Chapter 26 Beatrice
BEATRICE
The water is hot when I step in—too hot, scalding even—but I don’t flinch.
I relish the burn on my skin. I want it to hurt a little.
I want it to wash away the weight on my chest. I want it to burn away his touch that marred my skin in that park.
It’s been three days since my last encounter with that man, and still I can’t shake the coldness that slithers up and down my spine.
I will be seeing you soon, cara mia.
I breathe in the steam and heat. They scorch my nose, but it pales in comparison to the panic bubbling in the deepest parts of my soul. I lift my head and meet the cascade of water head-on.
I got you, bella.
The words my sweet husband whispers before I fall asleep replace the hollow echo inside my skull. They ease the pain—just not enough.
Steam rises around me in waves, enveloping me in a gentle mist that blocks out the rest of the world. In here, I can get lost in the absence of noise.
Arms come around me from behind, and I don’t need to turn to know who it is. Only one man can make my body shudder with a single touch.
Matteo.
I lean my back into his chest and rest the back of my head on his shoulder. His silence and movements are a language I know by heart. His lips press against the side of my neck in a gentle kiss. I melt into him, and he responds by pulling me in even tighter.
“How was your day, amore?”
“Good.” It’s not a total lie. It’s good now that he’s here. “How was yours?”
“Better now.” One of his hands slips down the side of my body until it comes to rest just above my throbbing core. “I missed you today.”
The water pours over our bodies, steam rising all the way to the ceiling. His hand dips lower, his fingers brushing against my lips, and I moan.
“I missed you too.” I turn my head and press the gentlest kiss to his cheek. He moves, capturing my lips with his.
The kiss is short-lived, but the emotion packed behind it is cosmic.
I turn in his arms and press my palms to his chest. My eyes connect with his, and the world stands still.
It always happens with him. Life stops, and all that exists is him and me. His coffee-colored eyes stare into me like he can see every part of who I am.
His hand cups my face, thumb stroking my cheek, and the contact alone sends a shock straight through me.
“Sei la cosa più bella della mia vita.”
Something in my chest gives way. “Ti amo.”
I rise onto my toes and kiss him, but there’s nothing tender in it this time.
It’s raw. Hungry. The kind of kiss that takes instead of asks.
It grips me low in the throat, steals every sound from my mouth as I drive him back until the tiles hit his spine.
Water pours over us, slick and relentless, the kiss turning brutal as our tongues clash, teeth scraping, neither of us willing to surrender control.
His hand slides between us, fingers finding my swollen lips, his touch unerring. I bite his lower lip hard when he presses against my clit, the sensation ripping through me.
“Oh fuck,” I moan into his mouth.
He groans, tearing his lips from mine. “So wet.” His hand moves with ease, confident, knowing exactly how to make me unravel. He hooks my leg over his hip, dragging me closer. “So responsive.”
He pinches my clit and I arch into him, nails digging into his shoulders as a sound tears out of me, echoing off the tile.
His mouth finds my neck, sucking hard, pulling me deeper, while one hand cups my breast and the other works me relentlessly, fingers sliding in and out with slow, deliberate control.
It should be torturous. Instead, it makes me feral.
His mouth bruises my skin, pleasure tipping into pain, my entire body burning under it.
“My perfect Beatrice,” he breathes, teeth grazing my shoulder, the words hitting me as hard as his touch.
His fingers move inside me painfully slow, curling just right, and I push into him without shame, grinding against his hand, chasing more.
“You like it when I fuck you with my fingers, don’t you, amore,” he murmurs at my ear, teeth catching my lobe.
He adds another finger, then another, giving me no time to adjust before the pace increases, the sensation crashing through me like a wave.
“Yes,” I breathe, moving with him, taking every thrust he gives me.
Pump after pump, he fills me until I’m right on the edge, my body straining for release. I reach for myself, rubbing my clit, pushing myself over faster, deeper, chasing the fall I can already feel coming.
“Jesus,” I gasp, every nerve lighting up at once. “Yes—right there. Don’t stop.”
I’m right on the edge, every nerve screaming, when he suddenly pulls out of me. The protest is already on my tongue when he shoves his fingers into my mouth instead.
“How do you taste, amore?” he murmurs against my cheek, pushing deeper, forcing me to take all of myself from his skin.
I moan, sucking, licking, shameless, before he pulls free and crashes his mouth onto mine. The kiss is claiming, violent in its intensity, the kind that rewrites you from the inside out. I disappear into him, completely undone, the way I was the first time he ever touched me.
When he pulls back, I whimper—but it doesn’t last. He turns us, presses my back to the tile instead, and then he drops to his knees.
And takes me with his mouth.
“Oh God,” I cry. “I—”
“Say my name,” he mutters against me, voice dark.
I try. I can’t. The sound dissolves into a moan as I fist my hands into his hair, pulling him harder against me. His teeth graze my clit and my body snaps.
“Yes,” I plead. “Use your tongue. More. Fuck—give me more.”
He does. Of course he does. His mouth works me relentlessly, teeth and tongue driving me higher as one finger slides inside me, then another. My hips rock into him, my slick coating his jaw, my control long gone.
He moves with purpose, smooth and sure, fingers pumping while his mouth keeps me right where I’m about to break. The sensation is too much to hold, too big to contain.
The orgasm tears through me without mercy.
“Oh God—”
My body shudders violently, electricity ripping through my spine as Matteo holds me steady, one hand gripping my hip, the other still moving inside me, his mouth refusing to let go until the last tremor fades.
When he finally rises, he cups my face, eyes dark, satisfied. “I could watch you come undone for a millennium,” he murmurs. “And I’m not finished with you yet, amore.”
In one smooth motion, he lifts me, my legs locking around his waist, my arms sliding around his neck as he presses me back into the cold tile.
Somewhere in the chaos, he switched off the water.
I feel him shift, his body pressing closer, his cock sliding between my thighs, searching. I’m still hypersensitive, nerves lit and aching, and I roll my hips into him, needing more.
He grips my chin, forces my gaze to his. “Tell me how you want it, baby.”
I want to disappear inside him. I want the world to go quiet, just for a second, until there is nothing left but us.
“My love.” His mouth brushes my cheek, soft, deceptive, while his grip on my ass tightens.
“Everything,” I breathe. “Give me everything.”
His eyes darken instantly. His hand locks on my hip and he presses me harder into the tiles, grounding me.
I wait, barely holding still, as his tip drags slowly through my slick, coating himself, again and again. Teasing. Deliberate. My body heats with every pass. My fingers tangle in his wet hair, pulling him closer.
“Matteo,” I complain, breathless. “Enough.”
He laughs low, deep in his chest. “Patience, amore.”
“No.”
I crash my mouth to his and reach between us, wrap my hand around him, guide him where I need him. Still kissing me, he thrusts forward in one smooth motion. He fills me completely, splits me open, drives deep enough to steal the sound from both our throats.
“Oh—”
He’s made for me. There’s no other way to describe it.
I lock my legs tighter around his waist. He pulls out slowly, painfully slow, stretching the moment until I’m shaking, then slams back into me with force that knocks my head into the wall.
My back flattens against the tile as he keeps moving, relentless.
Our mouths stay fused, every sound swallowed between us.
Fuck.
“Matteo,” I tear my mouth from his. “This—this—”
I can’t finish the thought. He’s heaven and ruin tangled together, everything I crave and everything that will undo me.
His mouth drops to my breast. He takes my nipple between his lips and sucks hard, teeth biting down just enough to send heat ripping through my body, pleasure detonating low and fast.
His pace quickens. His mouth kisses parts of my skin, leaving his mark everywhere he touches.
“Mine,” he growls, driving into me harder now. “All. Fucking. Mine.”
Each word lands with a brutal thrust, and I meet every one, taking him just as fiercely.
“Look at me,” he demands, pushing deeper, rougher. “I want to see you come undone while I fill you.”
And I do.
I lock my eyes on his, wide, shaking, already unraveling again. He drives into me over and over, every stroke deliberate, possessive, like he’s carving his name into me. And I let him. I’ve been his since the night we met on that rooftop.
My nails bite into his shoulders. Thought disappears. Breath disappears. There’s only sensation.
“Matteo!”
“That’s it, baby,” he pants. “Take it all.”
My body clenches around him, tight and desperate, like it wants to keep him there forever. I could live in this moment.
“Who do you belong to, Beatrice?”
“Matteo,” I moan, the word barely making it out.
“Again,” he snaps, thrusting harder. “Who do you belong to?”
“You!” I scream. “I’m yours, Matteo.”
“Come for me,” he growls. “Unravel for me.”
The climax hits like lightning—violent, blinding. I cry out, clinging to him as pleasure tears through me, my body shaking against the cold tile.
He follows with a raw shout of his own. “Fuck, amore—fuck.”
We ride it out together, every wave shared, every tremor matched.
When my legs finally hold me again, he guides me out of the shower and to the sink, wraps a towel around my body and pulls me back against him, towel to towel, solid and warm.
I wipe the steam from the mirror and stare at our reflection. His arms slide around me, his chin resting on my shoulder, his lips brushing my damp skin.
“Look at us, amore,” he murmurs. I meet his eyes in the glass. “Seven years later, and I’m still as madly in love with you as I was back then.”
My chest tightens. “So much has changed,” I say softly. “But you still feel the same.”
“You are my northern star, Beatrice Davacalli,” he says quietly. “As long as I have you, I will survive any storm. Nothing will break me.”
The light in his eyes is unmistakable, steady and infinite. Mine mirror it now, a sharp contrast to the despair that lived there only hours ago.
“Ti amo,” I whisper. “Forever.”
“Forever.” He presses a kiss to my cheek, then takes my hand and leads me back into our room. “There’s something I want to show you.”
He guides me to the bed and sits me on the edge, his smile never wavering as he reaches into the bedside table. When he turns back toward me, there’s a small black velvet box in his hand. I still.
“Matteo?”
He sits beside me, a flicker of nerves breaking through his calm. “I’ve been waiting for the right moment. But this feels right.”
He opens the box.
I suck in a breath.
Inside lies the most exquisite necklace I’ve ever seen. A thin chain of white gold, barely there, holding a single teardrop diamond. It doesn’t glitter loudly. It glows. Quiet. Powerful.
“Matteo…”
“It was my mother’s,” he says. “And my grandmother’s before her. She wore it the night she left Sicily. The night she chose freedom. Strength runs through this piece. Every Davacalli bride has worn it.” His gaze locks on mine. “Now it’s yours.”
My throat tightens. I can’t find words.
He lifts the necklace and motions for me to turn. I do. He brushes my hair aside and fastens it around my neck, his fingers lingering in a way that makes my breath catch.
I turn back to him, my fingertips resting over the diamond. A girl who grew up with nothing now carries the strength of his bloodline against her skin.
“This belongs to you now, mi amore,” he says, cupping my face. “Let it remind you of who you are to me. Of what you mean to this family. Of how I see you.”
For the first time in days, the fear loosens its grip. This moment stills everything.
I kiss him with everything I have left inside me. He pulls me into his lap, deepening it, his hand sliding up and down my spine as my fingers tangle in his hair.
This is peace.
But even as I hold onto it, I know the darkness hasn’t disappeared. Giacomo is still out there, waiting. Watching.
I push the thought away. Just for now.
Because I don’t know how many more moments like this I’ll be allowed before he comes back. And next time, I might not walk away at all.