Chapter 25
Lorenzo
Elizabeth and I have shifted into something I don’t know how to name since I returned from my trip. It isn’t peace. It sure as hell isn’t forgiveness. It’s something hotter than that. A ceasefire negotiated with hands and mouths and the frantic drag of skin against skin.
We have sex every fucking moment we can.
In the kitchen, with her bent over the counter and my hand clamped over her mouth because the staff is two rooms away.
In the bathroom, her skirt shoved up around her hips, my tie still knotted at my throat while she comes apart against the sink.
In the hallway, because neither of us makes it to the bedroom.
She goes down on me, and I go down on her.
We get creative. We keep it old-school. We make a mess of each other and pretend that means we’re not making a mess of everything else.
But when I’m not buried deep inside her, the wall goes back up. She gets that look in her eye. Cool. Untouchable. Like I didn’t just have her shaking beneath me ten minutes earlier. Like she didn’t say my name in a voice I’ve started hearing in my sleep.
Then come the barbs. Russo this, Russo that. A name dragged between us like a blade. And God help me, it works. Because Russo has become a sore subject.
He’s outsmarted me more than once. Slipped through places I had locked down. Put men in rooms I thought I controlled. And now word is he’s in Chicago, ready to take back his fiancée.
His fiancée who is currently full of me.
I rock into her, slow and deep, and the thought turns something inside me black. Elizabeth’s eyes flutter shut. Beautiful, treacherous woman.
She’s spread out beneath me like sin and consequence, her hair tangled across my pillows, her lips parted, her nails dragging down my back as if she means to leave proof. Her body welcomes me even when her heart keeps a knife at my throat.
I lower my mouth to her ear.
“Does he know?” I ask.
Her eyes open. There she is. That vicious little spark she gets when she knows she’s found one of my bruises and presses down anyway.
“Does who know?” she whispers.
I drive into her harder. Her breath breaks.
I smile against her jaw. “Don’t play innocent with me, cara. You’re terrible at it.”
She turns her face, her mouth brushing mine. “Maybe I like making you say his name.”
My hand tightens on her thigh. Wrong answer.
Or maybe exactly the right one. I push her leg higher, opening her more, changing the angle until the next thrust punches the smugness right out of her.
Her head tips back. A moan spills from her throat, soft and helpless, and satisfaction tears through me so violently it feels almost cruel.
“There,” I murmur. “That’s better.”
She glares at me, but it’s ruined by the way her body clenches around mine.
“You’re jealous,” she says.
I laugh once, low and humorless, and kiss the corner of her mouth. “I’m territorial.”
“Same thing.”
“No.” I pull back just enough to look at her. “Jealous implies I think he has a chance.”
Her lips part.
I move again, slower this time. Deeper. Mean enough to make her feel every inch of my answer.
“He doesn’t.”
Her fingers curl into my shoulders. “You sound very sure of yourself.”
“I am.”
“Because I’m in your bed?”
“Because you’re gripping me like you’ll die if I stop.”
Her eyes darken. For one second, neither of us breathes. Then she lifts her hips to meet mine, and my control frays so fast I almost curse. God, she knows exactly how to ruin me right back.
Her hands slide into my hair, tugging until my mouth is above hers. “Maybe I’m just using you.”
I thrust into her hard enough to make the headboard hit the wall.
Her gasp is sharp and perfect.
“Use me, then,” I say. “Use my hands. Use my mouth. My cock. Use every inch of me until you forget his name.”
Something vulnerable flickers across her face, so quick I almost miss it. Then she kisses me like she hates me for seeing it.
I take the kiss and give it back worse. Hotter. Messier. My mouth claiming hers while my hips find a punishing rhythm, the kind that leaves no room for clever remarks or old ghosts or men who think they can walk into my city and take what I’ve already decided is mine.
Elizabeth wraps her legs around my waist, and I slide my hand between us, finding the place where we’re joined, and she tears her mouth from mine with a broken sound.
Her body trembles.
The wall cracks. Just a little.
So I touch her the way I know she likes. The way she pretends she doesn’t need. My fingers move in time with my hips, and her eyes go unfocused, all that polished control melting into something raw and unbearably honest.
“That’s it,” I say, my voice rough. “Let me see you.”
She shakes her head. Stubborn woman.
I kiss her throat. “Let me have this.”
“You have enough.”
I still inside her. Her eyes snap to mine. The room goes quiet except for our breathing.
I cup her face, thumb brushing over her cheekbone.
“No,” I say, softer now. “I don’t.”
Her expression shifts. The fight drains from her for one dangerous second, and what’s left nearly takes me apart.
“And who’s fault is that?” Then she whispers, “You don’t get to keep me just because you want me.”
I kiss her once, slow and brutal in its restraint.
“Then stay because you want me back.”
Her breath catches.
I start moving again before she can answer. Before either of us can ruin this with truth. But the rhythm is different now. Still desperate enough to make sweat gather at the base of my spine.
But there’s tenderness under it. Her hands slide down my back, less like claws now and more like she’s holding on. Her cheek presses to mine. Her breath comes hot against my ear.
“Lorenzo,” she whispers.
My name in her mouth is a match struck in a dark room, and I lose the rhythm for half a second. Her lips brush my temple, and the gesture is so gentle it almost destroys me.
“Don’t,” I mutter.
“Don’t what?”
“Make me think this means something.”
She goes still beneath me.
Then, quietly, she says, “Doesn’t it?”
Everything in me stops.
The question hangs between us, more intimate than sex. More naked than her body beneath mine. More dangerous than Russo. More dangerous than any war waiting outside this room.
I look down at her.
Her eyes are open now. No armor. No barbs. No Dante Russo between her teeth.
Just Elizabeth.
My Elizabeth, even if I have no right to call her that.
I roll my hips into hers again, slow enough to make her shiver.
“It means too much,” I say.
Her lips part. I kiss her before she can respond, because I don’t know what I’ll do if she says my name like that again. I don’t know what I’ll give away. I don’t know what I’ll promise. And I am a man who understands promises. I know exactly how much blood they cost.
But Elizabeth arches beneath me, soft and wet and trembling, and I would sign anything in that moment. I would burn the city down to keep her making those sounds for me. I would let Russo come to Chicago. I would let him walk right up to my door.
Then I would make him understand. She is the woman beneath me, nails in my skin, my name breaking on her tongue as she comes undone around me.
Her body tightens, and I feel the exact moment pleasure takes her. Her mouth opens. No sound comes out at first. Then she cries my name, and it is the only victory I care about.
I bury my face against her neck and follow her over, my hips driving deep, my body locking over hers as release tears through me hard enough to leave me shaking.
For a while, neither of us moves.
I keep my weight off her, barely, though every part of me wants to collapse and keep her pinned beneath me until the world remembers not to touch what’s mine.
Her fingers move slowly through my hair.
“I hate when you get quiet,” she says.
I lift my head. Her eyes search mine, wary again, but not cold. Not yet.
“I’m thinking.”
“That’s never good.”
A reluctant smile pulls at my mouth. “No. It usually isn’t.”
She studies me. “About Dante?”
The smile dies. There it is again. The knife. But this time, she doesn’t twist it.
I brush damp hair from her face. “He can come.”
Her brows draw together. “Lorenzo—”
“He can come to Chicago. He can bring whoever he wants. He can make whatever threats help him sleep at night.”
Her throat works.
I lower my mouth to hers, not kissing her yet. Just letting her feel the words.
“But if he thinks he’s taking you from me,” I whisper, “he’s going to learn how badly I behave when someone touches what I love.”
Elizabeth goes completely still.
So do I.
Because I didn’t mean to say that last word. Not like that. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But there it is, breathing between us. Alive. Damning…
Her fingers tighten in my hair.
“Lorenzo,” she says softly.
I close my eyes. For once, I’m the one who wants the wall back, so I pull away first. Not far.
Just enough to breathe without breathing her in.
Elizabeth watches me in the dim light, her mouth parted, her fingers still half-curled in my hair as if she hasn’t decided whether to keep holding on or let go.
I force myself to sit up. The bed is warm, her skin still flushed, the sheets carrying the scent of sex and sleep and all the reasons I should have kept my mouth shut. I rake a hand through my hair and stare out at the city brightening beyond the curtains.
Behind me, she says nothing. That’s almost worse.
I clear my throat. “Get some sleep.”
The words come out rough. I stand before she can answer and cross to the bathroom, shutting the door behind me with more care than I feel. Then I grip the sink and stare at my reflection like I’m looking at a stranger.
What I love.
Love.
The kind of word that turns powerful men stupid.
I splash cold water over my face and stay there longer than necessary, waiting for the worst of it to pass.
It doesn’t.