“What are you doing?” Her voice is a whisper, and she starts turning her head, trying to get a look at what I’ve done to her.
“Being festive.” For the first time I can remember, the sight of Christmas lights doesn’t fully irritate me. Even though they’re not lit up, I can’t deny how good it looks having her bound and at my mercy.
I can smell her–smell us–as I kneel on the edge of the bed, brushing her hair off one shoulder.
“What do you think Mateo would say if he could see you now?”
She glances at me from the corner of her eye, shaking her head. “He wouldn’t care.”
“No?”
Nibbling on her bottom lip, she shifts, adjusting her grip on the bed. “He’d just expect a turn after, I’m sure.”
Fury rages inside my chest, hot and blistering as it tries to seize control of my brain. The primal, animalistic part of me wants to march downstairs and find the limp-dicked fucker in the crowd, drag him by his balls upstairs, and force his eyes open with hooks so he’d have to watch me make a mess of his fiancée.
That part of me thirsts for his blood—and not in the way I crave Elena’s.
My gaze falls to the slightly purpled skin on her cheek, hidden beneath concealer.
The bruising on her shoulder, older than the mark I left moments ago.
The yellowed patch below her ribs that I’m just noticing—too large to be the result of a hand, or even a fist.
Blood boiling, I push to a standing position and glance at the door. All logical thought flees as I think of him putting his hands on her—hurtingher, and not in the name of making her feel good.
Mateo de Luca wouldn’t know what makes Elena Ricci feel good if it reached out and stabbed him in the fucking heart.
She may be his in name, on paper, but he hasn’t spent the last two years infatuated by her every waking move. Hasn’t spent that time exchanging poetry with her, erasing the bad memories associated with the act with her light and innocence.
He doesn’t know her. Doesn’t know she belongs to me, if only by extension of a centuries-old myth.
That her soul calls to mine, and her pleasure is mine to create.
“Don’t,” she mutters, as if sensing the direction my mind has veered. “He’s not worth it.”
“He may not be.” I pause, my heart kicking against my chest. “But you are, little one.”
Still, as I start toward the door downstairs, a furious pounding comes from the other side.
We freeze, eyes darting to one another and locking in place.
Like maybe if they don’t hear us inside, they’ll go away.
“Open the fuck up,carina.” Mateo’s voice bleeds through the wood, punctuated by what I imagine to be the side of his fist. Even with the barrier between us and the calculated wording, I can tell he’s wasted. “Ariana said you were hiding out in your room. You’re always hiding out, like you don’t want to be seen with me. What’s the fucking problem? Come celebrate your birthday with your man.”
Gritting my teeth, I turn back toward Elena.
She drops to her elbows, defeat pouring through her limbs. “Untie me.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “No.”
Her head whips around, eyes narrowing. “I wasn’t asking.”
“And I wasn’t done with you.” Maneuvering beneath the lights between the two bedposts, I situate myself between her spread thighs, reaching up to grip her ass in my palms. “You wanted poetry, yes? Can you think of anything more profound than my tongue on this sweet little pussy, while the man you’ve been promised to listens outside?”
“But I’m… I need to clean myself before you do that.”
“You will do no such thing.”