CHAPTER 13 #2
My knees buckle. The last thread of my adrenaline snaps, and if he weren't physically trapping me against the desk, I would fold onto the floor.
Leon catches my weight effortlessly. His arms wrap around my back, pulling me flush against his chest with a possessive, territorial strength.
He forces my head into the crook of his neck.
I clutch the back of his shirt, my fingers tangling desperately in the fabric, and I just cry.
I cry against his skin, smelling his sweat, listening to the rhythmic, steady thud of his heart.
"There's nothing left," I sob against his collar.
"I've got you," he says, his large hand stroking the back of my head, a jarringly gentle motion from a man who kills for a living. "Stay right here. Don't let go."
I don't. I cling to him because he is the only solid object left in the universe.
Leon reaches down, his hand gripping my jaw. He tilts my face up. He wipes a tear from my cheek with a thumb that feels like rough sandpaper. His eyes are burning with a dark, terrifying resolve.
"I will build you a new life," he vows, his voice a low, gravelly promise that seals my fate in blood. He swipes his thumb across my lower lip, pulling it down slightly to drag over my teeth. "A name that carries weight. My weight. You belong to me now, and I don't lose what’s mine."
The grief, the sheer terror of being erased, suddenly collides with the intense, predatory heat radiating off him.
It catalyzes into something hot, desperate, and entirely biological.
I don't want to think about Trenton. I don't want to think about my dead aliases.
I just want to feel something loud enough to drown it out.
I reach up, my fingers digging viciously into his thick black hair, and I pull his mouth down to mine.
It’s not a kiss. It’s a collision. I bite his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood, the metallic, copper tang flooding my tongue.
"Make me forget," I beg against his mouth, my hands clawing at his shoulders. "Just make it stop. Make everything else stop. Don't be gentle."
Leon groans, a deep, guttural sound of pure satisfaction.
He sweeps his left arm entirely across the oak desk.
The tablet, a heavy glass lamp, a stack of folders, and my remaining lockpicks all go flying.
They hit the floor in a chaotic symphony of shattering glass and clattering metal.
He grabs my hips and lifts me effortlessly, shoving me backward onto the cleared, polished wood.
My legs instinctively wrap around his waist.
"Look at me when I do this," he orders, his hand clamping around my throat. He doesn't squeeze, but the weight of his palm reminds me exactly who controls my air. He tilts my head back at an agonizing angle. "Everything else is gone. There is only this. Only me."
"Mine," he breathes, his tongue invading my mouth with the same ruthless efficiency he uses to dismantle cartels. He tastes like blood and expensive scotch. "Fight me or fuck me, Alessia, but don't you dare look away."
I claw at him, my nails leaving red tracks through the thin cotton of his dress shirt.
He doesn't waste time unbuttoning my clothes.
He grips the waistband of my tailored trousers, his knuckles white with strain, and he pulls.
The reinforced fabric groans in protest before giving way.
The crotch seam tears open with a violent, deafening rip that echoes off the walls.
The cold air of the room hits my damp skin. Leon shoves the ruined fabric down just enough to expose me, his knee driving between my thighs to force my legs wider. The heavy desk creaks loudly under the sudden shift of his weight.
"Tailored for an agent. Useless for a woman," he mutters, his eyes darkening as they devour the sight of me spread out for him. "You won't need these anymore."
He leans down and bites hard into the skin where my neck meets my collarbone. His teeth sink in, creating a sharp, agonizing focal point of pain that grounds my spiraling mind instantly. I gasp, my back arching violently off the desk.
"I’m going to mark you so deep you’ll never forget who you belong to," he growls against my skin, the vibration rattling my bones. He licks the bite mark, the wet heat of his tongue soothing the sting. "Tell me you feel that."
"I feel it," I choke out.
He shoves two thick fingers inside me without any warning.
I am already slick, my body reacting to the trauma with a desperate, animalistic need for friction.
He stretches me roughly, his thumb hooking over my clitoris to apply a heavy, punishing pressure.
My hips jerk off the wood involuntarily.
He grips my chin with his free hand, forcing my eyes to stay locked onto his icy blue stare.
"Look at me," he commands, watching my pupils dilate, watching my mouth fall open in a silent, pathetic gasp. "Tell me who owns this. Say it."
"You," I sob, my nails digging into his forearms. "You."
He withdraws his fingers, unzips his trousers, and frees himself in one fluid motion. He doesn't give me a second to adjust or breathe. He grips my hips, his thumbs bruising my hip bones, and drives into me in one long, brutal, breath-stealing thrust.
The impact knocks the remaining air from my lungs. My upper body slides back against the polished wood, a stray pen clattering off the edge to join the wreckage on the floor.
"Christ, you're tight," he grunts, his jaw clenched tight as he bottoms out inside me. The sheer blunt force of him completely fills the void in my chest. "You were made for this. For me."
He pulls back and slams into me again, establishing a punishing, relentless rhythm.
Every thrust is a physical declaration of ownership.
The heavy oak desk shudders and groans under the violent impact of our bodies.
My head thumps against the wood with every stroke, but I don't care.
The pain, the friction, the overwhelming smell of his sweat and cologne—it's erasing everything else.
I wrap my arms tight around his neck, pulling him closer, desperate to be crushed under his weight.
Leon reaches back, gripping the thick edge of the desk for leverage. His biceps bulge under his shirt as he drives his hips forward like a battering ram.
"Stay with me," he orders, his breath ragged against my ear. "Don't go back into your head. Stay here, in the dark."
He bites the tendon on my neck, his hand sliding up my ribcage to close over my breast, squeezing the flesh hard.
"You’re my little ghost now," he whispers, a stream of filthy, possessive praise that bypasses my logic and hits me straight in the nervous system. "My beautiful, lethal toy. I’m never letting you go."
The climax hits me like a freight train. It starts as a violent tremor in my thighs and detonates outward, blinding white heat rushing behind my eyelids. I shatter completely. A harsh, broken cry tears from my throat as my internal muscles clamp down on him in a desperate, rhythmic pulse.
"Leon! Fuck, Leon!" I scream, turning my face into his shoulder to muffle the sound, my teeth grazing his sweaty skin. "Don't stop. Please."
He watches me come, his face a mask of terrifying, absolute triumph.
He doesn't slow down. He drives into me harder, faster, his own breath catching in deep, guttural hitches.
He stiffens, a low animalistic sound vibrating in his chest, and he finishes deep inside me.
His heavy body sags forward, completely crushing me against the surface of the desk as he pours everything he has into my core.
He keeps his hand clamped over my mouth, catching my final, twitching whimpers.
"Mine," he breathes heavily, his forehead resting against mine. "God... you're mine."
We stay there in the wreckage, our bodies fused together, the only sound in the room our ragged, synchronized breathing. Leon doesn't pull away. He keeps me pinned, the weight of him heavy, solid, and undeniable.
When his breathing finally evens out, he brushes a sweat-dampened lock of hair from my forehead. The touch is jarringly gentle for a second, right before his eyes harden back to ice.
"Go to sleep," he says, his voice flat and authoritative. He withdraws from me, zipping his pants before scooping his arms under my knees and back. He lifts me off the desk effortlessly. "When you wake up, we start on your new name. You’re home now."
He carries me away from the broken glass and the dead lockpicks, dropping me onto the center of the massive king bed. I pull the heavy duvet over my ruined clothes, staring at the ceiling. The ghost of Alessia Heller is gone. I don't know who is left in this bed, but I know exactly who owns her.