Chapter 11 Regina
Regina
“We should stop.”
Mauricio’s words contradict everything his body is telling me—the way his hands tighten on my hips, how his breathing has gone ragged, the heat in his storm-gray eyes that suggests stopping is the last thing he wants to do.
“You’ve said that three times now.” I trace the scar along his jaw, feeling his pulse jump beneath my fingertips. “And yet here we are, still not stopping.”
“Because you make it impossible.” His mouth finds that sensitive spot below my ear, and I gasp. “Because every time I try to be smart about this, you look at me like I’m the answer to questions you haven’t asked yet.”
“Maybe you are.” My hands slide beneath his shirt, exploring lean muscle and prison-hardened edges. “Maybe I’ve been asking the wrong questions my entire life, and you’re the first person who makes me want different answers.”
He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes, and the vulnerability I see there—raw and unguarded—makes my chest ache.
“I’m not who you think I am, Regina.” His voice carries warning. “I’m not some noble savior. I’m a man who’s made terrible choices and hurt people and spent years learning to be someone you probably shouldn’t want.”
“Good thing I’ve never been very good at wanting appropriate things.” I rise on my toes, bringing my lips close to his. “Besides, I think you’ve spent years learning to survive. There’s a difference between becoming someone terrible and learning how to protect yourself in terrible circumstances.”
“Philosophy now?” But there’s warmth beneath his sarcasm. “You trying to justify wanting to sleep with me?”
“I’m trying to make you understand that I see you. Not the man you think you’ve become. Not the convenient ally or the dangerous criminal. I see the person who took a bullet for someone he loved. Who spent years refusing to break. Who looks at me like I matter instead of like I’m merchandise.”
His hands frame my face with devastating gentleness. “You do matter. That’s the problem.”
“Then stop treating it like a problem.” I lean into his touch. “Stop calculating risks and just be with me. Right now. In this moment. Before the world demands we go back to being strategic.”
His expression transforms—predatory, possessive, all pretense of restraint burning away. When he kisses me this time, it’s with the desperation of a man who’s stopped fighting what he wants. That legendary control doesn’t just break—it detonates.
“Last chance to walk away,” he murmurs against my mouth, even as his hands slide lower, pulling me tighter against him.
“I don’t want to walk away.” My fingers work at his shirt buttons with trembling determination. “I want to feel alive. I want to be seen. I want—”
“What?” His voice is rough velvet. “Tell me what you want, Regina.”
“You.” The admission comes out breathless. “Just you. All of you. No more holding back.”
He makes a sound low in his throat—part growl, part surrender—and suddenly we’re moving. His hands map every curve while mine explore the hard planes of his chest, the ridges of muscle, the places where prison left its mark.
“You’re shaking,” he observes, thumb brushing across my lower lip.
“So are you.” I catch his hand, pressing a kiss to his palm. “Maybe we’re both terrified of what this means.”
“I know exactly what this means.” He backs me toward the table, lifting me onto it with effortless strength. “It means I’m about to cross a line I can’t uncross. It means whatever happens next, you’re mine. It means—”
“Stop thinking.” I pull him closer, legs wrapping around his waist. “For once in your calculated, strategic life, just stop thinking and feel.”
His laugh is dark, dangerous. “You have no idea what you’re asking for.”
“Then show me.” Challenge enters my voice. “Stop telling me all the reasons this is a bad idea and show me what happens when Mauricio Barone stops holding back.”
The kiss that follows is answer enough—consuming, possessive, stripping away every pretense we’ve been maintaining. His hands find the zipper of my jacket, and I arch into his touch, desperate for more contact, more heat, more of everything I’ve been denied for twenty-eight years.
“Regina.” My name sounds like prayer and profanity combined. “If we do this—”
“We’re doing this.” I silence his protests with another kiss, one that leaves no room for doubt. “No more talking. No more warnings. Just us.”
He surrenders then—completely, finally—and the world narrows to nothing but sensation: his mouth on my skin, his hands learning every curve, the heat building between us until thought becomes impossible.
“God, Regina—” His voice breaks as I undo his belt buckle, fingers brushing against him with deliberate intent. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
“Maybe we’ll both die.” I pull him closer, needing more. “But at least we’ll die feeling something real.”
The table creaks in protest as he shifts, lifting me like I weigh nothing. My back hits the cool surface, and his body covers mine, solid and protective and terrifyingly overwhelming.
“Look at me.” When his voice demands my attention, I obey, captivated by the storm-gray intensity of his gaze. “This changes everything.”
“Good.” I pull him down for another kiss, pouring all my desperation and hope into it. “I hate everything.”
His response is wordless—hands and mouth answering in ways language can’t. My jacket hits the floor. His shirt follows. Each piece of clothing stripped away reveals more heated skin, more places to explore, more proof that we’ve been starving for this contact.
The first touch of skin against skin sends a shiver of electricity through me.
My fingernails scrape down his back, and he makes a sound low in his throat that goes straight to my core.
Every touch, every kiss, every movement is both a revelation and a homecoming—like I’ve been waiting for this without knowing what I was waiting for.
“You’re so beautiful.” His hands trace the curve of my waist, the arch of my hips, learning my body with an attention that makes me ache. “But you already know that.”
“Not like this.” I catch his face, forcing him to look at me. “Not when someone sees me instead of just looking.”
Something vulnerable flashes across his features before being banked beneath desire. “I see you, Regina. I’ve seen you since the moment you walked into that coffee shop pretending to work while actually watching the door.”
“And I saw you.” My hands slide into his hair, pulling him down. “The man who survived fifteen years and still found something worth protecting. The man who looks at me like I’m worth saving.”
“You are.” His mouth trails fire along my collarbone. “Even when you’re being reckless and stubborn and refusing to listen to reason.”
I chuckle and pull him closer. “Just fuck me already.” Even as the words escape, I know they aren’t what I really want.
“I’ll do more than that.” His eyes darken with dangerous promise. “I’m going to ruin you for every other man. I’m going to make you forget what it feels like to be touched by anyone who doesn’t worship every inch of your skin.”
The possessiveness in his voice should alarm me. Instead, it makes me wetter, desperate for him to follow through on that promise.
“Talk is cheap.” I challenge him with a smile. “Show me what you’ve got.”
His laugh is dark velvet. “Careful what you wish for, Regina.”
Then he’s moving lower, mouth exploring places no one has touched with this kind of reverence. My head falls back against the table as he spreads my thighs, his fingers finding me already slick with wanting.
“Look at you.” His voice is rough velvet. “So responsive. So ready. Has anyone ever really taken their time with you?”
The question makes my chest tighten. I’ve been touched before—experimental encounters in college, clumsy attempts at connection that always felt like performance—but never like this.
Never with this kind of focused attention that has nothing to do with his own pleasure and everything to do with mine.
“No,” I admit, voice barely a whisper.
“Then let me show you how it should be.” His tongue finds my clit, and I arch off the table with a gasp. “Let me show you what it feels like to be worshipped.”
Everything narrows to this—his mouth, his hands, the relentless precision of his touch. I’m shaking against the table, pleasure coiling tighter and tighter until I can barely breathe.
“Mauricio—” His name is a prayer, a curse, a surrender.
He answers by intensifying his rhythm, driving me toward the precipice. Then—a deliberate edge of sensation—and I break apart, pleasure rippling outward in concentric waves that leave me breathless and shaking.
“That’s it.” His voice is rough satisfaction. “Let me see you. Let me feel you.”
Before I can recover, he’s positioning his cock at my entrance, thick and heavy and promising. My eyes flutter open to meet his, and what I see there makes my breath catch—raw need and possessiveness and something that looks terrifyingly like adoration.
“Last chance to change your mind.” But his voice is strained, his control clearly fraying.
“Fuck me, Mauricio.” I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him closer. “Or I’ll find someone who will.”
The threat makes his eyes flash with something dangerous. “There will never be anyone else for you again.”
Then he’s pushing inside—slowly, deliberately, letting me feel every inch as he stretches and fills me. There’s a brief flash of discomfort, a sharp intake of breath, but it’s quickly overwhelmed by the rightness of him settling deep within me.
“Christ,” he breathes against my neck. “You feel like coming home.”
The words hit harder than they should. Home. Something I’ve never had, something I’ve spent my entire life searching for without knowing what I was looking for.
I wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him down for a kiss as he begins to move. Each thrust is a claim, a possession, a silent promise that this is just the beginning of something neither of us will be able to walk away from.