Chapter 17: Domenico - Marrying the Mafia Daddy

I take Kira’s hand and pull her through the penthouse, past the kitchen where she’s eaten breakfast every morning for weeks, past the living room where she broke down in my arms three days ago, and down a hallway she’s never had reason to explore.

“Where are we going?” she asks, her fingers threading through mine with a trust that catches me off guard.

“You’ll see.”

The gym takes up the entire east corner of the penthouse. Floor-to-ceiling windows line two walls, the October sky a hard, pale blue above the surrounding buildings. Afternoon light cuts across the floor, warming the rack of weights, the heavy bag hanging from the ceiling, and the padded bench in the corner.

Her eyes go wide. Then narrow. “You have a gym,” she states in an accusatory tone. “And you never told me.”

“Would you have used it?” I ask, already knowing the answer.

I’m pretty sure I’d know by now if she’d been itching to go for a workout, and the way she purses her lips is all the answer I need.

Her gaze drops over me, lingering long enough that I notice. “You look different,” she says.

I glance down at the white wifebeater and gray sweatpants. “Different how?”

“It’s… different to see you in anything but your usual suits.” Her eyes flick over me again before she seems to realize she’s staring.

“Do you prefer this?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

A faint flush creeps into her cheeks, and she looks away.

I wanted to bring her here yesterday, but Langford called and allowed her to visit her mom. So she spent the afternoon with Paige. Today’s better anyway. She got back from Saint Benedict’s not too long ago, and she seems to be in a good mood.

“What are we doing here?” she asks, fingering the left strap on the sports bra she’s wearing.

The movement draws my eyes to her breasts. To her hard nipples that press against the thin fabric. I can’t tell if it’s the gym’s AC or something else. Either way, my cock notices and hardens as my gaze drops to the way her yoga pants do things to her ass that should be criminal.

“We’re fixing a problem,” I reply, stepping toward the heavy bag.

“What problem?” She crosses her arms, and the movement pushes her breasts together. Fuck.

“Your punch is pathetic,” I say, smirking.

Her jaw drops. “Really?” She arches an eyebrow. “Because I seem to remember that I left marks on you. Actual marks, Domenico.”

“There’s a difference between leaving a mark and landing a punch that means something.” I circle the bag, running my palm over the leather.

“I meant something when I hit you,” she volleys, and the flash in her eyes makes my palm twitch in anticipation of later.

Grinning, I shake my head. “Stand here.” I position her in front of the bag, close enough that her knuckles nearly brush the leather. “Your feet need to be shoulder-width apart. And move your dominant foot back.”

She shifts her weight. The yoga pants cling to every curve of her thighs, her ass, and my palm itches to grab her. I step behind her instead, close enough that my chest nearly touches her back.

“Like this?” She glances over her shoulder, and her hair brushes my jaw.

“No.” My hand closes around her wrist. Her pulse jumps against my fingers. “Fist tight. Thumb outside, not tucked under. You’ll break it that way.”

I adjust her hand, feeling the fine bones of her wrist, the heat of her skin. Then my other hand finds her hip, and I turn her slightly, angling her shoulder toward the bag.

“Drive from your hip, not your arm. The power comes from here.” My palm slides from her hip to the small of her back, pressing firmly. Her breath catches. “Turn your body into it. Don’t just throw your fist and hope.”

I step back.

“Give it a go.”

She throws a punch that lands with a dull thud, the bag barely moving.

“That’s worse than before.”

She glares at me. “You try being coordinated when someone’s standing behind you, breathing down your neck.”

Moving closer, I press my chest against her back, my thighs against the backs of hers. One hand circles her waist, the other takes her fist, reshaping it. “Now feel how your body moves when I do it.”

I drive her fist into the bag with my body behind hers. The impact travels through both of us, and she makes a small, surprised sound that I want to fucking swallow.

Fuck. I’m hard as a goddamn rock from the way her ass fits against me, from the heat of her skin. Or maybe it’s her goddamn fire I’m attracted to. No, it’s more than that.

Over the last three days, I’ve grown addicted to hearing her tell me what she wants instead of swallowing it because she thinks she doesn’t deserve to be heard.

Need is dangerous. More dangerous than possession, because possession is simple. If it’s mine, I keep it. Need is complicated. Need means I can’t function without it, and I’ve spent forty-five years making sure I don’t need anything I can’t control.

Too late for that.

“You’re not paying attention,” Kira says, pulling me back to the gym, to the bag, to her body pressed against mine.

“I’m paying perfect attention.” My hand slides from her waist to her stomach, feeling the muscles tense under my palm. “Try again.”

She throws another punch. The bag moves an inch.

“Better.” I don’t step back. “Again.”

She throws three in quick succession. Each one slightly better than the last, her body remembering what I showed her. By the fourth, she’s getting it—the rotation, the drive, the way her weight shifts from her back foot to her front.

And then she changes everything by looking over her shoulder with those hazel eyes and saying, “Am I doing okay, Daddy?”

The word lands exactly where she meant it to. My cock throbs so hard I have to clamp my jaw shut to keep from groaning. She knows exactly what she’s doing. The little smirk playing at the corner of her mouth gives her game away.

“You did that on purpose,” I growl.

“Did what?” Her eyes are wide, innocent.

Bullshit.

I step back, putting space between us before I end the training prematurely and take her to bed. “Again. Proper form this time, or we start over.”

She squares up to the bag. Feet planted. Shoulders turned. Fist tight. And she drives through the punch the way I showed her, her whole body behind it, and the bag rocks back on its chain.

The look on her face is pure, unadulterated triumph. She bounces on her toes, turns to me with a grin that could power the entire fucking city, and whoops, “Did you see that? I did it. I actually did it.”

She’s glowing. Chest heaving, cheeks flushed, that smug little smile stretching across her face like she just won the fucking lottery instead of landing a decent punch.

Rather than ruining the moment by correcting her form, I lift her and slam my lips to hers. Kira immediately wraps her legs around my waist and winds her arms around my neck.

“You did so good, baby,” I rasp against her lips.

Her tongue licks against the seam of my lips, looking for access. But that’s not happening because now it’s time to even the score.

“Do you know how many times you hit me?” I ask as I carry her over to the bench.

“What? No, of course not.”

I can’t hide my wicked grin as I tell her, “I remember all of them, wife.”

The color drains from her face, then floods back, two bright spots high on her cheeks. Exactly the reaction I wanted.

“You told me to hit you,” she says, her voice shaking slightly.

“I did.” I don’t deny it. “And I meant it. You needed to get it out. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences for putting your hands on me, wife.”

She makes a sound of protest as I set her down right next to the padded bench.

“Domenico—”

“Shh.”

I don’t say a word as I bend her over the bench so her delectable ass is in the air, those teal yoga pants stretched tight across her flesh.

“What are you doing?” she gasps when I grab the waistband of her pants and drag them down her legs in one smooth pull, taking her panties with them. “Wait.”

“No,” I rasp. “No more waiting. It’s time we get even, baby.”

I drag my palm over the curve of her ass, squeezing until my fingers sink into the soft flesh. Mine. My wife bent over for me, waiting for my hand, and Christ, there’s something deeply fucking wrong with how much I like the sight of it.

“I’m going to spank you, Kira. Twenty times.”

“T-twenty times?” Despite the stutter, her eyes blaze with excitement when she looks at me over her shoulder.

“Yes, twenty times, and you’re going to count every strike,” I tell her, my voice rough. “If you lose count, we start over.”

“You can’t be serious—”

My hand connects with her ass. The sound cracks through the gym, and she jerks forward with a gasp.

Fuck!

Something ugly and hungry tears through me at the sight of my handprint blooming across her skin. I curl my fingers once, fighting the urge to grab a fistful of her ass instead of giving her the next strike.

“Count, Kira,” I growl.

“O-one.”

I deliver the second strike on the opposite cheek. Harder. The skin flushes darker.

“Two.” Her voice wavers.

I keep going. Three. Five. Eight. Each strike lands with enough force to color her skin, to make her gasp, to push her further into that headspace where indignation bleeds into something hotter.

By the tenth strike, her ass is a dark, flushed pink, and the sound she makes when my palm connects is nothing like protest.

“Eleven,” she cries, and there’s a tremor in it.

But that’s not all there is because my obedient little wife is rubbing her thighs together. Pausing, I rest my hand on the small of her back, feeling the heat radiating off her skin. Then I slide my fingers between her thighs from behind, and fuck—she’s soaked.

For one second, I just stand there with my fingers pressed against her slick pussy because the sight of her red ass and the feel of her soaking my fingers nearly snaps something inside me. She’s getting wet while I punish her.

My sweet little wife is bent over my bench, ass burning from my hand, and her cunt is fucking begging for me.

“Look at you.” I grind my teeth as I drag my fingers through the mess between her thighs. “Your ass is fucking red, and you’re dripping for me.”

“Please,” she moans, not even trying to hide how much she likes it.

“Please, what?”

“Please… don’t stop.”

I slide two fingers inside her, and her pussy clenches around me so tight I have to grit my teeth. I groan when she pushes her hips back against my hand.

I fuck her with my fingers, slow and deep, watching her back arch, listening to the broken sounds coming from her throat. Then I pull my hand away, and she whimpers.

“Get ready to count for me again,” I growl just before my palm cracks against her ass again.

“Twelve!” she cries.

After that, the punishment turns into something else entirely.

The pattern becomes brutally simple: my palm, her count, my fingers, her words. Every time I take my hand away, she has to ask for it back.

At first, she stumbles over the requests, embarrassed and breathless, forcing each filthy little sentence past her lips because I refuse to give her anything until she tells me exactly what she wants.

Every time my palm lands, her ass jiggles beneath the impact. Every time my fingers disappear inside her, she squeezes around them like she’s trying to keep me there. And every fucking time I pull away, she begs prettier.

By fourteen, she stopped hesitating. By sixteen, she’s pushing back toward me before I’ve even finished asking. By nineteen, every trace of indignation is gone, and I’m the one starting to lose control.

Her ass is burning beneath my palm. Her voice is wrecked. Every desperate please crawls straight under my skin and feeds something possessive and fucking ravenous inside me. I drag my palm slowly over the heat I’ve put into her skin, savoring the way she shivers beneath my touch.

“One more, baby,” I growl, adjusting myself with my free hand.

Not only am I harder than I’ve been in fucking years, maybe ever, but I’ve also leaked pre-cum all over the inside of my boxer briefs. Looking down, I see it’s soaked through and there’s a wet spot on my gray sweatpants.

She sucks in a breath, bracing herself.

“Twenty!” she screams as I spank her burning ass one last time.

“Such a good girl,” I growl as I slide three fingers inside her. “You took your punishment so well.”

I spread her wide, and the noise she makes is obscene. Her pussy grips my fingers like a vise, wet and hot and desperate, and I finger-fuck her hard enough that the bench creaks.

“Please, Daddy, please make me come with your fingers. I need it. I need more.” The words tumble out in a rush, desperate and raw, and something in my chest tightens.

My fingers stop inside her for half a second as the word goes straight through me. Every possessive instinct I have bares its fucking teeth. She has no idea what she does to me when she calls me that.

With a low growl, I scissor and curl my fingers inside her needy cunt. Kira’s back arches, a moan tearing from her throat that’s so loud I’m glad the room is soundproofed. I work her with my fingers, my thumb finding her clit, circling it the way I know drives her crazy, and she rocks against my hand shamelessly, chasing every curl of my fingers and every circle of my thumb.

“Mmm,” she moans. “Right there, Daddy. Please don’t stop again.”

I don’t pull away when she starts to clench. I keep going, watching her come apart. Her orgasm rips through her. Her whole body locks, her pussy clamping down on my fingers so hard I can barely move them.

“Domenico! Oh God! Daddy, yes. Don’t stop…” Her words turn to raw, unfiltered sounds.

I don’t stop. I keep my fingers inside her, working her through it, feeling her pussy pulse around me, listening to the broken, gasping sounds coming from her throat. She’s begging for more before the aftershocks have even faded, her hips pushing back against my hand.

The woman who screamed in my face three days ago—who told me exactly what she wanted, who stood her ground and refused to back down—is now begging me with every fiber of her being, and the contrast should be jarring.

It’s not.

It’s perfect—she’s so fucking perfect. Because I need both the fighter and the beggar. I need the woman who slaps me and the woman who falls apart in my arms. I need every version of her, and the realization is so fucking terrifying I can barely breathe around it.

Wrapping her long hair around my hand, I pull until her neck arches. “I need you to come on my fingers one more time, baby.”

My fingers slide deeper into her pussy, and I fuck her with my hand until she comes again, harder this time, her whole body shaking, her voice breaking on my name. I keep my fingers inside her, feeling her clench around me, listening to the way she begs for more, even as she’s coming down from the peak.

“Please, I need more,” she moans. “Please, Daddy, I need you inside me.”

Every muscle in my body locks.

Fuck.

My attention drops to the part of my wife I still haven’t taken. Her pussy, wet and swollen, stretching around my fingers. My cock throbs so hard I see spots. The need to push inside her, to feel her tight around my length—it’s fucking unbearable.

I’ve held back because I knew she wasn’t ready. Because I knew she was performing. But now… is my wife ready to take me the way I’ve wanted to since the first time I saw her in that white dress?

I grip her hip with my free hand, steadying her trembling body, and pull my wet fingers from her pussy. She makes a sound of protest that cuts off when I speak.

“Stand up.”

She pushes herself off the bench slowly, her legs unsteady, then steps out of the yoga pants and panties pooled around her ankles. Her ass is covered in the marks I put there, her sports bra clinging to her sweat-damp skin.

Kira turns toward me, flushed and breathless, her hazel eyes dark with want. When she reaches for me, I step back.

“I want to touch you, Daddy,” she whines, pursing her lips.

Her hand freezes in the air between us. Confusion flickers across her face, then something hotter. Something that matches the fire in my chest.

“Mmm,” I groan. “I want that too, baby. But not here.”

With those words, I pick her up, easily throw her over my shoulder, and carry her back to the bedroom. I set her down beside the bed.

“You want to touch me, baby?”

She looks up at me through her long, dark eyelashes. “Yes, Daddy. I want to touch you.”

“Undress me.”