Chapter Five, Precious #2
I choked on my wine so hard I thought I might die right there, coughing and sputtering as the words registered. Heat climbed up my neck, and I scrambled for a comeback, but nothing coherent made it out.
Heather grinned, setting her glass down. “Lucky for you,” she said, standing and stretching in one smooth motion as she waved at me to take her seat. “I’m in a good mood now that I’m human again.”
Oh, fuck yes.
Like the good boy I would eagerly be for her, I scrambled into her vacant seat, sitting back and doing my best to relax. I watched her as she stole my phone from the coffee table, quickly changing the playlist to something more her speed.
She downed the rest of her wine as she shrugged out of socks and loosened her limbs.
“So,” her choice of song drifted through the air, tension burning higher with each passing beat, “the big, scary mafia man wants a little taste of Heaven. I wonder if he can pay for it?” She smirked down at me as she grabbed the hem of her jumper.
“Name your price.” I slid my wallet out of my pants, offering it to her. “You don’t even need to touch me. Just let me look at you without all those clothes on, and I’ll be happy.”
She took a step toward me slowly, like a cat toying with its prey. My heart raced, and my brain was screaming at me to do something—say something—but all I could do was sit there, frozen, as she closed the distance and yanked her jumper over her head.
When she reached me, she swung one leg over and slid into my lap, her movements fluid as she stole my wallet with her free hand. A second later, her arms looped around my neck, and she leaned in just close enough that I could feel the heat of her presence.
She tilted her head, her grin wicked. “Would you have been this hard if I’d given you a lap dance before?” She asked, her voice low and dripping with mischief as she ground on my dick.
My hands moved instinctively to her waist, steadying her as she shifted slightly.
My laugh came out soft and breathless. “This is better because you know I love you,” I admitted, the words slipping out before I could stop them.
“Before now, you didn’t know for sure. But now…
now you’re not just a beautiful woman I covet.
You’re my beautiful woman. It feels far better than I could have ever imagined. ”
Heather started to sway, her movements playful but routine, and I felt like my entire world had zeroed in on the moment. The fire crackled behind us, and the faint music played in the background, but all I could focus on was her.
It wasn’t just that she was beautiful—though she was, undeniably.
It was the way she carried herself, the way she could turn a teasing moment into something electric.
She was confident in a way that left me completely disarmed, and every laugh, every smirk, every shift of her weight made it harder to remember how to breathe.
How the fuck could I think of anything as she unhooked her bra, chucking it on the floor behind us? How was I expected to be a rational man when her hips bucked and she ground on my lap with enough heat to cause a fire?
“You look shocked,” she teased, her voice cutting through the haze in my brain.
“Because I am,” I replied honestly, my fingers tightening slightly on her waist. “I can’t think straight, amore mio. I just want to take your clothes off and see what you taste like again.”
Her laugh was light, and she leaned in closer, her forehead almost brushing mine. “Relax, Gio. You’ll get what you want. You just have to be a good boy and have some patience.”
“Patience?” I was about to say I had none.
Then she got to her feet and stripped out of her skirt in such a manner that I was willing to wait forever.
If she kept swaying her bare ass in my face like that, I was going to die here.
Frozen in time as I stared at the tanned flesh of the only woman I’d ever love.
The song changed twice before she touched me for real. She just spent the whole time grazing her fingertips over me. Or scraping the tiniest bit of her ass over my crotch.
I was hard enough to break. Hard enough that I had to bite down on my knuckles to keep the moans from coming when she finally, blessedly, took off the last of her underwear and moved closer.
“You look like you’re going to come in your pants.” She whispered as she got on her knees for me, messing with my belt buckle. “Do you want me to make you feel better? I know you like the way I choke on your cock. And I know I love the way you taste.”
Her smile was enough to make me want to marry her then and there. But the way she hurried to wrap her pretty lips around my cock? Fuck, I was getting a ring tonight. One made of red diamonds or whatever the hell she wanted from me.
I just needed to make sure she let me keep her.
That she wanted me to keep her because I needed her.
Needed her plump lips as they puckered, and she hollowed out her cheeks, eager to take me as deeply as she could.
Needed her blue hair wrapped around my hand when I held it out of the way just so I could stare into her eyes as she took me right to the base.
Tears burned down her cheeks, spit dripped down my cock, and all manner of logical thoughts dissipated on the breeze from the open window. All I could think about was her.
“I need to taste you.” I panted, eyes rolling a bit. “If you don’t stop, I’m going to finish already, and I can’t finish until you do.”
Heather let out a low laugh, throaty and dangerous. “Is that a threat or a promise, Reaper?”
“Giovanni.” I panted. “And it’s a plea,” I admitted, already trying to pull her up by the waist. “Let me take care of you.”
Her fingers grazed my jaw as she tilted her head, that calculating glint back in her eyes. “Hmm… what if I want to take care of you first?”
I growled, wrapping both arms around her as I stood—lifting her effortlessly off her knees and swapping our places until she was above the heap of blankets and cushions on the couch.
She didn’t resist, just smirked and locked her legs around my waist, like she’d been waiting for me to manhandle her all night.
“You want to take care of me huh?” she whispered against my ear as I lowered her down. “Is this the part where you read me poetry and worship my thighs?”
“Damn right it is,” I murmured, dragging kisses down her collarbone as I lowered myself to the floor in front of the couch. “I’m starting with the part where I make you forget your own name.”
She hissed softly when my mouth found her inner thigh, her fingers tangling in my hair without hesitation.
I traced my nose along her skin, savoring the way her breathing changed—more ragged, more desperate with each pass.
She smelled like wine and warmth and pure, unfiltered temptation.
Like home, if home came with a soundtrack of breathy moans and sin.
When I finally tasted her, she made a sound that went straight to my core—half gasp, half curse, full power trip.
I closed my eyes and focused, letting instinct and obsession take over.
Every shift of her hips, every twitch of her fingers in my hair, was its own kind of reward.
I wanted to ruin her for anyone else except Atlas.
Hell, I wanted to ruin her for herself. To be one of the few things she thought about when her body ached and her skin burned.
She pressed one heel into the couch for leverage, grinding herself closer to my mouth, and I could feel how close she was getting. Her voice broke when she moaned my name, and I nearly lost it right there.
“Gio—fuck—don’t stop.”
I didn’t. Not until I felt her thighs tremble around me, her whole body arching like the fire behind us had jumped straight into her bloodstream. Only when she collapsed back into the cushions, gasping and flushed and wrecked in the best way, did I rise.
Her big brown eyes were hazy as she reached for me, tugging me down to kiss her like she didn’t care about anything else but having me close. Her lips tasted like wine and wickedness and something deeper—something permanent.
“You good?” I whispered against her mouth.
“I will be,” she said, reaching between us. “When you let me return the favor.”
I groaned, letting her push me back into the cushions. “You’re going to kill me.”
She grinned, already straddling me again. “You’ll die happy.”
She didn’t waste time once she had me beneath her again.
Her kisses were slower now. Her hips rolled with quiet confidence, but it wasn’t the same flirtatious game she usually played. There was no smart remark, no bratty taunt, no theatrical moan designed to make me laugh and groan at the same time. Just this quiet, almost reverent kind of focus.
And it hit me somewhere between the way she rocked against me and the way her breath caught on a sigh when I gripped her hips.
She wasn’t playing.
This wasn’t a performance. This was her meaning it.
I cupped her face with one hand, thumb brushing her cheekbone. “You’re quiet,” I said gently, reading the look in her eyes. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
She paused. Just for a second. Then she nodded once.
But her voice cracked anyway.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her forehead pressing to mine. “I’m sorry I thought you were the villain in my story.”
The words punched something open inside me.
She kept going.
“I knew you. Deep down, I knew you. I should’ve made sure my evidence was foolproof—not just let grief and anger control me.
Even without the parts Atlas manipulated, I still thought it was you.
And I know you said I didn’t hurt you with what I did…
that my revenge thing wasn’t bad. But I don’t care.
I don’t like that I did it to you. That I thought you could do… do such a thing to Missy.”
I let her speak. Every word felt like a breath of cold air after weeks underwater.
But when she started to look away, I stopped her—just gently, with a hand at the back of her neck, bringing her back to me.
“I was hurt,” I admitted softly. “A little. That you thought I could do something like that. That you thought I was capable of hurting Melissa.”
She winced at the name, eyes glossy.
“But I slept on it,” I continued. “And I get it now. I really do.”
My hands rubbed soothing circles against her back, keeping us grounded in the quiet warmth of the firelight and the blanket-nest beneath us.
“You needed revenge,” I said. “You needed something to aim the pain at. And if you hadn’t gone looking…
if you hadn’t let yourself fall into that dark place, we wouldn’t be here now.
That was why Atlas twisted things. Why I didn’t say right away that I was innocent.
You needed someone to blame, and I am okay with it being me. ”
I looked around the room—the soft music, the pillows, the faint scent of lavender and citrus battling it out in the background—and back at her.
“If not for your plan, we would not be in this cabin. Hiding from monsters. Together.”
Her bottom lip trembled just enough to make my heart ache, but then she smiled. Just a little.
A real smile. The kind that broke past all the sharp edges.
I smiled back, brushing my nose against hers.
She kissed me again—slow and sweet, hips rocking with new purpose. Our bodies met in sync, not rushing for once. Like we were trying to memorize each other and the ghosts in the room had been put to rest for just one night, and we were choosing softness instead of survival.
It was sweeter than anything we’d done before. Sweeter than it had any right to be.
Because she didn’t crack a single joke. Not then, and not for the weeks that followed. We just existed… and I liked existing.
Being Giovanni was far better than being Reaper had ever been.