Chapter 26 Besiana
Besiana
The night air bites a little, wind curling around the hem of my silk dress as I step onto a rooftop terrace at the Rosetti mansion.
The lights of the city shimmer against the dark sky, and the distant hum of traffic fills the silence.
At this hour, I expect to have the space to myself, a chance to escape the crowded energy inside, to let the cold breeze ease the tension in my shoulders.
The terrace is vast and empty, a sleek oasis of stone and chrome, with carefully arranged planters and the lingering scent of rain on steel.
I walk further out, my heels echoing against the tiles. I’m not alone.
There, near the railing, I spot him—Domenico. He’s standing with his back to me, tall and unmoving. I pause, hesitating in the shadows.
Domenico stands near the edge, hands clasped behind his back, still in his suit, hair sharp against the skyline glow. The city burns in the distance, lights like embers. He doesn’t turn when I walk toward him. That alone nearly breaks me.
I stop several feet from him.
"You said you loved me," I say, the words stark and bare.
No greeting. No caution. No kindness. Just that.
Dom’s head tilts slightly at the sound of my voice, but he doesn't turn. “I remember,” he replies, his tone steady and measured.
“Then why did you disappear?” I stop when I’m a few feet from him.
“I’m right here,” he says.
“You disappeared emotionally. You’ll fuck me or punish me, you’ll drag me around to your boring meetings, but you won’t look me in the eye. Why are you treating me like I’m breakable? Like I’m temporary?”
His jaw tightens, a sharp line against the city lights, and a moment of silence stretches until I think he won’t answer at all. “You need space,” he finally says.
“I need you,” I shoot back, the words tumbling out, almost raw.
That hits him. His shoulders shift—barely, but I see it.
He turns then, slow and deliberate, and when his eyes meet mine, they are unreadable. Cold steel over burning fire, emotions he’s trying to lock away.
"It’s not that simple,” he says.
I fold my arms across my chest and meet his gaze with a challenge. “No. It never is with you.”
Silence pulses between us, sharp and aching, the weight of it pressing against my heart. He looks at me, laying out everything in that look—longing, fear, want, and restraint.
“You protect me,” I say quietly, hearing the tremor in my own voice. “You kiss me like I’m yours. But then you pull back like touching me too long might kill you.”
“It might," he says.
I blink, the answer unexpected and cutting. “What?”
Dom steps forward once, just enough to make my breath catch. “Because if I start,” he says, voice low, “I won’t stop.”
My heart slams against my ribs. It thrums in my ears, out of control, like every part of me when I’m near him.
“I’ll want you in every room. Every night. Every decision.” His voice is calm, dangerous.
Dom steps nearer, and there’s nowhere to run. His words crash over me, unrelenting.
“I’ll want your mouth on mine. Your skin under my hands. I’ll want you tied to me in ways you can’t undo.”
I feel every inch of the space between us, feel it shrinking, burning away.
He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to.
I shiver, and his eyes catch the motion, locking me in place. His intensity wraps around me like fire.
“I’ll kill anyone who even thinks of taking you from me,” he murmurs. He’s close now, close enough that his warmth mingles with the cold night wind. “And I’ll never let you go. Ever. Not because you're mine. But because I won’t survive losing you.”
I swallow hard. The wind feels louder now, the city further away. It sounds like my heartbeat, echoing wild against the hollow spaces between us.
“And you’ve had enough of that kind of controlling love,” he finishes.
A bitter laugh slips from me, unexpected. “You think you’re protecting me by caging yourself?”
He doesn’t answer. He just looks at me like I’m a decision he hasn’t earned the right to make.
“You’re not my father, Dom.” My voice cracks in the cold air like glass. “You’re not him.”
He’s silent, eyes flaring as if I struck him. A step closer.
“No,” I continue, my heart pounding. “You’re not.” The words come faster, desperate now. “I don’t need silence. I don’t need space. I need you to stop pretending I don’t matter.”
“You matter more than anything.” His voice is rough, barely above a whisper. “That’s the problem.”
I take a breath. Then another. I reach up, fingers trembling as they brush his jawline. He flinches—just for a fraction of a second—and then his hand snaps up and catches my wrist, holding it there. Holding me.
I don’t pull away. I can’t.
“Then stop fighting it,” I breathe, locking my gaze on his.
And God help me—he does.
He pulls me to him, closing the final inches between us, the untamed heat of his body banishing the night air. I feel the coiled strength beneath his cool exterior, and when his mouth claims mine, it’s like a dam breaking. It’s like dying and coming back to life all at once.
His hand releases my wrist, and I expect him to push me away again, to say we’ve gone too far. But he doesn’t. He never does what I expect. Instead, his arms encircle me, a ferocity in them I’ve never known this close. Usually, it’s violent passion or tenderness that melts away by morning.
I sink into the kiss, losing myself in it, feeling the ache of his restraint turn into something wild and unstoppable. My hands tangle in his hair, pulling him closer, and the world narrows to this moment. The city’s hum fades to nothing.
He’s all I hear, all I feel—my whole universe.
When his lips leave mine, I think for a moment he’s changed his mind, that the old hesitation is creeping back. But then his mouth is on my neck, murmuring my name like it’s a secret he can’t keep anymore.
“Besiana.”
He breathes me in, and I feel his chest rise, the quick rhythm of it beating against mine. No space left between us, nothing but our tangled heartbeats and the wind howling around us as we burn.
With a suddenness that makes us both gasp, he yanks himself back, eyes dark, smoldering, like he's already shaking with the effort to regain control.
“Dom,” I say, the plea in my voice unmistakable.
I shiver as he looks at me, as if deciding whether to surrender to this again or walk away. His hands are still on my arms, and they send heat blazing through me.
He surges forward, and our mouths collide once more, the warmth and longing washing over us. I cling to him. Nothing else exists. Nothing matters.
I kiss him back with everything I’ve been holding in. All the fear, the confusion, the way his absence hollowed me out. My hands slide up his chest, fingers twisting in his jacket, pulling him closer.
He breaks away first, just enough to breathe against my mouth.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he rasps.
“Yes,” I breathe, “I do.”
He exhales shakily, forehead pressing to mine.
I sense his determination slipping, the last of his walls crumbling between us. His closeness is a firestorm, melting the cold edges of the night.
“I’m not a good man, Besiana,” he says like an apology, his voice tattered and raw.
“You’re my man.”
That does something to him.
His whole body reacts, his arms tightening to bring me even closer. Then we’re moving, his jacket falling off his shoulders, my back pressed to the stone wall, cool against my spine as his mouth finds mine again, slower this time. Possessive. Thorough.
“You’re not getting space after this,” he murmurs against my neck, his breath raising goosebumps along my skin. “You’re not getting distance. You’re mine now.”
“I already was.”
The admission sends a shiver through him, and he groans low in his chest.
He groans low in his chest and kisses me like he’s sealing a vow with his teeth.
But then—because he’s Dom—he stops. Just before the point of no return. His breathing is rough, his hands still on my hips, his eyes dark as obsidian.
“I’ll protect you, Besiana. With everything I have. Even from myself.”
I press a kiss to the edge of his jaw. “Let me decide if I need protecting.”
A long pause. The wind curls around us again, catching the edges of our hair and the hem of my dress. He brushes a strand from my cheek like it’s a sacred act.
Then he whispers, so quiet it’s almost lost to the wind:
“God help me, I’d burn the world for you.”
And I believe him.
The hesitation in his eyes flickers out, replaced by the raw, blazing certainty that has always been between us.
With a rough sound, halfway between surrender and triumph, he kisses me again.
There’s none of the calculated restraint this time, none of the holding back that has always felt like punishment.
The force of it makes my head spin, makes my world explode into a chaos of his skin, his heat, his inhale and exhale. I’m pinned between him and the wall, pinned by the weight of everything we are together, and I wouldn’t trade a single moment of it.
My hands slip beneath his shirt, desperate to feel the flex of his muscles beneath my fingers, and I’m surprised by the warmth of his skin and the way he reacts, like even the slightest touch will break him apart.
But he doesn’t break. He holds on with the intensity of a man who’s found the only thing worth losing himself for.
“I love you,” he murmurs, the words claiming every inch of me.
He pulls back, just enough to see my reaction, and I catch the storm in his eyes. I look at him and I feel like I’m falling but finally in the right direction.
“I love you,” he says again as if I didn’t hear him the first time, as if he can’t believe he finally gets to say it.
My hands travel up his chest, and I free him from his tie, letting it drop like a final surrender to the rooftop patio.
“Don’t you ever forget it again,” I tell him before I reach up on tiptoes and press my lips to his collarbone.