I shook my head. I was going soft for this woman and it bothered me. I needed all of my focus on killing Romano right now, but ever since she’d come to live with me, I’d caught myself fantasizing about her multiple times a day.
“Alright,” I said reluctantly.
I slipped beneath the swirling, hot water and she crawled onto my lap and turned so her back was flush against my chest. My dick hardened again, pushing against the small of her back. Her breasts poked through the surface of the water, her nipples hard, inviting me to slide my hands up and caress them.
“When will you kill Romano?” she asked softly.
“Soon,” I said. She didn’t need to know the gritty details. It was better if she didn’t.
“And then what?”
I slid my palm beneath her forearm and lifted her hand, inspecting the rings on her finger. The diamond glittered in the low light. “And then I will be the capo and you will be the capo’s wife. And the outfit will be better for it. We’ll have a fairer system.”
“What about the women in the outfit?’ she asked. “Will things get better for them too?”
I considered this for a moment. “Honestly, it’s not the capo that dictates the treatment of women. It’s a cultural thing. Women are largely used for treaties, to build relationships as Sienna will between Viktor and I. Otherwise, how they’re treated tends to be up to the man they’re wedded to. It’s not something I can really fix.”
“I hate being a woman sometimes,” she said softly. “It’s not fair. You’re lucky to be born a man.”
“Yes, I’ve always thought that,” I said. “My father raped my mother, hit her, fucked other women as often as he liked. There are no protections for women in those situations because that would involve bringing in outside law enforcement and that could never happen.”
She turned halfway, her mouth ajar. “He raped her?”
“Does that surprise you? In all honesty, I’m sure some of my men have probably forced themselves on their wives at some point. At least the older men…the younger ones seem to understand consent a little better.”
She turned to face me, her arms wrapped around her legs. There was a long silence as she chewed on her lip. “That’s horrible.”
“My mother used to scream when he did it,” I said, bracing myself against the stirring memories. “Then the longer they were married, the less she screamed. I think what he did to her just broke her after a while.”
“What about Duran? Surely he doesn’t do that to Iris?” Her eyes were wide, horrified.
I shook my head. “No, Iris has him by the balls. He’s head over heels for her, but he wouldn’t do that anyway.”
She went quiet for a moment, her eyes lowered. “I’m sorry about your parents. It sounds worse than what I went through.”
“It’s over. My mother is dead and, thank God, my father is too.”
Her dark eyes fixed on me, but she didn’t say anything. I pulled her near once more and gently worked soap through her silky hair. Her body relaxed against mine and her eyes began closing, her lashes fluttering dark against her cheek. I lifted her from the tub and she stood by the sink while I dried her with one of the plush towels. Her gaze followed my every move as I toweled off my body and then I led her back to the bedroom.
The sky was the deepest black and the stars stretched endlessly over the snowy fields, barely visible in the night. I rolled on another condom and pulled her beneath the thick comforter and slid into her slick heat. A sigh escaped her lips as I fucked her lazily, my face buried in the warmth of her throat. Everything about her was perfect, the softness of her body, the faint flowery scent that hung around her, and her quiet sounds as I thrust into her pussy. It had been far too long since I’d had a woman in my bed.
Despite having slept all day, Olivia was already sleeping when I got back from throwing the condom away in the bathroom. I slid into bed beside her, gathering her against my body to keep her warm, and fell into deep oblivion.
Chapter Twelve
Olivia
Lucien was already awake and getting dressed when I opened my eyes. But it wasn’t my half-naked husband that drew my gaze, it was the absolutely breathtaking view out the floor-to-ceiling windows. Awed, I rose and padded naked, goosebumps rising on my skin, across the room to the window and touched my fingertips to the icy glass. It was so cold it sent a shiver through me.
Below me stretched a garden, cleared for the winter and frozen beneath a layer of sparkling white. And beyond it stretched miles and miles of trees and snow covered hills. It was something right out of a fairy tale and I almost laughed aloud, a thrill going through my body at the sight.
“Do you like it?”
I turned and Lucien stood behind me, his eyes washed out in the light from the window. I remembered the day when he’d told my father he was taking me away, how I’d thought he looked like something from one of my childhood storybooks. And he did now more than ever. He was as brutally cold and beautiful as the landscape stretching out below us. Perhaps Lucien would have thrived far better in a world like this than the gray confines of the city back home.
“Get dressed,” he said. “We’re having breakfast with Viktor before he leaves for a few days.”
I went to the closet and found my clothes hung up on one side with Lucien’s on the opposite end. Except someone, definitely Lucien, had purchased me an entirely new wardrobe of warmer clothes. I selected a pair of thick, dark gray leggings and a soft woolen sweater and pulled on a pair of leather boots that zipped to my knee. Then I went to the bathroom and applied my makeup and braided my hair, wrapping it around my head and fluffing my thin bangs.