Salvatore: a Dark Mafia Romance (4 page)

“Of course.”

She closed the closet doors and moved over to turn down the bed—another thing I didn’t like. I could turn down my own bed.

“Thank you, Rainey,” I said, dismissing her.

Once she left, I went over and peeked inside the closet. Huge. The racks were full and contained my clothes as well as items that did not belong to me. I checked the size of a dress. Four. He’d probably bought them for me. Or had them bought. I couldn’t see Salvatore Benedetti shopping.

Apart from the bathroom, there stood another door Rainey hadn’t pointed out. I walked over to it, but when I tried to open it, I found it was locked. I’d ask about it tomorrow.

I went into the bathroom and saw the separate shower as well as a bathtub set in the middle of the large space. It was old-fashioned, one with copper feet and fixtures. All surfaces were sparkling clean, and on one of the shelves stood several of my favorite brands of shampoos and body washes. Even bubble bath. I hadn’t had a bubble bath in years. I decided I’d have one instead of a shower.

I turned the taps on in the bath, checked the temperature, and poured in the soap, watching as champagne-pink bubbles began to appear almost instantly. I found a hairclip in one of the sink drawers and piled my hair up on top of my head. The deep auburn mass would fall to the middle of my back when I let it down. As I undressed, I checked out the rest of the space. Everything was high-end, from the gold-veined marble on the floor and countertops to the copper fixtures on the taps. A stack of towels stood on a shelf. I touched them. Soft and luxurious. Brand-new.

The bath filled. I turned the water off and dipped a toe inside. I caught my reflection in one of the two mirrors. I’d lost a few pounds in the last two weeks. I ran almost daily, and at 5 feet five and 120 pounds, I was healthy with long, lean muscle, small but pert breasts, and a bubble butt. That was the yoga. The sisters at the college actually allowed a woman to teach classes three evenings a week, and I never missed a single one. It was that and the running that kept me sane, that kept me from tearing my hair out in frustration at how life had turned out for me.

I sank slowly into the bath. Steam rose off it, but the warmth felt good compared to the relative coolness inside the house. They must have had the air conditioner cranking, since it was July and the heat outside was stifling, with the evenings offering only the slightest relief. I wadded up a small towel and lay my head back against it, closing my eyes. Between the heat and my exhaustion, I must have dozed off, because the sound of someone clearing his throat startled me awake.

My eyelids flew open, and I caught my breath when I saw Salvatore standing just inside the bathroom, watching me.

“Jesus!” I sat up, instinctively covering myself, although it wasn’t necessary. The bubbles created a barrier between us. “You scared the crap out of me!”

“I knocked, but there was no answer.”

He wore dress slacks and a button-down shirt he’d undone to where I could see the gold chain circling his neck. A small cross hung from it. It took me back five years, seeing that. I remembered noticing it, concentrating on it when I couldn’t bear to look him in the eye.

I flushed and glanced away.

“I fell asleep, I guess.”

“It’s dangerous to do in the bathtub.”

“Yeah.” I pulled my knees up, making sure the bubbles still hid me. When Rainey had told me this was my room, I’d assumed we weren’t sharing it. I’d assumed the double doors had led to the master. Had I misunderstood? “What do you want?” I tried to keep my voice friendly. Salvatore seemed to process the question slowly. He looked like he had a thousand things on his mind. Was it the meeting he’d been called to?

He opened his mouth to speak, but instead shook his head and ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. It made me think of his brother, of how different they looked, and thinking about his brother made the water suddenly feel cold.

“I wanted to check on you, see if you needed anything,” Salvatore finally answered.

“I’m fine.” I wanted to ask if we were sharing the bedroom, if it was his, but couldn’t bring myself to just yet. “Where were you? Marco said you had a meeting.”

“I did.”

A wealth of information.

“How close are you to your cousins, Lucia?” he asked, coming a little farther inside the bathroom and leaning back against the counter, ignoring my question entirely.

“Odd question. Why?”

“I’m curious.”

“I don’t know. Not particularly, at least not in the last five years.” I wasn’t going to tell him that Luke had been keeping me in the loop with the goings-on of my family while I was at school. Besides, it wasn’t like he told me anything Salvatore would be interested in.

“So you didn’t talk to Luke once a month over the last five years?”

“Am I being interrogated?”

He folded his arms across his chest and studied me closely. “Do you need to be?”

“What are you talking about? Luke is my cousin, we talked, so what?”

“You didn’t talk to any other member of your family, not even your sister.”

“Christ, you were keeping tabs?”

“I was keeping an eye on my property, yes.”

“Oh, right, your
property
.” I glared at him. “You do know I’m a human being, right? That we typically aren’t referred to as property.”

“I don’t think there’s anything typical about our relationship.”

He stepped over to the tub, and I leaned back, covering my breasts. He didn’t touch me, though. Instead, he sat on the edge and dipped a hand in the water.

“You and Luke good friends? I saw the way he looked at you at the church.”

“He’s my cousin.”

“Not by blood.”

“What are you implying? What, are you jealous?” The moment I said it, I knew there was truth to the statement. I saw it in the slight shift of Salvatore’s eyes. In his momentary hesitation before answering.

“I want to be sure you realize you’re as good as a Benedetti now. Want to be sure your loyalties are where they belong.”

“Just because I was forced to sign that stupid contract doesn’t mean my loyalties suddenly shifted. I am not a Benedetti.”

He snorted, shaking his head. “Water’s cooling.” He rose to stand. He wiped his hand on a towel. “Get out of the tub,” he said, without looking at me.

“I’m not getting out with you here.”

“I want to have a look at what I own.” He said the words purposefully and unfolded one of the plush bath towels. He held it out before him but remained several feet away, so that I’d have to walk toward him to reach it, giving him a full view.

“What exactly is this? What do you want, Salvatore?”

“Just what I said. I want to see you. Naked.”

“You want a look at what you can’t have?” Flimsy words, and I knew it. He could take whatever he wanted. I just, for reasons that had no basis in reality, didn’t think he would. And I was determined not to give him this particular power over me. My heart pounded against my chest as I slowly rose, suds clinging to me as I stood. “You want to see?” I asked again, seeing how his eyes darkened as they raked over me before returning to mine. His attraction to me, mine to him, this cruel sort of push-pull between us, I would use it. I would be stronger than it, and I would use it. I climbed out onto the bath mat and stood before him. “Have a look, then. Get your fill,” I bit out.

Salvatore’s throat worked as he swallowed. Without a word, he stepped toward me, held my gaze, and wrapped the towel around me. His hungry eyes held mine, meeting my challenge, posing his own as he dried me, his handling of me rough, the soft towel now scratching at my breasts, my sex. Once he finished, he stepped back, letting the towel drop to the floor.

“Now I can have a proper look.”

He did, gaze pausing at breasts and belly, hovering at my naked sex. Again, he swallowed, then met my eyes once more.

I stood still, watching him. Watching his eyes. They burned, the blue darker now, sparkling like blackest onyx. Something raged behind them, inside them. Something that screamed for release even while it reduced me to flesh alone, to a thing, an object possessed.

Was this some sort of contest, some game? If it was, I lost, because I blinked first, looking away, unable to maintain the contact.

“Go to bed.” He turned to leave the bathroom but stopped at the door.

I swooped down to grab the discarded towel and held it against myself, shielding my body from his view.

“And Lucia,” he said, turning to look at me and taking a step back inside, back toward me. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

He rubbed his hand across his mouth, that rage behind his eyes burning now.

“I
will
punish you if you betray me.”

He turned on his heel and walked out the door.

I sat down on the edge of the tub, trembling.

M
y cock throbbed
. I’d had to force myself to leave her room. Fuck, she was so beautiful. Her anger, her hate, it only made her all the more appealing. I wanted her. Wanted to take her. Have her.

The monster inside me screamed to possess her.

My cell phone rang. I tugged it from my pocket and checked the screen. It was Dominic.

Prick. I rejected the call, almost running Rainey over in the hallway on my way to the study.

“Mr. Benedetti! I’m sorry,” she apologized, although I was the one not paying attention.

“No, it’s fine. It was my fault.”

I raked a hand through my hair. What the hell was that upstairs? Why had I gone in there when I’d seen her in the tub? I should have walked away.

“Would you like to eat dinner, sir? Miss…Lucia…wasn’t hungry, but—”

It’s dangerous to fall asleep in the tub?
Christ, what did I think she was, a kid? No. Not with that body. She was certainly no kid.

“No, it’s fine. I’m…” I walked into the study, looked around, then walked back out. “You know what, I’m tired. I’m just going to go to bed.”

“Oh. All right.”

I went back up to my room. It connected to Lucia’s, but I doubted she knew that. Once inside, I stripped, headed into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

I didn’t understand Lucia. Hell, I didn’t understand myself around her. The meeting earlier, it had been last minute and required both myself and my father to be present. Dominic had been pissed to be left out, but that was too bad. I knew what Dominic wanted: anything I had. Including becoming our father’s successor. But it didn’t work that way. It would have been Sergio, firstborn, as the successor, but he’d been killed, so I was next in line. As little as I wanted to be the boss of the Benedetti family, Dominic taking on the role I wanted even less. My little brother had a mean streak, a violence inside him that when unleashed was terrifying to witness. Some days, I wasn’t sure I knew him at all, wasn’t sure I wanted to know the depths of his darkness.

I stepped into the shower, the water so hot, it scalded me. I turned it down.

My father, Roman, and I had been the only three of the Benedetti’s at today’s meeting. There was talk about a new group forming. Luke DeMarco was a problem. Or he could become one. Was it vengeance that fueled him or a lust for power? I’d bet the latter. Given that one DeMarco daughter wanted nothing to do with the family business and the other belonged to the enemy, Luke stood to gain a whole lot if he were able to gather enough support and rouse them to war. Which was exactly what he was attempting to do. And he’d come farther than any of us had expected. He’d gained supporters from the Pagani family, our fiercest opponent of the two Sicilian families.

Was Lucia in any way involved? I’d seen the look exchanged between Luke and Lucia at the church, but that had fueled a different sort of burn. One of jealousy. Why did I feel so possessive of her? Why did I care? I could have any woman I wanted, as many as I wanted. Our contract bound her to me with no restrictions on me. My father had orchestrated it, enjoying the idea of having a living trophy under his thumb he could torture as he pleased.

Thoughts of my father made my stomach turn. I switched off the shower and grabbed a towel. My eyes locked on the door connecting my room to Lucia’s. I bypassed it, climbed into bed, and laid there with the sheet tossed aside. I closed my eyes and gripped my cock, the image of her standing before me, naked, suds sliding off her creamy skin, her hard little nipples, her shaved cunt. I wanted to see all of her, to take my time. To lay her out and open her. Smell her, taste her. Sink my cock inside her.

Her eyes flashed into my mind, accusing and hard. I pumped faster, imagining her here, watching me, sucking me, squatting over my face while she took my cock in her mouth and fed me her pussy.
Fuck.

I bit my lip when I came, ropes of cum landing on my chest, my cock throbbing against my palm as I squeezed out the last of it with a groan, knowing it would not be enough, knowing this would not sate me, knowing however many women I fucked, none would give me the release I needed, the one only
she
could give.

* * *

I
woke
a few minutes past five. It was a long, deep sleep, considering my usual two- to three-hour stints. I lay there for a few minutes, hoping if I kept my eyes closed, I could sleep again. Less hours to get through in the day if I could just sleep them off. But that wasn’t happening.

My cell phone buzzed on the nightstand. I picked it up. Dominic. A quick glance told me he was still pissed about the meeting. I decided to delete Dominic’s message without bothering to read the rest.

I tossed the covers back, got out of bed, and pulled the curtain aside to look outside. Dawn. The sun would rise soon.

Finding clean running clothes, I put them and my Nikes on, glanced once at the connecting door, and walked out of my bedroom and down the stairs. I used the door in the kitchen, which opened onto a large terrace. I jogged out, crossing it and the swimming pool area, and headed into the woods, running to meet the sun. It only took me a few minutes to realize I wasn’t alone.

Gates protected the grounds, and cameras recorded all movement. The sound came from a short distance away: branches cracked underfoot, and I could hear the crunching of pine needles and leaves. Too heavy for a squirrel or bird. Deer sometimes jumped the fence, but it was rare. As I stalked closer, I heard the sounds of shortened breath. My intruder on my morning ritual run was human.

A few moments later, I caught sight of Lucia. She didn’t see me. I slowed to her pace, watching her, lean muscle working as she leaped over a tree stump and avoided a moss-covered boulder. She’d bound her long hair in a ponytail that bounced from side to side, and sweat glistened on her bare shoulders. She wore a sports bra and shorts, the white fabric bright against her lightly tanned skin. Earbuds connected to an iPhone secured on her arm told me why I was able to get so close without her hearing me.

I caught up, startling her. She stopped, clutching her chest.

“Stop doing that!” she said, pulling the earbuds from her ears.

“I was behind you for the last five minutes. You should be more aware of your surroundings.” The music was loud enough that I could clearly make out the song. Mumford and Sons. “You don’t need that anyway, not when you run in the woods.” I loved the stillness of this place, the peace I found as soon as I disappeared into the cover of the trees.

She looked me over. “You’re running?”

I nodded. “You’re up early.”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“Me either.” I glanced up toward the place I ran to, a clearing on a hill that gave the best view of the sunrise. “Come on. I’ll show you something.”

I turned and ran. It took her a moment, and I imagined her mind working up some snarky comment, but then she followed. I slowed my pace so she could keep up, and we ran in silence for the next twenty minutes, climbing up the slope. Lucia slowed, her breathing coming shorter but her condition obviously good. Used to running.

“Wow.”

I heard the awe in her voice as we reached the top of the hill. The sun had just broken through the clouds, and the sky was a wash of orange and pink and red.

“This is…amazing.”

She walked a bit farther. I watched, finding myself smiling.

“Beautiful,” she muttered.

“It’s the one good thing about being an insomniac. I never miss the sunrises.”

She glanced back at me, and I realized how easily I’d given away that piece of myself. I imagined the staff at the house knew I slept little, but no one else.

Lucia returned her gaze to the sky. I watched her framed by this show of lights.

“How long have you been like that? Unable to sleep, I mean.”

“As long as I can remember.” I was twenty-nine now so maybe fifteen years.

We watched the sunrise in silence. When the sun had crested, she turned to me, her whiskey eyes shining bright, the accusations of last night absent this morning, although her gaze remained cautious.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” she finally said, her arms folded across her chest, defensive and closed.

“That makes two of us.”

She scrunched up her forehead. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m not a monster, Lucia, but I am my father’s son. I am obligated, just as you are.” She studied me. “You choose how hard you want to make this on yourself. There are worse things than being in my care.”

“In your
care
?”

“Yes, my care. It could have been my brother. Or my father. Where do you think you’d be if it had been either of them instead of me?”

“I don’t see the difference.”

Her words got to me. “Fine, let me simplify this for you. You’re to be obedient.”

“I don’t even know what that means. Do you expect me to just…” She glanced away, a blush creeping up her neck to her cheeks. “What do you want?” she finally asked, straightening, obviously forcing herself to look at me.

“Your obedience.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but I stepped closer to her and placed my finger over her lips.

“Hear my words, Lucia. I
expect
your obedience. I didn’t say want. I own you, no matter how you feel about that. I can make this good for you.” I couldn’t keep my gaze from wandering to the soft swell of her breasts before they returned to hers. “Or I can make it bad. It’s up to you how this goes.”

“It was supposed to be my sister,” she said, a sheen of tears obscuring her eyes.

Looking at her, helpless, alone—and she was alone—only made me want to comfort and reassure her. So opposite what I was supposed to do.

“But she got herself pregnant.” She turned her back to me and wiped one hand across her eyes before turning and looking at me again. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here. Are you…” she floundered again. “Do you… Fuck. Never mind.”

Without warning, she bolted back toward the house, her pace faster now. I followed easily, keeping a short distance between us, unsure how to answer her questions, not knowing myself what the hell I wanted from her. Her obedience, what the hell did that mean? That she sit when I say sit and fetch when I say fetch? It was so much more than that. A woman like Lucia DeMarco didn’t simply give her submission. A man would have to earn it.

Or break her to take it.

“Lucia,” I called out when we drew near the back entrance to the house, the large sliding glass doors of the dining room standing open.

She glanced back but ran into the house. I followed, seeing the blur of a maid setting the table for breakfast.

“Lucia!” I was only a few steps behind her, and when she stumbled over the last stair to the second floor, I caught her around the waist and lifted her, holding her to me. I saw then why she’d run. Tears stained her cheeks, and her eyes were puffy again, her face flushed.

For a moment, I faltered.

For one moment, I was human.

But then I looked down at her. I watched her struggle uselessly as I held her tight.

“Lucia,” I whispered this time, snaking a hand up her back, the feel of her body moving against mine making me forget everything else.

I gripped her ponytail and tugged her head back.

“Stop,” she said, her voice quiet.

I held her like that, my gaze drifting to her lips, soft and pink, her mouth slightly open, and I kissed her. I just…kissed her. It was our first kiss.

She made some sound, but my mouth muffled it. I walked her backward until her back was against the wall, and I leaned down to kiss her harder, tasting her, her mouth so soft, so inviting, even as she protested, or tried to. But her body gave me this, and she opened, her hands relaxing against my chest, even curling a little over my biceps. I dipped my tongue inside her mouth, the moan coming from me now as my cock stiffened against her belly. It felt like a mutual want heated our kiss. Lucia’s fingertips touched my shoulders, drawing me closer, her tongue meeting mine. Hands wrapped around the back of my neck and pulled me in. I relaxed my hold, feeling her surrender, but as soon as I did, she struck. She rammed her knee so hard between my legs that she knocked the wind out of me.

I doubled over, sucking in a loud breath as she stumbled backward, smiling.

“You want my obedience?” she taunted. “You want me to be a good little thing, do as I’m told? Fuck you when I’m told?”

I made some sound, more animal than human as fury fired me from the inside. Lucia backed away, a moment of uncertainty crossing her features before she reached her door down the hall, placing her hand on the doorknob.

“You’ve got another thing coming, Salvatore.” She turned the knob and pushed it open. “If obedience was what you wanted, you chose the wrong woman to fuck with.”

She ran into her room and slammed the door shut. I straightened, my balls fucking killing me, and reached for the key on top of the door frame. I’d installed the special lock on her bedroom door before her arrival for exactly this reason. She would not lock me out. Not in my own house. I imagined her in there right now, frantic when she discovered the missing key. I slid it into the lock and turned it, locking her in from the outside.