Not Mine to Keep (The Costa Family)

“What are you doing here?” Hudson asked, eyes scanning the three men behind me on the stoop of the gorgeous home. According to Alessandro’s head of security, the home was now the location for the Costa’s security firm, though.

“I need to talk to Alessandro. Are you going to let me in or have me freeze out here?” Okay, it may have been June, but it was only fifty out, and I’d been in such a rush I’d forgotten a jacket and was only in a T-shirt and leggings. My anger should’ve been heating me up just fine, though. I’d been delusional to think the playboy could go a whole month without sex. Hell, we’d been married a little over a week, and he’d already given in to temptation.

Breathless, tense, and refusing to talk to me on the phone . . . What else could he have been doing other than having sex?

“This is a bad time.” Hudson frowned, shooting me what appeared to be an apologetic look, because he was about to send me away, wasn’t he? “You need to take her back home.” He angled his head as a directive to Alessandro’s head security detail, now at my left.

But my absurd jealousy kept me from budging, even at the feel of a hand on my arm, urging me to back away. “I need to see my husband.” Tell him I finally did hate him, especially for making me feel something for him even when he’d kept his distance all week to try and prevent that.

“Not right now.” Hudson remained in the doorway, keeping the door propped open with his shoulder, blocking my path. “I’m sorry. But no.”

Damn the sting of tears. I wanted to be tough, not a hot mess. “Please,” I begged. “I’m going to Nashville tomorrow, so if you don’t think he’d like to know I’m leaving, then you—”

“What?” Hudson and Leo asked at the same time.

Right, I’d left that part out to the men on my protection detail.

“He’s going to be pissed you’re here.” Hudson stepped back, catching the door with his palm. “Angrier if I tell him you’re out here on the verge of tears and planning to run away and I didn’t tell him, though.

“Stay in the foyer,” he said once we were inside. “I’ll go get him.”

“No, I want to see what has my husband so preoccupied he couldn’t talk to me. I’m going with you.” No way was I letting Alessandro off the hook, even if he had every right to have sex with someone since this marriage would be over soon, and we’d been forced to walk down the aisle in the first place.

“Callie.” My name sat on Hudson’s lips for a beat as indecision warred in his dark eyes. “Fine,” he relented. “But you’re not going to like what you see. And he’s going to kill me.”

“I think you can hold your own,” I said at the memory of Hudson’s former employment as a Navy SEAL. “Wait here,” I told the others, then followed Hudson down a set of steps and walked by an indoor pool before he stopped outside a door.

“Are you sure?” Resting his hand on the knob, he looked at me from over his shoulder.

Not even a little bit, because was he about to take me into some sex room I’d only been half-teasing about last week? “Yes,” I lied.

He cursed while opening the door before taking me down another set of stairs that fed into a dark hallway. Hudson punched in a four-digit code on the wall by a door, then swore one more time, and opened it.

“Where are we?” Inside the dark space, I grabbed hold of the sides of my arms to chase away chills.

He flicked on the light, and I walked backward as shock had me in a choke hold. Hudson hooked my arm and revealed, “They can’t see us in here.”

Eyes on the glass window that showcased another room, I swallowed at the sight of a guy tied up, hands shackled to a pipe. His head was bowed. Chest naked and bloody.

But it was the man crouched before him, holding what appeared to be a chef’s knife, who had me feeling the need to gasp for air. A skull-like ghost mask covered his face and hair, only leaving his eyes exposed.

I’d be able to recognize his body anywhere. “Alessandro.”

He stood to his full height and faced the glass, as if sensing he was being watched. He cocked his head and came closer, lowering the knife to his side. The back of his knuckles hit the glass, and the masked man—my husband—tipped his head like a directive.

“I thought they can’t see us,” I said as Hudson went to a different door in the room.

“He can’t, but . . .” Hudson let Alessandro into the tight little space, and I backed up against the other door.

I’d been expecting sex, not a masked man torturing a guy. God help me, why was I so relieved?

Without removing the mask, Alessandro ground out, “What in the hell is she doing down here?”

“Stubborn,” was all Hudson said, and he was probably peering at me, but I couldn’t rip my eyes away from my husband, draped in darkness, still holding a bloody knife at his side.

“Bring her to my office. I’ll deal with her there.” Alessandro barked out the command.

Only when Hudson reached for my arm, a gentle urge to move, did I finally look away from the shadowy masked figure that was my husband.

My heart was flying as Hudson guided me through the hall and up the stairs.

“He’s pissed,” I murmured after we’d gone up a second staircase.

“You think?” Hudson grumbled, opening a door a moment later. He turned on the light, and I was relieved to see what appeared to be an office and not another torture chamber.

Spotting a bar cart alongside one wall, I went over to it, in need of a drink. I filled a glass to the brim with whiskey. My hand was shaking as I lifted it to my mouth, spilling a few drops in the process.

“You okay?” Hudson asked, his tone softer this time.

At my first sip, I winced, then took another, much-needed one. “I thought he was having sex, not killing someone.” Working up the courage to face him, I slowly turned around.

“Sex? Are you serious?” Hudson swiveled his black ball cap backward and pushed up the sleeves of his black shirt. “He’d never cheat on you, even if marrying you is part of his assignment.”

“So he said himself, but that was not what I’d been expecting, and I . . .” I blinked, still reeling from shock. “Who’s the guy down there?”

“A sinner, not a saint, I can promise you that,” was all he gave me, and that wasn’t good enough.

Swallowing down a bit more liquor for the sake of courage I now needed, I demanded, “Do better than that. More details.”

Hudson folded his arms, hanging back in the doorway. “Side-gig thing.”

I set aside the glass, needing to pull myself together and not get drunk. “What does that mean?”

“Consider that man a predator, someone who goes after those weaker than him.”

Maybe I didn’t want to know. Jesus.

“We hunt the hunter before he can catch his prey, if you get what I’m saying. And Alessandro’s been in the hunting mood.”

My hand slapped to my abdomen, and my stomach roiled. “I think I get it. Will you, um, kill him?”

“No. Just making sure he understands there are things much worse that can happen—aside from prison time—after he gets out of jail, so he doesn’t fuck up again.” His casual tone about the “side gig” of torturing people should’ve had my stomach turning more. Strangely, it didn’t.

I swiveled around and dropped my hands to the desk, but chills flew up my spine when I realized we were no longer alone.

“Handle him for me,” was all Alessandro said, and at the sound of the door shutting, I forced myself to face the music—my angry husband, who’d been playing some type of punisher role.

His back was to the door. Mask gone. In black dress pants and a dark button-up shirt, sleeves cuffed at the elbows, he was back to looking like the billionaire businessman, but the dark, stormy look still clung to his eyes, giving away the fact he was much more than that.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said in a low but steady tone.

“I, um.” My back went to the desk, and I set my hands down for support. “You hung up on me, and we needed to talk.”

He angled his head, brows slanting as he casually said, “So talk,” as if I hadn’t caught him torturing a guy in his basement.

“I wouldn’t have come if I’d known what you were doing. You shouldn’t have answered the phone.”

He gave me a funny look I couldn’t read before saying, “You’ve never called me before, since being in New York; of course I’m going to answer.”

“Well, I um, thought you were doing something much different,” I confessed, fiddling with my diamond ring, even though it now fit perfectly since I’d had it sized a few days ago.

Alessandro’s eyes cut to my ring for a moment before moving back to my face, and there was a flicker of anger there. “I wasn’t fucking someone.”

“Clearly.” I gulped.

He pushed away from the door and stalked across the room. “You were jealous.” Statement, not a question, and it had me lowering my hand to my side before I struck the words free from where they hung heavy in the air.

Because I hated the truth of them. Also despised the burn of jealousy in my stomach and chest still there, even knowing he hadn’t been with another woman tonight.

“What were you planning to do? Come here and catch me in the act? And then what?” Was he seriously wanting me to answer that? And why’d his voice sound so flat and void of emotion when my insides were flooded with an entire dictionary full of feelings?

My fingers curled into my palms, still in need of the support of the desk to keep me from slipping into a puddle before this man. “I’m going to Nashville tomorrow. I’m set to perform at nine,” I said at the memory of the other reason I was there, opting not to give in to his inquisition.

He closed the last bit of space between us and cupped my chin, a gentle touch despite the angry flare of his nostrils and the look of darkness still flashing in his eyes. “You think this is the best time to fuck around with my emotions?”

“And the idea of me going to Nashville does that? Fucks with your emotions?” I tried to stand my ground, even though I was seconds away from my knees buckling.

His hand slid to the side of my neck before going back to my ponytail, and he fisted my hair and tugged. Still a light touch despite the harsh words, he brought his mouth over my ear. “You pissing me off, in the mood I’m in, is a very bad idea, sweetheart.” His rough voice had goose bumps flying over every inch of my skin.

“Why?” I challenged, unable to stop myself.

He brought his face back to mine, letting go of my ponytail. “You know exactly what your misbehaving and coming here makes me want to do.”

Unable to stop myself, I arched my pelvis forward. My eyes closed as he brought his arm behind my back, and I drew myself tighter against him and rotated my hips at his hard length. Was I turned on by him torturing someone? No. But by being his bad girl? Apparently.

“Don’t give me an invitation on a night like this. I’ll take it.” At the feel of his warm breath near my lips, I opened my eyes to see his mouth hovering close to mine. “I’ll toss whatever’s left of that moral compass of mine out the window just to know what it’s like to be inside you.” His Italian accent took front and center when he talked this time. God help me, it was hot.

Scooching back a touch so my ass was now officially parked on his desk, I quietly studied him, unsure who’d blink first, but I had a feeling it’d be me.

If I was crazy for being aroused, then so be it. The aching need between my legs could only be relieved in one way: by him. At this point, there was no turning back. I wouldn’t leave even if the man got on his knees and begged.

Making up my mind, I parted my knees, and his hands flew to my thighs to stop them from opening any more. “You’ll regret this.” From the looks of it, this was his last-ditch effort to stop me from giving myself over to him, to a man who had blood on his forearm.

“Lesser of two evils,” I whispered, hating myself for using that term again, but it fit like the final puzzle piece clicking into place. “If the choice is between one night with you or never at all, I choose this. Here and now.”

“Calliope,” he gritted out, but some of that darkness was slipping from his eyes, and I needed that man back. The sweet guy wouldn’t screw me on his desk without a second thought, like I wanted him to.

Tonight, I needed the villain he was afraid to be with me.

“Be the asshole, not the teddy bear. For one night,” I murmured, forgetting he hadn’t been clued in on my rambling thoughts or the conversation with Izzy.

“The mask?” One dark brow lifted in question as he brushed his hand over my cheek, keeping his cock at a distance, much to my displeasure. “You want it back on? Would that make this feel less real for you? Is that what you’re asking for?”

“No.” I mean . . . no?

His brows tightened. “I don’t know what you mean.” Then he blinked as if putting it together without me having to spell it out for him. “I understand.” A decisive nod followed, and he surprised me by reaching around to my back, leaning into me as he deftly unhooked my bra. “You’re really lucky you wore a bra and didn’t let the security team see your nipples poking through this thin shirt.”

“Not that you’d spank me for being bad, would you?” I challenged, knowing damn well I was taunting him, and all it did was turn me on even more.

He let go of the clasp and brought his face back into my line of sight. “For you, Calliope, I just might.” His tanned throat bobbed from a hard swallow as he lowered his eyes to my T-shirt for a moment. “I’m good at two things. You saw one of them in the basement.” He paused, giving me a chance to be afraid, waiting to see if it’d happen. When I didn’t budge or blink, he went on, “You sure you want me to show you the other?” He yanked my hair free from the ponytail and threaded a hand through my locks while dropping his mouth over my ear as if someone might hear us. “This will only be fucking for me. This is just something I’m good at. I won’t care tomorrow. You understand that, don’t you?” Eyes meeting mine in a dare, he rasped, “Is that asshole enough for you, or do you need more from me?”

I could give the attitude right back; didn’t he know that by now? “If you don’t screw me, I’ll go find someone who will.”

His hand went straight to my throat.

New kink unlocked. Hand necklace?

He didn’t grip hard. No actual choking. Just a light hold of possession as he brought his face closer. “Go ahead. I told you, with the mood I’m in . . .” He angled his head, studying me with cold eyes. The beast was back. Good. “Want to suck Hudson’s cock in front of me? Have him take you over my desk instead of me?”

“Would he give a damn tomorrow, unlike you? Would he want seconds?” I shot back, curious to see how far he’d take his desire to act like an asshole.

He sneered at me. “He’d be dead for touching my wife. So no, no seconds.”

“Jealous?” I asked, unable to stop the provocation, getting off on whatever the hell was going on between us right now too much. No longer caring there had to be something seriously wrong.

“Do you want me, or someone else?” he asked instead, then moved the hand at my throat down, dragging his knuckles across my collarbone.

“You know the answer to that,” I whispered, my voice catching. “I want my husband.” This time, the sass was gone. Only the truth lay between us. “I want you.”

He cocked his head and slid his hand up my neck before making a pass of his thumb along the line of my lips. “Good. So no one needs to die tonight just because my wife loves to provoke and push me over the edge.”

There was something in how he’d said my wife that had me believing I really was his.

Mesmerized by the moment and the man before me, forgetting all about why I’d come there in the first place, I finally gave him a little agreeable nod.

He stepped back, eyes narrowing as he stared at me, then gritted out, “Fuck it. Fuck it all,” before snatching my face between his palms and kissing me.

The kiss at the wedding had been intense but still sweet.

This one, though . . . This one had me grabbing hold of him, hooking my ankles around his back to draw him closer, clutching him as if my life depended on it. Every part of me woke up, even the parts I’d thought were dead.

He groaned and urged me back a bit, as if he might lay me out on his desk. His tongue didn’t duel with mine. It took over. Commanded every movement. Told me what to do and how to do it.

When he broke the kiss, I fisted his shirt, begging him to come back. “I hate you,” I whispered, our frenzied breaths intertwining as he peered at me.

“Liar,” he remarked in an almost lazy tone before he dropped his mouth over mine again. Owning it, my body, and every emotion. They were his and his only.

His hand went to my thigh, and he squeezed before his palm found my center. I was so wet that my arousal had gone through both my panties and gray leggings, and he was about to discover exactly what he did to me.

“My naughty girl,” he said against my lips, then killed me by backing away again. Eyes never leaving mine, he worked free the buttons of his shirt but didn’t remove it. His attention flicked to his forearm, and a quick frown came and went before he rolled down his sleeves, hiding the dried blood there. “I need you naked and spread out on my desk.” He palmed his belt buckle, then snapped the belt off in one fast movement, a crackle lost to the air.

I stood, surprised my legs weren’t totally rubber already and could hold my weight. My shirt went off first, the already unclasped bra next. I hooked my thumbs at my waistband, and he quietly coiled the belt, studying each of my movements.

“You have any idea what you’ve done to me all week?”

“We barely saw each other.” I shoved down my leggings, allowing the panties to go with them. “Unless you’re the one who’s been watching me on camera.”

“I better be the only fucking one.” The belt unraveled from his hand and fell to the ground, and he grabbed hold of me and dropped me back onto the desk.

“Stalker tendencies, huh?”

“Checked in on you,” he said before falling to his knees. He knelt before the desk and removed my shoes, socks, and the rest of my clothes still there, being sweet, not an asshole, at the moment. “I’ve thought about this since the night we met.”

“What?” I looked down and met his eyes.

Still on his knees, he ran his fingers up my legs, tickling the insides of my thighs in the process, sending pulsing need to my center. “Eating you out,” he said before sliding a finger along my seam, feeling how wet he made me. He closed his eyes for a moment. “I want to see how you’ve been touching yourself all week first,” he added in a husky tone, eyes opening. Then he snatched my hand resting at my side and placed it between my legs.

“So bossy.”

“And you like it.” He looked up at me with a cocky grin. “Your pussy sure as hell does.”

He had me there. I obeyed and ran my fingers over my clit, a slight touch of embarrassment hitting me as I fingered myself.

He sat back on his heels, the hard walls of his chest lifting and falling from deep breaths as he watched me. “My turn,” he said an agonizing minute later, and thank God, because it was his mouth on me I craved, not my hand. He grabbed his discarded belt and pushed back up to his knees.

Holding the loose tail end of the belt, he folded it back on top of itself, making a flat loop. Next thing I knew, he had my wrists in one hand, creating makeshift cuffs from his belt. I didn’t stop him.

“Much better.” He stood, a hand going into his back pocket while staring at me naked on display before him.

He snatched a condom from his wallet and chucked the billfold before ripping the edge of the wrapper with his teeth.

Without removing the rubber from the foil packet, he set the package on the desk, then finally dropped his pants and briefs. He gripped his shaft, sliding his hand from root to crown.

Holy hell. Definitely not overcompensating with the car. Thick, big, and engorged. Ready to explode inside me.

“Open your legs,” he commanded huskily, and I peeked down to see my knees pinned together. Clearly, my body was worried about the fit.

Aside from his shirt, he unburdened himself of everything else he wore.

The man couldn’t remain the bad guy, could he? He didn’t want me seeing the blood on his arms while we made love . . . No wait, not love. What we were going to do would be just sex.

His powerful legs drew my eyes as he came back at me while he stroked his cock. “You’ve had me getting off in the shower morning and night.”

“You too, hmm?”

He let go of himself and spread open my legs even farther. “Of course you were.” Falling back to his knees, he hooked my legs with his big hands, drawing my pussy straight to his mouth, and I couldn’t stifle the cry that left my lips.

He kissed me there softly. Actual kisses. When he guided my legs over his shoulders to better bury his face between my thighs, I lifted my bound wrists and fisted his thick hair.

His tongue slid up my seam, and the moans coming from him, as if he enjoyed this as much as I did, nearly sent me over the edge way too soon.

He added two fingers, pushing them inside my tight walls while devouring me. I couldn’t take much more. The pleasure was almost pain. I began shimmying against him, his facial hair tickling my sensitive skin, spurring me on even more as I chased the end even though I didn’t want it to come yet.

“Attagirl, fuck my face.” His smooth, dark words had me spiraling. And then he spoke to me in Italian, turning me on even more. “Come for me, Calliope.” The order vibrated against my skin, and I kept hold of his hair and did exactly as he said. My back went off the desk like I was possessed, and I cried out his name on repeat so loud it’d be clear to everyone what happened.

Before I had a chance to get my bearings, he had me on my feet, wrists still bound, and he bent me over the desk, so my tits smashed into the wood and my hands were over my head. “Tell me what you want.” He skated his hand over my ass cheek, then slid a finger from that angle between my legs, and I flinched from being so sensitive from the orgasm.

“Your handprint on my ass.” I said what he was waiting to hear.

He gripped hold of my hips now, letting me feel his cock at my back. “You sure?”

“Or the sting of the belt?”

“No,” he said without hesitation. “I could never . . . no.”

There was my sweet guy. Damn, the sweet guy would destroy me, though. And I needed the darkness right now. The darkness was safe. For the first time in my life, it was comforting. Because tomorrow in the light, when I was a schoolteacher—not a mafia princess—again, I knew I’d fall to pieces and never be the same, knowing this man wasn’t mine.

“Your hand, then,” I pleaded.

He freed my hips and smoothed his hand there before I felt the heavy weight of his palm slap my ass. No time to process, his lips covered whatever mark he’d left.

“Be an asshole.” My voice broke as I reminded him it was better for him to be a jerk than a teddy bear.

“Yes, ma’am.” He secured the condom from the desk, and my fingers went into my palms with anticipation of what was to come.

I’d expected him to take me from that angle, but he guided me onto my back, unshackled my wrists, then hooked my ankles around his hips before setting a hand alongside my body.

My hand went to his chest, feeling his heart hammering wildly as he stared at me. His crown was near my center, but he didn’t push inside me.

He quietly removed my hand from his chest and set his palm on my stomach before sliding it up between my breasts.

I gave him a nod, an okay to fill me, and he slammed into me in one fast movement, as if preferring to rip off the Band-Aid of pain with how tight he’d assumed I’d be.

“You okay?” He went still, and I blinked back tears.

“Asshole,” I mouthed, preferring him to assume the gloss of my eyes was from how thick he was and not from the emotions destroying me with our bodies connected.

His eyes narrowed in question, but then he began moving again. Thrusting slowly to help my body accept his size.

Doing my best to distract myself from the overwhelming sensations, I grabbed hold of his good arm, feeling the rock-solid muscle there as he held his weight over me.

“I’m already close.” His jaw strained as he squeezed his eyes shut as if angry at that fact. “I’m trying to hold back until you come. But you’re so fucking tight and just . . .”

“Just what?” I practically breathed out, my body aching, the bundle of nerves between my legs on fire with the need to release. I’d never had two back-to-back orgasms, though, normally too sensitive to be so much as touched again after the first one. But this man, well . . .

His eyes flashed open as he stared at me. “I can’t answer that.” Brows tight, he added, “You don’t want me to.”

Oh.

Ohhh.

“You still want me to be an—”

“Yes,” I forced out, even though it was no longer true. I wanted him to be whoever he chose to be in this moment, but I was too scared to say that. Too scared of the consequences for the both of us.

“I can’t look at you while I do this then,” he said, his tone almost sad as he eased out, and I felt his loss in so many ways.

He had me on my stomach, bent over, his hand pinning down my back as he pushed back inside me, and I gasped. His free hand shifted around to my sex, and his thumb moved there in perfect rhythm as he thrust in and out.

I tensed up, shocked I might come a second time as he touched my swollen clit while fucking me hard.

“Yes, yes, oh, God, yes.” I finally remembered I could move, too; I’d been a bent-over statue before. When that happened, I found my release and his happened just after.

He came in silence, well, aside from a few light grunts and groans and a breathy fuck, but no calls to God like me.

He pulled free a moment later and helped me back upright.

I looked down at the semen-filled condom, realizing he could’ve easily impregnated me, and it was a cold slap of reality as to why we were there: Armani wanted a grandchild.

Alessandro reached for my face, startling me, and he palmed my cheek. “Nashville,” he shocked me by saying. “You want it that badly?”

I gulped and met his eyes and nodded.

His shoulders collapsed as he removed his hand from my face. “I’ll send some men ahead of time to check out the club and ensure it can be secured. If so, we stay at a hotel, not your house, tomorrow night, then we come back here Saturday. Understood?” He peeled off the condom and set it inside the wastebasket, and my eyes were glued to the marks on his back—fresh little scars all because of me.

“Wait, what?” What’d he just say?

He grabbed his pants from the floor and faced me. “I’m giving you what you want.”

“Why?” I should’ve cut and run before he could change his mind. But I was standing there, naked, emotionally and physically spent, and unable to budge.

He frowned. “My apology for what happened here tonight. For what you saw downstairs. And for losing my control.”

“I wanted you to lose control.”

“I know . . . but you’ll wish I hadn’t tomorrow.”

“How do you know?” My arms crisscrossed over my chest, smashing down my breasts, an uneasiness working into my throat despite him not pushing back on Nashville.

“Because what we did tonight wasn’t the lesser of two evils,” he said in a heartbreaking tone, “and I think you know that.”