“Well,” I said, standing with just my bra and panties. “Aren’t you going to—” before I could finish, he grabbed my hand and swung me into his arms and gave me a hard kiss, blowing every thought out of my head. His hands were all over me all at once. From my boobs, which he palmed with passion, that surprised me, down to my butt, which he grabbed and used to draw my groin against his erection.

He broke the kiss and moved his lips down to my neck and to my breasts, where he kissed the top of each before snapping the bra open. I let it fall down as he took one breast into his mouth and flicked the nipple, resulting in a trail of electric shock that went from my breast to my clit. When I moaned, he bit the nipple, as if he didn’t want me to derive pleasure, but I was so broken that the pain made me hotter.

I clutched him tightly with my hands, then moved them to his chest to take off his jacket and tie with little finesse. While I was busy with his clothes, he ripped off my panties. I could only undo a few of his buttons before he let go of me and turned me around and pushed me onto the couch. There was no gentleness in his touch. It differed from all the previous times we had sex. Maybe it was because he had changed, but that could not be it. He wanted to punish me and I liked it. A masochistic part of me wanted him to be rougher.

I fell onto my knees on the couch, facing away from him, my legs splayed. My sensitive nipples and exposed clit brushed against the velvet fabric, and a moan escaped me. I heard him groan from behind. I probably looked like the slut he thought I was from his vantage point, and instead, wetness gushed out of my pussy at the thought.

The couch dipped and felt his body against my back, pushing me into the couch. I watched as his hand snake to my left breast, holds it and brushes the nipple against the couch. I bit back another moan. “Fuck,” I said, as he did the same to the other nipple.

“Do you like that?” he whispered in my ear.

My, “Yes,” came out strained as my hips gyrated in time to his movements, brushing my clit against the couch and my butt against his erection. He removed his hands from my breasts and I almost protested in frustration, but he moved down to my pussy. “You’re already wet,” he whispered against my neck as he played with my clit, edging me that much closer to ecstasy. I felt him remove his pants with his other hand, followed by the sound of a condom being ripped open. He removed his hand from my clit for a short while as I heard him put on the condom. Then he was nudging my leg aside and his hand was back against my pussy before entering me with a deep thrust. My breath caught as Gio drew me up and then down onto his cock. Was it bigger than I remembered? Probably not, but it felt like it was so. Maybe because it had been a while since I had been with anyone. He thrust again, in and out. Deeper and faster. He grabbed my neck, drawing me back for a kiss that felt like it intended to hurt, but the position meant he went in that much deeper. He was rough, and it was obvious he didn’t care about my pleasure, but the motion of his thrusts resulted in my nipples and clit getting rubbed against the couch, increasing my pleasure. In no time, I could see that cliff coming and I screamed in ecstasy just as I felt him tighten and then moan out loud.

We stayed stuck together in that position for a couple minutes as we both caught our breaths. I moaned again when he removed his cock from my still sensitive center and stood up. I turned to face him. He was smirking as he tucked his cock back into his pants like some long-held belief of his had been confirmed. I had a sneaking suspicion what that belief was. And isn’t it exactly how I wanted to be viewed, anyway? So why did I feel like I had lost?

4

Ihate her. I hate everything about her and the hold she has on me. Twelve hours later, I was still thinking about the explosive, impulsive sex we had. It was an act meant to teach her a lesson. Show her what she meant to me; nothing. A cum receptacle. But I did not achieve that. Quite the opposite, actually. She was with me throughout. Her cries were those of someone enjoying the act. I even made sure she was enjoying herself instead of doing what I planned to do, humiliate her. Maybe that was it. Someone like her could not feel the humiliation. Not only that, but something else happened that’s only happened with one other woman, her. I wanted her again. I thought my lust for her was over, but clearly, it wasn’t. I had to wake up in the middle of the night and douse myself in a cold shower just so I wouldn’t go to her room. But that only helped a little. I hardly slept.

As a result, I left the apartment earlier than usual, before she woke up and escaped her intoxicating presence. That didn’t mean my mind escaped her. I was still thinking about her two hours later, after getting into the office and telling myself I was going to concentrate on nothing but work. For the next four hours, I did everything to concentrate on the present. The drab meetings I had to attend didn’t help. Instead of listening to the junior executive’s presentation on our fund’s current risk profile, my mind kept wandering to the image of Simona’s beautiful boobs bouncing up and down as I thrust into in her again and again. By the end of the day, I wanted to end the pretense, have her come over to my office and suck my dick. It would not be a task she would agree to. The hate in her eyes the last time I saw her was all the proof I need.

The funny thing is, I should be the angry one. She had almost ruined our plans by continuing to work at that place of hers. As much as I loved Judy, she was now in bed with our enemy. Saccone wanted to place his claws into anything connected to our father. Their rival ran deep. He was probably using Judy and if Saccone knew my wife worked for her, he would have used that as leverage against me and against the family. Hell, he might have kidnapped Simona while she was at work and would have had a piece to use against us. And how would that have looked to my brothers? It wouldn’t be the first time I would have sabotaged the business via Simona.

My phone chimed, taking me out of my thoughts. My eyes refocused on the reports on my laptop screen. The same reports I had opened this morning. I might as well admit nothing was getting done today. I glanced at the phone and scowled. “Is it done?” The message was from Simona’s brother. He had been pestering me since the wedding. Her family wanted us to stay in Tuscany for a week, probably to ensure Simona and I had consummated the wedding. However, Saccone’s intimidation tactic of crashing the wedding made us leave early.

Did the Vannuccis think I was going to annul the marriage? As if my brothers would let me. I picked up the phone and typed, “It’s done.” Three dots scrolled for a few seconds, then a message popped up. “How do I know?” I squashed the urge to roll my eyes and punched in my reply to him. “Do you want me to send you a picture of the sheets? Maybe the sheets themselves? Wanna test them for DNA?” I dropped the phone on the table in anger. I was getting annoyed with him. What happened between me and Simona should stay between us, no matter what her family thought. The phone chimed again. “Lol.” The first text read. Followed by, “I hate this as much as you do. Do you think I want to know whether my sister has had sex? Anyway, I will forward the message.” At least he felt as squeamish as any brother would. I wondered if Simona’s old-fashioned father knew about her exploits? That she’s a well-known party girl and socialite, or did he demand such archaic terms because he knew what kind of daughter he had?

“Mr. Morelli.” A voice from the intercom boomed. I clicked the answer button. “Giovanni. I told you before,” I said to my assistant. My assistant, however, was new and still learning the ropes and hearing her referring to me in such a formal manner invoked the aura of a Don. The last thing I wanted people from the legal side of the business to think of me as. Being less formal with them meant they were less likely to see me as an unapproachable king and come to me with problems quicker. It was the opposite when it came to the underground. You wanted the men to fear you or they would run rug shod all over you.

“Right, of course,” she said. “Sorry, Mr. — I mean Giovanni. There’s a man here saying he wants to see you urgently, but he didn’t have an appointment…”

“Who is he?”

“A Mr. Lewis.” “William Lewis?” Why would my detective want a meeting with me? My heart skipped a beat. I had sent him on a specific assignment a few weeks ago. He could not have dug up information already. “Send him in,” I said.

The huge bulking man marched in. As a former police detective, he had a seriousness designed to put fear into suspects, something he seemed to have never let go. “Lewis,” I said to him, “You’re already done with your investigation?”

He settled down into a chair opposite my desk and placed a notepad he was holding on the desk. His brown hair flopped to his forehead as he did so, making this veteran detective look oddly boyish. “I hope I’m not disturbing or anything,” he said, a little more serious than usual, but then again, he was always serious. “But I thought you’d want to know what I found out immediately.”

“You’re freaking me out a little. What is she up to?”

“That’s the thing,” he said. Lewis took out his phone and continued talking as he tapped and swiped on it. “I was in the middle of looking into her past. So far I haven’t found anything that we didn’t know yet. But—and I swear I wasn’t following her—I saw her in a part of the town. I didn’t expect to see her, if you know what I mean. So, I followed her and guess who I saw her with.” He handed me his phone.

When I saw the image on display, I felt like flinging the phone to the wall. Why she thought going there was a good idea flummoxed me. She was goading me. It was the only plausible explanation. She was part of our world. She should know better. “This was today?” I asked, my hand trembling as I barely reined in the anger. Lewis nodded. “I thought you should know,” he added.

I flipped to the next image and then the next. Each one more damning that the last. They were all images of my wife Simona, seemingly comfy with her ex-boyfriend, or current boyfriend, for all I know. While the images didn’t show the two kissing or anything more, they showed enough proof of intimacy. The way she looked into his eyes. She has never looked at me like that.

“So, they’re still together,” I said to more to myself, but Lewis responded, “I’m not sure. I could look into it. Come back with more concrete proof if you like.” I gave him his phone back and back in his pocket. He said, “It might mean nothing. They were also business partners, remember?”

I could tell that Lewis was trying to comfort me in his own way, but those pictures, innocent as they were, showed there was something still going on between them. It was definitely not a business meeting. “I doubt it,” I said, trying not to sound as bitter as I felt.

“Do you want me to look into it?” Lewis said.

I nodded. “She shouldn’t be seeing him, regardless. He’s part of the Bianchis and she was in their territory. We have an uneasy truce with the Bianchi family, but that doesn’t mean they’re allies.” And besides, I didn’t want to make an enemy out of them while our family was already at war with another family. And where were her bodyguards? They were nowhere in the images, even though I had assigned them to her this morning. I strictly told them not to let her go to the off-limits areas of the city. God, she was a constant headache.

If she wasn’t running a scheme, then I didn’t understand what she wanted with him. She was the wife of one of the richest and influential men in the city. She had everything she desired. I even gave her money to start her own business. What else would she want? Was it the thrill or was it to get back at me?

I dismissed Lewis and made a mental note to raise his salary. He was the only former cop I had on my payroll, but he was more loyal than any of my men. Even the bodyguards I had assigned to Simona weren’t so loyal. They should have called me when they realized where she was taking them. I made a call to one of them. Luckily for him, he answered on the third ring. “Where are you?” I asked.