LOGINShare
Chapter 11: Zefiro
Last Updated:
2024-10-29 19:42:56Past
The flowers dropped by the doorframe and I peered into the room, confused.Priya’s black eyes are large as she clutches the sheets to her chest and her lips are swollen, injured, from kissing. Her neck is covered in purple bruises and hickeys. Her hair disheveled, her skin sleek with sweat. I fall back a step, the strength in my legs failing me for the briefest of moments. My lungs constrict and trying to take in a deep breath forces the sinful smell of sex and Priya’s orgasm down my throat. It settles terribly, much like poison, and I wheeze the next breath. The male jumps off the bed and bolts out the door, naked. I let him run past me, but not before I mark every damn feature of his face, the damn tattoo that marks him a Rossi.“Zef,” Priya starts, her eyes watering, and she knows better than to try explain it to me. So, she tries something else instead. She gaslights me, and I let herRelated chapters
My Neighbour's Wife Chapter 12: Zefiro
Susanna and I stare at each other until Rizzi leaves and we’re left completely alone. “I’m leaving,” she tells me, and for some reason, my heart pauses an entire beat. I notice then that she’s out of uniform, wearing black slacks, an oversized sweatshirt, a ridiculous black hat and ugly orange-pink running shoes. There’s a bag hanging across her chest and I wonder just what could fit into there. I stare and stare at her, hiding my traitorous shaking fingers behind my back. “You do not need my permission to leave. I never wanted you here in the first place.” She starts to speak, but I cut in as harshly as I can. “See yourself out, Mrs. Hawke, and never darken my door again.”Her eyes gutter and she turns sharply, heading for the door. I want to reach for her, but I don’t. This is good, I tell myself. This is best, I convince myself. In a few weeks, should my grandmother’s arrangement go acc
My Neighbour's Wife Chapter 13: Susanna
Past“Bernard…hmm…” my stepmother ponders, her wicked red nails caressing each dress hanging up in her dresser. She stills on the stained white lace and I can hear the smile in her voice as she says, “This should do.” I rub a spot on my arm, still sore from where Mr. Hawke held me last night while he pleasured me like no other man had cared to. He’s been doing so for a month now. “I…” my voice trailed off. “I can’t. Not tonight.” Morwenna Lancaster plucks out the white dress. “Let your hair down like he likes it…” She goes on like I never spoke. It’s always like this. My words unheard, my pleas ignored. Standing my ground means entertaining more men at night than usual, only the worst of the horde. I swallow the bile crawling up my throat. “Mother…I don’t feel well.” She keeps talking, setting out my outfit for tonight, right to my underwear. Of course, none of them belong to me. I own nothing. I deserve nothing. For the more special guests, she
My Neighbour's Wife Chapter 14: Zefiro
It is my engagement, but for some reason, she is more excited than I am. Twirling the wine in the glass, I watch her offer the guests a glass with a charming smile. She’s in uniform—black suit pants, white buttoned shirt, flats. It’d be skirts, but I ordered the skirts away. I can’t go around killing every man who sees her ass in them. Still… Where she walks, heads turn. She has no makeup or jewelry on, but she outshines every woman in the room. She could be modeling rags and still look stunning. “Sir?” My eyes reluctantly shift from the outline of her swinging hips to Adrianna’s glowering gaze. “Your fiancée is that way,” she speaks in Italian, inclining her head to the center of the room, where Valentina giggles, surrounded by a horde of drinking Italian wives and a couple of her friends from Korea. She’s a social butterfly, much unlike Priya. I bring the glass to my lips. “I see.” My gaze strays again, and Susanna’s accepting Giovann
My Neighbour's Wife Chapter 15: Susanna
Zefiro’s voice darkens to a chilling edge. “I can make her disappear. Permanently.” Is he offering to kill my stepmother? I hesitate, stutter, as I try to find the right words. I want to tell him he’s crazy, but my brain won’t connect with my mouth and my mind starts to conjure up images of walking Morwenna’s grave with roses dyed to the deepest shade of black, flipping her tombstone off and shoving a pole into the earth beside it to belly dance while I drink from her most expensive shelf of alcohol and bathe myself in every fucking bottle. Zefiro huffs a drunken laugh, and it feels like I have been cut open and filled to the brim with jelly. “You’re a wild little thing.” He thumbs a loose strand of my hair, tucking it behind my ear, and then he starts to trace a finger along the curve of my ear, like he always has to be touching me, somehow. “Say the word and it’s done. I don’t mind getting my hands dirty for you.” His expression is
My Neighbour's Wife Chapter 16: Susanna
I’ve been kissed many times before. By drunk men who salivated in my mouth and cut my lip. By pedophiles whose fantasies were to ruin a little girl in ways they could never ruin their wives. Or daughters. By Jaxon, who only kissed me after each whipping. I associate the action with pain, disgust. I despise it. Yet, my legs shake. It starts like roaring, turbulent waves. Like an avalanche, rumbling in fury and bringing everything down in its path. Zefiro’s kiss is hostile, angry, hateful even. Like he despises me but can’t stay away, and for that, he is punishing me. Hot. I feel hot in all the wrong places. The angry glide of his tongue against mine mimics the movement I’d like not to think of while he holds me, but I can’t help it. It’s hard not to think of how his tongue would feel against my folds. My core tightens and I clench, twice. Hell, no. I push Zefiro off. But I might as well have hit an immoveable wall. Struggling against him does not
My Neighbour's Wife Chapter 17: Susanna
You would think that someone with little to no dignity left wouldn’t be bothered about getting eaten out on a veranda by the groom-to-be at his engagement party, but…it’s my first time. None of the men who ruined me particularly cared enough about that. Jaxon didn’t either, but it didn’t matter. Hard to miss something you never experienced. But more than that, there is a more pressing problem. How can I want this? Why do I keep clenching? I’m not some sex-starved—“Oh my God.” Zefiro has my ass in his hands, parted, and his tongue glides along my entrance as he arches me into a more accessible position. He licks me from my entrance to my clit and back again, and another harsh cry rips from my throat. I grapple for something to hold, my nails scratching against the surface of the wall, and I find nothing. The thumping of the music reverberates off the wall, synching with my heartbeats and drowning the sounds of my cries. I have no words for what his tongue does to me
My Neighbour's Wife Chapter 18: Susanna
Past Dressed in nothing but a robe, I walk down the stairs. I have been good for the past four months, and my reward is being let out of my room for long enough to take a dive in the pool. But even that grows old, and I yearn for something different. Something to break me from this unchanging hell I live in. I halt at the base of the stairs, my gaze drifting over to Jaxon on the couch. His head lifts and light blue eyes crinkle with a smile. My stomach flips twice as I beam. It makes me happy when he is pleased. It means he’ll listen to me when I talk. It means he won’t hit me. It means he’ll be gentle when he fucks me. “Work?” I nod towards the laptop sitting against his thighs. It’s been a year since he paid my stepmother off and bought me. One year since he aborted our child, thinking I had no knowledge of it. One year since he held a priest at gun point to officiate our wedding—not that he had to. I would have done anything to get away from Morwenna at that po
My Neighbour's Wife Chapter 19: Susanna
Present I have tried to avoid Zefiro, and I have failed. I am in every meeting, every fitting, every formal dinner or breakfast, all according to Adrianna’s orders. He doesn’t ever acknowledge me, though. We haven’t spoken to each other since that night, and if it weren’t for our gazes occasionally clashing whenever I serve him, or my fingertips mistakenly brushing against his knuckles, I’d think I might have become a ghost. I haven’t gotten close enough to ask him if my papers are ready, and I doubt I ever will. With the wedding drawing closer, the chores and events are crazy and choked up. Adriana barely has time for my antics, and I don't have a moment of rest either, with Valentina and Mrs. Visconti trying their best to murder me with chores. They can't have me thrown out--the former's argument with Zefiro on the matter was loud enough to make the topic of gossip the entire week--so they'll make my time here more difficult than a worker's should be.It doesn’t help that
Latest chapter
My Neighbour's Wife Chapter 49: Susanna's pov
“H-home?” My breath lodges in my throat, and for the first time, I notice the woman standing behind, speaking in hush tones into her cellphone. Waves of full red hair falls over the back of a black long dress and her arms drop, her body tilting to face me fully. Icy dread pours through my veins, turning my blood to frost as the world around me closes in on the click of red heels and equally red smile. A crushing weight presses down on my chest and the nauseating stench of wrongly layered perfume suffocates me. A hand comes down on my hair, running down my face and I curl back, my ass hitting the floor and my heels scraping against stone. “N-no. Get away from me!”Valentina gives an order and I am set back on my knees roughly, my head pushed down until my lips brush against Morwenna’s feet.“I’ve been looking for you, Susanna,” Morwenna says with faux worry, her hands threading lovingly through my hair. “Why do you do this to me? Do you have any idea how worried Jax is? How could yo
My Neighbour's Wife Chapter 48: Susanna's pov
My head slams into something hard on descent, stirring me awake. I moan at the pain, but my voice is muffled, my lips dried and hurt around a foul tasting piece of cloth.A gag.My vision is tinged with darkness and my air filtered as I breathe in deeply. It takes a moment to realize the darkness is a hood over my head and my legs and hands have been bound, skin chafed raw from restraints.I kick, frustrated, screaming into the gag, rolling and hitting into anything I can feel around me, but I only end up hurting myself. I instantly recognize the steady hum of aircraft and engines that drowns out the sound my assault, and my blood runs cold.Where am I being taken? I knew freaking out wouldn’t help but being somewhere in the skies, literally anywhere right now, in the entire world, doesn’t exactly calm my nerves.How long have I been out and who took me? Was it the enemies Rizzi spoke of?Was it Jaxon?Every hum, every shift of the engines sets my nerves on edge. My heart is pounding
My Neighbour's Wife Chapter 47: Susanna's pov
Rizzi snorts. "His life is never in danger, Mrs. Hawke." I bristle at the name, but say nothing, changing my direction and heading for our parking spot. I'd have loved to stay longer but I'm too young to die and a bullet through my head is a rather ugly sight. "How long have you known him?" I ask, sighting Rizzi's car down the lot. There's a black van directly behind it, parked vertically, blocking us out. I notice his frown and at a second glance, I add with a mouthful of chocolate dipped cones."There's someone in the driver's seat." He nods. "Thirty-four years." Rizzi's frown eases a little, the corner of his eyes softening into a secret smile. "He used to call me *frantello*." I start to smile but the air on my neck rises suddenly, a sense of unease coming over me. I huddle closer to Rizzi and match his brisk steps, unable to shake the off-feeling. "You're making a mess," Rizzi says as we reach the van, staring pointedly at the uneaten ice c
My Neighbour's Wife 46: Susanna's pov
Sometimes, I wondered if I loved having my heartbroken, making choices that only left me in tears. Maybe I was a sucker for pain and didn't know it yet. The week crawled by rather slowly and all I wanted to do was bawl. I didn't leave my couch, I felt like death. And when I did go to work, I couldn't function. I counted down the hours until I had to return home. I looked outside, expecting to find him, or his men watching me. I woke up, longing to find my underwear stolen or my home breached. But there was no sign of him anywhere. It wasn't until the next week the feeling returned. The tingling sensation that ran down my spine. One that told me I was being watched, followed. My head snaps back as I hand over my credit card, eyes searching every face, looking for a familiar set of golden brown eyes and dark hair of head. I find a familiar face, one I don't like very much. Rizzi's. Bursting out of the Café violently, I take a different tu
My Neighbour's Wife Chapter 45: Zefiro's pov
I am cursed with a raging hard-on and a sulky mood, hearing the shower run while I make pasta. I’m fucking cooking with a damned boner. Rizzi would laugh so hard, I’d shoot his brains out if he was here.When I find her minutes later, she’s curled up in bed, sporting a large shirt and pink shorts, her eyes glued to her TV screen, a half-eaten chocolate bar hovering before her lips as she watches a show with severe concentration.It’s a domestic scene, wrong and so bloody perfect I pause in the doorway. “No way he said that!” She howls, her legs kicking in the air. Her eyes, they twinkle, and I don’t know what to do with myself. She catches sight of me by the door and squeaks a sound that should be unattractive, but makes my inside burn. She sits up, crossing her legs and absentmindedly patting down her hair. “Where’s yours?” she mumbles, eyeing the tray suspiciously.I shrug, dropping onto the mattress beside her. Soft. Too soft. Everything smells like her. “Not a fan of pasta”She
My Neighbour's Wife Chapter 44: Zefiro's pov
A small scream echoes through the small apartment, and I look over my shoulder turn just enough to catch her silhouette in the doorway, her mouth a slash of fury.It felt good--her returning home from work to me. Though her expression states otherwise. “How the hell did you--never mind. I don’t even want to know.” She stabs a finger toward the hallway, accusation, judgment—both aimed squarely at me. “Get the fuck out.”Wild curls curtain her face but the fire in her grey eyes blaze me to the core. Some bizarre flutter runs deep in my gut and I frown, puzzled by the clear anomaly. Must be indigestion. Only women had ‘butterflies’.My gaze drops, tracking the soft, gray camisole she wears, cloaked beneath a bulky brown wool coat and loose black jeans. Not even a sliver of skin.I suddenly despised the world that made a twenty-two year old hide her own body. I was hardly one to speak, though, lusting after said woman when I was over a decade older. Would she have laughed more if she gr
My Neighbour's Wife Chapter 43: Zefiro's pov
The click of heels against the checkered floors are especially violent and the clouds outside are stormy, much like Nonna’s mood.“Do you have any idea how much I paid to get these off the media?!” She yells, her voice cracking as she sets her tablet down on the table beside me.A side glance confirms pictures from my...engagements yesterday. Gianna sips her coffee with ridiculous concentration. Alessandro cuts me a surprised look before returning his attention to Sylvia, whose ass he seems rather fascinated with. Too bad he no longer has enough fingers to get her there, or any other woman for that matter.Valentina looks livid. She’s had that expression since last night, questions heavy in her emerald green eyes.Maybe I was an asshole, like Susanna would passionately call me, but we did have an agreement. I gave her my name, my money and never requested her presence in my bed as long as she never asked questions on who I chose to fuck, so long as it remained private.I suppose I did
My Neighbour's Wife Chapter 42: Susanna's pov
My throat tightens and I snatch my hand back, hiding it from him and prying eyes. “Anything is better than being yours or another man’s ‘possession’, and yes, I do love it here.”His jaw ticks subtly and I might not have noticed if I wasn’t devouring his face with my eyes. He stares at me, long and hard, but he doesn’t speak.Feeling unusually tiny under the intensity of his gaze, I whisper, bitterness clogging my throat. “Does she know you’re here? Your wife?”His lips curl into a cruel smirk. “Valentina understands not to meddle in my affairs.”Blood rushes to my cheeks and I look away, curling my hands in my lap. “Why are you here, Zefiro? What do you want?”“I got impatient.” His eyes are dark. “You’ve had a year to think. It’s about time you came back to me.”“I’ll pass on that, thanks.”Dropping the stylus pen, he reaches into his pocket and withdraws a small box. He pushes it across the table slowly. “You see, that’s where you got it wrong, Sue. I wasn’t asking.”My pulse spike
My Neighbour's Wife Chapter 41: Susanna's pov
There are natural disasters. Tornadoes, whirlwinds, hurricanes, floods. And then, there is Zefiro. Zefiro the man, Zefiro my lover, Zefiro my stalker. A destructive force made of flesh, bones and beautiful tan skin. The most handsome man I’ve ever seen—could ever see, with the loveliest set of eyes I’ll ever look into, no matter how often they haunt my waking moments.Golden brown like molten honey in the sunlight, his eyes are fastened on me as he cuts through the too eager crowd, who peer at him in awe.Pity they don’t know.He could melt hearts with a deceiving smile, convince those who couldn’t look past the surface that he was...just a man. Gorgeous, yes, but normal. But there was nothing normal underneath that hot, muscular skin. There was nothing sane behind those eyes. Only fire, blood and want.That he located my work place doesn't even surprise me. Frankly, I’ve been waiting since I found the tattoo at the base of my spine. I knew it was only a matter of time till he showed
