Every night he came back to his quarters and made love to me. We’d proceeded to christen basically every available surface. His sectional, of course. His bathtub. His bathroom vanity. His ottoman. The open bar that separated his kitchenette from his main living space. Many, many spots on his plush carpeting. Ironically, the only place he hadn’t made love to me was in his bed. It was an enormous walnut sleigh bed, king-sized and kitted out in a dramatic black duvet and matching sheets. Its design struck me as almost gothic and just as over-the-top in its own way as the other rooms I’d been in here at the mansion.
His behavior at night varied. Sometimes, he turned his back on me and slept without touching me at all. While others, he held onto me like a life raft, snuggling with me all night long. But though we might begin to have sex there on his mattress, he always moved us before we could complete the act. I didn’t know what this might mean, but since he’d promised to take me to visit my sisters tomorrow, I decided it didn’t matter.
I did hope he’d make good on this promise, though. For a long time when I’d asked, he’d told me, “Not yet, but I will take you.” As soon as he’d given me a definite date, my heart had soared. Now that I knew when he planned to take me, I felt desperate to see the twins. How had they been doing all this time? Had they been allowed to be together? Chiara and Alessandra had lived nearly symbiotically their entire lives. If they’d been separated, I wasn’t certain how that might affect them, except negatively.
Still, I’d see them tomorrow. I was so excited I felt almost nauseous.
That night when he came back to me, he seemed uneasy. He played with my engagement ring, twirling it around and around on my finger. He turned to me then, his eyes swirling with a million emotions I couldn’t decipher and kissed me. The kiss went from gentle to intense within an instant, and then he flipped me over, raised me up onto my knees with my hips in the air, levered himself up and plowed into me from behind. He’d gone in fast and rough without being violent, emptying himself into me with a plaintive grunt within moments.
I’d rested there with him still inside of me, wondering if something had happened, when he disengaged and rolled onto his back. He remained hard—Romeo was perpetually good for at least two go-arounds before he needed a break—so he pulled me up on top of him, his intentions clear. I impaled myself on his erection, moaning at the new position. Things felt different with me on top and him below.
His face still held the same tension he’d worn beforehand, though it seemed to have lessened by a smidgen, and I felt tempted to ask him what was wrong. But that’s not how we were together, and I didn’t know what his response might be. So I poured my concern for him into what I was doing. I kissed his mouth then sucked on his neck and earlobe. I trailed my fingers along the peaks and valleys of his defined chest and abdominals.
He watched me, his gaze soft, then he bucked his hips. While I’d liked his lovemaking from behind, I hadn’t orgasmed like that. I wondered if I could orgasm by sitting on him like this. Typically, he took control and told me what to do, but he hadn’t so far.
Well, if he’d let me, I’d like to experiment. I started by swiveling my hips in circles, then I discovered that everything felt even better when I leaned forward and shifted up and down on him. He kissed me, then tugged my body forward enough to suck on one of my breasts. Something about the dual sensations of me bobbing up and down and him sucking on me made my core clench, and I gasped, realizing I’d been the one to clench it.
I tried to do it again, and it worked, making Romeo release my breast as he groaned out loud. “Do it again,farfalla,” he said, and happily, I complied.
I began to spring up and down, building up to a speedy rhythm, when I noticed him staring at my bouncing breasts. “Fuuuuck,” he murmured out, holding my hips now. “Don’t stop.”
I didn’t. I continued to rock my hips on top of him, clenching whatever that was inside of me which brought my climax closer and closer. Then, faster than I’d expected, pure rapture poured over me and I screamed. Even though I was awash in blissful euphoria, he didn’t stop. He continued to move my hips up and down himself, and I felt the pressure within me escalating again. I’d lost my rhythm temporarily but now I caught up with Romeo, meeting him thrust for thrust. Another climax approached, and I could tell it would be powerful. I kept clenching and bouncing as he reached for my head, bringing me down for a searing kiss.
He groaned and I felt him spill inside me a second time, then he did something I couldn’t have anticipated. Maintaining his rhythm, he reached for my left hand and touched his lips to first the ring, then my palm. He smiled up at me, not a mean smile or even a sated one, but a real one that was absolutely sincere. “I can’t wait to make you my wife, Lucia.”
And I came again, my hands clinging to his shoulders for dear life and I shouted out his name.
Eventually, I slipped off him and he spooned me from behind, again playing with the ring he’d put on my finger. I felt closer to him than I ever had, and maybe that was why I became brave enough to ask him something that had been bugging me.
“Romeo, why didn’t you kill me.” He could have so many times, and I’d come up with this theory recently that had to do with sex, heirs, and legacies.
He quit playing with my ring and caressed my arm instead. “I… couldn’t.”
He said those two words as if they were a foregone conclusion or a basic truth, and the authenticity behind them took my breath away. I said nothing after that, not wanting to tempt fate, and soon Romeo’s frame relaxed behind mine.
14
Romeo
Idecided to surprise myfarfallatoday. She already knew she’d be visiting with her sisters, but she had no clue that I also planned to bring her brother Giorgio into the mix. Granted, I would keep them all separate until I could be sure they’d all behave within certain parameters, but this would be as close to a family reunion as possible. I wanted to give it to Lucia. I looked so forward to seeing the expression on her face.
I went to the floor where Lucia’s old room had been. Ourfamigliacalled the second floor of our mansion the T-level due to the T shape of the corridors. Lucia had been at the bottom of the T, with one of his sisters on the far left and one of the far right. Even though those rooms had all been soundproofed, I thought it better to keep them all as far from one another as possible while they were sequestered. I’d seen to it that her brother had taken up residence in Lucia’s former residence, a much nicer accommodation than the dungeons. I’d had two men escort him as I followed behind, ensuring my wishes were carried out. That way I could tell her with complete honesty that I’d taken care of it.
So when I went to check on the three Bonifacio siblings, I left him for last. I’d glanced into each twins’ rooms and found Chiara drawing on some paper while Alessandra was braiding and unbraiding her hair. Good enough. Then, I wandered over to myfarfalla’sold domicile. What I found was a mess. There were signs of a scuffle: the cheval mirror had been knocked over and broken, the bed linens were torn from the mattress, and even the dresser against the wall looked askew.
What had happened here?
And as the question entered my mind, so did a possible answer. Jogging back down the stairs to the first floor and then into the dungeon, I heard the screaming even before I rounded the corner into the room containing the three holding stations. Giorgio Bonifacio had been chained up like before, shrieking in pain as two of my father’s men zapped him again and again with a live electrical current as Angelo himself looked on.
“What the…” I cut myself off. Since my father and I had had our less than amicable interaction not long ago, I knew cussing him out would not get me what I wanted. Instead, I forced myself to be civil. “Father, may I ask why Giorgio Bonifacio has been returned here?”
I’d paused for a break in the torture so I could be heard, but despite this Angelo ordered another round of it before acknowledging me. “He is here because this is where he’s supposed to be.”
“I promised my bride that he would be removed from this place. That all torture and ill-treatment of him would cease.”
“That sounds like your problem rather than mine.”
“Lucia is set to bear the first heirs of the Cavetti legacy. Do you really wish to upset her more than she has been already?”
