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He doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. His gaze bores into me, his patience ticking. I can feel it, an invisible timer counting down the seconds until he takes things into his own hands, but I hold my ground.
Tick, tick.
Salvatore reaches for the front of my dress, as if he’s going to tear it off of me like I’m the present beneath the wrapping paper.
“Don’t!” I yelp, folding immediately under threat. I grab at it, even when I’m no match for his strength. I try to hold the pieces together. We careen against the wall, stitches on the verge of ripping. “It was a gift! Please! It’s already ruined, just…I’ll do it! Okay? I’ll take it off!”
To my surprise and relief, he lets go.
I know it’s a stupid hill to die on, but I can’t lose this, too.
I avoid his gaze as I feel for the minuscule zipper. I open up the back. A vulnerability comes with it, like I am sliding open a zipper to my own soul, laying bare everything I am.
The dress loses its hold on my curves. Cold air sweeps in against my blush-tinted skin. I clutch the dress to the front of my body, the last desperate scrap of cloth between me and Salvatore; my final shred of dignity unravels in my hands.
Salvatore’s eyes bore into mine. He commands me without a single word.
I ease open my fingers.
Kay’s dress becomes a fabric pool around my feet, ripped but still in one piece. I carefully step out of it to stand before him. My nakedness feels doubled under his cryptic stare. I push down every frantic instinct, ignoring the anxious pulse rushing through me head to toe. I hold my chin high and meet his gaze.
Appreciation burns in his eyes. His throat works, Adam’s apple lurching.
“On your knees,” he says with a rasp.
My blood runs cold, thickening. Reality rears its ugly head as I realize he’s going to have his way with me like this.
I wonder if he’s naïve enough to let me get my teeth around his cock.
A numbness spreads through me as I drop to my knees.
I ready myself to fight, to run. I have no plan, no real hope of getting out of this place—just the stubborn, suicidal refusal to let this happen to me. I bow my head and wait, but the silence stretches too long.
“Contessa,” he says.
I glance up, surprised to find Salvatore isn’t unzipping his pants or unbuckling his belt. I stare into the multi-lens camera of his cell phone instead.
“What are you doing?” I ask, bewildered.
“Declaring war.”
I’m not impressed with Salvatore’s mafioso dramatics until the meaning clicks:
He’s sending a picture to my father.
“Wait!”
I practically crawl up his leg as I make a lunge for the phone, but Salvatore turns away, brushing me off. I scramble to my feet, trying my best to get around him. I have all the impact of a fly buzzing around a lion. “You can’t send that to him! Listen to me!”
I pounce again, but he nudges me back effortlessly with his free hand and sends me tripping over my feet. I stumble to the floor and crawl back to him, undeterred.
“Salvatore, please! Please, don’t!”
I openly beg him, my hand clenched in the fabric of his pant leg.
He looks down at me like that, on my knees for him, desperation radiating. I have his attention finally, and I don’t know what to do with it. I have nothing to bargain with, nothing to trade. But the sight of me on my knees—his attention is fixed, hungry. Distracted.
I inch my fingers from his pant leg to his belt buckle. Distrust flickers in his dark eyes. I lunge for the phone again. My fingers only skirt against the case before he rips it from my reach and throws it onto the bed.
