Chapter 10

Jack

The reception went by in a blur, a whirling dervish of faces and meaningless conversations, congratulations, and ribald jokes. My patience slipped away far faster than the actual minutes. I wanted to be alone with my bride. I couldn’t wait to get my hands under her dress and find out what she was wearing underneath.

Maybe I wouldn’t even undress her for the first time. Maybe I would leave her fully gowned, fucking her through a cloud of virginal white fabric as I debauched and deflowered her. It became harder and harder to keep my unruly cock under control, despite all the people around us. Fortunately, thanks to the press of the crowd, no one looked down to notice.

“Jack, did you see where Hailey’s little friend went?” Gio came up beside me when my cousin Vinnie departed, frowning as he tried to find the diminutive blonde in the crowd. Truthfully, she should have stood out more than she did, considering the majority of the guests had dark hair, but she was very short.

“Gave you the slip again, did she?” I asked with amusement. Watching Gio chase her all over the banquet hall had been the only thing keeping my impatience from exploding. She was a nimble little thing. “Is she not with Hailey anymore?”

I hadn’t been watching anyone other than my bride, so of course, I’d noticed when Clara appeared by her side while Hailey spoke with my mother’s cousins. I’d somehow missed her disappearing again.

“No.” Gio scowled and stalked off, a man on a mission.

Grinning, I pulled out my pocket watch to check the time. Ah. Finally.

Catching my father’s eye, I made a discreet motion to the door. He frowned, checked his own watch, then met my eyes again to give me a nod of approval. Doubtless, my mother would prefer Hailey and I stay for longer, but my patience had run out.

Moving swiftly through the crowd, like a shark hunting a particular fish within a school, I moved unerringly to my bride’s side. She was standing among her cousins, a false smile on her face, though when she saw me approaching, she pretended to be far more interested in their conversation than she had been a moment before.

I had no interest in being polite and waiting for them to finish.

“Hailey, it’s time to go.” I interrupted the conversation without apology, holding out my hand, not looking at the others. For a moment, it seemed as if she might protest, though I hadn’t seen any sign she’d been enjoying the past few hours any more than I had, then she nodded.

Smiled her fake little smile.

Excused herself from her cousins.

Picked up her bouquet from the table she’d set it on.

Turned back to me and slid her fingers into mine.

Something settled inside my chest when I had her in my grasp again, easing some of the tension that had been building inside me. Maybe I should have stayed closer to her during the reception, but I’d thought keeping my distance to be the better option. Give her more time to get ready for the night without me hovering over her. Ensure I’d be able to keep my own desires under control.

While my mother would excuse us leaving early, she definitely wouldn’t have forgiven me for disappearing in the middle of the reception to consummate the marriage, even if we’d returned afterward.

The hotel was only five minutes away from our home.

Hailey

Nerves rang through me as Giacomo led me into his bedroom.

Not the nerves of a virgin on her wedding night but the nerves of a woman who planned to take the life of a mafia don’s son, then disappear into the night.

Doubts assailed me.

What if I don’t succeed?

What if I do succeed and don’t escape?

What if I do succeed, escape, then they punish Clara because I’ve disappeared?

Surely, they won’t punish her… If I do this and run, they should think I don’t care what happens to her, but what if they hurt her, anyway?

Killing Giacomo would start a war between my family and his, but they had all made their choices. They had chosen their lives but had taken all of my choices away from me. Perhaps if I did this, they would learn their lesson, and no other woman would be forced to marry for the good of the Family.

Can I really kill him?

Am I really going to do this?

What if I can’t go through with it?

Do I really have the right to decide if someone dies? What about innocents caught up in the war? What if Giacomo’s father is as barbaric as my grandfather was? Do I really want my whole family to die?

What should I do?

I didn’t want to kill him. I just didn’t want to be married to him.

Maybe I should do myself in instead. That would send a message as well, though my grandfather might blame the DiNardo Family and start a war again, although it’s not as if I’d be around to see it. I wanted to live, wanted the life I chose, not the one that had been chosen for me.

Apparently, that had been too much to ask.

It all became a moot point when Giacomo closed the door behind him and spun me around. My hands came up automatically, the bouquet bouncing off his chest and falling to the rug at our feet. His lips were on me before he could see my expression, which was a relief because I had not quite been able to suppress the fear and horror that flashed across my face.

My nerves seemed to work against me, morphing from anxious tension to an altogether different sort of tautness inside my body. Giacomo’s tongue invaded my mouth, and his cologne filled my senses as his hands roamed over my body without pause. I could feel his hardness pressing into my stomach, and my own passion responded, surging harder and faster than I could have anticipated. I moaned against his lips, a denial, but it was also full of arousal as my body betrayed me.

He moved us across the room, hands pulling at my skirts, only to curse and give up when the heavy fabric of the long train proved to be too troublesome. The style might not have been as fashionable, but I was grateful for the reprieve.

Spinning me around, he pushed me forward a step. I gasped when my thighs hit the bed, my hands going out to catch myself and hold me bent at the waist before him. Immediately, he was behind me, fingers working at the buttons going up the back of the dress, his breath hot and heavy against my ear while his lower body pressed into mine.

“I imagined our first time together while you were still wearing this dress, but I don’t think that’s going to be possible.”

No, not hardly, though I didn’t say so aloud. It would have required quite a bit more cooperation on my part than he was going to get. I peeked over my shoulder, but the bouquet was on the floor, far—too far—away from us to be of any use.

A hot, wet kiss on the nape of my neck startled me, and I moaned, the sound surprised out of me before I could muffle it.

Jack

The sound of my bride’s desire spurred me to move faster, pulling at the buttons and leaving them hanging by threads as I stripped her out of the dress. The corselette, bloomers, and silky teddy beneath would have to go as well. If I couldn’t have her in her wedding gown, I didn’t want her in anything at all.

My pulse pounded in my ears, my cock hard as a rock while my hands roamed freely over her, but I didn’t want her from behind like this. I wanted to see her. I wanted her to see me.

When the last piece of clothing dropped to the floor, I spun her around to face me. She tried to cover herself, arms crossing over her breasts, hands pressed to the curls over her mound. That wouldn’t do at all.

I pulled her to me again, kissing her and pushing her into a sitting position on the bed, forcing myself between her knees. I could feel her muscles quivering as she tried to close her thighs. Deepening the kiss, I tweaked one of her pert nipples to distract her. She gasped, and my cock jerked, but she still tried to squirm away.

She ended up falling back onto the bed with me atop her. Our lips parted, still pressed together, managing to escape a clashing of our teeth but nothing else. She moaned into my mouth, and I growled into hers, our connection muffling the sounds. The silky skin of her body pressed against mine from breasts to groin, her softness cushioning me.

I ached to thrust inside her, but I knew she wasn’t ready yet.

She was still fighting me, and while that could be fun in the future, it wasn’t what I wanted for our wedding night.

Tonight, I wanted her to beg for it.

Lowering my mouth to her neck, I pressed a hot, open-mouth kiss against her satiny skin.

Hailey

Unwanted heat flushed through me, my body betraying me, just as it had before. I’d never had a man’s weight pressing down on me, his arms encasing me, holding me beneath him. Trapped. Helpless. Needy.

There was no alcohol to blame tonight. Though champagne had been available, I hadn’t drunk a drop. No, the throbbing ache swelling between my thighs was mine and mine alone. I whimpered as Giacomo’s hands slid up my sides to cup my breasts. My nipples, the one he’d pinched still tingling, were so tightly budded, they felt as if they were throbbing, begging to be touched.

I felt his hardness move between my thighs, pressing against my slick folds but not entering me… not yet. I was still a virgin, the marriage still unconsummated, but I had no doubt both of those things would cease to be true in the next few minutes.

“Bella,” he murmured, his lips nuzzling over my collarbone, heading for my breasts, which were feeling heavier by the second as he stroked and plumped them. The air between us was alive with electricity, sizzling along my nerves and pulsing through my veins.

When his lips reached my nipple, I made an inarticulate sound in my throat as the hot, wet heat closed around the sensitive bud—not a protest, but not a plea, either. I was caught somewhere between heaven and hell, with the devil himself seducing me further into temptation.

My resistance was melting away, my defenses crumbling under the sensual assault on my senses. I had never been touched like this, never felt like this before. Touching myself had never been like this. When he’d touched me at the precinct, it had been intimate and overwhelming but not a full-body experience.

Now, he had full access to every inch of me, and before I could process one touch, one kiss, he was already moving on to the next, leaving me no time to find my footing. I gasped, moaning and arching beneath him, writhing as sensations cascaded through me, sweeping away my coherence.

My pulse throbbed through me, my nipple aching as he sucked and laved his tongue over the sensitive bud before moving to the other. My fingers clutched his hair, not trying to pull his head away or trying to hold him closer, just hanging on for dear life, devastated by my body’s reactions to his erotic mastery.

Something bumped against the wet lips of my womanhood, and I whimpered, hips pushing upward, trying to meet him.

“Tell me you want me.”

The order was rough, his voice harsh, and it took a moment for the words to make their way through the aroused haze fuzzing my brain.

“No.” It was a weak ‘no,’ a pathetic rejection, and even I knew it didn’t sound like I meant it. He rocked his hips, sliding his shaft through my folds, bumping against the extremely sensitive spot at the apex, and I moaned.

I hated him. I wanted him. The emotions contradicted each other, yet they were equally true.

Teeth nipped me, scraping over sensitive skin, tugging on my nipple, and the needy ache that throbbed through me wouldn’t be denied.

What did it matter?

That was the thought that tempted, beckoned. He was going to have his way with me, anyway, so I might as well just say yes and get it over with. Let myself feel good. Enjoy what I could before I turned the world bloody.

“Tell me, little one.”

I was his wife now. ‘Til death do us part.

This wasn’t a sin. This was what was supposed to happen.

Hips shifted, and he pressed again, almost inside me, and I ached to be filled.

“Yes.” A whisper. A hushed murmur. A barely heard acceptance of my fate, of my desire.

It was all he needed.

I cried out as he invaded me, breaking through the fragile barrier of my virginity as though it was nothing, his thickness stretching me painfully but oh so deliciously. He was inside me, pulsing, throbbing before he drew back and pushed in again, even deeper.

Every inch of me was lit up like fireworks, sparkling, sizzling, flickering…

“Look at me.”

I opened my eyes, my gaze meeting his as he stared down at me, his body moving over me, pushing inside me. He was everywhere around me, filling me, claiming me, and leaving me panting with heated need.

Lowering his lips to mine, he claimed me with another kiss, his tongue invading my mouth as he filled me below, joining us together in every way possible.

I wrapped my legs around him, pulling him closer. The need that had built up inside me demanded satisfaction, and he was going to give it to me. He had taken so much from me—now, it was time to take something back.

We moved together, my muscles clenching around him every time he buried himself inside me. His body rubbed against my pleasure centers, sending sparks of ecstasy soaring through me as I reached my peak. I cried out against his lips, and he pulled away, my screams of pleasure filling our ears. With our mouths no longer fused together, he moved harder, faster, and the waves of erotic rapture raged through me.

I was lost to the sensations, carried away to a place where it didn’t matter who he was, who I was, or how we’d come together—all that mattered was the passion.