41. Ara
Luca’s hand is between my legs. Little moans escape me as I beg him to never stop. He’s become my filthy, intoxicating pleasure, breaking apart all my inhibitions from the inside.
“Come all over my hand like a good girl.” His voice is distant but it’s all the permission I need to—
My eyes burst open. It’s dark but I know I’m not alone in my bed. I swing out at the intruder but my hand is caught. Fear rattles me from my sleeping stupor as I realize what’s happening. The man’s on top of me pinning my hands next to my head so I can’t run. I knee him in the balls and hear an audible wince but not enough to send him flying back.
“So feisty, sweetheart.” I freeze. My heart is racing, thundering through my ears as a subtle relief flows through me at the recognition of Luca’s voice. Then I realize how even more fucked up that is.
“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” I hiss, now properly able to focus on the silhouette of his face.
“Weren’t you whispering my name in your sleep only a moment ago?” There’s a masculine arrogance to his tone. I hate how my body betrays me so easily. That it so quickly fantasizes about him even in my sleep. Worse, he was here to witness it. I am certain there is no place on this earth I am safe from Luca’s attention. That no matter where, he will always find me.
It leaves a bitter taste and I focus on it, pushing past the adrenaline and thrilling remnants of the dream.
“Release me,” I say very carefully.
My gaze drifts to my side table in the dark and he chuckles as he shifts his weight. “I wouldn’t even think about using that cute little pistol of yours, sweetheart. Now calm down.”
“Calm down?” I shift myself to sitting. “You’ve broken into my house again. Has anyone told you it’s creepy to do that at—” I look at my alarm. “Two in the morning without my consent.”
He leans against the headboard as he pulls me into his chest. “I missed you.”
The confession stuns me. I do everything to push past it. I cannot let this man in.
Besides this was most likely all a part of his game, just as much as I am playing my own.
I try to pull away but it’s impossible to break from his grip. “Luca, you can’t just do as you please.”
“Of course I can. Besides I know you don’t sleep well without me.”
My mouth shuts tight. How does he even know that?
Too close. We’ve become too aware of one another and not in the way of trying to use each other.
“Don’t worry while I’m here none of those evil monsters will come and get you,” he teases.
I despise how ignorant he is to the raging storm within me.
“You are the evil monster, Luca,” I grit out.
He chuckles again. “You flatter me.”
My body slowly exhausts into a mild defeat. It doesn’t matter what I say, Luca won’t leave of his own accord. Besides I haven’t yet initiated my plan, so presumably he’s not here to kill me yet.
When did I start assuring myself with a false sense of security Luca would never hurt me?
I can’t break out of his grip, but I also notice he doesn’t make a move to have sex or punish me. When I look up at him his eyes are closed. One opens and looks down on me and a sensual smile spreads.
“Go to sleep, my little stalker.”
“I really don’t think you can keep calling me that since you now put me to shame.”
“I simply have more resources.”
Luca seems off tonight. I don’t know what it is, but I almost sense he’s come to me for…comfort? If that’s such a thing someone like Luca Armani needs or cares for. Cautiously I ask, “Is everything okay?”
“It is now that I’m here with you.”
My heart flips and I hate my treacherous body.
I hate the hopeful feeling that bubbles alongside the realization that ever so tragically, I might be falling for Luca. It’s overpowered by the guilt and knowledge I had every intention of betraying him. Not that I actually believe he trusts me but now part of me wishes I was that person for him.
We could never trust one another.
Not in this lifetime.
Maybe the next.
I can’t betray my mother so easily. I’d already forfeited my own happiness when I first stepped down this path.
I did not come this far to only come this far.
“Go to sleep, Ara,” Luca tiredly mumbles. It’s strange to see him in this vulnerable state. I find myself slowly placing my head back on his chest, surprisingly comforted by the heat and reassurance that radiates from him. I listen to his heartbeat, reminding myself once again this monster is human after all.
It’s unbelievably fucked up. But somehow this monster is carving out an irrevocable impression on me. And I would be the person to put it up in flames.
This timeit’s not a dream when I wake up with Luca’s head between my legs. My fingers automatically feather between his hair as his tongue glides between my folds. “You’re finally awake, sweetheart,” he purrs before sucking on my clit and taking my next breath with him. I arch into him, the warm pulse starting at my core.
He slips a finger in, then two taking a slow lazy pace as if he has all day. His wicked tongue is efficient and greedy, taking everything I have to offer him. I grind my hips into his face. There’s something about having this man devotedly devouring me that brings me to the edge so fast. He’s dangerous. Devilish. And right now, he’s mine.
Luca’s fingers work in and out of me, his tongue wicked on all accounts. I’ve become hungry for his touch, unable to resist what he is seemingly willing to offer. It doesn’t make any sense and yet I’m lying if I said I hadn’t fantasized about it more than once since I last saw him.
My mind always drifts back to Luca. The push and pull continues as a tremble shudders up my legs. I’m right on the edge as my breath comes in short and sharp. “I want to taste you, sweetheart.”
I throw my head back, bucking into him as I fulfill his request. I curse at the forcefulness of my orgasm, getting off on every lick of his tongue as he consumes me. I sink back into the mattress as he lazily still takes and takes.
The alarm on my side table begins to screech. I try to slap the top of it but can’t reach in my awkward positioning. Luca leans over and hits the alarm, but it crashes to the floor under his brute strength. That wild raging gaze is now directed at me as he hovers over me. All lean muscle. My gaze drifts down his naked form appreciating every purposeful carving. The devil indeed.
“We should clean you up.” He lifts me from the bed and I naturally curl my legs around his waist as he carries me to the shower. With one hand cradling under my ass he peels my loose shirt over my chest so I’m naked. He awkwardly twists to turn the shower on, preoccupied by nudging kisses along my throat and jaw.
My lips meet his and I can taste myself on him. I steal all the heat and fire he’s offering me. Greedy in the way I know it might be the last time. With ease he slowly positions my pussy over his cock and let’s gravity naturally take hold as he sinks into me. It’s a startling awakening as he presses my back against the shower’s cold tiles. The hot water runs mostly off his back as if he’s taking away its startling introduction.
Luca holds my hips as I roll back and forth over his cock, riding him to pure bliss. I feather my fingers through his wet hair my next kiss full of tongue and water. Fuck this man turns me on and all I can do is ride his cock like the good little whore he wanted from the start.
“I can get used to mornings like this.” I sigh as he pounds into me against the tiling. Hard slaps smack between us with the friction of the water.
An arrogant smile crosses his features as he bites my bottom lip and pins my throat with a hand. I can hardly breath, but the tightening vice is an erotic promise. Because Luca does know how to work my body. He knows how to fuck me so hard I’m thinking about him for the rest of the day. Right or wrong, he’s always on the forefront of my mind and becoming harder to shut out.
“I like when you’re submissive like this. A good fucking little girl,” he says in warning as his grip tightens. My feet dangle on either side of his hips as I match him thrust for thrust.
I feel alive with Luca. He’s the only person who has seen the ugly version of me, the spiteful, lying, and warped obsession to seek revenge for my mother. He embraces that even at his own detriment. The buildup begins again as I ride his cock, trying my hardest to breathe under his firm grip and I don’t even care. I could die the happiest woman right now. And there’s no room left to be disgusted in myself or unsure about it. Because my body fucking loves it.
“Luca.,” I whine. “I’m close.”
“Me too, sweetheart,” he promises. The thought of him filling me up. Coming inside of me and—
I scream a chaotic climb coming to a crashing end as I loosely collapse into his chest, praying he holds me upright because I can’t do it myself. Luca’s face presses against my ear as he grunts and jerks beneath me. I can feel him coming inside of me, and a feminine pride ripples through me. He’s addicted to this just as much as I am. And I wonder if he’s in just as much denial about this as me.
He lazily presses kisses along my jaw not entirely finished. When he does pull out, he props me onto my toes. At first, I feel slightly wobbly and lightheaded. I trace my fingers down his chest and eight pack, over the smaller scars and snag on a circular one that looks like a bullet. How had I never noticed this one before? With the multitude of scars he has, I know there is a story for each one. Water trails down his every inch of masculine muscle and he pulls me in, ensuring I’m under the water all the same.
Without heels I have to crane my head to look up at him, our height difference obvious. “Is this scar from a bullet?” I ask. It’s close to his chest. Now I feel silly I noticed the jagged one on his back before this one. Did he almost die from this?
He squirts my preferred soap into his hand and begins to roll it over my arms. “Yes.”
Silence. When he looks down at my expression, he sighs and then elaborates.
“That one was when I was seventeen. The first and only bastard who came close to killing me. I was younger and less experienced. It was back in Italy when we went over for holidays, they were part of another gang and I’d been carless when they cornered me. There were four of them and as I finished off the first one and started on the second one of them pulled out a gun. I didn’t have time to avoid it.”
I freeze over how casually he says it. Also by the fact I didn’t know that. I know so much about Luca but I suppose no matter how much research I do, I’ll never know all of him. Unless he tells me himself.
The more time I spend with him, the more I want to know. When I hear something like this, I immediately feel protective and I have to shove it down with every part of my being. I can’t fall for this man. I can’t permit myself to acknowledge those feelings. I’m getting sidetracked from my revenge and refuse to let any man or notion of some twisted romance get in the way of that.
Fuck. I really fucked up letting myself get here.
A lopsided smile pricks at his expression. “What’s wrong, sweetheart? Worried about me?”
Yes. That was the problem. He continues, “I was lucky because one of my father’s men intervened and put them down. By the time I woke up after surgery my father had already busted their club and wiped the family out. Still to this day, my biggest regret is not being a part of it. I promised myself to never be in that situation again. That’s when my father decided to move us here permanently, instead of coming back and forth on his business trips.”
I wonder how that impacted him and his brother without a mother. Never a place to call home until they were dumped here. Perhaps their father moved them here because it had been such a close call. Perhaps even in a world like this, their family cared for one another to some degree despite their violent nature.
That notion made me all the more of an asshole as I plotted to drive a wedge deeper between him and his brother.
I am growing attached to Luca and although he imposes himself into my life, I am finding it harder to push him away and he is distracting me because of it. He needs to go, and it is the only way I could think of.
I can’t leave the country and flee even if I wanted to, shackled by my own father’s restraints of not being able to get a passport. So, I need to provoke old wounds. Luca has to be gone and his second in charge, Ivan back.
Luca’s staring at me expectantly. Like he often does when I find myself slipping into a tangent of thoughts.
“What’s it like?” I ask curiously as he turns my back to him and lathers the soap down my back and begins to knead out the muscles. “To kill someone?”
“Be careful, sweetheart. Curiosity is a dangerous thing. Are you planning on killing me?”
“Don’t you think if I were going to, I would’ve tried already by now.”
I sense the laziness in his tone but there’s also a little bite in it—a reminder of the difference between us. “Not necessarily. Depending on the reason or revenge some prefer to play with their prey first.”
That sits with me like a weight. Luca is in many ways a brilliant man. A scary typhoon. But also this tenderness he shows me now doesn’t match up to either of those things. I wonder if that’s because he’s toying with his prey even now.
Luca continues. “The first time I killed someone I didn’t feel much. Rather, empty actually. Then I was overcome with guilt because I felt like I needed some exasperated emotion in the wake of what I’d just done. But I came to the realization after the initial shock that I felt powerful. I’m sure it’s different for everyone but some come to enjoy it even. The high of absolute domination and power. It feels like playing god.”
A cold shudder runs through me. His confession and sin, guilt free. I twist to look up at him. “Do you…enjoy it Luca?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. No lies. “If the person deserves it and has tried anything against me or my empire. Then yes. But I don’t kill without reason. It always has a message.”
I’m nervous to ask my next question but it falls from my lips. “Have you ever let anyone go?”
His gaze darkens and we can both sense the underlying question. Because the reality is the same man massaging me is most likely going to be my grim reaper as well.
“I have not,” he says with a lethal edge.
As expected. I make sure to not show any sign of weakness or discomfort. I’ll be free of this man soon enough. However, to do that, I need to use this intimacy against him. I need to tether slightly more on his trust.
“I want you to call off the man you have following me every day. It’s suffocating me.”
He seems bemused by the change in topic and my request. “No. Who knows what mischief you’ll get up to otherwise.”
“Luca, I have a life here as well.”
“One you fabricated to get closer to me,” he counters. He’s not entirely wrong. “You do realize, it’s for your safety as well, don’t you?”
“My safety?” I ask suspiciously.
“Not everyone is my friend here in New York. Our public association makes you a potential target.”
A cold shudder runs down me. I can only imagine what type of people might aim for some kind of weakness in Luca’s armor. Weakness. I almost slap myself. As if I am that valuable to him.
“I want them called off, Luca.” I harden my resolve.
He considers me. “What do I get out of it?”
I’m shocked he’s even contemplating it. I just need to push a little more. “I don’t think I should really be offering anything in return for my born given right of freedom.”
“It’s a cheap world, sweetheart, and anything can be bought or taken.”
I huff in irritation and cross my arms. “So what do you want?”
That arrogant smile returns and he stares at me thoughtfully. “You reply to every text I send you from now on. If you don’t, I’ll find you myself and there will be a consequence. Also, I want a key to your apartment.”
I stare at him incredulously. “Why? You already break into my apartment whenever you please?”
“Those are my terms, sweetheart.”
I huff out an exasperated sigh as I let the water wash away the suds before standing on tip toes and gently giving him a kiss. “Fine. Now, I have to get ready for work.” I say before exiting the shower. If it costs me that little inch of freedom once again then consider me an idiot as I try to negotiate with the devil reincarnated.
I wrap the towel around myself, my mind a jumble of whatever this is between Luca and me and I try to rein in my cold resolve once again. It’s never been an issue before to simply ‘switch my emotion off’. There’s too little resistance on my behalf now. I’m too accepting of his intrusive ways and in truth and in some way, I expect it.
I collect our clothes from the floor and something shiny slips out of Luca’s trouser pocket. My eyebrows furrow as I pick it up from the floor and my blood runs cold. It’s the same necklace as my mother’s. It can’t be, right?
I twist it, a sharp breath assaulting my lungs as my gaze lands on the small engravings of my initials. This is my mother’s. Why was it in Luca’s pocket?
Realization dawns on me. “Did you steal my mother’s necklace?” I ask as he walks out of the shower in all his glory.
“I stole a necklace. Yes,” he says matter of fact as he wraps a spare towel around his hip.
A wild storm assaults me from the inside and panic starts to take hold. My fingers crumple over the necklace, the cross stabbing and searing my hand. This was all I had left of my mother. The only thing she left behind that my father didn’t dispose of. Because I stole it before everything was thrown out.
Before he erased her entirely from our home and acted as if she never existed. Before he punished me as a child for crying out for her every night with a fierce yearning that had never fully healed. And the band aid’s just been ripped off. I tried everything in my being to balm over these flared up emotions, shoving them back into Pandoras box because, in this state, I didn’t know what I was capable of. I hadn’t even noticed it was missing. I had been so absorbed in my new world that’s all encompassing with Luca Armani that I hadn’t even noticed he’d taken the most important thing from me.
He can’t have her too.
I clutch the necklace to my chest.
He can never have this part of me.
Too attached. Too complacent. I am both of these things and Luca had no issue taking this, so what else would he take? How much of me was he dragging into his world.
Stupid. I fell for him. But this. My mother’s necklace is a harsh reality slap. He can’t have this too; he can’t steal this part of me that only seeks revenge. I couldn’t do anything for my mother then but I sure as hell would do everything in my power now.
He seems to sarcastically ponder. “Well, I can’t remember exactly which time it was when I broke in. I wanted something of yours so I took it.”
He takes a step forward as if to tuck a piece of my hair behind my ear. I jerk back, keeping the necklace close to my chest.
“You can’t have every piece of me, Luca!”
His eyebrows furrow and his gaze hardens, the light diming from them.
“I can own every piece of you,” he corrects.
“No!” I firmly say. It is the only thing I had left of her. The only guidance I had through all those years in what felt like an empty house with a new family growing around me. All I had was this necklace and the remaining photo. And the thought of Luca… taking it so casually just because he can. “You can’t have this too.”
“How is this any different from you trying to break into my mansion, Ara? It just means I make for a better thief and you’re upset because you feel out of control.”
“I’m so fucking done with you.”
“We’re not done until I say we are,” he growls as he steps forward and tips my chin to face him. That threatening wild blue storm rages within them but I refuse to melt into them anymore. To slowly soften and submit.
I yank myself from his grasp. “Get the fuck out of my house.”
A perverted smile crosses his lips. “I like it when you’re mad at me like this.”
“Perhaps your brother would’ve been the better option then,” I say with spite, knowing it was one of few things that would halt him in his tracks. To shift anything from perverted infatuation to hatred.
It works as his smile drops immediately and I’m faced with the predator. Right now, I don’t even care.
“Be careful, Ara,” Luca warns and the hair on my skin raises with the lethal edge of his tone. But I’ve faced this monster head on before and I will do it again and again to protect what’s left of my mother.
“Get the fuck out. I’m not playing your games today.”
A dark deranged chuckle escapes him, only heightening my own inner turmoil and madness.
“You’re the only one playing a game here, sweetheart.”
My mother. I think of her, alive, laughing, and caring. I will not let this monster replace her priority or place in my heart.
“You got what you came here for right? Your dick wet? Now we’re done. This isn’t any more than that, right?” I challenge him. Whether these feelings I shove down are reciprocated or not, I know the mere insinuation of us being anything other than master and slave will make Luca uncomfortable. I was betting on that.
It’s an immediate reaction as his own resolve hardens.
“You should be grateful I haven’t killed you yet,” he hisses.
“It’s not as endearing as you think. Get the fuck out of my house,” I repeat.
What things do I need to say to slash this man down further? To make him sick of me and enough to give me space to breath. Or at least enough space to royally fuck his world up.
I’d lost myself, confused by this obstacle that quickly turned into some kind of entanglement.
“This lethal tongue suits you.” He tries to provoke me further.
“I’m your sick obsession, Luca. I’m not going to replace some coddled love you’re seeking.”
“Love?” His expression twists. I realize I’ve hit the right fear. His gaze is condescending and lethal. “You very much overvalue yourself.”
“Then leave. You got what you wanted.”
His jaw tics and I can tell I’ve definitely hit a nerve. He had the same fear I did. So it makes it easy to project and attack him for it.
“Count yourself lucky I have business today,” he growls, and I’m hyper aware of my sweaty palms. He’s pissed. But he’s also emotionally shut down. The version of him that was spilling his vulnerability to me only minutes ago, gone.
I harden my resolve because I, in every way, plan to do the same.
Luca Armani has taken too much.
Now he is about to pay for it.