Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Zara
My hands were shaking so badly that I could barely grip the zipper of my suitcase.
Outside, the city lights blurred through my tears. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. All I could see was her hand on his chest. Her smirk. His lips against her ear.
I threw the last of my things into the bag—the dress he’d bought me, the perfume he’d left on the nightstand, the stupid silk robe that smelled like him. I didn’t want any of it. I wanted to scrub every trace of Lorenzo Falcone off my skin and pretend I’d never been stupid enough to believe him.
In the midst of it all, the door to the penthouse burst open, but I didn’t need to turn around. I knew the weight of his presence, the way the air changed when he walked into a room.
“Going somewhere?”
I yanked the zipper closed, my voice brittle. “I’m leaving. Just leave me alone.”
“The hell you are,” he shot back.
His hand closed around my arm, spinning me around. I stumbled, almost falling into his chest, and the contact sent a jolt of fury through me.
“Let go of me!”
“No.”
I shoved him but he didn’t move so I shoved him again, harder, my palms slamming against his chest.
“I hate you!” The words ripped out of me, raw and broken. “I hate you! You’re just like every other man—lying, cheating, using me—”
“I didn’t cheat on you.”
“I don’t care!” I was sobbing now, hitting him with my fists, my nails scraping against the fabric of his shirt. “It’s only a matter of time until you do! I can’t do this!”
I slammed my palm flat against his chest. “Get off me!”
He didn’t even flinch. My hands were like a leaf against a mountain. I hit him again, a wild, desperate shove, my fingernails raking across the fabric of his shirt. It felt pathetic, useless, but I couldn’t stop.
“Do. It. Again,” he growled, his eyes black with something ancient and hungry.
I snarled and pushed at him with both hands.
For a second, I thought I’d actually moved him.
Then his hands were on me, catching both of my wrists in one of his hands.
The silk of his tie bit into my skin as he wrapped it around them once, twice, pulling it tight until the blood hummed in my fingertips.
“Lorenzo, stop—”
He ignored me, grabbing a handful of my hair, yanking my head back, and marched me across the hardwood floor. My bare feet stumbled. I clawed at the air, twisted in his grip, but he was iron and fire.
“Lorenzo, stop,” panic now threading through my thoughts.
“You’re not leaving me.” His voice was a growl against my ear. “You’re my wife. You’re not going anywhere.”
“I’m not your anything—”
“You’re my everything.” He shoved me backward, hard, until my back hit the glass of the large floor-to-ceiling windows. The cold seeped through my thin shirt. Outside, the city glittered, a thousand lights watching us.
His body pressed against mine, pinning me in place. The tie binding my wrists was trapped between us, and I could feel the heat of him through every layer of clothing.
“Let me go,” I whispered, but my voice had lost its edge.
He was in front of me now, his hand gripping my chin, tilting my face up. His thumb brushed across my jaw, rough and possessive. “No.”
He pressed me against the glass, his body a cage of muscle and heat. The glass was freezing against my bare skin, but the heat of him burned through my thin shirt.
He dropped to his knees.
My breath caught as his hands found the waistband of my jeans, yanking them down my thighs along with my panties. The cool air hit my bare skin, and I shivered.
“Lorenzo—”
Before I could finish, his mouth found me.
I cried out, my bound hands flying to his hair, gripping the dark strands as his tongue worked against me — devouring me like I was his last meal, like he was starving and I was the only thing that could save him.
I tried to fight it. Tried to hold onto the anger. But my hips rolled against his face. My thighs clenched around his ears. And then he slid two fingers inside me, curling them just right, until I shattered against his tongue with a sob.
He didn’t stop. He licked me through it until I was trembling and weak and barely able to stand.
Only then did he stand.
He looked at me with those hungry dark eyes before grabbing my bound wrists and spinning me around, my breasts pressed flat against the freezing glass.
“Look at that,” he murmured against my ear, his hand fisting in my hair, pulling my head back. “Look at all those people out there. They don’t get to have you. But I do.”
I cried out in response, unable to form words.
“You’re so goddamn stubborn,” he hissed. “So convinced you’re not enough. But I’m going to show you. I’m going to fuck it into you until you see yourself the way I do.”
I heard him spit into his palm, heard the wet sound of him stroking himself, and my body betrayed me—my knees went weak, my pussy flooding with heat.
“Don’t you dare close your eyes,” he commanded. “You’re going to watch.”
He grabbed my hair, forcing my head to the side so I could see us in the window’s reflection: me, bent over, face flushed, tits spilling out of my torn shirt. Him, behind me, rock hard, his cock glistening.
“Look at yourself,” he growled. “Look at how fucking beautiful you are. These tits?” His free hand cupped my breast, squeezing hard enough to make me whimper. “Perfect. These hips?” He slid his hand down and gripped my ass. “Made for me. Every inch of you was built for me.”
“Please—”
“Please, what?” He pressed the head of his cock against my wet slit, teasing, not pushing in. “Please fuck you? Or please let you run again?”
I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know which was true anymore.
I heard the slick sound of him stroking himself. Then came the wet heat of his head nudging against me, sliding, finding my entrance.
Then he slammed into me fully.
A scream tore out of my throat—raw, desperate as he rushed into me fully. He didn’t stop. He pulled out and drove back in, deeper, harder, his hips slapping against my ass, his balls smacking my wet flesh.
“Say my name,” he snarled, driving deeper. “You know how much I love to hear it coming from your lips.”
His hand snaked around my throat, his other hand gripping my hip hard enough to bruise.
“Fuck, Lo—!” I stopped myself, refusing to give into him.
“So fucking stubborn,” he growled with the first thrust.
“So fucking smart.” Another thrust, deeper.
My nails scraped against the tie.
“So fucking gorgeous.” Third. Fourth. A rhythm of possession and worship.
He reached around, grabbed my breast, and pinched my nipple until I cried out. “These tits. I dream about them. I dream about your mouth, your cunt, the way you feel when you come around my cock.”
“I—I can’t—”
“Yes, you can.” He drove into me harder. “You can take it. You can take all of me. Because you’re not broken, you’re not weak—you’re the strongest, most infuriating woman I’ve ever met.”
Tears streamed down my face. Not from pain, but from the overwhelming, terrifying realization that he saw me, all of me. Even the cracked, ugly parts I tried to hide. And he wanted them anyway.
“That ass,” he groaned, grabbing my cheeks, spreading them, watching himself slide in and out. “I’d kill a man over this ass.”
He entered me again. The glass fogged with my breath. My reflection stared back—hair wild, eyes blown wide, lips swollen from where I’d bitten them.
“Those freckles,” he whispered, “I want to memorize every one. This chin?” He kissed it. “This mouth?” He bit my lower lip, pulled, and released. “All mine.”
“It’s yours,” I gasped.
“Say it again.”
“Yours.”
He fucked me against the window, each thrust driving me harder into the glass, the city sprawled beneath us like an audience to our unraveling. And with every stroke, another compliment, another confession, another claim.
“So fucking beautiful.”
“Lorenzo—”
“You’re mine.” He pulled out, then shoved back in, deeper. “My wife. My fucking everything.”
I clenched my bound fists. The city below was a blur of lights. I took a breath. Then another.
“Tell me you’re not going anywhere.”
“I—”
He stopped moving. Held himself deep inside me, a threat and a promise. “Say it,” he commanded.
I moved against him, eager for him to continue. Desperate for him, but he refused to move until I gave in. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He pulled out completely. I whimpered at the loss, but he didn’t give me time to mourn. His hands gripped my hips, turning me, bending me over the edge of the couch.
I heard him spit, then I felt the blunt, thick head of his cock pressed down against my tightest hole.
“Lorenzo.. what are you doing?”
“Shh.” His voice was soft now, almost tender. “I’ve got you. I’m gonna take care of you.”
He was behind me again, his chest pressing against my back. I felt the head of his cock push against my tightest entrance, and I gasped.
“Relax for me.” He leaned over me, his lips brushing my ear. His voice was gentler now, but no less feral. “I’ve got you. I’m not going to hurt you. I just need to be inside you everywhere. You understand? I need to own every inch of you.”
I tried to breathe, to let go.
And just as I took another steadying breath, he pushed in.
Slow. Inch by agonizing inch. The stretch was immediate and overwhelming. A pressure so intense it bordered on pain, but he didn’t stop. He filled me completely, impossibly, until I was full of him in a way I’d never been full of anyone.
He paused, letting me feel him, letting my body adjust to the invasion.
“Fuck,” he groaned, his forehead dropping to my shoulder. “Do you feel that? You feel how deep I am?”
I couldn’t speak. Could only nod as he started to move.
He pressed a kiss to my shoulder. Then another, softer, on the back of my neck.
He began to move. Slow, deliberate strokes, each one sinking deeper. I was stretched so tight around him I could feel every ridge, every pulse of his cock. The glass fogged up with my panting.
Then faster, harder, his hips slapping against my ass, his hand reaching around to find my clit.
The orgasm ripped through me like a shockwave, pulling a scream from my throat that I couldn’t contain. My body convulsed against the glass, my inner walls clenching around him in violent, rhythmic pulses. I was aware of nothing but the blinding white heat consuming me.
Lorenzo followed a second later, with a guttural roar that vibrated through our bodies. I felt him pump into me, hot and thick, filling me so full I felt it overflow, dripping down my thighs.
We stayed like that for a long moment; me pressed against the glass, him buried inside me, our ragged breaths syncing together before his hands found my bound wrists, loosening the tie with careful, reverent fingers.
When I was free, he turned me around. My knees bucking from the sheer ecstasy vibrating in my body.
Lorenzo didn’t seem to care; he just caught me, cradling me against his chest.
“I love you, Zara,” he said. “And I’m never letting you go.”
This time I didn’t argue, didn’t fight.
Instead, I looked up at him. My feral, beautiful monster. The only man who had ever broken me and put me back together in the same breath.
“I love you too.”