Chapter 18 #2
“You don’t want me,” he whispered against my trembling skin, “yet you’re this wet for me. Tell me, Penelope—” his eyes flicked up, “—who else can make you tremble like this? Who else can own you this completely?”
“I—” My throat seized, shame choking me. I shook my head violently, eyes squeezed shut. “It’s not—it doesn’t mean anything!” I twisted away, desperate to hide the heat pooling in my core, the betrayal of my own body from his piercing gaze.
His icy blue eyes locked onto mine, flames of possession and fury stripping me bare without a touch. “Look at me when you lie,” he hissed. “Every gasp, every shiver, every tremble... your body betrays you, Penelope. And I will make you admit it.”
“No!” The word broke on a sob, my body trembled beneath him, traitorous, wet, heat pulsing where I hated it most.
“Yes.” His voice dropped lower.
He pressed the flat of his tongue to the inside of my thigh, ripping a ragged gasp from my lips that I tried, and failed, to swallow.
His eyes locked on mine as he spoke against my skin. “Say it. Say your body craves me.”
I shook my head, thrashing, humiliation and terror warring with a dark, unwanted pulse of pleasure. “I don’t—I don’t want you!”
His laugh was cruel, vibrating against me until my breath stuttered.
His fingers slid between my thighs. I jolted, a strangled cry ripping free.
“There,” he murmured, voice dark velvet, “That’s not hate, Penelope. That’s need. That’s your body screaming for me.”
His fingers pressed harder, deliberate, drawing a traitorous moan from my throat that I bit back too late.
My face burned, tears streaking hot. “Stop! Please—I don’t want—”
“You don’t get to want,” he cut in, sharp as a blade. “You lost that right when you sold me out.” His head tilted, lips grazing my ear, breath scorching as his words dripped slow and merciless. “But your body remembers. Your body still knows who owns it. Who owns you.”
I sobbed, thrashing helplessly, every shiver and gasp betraying me further.
He dragged his mouth across my thigh again, deliberately close to where I ached most, tormenting, denying.
“Say it, Penelope,” he commanded, his voice guttural, each word branded into me. “Say your body belongs to me. Or I’ll spend the night proving it to you until you scream it without breath left in your lungs.”
I clenched my jaw, swallowing the sound clawing up my throat, muffling the moan that threatened to betray me. My body trembled, torn between shame and the dark pull of desire I wanted to bury forever.
“I hate you,” I whispered, my voice raw and shaking, my tears falling harder, faster. “I hate what you’ve become.”
His head lifted.
Those icy eyes locked on mine, burning with obsession—but behind it, a flicker. Pain. Regret. A ghost of the boy who once kissed my knuckles under the stars. For a moment, his hand softened as it cupped my cheek, thumb brushing away a tear as though he hadn’t been the cause of it.
“Penelope,” he murmured, voice low, almost tender. “Stop crying, babygirl.”
The endearment cut worse than a blade. I jerked my face against his palm.
“Take your hands off me,” I snapped, venom in my words even as my traitorous body leaned into his warmth.
My skin burned where he touched me, not with hate, but with longing I despised. I hated myself more for it—for the way my heart still reached for the boy who no longer existed.
His jaw hardened, the softness gone in an instant, his mask of steel snapping back into place.
He pushed to his feet, but a sharp wince broke through as his hand flew to his side. The stitches pulled under the movement, dark red blooming beneath the gauze.
For a heartbeat, he wasn’t untouchable—just a man, bleeding, broken.
But then his voice came, low, dangerous, steady as ever.
“The only reason I didn’t put a bullet through you,” he said, “wasn’t because you’re my wife. And it wasn’t because I need an heir.” His eyes narrowed, fire and ice twined in his gaze. “It’s because it wasn’t the Bellantis who attacked me.”
The words hit harder than his hand ever could. My chest hollowed, shock crashing over me like ice water.
Not the Bellantis?
Giovanni’s words echoed in my mind, a careful, insidious guidance that had led me to spill the truth.
Every question, every gentle nudge, had steered me, pushed me... until I confessed to planting the device Antonio had given me on Dmitri’s phone.
Had Giovanni—his most loyal enforcer—played me like a pawn?
My stomach churned, guilt and confusion tangling until I couldn’t breathe. I’d been used. Not just by Dmitri, but by the one man who had stood at his side through every war.
“Then... who?” My whisper cracked, barely audible, fear and regret wrapping tight around my throat.
His eyes pinned me in place, merciless. “It doesn’t change a thing,” he said, straightening despite the blood seeping through his bandages. “You betrayed me. And betrayal has only one price.”
He leaned down, his breath ghosting over my lips, cold and intoxicating. “You’ll pay for it, milaya. One way or another.”