Captive for Christmas Read online

  What you are is his, comes the whisper again as Brusco looks down at me from what seems like miles above. He’s seated like a king on the broad chair before me, stoic and unmoved but that strange vulnerability still in his eyes. I feel like he wants to open up to me, say things he’s never said to anyone. And God, I do too, don’t I? After all, we’ve both grown up as only children, the heirs to empires, a modern-day prince and princess, privileged but lonely, responsibility looming heavy even as every need was taken care of.

  Not every need, comes the thought as Brusco’s gaze drifts down to my full breasts, my wide hips, thick thighs, muscular calves. Mama and Papa never stopped me from dating, from having fun so long as I was responsible with my choices. And I’d dated through high-school and college, made out and fooled around just like any other teenage girl learning about her blossoming womanhood. But I’d never gone all the way with a boy in high school, always shaken my head at the last moment in college, always declined the invitation to go back to a man’s place when I dated as an adult.

  Why, I think as I blink and look into Brusco’s eyes, like our silence is communicating things that would take forever to talk about, like just being close to one another is revealing things that would take a million words to spell out. Why did I always say no even though my parents always said it was my choice? Why isn’t Brusco Barzini married to an Italian princess by now, I wonder. After all, isn’t that part of the reason his parents shipped him off to Italy as a teenager?

  “Mother Barzini is worried that her studmuffin son is going to knock up some American mutt and taint the Barzini bloodline forever,” I’d heard Mama say to Papa when I was maybe twelve or thirteen. She’d glanced over at me, and I’d buried my face in the hardcover book I’d been pretending to read on the far side of the room. “Shame,” Mama had said softly to Papa. “It would have been such a perfect match, don’t you think?”

  Papa had let out his heartiest, most booming laugh at the suggestion, and I’d put my book down and stared up in surprise as I realized what they were talking about.

  “Hah! Christmas Eve at the Barzini mansion?! Wouldn’t that be fun? What do you think we’d find in our stockings on Christmas morning?” he’d bellowed, rocking on his chair and clapping those big, gnarled hands that had certainly done things little girls shouldn’t know about.

  “Probably the heads of our mixed-blood grandchildren,” Mama had responded, her characteristically dark humor coming through in a bloodcurdling way as she glanced at me again and winked like she knew I’d been listening all along.

  “Maybe when we’re all dead and buried our children will get a chance to make their own decisions,” Papa had said after they’d traded sickeningly funny comments about the unholy union of the Barzini and Bellano families. “Right, Bari?” he’d said to me. “You’re going to choose your own husband, aren’t ya? Not like those weirdo Barzinis and their arranged-marriage fuckery. Let them find their son a frail, inbred Italian virgin maiden or whatever the fuck they think is suitable for Prince Brusco. Fucking racist, ignorant idiots.”

  “Language,” Mama had said sharply, her dark eyes still dancing with mirth. “And yes, the Barzinis may be racist dinosaurs, but that doesn’t mean arranged marriages are horrible and outdated. Arranged unions have a success rate as good as any other sort of marriage, by the way. It all depends on who’s doing the arranging.”

  It all depends on who’s doing the arranging . . .

  5

  BRUSCO

  It all depends on who’s doing the arranging.

  Those words come roaring back to me as I look into Bari’s brown eyes, feel that unmistakable need to own her, possess her, claim her, fucking love her rip through me like a drug. The feeling almost chokes me, and I struggle to breathe as those words echo in my head again.

  It all depends on who’s doing the arranging.

  Words spoken by Mother years ago, just after I’d turned down another so-called “suitable” bride.

  “This is a fucking farce,” I’d growled at Mother, who was visibly uncomfortable in the Italian heat. For all her “pureblood Italian” bullcrap, I couldn’t help but notice she didn’t particularly like leaving the United States, didn’t seem to care for the Mediterranean climate of her ancestral homeland, didn’t even like the food so much. “I’m all for tradition, but arranged marriages are a relic that should be buried and forgotten, just like our ancestors.”

  “Arranged marriages can work very well. It all depends on who’s doing the arranging,” she’d said coldly, like she was taking it personally that I’d waved off every potential match she’d paraded in front of me like this was a beauty pageant or a fucking job interview.

  “Marriage is a union between two people, Mother,” I’d grumbled, holding up two fingers and glaring at her. “Two. Not three. Not four. Not you. Not Father. Just me and her.”

  “Her?” Mother had said, her eyes showing a flash of panic. “Who’s her? Don’t tell me you’ve been fucking your whores and sluts here too, Brusco!”

  I’d groaned and rubbed my eyes, and in that moment I swear I wished she was dead, wished she didn’t have this hold on me, wished she hadn’t been whispering to me since I was a child about Italian ancestors and pure bloodlines and all this bullshit that makes my fucking blood boil, makes me want to put the precious Barzini seed in a thousand different women just to spite Mother, just to see the look on her face when I stroll up the front steps with a hundred babies of beautifully mixed blood, in every shade of the fucking rainbow!

  But there was something else that had a hold on me too, I think now as I look at Bari and see visions of the future, our future, a future in which we do have a hundred babies of beautifully mixed blood, in every shade created by nature.

  A hundred children . . .

  But only one woman.

  Only her.

  “There is no her, Mother,” I’d replied all those years ago. “I haven’t even kissed a girl since you and Father shipped me off here. There is no her, OK?”

  But maybe I was lying back then. Maybe I even knew then that I was lying. Maybe that memory of Bari had a hold on me so deep inside it guided my life. Maybe there is a her. Maybe there always was a her.

  “You really don’t remember meeting me when we were kids?” I say, leaning back and trying to keep my focus on her pretty round face instead of those gorgeous round boobs. “I remember it clearly. You were standing between your parents, a pouty, annoyed look on your little face. I don’t think you wanted to be there.”

  “Be where?” she says, glancing over at the tray of Christmas cake that’s still warm and moist. She reaches for a slice, but I stop her.

  “Please use a fresh plate for the cake,” I say. “There are cookie crumbs in this plate, and it’ll mess with the taste of the cake. You shouldn’t mix.”

  Bari snorts and looks at me like I’m fucking insane. She shakes her head and leans back, raising her arms in exasperation and then crossing them under her breasts. “Shouldn’t mix? Are we talking about the cake or something else?” she asks, her face going flush as if she didn’t mean to say that.

  I blink as I think back to that day when our families stood face to face in a crowded room. I seem to remember our two sets of parents engaged in conversation. Maybe not just a conversation. Perhaps it was a negotiation? An offer and counteroffer?

  A proposal?

  An arrangement?

  “It was a wedding, I think,” I say, furrowing my brow as I try not to get derailed, try not to succumb to the intoxicating need to kiss this woman, to take her right here and now, to claim her as mine, always and forever.

  Now I’m certain that the memory is of our two families discussing a union all those years ago, when Bari and I were just children. And I clench my fists again when I remember Mother laughing and shaking her head like it was a joke, perhaps even an insult to suggest mixing our bloodlines. Th
en I think of that promise I made to Mother before she died, the promise to follow her narrow, racist beliefs about purity and bloodlines and whatnot. I’m fucking tall like a tower, broad like a bridge, built like a sledgehammer, the boss of a sprawling criminal empire, the leader of a fucking army of hard, cruel men, and yet I’m being held captive by my dead Mommy?!

  So who’s the real prisoner here? Who’s the real captive? Bari or I?

  “We’re both captives,” I whisper suddenly, my body shuddering as I exhale. “We’ve been captives our entire fucking lives, Bari. Captives to the beliefs handed down by our parents. Captives to our responsibilities as sole heirs to underground empires. Captives to . . . to . . . to this.”

  “What?” she whispers, blinking as if she’s wondering what the fuck I’m babbling about. And the truth is I am fucking babbling, spilling my guts without even being asked, this woman’s very presence unraveling miles of knots in my goddamn psyche.

  “You offered yourself as a captive,” I whisper, the words barely coming out. “But instead you set me free, Bari. Free to be the man I was born to be.”

  She blinks again, like she doesn’t understand what my words mean but somehow understands the emotion behind those words.

  “This is where you go crazy and kill me, right?” she says, offering a trembling, hesitant smile even though I see tears welling in her eyes, understanding coursing through her body, like she’s opening up to the reality that it’s just the two of us now, that the ghosts of Christmas Past are dead and buried, that it’s time to cast off the chains our parents put around us.

  And suddenly I’m smiling too, and then I’m laughing, shaking my head as I realize what I must sound like, like I’m fucking crazy, like even though she’s the one on the couch, I’m the twisted maniac going through therapy or some shit.

  And then we’re both laughing, laughing like children, laughing like fools, maniacs, lunatics. There’s really nothing else to do. Nothing else makes sense right now.

  Nothing but this.

  “Nah, little Bari,” I whisper, rising from my chair and moving to the broad leather couch. “This isn’t where I kill you.” I turn to her, the simmering arousal that started building the moment I walked into this room is coming to a boil, like it’s the only fucking outlet for the mental gymnastics that we’ve being doing, like it’s the final act of breaking those chains of the past, burying our parents and the beliefs they forced upon us, claiming our own lives, our own fate, our own destiny.

  Claiming each other.

  “Nah,” I mutter again, reaching out and cupping her warm cheeks in my big, rough hands, breathing deep of her feminine musk. “This isn’t where I kill you. This is where I kiss you.”

  And without another word, without stopping to consider that this might be exactly her game, that this woman just strolled her curvy ass right into the lion’s den, broke through all his fucking defenses, reduced the King to a babbling jester with a boner the size of his pointy hat . . .

  Yes, without stopping to consider that I might have just lost this battle of wits, that I might be falling victim to womankind’s oldest weapon, that the King might well be found on Christmas morning with his pants around his ankles, a cake-knife in his neck, I lean in and kiss her.

  I kiss her hard, with a desperation that’s fueled by the uncertainty of the events, the uncertainty of the games we’re playing with each other, the uncertainty of the games we’re playing with ourselves.

  I kiss her hard and deep as my body roars in approval, sending up raw emotion and arousal that violently pushes away the uncertainty generated by my brain, leaving nothing but that first feeling I had when I saw Bari . . .

  A feeling of pure, undeniable certainty . . .

  A certainty so clear, so obvious, so fucking simple that I almost cry with joy.

  She’s mine.

  By God, she’s mine.

  6

  BARI

  The certainty of his kiss makes me go limp in his arms, and I feel my lips opening for his, feel my body screaming in delight, feel the confusion and madness of the past few weeks leave me and disappear into the air like smoke on a cold night. Somewhere in the back of my mind I can hear my brain squeaking in protest, reminding me that I came here to kill this man, not kiss him!

  Of course, I’m not an idiot, not a clueless child. I knew before I chose to walk in here that I had to use every weapon in my arsenal, every method at my disposal. I’m a student of history, and I’m well aware that just like men have treated a woman’s body as a possession through the ages, there were many smart, driven women who used their bodies as weapons, used their sexuality as bait, used arousal as a tool. I may not be a skinny supermodel who confidently struts her lithe body on the catwalks of Milan and Paris, but I’m comfortable with my curves, comfortable with the notion that all’s fair in love and war.

  The only problem, of course, I think as Brusco’s kiss overwhelms me, his lips smothering mine, his tongue driving deep into my mouth, tasting me, taking me, claiming me . . .

  Yes, the only problem is that even though all's fair in love and war, I'm no longer which one this is: Love or war!

  And then my mind just shuts down as my arousal spirals up like a snake on the strike, grabbing me by the throat and pulling me into the moment even as Brusco’s big hands close around my neck with a firm gentleness that makes me so fucking wet I feel the leather seat get slick beneath me.

  “What are you doing?” I gasp, gulping deep breaths as we break from the kiss so we don’t pass out. “Brusco, what—”

  But he just presses against my lips again and kisses me with a possessive fury that shuts me up, his right hand moving to the back of my neck and fisting my thick hair. He squeezes my breast with his other hand, growling as he licks my cheeks, coats my smooth neck with his saliva like a wolf marking his mate. A moment later his strong fingers have found my throbbing, pert nipple through two layers of cloth and he pinches so hard I almost pass out with ecstasy.

  I feel completely in his control even though my hands are free. I could reach for that cake-knife on the silver cart of Christmas goodies, drive it into Brusco Barzini’s back, push it through his ribs, deep into his dark heart, do what ruthlessly pragmatic women have done over the centuries when faced with a physically stronger adversary that’s temporarily vulnerable.

  All’s fair in love and war, I think again as my arousal whips through me like lightning, the conflict of what I came here to do and what I’m actually doing somehow taking me to dark heights that are making the wetness pour from my cunt like a river in a rainstorm.

  Brusco rips open my dress from the front, snapping my tight bra like it’s a ribbon, burying his face between my breasts like an animal, licking my smooth skin, sucking my dark red nipples until they’re so hard and pointy they look like arrowheads. He’s already prying my thighs apart as I groan and thrash under his touch, that cake-knife shining like starlight, like it’s offering me a choice, like even though I’m being fucking dominated by this beast of a man, it’s still my choice whether this is love or war.

  Who are you, Bari? I ask myself as I arch my neck back and moan as Brusco pulls my torn dress down my shoulders and squeezes my bare breasts ferociously before rubbing my wet mound with a roughness that makes me choke.

  “You’re mine,” Brusco growls against my cheek as he finally gets my thick thighs to spread all the way so he can push his fingers into my vagina with such force it rips a hole in my sheer stockings, jamming the soaked satin of my panties into my cunt. “You’re fucking mine!”

  As he barks out the words he firmly taps my clit with his thumb, and with a scream I come, hard and with a wildness that makes my entire body convulse and thrash on the slick leather. My wetness pours all over Brusco’s hand, and with a roar he closes his fingers around the crotch of my panties and yanks them off me in one swift, powerful motion.

 
I’m still screaming as Brusco stuffs my soaked, tattered panties into my open mouth, and the scent and taste of my own pussy makes me come again, the climax smashing into me with a violence that makes my eyes roll up in my head. My hands are still free, but I know I’m a captive. A captive of what’s happening here. A captive of what I’m feeling. A captive of what my body is telling me is right even though I might be passing up the only chance I get to do what I came here to do.

  I stare in disbelief as Brusco slides off the couch, gets on his knees before me, pulls my thighs apart and just rams his face into my sex. And suddenly he’s pushed my legs up and is licking my slit and asscrack with the flat of his tongue, coating my most secret spaces with his essence. Again I come, this time all over his brutally handsome face, coating his hard cheeks as he pushes his face into my crotch and slides that thick tongue so far inside me I feel like I’m being fucked.

  My vision is blurry, my thinking fuzzy, and I’m whimpering and moaning as I feel Brusco pull away from me. I flutter my eyelids as I try to figure out what’s happening, and suddenly my vision snaps into intense focus when I see that Brusco Barzini is standing naked before me, his bronzed body shining like an Italian sculpture in the Mediterranean sun, his chest like slabs of dark-stained marble, flat stomach rippling with muscles, thick arms bursting with veins and sinews like the man is a study in perfection.

  His cock is standing straight out and up, thick like a log, its upward curve making my pussy tighten as I imagine that heavy cockhead dragging against my inner walls as he opens me up, takes me, makes me his. His balls are massive, as if he’s got ten generations worth of seed built up inside, and I almost choke as my body shamelessly yearns to take his seed, to bear his children, to fulfill a need so deep and raw that it has to be real, it has to be right, it has to be . . . forever.