Page 6 of Paying the Mafia Don

Leo slides out of the wreck he made of my pussy. Leo the Lion, that’s how I’ll think of him now. Using the English translation of his Greek name. He mated me like one of those great beasts of the Savannah. The only thing missing is the bite mark on my neck. He lies beside me and pulls my mask of hair away, revealing my face.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asks. Rubbing his hand up and down my back, his fingers discharging the last remnants of flame down the indent of my spine. I turn my head to stare out the floor-to-ceiling windows on the far side of the room. I don’t know how I feel or what I want, but when he starts to apologize, I know it’s not that.

“Valentina, I’m sor…”

I interrupt. “It’s fine. Are you finished?”

“Finished?”

“Can I go back to my room now? Are you done with my services for the night?” I scoot to the other side of the bed. Giving him my back as I sit on the edge and wrap the comforter around myself. I don’t know why I bother. He knows more about me than my gynecologist at this point. I should have asked him to check if my brand-new IUD is still properly positioned. Maybe I don’t need to follow up with my physician after all…

The sheets rustle, and the bed dips behind me. His bowl-sized hands drop onto my shoulders. I didn’t register how big he is until tonight when I’ve never felt smaller. His voice is gruff and husky with a note I can’t identify, and I’m too wrung out to try. “No.”

I slip out from beneath his hands and pull my makeshift wrapper closer. I can’t look at him. I’m afraid of what I’ll see. Pity? Contempt? Relief? Disappointment?

“Valentina.” I ignore him and give up looking for my clothes. I’m too tired to pretend anymore. I just need my room, my bed, and a nice long soak in a tub. I’ll cry later. Lynn warned I’d feel this way, like a dirty condom on a school parking lot. The sex was great, but… “Valentina.” He roars when I walk towards the door.

“What?” I snap.

“Look at me.”

“Why? What more do you want from me?”

“Look. At. Me.” I whip around and glare.

“What?” I repeat.

“I’m not done.” He walks toward me, and I jerk back. His body, just looking at it is intimidating. Minutes ago, he was inside me, yet he’s still semi-erect. But it’s not the big dick energy that’s causing a chill to spread across my skin. It’s the intense hazel eyes that are glinting pure silver. He walks with a lion’s stealth, certain prowl. His muscles rippling, every sinew flexing. My eyes dart around, searching his vast bedroom for escape. Landing on everything from the custom bed and armoire to his mahogany desk, but never settling on him. Each measured footstep brings him closer. He has the body of a god and the look of a devil. I can’t reconcile the man who made my body sing one moment with the beast who took me without mercy the next.

“Valentina.” My eyes fly to his, and I stumble backward, my shoulder blades pressing into the door. “Come here.” I shake my head. No words come to assist me in defying him. Hell, I can’t believe I’m defying him. But he doesn’t get to treat me like crap and then have me again. I don’t care if he’s paid three hundred or three million. I roll my shoulders back and lift my chin. We face each other like some crazy contest of naked wrestling.

He breaks eye contact first. Conceding our staring contest with a loud sigh. He holds out his hand and asks. “Come back to bed.” I don’t move. “Please.”

I sense he is not a man who uses this word often. It hangs in the air between us. While I debate putting my head into the open mouth of a lion.

I meet him halfway. Avoiding his hand and walking back to the bed. I take one look at the rumpled sheets, and I can’t do it. Instead, I walk around it in favor of the sliding doors of his balcony. His hands cup my shoulder blades again, and he pulls me back onto his chest. Everything in me. Every. Freaking. Thing. Wants to turn and lay my head on his heart. Nuzzle into him like a wild baby animal who’s finally found his home.

I resist falling back into his arms, but not staring at us in the mirror created by the black night and glass. Our reflection shimmers with the glowing lights of the city’s skyline and the crashing waves of Lake Michigan.

“Eden,” he says. His voice is a low, flat monotone, but the one-word chills me.

“Huh?” I use my still limited powers of speech to ask.

“It was my ex-wife’s name.”

“You’re divorced?” Duh, I scold myself for asking the obvious. But his husky announcement has thrown me off. Actually, the wild intro to Sex 101 threw me first.

“Widowed.”

The room crackles with a weird energy from the single word correction. “I’m sorry.”

I turn my to look up at him but he turns me back around. But not before I see his jaw tense and his eyes harden. “Don’t. I will tell you this story one time. I’m aware I wronged you tonight—that I… owe you. Gataki’s do not owe people. We pay our debts. So, I will give you this, this one time. Then we will never discuss it again. Are we clear on this?”

I swallow, the saliva which pooled in my mouth, down my dry throat. “Clear.”

“I married Eden six years ago. My father insisted I take a wife. I had just turned thirty-five, and it was time, he said, to settle down. I agreed. What did I know? He arranged the marriage between Eden and me. I thought she was too young at twenty. He said she was perfect. She was innocent, a virgin. I’d train her to be everything I’d want, in bed and out. He’s an old-fashioned man, and everything he said sounded ridiculous. But again, what did I know? We married, and I soon discovered she was not a virgin. She explained that she’d been taken advantage of and been too ashamed to tell her parents.”

He must have felt the inaudible gasp I took because his hands tightened on my shoulders. “It was a lie—the first of many. My wife didn’t know the meaning of the word truth. Eden was prone to mood swings, irrational bouts of anger, and sometimes violence. She slapped me once. She was pregnant, and I blamed the pregnancy hormones. Because I allowed it once, she escalated it throughout the rest of the pregnancy. A time during which I feared for both her safety and the safety of our child. She had no interest in our child other than dressing her in pretty clothes. She wanted Cassie to look beautiful, but then she became jealous when someone noted Cassandra’s beauty over hers.”

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