Arranged Mafia Marriage

Michael

“You,” she whispers, “I want you, Michael. I want every depraved, dirty thing that you want to do to me.”

My balls harden. Fuck me. How can she say that? How can she lay her innermost desires at my feet? How dare she trust me to do what I want with her? Doesn’t she realize how dangerous that would be? How it would ensnare me, trap me into wanting her, feeling for her, tying her to my side and never letting her go? It would make me want to own her, to make her mine. Mine. And that, I can’t afford. No distractions. Nothing that could touch my heart. That could infiltrate the walls I’ve built around myself.

The fact that she wants everything I can do to her… That she aches for my possession as much I want to own her. That she yearns to be at the receiving end of every filthy, fucked-up, obscene one of my actions… It shows just how well-matched she is for me.

It’s why I must turn away from her. Why I must never be alone with her. Why I must kill her as soon as she’s outlived her usefulness. It’s why I must walk away from her. Just… not yet. Not when she’s tied up and laid out in front of me, asking me to fulfill the perverted fantasies I’ve had ever since I met her the first time.

And if I do, I am a goner. I’ll never be able to leave her. It’s why I need to stay away from her as I had originally planned. A promise I have broken many times over. It’s why I am going to walk away from her right now, before I take that final step that will bind me to her irrevocably.

I grab the knife then slide it back in its sheath.

“What are you doing?” She frowns

I step back, reach for the ribbon that I knotted around her wrist. I tug on it, and it comes free. That’s the beauty of knowing how to tie someone. The process of unbinding takes, maybe, one fourth of the time that it took to truss them up. If only it were that easy to loosen the ties she’s already wrapped around me.

I tug on the fabric and it falls away. I step back and she straightens, then turns on me.

“What’s wrong?” She glances between my eyes, “What happened, Michael?”

I school my features into a mask, “We’re going to be late for our lunch. That’s what happened.”

“Lunch?”

I nod.

“But I thought that you-”

“Wanted to fuck your ass?”

She winces, “You had to put that out there, didn’t you?”

“Just saying what’s on your mind, sweetheart.”

“If you think that’s going to make me feel embarrassed, think again.” She firms her lips, “You went to all that trouble of tying me up. You wouldn’t have done that if you hadn’t meant to…uh, fuck me.”

“Told you, I enjoy tying people up. It’s a skill of mine. Doesn’t mean I fuck everyone I tie up.”

“And those who you tie up and fuck, do you use your knife on them too?”

I draw myself up to my full height. “That’s none of your business.”

I turn and walk toward the exit.

“Michael,” she calls out, “one of these days, you are going to have to tell me why you keep running away from me.”

“You’re mistaken.” I glance over my shoulder and brush away a loose thread from the ribbon. “You need to care about someone enough to have any reaction to them, none of which pertains to this situation.”

She pushes her shoulders back and glares at me. “You’re an unfeeling asshole.”

“Now that we have established that,” I glance at her over my shoulder, “wait here while I get you an outfit from the car, so you can get dressed.”

Half an hour later, I sit across from her as she glances around the space.

“Capo.” Paolo walks up with his usual glower on his face. You’d expect a man of his girth, who runs the most popular restaurant in Palermo, to be the quintessential happy, jowly-faced proprietor who’d go out of his way to keep his clients happy. The reality couldn’t be further from that. Paulo is the most ill-tempered man I know. He was just born that way, apparently. But his Spaghetti alle vongole is to die for.

He begins to talk to me in Italian and I gesture to Beauty. “English, please,” I murmur.

He glances at Karma, then at me, “The usual, Capo?”

“For me, yes. For her…” I tilt my head, “She’s allergic to seafood.”

“Spaghetti Aglio Olio e Pepperoncino for the lady then,” he states. “And a carafe of the house white?”

“Please.” I nod as Karma opens her mouth, likely to protest. But Paulo has already turned to leave.

“Before you ask,” I turn to her, “there is no menu here. You get whatever Paulo has made for the day.”

“Huh?” She blinks, “So he decides what you are going to eat?”

“He’s the expert, and whatever he cooks is the best you can find in the city on that day, so yeah, you get what he’s cooked.”

She takes in the tables and chairs in the small space, all packed to capacity. The dining hall opens onto the sea on one side. On the other is the kitchen, open to the guests, so you can see the chefs cooking while Paulo assembles the plates behind one of the counters.

“You come here often?” she asks with her head still turned away.

“Often enough.”

“Is Paulo a friend?”

I chuckle. “That asshole is nobody’s friend.”NôvelDrama.Org exclusive content.

“So why do you come here, then?”

I tilt my head, “You still don’t get it, do you?”

“What?”

“The food, Beauty, the food.”

She scowls, “Still, you could have, at least, let me ask him what the options were.”

I simply shake my head. “That’s not how it works.”

“What do you mean?”

“Firstly, you don’t get a choice. You eat what he gets you. Secondly, even if there were a choice, I would have ordered for you.”