Chapter 39
SEBASTIAN
She needed to stop.
Stop with the questions.
Stop with the accusations.
Stop looking so fucking vulnerable and broken.
Guilt and rage pulsed through my veins.
I kissed her out of fear and desperation.
Fear that I would ruin everything by telling her the truth.
Desperation that the moment she learned that truth, she would leave…no, not just leave…leave me.
For men like me, emotions like that quickly turned into anger.
Anger was familiar.
Anger was productive.
Anger got the job done.
I sank my teeth into her lower lip, needing to taste her blood. Wanting to cause her pain. Wanting her to feel the same sharp, high emotion coursing through me.
Her small fists beat against my arms and chest, but I refused to relent.
I captured her mouth again, the metallic tang of her blood mixing with the remnants of champagne still on her lips.
I stepped forward, forcing her body back against the rough trunk of a tree.
I twisted my fingers in her hair, holding her head steady, turning my kiss into an assault of possession. I moved my right hand to the bodice of her dress, frustration building at the fabric separating us.
I needed to feel her skin, her warmth, her heartbeat pounding against me.
I was a man possessed.
I dug my fingernails into the delicate fabric of her collar and tore downward.
Diamonds and pearls scattered across the stone pavement, their tiny pings lost in the thundering rush of blood in my ears.
But nothing drowned out her cries.
I moved my lips from her mouth to her cheek, tasting the salt of her tears.
“Please, Sebastian. I’m begging you. Please just let me go,” she sobbed, her fingers digging into the flesh of my upper arms.
I froze, staring down at her tear-streaked face.
Her sapphire-blue eyes glistened, sparkling with unshed tears, their brilliance made sharper by the rawness of her emotion.
This was the moment.
I could have her on a plane back to New York within the hour.
In a few months—maybe weeks, maybe days—she’d forget all about Rome.
Forget about me.
She could return to her life, unscathed.
Innocent.
Free.
I could find another way to stop her father’s plans for the House of Diamanti. I was a man of business with unlimited resources. There was always another way, another plan.
I didn’t have to destroy her life.
I didn’t have to be that man.
That monster.
My father’s son.
I could choose to let her go, as she'd so sweetly begged.
I could stop the pain I'd started.
Because I knew, after tonight, it would only get worse.
Her father had seen her.
He knew.
I had seen it in his eyes, the exact moment he realized the truth: not only had her mother survived his murder attempt, but she had borne him a daughter.
And worse, he knew she was under my control.
After tonight, there would be no turning back.
But there was still time…if only I would relent.
My kiss had left her pretty mouth swollen, her lower lip smeared with a drop of blood.
She was a trapped bird. I had a choice, and all I had to do was open my hands…or squeeze them tighter.
“I’m sorry, mia piccola,” I murmured.
My decision was made.
I swallowed her sob, even as I wrapped my arms tightly around her. I swung our bodies away from the tree.
With my thigh wedged between her legs, I lowered her to the sweet grass.
It wasn’t enough to touch her.
I needed to feel the press of my body down onto hers. I slipped my hand lower, reaching for the hem of her dress while I shifted my hips against hers, trying to ease the growing ache in my cock.
I trailed my mouth over her lips, her cheek, the sharp line of her jaw. “Bella, bella, bella. Please, mia bella. Open for me.”
Her fingers twisted in the fabric of my shirt as she raised soulful eyes to mine. “I’m so scared, Sebastian. I don’t know what to think. I feel lost.”
I skimmed my hand along the warm skin of her thigh. “There is nothing to think about, only to feel.”
She shook her head and pushed against my chest as she tried to rise. “No. That’s not good enough. I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”
The rage, which had still simmered barely below the surface, rose again.
It was an almost feral drive to dominate and claim.
A drive to control her.
I reared back onto my knees and reached for my belt. After whipping it off, I held the leather strap between my hands. “Don’t make me do this, Sabrina.”
Her eyes widened. “This has gone far enough.”
With that, she leaned up on her forearm and rolled her hips to the side as she tried to escape me.
With the belt in one hand, I snaked out my arm to wrap it around her throat. I then slipped the flap through the buckle and tightened it.
Not enough to cut off her oxygen, but enough to threaten.
Her fingers flew to the leather and yanked on it.
Knocking her arm aside, I pushed her back onto the grass. “I warned you not to cross me.”
Her lips trembled. “Please, Sebastian.”
I wrapped the leather strap around my left palm, anchoring my arm near her head. “No one gets in the way of what I want.”
I reached between her thighs and tore her panties aside. When I cupped her pussy, her delicate cream eased my fingers inside.
She could protest all she wanted, but her body didn’t lie.
“You feel that, babygirl? That’s you wanting this as much as I do.”
“No! I hate you!”
My mouth lifted in a smirk as I reached for my zipper. “There is a fine line between hate and love, dolcezza. It’s called lust.”
I pulled out my cock and rubbed the head along the seam of her pussy.
Her hips bucked. “Don’t you dare!”
I tugged on the belt around her throat, just enough to tighten it slightly. “We’re far past daring, my love.”
With a shift of my hips, I drove my shaft deep inside her.
The clasp of her pussy around my flesh was the sweetest hell.
She cried out as her fingernails dug into the silk of my tuxedo shirt.
I pulled back and thrust in again.
Then again.
I ran my mouth over the curve of her breast as I tasted the rapid beat of her heart against her skin.
Her legs wrapped around my hips, pulling me in closer.
I flicked and teased her erect nipple through the lace of her bra with my tongue as I pounded into her harder and faster, reaching for heaven’s ecstasy.
I wanted to both punish and please her with my cock.
With a shift of my hips, I entered her even more deeply.
Fuck, I was so close.
My balls tightened, but I wouldn’t come before her.
With my free hand, I reached down between our bodies to rub her clit and swept the side of my thumb over the delicate bundle of nerves, applying just enough pressure.
Her legs tightened around my hips.
“That’s it, babygirl. Come for me. Only me.”
With her head thrown back, she raged through clenched teeth, “I hate you for this! I hate you!”
“I know, baby. I know."
I licked her skin, tasting the tang from my leather belt still wrapped around her throat.
With a scream, she came.
Her body twitched and bucked beneath mine as I gently tightened the leather strap around her neck, knowing the powerful game of cheating death would increase her pleasure that much more.
Her pussy contracted around my shaft with each ripple of her orgasm.
It drove me over the edge.
I thrust several more times, grinding my hips against her pelvic bone. My cock swelled.
I thrust one more time, aching to bury myself so deep inside of her I’d touch God.
I opened my mouth and uttered a guttural moan, which vibrated inside my chest as I came.
My seed filled her while I continued to fuck her inside our now damned garden of Eden.
And I hoped with all my tormented soul that this was the night she’d conceive my child.
I wanted her pregnant. I wanted my flesh and blood growing inside of her.
Not for revenge.
Not for my family.
Not for the House of Diamanti.
But for me.
Because I wanted to bind her to me—forever.
I knew now that even in death, I would give her no peace.
She was mine, and I was keeping her.
My world was a gilded cage, beautiful and inescapable, and once she stepped fully inside, there would be no way out.
Not for her. Not ever.