He held out his hand to me and I hurried over, knelt down in front of him and, desperately clutched his bony hand. The skin on his palms had become as soft as a woman’s. He regarded me closely.
“You’ve lost weight,” he said.
“So have you,” I replied.
“I have cancer, what’s your excuse?”
I smiled, it was wobbly, but it was a smile. “I’ve been worried sick out of my mind about you having cancer.”
“Then why didn’t you come see me? And don’t give me that cock and bull story about being too busy. I’m fighting for my life and I know you. Nothing would have kept you away unless...”
He gazed at me, hoping he would see something in my eyes, but I kept my eyes blank.
“Unless it’s to do with me. To do with getting more money for me. Is that it? Are you trying to raise more money for me?”
I let a smile spread on to my face. “Yes, I was and good news. I’ve found someone who is prepared to help.” I hoped with all my heart that it would stop there.
He frowned and shook his head. “You’re lying to me about something. You haven’t done something illegal, have you?”
I groaned. “Of course not.”
“If you don’t tell me the truth right now I’m not going to use any more of the money,” he threatened.
“Dad!”
“I’m not joking with you.”
“I’m not lying to you, Dad. I’m really not. I didn’t steal, or kill, or commit any crimes for it. I would never do that. I got lucky and found someone to lend me the money.”
He stared into my eyes for a while longer. “Who is this generous soul?”
“If you get better soon, I’ll introduce you. How about that?”
He nodded slowly.
“How did you fall?” I asked.
“I didn’t fall,” he replied with a snort. “I just slightly slipped when I was getting out of the shower and twisted my ankle. So I’m stuck to this damn thing till I heal.”
The phone in the living room started ringing, and Laura jumped up from the chair she was sitting on, and went to answer it.
I leaned forward and encased my father in a gentle hug. I could smell the sickness inside him and it brought fresh tears to my eyes. I never wanted to pull away from him. I wished I could take the sickness inside my own body and fight it myself, but I couldn’t.
“There, there,” he said softly. “Don’t cry, little Skye. It’s all going to be alright.”
“Just fight, Dad. Fight hard for me. I still need you. If you die, I’ll be all alone in the world. Don’t let the disease win,” I sobbed.
“I’m fighting it, honey. I’m fighting it as hard as I can.”
I could hear Laura’s footsteps in the corridor so I kissed him on the cheek and straightened.
“Why did you call Laura a piranha?”
“Because she’s vicious,” he said, but I could tell from his tone that he didn’t mean it and had just been lashing out. “She hasn’t shut up about the fall yet, constantly insisting for me to call on her help at all times.”
“You need to be nicer to her, Dad.”
“I know,” he said, just as Laura walked into the kitchen.
“Who was it?” Dad asked.
“The hospital,” she replied, but something in her tone made me look at her.
“What is it?” I asked worriedly.
She looked at me in a daze. “They’re sending an ambulance to take your father in. Apparently, it’s all arranged. A team of specialists are going to examine him and they are going to undertake the treatment for him immediately. I asked them who was going to pay for everything, but they said all the expenses would be covered by an insurance company. Do you know what’s going on, Skye?”
“Yes, it must have been my friend who arranged it all. He said he was going to help, but I didn’t expect him to be so swift.”
“Who is this man?” Dad asked.
I turned to him. “He is that man I told you about earlier who said he would help. Get better soon and you can meet him and thank him yourself for his help.”
Both Dad and Laura seemed struck dumb and I knew Luca’s driver was waiting two houses down.
“I have to go now, but I’ll call tomorrow and be back in a couple of days.”
“You’re leaving already?” he asked, immensely disappointed. “Why don’t you stay here for a few days?”
“Soon, Dad," I said and lowered my face to place one last kiss on his forehead. “Very soon.”
Chapter 15
Luca
It was late evening when I arrived back in Boston.
I wasn’t feeling good. Blood had been shed today. I didn’t do wet work, but I might as well have. It was to my orders my men maimed and murdered. Out there somewhere in the burning depths of hell there was another stain on my wall of sin. Sometimes I dreamed of that wall. I dreamt I was washing it. Meticulously, washing, but as soon as I finished the ugly stain returned.
But it was not that, that bothered me now.
It was a feeling inside my body. A feeling that there must be something better than this. The wealth, the power, the control, the respect, the never-ending parade of women, the dignity of my position, all of it felt like nothing. Dust in my mouth. There was no happiness in my heart.
I was numb.
At times like this I wished I could become as blasé as my father about the dog-eat-dog world we lived in. “What are you crying about? He’d kill you in a heartbeat if the shoe was on the other foot,” he used to say when I was a lot younger, when he was a tiger and I was only a cub. Now he was toothless and I was the capo del capo of our world.
As Cullinan and I drove home through the familiar roads out of the city, the girl came into my mind.
Instantly, I felt my cock twitch with anticipation. The doctor had given her the all clear. Yes, it would be good to sink myself into her heat. Make the heavy feeling go away. I suspected it would only be a temporary release, but even that fleeting moment without the weight of this dread would be welcome. I glanced at my watch. It was much later than I’d expected to be back for dinner, but if she had obeyed the instructions I’d left with Melania, she should be waiting in the dining room for me.
As soon as the car stopped, I ran up the stairs. As usual one of my men had already been alerted and he stood at the front door, ready to open it for me. I went into the house and headed straight for the dining room. At first glance I thought she had disobeyed me and not waited for me, but then I realized she was there.
I stopped at the entrance and stared at the scene before me. This was my dining room, but I almost couldn’t recognize it. The girl. It was the girl. She changed everything.
In the candlelit room, she was seated at the far end of the long dining table, but her fair head was resting on the white tablecloth, and she was busily scribbling onto a small pad with a pencil. She was so deeply engrossed in whatever she was doing she seemed to be totally unaware of my presence.
To my surprise, I found myself curious about the notes she was making, which perversely, annoyed me. Because I wanted to know, I decided to deliberately deprive myself of the knowledge.
I strolled towards my seat, and the movement caught her attention. She immediately jumped to her feet.
My gaze moved down the diamond studded choker around her neck to the silky red dress. How strange. Any other woman would have looked—depending on the size of her tits—slutty or sexy in that dress, but she looked like a slice of heaven, pure, unsullied, and strangely fragile. As if I would stain her purity if I let my sinful hands touch her.
My gaze moved upwards.
I was mesmerized at the magical way the warm glow of the candlelight made her skin glow and illuminated her hair. Her eyes were wide and uncertain. I walked up to her and I touched her mouth. It was the thing that first caught my eye when I saw her in Soleiman’s living room.
Her skin was soft and silky… and covered in a layer of red lipstick. I picked up a w
hite napkin laying on the table and wiped the lipstick off. All the while she simply stood there, like a doll. Like my doll. I could do anything with her. I had bought her. I had left a slight stain on the skin around her lips, which I liked. It made her look less pure, but I might have been too rough in my efforts to erase the lipstick, because her lips now looked swollen.
As if she had been sucking on my cock for hours.
Her tongue, pink and small, came out to lick the swollen flesh, and my hands itched to throw her on the table and take her right there and then, but I forced myself not to give in to the need. I wanted to prove to myself I was stronger than any cravings my body had. It was only sex. I could resist her. She was just a woman. All women were just pretty playthings. Never would I trust one again. I would fuck her after dinner and not before.
I moved towards the head of the table and sat down.
“Come and sit next to me,” I invited but even to my own ears, my voice sounded cold and indifferent in the silence of the room.
She obeyed. I liked her walk. Not like a model high stepping her way down a catwalk, but fluid and unconsciously sensuous. It was what caught my eye the first time I saw her walking towards the summerhouse.
“Thank you for all the arrangements you made for my father,” she said, as she lowered herself into the chair next to me.
I had no interest in her gratitude. I hadn’t done it to please her. It was my end of the bargain. In fact, I had no interest in her father’s health or her life outside of our arrangement.
Melania appeared in the doorway. “Good evening, Sir. Would you care for an aperitif before dinner?”
“No, bring in the food,” I replied, not taking my eyes off Skye.
Melania backed away and Skye turned back to me. I reached out and touched her hair. “Is this real?”
Eyes enormous, she nodded. The room became so silent I could almost hear her heartbeat. I let my finger run down her throat, over the choker, to the point where her pulse fluttered like a trapped bird. I rested my finger on that spot, and felt the blood inside her flowing swiftly, frantically.
It reminded me of watching a female lion pretending to be in heat and mating with a marauding lion for days because she was trying to tire the male lion and keep it from finding her cubs hidden not far away in the bushes. I was that marauding beast, and like him, I didn’t care why she was here. It was enough to know that the lion eventually got tired of the lioness. He walked away in the opposite direction of her cubs. She got what she wanted and he got what he wanted. It was a HEA, African plains style.
At that moment Melania returned with three of her staff carrying baskets of bread, a bottle of wine and plates of food. It felt strange to see the others, but then again I never ate here or knew how many staff it took to run this place.
“Seared scallops with parsnip cream and spicy shrimp tapas,” she announced as the girls placed our plates of starters in front of us, and poured wine into our glasses. All the while I never took my eyes away from Skye’s, and as if hypnotized, she couldn’t pull her gaze away from mine.
The need to possess her was so strong, again I wanted to sweep the food, wine, and bread off the table, and mate with her for days. Until I could put her away from me and walk away in the opposite direction of her and her troubled life.
Pulling my hand away from her warm skin, I picked up my glass of wine and took a sip. As I released her gaze I felt her expel her breath in a rush of relief. The wine felt cool on my tongue. Later, I would taste her on my tongue.
Chapter 16
Skye
If I had hoped for an uneventful dinner I would have been very disappointed. He had come so quietly he had startled me out of my own dream world, and now I found it hard to find my equilibrium.
To start with I was already in a complicated mood. On one hand, I was ecstatically happy to know my father was finally going to get the best care possible, but on the other, I felt like a cat on a hot tin roof about my own situation. Being with Luca was nothing like it had been with Salvatore. With the other I was in full control of my feelings and the way my body responded. The only emotions I ever experienced were either shame or disgust, both of which I could handle.
With Luca, I was like dry tinder. One touch and I went up in flames.
Even just now, when he touched my throat, the desire to have his tongue on me again, and to know what his cock inside me would feel like, was so strong I felt heat radiate out of my core. It made my skin feel extra sensitive and I could feel my skin begin to flush.
Luca highly intrigued, attracted, and confused me.
He was so mesmerizing and all I wanted to do was keep on staring at him, but I forced my gaze to drop to my plate. Away from his wolf’s eyes and the scar running down his cheek that his dark evening stubble made more visible. It made him sinfully gorgeous.
What the hell was the matter with me? I stared at my food. It looked more like a piece of modern art than a plate of food. But I could still feel myself free-falling down an unknown abyss, where there was only darkness and those eyes, those translucent eyes watching me fall. Jesus, I really had to get a hold of myself. Before I did something really stupid… like fall in love with him.
I was already acting in ways I never normally would dream of.
Like wearing this red dress tonight. Why had I done it? Did I want him to see me as someone regal and sophisticated and not some woman he had acquired from a two-bit hustler? But how could I possibly want him when he had made it so damn clear all he wanted from me was sex? When he had shown not one ounce of affection. In fact, if I was truly honest with myself he treated me more like a prostitute than Salvatore had ever done. Salvatore had always wrapped it up with indulgence, endearments, presents, and looks of adoration.
I picked up my knife and fork and cut into a golden scallop. I put a tiny dollop of the parsnip cream on it, and slipped it into my mouth. It melted luxuriously on my tongue, and was truly the most delicious thing I’d ever eaten. If I had been with anyone else I would have made a long ‘mmmm’ sound of appreciation, rolled my eyes, and enthusiastically commented on how delicious it was, but with him I was like a frozen statue.
I stole a glance at him and saw no appreciation at all for the delicious food. He appeared to eat his food in the same way I would eat a slice of toast. As if it was not special at all.
Reaching for my glass of wine, I lifted it to my lips and took a sip, and without me realizing it my eyes had found his scar. Something about it drew me. From the first moment I had seen it, I had wanted to run my fingers along the mangled line.
He must have felt my gaze, because he turned suddenly and caught me staring at it. I quickly returned my eyes to my meal, but it was too late. I had fully incited his attention.
His eyes remained on me as I put my glass down and tried to stab a spicy prawn as casually as I could and bring it to my lips. Self-consciously I chewed on the flesh and swallowed, but the heavy silence that filled the space between us made me feel like I was swallowing a tasteless stone. I couldn’t take it anymore. I cleared my throat.
“Did you have a good day?” Great, my voice worked. A bit strained but it sounded clear and calm enough.
“Please do not engage in small talk with me,” he said quietly and carried on eating.
My eyes widened with astonishment. He actually intended to have this whole meal in complete silence. The message couldn’t be clearer: in his opinion nothing I said could be of value and talking to me would be a bore.
Well, I also had a message of mine to send. I allowed my fork to clatter to the plate and it rang loudly in the silence, but I didn’t care. That was the point. Shame my heavy chair made no sound on the plush rug as I scraped it backwards, and rose to my feet.
“In that case, there is no point in me sitting here,” I told him, my voice shaking with emotion. “If you need me later on, you know where to find me.”
A part of me expected him to be rough with me, to grab my hand and pull me back down, b
ut instead he watched me, his light eyes utterly unreadable.
I turned around to walk away and he didn’t stop me. My knees were trembling, in anticipation of retribution.
“Come back and sit down,” his quiet voice cut across the room.
I froze mid-step. Slowly, I turned back around to face him. My lips parted slightly with a response but nothing came out. My blood was roaring in my ear. With a mix of anger and fear churning in my chest I tried again. “What for? It’s clear I have no value for you other than sex. I will wait for you in bed.”
A smile appeared on his lips, but it was brief and mocking. “Is bed the only place you have sex in?”
My mind had gone blank. I swallowed and tried to think of a suitable retort, but there was nothing in my head.
His gaze bored into mine as he leaned into his chair, and the confidence emanating from him felt like a punch to the gut because once again he had succeeded in making me feel gauche and naïve. He picked up a small device on the table and pressed one of the buttons on it. Then his hand went to the buckle of his belt as he said, “Come here.”
I felt my eyes open wide with shock. “The staff…” I whispered in horror. “Any one of them could come in and see us…”
“I’ve activated the Do Not Disturb sign,” he said with a careless shrug, as he rose to his feet and started walking towards me.
My heart jumped into my throat and a lie came to my lips. “I need to use the bathroom first.”
He stopped and looked at me with those unreadable eyes. “No lies, Skye. Remember?”
I stared at him like a deer caught in headlights. “Sorry,” I whispered.
He continued his approach and suddenly, without warning, I felt terror seize me. A deep-seated fear that had me on the edge of sprinting. Not because I didn’t want him to touch me, but because I wanted him to… desperately. I already knew he possessed the ability to bring to life something in me I’d never suspected lay buried inside me.
Beauty and the beast: A Modern Day Fairytale Billionaire Mafia Romance Page 7
