Dark Castle by Shanna Handel

18

Willow

We headto the hidden car, and Santo drives so fast I find my heart in my throat. He takes us to a cabin in the woods. My cabin, where I used to live with my sisters. The last place anyone would think to look for us. It would be too obvious.

I’m overwhelmed with emotion when I step into our little home. The pink curtains still hang in the windows, the blue teapot sits on the stove. Our old floral armchair looks lonely in the corner of the living room by itself. “It’s just the same as we left it.”

Santo coughs. “Just a little dustier.”

We quickly fall into one another’s arms. Amid a tangle of kisses, he pulls me into my old bedroom. He must know it to be mine by the pale pink walls. He lays me down on my old bed—the one I’d spent so many lonely nights lying in by myself, wondering if I’d ever have a man.

Now, I have.

But I’m not satiated. Not yet. Will I ever be?

He tears my dress from my body, tossing it to the side, then my undergarments. I laugh as I help him undress as well. “We need a hot shower.”

“Great idea.” I squeal as he scoops my naked body up in his arms and carries me to our tiny bathroom. He takes up almost the whole shower but somehow, we manage to fit. Hot water runs down my long hair, my back, my curves.

He slides a hand along the curve of my cheek, kissing me. The heat of his mouth draws me in. I press my breasts against him, slippery and full. He takes a long-forgotten bar of soap, wetting it and lathering his hands. He slides them over my breasts, over my peaking nipples.

The foamy suds excite me, making his hands slippery, enhancing the feel of his touch. He slips over my trembling belly, his slick fingers caressing my sex while he kisses my neck. His other hand is pressed into the tiles above my head, trapping me in.

“Mmm…” I moan into his kisses as his slick fingers make pretty work of circling my sex, every few swipes finding my clit and rubbing over it. It feels so good but now that I know what I’m missing, my empty sex aches, wanting him to fill it. “I need you inside me.” His eyes open in surprise. I’m not much of a dirty talker but there he goes, drawing that sexy bad girl side out of me. “I want your cock inside me. Now.”

He grabs me beneath my ass, cupping my cheeks in his strong hands. He raises me up and I wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. My back is pressed into the cold tile wall.

My kisses grow needier, my sex aching for him. His cock rises between us, shining and ready for me. He moves his hips, lining the head of his sex up with my waiting entrance. It burns as he enters me; I’m tight and he’s big and the water from the shower’s not as lubricating as I thought it would be. There’s pain as he forces his way inside me, but I embrace the pain.

I know what it turns into. He moves into me harder, filling me. The walls of my sex grow wetter, letting him slide further in. He holds me up against that cold shower wall and he fucks me, his hips bouncing against mine. I tighten my legs around his waist, drawing him into me.

He holds me under my ass, his fingers digging into my flesh as he cups my cheeks. Each time he thrusts inside me, I meet him with such a force it feels like his cock is burying itself so deep it could meet my spine.

My core tightens as the water rains down, pouring over me. My back arches, my head flying back. Water fills my mouth and I swallow it down in a silent scream as the orgasm builds inside me. My sex clamps down on him, locking him into me.

He’ll have scratch marks down his back tomorrow from my fingernails.

“Santo. God. Santo.” A whining moan rises from me. “I’m going to come.”

He gives my ass a sharp slap. “The hell you are.”

My eyes pop open, my mouth gaping. “Wha…wha…what?”

“Not yet.” With a growl, he tears me from the wall, carrying my dripping body to the bed. I’m soaked, he’s soaked and within a moment, the entire bedcover is soaked.

But I don’t care. I just need to come. “Damn it, Santo! I neeeed it.”

He flips me over so I’m bent over my childhood bed, my torso pressed against the wet bedcover, my bare ass in the air. He spanks me hard, his palm stinging against my wet skin. “Watch your mouth, little girl.”

I moan in frustration. His punishing spanks only make my pussy throb more. “I’m going to die if I don’t come.”

“I said,” he spanks me again, the fire exploding like a lightning strike across my ass, “not yet.”

“When?” I whine.

“You’ll come,” he smooths his hand over my stinging flesh, then peppers it with a volley of staccato spanks, “when you beg for it.” He knots the hair at the back of my head around his hand, tugging it as he spanks me. “Now beg.”

My fingers clutch at the quilt, gathering the material between my fingers. I wait for shame to fill me, but it doesn’t come. I want to beg. I want him to pull my hair and slap my ass and make me beg for it.

“Please. Please, baby. Please make me come?” The thrill of calling a man baby as he enters me from behind…God, I’ve been missing out. “Please, baby.”

He thrusts his hips forward, slamming into me. He drives into me, fucking me hard and fast. My mind goes blank. I forget my own name. I throw my head back in a soundless scream as the orgasm takes hold of me. Wracking my body, making me know that my body no longer belongs to me.

It belongs to him. Santo. My very own patron saint.

“Oh God, Santo. Fuck me. Please.” He keeps fucking, pulling my hair till I cry out, slapping my ass in rhythm with his hips slapping against my ass. He’s so deep I feel his balls bouncing against the curve of my ass. I clutch the blanket so hard my fingers tear holes in the fabric.

I come again and as the sweet climax tears through my body, Santo gives a growl, slapping my ass and clutching my cheeks in his palms. I feel him come. I feel his cock pumping, his hot seed filling me. It fills me and it spills out, his hot come running down the insides of my thighs. I lie on the bed spent; he pulls away, his gaze heavy on my body.

“God, you’re even more beautiful like this, all covered in my come.” His finger glides through the come, making chill bumps rise on my flesh. “Marked as mine. Claimed by me.” He bends down, placing a trail of kisses across my lower back.

I’m drenched with sweat, covered in come. I laugh. “I think we have to shower again.”

Once again, he carries me to the shower, this time kissing me slowly as he lathers my skin. We remake the bed with dry bedding.

Afterward, I lie on his chest, his arm wrapped around me. His fingertips make lazy trails up and down the back of my arm. He wants to talk of my mother.

He’s dissecting what happened so he can plan his next play. He wants to know more about the enemy he’s fighting.

He murmurs as if he’s talking to himself. “Prue’s powers aren’t as strong as Demi’s. She knocked me to the ground, but Demi—she almost obliterated Aldo’s heart.”

I stroke the fine hair that dots his chest, avoiding the game of strategy. “Poor Aldo. Thank God Briar knew what to do to save him.”

He keeps talking like he’s trying to solve a puzzle and didn’t hear me. “We don’t know that for sure though, do we? We only know her lightning strike—or whatever you want to call it… power—isn’t as strong. She could have other methods of destruction. We don’t know….” His words trail off. His finger dips under my chin, tilting my gaze up to meet his. “Wait. Do you know? Do you have any of this power stuff, hiding away in you?”

I was so hoping he wasn’t going to ask me that.

I’m the good girl.

I don’t make trouble.

I don’t use my powers.

Such a shame you wasted it my mother said to me when she clouded my mind. She was speaking of my powers. Oh, how it vexed her that I didn’t used them. ‘What a waste of pure talent,’ she would say. ‘What a waste of a gift.’

But not using them was the last thing I remember my father teaching me before he left us. He knelt before me, his beard fully brown then with no silver threads in it. He gave me that warm smile and said, “Now promise me, Willow. Promise me you’ll be a good girl. Don’t use your powers.”

I promised my father.

And I kept my word.

I won’t lie to Santo.

“That’s a funny question.” I give what I hope is a disarming smile.

He gives me that look he gives me sometimes, demanding an answer, making all my secrets want to spill from my tongue. “Willow.”

But his eyes break away from mine before I can speak, his gaze rising above my head. I turn to see what he’s looking at.

Who.Who he’s looking at.

Santo flies up off the bed, wrapping a quilt around his waist. “Posie! What are you doing here! And how did you get in without us hearing you?”

“Posie!” I pull the sheet up around my chest, caught somewhere between shrieking in horror and laughing. This is not how I wanted to tell my sisters I’m not going through with the arranged marriage to Leo.

“My, my, my.” My little sister throws her hands onto her skinny hips. She cocks her head at me, her long blonde ponytail twitching behind her. “What do weeeeeee have heeeeere?”

I raise a brow. “Posie…”

Is she here alone? Did she fall in the woods on her way? Does Aldo know she’s here? Does Briar? If not, this could be our secret at least until I’m ready to tell—

“Willow!” Briar comes bursting through the door.

My heart sinks.

The light in her eyes changes to surprise, her fingers wrapping around the frame of the door. Her mouth gapes as she takes in Santo’s naked torso, my body twisted up in the sheets, the just fucked flush that warms my face.

I sit up in the bed, careful to keep the sheet covering my breasts. “Briar, I…”

She looks away. “No, Willow, don’t.”

Santo straightens his shoulders, ready to take her on. “It’s not your call.”

“That’s what I came to tell her.” Briar’s eyes meet mine. “Willow, it’s your choice. Follow your heart.”

“I…”

But she doesn’t let me reply. She just smiles, tossing a bag onto the bed. “Here. We brought you some clean clothes. I’ll make us some tea. Just come out when you’re both decent.”

Posie sniffs at Santo. “As if that sex addict will ever be decent.” She tosses her ponytail over her shoulder, leaving the room with a hiss.

Santo buries his face in his hand with a groan. “Well, I guess my reputation’s made it as far as your little sister.”

I laugh. “Unfortunately, it has.”

We dress, then sheepishly make our way to the living room. Briar and Posie and I sit in our old favorite seats, sipping lemongrass tea from our favorite mugs, Posie’s the white one with the little chip.

Santo leans against the wall dressed in jeans and a black tee, a lock of his dark hair hanging over one eye, looking terribly large, incredibly handsome, and painfully out of place in our tiny, girly cabin.

My sisters enjoy his discomfort as he sips tea from a china cup. Posie’s offered him the most feminine of our collection, the one with the gold gilt and the pink roses.

We drink tea and catch up. The coast is clear at the castle. Aldo knew we were safe and here. He and Santo have been communicating through text, and he sent an armored entourage to take us back to the castle. He’s not taking any chances.

My sisters tell us of how Aldo grew tired of waiting for the Meralo-Bianchis to vacate. How they shot out the tires of their bulletproof parade of cars. How the men inside the cars grew bored and fled. How Demi was outraged they couldn’t scale the walls to find Stefano.

Word travels fast and the word in the village is that Stefano was waiting at the house for Demi when she got back. Told her he’d been out hunting and got caught up in tracking a red deer and ended up spending the night at the Meralo hunting cabin in the woods.

Aldo now has a new fleet of black cars with flat tires to deal with.

I look at Briar, making sure I have her attention. “I’m not marrying Leo.”

She rolls her eyes. “You think I haven’t figured that out by now? Please. I see the way Santo looks at you…he’s smitten as a kitten.”

More like a sexy, sleek panther of a man. “Same way your man looks at you, sis,” I laugh, relieved. I didn’t want to hurt Leo, but it was never going to happen. I’d thought about saying yes, for the good of the family, but then I realized what family first truly means to me.

Santo is my family.

As if reading my thoughts, he panther-slides over to me, cupping my cheek in that swoon-worthy way he does, and he claims me with his kiss. He pulls away, stroking my face with his fingertip. “I’ll talk to Leo when we get home. He’ll understand. He’ll have to.”

Only then do I remember—I have news to share with my sisters. I break away from his kiss. “Briar, Posie. I have something to tell you.”

Their curious stares loosen my resolve and I almost swallow my words.

But they deserve to know. “I saw Mom. She’s alive.”