An Heiress in Venice (6 page)

“This is going to hurt,” he warned me, his voice muffled.

What is?
I thought, but before I could ask, his fingers reached out and removed the nipple clamps. Sharp momentary pain filled my body as the blood rushed back into my nipples. But his talented tongue distracted me by flicking at my clitoris, once, twice, three times.

Pleasure and pain. Arousal and nervousness. I teetered at the edge, where everything was contrast, and right there, on that knife edge, I found something I’d been seeking for a very long time.

His stubble grazed my skin. He bit my ass, sharp little bites that sent lust skittering on my skin, like drops of water dancing on a hot skillet.

“You taste so good,” he rasped, “but I want more.” I heard the sound of a foil packet tearing, and I braced myself, my elbows digging down on the padded surface as he pushed his hard dick into me.

“Ah,” I exhaled. His hands ran all over my ass as he pulled out and pushed back in with excruciating slowness. I tried to push myself back on him, but two hard stinging smacks on my inner thighs were my reward for that behavior. “You don’t control the pace, Alice.”

“Yes Sir,” I whispered and once again surrendered.

Each nerve ending in my pussy screamed with pleasure.
Go faster, Enzo,
I willed silently.
Fuck me hard.
But that wasn’t what was on his mind.

He moved slowly, pushing deep in me on every stroke, and my moans filled the room. His hands were on my hips, he rocked me back and forth on his hard cock, and I just surrendered to the pleasure.

He fucked me steadily for several minutes. He pumped hard for a while, then withdrew entirely, and pushed back slowly into me. He was varying the rhythm, keeping me on edge. Keeping my orgasm out of reach. It was delicious and it was frustrating and I was keenly reminded that I wasn’t in charge.

Finally, he pulled out with a growl and smacked my ass. “Open your mouth,” he ordered, and I did so. He discarded the condom and his erection nudged my cheek, and I took him into my mouth. He tasted of latex, just at the start, but I didn’t care. His cock in my mouth was a delicious treat.

I wanted to give him the best blow job I knew how. This was the first time I’d been allowed to taste him, and I was oddly grateful. He’d pleasured me repeatedly, and I ached to repay the favour.

I took most of his length in my mouth, swaying in my bindings as I did so. He wound his fingers through my hair, holding me, but not pushing me down on his cock. He didn’t need to – I was pushing down all on my own, taking as much of his cock as I could for as long as I could, before gasping for breath and continuing. My brain was in a fog of lust, and only awareness of Enzo remained.

He pulled away, and his grip on my hair tightened. “So good,” he said. “What do you say?”

“Thank you for letting me suck your cock, Sir,” I replied. My words weren’t pretence at all. I was genuinely grateful.

Shockwaves of desire pulsed through my body. He moved back to my ass, his fingers caressing my heated flesh. “I think I want this pussy again, Alice,” he told me. A resounding smack on my ass cheek reminded me that I was slumping again. “Stick it out, he ordered. “High.”

Another smack. “Higher,” he said, and I obeyed, practically thrusting my ass in his face. I heard another condom wrapper tearing, then I felt him position himself at my entrance.

“You wanted to push back against me earlier,
gattina
?” he asked. “Do it now.”

I rocked in my bindings, impaling myself on his hard cock over and over again. I was so close to my orgasm. I chased my pleasure as I ground on his dick. The frame was at a perfect height for fucking; he was hitting my g-spot with each stroke. Pleasure swirled in me, and I was intent on finding my release.

A painful stroke of the flogger interrupted my rhythm. “Thank you Sir,” I whispered, and he repeated the stroke.

“Whose pleasure matters here, Alice?” he asked, his voice hard.

“Yours, Sir,” I replied, abashed, and felt his fingers on my clit as a reward.

“What should you be thinking about?”

Giving you pleasure, Sir,” I said. “I’m sorry, Sir.” I didn’t need to seek my own pleasure; I trusted Enzo to take care of me. I just needed to focus on him.

I felt his lips on the small of my back. “You are so responsive,
dolcezza
,’ he said softly. His fingers caress my body. “So utterly perfect. You are giving me so much pleasure.”

“Thank you Sir,” I muttered gratefully. His words of reassurance were exactly what I needed to hear.

He resumed fucking me, and then I heard the whine of a vibrator. Oh dear. I felt it rumble against my folds, and I bit my lip. “Please Sir, can I come?” I begged, and he laughed.

“Can you stop yourself?” he quipped. “Yes, Alice. This isn’t a test designed to make you fail. You can come anytime you want.”

I didn’t last long against the vibrator, not with Enzo’s hard cock raking my passage as he pounded into me. I came once; I came again. My entire body was trembling, but he kept the vibrator pressed against me, and I came, screaming, for the third time. “Yellow,” I shouted after that climax, as my skin rebelled against the vibrator. He instantly stopped and pulled out of my pussy.

“I don’t want to stop,” I assured him as he came to look at me, and he gave me his typical ghost of a smile. “We aren’t stopping, Alice,” he replied. He discarded the second condom.

“Open your mouth,” he ordered. “I want to come down your throat.”

“Thank you, Sir,” I whispered. Yes. I wanted to feel his cock spasm in my mouth. I wanted to give him his climax, the same way he’d given me mine.

When his cock jerked in my mouth, I swallowed every drop. Then I looked at him in utter contentment. “Thank you Sir,” I said once more.

Enzo:

This time, she didn’t run. Once her bindings were undone, she stayed nestled in my arms and I held her and stroked her body. She was quiet for the longest time, then she stretched like a sleepy cat. “That was nice,” she said, blushing.

“Nice?
Nice?
I think I’m offended,” I teased her.

She blushed harder, and I chuckled and kissed her neck. I was used to providing after-care, and was accustomed to the greater feeling of intimacy that resulted after a session. But this was something else. This felt like
togetherness
.

I hadn’t felt this way for a very, very long time. And finally, after so many years, I was ready to allow myself to feel this connection with a woman. This woman, who nestled like a tired, contented kitten in my arms.

“Enzo,” she muttered in my chest. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course,
gattina
.”

“How come you play at Casanova?” She sounded a little hesitant as she continued. “Is it because of the variety?”

“The variety of what?” I asked, before realizing what she meant. “No, Alice, I don’t need, nor do I want a stable of women.” I sighed. “It’s an old story,” I said.

She met my gaze. “I’d like to hear it,” she said. “Sir,” she added.

I laughed. “No Sir, please. That’s just for sex. Enzo will do just fine.” My arms tightened around her, and she moaned a little in appreciation, and nuzzled my neck.

“You already know I grew up in an orphanage,” I said. “Hellish place. When I was fifteen, I got lucky. A family came forward to foster me.” I shifted and swallowed. “I loved my foster parents, and they loved me. And then, when I was eighteen, their niece Maria came to live with them.”

She moved a little in my arms, and I forced myself to ease my grip on her. “It was about that time that I was discovering that I liked my sex on the kinky side. And Maria was attracted to me, and I to her, and we played together. Spanking, flogging, that kind of thing.”

“What happened?” Her voice was very quiet.

“Sometimes, she had marks. One day, my foster mother discovered them and confronted her. And she was too afraid to talk about the kink. So she told my mother that I’d been abusing her.”

I could feel her stiffen with horror. “Enzo,” she said softly, placing her hand in mine.

“It was quite a scene. My foster parents disowned me and threw me out. I was about to start university in Padua. Instead, I left Italy, wanting to leave the scandal behind.”

“They just threw you out? After three years? Without listening to what you had to say?”

I shrugged. “They picked blood,
gattina.
I cannot fault them for that.”

“Well, you should,” she said, her voice stubborn. “That was a terrible thing to do.”
 

“Can I continue the story?” I grinned, my heart warmed by her indignation. The old wound had lost its power to hurt many years ago, but I was incredibly touched that she was angry for me.

“Eventually, ten years later, Maria confessed the truth to my foster parents. They apologized. See? Happy ending.”

It wasn’t, really. Our relationship had never recovered. I had only moved back to Venice once they had died.

“But the entire thing taught me caution. Hence the club,” I continued. “Here, the people that come to play are typically experienced. There are fewer opportunities for misunderstandings.”

“And there are cameras, to vouch for you, if it comes down to it,” she said. I nodded.

“You are making a lot of exceptions for me,” she said. “Why?”

I had held myself apart for so long, forbidding myself from feeling attachment to a woman, convinced that the part of me that enjoyed control had to stay separate from every other part of my life. She was right to ask her question, but I didn’t have a good answer for her. Instead, I gave her the best thing I could. I gave her the truth.

“Somehow,
gattina,
with you, it doesn’t feel like an exception. It just feels… natural.”

Alice:

I should have ended things with Enzo, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. All I could do was keep it within the four walls of Casanova.

For reasons he didn’t share with me, Enzo didn’t ask me out again. But at Casanova, it became the norm for us to talk before and after our sessions. We talked about politics and music and our favourite authors and everything else. I tried to explain American football to him, and he in turn tried to teach me about soccer, though he wouldn’t let me call it that. “It’s called football,
gattina
, despite whatever you Americans seem to think,” he said firmly. And I laughed and conceded the point.

I was falling in love.

I tried to protect my heart. I tried to keep it just about sex. But he wouldn’t let me. He was quite clear.

“I am more than just a body, Alice,” he had grinned one day, when I suggested going straight up to a private room. “I do have principles, you know.” His voice had been teasing, and I had giggled and we had chatted once again, and I’d melted in his arms.

Shaun, the bartender at Casanova, gave the two of us several curious looks. Liam, when I saw him, just looked amused by the whole thing.

At the bakery, the renovations proceeded at a brisk pace. It all started becoming more and more real, and I slowly put down roots and built the beginnings of a life in Venice.

Jeremy Reinhart was angry at the lack of progress on discovering who was behind my break-in attempt, but I had let that threat drift to the back of my mind. The most important thing was that no further attempts had taken place. Nate Caldwell was vocally unhappy as the cost of the renovations mounted, but that too was par for the course.

To my delight, Paula was planning to visit Paris in a few weeks with her husband Jason on a long-overdue vacation, and I was trying to convince her to come to visit me in Venice. If not, I’d go to Paris. I missed my best friend. Phone calls could only get us so far.

Of course, the letters kept coming, once a week, like clockwork. But the letters weren’t being pushed under my apartment door anymore. I was finding them in my mailbox in the common area of the
palazzo
, and it made me feel safer that whoever was threatening me wasn’t able to get closer to my apartment. And the threats stayed the same, and I had become used to them. I’d been called a slut and a whore and a gold-digger many times before. My activities at Casanova stayed hidden from the letter writer, and so did Enzo.

In a non-traditional, somewhat surreal way, I crafted my own path from the lemons I’d been given. I was the happiest I’d been in three years.

I should have known it couldn’t last.

***

Enzo:

I didn’t push, but I didn’t retreat either. She was incredible, and I wasn’t going to let her go. Day after day, I watched her get more relaxed and more comfortable; I watched the fear slowly leave her eyes.

Antonio’s protection had ensured no further attacks on her apartment, though we were both drawing a blank on figuring out who was responsible for the first one. We had dusted for fingerprints, but the results had been inconclusive. There were security cameras in the stairwell of her
palazzo,
but they’d never been activated. Her landlord had shrugged philosophically when I’d asked him about it. “Si, Inspector,” he’d muttered. “I was going to get it turned on, but somehow, I never got around to it.” Antonio had rolled his eyes in disgust when I’d relayed that bit of conversation to him, and the next day, Antonio’s men had activated the cameras.

We hadn’t given up on finding out who was responsible for the break-in, of course. But the progress was not as rapid as we would have liked.

***

It was Friday night, and we were sitting at the bar at Casanova, having a drink before our session. “How are you liking Venice so far? What’s your favourite bit?” I asked her. She’d just told me it had been two months to the day since she’d moved, and we’d just toasted to her move.

“You know, I haven’t explored at all,” she said ruefully. “I’ve been so busy with the renovations to the bakery.”

“Spend the day with me tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll show you around, show you all the hidden bits we don’t share with the tourists.”

Over the last month, I’d watched her gradually lower her walls and open up to me. But now, fear flared up again in her. “Enzo,” she whispered. “I can’t.”

I gritted my teeth, and pushed the anger back with effort. I’d played it her way for the last month; was I just wasting my time? “I don’t think you are the type to play games, Alice,” I said, keeping my voice even. “But I sure as hell feel played right now.”

She flinched visibly, then she got to her feet. “I have to go,” she said. Her voice was noticeably trembling.

Part of me wanted to call her back. But I didn’t. I watched her go.