Chapter 16 #2
“Because she should have been at a ball on the other side of town. She didn’t want to go, and I was bored and always looking for ways to rebel, and we swapped all the time.
Even our parents couldn’t tell us apart.
So she stayed home, and I went to the ball, and then I snuck off to a dance club in Bronzeville.
I was dancing as she burned, Luca, and it should have been me. ”
He grabs my hands and yanks me to my feet. My head jerks back, and he crushes me tight to his body.
“No, Rosa, bella. That isn’t true. That can’t be true. What happened was terrible, truly awful, but you were meant to be here now. Meant to be with me. Meant to be mine.”
“How do you know that? How can you be so sure? Tomasso has never forgiven me. I’ve never forgiven me.”
He holds my face between his big hands, smoothing my hair away from the tears that I am horrified to find flowing down my cheeks. He kisses them away, slowly, softly, and each gentle touch of his lips makes me feel calmer. Safer. More cherished than I have ever felt in my life.
“Would she want you to live like this, my love? Would Serena want you to be half alive, always doubting, always feeling second best?”
I think of her that night, the last night I saw her alive. She was full of gentle mischief, helping me dress, making me promise to come home with stories and gossip. I spent the whole night storing up funny things to tell her, snippets I knew would amuse her. They were tales she never got to hear.
She died in agony—I saw her body, with its twisted face and torn fingers. I saw the pain that her last moments brought her. But despite all of that, he’s right—she wouldn’t want me to live like this. She loved me the same way I loved her.
She might have died—but she would want me to live.
I look up into Luca’s eyes. See the concern, the comfort.
The rings of silver around deep-brown irises.
He said I was meant to be his, and that feels right, so inexplicably right—and I want him with every cell in my body.
Even now, floored with emotion, I want him.
My pulse races at the intensity of his gaze, at the need I suddenly have to feel all of him against me.
He notices straight away, a small smirk quirking the corner of those lush lips.
Without another word, he lifts me into his arms and carries me to the bed, where he props himself over me and lowers his mouth to mine. His kiss has me squirming beneath him, trying to pull him down on top of me.
He resists and gives me a smile that is full of dark promise. “You know the rules of the game—you move, I stop. Let me make you feel better, cara mia. Allow me to switch that busy little mind of yours off for a while. Let me be gentle with you until you beg me to be more.”
I run my hand through his hair and sigh at the feel of its thick waves before placing my arms by my sides. “I’ve never been very good at obeying rules … And I’m not sure gentle is something I deserve.”
“Of course it is, bella. Let me show you.” He sits up so he’s straddling me and casts the damp towel aside.
His cock is big and thick and ready, and I suck in a breath.
That doesn’t look at all gentle, but I’m not going to complain.
I’ve felt it inside me and know how good it will feel to have it inside me again.
I’m already wet, and I can’t help wriggling up against him and urging him forward.
He shakes his head, and his grin makes it obvious that he wanted me to move and must have known that I would.
He tugs a pillowcase from a pillow behind my head and effortlessly rips it into strips.
“Do you need some help, Rosa?” He holds the ribbons of fabric in front of my eyes.
“Do you need me to help you behave yourself?”
“I’m not a child,” I say defiantly, letting out some of my frustration. “And you don’t get to tell me how to behave!”
“No, you are not a child. And I don’t get to tell you how to behave—not unless you want me to. Do you want me to?”
He slides his hand under my tank top and keeps his eyes on mine as he rolls one taut nipple between his fingers.
It feels like a bolt of electricity radiates from his contact point through my whole body.
Fuck. He licks his lips, showing me a hint of fang, and all the blood in my body flows straight to my pussy. Double fuck.
“Yes,” I murmur.
“What was that?” he says, caressing the other nipple. “I didn’t quite hear you.”
He did. Of course he did. This man can hear the blood in my veins.
“Yes!” I repeat, glaring up at him. “Yes, I want you to help me behave myself, you big ugly bastard.”
He throws back his head and guffaws, all the while holding me still.
“I see you’re a work in progress.” He jumps off me in a blur, and before I know it, the bed is shoved forward and my wrists are tied to the bed posts.
When I pull against the fabric, I find that it’s secure but doesn’t hurt.
I’m not going anywhere without significant effort.
I might be stronger than most women, but each wrist is bound twice over.
He doubles up the naked pillow and props it behind my head.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I want you to be able to see everything I’m going to do to you. Last chance, Rosa—say you’ve changed your mind and you’re free to go. I’ll sleep on the couch, and you can have this whole big bed to yourself.”
I hate the thought of having this whole big bed to myself, and I’m sure he knows that—but as excited as I am by the promise of what comes next, part of my brain isn’t ready to let go.
“You’ve tied me up,” I say quietly as he climbs back between my legs.
“I know.”
“So … umm … Shouldn’t we have, like, a safe word or something?”
He runs one hand between my breasts, across the chain of my amulet, and up to my throat. He turns my face to one side and kisses my neck so very gently.
“Nothing is going to happen that you don’t want to happen,” he growls into my ear.
“And we don’t need a safe word—I can read your body like a book.
I feel every beat of your pulse, every spike of your heart.
I can scent the need on you, feel your clit throbbing and your pussy soaking.
I know what you need before you do, Rosa, and I fully intend to give it to you.
” He nips my skin, then takes his mouth away.
He straddles my hips and rips my tank top from my body.
The ring around his pupils flashes silver as he grins down at my exposed breasts.
I ache for him to touch them, to suck them, to play with my nipples, but all he does is look.
I want to scream for him to get on with it, but that will only delay things.
He will punish me for it, and I am so desperate for his hands to be on me that I stay silent.
“Good girl,” he eventually says, skimming his hands over my tied wrists, down my arms to my shoulders, across my throat, leaving a trail of fire on my skin as he inches closer to my breasts.
He grazes both nipples, the barest of touches, and I arch toward him, unable to stop the reaction.
He warns me with a raised eyebrow, and I lie still.
My reward is his mouth, hot and wet and demanding, moving from one nipple to the other. As he sucks on me, he brings his knee up between my legs. The pressure hits my pussy at exactly the right point to make me moan.
“I love your tits,” he says, gazing down at me. “One day soon I’m going to come all over them. Look at those nipples—so tight, so puckered up at a bit of pain. Begging for attention, like the rest of you. Rub yourself against me, bella. I know you want to.”
I grind into his knee and get the most sublime rush from the friction. A flood of moisture pools between my legs, and he goes back to my nipples, sucking and biting in perfect timing with what’s going on below, each wave of pleasure bringing me closer to orgasm.
I am on the brink when he pulls back. His mouth leaves my nipple, his hands leave my breasts, and his knee—his wonderful fucking knee!—is taken away. I am left frustrated and thrusting toward nothing at all.
“Not yet, my love,” he murmurs. “Not yet. The best things are worth waiting for, you’ll see.”
I close my eyes and groan, and when I open them, his face is inches from mine. “Open your mouth,” he says, his voice low and commanding.
I do as I’m told, and he runs his fingertips along my lips, molding them and pushing them, then puts two fingers inside. I feel him probing and exploring, and it is strange and hot and almost unbearably intimate.
“Suck,” he instructs, and god help me, I do.
I suck his fingers so hard, running my tongue over them, biting at them, keeping my eyes on his the whole time.
His pupils are huge, and his cock shoves at me through my pants.
A trail of saliva pools on my chin as he finger-fucks my mouth, and I don’t care.
It’s dirty and invasive and has no right to feel as good as it does.
Growling, he pulls his hand away and leans down and kisses me so hard our teeth clash and our lips claw at each other, his tongue going everywhere his fingers did.
It ends abruptly, and he is at the bottom of the bed, leaving me dizzy. I lift my head to see what sweet torture he has planned for me next.
He tugs my sweatpants off and stands staring at my pink panties.
At the damp patch I know is spreading across them.
God, he is magnificent—his broad shoulders, the bulk of his tattooed chest, that enormous cock jutting proudly upright.
He takes hold of his shaft and squeezes it slowly up and down as he gazes at my pussy.
“You like what you see, Rosa? You like my cock?”
“Yes,” I manage to say. “I like it a lot.”
“Good, because it’s going into every hole you’ve got sooner or later.”
I swallow hard. Every hole I’ve got will welcome him.