Abducted

by K. I. Lynn

  I scooted back as I bit down on my bottom lip. The excitement thrummed through my veins. He stalked each inch I moved, waiting for the right moment to strike, which only lit me up more.

  A game of cat and mouse, and I couldn’t wait until he caught me.

  I smiled at him, teasing him with a cup of my breasts, a flick of my nipples, and an undulation of my hips. I drew him in just as I had done to so many others from the stage, waking the beast with each tease.

  A growl vibrated in his chest as he grabbed hold of my ankle and pulled me to the middle of the bed. A giggle escaped me, my body heating with each heartbeat of anticipation.

  He crawled up the bed, his body covering mine, caging me against the bed.

  “You think you can get away from me?” he asked with a quirk of his eyebrow as he gave a playful nip to my lower lip.

  “What are you going to do if I did, la Bestia?”

  A growl vibrated in his chest and he crashed his lips to mine. His lips demanded, his tongue caressed, and I melted into it.

  “You shouldn’t have called me that.” There was a hard edge to his tone, but before I could ask why, he moved to my neck and bit down.

  I drew in a sharp breath, shuddering in his arms. Another bite to my shoulder and my nails dug into his back.

  Each inch he trailed down my body was punctuated with a kiss or lick. The closer he got to where I desperately needed him, the slower he went.

  “Domenico,” I whimpered, my hips moving of their own accord, trying to draw him in.

  He growled against my hip bone as he ran his hands down my thighs. He grabbed my legs just above my knees and pushed, pressing my legs open until they were flat against the bed. A swift tug of my panties and the fabric ripped.

  I could have easily slipped them off, but the raw energy radiating from him was intoxicating and I loved all of it. His nose brushed against my clit, his breath brushing against my sensitive skin. I shook in anticipation, desperate for more, but he was taking his time.

  He nipped my thigh, moving slowly down to my knee, then back. My muscles tensed in anticipation, only to be denied as he skipped to my other leg, progressing in the same slow, teasing path.

  I was so worked up, desperate to grab hold of his head and put his mouth right when I wanted it. A flick of his tongue against my clit sent a jolt through my body, and my head fell back to the bed.

  Another whimper. “Fuck!” I cried out.

  Again he denied me, his mouth continuing its slow assault to my nerves. When I felt his breath against my clit, I was near tears.

  “So wet for me,” he said with a moan of appreciation before he ran his tongue up the length of my slit.

  My body was shaking, my pussy pulsed, and I was on the verge of crying from sheer desperation.

  “Please,” I begged.

  He nuzzled my clit, then gave it another flick. “Please, what?”

  I shook my head, my eyes fluttering closed as I fisted the bed sheets. His whole mouth covered my pussy, his tongue lapping at my juices. My whole body tensed, muscles locking down as I reached the precipice, but before I could fall he pulled away.

  “No!” I cried out.

  He was smirking down at me, at the misery he had me in. Moving up, he nestled his hips between mine and pushed his length against my wet pussy lips. I dug my heels into the bed and raised my hips, grasping for the friction I desperately needed.

  His hand wrapped around the side of my neck, his thumb running across my bottom lip. “What do you want, princess? Tell me.”

  A whimper left me as I pressed up harder. “I want you to fuck me.”

  His thumb moved down and joined the rest of his fingers around my neck as he leaned down. The intensity of his eyes boring into mine sent a shiver down my spine. I was so close, and he kept denying me.

  I reached for him, but before I could pull him closer he grabbed my wrist and pinned it to the bed.

  “I don’t want to fuck you,” he whispered against my lips.

  I blinked at him in confusion. I was desperate for him, near madness, but he didn’t want me?

  He shifted his hips, and I drew in a ragged breath as the tip of his cock pressed in.

  “Yes,” I hissed as he slowly entered me. My eyes rolled back and I shuddered when he was fully seated inside me.

  “I’m going to savor you.”

  Slow, deliberate strokes stoked the fire, building me up again while denying me release. It was torture, sweet torture.

  Each stroke further intoxicated me until I was drunk on him, on the pleasure only he could give me.

  “You’re mine, Ari, and I’m not letting you go.”

  He pulled back and slammed back in, making me cry out. He changed his pace to long, hard strokes. Every muscle tightened and my back arched.

  “Sempre.”

  Always.

  No longer slow and savoring, Domenico pounded into me like it was his purpose in life.

  Everything snapped as he drove me over the edge, never letting up as I pulsed around him. My vision whited out and I was lost in pleasure, unable to comprehend anything around me except the groans against my ear as he slammed in a final time.

  His head fell into the crook of my neck and it was minutes before either one of us moved.

  “I think I’ll keep you,” I whispered, earning a chuckle against my neck.

  “You’re never getting rid of me.”

  The next morning I woke in my favorite spot—nestled in Domenico’s arms. There was a security there, a peace I didn’t know I had so desperately needed for years.

  His eyes were focused over my shoulder, and I realized he was staring at his phone.

  “Anything?”

  He shook his head. “Nobody last night. Nobody today.”

  That was a good thing. “I know you need the break, but I hate not knowing what the next step is.”

  “Because the next step isn’t written.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  He blew out a breath and set the phone down. “I’m cursed into this life. An heir and an abomination, turned into a beast and shackled to the role of executioner.”

  “If you weren’t shackled, what would you do?” I asked. Could we break the chains that bound us? Run away from this life that hunted us down and start anew?

  “If I was to ever get out of the life, I would go to Italy. Live on a boat and sail around the Med.”

  My eyes widened. “That was fast.”

  He shrugged. “When I was a child, I longed to be free of the Ferrante name, to leave the confines of this city.”

  “What if you can never break free?”

  “Then I will live as long as I can, live as much as I can, but only if you are beside me.”

  I stared at him, at what he was saying, what he was offering. “No offer will sway you?”

  “None that do not include you.”

  I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and drew him close. “Why do you want me so much?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because we’re both trapped. Perhaps you are one of the few who could ever understand.”

  “Perhaps it’s fate.”

  He nodded. “But fate is often cruel and demands a price.”

  “Then we will pay it. Together.”

  “Princess, if you aren’t with me, there’s nothing to stop me from finding Roman and having a deathmatch. Keeping you safe, loving you, is all I have.”

  My life was a wreck, the road behind me completely destroyed in a crumbled heap and unnavigable. The road ahead filled in with each step I took, with no forecast. A gamble with no security of a future.

  “You have one hell of a way of getting a girl’s attention, Mr. Ferrante.”

  It wasn’t a sound I’d heard in days, though I’d kept it plugged in while we were at my grandfather’s. After a day there I’d remembered his phone and located it in a tray full of his things. One of the maids had been able to get me a charger, and I’d kept it on me. I wasn’t su
re why I had, but I remembered Domenico saying he was waiting for word, and I didn’t want to miss it. Anything that could help with our path forward.

  After he was released from the infirmary, I gave it back.

  A week had passed in silence, but it was going off nonstop.

  “What is it?” I asked as he picked up the phone.

  “Marco.”

  I froze. “What about him?”

  He mashed his teeth together, the sharp angle of his jaw even more severe. “Roman tortured him to get information on us.”

  My eyes widened. It shouldn’t have surprised me. Marco was Domenico’s closest ally, and Roman would assume he knew where we were. “Is he okay?”

  He stretched his neck to the side, letting loose a cacophony of pops. “He’s in the hospital. Loyalty has been split between me and Roman.”

  “And your father?” I asked. Surely he would have some influence over the fight between his sons.

  “Is uncharacteristically quiet,” he said. “He has been the entire time. He should be sending more men out to find us, but he’s been leaving it up to my crew.”

  “And here we sit right under their noses.” That thought was a bit unnerving.

  “Because this is my castle, not my father’s. Few know where it is.”

  “And why didn’t we come here sooner?” I asked.

  “Because it was the first place Roman would have looked.”

  “You just said few know,” I pointed out.

  He nodded. “My family knows, which was why we couldn’t come here. It was being watched, and it will probably receive visitors again in the next few days.”

  “If it wasn’t Roman, who has been watching it?” I asked. There seemed to be more working parts in the Ferrante family that I knew of.

  “Those were my father’s guards.”

  I shook my head. “I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me again.”

  He remained silent.

  “By the way, whatever happened to my phone?” I asked. It wasn’t in my Louis Vuitton bag.

  His lips formed a thin line. “After I told your fucktoy of yours you were leaving and not returning, I put my heel through it then threw it in the river.”

  My eyes widened as I stared at him. “You told Mac I was leaving?” No wonder nobody was looking for me. It wasn’t uncommon for girls at the club to leave suddenly.

  He pulled me close. “You were mine, even then.”

  The whistle of the teapot brought me to my feet, and I pulled it from the burner. I was a little surprised he had one, but I was thankful. Reaching up, I pulled two teacups, actual teacups and not coffee mugs, down from the cabinet.

  My skin caught on a sharp edge, and I inspected the rim.

  “This teacup has a chip,” I said. “You should probably get rid of it.”

  In two steps he was in front of me, and in a move of gentleness I’d never seen, he lifted the cup from my hands.

  “That was my mother’s favorite,” he whispered as he placed it back in the cabinet. His fingers lingered on the fine china.

  That was why he had a kettle. His mother must have been a tea drinker, and he’d gotten it from her.

  “Why her favorite?” I asked, desperate to know everything I could about him.

  He leaned into the counter. “When I was six or seven my parents were having a bit of a rough patch, probably due to Renata. In an effort to cheer her up I decided I would help out. As I was washing the cup in slipped and fell back into the water, hitting another dish. I was so upset when I pulled it from the water and saw the chip, but when I showed it to her she hugged me and said it was her favorite now because I’d washed it with love.”

  He was silent as he stood, his gaze still locked on the cup.

  “What happened to her?” I asked, and chastised myself for not asking before. He knew all about my mother, but I hadn’t even asked where his was.

  The muscles in his back coiled. “She died.”

  “How?” I stepped up behind him and placed my hand between his shoulder blades. The muscles relaxed under my touch.

  “Fucking cancer,” he spit. “I was seventeen when she was diagnosed. They gave her two to three months, and at two she was gone.”

  I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around his waist, placing a kiss against his skin. “Who are you, Domenico?”

  He was silent as he thought about what I was asking. “I’m la Bestia. I want to be a man for you, Ari, but I don’t know how. I’ve been the beast for so long, covered in the blood of Ferrante’s enemies, that I don’t know how to be anything else.”

  “There’s more to you than that,” I said. I had seen it firsthand, felt it.

  “Is there?”

  “Even my grandfather saw it. Diplomacy, respect, order…there is a reason you were so high in the ranks at such a young age.”

  A chuckle left him. “You don’t even know how old I am.”

  I hummed against his skin and ran my fingers up his chest. “Twenty-eight?”

  “Twenty-nine.”

  It felt so good to have skin-on-skin contact. It was calming in a way I’d never experienced before, filled a void of longing I didn’t know I had.

  “I have a question,” I said, earning a wary look.

  “That I’m probably not going to want to answer.”

  I shrugged. “I can give you a hand job while I do it if that makes it better.”

  His tongue swiped against his bottom lip. “Snug inside your pussy would be better.”

  “Deal.” A small chuckle left me. “You’re a Ferrante, and you marked me, so why did we have to run? Couldn’t you have gone to your father?”

  “Yes and no. There was a lot going on you weren’t aware of.”

  Being seen as little worth, Domenico would probably be surprised with how much information I’d caught. “I know there was grumbling in the ranks. Roman’s plotting.”

  “It was more than grumbling, and you know it. Roman gained supporters. Now that we know he was in league with your father, it makes sense why he would try to overthrow me.”

  “Would that have worked?” I asked.

  His brow furrowed. “If they killed me, yes, but Roman isn’t subtle. The larger the crew, the more unruly they became. Roman was angry when I marked you with my name.”

  When he marked me? “Why, then?”

  “Because I laid claim that you were my property. Once ownership is established, I can defend my property.”

  Property? Was I an object?

  “I really don’t like being referred to as property.”

  He shook his head. “That is the best way for me to make you understand. If he had tried to take you again, I would be in my rights to get retribution.”

  My gaze moved to his scar and I reached up and trailed the path with my finger. He didn’t flinch or pull back, but let me explore and understand. “Shouldn’t you have gotten that for what Roman has already done to you?”

  “Hurting me is one thing—my property is another.”

  I shook my head. It didn’t make sense to me, but if I had to be referred to as an object for us to get some leniency, so be it.

  “Time for a bandage change,” I said as I pulled at his shirt.

  “What happened to my relief?” he asked with a huff of annoyance.

  “It’ll have to wait until this is done.” I’d made sure that he kept up on his meds. An infection was the last thing we needed.

  His fingers curled around my neck and he tugged me to his chest. “You’re treating me like an invalid. Do I need to remind you what I am physically capable of?”

  I quirked a brow at him as I lowered to my knees. “Oh, I know. You’re supposed to be taking it easy, but you just can’t stop, can you?” I worked the edge of tape with my finger while he set his hand on my head and rocked his hips forward.

  “Never,” he said through clenched teeth as I pulled the tape from his skin.

  My brow furrowed as I looked over the area. I needed to
find a new place to tape, as his skin was getting raw from the constant application, and subsequent tearing off.

  “How does it look?” he asked, not flinching as I probed the area around the scab, then the one in back. The bruising was still bad, but fading. The wound itself seemed to be healing and the swelling had gone down.

  “It’s looking better. You still need to keep it wrapped.” I dug into the bag of supplies the doctor had sent us with, but soon became frantic. “Shit.”

  “What is it?”

  I shuffled things around, hoping it would appear. “We’re out of gauze.”

  “There is some in the master bath closet.”

  I nodded and ran up the steps. Scouring the shelves and containers of medical supplies, I saw there was only a small strip of gauze that remained.

  “Out,” I said as I reached the last few steps, holding the remaining strip.

  He blew out a breath. “We’re also out of food.” The fridge doors were open, showcasing the bare shelves. The pantry was down to the dregs.

  Half the food in the fridge had gone bad by the time we arrived, and there wasn’t much to begin with. We’d come up with some interesting concoctions for more than one meal. The pantry hadn’t been fully stocked, so we wiped out what little was in there in no time.

  It was obvious he was a bachelor who wasn’t home often.

  At least there was a lifetime supply of tea.

  The idea of leaving had my stomach in knots, but the truth was it had to happen at some point. Whether it was to the next step in this game of chess or for provisions, we had to brave the world at some point.

  After getting dressed, Domenico checked the feed of the surveillance cameras. “They’re gone again.”

  Whoever was watching had stopped by once and stayed for a few hours. While they were here, we spent time in the basement watching TV, curled up on the couch like a normal couple.

  We were anything but normal, and that was okay, but it made me appreciate those moments more. There was safety, love, and protection in his arms—things I never would have believed six weeks ago.

  Another hard thing to wrap my head around—only a month and a half had passed since he’d pulled me from the street. I never imagined we would end up where we were. That I couldn’t imagine my life without him by my side.