Paolo
“The money’s there? And you’re diverting it?” I’m on the phone with my brother-in-law Vlad to verify Caitlin’s report that the money transfer has begun. Vlad is the bratva asshole who kidnapped my sister last year in his own revenge-slash-extortion attempt against the Tacones.
Lucky for him, or for her, or maybe for all of us, our baby sister is a unicorn in her own right. Vlad fell in love and ended up donating a kidney to save her life and calling us to bring her home. And that’s the only reason he’s not a dead man.
“Yes. Our side should be masked, but hers will not be. The feds will eventually trace the loss to her, same as I did when she stole from the Bellissimo.”
I try to ignore the pang that gives my conscience. She made her own bed. This isn’t my problem.
I rub my face. “Is there anything you can do… to, ah, slow that process down?”
“Why?” Vlad asks.
I don’t answer.
“You like this girl? I saw the picture. She’s pretty, no?”
Not pretty. Off-the-charts hot. “Answer the fucking question, Vlad,” I snarl.
“Nyet. There is nothing. It’s too late.”
Fuck. “All right, thanks. Track the income for me and let me know when it reaches two hundred grand.”
“Da.”
“Grazie,” I say back. If he’s going to speak Russian, I’ll speak Italian.
I get off the phone and bump into my little hacker, brushing her teeth in the hallway, listening in.
“Finish up and get in bed,” I command, lifting my chin in the direction of my bedroom. As always, she’s docile and obedient. It doesn’t mean I let my guard down. I zip tie her hands and feet again at night.
She’s been quiet ever since she asked if we’d be friends, which is doing all kinds of crazy things to my chest.
Is she actually… hurt? Insecure?
Or was she just censoring herself-kicking herself for asking when she knows I’m trouble? That she should never even speak my name again after these forty-eight hours are up.
What disturbs me is my reaction to her unease. I’m itchy, like something’s wrong and I need to fix it.
Like I need to say something to soothe her hurt feelings, or ease her mind.
Except I don’t know what the fuck is going on in that brilliant, beautiful head of hers.
I secure her wrists to the headboard of the bed and slide her glasses off her face to set them on the bedside table.
“Most times I’m in this position my clothes are off,” she tells me.
I know it’s a dare.
I know I should resist.
She’s already under my skin. I fear I’m under hers.
But my dick thickens as my mind automatically strips her of her clothing. I stare down at her for a moment, considering.
We lock gazes. Hers is open. Not trusting but certainly willing to receive whatever I want to give. The position probably evoked her surrender, something she’s practiced in those “scenes” she mentioned. It put her in the mood.
Even as I tell myself to walk away, I reach out and tweak one of her nipples through her sports bra.
She arches, asking for more.
“If I take off those clothes, little girl, you’ll be subject to my will all night long. I’m gonna wear you out before I sleep. Wake you in the middle of the night. Fuck you hard in the morning.”
Her pupils dilate. The nipple I didn’t tweak beads up to match the first. She says nothing. Not a word to dissuade me.
Cazzo.
“You got three seconds to tell me no, little hacker. Otherwise I’ll strip you naked and take you as long and hard as I please.”
She sucks her lower lip into her mouth, drags her teeth across it.
Still not a sound.
“One… two… three.” I unclip the zip ties and the padding beneath them and undress her. “Beautiful girl,” I murmur, reattaching the underwraps and zip ties. I lower my mouth to one of her nipples and flick my tongue over it. Graze it with my teeth. Suck hard until she cries out and arches. All the while, I roll and pinch the other nipple between my fingers.
I switch sides.
Her legs grow restless, sliding up and down over the bedsheets, kicking the covers I pulled down before I strung her up.
“Fuck me, Paolo. Put that big Italian cock in me.”
I slap her breast. She pants, excitement flaring in her eyes. I slap it again. “What did I tell you to call me?”
“Mr. Tacone,” she purrs it, like she’s thrilled I’m asking. Maybe she’s hoping I’ll punish her.
That thought gets my dick even harder.
Fanculo.
I climb off her and strip out of my clothes. She watches with avid interest, pulling that lower lip into her mouth again.
“Do I take orders from you, doll?” I ask when I straddle her, walking on my knees toward her head.
Her eyes widen. “No, sir.”
“Are you the one who tells me where to put my cock?”
“No, Mr. Tacone,” she says immediately. Not like she’s scared. Like she can’t wait to see what happens next.
I feed my cock into her mouth, letting it bump the back of her throat.
When she gags, I pull back a little, then go in again before she’s ready.
“No, little hacker. I put my cock wherever the fuck I want to put it, don’t I?”
She makes a muffled sound of agreement. I love the vibration around my cock. I love the way she sucks like a good girl. Swirls her tongue around. Tries to please me even though I’m the one driving. I’m the one pushing in too far and making her eyes water.
“If I want to fuck your mouth with it, I fuck it. If I want to fuck your ass, I’m gonna fuck your ass. Right, doll?”
Another sound of agreement.
I keep at it, and while I enjoy the hell out of it, it’s less about my pleasure than it is to torture her a bit, because I’m fairly certain that’s what she wanted. To be abused. To have control taken from her.
And I’m gonna make sure she enjoys every second of it.
I pull out of her mouth and scoot back to grip her jaw and claim her mouth. She kisses me back with fervor, her tongue sliding over my lips, her mouth slanting over mine, lips sipping.
When she bites my lower lip, I grip her throat.
“Don’t,” I say when she releases it.
I mean it. I don’t like to be pushed, not even by her. I don’t punish her or strong-talk because she likes that. I don’t want to reward. I just let her see my frown. Don’t move until I’m sure it’s been registered.
“I’m sorry.”
I trace my thumb down between her breasts. “That’s a pretty apology, little girl. I like it when you surrender.”
I stop at her belly button and circle it.
She lifts her hips, urging me lower.
I scoot lower and drag my thumbs up the insides of her legs. She shivers beneath my touch, her pussy glistening in anticipation of my fingers arriving there.
I tease her, rubbing circles at the apex of her inner thighs, but not touching her pussy.
“I’ll be good,” she whisper-promises. Like there’s anything she could say that would keep me from doing whatever the fuck I want anyway.
I nip her inner thigh, flick my tongue on a path toward her pussy, but stop before I reach it.
“Mr. Tacone. Mr. Paolo. Sir. Big guy. Please.”
“I like the begging.” I reward her with a single flick of my tongue over her core.
She sucks in her breath. “Oh please. Oh please, oh please, oh please oh please. I’ll be good. I’ll be such a good girl.”
I meant it when I said I liked the begging. I’m harder than marble.
Maybe I’ve always been on a power trip.
Maybe it’s always been wrong-
Until I met this girl.
I flatten my tongue and lick a long line right up the middle of her slit.
She shivers, legs scissoring to wrap around my back. I push them back off, hold them apart as I lower my head again. Then I get to work. I use my tongue in every way possible to tease her into a frenzy, keep her on the edge of an orgasm.
When she’s a babbling, writhing mess, I rise up on my knees and roll her hips so she’s on her belly.
Well, she doesn’t quite make it to her belly because her wrists are fastened to the headboard, so she’s in a contorted, twisted position that I’m a sick fuck for loving. I slap her ass, which is still red from her whipping earlier, then burrow my thumb between her ass cheeks. “Think I should fuck your ass again tonight? Hmm?”
She’s wide-eyed, alert, her gaze trained on my face, but she doesn’t protest. She doesn’t want it, though, I can tell.
I massage her anus as I rise up behind her and grip my cock, but after I sheath it, I plunge into her pussy, not her ass.
She moans with pleasure.
I reach up and brace my palm against the headboard and start banging her with punctuated thrusts. She makes these cute little ung sounds every time, bracing her own hands to keep from hitting her head each time I drive her up on the bed.
“You made a big mistake showing me this side of you, Wylde West,” I growl, watching her breasts bob every time I slam in.
“Why?”
I don’t pause in my rhythm, each thrust so satisfying I want to bellow my success. “When your debt is paid, I might not let you go.”
She twists to look at me over her shoulder and I catch a question in her gaze. A flash of something I can’t read. Vulnerability? First time she’s shown me any weakness. Because I’m not dumb enough to believe the crazy act for a minute. That’s a card she plays for effect, I know that. Something to push people away or make them underestimate her.
I need to stay on my toes with this one, because there’s an excellent chance that despite her sexual surrender, she’s preparing a countermove that will bury me.
She comes.
When her muscles tighten and squeeze my cock, I shorten my strokes, pumping hard and fast until I come, too.
As I slow my pumping, I nestle up behind her, kiss her pale shoulder. I reach around and rub the barbell of her piercing down on her clit and she comes again, with another delicious round of dick-squeezing with her inner walls.
I kiss her neck, nip the shell of her ear.
“I like fucking you, Caitlin.” Stating the obvious. But it feels like a huge admission. I’m not one to talk about feelings.
Ever.
I don’t even do feelings.
But there’s no denying how satisfying I find it to screw the brains out of my prisoner. And that’s all about how much she enjoys it, too.
Caitlin
Paolo pulls out and cleans up. He cuts the zip tie that fastened my wrists to the headboard, but leaves the one holding my wrists together intact, as well as the one on my ankles. And like last night, he’s careful not to let me see where he puts the scissors.
We settle into the same position as last night, with his arm firmly around my waist-another form of bondage. A very pleasurable form.
“What if I wanted to face you while I sleep?” I ask with mock innocence.
He doesn’t take the bait. No answer.
I listen to the sound of his breath in the darkness. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
He gives a light scoff. “No.”
“Wife?”
“No.” Now he sounds annoyed.
I already noticed he doesn’t wear a ring and there’s no signs of a female presence in his house, but you never know. I didn’t find out enough stalking him today on the internet.
“Were you ever married?” I keep pressing. I want to know more about this man. He doesn’t talk enough and even though I think I have him nailed during our sexual interactions, I’m still missing so much information about him.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Not my thing. Family. Kids. I never wanted that shit. Never been a woman I could stand long-term, either.”
“What’s your longest?”
“There’s no longest. I don’t do girlfriends.”
That seems strange to me, considering how considerate he can actually be. In bed and out. I don’t get it.
Some silly-girl part of me wants to believe the consideration is all for me. Like I’m something new for him.
The silly-girl has to ask, “Have you whipped a woman before?”
“You’re my first.”
Do I detect amusement in his tone?
He’s answering my questions, that alone tells me he’s receptive to me, even if I’m playing the crazy card.
“Really? Because you’re, um, pretty good at it.”
“Pretty good?”
“Very good. I liked it-the way you whipped me. Both times.”
Damn. I sound… breathless. And eager. Why do I sound so eager? I don’t care what he thinks about me. I’m not cultivating a real relationship here. I’m just digging for information on my captor.
Yeah.
I’ll keep telling myself that.
His cock twitches at my ass. He shifts to cup my breast. “You’d better stop running that pretty mouth or that middle of the night fucking is going to happen sooner rather than later.”
My pussy clenches on air. I wouldn’t mind. This man seems to own my body. He just looks at it and I’m wet.
“Do you like it?”
“What?”
“Hurting me.” I shouldn’t put it that way. He might take it wrong. Like I’m accusing him.
He bites my shoulder. “Yeah, I like it.” He’s quiet for a moment. “Makes me wonder if…”
“If what?”
He strums my nipple with his thumb. “I don’t know. Maybe that’s why I haven’t done relationships. I had to keep myself on a leash.”
I close my lips around a little gasp. I am something new for him. My heart picks up speed.
Don’t get excited about this, I warn myself severely. He’s the enemy.
And then I have to know.
Even a crazy girl has to get real at some point.
I draw a deep breath. “Did you kill my father?” If I’m honest, this is what I was trying to figure out when I hacked into his police records.
“Definitely not,” he says. The reply is so immediate that I believe him.
“Do you know who did?”
He’s quiet a moment. “Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you, West. Go to sleep.”
Now he’s calling me West. Is that because he’s thinking about my father?
“But you knew him? You did business with him?”
“I remember him, that’s all. Stop talking.”
I try to turn to face him but he tightens his hold so I can’t move. “You know, don’t you?”
“I don’t know. I could probably find out. But that doesn’t mean I’d tell you the answer.”
“Because it was someone in your family who did it.”
“I don’t think so, Caitlin-I probably woulda known. But it’s possible. I can’t rule it out.”
The answer both disturbs and relieves me at once. It definitely wasn’t Paolo. I’m not having sex with the man who pulled the trigger. And he’s been thinking about it. Which doesn’t make it all better, especially if it were someone in his family who did it, but he’s not as dismissive about it as he was when I first accused him.
But the swirl of unease he first stirred when he asked if my dad had stolen from them returns. The more I stew on that, the more it rings true. I remember fragments of phone conversations he had around that time. Conversations that had made me certain he was killed by the mafia when I reviewed them later. When I saw myself as the victim and my dad as the hero wrested from our family. But now I’m not so sure. Now I suddenly see everything through a different lens. My dad was a shyster. He was always trying to swindle people out of their money, looking for where he could benefit. Maybe he did bring his death on himself.
“I can’t help you with your father’s death,” Paolo says behind me, like he’s been thinking about it for a while and has finally come to a decision.
For a moment, I feel nothing. Like time stands still. And then a giant ball of emotion surges up from my chest. Grief, I guess. Not for my father’s death, but for what I’d made him out to be after-some kind of good guy, not the selfish, absentee, bad example of a dad he really was. Or maybe just something that belonged to me, when I had nothing.
I try to hold it in. I close my throat and choke a little, but then it erupts. My back shakes with one sob. I hold my breath, squeeze my face up to keep the rest from escaping.
It’s impossible. It bursts out of me. Tears stream down my cheeks.
Paolo turns me around and rolls me up against his chest. Holds me close and rubs my back.
I’m embarrassed and mad at myself for losing control like this, but he doesn’t comment. He doesn’t tell me it’s okay or it’s not okay. He just holds me. He massages the back of my head.
And when I realize he’s not going to say anything, I let go completely. I wet his skin with my tears, I let them run and run until they run out.
And afterward, when I’m completely drained, I fall into the deepest sleep of my life.