Page 63 of The Don

I’ll make room for fear later.

* * *

“Really?” I whine.

“Really,” Salvatore says easily as he moves the washcloth over every inch of my back. From outside of the bathtub.

“I thought we were going to take a bath together.” I’m pouting like a child — or trying to; the scrubbing and hot water feel amazing.

“Believe that I want nothing more than that, but today will be a busy day.”

I don’t know what that means, and right now, I don’t want to. I bend my legs and wrap my arms around my shins. I turn my head, resting my cheek on my knees so I can look at him. “That’s even more reason to take a bath with me. You can relax before…whatever’s coming comes.”

Salvatore brushes an index finger along my hairline. “Tempting.”

“Good. That was the point.”

He laughs. “But I need to stay focused. Sit back.”

I grunt and do what he says, leaning against the high end of the soaker tub. “Seriously, is this like a hotel? Where the fuck are we?”

He dips the washcloth back into the water and then begins to scrub my neck. “This house is owned by…” He stops talking and squints here as if he’s searching for the right word or translating a word from Italian that maybe has no English equivalent. “My associates,” he settles on ominously.

“Nice save,” I mutter.

He moves the cloth over my left breast, stimulating my nipple, and I groan. He smiles triumphantly before he continues.

“They use this villa for official business.”

“And you’re official business?”

“I’ve petitioned to leave the organization.”

I gasp just as Salvatore’s hand begins to circle the swell of my stomach. He looks at me seriously again, and I keep the many questions sprouting in my mind to myself. Only one of them matters, though. I want to ask if he’s leaving for me, but don’t I already have that answer since I’m here? So, I ask what I think is the safest question. “Can you…do that? Leave, I mean?”

His hand dips below the waterline to clean my hips and thighs. “It isn’t unheard of, but it is rare.”

“But it could happen?” I am so goddamn eager that even I’m embarrassed, but I need to hold onto any shred of hope I can. Because I get it — this might not be the kidnapping I expected, but this is still captivity.

Salvatore tries to let me down gently. “I don’t know, bella. I can only make the request.”

I feel his hand on my right thigh. His hand, not the washcloth. That smile is creeping back onto his lips. He doesn’t have to ask me anything. I bend my leg and open myself up to him. He caresses my inner thigh in soft, slow massages. I sigh and sink further into the water.

His fingers caress my lips. I jerk violently as a lightning bolt shoots through me.

“You are more sensitive today,” he says, his fingers circling my clit.

“Yes, but you can still tease me,” I sigh, blinking up at him.

“Whatever you want,” he says, dancing his fingertips across from my clit down to my opening.

I lift both legs over the sides of the tub, wantonly splaying my thighs and dumping a bunch of water onto Salvatore and the bathroom floor.

“I wanted to be discreet,” he says, lifting on his knees to hover over me.

“No, thank you. Oh, God, right there.”

Salvatore cradles my head in his arm and smooths his knuckles across my cheek, teasing my opening with tight circles and pressure as if he’s about to push one of his thick fingers inside of me, but he doesn’t.

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