Page 16 of Dark Masquerade
“Did I say I had started? I was just preparing the playing field.”
Elli started to giggle now, both with amusement and nervous anticipation. She felt him kiss her belly, then run his tongue around her navel.
“Okay, my beautiful Elli, what’s this?”
She felt something cold, very cold, circle her navel. “Ice cube?”
“An easy one to start.” He traced the ice around her belly, then to her nipples. Elli moaned at the sweet pain of the ice. Aldo chuckled softly, stroking it down her body and into her sex. Elli shifted, wriggling with pleasure, and when she felt Aldo’s mouth on her nipple, cold from the ice cube, she gasped a little and arched her back to meet his lips. He teased her nipples with the ice cube until it melted, then kissed her mouth. “You taste like heaven, Elli. Next item.”
A soft, ticklish thing, a feather, was next. Aldo traced it around her belly, then up and down her body as his other hand massaged her clit. Elli, enjoying the game and getting more aroused, guess the next three items as –well—a crystal ornament Vivienne had brought her from Paris, the edge of a wooden box from her desk, and the cold metal of her fountain pen.
Aldo kissed her. “You have five correct already, baby.”
“We could just stop here and suck each other,” she said, but Aldo laughed.
“No way …this is too much fun. Next one.”
Elli felt something cold and metallic touch her skin. At first thin, like a needle, and then flat against her skin …like a knife? Elli’s blood ran cold, and for a second she couldn’t breathe.
“A knife?” she said hesitantly. She heard Aldo’s sharp intake of breath.
“Of course not, Elli. What do you think I am? It was my watch.”
“I’m sorry, Aldo. I wasn’t accusing you of anything. Some people like knife play. I’m just not one of them.”
“Me neither, Elli, especially after what happened to …” his voice choked off and Elli felt terrible. She couldn’t reach out to comfort him, her hands still bound behind her.
“God, Aldo, I’m sorry. I was insensitive. Please, let me up so I can hug you.”
“No. It’s okay. I understand why you would have guessed that. Let’s just put it down as a wrong guess. Next one.”
It was hard, but soft at the tip against her skin, almost silky. Elli, trying to cheer him up, smiling at him. “Is that your incredible cock?”
Aldo laughed and pushed her blindfold off. Elli blinked to see him tracing his cock around her navel. “Correct. Which means you win, beautiful. Now …” He shifted down the bed and hooked her legs over his shoulders. “Hold on tight, little one.” He grinned up at her, and Elli could see no lingering anger or hurt in his eyes. Aldo buried his face in her sex, and she sighed as she felt his tongue twist around her clit until it was hypersensitive, then he plunged his tongue deep into her cunt, almost violently, until she was screaming his name and begging him never to stop.
Afterward, they fucked until dawn and fell asleep together, lips almost touching, Aldo’s big arm locked around her waist. To Elli’s great relief, the nightmares didn’t make another appearance, and when she woke in the morning, she felt rested and safe.
In the shower, she took him in her mouth and milked him until he was groaning and coming into her mouth. He lifted her afterward and took her against the shower wall, his big frame almost filling the tiny cubicle.
While Elli dressed, Aldo went out to buy fresh, soft rolls for their breakfast. He returned as she was brewing some fresh coffee. He held out a newspaper to her, and she took it, registering the anger on his face. “What is it?”
“Page eleven,” he said shortly. She opened the paper and saw the picture of them leaving the art gallery the previous night. Aldo was kissing her. She looked up at him. “So, we’ve gone public.”
“That’s not the problem. Read the article.”
Elli looked down and began to read. “What the fuck?” The article, far from just outing them as a couple, ripped into Elli’s journalistic integrity over dating a subject of an interview and called into question whether it had been a legitimate article or a puff piece designed to sell her ‘boyfriend’s’ business to the masses.There was no identification of the writer in the piece.
“Ms. Moretti seems preoccupied with Mr. Constanza’s physical attributes far more than whether his philanthropy is genuine or masks a man whose ruthless business acumen means he leaves few survivors in his wake. But what strikes me most is this—since when has Il Mondo Italia been what amounts to a gossip magazine pandering to the elite? Since Ms. Moretti needed to get her rocks off, it seems. It is a sad downturn in the quality of a previously exemplary investigative magazine. Ms. Moretti, you should be ashamed.”
Elli’s hurt, and anger rose to the surface and she threw the paper on the table. “Fuck.” She tried to keep the tears from welling in her eyes. She’d had bad reviews before. Of course she had—it was part of being a writer, but this was one step away from calling her a whore. She slumped into a chair and covered her face. Aldo stroked her arm.
“None of that is true. You know that, right?”
She nodded, but it didn’t make her feel better. Being called a whore in public wasn’t the way she wanted to start her New Year, but she knew that responding would only make it worse. Her cell phone rang and she saw it was Viv calling.
“I may be about to be fired,” she said to Aldo, who shook his head. Elli answered the call. “Hey, Viv, guess you saw the article.”
“Yes, I did.” Vivienne sounded mad, “And when I get my hands on the writer of it, he’ll wish he’d never been born.”
