I tell myself nothing will happen.
We lay together for longer this time afterward. I’ve never been the type to cuddle or talk in bed, but I find myself talking to her. The sex is so good it makes me want to fucking confess things, like I’m in a goddamn church, to tell her every sin I’ve ever committed. But instead, I talk to her about the stress of work and how stretched thin I feel, without ever really saying what I really do or the things that make me feel that way, like Giulia and her engagement and the tightrope I feel like I’m walking.
“I can understand that,” she says softly, her fingers brushing over my chest. “Feeling stretched thin, pretending you feel one way when you really want something else.” She hesitates, her hand stroking down my abdomen. Despite everything we just did, I feel my cock twitch in response. “You’ll figure it out.”
Something about how she says it sounds hollow, though. “What about you?” I turn toward her. “What do you do? What has you feeling that way?”
She laughs a little nervously. “I came here to not think about who I really am outside,” she says softly, and I can feel her tense a little. “I want to be someone else here. Thus the mask.”
I feel a glimmer of frustration. I shouldn’t care—this is just sex. And I should be a little worried that she’s so cagey, but then again, I am too. Neither of us is here to be our real selves. That shouldn’t bother me, but it does.
I want to see more of her, inside and out. I’ve never been with a woman where sex doesn’t feel like it’s enough, but it’s starting to feel that way with her. I’m starting to want more than just the physical, and that should make me run.
Instead, we agree to meet again. I don’t have to ask her to get on her knees; she remembers what I said and goes down on me as soon as we’re in the room, backing me up against the door. Her mouth is hungry, more confident than before. She works mewith her hand, lips, and tongue, not letting me pull away until I come down her throat.
I take her to the bed, strip her down, and go down on her until she comes, then roll onto my back and pull her astride my face, eating her out while she plays with my hardening cock. Then I pin her down on her stomach and fuck her.
It’s so fucking good, and instead of getting bored, I just want more.
The next time we meet—the fourth time we have sex, she seems tense and more stressed than usual. And I feel the same way—brittle, at a breaking point. I take it out on her, rougher and more demanding, and she responds to it.
I spent the afternoon watching Giulia with Alessandro, watching him touch her arm, watching her smile at him, while I wanted to break things.
Romeo mentioned earlier this week that he’s probably going to be Dante’s choice. She’s going to be engaged to him before long. Giulia is getting engaged to Alessandro Ferrucci, and there's nothing I can do to stop it.
So I take it out on Valentina, and she doesn’t stop me. If anything, she’s wetter and more responsive than ever before as I pin her wrists above her head and fuck her like I'm trying to exorcise demons.
My fingers dig into the fragile bones as I thrust into her hard. “I don’t want you seeing anyone else,” I growl, dragging the words out as I drive my cock into her again and again. I can hear the harsh possessiveness in my voice. If I can’t claim Giulia, I’ll claim her. "I want you to be mine. Only mine."
She looks up at me, and even through the mask, I can see something in her eyes. Something desperate and vulnerable. It startles me, because I’m not surewhythat look is there, what she has to be desperate about. The look reminds me of Giulia’s face when she sees her suitors, when she remembers what herfuture is going to be. “There’s no one else,” she gasps out. “It’s just you. It can only be you.”
I fuck her harder, slamming into her as if I could imprint the shape of my cock onto her. She takes everything I give her and asks for more, her nails digging into my shoulders, her legs wrapped around my waist. When we're done, when we're both spent and breathing hard, I pull her against my chest and hold her like she might disappear if I let go.
She leaves without saying when I'll see her again, and I lie there in the empty room feeling like I've lost something I never really had.
—
The sex was supposedto help me feel less violent about Giulia, but it only feels like it’s getting worse. Thursday night, there’s another fucking party at the Ciresa mansion, another event I’m supposed to be at even though Romeo keeps trying to get Dante to let me off the hook. He knows that something is eating away at me, even if I won’t tell him what, and he’s trying to get me time away, space. But Dante wants all hands on deck for this, the entire family and everyone in their orbit here to impress the men he’s trying to auction Giulia off to.
Tonight, Giulia is wearing a white silk dress that clings to her curves with a keyhole neckline that just shows the indent of her cleavage, and a slit to her knee on one side. It’s not overly seductive, but she looks so beautiful. She and Valentina have similar bodies, and it’s getting harder and harder not to imagine how she would feel like under my hands, how good it would feel to have her naked under me. It’s as if the sex I’m having with Valentina is only fueling my lust for Giulia, and I can’t understand it.
It makes me feel like a fucking asshole, and all of it is only making me more on edge, a hair trigger away from doing something stupid.
She looks like an angel tonight, which only makes me feel more inappropriate for the thoughts I’m having about her. Alessandro is particularly close to her, touching her more than ever as if he’s sure he’s going to be the one who wins her, and it’s making the other suitors testy, too.
Marco seems to have accepted that he’s lost, focusing more on business discussions with Dante than paying attention to Giulia, discussions that Alessandro is taking a particular interest in, too. But Enzo doesn’t seem to have gotten the hint. When we get up from dinner to go into the sitting room for drinks, he reaches for Giulia, and when she tugs her arm away, he grips her tighter, pulling her in close.
She jerks back, her eyes wide, and I see red.
“Don’t touch me,” she says sharply. He starts to say something, and she pivots on her heel, moving faster to catch up with Alessandro. I see Enzo’s face flush hot, and he walks away from the crowd, toward one of the bathrooms.
I follow him. I know I shouldn’t. I should stay with the family, play my part… or if I can’t do that, I should just fucking go home.
Instead, I follow Enzo into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me in the instant before I pin him against it with my arm across his throat.
“What—” he barely gets the word out before I apply pressure.
"You touch the don's daughter again," I say, my voice low and deadly, "and I'll cut off your hands. Do you understand me?"
