AUCTIONED TO HER DAD’S MAFIA ENEMIES: A MAFIA AGE-GAP REVERSE HAREM ROMANCE (AUCTIONED SERIES Book 4)

THE TASTE OF INNOCENCE

Aemelia’s hair is matted and filthy, her skin pale and greasy, and when I rest the tray of toasted bread and soft cheese in front of her, the scent of her unwashed body reaches my nose. She hasn’t showered since she got here, despite having a private bathroom and all the cosmetics and toiletries she could possibly need. Since we forced her to make the video, she’s retreated inside herself, and her descent from defiance to hopelessness fills me with dread. She pushes the tray away and turns from me.

I sit on the bed as worry becomes an unpleasant vibration in my skull. I can hear my mama’s voice in my head. ‘Eat’. It’s her favorite word to say to all of her family, as though she worries we’ll face starvation tomorrow and need our body fat to survive. Food trauma passes from generation to generation, past experiences of food shortages lingering like a specter, but I don’t say it to Aemelia. Not yet.

“You need to shower.”

“Fuck you,” she mutters.

Still with the mouth.

“You want to fester in your own filth?”

She scoffs. “If I stink, maybe your brother will think twice about touching me again.”

This is a problem; this war that’s being fought in her head where she thinks she can find a way to beat all the odds and win. I don’t know how she hasn’t worked out that her life is in danger and her compliance is necessary to survive.

I don’t want to be the one to teach her, but Luca won’t be as restrained if she tests him, and Alexis is already thinking about ruining her. If she needs to learn, I have to be the one to teach her.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about men,” I say. “The smell of you now… it would only turn him on.”

She swivels to look at me, her eyebrows high on her forehead.

“You think I’m lying.” I lean closer and inhale, and the pheromones in her scent replace all the bad vibrations in my head with lust and desire.

“You’re all disgusting.”

“No, gattina. Just human. But it’s not good to stay dirty.”

“I’m not showering.”

Her narrow-eyed determination thickens my cock. Jesus. This girl. Was she sent to Earth to defy us? To teach us some kind of lesson. Whatever the lesson, my skull is too thick to recognize it.

“Either you go of your own free will, or I’ll take you. Do you understand?”

She grits her teeth and turns away again. Frustration surges, and before she has a chance to prepare, I throw off the comforter and scoop her into my arms. She writhes and twists, flailing her arms, but I pin her to me and haul her into the bathroom. Once inside, I lower her feet to the floor but keep her anchored against me, her back to my front, freeing a hand to flip on the shower. She fights, but she’s so small and weak that it doesn’t even register, which only seems to make her angrier.

“Get your fucking hands off me,” she growls as her ass grinds into my dick. Even like this, feral and vicious, she’s glorious enough to make me hard.

I wrap my free hand around her neck and press her head tightly against my chest. “Look in the mirror,” I hiss in her ear. “Look at yourself.”

She does, her eyes wide. Her hair has twisted into wild locks, making her appear as fierce and deadly as Medusa.

“Understand, gattina, that you will not win this fight. Any strategy you come up with in your pretty little head won’t work. We hold all the cards, and you hold none.”

She burns with resistance, her body vibrating against my hold. I walk forward to push her into the shower, but she fights me, trying to gain traction against the slick floor. She’s wild and fearless, a force of nature, everything I thought I’d never want in a woman, but find I deeply respect. Even against all odds, she’s trying.noveldrama

I could shove her under the water, but I don’t want to hurt her. If she slips, she could bust up her face or break something. Instead, I toe off my shoes and force us both beneath the streaming water. The shock makes her still and she whips her head to look at me. Water cascades down my face, flattening my short hair and soaking my sweater. She closes her eyes, tipping her face upward, arching her slender neck so her head rests just below my shoulder. She’s breathing fast, like a rabbit that’s been chased across the fields by a vicious fox, and I close my eyes, hating what we’re doing to her. This isn’t right. She doesn’t deserve this. Every second she’s under our roof will change her, and she’ll never be the same. Sickness gathers beneath my diaphragm, driven by shame.

The end doesn’t always justify the means. Just because this is the easiest way to get to Carlo fucking Lambretti, doesn’t mean we should take it.

She swallows against my palm and shudders, and I move my hand to wrap it around her chest instead. I curve my body over hers, wanting her to feel an embrace rather than restraint. “It’s okay,” I tell her, surprising myself but not enough to stop. “It’s okay, Aemelia. It’ll be okay.”

Her body hitches, and I can sense her weeping before she makes a sound. I thought my heart was dead, but still, it seems to fracture and bleed for her.

I’m losing my fucking mind, but I can’t help how I feel.

I loved Mario, and avenging his death isn’t up for debate, but it doesn’t have to involve torturing this poor girl.

Turning her in my arms, I press my hand to the side of her head, so her face rests over my heart. It beats a rapid rhythm as I stroke her wet, tangled hair. The sound of her sorrow cuts my soul until I can’t take it anymore. Grasping her face between my hands, I force her to look at me.

I swipe tears and shower water from beneath her eyes. Her eyelashes are coated with droplets like diamonds that glint in the bright light of the bathroom. Her nightgown clings to her form, almost transparent now that it’s wet through, and my body sparks into an inferno.

“You don’t have to be scared of me,” I tell her. It’s stupid. It goes against everything that Luca and Alexis want and expect from me. It goes against everything I’ve come to expect from myself, but this woman is an infestation that’s crawled under my skin and changed me.

“You’re holding me captive, Antonio. You’ve threatened me with violence.”

“I do what I have to do,” I say. “I do what’s expected of me.”

She blinks, her hands settling on my chest. She nods as though I’ve confessed something she understands. We don’t know much about Aemelia except her family relies on her for money. She was a waitress, doing what she had to do, doing what’s expected of her. Maybe, in some small way, she understands.

I let my thumb trace her lips, wiping away the water and her tears and she closes her eyes. Like this, with her armor washed away, she’s transcendent.

It isn’t fair that we’ve met like this, forced together to dance in the underworld. I think of the story of Hades and how he loved Persephone so desperately that he took her from the light and forced her to live with him in hell. Neither of us chose to be born into families with blood on their hands. We didn’t choose this life, it chose us, and yet we have to suffer.

“Aemelia,” I whisper.

“Gattina,” she reminds me, staring into my eyes, this time with a soft challenge. Her fingers drift to my neck to trace the sharp tattoo there. All around us, the steam swirls until I forget we’re in the penthouse, and I forget why we’re standing together in the shower, fully clothed.

I want to kiss her like I’ve never wanted to kiss anyone before. It’s a curse, a desire so thick, it’s impossible to wade through. I shake with it down to the pit of my rotten soul, and I have to lower my eyes, afraid she’ll notice my torment.

When her lips press against mine, I believe at first that this whole thing is just a dream. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I’m a jagged block of granite being caressed by the cool Sicilian breeze. But then her lips move, soft and coaxing, and I’m molten lava, pressing into her, slowly backing her against the tiled wall, finding my way inside the heat of her mouth and dying slowly with every side of our tongues.

She’s sweeter than Pignolata di Miele, more tantalizing than amphetamines. My consciousness dances like a prisoner freed after a life sentence. I slide my hands from her face, down her neck and lower, gipping her tiny waist, surging forward so there’s no space between us. She moans into my mouth, her hands fisting my sweater like she’s afraid I’ll pull away.

But I can’t. Threats from the devil himself couldn’t drag me from her. I could drown in her and die a happy man.

My conscience prickles—this is wrong, so wrong. I’m almost twice her age, but I’m used to pushing aside any desire to be a good man. The last time I saw her she was a little girl. I shouldn’t want her like this. But still, I kiss down her throat, across her collarbone, tasting her skin and the water coating us both, nipping her with my teeth, holding her still with the tight grip of my killer’s hands.

Her hips flare wide, a woman’s hips. Her mouth is sweet but desperate with a woman’s desire. She moans softly; a woman’s need.

The water washes us both, but it’ll never rinse away the stain of my past. Hopelessness surges inside me, taking the strength from my knees.

What the fuck am I doing? This isn’t me? This isn’t who I am.

I drop down in front of Aemelia, pressing my face to her stomach, and wrapping my arms around her hips.

I have to stop this before it’s too late, but I can’t. Desire is a flood that’s impossible to outrun.

I kiss her stomach through the sheer fabric of her nightgown, fever tearing at me with flaming hands. I’m a bad man, through and through, and this girl is so sweet and pure. Touching her isn’t enough. I need to be inside her so her purity can wash me clean. But I won’t do that. Not just because Luca would skin me alive but because Aemelia deserves more than I can ever give her.

She deserves a good man who loves her, a wedding filled with white doves and classical music and a honeymoon of romance and soft touches. She deserves pure memories that will last a lifetime and color her family with joy.

But maybe there’s something else. Another way. I slide my hand from her knee to her thigh, pushing the soaked nightdress fabric higher. I wait for her to slap my hand away, but she doesn’t. Higher still, my fingers touch the edge of her panties. Still no resistance. I look up and find her staring down at me, eyes bright, hands pressed to the tiled wall. I hook my fingers and pull just a little, our eyes still locked. She’s breathing hard but there’s no fear in her expression, just a calm acceptance.

“What do you want from me, Aemelia?” My throat is nothing but gravel. It would be easy to take, but I want her to give it to me.

“I don’t know,” she whispers. “I don’t know.”

“Tell me to stop.”

She shakes her head, so I continue, using both hands to ease her panties down her smooth thighs. I press my face lower, still over the fabric of her night dress, breathing her in.

“Wash me,” she whispers, but I shake my head, the scent of her driving me fucking crazy.

She’s so natural, so perfect, exactly how a woman should be. Soft dark curls at the apex of her thighs, sweet musky scent that makes me want to rut like a fucking animal. I caress over the seam of her sex, relishing the way her body shudders and her breath comes in soft pants, then I open her with my thumbs and press my lips to her clit.

I’m lost. Drunk. Stumbling in the dark. Wanting. Stealing. Craving.

Her knees tremble, and I wait, warming her flesh with my breath, letting her get accustomed to something she may not have ever done before, but mostly, I linger because I’m selfish. I want to burn this moment into my brain. I want my first taste of Aemelia’s sweetness to hit me like a drug. I touch her clit with the tip of my tongue, and her hands leave the wall to grip my head. It feels like she doesn’t know whether she wants to push me away or hold me against her. With slow teasing licks, I make her knees shake. I stare up at her over the perfect arc of her body, meeting her heavy-lidded eyes. As I lick her, I remember how she looked at the wedding, vibrant and beautiful, a rose among thorns. I recall the fire in her eyes, her chin held high, her regalness. She’s so young but so strong.

Even in a room with three dangerous men, she could hold her own.

Maybe she’d be strong enough to return to the life that she grew up in before her father destroyed it all. A mafia princess instead of a Maryland waitress. Maybe she could be mine, but would I even want that for her?

If we let her go—when we let her go—she’ll be free to return home. She could meet a kind man named Brad who’ll take her for early-bird-specials and treat her kindly so that she can live out an ordinary, average, uneventful life. But even as I try to picture her there, I can’t. I don’t want to. I’m jealous of a fictional man I created with my own mind. Thinking about her with anyone else makes me sick, even though all I can give her is the darkness of the underworld.

“Antonio,” she gasps as I rasp my tongue harder and faster over her slick flesh. I reach up, taking her tight little nipple between my thumb and forefinger and twist it just slightly. She groans, her grip in my short hair flaring painfully, then she spasms, her body collapsing with her orgasm until she slides down the wall into my lap.

I kiss her open mouth, tasting her whimpers and holding her to me like I’m drowning and she’s the only chance of saving myself.

“Antonio,” she whispers.

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “It’s okay.”

But even as I say the words, I know I’m a liar.