Chapter 8 Noemi
Noemi
The cold air of the bedroom hits my bare chest the second Cassio tears my faded tank top over my head and hurls it into the shadows.
It feels like I’ve been thrown into a freezing river, the shock of it making me gasp, but the man hovering over me is suffocating heat. Cassio Vellutini is a force of nature, a violent, inescapable storm that has just pinned me to the dark charcoal sheets of his massive bed.
"Get off me," I breathe, the words lack any real venom.
I push my hands against his chest, feeling the hard, heavily muscled planes beneath his unbuttoned dress shirt.
His heart is hammering wildly against my palms, a frantic, tribal rhythm that perfectly matches the panicked thumping in my own chest.
"Liar," he growls softly, sending a treacherous fire down my spine.
He doesn't move. He doesn't yield an inch of space. Instead, he drops his head, his lips grazing the sensitive skin just below my jaw. I flinch, a sharp intake of breath hissing through my teeth, but I don't push him away. God help me, I don't push him away.
For two years, I have lived in a state of absolute, freezing numbness.
I have been the unwanted spinster, the burden, the ghost haunting the halls of the Genovese estate.
I convinced myself I didn't need a man, didn't want the suffocating cage of a mafia marriage.
But the hatred I feel for Cassio has mutated, warping into a dark, feral adrenaline that is currently setting my blood on fire.
The line between wanting to kill him and wanting to let him consume me has completely vanished.
"Cassio," I try again, my voice trembling, betraying the sheer terror clawing at the edges of my mind.
"I told you," he murmurs against my skin, his hot breath fans over my collarbone, "I’m erasing him."
He kisses his way down my neck, his teeth scraping lightly over my pulse point.
The sharp, stinging bite sends a jolt of electricity straight to my core.
My hands, which were supposed to be pushing him away, instinctively slide up to his broad shoulders, my fingers curls into the expensive cotton of his shirt.
I hate him. I hate his arrogance, his cruelty, the way he looked at me at the altar with such absolute disgust. But the way he is touching me now is unraveling every defense I have spent my entire life building.
Cassio shifts his weight, his large hands dropping to the waistband of my oversized sweatpants.
Panic pierces through the haze of lust.
He’s going to know. The thought hits me with the force of a physical blow.
Cassio thinks I am experienced. He thinks Dario Lombardi took my innocence years ago, turning me into spoiled Mafia goods.
It’s the insult he hurled at me in the cathedral.
It’s the reason he said he would never touch me.
If he realizes that I am untouched, that my father lied by omission, that I have never been with a man, let alone my supposed lover, I don't know what he will do.
In our world, a virgin bride is a prize.
A bloody sheet is a badge of honor, a symbol of a family's purity and control.
My father denied Cassio that prize when he swapped me for Lucia.
If Cassio discovers I am a virgin, it strips away the only armor I have left.
I won't just be the bitter, unwanted pawn. I will be the miserable woman whom even her lover didn’t want.
But I don’t care. Instead, I yank the sweatpants down my legs with one fluid, powerful motion, dragging my simple cotton underwear down with them. I kick them off frantically, but before I can scramble backward or cross my legs to hide myself, Cassio is there.
He grips both of my thighs, his large, calloused hands searing my pale skin, and forces my legs apart. He steps between them, his dark slacks are rough against my bare, hypersensitive flesh.
I am completely exposed to him. The vulnerability is terrifying. I reach down, trying to push his chest, trying to cover myself, but he catches both of my wrists in one of his massive hands and pins them to the mattress above my head.
"Look at me," he commands, his voice is back to that demonic, authoritative register.
I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head, feeling humiliated by how much I want him.
"I said, look at me, Noemi."
It’s not a request. I snap my eyes open, chest heaving, meeting his dark, furious gaze.
Cassio is looming over me, a beautiful, terrifying nightmare. He lets go of my wrists and traces his fingers to my right nipple.
"Did he look at you like this?" Cassio asks, his voice practically vibrating with unfiltered jealousy. He sheds his dress shirt, tossing it onto the floor.
I stare at his torso. He is covered in dark, swirling tattoos of thorns, crests, and shadows that map the hard, sculpted muscle of his chest and arms. Scars cut through the ink, jagged silver lines that tell the story of a man who lives entirely by the sword. He is lethal. He is magnificent.
"Did Dario strip you down in his father's house and look at you like he wanted to eat you alive?" Cassio presses.
"No," I whisper honestly, my voice cracking.
Dario never looked at me. Dario never touched me. But I’m too terrified to voice those words.
Cassio misinterprets my answer. He thinks I’m defending a past lover’s gentleness against his own brutality. His eyes darken to pitch black, the last frayed thread of his control snapping completely.
"Good," he growls. "Because you're going to forget his fucking name by sunrise."
Cassio leans down, capturing my mouth in a bruising, devastating kiss. The aggression in it is intoxicating. His tongue sweeps past my parted lips, tasting me, demanding a submission I am suddenly desperate to give.
I kiss him back, pouring every ounce of my pent-up rage, my isolation, and my terrifying, undeniable attraction into the clash of our mouths. I bite his lower lip, tasting the faint, metallic tang of his blood, and he groans, a deep, guttural sound of pure male approval.
His hand slides up my thigh, his calloused palm grazing the sensitive skin of my inner leg. I jolt, a sharp gasp tearing from my throat and directly into his mouth.
I am incredibly, embarrassingly wet. The sheer friction of our argument, the danger of his proximity, the unhinged jealousy radiating off him, it has all conspired to prime my body for a war I have no idea how to fight.
Cassio feels my slickness, and a dark, triumphant smirk curls against my lips. "You hate me so much, don't you, moglie?" he whispers against my mouth, his fingers brush against my core.
"I despise you," I sob, my hips arching off the mattress involuntarily as his thumb finds the aching, sensitive bundle of nerves there.
"Show me," he taunts, pressing down.
I shatter.
It happens so fast, so violently, I don't even have time to brace myself. My entire body bows off the bed, a broken scream rips from my throat. I squeeze my eyes shut, my nails digging bloody half-moons into the heavy muscle of his shoulders as wave after wave of blinding, white-hot pleasure crashes through me. I have never felt anything like this. It’s too much. It’s agonizingly good.
Cassio watches me fall apart, his dark eyes burning with a terrifying, possessive satisfaction. He thinks he has conquered me.
As the aftershocks tremble through my limbs, leaving me breathless and dizzy, I desperately hope he is satisfied. I hope he’ll roll over, leaving my secret intact.
But Cassio Vellutini doesn't stop halfway.
He unbuckles his slacks completely, pushing them down along with his dark boxer briefs. I catch a glimpse of him, he is thick, heavily aroused, and terrifyingly large, and then he positions himself firmly between my thighs.
The panic returns, slicing through the lingering haze of my orgasm.
"Cassio," I gasp. Not knowing if I want him to stop or continue.
He leans down and kisses me, sending all rational thoughts flying out of my mind.
He aligns himself at my entrance. The blunt, hot pressure of him against my core makes my heart stop.
He’s going to tear me apart. "Look at me," he commands, his eyes locking onto mine, demanding I witness my own ruin. "Know exactly who is claiming you."
Before I can form the words to tell him this is my first time, before I can confess the humiliating truth of my untouched existence, Cassio thrusts forward, driving his hips down with the ruthless, unhesitating force of a man expecting a smooth, wet welcome.
He hits the barrier immediately.
The pain is blinding. A sharp, tearing agony rips through me, so intense it feels like I am being split in two.
I scream.
It’s not a moan of pleasure or a gasp of surprise. It is a jagged, raw scream of physical pain. My entire body goes rigid, my back arching violently off the mattress as tears spring instantly to my eyes, spilling over my temples into my hairline.
Cassio freezes.
He stops so abruptly, so completely, it’s as if he has just been struck by lightning.
He is buried only an inch inside me, stopped dead by the unmistakable, unyielding resistance of my hymen. His massive body goes perfectly still. The heavy, ragged sound of his breathing cuts off in the silent room.
I am sobbing now, short, hyperventilating gasps, my eyes squeezed shut against the pain and the sheer, overwhelming humiliation of the reveal. I wait for the insult. I wait for him to laugh, to call me a pathetic, untouched spinster who couldn't even give away her virginity to the man she wanted.
But the silence lingers.
Slowly, I open my eyes.
Cassio is staring down at me. The violent, possessive rage that had been driving him for the last hour has completely vanished, wiped clean from his face as if it had never existed.
His skin is pale, his jaw slack. His black eyes, usually so cold and unreadable, are blown wide with a shock so profound it borders on horror.
He looks at my tear-stained face. He looks at my tense, trembling body beneath him. And then, he looks down at where we are connected, where he is currently pressing against the physical proof of my innocence.
"You..." His voice is a broken, hoarse whisper, completely devoid of the Don's authority. He sounds like a man who has just woken up on the edge of a cliff.
He slowly, carefully releases his iron grip on my wrists.
I don't move. I can't. The pain is a sharp, throbbing ache radiating through my pelvis, but the terror of his reaction is far worse. I pull my arms down, crossing them defensively over my bare chest, trying to shield myself from his gaze.
Cassio doesn't look away. His eyes track the movement of my hands, landing on the way I am trembling, the way I am looking at him with absolute, unconcealed fear.
"You're a virgin," he says.
It’s not a question. It’s a statement of fact, spoken with a reverence and a devastation that I completely fail to understand.
"I didn't..." I choke on a sob, my voice sounds tiny and pathetic in the massive room. "I never... Dario never touched me."
A violent shudder rips through Cassio’s massive frame. He curses, a harsh, violent stream of Italian profanity hissed between his clenched teeth.
Before I can brace myself, he pulls back. He withdraws from me completely, and the sudden absence of his heat leaves me cold and empty. He rolls off me, his movements are jerky and erratic, like a man who has just realized he was about to set a priceless painting on fire.
He sits on the edge of the bed, his back to me. He runs both of his hands through his dark hair, gripping the strands tightly, his elbows resting on his knees. His broad, heavily tattooed back is rising and falling with harsh, uneven breaths.
I scramble backward on the bed, pulling the charcoal sheets up to my chin to cover my nakedness. I press my back against the headboard, pulling my knees to my chest, making myself as small as possible.
I feel a warm, slow trickle of blood trail down my inner thigh.
I have been exposed. The rumors were a lie. My father’s disgust was a lie. I am exactly what my world demands a woman to be, pure, untouched, obediently waiting for her husband, and yet, I feel more degraded in this moment than I did when Cassio was calling me a whore.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Cassio’s voice breaks the silence. He doesn't turn around. His tone is unrecognizable. It isn't angry. It isn't mocking. It sounds hollowed out, entirely stripped of its dangerous edge.
"Because you hated me," I whisper, my voice cracking, the tears are flowing freely now.
"Because you said I was a pawn. You said you didn't want Dario Lombardi's leftovers.
If I told you the truth... if I told you I was untouched.
.. I thought you would use it against me.
I thought you would realize my father tricked you twice. "
Cassio flinches. The word tricked hits him like a bullet.
He slowly turns his head, looking over his shoulder at me. The moonlight catches the sharp angles of his face. The monster who stormed into my room thirty minutes ago, ready to break me just to prove he could, is gone.
In his place is a man completely undone.
He looks at me huddled against the headboard, clutching the sheets to my chest, my face is streaked with tears. His eyes drop to the dark smear of my blood on the pristine sheets between us.
His jaw clenches. A dark, terrifying possessiveness, different from the angry jealousy of before, something infinitely deeper and more dangerous floods his features.
"Orlando didn't trick me twice, Noemi," Cassio whispers. "He thought he was disposing of Dario’s leftovers, but instead he gave me a crown, and the stupid bastard didn't even realize it."
He turns his body fully toward me. He doesn't reach for his clothes. He doesn't leave the room. He just stares at me, his black eyes burning with a sudden, obsessive intensity that makes the air in the room feel too thin to breathe.
"You are mine," he says, the words no longer a threat, but an absolute, undeniable law of the universe.