6. Alessio
ALESSIO
The copper tang of her blood hits the back of my throat. It’s only a jagged slice along her upper arm, but on her, it looks like failure. Mine. I should have moved faster. I should have put my body between her and the explosion of shards. I should have been the one bleeding.
I thought I had cleaned the wound. Forty minutes later, listening to her breathing refuse to slow, listening to her try to out-stubborn a piece of glass, I saw the shard I’d missed. She didn’t argue. That’s how I knew it hurt.
“Alessio, stop. You’re gripping me too hard.”
Her voice is a low rasp, cutting through the static in my brain.
I loosen my fingers immediately, but I don’t let go.
I can’t. We’re in my private bathroom, the door locked from our side against the rest of the compound, the rest of the world.
The air is thick with the scent of the antiseptic I’ve laid out and the faint, sweet heat of her skin.
I pull the stool closer and guide her onto it before my hands can shake again. I’m on my knees between her thighs, my hands trembling. A man who has spent years cutting into people without a twitch, and now I’m shaking because Amara Osei is bleeding.
“It’s just glass,” she says, her voice softer now. She reaches out with her good hand, her fingers grazing my jaw. Her touch is a brand. It’s a match dropped into a pool of gasoline.
“It shouldn’t be there,” I growl. The words are raw, stripped of the polished, silent mask I usually wear. “Not while I’m standing between you and it.”
I take a clean cloth, soaking it in warm water. I begin to dab at the blood smeared across her bronze skin. The white cloth comes away red, and the doctor in me measures depth, edges, glass. The man in me sees only her blood.
She broke into my clinic. She spent ten years hunting Vane. In less than two days, she has become the one person my hands can’t stay steady around.
The silence of the suite is heavy. Outside these walls, my brothers are arming themselves, the war is screaming toward a climax, and a traitor is breathing the same air we are. But in here, there is only the sound of her shallow breaths and the drip of water into the basin.
“You’re doing that thing again,” she whispers.
“What thing?” I don’t look up. I’m focused on a tiny sliver of glass still embedded in the edge of the wound. My vision is tunneled.
“You get quiet when you’re blaming yourself. I don’t know all your tells yet, but I know that one.”
My jaw locks. I reach for the tweezers. My hands are steady now, the instinct to heal taking over, but the fire in my gut is only getting hotter. I find the sliver. I pull it free with a sharp, clean motion. She doesn’t flinch. She just watches me with those eyes—smart, piercing, seeing too much.
“I brought you into that building,” I say, the words falling like stones. “A shard hit your arm. A bullet could have found your throat.”
“But it wasn’t.” She leans forward, her chest brushing against my shoulder. The heat of her is intoxicating. “I’m a big girl, Alessio. I’ve been taking care of myself a long time. I knew the risks when I followed the money. I knew the risks when I followed you.”
“He killed my brother for forty thousand dollars,” she says then, quiet, like the words have been standing at a door for ten years waiting for it to open. “That’s what Curtis was worth to him. A mid-sized sedan. A down payment on a condo.”
“He was twenty-two. He had a laugh that could wake the neighbors. He loved old jazz records and burnt toast. And Vane erased him like he was a typo in a ledger.”
My hands go still on her arm. “I know,” I say, and it comes out raw, stripped of the surgeon. “I know exactly what it’s like to have your world reduced to a line item.”
I set the tweezers down before my hand can betray me.
I look up at her finally. Her face is inches from mine.
She looks tired, but she looks fierce. There’s a smudge of soot on her cheekbone and her hair is a mess, and I have never seen anything more beautiful.
I have never wanted anyone with a force that hurts to look at.
“You don’t follow me,” I tell her, my voice dropping to a feral register. “You’re with me. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” Her gaze drops to my mouth.
The air leaves the room. I reach up, my thumb tracing the line of her lower lip. She’s so soft. She’s the only soft thing in my life. Every secret I’ve carried for eleven years sits heavy in my veins. Her hands on me make the weight shift.
“Amara,” I groan. It’s a warning. It’s a prayer.
“Show me,” she says.
“Show you what?”
“Show me that I’m with you. Not just a guest. Not just a partner in a vendetta. Show me the man behind the vault.”
She reaches for the buttons of my shirt.
Her fingers are nimble, certain. For once, she reaches instead of retreats.
For a woman who told me she never unpacks her bags, she’s standing her ground with a courage that humbles me.
She’s stripping me bare, and I let her. I let her, because this is the first surrender I have understood in years.
My shirt falls open. She presses her palms against my chest, her skin dark and perfect against the pale, scarred landscape of my torso. She traces the jagged line of an old scar over my ribs, her touch light as a feather but heavy as a mountain.
“You have so many,” she whispers.
“South Loop, six years ago. A job that went wrong and left me the one to clean it up,” I say.
“No more cleaning,” she says, her voice gaining strength. “No more fixing other people tonight.”
She stands up, pulling me with her. She’s smaller than me, but she holds all the power. The way she looks at me strips the command out of my body.
I grab her waist, my large hands nearly meeting around her middle.
I hoist her up, sitting her on the edge of the marble counter.
Her legs wrap around my hips instantly, the friction of her jeans against my slacks sending a jolt of pure, unadulterated electricity straight to my cock.
I’m already hard, a dull, thumping ache that demands release, but I want to savor this. I want to memorize every inch of her.
I lean in, burying my face in the crook of her neck. She smells like rain and blood and her own unique, citrusy scent. I lick the spot just below her ear, and she lets out a sharp, hitching breath that makes my growl vibrate against her skin.
“Alessio,” she moans, her fingers digging into my hair.
“You’re here,” I say against her pulse. “Not running. Not tonight.”
“I’m not running,” she says, and she sounds like she means it.
I pull back just enough to look at her. I need to see her eyes when I say it. “I want you to remember this when the war tries to make you run.”
“Do it,” she challenges, her chin lifting. “Stop talking and do it.”
I wait one more breath, until her hands pull me closer. Then I move. I drag the shirt up carefully around the bandage, slower than my body wants. I want her skin. I want to see her, all of her, the way she looks when the armor is finally gone.
She’s wearing a simple black bra, and I unhook it carefully, watching the bandage on her arm more than my own hunger. She is magnificent. A goddess carved out of obsidian and fire. I cup her breasts, my thumbs grazing the tips, and she arches her back, a soft cry escaping her lips.
I take one nipple into my mouth, sucking hard, my tongue swirling around the sensitive bud. She tastes like heaven. She tastes like the home I never thought I’d have. I move to the other breast, my teeth grazing the edge of the areola, and she whimpers, her head falling back.
“Please,” she gasps. “Alessio, I need—”
“I know what you need.”
I reach down, unzipping her jeans. I tug them down her legs, along with her lace panties, leaving her exposed to me.
I step back for a second, just to look. My god.
Her legs are long and lean, her pussy a dark, inviting nest between her thighs.
She’s already slick for me, and the sound she makes when I look drives me toward the edge of sanity.
I don’t wait. I can’t. I press my face between her thighs, my tongue finding her clit with ruthless precision. She screams my name, her hands clenching in my hair, her hips bucking against the counter.
“You’re so sweet,” I mutter, my voice muffled by her flesh. I drink her in. I want to know the taste of her frustration, the taste of her release. I use my fingers to stretch her, two of them sliding into her slick heat while my tongue continues its assault.
She clenches around my fingers, a rhythmic, desperate pulse that tells me she’s close. She’s close. I can feel the tension building in her muscles, the way her breath is coming in short, sharp bursts.
“Alessio, I’m—I’m going to—”
“Go,” I command, my voice low and dark. “Give it to me, Amara. Give me everything.”
She shatters. Her body goes rigid, a long, high-pitched keen tearing from her throat as her climax ripples through her. I don’t stop. I keep my tongue on her, catching every drop of her essence, holding her through the tremors until she goes limp against me.
I stand up, my own need a screaming animal in my chest. I kick off my shoes and shed my slacks in seconds. My cock springs free, thick and purple-headed, weeping pre-cum. I see her eyes widen as she looks at me, the hazy afterglow of her orgasm replaced by a fresh wave of desire.
“You’re so big,” she whispers, her hand reaching out to touch the head of my shaft.
I hiss as her fingers wrap around me. “I want you to feel only me, Amara. Nothing outside this room, nothing waiting for us out there.”
I grab a condom from the bathroom drawer. Some habits survive even obsession. I roll it on with shaking hands. I don’t want any barriers between us, but I won’t risk her. Not in the middle of a war. Not ever without her choosing it.
I step between her legs again, the head of my cock probing her entrance. She’s so wet, sliding against me like silk. I pause, my forehead resting against hers.
“Look at me,” I say.