Chapter 25

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

DANTE

T he feel of her on my lap, in my arms, on my lips, is making me forget how pissed off Lorenzo is that I’m not at the warehouse with our prisoner. Fuck the family, and fuck the business. All I want to do is drown in Alyssa.

My phone is vibrating in my pocket relentlessly, and Alyssa breaks from my lips to look down at it.

“Is that a phone in your pocket, or did you bring a toy to play with?”

My laugh overtakes the room as I dig into my pocket and text Lorenzo that I’ll be on my way promptly.

He’s taking this interim boss job a bit too seriously if you ask me.

“As much as I want to say it’s a toy that I mean to tie you up and torture you with for not texting me back, tesoro, it’s duty calling.”

She nods, eyes clearing of the lingering lust our kiss had bred as she slides off my lap and stands, straightening her clothes and brushing her hair back.

“Well, when duty calls, you have to answer. I’ll get out of here so you can get ready,” she says, grabbing the bag she sat on the piano and heading for the door as if the last few minutes hadn't happened.

My cock is screaming at her in two different languages right now.

I reach her in a flash, pressing her against the door as it slams shut.

She lets out a strangled moan as I press my hips forward, running the length of me over the sweet seam of her ass.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” I ask her, my tone demanding and dark.

“You said you had somewhere to be. Don’t want to piss off Lorenzo,” she breathes, turning her face to press against the door, giving me a clear shot at her left ear.

I nuzzle through her hair, nipping the shell of it, relishing in the cute little whimper she tries to hold back. “I didn’t release you,” I snarl.

She laughs, and it dances through my brain like the fog of sickness, pulling me under the heady notes like she’s whiskey and I’m the unassuming male too weak not to partake of her.

“What, am I to call you Daddy now like Brynne does Slate?” she jokes.

I back up some, fisting her hair in my hand and using it to turn her. Her back hits the door as I yank her around to face me. Stepping back into her body, I press against her at an angle that allows me to come face-to-face with the siren.

“No, but you could use some respect when you speak to me, tesoro.”

She smiles, gasping when I tighten my hand in her hair. “What will you have me call you, then?”

“Sir, would be nice.”

No laughter breaks free of her mouth like I’m expecting. Instead, her pupils dilate in her beautiful eyes, slightly darkening them. It’s enough to have my cock pulsing along with their movement.

“Like that, do you?”

“What? No. It’s demeaning and wrong,” she says, trying to hide how the idea of her surrendering to me and calling me sir made her feel. It was evident how her face changed as I demanded it.

In the way her body shifted into mine.

“Is that right?” I ask her, fighting a smirk.

She nods, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth.

“Open your legs,” I tell her, standing to my full height. Looking down at her, I watch her grapple with the command as she tries to decide what to do.

“Go on, show sir how wet you are for him, hm?”

“That’s not fair. I’m wet from the kiss,” she counters as she heeds my order and spreads her legs.

She’s in leggings and an overly baggy sweatshirt, and she looks fucking delectable, but I can’t focus on that right now.

“It was a good kiss,” I agree, working my hand down the front of her pants.

My hand doesn’t skim over panties, however. I find her bare, clean-shaven, and silky as I slide my hand to its true destination between those plump pussy lips of hers.

My fingers efficiently work over her clit and find her sopping wet entrance as she spreads herself further, pressing her back into the door to angle herself a bit better on my fingers.

“Hungry little tesoro tonight, aren’t you?”

She nods.

“Words. You know the ones that I want,” I growl.

She licks her lips, her pupils dancing again in arousal as she fights the surrender.

“Tesoro,” I warn.

She’s so used to being the independent, tough girl I’ve come to love, but I want her to be able to let all that go at the door. While I’ll never dampen her fire, I want her to know I’ve got her.

That I’m here, and she can let the fucking walls down.

Also, I want to hear her call me sir.

“Yes, sir,” she says meekly.

The words cause a firestorm in my body, and I slip two fingers inside her, curving them up to rub the spot I know will set her off quickly.

She’s right, I’m supposed to be leaving this very minute, but she came here for me. She swallowed all her fear and all the bullshit her anxiety spins in her overactive mind and came here. She’s trying.

I’ll be damned if she leaves here sopping wet and disappointed when I’m so fucking proud of her.

“There’s a good tesoro. God, you’re so fucking beautiful.”

She grips my shoulders in both hands, digging in with all she has as I hasten the pace at my fingers.

“You were right, you know? I have to get going. But I’m so fucking proud of you for being brave enough to come here. To tell me you missed me, too. I see you, Alyssa. I know how hard this shit is for you. I appreciate you.”

Her mouth gapes open, and even if I don’t know if my words are registering in her lust-addled brain right now, I still let them free. She needs to know.

She grinds on my hands, taking what she needs as much as I give.

“That a girl, make yourself come on my hand. Later, when I’m half-crazed from interrogating and torturing, I’ll have the scent of you still on my fingers to keep me grounded.”

She whimpers, loud and guttural.

Her breathing has increased, her moans slamming together like the most melodic symphony, and she’s using the leverage of her hands on my shoulders to ride my hand.

“Dante,” she pants, eyes going frantic.

“Let go, baby. I’ve got you,” I croon.

“Fuck! Yes, sir!” she screams, breaking to shattered bits all over my hand, body clamping around my fingers in waves, cum squirting out and coating me like a visible brand.

“Good fucking girl.”

When I pull out of her, I’m careful not to lose any of the wetness she soaked me with. I want to let it dry into my skin and take it with me tonight.

She drops to her knees before me, grabbing my zipper before I stop her.

I cup her face, looking down at her as her breathing tries to regulate.

“As much as I want those perfect lips around my cock, tesoro. I’ve got to go. But be ready. When I’m done, I’m tying you up, making you my little plaything. I’m going to make you come so many times that you’re going to beg me to leave you alone.”

She licks her lips. “Promise?”

Helping her to her feet, I kiss her. “Promise.”

“Don’t be like everyone else, Dante. Keep your promises to me.”

I smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Please!” His snot rolls out of his nose, disgusting me even more than all the blood he’s spurted all over the floor.

His name is Mark. That alone took two hours to get out of him. It only took me another fifteen minutes—and a broken wrist—to get him to tell me his last name, Romano.

One of the Five.

“Tell me why your family has been using our docks.”

“I’m only a distant cousin,” he pleads.

This means he’s not privy to the inner workings and the why . He’s a low man on the totem pole, doing as he’s told to keep alive.

I hit the trigger on the drill, a favorite of Slate’s and mine to work with.

He cries out in fear. “Listen, all I know is that the Riccis and Bianchis are weak right now. The transition allows us to get some skin in the game.”

“Skin in the game? Trafficking?”

He shrugs.

“Well,” I say, standing and moving toward the table with everything Marco laid out for me. “I guess if you don’t want to keep your neck, I’ll sever it to send a message. You’ll still serve me even if you’ve nothing useful to give me,” I tell him.

His screams are mind-numbing until the ax gets through the third swing, and he silences altogether.

“Fucking silence. It truly is golden, you know?” I ask him, crouching over his head that has rolled toward my foot and stopped, his fear-filled eyes looking up at me.

I consider closing them for a moment, but then I decide against it. I want them to see how scared he was.

Let them witness just how weak the Riccis aren’t right now.

“Marco!” I call, knowing he’s lurking somewhere around here; he always does when I’m working.

“Sir?” he asks, coming into the room.

I lift Mark’s head off the ground by his hair, my bloodied hand fisting into the brown strands as I turn, holding his head toward Marco.

He doesn’t bristle, which is good. Had he, his head would’ve been the next to roll. Riccis don’t accept weakness.

“Deliver this to Don Romano.”

“Any message you want attached, sir?”

I shake my head, wiping my hands down my blood-soaked clothes. “No. I think they’ll understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”

He lifts his head a bit, nodding. “Yeah. I think they’ll get the message loud and clear.”

“If they don’t, the streets will run red,” I mutter as Marco shuts the door behind him.

I look down at my hands, realizing just how soaked they are in blood. It pisses me off. I know her scent is gone now.

I dial Lorenzo and fill him in on what I got and my message.

“Well, we will wait and see if they choose to answer,” he tells me before we end the call.

I have Pauly drive me back to my place to get cleaned up before I go to Alyssa’s and work off some of the restless energy coursing through me.

It’s two in the morning, so I’ll likely need to break in. I don’t have the key to Slate’s townhouse, but I know how to get in. It used to be his father’s. It was his childhood home.

Lord knows why he kept it, likely only so no one else would get their hands on it.

The neighborhood is all made of old money, and that house has been in the Ricci family for generations.

Tonight will be the first time it gets broken into, however. Though, I think the Don will forgive me.

I cleaned up and packed up some toys and rope from my special closet in the third spare bedroom, and now I’m jimmying open the window in the kitchen of Slate’s house.

Slate had me assess all the properties this year for security; this window is on the list to be fixed.

For now, however, I’ll use it to my advantage.

I nearly knock over a lamp once I’m inside.

I wince, listening to see if Alyssa is still awake. Oddly, I don’t even hear the low murmur of television filtering through the house. She usually slept with it on with me.

I close the window as gently as possible and heft my black bag over my shoulder as I kick off my shoes and pad up the ornate marble staircase to where I assume she’s asleep in one of the rooms.

I find her face down in what used to be Slate’s bedroom. One of her legs is out of the covers, and I follow its path up with my gaze. A supple ass cheek is lying bare, her underwear having ridden up as she’s tossed in her sleep.

She sleeps like a fish out of water at night.

Peeling the covers slowly, I take in every beautiful curve.

She murmurs something in her sleep as I drop my bag and get my rope to begin my work.

I work her feet together to tie them, and abruptly, I’m halted as Alyssa flips over onto her back, one leg lying straight and one cocking up in the air.

I purse my lips but get a better idea and set to work.

Tying a basic heel weave over her heel and foot, I then work it up over her knee to tie her leg in a bent position. I work the rope over her thighs, knotting it down the sides as I go along. When I’m done, only I know how to pull the right way to release her, and she can’t straighten her leg.

When I lift the other, I think I wake her, but she snorts and drifts back off to sleep as I get the other tied the same.

Shibari is a favorite pastime of mine, and my little tesoro will learn what it means to be at my mercy tonight.

I only hope she’s ready.

I work carefully to get leather cuffs on her wrists and then connect them to the metal bed frame above her head, and when I hear her coming around, it’s the perfect time.

Because my work is done.

“What the fuck? Oh God, who are you? No, no, no,” she panics as she can’t see me in the dark and realizes how immobile she is.

“Help!” she screams, but I clamp my hand over her mouth, muffling it.

“Now, tesoro, is that any way to treat the man that you miss?”

Her scream dies into a breath behind my hand, and I remove it.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

The patter of her heart is bleeding into my chest where I lay over her body, my cock answering with its own pulse as it presses into her center.

“I told you I was going to tie you up and torture you. I am a man who keeps my promises,” I answer, reaching between us and shoving her panties to the side.

“Dante,” she breathes. “I don’t know if I like this. I feel too… too out of control.”

“Mm, I worried about that. You want a safeword, minaccia?”

“Back to menace now?” she breathes, her head lifting as her lips dust over mine.

It’s beautiful torment, the torrent that waves invisibly between us. It’s addictive, like that first taste of your favorite ice cream to curb a craving.

“Red will work, hm?” I ask her. “If you need me to release you, you say red. I’ll let you lose as fast as I can.”

She nods.

I back away from her, and she looks down at my handiwork as I click the bedside lamp on.

“How in the hell… Where did you learn to do this?”

“I’m skilled in torture, tesoro, sexual and otherwise.” I grin, and she rolls her eyes and lets her legs fall open further, tormenting me with the glisten of the light over her exposed pussy.

“Now, where was I before I was so rudely interrupted?” I reach into my bag at the end of the bed, stepping off to the side to loom over top of her. “Oh yeah,” I click on the vibrator I brought specifically for her, “I remember now.”

“Dante,” she warns, and I ignore her as I press ahead.

“Shh, tesoro. You told me to keep my promises, didn’t you?”