The Playboy's Fugitive Bride (34 page)

They both cried out at the primeval onslaught, of the fierce invasion of male into female.

As Massimo forced his way deeper into her, Nia’s body began to shake as a series of powerful electrical shocks ripped through her.  There was nothing tender in their quest for sexual gratification today.  There was no giving, only taking from each other this time.

Massimo crisscrossed his strong arms across her back, clasped his big hands on her shoulders and pulling her chest to his, he held her down and began to pump up into her with boundless speed and force.  His grip on her upper body was so tight, the only part of her body Nia could move was her hips and she worked them, slamming them into his, angling her thrust so that her clitoris hit his public bone every time they connected.  She felt every ripple of his pumping flesh scraping the inner walls of her sex, sending fire and desire roaring through her.  Her breasts had become so swollen, her nipples so rigid trapped between their chests, it caused a sweet pain in the core of her heart.

As they ravished each other, Massimo’s tormented groans intensified Nia’s ache, amplified her itch, deepened her lust, fed the flames licking through her body until she felt the sway of her orgasm pulling her into the tidal wave of ecstasy.  When it completely submerged her, she curled her body into Massimo’s and cried out in the cramped space of the small car as she felt a flood of juices gush from her body and trickle down between their thighs.

Massimo didn’t ease his hold or even miss a thrust as her walls convulsed around him.  It were as if his shaft had been transformed into a monstrous lust machine with a ferocious life of its own, and her sex had become a hot wet velvet vacuum, clinging to him like a bloodthirsty leech, clutching him in an eternal contraction of delightfulness as he rammed in and out of her.

Nia was still quivering on the aftershocks of her orgasm when she felt Massimo’s palm collide with her bare bottom.  She bucked as a sensational mixture of pleasure and pain rushed through her entire body. 

“
Prendimi!  Scopami!”
he yelled, slapping her again.

Nia bucked and, sinking her teeth into his shoulders, she began to ride him again.  Her limbs were rubber, her whole body a moving mass of fire as she rocked back and forth on her husband.  Her heart was flooded to such capacity, Nia found it hard to breathe and just when she thought she would detonate, Massimo began to roar like a lion as his body jerked in a crazy frenzy under her.

“
Vengo
! 
Vengo!
” he shouted on an upward thrust more powerful and vicious than any Nia had ever received.

It felt as if he’d pierced through every resistance inside of her.  She felt him stiffen, then she felt his hot seed flooding her womb, quenching the fire that he’d created inside her.  She sank her teeth further into him and let herself drown in her own release.  They quivered above and beneath each other and stayed locked together until their harsh cries of pleasure dwindled to low moans, and their hearts and breaths returned to their normal pace.

Nia opened her eyes to find that they were shrouded in the darkness of night.  Massimo was asleep beneath her, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat echoing in her ears, and the cry of loons reaching her from their nests on the lakeside.

Massimo’s sex, though far less rigorous now, was still nestled inside her.  She would have loved to stay that way a little while longer, but it was cold inside the car.  When she attempted to move, she found she couldn’t.  Her foot was lodged between the car seat and the door.  She ached all over.  Inside and out.  It was going to be a while before she could walk without pain.

Nia smiled at the thought that she’d ridden her husband exceptionally hard and put him away dripping wet.  Lowering her mouth to his, she awakened him with a tender kiss of love.

With a large bulky envelope clutched under his arm, Masimo stepped inside a Spanish restaurant in Upper Manhattan, and walked up to the front desk where two hostesses stood.  “Excuse me,” he said to the unoccupied one.  “I’m meeting a Mr. Wallace.”

The young girl checked a seating chart, then glanced up at him, as if expecting him to remove his sunglasses.  When he didn’t, she smiled and said, “Yes, Mr. Wallace has been waiting for quite a while, Mr. Andretti.” 

Yes, I know.  An hour to be exact
.

“If you’ll follow me this way, please.”

Massimo shadowed her as she wound her way through crowded tables filled with noisy lunch patrons.  He’d picked this restaurant because they served the best
Cochinillo Asado
he could find outside of Castile.  Whenever he was on an extended business trip in New York, he tried to stop in for lunch.  Today wasn’t one of those days.  Although he’d already put in an order, lunch was the furthest thing from his mind, but he hoped Mr. Wallace would appreciate his recommendation.

The hostess turned a corner that led into a smaller dining area at the back of the restaurant.  He’d paid handsomely for absolute privacy, so he knew right away that the man sitting at the table under a window overlooking the Hudson was none other than Mr. Wallace.

He seemed to be in his early to mid-forties, was taller than the average man, and wore a moustache and a goatee.  The expensive black suit he wore fitted his solid frame perfectly.  His hands were wrapped around a liquor glass and the multitude of diamonds on his fingers flashed against the sun streaming through the window.  Even from a distance Massimo detected the beads of sweat on his clean-shaven head and forehead.  A smile curved Massimo’s lips.  He’d asked the restaurant manager to turn up the heat in the room and to seat Wallace at the window so the midday sun could beat down on him.  He wanted to make him as uncomfortable as possible.  The fact that Wallace seemed fit and able to defend himself gave Massimo a modicum of relief.  If he had to deck the man, he didn’t want to be accused of not picking on someone his own size.  It would be a fair fight.

Wallace looked up as they approached the table and when he saw Massimo, he nodded and raised his glass in acknowledgement.

“Here you are,” the hostess said, stopping at the table.

Wallace held on to his silk tie and attempted to rise.

“Don’t bother.”  Massimo stared down at him, a mixture of emotions swirling around in his belly.  He wanted to punch Wallace just because he’d had to take time out of his life to meet with him.  He would have much preferred to remain in the warm cozy comfort of his bed with his wife for a few more hours before he boarded his jet to Asia.  But then again, if it weren’t for Wallace, his and Nia’s paths might never have crossed.

Tugging at the knot of his tie, Wallace stared at the waitress.  “Hey, doll.  It’s a little hot in here.  Do you think you can turn down the heat?  Maybe turn on the AC?”

“I’m comfortable,” Massimo said without taking his eyes off Wallace.  “Perhaps it’s just you.”

Wallace uttered a shaky laugh.  “Yeah, yeah, I guess it’s just me.”  He mopped at his scalp and forehead with his napkin.  “I guess I’m a bit overdressed,” he said, taking a swift look at Massimo’s attire: designer jeans and a gray sports shirt.

Massimo turned to the hostess.  “Would you be so kind as to have the order delivered in about fifteen minutes?”  That was all the time he needed with this piece of garbage.

“Yes, Mr. Andretti.”

As the hostess took her leave, Massimo removed his sunglasses and placed them in the case that was clipped to the side of his belt.

Wallace’s forehead crinkled and his eyes narrowed, then widened.  “Andretti? 
The
Massimo Andretti?”

Wallace stared up at him with the dazed look of a child discovering Santa Claus—the real one—standing under his Christmas tree.  The expression was totally idiotic on a grown man.

“The woman who called to set up this appointment said I was meeting with an Italian businessman who wants me to negotiate business on this side of the pond,” Wallace said.  “Be a middleman in a sticky situation, so to speak.  I thought I was meeting someone who lives in Italy, who needed an American contact.  Your reputation with the ladies precedes you, Mr. Andretti.  Perhaps you can give me a few pointers, if you know what I mean.”  He bared his teeth in a smile Massimo assumed was meant to impress him. 

“I am an Italian businessman.  Andretti just happens to be my name, and I will be commissioning your services as a middleman.  So I suppose everything my assistant said is correct.”

“All right then,” Wallace said, beaming.  “It’s an honor to meet you at last.”  He held out his hand.

Blatantly ignoring it, Massimo pulled out the chair on the other side of the table and sat down.  He dropped the envelope he was carrying on the table, and moved his folded napkin and the pitcher of ice water to the other side of the table.

Wallace’s eyes zeroed in on the envelope and his expression assured Massimo that he knew it was stuffed with cash.  He’d no doubt been handed numerous bulky envelopes in the dark confines of many of New York’s back alleys.

“Would you care for a drink while we talk business?” he asked Massimo.

“I only drink with friends.”

Wallace’s lips cracked into a smile. “I understand.  We just met, but I hope by the time the meeting is over we’ll be friends, at which time I’ll insist you call me Eddie.  All my friends call me Eddie,” he added picking up his glass.

Massimo clenched his teeth.  “And what do your victims call you?”

Eddie’s hand froze halfway to his lips.  “Wha—what kind of question is that?”

Reaching into his shirt pocket, Massimo pulled out a photo and carefully placed it in the center of the table.  “Tell me, what does this young woman call you?”

Wallace stared at the photo, then at Massimo, then back to the photo again.

Massimo choked back a mixture of emotions as he stared at the photo of his wife he’d taken yesterday in the foyer of Granite Falls Community Church.  They’d been posing for photographs with Bryce and Kaya and their children after the service, and he’d secretly snapped a few candid ones of Nia with his smartphone.  She’d looked so lovely in a black pencil skirt, and a gold silk blouse, her hair tumbling down her shoulders, the wavy strands brushing her swelling breasts.  He swallowed and pulled his thoughts back to the present.  “Do you recognize her?” he asked Wallace.

Wallace raised his heat to meet Massimo’s stare.  “Yeah, I recognize her.  I wouldn’t really call her a friend.  Not yet, anyway, if you know what I mean.”  He grinned.

Massimo’s hand curled into a tight fist under the table.  The thought of this disgusting piece of garbage ogling his wife, much less laying a finger on her generated a murderous rage inside him that Massimo had never experienced before.  He forced composure into his system.  “If she’s not your friend, what is she to you?  An acquaintance?  A commodity?  Asset?  Victim?”

Wallace straightened up and immediately went on the offense.  “Look I don’t know what game you’re playing, Andretti, but you asked me to meet you so we can talk business—under false pretenses, I might add.  What does she have to do with anything?  Is that what you want?  You want her?  I don’t know where she is right now, but in six weeks I will, and if—”

“Our meeting has everything to do with her, Mr. Wallace,” Massimo stated, leaning back in his chair and draping his arm around the back of the one next to him.  “Here’s the thing.  You threatened to hurt her brother, and then her if she failed to pay you back the money her father borrowed from you six years ago.  You even threatened, or should I say, offered to pimp her out to work off the debt.”

“Where’d you get that information?”

“I spoke with some of your thugs.”

Wallace flinched.  “I don’t have thugs.”

“Oh, sorry.  Your employees,” he drawled.  “And, she came looking for me, seeking my help in paying you back.”

A slow creepy smile spread across Wallace’s face.  “No wonder she turned down my offer to work off the debt.  She has higher ambitions than I realized.  Sweet young thing, isn’t she?  How much did you pay her for—”

The next thing Massimo knew he was standing over Wallace who was sprawled on his back on the hardwood floor surrounded by overturned chairs—one with a broken leg—shreds of glass, ice cubes, and the remains of his drink.  His left hand was covering his left eye, and he was peeping up at Massimo with his remaining good one.  His lips were swollen and there was a trickle of blood on the side of his mouth.  Masimo held his cold stare, daring him to attack so he could take out his other eye, pound him to pulp into the floor.  When Wallace dropped his gaze, Massimo regretfully accepted that the fight was over. 
Yellow bastard
.

His fist hurt.  Damn, it hurt.  Without breaking a sweat, he’d delivered about five swift jabs to the face before Wallace even realized what was happening to him, but Massimo smiled inwardly with the knowledge that Wallace was hurting a hell of a lot more.  Picking up his napkin, Massimo dipped it into the pitcher of cold water and wiped Wallace’s blood from his knuckles, grateful to realize that his skin hadn’t been broken.

He sat down, patiently waiting for Wallace to collect himself and return to his seat.  He had to fight to contain his humor at watching the man try to raise himself up off the floor with one hand since his other still cradled his injured eye.  He slipped and slid a few times in the remains of his drink until he found a dry spot to give him some leverage.  Once on his feet, he bent down and picked up the chairs as if he thought Massimo expected him to clean up his mess.  He leaned the broken one up against the wall, and sat down, still holding his eye and trying awkwardly to lick the blood from the side of his mouth.

“Now,” Massimo stated, as if the flow of their conversation hadn’t been interrupted, “this young woman doesn’t know that I’m aware of her true identity, and I would like to keep it that way.  Therefore, your confidentiality is most appreciated.  Can I count on you to keep my secret, Mr. Wallace?”  He stared into the man’s good rapidly blinking eye that had started to mist and twitch from the strain of assuming the workload of two.