Chapter 9 – Serafina
Bellarosa Estate
His shirt is soft beneath my fingers. My hands move with practiced care, but tonight they tremble. The pearly buttons are slick, cool as they roll under my fingertips. I can feel the heat radiating off his skin through the fabric, and with every undone button, I’m drawn closer to it.
His chest rises and falls, the scent of whiskey wafting from him like smoke. He doesn’t speak. He just watches me. His eyes, dark and glazed, track my every movement with a frightening stillness. He’s half-drunk, but his stare is sharp, cutting through me.
I don’t look at him. I can’t.
My gaze stays lowered, fixed on the center of his chest, anywhere but his face. My breath comes shallow, the space between us thick with tension. One more button. I slide it through the hole, my knuckles brushing warm skin beneath. I pull my hands back, too fast.
Then his hands are on me, large, calloused palms cradling my face.
I freeze.
His touch is gentle, unexpectedly so, but it makes me want to recoil. I don’t. I can’t. I just stand there, trembling. My eyes remain downcast, my lashes fanned low to hide the fear that threatens to rise like a tide.
He leans in, and my breath catches. I brace myself.
But he pauses. For a moment, he simply stares, searching my face for something I’m not ready to give. Then his hands fall away.
I step back.
The space between us stretches. My chest heaves with the first real breath I’ve taken all evening. I straighten, smoothing my apron with shaking fingers, ready to leave. Ready to disappear before the silence between us becomes something worse.
But his hand lashes out.
Fingers clamp around my arm. I yelp, startled, and in one swift tug, I’m yanked off my feet. The world tilts. My knees hit the edge of the mattress, and I tumble down, landing against him with a soft, stunned gasp.
He’s already sitting on the bed. Waiting.
I struggle to rise, but he’s fast. One arm snakes around my waist, the other braced behind him. He leans in, his eyes fixed on my mouth like a man starving. His breath fans across my cheek, laced with that faint sweetness I hate myself for recognizing.
I turn my head, but it’s too late. His lips brush mine—barely a touch.
Then he kisses me.
I jerk against him, pushing at his chest with both hands. “No,” I whisper against his mouth, but the sound is lost. He deepens the kiss, and I beat at his chest, fists pounding against hard muscle. His arm tightens, pulling me flush against him, pinning me down against the mattress.
His body is all heat and pressure, and I’m trapped beneath it.
My legs kick. My fists hammer. But it’s like pushing against stone. His lips are everywhere—mouth, jaw, down to the hollow of my neck. My breath comes in panicked bursts, but my fight wanes the longer his mouth lingers. There’s something in the way he kisses…something that drags at me.
He tastes of whiskey and honey like danger laced with intimacy, something I should have forgotten.
My hands stop fighting.
They clutch his shirt now, gripping the fabric as if it could anchor me. His tongue slides against mine. I hate the way my body responds. My hips arch. My lips part. A low sound escapes me—half fear, half desire. No matter how much I try to deny it.
His kiss grows heavier, more possessive. Teeth graze my lower lip—a nip that sends a shock through me. I gasp, and he swallows it whole. One hand tangles in my hair, the other pressed firm against my waist, keeping me there, beneath him.
My chest rises against his. My heart pounds.
And I kiss him back.
Shamefully, I yield. My lips move with his, my tongue dancing in time to his. Each breath I take is full of him—his scent, his taste, his heat. My skin burns where he touches. The kiss becomes a storm, messy and consuming, and I’m drowning in it, in him.
I moan into it, my sounds swallowed up by his kiss, muffled and messy as he presses harder between my thighs.
Then I feel it—his fingers sliding through my soaked folds, spreading me apart. He finds my entrance without hesitation and pushes two fingers inside me, just like that.
“Fuck,” I gasp, my voice catching.
They’re thick, rough, and warm. He doesn’t ease in—he drives them deep, until his knuckles press against my pussy lips and the stretch has me whimpering into his mouth.
I can feel everything: the way his fingers curl upward, scraping against that spongy spot inside me.
The way his rings drag along my inner walls, metal cold against heat.
He’s slow at first, full thrusts that make my pussy pulse and clench around him. His thumb stays tight against my clit, rubbing little circles that have my thighs twitching. I arch against him, my back lifting from the bed.
"You're so fucking wet," he murmurs, lips brushing the shell of my ear.
My cheeks burn. I shake my head even as my hips roll up into his hand. I hate how much I’m reacting—how fast I’m unraveling.
His fingers curl again and hit that spot inside me that makes my eyes roll back.
Then he starts to fuck me with his fingers for real.
They thrust in and out of me fast and hard, filling me over and over, the squelch of my pussy obscene in the silence between our moans.
His wrist flexes with each pump, the pads of his fingers grinding deep inside, rubbing that aching spot again and again.
I can’t stop the way my pussy squeezes around him, clenching tighter with every stroke. The pressure is unbearable. My clit throbs under his thumb. He keeps rubbing it in circles.
Every inch of me is on fire.
I cry out, my hips jerking. My thighs are shaking now. My body is completely at his mercy, fucked open by just his hand.
His fingers move faster, pistoning into my pussy, the heel of his palm grinding hard against my clit now. I’m soaked, dripping around him, the sheets damp under my ass. The pressure builds so fast. I just gasp, moan, tremble.
Then he kisses me again, tongue sweeping into my mouth as if he wants to fuck that too.
I clutch his shoulders, nails digging in. My legs shake.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, the words barely formed.
It’s too much.
He curves his fingers just right, and I come undone.
My pussy clenches hard around him, spasming as the orgasm rips through me. I cry out into his mouth, body arching, thighs trembling, every nerve lit up and buzzing under his touch. I can feel myself pulsing around his fingers.
He slows but keeps his fingers moving inside me, coaxing every last wave out of me until I’m twitching from overstimulation, lips parted, breath ragged.
He pulls back just enough to look at me, his eyes dark and hungry.
The door slams open.
“Don—”
A deep voice slices into the dark like a blade.
Cristofano freezes, lips barely an inch from mine, his weight heavy against my chest, one knee on the mattress between my thighs. His breath is warm. His shirt half-unbuttoned, mine tugged off one shoulder.
My eyes widen. Panic surges.
I shove him—hard.
His body rolls sideways, sluggish from drink, landing with a thud on the bed. He groans but doesn’t resist.
I scramble up. My knees knock into the sheets, and I nearly trip trying to untangle my skirt.
The man who entered was already backing out, eyes averted, jaw clenched.
I bolt past him. Down the hall.
My feet slap the marble as I run.
The shadows bend and stretch along the hallway. The sconces flicker faintly. My breath is jagged, caught somewhere between my ribs and my throat. My chest aches.
My room appears like a lifeline. I fumble with the door.
It clicks open.
I slam it shut behind me and twist the lock.
I’m panting now. Each breath punches out like I’ve run ten miles.
I stumble toward the bathroom. My shoes drag. Once inside, I close the door softly and slide to the floor. The cold tile kisses my knees.
I let my head fall forward and press both palms to the floor, my arms trembling. My shoulder still tingles from where his mouth had hovered.
I'd let my hand rest on his chest. I'd let his fingers trail along my neck. And when his mouth met mine, I’d opened to him like I was still twenty-three and stupid.
“What were you thinking?” I whisper.
I clench my fists. My knuckles pale.
I strike my forehead. Enough to jolt the shame loose from wherever it coiled.
“You let him touch you. You let him touch you.”
My throat tightens. The bathroom walls press inward.
He hadn’t recognized me. I was sure of it.
That look in his eyes wasn’t memory. It was hunger. Lust. But not recognition.
He didn’t remember Rome.
I wipe my eyes with the heel of my palm.
I bite my lip hard until the pain cuts through the noise.
This is dangerous. So dangerous.
I’d compromised everything.
But—a thought slams into me like a fist to the chest.
He wants me.
Not as Elia. Not even as Serafina.
Just as a girl. A body. A fantasy. I slowly lift my head.
My breath is still shaking, but it steadies with each word forming in my mind.
This…could work.
A way in.
He lets his guard down for women. For seduction. That was obvious in how easily his defenses slipped tonight. I’d seen it in his smile, the haze in his gaze, the way he reached for me like I was a promise he forgot he made.
I push myself to my feet. My knees ache. My hip throbs from hitting the bedframe.
I move to the mirror. My face is pale, flushed at the edges. My lips are red. Not from lipstick.
I stare at myself. And then, under my breath, I whisper his name:
“Cristofano Vittorio Bellarosa.”
The name feels poisonous in my mouth. “You want sweet little maids?” I murmur. “Innocent girls who say thank you and don’t look you in the eyes?”
I tilt my head.
“Okay.”
My reflection stares back, trembling and glassy-eyed—but something harder lives in the corners now. “You took Isla from me. You tried to put your hands on my daughter’s life.”
I take one breath..
Then I say it out loud.
“I’ll string you along with your own lust…and I’ll bury you with it.”