Chapter Twelve

I'm so close to coming. I can feel the orgasm hovering in my nerve endings, waiting to crash over me. Then I hear Elio's voice.

"Look at me."

I ignore the words, wrapped up in the sensations going on inside my body.

"Kate, look at me," he says again, and this time, I obey.

My eyes meet his dark gaze, which is warm with hunger and need, and the orgasm that had been waiting in the background washes over me with the force of a tsunami.

I hear someone crying out over and over, and I realize, belatedly, that it's me making those sounds.

I've never come like this in all my life.

The pleasure is almost painful it's so intense. Wave after wave of feeling ripples through me and I feel a tear slip down my cheek. I keep my gaze locked with Elio's as I ride out the orgasm, feeling more naked before him than any of the times that I had been without clothing in his presence.

"How was that for intimacy?" he asks me, his voice cocky and a smug smile gracing his lips.

I collapse back on the bed, gasping for air, still feeling sharp little pinging jolts of pleasure racing across my skin.

His question is a loaded one because it might be the most intimate thing I have done with him in bed, but I still feel like I have no idea what he is thinking.

I'm not even sure why he wanted me to make myself come rather than using my body for his own pleasure the way he always has in the past.

He still feels like a locked container, full of dangerous secrets, that is a threat to myself and my child.

I close my eyes and attempt to gather my thoughts. I'm supposed to make him comfortable enough with me that I can bargain with him.

I need to get him to the point where he will acquiesce to my desire to live with Mateo somewhere safe that isn't a mob prison. Being intimate in the bedroom is not the same as being trusted or having the ability to voice one"s own needs and have them met.

"Your turn," I say to him, my eyes still closed.

I realize that one of my breasts is still uncovered, but I don't make a move to cover it. I can't find the strength to do anything but lie still.

"An eye for an eye, is it?" he asks me, but I hear him working his belt loose, and then he rises from the bed.

"I've always thought of you like some kind of fallen angel," I admit to him. "So maybe that's a fitting kind of justice."

He chuckles. "Surely you always thought of me as Lucifer," he counters.

I risk opening my eyes and I'm greeted by the sight of him pulling his boxer briefs off. His shirt is unbuttoned, and its tails perfectly frame his dick. I wonder a little at the size of him. I knew he was large, even as an inexperienced girl, but good lord, he's big.

No wonder I always came almost right away when he fucked me.

"I had always considered you more of an Azazel," I reply, watching him climb back onto the bed and kneel beside me.

He chuckles a little and the sound makes my heart pinch in my chest. He used to laugh a lot, despite his touchy temper and his crazy shifts of mood. I didn't know that I had missed the sound until now.

"Why Azazel?" he asks me as he begins to stroke his long fingers along the length of himself. He's looking down at his hand as it goes about the familiar task, his sleek, dark hair draping over his forehead.

He nips a hold of his full lower lip with his teeth, and it makes me want to rear up and kiss him, but I resist.

"He taught the mortals about the forbidden knowledge," I say back. "It seemed fitting."

He meets my gaze, the amusement still lurking in his expression, but giving way to the languor of unsatisfied desire. "Perhaps you were also thinking of his ability to do magic," he suggests, nodding down toward his proud, firm dick cradled in his hand.

I snort. "I think Azazel's ability to manipulate the thoughts and feelings of others is a more accurate connection."

He is silent for a moment, but I hear his breathing changing as he starts to get closer to orgasm. Finally, he says, "Don't confuse my work with myself, Kate. They are not always the same thing."

I turn those enigmatic words over in my mind as he starts to stroke faster along the length of his cock. It jumps in his hands here and there as he gets closer and closer to his release.

The cadence of his strokes is almost hypnotic and I feel myself lulled into the push and pull of his actions. He squeezes a little more firmly for a few last strokes and groans as he comes, his seed spilling onto my naked breast and chest.

I stare down at the puddle of him on my skin. "Hard to believe that something that looks like that can make a person," I comment idly.

He narrows his gaze on me for a moment, then climbs off the bed and walks into the bathroom. He returns with a wet washcloth. "Did they ask you about a paternity test?" he says by way of reply. He hands the washcloth to me and starts putting on his clothing.

I freeze in the middle of wiping up the mess on my chest. I look at him carefully, not sure what feeling to assign to this moment. "Do you want one?"

He shrugs. "Probably not. However, I haven't seen the boy yet."

"Trust," I hiss, wiping the rest of the semen off my body in annoyance and then yanking my shirt up to cover myself again. "I see that the concept still eludes you."

He holds up a hand to me. "I didn't say anything about demanding a test for my own peace of mind. I just wondered if the Baldinis wanted you to submit to having Mateo and myself tested. They don't seem to even trust one another, let alone outsiders."

I want to scream with frustration. Nothing about Elio has changed. He still doesn't want to treat me like an equal, and he clearly has no intentions of trusting me.

I'm going to have to make other plans to get myself and Mateo out of this mess. Clearly, none of the men in my life can be counted on for anything.

"Get out of here, Elio," I say coldly, rising from the bed and going into the bathroom. I feel like there aren't enough hot showers to rinse off the filth of coming into contact with so many evil men every day.

"We aren't done talking, Kate," he says, his tone highhanded and arrogant.

I snort and slam the bathroom door. I twist the lock on the knob and turn on the shower. "That's where you are wrong," I call back. "I am done talking. I don't give a shit if you are done talking to me or not."

I think he says something back to me, but I can't make out the words over the sound of the shower. I wait until the temperature is right and then strip out of my borrowed clothes.

The hot water feels nice, and I stand for a few minutes just letting it run over my body.

I hate myself for still wanting Elio so much.

It's like my body doesn't give a crap what is logical where he is concerned. I should despise him after everything that he has done to me, but as soon as we touched one another, I started giving in to him again, just like I always do.

I wash my hair and then loosely tie it up on top of my head so I can wash the rest of my body. I scold myself for waiting around for so long without making any of my own plans.

What was I expecting? That Elio would come here and simply agree to whatever the Baldini family wanted so that he could keep me and Mateo safe? Surely I should have known better than that.

He had never once put anyone else before himself in all the years that I had known him. Why should this situation be any different?

It hurt to admit to myself that he didn't want anything from me but the money that he could make off of marrying me. I wonder if Marco has let my parents know that I am now a captive of the Baldini family.

He had made them aware that I was safe after I ran away from Elio, but he had told them not to ask any questions about where I was.

I assume that he won't say anything to them about the fact that I have been taken to the US, because he won't want to risk having them come here to try and free me from my prison.

And he's probably wise to keep the information secret, as much as I hate to admit it. The Baldini family, the Aguirres, and the Rodriguez clan have always vied for control of the drug market.

There is no telling what kind of foolishness my parents and my extended family would get up to if they knew I had been kidnapped. And, I had to admit, that Marco was unwilling to step on either the Baldini's or Elio's toes for the sake of his own business dealings.

It sucked to be at the bottom of everyone's list all the time.

I wonder if Luca and Enzo would be this casual if one of their women was kidnapped by another powerful family. I remember that the Baldinis had left Grazia in Marco's clutches for weeks without coming to save her and shake my head.

I don't know if I feel better or worse about my situation now that I have realized that I am being treated like a real Baldini woman.

I watch the soap bubbles running down my bare legs and wish I could wash away down the drain just like them. I take a finger and slip it through the swollen, tingling folds of my sex.

The orgasm that I experienced earlier had been shocking in its intensity and it was like it had woken something inside of me that could not be quenched.

I think about Elio's giant cock and feel myself growing wet all over again. It had been so long since I had been fucked by him, and I have to admit that all I could think about was getting Elio inside of me once he was in my bedroom. I was proud of my own restraint and that I had managed to at least convince him to take things slightly more slowly than he had in the past.

I slip a finger inside myself and put my foot up on the ledge inside the shower. That isn't enough, and I add two more, sucking in a breath at the jolt of sensation traveling through me in response to the increased pressure.

I close my eyes and think of Elio moving inside my body, making me shout with pleasure like he always did in the past, spilling himself inside of me as he came with his teeth sunk into my skin.

I come apart for the second time in a half hour, shaking so badly that I almost slip on the soapy shower floor.

I lean my head against the tiles as my quivering body settles, wishing for the umpteenth time that I had not made the mistake of running to Marco over a lover's spat seven years ago.

Nothing about my life has gone the way I wanted it to since that day. It's time for me to take matters into my own hands and start working out a plan to escape this prison without the help of the man I love.