Heart of a Monster: A New Reign Mafia Romance (New Reign Mafia Duet Book 1)
Heart of a Monster: A New Reign Mafia Romance: Chapter 22

Men, by nature, had to be stupid. I was sure of it.

Bastian had given me numerous lectures about not leaving his side, as if I were a sheep, only accustomed to being herded.

I played the role well enough and nodded at his requests. Then I promptly faked having to pee.

He didn’t even question me.

Women should have been leading the world, not men.

It took one coy look Georgie’s way and a lift of an eyebrow for him to excuse himself. He knew better than to draw a crowd. He wanted time alone; he wanted an explanation.

He wanted me.

I strode out onto the balcony. The wind chilled me, and the night air washed over me like a calm before a storm. The stars from this far out of the city shone brighter, louder, and more vividly.

The cool cement railing was just thick enough to allow me to lean on it and really peer up into the night, get lost in the darkness of it all. This was the place I felt most at home, surrounded by nothing but myself in a fine outfit, bathed in ink-black shadows.

“I could push you over the edge for the shit you’ve been pulling.”

“Georgie.” I spun around.

His face had already reddened with the anger he wanted to release. He was bursting at the seams to unload on me. He stepped right up to me, making me distinctly aware of his size advantage over me, and stared me down. “I should kill you, shouldn’t I?”

I shrugged. “You could. It wouldn’t do you much good, though. Things are bad enough already. You’re sleeping with the enemy, Georgie. Dipping your toes where they shouldn’t go.”

“No!” he spat. “You’re doing that! How could you jump from me to him? Bastian? An Armanelli?”

“So what?” I asked innocently. “He’s a nice man.”

“He’s not. He’s one of the most dangerous men in the city.”

I jerked back, feigning shock. “Don’t lie to me, Georgie.”

“God damn. I told them you didn’t know!” He threw his hands up. “I told them all.”

“Told who?” This was the reason I was out here. I was the woman he trusted.

“God, you’re beautiful, Katie. But you’re naïve. That man you’re with tonight, honey, he’s got big ties everywhere. He’s dangerous.” His hand went to my cheek and rubbed it slowly.

I didn’t cringe or shudder, even though my stomach clenched. The old feeling of my gut twisting when I was with a man I didn’t want seemed amplified. After being with Rome, after having hands I wanted on me instead of ones I needed on me for the family had bile rising in my throat. “No one’s that dangerous, Georgie.”

His hand slid to my neck. The snarl that came from him was feral. “That what you think after the stunt you pulled in that bar? You’re a tiny thing, and just because you got one over on me doesn’t make you invincible.”

He’d started to squeeze my neck, his sweaty hands trying with all their might to scare me. I knew I could hold my breath for at least thirty seconds. Choking someone out was much more work than people thought. Remaining calm was a tactic that would afford me energy, extra oxygen, and enough time to let him keep talking. I’d turned my recorder on. He’d been dumb enough to start this conversation without searching me.

His emotions, his love, his recklessness were getting the best of him.

It made me wonder how anyone who was in love could ever be useful. Is that why Rome had avoided our relationship? Had avoided every relationship?

I widened my eyes in mock fear and scratched at Georgie’s hand half-heartedly.

“The bratva will rule this city. It’s only a matter of time. I burned down that factory to send a message, Katie.” He got bold, his other hand skirted up my thigh. “The Armanellis are floundering to figure it all out. We’ll have the city by the time they do.”

I shook my head. My vision was starting to blur, but I let him continue his perusal while I slid my hand into his pocket and grabbed his phone. Cade would be able to glean information from it.

I kneed him hard in the balls before I passed out, before he got close enough to take real advantage of me, and his grip loosened immediately.

“Georgie.” I wheezed in a breath and rubbed my neck as I stared at him bent over in pain. “I should kill you. I could stab you in the back right now and enjoy seeing your shirt turn red.”

He barreled toward me like a blubbering walrus, still doubled over, but not in any doubt about his own strength. The man seriously thought he could tackle me at that slow pace.

“George!” Bastian’s voice cut through the night air and had us both freezing. My date for the night walked out onto the balcony where the moonlight shined over his dark hair and dark suit. His pace was slow, calm, measured.

Behind him, his right-hand man.

Rome always drew everyone’s eyes. Or maybe just mine. But they immediately went to him like water pulled by gravity down a steep hill. I wondered if he knew that even lurking in the shadows, he was the center of most women’s attention. He moved almost silently, as if he never wanted to be noticed.

Still, I couldn’t look away.

Out on that balcony, there could have been hundreds of people and I would only have been drawn to him. He was the moon among the stars, brilliant in the dark and brighter than every other human around him. His suit was tailored to fit perfectly over his massive arms and chest. He’d opted for all black, as if to match the tattoos that peeked out when he turned or stretched just right.

Together, the new mob boss and his lone wolf advanced on us with malice in their eyes.

Georgie was already scrambling away, shaking with eyes wide. He’d turned from a walrus to a mouse, scared of the predators that had just invaded his space. “I didn’t do anything,” he announced. “She asked me to come out here. I’m done with her. I’ve been done.”

Bastian walked to the edge of the balcony to look out at the gardens below. Then he checked his watch, completely unfazed by Georgie’s explanation. “I don’t want to turn this city into one that bleeds out day and night. The ruler of an empire should breathe life into it, right, Rome?”

Rome stared at me, eyes glistening as black as the sky. “I think a ruler does what has to be done so their empire can thrive. If blood must be shed, let it be the blood that tainted the empire in the first place.”

“Spoken like a man that kills for a living.” Bastian chuckled. “Still, George, I think the place we call home shouldn’t be one where we all live in fear.” He spun on his heel and bent down to Georgie’s level to meet his eyes. “Should it?”

“No. Of course not. I’m here on business like everybody else. I don’t know anything.”

“Is that right?” Bastian glanced at Rome, who cracked his knuckles and then let the rusted chain fall from his sleeve. “I don’t think my cousin is in the mood to get his suit dirty. You know what I mean, huh? Why don’t you just—”

“Bastian!” Another man appeared from the entrance. Tall, blue-eyed, blond, and extremely well dressed. He moved so fluidly across the balcony to Georgie’s side, the only way to describe him was as a snake slithering toward its nest. “Did Georgie introduce himself properly?”

Georgie’s gaze ping-ponged around and settled on the tall man next to him. “Dimitri, I didn’t know if that was official.”

“It is. Georgie is a Vor for my family now.”

I shook my head, floored that Georgie had gotten that far in any mob. It meant they respected him now, that they would miss him if he was gone.

Dimitri continued, “And I see you’ve poached one of our women. Katie, is it?” He stepped forward and held a hand out for me to shake.

He stared at me with eyes of such a pale blue, they were almost white. His skin was light as porcelain under the night sky. As he smiled down at me like he knew me, every part of me screamed to run the other way. Even so, I took his hand in mine and felt dread wash over me. It was like he saw a part of me that was all bad, and I knew at once how dangerous he could be.

I tried to pull back my hand, but he held fast, narrowing his eyes. “Nice to finally meet you.”

I yanked my hand away and wiped it on my dress. “I can’t say the feeling is mutual.”

“But it was inevitable. I’m hoping you and Georgie resolved whatever matter was between you?”

“Other than him trying to cop a last feel? There’s nothing between us now.” I glared at him, and Georgie spat into the night air. “You got what you came here for, huh, Georgie? Why don’t you two be on your way?”

The snake turned his head back and forth, taking in the scene. The cackle he let loose echoed through the silence of the night. “Don’t you know who I am?”

A ball of anxiety grew in the pit of my stomach.

“The only people I need to know in this city are the ones who run it.” I walked to Bastian and Rome’s side. I stood tall between my men, where I belonged. “The Armanellis don’t care who you are.”

“Oh, they do,” said the snake. “And you should too, Katalina. Your blood, their blood? You bleed, they bleed? They family?”

It was like he’d seen through all my layers, straight to our weakness. I glanced at Rome and he nodded slow as he searched my eyes. My heart squeezed because I wasn’t sure if he was saying I belonged with the family or just him. I just knew he wanted me to understand I meant something in that moment.

He meant something to me too.

Maybe all it takes is a look, just a feeling exchanged between two people to know that their story isn’t finished, that there’s hope.

I whipped my gaze back to Dimitri, ready to tear down whoever threatened our future. I took a step toward him, but Rome grabbed my arm. “Yes, my family bleeds for me and I for them.”

Dimitri’s mouth stretched slowly across his face to reveal his teeth. They were white, straight, and the fangs pointed a bit farther than most. “Remember those words. When I see you next, I’m going to enjoy reminding you.”

He motioned to Georgie, and they disappeared back into the party.

I waited for Rome or Bastian to give me the lowdown, to tell me what I already knew. When neither of them spoke, I glanced at them. “Russian bratva Pakhan? He the boss now?”

“Technically, his father still runs the bratva, but it will be passed down to him soon enough. He’s the heir, the one everyone listens to out of fear,” Bastian said.

“So?” I waited. “Why are we tiptoeing?”

Bastian sighed. “As you know, we think they’re working with the government. We didn’t get—”

“I got the information we needed.” I held up my phone and let the two minutes of recording go. It had caught some of my muffled gasps. I saw Bastian’s jaw tick and Rome’s back stiffen, but I waved at them both. “I’m fine.”

Bastian nodded, and as the recording ended, one side of his mouth kicked up. “You didn’t listen to me about staying by my side at all, but you got what we came for.”

“I’m fully capable of always getting what I came for,” I murmured, handing the phone over. Then I pulled the other phone from beneath my dress. “Got his phone too.”

He shook his head, pocketed it, and pulled me close to murmur into my neck, “You’re brilliant, woman.”

I let Bastian’s mouth brush over the soft skin in the crevice of my neck as I glanced at Rome. My body yearned for him while my mind reminded me that we weren’t on the same page.

Bastian pulled back and turned his head toward Rome and then me. “If either of you have something to say to one another, you should do it now before we go back inside.”

Rome still held his chain in his hand. He fisted it. “You can’t keep letting people run astray under your rule, Bastian. Katie didn’t listen tonight.”

“But the night was still a success.”

“One night it won’t be,” Rome shot back. “Then what?”

“Give me a break,” I let out under my breath. He was pushing us both because he wanted something to be pissed about, not because the original plan didn’t pan out.

“Give you a break?” The menacing rumble in his voice sent shivers up my arms. “What about a break for me? I told you not to wear that dress. We told you to stay next to Bastian’s side. You never, ever listen. Now, not only was George looking at you, Dimitri was too. The future bratva boss. You need his attention too?”

I stepped away from Bastian and Rome. I stepped into the moonlight, let the wind brush over my bare shoulders and flutter the feathers at my sweetheart neckline. “I did whatever I had to do. We needed that intel.”

“And we were going to get it without throwing you in the line of fire!” Rome bellowed.

“I’m as involved as you, Rome. I’m not just the arm candy. This was easy because I helped make it that way. This is for the family. Isn’t that what we do, everything for the family?”

He glared at me, eyes licking with fury. “I do that. Not you! My life is for their protection, not yours.”

And maybe that’s why, at the very end of the day, I did it. I wanted him to understand that if that’s what he lived for, that’s what I would live for too. “Without me and you, without the relationship between us, that’s what I live for too. I don’t have any other ties. I get that or I get my dream. At least with that, I’ll have something to be proud of, huh?”

“Your dream?” he whispered and then he shut his eyes tight because he knew that dream was me with Bastian, trying to change the bad in the world, trying to be at the top of the family to pull strings for little girls all over, for better lives for everyone everywhere.

Rome stalked past Bastian, setting his chain down on a table, and then he was right next to me. His body shoved mine, and I stumbled backwards into the cement railing. “You don’t need a dream; you don’t need to be proud. You should be already . . . don’t you see you’ve changed us all already?”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning I’m sure he’s as fucked in the head for you as I am. Meaning we’d die on a damn stake for you if we had to because you’ve jumbled up all our shit and stuffed it into a bag you control.”

My jaw dropped. “I’m not some voodoo—”

“No, you’re Cleopatra,” he hissed as his hand skittered over my neck, and I gasped that he remembered, that his touch felt as good as it had the day before. “Where’s your necklace?”

It was the smallest thing to notice, just a single raindrop of attention on his part. Yet it drowned me like no one else’s thunderstorm ever could. I cleared away the ball of emotion forming in my throat. “I left it on my nightstand.”

He scanned my face, his head close enough for me to breathe in his breath, taste the air that went through him and then straight into me. He sighed and squeezed my shoulder before the deep timbre of his voice rumbled out. “Okay, Kate-Bait. Okay. Games are over. We choose dreams or destruction tonight.”

His hand dropped from my skin, and he pivoted to face Bastian who met his stare head-on.

Two of the most powerful men in the city stood on that balcony with me, looking like gods ready to attack each other. Bastian would have thrown lightning, and Rome would have met him with thunder. I wasn’t sure who would have been the victor. A sick part of me wanted them to figure it out, a part that was broken and used, a part that was accustomed to being a pawn instead of the one they really wanted.

“You claiming her as an untouchable now?” Bastian asked, as if completely unfazed, as if he hadn’t kissed me more than once in these past few weeks. He appeared resigned to the fact that this was bound to happen.

“You think I can claim Katalina?” Rome’s voice seemed to shake the whole balcony, and I felt his question so deep in my bones, I wondered why I’d ever thought a man could claim me.

Bastian’s stare cut to me, and his brow furrowed. He sucked in air like it was suddenly hard for him to breathe. “I’m sure she can’t be claimed. I’m just not sure who she wants to claim for herself.”

They both turned to me, two men in dark suits, gold rings on their fingers glinting in the moonlight, identifying them as part of the most powerful group in all the city.

My knees weakened, and I grabbed the railing to try to regain my composure. “You want me to choose?” I murmured as my gaze jumped between them. “I can’t choose.”

“And really there’s no need. You live with me, you sleep under the same roof as me, you came here with me. You chose me,” Bastian emphasized. “I told Rome to draw a line, and he didn’t. Now, we have one. You and me, right?”

My mouth opened. I wanted to say yes. It was the smart thing to do. I had a place finally. I finally fit in a box, had finally climbed to the top where I would be respected.

No words fell from my lips, though.

Rome chuckled. He scratched at the scruff on his jaw and let whatever joke he’d thought of roll through him. His laugh turned maniacal as he glared at Bastian and then me. He rubbed his hand over his head and tilted his chin toward the sky. The tattoos on his neck stretched as his laugh died, and he breathed in a massive sigh. When he angled his face back toward me, my stomach tightened, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, and the instinct to run rushed through my veins.

Rome’s eyes were cold, dead, empty as he said, “Let’s see if it’s you and Bastian, huh?”

I shook my head no as Bastian whispered, “Rome, come on.”

He prowled toward me like a panther, slow and menacing. I swear he swayed like he was drunk on the knowledge that he would own me before the night was over. “Come on, Katalina. Does he make you feel the way I do? You want his touch over mine? His tongue down your throat more than mine? You like the way he tastes that much more?”

My nipples tightened as I stole a glance at Bastian. He was watching me, studying the way I panted at Rome’s words.

I couldn’t control my quick breaths. My bodice suddenly felt too damn tight; the way the dress flowed out and into the wind between my thighs brushed all the right places.

Rome leaned back on the cement railing next to me, his shoulder butted right up against mine. He leaned in and whispered, “Do you want to show, Katalina, or do you want to tell?”

I licked my lips. Rome was giving me the option, letting me take the lead like he never did. My pussy clenched. With every man I’d chosen to be with, I’d been in charge. It was how I reached a high because I hadn’t had control with the others, the ones who forced themselves on me.

Except with Rome. Rome took what he wanted from me; he dominated our sexual escapades and made the rules. And I loved that only with him, that he didn’t need to treat me nicely or feel the need to give me control, like he knew my broken pieces and could navigate their jagged edges better than anyone.

Yet tonight he was asking me. Like I was his ruler, like I wore the crown, no matter how broken it may have been.

Bastian didn’t say a word. His gaze jumped between us, and a small smile played at his lips, one of knowledge, of forfeiture.

I turned to Rome. “You ready to show the family that you’re better for me? That we can be together, that you get me to my high better than Bastian ever would? Show me. Show him. Show us all.”

He grabbed my neck and yanked me to his mouth so fast I yelped. The sound was muffled by him devouring me, feasting on me like I was his last meal. He sucked on my tongue, ravaged my lips, and then licked over them to soothe the pain.

I moaned as his free hand grabbed my ass to shove me straight into his hard cock. He was rock solid, longer, thicker than anyone I’d ever been with. I clung to his back, trying to get as close to him as possible, but he ripped his lips away as quickly as he’d dived in and shoved me around so that I was facing Bastian. His muscular tattooed forearm wrapped around my waist and pulled me back against his chest. I felt his dick at my ass, felt how he gyrated against me just to cause me to gasp, cause my mouth to water, cause me to arch back into him.

“Now, what first, Kate-Bait?” Rome purred. “Raise your skirt or lower your bodice? Should we show Bastian how you beg for it?”

Bastian’s eyes burned into mine with question. What a perfect specimen he was, all smooth tanned skin over that strong jawline with a full head of hair to grab. His gaze trailed the length of me, and my skin seared under it. A blush wanted to rise, as hot as I was underneath my skin. My core clenched with need. Something was happening with these two men putting me in the middle of them, one dominating me and the other watching, waiting for instructions.

“Don’t tell me that, after all this time, you’ve lost your voice, Katalina,” Rome whispered for only me to hear.

I didn’t turn to him to acknowledge his words, but my hands fell to my thighs where I gripped the skirt of the dress. Inch by inch, I bunched the fabric into my hands, raising it higher and higher until it was just below my pussy. “If someone comes out here”—I glanced behind Bastian—“you two are killing them.”

I was offering Bastian a way out, a lifeline if he wanted to leave, because I knew he was about to see me in a whole other light. Instead of seeing the games Rome and I were playing, he could go check the doors, make sure no one would come out onto the balcony.

He crossed his arms over his chest, narrowing his eyes at me like he’d read my signal loud and clear. “We have two guys guarding entry.” He stepped forward and breathed in so deep, the lapels of his jacket expanded. “If I’m to lose you, Katie, I want to see what for. If you choose out here on this balcony tonight, I intend to witness it.” He licked his lips like he already knew I’d chosen, or maybe he knew he’d forfeit me that easily.

I set my jaw and leaned back into Rome, finally provoked enough to taunt them both. I yanked the material higher, and Bastian hissed when he realized I hadn’t worn any lingerie.

The cool night air flew across my slit. It chilled and heated every part of me. One of my hands went straight to it, ready to push myself over the edge.

“Don’t you dare touch yourself,” Rome grumbled in my ear. “If you’re going to be in the middle of both of us, take what we give you.”

Were his eyes closed when his finger slid inside me and his thumb ran over my clit, or were they on Bastian? I couldn’t be sure.

My men, my night and my day, my dark and my light, my comfort and my torment, were colliding. I only had myself to blame, or maybe I could blame Rome for the way he pushed my limits, made me submit to this scenario in the first place.

“You feel me, but you see him,” he said. “What turns you on more? My touch or him in front of you?”

I didn’t answer him. I closed my eyes to shield myself from the ever-changing looks on Bastian’s face.

“Is this what you want? Him on your arm in public giving you power, or me in the dark taking it away?”

I whimpered, not sure how to answer, not sure I really wanted to. Bastian had become my path to a dream. I wasn’t sure I was ready to let him go, but Rome owned me. He knew the dark parts of me that I hid from everyone else, what I’d been through, why I was the way I was. And still he was pulled to me like I was pulled to him. He owned my thoughts, my body, and my orgasms.

He owned my heart even though I’d tried so hard to keep it from him. I bent to his will time and time again. “Please just finish me off,” I whispered, hoping that Bastian wouldn’t hear my plea.

“Already begging.” I felt the scruff on my neck disappear. Rome was looking straight at Bastian, and Bastian’s gaze moved past me. “Do you want me in you? Or him?”

I craned my head over my shoulder to glare at him. “You’d hand me over that quickly? That all I am to you?”

“Kate-Bait, you’ve climbed over me time and time again for another man,” he murmured, and his hollow, dark eyes shined with a black jealousy I wasn’t used to.

I wanted him to say it out loud, wanted him to claim me as his. “If you’ll step aside so easily”—I turned to Bastian even as I felt Rome’s fingers moving in me slowly, languidly, almost punishingly—“Bastian has been happy to step in and be there for me all this time when I barely got a glance from you. You’d fuck me in a bathroom and leave me in silence the next day.”

“You think it was easy?” he ground out. “I’ve tried to be without you, forget you, leave you behind. You’ve rooted yourself in my every thought though.”

Bastian combed a hand through his hair, shaking his head once like he couldn’t believe he was this far down the rabbit hole with us. “I’m sure this is a bad idea, Katie. I’m sure we belong together after this display.”

I nodded, but even as I did, Rome’s one hand still sat on my collarbone while his dick ground against the bunched fabric over my ass. I moaned, rolling my hips back like I wanted it. My body had a mind of its own, a magnetic sexual force that was only drawn to Rome’s pull..

Bastian’s eyes locked on my hips, on my dress still bunched there, and I started to let go of the fabric just as his hand shot out. It balled into a big fist, and the tulle of my dress tangled in his fingers, covering the mafia ring I stared at from time to time. Each of the men at the top of the mob had them, like class rings, but with skulls imprinted on them and a teardrop on the side that symbolized the family’s blood.

Bastian yanked me forward, but my body didn’t budge an inch. Rome still had a hold on me and wasn’t letting me go. Bastian’s eyes jumped to over my shoulder, and then his head shook in disappointment before he twisted my dress fabric so hard, I gasped at the fabric biting into my skin and at seeing the veins in his forearm pop. “Let him watch, Katie. It’s my turn.”

His dark stare met mine as he breathed in deep. “You’re going to be my untouchable or his. Tonight, you’re the boss. You get to choose.” He pressed his mouth to mine.

Choosing whose untouchable I wanted to be was a slap in the face. Didn’t they understand I’d worked for my place beside each and every one of them? I didn’t want to be protected; I wanted to be equal. And I wanted a love big enough that the person beside me would fight for that equality with me.

I tried to focus on the way his hand gripped my hips, on how it moved up closer to sliding into me. His touch was soft, measured, and sweet. I didn’t know why it didn’t move me like Rome’s did. He gently sucked on my tongue, and I just knew.

We all knew on that balcony that night. I’d only beg for one man, and it wasn’t the one with his lips on mine.

Rome, the freaking monster everyone was afraid of, was behind me. I arched, and my back pushed into his length as he thrust forward, reminding me that no one really had my attention except him. His heart pumped fast, like some emotion was getting the best of him, and his scruff on my neck scraped harshly as he turned his face back and forth into my sensitive skin.

Then his lips were at my ear and he whispered, “Come on, Katalina. Who do you want?” His chuckle was evil, and then he bit down hard on my earlobe. His hands went everywhere at once. I felt him roughly shoving down my bodice to free my breasts. The wind cooled them as he heated them by pinching my nipples and then roughly rubbing over them with his calloused hands.

Our relationship was just the same, pain and pleasure always. He hit me where it hurt, asking me the questions I didn’t want to answer, and yet it was the most alive I’d felt for days. Rome had dug a dagger somewhere deep inside my heart, and I couldn’t dislodge it, no matter how hard I tried.

Bastian pulled back, his mouth glistening, but his eyes dull with defeat.

“What do you want, Katalina?” With the question, Rome’s hand went to his suit pants’ zipper, and I knew he was releasing exactly what I wanted. When he yanked the back edge of my dress up so that his cock rested between my ass cheeks, I practically screamed in frustration at not having him in me already. He pumped against my skin once and let out a string of swears.

“We have to stop,” I whispered. “This is too much.”

My eyes tracked Bastian’s expression as Rome’s thumb rolled over my clit, as my body welcomed the man that was supposed to be there. His middle finger slid right up into me where it belonged, and I couldn’t hold back the moan, couldn’t hold back how my nipples and body reacted.

Bastian’s hand reached out, but Rome’s low rumble at my neck told us both he was done sharing. His hand went to my throat and squeezed. “Get off this balcony, Bastian, and let Kate-Bait fuck her man.” His command was swift and filled with more authority than I’d ever heard.

His words echoed through the night. Maybe I was the only one who heard them over and over in my head, the way he hadn’t claimed me, but had submitted himself instead to my ownership. He might have owned my body, but he knew I owned his soul, that we owned one another.

Bastian’s dark eyes hardened, and he nodded at us. “She’s your untouchable, then.”

The word caused my muscles to tense as I stood before Bastian, skirt up and bodice down, wrapped up in his right-hand man, on the brink of a climax to rock my world.

Rome’s voice reverberated against my back as he answered the city’s ruler. “She’s something to us all. It isn’t that.”

Bastian’s eyes searched us both for a second longer before he spun on his heels and stalked off.

Rome didn’t give me any warning before he spun me to face the balustrade. He shoved me forward so my breasts spilled over for all to see and my ass and pussy were easily accessible.

He lifted the skirt of the dress higher, and his hands went to my hips, then my ass, as he rubbed the globes hard with his calloused hands. “I was getting nervous you would keep kissing him while I fucked you to prove a point.”

I rolled my eyes into the wind. Of course he was mad at how far I let the charade go. “You could have stopped it, Rome,” I shot back. I placed my hands on the stone of the railing without looking back at him and arched my spine a tad more just to piss him off.

His deep hum and the return of his dick to right back between my ass cheeks signaled I’d gotten the response I wanted. His fingers worked themselves into me again, and I moaned, wanting more, but so far gone I was willing to take whatever he gave me.

Then his thumb slid to my other hole, and I gasped as it puckered with the pressure he put on it.

“I don’t stop you from anything, Katalina. I’m just here to keep pushing you farther and farther down whatever damn path you decide to take.”

I bit down on my lower lip because my whole body was shaking, anticipating and adjusting to the idea that something foreign might slide into that virgin place. I’d never let anyone there, and yet having him rub a slick digit over it had me panting like I wanted him to.

“One day I’ll take this from you too. This body is mine,” he growled, and then both his hands were on the cement banister, anchoring him so he could pound into me so ferociously that my whole body pummeled the stone. I lurched forward, my tits bouncing in the night air as he hammered into me again and again.

I took each thrust in complete and total submission because I knew this was Rome unleashed, unhinged, and completely vicious in his mission to reach a high with me. He slammed into me so hard my hips scraped and bruised against the stone. It didn’t matter, though, because my whole body had been waiting just for him.

Rome and the monster that stirred in him belonged inside me. I was his home, his vessel, the place he’d always come back to.

Or so I hoped.

And when he did, he would be the only man I’d submit to, the only one I’d let fuck me over the balustrade of a balcony.

“I should have left you with him,” he grunted with each thrust.

“Just finish me off,” I begged into the wind, not sure he could hear me.

An evil sound much more menacing than a chuckle came from him before he pulled himself fully out of me. He gripped my ponytail right at the base of my neck and jerked my head around to face him. “You don’t tell me when, Katalina. You may own every part of me now, but I own these moments. Always.”

The truth of his words stabbed at my heart. If we owned one another like this, how would we ever disentangle ourselves?

He thrust hard into me again to prove his point. I screamed into the night as my monster took me and brought me to climax before I fell apart in his arms.