An Heiress in Venice (4 page)

Not anytime soon. His fingers replaced his mouth, and each nipple was pinched and pulled, almost to the point of pain. I whimpered, a noise of need in my throat, and I tugged at my bindings as I writhed in need. He looked at me, amused.

“Going somewhere, Alice?” he asked, and pinched my nipples hard.

“No Sir,” I gasped out. “It’s too much,” I begged, speaking of the overflowing sensation that ran through my body, and he smiled at me.

“We are just getting started,” he said. He moved down my body, and my legs parted automatically for him. His palm reached out and he rested it on my dripping crotch, and he smiled again. “Are you wet, Alice?” he asked, pure male arrogance dripping off every inch of him.

Though it was difficult to resist the urge to roll my eyes, I held off. I didn’t want the blindfold. “I’m very turned on, Sir,” I confessed.

He looked at me. “Good,” he said. I could see his erection bulge through his pants, and I licked my lips. “I’m glad you are turned on too, Sir,” I told him, and he shook his head at me, his eyes amused.

“Want to be blindfolded Alice?”

“No Sir,” I said instantly. “I’m sorry Sir.” I made every effort to sound contrite. I really didn’t want the blindfold. I wanted to
see
him.

His lips twitched. He got up and took off his shirt, and my eyes stayed glued to his body. He was perfect, all hard muscle, with a trail of hair heading low on his flat stomach and disappearing into his waistband.  I couldn’t wait to touch every inch of his body.

Ah. Now I understood. Tied hands were a harsh punishment indeed.

He took off his pants as well, but left his briefs on. I could see the hard, bulging outline of him, and it had me licking my lips and hoping he’d let me suck his dick. I truly enjoyed oral sex, both giving and receiving.

I almost begged for his cock, and just in time, I remembered his instructions.
Do only as I was told.
I kept quiet, but my eyes stayed focused on the outline of his cock.

“You know what the advantage is to being a Dom, Alice?” he asked me.

“No Sir.”

“I get to take my pleasure first,” he replied, his hands on my hips, parting my legs. He lowered his head to my pussy, and swiped his tongue over my slit. “I get to taste your sweetness,” he said, licking again, before lifting his head. “I get to touch your beautiful pussy.” His fingers parted my lips to expose me to his heated gaze. “I get to hear you moan when I do this.” His pushed two fingers inside me, while his tongue found my clitoris again.

This was him taking his pleasure? He could do this to me anytime.

“By the way, Alice?” He gave me an intent look. “You cannot come.”

“What?” I almost shrieked before I swallowed. “Sir,” I tried begging instead. “Please.”

He gave me his typical ghost of a smile. “I want to feel you come when I’m in you.” His voice was even. “Hold it back.”

His mouth found my center again, and I was almost immediately lost. My hands fisted in their bindings, and I whimpered and struggled to keep my climax in check. “Sir,” I groaned. “I can’t.”

His tongue licked my slit, and he sucked my inner lips into his mouth, but he avoided my clitoris for a few seconds to give me time to calm down again. My heart warmed. He wanted me to succeed in obeying his order; he wasn’t setting me up for failure. Knowing this, I found I was able to regain some tenuous control over my body.

Control that was once again poised to shatter as his tongue found my clitoris again. I arched my hips into his face, and was rewarded by his dark chuckle. “I think you are ready,
gattina
.” He removed his briefs and reached for his pants, fishing a condom out of the pocket and tearing the foil and rolling it on in one practiced motion. He held his dick in one hand and rubbed it up and down my slit, and I held my breath in anticipation.

So close. I was so close. And I was going to explode the instant he pushed his hard cock inside me. I guessed that that was something I should get permission to do. “Please Sir,” I whimpered. “Can I come when you are in me?”

That ghost of a smile again, but oh-thank-heavens, he nodded and pushed his length in me in one fluid motion, and set his thumb firmly on my clitoris. That’s all it took. I exploded. I clenched and quivered around him, and he kept thrusting, and his movement just extended my climax. My hands strained to touch his body, to hold him tight as he pounded into me. He kept rubbing my clitoris, and it was wonderful and painful and sensitive, and I wanted him to stop but needed him to continue. I was torn; I was lost in sensation as every inch of my passage was raked by his cock.

“Please,” I gasped. “Too much, too sensitive.”

He removed his thumb from my clitoris with an amused look on his face. “We really will have to work on that,” he said. He pushed deep in me. “So tight,” he groaned. My legs wrapped around his hips and tried to pull him into my body. In response, I received two hard, stinging spanks on my thighs. “You don’t get to set the pace, Alice,” he chided. “Keep your legs parted for me.”

He thrust steadily in me, his arms straddling my shoulders. His mouth dipped over my nipples; his teeth grazed them and I whimpered. With each push, his cock was making delicious contact with my g-spot, and I bit my lip and held on.

“Enzo,” I gasped. I was coming again. I started to quiver and clench, and he groaned and redoubled his pace. I sneaked a peek at his face. His eyes were tightly shut, and I could see the strain in his muscles. He was close too, and I willed myself to wait, to come with him.

“Fuck,” he growled, and pushed hard in me one final time as he erupted, and I permitted myself my climax, clenching around him and moaning his name.

Enzo:

She was… magnificent.

I lay there, half-dazed. Touching her, making love to her and dominating her, I felt an intensity that I hadn’t felt since I was a teenager, experimenting for the first time with games of dominance and submission.

I guess I shouldn’t have slept with her. We should have talked prior to our session, and I should have cleared the air. She had every reason to believe I was jerking her around when I alternately rejected her and claimed her. But in life, every emotion came from a place, and my fear of inexperienced submissives came from an old fear.

Yet Maria was in the past. In the present, there was the so-intriguing Alice Blackwell, who submitted with grace, made love with abandon, and right now, was looking at me with narrowed eyes.

There was a small sink in the corner, and I got up to discard the condom and clean up, wetting a washcloth and bringing it back to wipe her thighs. I undid her restraints and rubbed her shoulders to ease the tension from them. She didn’t speak as I tended to her, her body soft and yielding. Finally, she spoke.

“So what gives?” she asked. “I’m too inexperienced for you until I talk to another guy, is that it? I loathe jealous guys.”

I grinned. She was so direct and forthright. She had every right to ask the question, and I loved that she didn’t let me get away with it. “No,” I replied. “It’s a bit of a story.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she replied.

I looked at this woman and what she offered. The road less taken. There was something about Alice Blackwell that was dangerous to me. I could lose myself in this woman. No, that wasn’t quite right. I’d asked Antonio to protect her. I’d approached her today, breaking a rule I’d held for over fifteen years. I’d already lost myself in this woman, and I was more than okay with that. Alice Blackwell was fire itself, burning hot and bright, and I was a moth, drawn happily to her flame.

“Have dinner with me tomorrow,” I said. “And I’ll tell you the story.”

Something flashed in her eyes, and I saw the walls come up again. “I’m sorry, I can’t,” she said. Her voice sounded polite and distant.
What the fuck just happened there?
“I’m not looking to get involved.”

I laughed out aloud at that. Who was she kidding? Everything in her body screamed for me to touch her and to hold her close. “That’s a lie,
gattina
,” I responded. “What’s the truth?”

“You are fucking arrogant, you know that?” she hissed at me.

I grinned. “I do know, yes. But I can tell when a woman’s lying to me, and right now, Alice, nothing in your body is telling me to go away.”

She rose to her feet, fire flashing in her eyes. “I’m leaving,” she announced.

“I’ll walk you home,” I said.

She shook her head. “That isn’t necessary,” she replied. “Thank you, Enzo.”

Ah, I was to be dismissed with that polite, high-society tone. I rolled my eyes. It might have worked had she not cuddled into my body like a sated kitten. She hadn’t even realized she’d been touching me, running her fingers up and down my body. It might have worked had she not lingered there, clearly reluctant to leave.

But she did all those things, and I wanted her and I could tell she wanted me.

Layers upon layers, Alice Blackwell. I grinned. I couldn’t wait to peel each one back and taste the sweetness underneath.

“I’ll see you next Friday at the club,
gattina
.”

“I should throw something at you,” she retorted, and then she grinned at me while the fire still danced in her eyes. “See you Friday.”

I laughed out aloud again.

Layers upon layers, Alice Blackwell.

***

Alice:

He had pulled me into his body, and held me close after the sex. I wanted to nestle against him, but I refrained as best as I could. I knew enough about BDSM to know this was just aftercare, something all responsible Dominants did.

Then he asked me to have dinner with him, and the memory of the letters had come surging back, and I had steadied my voice and declined. And he’d flat-out laughed at me.

Oh, I was annoyed with Enzo Peron.

Yet Friday couldn’t come fast enough.

Enzo:

I watched her leave. Though she wouldn’t be unprotected and I knew Antonio’s guards would be following her, it still bothered me to let her walk back to her apartment all alone.

But there was a person I wanted to talk to, a regular at Casanova. Luigi Costa, the editor of
La Nuova Venezia.
After that article in today’s paper, I wanted answers.

I honestly didn’t think Luigi had anything to do with the break-in attempt at Alice’s apartment. The two of us had teamed up and topped women a few times in the past, and I thought I knew the man. I would have sworn he wasn’t about to hire someone to break into Alice’s apartment. But Alice was very, very rich, and money made fools of us all.

I found Luigi at the bar and I walked up to him, inclining my head in greeting. “Can we chat?” I asked him.

He looked at me with a raised eyebrow, then nodded. We moved to a secluded corner.

“What can I do for you, Enzo?” Luigi asked me.

“Tell me about Alice Blackwell,” I suggested.

He looked puzzled. “The American heiress?” he asked. “We wrote an article about her today. You know she is going to open a bakery at the Piazza San Marco?”

I nodded, feeling uncertainty rise in me. I’d seen several guilty men in my line of work; Luigi wasn’t one of them. But someone had definitely been trying to break into Alice’s apartment.

Luigi eyed me closely. “Is that a problem?”

Technically, there were two possible answers. The logical answer was ‘
No. That’s not a problem.’
Because it sure as hell didn’t concern me if Luigi wrote about Alice. Writing an article wasn’t breaking the law.

My answer wasn’t logical at all. When I spoke, my voice was hard. “I’d prefer not to see her written about in the tabloids again,” I said. I gave Luigi a steady, even look. One that said that while on the surface, my request was from one friend to another, if he crossed me, there would be consequences.

He got it. For a second, his eyes hardened as well, then he took a deep breath and relaxed. “Inspector,” he replied, his lips curling into a smile. “You don’t have to threaten me, you know. You just had to ask. We’ve shared women. I consider you a friend.”

That shut me up. The circumstances in which I’d grown up made trust difficult. There were only two people in the world who were in my inner circle – Antonio and Tatiana; everyone else was kept at arms’ length. And sometimes, the realization that most people were inherently good was brought to my attention rather forcibly, and I felt ashamed of myself.

“Sorry,” I looked at him with a sigh. “One becomes rather cynical in my line of work.”

He laughed. “Indeed, and in my line of work as well.” I stuck around and bought him a drink to further apologize. We ended up getting quite drunk together.

Alice:

All I wanted to do Sunday was lie in bed and think warm, fuzzy, thoughts about Enzo. But the phone kept ringing all day, as if having sex with a near-stranger at a BDSM club had suddenly made me popular.

Nate Caldwell, the administrator of the trust Ian had set up called me to go over some details. He was as polite and distant as he usually was. Then my lawyer Jeremy Reinhart called, and he was considerably friendlier. He was also concerned at the break-in attempt into my apartment, and urged me to either move somewhere safer, or move back to Houston. “You do have people that care about you here, Alice,” he said gently, and I swallowed a lump in my throat. In Houston, I’d always felt isolated and alone, with only Ian and Paula to cling to. Perhaps I’d been wrong.

Paula called late at night, as I knew she would. I had told her I was going to Casanova over the weekend, and I knew she’d want a play-by-play of my time there. I grinned inwardly. Perhaps it was silly of me, but I was happy to oblige. I wanted to squeal and gush over Enzo. For a few minutes, I wanted to forget the anonymous, threatening letters and my inability to involve anyone in my life. All I wanted to do was pretend that I was just a woman interested in a man.

Sure enough, her opening words were about Casanova. “Did you do it?” she asked me directly.

“I did,” I said, trying to keep my voice mysterious.

“And?” she squealed. “Alice, I swear, if you hold out on me, I will fly to Venice and kick your ass.”

“Okay, okay,” I relented, laughing. “But you are never going to believe what happened.” I filled her in on the pertinent details, my spanking, Enzo, the sex. I left out details of the break-in though. I didn’t want to kill the mood with her concern.

“Did he give you a safe word?” she asked bluntly, and I nodded. “Of course,” I said. “I’m not an idiot, you’ve coached me enough about what I should expect.”

“Talking about idiots, I ran into Jeremy Reinhart today,” she said. “He said something about you having a break-in. What’s going on?”

I reminded myself to have a little conversation with Jeremy about lawyer-client confidentiality. But I filled her in. “Don’t worry,” I added.

She laughed. “I’m not worrying, Alice, I know you can take care of yourself. Only Jeremy seems to think you are some precious breakable doll.”

“Ugh,” I said dryly, and she laughed again. “So, you seeing this guy again? And do you want to see him outside the club?” she asked me.

I wasn’t going to let myself think about the way I’d felt in Enzo’s arms, protected and safe. I wasn’t going to dwell on how utterly aware I’d been of him while he was dominating me, yet how completely relaxed and comfortable. I wasn’t going to focus on the sinking feeling in my stomach when I’d declined his dinner offer. “I don’t think so,” I lied. “I think this is just about sex, nothing else.”

It was impossible to let Enzo Peron into my life; my solitary experience with trying to have dinner with Craig Dearborn had proved it. I steeled my heart, and I doubled down on the lie. “In fact, I’m not even sure if I want to do another session with him. Maybe I’ll try another Dominant?”

“Be careful, and promise me you’ll tell me what happens?” she asked, and I dutifully promised.

I didn’t understand why, but inside me, it felt like my heart was breaking.