She yelped and fell forward, catching herself just inches from the flame, her hands in the dirt now too. “Cade, this is too close.”
She was talking about the fire, but I wanted her dripping sweat, so hot and close to burning up inside that she’d never forget who put her there. I pulled my sweatpants down and didn’t hesitate as I said, “Make sure you brace, then, baby. Or the fire will get you.”
It wasn’t a real threat. I grabbed her hair to pull her back when I thrust in. Hard. Her whole body, the curves, the ass, the tits, moved in perfection. I let my cock rail her, and she met me thrust for thrust. The fire danced around us, the only light of the night, with the moon and the smoke curled around her body like she was fucking the devil.
Maybe I was him.
I felt like the devil as I held her so close to the fire’s edge and fucked her with all my might. It was a damn beautiful sight, the green of the bikini on her almost luminescent skin, the way her dark waves fell over her shoulder, and the way her muscles flexed to meet with mine.
“Nobody gets me but me,” she murmured into the fire, and I was unsure whether she was talking to it or to me. I always knew Izzy struggled with something, she fought with letting go like she had to keep herself bottled up for the rest of her life. But she was wrong, because I was coming for her. I wouldn’t stop until I got her either.
“I get the real you, baby doll. Me. Because I fuck it out of you every chance I get.” My cock hardened more at the words. The world faded away around us. All I saw was her. All I wanted and needed was her.
And she must have felt it too because her pussy clenched, and she screamed my name into the fire like I owned her. I truly wanted to believe I did.
It’d have been a lie, though. When she flipped that dark hair over her shoulder and stared at me with a glint in her eye and said, “Anybody can fuck an orgasm out of someone, Cade. Doesn’t mean you’re getting a damn thing other than that,” I knew she owned me.
My blood pressure rose, and the need to control her for a moment, to make her see that she was mine, took over. I grabbed the front of her neck and flipped her so she lay on her back in the dirt, hair spread in the dust. Her hands went to my wrists, and her eyes sparkled like she didn’t fear me at all. I held her down and pumped my cock above her body with the other. “I’m marking the you that you think no one wants to see, Izzy. It’s mine, right here, right now.”
With my words, I came over her breasts and stomach. We both watched my cum shoot out in ribbons over her, marking her for me alone.
She let me pump myself until every last drop was gone, and she held my gaze the whole time. When I was spent and breathing hard over her, she smiled up at me softly and said, “Happy with yourself, Cade?”
I cataloged her under me, the dirt in her hair, the rumpled bikini, the way her sweat beaded randomly over her beautiful skin and mixed with my cum. “You’re damn near perfect in the dirt, Izzy Hardy. I’m struggling not to take a picture of you.”
“I’m an absolute mess.”
“And that’s exactly how I want you,” I murmured to her as I rolled from her body to sit next to her. She moved to get up, but I stopped her. “Give me a second.”
She lifted a brow like she was going to argue.
“Please.” I didn’t beg, but I would with her. I’d have done just about anything to have her there with me for another moment. I reached for Rodney’s sweatshirt and took my time wiping myself from her body. “I used to clean up a lot of messes back in the day, but this one I’m enjoying cleaning up most.”
I smiled to myself as I threw that sweatshirt into the fire.
“You’re ridiculous if that brings you joy, Cade,” she mumbled as she pushed her bikini back into the right position and sat up, dusting the dirt from herself. “And I’m sure the messes you cleaned up were much worse than this.”
I hummed. “If you’re talking about my days as a part of the old Armanelli family, sure.” I shrugged, thinking about that part of my life, how I suddenly wanted her to understand. “We’ve tried to be a cleaner, more productive family.”
She picked at nothing on the ground, avoiding eye contact. “I know that. The world knows that. Even Heather is proud of your accolades.” She sighed. “Everyone has embraced and accepted who you are.”
I thought about my life. Growing up a son to a powerful mafia boss had shown me a lot of the ugly world. Not that my brother, who was first born, didn’t see more. “They’ve either embraced who I am or learned to fear who I am.”
“Do you get tired of people fearing you?”
“No,” I answered honestly, “because they should. If anything, I get tired of acting as if I’m not a threat, like I enjoy mingling with all of you for the sake of whatever this retreat is.”
She laughed. “It’s called building trust. Team building.”
“I don’t work well with others.”
“Probably because you don’t care if people fear you rather than respect you. And I think everyone wants to. You’re a freaking god when it comes to hacking.”
“Is that all I’m a god at?” I threw a small joke her way.
She rewarded me with a genuine smile. “So Cade has a sense of humor. Maybe you should show your team that more often.”
I tugged on a strand of her hair. “Maybe you should show your fire, your emotion, and the real you more too.”
Narrowing her eyes, she argued. “Nobody likes all that. That’s like saying you want to show the world the Armanelli mobster in you.”
“Sometimes I do.” I shrugged and threw a small piece of a twig from the ground into the fire. “But I save that for the days the world really needs a reminder.” She rolled her eyes like I didn’t make any sense. “You realize I gave the go-ahead to have my father killed, right?” I blurted, like she needed to know that the man she’d just fucked was essentially a murderer.
My father deserved his fate, and my brother and I had taken him down. He’d been a ruthless killer that hurt the nation over and over. Still, losing a father and being the one to cause that loss made many wary of me. She had to understand I’d be ruthless, that I wasn’t just a sweet man who delved into cybersecurity. I did it for the country, for my family.
And I’d kill again for them too if need be.
“I’m aware that it was rumored, yes.” She nodded, not recoiling at all. “But according to your fans, like Heather, it was for the greater good.”
I dug the heel of my shoe in the dirt, trying to play off her explanation. It was a good one. “I’ll admit it’s a brilliant twist on the story. My mother was an Italian woman with a lot of love in her heart. She told us to make decisions with love. I made the decision to have him killed for the greater good, sure, but I was also angry. I acted in anger. And I’d act in anger again if I felt a man took his power too far.”
“You have a lot of power too,” she reminded me quietly.
“Yep, and I’m happy to piss off, rile up, and fuck with anyone in the world, Izzy. I enjoy doing it. I like the control and believe I’m capable of handling how far I push everyone. My father liked it too, but I never thought he was capable of handling it.”