Chapter Twenty Two
Mia
I’m invited to the study tonight for drinks, but I still can’t go into Mateo’s study without bursting into tears, so I decline and hang out in the kitchen with Maria instead.
I’ve noticed a major lack of Cherie since I moved back to the mansion, so I decide to ask Maria about it.
“Hey Maria, how come Cherie doesn’t help out on Sundays anymore?”
Maria shakes her head, her face pinched with displeasure—this isn’t uncommon though, her face usually looks like that, but now it’s more pronounced. “Cherie doesn’t help with anything anymore. She quit after…” Maria trails off, sliding her eyes toward me, and I realize she doesn’t want to mention Vince in front of me and trigger the waterworks.
“Oh,” I murmur, arranging the breadsticks in the basket. “I didn’t realize… I mean, I was never really sure how that worked. She’s allowed to just quit?”
“Cherie was never really a maid,” Maria explains. “She’s related to them. And she was never overly fond of Mateo, but now…”
“Right.” I nod, my heart heavy. “Is she okay? I’ve been so lost in my own grief; I didn’t even think to check on her.”
“It hit her very hard,” Maria says. “She and Vince were close.”
“I know they were.” Sadness rolls over me again, remembering Vince and Cherie together at school. All of us playing together in the pool over the summer. God, Vince looked good wet.
Now I’m sad again.
I help take out the salads before I take my usual seat next to Mateo and across from Meg. I’m keenly aware of the empty seat beside me though, and I was already sad, so I’m not an ideal dinner companion tonight.
Mateo watches me on occasion, and I don’t know why. There are too many possibilities. Maybe he’s wondering if I missed him in my bed last night. Maybe he popped into his surveillance room to see what I did without him and saw me sobbing over Vince. Maybe it’s something I just haven’t thought of yet, because my brain doesn’t have as many open tabs as his does. Who knows? It’s always something with him.
Meg is on her game, though. She’s in a good mood. Probably because he was in her bed instead of mine last night. I can’t blame her for that. I’ve been monopolizing him.
I thought it would be a lot stranger to think about him sleeping with both of us. I’m super possessive; it would’ve pissed me off to think of someone with Vince. I didn’t even like the idea of Meg with Mateo when I first met her, before we were friends, when she was a maid and started asking me all those weird-ass questions. Maybe it’s because we became friends first. Maybe it’s because I sort of hate him still. I don’t know. I’m not going to question my good luck on the matter, because it would not serve me to be jealous in this scenario.
As soon as dinner’s over, Mateo summons me. When he leads me down the hall toward the study, I balk. “I’m not going in there.”
“We’re going to my room,” he states.
My heart drops. “Your room? Meg’s room? Why?”
“I have something I want to give you, and it’s in my room.” Glancing back at me as we approach the stairs, he says, “You’re still allowed in our room. Everything doesn’t have to be kept strictly separate.”
It feels wrong to occupy Meg’s space alone with him, though. It’s not worth putting up a fight over, but it makes me uncomfortable.
At least, I thought I was uncomfortable. Then he opens up this little gold box and pulls out the necklace that used to hang around Meg’s neck, the one he took from her when he gave her the engagement ring.
I stare at it, wide-eyed. “Meg’s death necklace?”
He rolls his eyes as he unclasps it. “I really wish she wouldn’t have called it that. It’s a locket.”
“The one all the dead women wore,” I point out, since I’ve heard this story.
He nods, not even bothering to argue. “Did anyone tell you about Belle, my father’s first wife?”
“I’ve heard some things,” I say, eyeing the necklace uncertainly. “Do I have to wear this? I feel like this necklace is the opposite of a good luck charm.”
“She didn’t want to be with my father,” he summarizes. “But it didn’t matter, because he wanted to be with her.”
“Morelli trap 101, I’m familiar,” I murmur, nodding.
“She worked at the bakery. She met a man there—a nice man, a man who made her laugh, a man who wasn’t as dark and twisted as the Morelli men.”
I sigh heavily, my shoulders drooping. This is about Mark.
“She had an affair with him. Fell for him. Ran off with him. It ended badly. My father found them. Lots of murder. Lots of retribution. It was tragic.”
“You should really put together a Morelli study guide for us ladies to look over before we make the colossal mistake of fucking one of you,” I inform him.
A hint of a smile plays out across his lips. “I’ll recommend it for the next generation.”
“Meg and I can design pamphlets.”
He ignores my comment now so he can finish his story. “Now, that man was a nobody. He really was just a baker. My father could’ve—and should’ve—just killed the bastard as soon as he realized she was fucking around. Problem solved.” He moves to stand in front of me, towering over me, and a wave of intimidation rolls over me. I lose my spunk. I forget I hate him. I remember he can be scary. I shrink under his dark gaze. “Your friend Mark is not a baker. He is not a nobody. He’s just enough of a somebody to be a thorn in my side. I could kill a baker with no repercussions. I cannot kill someone connected to the Castellanos family without repercussions, especially not a close friend of Salvatore’s. That would be like someone killing Adrian. I would rip their intestines out through their nose holes. The point is, I have invested a lot of time and a good deal of effort brokering peace with that family. People died on both sides. Lives were lost. I married my sister off to him. Now there’s peace. I want to keep that peace. I would appreciate, regardless of your current feelings for me, if you didn’t make that harder.”
He moves behind me now, draping the chain around my neck and clasping it. Once he’s finished that task, he drags my zipper down until the back of my dress gapes open. My pulse quickens and I feel a little unsteady.
“I didn’t think you’d be threatened by Mark,” I say.
An abruptly exhaled breath hits my skin as he laughs. I shiver, closing my eyes as he tenderly presses his lips against my shoulder. He lingers, then moves a fraction of an inch and does it again. He does it a third time before he leans in, his warm chest pressing against my nearly bare back. Then he drops a few kisses along my neck. Once he gets to my ear, he murmurs, “He isn’t a threat, sweetheart. He’s a pain in my ass. And you’ve seen what happens to boys who become pains in my ass.”
Anger moves through me at his crass reminder of what he did to Vince, but he’s doing his scary-sexy thing, and I’m too goddamn intimidated to talk back now. I know when to push and when to back down, and this isn’t a moment for pushing.
Trailing the back of his finger down the curve of my back, he continues, “I understand you’re a young, attractive girl. I understood that before I acquired you. I’m sure you like the attention. I will give you all the attention you want. But please, for your own sake, do not create another Vince. I promise you it will not end any better a second time, and I shouldn’t have to start a war over what’s already mine.”
“Does Meg get warnings like this?” I ask, a little shakily, as he uses both hands now to push my dress down.
“No. Meg has much more sense than you; she doesn’t require these kinds of warnings.”
I stiffen at the insult, but I don’t respond.
He’s pushed my dress to the ground now and I’m standing here in my heels, bra, and panties. Then he hooks his fingers around the panties and tugs them down.
“Shouldn’t we go to my room?” I ask.
“This is my bedroom,” he states. “I’ll fuck whoever I want in it.”
Jesus, he is in a bad mood.
He prowls around me now in a circle, looking me over like a prized piece in his collection. I don’t especially like the feeling; it’s not the first time since being “acquired” that I’ve felt more like a possession than a person, but he’s in such a weird mood tonight that I keep my mouth shut.
He stops in front of me, his hands moving to unbutton his pants, and looks at me like he’d just love for me to object. “Now, get your pretty little ass on my bed and stick it in the air.”
I jut my chin out like I’m going to be difficult, but I haul my ass over to the bed and do just as he says. He laughs a little at this. It vaguely embarrasses me, but since I clearly have some kind of sickness, that turns me on.
“This won’t be gentle,” he warns, unnecessarily, as he climbs up on the bed behind me.
“I sorta figured,” I mutter, bracing my weight on my forearms.
And it isn’t. He shoves his cock inside me like he’s wielding a sword and he wants me dead. This round is the most reminiscent of the first time I was in this bed with him. He fucks me harder and harder, making it impossible to stay upright on the bed, impossible to stay silent. He finishes inside me before I can come, and when he drops to the bed beside me, knowing that and not caring, that’s when I accept that he’s definitely mad at me.
And I hate it.
Swallowing my pride, I curl up beside him. Tentatively, I rest my hand on his chest. I watch his face, but he doesn’t look at me, not even when I brush my thumb across his skin, offering up a meager serving of the tenderness I’ve been withholding like it’s my job for two weeks.
It shouldn’t make me nervous, given I hate him and all, but now that I’ve seen how annoyed he is with me, his absence from my bed last night does worry me. Maybe he’s getting tired of me. Maybe he doesn’t like having to put in this much work. God knows he doesn’t have to. Maybe he’s getting bored with me. That shouldn’t make my stomach sink. That shouldn’t make me feel shaky inside.
Besides, how sick of me can he really be if he gave me the death necklace?
“Are you really that mad over Mark?” I ask quietly.
Mateo rolls his eyes. “I’m not mad about Mark. I was merely warning you. I know girls like you enjoy having some asshole always waiting in the wings. That’s not going to happen with me. It invites trouble and I want peace.”
“It’s not like that. I know he’s attracted to me, but he doesn’t actually want to date me or anything, he’s just a harmless flirt. And I only want to be friends with him. I don’t even see Mark that way. He’s not my type, you know that. He’s comfortable. It’s nice to have a little comfortable when you’re with someone like you.”
“That’s the problem. I wear on people,” Mateo states, his dark gaze sliding my way. “Comfort could start looking pretty damn good after you’ve been with me for a while.”
As much as I know he deserves it, my heart hurts at the idea of him thinking I could ever want to leave him for someone else. It still feels like my heart’s beating in my stomach, and I don’t know why. “I was actually going to ask you today if I would be allowed to hang out with him sometimes. I guess that’s a no.”
“You guess correctly.”
“So, I can’t have friends now?” I ask.
“Not male ones.”
“That doesn’t seem fair.”
“I don’t care.”
I still feel a little ill, knowing he’s mad at me. It gnaws at me, making minutes stretch on like torturous hours as I wait for him to smile at me. To do something, literally anything, to indicate he still likes me. Wanting to fuck me isn’t liking me. Possessing me isn’t liking me. I need something more, and he isn’t in a giving mood. That’s not unusual for him, but for him to take it so far as to not satisfy me sexually has me worried. During our consensual encounters, he has always made me come. Even once during our non-consensual encounters he made me come.
I don’t even want an orgasm, because I know how guilty I’ll feel afterward, but suddenly I feel like I need it. Suddenly I need that more than I need to draw my next breath, because I need the reassurance it offers. I need to know I’m not losing my importance to him, that he still cares about my pleasure. My need for him fuels my arousal, and I’m throbbing between my legs even though he’s just lying here. Even though he already finished fucking me. He left me wanting—not just sexually, because he’s so emotionally withdrawn from me, too. I have to pull closer. I have to know he still cares, that I haven’t pushed him away.
So I pull myself up his body, my heart pounding. Somehow it feels scary. Even though he’s never rejected me, I feel like he might now, and I don’t even know why. I don’t know what I did, but I need to fix it.
His skeptical gaze slides to me as I pull myself into his line of sight, his eyes narrowed, like he’s not sure what I’m going to do.
I swallow one last time, then I lower my mouth to his and I kiss him. He doesn’t kiss me back, and it drives me literally crazy. The throbbing between my legs intensifies; my desperation to get a response out of him claws away at my insides. I kiss him harder. Deeper. I climb on top of him and beg him without words, but he still won’t kiss me back. I’m so turned on, I can’t stand it. I feel like I’m going to cry.
I can’t convince him with my mouth, with my body, so I finally whisper, “Please.”
His voice is hard, unloving. “Again.”
My heart is in my throat, my need for him intensifying with every beat. “Please, Mateo. Please kiss me back.”
His dark eyes move to mine, like he’s doing me a favor. And he is. I don’t know how it’s a favor just to look at me, but it feels like one now. I feel like thanking him. I feel like worshipping him. I don’t know how he does this to me.
But then he fists my hair in his hand, yanking me violently down to the bed beside him. I gasp as he comes down on top of me, kissing me hard on the mouth. I wrap my arms around him, holding onto him like he’s a life raft and I’m shipwrecked in the middle of the ocean.
He pulls back, grabbing my hand and shoving it between my legs. “Get yourself off. Use my cum and rub your pussy until you come.”
Embarrassment and excitement move through me in equal measures, but I push a finger inside myself, just like he told me to do. I gasp, already so turned on and sensitive that this is going to be fast, but I’ve never been watched before. And he doesn’t take his eyes off me. Not my body, but my face. He watches my face, somehow owning my pleasure, bestowing it upon me even as I use my own fingers to bring myself to orgasm. When I cry out, he kisses me again, just as hard as before. I go limp and his kiss softens briefly, just a hint of softness after he’s done being rough with me.
I’m consumed again. I’m so lost in him, I need a rescue team to pull myself back out. I’m all feelings now, all yearning, all desire, all affection. My body is his playground and he’s flipped the switch in my brain off, apparently having no need of it tonight.