Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LEA
“The game... has just become a great deal more interesting.”
His words are a challenge wrapped in velvet. The intensity in his eyes, dark and consuming, sends a current through my body. This is my moment. My cue in our dangerous play.
I don’t think. I move.
Closing the last inch between us, I rise on my toes and press my lips to his.
Not with the hesitation of a victim or the mechanical precision of someone performing a duty, but with the hunger of a woman starved.
My hands slide up his chest, feeling the solid muscle beneath expensive fabric, and tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck.
For a heartbeat, he freezes. Surprise flickers across his face, a momentary crack in that impenetrable control.
I’ve caught him off guard, and the victory sends a thrill of power through me.
Then his hands are at my waist, gripping hard enough to bruise, pulling me against him as if he could absorb me into his skin.
The kiss deepens, turns savage. His tongue invades my mouth, not asking permission but claiming territory. I match his intensity, biting his lower lip hard enough to make him growl. The sound vibrates through me, igniting something primal and reckless.
“My bedroom,” he commands against my mouth, already walking me backward, his hands never leaving my body.
“No,” I counter, pushing him against the wall with a force that surprises us both. “Here.”
His eyes widen a fraction, that delicious shock again. He’s not used to being challenged, especially not like this. But then his mouth curves into a smile that’s all predator, all approval.
“My, my. The little journalist has teeth.”
I don’t give him time to regain the upper hand. My fingers attack his shirt buttons, tearing one in my haste. I press open-mouthed kisses to the exposed skin of his neck, his collarbone, the hollow of his throat where I can feel his pulse hammering. Like mine.
He allows me this control—for now. His hands roam my body, not roughly as they have before, but with a searing deliberation that makes me gasp.
He finds the hem of my sweater and pulls it over my head in one fluid motion.
The cool air hits my skin, raising goosebumps that his warm palms smooth away.
“Look at me,” he demands, and I do, meeting his gaze without flinching. What he sees there must satisfy him because something shifts in his eyes, giving way to raw need. “Tell me what you want.”
The question is a test. In our past encounters, what I wanted never mattered. He took. I endured. This is different. This is him acknowledging me as a player, not just a piece.
“I want to forget everything but this,” I say, the truth slipping out before I can filter it through my strategic mind. “I want you to make me forget my name.”
His response is physical. He lifts me, my legs wrapping around his waist, and carries me not to the bedroom but to the massive dining table. With one sweep of his arm, he clears it of its decorative bowl and place settings. The crash of shattering ceramics punctuates my racing heartbeat.
He lays me down on the cold, polished wood, his body covering mine like a living shadow.
His mouth reclaims mine, and his hands—those dangerous, skilled hands—work at the fastening of my jeans.
I arch into his touch, helping him strip away the layers between us.
My hands are just as urgent on his belt, his zipper.
There’s a franticness to our movements now, a mutual desperation that feels nothing like the calculated seduction I’d planned.
This is supposed to be strategy—my body a weapon to cement his belief in my surrender.
But as his mouth travels down my throat, my breasts, my stomach, leaving a trail of fire in its wake, the line between performance and reality blurs.
When his fingers find me, already wet and wanting, I cry out, my body arching off the table. My reaction isn’t fabricated. It’s raw, visceral, undeniable. His eyes lock with mine as he touches me, reading every flicker of pleasure that crosses my face.
“Is this what you imagined when you decided to play this game?” he murmurs against the sensitive skin of my inner thigh. “Did you think you could control this?”
I can’t answer. Can’t think past the sensation of his mouth replacing his fingers, his tongue working magic that makes coherent thought impossible. My hands find his hair, holding him against me as waves of pleasure build. Just as I’m about to crest, he pulls away, leaving me gasping and desperate.
“Answer me,” he demands, his voice rough with his own need.
“No,” I manage, the word catching in my throat. “This isn’t... I didn’t...”
The confession seems to please him. He moves up my body, positioning himself where I need him most. But he doesn’t enter me yet, holding himself just at my entrance, teasing us both.
“Tell me again,” he says, his control fraying at the edges. “Tell me what you told Isabel.”
Even now, in this moment of shared vulnerability, he’s testing me. The rational part of my brain, the part not drowning in sensation, recognizes the tactic. I meet his eyes, forcing myself to stay present, to remember what this is.
“I told her I chose you,” I say, each word deliberate despite the haze of desire. “That I belong to you. Only you.”
With a growl that sounds like victory, he thrusts into me, filling me completely in one powerful stroke. I gasp at the intensity, my nails digging into his shoulders hard enough to draw blood. He sets a relentless pace, each movement driving me higher, closer to the edge.
But this isn’t like before, me passive, him controlling.
I meet him thrust for thrust, my hips rising to take him deeper.
I watch his face, the way pleasure transforms his features, softening the hard lines into something almost vulnerable.
My hands explore his body with the same possessive hunger he’s always shown for mine—mapping the ridges of his abdomen, the scars that tell stories of violence, the places that make his breath catch.
“Nico,” I moan, not because the script calls for it, but because I can’t hold it back.
Something in my voice affects him. His rhythm falters, and he pulls me up so we’re chest to chest, seated on the edge of the table, my legs wrapped around him.
The new angle sends shockwaves of pleasure through me.
One of his hands tangles in my hair, tilting my head back so he can look into my eyes.
“Say it again,” he commands, but there’s a rawness to his voice I’ve never heard before.
“Nico,” I repeat, watching his pupils dilate further.
He kisses me then, deep and consuming, as his movements become more urgent, more primal.
I can feel myself tightening around him, the pressure building to an unbearable peak.
When it finally breaks, my climax crashes through me with a force that tears his name from my throat again, this time as a cry that echoes in the vast room.
He follows moments later, his release coinciding with a possessive litany in my ear—”Mine, mine, mine"—that should disgust me but instead sends aftershocks of pleasure through my over sensitized body.
We stay connected, breathing heavily, neither willing to be the first to break whatever spell has fallen over us.
His forehead rests against mine, our breath mingling in the charged space between us.
For just this moment, I allow myself to forget what this is, what I’m doing.
I let myself feel only the profound connection, the way our bodies fit together as if designed for each other.
But reality is a cold companion that refuses to stay banished for long.
As our breathing steadies, I feel him withdraw; not just physically, but emotionally. The mask of the Diplomat slides back into place, though not as seamlessly as before. There are cracks now, hairline fractures in his perfect control that I’ve put there.
He helps me off the table with unexpected gentleness, his hands lingering on my waist a moment longer than necessary. Without a word, he retrieves our scattered clothing, handing me mine with a studied casualness that doesn’t quite hide the intensity still simmering beneath the surface.
“You should get cleaned up,” he says, his voice steadier than his eyes. “I have calls to make.”
I nod, not trusting my voice. As I walk to the bathroom on shaky legs, I feel his gaze following me, a tangible weight between my shoulder blades. The game continues, but the rules have changed. And I’m no longer certain who’s winning.
I lie awake in the dark, watching the rise and fall of Nico’s chest beside me.
His face in sleep is different—younger, unburdened by the weight of empire and control.
One arm is thrown possessively across my waist, keeping me close even in unconsciousness.
The gesture should feel confining. Instead, it feels like an anchor in a storm-tossed sea.
After our encounter on the dining table, he had retreated to his office for hours. When he finally came to bed, he’d taken me again, this time with a slow, thorough attention that felt almost like worship. As if he were memorizing every inch of me. As if I might disappear.
Now, in the quiet dark, my mind finally has space to work. To analyze. To remember why I’m here and what I’m doing.
I force myself to be a journalist again—to look at the facts with cold, clinical detachment. To separate emotion from evidence. To build the case piece by piece.
The case against Nicolás Varela is compelling:
Motive: My father was investigating Alessandro’s empire. He was getting close to something big—something that could have brought down their operation. Silencing him would be necessary. It fits perfectly with the ruthless pragmatism I’ve seen from Nico.