Chapter 5
Sienna
I wear a track into the Persian rug at the foot of his massive bed.
The heavy black silk of the robe he forced on me clings to my sweat-dampened skin, the dark fabric dragging against my bare thighs with every agitated step.
It is the shade of his world, the ink he used to overwrite my reality.
The air in the room is suffocating, thick with the dozen peonies blooming violently from the crystal vase on the nightstand, layered over the sharp, masculine scent of cedar and gunpowder that clings to every piece of furniture in this fortified suite.
He told me to rest. The lock on the heavy oak door had clicked shut with the finality of a prison cell, leaving me entirely alone in his space.
Rest is out of the question. My pulse hammers a frantic, bruising rhythm against my ribs.
My lips are still swollen, still throbbing from the brutal, claiming pressure of his mouth.
Every time I close my eyes, I don't see the dark kitchen of L'Ombra.
I don't see the blood on the plastic or the broken men on the floor.
I see the absolute, terrifying clarity in Dominic Costa's dark eyes when he pushed me against the wall and told me he had been watching me.
My lungs hitch. I pause by the massive, bulletproof window overlooking the Gold Coast. The city of Chicago glitters below, ignorant of the fact that I have been entirely erased from it.
My flower shop, my rent, my clients—he dismantled it all.
He dismantled my existence to sever my ties, wrapping me in silk and expensive hand cream so I wouldn't notice the cage.
The heavy thud of the deadbolt sliding open hits my ears like a gunshot.
I spin around, my bare feet gripping the intricate weave of the rug.
The door swings inward, and Dominic fills the frame.
He is a wall of bespoke tailoring and lethal intent, his broad shoulders nearly brushing the jambs.
The silver at his temples catches the dim amber light of the hallway before he steps inside and shuts the door behind him.
The lock engages again with a deafening click.
He goes utterly rigid. He just looks at me.
His dark eyes trace the length of my body, lingering on the deep V of the silk robe where it parts across my chest, dropping to the bare stretch of my legs, and finally rising to meet my stare.
The air in the room instantly grows heavy, the shifting pressure compressing my lungs until I have to part my lips to drag in oxygen.
"I told you to sleep, Sienna," he says. His voice is a low, grating rasp, rougher than it was twenty minutes ago.
"I'm not a dog you can command," I snap back, the anger a desperately needed shield against the sudden, heavy throbbing between my thighs. "And I'm not a piece of property you can just file away in a bedroom while you run your empire."
Dominic begins to walk toward me. His movements are deliberate, predatory. The grace of a man who has spent twenty years orchestrating violence and survival. He stops three feet away, close enough that the heat radiating from his large frame washes over me.
"You aren't property," he murmurs, his hands rising to the knot of his silk tie. He pulls it loose with a single, sharp tug. "You are mine. There is a difference."
"You don't know me!" My voice cracks, betraying the panic I'm trying to swallow. "You watched me from some camera feed. That isn't knowing someone, Dominic."
His fingers pause on the top button of his dress shirt. The use of his first name hangs in the space between us, raw and entirely too intimate. A muscle leaps along his hard jawline.
"I know that you get to your shop at exactly five-forty-five every morning," he says, his voice dropping an octave, slipping into a register that vibrates directly against my bones.
"I know that you unlock the back door first, not the front.
I know that you hum when you cut the thorns off the roses, and that you chew on the inside of your bottom lip when you're calculating your invoices.
" He steps closer, entirely eclipsing my field of vision.
"I know that you drink your coffee black because you can't afford milk, and that your hands are always bleeding because you refuse to wear gloves. "
My stomach drops. I take a step back, but the heavy oak windowsill bites into my lower back. I am trapped.
Dominic closes the final gap. He hasn't touched me yet.
He simply cages me in, planting his large hands on the windowsill on either side of my hips.
He leans down, his face inches from mine.
"I know exactly who you are, Sienna. I have studied every breath you take.
And I knew the moment I saw you in that hallway, dropping that vase, that I was never letting you walk out. "
"You're a monster," I whisper, staring up at the harsh, handsome lines of his face. At forty-five, violence lives in the deep grooves around his mouth and the cold calculation in his eyes.
"I am," he agrees without a fraction of hesitation. "And right now, this monster is entirely at your mercy. Because if I don't touch you in the next ten seconds, I am going to tear this room apart."
The sheer gravity of his confession shatters the last of my resistance. My body completely betrays my mind. A heavy, pooling heat settles low in my pelvis, an involuntary biological response to the absolute, unwavering obsession in his gaze. I don't want to run. God help me, I want to be caught.
I lift my hands, my cold fingers coming to rest against the center of his chest. I can feel the erratic, heavy thud of his heart through the crisp cotton of his shirt. It mirrors my own.
"Then touch me," I breathe, the words escaping before I can stop them.
A low, guttural groan rips from his throat. Dominic's hands snap from the windowsill, gripping my hips with bruising force. He lifts me entirely off the ground. My gasp is swallowed by his mouth as he crushes his lips to mine.
There is no hesitation, no gentle preamble.
It is an invasion. His mouth forces mine open, his tongue sweeping inside to claim the space, tasting of dark espresso and raw, unchecked desire.
I grip his broad shoulders, my fingernails biting into the expensive fabric of his shirt as he carries me across the room.
He doesn't break the kiss. The world spins, a blur of shadow and amber light, until the backs of my knees hit the edge of the mattress.
He follows me down, his heavy, muscular frame pressing me into the mattress. The weight of him is intoxicating. It grounds me, pinning me to the reality of the moment. He breaks the kiss to drag his mouth along my jaw, his teeth scraping the sensitive skin just below my ear.
"Mine," he breathes against my neck, his hot breath making my stomach tighten. "Say it, Sienna. Say you're mine."
"Dominic—"
"Say it." His hand slides up my thigh, pushing the heavy black silk out of the way. His rough, calloused palm trails over my bare skin, the contrast of his hardened hands against the soft lotion he rubbed into my skin earlier sending a violent jolt straight to my pussy.
"I'm yours," I gasp, my head falling back against the pillows.
He growls in approval, shifting his weight. He rises up, straddling my thighs, and reaches for the belt at my waist. With a swift, fluid motion, he unties the sash and pulls the robe wide open. The cool air of the bedroom hits my flushed skin. I am entirely exposed to him, bare beneath the silk.
Dominic goes completely still. His dark eyes devour me, sweeping over the swell of my breasts, the curve of my waist, the damp curls between my thighs.
The look in his eyes isn't just lust; it is a profound, terrifying reverence.
He looks at me like I am the only clean thing he has seen in twenty years.
"Perfect," he murmurs, his voice thick. "You are completely perfect."
He strips out of his clothes with violent efficiency. He rips the shirt over his head, not bothering with the buttons, tossing it to the floor. The belt and trousers follow. When he turns back to me, the breath punches out of my lungs.
His body is a map of survival. Broad, deeply muscled, and scarred.
A jagged white line cuts across the hard slab of his abdomen—an old scar that speaks to years of survival—and a puckered bullet scar marks his left shoulder.
He is a map of every war he has survived, and now, he is using that scarred, powerful body to crowd over me.
And nestled in the dark hair at the base of his stomach, his cock is jutting forward, thick and heavily veined, a bead of precum gleaming at the blunt head.
The sheer size of him makes my throat go dry.
Before I can process it, Dominic reaches down and grips my ankles. He drags me toward him, pulling my hips entirely to the edge of the mattress. He drops to his knees on the rug between my legs.
"Dominic?" I question, my hands grasping the silk sheets as panic and anticipation war in my chest.
He doesn't answer. He grips my thighs, his large hands easily wrapping around the backs of my legs, and presses his face directly against my pussy.
The sharp, musky scent of my arousal cuts through the room as he breathes it in—a long, deliberate inhale—his nostrils flaring like a man memorizing a landscape he intends to occupy permanently.
A choked scream tears from my throat. His mouth is entirely unhesitating, a predatory claim on the most private part of me.
He parts my pussy lips with his thumbs and the first stroke of his tongue is long, broad, and excruciatingly slow.
He captures my clit between his lips, sucking with a rhythmic, bruising force that makes my vision go dark.
He laps at me, drinking the slickness that pours from me, his tongue a blunt instrument of pleasure and possession.
"God," I sob, my hips bucking upward off the mattress.