Chapter 11
ELEVEN
RAFAEL
Fluorescent lights buzz overhead, a grating counterpoint to the thoughts swirling in my head. The legal brief blurs before my eyes, the words losing meaning as my mind wanders back to the alley, to Dario, to the heat of his mouth and the bruising grip of his hands on my hips as he fucked my ass. I blink hard, trying to dispel the vivid sensations lodged in my memory, but they cling like cobwebs, distracting and persistent.
My ass still hurts, as does my throat. I can still feel him inside me and I like it.
My office feels too small suddenly, the walls pressing in as if to trap me with my own circling thoughts. I push back from my desk, the wheels of my chair unnaturally loud on the tile floor. Restless energy hums beneath my skin, a live wire of unresolved tension and warring impulses.
I should be focused on work, on the cases piling up and the research that needs completing. But every time I try to concentrate, flashes of last night intrude—the slick slide of sweat-damp skin, the coppery tang of blood on my tongue, the raw hunger in Dario's eyes as he stripped me bare in every possible sense.
Shame wars with a darker thrill in my gut. I scrub a hand over my face, feeling the rasp of stubble against my palm. The slight sting serves as a reminder of the other aches lingering in my body, a roadmap of the violence Dario and I wrought on each other. On ourselves.
My reflection in the office window is a stranger: hair mussed, eyes shadowed, mouth still swollen from brutal kisses. I look wrecked, undone. Nothing like the poised, controlled veneer I've worked so hard to maintain. A hysterical laugh bubbles up my throat, tasting of bitterness and a vicious kind of glee.
Dario was right. The mask is slipping, fracturing under the weight of the ugliness I've tried to outrun. Years of careful self-control and ruthless denial are crumbling, the monster underneath stretching its claws and sizing its shackles.
A knock at the door jolts me from my spiraling thoughts. I straighten automatically, years of training snapping my spine into perfect posture, my expression into one of cool professionalism. "Come in."
The door opens to reveal one of my study group members, her brow furrowed with concern as she takes in my appearance. "Rafael, we were supposed to meet in the library ten minutes ago to go over the Martinez case. Is everything okay?"
I reach for my tie, straightening the Balthus knot with hands that tremble only slightly. "Yes, sorry. I lost track of time. Give me a moment to gather my notes, and I'll be right there."
She nods, but the worried crease between her eyebrows doesn't smooth out completely as she backs out of the doorway. "Sure. We'll be at our usual table."
The door closes with a soft click, leaving me once again alone with my chaotic thoughts. I draw in a deep breath, holding it for a count of three before exhaling slowly. Control. I need to regain control. I can't let one moment of weakness unravel everything I've built, everything I've worked for.
But even as I gather the scattered pieces of my composure, I can feel Dario's presence like a physical weight, a shadow lurking in the corners of my mind. His taunts echo in my ears, insidious whispers promising ruin and rapture in equal measure.
This isn't over. I know that with a bone-deep certainty. Last night was just the beginning, a tipping point in the game he's been playing since that first charged encounter in the library. And now that I've shown my hand and revealed the ugly truths I've been so desperate to hide...
I close my eyes briefly, steeling myself against the rising tide of fear, of hunger, of sickening want. I can't afford to lose focus, not now. Not with so much at stake. I have to be stronger than the darkness clawing at my insides. I have to be better than the brutal legacy encoded in my DNA.
The alternative is unthinkable.
I smooth a hand down my chest, feeling the expensive fabric of my suit, the armor I've donned to face the world. It feels thinner now, more fragile in the harsh light of day. But it's all I have, this costume of civility and control. I have to make it be enough.
With one last deep breath, I turn to face the door, squaring my shoulders and lifting my chin. My mask slips back into place, a little more battered, a little less stable, but holding. For now.
A shadow blocks my office doorway before the knock comes. Not a question, but a statement of presence.
Dario leans against the frame, impossibly large in the confined space. His designer jacket is purposefully rumpled, showing just enough of the weapon holstered at his hip to make my pulse jump. How he bypassed building security is a question I already know the answer to: he goes wherever he wants.
"Heading somewhere?" His eyes drag across my carefully arranged workspace, taking in every detail with a hunter's precision.
I continue packing, refusing to let him see how his appearance disrupts my carefully maintained rhythm. "I have a study group at the library. "
His laugh carries an edge sharp enough to slice. "A study group. Of course you do."
The last file slides into my briefcase with a soft click. I turn, knowing escape means moving past him, through the narrow doorway where our bodies will inevitably brush. Each step becomes a calculated dance of avoidance and confrontation.
"Something I can help you with?" The question is clipped, professional. A lawyer's dismissal.
Dario shifts, blocking more of the doorway. Not touching me, but close enough that I can smell his cologne—expensive, with undertones of raw energy that makes my skin prickle. His presence fills the small office, consuming oxygen and rational thought.
"Just making sure you're not forgetting our little conversation." His fingers trail across my desk, deliberately smudging the precise edge of a legal document. A small violation that speaks volumes about the territory he's claiming.
My jaw clenches, muscles tight with a war between restraint and something darker. "I don't forget anything. "
"No." His razor-sharp smile doesn't reach his eyes. "You remember every single detail."
I adjust my briefcase strap, the movement deliberate. "I have commitments."
He doesn't move. Doesn't need to. His body blocks the doorway completely. "Your study group can wait."
The fluorescent lights overhead flicker, casting strange shadows across his face. Another distortion in the carefully ordered world I've constructed. I see the challenge in his eyes—a dare, a provocation that goes far beyond this moment, this office, this brief confrontation.
"Walk away," I say, but we both know it's not a real request. Not anymore.
Dario steps closer, eliminating what little space remained between us. "Make me."
A familiar refrain. A dance we've been performing since that first night in the library. My fingers curl around the handle of my briefcase—a futile defense against the storm he represents. Outside my office, the hallway stretches empty. My study group waits. The world continues, oblivious to the fault line developing between us .
But something has irrevocably changed. And we both know it.
"Your study group can handle one session without their star pupil." Dario prowls further into my office, each step eating away at the careful boundaries I've established. His fingers drift across my legal texts, deliberately disrupting their meticulous arrangement. "Unless you're afraid they'll notice something different about you."
The words spark heat beneath my collar. My skin still carries marks from last night, evidence of surrender hidden beneath expensive cotton. I force myself to maintain eye contact, refusing to show weakness. "This is a place of business."
"Is it?" He circles my desk, invading the space behind my chair. "Looks more like another prop in your ongoing performance." His breath stirs the hair at my nape. "The perfect office for the perfect student. But we both know better now, don't we?"
My fingers curl around a fountain pen on my desk, its weight a poor substitute for more lethal instruments. "I have responsibilities."
"To who?" His hand settles on my shoulder, burning through layers of fabric. "Your professors? Your study partners?" A soft exhale carries dark amusement. "Or to the family you're pretending doesn't own every inch of this building?"
The truth in his words stings worse than any physical blow. My uncle's influence secured this private office, just like it smoothed my path into Valmont's top-ranked program. Another crack in my carefully constructed facade.
"What do you want?" I keep my voice steady despite the electricity arcing between us.
His grip tightens, just shy of painful. "I want you to stop lying to yourself." He leans closer, cologne and menace filling my lungs. "I want you to admit that all this—the office, the briefcase, the perfect tie knot—it's just window dressing on what you really are."
Heat pools in my stomach, equal parts rage and something darker. The overhead lights cast his shadow across my desk, stretching over case files and legal briefs like an oil slick. Evidence of my attempted escape tainted by his presence.
"You're disrupting my work." Another attempt at professional distance, at maintaining the walls between his world and mine.
His laugh slides down my spine like ice. "Good." His free hand traces the edge of my desk, fingertips dragging across polished wood. "Maybe disruption is exactly what you need. A reminder that you can't hide behind paper shields forever."
I should stand and put distance between us. Should maintain the careful boundaries that separate civilized society from the underworld we both know too well. Instead, I remain frozen as his fingers find my tie, toying with Italian silk that suddenly feels like a noose.
"Did you tell them?" His voice drops lower, intimate as a blade between ribs. "Your precious study group, waiting so patiently in the library. Did you tell them where those bruises really came from? What you were doing instead of reviewing class notes?"
Images flash through my mind: concrete against my back, blood on my tongue, his hands marking ownership across my skin. I swallow hard, my throat working against the constraint of my collar.
"That's what I thought." Satisfaction colors his tone as he reads my silence. "Still hiding. Still pretending. But I can feel you vibrating with it, the need to show them exactly what lives beneath this expensive suit."
The air conditioning hums overhead, pushing stale air through vents that suddenly feel too small. My carefully constructed world shrinks to this moment, this space, this inevitable collision of who I pretend to be and what I actually am.
"I could call security." The threat rings hollow even to my ears.
"But you won't." His fingers slide higher, finding my pulse point. "Because deep down, under all this careful control, you want them to see. You want them to know exactly what kind of monster wears this tailored mask."
I close my eyes, fighting for composure that slips further away with each passing second. The scent of his cologne mingles with leather and paper, creating something intoxicating that makes my head spin.
"Look at me." The command carries steel beneath silk.
I open my eyes, meeting his gaze in the reflection of my computer screen. The man staring back is a stranger: pupils blown wide, color high on sharp cheekbones, every line of his body screaming awareness. This isn't the face I've practiced in mirrors, the perfect image of legal professionalism. This is something rawer, hungrier.
This is truth.
Satisfaction blazes in his eyes. "Finally." His grip shifts to my hair, tugging until my neck arches back. "The mask cracks so beautifully when you stop pretending. When you remember exactly how it felt to embrace the darkness last night."
My breath catches as he applies more pressure, walking the knife's edge between pleasure and pain. Outside my office, footsteps pass in the hallway. Any moment, someone could look through the glass panel in my door and see us.
The thought should terrify me. Instead, it sends lightning down my spine.
"Your study group is waiting." His words brush against my ear, promising and threatening in equal measure. "Go play normal. Pretend this never happened." His grip tightens, forcing a small sound from my throat. "But remember, I know exactly what lives beneath this costume now. And I'm not done exposing it."
His grip loosens, but he doesn't step away. Beyond my office walls, activity in the hallway dwindles as afternoon slides toward evening. My phone buzzes—another message from my study group, probably giving up on me showing up.
"Looks like your perfect attendance record is about to be marred." Dario's satisfaction fills the shrinking space between us. "Such a shame."
Through the glass partition, I watch the law offices empty. Support staff gather their belongings, other students head home, and professors lock their doors. The familiar rhythm of end-of-day routines carries a different weight now, as if the normal world is withdrawing, leaving me alone in this space with him.
The sun dips lower, shadows lengthening across my desk. My legal texts stare up at me, their carefully highlighted passages now seeming like fairytales, simple stories that can't begin to capture the complexity of what I am, what I've always been.
What he refuses to let me forget .
The floor's motion-sensor lights click off one by one as the last stragglers depart. Only my office remains illuminated, a bright cage constricting smaller by the second. Dario hasn't moved, his presence behind my chair a gravity well pulling me deeper into territory I've spent years avoiding.
Night presses against my windows, and with it comes the knowledge that everything is about to change.
The lock on the door clicks into place with metallic thunk. I spin in my chair at the sound, catching Dario sliding a key into his pocket. A key that shouldn't exist.
"That's not yours." My voice sounds distant, even to my own ears.
"No?" He moves away from the door with calculated grace. "Like this office isn't really yours? Like that degree on the wall isn't bought with Valenti money?"
Each word strikes true, dismantling the illusions I've built. The empty law offices beyond my door stretch silent and dark, security lights casting strange patterns through the glass partition.
No witnesses. No interruptions. No escape .
"What do you think will happen here?" I stand, needing to level the playing field, to reclaim some semblance of control. "You'll force me to admit something? Make me confess to being exactly what you say I am?"
His smile turns sharp in the fluorescent light. "Force you? No, baby. You're going to beg for it."
Heat floods my veins, equal parts fury and arousal. I circle my desk, keeping the polished wood between us. "You have a remarkably high opinion of yourself."
"Do I?" He trails his fingers across my case files, deliberately smudging the precise organization. "Tell me you haven't been thinking about last night. About how it felt to finally stop pretending."
My skin burns with phantom sensations: concrete against my back, his mouth hot and demanding, violence transforming into something darker. "That was a moment of weakness."
"That was real." He rounds the desk, eliminating my barrier. "The only honest thing you've done since walking into Valmont's hallowed halls."
Each step brings him closer, forcing me to retreat or stand my ground. Pride wins. I lift my chin, shoulders squaring despite the tremor running beneath my skin. "This fascination with me borders on obsession." I inject ice into my tone.
"Fascination?" His laugh cuts through the darkness. "I just recognize quality when I see it." Another calculated step forward. "All this expensive education, these careful habits, this pristine office—it's like watching a tiger try to convince itself it's actually a housecat." His eyes lock onto mine, stripping away defenses. "But I see those claws you're hiding. I see the instincts you can't quite bury."
My back hits the window. Stars glitter beyond the glass, distant and cold against the city's neon glow. The night presses close, turning the office into an intimate cage.
"We're done here." But I make no move to leave, to fight, to do anything except stand frozen as he closes the remaining distance.
His hand settles beside my head, boxing me in. "We're just getting started." His other hand finds my tie, fingers sliding along silk. "Tell me to stop. Tell me you don't want this. Tell me you don't dream about letting the monster out to play. "
I could break his hold and turn this into the kind of fight these offices haven't seen since their construction. The knowledge sits heavy in my chest, mixing with darker impulses as his grip tightens.
"I spent years," I grit out, "building this life. Creating something separate from the family's legacy. From the violence. From everything you represent."
"And how's that working out?" His thumb traces my pulse, reading the chaos in my heartbeat. "How many hours do you spend maintaining that perfect mask? Hiding the killer instincts beneath designer suits and legal briefs?"
"I am more than my heritage."
"You're exactly your heritage." He presses closer, heat radiating through layers of expensive fabric. "You're a Valenti playing dress-up, pretending these books and degrees can change what runs in your veins."
My hands curl into fists at my sides. "Then what's your excuse? Why spend so much time pursuing someone you claim is just another pampered heir?"
Something flashes in his eyes, something akin to hunger and recognition twined into a weapon. "Because you're the first one I've met who cages the darkness instead of embracing it. The first one who denies their nature so completely." His grip shifts to my throat, thumb finding my racing pulse. "It makes me want to shatter every wall you've built. Makes me want to drag that monster into the light and watch it devour your precious control."
The overhead lights flicker again, casting strange shadows across his features. My breath comes faster as his fingers apply precise pressure—not quite enough to choke, just enough to remind me of his power and violence and everything I've tried to escape.
"Last chance," he murmurs, voice pitched low and dangerous. "Tell me to stop. Tell me you don't want to see what happens when you finally surrender to what you are."
My carefully ordered world balances on a knife's edge, everything I've built threatening to crumble under the weight of his presence. Time crystallizes into this singular moment: his hand at my throat, my pulse thundering against his palm, and the inevitable gravity drawing us toward something I can't deny any longer.
His grip shifts from my throat to my jaw, turning my face toward the city lights beyond the glass. "Look at it. Your uncle owns half those buildings. Your family's power runs through every street." His breath burns against my ear. "You can't escape what you are by hiding in this office."
The heat of him bleeds through my suit, transforming expensive wool into an unbearable constraint. My carefully maintained space feels foreign now, professional distance dissolving under the weight of his presence.
"I chose this life." The words catch in my throat as his fingers trace patterns across my skin.
"No." He spins me to face him, backing me against the cool glass. "You chose a cage. Built it yourself with paper walls and legal precedents." His hand slides into my hair, grip tightening. "But I see how it suffocates you. How desperately you need to break free."
My hands find his chest, caught between pushing him away and pulling him closer. The expensive fabric of his jacket bunches beneath my fingers as electricity arcs between us.
"Last chance to maintain that perfect facade." His voice drops to a whisper against my skin. "Last chance to keep pretending you don't burn for this."
My response comes in action rather than words as I drag him down to my mouth, destroying the final barrier between resistance and need. The kiss burns away pretense, igniting something primal that can't be contained by suits and citations. His groan vibrates through my chest as he responds, turning the exchange brutal and claiming.
Papers scatter as he lifts me onto my desk, legal briefs and case files spilling across the floor. Months of meticulous work destroyed in seconds. I should care. I should stop this destruction of my carefully ordered world.
I don't.
His teeth find my throat as his hands make quick work of my tie, silk sliding free. Each touch strips away another layer of control, of civility, of the lies I've told myself about who and what I am.
"Beautiful." He breathes the word against my skin between biting kisses. "Finally letting go. Finally embracing what lives inside you."
My head falls back as his mouth traces fire down my neck. Professional boundaries shatter like safety glass, leaving sharp edges that cut through years of careful denial. His hands push beneath my shirt, mapping territory I've tried to keep separate from this pristine space.
Beyond the glass windows, Montcove's nights pulses with electric life, indifferent to this moment of surrender. In the maze of streets below, my study group has given up waiting. My carefully maintained schedule lies in ruins, just like the papers scattered across the floor.
"Say it." His demand carries steel as he pins my wrists above my head. "Tell me what you need."
Pride wars with desperation as he holds me there, suspended between who I pretend to be and what claws beneath my skin. His grip tightens, drawing the truth from my lips.
"You." The confession tears free, destroying the last walls between us. "I need you to make me stop thinking. Stop pretending. Stop?—"
His mouth captures mine, swallowing the rest of my words. The kiss turns savage as he releases my wrists, hands moving to rid me of my suit jacket. The expensive garment joins the chaos on the floor, another piece of my costume discarded.
I attack his clothes with equal fervor, needing to feel skin against skin. Each layer we shed reveals more truth, more hunger, more evidence of the monster I've tried to cage. His hands leave marks I'll find tomorrow, claiming me in ways that can't be hidden by tailored suits.
The desk creaks beneath us as he presses closer, situating himself between my thighs. The position should feel degrading, a respected law student rutting like an animal in his professional space. Instead, it feels like liberation.
"Look at me." He grips my chin, forcing our eyes to meet. "I want to watch you let go completely. I want to see you embrace exactly what you are."
Heat floods my veins as he produces a sachet of lube that he works onto his fingers and his dick before pressing his fingers to my tender hole and beginning to tease it. The office lights cast everything in harsh relief—my shirt hanging open, his hands marking ownership across my skin, the evidence of our shared need impossible to deny .
“I need to hear you ask for it,” he whispers, his voice throaty and raw. I can see his blue eyes pooling with desire for me.
“Please, fuck me,” I say. “Use me for your pleasure.”
I feel his fingers urgently pressing inside my sore asshole in response, exploring me, pulling me open for his cock.
“I need your cock..” I murmur and my eyes close.
“Eyes on me,” he commands and my eyes snap open and meet his gaze.
I feel his fingers pulling out of me and his massive cock pressing at my asshole as he uses his right hand to guide it.
I know it is going to hurt when it goes in, but when I get used to it…. well… last night, it just felt so incredible.
He is feral in a way that no previous lover of mine has ever been. Sex with Dario is something I crave in a way I have never craved sex. I never knew wanting to be used was a kink of mine, but here I am, desperate to have his cock destroy me in every which way.
He pulls my legs up over his shoulders and then forces himself into me and grunts in satisfaction as he does so. I see that smug smirk wipe across his face and I wince in pain at his entrance. Although, it does feel like my body adjusts quicker this time. My body likes it.
He begins to thrust into me deep and hard in the same way he fucks my throat. I can’t decide which way I prefer to be used by him. I feel so good for being fucked by him. I feel so good when he looks at me with that fierce hunger.
“Good Little Valenti,” he growls. “I bet your sweet little asshole hurts, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” I gasp in response.
He smirks some more, his blue eyes flashing dangerously. “That’s what I like to hear.” He plunges deep, all the way in till he is buried to the hilt and holds me there for a second as though lost in thought.
“I can’t decide whether to come in your ass or throat,” he says.
I’m not sure whether he’s asking me the question, what I prefer? I doubt it, so I don’t answer.
He pulls out of me and pulls me roughly off the desk and pushes me down to my knees.
There’s my answer.
He thrusts straight into my waiting mouth with no hesitation, holding the back of my head, forcing me all the way down, laughing as I gag.
Two more deep thrusts all the way and he comes hard spurting hot reams of come straight down my throat. He cries out loudly.
At the same time I feel my own release crash through me like a tsunami, obliterating careful walls and civilized pretense. I cry out in Sicilian, my mother tongue claiming me as thoroughly as he does.
The aftermath leaves us breathing hard in the wreckage of my office. Papers litter the floor, my desk bears new scars, and nothing can ever be the same. I stare at the ceiling, feeling the weight of truth settle into my bones.
"No more hiding." His words carry absolute conviction as he straightens my collar, covering the marks he's left. "No more pretending you're anything other than what you are."
I look at my scattered legal texts, at the degree hanging crooked on the wall, at all the trappings of legitimacy I've gathered around myself. They seem hollow now, paper shields against the darkness that lives in my blood .
He steps back, allowing me to slide from the desk on unsteady legs. My suit is beyond salvation, much like my attempts at normalcy. As I gather the wreckage of my professional life, I feel his eyes burning into my back.
"Sweet dreams, Little Valenti.” He leaves me there among the ruins of my carefully constructed world.
I remain in my office long after he's gone, surrounded by physical evidence of my surrender. Tomorrow, I'll reorganize these papers, straighten my degree, and try to rebuild the walls he's destroyed.
But we both know it's useless.
The monster is awake now, and it remembers how to hunt.