Forbidden: a Contemporary Romance Anthology Read online

  I wonder who told him about that. Probably Rocco. Does he also know I stopped locking them in their rooms at night?

  “They’re already confined to the house, which is locked down tighter than Fort Knox. I see no reason for them to stay locked up in their rooms too,” I counter.

  “They’ll grow over your head, just wait,” Tony says, and it sounds like a threat.

  “I think it’s a good idea,” my father says, tapping me on the arm. “It keeps them happy, which makes them easier to work with.”

  “That was my thinking,” I say.

  “And that way they have a chance to talk with your mother, she likes pampering thems,” Dad adds, smiling faintly. I think the only reason he charged my mother with cooking and cleaning at the whorehouses was so she could make the girls feel more at home. Maybe she even asked for the job.

  Dad doesn’t see the dark look Tony flashes me. It’s beyond mere anger, downright pure hatred and rage. He’s always been abnormally jealous of my mother, which is were most of his hatred for me stems from.

  But I don’t think there’s much my father wouldn’t do for my mother, and he’s never made that a secret. He’d marry her tomorrow if he could, but a lot of his current power comes from being married to Tony’s mother, Cornelia nee Russo, so that’s out of the question. But for the past thirty years, since Mom became his mistress, he’s always treated her like his wife and she has never complained.

  “That she does,” I say. “They’re probably all watching some soap opera together right now.”

  I’m enjoying the darkness growing in Tony’s face way more than I should. But man, he’s never made my life easy, and I know his pampered, spoiled ass is one of the main reasons I had to wait five years before getting a task with some real fucking importance in my father’s organization. But if I play my cards right, I could take over the whole thing when he retires. I know Dad wants me to succeed him more than he wants to give the job to Tony.

  The Osso Buco’s arrived and my father is happily eating it, completely oblivious to the staring war Tony and me are engaged in. Or more likely he’s just ignoring it, since nothing much gets past my father.

  “It’s come to my attention that one of the girls, the one in the master bedroom, hasn’t been reaching her daily quota of online time. Seems she signs off by ten PM every night, and never starts before eight,” Tony says in a very complacent voice, which in no way matches the darkness in his eyes. How would he even know that? I know the time girls spend online is monitored by some geeks somewhere and reports are made, but those reports wouldn’t just reach Tony unless he asked for them specifically. They’re supposed to be coming to me.

  Does he know about Kat and me? I’ve tried being discreet in the beginning, but not lately. I’ve lost all ability to not show how much I want Kat all the time.

  “I wouldn’t know anything about that,” I say, deciding that the best thing to do is feign ignorance and lie. I hate the idea of making Kat do her full shift every night. But she might have to once in awhile from now on. “As far as I know, all the girls are doing their jobs. Maybe the geeks got their numbers wrong.”

  “Well, look into it,” Tony says, and starts eating too. “We don’t want them slacking off. It’s bad for business.”

  “Yes, look into it, Vinny,” my father says. “But don’t be too strict. They’re still getting adjusted, and it’s better to keep them happy for now.”

  Tony chokes on a piece of meat, and coughs for a good minute before finally composing himself. And I realize again, as I have many times already, that if I ever hope to get him off my back, I’ll have to make a play against him. But we’re nowhere near that stage yet.

  We talk of other things after that, and on the whole it’s a shorter lunch than usually. Just half an hour later, Tony and me are standing on the sidewalk watching my father’s car drive off.

  “Whatever’s happening at the house, you better be careful,” Tony says. “Women are manipulative and cagey, and if any of them is making moves on you, it’s because she wants you to free her. Try not to lose sight of that when you’re fucking her tonight.”

  He walks to his car without waiting for a reply, which is just as well, because I have none to give. He knows about Kat and me. That much is clear now. And the warning he gave me cuts very close to what’s been in the back of my mind these last two weeks.

  I didn’t want to think Kat’s only letting me fuck her because she thinks she’s getting something out of it, so I ignored it. And I still don’t want to think that, because I think I’m falling in love with her. Underneath all that glamorous beauty of hers, she’s just a naive girl who didn’t know much about life before coming here. But she’s also a woman, and they know how to get things from men. She could very well just be playing me.

  8

  Vin

  What doubt Tony’s warning brought to the forefront of my mind about Kat’s true motives vanishes completely as she opens the jewelry box with the necklace I bought her. It’s a large sapphire stone on a chain of white gold.

  Her eyes actually mist over as she takes it out of the box. “You bought something so beautiful for me?”

  She holds it to her breasts admiring how it falls.

  “It reminded me of your eyes,” I tell her. “Though it’s nowhere near as beautiful as them.”

  They turn darker as I say it, yet still sparkle like diamonds, but the expression on her face is not something I can read. There’s sadness, but also devotion, and happiness, or something like it, but questions too.

  “Put it on for me,” she says, and presents her back, holding her long hair to the side.

  If she’s faking how moved she is by my gift, then she’s the best damn actress in the world, and I don’t know jack shit about anything. But I’m pretty good at reading people. She’s not faking.

  I kiss her neck once the necklace is on, and she moans, sort of melts into me, inviting me to keep going. So I slide my hands down her back and up under her shirt in the front, cupping her breasts, enjoying her soft, supple skin against mine as I continue kissing her neck, and her shoulders and every other piece of skin I can reach.

  Soon, I’m so lost in her softness, her gentle moans, in this moment, that literally nothing else matters.

  She leans her head back, rests it on my shoulder and presents me her lips. I kiss them too, playing with her small, shy tongue as it tries to enter my mouth.

  “We don’t have much time,” she whispers. “I start soon.”

  “We have all night,” I tell her. “You’re not working tonight.”

  I don’t know when I decided that, but it feels like the best fucking decision I ever made. I wish I could tell her she’ll never work again. She’d like that gift much more than the necklace.

  And her soft, surprised gasp, and the look of gratitude she gives me is the best gift I ever received. She makes it even better by turning all the way around, throwing her arms around my neck and kissing me hard, her tongue no longer shy as it finds mine.

  After awhile she stands up and undresses for me, until the necklace I gave her is the only thing she’s wearing. Then she undresses me too, pulling my sweater over my head and unbuckling my jeans, letting me wriggle out of them while she removes my boots. I try to hold her again once we’re both naked, but she shakes her head and steps out of my reach.

  “No touching yet. Lie down,” she says, and I like this new sound of command in her voice. The first night we spent together, I thought I was fucking someone experienced, a girl who knew her way around men like all beautiful women do. But it quickly became clear to me that she was more or less a virgin. Which only made me want her more. She’s let me do what I wanted with her until now, not taking the lead in anything until I showed her the path. So this order is new and fresh and exciting. Just like everything about her is.

  I lie down, and she climbs up on the bed next to me, runs her hands down my chest and across my abs, her touch light as a feather. I want her to touch my
dick, but I also want her to do whatever she wants.

  She leans over and kisses my chest, then my stomach, softly at first, casting me uncertain glances to see, if what she’s doing is alright. I smile and her kisses get harder, bolder, as she works her way down to my dick, which is so hard right now just her breath against it could make me come. But somehow I manage to hold back as her lips find it.

  I always liked it rougher then the soft kisses and licks she’s giving my dick. Or so I thought, right up until this moment. This is great too, anything she does to me is perfect, and I want to be the man she needs me to be.

  I lean back and tuck my hands behind my head in case I get any urges to force her mouth down on my dick, since her licks are quickly driving me to the point where instinct and primal urges take over, making what she wants no longer be as important as what I need.

  But there was nothing to worry about in that regard, as pretty soon all else but the touch of her lips fades beyond my awareness.

  She stops abruptly, yanking me back to reality, then straddles me, smiling coyly. Shyly too, like she’s still not sure she’s doing this right. She is.

  I bring my hands to her waist, slide them up to cup her breasts, which are just the perfect size for my palms, like they were made for me to hold.

  She reaches back and guides my cock to her pussy, never breaking eye contact with me as she sits back, letting me enter her. She whimpers and moans at the same time, but it’s overshadowed by my groan, as her tightness envelops me.

  She starts riding my cock, but she’s all for slow today it seems, a new thing for me in general. I think this might actually be her first time ever on top, and it’s clumsy going at first, but then she finds her rhythm, gyrating her hips, causing my cock to hit spots inside her it doesn’t yet know.

  I rest my hands on her hips, but let her do it her way. Her moans and shrieks grow louder as she picks up the pace, the sapphire pendant moving back and forth like a pendulum between her bouncing breasts, hypnotizing me, showing me the place I need to be.

  I stay still, letting her set the pace, surrender to her the way I’ve never done with any other woman before now. I like to take charge, fuck them the way I want to, hard and deep, but this change is welcome, it’s the thing I’ve been missing, but never realized it until this very moment.

  A few more seconds of her bouncing on my cock, and I’ll be done, I realize just as her pussy clenches tight around my cock and she lets out the longest, most potent moan I’ve ever heard come out of a woman’s mouth. It’s enough to undo me too all on its own, and for a few seconds her sapphire blue eyes are all I see, as I fill her with my seed.

  9

  Kat

  Today is the first real spring day, since I got here. Vin and me are sitting at the kitchen table, the window over the sink open, letting in a warm breeze tinged with the smell of roses and laden with birdsong. We’re alone, the rest of the girls are either watching TV in the living room, or upstairs in their rooms, working or getting ready to.

  I’ll have to do both those things soon, and I’m trying not to think about it, but as much as I enjoy Vin’s company, and even though he’ll be with me, and will probably cut my working time short again, it’s hard to do that today. I want to be outside, feeling the spring sunshine on my face. I want to call my mom and dad and tell them I’m alright. I want to see them.

  “Teach me to say your full name,” Vin says, his fingers playing with mine in the center of the table.

  “Ka-ta-reena,” I say slowly, annunciating every syllable.

  He repeats it, but mangles it terribly. But that’s OK, I mangle almost every other English word I speak.

  We try a few more times, but he only gets marginally better at pronouncing it right.

  “Why do you want to learn how to say my name? You can call me Kat, I like that,” I say and smile at him, since I might be a prisoner here, but his presence makes it bearable, and I can’t deny that. Sometimes it’s more than bearable. Sometimes it’s all I need, and I want to get to that place now. “And I think I’d like to call you Vinny.”

  He snorts, but the smile that results from it is warm and inviting, almost as good as feeling the sunshine of the first day of spring. “Only my mother and father call me that. But you can call me anything you want.”

  His grey-green eyes are soft, and I wish I could just take his hand and lead him upstairs to my bedroom, let him kiss me and hold me for awhile, then take a nap in his arms.

  “I want to know more about you,” he says suddenly. “I want to know everything.”

  Anger and hurt are mixing with the primal happiness over the fact that he wants to get to know me. And he must see that on my face, because his eyes turn many shades darker.

  “Sorry,” he mutters, but I just squeeze his hand. If this is my life for the rest of my life, I need all the happy moments I can carve out of it. And Vinny makes me very happy.

  “I come from Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. I was born after the war there, but you can still see its aftermath everywhere. My family is poor, and I think my father might be sicker then he’s been telling me, because he just keeps coughing and coughing. I’m afraid he has cancer. A lot of girls my age, pretty girls, look for rich husbands from abroad, and a lot of them work as prostitutes, but I didn’t want either of those things,” my voice cracks, since that’s exactly what I got, only worse, but I’m determined to plow through. “I wanted to be a model. I think I could’ve been, if I’d just been smarter with my choices.”

  “You’re certainly gorgeous enough,” he says softly, but the expression on his face tells me he’s in pain. Though maybe that’s just what I want to see there, because it’s what I feel.

  He leans over the table and kisses me. The touch of his lips, the emotion flowing through it, is enough to dull the pain. But it’s not enough to make it go away.

  Keys rattle in the front door, and a moment later it opens, heavy footsteps entering the house.

  Vin breaks our kiss and stands up abruptly, just as the man who entered says, “Why, isn’t this just like a regular afternoon at a sorority house?”

  He must be talking to the girls in the living room, because he hasn’t yet reached the kitchen.

  Vin is already by the door, but I’m still sitting at the table, kind of frozen, because the dark tone in that man’s voice frightens me.

  “Turn off the TV and go upstairs! This isn’t a vacation!” he suddenly yells, making me shiver.

  “This is my house, Tony,” Vin says, his voice cold, deep and commanding like I haven’t heard it yet. “My house and my rules.”

  Tony doesn’t reply, but I hear him cross the hall, and a moment later I see him. It’s the guy who squeezed my cheeks together to check my teeth at the auction, and his touch froze my blood then just as his presence is doing it now. He’s leering at me, his gaze making me feel naked even though I’m fully clothed, making me feel like I’m about to get raped.

  “Like I told you at lunch the other day, Vincent, one of the girls in this house has an alarmingly low online time,” Tony says. “I’ve come to investigate.”

  “You have no business investigating anything here, Tony,” Vin says in a mocking tone. “Leave.”

  “Is this the girl from the master bedroom?” Tony asks, ignoring what Vin just said and still staring at me lewdly. I feel like I should cover myself up, but my arms are too stiff to move. “You two look very cozy alone in this kitchen. And I don’t blame you, Vin, she is a looker. But she won’t be for long, after I move her to the rest stop on Interstate X, which is what will happen, if you don’t keep your hands off her.”

  I don’t really understand his threat, but I feel it like an iron fist squeezing the last of my breath out of my lungs.

  “Good, Tony. You’ve delivered your warning, now get out,” Vin says in that same mocking tone as before. I don’t think he should be talking to this guy like that. He’s got danger of the darkest kind oozing out of him like fog.

  “Fi
ne, Vinny, I’ll go. I just hope you know, you’ll only have yourself to blame once all her pretty white teeth get knocked out so she can give better blowjobs. Those truckers are an impatient bunch.”

  With that he turns and leaves, and I’m struggling to breathe.

  What the hell am I a part of here? How can I be so stupid to believe any of this will turn out OK for me in the end?

  VIN

  Tony had no fucking business coming here, and he knows that as well as I do. Yet he came anyway. And now it’s on me to fix it, make it clear to him I won’t stand for it. I won’t go to Dad, I’m not a spoiled little pampered brat like him, but I’ll have to do something. I can’t let him barge in on my turf and get away with it.

  The strangled sound of Kat’s whimper breaks through my dark plans for revenge.

  I go to her, stroke her hair as I hold her. “Don’t worry about Tony. He has no say here, and I’ll take care of him.”

  That sounds like I mean to kill him, which I’m no longer sure I don’t. I always knew I’d have to make a move against him eventually, and that just became a priority now.

  Kat’s shaking in my arms, her whimpering getting louder.

  “Come on, it’s fine, Kat,” I tell her. “No one’s gonna knock your teeth out, while I’m around.”

  She pushes me away and stands up, glaring at me.

  “Is that so? Is that so?” she demands breathlessly, her voice getting firmer with each word, but her accent growing heavier. “I’m just your slave, a whore, and I belong to that man too. What’s to stop him from coming in here and dragging me off—“

  “That won’t happen,” I interrupt, but I don’t think she hears me.

  “Sure you are promising all will be nice and pleasant for me, and it is, but it won’t be forever. You will get tired of me soon and what will happen to me then? What will happen when you move on from me, and I’m all by myself again?” Tears are streaming down her face, but her voice is still firm. And sad. So very sad.