I couldn’t fucking believe that the sight of my terrified wife got to me. I pulled away, cursing and so furious I could barely see straight. I punched the wall, glad for the blinding pain ripping through my knuckles that grounded me. I was going to be Capo in a few years. I had killed, blackmailed, tortured, but I couldn’t take my wife’s virginity against her will. What did that make me? Father would call me a pussy. Maybe he’d decide I wasn’t fit to be his heir if I couldn’t even fuck my wife. But I knew I wasn’t growing soft, not in general. I could go out now and kill every fucking member of the Chicago Outfit without a flicker of remorse. Hell, I could go down now and slice my father’s throat, and I’d fucking enjoy it.
Of course, we still needed to make sure everyone believed I had fucked Aria. There was only one way to do it. I turned back to my shaking wife and pulled out my knife. Not only was I denying myself the pleasure of being inside her tight pussy tonight, but I was also going to bleed for her.
The thought didn’t sit well with me, and not because I cared about a cut. I’d suffered through much worse injuries, but I couldn’t help but feel like my action would give Aria too much power over me. But I knew I’d already made up my mind.
She was watching me with barely hidden trepidation and, when I moved toward her, she flinched. Again. She expected the worst because I was a monster. I cut my arm, put my knife down on the table, and grabbed a glass to catch a few droplets of blood. Aria’s surprise would have been amusing, if I wasn’t still mad at myself. I headed into the bathroom to add a few drops of water to the blood, so it would look convincing. I hadn’t been with a virgin before. My tastes had always run toward the rough, so experienced women had seemed the better choice, but I’d witnessed a few presentations of the sheets over the years, and I knew what was expected.
Aria hadn’t moved from her spot when I headed back to the bedroom and toward the bed where I spread a few drops of the pink liquid. From the corner of my eye, I could see her approaching me carefully. She stopped a few feet from me, hope mingling with confusion on her pretty face. Some girls were ugly criers. I didn’t think Aria could ever look anything less than stunning. The deep blush on her cheeks made me hate myself even more for my weakness. I could have had her beautiful body beneath me tonight, but instead I was painting a fucking picture with my own blood for the fucking furies of my family.
“What are you doing?”
“They want blood. They get blood.”
“Why the water?”
“Blood doesn’t always look the same.”
“Is it enough blood?”
What had the women of her family told her about first times? “Did you expect a blood bath? It’s sex, not a knife fight.”
She bit her lip again and an image of her doing that in the throes of passion slipped into my mind.
“Won’t they know that it’s your blood?” she asked quietly. She looked too damn gorgeous with that fucking blush and small, hopeful smile. I wanted to see if I could make her lovely blush spread all over her body.
I needed a fucking drink. If I didn’t get laid today, I’d at least get drunk. Fucking waste of a night. “No.”
I poured myself scotch into the glass with the blood-water mix. Aria didn’t take her eyes off me as I threw my head back and downed my drink. She gave me a disgusted look.
“What about a DNA test?”
Was she serious? “They’ll take me at my word. Nobody will doubt that I’ve taken your virginity the moment we were alone. They won’t, because I am who I am.” I had a reputation. I’d never shied back from doing something I was supposed to do. So why wasn’t I getting Aria out of her dress to fuck her?
Fear filled her face and she took a step back as if she could read my mind and was thinking of running.
That was fucking why. While I enjoyed seeing fear on the faces of my enemies and occasionally my own soldiers, the idea of having Aria lie beneath me with a similar expression didn’t turn me on at all. I didn’t want her terrified of me.
“No,” I said. “That’s the fifth time you’ve shied back from me tonight.” I put my glass down and grabbed my knife from the table before I walked toward her. She looked like she wanted to bolt. “Did your father never teach you to hide your fear from monsters? They give chase if you run.”