Her face was half-concealed with a thin, black lace mask and her lips were stained deep purple. Her hair fell in soft waves down her back, pinned above her left ear with a black diamond clip with spines like a dragon’s wing.
“Goddamn,” said Cosimo, leaning in. “You’re done for, angel boy. She didn’t come here to fuck around.”
I barely heard him. My hand was setting aside my drink and my feet were carrying me across the room to my wife. As I approached, she squared her shoulders and looked up at me with a defiant stare.
“It’s nice to see you again,” she said lightly.
I took her gently by the throat, not caring that everyone was staring at us. Her body stiffened as I kissed her open mouth, long and deep. When I pulled back, she was panting.
“Don’t test me tonight, Lia,” I breathed. “You’ll obey me and behave yourself. After the meal, you will perform the ‘Queen of the Night’ for the guests.”
She stiffened. “I can’t,” she whispered.
“You can,” I said. “I’ve heard you sing it.”
“Not in public.”
I stroked her mouth with my thumb. “I want everything tonight, Lia.”
She hesitated and I saw her walls crumble a little.
“Sing,” I said without room for argument. “I know you can because you walked in here in that dress. I know what you are tonight, I recognize what you came as.”
“You do?” Her dark eyes widened behind her mask.
I touched the little tines coming up from where she’d pulled her hair back. “You are the Queen of the Night. And tonight you will be mine, my fantasy, my angel.”
She hesitated, her mouth parting.
“Trust me tonight, Lia?” I said, looking deep into her eyes.
She swallowed and there was a long moment of silence and then she nodded.
“I won’t hurt you,” I said. “And you know how to get out.”
She didn’t ask what I meant, she just let me sweep her into my arms as the music started. Overhead, the chandeliers swirled and all around us was a blur of bodies and stone angels. I felt her warmth against my arm and the clench of her small hand in mine. She was close against me, curled inside the protective bend of my arm.
“Where were you?” she asked.
“Working,” I said. “Hoping Lucien will take pity on me after the mess I made with Merrick.”
She hesitated at his name. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too,” I said coldly. “I’ll never make the mistake of sharing you again, Rosalia Calo. I’m not capable of it. I’m too jealous to let anyone lay a hand on you.”
“He said something to me, Merrick said something,” she whispered. “He said….”
She hesitated, dropping her gaze. I spun her and pulled her against me, her back flush against my chest. My mouth brushed her ear and her spine arced. Her fingers clenched as I took her by the wrists.
“What did he say?”
“That I was your agony,” she gasped. “And your ecstasy.”
I spun her out and back against my body. The music ended and she stood back, her fingers digging into her bare arms. Torturing me with that pouted mouth, those big, glassy eyes, the little bump on her perfect nose.
She was both of those things, my own special kind of hell. And yet, being wrapped up in the darkness of our bed was my own personal paradise. I could have eaten from her for days and never wanted to tear my mouth from her soft flesh. And yet, being here with her burning in my arms was the first level of hell.
Because they all thought I’d traded her body for an alliance.