Ripped (Killer Lips Book 2) (4 page)

When we've finished with two bouts of intense sexual aerobics, Mark goes to get the wine and antipasti from the kitchen and I realize I'm back in my old room.

In his haste to get me completely naked he carried me in here instead of the other room I've been sleeping in since he dragged me back from the restaurant. It feels nice to be back in my old familiar surroundings. Like I belong here, have come home.

Weird feeling seeing as I do not live in this palace. Note to self – hello – have you forgotten? But hasn't Mark told me numerous times, too many to tally that I cannot leave. And it's been a number of weeks so I've definitely passed the vacation fling cut-off date.

“You opened the Brunello huh?” Mark teases me when he returns with the expensive wine. “I guess it's only fair after you spent the day cooking these amazing
bocadillos
for me.”

He stuffs an appetizer of exquisite cheese resting on sun-dried tomato and pesto into his mouth like a man starving then feeds me a crisp bright yellow zucchini flower. And I thought Italian food was not much more than pizza.

“Am I going to be bankrupted by your expensive taste in lingerie and fine wine?”

I didn't open the Brunello, it must have been Signora B. He's only joking, I know. He doesn't care how much he spends on me. He's told me a hundred times I can have whatever I want whenever I want it. Anything.

But I don't want him to think I'm that girl, living in his palace and taking advantage of his generosity. And I'm about to tell him that, just to reiterate so he's sure when his phone rings and he tugs it out of his tight jeans.

His face turns black as the dark canal water outside and he frowns so brutally I'm almost afraid.

“I have to leave. No, what have I told you about that pouting?” He takes hold of my chin between his thumb and finger to tip it up for a kiss on the mouth.

“How long are you going to be?” I ask with a bit more of a whine than is attractive.

“I don't know. This could take a while so don’t wait up. Stop now or I shall have to give you that spanking I promised when I get back.”

“I want you to give me that spanking if it will make you come back quicker.”

“Don't tempt me Riley. I don't want to leave you and if you look at me like that I won't.”

He shuts the door and I hear the key turn in the lock. So he still doesn’t trust me not to leave him. It's one thing when I'm asleep but to shut me in all evening by myself is no fun. If anything happened like the massive swathes of curtain catching fire the only way out would be to leap into the freezing canal.

I eat just one of the delicious little canapes of tiny whole fried fish and pour myself a huge glass of the delicious wine. It's going to be a long night but at least I'm back with my magic closet. I'll amuse myself taking out all the boxes of Louboutins, Choos and Blahniks and have my own private Cinderella party.

In the morning I roll over and a great wave of nausea rushes through my stomach. I already know by the chill between the sheets that Mark isn't with me but the cool smooth fabric eases my forehead a tiny bit. Before I can tell whether he ever returned another surge curls up through my stomach and I'm sure I'm going to hurl.

I need to get to the bathroom, I need to check on whether the sheets are rumpled, the pillow dented. But I can't see a thing. The room is twirling around dancing so fast the furniture and painted walls are nothing but a blur of soft colors like an impressionist painting in a carnival ride.

My head's too heavy to lift and I lower it back into the pillow face first. Mark's pillow, except I know he hasn't used it. His smell, the warm musky masculine aroma I love always permeates the pillowcase when he naps beside me and now it's absent. Nothing but the soft lavender aroma of the Signora's laundry detergent.

Many times I've fallen asleep with that pillow crushed in my embrace. When I've woken up and discovered Mark gone it's the one thing that comforts me back to sleep.

And the throbbing pain between my legs is more intense than any of the afternoons spent on my knees in front of the fire. I reach down and the gossamer silk of my nightgown is soaked at the area of my pubis. The fabric is sticking to my thighs from the damp.

At least I have the relief of knowing he was here last night after all. Maybe he came back and we drank a load of expensive strong wine. So much that I can't remember a thing. It's as though my memory banks for yesterday have been wiped.

I wish I could remember fucking Mark because it must have been a severe pounding judging from my extremely swollen lips. We would have ventured into some unusual new positions or he was incensed by need and rammed my pussy harder than ever before many times over.

The wooziness lifts just enough for me to make it to the bathroom, patting my way along the walls. When Mark eventually comes in he finds me soaking in the white marble tub filled with scented milk bath.

“You look like a Roman Goddess, no a Vestal Virgin at her ablutions,” he says and lifts me out of the water to kiss my face and breasts. Not even caring that his shirt and pants are drenched by my dripping body.

“Well I'm certainly no virgin after last night,” I say and see his face turn cruel.

“What does that mean?” he barks. 'Did you leave the bedroom?”

“No of course not. How could I leave when you locked me in?”

“I didn't lock you in.” The black glower across his handsome features was frightening me.

“I heard you turn the key when you left.”

“It wasn't locked now when I came in.”

“Well then you must have left it unlocked in your eagerness to attack me with some Viking-like pillaging.” I say. “I'm still throbbing.”

Mark's eyes turn to thunderous pools of loathing. I'm sure he's going to drop me back in the water and I clutch at the solid curves of his shoulders to save myself.

“Mark what is it. Don't look at me like that, you’re frightening me. Did something happen last night?”

“I should never have gone out,” he says.

With a powerful bicep curl he pulls my soaking body in toward his chest and tips his face down to rest on mine. Then he throws back his head and roars at the ceiling and only stops when he realizes I'm quaking in his bridal hold.

He carries me from the bathroom and throws back the door to the hall so it slams into the wall. When he recalls the fact that I'm stark naked and dripping all over the rugs he returns to get a towel, covers me then continues. Down the hall, to his bedroom. At last I'm being granted access to the master. I feel very small and helpless in his powerful arms.

“Please tell me what happened? Why are you so angry?”

He says nothing. Merely presses his beautiful full lips, the ones I love trailing across every part of my body, into a tight thin line so that they almost disappear.

He won't tell me. But he places me tenderly on his massive bed and strokes the damp tendrils of hair back from my face. I know he isn't mad at me by the way he looks at me with melting eyes of sweet sorrow. But I don't know what I've done to make him upset and he refuses to say a word.

I'm a tiny doll sitting in the middle of Mark's huge tester bed. I watch him with eyes as wide as a Japanese cartoon girl while he paces the length of the floor before me.

The fire is raging in the grate, lit in anticipation of his return. From wherever. Do the servants know what he does at night? Is everybody in the
palazzo
part of this? I should be afraid because he looks like he's ready to kill right now.

The very picture of a serial killer with his mouth set in an evil straight line and his eyes spewing venom. He's talking to himself but in Italian so I can't make out a word and don't dare to interrupt his solo argument. He seems to be going back and forth on a decision, weighing pros and cons.

I'd like to offer my assistance, a devil's advocate, a listening post at least, but he's just too intimidating. When a particularly enraging concept passes through his thoughts he squeezes his knuckles like a prizefighter. His upper arms tauten and stretch his soft black sweater making his biceps into two massive dark cannons. In one moment, it's obvious he's come to his decision and he storms for the door.

“Mark, I have no clothes.”

I don't want to be left alone and naked in this enormous room. He marches through the door anyway, ignoring my plea and slams it shut. The towel is damp so I pull the dark silky satin sheet around my breasts and sit shivering.

His bedroom is at least three times as large as my entire apartment in Vegas. The ceiling towers about twenty feet above me, coffered with beams. The entire thing is gold along with the deep ornate molding. The chandelier is almost as big as the ballroom exhibit and sends tremors through me for its magnificence.

The tall four-poster bed would fit in few houses in America but is dwarfed here. The dark gray and silver sheets and quilts are all fine silk I'd want to roll my nakedness across at any time other than this. Instead my body trembles and prickles of goosebumps rise across my flesh even though the room isn't chilly.

When Mark flies back through the door I almost leap from my skin and involuntarily hitch away from him up the bed. But then I feel dreadful when he looks at me strangely hurt because of my pull back from him. He's holding a pale dusky pink box tied with a huge creamy ribbon bow. Instead of presenting it to me, he rips the bow apart and tears the box open with brutal force.

My heart hurls itself into my throat at the folded exquisite white lace. It looks like a gown for a wedding. Mark upturns the box with disdain and the breathtaking fragile fabric tumbles to the bed in front of me. I look at the furrows of handmade lace and sheer silky material and know this cannot be for me.

Is he waiting for me to lift it? I don't dare. I hardly find courage to meet his enraged eyes. But when I do, they soften instantly.

“I had this made for you,” he says. “It's modeled on a photo of Sophia Loren. You're too young to know who that is.”

“Of course I do,” I whisper. “I've seen her in
People
Magazine, on the most beautiful women in the world list even though she's old.”

Mark dresses me in the most perfect robe and gown of all those he's presented me with. The sheer lace cups my full breasts and lifts them to sensual heights. It isn't white, but ivory. The silk and lace falls in asymmetrical bands across my hips so they look even more curvy. The sheer lace robe has tiny real pearl buttons and long bell sleeves.

“You had this made for me?” I whisper as he admires his dress up through hooded eyes.

His fingertips burn into my bare back where the gown is open in a diamond before the fabric gathers to a point that cups it around my ass cheeks. The ensemble captures my curves gently into seductive form so that I do almost feel like a queen. He isn't thinking of letting me leave anytime soon then.

“You know how much I love you in movie star negligees. Your body is the perfect movie star shape.”

I'm speechless. Mark is a never ending roller coaster ride of surprises. I feel ridiculous and so bad for thinking he was going to kill me right before he dresses me in the most beautiful gown I've ever seen.

And he used the L word. Kinda.

He bends down to kiss me and when he pulls away seems torn. I want to clutch my gown around me before he rips it off in his lust for me. But instead he roars out of the room, slamming the door again and turning the key firm in the lock.

I lift myself off the bed to run to the door before he locks it. Ask him where he's going. But my body refuses to move. I'm weighed down, every muscle a dead weight that refuses to function. I watch him go, a blur of black, then collapse into a deep sleep.

Mark & Josh

So this is kinda funnish. An unusual first time turn and I do love variety. Things had been getting vanilla. Now I have not one innocent prey I'm hunting, but two victims. And they're both very entertaining to toy with in their own differing ways.

I love that they think they know who I am and they can control me. They don't get that I can leave this room whenever I want. There's no keeping me shut up inside like a filthy fucking criminal. I do whatever I want. Always have. Always will.

Am I awake or dreaming? I hear voices.

There are voices inside the palace, just outside my door. Without another thought, I clamber from the silk covers and run shouting at the door, tugging on the handle and screaming to be let out.

After a volley of furious exchanges in Italian outside in the hallway, the key is turned and the door slowly opens. I am face to face with the same detective-commander.

After his initial surprise, I note he's trying desperately to avert his voracious gaze from my semi nakedness as I'm wearing only a diaphanous long lace gown. He's trying his utmost to keep his eyes on my face and not stray down to my round breasts. My nipples at least have cowered back from their wayward protruding, not from modesty but under Mark's scowl.

Mark is standing behind the comandante and the three other officers with the blackest grimace destroying his rugged handsome face.

“Ah the
signorina
,” the Comandante says with a huge question mark at the end, “Again in your nightgown and so late in the day. Are you quite well?”

“Yes, I'm fine,” I say, tossing my disheveled hair casually with a big smile. “I heard Mark's voice and wanted to ask him something because, um, I seem to have really overslept.”

“It's almost night,” he says, his eyes reaching around me now to scan the bedroom behind. “That is a quite exceptional long time to be-passed out.”

With a face maintained impassive he takes in the entire expanse. Noting every detail while attempting to control his awe as he searches out clues. What does he think he's going to find?

His gaze alights on the huge bed and he's picturing the range of possible events. I know what he's thinking. Twice he's come to the house and discovered me in my nightgown in the middle of the day. He surely imagines I'm kept shackled in my room as Mark's slave. Maybe against my will.

Then I remember the torture instruments in the chamber below. Has the comandante seen them too? At least the shackles Mark uses on me in the bedroom are hidden from the police chief's view. He might choose to read something into them, more than pure pleasure toys.

“I was a little nauseous today. I'm not used to the rich food,” I feign a Victorian style weakness as though I'm in need of some smelling salts.

“You are locked in your room,” he states, full of suspicion and looking to catch a killer.

“No, I mean that's why I was calling out to Mark. I locked my door last night because I've been having nightmares about the ripper and when I woke up I couldn't find the key. I thought I put it on the chest but, you know, I sorta freaked out.”

The cop's face relaxes. Or is he disappointed that his assumption of something dark and sinister in the palazzo is unfounded? He studies me like he cannot believe my denial. And of course there's the small matter of the key being in the lock on the outside of the door.

“Shall we continue, C
omandante
,” Mark interrupts, thinking the same thing, anxious to move it along.

The detective moves on along the passage, sauntering at an irritatingly slow pace. Mark steps froward to close my door, with me behind it. I step around him, out into the passage despite my state of undress and follow the four
carabinieri
down the hall, chattering non-sensically about the returning storm.

Mark's fingers dig into my upper arm, hard, attempting to pull me back.

“You're half naked,” he growls into my ear. “Go and put some clothes on.”

“Officer Guerra, last time you were here you removed an item from the drawing room,” I call out so he turns and Mark is obliged to release me.

What am I doing? I'm going to have to deal with his fury over my insubordination. But why is he so desperate to keep me away from the cop's search? I have to find out - I'm riddled with curiosity to see what or who he's keeping behind the other locked doors.

“Comandante,” he corrects me.

“You never mentioned this,
Comandante
,” Mark's voice is colder than the Siberian wind outside.

“You know the drill, Marco,” the chief replies, his smile smooth and practiced. “We have to eliminate suspects.”

“I was not aware there were suspects in my home,” Mark snaps. “Am I under suspicion, or is it Miss Hart here that you don't trust?”

The four officers have walked into the room Josh uses, now as pristine as a five star hotel. The Commander moves straight to the closet in such a way it's clear they were in here before, that day I discovered them snooping around with the housekeeper. He's returned with a warrant that entitles him to go snooping through people's private lives.

He pulls the door open and immediately his hand stretches back to search the alcove where I found the green velvet costume. He knows. A brief flicker of confusion crosses his face when he doesn't connect with his expectations. And is immediately wiped clear so he turns back to us with a bland smile.

Mark returns his gaze with equal vacancy. He should say, “Looking for something, Inspector?” Cleverly he remains silent.

I remain impassive as both men, with my tremoring legs fortunately hidden beneath the swathes of silk and lace. Only my heart is ripping a fissure through my chest. Will I be implicated in something for destroying evidence?

“We sought to remove everyone in this
casa
from suspicion,” At length the Commander replies to the question. Diminishing our superiority by calling the palace a casa, trying to unhinge our composure. He casts a significant glance at me as though I'm included in that group and immediately the flush rises up my chest to bloom in my cheeks.

Oh my god. Does he know that I tossed the incriminating costume into the canal to be swept out to sea and too deep for dredging? Am I the living image of total guilt? I've always resisted trying my luck in the casinos back home-my face is the total opposite of poker - a picture book of every emotion that passes through my nervous system.

Right now I'm off the scale nervous. The Comandante is plainly making masses of notes-to-self and bowling along with his plan to make us incriminate ourselves in the absence of physical evidence.

Then I meet Mark's eyes. Shit, by my guilty conscience, I'll soon incriminate him as well. He is so handsome it's heart-breaking. My nipples rise and prod hard against the fine lace. And all my jitters dissipate into the chill air.

“Did you eliminate your suspects from the
palazzo
, Comandante?” I turn to the cop to make direct inquiry.

“Yes. The DNA results were not a match to the glass we took from the master room. Now I need a sample from this room to eliminate all suspects.”

“You have DNA from the green velvet under that poor girl's fingernails that you're seeking to correlate with items from this palace?” What the fuck am I doing? Walking the fine line along the precipice. Going toe to toe with the commander. Did I even use that word correlate correctly?

He gazes back with his impassive stare, judging, summing up, waiting patiently for me to say more and drop myself into something. It's exhilarating to do battle with the enemy like this.

“And your tests were not a match,” I push a little bit harder. “Because the person in the green velvet doesn't live in the palace, correct? So why would you need to search further?”

“Signorina Hart, there are many clues in an investigation that need to be followed up on. Even with your knowledge of procedure gleaned from watching your CSI, there are still some dangers you cannot understand.”

He's sending me a warning. That much I can tell but against what? No clue. He turns from me to continue sniffing around.

“But this is Josh's room,” I say. “He wasn't here that weekend.”

“Which weekend might that be, signorina?” The comandante looks at me as though he knows everything. And I'm to be taken for fingerprinting at any second. Mark is blasting fire at me from every cell of his beautiful bulk. But I don't want to stop.

“The weekend that girl died.”

“Was murdered,” he corrects me pedantically. “What you read in the newspaper may not be quite correct and it may not be the whole truth. Sometimes the papers report something that will enable us to make a deduction based on how, someone, may react to that report.”

He's trying to trap us. I purposefully avoid looking back at Mark. Surely that would give us away for me to be seeking him out. I recall holding Mark in my arms when he was so devastated by the discovery.

“What can I do?” he'd asked me in desperation, at the end of his options. “A boy like that would never get through a single night in jail.”

God, he's so right. I can't picture that beautiful angel-man incarcerated with brutish criminal types. Living in squalor and darkness behind razor wire. He wouldn't survive a day.
Mark is strong and unyielding, he might manage okay. But there was no way I'd see him sent away. I need him with me.

“Aside from that you were seen all over Venice with Signor Capello.
Both
the Signores Capello.” He gives me a filthy sarcastic grin so that I feel trapped in a way that makes the blood boil rather than freeze in my veins.

“Quite so,” I reply with all the hauteur I'd seen on the Downton Abbey British TV show. If that's what he's chosen to believe, I'll go him one better. “As you've so cleverly surmised Commander, both men were with me all weekend. At
all
times.”

The uniformed soldiers behind the commander drop their mouths and widen their eyes in unison. The satisfaction is beyond believable and I notice I'm not cowering with my arms wrapped around my torso trying to disguise not only my semi-nakedness but my entire being. I have one hand on my hip and I'm standing slinky erect. And I almost feel like that beautiful powerful movie star.

“It's so cold, I really should put some clothes on, excuse me officers. Sorry, Darling.” I toss over my shoulder to Mark, apologizing for depriving him of my exposed body. I see his repressed smile as I pass him with a grin and sashay back to my own bedroom. Ten eyes are still burning into into my lace covered bottom.

As I reach the door, the Commander asks Mark an odd question.

“Where's your father, Signor Capello?”

I've never heard Mark mention his father. In fact hadn't he said he and Josh are the only members of their little family?

I stop in the open doorway and turn to hear Mark's response. He's looking right at me, silent, refusing to respond while I'm in the vicinity.

What's he hiding? From me who's supposed to be his paramour? Who just put herself on the line for him. Surely he ought to let go and trust me now.

A long awkward moment where I have no reason to stand there eavesdropping and Mark plainly has every intention of waiting me out. I have no choice but to continue into the bedroom.

I peep back around the door frame and blow Mark a kiss from my fingertips. Just before I close the door completely, I press my ear to the crack to gather some more intel of my own.

“Your father, Signor?” the officer insists. “Where is he?”

“Away.”