Chapter 25
CHAPTER 25
Sienna
T he breath that leaves my mouth is shuddery, and the warning bells going off in my head are telling me to run for the door and not look back.
But the predatory look in Alessandro’s eyes tells me very clearly that if I try to run, he’s going to come after me, and all bets are off once he catches me.
And he will catch me.
I lick my lips nervously, and his gaze zeroes in on the movement, those blue eyes turning fiery as if he’s not wearing my ex-boyfriend’s blood and brain matter.
“No.” The words come out before I can stop them, and at that moment, I realize I’m not actually scared of him. He’s had endless opportunities to hurt me, and he never did.
Something like relief flashes through his eyes.
“Come here, baby.” His voice is gravelly, and my feet start moving my body toward him before the words even fully register in my head.
I’m like Icarus, helplessly drawn to the sun that is Alessandro Mancini. I can’t resist him even if I tried. And God, have I tried. These past few months without him, all I’ve done is try to erase him from my brain, all to no avail.
I even tried going on one disastrous date. I walked into the restaurant, took one look at my waiting date, who was nothing like this man standing before me, and then turned and hightailed it out of there as though my life depended on it.
Right now, Alessandro’s bloody hands come out and cup my jaw, and then he drags me forward until there’s barely any space between us. I can smell the coppery twang of blood, and I wait for the panic to come. But there’s no panic, just the overwhelming urge to fall into his arms and sob.
“Baby,” he rasps, his thumb sliding across my bottom lip.
I move to draw away, but his fingers dig into my hair and hold me in place. Firming my lips, I snap, “You tossed me away.”
“I know.”
“Why are you here? How did you know I was here?” I ask.
Those blue eyes haven’t moved away from my mouth yet. I can see the restraint in them, and a part of me wants to kick that restraint to the curb and take the choice away. Realistically, though, I know this discussion is important.
We can’t just pick up from right where we stopped because we’re just bound to circle back to the same dead end.
“Your father called me.”
My eyes widen. “D—Dad called you? Why didn’t he call the cops instead?”
He shrugs, and I glance over his shoulder at Salvadore’s unrecognizable body. A shudder rolls through me. “It’s probably a good thing he didn’t call the cops, considering it’s one of their own.”
“Hmm,” he hums.
“Why are you here, though?” I sneer. “Are you besties with Dad now? Should I be expecting you at lunch on Sunday?”
One large hand slides down to wrap lightly around my throat, and then he hauls me into his body. “I’m not here for your father. Make no mistake, there’s no love lost between us. I’m here for you. I’m here because I should never have let you go in the first place. I should have kept you in my bed, limp with orgasms and too sore to even crawl out of it.”
My body heats up, and I feel his hardness pressing against my stomach. This is disgusting, rubbing all over this man without a single care about the residues splattered all over him.
I should care more that Salvadore is lying a few feet behind us. I should feel some sadness over him. I may not have loved him, but I thought we’d eventually end up as good friends and laugh about our brief and stupid stint as a couple.
Am I so heartless?
“I’m not sad that he’s dead,” I confess. “I don’t know what I am, but I’m not sad.”
“What do you feel then?”
My breath quickens, and I feel achy and empty in the space where he should be inside me.
“Your father is never going to look at you the same. You may lose his respect,” he whispers. “But if he says a word against you?—”
“What are you talking about?” I cut in, my eyebrows drawn up. “Why would I lose his respect? I didn’t exactly wave a flag above my head with an easy target pointed down at me.”
He chuckles. “You’re something else, Sienna. I’m talking about showing up for lunch on Sunday. Your father’s not going to approve.”
My heart begins to pound so loudly in my chest that it feels like it’s echoing around the vast room. “Are you asking me something, Ale?”
He sighs and then pulls away from me, causing my rising hopes to stutter to a standstill. For a second there, I saw our future rising ahead like the first rays of the morning sun.
“I want you to listen, and I want you to listen well because I’m not going to give you this option again.” He drags a hand through his hair, making the short strands stand on end. “Since I made the stupidest decision of my life and let you go, I’ve counted the hours and minutes all the way down to the seconds.”
Oh God.
“The first time I ever touched you, it was for all the wrong reasons, and when I chose to let you go, I thought I was redeeming myself by finally doing the right thing for you.” His eyes searched mine. “But I’ve come to see that I didn’t let you go for you. I made a decision and forced it on you when I should have asked you what you wanted and actually listened. I let you go because I’m a coward. Because the one person in my life I swore to protect, I let him down, and I cannot bear the thought of letting you down like that.”
“You won’t.” I take a step toward him, but he holds up his palms, stopping me.
“We don’t know that,” he croaks.
“Ale, please.”
He squares his shoulders. “The difference now is that I realize there’s no one who’s going to do half as good a job of keeping you safe. I can let you go and hope I won’t let you down, or I can keep you and do everything in my power to protect you.”
There’s a pause where my heart stops beating. “I choose the latter,” I say confidently. Just like that, it’s racing double time, and tears fill my eyes.
“I love you,” Alessandro finally says, causing the tears to spill down my eyes. I’ve never been a pretty crier, and I know I only have a few minutes before I look like a mess, but I don’t care. He takes a step forward and continues, “I love your stubbornness, your tenacity, and how your smile brings electricity to the dull town of my soul. I love your loyalty, your sense of justice, and the way you keep your head up regardless of what’s being thrown at you. You’re the most beautiful person I know, inside and out, and I want to spend the rest of my life making sure the light inside you never fizzles out. I want to keep you happy, satisfied, and safe. Forever.”
I wipe my face with the back of my hand and sniffle. “I didn’t take you for a poet.”
His mouth quirks up into a strained half-smile. “Before you say anything, there’s something you need to know first.”
“What is it?” I probe.
I watch him hesitate, and trepidation fills me. What can be worse than me watching him reduce a man’s head to tissue? And then I ask myself if there’s really anything that can make me walk away from this man.
“Tell me!” I bark.
His jaw tics. “That night, the blood on my clothes belonged to Tullio D’Addario. I had him hunted down, and then I spent hours slicing him to ribbons, and I had fun doing it. I don’t regret it, baby. And even if it is a deal breaker for you, I still won’t regret it.”
My hand flies to my mouth, not in horror but in shock. “Why?”
“Because he hurt you. And anybody who’s ever hurt you is liable to meet the same fate. I’m not going to apologize for it. You’ve had enough of heroes. You’re long overdue for a villain who’s willing to condemn his soul to hell for you.”
I fly forward, and his hands are right there, open for me. I fall into them with my head pressed to his heart.
“I love you, too,” I sob into his shirt. “I’m so in love with you that it feels like my life has been at a painful standstill since you walked away. I thought I wanted to be free until you set me free, and then I realized that with you, I was the most free to be myself. I’ve been drowning without you.”
“Never again,” he whispers fiercely, pressing kisses into my hair and to my face. “You’ll never be without me. Never again.”
“I know you think I can never fit into your world, but I can,” I tell him. “I’m not my father. I can look past what you have to do and see the man beneath. The good man underneath.”
“You shouldn’t have to,” Alessandro says bitterly. “I’m not a good man.”
I cup his face in my hands and feel the delicious roughness of his stubbled jaw. Then, my face twists into a glare. “You are. You’re a good man to me. You saved my life. You’re not chasing me away, Alessandro Mancini. Get that through your thick head.”
He bends his head and presses his forehead to mine, his fingers digging into my waist. I want him to clutch me tighter, so tight that it hurts and leaves marks on my skin.
Until I remember that I won’t need marks to remind me of him anymore. Now I have him. All of him. A smile pulls at my lips, and he traces the smile with a soft brush of his fingers.
“What are you smiling about?” he asks.
“You love me.” I giggle. “Does that mean I have to start wearing dark suits and being menacing?”
“You’re not going to have any stitch of clothing on for the next few months,” he answers with a scoff.
I grumble, “I should have known it was too good to be true. You’re planning to shackle me to your bed and turn me into your sex slave, aren’t you?”
“Don’t tempt me, baby girl.” His voice is a decadent purr, his fingers tracing maddening circles into the sliver of skin exposed between my blouse and jeans.
“I should have put more effort into Marco. He didn’t look like the sort of guy that—” I know I’ve made a mistake by the way oxygen seems to be sucked out of the room, and his hands lash out and grab my jaw, dragging me up to the tip of my toes until his breath is against my lips.
“Who the fuck is Marco, and how do I find him and extract his intestines from his insides?” he snarls.
I slant my mouth over his mouth, and he opens for me eagerly, one hand cupping my bottom and grinding me against the hard length trapped between us.
Desire uncoils within me, and I moan into his mouth as he takes over, his tongue tracing against the seams of my mouth until I open for him. Then, he’s invading my mouth, sliding the hot, rough length of his tongue against mine.
My body shudders, my pussy clenching and unclenching.
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about this Marco,” he whispers against my mouth, and I laugh, so ridiculously happy that it feels like I can fly.
“I’ll tell you all about him and our hot, perfect date later, and maybe I’ll even—” My words end with a squeal as I’m lifted into Alessandro’s arms. I wrap my legs around his hip, still laughing when he kisses me again and again and again.