The Italian Dom by N.J. Adel
CHAPTER 31
Nicky
I replayed the conversation we had in the kitchen in my head to distract myself from the throbs assaulting me between my legs each time he moved the washcloth over my body. But I couldn’t focus. The soothing memory of the warmth of his firm body every time he carried me naked in his arms kept yanking me back to what he was doing to me now. To his touch as he thoroughly cleaned every inch of my body in the tub.
I thought his giving me a bath would be traumatizing, bringing so many dreadful memories to the surface. I kind of wished it’d have so I could feel nothing but my hatred for Dom and then hate him some more. But when I dared glance at him, I didn’t see the face in my nightmares, the monster that destroyed me.
I still saw a monster, though. One so different. One so…beautiful. One, like he said, forbidden in my book. One I should have never wanted but shamefully desired.
Fuck me.
The longer I stayed here, the more I realized Dom might have been an asshole, but he was more human than coyote. More human than Leo. More human than Tino. The more I realized, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself I was appalled by his touch like by any other man’s, I wasn’t. The more I realized Domenico Lanza could be my own destruction more than my salvation.
He brought the washcloth under the swell of my breast, his hand big enough to cup me whole in the process. “You’re too loud.”
I bit my lip at the tingling sensation shooting through me. “I didn’t say anything.”
“But your mind is a rumbling chaos. I swear I could fucking hear it. You might as well spit it out and get it out of your system.”
Well, I didn’t want to tell him that he might be right about the way my body reacted to him. That it wasn’t all…unreal. “I was thinking since you don’t care about my saying no and you touch me anyway, it’s only fair if I…you know…touch you, too.” Fuck. Did I really just say that?
He held my gaze with his hypnotizing eyes, but I couldn’t stare into them for long. “In other words, you want to use me for your pleasure like I’m using you for mine.”
I reached a hand for his face, the feeling of his scruff beard raw against my fingers. Then I touched his shoulder and went down to his tattooed arm, more tingling pricking my skin. “It’s only fair.”
His fingers brushed against my nipples up and down, several times, teasingly, maddeningly, and then they feathered along my waist, dragging the washcloth across so many sensitive points on my abdomen and pelvis I didn’t know existed. I was shivering violently, my feet jerking in the water. I had to drop my hand and hold on to the tub edges to stop the shameful, pathetic trembling and gasping.
Then he slid his fingers between my inner thighs, not touching my pussy but so fucking close, and drew very light circles upward. Tormenting. Scalding hot. I clenched so hard, pressure building in my belly and going down. Fuck, how was that possible? How was my enemy, my captor, bringing me to the edge? How was I about to come so easily to Domenico after all he’d done? How was I about to come when he hadn’t even touched my pussy?
I closed my eyes, lost in my shame and orgasm building deep inside me, ready for my utter humiliation. But then the bastard removed his fingers, abandoning my aching flesh. When I snapped my eyes open, his breath tickled my ear. “Who said I played fair, little kitten?”
I banged the water with my fists, splashing it everywhere. “Fuck you, Dom. Fuck. You.” I jumped to my feet, almost tripping and breaking my neck on the tub, but he’d jumped, too, and wrapped his strong arms around me, fucking saving me. Once I gained my balance, I pushed him and stepped out of the water. “No. Don’t touch me anymore. You don’t get to torture me like that anymore.”
His arms circled me from behind, pulling me into his body. I writhed and elbowed him in the ribs. “Let me go! I’m out of here!”
He groaned a little from my blows, but he tightened his arms around me, caging me in painfully. “I was wondering when you’d fight back. I’m surprised you haven’t tried to run away since I uncuffed you.”
It’d crossed my mind when I was sitting on the floor cuffed to his bed all day, but I learned from my mistakes. I might have been proud and strong, but I wasn’t stupid to think I stood a chance against his bodyguards or him if he caught me. Again.
Even if I managed to sneak out of here unseen, where would I go? I was in a foreign country where I knew no one and had no money. Dom had even taken my passport on the plane. I could have gone to the embassy, but then what? I’d go back to Chicago, to Tino who would kill me? Even if I, by some miracle ran away to another state or another country, Dom would find me, and he, too, would kill me. I’d have defiled his honor by running away. That crime got the death penalty in this family.
My only way out of this life was through Dom himself. My captor. My enemy. My beautiful monster. My…husband.
But I couldn’t take what he was doing to me anymore.
This wasn’t what I’d prepared myself for. When the door was closed behind me and Dom, when I was forced to stay with him in one house, in one room, I was prepared for a brutality of a different kind.
I thought he’d try to rape me, and I’d fight. He’d punish my body, and I’d hate him. He’d force me to fuck him, and I’d take it like I’d taken it before to save my sister and what was left of me.
What he was doing to me was nothing like that. He wasn’t raping my body. He was fucking my mind. He was punishing me by conditioning me to desire him. He was forcing me to want him, to beg him.
I couldn’t go through that kind of pain again. How could I when I hadn’t gotten past the first time yet? When I relived my worst nightmares for years because they were the only things I knew? When I’d been groomed to want the sickly forbidden because no matter how hard I fucking tried I couldn’t stop?
My body was shaking again with rage and hate, but this time at myself. I wanted to scream, to cry, to hide, to deny, but I couldn’t do any of that. Not anymore. Not when he was stripping me naked layer by layer, taking me down one defense at a time.
“Why can’t you just let me go?” I choked on my unshed tears.
“Because you’re mine.”
“To torture? To fuck? To hurt? To hate?”
“To own. To possess. Every part. Everything you have to offer. Mine. You’re mine, Nicky. Forever.”
“You think I like to hear this dark and twisted crap? I told you before I’m not my sister. This obsessive possessive shit is sick. I don’t want to be owned. I’m not your slave.”
“Thinking you have a say in this is so adorable.”
“What do you mean I don’t have a say in this? This is my life. Mine.”
He twirled me, pulling me into his chest. Then he lifted me in his arms and headed out of the bathroom. “Not anymore.”
“Jesus Christ! Where the fuck are you taking me?”
He stalked outside the bedroom and climbed down the stairs. “You’ll see.”
My heart careened as he didn’t stop once he reached the reception and continued down to the basement. I hadn’t seen that part of the villa before. He walked down a dark hall and stood in front of a door at the end. There was a panel next the door where he entered a pin code and scanned his fingerprint.
“What is this room?” I hoped it was the cellar where he kept really expensive liquor, but my mind assumed the worst, and I tried to writhe out of his grip.
The thick door buzzed open, and he stepped inside the dark and pushed the door closed instantly. My heart leapt at the bang.
“What is this? What are you gonna do to me?” Fear crept into my voice.
He put me down, but I couldn’t see or hear a thing. The heady scent of cologne filled the place. Jasmine, lemon and basil. Not Dom’s. His was more masculine, sandalwood and musk.
Lights, even though dim, flared in my eyes. He must have turned on the light switch. My eyes took a second to adjust before I took in where we were. “What the…” I couldn’t even say fuck. Not in this room.
He grabbed my wrist and dragged me to some sort of a dresser where he got out some new cuffs. Leather ones. “This is where you’re going to learn that you’re mine.”