Page 63 of The Kingpin’s Bride

That was when the billionaire politician approached my wife.

Mid-forties. Powerful. Used to taking whatever he wanted. He touched Morena’s arm. Leaned in too close. Said something crude about “the new Ventura bride” and how the wedding must have been “quite the show.” His fingers lingered on the coat fabric at her wrist.

Morena flinched hard. I ended the call without another word. There were no meaningful updates.

The room went quiet in stages as people noticed the shift in my face.

I walked back to my wife, took the man’s wrist, and broke it cleanly. The sound was small and wet. He stumbled back, shocked and loud, clutching the ruined joint. I followed him into a side corridor that the security detail knew to clear.

She had no choice but to watch.

I put a suppressed round through his throat first. He went down making wet useless sounds, hands clamped over the hole like he could hold the blood in. I waited until his eyes found mine. Then I put the second round through his heart.

Fast. Efficient. It was his fault for making it personal.

I wanted Morena to see exactly what happened to men who touched what belonged to me. I wanted the image burned behind her eyes, because I was longing to do it to Dario.

When it was done I wiped my hands on a clean handkerchief, adjusted my cuffs, and walked her straight back through the afterparty as if nothing had happened. The body was being handled by the time we reached the exit. No one met my eyes. No one spoke. The message had been delivered in the only language this world understood.

Morena asked about Camilla on the drive home. Her voice was small and raw. “Is there news?”

I looked at the road and gave her the clean truth. “No sign of them yet.”

The words tasted like ash. I did not let it show. The search would continue. Dario would not stay hidden forever. Camilla would come home.

Back at the penthouse I led my wife to the bedroom, and stripped the coat and the lingerie from her body myself. I opened the tube again and applied a fresh layer while she trembled and begged, the same thorough strokes over her clit and inside her until she was sobbing with need.

“Please,” she whispered, hips lifting against my hand. “Please, Matteo, I can’t… I need you…”

“You need what I give you,” I answered, voice low and absolute as I pulled the zipper of my slacks down.. “And right now I aam giving you this. So take it.”

I freed myself and pushed into her in one slow relentless thrust.

The tight heat of her body closed around me the same way it had on the stage, only this time there was no audience, no performance, only the clear purpose of filling her while the window was open and the image of the dead politician was fresh behind my eyes. She came on the third stroke, walls locking down around me so hard it nearly pulled my own release forward. I fucked her through it, relentless, using the aftershocks to keep her open and pulsing.

“Again,” I ordered against her mouth. “You begged all night. Now you take what I give you.”

I reached between us and found her clit with my thumb, slick with cream, and rubbed tight circles in time with my thrusts. I did not stop. I kept the same deep claiming rhythm, chasing her orgasm while she trembled and whimpered and begged from the oversensitivity.

The cream made it impossible for her to escape the pleasure. Every stroke forced another wave through her.

When the third orgasm tore through her I finally let myself follow. I buried myself to the root and came with a low guttural groan, flooding her in thick endless pulses. I stayed locked inside her, grinding deep. My hand rested possessively over her lower belly, feeling the faint tremor of aftershocks moving through her.

“I couldn’t let another man do what Dario did,” I told her, voice low and absolute. “No one should look at you like that and keep breathing. You are mine now. I need to protect you. I will prove I can as many times as it takes.”

Chapter Seventeen

Morena

At night, I stared at the ceiling and tried not to see the politician’s throat opening again. The memory would not stay buried.

The side corridor of the afterparty. The suppressed sound that was almost polite. The way Matteo’s face never changed while he pulled the trigger the first time. The wet useless sounds the man made while he clutched at the hole in his throat. The second shot through the heart. The calm way Matteo had wiped his hands, adjusted his cuffs, and walked me back through a room full of people who knew better than to meet his eyes.

He had killed a man for touching my arm. He had done it in front of me and then brought me home and stripped the lingerie from my body and filled me while the image was fresh behind both our eyes.

I should have been only horrified.

Part of me was.