AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You like ordering people around, don’t you, angel? In that condescending tone like a real princess, but you’re needy like a—” He breaks off, studying me.
“A whore?” I say, the vile word piercing the silence. I’m needy and like to fuck like whore? That’s what he wanted to say, isn’t it? With me like this, coming here in this dress, no underwear, wanton and so freaking needy… I can’t blame him for thinking the worst of me.
He stares down at me from his height, the look in his eyes gradually changing as his jaw ticks. He might have asked whether I was fine and handed me something to drink, but now, he’s going to be cruel. Aren’t all men, whether with words or with their fists?
“You like to put words in people’s mouths, too, don’t you?” He sneers as he steps back. “Stop thinking you’re above everybody else, angel, especially if you don’t know them from a bar of soap.”
Unwanted tears push up the back of my throat. Neither my actions nor my words are in sync tonight, but my mind seems to have lost all sense of direction as soon as I saw him in his tux, his brow cocked in a challenge. And now this. I’m stunned that he can affect me this much.
He doesn’t say anything more, but I won’t have it. I fling the champagne at him, glass and all. Stephano is fast though, and he catches it in midair, the liquid splattering. He puts the glass back on the table, slowly, in control, not even making it clink.
He shoots me a last glance. “You’re a big girl. See yourself out.”
I’m livid. How dare he? I scoot to the edge of the seat and reach for the champagne bottle, but he’s walking away, already at the foyer.
“You might think I’m a whore,” I spit at him, “but you’re no gentleman either. You can’t disguise how sleazy your virgin auction is by putting it in a five-star hotel’s presidential suite and wrapping it in pretty bows. You’re just a fucking pimp.”
I stand and fling the bottle at his back. He doesn’t even know it’s coming his way. My aim is terrible, and it hits a door jamb and shatters to the floor.
Stephano turns and gives the broken glass a disinterested stare. “Work on your aim, angel. For next time.”
“As if.”
He walks out, and the front door clicks closed. It’s so quiet, I can hear my pounding heart. I stare at the door in shock. No one has ever provoked me to the point of flinging things at them.
Next time? Over my dead body.
My chest heaves with my outburst; my eyes sting with tears. Beyond his hurtful, hideous words, that was the best sex I’ve ever had. It wasn’t even proper sex. He didn’t touch me. He didn’t want to. He didn’t cave in as I thought he would.
Stephano didn’t want me.I laid there, open and offered, and he snubbed me.
There were prostitutes in this suite mere hours ago, and he could have had his pick. He didn’t want a prostitute either.
He mastered me…but he’s been more a master of himself, not caving into his evident need as any other man would have. He was in control, completely, from the start this afternoon.Behave, he’d whispered to me, as if it was the easiest thing in the world. And the last thing I did was throw a bottle at him, totallyout of control. There were glimpses of him losing his temper with Matteo, but even those were measured and contained.
He craved control in every moment more than craving sex. He has no Achille’s Heel.
And that just means he’s probably the most dangerous man I’ve ever met.
12
STEPHANO
I knock on the suite’s door, freshly irritated. It took some time to track down Matteo and Tasha’s room, especially since he isn’t answering his phone. Must have been a busy night. Fucker.
When he opens the door in a hotel robe, the bedhead isn’t the only thing giving it away. He looks more relaxed than I’ve seen him in ages. Plus, there’s that whiff of sex and sleep.
Needless to say, this riles me up more. Especially since I’m still tense from last night’s aborted session with Gigi. No amount of jerking off has managed to make me feel sated. What the fuck’s up with that?
“Good morning to you, too,” Matteo says as I stomp past him, dragging a cabin bag with clothes for Tasha behind me.
“Next time, let me know where you’re slumming it so I don’t need to demean myself by begging St. Chalamet to share your room number. You took the phone off the hook and switched your cell phone off. Come on, Matty.”
“Yeah. Fine. Sorry, Fanny.” He yawns and stretches languidly. “Didn’t want to be disturbed, you know.”
“Fuck off.” I study his face as I park the cabin bag by the wall. He still looks tired, but it isn’t the exhaustion of a man whosuccessfully planned and completed an assassination mission in Sicily.
“Have breakfast.” He waves towards the suite’s lounge and dining area. “You’re throwing a hangry tantrum.”
