“If you’re at my disposal, why don’t you leave me alone?” I snap back.
Donatella looks me over once. “Fine. I need to prepare breakfast.”
With that, she takes her leave.
I can’t help but feel like she’s judging me. Honestly, since coming here, I’ve found little motivation to do anything other than wallow in my own self-pity.
It’s pathetic, but after everything that happened with my father, then Claudio, and now Rocco, I’ve needed the time to collect myself. To figure out where this all leaves me.
I step out of the bath and immediately go to the closet to retrieve my gym wear. Exploring the contents of the walk-in closet had taken me an entire afternoon.
To my surprise, it is equipped with a fairly even split of both men's and women’s designs in a variety of different sizes. This makes a lot of sense, but I'm close to trying on everything it has to offer and it hasn’t even been a week.
Not that it really matters, as Donatella brings me back freshly washed and ironed clothing every morning.
The day passes dangerously slowly. My boredom peaks enough to feel the temptation to answer one of the thousands of messages Mia left on my phone.
But I ignore them. Claudio’s betrayal had been enough to shake my entire world to its core. If Mia is somehow in on this, if she knew about the mafia or is somehow even a part of it, I’m not sure what I will do.
What would I even say to her? “Oh yeah, remember that guy you told me to stay away from? We’re living together while he baits my ex into exposing someone in his elite mafia billionaire circle. Also, we’re fucking now, apparently.”
It’s just physical,he said. I tell myself that’s enough, that he’s right. That anything more would not only be very, very complicated, but likely incredibly dangerous, considering his line of work.
When I see him again the next day, it’s when I catch him walking down the corridor to his bedroom.
He looks at me for a moment, then jerks his head toward his bedroom door in invitation.
And it’s stupid and careless and only going to end in pain, but...I follow him inside.
When he touches me, it feels worth it. It feels like I’m finally able to escape this goddamn place. I feel alive and wanted, Worshiped by that tongue as he explores every part of me except my lips.
It becomes our own secret game. I meet him in his bedroom, or he approaches mine. I casually straddle him on the couch, or he bends me over the kitchen counter.
We don’t talk, we don’t need to. Our bodies respond to each other almost instantly, already frustrated and in need of release. It’s pure, mindless physical abandon.
The high of it is otherworldly. It’s addictive, and I can’t help the way I’m drawn to him, how I seek him out again and again like a moth to a damn flame. But in the aftermath, I always return to that empty feeling.
I crave his kiss.
Even as he ties my hands to his bedframe and takes me so hard and so fucking fast that I see goddamn stars. There’s always a part of me that remembers what it was like to place my lips on his.
I want his hand to hold the back of my head and not let go.
“Cas?” he asks when we lie back on the soft rug of his bedroom floor. Breathless. Completely and utterly spent.
“Mmm?”
“I’m going to be away for a few days.”
Something sinks in my stomach. “Right.”
“Will you be okay here?”
I sit up, hugging my knees to my chest. “I think I can manage to get myself off without you.”
He growls, tugging me back down to him and making me giggle in the process. He pinches my sides, only making me howl louder.
I squirm away from him, but his arms entirely envelop me, pressing me back into his chest and holding me tight.
