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What is stopping me from just paying her bills? Plenty of wealthy men patronize the girls of the ballet. Typically, I imagine it’s for exactly the sort of arrangement that Mila had with Altiere, but there’s no law saying I have to fuck her. I could simply give her the money, and if Dante found out and had something to say about it, tell him exactly where he could stick that opinion.
It’s worth considering. I gave her the job because I did need to find someone, but if it’s too much for her, that doesn’t have to mean that she’s out of options. I turn the idea over and over in my head, off and on, as the days pass and the thought of Mila lingers, and decide that I could give her the option. She might tell me that she’d prefer to earn it—but that, at least, would ease her sense of desperation. Which, in turn, would mitigate some of the risk that comes with that desperation.
I tell myself to wait until she meets up with me to turn over the cash from the sale of the pills. That going to the club, especially if I don’t need to, will only serve to worsen the temptation. But by Thursday, I feel as if I’m losing my mind.
No one has ever lingered in my head this long before. Not a woman I’ve wanted, not a woman I’ve fucked—not even the few I’ve genuinely liked beyond the pleasure I’ve enjoyed with them in my bed. I have no idea how to remedy the situation beyond fucking her, and I know better than to blur the lines between us by letting that happen. I know better.
But I can feel my control slipping in a way that it never has before.
The answer to that, of course, is not to visit the Rosebud. It’s to let Mila come to me, in my office, where I hold all the power, and she’ll be clothed and I can keep a desk between her and I. But instead, as I walk to my SUV late Thursday night after dinner with Dante and Carmine, I find myself telling my driver to take me to the Rosebud, instead of taking me home.
All the way there, I tell myself that I can still change my mind. That I can do the smart thing, the controlled, measured thing, and tell my driver to turn around and take me home. Or, failing that, I’ll make Mila my counteroffer and then leave.
I won’t touch her. I won’t let her dance for me. I won’t let any of those lines that have been fuzzy around the edges since I first pinned her up against that mansion’s hallway continue to be blurred.
And then I walk into the club, and I see her.
There’s never been a single time when the sight of her hasn’t felt like lighting a fire in my blood. But tonight, as I retreat to one of the couches at the back of the room and watch her, it feels like an inferno. Like a hand is crushing my lungs, making it hard for me to breathe.
I’ve never wanted a woman so badly. Two and a half weeks, since I first met her, and the instant I lay eyes on her, I’m rock hard, as if I’ve been edging myself for all that time to the thought of her instead of coming almost every night imagining her naked body underneath mine. And tonight?—
Tonight, she’s up on stage when I walk in, as if the moment was designed to torment me. She must have just come out, because most of her lingerie is still on, and it makes my mouth go dry when I see her. I sit down hard on the couch, my cock bending at an uncomfortable angle in my suit trousers, and devour her with my gaze the way I’ve been dreaming of devouring her with my mouth every night.
She’s wearing a powder blue pushup bra, edged with silver lace and dotted with tiny clear gems that catch the light and refract it with every movement. Her panties are matching blue silk with that same silver lace edge, over a garter belt of the same hue that holds up matching silk-topped stockings. She’s wearing clear high heels, and her blonde hair falls in a long waterfall down her back.
She looks like an erotic Cinderella. A lewd princess sent to take every fantasy I’ve ever had and center them all around her, because right now, I can’t think of any woman I’ve ever seen who is more stunningly beautiful than Mila Ilenya.
As she reaches for the pole and starts to dance, my cock throbs. It feels as if all of the blood has left my brain, traveled down to the ache in my groin, making it impossible to think. I’ve never felt lust like this. Desire, for me, has always been mediocre at best, a means of achieving a release with a woman I find attractive. But this—this need, this near-painful ache that makes me want to pull her down from that stage and drag her to the nearest room like a rake hell-bent on ravishing a maiden in the nearest alcove—this is utterly foreign to me.
And very, very inconvenient that she is the one who’s sparked it in me.
Something else burns in my stomach, too, as I watch her dance. She’s exquisite, too perfect for this cheap club, too good for the men who surround the stage, throwing her dollar bills from their sweaty palms. When she nears the edge of it, on her knees, she throws her head back and grinds against the lacquered surface; I can see several of the men shoving bills into the edge of her panties.
I know how a strip club works. I’ve been to a variety of them over the course of my life. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to stride across the room and break the fingers of every man who has touched Mila while she’s dancing on that stage.
I want her grinding like that on me, and me alone. I want my hands to be the only ones touching her soft, pale skin. I want her hair to fall over my face, my hands, my cock while she swallows me down, while she rides me, while she screams out my name in pleasure.
You could have had all of that. She offered it to you.
The burn of jealousy is only matched by the throbbing ache in my groin. I watch as she bends over, sliding the panties down her hips to reveal the blue and silver lace thong beneath it. I catch a flash of her soft pink folds between her thighs, barely hidden by the strip of fabric between them.
My mouth feels dry, my skin hot, my arousal out of control. I want to taste her. I want to fuck her.
I want to ruin her for any other man, and then I want to keep her for my own.
The force of my emotions catches me off guard. I should leave. I know I should. Anyone who makes me feel this much, who pushes me to the edge of my self-control, is someone I should stay away from. My brother is exactly that cautionary tale.
I’m happy for him, that he’s found happiness with Emma. But before he fell for her, he’d worked tirelessly to separate our family from Sicily. To break the ties with Don Fontana that bound us to the illegal activities he wanted us to no longer be a part of. And whether or not I agreed with it, it doesn’t change the fact that he was achieving exactly that.
And then Emma came into his life and gave Altiere a weapon against him. Now he’s trapped, back in the same deal that he tried to extricate us from. He says it’s worth it, but what I see is that losing his head over a woman made him lose everything he’s worked for.
What would I lose if I let my control snap, and took Mila for myself?
The music fades, and I see her walking off stage. Her bra is gone, and I catch a glimpse of her pale, rose-tipped breasts in the moment before she disappears behind the curtain. She’ll be back out on the floor shortly, but I feel a stab of regret that I missed the end of her dance.
This is your chance. I could leave now, and avoid her until she comes to see me at my office. I could go home and deal with my arousal the way I have been since the day I quite literally ran into her.
That would be the wiser choice.
