Chapter 25 - Emma #2
It feels wrong to be talking about life when Tommy is dead, but Alessandro drives all thoughts from me head when he drives into me in one smooth thrust.
He pulls almost all the way out before slamming back in, setting a punishing pace that has the headboard hitting the wall. Each thrust drives deeper, harder, like he's trying to fuck life back into me, or maybe fuck death out of me.
"This is what you do to me," he snarls, gripping my hips hard enough to bruise. "Make me fucking insane. Make me want to lock you up where death can't find you."
"You can't control death," I gasp, meeting his thrusts as best I can with my weakened body. "You can't control me."
"Watch me." He shifts the angle, hitting that spot inside me that makes the universe vanish just for a moment. "I'll fuck you so good you'll never want to leave. Chain you to life with pleasure."
His thumb finds my clit again, circling in time with his thrusts. The dual stimulation has me climbing fast toward another orgasm, my body remembering pleasure even after dancing with death.
"That's it," he encourages, feeling my pussy start to flutter. "Come back to me, stellina. Come on my cock and prove you're alive."
I do. I come so hard it’s a blackout, stars bursting behind my eyelids, my body locking up again, but this time it’s not about dying, it’s about claiming my right to exist. When I return to myself, he’s still holding me, still inside me, his body trembling like he’s on the edge.
"Alex," I whisper, and it’s all the permission he needs.
He buries himself deep and spills inside me, groaning my name like it’s both curse and salvation.
His whole body bows with the force of it, and then he collapses onto me, letting his weight crush me into the mattress.
I don’t mind. It feels like safety, like being pinned to the world so I can’t float off and disappear.
We lie there, tangled and shaking, for what feels like forever. His heart pounds against my chest, wild and irregular, and I know if he died right now, at least he’d go knowing I was still here, still with him.
Eventually, he lifts his head, brushing sweaty hair off my forehead. There’s a gentle awkwardness in him now, all sharp edges softened by afterglow, and I realize that for once, he’s as vulnerable as I am. Maybe more.
He kisses me, slow this time, and there’s salt on his lips—mine or his, I can’t say. He presses his nose to my cheek, breathing me in. "You’re mine," he says, soft but absolute. "Don’t you ever forget it."
"Alex," I whisper, suddenly overwhelmed by everything, the intensity of the sex, the grief still lurking beneath the pleasure, the complicated tangle of love and lies between us.
"I know," he says, finally letting me turn to face him. His hands frame my face again, thumbs brushing away tears I didn't realize were falling. "We have things to discuss. Trust to rebuild. But right now, in this moment, you're alive and in my arms, and that's enough."
"Is it?" I ask, searching his eyes. There's still that something, that careful withholding that makes my stomach clench.
"It has to be," he says, but won't quite meet my gaze.
The sunrise calls to us like it always has, and despite my weakness, made worse by our desperate fucking, I need to see it.
Alex carries me to our rooftop observatory, my naked body wrapped in just his shirt.
I can feel his cum still leaking from me with each step, marking my thighs with evidence of our reunion.
The city spreads below us, painted gold by dawn, while the last stars fade overhead. My telescope stands waiting, but right now the sunrise is enough.
"We need to talk," I say, settling against his chest. "About Tommy."
Alex tenses, his hands tightening reflexively. "I know."
"You keep trying to control everything, to protect me from even my own choices." I trace patterns on his chest, feeling his heartbeat quicken. "But control couldn't save Tommy. It couldn't stop me from taking those pills."
"What do you want from me?" His voice is raw.
"I want you to trust me. To let me make choices even if they're dangerous." I turn to look at him directly. "I can't be in a marriage where you control everything to protect me. That's possession, not love."
He's quiet for a long moment. Finally: "I don't know if I can change that much."
"You can try," I say firmly, "or you can lose me. Not to pills. I'll simply disappear."
"You think I'd let you?" His grip tightens dangerously. "After this? After what we just did? I can still smell my cum dripping down your thighs. You're marked, claimed, mine."
"And that's exactly why we need boundaries," I say, meeting his intensity. "Because your love feels like a cage sometimes."
"We still need to talk about what happens next," he says carefully. "The aftermath, the family, everything we're facing after what happened with Tommy, after Tommy's death…"
He stops, but the correction comes too late. The way he stumbled over it, catching himself mid-sentence, makes my heart suddenly pound with something beyond post-orgasmic tremors.
"Alex." My voice shakes now, a different kind of weakness than before. "What are you hiding from me?"
His jaw clenches, that careful mask sliding over his features like armor. But I know him too well now. I know when he's hiding something.
"Is there something about Tommy you're not telling me?" I pull back to look at him fully, my heart racing. "Alex, what aren't you telling me about my brother?"
"Emma." Just my name, but the way he says it tells me everything. Guilty. Caught. Still trying to control what I know, when I know it.
The sunrise continues its relentless beauty, painting everything gold, but all I can see is the secret behind his eyes.
Something to do with my brother. My Tommy.
"Tell me," I breathe, my whole body starting to shake, not with weakness now but with rage beginning to kindle. "You know something about Tommy you're not telling me."
"No, stellina, there's nothing but your grief," he says, kissing me gently on the forehead. And for the first time ever, I know he just lied to me.