Page 11 of Cruel Heir

This time, I can’t stop the tears welling in my eyes as I let my panties drop to the floor. I’m entirely naked, bare to his gaze, andtrembling from head to toe, and Andre is looking at me like I’m prey. Like he wants to devour me.

He steps closer, and the shaking intensifies. He reaches up, his fingers catching my chin in his grasp, keeping me from turning away as he closes in on me. I see the moment he tilts his head, when his lips are so very close to mine, warm and full. I know he’s going to kiss me. My very first kiss.

“This is your first, isn’t it,principessa?”he murmurs. “The first of everything, tonight.” His fingers tighten on my chin when I don’t immediately respond. “Have you been kissed before?”

I shake my head wordlessly, trying not to let the tears spill over. I remember what Celeste said, that crying would make him angry, but I’m not sure that’s true. A part of me thinks he might like itmoreif I cried.

“Good,” he breathes, and then his mouth presses against mine.

I close my eyes tightly, resisting the sensation. I don’twanthim to kiss me, but his mouth is firm and insistent, the feeling of lips against mine for the first time sparking something in me that’s unfamiliar and frightening. My skin prickles, my pulse quickening, and I’m suddenly even more acutely aware of the fact that he’s still fully clothed, while I’m entirely naked. The pressure of his fingers against my jaw, his mouth on mine, it all heightens my senses, and I feel his other hand reach up to cup my breast, his thumb flicking over my hardened nipple.

I don’t know what I expected out of tonight. For him to fuck me roughly, maybe—hard and fast, to make it a punishment. To take out whatever anger he felt on my body. I expected pain. I’m not sure that there won’t still be some. But as his fingers brush over the curve of my breast, thumb pressing against the peak, I feel something different.

The first stirrings of pleasure.

No. No, no!I squeeze my eyes tightly shut, tensing every muscle in my body against it. I don’twantto enjoy this. With anyone else, I would have been grateful for a little pleasure, but not with him. Not when he’s taken everything that’s happened tonight by force.

His hand drops to the flat of my stomach, my waist, my hip. Everycaress of his long, aristocratic fingers over my smooth skin sends more strange sensations rippling through me, more uncertainty. And then he dips his fingers between my legs, his mouth skimming from my lips to my jaw. I go rigid, fighting whatever sensations are coming next with everything in me, and I feel him go very still.

Andre pauses, pulling away from me, his fingers withdrawing. He looks at me with an expression that I can’t entirely read, and for one wild moment, I have a flicker of hope.

Maybe he’s changed his mind.

5

ANDRE

Even as angry and hungry for revenge as I am, I can recognize one simple fact.

I want more than just this one night with Lucia. Just as it wasn’t enough to take her life and end it there, it’s not enough for me to take her virginity and leave it at that. I want her to have to exist as my wife, to have to bear my child—for her to have to take part in the downfall of her own family and the rise of mine. I want her father to know that she’s mine—not just for one night, but for the rest of her life.

I can’t do that if I genuinely injure her tonight. And from what I felt in the brief moment when I slipped my fingers between her legs—the tension in her body and the complete unreadiness for any part of me—I risk doing just that if I take her as swiftly and roughly as I want to.

I’ve been ravenous for her since the moment I cornered her in the garden—sincebeforethat. The desire has been steadily growing since the moment I conceived this plan, a nurtured fantasy that I have in front of me at last. I want to throw her onto the bed and force myself inside of her, take her as roughly as I’ve imagined night after nightwith my hand around my cock, dreaming of the moment when I would break Lucia Fontana to my will.

But if I want to enjoy my toy for more than one night, I can’t break it so quickly.

I’ll need to rethink my tactics if I want to play a longer game with her.

I can have all my fantasies in time,I tell myself as I step toward her again. She’s shaking like a leaf, her skin so pale that the bit of blush she applied stands out starkly against her cheekbones. Her light blue eyes are wet with unshed tears, and she looks like a porcelain doll, so fragile that with just the slightest touch she might shatter.

The thought gives me a new idea—one just as satisfying as the idea of fucking her hard, but in a different way.What if I make her shatterforme?

I reach up, cupping the side of her face again in my palm. I can feel the effort that it takes for her not to flinch away as she looks at me, her gaze wary. I’ve already given her plenty of reasons tonight not to trust my touch. My palm itches at the memory of pressing it against her throat, the way she squirmed, the idea of doing the same as I hold her down beneath me. Iwantit, with a visceral sort of hunger that makes my cock twitch and throb against the tight front of my suit trousers, but I force myself to touch her gently instead. I reach up, brushing a lock of hair back away from her face, and I kiss her again.

I feel her suck in a breath, soft and quick, when my mouth touches hers. Her body is shaking so hard that it’s impossible to tell fear from desire, and I hear the soft gasp she lets out when I rest my hands on her waist, backing her slowly towards the bed. The thought that I could make herwantthis, that I could hear her cry out my name in pleasure instead of fear by the end of the night, that I could have that much power over her—it’s a part of the fantasy that I hadn’t considered before. A possibility that holds more merit than I’d stopped to think about.

“On the bed,principessa,” I murmur against her mouth as her thighs hit the back of the mattress. Her eyes are squeezed tightly shut,as if she can block this all out if she just doesn’t look at me, but I don’t intend to let her miss a moment of what I plan to do to her. “Open your eyes and look at me, Lucia.”

She shudders, but slowly, her eyes flicker open. She looks at me, her lower lip trembling. “I—I don’t—” She starts to whisper, and I press a finger to her lips.

“Quiet,dolcezza.” I brush the finger over the bow of her mouth, feeling her tremble all over again. I don’t think it’s entirely from fear. No one has ever touched her like this—no one has ever touched her atall, especially not a man. Whether she likes it or not, she can’t help feeling something. “Lie back on the bed, like I asked.”

It’s not so muchaskedastold, but I guessed correctly that saying that instead might encourage her to obey. She nods, her lower lip still trembling, and pushes herself onto the bed, squirming backward until she’s lying back against the pillows. For a moment, all I can do is look at her—all waves of thick dark hair and smooth olive skin, her slender body a picture of absolute beauty as she lies there waiting for me.Mine,mine, mine. The words are a snarl in my head, my cock throbbing with an aching need that I can barely wait to satisfy. I can have her however I please, whenever I choose. The daughter of Don Fontana ismine, and the thrill of it is beyond anything I’ve felt in my entire life. I reach down, pressing the heel of my hand against my cock to stave off my overeager arousal. I see Lucia’s gaze flick downwards, the wide-eyed fear that fills her face when she gets a glimpse of my thick, straining erection.

“All for you,principessa,” I murmur with a smirk, shrugging off my suit jacket and draping it over the arm of a nearby chair. “But for the moment, I’m enjoying simply looking at you. Once upon a time, having a mafia princess like you in my bed, wed to me, would have been my right.” A tug of my tie and it loosens, sagging against my shirt as I slip it off. “But your father took that right from me. So, you see, all I’ve done is reclaim what’s mine.”

“I was never supposed to be yours.” The words come out a breathy hiss, hardly anything to spark fear, but a small part of me admires the nerve it must have taken for her to say them at all.

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