It seems to last forever, and then it’s fading from my lit-fuse veins, leaving me shivering and spread bare before him. Santo’s unyielding face shows only a glimmer of satisfaction. He’s stiff against his trousers, but when I reach for him, he restrains me.
“No,” he says. “Not yet.”
But I want for him to feel like I just did. Bad, monstrous, breaking rules not meant to be broken. Wild and absolved of blame. I want to make him come.
Heat sears into my face, my throat, my open thighs, as he extricates me. Who was I just now? A stranger, certainly. A quivering supplicant, spread before him like an offering on an altar.
And I loved it.
“But I’m ready,” I say, wanting the weight of his hand around my neck again, wanting him pressed between my legs. Wanting more than his hand; wanting every powerful, dominating inch of him. “Master—”
“Don’t call me that.” The command is as cold as black ice. He has his shirt in one hand, he’s looking down on me with contempt. “Go to sleep, Dani.”
My heart is throbbing against my ribs. I sit up, wrapping my arms shamefully around myself. I was too forward, wasn’t I? Not the demure virgin he purchased, but a sinful woman. I close my knees.
“I am leaving again in the morning.” Santo turns away, pulling his shirt back over his head. I watch the beautiful muscles of his shoulders and back vanish beneath the black cotton. “I’ll be back within the week. I trust you to keep yourself occupied.”
“Yes, sir.”
His eyes flash.
“Santo,” I correct quickly, fumbling with the ties at the front of my dress, suddenly desperate to conceal myself, to conceal the woman I just became. “I will.”
“And to go only where you’re allowed.”
“Yes.” I nod, averting my eyes.
His hand finds my jaw roughly. He forces me to look him in the eye, standing close, towering over me. “You’re a good girl, Daniella.”
My breath catches in my throat. I nod.
His eyes seek my mouth. With his thumb he draws my bottom lip low, and slowly, deliberately, slides his tongue into my mouth. Pleasure pounds through me, culminating in a deep throb between my legs.
“Be good while I’m gone,” Santo growls against my lips.
Then he’s turning away, as though I’ve been forgotten completely. A fiery burst of will goes through me, and I stand, fists at my sides. “Yes,” I say, and then, deliberately: “Master.”
Santo halts in the doorway, then leaves without a word, shoulders stiff.
And I feel, somehow, crazily perhaps, that I’ve won something.
Chapter 8
Santo
“How did it go?” Gio asks. It’s my eighth day away from home, and I’m just leaving the villa of an oil tycoon from the States. He’s only just moved to Italy. Gio would consider him a liability, sure, with no blood ties to Europe and no experience with the Mafia. To me, he’s another piece of artillery to add to my stock. “Are you winning all the peasants to your cause, Santo?”
“I find my quarry to be quite pliant,” I say. I climb into the car and Dario drives. “Particularly the Americans. Particularly the young ones.”
Gio chuckles. “It’s proving easy to buy their word, but what about their loyalty?”
“Time will tell.” I don’t have faith in the hearts of men. But I do have faith in two things: their wallets, and their fear. When push comes to shove, I’ll apply pressure, and pressure will yield that loyalty to which Gio refers. Some things can be bought, as he’ll see soon enough. For now I just say, “My campaign continues.”
“Look. I called because I got word of your old friend, Gregorio.”
I stiffen, staring out the window as Dario navigates the twisting hillside. It’s a cold, clear day, the sky vivid blue and pressed close to the mountains. I picture my own home, the imposing stone walls of the castle, the snow-crusted cliffs, the dancing green knolls.
And her—among it all, a shifting and unknowable ghost. My strange American girl, who looks and feels so soft, but conceals knives and armor beneath demure words. My body aches for her, and it fills me with anger. She is supposed to be malleable; mine. Why the hell am I finding myself pining for her, when by all rights it should be the other way around?
