Dimitri (The Italian Cartel Book 1)

by Shandi Boyes

  I didn’t see the men sleeping with my mother—I didn’t even see her—all I saw was two bodies becoming one, the gripping of flesh, and harmonic sounds I’d never heard before. I saw how the simplest movements could change the light in someone’s eyes in an instant.

  I saw beauty when all I should have seen was darkness.

  When my grandparents discovered the reason for my almost erotic drawings in grade five, my grandfather contacted the first shrink he found. He was mortified like Dimitri, confident there was something horrendously wrong with me.

  Mercifully, my grandmother saw past my chipped exterior and overstimulated curiosity. She understood my vividly graphic drawings weren’t to recreate acts I should have never seen. I wanted to recapture a unique beauty I hadn’t seen since I went to live with my grandparents, not live in wickedly naughty thoughts.

  My nanna was light years ahead of her time. She taught me it was okay to be sexually inquisitive as long as I wasn’t being forced against my will to explore it nor encouraging others to experiment in ways they weren’t comfortable. She slackened my lead with things like reading novels not recommended for my age but retightened it when she believed my curiosity couldn’t be curbed in a non-physical manner.

  Her system was faultless until that night in the alleyway a year ago. There was no beauty in my previous exchanges with Eddie, no crackles in the air, or breathy, wordless moans. There was nothing but lackluster, lifeless exchanges that had me wondering if the memories of my childhood were as jaded as my devilishly immoral compass.

  Then he arrived out of nowhere as dark and dangerous as ever. When I spotted Dimitri, the faintest trickle of desire floating through my veins switched to a full-blown pandemic of heated rushes and core-clenching tingles. Every inch of my body tightened in anticipation. I was trapped, mesmerized, and finally free from the chains that had held me down for years.

  It wasn’t just him watching me that heightened my senses to beyond belief. It was wondering what he’d do to me if he weren’t a spectator, how I’d react if his hand were to replace Eddie’s. Would the light in my eyes change like they did for my mother, or would they fill with tears like hers did every time my father’s friends left?

  Although the thought of discovering the truth should have haunted me more than it did, my nanna’s constant reminder that I’m a perfectly balanced and normal person kept it on the back burner.

  I’m an adult now, so it’s perfectly okay to be fascinated with sex. I just had to find the right person to spark a response out of me.

  Dimitri does that. He just wishes it wasn’t true.

  He hasn’t looked at me the same since Thursday night. Other than ordering for my hair to be peroxided back to the blonde coloring it had been in the alleyway over a year ago, he enters our shared room well after the noise in this fortress-like bunker dies down and exits long before a member of his staff enters with my breakfast.

  It feels as if I could stand in front of him naked, and he wouldn’t notice me. He hasn’t even checked to see if the chemical peel a well-known dermatologist placed on my scar worked, and he paid out the ass for an emergency appointment.

  I guess his rejection should be expected. If someone repulses you, the last thing you’d ever feel for them is desire.

  With another sigh, I shift my eyes to watch a middle-aged European woman exit my room. The brittle beat of my pulse notches up a little when I fail to hear the lock latching into place before her shadow disappears from underneath my door. I’m usually confined to my room, the order to keep me under lock and key handed down from above. No one here would ever do anything to defy Dimitri because they fear him as much as I do. There’s just one difference. Their fear is that he will kill them. Mine is that he’ll never look at me like he did in the alleyway over a year ago.

  Forever curious, and somewhat willing to break the rules with the hope of forcing a response out of Dimitri, I throw my legs off the bed I’m sitting on before tiptoeing across the room.

  My heart rate jumps into a cantor when the lowering of the door handle isn’t hindered by a reinforced latch. I’m uncuffed, and my door isn’t fastened by prison-like bolts.

  After a quick breather to ensure I don’t collapse from a lack of oxygen to my brain, I carefully peel open the door. This could be a test, however failing has never scared me. As long as you get back up, you can fall as many times as you’d like.

  The party-like atmosphere I’ve heard through the floor of my room the past three nights booms into my ears the more I move down the corridor. The ambiance gives off an elegant, ritzy feeling compared to the grittiness of a nightclub. It probably helps that this fortress is more suitable for a king than rough-and-ready mafia men. The drapes are thick and expensive, and all the fittings are top-of-the-line. So much detail has been placed in every inch of this hallway, I’m confident in saying it’s better fitted than my apartment building and ten times more expensive.

  Although I’m not dressed as flashy as the people milling around, they let me slip by with only the quickest glance. There’s too much beauty to drink in to worry about little ole me ruining the glamourous atmosphere.

  “Hello,” I murmur to a couple getting friendly against the wall leading to the curved stairwell.

  Who am I to judge their hookup location? At least they’re under the privacy of someone’s residence.

  When I leap off the final stair, I take an urgent step back. Dimitri is in a formal sitting area to the right of the stairwell. He’s swirling an amber-colored liquid around a whiskey glass while talking to a group of men. Although the closest women to him are several feet away, an intense rage of jealousy blasts through my veins. All the women are topless, and their pleated miniskirts leave nothing to the imagination. I’m not going to mention how they can’t take their eyes off Dimitri, or I might do something more stupid than cry into the chest of a cartel kingpin.

  Certain I’ll be booted from festivities the instant Dimitri spots me, I head in the direction opposite to the room he’s seated in. Even with most of Dimitri’s ‘guests’ not speaking English, it appears as if they’re having a good time. The gaming area is overflowing with men placing bets at a line of craps tables while smoking cigars. Unlike the room Dimitri is in, the topless women in this part of the compound are either seated on the men’s laps or accepting their bets.

  The further I travel, the more excitement slicks my skin. This is unlike any party I’ve ever been to, but it doesn’t make it any less exhilarating. Think of the dirtiest, riskiest, most all-out naughtiest event you’ve ever wished to attend. Now double it. That’ll give you an idea of the ‘festivities’ Dimitri and his guests are being wooed with.

  It’s as if Vegas and Times Square had a baby. Everything you could possibly want is in the one space—scantily dressed women dancing in crystal birdcages, acrobatic gymnasts daringly floating above your head, bloody men fighting bare-knuckled in a UFC-authentic cage, and gambling is in abundance.

  There’s even sex if you enter the right room.

  Hot, raunchy, sweat-producing sex.

  I hesitate for a beat before entering the square box with only one solid wall. Although the couple going for it in clear-view for all to see are too engrossed with each other to pay me any attention, I can’t help but wonder if I’m walking headfirst into a trap.

  With how much sexually stimulating content this party is pumping out, I’m not surprised a viewing area I’ve only ever read about is empty. I’m more disappointed than anything. The priciest artwork can’t compete with the beauty of two bodies intimately joining.

  After wetting my dry lips, I enter the sex-scented space, willing to take a risk even if it kills me. With three out of four walls being floor-to-ceiling glass, I’m soon awarded an unimpeded view of three couples in various stages of undress. The cube on my right has a topless blonde on her knees about to suck the cock of a man whose mask is shielding half his attractive face.

  The couple directly in front of me is ticking off eve
ry office romance novel checklist. A brunette with lace-topped stockings and black-rimmed glasses has her thong-covered backside planted on a desk covered in papers while an almost still fully clothed dark-haired man in a fiercely cut suit pounds into her. She calls him ‘boss’ on repeat while he refers to her as his ‘naughty little secretary.’

  Although the two exchanges I just told you about are appealing to the eye, the couple on my left is far more interesting. They’re not just producing a feast for the eyes with needy grabs and fluidly precise rocks of their hips, they have my ears satisfied as well. They’re the most vocal of the group, and if the way the orange-haired man has his partner bent over the couch is anything to go by, this isn’t the first time they’ve fucked. They move together so well, I’m mesmerized by them in under a minute. It’s a beautiful scene of pounding flesh, light-altering eyes, and moans I’ve only heard leave my mouth once before.

  If I had a sketchpad and a chunk of charcoal at the ready, I’d be in my ideal fantasy. I don’t care that they’re fucking or that I’m sneakily witnessing them at their most venerable. It’s the raw magnificence of the exchange I’m paying attention to. The way sweat rolls down the blonde’s temples every time the man plunges his veiny penis inside her, how the light above their heads enhances the wetness on his thick shaft, and then there’s their undeniable connection. It’s so blistering hot, my skin perspires as if I have just ran a marathon.

  The heat bouncing off them has my temperature rising as rapidly as my panic when the only shroud of light lighting up the room is suddenly blanketed by a large, brooding frame. The poor condition means I can barely see an inch of my approacher’s face, however I don’t need to see his features to know who he is. His aura is telling enough.

  “I kept your name off the guest list to ensure you didn’t end up in this room, and where do you venture to the instant you’re freed from captivity?” I can’t see Dimitri’s face, but I can imagine his scold when he answers his question on my behalf. “In the very room you have no right to be in.”

  When he enters the space now feeling ten times smaller, the sound of skin slapping skin fades into the background. I can’t hear anything but my raging pulse. Dimitri’s eyes are holding the same murderous gleam they had when Eddie found my clit, and his jaw is so firm, I’m afraid it’s about to crack.

  I discover the reason for his fury when he slants his head to the side and growls, “Get out.”

  Sickness rolls through my stomach when a man I hadn’t noticed in the corner of the black space stands from a chair. Even with conditions being poor, my eyes have adjusted enough to the dark to understand his intentions. The crotch of his trousers is extended past the length of his zipper, and his belt is undone and hanging loosely in front of his stout thighs.

  Although he’s as tall as Dimitri and almost as wide, he appears the size of a dwarf when he commences shimmying past Dimitri’s ominous frame. Dimitri could take a step to the side to give him a clear passage, but he won’t. He won’t do anything that will risk him taking his scorning eyes off me. He’s pissed the stranger witnessed my immorality, and he’s more than happy to make sure I’m aware of that.

  His scorn makes me all types of hot. It also tells me why he’s arrived out of the blue. I disobeyed him. As far as he’s concerned, that’s cause for punishment.

  I’m tempted to follow the stranger’s flee when he squeezes through the minute portion of air Dimitri’s menacing frame isn’t taking up, but lose the chance when Dimitri takes another step. My feet root into the floor, both mesmerized by the fury radiating out of him and scared. I don’t think he will hurt me, but in a way, that’s as scary as the thought of him never touching me.

  “Do you know what this room is, Roxanne?” His voice is low and husky in the quiet of my wickedly dreary thoughts. It demands my attention even more than the couples fucking around me. I don’t pay them an ounce of attention. My focus is entirely gobbled up by the brute of a man in front of me.

  When I nod, Dimitri tsks me like I’m a child. Determined to prove I’m not as stupid as he thinks, I fold my arms in front of my chest to hide the rattle of my hands before mumbling, “It’s a viewing chamber. They’re usually found in BDSM clubs or fetish dungeons. They’re for people who enjoy watching others have sex.”

  “Close.” He takes another step my way, trapping my perception as well as smarts. My clit is buzzing more now than it was when the ginger-haired man bent his date over the two-seater sofa to take her from behind. “This is a play space for people who like being watched.” The dark, shiny locks framing his face fall away when he peers up at the ceiling. “The voyeurs are up there.”

  Like magic, the black ceiling that appears to be made out of glass turns transparent. It unveils a group of thirty to forty people glancing down at us with hungry, wanton eyes.

  Shit.

  “They…” Dimitri’s eyes are still on the people watching our every move, “… pay good money to watch people have sex.” Once his eyes are back on my face, he drags his teeth over his lower lip. “However, you can hire these pods for other things.” The ceiling shifts back to its original setting when he takes another step closer to me. “You can suck your brother-in-law’s dick without guilt, fuck your secretary without your wife knowing. You can even celebrate your fifth wedding anniversary if that’s your kink.” His eyes shift to each couple he’s referencing before he returns them to me. “You can even be punished here when you don’t do as you’re told.”

  The coolness of a wooden desk brushes my backside when Dimitri’s next step sees me taking a giant one back. I’m not scared of the menace in his tone. I need something to balance on to ensure my legs remain upright. That’s how smoking hot his voice is when its fueled by undeniable anger.

  “What did I tell you to do tonight, Roxanne?” he asks after taking in the faintest press of my thighs.

  “You said—”

  “Louder.”

  I swallow the saliva threatening to pool in the corner of my mouth before trying again. “You said I was to stay in my room until you returned.”

  He smiles like my submissiveness is hardening his cock.

  If the bulge in his trousers is anything to go by, it is.

  “Is this your room, Roxanne?”

  When I shake my head, he arches a thick brow, demanding a voiced response.

  Bossy bastard.

  “No. This isn’t my room.”

  Another step is closely followed by another squeeze of my thighs. “Then why are you here?”

  With this the simplest question to answer, I reply, “I wanted to join in—”

  “Louder.”

  “I wanted to join in,” I almost shout. “I don’t like that you’re excluding me.”

  His smirk would have you convinced I said what I really wanted to say. That the more he ignores me, the more I crave his attention. I’m like a disobedient child who doesn’t understand good attention far exceeds bad attention. I want it in any way I can get it.

  I guess that’s why my father’s endeavors to embarrass me didn’t work?

  With my mood not as chipper as it once was, I attempt to sidestep Dimitri. “I’ll go back to my room.”

  He grips the top of my arm before I’m halfway to the door. It isn’t a painful hold, but it’s most certainly a domineering one. “If you want to be included, Roxanne, I’m more than happy to include you.”

  I don’t know whether to gleam with shock or horror when he requests me to lean over the desk and raise my ass high in the air.

  “W-w-what?”

  I realize the spectators can hear us as clearly as we can hear them when Dimitri repeats, “Lean over the desk and stick your ass in the air.” They’re as turned on by his domineering command as me, they just vocalize their excitement, whereas I remain as quiet as a church mouse. “Don’t make me repeat myself, Roxanne. I am not a patient man.”

  I’m torn. I don’t want to agitate him more than I already have, and I’m super curious to see where
he’s going with this, but only now am I realizing I don’t want to be fucked in front of spectators. I don’t want anyone but the person I’m sleeping with to see if the light in my eyes changes. It isn’t something I want to share.

  With that in mind, I shake my head. “No.”

  Dimitri balks like I slapped him. “What did you say?”

  “I said no.” I run a shaky hand across my cheeks to ensure they’re still dry before adding, “I want to be a part of the festivities, not fucked like a whore.”

  He lowers his head until we meet eye to eye. “Who said I was going to fuck you?” He cages me to the desk by bracing his tattooed hands on each side of my hips and leaning in really close. The strong smell of whiskey bounds from his mouth when he whispers in my ear, “These rooms are only rented for an hour.” He locks his eyes with mine. They’re as blistering as ever. “I’d need a lot longer than that to work out all your kinks.” I don’t know if he’s sucking in the scent of my arousal or fear when his nostrils flare during his next statement. Either way, it doubles the width of his pupils. “But your punishment for entering this room with another man won’t take an hour. I’ll have your ass as red as your cheeks in not even five minutes.”

  I respond to the jealousy in his tone as if it’s legitimate. “I didn’t know he was sitting there. I would have never entered if I knew he was there.”

  “These rooms are for fucking, Roxanne. You only enter them to be fucked or to fuck someone.” When he takes a step back, the mask he was wearing when he entered the room slips back over his face. My closeness didn’t calm his agitation. It made it worse. “Mitis thought you were here for him, and he was prepared to make you his no matter how many times you begged him not to.” The expression on his face reveals he isn’t lying. This isn’t a room where ‘no’ is acknowledged. “That alone deserves punishment for both of you.”

  I have a feeling I’ll leave this exchange less scarred than Mitis. The vicious glint in Dimitri’s eyes assures me of this, much less the murderous smirk etched on his face when his eyes shifted to the door Mitis snuck through only moments ago.