Chapter 14 Belle
BELLE
Six steps to my bedroom might as well be six miles. We collide in the hallway like stars burning out—all heat and gravity and inevitable destruction.
His mouth crashes into mine with the force of everything we can't say, and I meet him with equal desperation. My nails rake through his hair, down his back, chasing that low growl he makes when I mark him as mine.
Everything else fades away. The argument, the secrets, the fear—all of it vanishes. I'm kissing him back like I'm drowning and he's oxygen, like I'm starving and he's a feast.
Zip, zip, zap.
My body lights up under his touch like a city grid after a blackout.
Damn it.
I can't stay away.
He pins me harder to the wall, all that heat and muscle caging me in. His tongue's all greedy and ruthless, and I meet him head-on, giving it back just as mean. I catch his bottom lip between my teeth and bite.
Not nice, I know. But I never said I'll play nice.
He groans into me, a deep, dirty sound that thunders through my chest like subwoofer bass, and every inch of me answers: more. I throw back my neck, and he grinds his hips against mine.
I can feel him, hard as a rock through his pants, and my body turns so fucking hot I think I might combust. My hands are everywhere—his shoulders, his neck, his hair—pulling and scratching like I'm trying to tear him apart. Or maybe just tear him open to crawl inside and see his heart.
"Tell me to stop," he says against my lips, his voice rough as gravel.
"Fuck you," I answer, and bite his lip again.
His palms find my hips, haul me up, slam me into the wall hard enough to rattle a frame. "You're a beast," I whisper, already wiggling out of my shorts.
He chuckles into my neck and…bite.
His hands are greedy and sure, sliding up my thighs, squeezing my ass like he paid for it and tipped extra. My brain short-circuits.
"Bedroom?"
"Hell no. I can't wait," he growls.
Okay, then, that's a solid Nope. We're staying right here in the goddamn hallway, and I couldn't care less. After all, I feel it too. This urgent, primal need that can't be contained by four walls or a proper bed.
The hallway is all shadows and golden light. Luca kisses me down the hall until my back hits another wall. It knocks a breath from me, which turns into a moan when his lips find my neck.
He bites down, hard enough to leave a mark, and I cry out. My nails dig into his shoulders in retaliation, dragging down his back through his shirt.
"Take it off," I tug.
"Don't want to put you down."
Fuck it. I reach for his buttons, slide it down his strong arms till the shirt drops.
The sight of him with all that sculpted muscle covered in tattoos makes my mouth go dry.
"Like what you see?" He smiles all smug.
"Shut up." I grab him by the neck and pull him back to me.
His hands find the hem of my shirt and yank it up. We break apart just long enough for it to clear my head, and then his mouth is on my collarbone, my shoulder, the tops of my breasts above my bra.
"This too," he says, and with a quick flick of his fingers, my bra snaps open.
The cool air hits my nipples, making them tighten even more. Luca's eyes darken as he takes me in, and then he's dipping his head, taking one peak into his mouth. The hot wet suction makes my back arch off the wall.
"Jesus," I gasp, my fingers tangling in his hair.
His teeth graze my nipple, and I tug sharply at his hair. He hisses, looking up at me with those stormy eyes.
"You want to play rough, Belle?" he asks, voice like whiskey poured over gravel.
"When do we play anything but?"
He laughs.
We're half naked in the hallway, but every nerve ending is screaming yes. Dignity's for women who care what people think, and the only thing I care about right now is the fact that I'm wetter than a summer storm.
He spins me to face the wall. My palms go flat to the paint; his hand tangles in my hair and pulls until I arch back into him. I feel every inch of him along my spine, and I'm gone.
His body presses against my back, one hand sliding up to cup my breast.
"Spread your legs," he commands, his breath hot against my ear.
Behind me, I hear the sound of his belt unbuckling, the rasp of his zipper. His hand squeezes my ass, then slides down to hook into my panties. He drags them down.
"Already soaked for me, huh?"
"Luca, please," I beg, breathy and desperate.
His laugh is dark and knowing.
One hand tangles in my hair, pulling my head back so my neck arches. His lips find my pulse point, sucking hard. At the same time, his other hand slides between my legs from behind.
"Oh God," I moan as his fingers find my clit.
"There's no god here, sweetheart," he murmurs against my neck. "Just me."
Little does he know, he's already taking me to heaven.
His fingers move unhurried for a heartbeat just to make me crazy, then deeper, rougher, setting a rhythm that steals my breath and my balance.
I grind down on him, seeking more. The sounds I make?
Yeah, those aren't sounds for innocent kids.
He groans like I'm doing unholy things to his self-control.
He circles my clit with two fingers, the pressure perfect, the rhythm maddening. I'm already so close, wound tight from our argument, from the danger of being out here in the open, from the raw power of him pressed against me.
"Luca," I gasp. "Please."
"Please what?" His teeth graze my earlobe.
"Inside. I need you inside."
His fingers slide lower, teasing my entrance. "Like this?"
He pushes two fingers deeper into me and twitches, and I cry out, my hips bucking back against his hand. He curls his fingers, finding that spot that makes my vision blur, and I'm grinding shamelessly against his hand.
"Fuck, you're so tight," he groans. "So wet for me."
I can't answer, can only moan as he works his fingers in and out, his thumb now circling my clit.
Fuck, I'm strung tighter than a guitar string about to snap.
One arm bands my waist, hauling me back, pinning me right where he wants me. The other does wicked, perfect work until I'm shaking, forehead to the wall, one heel scraping for purchase like I'm scrambling up a cliff he's already dragging me over.
I shatter like crystal hitting concrete, sudden, complete, beautiful destruction. The hallway dissolves into white light and sensation, every nerve ending firing at once. His name tears from my throat like a prayer, like a curse, like the only word I remember.
He catches me as I fall apart, holds me together while I break, and somehow that makes it more devastating.
I'm still pulsing around the aftershocks when he grabs my hips and takes what he's been dying for. I feel it, the blunt head of his cock pressing against me. One hand still in my hair, the other gripping my hip, he pushes inside in one long, relentless thrust.
"Oh my God," I choke out. The stretch, the fullness, the slight burn, it's all agonizing bliss.
He stills, buried to the hilt. "You okay?"
"Yes," I manage. "Don't stop. Please don't stop."
He pulls back slowly, then slams back in.
My toes curl like ribbons.
I cry out, bracing myself harder against the wall as he drives into me with a vicious, beautiful urgency that knocks loose another broken sound from my throat.
It's a rhythm that feels like the end of the world, and I egg it on, greedy for the quake, greedy for the way he loses himself.
The wall is alive. My body's electric. He's everywhere.
"Mine," he growls, forehead at the back of my head, breath hot, pace wrecking me in the best possible way.
"Then take it," I scream, and he does.
Every drive punches the breath out of me in ragged little sounds, half-gasp, half-moan. The sharp smack of our bodies ricochets down the hall, braided with our rough breathing and filthy little curses. It's raw, feral, and exactly what I begged for.
"Harder," I push back to meet his thrusts.
He tightens his grip on my hair, pulling my head back farther. His other hand slides around to find my clit again, circling it in time with his thrusts.
"Like this?" he growls.
"Yes, God, yes," I pant.
I can feel the tension building, a coil winding tighter and tighter at the base of my spine. My inner walls clench around him, and he groans, his rhythm faltering for just a moment before he doubles down, fucking into me even harder.
"Come for me, Belle," he commands. "I want to feel you come on my cock."
He's pounding me until I'm crying out again, until I'm shaking in his hold, until the only thing I know is Luca and heat and the wild, relentless drag of him.
It slams into me like a runaway train. Everything tightens, then breaks open—shockwaves firing center-out until my toes curl and the world goes star-bright. I'm not even speaking words anymore, just his name, wrecked and grateful, riding it out.
We free-fall together. I feel the exact second he breaks—his grip turns brutal-sweet, his breath stutters, a curse against my shoulder as he lets go, warm and sticky life melted toffee, all inside me.
Slowly, he releases my hair, his hand sliding down to wrap around my waist instead. The gesture is oddly tender after the savagery of what just happened.
My legs feel like jelly.
We collapse against the wall like survivors of some beautiful war, breathing hard and laughing softly at our own destruction. My legs are useless, his heartbeat thunders against my ear, and for a moment the world is just this, sweat and satisfaction and the strange peace that follows storms.
"That wasn't hate," I whisper against his skin.
He tilts my chin up, eyes dark and serious. "No. That was me forgetting how to want you gently."
Luca
Night in the house feels different after you've set it on fire with your mouth. Quieter. Meaner. The kind of quiet that thinks it's keeping secrets.
I head to the security room to chew out a guard about coverage on the south cameras—busywork for my hands so I don't go back upstairs and ruin Belle with round two.
Door's cracked. Screens glow blue over a dozen angles of my life. I push it open and stop.
Declan's already there. Feet up. Arms folded. Eyes not blinking as he watches whatever plays out on the screens.
Then, his eyes meet mine in the reflection of one of the screens, and slowly, deliberately, he smiles.
"Hello, brother," he says, swiveling the chair to face me. "Interesting night?"
I can see it in the way his shoulders relax, like a man who just found leverage he'll never have to ask for. My pulse drops into a darker gear. The beast in me shows its teeth. Declan looks like he just picked up a blade.