Chapter Sixteen

James had just swiped his signature on the hundredth shipping form when Cora stumbled into his quarters. Nicholas had texted him twenty minutes before to let him know they were on their way, but he hadn’t mentioned the drawn, ashen texture of her face or the threat of tears glinting in her eyes.

“Cora?”

Without answering him, she shuffled to his cot and dropped onto it, shoes, coat, and all. The sheets were drawn over her head like a child escaping a nightmare.

“I told him to take me home,” came her muffled voice.

He didn’t bother pointing out that Nicholas had brought her home, just not the one she was used to yet.

He set his pen down on the papers and swiveled his chair to face her.

“What happened?”

There was a long stretch of silence from the lump on his bed. But he could just make out the rise and fall of her back.

“Why did you make me do that?”

She didn’t need to elaborate. He’d heard the whole thing through the tiny microchip in her bracelet. The replacement for the one he’d placed in her pocket the night before. A more permanent one.

“Because you need to know how it’s done.”

“I don’t want to know!” she snapped. “I’ve gone twenty-five years without knowing, without being that person who destroys a family.”

James sighed. “You didn’t destroy them.”

“You weren’t there.” A thread of emotion wavered in her voice. “You didn’t see Claudia’s face. She looked so betrayed.”

“Do you think your mom enjoys it?”

She went quiet, yet her silence carried more weight than any words she could have spoken. “No.”

“We all have to do things we don’t want,” he murmured.

He pushed to his feet and went to her. One finger hooked into the top of the sheets and he dragged them off her face. Cora peered up at him, looking oddly small and fragile cocooned in his bed. Her hair was dark streaks across the pillow, a contrast against the pallor of her cheeks. But it was the pain in her eyes that gutted him. It blazed with a ferocity that consumed all her light.

He drew in a deep breath. “You don’t have to worry about making too many home visits. I won’t be killing a lot of people, and most of my men are single.”

It started slow, a flicker that spread until all her teeth were flashing in a brilliant smile.

“Not a lot, huh?” she teased.

“A few,” he confirmed.

Cora chuckled. “It’s good to have achievable goals.”

He hummed quietly as he lowered himself down next to her hip. The frame creaked with the added weight and she rolled slightly into his side when the mattress dipped.

“Speaking of achievable goals...”

He kissed her, sweeping his tongue into her mouth and savoring her. But the sweet taste of her release was no longer coating her lips. It had faded so it was only her coating his tongue.

He’d never been so disappointed.

“I couldn’t,” she panted, breathless when he lifted his head. “There wasn’t a chance ... Claudia—”

He kissed her hard, pressing her into the mattress. His fingers undid the buttons on her coat.

“I’ve been looking forward to tasting you all morning,” he told her, voice gruff.

“I’m sorry.” She helped him liberate her of the bulky fabric. “I couldn’t exactly say, sorry my dad was forced to kill your husband, Claudia, but I have to use your bathroom.”

James paused. His head came up.

“You think someone forced the great Giovanni De Marco to kill her husband?”

She was still breathing hard, but the passion in her eyes was replaced with confusion. “Roman stole from him. He had no choice.”

James straightened. “And raping a sixteen year old girl, I guess there was no choice in that either.”

Cora scrambled upright. “There’s no excuse for that, but—”

“But she had it coming?”

Anger sparked behind her tightly pursed lips. “Don’t put disgusting words in my mouth, James. I would never say that.”

“But your dad’s the victim, right? Because, technically, since my dad couldn’t pay yours, he basically stole from him, too.” He shoved to his feet and moved away from her. “Taking my sister I guess was fair trade.”

“My father isn’t a monster!” She shoved back the blankets and threw herself off the bed. “He would never have hurt your sister.”

“No, he had his men do it for him. Eight of them.”

What color that had begun to leak into her cheeks dissipated.

“My father wouldn’t have done that. He wouldn’t. I don’t care what you think you know.”

“Stop defending him!” His molars creaked beneath the force of his tightly clenched jaw. “You know what kind of man he is. You know what he’s capable of, and yet you stand there defending him. What’s the matter with you?”

“Because I know him,” she shot back. “Because I do know the things he’s capable of, and that’s not one of them.”

“Then you’re blind, and stupid.”

“You’re stupid!”

She grabbed her coat and shoved past him towards the door.

He grabbed her before she could reach it.

“We’re not finished.”

She whirled and slapped his hand off her arm. Her eyes blazed like green flames.

“Oh, we are so finished,” she seethed. “I won’t stand here and listen to you put my family down, especially without a lick of proof.”

“The only man my father owed money to, was yours.”

“That doesn’t mean shit!” Her balled fists trembled at her sides.

“There was a note, Cora.” His anger dissolved into annoyance. “They took her as payment.”

Her bottom lip trembled, but her gaze remained unflinching. “That doesn’t mean my father did it.”

“He’s the boss. No one does anything without his okay.”

She didn’t seem to have a response to that. She stood before him, ramrod straight and determined, but her mouth remained firmly shut.

It should have been enough.

Silencing her should have sang through him with a resignation echo of triumph. But it left him cold and empty inside. The hurt in her eyes had him averting his own, unable to stomach the bitter self-loathing that plowed into him.

“I’m going home,” she whispered.

He didn’t stop her when she left.

He wouldn’t know what to say even if he had. He couldn’t apologize. He wouldn’t. That really left nothing else.

Off his desk, he picked up his phone and texted Nicholas to take her wherever she wanted to go. But no sooner had he dropped the device back down with a clatter when it chirped and lit up with a return message.

“Dinner tonight at her parent’s. Says she’ll meet you there.”

James snatched up his phone and punched in his answer, “No, we’re going together.”

“She says no.”

“Oh for fuck sakes.” James muttered out loud to himself. On the phone, he typed, “Don’t fucking move.”

Abandoning his work, he grabbed his coat and went in search of the woman he was about to throttle. He clambered off the boat and marched to where the car was parked. Cora’s annoyed expression glowered at him from the backseat.

He threw himself in next to her and slammed the door shut behind him.

“Get out.”

Nicholas immediately abandoned his place behind the wheel, leaving James alone with his infuriating wife.

“Do you have you be such a fucking control freak to everyone?” Cora turned on him. “He doesn’t have to be here. You could say please and—”

“Shut up.”

Her perfect mouth formed an O before they twisted into a hard line. “Don’t tell me to—”

He grabbed the lapel of her coat and dragged her across the seat until their faces were inches apart.

“I have reached the limits of my patience with you, Ms. Harris. I am tempted to drag you out of this car, put you up on the hood, and spank you for the entire world to see.”

Color blazed up her neck and swelled in her face, making her eyes appear luminous. She sucked in a breath that rattled going down.

“Don’t you dare,” she breathed.

James narrowed his eyes.

In the time it took for her to realize her mistake, he had already dragged her from the seat, kicking and screaming. He caught her around the middle and hauled her around to the front of the car. Her wrists were caught in both hands and used to drag her forward, face down over the cold metal. He held her there with the weight of his torso draping over her back.

“What have I told you about challenging me not to do things?” he murmured into her ear. “I take those very personal.”

“I swear to god, I will kill you!” Her growl plumed white across the shiny, black surface.

“Is that another challenge, sweetheart?”

He kicked her feet apart and twisted her arms higher over her head. He caught both in one hand. The other was tucked beneath her hips.

He undid the button on her jeans.

Cora went still.

“James...”

“I told you...” he yanked down the zipper. “Shut. Up.”

Her eyes squeezed shut tight. Her body braced beneath his, possibly waiting for that first tug and the slap of wind against her bare ass. The streaks of her every exhale blew hard and shallow, mirroring the tremors he could feel running down her spine.

He hooked his thumb into the waistband. He felt her stiffen, felt her sharp intake of air.

But he didn’t undress her.

He wouldn’t.

No fucking way in hell was he going to flash his pussy to the world.

That belonged to him.

Only him.

Her punishment would have to wait until he had her alone, but since he had her there, had her at his mercy...

He slipped his fingers into the V he’d created.

Cora gasped.

Her eyelids flew open.

“You drive me fucking crazy,” he growled into her ear, his fingers delving deeper over her soft mound to peel apart her lips. “I don’t know whether to spank the shit out of you, or fuck you until neither of us can walk.”

Her answer was the push of her hips into his hand.

James fingered her clit, teasing it with little flicks that had the woman under him thrashing wildly. Hot liquid rushed from her core and trickled over his fingers. It smeared over his palm with each slow grind of his heel against her apex.

“James ... please.”

He hadn’t even had to ask, he noted with more than just a little satisfaction. He rewarded her by impaling her on two fingers. His thumb settled against her clit. It rubbed with every pump of his wrist, making her walls shudder and her muscles constrict.

She moved against him, unabashed and beautiful in her desires. Her eyes had squeezed closed once more, her face twisted into one of tortured agony.

The best kind.

“I’m coming...” Her strangled whimper tensed every muscle in her body as it prepared to launch itself into bliss.

James pushed her right to that very peak, that high crest before the plunge, and stopped.

He pulled out. The wind immediately leeched onto the wet, sticky mess, making his hand cold. But it was nothing compared to the woman sobbing against his car.

“No ... no, please ... please... James, don’t...”

He ignored her desperate pleas and gently lifted her onto her feet. He caught her when her knees gave and cradled her against him.

Big, tear-filled eyes lifted to his. The left side of her face burned a brighter pink from being pressed into frigid metal, but it didn’t seem to bother her nearly as much as his withdrawal had.

“Why...?”

It was like watching a kicked puppy trying to understand why she was being punished. It might have worked on a lesser man, but James was making a point.

“Prove to me you deserve it, behave, and I promise I will give you the best fucking orgasm of your life.”

That clouded over her eyes, a misty daze of euphoria. Her throat moved with her audible swallow. She licked her lips.

“I don’t think I can walk.”

Biting back his grin, James scooped her up into his arms and carted her back to the door he’d left open. He dumped her gently down into the backseat.

“I’ll pick you up at six.”

He closed the door on the glaze of passion masking her face before he forgot himself and fucked her right there on the seat. He moved to where the other man stood a good thirty feet away with his back to the car, head bent over his phone, pretending he’d gone deaf.

Nicholas looked up at him when James approached. “You’re a twisted bastard.”

Maybe not fully deaf.

James smirked. “Sometimes, it works better than a spanking.”

The other man grunted a noncommittal response before pivoting on his heels and marching back to the vehicle.

He managed to finish most of the required documents they would need to cross the Atlantic a second time — or was it a third time? Didn’t matter. Corbett wanted his guns and James’s crew wanted their money. The deed needed to be done one way or another.

He sealed everything into a folder and stuffed it into the bottom drawer; most of it would need to be submitted before they launched ... whenever that happened.

The way things were unfolding, he’d be lucky to see the ocean again outside a postcard. As it stood, he still had no idea what he was going to do with Cora. The idea of buying her a house near her parents would have been perfect had it come from someone other than Giovanni De Marco. Even he couldn’t swallow that much pride.

Forcing himself away from his desk, James pushed to his feet and ambled into the bathroom. He showered quickly and dressed for dinner. He only owned two formal attire, one was a full-on blazer, tie, and vest ensemble he could go his whole life without wearing. The other was a pair of simple black trousers, a dress shirt, and blazer.

He decided on the latter.

He shaved, combed back his hair, and grabbed his coat.

Laimure was left in charge until Nicholas’s return. There wasn’t much left for the man to do, except make sure the ship didn’t catch fire in the next hour.

James took his dad’s old 1967 Pontiac GTO. It had taken him years to scrub off the rust and rebuild half the engine. But it had been his project, a way to pass time between trips. The pride and joy had given him his fair share of luck when it came to women, but also getting away from cops.

It was also the last remaining item he possessed from his old life. The house and all its belongings had been sold off. Whatever couldn’t be had been tossed. The car had survived only because he’d stolen it the same night social services had hauled him off to live with strangers. He’d gone back and hotwired the thing to freedom. For the next eight months, it was hidden in an abandoned barn outside of town.

Thank God for that, otherwise, he never would have had anywhere to sleep for the next three weeks while he tried to sort out what to do with his life without the system telling him where to go and where to live.

He drove away from the comforts of the ocean and wove through the streets in the direction of Cora’s apartment. The bar below the apartment glowed with life and early drinkers. A scrawny kid was behind the counter, filling a tray of shots. He barely looked old enough to be in the joint, but that wasn’t James’s problem.

He hit the intercom button along the side door and waited to be allowed access. The speaker box crackled with static before Cora’s voice filled the evening.

“Yeah?”

“It’s me.”

The buzzer sounded and the locks gave with a click.

James let himself in and jogged up the steps.

He found Nicholas seated in an armchair, knees apart, expression dark. He met James’s gaze with a level of annoyance that would have been comical if the man hadn’t been an expert marksmen.

“Thank God,” he grumbled, already on his feet. “Damn women and their fucking clothes.”

He never gave an explanation when he stormed off. His boots thundered down the stairs a split second before the door slammed shut.

Bemused, James wandered his way towards Cora’s bedroom. He found the door slightly ajar and pushed it open.

Clothes littered every inch of the place. It was as if a bomb had gone off in her closet. He would have believed it too, if there weren’t for the piles of various colors, shapes, and sizes in some areas in an attempt at organization. The woman herself stood before a full-length mirror, wrestling with the zipper on a black number.

She caught sight of him and spun, face lit with relief.

“Can you help? I think if I ask Nicholas in here one more time, he might strangle me.”

He crossed to her, careful not to step on anything. She turned as he approached and offered him her back. He took the tongue and tugged the zipper up.

Cora stepped back. She twisted left, then right. Her face bunched.

“I don’t like this one either,” she admitted with a resigned slump of her shoulders. “Can you...?”

She offered him her back again.

He undid the zipper, inch by inch, exposing the smooth, naked expanse of her back increasing the wider the V grew.

“You let Nicholas do this?”

Her chin twisted over her shoulder as the zipper reached the small of her spine.

“I couldn’t reach.”

“You let him undress you?”

One finger glided the smooth, flawless path of her spine, tracing each delicate bump creating her column.

Cora inhaled sharply. “No, just the zipper.”

James lowered his head and kissed the side of her neck where the tiny pulse pattered. He felt it jump.

“Do you know what a man thinks when a woman allows him to touch the zipper on her dress, the buttons on her blouse, the sash on her robe?” He sucked lightly at her warm skin. “Sex. He thinks about his hands touching all he’s bared.”

His own fingers crept beneath the straps on the dress and guided them over the slopes of her shoulders. He dragged them down her arms and released, allowing it to slither to the floor at her feet.

She wore nothing, but a pair of black panties that were no more than a wide V of lace curving over the taut globes of her ass and tucked into the crack.

“Did he see you like this?” His hands settled on her hips. He drew her back into his chest. “Did you stand here while he took his fill of what belongs to me?”

“No.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

He slipped his palms beneath the weight of her breasts and cradled the soft mounds. He skimmed the nipples with his thumbs, relishing in her weak little whimper.

“No what?” He turned his lips into the side of her face. “No, he didn’t undress you? No, he didn’t watch? Didn’t touch?”

“All of it.” Heavy lashes lifted and he was caught in her beautiful stare. “I wouldn’t. You’re the only man I want. The only man who knows what I like.”

“Am I?” He skimmed a finger over her unpainted mouth.

Cora nodded. Her lips opened and she nipped at his finger with her teeth.

She grinned when he jerked in surprise.

“I thought you never got jealous.”

The hand she’d bitten wrapped around the smooth column of her throat, just tight enough to make her eyes spark and her mouth part in a silent gasp.

“This isn’t jealousy, sweetheart. This is a fucking deliberation.”

“What does that mean?”

“That means that I just decided my best friend will live to see another day. But you.” He kissed her. Hard. Punishing. “Don’t ever bring another man into your bedroom again, understand?”

Breath ragged, she nodded.

He released her and took a step back. He surveyed the chaos around them, at the mountains of clothes, shoes, and accessories. The pandemonium was nearly enough to send him out of the room. But he waded through the mess and rifled through the few remaining garments still dangling from the closet. He found a navy-blue dress with buttons down the front and a short skirt.

It was simple, but perfect.

He held it out to her. “This one.”

“I need a bra—”

“No, you don’t. Just this and those panties.”

“But...” Her cheeks darkened. “You can really tell—”

“Just this and the panties,” he repeated slower.

She took it without further questioning and slipped it on. He watched the fabric glide over all the naked parts of her, covering her up. It stretched across her chest, effortlessly outlining her nipples and molded to her waist. The skirt flared around her hips in a teasing layer to mid-thigh, leaving her legs beautifully bare.

“Turn around.”

Cora turned and faced the mirror.

James moved up behind her and examined the back. His hand dusted the curve of her spine and ended when the hem of her skirt touched his fingertips without much effort.

Perfect.

Just fucking perfect.

“Get your things.”

He waited as she grabbed her shoes, coat, and purse. Then led her down to the car.

They left her street, taking the outskirts around the heart of the city to the upper crest where the trash strewn streets became towering walls of ivory stone and iron gates. Lawns lost their dull patches, becoming lush and vibrant surrounding acers of exclusive estates and sprawling manors.

James squinted at each one as they rolled past, thinking how he would have loved to have bought his mom one. She’d always wanted a colonial style house with the Greek columns and a cobblestone path.

“And five bedrooms,” she would say. “With a massive kitchen to fit all my grandchildren.”

She had wanted grandchildren, as many as he and Annie would give her. She loved children, had always made embarrassing noises at babies at the supermarket.

But he knew a lot of that had to do with the fact that she felt like she’d missed him and Annie growing up. She’d spent the first part watching Annie through a glass box and the other half through the surgery windows. With all the stress and worry of possibly losing a child, she and his dad sometimes forgot they had a son, too.

But James never minded.

Annie was the important one.

She needed them more.

There hadn’t been a thing wrong with him, and that was his fault.

He’d taken too much room in the womb.

He’d taken too much oxygen.

He’d done something that made Annie the way she was.

So, she deserved all the attention.

Annie had been born on borrowed time. From birth, the doctors had warned them not to get too comfortable. Eventually, the hole they kept trying to repair in her heart would end her and no amount of surgery would change that.

But they’d tried.

His parents spent their last dollar trying to keep her alive, and for seventeen years, it had worked.

She’d grown.

She’d survived.

She was going to make it.

She’d cheated death.

The hole in her heart didn’t kill her.

Giovanni De Marco did.

The man in his thousand dollar suits and Lincoln Continental had killed his twin for ten thousand dollars.

His best friend.

“Hey.” Cora’s soft murmur filled the cabin, interrupting his thoughts. “Everything okay? Looks like you’re trying to strangle the wheel.”

His fingers creaked as he loosened around the leather. Blood seeped back into his knuckles, erasing the blistering white and rigid veins bulging up beneath his skin. He drew in a breath and focused on the dark, wet road ahead, and the woman seated next to him.

“Open your coat.”

He didn’t need to look over to feel her questioning gaze.

“What?”

“Your coat,” he repeated. “Open it.”

She hesitated, not out of fear or uncertainty, but confusion. Nevertheless, her fingers lifted. He watched them unbutton her coat beneath the straps of her seatbelt.

“Undo the buttons on your dress.”

This time, her reluctance was saturated with her indecision.

“But the other cars—”

“Stop making me repeat myself, Cora.”

The leather beneath her rustled with the shifting of her body. Her head turned to the window next to her and the open stretch of road; there were no other cars around. Just them and a full ten minutes before they reached their destination.

Her hands drifted to the first button. It slipped free of the hole with ease. The next one followed. Then the next. It continued until she was bare from the waist up. Her breasts glowed in the lights from the dashboard, the nipples rigid, despite the warmth in the cabin.

“That’s enough.”

She stopped. Her hands dropped into her lap.

“Play with yourself. Make her wet for me.”

He could almost feel her mouth opening, the but resonating on her tongue. But she wisely snapped it shut.

“She’s already wet.”

The quiet murmur had his gaze flicking to her then back to the road. His fingers clenched once around the steering wheel before relaxing. One hand drifted off and migrated to the soft flesh of her inner thighs. They parted without prompting, lewdly wide.

She was wet.

She was dripping.

The bit of fabric wedged between her lips was soaked.

He nudged it aside and reached for heart of her, not even bothering to pause when stretching her on his fingers.

Cora moaned, a deep, throaty sound of raw pleasure as her body bowed off her seat as far as the seatbelt would allow. Her fingers bunched into her skirt, gripping the fabric up and over his hand.

He rocked his palm over her mound, pushing in and pulling out his fingers with every pump. Her sleek walls rippled around him in greedy anticipation and a fast approaching orgasm.

He drew out, careful to keep away from her pleasure point as he circled wet fingers over her lips, smearing them with her own juices. He did a slow brush around her clit, barely kissing the pink nub begging for his attention.

“Don’t tease!” Cora wailed, head thumping back against the headrest. “Christ, I’ve been hurting all day.”

He smacked her pussy with four fingers, not hard enough to trigger a release, but enough to have her squeal and kick the underside of the dashboard.

“Quiet,” he warned. “You’ll come when I fucking tell you to come.”

To prove it, and to shut her up, he forced his sticky fingers between her lips. He held them there while she lapped at his skin and sucked him clean.

Her hips wiggled against the leather, a desperate thrashing he knew was both from wanting relief and to ease the sting. He could feel it billowing through the car as hot as the air blowing from the vents. But she never used her hand, no matter how badly he knew she wanted to.

That was progress.

That would relieve some of the suffering he’d had planned for her.

Ahead, De Marco’s house crested with the next fluid turn down yet another winding road. This one stooped upward, propelling them to a new level of rich.

Dirty rich.

The kind of rich that came from old money, or blood money.

De Marco had a lot of both.

The estate appeared on the left, a grand four story work of art guarded by ten foot walls and an ocean of unblemished green. The iron gates barely made a sound with their inward swing. They opened to an expanse of rolling white gravel and high, stone walls. The approach of winter had stripped the surrounding trees, and the carefully tended garden, but the grass remained lush and vibrant.

It was exactly the sort of place De Marco would call home.

James pulled off the shoulder, edging along the grass and killed the engine. He pulled his fingers from Cora’s mouth and turned to her.

In the warm glow of the house lights, her lips were wet and swollen.

Her eyes were hungry.

She looked perfect and fuckable with her dress in a rumpled mess around her flushed and open body. He knew she’d let him fuck her right there, right on her father’s front steps. He could spread her open and dive balls deep in her ass and she’d come screaming.

But not yet.

“Button up,” he told her instead, but not before reaching over and pinching a nipple.

He rolled it back and forth between his fingers until she was sobbing, her thighs rubbed together against the seat. The leather beneath her glistened.

He smirked as he turned away from her. He pushed open his door and rolled out into the chill. He circled to her side and waited patiently while she righted her clothes.

Her legs wobbled as they walked. Her fingers were claws digging into his arm, using him to keep her upright. He knew it had nothing to do with her heels. He’d seen her in heels, poised and seamless. Her unsteadiness only made the game all the more delectable.

At the bottom of the steps, he paused. He took the woman beside him by the waist and jerked her back against his chest.

Cora gasped, the sound decidedly hopeful.

Did she think he was going to give her relief on the stairs? he wondered with some amusement. She was about to be sorely disappointed.

“James ... what...?”

“I’m going to torture the shit out of you tonight,” he growled into the delicate line of her jaw. “I’m going to make you beg me to end it.”

She wasn’t even bothering to conceal her ragged panting. She was a marathon runner finishing a hundred mile sprint. She couldn’t seem to get enough air.

He cupped her breasts through the bulky material of her coat, enjoying how her inability to breath properly pushed the mounds into his palms.

Her head dropped back against his shoulder.

“Why?”

“Because I can. Because you can’t fucking stop me.” He nudged her ear with his nose. “Because you brought another man to your bedroom and let him undress you.”

Cora whimpered. “I didn’t. It was just a zipper.”

He bit the shell. “I don’t care.”

He released her and started up the steps without her.

It took her a few seconds longer to make the climb.

Watching her struggle delighted him.

It petted his inner monster until it purred.

He wanted her to struggle.

To suffer.

To feel every fucking pulse of her pussy and know only he held the power to sooth it.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he taunted, extending a palm four steps above hers. “Let’s not keep your parents waiting.”

She staggered her way up and practically threw herself at him when her knees finally gave. Her nails bit into the cotton of his lapel. Her hot breath washed over his throat.

“I think I’m dying, James.”

He tipped her face back with a single finger beneath her chin. “Not yet, love. Not until I’m done with you.”

Never taking his eyes off her tormented expression, he knocked.