Page 132 of Diavolo

"A man can only hope."

She smiled and raised her arms, locking both wrists over her head in a show of submission. "I'm game if you're game."

His breath caught. "Do not tease."

"I'm being very serious."

Suddenly, Alessandro's hands closed around Elyse's wrists. He pinned her down, forcefully, as though to illustrate his innermost desires. "You would let me have my way with you?"

"Is that what you want most? To have total control over me?"

"Dio,"he breathed softly, "I am hard just thinking about it."

He wasn't lying. She could feel his hardness throbbing between her thighs. A wildly female sense of self-possession surged in her. Elyse smiled like a siren. "The phrase we agreed on wasio sono tua, right?"

I am yours.

Alessandro's pupils nearly doubled in size, turning his eyes to a pure devil-black hue in the shadows. "You remembered."

"I never forget anything."

Alessandro kissed her, laughingly, and muttered, "I suppose I should let you sleep, wife."

She teased, "Make up your mind. What do you want to do with me?"

"I want you to rest."

"Really?"

"You will need your strength in the days to come," he explained in low, smoky tones, "for all the ways I plan to fuck you."

Elyse gasped softly, "That a promise?"

He grinned evilly. "More like a threat."

She chuckled. "Good night, then,sir."

"Dormi bene, cuore mio."Good night, my heart.

They shuffled into a more comfortable position on the mattress. He draped his arm over her waist and, several minutes later, fell asleep first with a light, telling twitch. Elyse lay awake for a while longer, studying the shadows across the ceiling, as she contemplated the days to come. Games in the bedroom, and games between clans. The discrepancy between these two playing fields felt starkly surreal. Elyse barely recognized whoshe was now and what her life had become. Yet, as she dozed in her husband's warm, slumbering embrace, Elyse also realized something else in these foreboding, twilight hours.

Morality be damned.

She needed to be ready to give herself fully, entirely, and completely to her husband and their cause. Anything short of hereverythingwould lead to annihilation in a game as dark and dangerous as the one they were playing. Elyse intended to win. Or die trying.

The next day, with only Monte and Luca at her side, Elyse slipped away from the city center in secret. She had instructed Mariposa to exercise the same discretion. The two women met in the middle of seeming nowhere.

It was a clear sun-shining morning at the shooting range. The air felt seasonally cool and comfortable. Nothing but sky, sea, and mountains surrounded them for miles around. There was no one else except Elyse, Mariposa, and their bodyguards.

Gripping her Glock with far more ease than her last visit, Elyse aimed and fired at the target. She almost nicked the outer ring of the black circle.

Mariposa stood beside her with a faint smirk. "You missed, Elyse."

"Thank you," Elyse retorted, "for pointing out the obvious."

Snickering, Mariposa picked up her Ruger and fired off three shots. Every single one of the younger woman's bullets punctured the bullseye.

"That," Mariposa preened, "is how you shoot a gun."

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