He looked at her like she had hung the sun, which seemed to be a common theme when looking at her. Maybe that was the Ilaria effect, to look at her and realize that nothing mattered as much as seeing her smile.

“You two will be a good match.” He was sure of himself as he turned to look at me, “Dante, this is my daughter. My own child. My soul. Do you understand that I am trusting you with the greatest gift of my life? That you are marrying my blood.”

Swallowing, I looked at her father instead of Ilaria. What it must be like to give away someone you took care of and loved your whole life. I couldn’t imagine it.

Ilaria and I could have a half dozen kids and then letting them leave my protection to be with someone else? The idea of it made me want to punch something but she was reaching out, pressing her thumb to the crease of my forehead as she smiled again.

“Children grow up. Just know that you raised me and loved me in a way that will make it hard to top when Dante and I have children of our own to love.”

My heart thunders at Ilaria’s words, watching her kiss her Papa’s cheeks before he stepped away and I pull her up, closer to me.

“I love you.”

Her lips pull up into a smirk at my words, letting me kiss the back of her hands as the priest clears his throat, annoyed we had already taken up so much of his time. But Ilaria didn’t care. She was stepping closer to me, pressing her lips against mine as I smiled against hers.

“I know.”

39ILARIA

The pictures were taking too long. How many times were we going to be moved around with our friends and family? How many times did the photographer insist that we kiss for just one more picture in one more pose?

“You’re being impatient, wife.” Dante’s voice was a gravelly growl in my ear that sent shivers down my spine and made me lose the last shred of decency that I had been clinging to.

Turning, I grab his hand, pulling him towards the parking lot where I was sure that his driver was waiting.

“Where are we going?”

Dante let me two hand shove him into the backseat, laughing as I looked at the driver who seemed shocked to see us walking out of the reception that we hadn’t joined yet.

But I was tired of waiting for everything.

“Home. Drive us fucking home.”

Dropping into the backseat, Dante pulls me close, all my wedding dress coming with me as he pulled at it so that he could have me straddling him.

His hands are greedy as he looks down, thumbs running over the lace of the top of my stockings, his thumbs grazing over the straps of the garter belt as he made a sound that was pure torture and made me rock against him.

“Why are we going home, Ilaria? We have a wedding reception we have to get back to.”

But he was nuzzling my neck, his lips kissing as his tongue drew patterns over the pulsing vein there. I was trembling on his lap, needy and wanting more of him, always wanting to have more of him.

There wasn’t ever going to be a time in my life that I grew tired of Dante. I think that I would always need him.

“Because I’m tired of waiting, Dante. I want my husband and can’t wait until after the reception. I want you now.”

He groans at me in response, pulling back from me and meeting my eyes to see if this was some sort of joke, but it wasn’t. His eyes watching me made me self conscious and I felt my teeth bite down on the bottom of my lip.

Dante’s thumb comes up, pulling my lip free and running over it as he stared at my mouth like it was all he ever thought about. A soft kiss pressed against them making me sigh out. I’m melting against him as his hands ran over my thighs and come to rest on my back, pulling me in closer to him as I sighed out in delight.

“Whatever my wife wants, she gets.”

We had been less than five minutes away from our home so before he could devour me in a kiss Dante was pulling me up the stairs and towards the elevator. He slid the keycard over the penthouse and the elevator jutted upward.

Leaning forward, he put me out of some of my misery, kissing me with a passion that made me dizzy as I cried against his lips wanting more from him. Always wanting to have more of him like some sort of glutton.

Dante’s hand on my back was accompanied by another, making me gasp out and break out kiss as he held me in his arms in the traditional bridal hold.

“What are you doing?”

“Carrying my wife across the threshold, principessa. What do you think I’m doing?” He teases as he moved us inside, right towards the bedroom.

He sits me on our bed, his eyes hungry as they watch me.

It was then that the fear hit me.

Before I hadn’t thought about how many people Dante had been with. I was the mafia princess, who had to save herself from marriage. Dante was the heir to the Don who had probably been taken to brothels when he was a teenager and had swam in his share of pussy.

What if I didn’t meet his expectations?

What if I wasn’t what he wanted?

“Look at me Ilaria.” My eyes were on him as he drops to his knees on the floor in front of me, taking one of my heels off and moving to rub my aching soles before going to the other and doing the same motion with a tenderness that made me ache.

The way Dante takes care of me always makes me weak.

He kissed my calf, “I want you in a way that I’ll never want someone else again. You are all I need for the rest of my life. You are all I want. I love you, principessa. Our souls were made to be joined together.”

He kisses my ankle, moving to help me stand as he turned me so I could see us in the mirror of the bedroom.

Dante is so much bigger than me, even in the big ballgown wedding dress I was wearing his presence was still larger than life.

He meets my eyes in the mirror and something passed on his face as he paused unbuttoning my dress, hands sliding over my shoulders as we both watched his next movement.

The dress is pushed down, leaving me in the strapless white lingerie set that had my husband groaning in appreciation at. Seeing how much he wanted me, how his hands couldn’t stop touching me let something in my stomach.

“I want you to see how beautiful you are. I want you to see how much I want you.”

His jacket is thrown over the chair, undressing himself as he had me stand in front of the mirror for him. Dante’s eyes lifted as he looked at me again, a shiver of anticipation rocketed through me as heat pooled in my stomach.

He turns ripping the down comforter he tossed it from the bed, grabbing the fitted sheet he yanks it off the mattress, moving it towards the mirror. He lays it on the floor, holding his hand out as I step on it, still lost in the way that he is looking at me.

“I’m going to make you come for me. I’m going to get you nice and wet before I take you for the first time, wife. And I’m sorry but once I have you you’ll be ruined for all men afterwards because I’m going to devour you in a way that leaves you trembling for days after. I’m going to make love to you until every time you walk a bit of us both pour out of you.”

Dante kisses down my spine as I tremble in his touch, wanting him so deeply that I was shaking with need. Hearing him tell me about what he was doing to me caused a flame in my stomach, my sex already soaked as I thought about begging him to make good of his word.

But he is on his knees, turning me so we were getting a side view of what was happening in the mirror.