Page 74 of Brutal Legacy

He just shook his head and advanced.

What came next was undignified to say the least. We tussled, me with abandon and him with great restraint. I’d never stood a chance of stopping him from tying me up, and the way he managed to do so within two minutes was really a blow to my ego. My hands were bound in front of me, and he’d tied some scrap of soft material around my neck.

He went to pull it up and silence me, and I backpedaled, shaking my head.

“Wait! Wait… please… Before tomorrow, I need some kind of reassurance.” I looked him right in the eye. “I’m scared.”

He met my panic steadily. “It’s okay to be scared. It’s smart. It doesn’t change anything.”

I shook my head again, and a tear dripped down my face. “I swear, I don’t know what happened to my life. None of this was supposed to happen.”

Another tear followed.

He watched them. His hand flexed at his side, as though he was fighting his own self-control. In the end his discipline won, and he watched me cry without touching me.

“I know the feeling.” Then he pulled the gag up over my chin and silenced me.

I glared daggers at him. He tugged on the loop of rope between my hands. Of course he’d been good at tying up my wedding dress. He was a bondage expert, clearly.

That line of thinking sent me hot all over, and I was even more angry at myself. I was clearly focusing on trivial shit, like misplaced attraction to my literal captor, as a psychological trick to make me less scared of the future. It was my brain protecting itself. I had to believe that or I’d lose my mind.

“Lie down,” he instructed me tightly, pushing me in the direction of his huge king-size bed.

I shook my head and pointed at the floor.

“Lie. The. Fuck. Down.” He gave me a look that would make saner women cry. “I’ve had enough tonight. Stop testing me.”

What would this man be capable of if that steely control snapped? I dug my heels in and pushed back when he tried to tug me.

“Georgia,” he growled in my ear.

He lifted me and hauled me to the bed, throwing me onto the mattress so hard I bounced. Before I could sit up, he was straddling me, lithe with that predatory grace of his.

He leaned over me and grabbed my bound hands, tying the loop of the binding rope around the metal bars of the headboard. I wriggled and writhed, bucking my hips and trying to unseat him. He fiddled with the rope, leaning forward so he could reach, his entire body stretched out along mine, and my mind went blank. His body weight was pressing me into the bed, his hips flush with mine, and his scent was everywhere. If I closed my eyes, I could pretend I was nineteen, hiding a boy in my room, waiting until my father went to sleep before pulling him into bed with me. Those stolen nights with Elio were my happy place, and my deepest pain, all at once. He’d taught me what it was to love and hate in sync. I wished I could be back there, in bed with mycittaiolo.The only man I’d ever loved.

My mercenary stilled once my hands were bound but didn’t move. I was still trying to shift him. Pushing up into him, trying to turn on my side, raising my hips up and down.

Then I felt it. Nestled right between my thighs and up on my pubic bone. Long, hard, and thick.

My mercenary was hard. He had me pinned to the bed, bound and gagged, and he was hard, rocking on me. And the plane wasn’t that long ago, damn it, not nearly long enough for the fire he’d lit inside me to die completely. Desire roared back to life,igniting inside my veins. I didn’t know what it was about this man that just made me want to hurt him and fuck him.

“That’s enough, Signora Conti,” he said thickly.

My heart was pounding. I was nervous. I was excited. I wanted to get lost in a different sensation tonight, something other than fear and panic. I wanted to be consumed by feeling, so intense that no other thoughts could exist in my head at the same time.

“I said, it’s enough,” he growled at me.

His restraint was being tested. He was dangerously close to losing control, and I wanted to see it. The smell of expensive whiskey fanned across my face. He tugged my gag down, and I sucked in a breath.

“Are you drunk?” I murmured.

“Why? You thinking of taking advantage of me?” he mocked.

I raised my hips once more, pressing on his hard cock. Daring him.

“Why have you been drinking? Drowning your sorrows?” I didn’t know where the words were coming from, maybe some instinctive part of me that understood this dangerous man on a primitive level. He was upset, out of tightly held control. I bet he hated it.Good.

“Maybe I’m just celebrating early… a new addition to the De Sanctis family. A bride for De Luca. Maybe it’s his bachelor party downstairs and I just got a lap dance,” he murmured, goading me.

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