Page 62 of The Kingpin’s Bride

“I have over fifty people working on it,” I muttered. “I’ll be kept updated. But we shouldn’t just sit here.”

“You’re right,” Morena nodded. “Maybe… if we’re seen somewhere, it will draw Dario out.”

My eyes snapped to hers. “Good point, Rena.”

I dressed her myself. Sheer white lingerie that barely covered anything. Tiny matching bottoms that sat low on her hips. Sheer stockings that clung to the soft skin of her thighs. A long black coat that hid everything until I decided otherwise. I replaced the heavy collar with a thinner, more elegant version that locked with a quiet click. Simple white gold. The ring stayed on her finger.

I leaned in, mouth at her ear, and let the truth settle between us. “You’ll have to keep the coat on.”

She shivered. The feeling of it pleased me more than it should have after the morning’s failure.

The car ride was quiet except for the soft shifting of her body against the leather seat. She pressed her thighs together once. I put a hand on her knee and opened them again without a word. She whimpered. I kept my eyes on the road and felt the dark satisfaction settle deeper.

The problem sat further away with every soft broken sound my wife tried to swallow. She was distracting me.

The lingerie runway show we were going to was private. Invitation only. Dim lights. Soft music. Models in almost nothing walking a narrow runway while the city’s most powerful men watched from low couches and shadowed booths.

I kept Morena close, one hand low on her back. The coat stayed closed. She lasted less than ten minutes before the first quiet beg.

“Please,” she whispered against my shoulder when a model in nothing but straps and crystals walked past. “Matteo… it’s too much.”

I answered without looking at her. “What’s the problem? Already want to go home?”

“I feel…” She flushed. “I’m half-naked under this, and you know it.”

I could feel the heat of her through the coat when my hand rested at the small of her back. Every time she shifted, every time the lights caught the flush on her cheeks, every time her breath hitched, my pain quieted a little more.

The failure with Camilla sat further away. The only thing that mattered was the desperate, beautiful woman beside me who needed what only I could give.

She begged again when the lights dimmed for the final walk. “Please… I can’t… I need…”

I tipped her chin up with two fingers so she had to meet my eyes. The blue of them was glassy, wrecked, perfect. “You need what I decide you need. And right now you need to sit here and feel it. Feel how wet you are for me. And you’d better keep it quiet. People are watching, baby.”

The afterparty was held in a private lounge above the show floor. Low lights. Expensive liquor. The soft pulse of music that felt more like a heartbeat than a song.

I pulled her onto the floor the moment we entered and made her dance with me. Slow. Intimate. Bodies pressed together.

The simple press of my thigh between hers made her whimper against my neck. I kept one hand splayed low on her back so any attempt to pull away registered immediately. Flushed. The coat had come open just enough that the sheer white lingerie showed at the collar and the high slit of her thigh. The scent of her arousal rose between us, sharp and sweet and unmistakable.

“Please,” she breathed against my throat. “Matteo, please… I can’t take it… it’s been hours…”

I turned her slowly under the lights and let my mouth brush her ear. “You can. You will. Look at how wet you are for me. Every man in this room would smell it if I opened that coat. They would see exactly what the cream has done to my wife. And they would know they will never touch it. You belong to me. Every inch. Every drop. Every broken little sound you make when I fuck you...”

Her hips moved against my thigh without permission. I let her have the friction for three full seconds before I stilled her with a firm hand on her waist.

“So desperate.”

“Please let me come. Please. I’ll do anything. Just… please. I need you inside me. I need it so badly it hurts.”

The words settled under my skin like heat. I was hard enough that the press of her body against me bordered on painful.

The Camilla problem, the empty airstrip, the wiped cameras, all of it faded under the evidence that she needed me this badly. This had not happened before.

I kept the same controlled rhythm and watched the flush climb higher on her cheeks. Every soft broken plea made the dark satisfaction in my chest expand. She was perfect like this. Soft. Open. Aching for the only man who had ever claimed her completely.

Eyes started lingering. A few underbosses from the outer families. A couple of politicians who thought their money made them untouchable. I felt the weight of their stares on the open collar of her coat, on the way she clung to me, on the obvious desperation in every line of my wife’s body. My hand tightened on her waist. This time it was pure possession.

I was briefly distracted by a call about the ongoing search. One of the teams had a possible lead on a secondary airstrip further north. I stepped a few feet away to take the call.