“Scusi, mi scusi—you are ready for the next course?”
“We’re still going, Nunzio,” Finch tells him. “I’ll tell you what, we’ll give you a buzz when we’re ready.”
Nunzio looks absolutely relieved and stutters out his thanks.
I look at this new husband of mine after Nunzio disappears again. “You’re good with people.”
“I am.”
“They like you.”
“There’s only one person I want to like me.”
That’s not the way I want this conversation to go. “What do you think about our situation? Really.”
He gives a shrug and starts stuffing his face with the antipasto, pulling it straight off the platter with his fingers and tipping his head back to drop it in his mouth. “I told you,” he says, chewing. “I wanted you since the day I met you, so as far as I’m concerned, this is fate’s way of making it happen.” Then he looks at me, considering, his gaze sliding all over my face. “I think you feel guilty.”
“I don’t feel guilt. That emotion is not an option for me in my line of work.”
“Mm,” he says, and resumes eating. “Well,” he says, once I’ve started eating my food again too, “you’ve got nothing to feel guilty for. And for the record, hostage or not, I really want to fuck you. Now hurry up, husband. I want the next courses. I can’t wait to show you the sexy things I can do with a fish knife.”
He slides his foot up my calf again, higher, higher, into my lap, and pushes his heel between my thighs. I stare back at him as his toes wriggle. “I’ve been useful, haven’t I?” he asks with his usual cheeky grin. His foot is making circles against my rapidly-filling cock.
“You’ve been useful,” is all I say, and drink some of the wine he’s poured out for me. I don’t drink, or rarely. Never more than a glass, but Finch makes me want to drown myself in hedonism.
“And do I get a reward?” he whispers.
He’s an addict, alright, this new husband of mine, an addict of everything that might possibly bring him pleasure. For now, at least, it seems to be in my interests to indulge him.
“You’ll get a reward.”
He throws back his head and laughs.
Chapter Fifteen
LUCA
After dinner, Finch gives me his expectant look. “Reward?” he prompts.
“What would you like?” I ask, playing dumb.
He pouts, but it doesn’t irritate me. It just makes me remember what his lips looked like wrapped around my cockhead. And then, painfully, his face when I walked out of that hotel suite five years ago.
“You know what I want,” he tells me, and adds in a quieter, almost plaintive voice: “You promised. Please?” He flushes as he begs for it, and my dick responds instantly.
I feel mildly disturbed by the way he so easily baits my self-control, but as it happens, I feel more relaxed about everything tonight. It’s partly the wine I’ve drunk, but partly knowing that there are no cameras, no wires, nothing to invade our privacy in that master suite. It’s almost as if Tino really is giving his blessing to this union.
So if we’re not being watched, what’s the harm in giving Finch what he wants? We are bound together now, certainly for the foreseeable future, and sex is a weakness for him as much as the drugs.
That’s what I’m telling myself, but the truth is, my own willpower is flagging. He’s too charming, too knowing, too much to resist. I threw it in his face this morning that I’d never love him, and I know I’m a convincing liar. He should have believed me.
But even if he did, it just rolled off him, water off a duck’s back. By dinner he’d rebounded enough to talk back, correct me, help me.
He’s irrepressible. A force of nature.
“I did promise,” I say softly. “And maybe you’re right, what you said about Tino. Maybe he does want this marriage consecrated. The last thing I want is you running around telling tales about how you’re still a virgin.”
He laughs, which is what I meant him to do. Usually I don’t care what the men I sleep with think of me, but Finch is different. I want him to laugh, just for me. I want him to smile, just for me. I want to watch him lose his mind in bliss, just for me.
“I don’t know if anyone’d believe me,” he says, fluttering his eyelashes. “But with you, baby, I bet it’ll be just like Mother Madonna says—you’ll make me feel like a virgin.”
I stand, and he bounces up as well, puppy-like. I hold out a hand, and he puts his into mine—his left hand, the ring snug around his finger. “Come on, then.” I pull him with me out of the dining room, up the narrow staircase and into the bedroom.
He slept last night in the adjacent room like I ordered, and that one’s a nicer room than anything I’ve ever slept in, but really he belongs here in the master suite, among the pinnacle of luxury that the room displays. But he doesn’t even notice how beautifully appointed everything is, as though he simply expects beauty and comfort and opulence.
It’s his birthright, after all.
He doesn’t look around. He only looks at me, pausing in the middle of the room, head tilted down slightly, deferentially, almost mocking but not quite. “Take off your clothes,” I tell him, and he obeys, stripping down with the casual air of someone to whom clothes are a decoration rather than a necessity. I stay at the door, leaning against it, watching as his delights are uncovered.
God. My memory did not do him justice. I drink in the sight of him, tan and golden all over, cock pert and pink and inviting, pretty nipples that are already tightening up. He’s more muscular than he was back then, well-defined but tasteful. Nothing about this man would ever—could ever—be vulgar. The bleached hair is a fuck you, not a faux pas.
“Go and prepare yourself,” I say lazily, flicking
