Chapter 18: Bound By Hatred: Chapter 17

It was way past midnight when we finally got home. Most of the other guests had left long before us, but Luca and Matteo had to stay as heads of the Cosa Nostra and pretend they were trying to figure out what had happened. Nobody had suspected them, at least not openly. To be honest, neither Bardoni jr., nor Mrs. Bardoni had looked too distraught. Their tears had been crocodile’s tears if I’d ever seen any. Maybe he’d been as unpleasant to them as he’d been to me in the short time I’d spent with him.

I couldn’t believe my life had changed from waitressing in Munich to covering up my husband’s crimes. After a quick shower, I slipped into bed. Matteo was still arguing with Luca in our living room. This was one of the few instances where I understood Luca’s anger completely.

I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling as I listened to their voices. The ankle monitor lay on my nightstand, mocking me. Maybe I should have used tonight’s confusion to escape. Luca, Matteo and Romero had been busy cleaning up their mess, and I had been without my stupid ankle bracelet. It had been the perfect opportunity. Then why hadn’t I run? I doubted anyone would have stopped me.

Because of Aria? I wished that was the only reason, but as I’d stood in the lobby waiting for Matteo to return, I hadn’t even considered escape. Why wasn’t it at the forefront of my brain anymore? Six months ago it had been all I could think about, had been an obsession that had consumed me, and now it sometimes felt that I only thought about running because I felt that I was supposed to do it.

It was confusing. I wasn’t as miserable as I’d worried I’d be living with Matteo. Of course, he was a crazy-ass killer, but it wasn’t as if I wasn’t used to that kind, and it actually made life exciting even if I hated admitting it. Living life as a normal person, doing normal things, earning money with normal jobs, had been an incredible experience, but for some reason it had never felt like more than a distraction.

The door opened and Matteo strode into the bedroom. He wasn’t wearing his jacket anymore and half of his shirt buttons were already unbuttoned. He flashed me his usual grin before he disappeared in the bathroom.

I could have pretended to be asleep to avoid talking to him but for some inexplicable reason I wanted to talk to him. When he emerged from the bathroom in his boxer shorts, flashing his lean muscled torso, I almost cancelled my plans. But that would really have felt too wrong. A man had died, albeit a horrible man, and having sex so shortly after his death would have felt utterly wrong.

Matteo slid under the covers and reached for my waist, pulling me toward him. His eyes were hungry. There was no sign that he even still remembered what he’d done not too long ago. His lips claimed mine and I let his tongue in, let the kiss consume me until my body was humming with pleasure and I forced myself to push him away before I did something for which I’d despise myself tomorrow morning.

Matteo flung himself on his back with a groan. “This is because of Bardoni, right?”

I glared. “Maybe I’m just not in the mood. You aren’t that irresistible.”

“If you say so,” he said in a low voice that sent a traitorous shiver down my spine. The bastard was way too manipulative.

I decided to steer this conversation toward safer grounds. “So will Luca punish you?”

Matteo chuckled. “Luca has never punished me for anything. He’s used to my proactivity.”

“Proactivity?”

Matteo winked and I almost reached for him again. Instead I pulled the blankets up to my chin as another barrier between us.

“Luca looked furious.”

“He’ll get over it. He always does. He would have had Bardoni killed anyway. It was only a matter of time.”

I had a feeling this wasn’t ordinary bedtime talk. “When did you kill your first man? Kindergarten?”

Matteo propped his head up on his arm, smirking. He ran a finger down my arm in a very distracting way. “No. I was a late bloomer in comparison to Luca.”

“Really? That seems unlikely.”

“Not really. Luca made sure I didn’t get in trouble when I was younger. He was a protective big brother.”

“I can’t even imagine Luca being a kid, much less him making sure you stay out of trouble.”

“He did. Is that really that surprising? Didn’t Aria try to protect you when you were younger?”

“She still does,” I said with a grimace.

“See. Luca’s the same way. Of course now I’m making it harder for him to keep me in check, just like you make it hard for Aria.”

“I think there’s a huge difference between the kind of trouble I stir up and the trouble you cause.”

“Give it some time. I have a feeling you haven’t reached your full potential yet.”

A laugh bubbled out of me. Damn it. Why did he have to say things that made me laugh? “You didn’t answer my question. When did you kill the first time?”

“It was a few weeks after my thirteenth birthday.”

“That’s what you call a late bloomer? Most guys that age worry about their sprouting pubic hair and not killing someone.”

“Oh, I’ve come to terms with my pubic hair a long time before,” he said in a teasing voice. “And most guys aren’t the second son of the Capo of the New York Cosa Nostra.”

“Good point. But Luca can’t really have protected you very well if you had to kill when you were still so young.”

Matteo’s gaze became distant. “He did what he could. Our father wanted me to kill one of the boys Luca and I had been hanging out with occasionally because he’d tried to get out of the mob.”

My stomach tightened. “And?”

“Luca pulled his gun and killed the guy before I could. Father was majorly pissed. He beat Luca within an inch of his life.”

The idea that Luca had done something so considerate for his brother was strange, but it wasn’t all that surprising if you watched how those two interacted. It was obvious they cared for each other, cold-hearted bastards or not. “Luca is huge. How could anyone beat him?”

Matteo smiled wryly. “Luca could have wiped the floor with our father if he’d tried, but he never fought back. Father was Capo and would have put Luca down like a rabid dog if he’d raised his hand against him.”

I sometimes forgot that things weren’t all sunshine and rainbows for men. They had more freedom when it came to promiscuity and going out but they had their own burdens to bear. “I guess your father found someone else for you to kill pretty quickly after that.” I’d barely known Salvatore Vitiello but he’d seemed like a creepy fuck.

Matteo nodded. “He found out about another traitor a couple of months after that. He made me slice his throat.”

Girls weren’t given many details about the induction ceremony, but Umberto had often let something slip when he’d guarded us. Usually the first kill of an initiate happened from afar with a gun. “He didn’t let you shoot him?”

“No, it was probably meant as additional punishment because I’d wormed my way out of killing the first time. Shooting is easy, it’s less personal. Using a knife is dirty work. You have to get close to your victim, have to get blood on your hands.”

I held my breath. His voice had become very quiet. Slowly I raised myself up on my arm. I wanted to touch him but I didn’t. “That sounds horrible. Could you do it?”

“What do you think?”

There was the scary shark-grin. The one that made me believe Matteo was capable of anything.

“You killed him.”

“I did. It was messy. He was tied to a chair, so he couldn’t fight back but it still took me three tries to cut his jugular. I was covered in blood from head to toe. I still found blood under my nails the next day.”

“Then why do you prefer knives to guns? You really don’t seem to mind getting your hands dirty anymore.”

“In the beginning it was to prove to my father that I was tough and that he hadn’t broken me like he’d probably intended. And once I got really good with the knife and everyone admired me for my skills, it seemed like a waste to give it up.”

I searched his face but it was blank. I couldn’t tell if it was the whole truth, or if he was keeping the worst of it to himself: that he’d come to enjoy the more personal kill. For a moment we stared at each other until it became too personal again and I lay back down and turned on my back.

“Did you ever consider killing Luca? If he were dead, you’d become Capo. You wouldn’t be the first Made Man to kill a family member to climb the career ladder,” I asked.

Matteo’s expression hardened. “I would never kill my own brother. I don’t care about becoming Capo, and even if I did, I still wouldn’t get rid of Luca to improve my position. Luca’s got my back and I’ve got his. That’s the way it’s always been.”

“That’s good. It’s important to have people you can trust,” I said honestly. Loneliness was a big problem in our world. You had always people around you, but you could trust no one. There was only one person I trusted absolutely and that was Aria. Lily was too fragile and young for many of my secrets, and Fabi was a boy and Father’s influence on him was growing by the day. And I couldn’t even talk to them anymore.

“What will it take for you to trust me?” Matteo asked curiously.

“A miracle.” I turned my back to him and shut off the lamp on my nightstand. The look in his eyes had stirred something in my chest that terrified me.

Matteo shut off the other lights, then leaned over to me, kissing my ear. “Who doesn’t like a good miracle?”

***

Matteo’s arm was heavy around my waist, his breath hot against my neck, and the leg that was thrown over mine was cutting my blood flow off; then why did it feel strangely good to wake next to him?

I pushed his arm off and slipped away, and quickly got up. Matteo didn’t wake. His hair was a complete mess and his face looked honest and almost gentle in sleep. I reached out but stopped myself before I could actually brush my fingers over his forehead. What was wrong with me?

I took a step back. My eyes landed on the discarded ankle monitor on the nightstand and an idea crossed my mind. I snatched up the monitor and rushed into the bathroom with it. The thing couldn’t be destroyed with water. After all, you could shower with it, but maybe I could flush it down the toilet. Not that Matteo couldn’t ask Sandro to bring a new monitor, but the gesture would send a nice message. I plunged the monitor into the toilet and flushed. Unfortunately it got stuck.

“Did you just flush down your ankle monitor?” Matteo asked in a voice raspy with sleep.

I whirled around. He was leaning in the doorway, arms crossed over his naked chest and an amused expression on his arrogant face. Heat rushed into my cheeks. “I tried, but it got stuck.”

Chuckling, Matteo advanced on me and we both stared down into the bowl. “And who’s going to get it out there now?”

“You?”

Matteo reached down but I grabbed his arm.

“Aren’t you going to put on gloves or something like that?”

“It’s clean and I can wash my hands afterward,” he said with barely disguised amusement. “My hands have been covered with worse, believe me.”

I released him with a shrug. “Do what you want.”

He retrieved the ankle monitor and put it on the washstand, then shoved down his boxer shorts and strode toward the shower, presenting his firm butt to me. He turned on the water and stepped under the stream before facing me again with a raging hard-on. “Wanna join me?”

I grabbed my toothbrush. “No, thanks.”

It took a lot of restrain not to watch Matteo while he showered. I had a feeling he was taking his time on purpose. The water shut off and Matteo stepped out, drying himself with his towel. He nodded toward the ankle monitor. “You realize that it’s still working, right?”

“Oh, come on. I didn’t run away last night. You don’t need to put that thing on me again. I’ll behave.”

“Really?” Matteo asked, dropping the towel and stalking toward me. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

I rolled my eyes. Two could play this game. I pulled my shirt over my head, then slid my panties down my legs before straightening, completely naked. Let Matteo deal with that.

As expected, Matteo’s eyes traveled over my body and his cock twitched in response.

I smiled smugly. “I really hate the monitor. I don’t want to wear it again.”

Matteo leaned against the washbasin, so close that our bodies were almost touching and I could smell his minty shower gel.

“How about a little bet?”

I had a feeling I wouldn’t like what he was going to suggest, but I motioned for him to keep talking.

“If I manage to give you an orgasm today, then we put the ankle monitor back on. If you manage to resist my skills, we throw that thing in the trash.”

“Only one?”

“Greedy girl,” he said teasingly, his dark eyes sparkling with excitement. “I thought you weren’t attracted to me? Are you worried your body won’t be able to resist me?”

I wished he was wrong, but my body really was a horrible traitor. I’d lost count of the times we’d had sex in our short marriage. “No, of course not. But one orgasm seems setting the bar very low for you, don’t you think?”

“Oh, I don’t know. We both know how stubborn you can be, and I promised Luca to put that ankle monitor on you. I can’t make it too easy for you to get rid of it again.” His eyes were drawn to my breasts, then lower. “So what do you say? Resist an orgasm until midnight and you’ll be free of the monitor.”

I backed away from him to be safe. “Okay.”

“Of course you can’t just avoid having an orgasm by not letting me touch you. You have to give me a fair fighting chance.”

I huffed. “A fair chance? What is fair about this?”

Matteo shrugged. “Deal?”

“Deal,” I said grudgingly before dashing into the shower and closing the door. It wouldn’t stop Matteo, but he didn’t try to follow.

Grinning, he walked toward the bedroom. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

Okay, I needed to put myself in a mindset of complete calm, needed to figure out a way to make me immune to whatever Matteo was going to do. Problem was my pulse was pounding with excitement when I thought of what he was going to do. Damn it. I closed my eyes and turned the water on cold. Gasping for breath, I started shattering and slowly my arousal abated. After a couple more minutes, I stepped out of the shower, frozen to the bone and hopefully turned off enough to resist Matteo at least for the moment. I headed into the bedroom. Matteo lay on the bed in all his naked glory with his arms crossed behind his head.

I was actually glad for his self-assured smile because it only strengthened my resolve to resist him. Straightening my shoulders, I walked past the bed, determined to head toward the dressing room. “Shouldn’t we get up?”

Matteo’s grin widened. “We have some time. Or are you scared of losing our bet?”

I walked toward the bed without another word. Matteo’s eyes followed every move I made. I should have made a bet that he wasn’t allowed to come. That bet I would have won without trouble judging from the hunger in his gaze. Matteo pulled me down on top of him and kissed me. He took his time, his hands only lightly stroking my back, and yet the pressure between my legs was already close to unbearable.

I tried to think of something else. Anything really, and somehow Matteo seemed to sense that I was drifting away. He flipped us over so he hovered over me, and then my torture began. His mouth closed around my nipple, nibbling and licking, before moving on to my other breast and lavishing that one with the same amount of intention. I lay my palms flat against the bed spread, trying to calm my breathing and racing pulse.

Matteo cupped my other breast, and squeezed harder than expected. I arched up at the intense sensation, then quickly relaxed again. I couldn’t make it too easy for him. He’d be even more smug if he got me aroused so fast. Peering up at the ceiling, I focused all my attention away from Matteo’s teasing lips. He chuckled against my sternum, then licked a trail down to my navel. “So stubborn.”

I knew the moment Matteo parted my legs, he’d see how much my body craved his touch. There was nothing I could do about it. Maybe there was a way I could have an orgasm without Matteo actually noticing? By now that was almost my only hope because I was fairly sure my body was going to betray me.

With a wicked grin, Matteo moved between my legs and pushed his palms below my butt and then he pressed his mouth to my heated flesh. I bit back a moan at the feel of his tongue. His eyes were on me, so possessive and hungry that it turned me on even more.

I closed my own eyes tightly, trying to block out what Matteo was doing, but he was making it difficult.

“Delicious,” he murmured, then took another lick. “You taste so good, Gianna. I want to eat you out every day.” He dipped his tongue into my opening before drawing the softest circles with the tip of his tongue, only to enter me again. I pressed my lips together to hold back a moan. His hands pushed my legs even further apart and then his fingers gently opened my lips to give him even better access. His tongue barely brushed me, so soft my toes curled from the intense sensations. “You can pretend this isn’t doing anything to you, Gianna, but your body betrays you.”

Damn it, as if I didn’t know it.

“Are you going to keep your eyes closed the entire time?” he asked in a mocking tone.

My eyes shot open and I glared at him.

He lifted his head with his damn shark-grin, his chin glistening with my juices. “That’s better,” he murmured before he lowered his gaze back down to my center and rubbed his thumb lightly over my clit. His tongue slid over my inner thigh before lightly biting down. More wetness pooled between my legs and Matteo’s smile widened even more. “See, you like this.” He slid his thumb between my folds, then lifted it to his lips and licked off my juices. “Hmm.” I knew I should close my eyes again but it was impossible. Instead I braced myself on my elbows to get a better view. This was a losing battle anyway, I might as well enjoy it fully.

Matteo raised his eyebrows. “Upping the ante?” He dove back down and I threw my head back, not even bothering to keep the moan in. Fuck the stupid bet and the stupid ankle monitor. My calves started spasming and the tremor spread through my entire body as pleasure cursed through me. There was no thinking of hiding my orgasm. No chance in hell.

I arched off the bed, letting pleasure consume me. Loud cries fell from my lips and I let them out without restraint.

Eventually, I caught my breath. Matteo pushed himself up on his elbows. The look on his face made me regret my weakness. “Maybe one orgasm was really unfair,” he said in a raspy voice.

“You think?” I whispered breathlessly. “How about an additional bet? All or nothing?”

“I’m listening.”

“If I manage to make you come, you lose and I won’t have to wear the ankle monitor again. If you resist, I’ll put that thing back on without protest.”

Matteo sat back on his haunches, presenting his rock-hard cock. I leaned forward and curled my fingers around his length with a challenging look. “So what do you say?”

“Why should I risk losing if I can only win the same thing again.”

I licked my lips and squeezed his cock once. “Are you scared of losing?” I repeated his earlier words.

He chuckled. “Of course not. The bet’s on. I’m in your hands.”

“Lie down,” I ordered, not wasting any time. I’d win this bet no matter what.

I flopped down on my back beside Gianna and crossed my arms behind my head. Gianna looked pretty confident. My cock was already hard from licking her, and she probably thought I wouldn’t last very long. She didn’t know me very well.

She knelt beside me, then lowered her head very slowly, her eyes glued to me, challenging and sexy as fuck. Did she know how much her gaze turned me on? That look alone made my cock twitch. Gianna curled her fingers around my base and swirled her tongue around my tip before she took all of me into her fucking hot mouth. I loved seeing my cock disappear between her pink lips.  When I hit the back of her throat, I almost groaned.

Gianna smiled around my width as if she knew exactly what she was doing to me. And then she started to hum, and the vibrations went straight to my balls.

“Fuck,” I growled, which only seemed to spur her on more. She bobbed her head up and down, eyes on me, and massaged my balls in the best possible way.

“You’re so good at this,” I said.

She rolled her eyes at me, and damn, if that didn’t make her even sexier. Her red hair stuck to her forehead and cheeks as she took me deep into her mouth.

I wasn’t going to last forever. I’d never really thought I could win this better, never actually wanted to win. All I wanted in this moment was to come in Gianna’s hot mouth. I raked my hands through her gorgeous locks. The muscles in my thighs tightened but I fought the sensation off. It was too fucking amazing to be over so soon, and knowing Gianna I might have to wait a while before she gave me another blowjob. She looked like a sex goddess. Fuck. I’d wanted to see her like that for a long time, had fucking daydreamed about it. I jerked my hips, and felt my balls tightening. Gianna sucked even harder. Not that I needed any more convincing. All I wanted was to spill into her. And then I fucking exploded. Gianna didn’t pull back. Fuck, she kept sucking even as I shot my cum down her throat. With a long moan, I let my head fall back and my body became slack. Gianna lifted her head and wiped her mouth with a wide smile. “I win.”

I laughed quietly. “You did. Congratulations.”

“So I won’t have to wear the ankle monitor ever again?” she asked with a hint of suspicion.

“That’s the bet.” I didn’t tell her that I felt like the real winner. I’d never liked seeing her with the ankle monitor; it had always felt like a sacrilege to cage her in like that. I was glad that she wouldn’t wear it anymore, even if that meant I had to keep a close eye on her, and that Luca would probably punch me.