Chapter 4 #2
"Then let me leave Chicago!" she yells, taking a step back as I take a step forward. Her bare heel hits the edge of the velvet sofa. "I'll go to Ohio. I have an aunt in Ohio. I'll change my name. I don't care about your mafia war, Dominic! I just want my life back!"
"Your life is here."
"I don't belong to you!"
"You do." I close the final few feet between us, my sheer size forcing her to tilt her chin up to maintain eye contact.
I am a massive man, broad-shouldered and thick-chested, carrying two hundred and twenty pounds of muscle honed by paranoia and violence.
Sienna is five-foot-four, a delicate, vibrant creature composed of soft curves and floral scents.
I crowd her against the edge of the sofa, lifting my hands. She flinches, a tiny, involuntary movement that makes my chest physically ache. I don't grab her wrists. I don't restrain her. Instead, I bring my hands up and carefully, deliberately, cup her face.
My palms are large enough to cradle her entire jawline.
My thumbs brush over the high, flushed apples of her cheeks.
Her skin is impossibly warm, practically radiating heat into the calluses of my hands.
I can smell the expensive French hand cream I mapped into her thorn-scraped fingers last night, mingling with the erratic, terrified scent of her sweat.
"Look at me, Sienna," I command softly.
She swallows hard. The pulse at the base of her throat beats against her delicate skin like a trapped bird. Her hazel eyes are bright with unshed tears, but beneath the fear, I see the fire. I see the woman who walked into a room full of torture and dropped a vase of peonies, refusing to look away.
"I am a violent man," I tell her, the truth of it scraping against my vocal cords.
"I have done things that would make you sick to your stomach.
I have traded lives like currency. I have ruined people I love.
But the moment I looked up from that floor and saw you standing in the doorway, every single priority I have ever had ceased to exist."
My thumbs slide over her cheekbones, tilting her face up a fraction of an inch higher. I study the exact anatomy of her mouth. The plush, pink fullness of her lower lip. The sharp, perfect bow of her upper lip.
"I cannot let you go to Ohio," I whisper, the obsession bleeding freely into my words. "I cannot let you walk out that door. The thought of another man looking at you—of a Bellanti soldier even knowing your name—makes me want to burn this entire city to the foundation."
Sienna's chest heaves. Her chest rises and falls rapidly against the black silk. She reaches up, her small hands wrapping around my thick wrists as if to push me away, but her grip is weak. Her fingers curl against my skin, grounding herself.
"You don't even know me," she breathes, a desperate, wavering protest.
"I know you," I reply, leaning in until the tips of our noses graze.
The heat radiating between our bodies is a physical, palpable force.
Gravity shifts in the room, pulling my center directly into hers.
"I know that you smell like rain and wet earth.
I know that you take your tea with honey, because I watched you pour it via the L'Ombra security feed while I was reviewing the Saturday vendor rotations. "
Her eyes snap wide open. The shock eclipses the fear. "You... you were watching me?"
"You've delivered to L'Ombra every Saturday for four months," I tell her, the dark possessive truth finally given air.
"I approved the vendor list. I saw your photograph on the file.
I convinced myself it was just a formality—a Don checks every contractor involved in his operations.
But I kept pulling up that feed. When I was finally on the ground in Chicago, I sat in my SUV across the street and watched you arrange lilies in the window.
I told myself I was assessing risk." A pause.
"I was hunting. I just hadn't admitted it yet. "
"Dominic—"
I don't let her finish the sentence. I can't take another second of the distance.
My right hand slides from her cheek, plunging deep into the heavy, copper mass of her hair at the back of her head. I grip the thick strands, anchoring her skull, and bring my mouth crashing down onto hers, my left hand coming up to cup her face and hold her still.
The impact is explosive.
It isn't a gentle kiss. It is a collision of twenty years of starving restraint and an instant, catastrophic biological demand. My lips part hers with blunt force, swallowing her startled gasp. The taste of her detonates across my tongue—sweet, clean, intoxicatingly pure.
Sienna's hands tighten convulsively around my wrists. She pushes against me for exactly one second, a token resistance, before the undeniable, chaotic chemistry between us completely shatters her defenses.
Her lips soften under the punishing pressure of mine.
She opens for me, and I take everything.
I sweep my tongue into the hot, wet cavern of her mouth, stroking against hers with a heavy, claiming rhythm.
The friction sends a violent jolt of pure heat straight to my cock, the thick, rigid length of it straining against my tailored trousers, aching to split her open.
A tiny, desperate whimper vibrates in the back of Sienna's throat. The sound destroys the last remaining shred of my control.
I wrap my left arm tightly around her waist, my large hand splaying wide across the small of her back.
I haul her flush against my body, lifting her slightly so her toes barely brush the hardwood floor.
The physical contact is a revelation. I can feel the soft, yielding curve of her belly pressing into the hard, thick ridge of my erection.
Through the thin, slippery barrier of the black silk, I feel the exact shape of her.
Sienna's hands release my wrists. She brings them up to my chest, her fingers curling into the soft cotton of my henley, holding on as if I am the only solid thing in a world that just lost its gravity.
Then, her hands slide upward, dragging over my collarbones, before her fingers push greedily into the silver hair at my temples.
She pulls me closer, deepening the kiss herself.
The action sends a shockwave of raw, primal triumph through my blood.
She isn't just taking the kiss; she is returning it.
Her tongue meets mine, tentative at first, then sliding against it with a hungry, desperate friction.
She tastes like adrenaline and honey. She tastes like the only clean thing I have ever touched.
I angle my head, devouring her mouth, sucking gently on her lower lip before biting down just hard enough to make her gasp. I swallow the sound, drinking her breath into my own lungs.
My left hand slides down from her waist, my palm curving over the lush, heavy swell of her ass.
I grip her cheek through the silk, kneading the soft flesh, pulling her hips flush against my aching cock.
I grind my hips forward, a slow, deliberate roll of my pelvis that presses my rigid length directly into the soft seam of her thighs.
Sienna tears her mouth away from mine, her head falling back over my arm as she drags in a ragged, shuddering breath. "Dominic..."
"Tell me to stop," I growl against the vulnerable, exposed column of her throat. I press my open mouth against her frantically beating pulse point, feeling the hot thud of her blood against my lips. "Tell me to let you go, Sienna. Say the words."
She doesn't say them. She can't. Her fingers tighten in my hair, her nails scraping lightly against my scalp in a way that makes my spine lock.
I drag my mouth up the side of her neck, my teeth lightly grazing the sensitive skin just beneath her ear.
My right hand leaves her hair, sliding down her throat, tracing the delicate line of her collarbone.
The black silk robe has slipped open completely at the top, exposing the pale, flawless skin of her chest.
She isn't wearing a bra beneath the silk. The cool air of the suite hits her flushed skin, and I watch, mesmerized, as the tight, rosy peak of her nipple hardens to a point.
My breathing turns ragged, heavy, and harsh in the quiet room. I bring my large, calloused hand down and completely envelop the heavy curve of her breast.
Sienna's back arches instantly, a sharp, ragged gasp tearing from her lips. "Oh—"
The weight of her fills my palm perfectly.
The skin is impossibly soft, contrasting violently with the rough texture of my hands.
I squeeze gently, kneading the heavy flesh, watching her eyelids flutter shut in overwhelming sensory overload.
I brush my thick thumb back and forth over her hardened nipple, the friction sending violent tremors through her entire body.
"You feel that?" I murmur thickly, my lips hovering just a fraction of an inch from hers.
I drag my thumb across the sensitive peak again, harder this time, feeling the wet, answering heat blooming between her thighs.
She grinds down against my hip instinctively, chasing the friction.
"That is your body recognizing exactly who it belongs to.
That is your biology telling you that I am the only man who will ever touch you again. "
"You're... you're crazy," she stammers, her voice weak, heavily laced with arousal. Her eyes open, glassy and unfocused, completely blown with want.
"I am entirely unhinged," I agree, capturing her mouth in another bruising, deep kiss.
I plunge my tongue inside, tasting her surrender, asserting my dominance over every inch of her mouth.
I grip her breast tighter, my thumb rolling her clit—no, her nipple—relentlessly, my cock grinding through the wool of my trousers until she whimpers into my mouth, her hips rolling against mine in a desperate, erratic rhythm.
I want to take her on the floor. I want to tear the black silk from her shoulders, press her down into the Persian rug, and bury myself so deep inside her tight, soaking pussy that we fuse together at the molecular level.
I want to mark her flesh with my teeth, flood her with my cum, and make her so irrevocably mine that the Bellantis, the city of Chicago, and the entire fucking world cease to exist.
But she is locked tight.
Beneath the arousal, beneath the explosive, undeniable chemistry, her muscles are completely depleted from adrenaline exhaustion.
Her entire world has been overturned in less than twenty-four hours.
She has witnessed a brutal mafia interrogation, been extracted from her life, and had everything she owns packed and moved while she slept.
I am a ruthless man, but I will not take her first time in a haze of trauma. When I bury myself inside her, she is going to be clear-headed, screaming my name, fully conscious of the permanent vow she is making.
Slowly, agonizingly, I pull my mouth away from hers.
Sienna chases my lips for a fraction of a second, a tiny, involuntary movement that swells my chest with a vicious, possessive pride.
Her chest heaves as she drags oxygen into her lungs.
Her lips are swollen, bruised a deep, flushed red from the force of my kiss.
Her hair is a beautifully tangled mess from my hands.
I slowly slide my hand from her bare breast, my knuckles brushing over her ribcage as I pull the edges of the black silk robe together. I cover her back up, though the effort it takes to hide her skin from my eyes feels like a physical punishment.
I tie the silk sash securely around her small waist, my massive hands moving with deliberate, careful precision.
Sienna watches me, her chest still heaving, her hazel eyes wide and completely stripped of their earlier defiance. She looks utterly ruined, completely undone by a single kiss.
"What... what are you doing?" she whispers, her voice breathless.
"I am giving you a reprieve," I growl, my hand tightening one last time against her before I force myself to let go.
"Because if I don't stop, Sienna, I'm going to shove you onto that rug, rip this silk in half, and bury my cock so deep inside you that you'll forget your own name.
I want you fully aware of the weight of me when I finally bury myself inside you—not just having you, Sienna, but occupying you, until you forget there was ever a world outside these walls.
You're exhausted. Eat. Rest. Your cage isn't going anywhere. "
Her throat works as she swallows, her eyes dropping to the thick, obvious ridge straining through my tailored trousers before snapping back up to my face, her cheeks burning a bright, furious red.
"I am going to leave the suite," I say softly, my thumb tracing her lower lip one last time.
"I have a war to manage. I will have Fabio bring you breakfast. You will eat everything on the plate.
You will take a hot shower. You will use whatever you need in the bathroom.
And you will not attempt to leave this suite.
The door is locked from the outside. The windows are unbreakable. "
I lean in, pressing a firm, claiming kiss to her forehead. The scent of her—peonies and fear and raw, wet arousal—imprints itself permanently into the synapses of my brain.
"You are mine now, little bird," I whisper against her skin. "There is no Ohio. There is no flower shop. There is only me. Get used to the cage."
I pull away before I can change my mind, before the animal inside me breaks the leash and tears her clothes off.
I turn my back on her, walk to the heavy oak door, my cock still throbbing with a punishing ache.
I punch in the nine-digit biometric code, the keypad chirping a low, electronic confirmation.
I step out, the magnetic locks engaging with a heavy, pressurized thud that seals her in my vacuum.
She is behind four inches of reinforced wood and a biometric deadbolt. She is exactly where she belongs.
The click of the deadbolt echoes in the quiet hallway. I lean back against the heavy wood, closing my eyes, drawing in a long, ragged breath. My entire body aches. My blood is boiling. My pulse is hammering against my temples with a frantic, lethal rhythm.
I have spent twenty years building an empire out of ashes and blood. I have prepared for every contingency, calculated every risk, anticipated every betrayal. But standing in this hallway, with the taste of copper curls and honey still burning on my tongue, I realize the terrifying truth.
The Bellantis don't have to fire a single bullet to destroy me. They just have to touch the woman on the other side of this door.