firmly, kissing my temple. “You’ll be sore for a while.”

  “On a scale of one to ten, how fast and hard did you go? The truth,” I mimicked his words.

  “Two.”

  “Two?” I must have looked pretty horrified because Luca rubbed my stomach lightly. “We have time. I will go as gentle as you need me to.”

  “I can’t believe Luca – The Vice - Vitiello said ‘gentle’,” I said teasingly to light the mood.

  Luca smirked. He cupped my face and leaned close. “It’ll be our secret.”

  Emotions crowded in my chest. “Thanks for being gentle. I never thought you would be.”

  Luca laughed, a raw sound. “Believe me, nobody’s more surprised about this than me.”

  I rolled onto my side, wincing, and snuggled against Luca’s shoulder. “You never were gentle to someone?”

  “No,” he said bitterly. “Our father taught Matteo and me that any kind of gentleness was a weakness. And there was never any room in my life for it.”

  Even if the words wanted to get stuck in my throat, I said. “What about the girls you were with?”

  “They were a means to an end. I wanted to fuck, so I looked for a girl and fucked her. It was hard and fast, definitely not gentle. I mostly fucked them from behind so I didn’t have to look them in the eyes and pretend I gave a shit about them.”

  He sounded cold and cruel.

  I kissed his tattoo, wanting to banish that part of him again. His arms around me tightened. “The only person who could have taught me how to be gentle was my mother.” I held my breath. Would he tell me about her now? “But she killed herself when I was nine.”

  “I’m sorry.” I wanted to ask what happened but I didn’t want to push him and make him retreat behind his cold mask. Instead I cupped his cheek. He looked startled by the gesture but didn’t pull away. I licked my lip, trying to suppress my curiosity.

  “Does it still hurt?” he asked suddenly. For a moment, I didn’t know what he was talking about. He brushed a hand across my abdomen. “Yeah, but talking helps.”

  “How does it help?”

  “It distracts me.” I gathered my courage. “Can you tell me more about your mother?”

  “My father hit her. He raped her. I was young but I understood what was going on. She couldn’t bear my father anymore, so she decided to slice her wrists and overdose on dope.”

  “She shouldn’t have let you and Matteo alone.”

  “I found her.”

  I jerked up and stared. “You found your mother after she’d cut her wrists?”

  “That was actually the first body I saw. Of course it wasn’t the last.” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “The floor was covered with her blood and I slipped on it and fell. My clothes were soaked with her blood.” His voice was calm, detached. “I ran out of the bathroom screaming and crying. My father found me and slapped me. Told me to be a man and clean myself up. I did. I never cried again.”

  “This is horrible. You must have been terrified. You were only a boy.”

  He was silent. “It made me tough. At one point every boy has to lose his innocence. The mafia isn’t a place for the weak.”

  I knew that. I’d seen how Father had tried to shape Fabiano in the last few years and it always broke my heart when my little brother had to act like a man instead of the young boy that he was. “Emotions aren’t a weakness.”

  “Yes, they are. Enemies always aim where they can hurt you most.”

  “And where would the Bratva aim if they wanted to hurt you?”

  Luca extinguished the lights. “They won’t ever find out.”

  That wasn’t the answer I’d hoped for but I was too tired to ponder about it. Instead I closed my eyes and let sleep claim me.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Going to the toilet burnt like hell, and walking wasn’t exactly comfortable either. I winced as I stepped back into the bedroom where Luca lay with his head propped up on his arm. He watched me. “Sore?”

  I nodded, blushing. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”

  “Why are you sorry?”

  I lay down beside him. “I thought you might want to do it again, but I don’t think I can.”

  Luca traced his fingertips over my ribs. “I know. I didn’t expect you to be ready so soon.” He rubbed my stomach, then inched a bit lower. “I could lick you if you are up for it.”

  My core tightened and I really wanted to say yes. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Luca nodded and settled back against the pillows. The blanket crowded around his hips, revealing his muscled torso and the scars there.

  I moved closer and propped myself up above him. I traced Luca’s scars, wondering what kind of stories hid behind each of them. I wanted to know all of them, wanted to figure out Luca scar by scar like a puzzle. Where did he get the long scar on his shoulder and the bullet wound below his ribs? Luca was doing his own exploring with his eyes, wandering over my breasts and face. He ran his thumb over my nipples. “Your breasts are fucking perfect.” His touch was more possessive than sexual, but I could feel it all the way between my legs anyway.

  Trying to distract myself, I paused with my fingertips against a mostly faded scar on his abs. “Where did you get this scar?”

  “I was eleven.” My eyes grew wide. I was pretty sure where the story was going. “The Familia wasn’t as united as it is now. A few men thought they could grab power by killing my father and his sons. It was the middle of the night when I heard screaming and shooting. Before I could get out of bed, a man stepped into the room and pointed his gun at me. I knew I’d die as I stared into the barrel. I wasn’t as scared as I thought I’d be. He would have killed me, if Matteo hadn’t jumped him from behind when he pulled the trigger. The bullet went a lot lower than it was supposed to and hit my middle. It hurt like a motherfucker. I was screaming and probably would have passed out if the man hadn’t turned on Matteo to kill him. I had a gun stashed in the drawer of my nightstand, took it out and put a bullet in the man’s head before he could kill Matteo.”

  “That was your first murder, right?” I whispered.

  Luca’s eyes, which had been lost in another time, focused on me. “Yeah. The first of many.”

  “When did you kill again?”

  “That same night.” He smiled humorlessly. “After that first man, I told Matteo to hide in my closet. He protested but I was bigger and locked him in. By then I’d lost quite a bit of blood but
I was high on adrenaline and could still hear shooting downstairs, so I headed for the noise with my gun. My father was in a shooting match with two attackers. I came down the stairs but nobody paid me any attention, and then I shot one of them from behind. My father took the other down with a shot in the shoulder.”

  “Why didn’t he kill him?”

  “He wanted to question him to find out if there were other traitors in the Familia left.”

  “So what did he do with the guy while he took you to the hospital?”

  Luca gave me a wry look. I gasped. “Don’t tell me he didn’t take you.”

  “He called the Doc of the Familia, told me to put pressure on the wound and went ahead and started torturing the guy for information.”

  I couldn’t believe a father would let his child suffer through pain and risk its life, so he could gather information.

  “You could have died. Some things need to be treated in a hospital. How could he do that?”

  “The Familia comes first. We never take injured to a hospital. They ask too many questions and the police get involved and it’s an admittance of weakness. And my father had to make sure the traitor spoke before he got a chance to kill himself.”

  “So you agree with what he did? You would have watched someone you love bleed to death so you could protect the Familia and your power.”

  “My father doesn’t love me. Matteo and I are his guarantee for power and a way to keep on the family name. Love has nothing to do with it.”

  “I hate this life. I hate the mafia. Sometimes I wished there was a way to escape.”

  Luca’s face became still. “From me?”

  “No,” I said, surprising myself. “From this world. Have you never wanted to live a normal life?”

  “No. This is who I am, who I was born to be, Aria. It’s the only life I know, the only life I want. For me to confirm to a normal life would be like an eagle in a small cage in a zoo.” He paused. “Your marriage to me shackles you to the mafia. Blood and death will be your life as long as I live.”

  “Then so be it. I’ll go where you go no matter how dark the path.”