My stomach is tying itself in knots. “That’s why you punished me so harshly?”
He slides his finger tenderly along my cheek. “Partly. Yes. I would have done things differently if I’d had the choice. But I am also a man who doesn’t tolerate disrespect. So when you talked back to me, there would have been punishments regardless.”
When he says that, I feel a sudden dampness between my legs. The hot wave of arousal that sweeps through me makes no sense. Or does it make perfect sense? Am I really meant for Matteo? Under the right circumstances, his dominance and even his punishments stroke a part of me that I didn’t even know existed and set me ablaze with desire.
But we’re not through here. “What about Concetta? How could you think I’d be okay with that?”
He grimaces as if he just sucked a lemon. “She was someone I fooled around with before you were found. Remember, my list said that you had to be fine with me having mistresses. Mischa insisted that she be moved into the house, and I know he’s been communicating with her. I never had sex with her after you moved in, but I had to make you believe I was, and you weren’t allowed to complain.”
“That nearly ended us!” I spit the words at him, still feeling the hurt raging through me.
“And that was exactly what he wanted!” His voice rises in anger. “Every time you got angry with me, you were risking a gruesome death, and I couldn’t even tell you!” His voice softens, and he brushes a lock of hair behind my ear, trailing his thumb along my cheek. “I’ve been fighting for you every day, my love.”
I shiver at the sensation those two little words stir up in me.
“Don’t you see how hard I’ve been trying to keep you safe? I could have just let them kill you, and married the woman who was going to be your replacement. Everyone urged me to.”
I’m swept up by a storm of emotions. What he’s saying changes everything. I see him in a new light now. I thought of him as a truly horrible man in many ways, one I could never build a future with. Now that I know what he’s done for me, he even looks different. The harsh angles of his face seem to have smoothed, and I see a strong, powerful, fearless man who put himself between me and the most powerful criminal organization in the world.
I give myself a mental shake. Criminal. He’s a criminal. He kills people as casually as I’d swat a fly. Is this the lifestyle I’m going to choose? I still have morals. I still believe in right and wrong.
He leans in, and that hand that has dealt me so much pain cups my chin with sweet tenderness. “After we marry, you must understand, I will still be the leader of the household. But the moment we say our vows, you will never have to clean the house again. And I will have a full-time chef for you if you want. Two full-time chefs. You’ll never have to step foot in the kitchen again.”
I actually summon up a little smile. “I’m actually finding that I love cooking. I plan to keep doing it, whether I’m with you or not.”
Lightning flashes in his eyes, and his hand tightens until it hurts for a moment before he loosens it. “Don’t ever say anything like that again, or I will whip you until you pass out, and then wake you up and start over. There is no choice there, Natasha. You’re mine.”
“But what about mistresses?” I persist. The thought of his hands on another woman, his mouth…
“I will never be with another woman.” His eyes bore into me intensely, commanding me to believe him. “Most of our men don’t, in fact, cheat on their wives, but I told you that because I was trying to force you to accept it.”
“Never,” I say furiously. “I hated seeing you with her. Hated it!”
“Because you love me and you want me all to yourself.” He smiles triumphantly.
My gaze slides away from him. “Don’t be so sure.”
As we’re talking, two patrols cars pull into the parking lot, on the far end, away from us. The officers glance at us briefly, but then they climb out of their cars and start drinking coffee and chatting, with their backs to us.
Matteo moves us, turns me so my back is to them, and stands in front of me. “Don’t,” he says sternly.
“Why shouldn’t I?” My voice is low and furious. “You made my parents hate me. Not my parents – the Millhouses. The people who raised me. You turned them against me, and you turned Reg against me, and he was my only real friend. They broke my heart, Matteo.” I choke back a sob, and the tears start flowing again.
“Natasha, they are terrible people, and if they would abandon you that easily, then what kind of parents were they anyway?”
I close my eyes and wipe at my cheeks with my hand. “I didn’t want to have to know that about them!”
“Come on, Natasha. You would have figured it out for yourself eventually. Is it my fault that they are the way they are? You were no more free with them than you are living with me.” A sharp edge of impatience in his voice cuts into me. “But at least I love you, and I would never abandon you. Never.”
My God, the fervor in his voice. I want that. I need it. It warms me, breathes life into me – it anchors me to the shore. Without him, I feel like I’d be drifting in an endless ocean.
“Our baby. Our daughter. I will never let a child be taken from me.” I look up at him, tears glittering on my lashes. “And you’re all fooling yourself if you think the women in the family are okay with it.”
He doesn’t strike me or even look angry with me. He just lets out an exasperated breath.
“Natasha, one crisis at a time. If I don’t turn my phone back on and take you home right now, Mischa will have reason to order a hit on you. Let’s get through the wedding first.”
I tip my head up and stare into his beautiful eyes. “If I’m committing to a lifetime with you, I need to know that you’re not a terrible, evil person. You wouldn’t have done all this to me if you didn’t have to, would you?”
His smile is cruel and sensual and terrifying, and when he caresses my cheek, it’s the caress of ownership. “Oh, no, I’m not saying that at all. Am I evil? Depends on who’s sitting in judgement. But I’m not a good man, Natasha. I would have taken you as my bride no matter what. The moment I was shown your picture, I knew that you were meant to be mine. As I said, I would have done things differently. But yes, I would’ve taken you, and I would have forced you said to submit to me in the bedroom, and insisted that you speak to me respectfully, and when I felt like it, I would have made you cry out in pain for my pleasure. That is just the man I am, Natasha. But know this. I am also the man who loves you, who would die to protect you, and who wants you to come back with him not because I took you by force, but because you are my missing half.”
That answer should have ended things between us. It should have sent me screaming for the cops. It shouldn’t have thrilled me and aroused me. But it did.
I could still scream for help. I could still leave him.
But I don’t want to.
I want Matteo. I want his love, his devotion, his power.
He is staring down intensely into my eyes, and he cups my face with both hands. “Come home with me, Natasha. Come home with me of your own free will. Please. This is me asking you, will you marry me? If you can just suffer through the next few days until the wedding, I promise you everything will be different. We’ll leave that house and I will show you love and loyalty like you’ve never known.” The corner of his lip twitches up in a smile. “In my own fashion.”
“How do I know that I can trust you?” But then I shake my head a little, as much as I can with his hands framing my face. “Oh, never mind. I do trust you. I believe you. I would feel it if you were lying, I know I would.”
I close my eyes and feel the world swim around me. I have to think fast. I have to make a decision. I could spin around and scream for help. I could flee. I could go to the police and tell them everything.
But there is no doubt that Matteo would suffer because of it, and so would Valentina.
There is still the issue of our potential future child. But that’s in th
e future, and I have to make a decision right now.
I look up at Matteo. “Yes, I will marry you. You’re mine. All mine, only mine, and I’m yours.”
He releases my face and spins me around.
The police are gone. There would have been no one there to hear me scream for help. He puts his arms around my shoulders, bends down, and kisses my cheek.
“I wanted it to be your choice. The fact that you are choosing to come home with me means more to me than I could put into words, my beloved.”
Those words slide into place and fill an emptiness inside me, and my shattered heart feels whole again. I am afraid of this new life and all the forces rising up against us, but Matteo’s bravery and love give me strength. Whatever challenges we face, we’ll do it together.
Chapter 19
Natasha
The day of my wedding is here. I cleaned until midnight last night, and Matteo found dust bunnies under a sofa, and he shocked me with his vicious electric prod five times, then held me in his arms as I cried and cried.
But that is in the past. After today, we will walk out of this house forever. We’re not even spending our wedding night here. And tomorrow we will fly to our honeymoon island.
First I am forced to undergo yet another virginity test. I hate it. I go rigid as always, loathing the feeling of a strange man’s fingers inside me, but I am so overjoyed that my ordeal is over that I banish it from my mind as the doctor hurries out to tell Mischa that yes, I am still intact.
Tania, Evalina, and Feodora style my hair and do my makeup. Then they help me into the dress that was selected for me, with a form-fitting bodice and a belled tulle skirt that makes me feel like a princess. It’s sewn with pearls. Valentina is a flower girl, and she is dancing with excitement.
The ceremony is set to take place outside. There is a very small group there. Unfortunately, Mischa is one of them, shooting me sour looks. Is he hoping I’ll get raped and lose my virginity on the way up the aisle, so he can take me and torture me to death? Bastard. Absolute bastard. To make him angry, I flash him my sweetest smile. His cold, flat eyes meet mine briefly then slide away.
Valentina’s parents have come, and Valentina’s mother Sara clings to her daughter, shooting Mischa dirty looks. It must have been wrenching to have her daughter sent into harm’s way for a month. Right before the wedding vows, Sara thanks me, warmly, for making her daughter feel at home. I like Sara, and I’m happy about that. My husband’s family are good people.
I recite my vows in Italian, flawlessly. Of course I promise to love, honor and obey. And in this family, when a woman says those words, she’d better mean them.
Matteo promises to love, honor, cherish and protect me. He puts a particular emphasis on that word.
Mischa leaves immediately after the ceremony, without so much as a word of congratulations, and we have a very small reception. Matteo’s got a large reception planned tomorrow, and he’s invited the heads of both families. They’re facing some problem that he’s told me a little bit about, someone snitching on them to the authorities and threatening their business.
My real father and his new wife will be there. Ugh. I hate the thought of seeing him again. I hate the knowledge that my real mother was married to that pig. But at least he didn’t get what he wanted – me, tortured to death.
I’m a little afraid as we say goodbye to the guests. And as Matteo leads me upstairs to his bedroom, there’s a whole storm of butterflies swarming in my stomach. I feel floaty and strange, so high with excitement that it seems as though my feet scarcely touch the floor…but an insistent pulse throbs between my thighs, tethering me to my body, to my hunger for Matteo’s touch. My husband’s touch.
I squirm and wriggle impatiently as Matteo meticulously undoes the dozens of tiny satin buttons down the back of my gown. I want him to rip it off my body and devour me whole, but I know he’s teasing me, upping the tension and making sure my body is hungry and aching for him when he finally takes me.
“Stay still,” he whispers in my ear, his hushed command curling down my spine and making the hair at the nape of my neck stand on end. “You promised to obey me, and that begins on our wedding night.”
But I can’t bear the suspense. Moisture trickles from my core, and I whimper and turn in his arms, pressing myself against him and kissing him with clumsy, ravenous passion. My fingers dig into the taut muscle of his biceps, and his erect cock is an insistent pressure against my hip.
He pulls away, and the look in his eyes is dark and stern and satisfied, and I know my reaction is just what he was hoping for. “Disobedience, my darling bride?” he murmurs. He sighs in mock frustration. “Of course, you know it’s my duty as your husband to punish you.”
He has me in his strong arms and over his knee in one swift, sudden movement, making me yelp. I squirm again as he flips up my voluminous bell-shaped skirts and runs his hand up the back of my thigh and over the curve of my bottom. He growls with satisfaction as he fingers the soaked satin of my panties between my legs, and he whips them down in one swift movement, the twisted fabric keeping my ankles loosely bound together in a kind of implied restraint that has my heartbeat thrumming and my aching core clenching hard on nothing.
I almost jolt out of my skin when his hand comes down on my rear in a sharp smack. The tops of my inner thighs are slick with my excitement and my breath shudders in an out, then cuts off in a gasp as his palm stings my flesh again. A third biting blow, then he yanks me upright and sets me on my feet. I stand on wobbly legs, limp and compliant as a puppet as he strips away the rest of my clothes, leaving my exquisite, painfully expensive gown discarded on the floor in a frothy souffle of fabric.
He swings me into his arms again and lays me in the center of the bed, and he secures my ankles and wrists, leaving me lying splayed out and helpless. I shiver, but even though I have never felt more naked than I do now, under his devouring gaze, it is not from the cold. I shiver from the heat crackling down my nerves and pooling deliciously in my core.
He kisses me. He kisses me on the lips, gently but thoroughly, and I wait for the sweet warm weight of his body on mine…but it doesn’t come. Instead he drags his mouth down my throat and over my collarbone, then suckles delicately on my nipple before flicking it with his tongue, his touch as light as a butterfly’s rapidly fluttering wing.
He presses kisses over my ribcage and down my belly, making the little muscles beneath the skin twitch and jump. All the time I twist restlessly against my restraints, desperate to feel him against me. The heat of his skin is maddening, tantalizing. But he doesn’t touch me with anything except his mouth.
Eventually I can’t help myself. “Please,” I whimper. “Oh God, Matteo, please…” And I arch up towards him, even though I know he might punish my again. Or is that why I do it?
I don’t know. I can’t think.
When his mouth connects with my slick folds, it rips a desperate moan from my throat. He buries his face between my thighs and he lashes my clit with his tongue, then probes my entrance, dipping inside just enough to make me moan and press against his mouth. I get my wish then, and he touches me with his hands…but only to grip my hips with bruising strength and hold me still as he works me with his lips and tongue, French-kissing me intimately until I’m trembling on the verge of a melting, shattering orgasm.
Then he draws back, his gaze heavy with possessive desire. His cock is thick and hard against his belly, the tip beaded with a pearl of pre-cum, just as it was that first time when he instructed me to suck him.
I’m half mad with desire, but I still feel a tremor of fear as he drips lube into his palm and rubs it up and down the length of his massive cock, making it glisten. Will he really be able to fit inside me? Will it bring me pleasure rather than pain? And do I even know the difference anymore?
My breath stops as he positions its head at my entrance. I think maybe my heart stops too. I feel as though I’m suspended in a frozen moment of time, wanting and yearning and ne
eding but also afraid. And then he pushes inside me in a single fierce thrust.
He takes my virginity, and as he pierces me, I tense and still. A flame of pain flares up inside me, but there’s pleasure too, burning me up from the inside, and as he starts to move inside me, the pleasure kindles to life and the pain recedes, and I’m climbing and climbing towards an exquisite, shattering bliss, and then I’m flying…and falling…
Afterwards, I lie in his arms, this man who is hard and fierce and passionate enough to keep me safe from anyone and anything, and I know he’ll never let anything harm me. He dips his fingers gently and tenderly between my thighs, and I see that promise has been sealed with blood.
I am mortified when he takes the bloodstained white sheets to the doorway and hands them to Roberto, who will take them out and display them to everyone who attended the wedding. They have to wait to see the sheets before they leave.
Matteo takes me to the bath and lovingly washes me off.
“And now, this is for scaring me when Concetta kidnapped you,” he says.
“I couldn’t help it!” I protest. “I didn’t want to go!” As long as we’re still in this house, Mischa is listening to us. But we leave right after the consummation of the wedding, thank God.
Matteo grins fiercely. “Oh, arguing with your new husband? Double punishment.”
I am forced to lie back down on the bed, and he drips hot candle wax on me
Then he puts clamps on my nipples and flicks them off with his hands, over and over until I’m whimpering and begging him to stop.
Finally he gathers me in his arms. “A brief rest, and then we will go to our new home, my beloved bride.”
Chapter 20
Natasha
The reception is held late in the afternoon at a venue in town, which is half an hour from Matteo’s beautiful, amazing house. He lives – we live – in an Italianate villa that was built by Matteo’s great-uncle.
Matteo: A Dark Mafia Hate Story Page 16
