Those two hee-hawing donkeys had slammed into our lives and reminded him of everything he wanted, damn them both!
The tub was already filled with warm water and bubbles. The scent in the air brought me back to our wedding night. Roses were spread out on the floor, and I collected them as my feet crushed them.
The entire setup was pathetic!
My husband’s eyes were lowered as if he were gazing at candlelight instead of a woman, but the set of his full lips, in a grin, made me feel at home in his coldness.
He circled me as a lion would, and I closed my eyes, wishing to be torn apart by his ferociousness, but I knew what I had done had deeply wounded him, more than my rejection of romance. I could have played the good little wife and spilled my guts to him. Instead, I sent the truth to his father, and then kept the secret to myself. Even if Luca Fausti would not have ordered me to, I would have. After that little scene in Paris, where I watched a mighty lion be put on a leash by a tiny spinning toy, I knew the situation had to be handled…differently. If Brando Fausti would not have sat at my husband’s table—and sat first, even though Rocco had set the tone by claiming his rightful seat, his brothers following, as protocol demanded it—and announced that he did not want the throne?—
Whether my husband would kill me or not, I would have killed them both. Faulty brakes are easy enough.
“Eyes on me, my wife,” Rocco ordered.
Had I turned them?
I had. He was staring too deeply into my pools of green. It was the first time he had truly made me this uncomfortable, and my skin rippled. I was not a woman who usually held her tongue—held anything in that I did not wish to keep—but the mixture of his power, control, and claiming what he wanted almost put me in a trance.
We stared at each other, and even though I had lifted my chin and kept my eyes on his as he continued the slow perusal, he was unnerving me with the intensity.
“You will submit to me,” he said in Italian, his tongue lavishing each letter with ardor, and it was as if his tongue lashed out at me.
I did not say anything.
He undressed me slowly, taking in my body as if it was art to be savored. I did not mind this. It was when he started to savor me that I wanted to crawl out of my skin and run to the nearest dark forest and hide in it. He fixed my hair so that it was pulled up, long tendrils falling around my face. He lifted me off my feet, making me feel ridiculous, and carried me to the tub, bringing us into the water together. He kept me pressed to him for a moment before he released me and took the position opposite of mine.
We were face to face.
He grabbed for my loofah and soaped it. The spicy perfume of it seemed to mock me in this moment.
Look at you!Hehehehehe.Being touched as if you were a soft thing.
My hands balled into fists underneath the water as my husband caressed my skin with the coarse, dead climbing plant. He ran it lightly down my face, down my neck, between my breasts, over all ribs, until he slid it underneath the water and used it to direct my hips upwards. My hips were pointed up, and myficawas open to him, soap sliding down my hairless cat. He stared at itwith a possessed hunger, as if he could eat me alive. The rough texture of the loofah slid over each lip, and when he ran it between myfica, I closed my eyes and moaned. It was rough, and it did not melt into my skin as sweet poison would.
He ticked his mouth as if I had done something wrong. “Cattiva donna,” he whispered, and his voice was much softer than the texture of the loofah, bringing me back down.
He turned the faucet on, running fresh water, and cupping some in his hand, let it wash away the soap on myfica, before he positioned himself over me, a buffet for his mouth, and stuck his face in it.
He breathed me in. “All clean for me,” he said. “All mine.”
His tongue flicked out, as if to sample me, and then his tongue began to lick. His mouth would suck on me every so often, and despite my heart and mind being against the tender way he was eating me, my body became a traitor and gave in to him. My hips pulsed up, my fingers gripping the side of the tub, my thighs quaking, my trembling moans echoing inside of the cavernous bathroom.
“Tell me, who do you belong to, RosariaCaffi.” His mouth was glistening with my juices dripping down his chin, mixing with droplets of water and his sweat.
“You,” I barely got out.
“Say it louder.”
“Youuuuuu!” I sang, hitting the highest note, hoping to shatter all the windows in this bathroom, allowing the world back in with us.
He made a noise a starved animal would, and his attack on myficatripled in force. The water splashed on the sides of the tub from my up and down motion, my nub demanding to be closer to his mouth, though I wanted to scream out in frustration. And I did. He ate it up, his arms pushing me so close to his face that he was breathing me in. I orgasmed around him with a cry that almost sounded like a whimper.
He did not allow me to rest, as I had not allowed him to since our wedding night. He guided me back to the water, and setting hishand almost protectively around my neck, his hand so big he could have choked the life out of me with one of them, he ordered me to kiss him.
“Baciami, moglie.” His breath smelled of me, and it washed across my lips in a cool caress.
I was not sure if I moved or he did, but we came together at the same time, and he directed my arms where to go as he kissed me until I had no choice but to surrender to its demands. It might have been soft and wanting, but there was an order behind it that I could not fight. As his tongue slid against mine, and he deepened the kiss, it felt as if he was tugging at something deep inside of me that refused to budge. It had been loosened, though, and when he stood with me in his arms, water sluicing down our bodies, and brought us to the bed, he treated me as if I was adrift, and he was the tender breeze shifting all my positions.
I would have rathered a ruthless one. I was weak. So weak in this moment. I did not have the strength to fight. Present me with a war, and I would turn into a hell cat. But present me with this gooey madness, and I felt alone, cold, and utterly and irrevocably claimed. My spirit was fighting to be freed of this, but he held it in a tender chokehold.
